Se eee er ep eg ene Rot . . a ¥ Ripe ee ee = Fosse ooo BibleCollection - x! ) Library of Trinity College | DURHAM, N. C. Received Septe m bey 47, I Y 4% Pe As he ee — ee THE STORY OF ST. PAUL A Comparison of Acts and Cpisties BY BENJAMIN WISNER BACON PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM AND EXEGESIS IN YALE UNIVERSITY ’ BOSTON AND NEW YORK ' HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY Che Viiberside Press, Cambridge 1904 COPYRIGHT 1904 BY BENJAMIN PREFACE Ir is a providential characteristic of God’s written revelation that it presents the record in twofold, threefold, or even fourfold form, without effort to conceal the discrepancies due to the varying points of view of fallible reporters. Polemic interest seizes upon this fact to argue on the one side from the discrepancies against the veracity, on the other that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” Only the tendency has been so extreme to establish every word as to lose sight of the value of divergences. For eighteen centuries of polemics the supreme interest of the Church in comparing biblical paral- lels has been harmonistic. Everything has been done to obliterate the last trace of difference. In the earlier time transcribers did not scruple to as- similate text with text, going so far as to meet the taunt of discrepant genealogies of Jesus by substi- tuting in Luke the pedigree of Matthew. In the fourth century the Syrian church only escaped the actual superseding of the ‘separate’’ four gospels by the composite “ Diatessaron” of Tatian through the forcible intervention of Theodoret, Bishop of } vi : PREFACE Cyrrhus. Later harmonizers were compelled to con- fine themselves to interpretation, until traditional exegesis had completed the work of obliteration. But criticism, lower and higher, documentary and historical, if scientific, is devoid of polemic interest. Its object is historical, and for that reason it places appreciation of differences before harmonization. The wider the variation in standpoint of honest witnesses, the stronger the general corroboration, and the broader the base-line for scientifie determi- nation of that historical ultimate which no one man, or one age even, is competent to describe. For one century criticism has been patiently seek- ing to restore the marks of difference that the har- monists of nineteen centuries have sought by every means to efface. The vast preponderant mass of the heretical and extra-canonical witness has been irrecoverably destroyed. Only a fragment survives here and there, and the incompletely obliterated divergences within the canon itself. To seek to undo the work of harmonizers who thought they did God service by improving on the record as he gave it, first by tampering with the text, after- wards by a warped interpretation, is inevitably to incur suspicion if not odium. That is a small mat- ter to men who know that God’s word is just the unvarnished truth, and who search the Seriptures, not as the scribes and Pharisees, who thought that PREFACE vii in them they had eternal life, but because these testify of Christ, and through them they come unto him and find life indeed. The criticism which underlies the present volume is based on the conviction that a hearty and sym- pathetic appreciation of the differences in our two sources for the life of Paul must precede attempts at combination. The tradition as embodied in the Acts toward the close of the first century for pur- poses quite other than those of the critical historian, by an unknown hand from unknown sources, under circumstances but dimly understood, must be ap- preciated by itself and for itself. Into comparison with this must be brought the letters, with their indirect but unimpeachable testimony. The temp- tation to forced reconciliations must be resisted in the light of their past disservice. Such larger harmony as results from simple-hearted recognition of agreements and disagreements alike, taking its doctrine of inspiration from the facts and not vice versa, is the reward we seek. But what little we know of religious ideas and conditions outside the canonical sources must also be brought into consid- eration. It is no detriment to Christianity that it is not a product of Judaism alone. The more we can learn of its roots in Gentile soil the better. The lectures were made purposely as untechnical as possible. They were prepared as a “ historical 4 ei gaa be a ip h | viii PREFACE and literary study” for mixed audiences, whose knowledge of the Bible was for the most part un- critical, and are printed substantially as delivered in the two “‘ University Extension ” courses at Prov- idence, R. I., and New Haven, Conn., in the spring and autumn, 1903. A few footnotes constitute sub- stantially the only additions. To transform these semi-popular lectures on some of the results of critical study into a scientific treatise with adequate presentation of scientific opinion on all disputed points, would be to rob them of their essential character, if not to overload the work for the pub- lic. There will be better hope of the welcome pre- dicted for them in the kind assurances of auditors who have asked their publication, if they go forth as they are. Bensamin W. Bacon. New Haven, July 5, 1904. LECTURE I PREAMBLE Tue historical and literary study of the life and letters of St. Paul is the scientific line of approach to one of the supreme problems of history: the relation of Christianity, as we know it, to the reli- gious consciousness of Jesus, and to his life and teaching. Christianity, as we know it, is Pauline Christian- ity. Every one knows, and nearly every one for- gets, that before Paul’s conversion there was no idea in the Church of a new world-religion, with the Incarnation and the Atonement as cardinal doctrines. Leave out the Fourth Gospel, dating from early in the second century, with its largely Pauline interpretation of Jesus’ teaching, and the documents which give us our picture of primitive Christianity, post-Pauline though they are, remain marvelously uncolored by the current doctrinal system. They reveal a different type. Synoptic tradition in the historical books is untheological in the main. The Petrine speeches of Acts fairly represent early preaching. But these give us no- thing of the preéxistence or divinity of Christ ; Lidar): VE 4 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL nothing of Christ as the spiritual Adam, redeem- ing the race from an original Fall. They have no- thing of the Pauline antithesis of flesh and spirit, natural inability and divine indwelling, death to sin, and resurrection with Christ in regeneration. In the Petrine preaching Jesus is the Prophet like unto Moses, “ raised up” according to promise “from among his brethren.” He is the Son of David, sent already once in humble guise to turn Israel to repentance. Put to death as foretold by the prophets, God has revealed him as the Christ that is to come by the resurrection. Soon he will return to establish the kingdom of his father David in more than earthly glory. Such is pre-Pauline Christianity, not unaffected by contemporary mys- ticism, but still in substance of the Old Testament type. That, however, is not Christianity as we know it. That is messianistic Judaism, a national, not- yet a universal religion, however reformed and purified by the influence of Jesus. Unless, then, we are pre- pared to let go either the historic preaching of Jesus and the Twelve, or else the theoretical Paul- ine development of this earlier type which makes Christianity as we know it, we must find some common ground between the national and the world- religion. But how shall we bridge the chasm between our PREAMBLE 5 faith as it is, and the primitive Nazarene messian- ism, except by understanding Paul? The mere fact that his letters are the earliest documents of the faith, the nearest approach the New Testament can furnish to contemporary authentic records, bearing the signature of a historical personage, and substantially unquestioned as to genuineness and date, is of tremendous importance to every mind familiar with the methods of historical research. The familiar order of our New Testament canon — Gospels, Acts, Pauline Epistles — unavoidably promotes the idea that the historical narratives came first. We are obliged to stop and reflect be- fore we recall that there are no contemporary records of the beginnings of our faith, that the first light we have is a dozen letters, unconsciously reflecting by their chance allusions the contemporary institu- tional life and ideas in their formative stage. The Synoptic story represents the unwritten tradition, not as it originally was, but in a form assumed after it had been moulded and assimilated by these same institutions and ideas in their maturity ; so that, however remarkably uncontaminated we find them, for general substance, we are yet compelled, as the first step toward a really historical knowledge of the faith which we hold, to draw a distinct line between Pauline and pre-Pauline Christianity. We must keep them apart in our minds, and then, hav- 6 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ing understood them as well as we ean separately, try to understand them in their reciprocal relation. That is the principal significance of the problem we are dealing with. But why not rest satisfied with the traditional accounts as they stand? Why seek for a historical nexus with the past? It is the necessary fate of the historian, ancient or modern, to be always behind the times. Nothing is more important to him than the beginnings of great movements, the early years of great men. And yet nobody realized in those early years that man or movement was destined to the place in history subsequently occupied. So the story of the early years is always having to be made up later, as best it can, from fragmentary recollection, often dis- torted by the disposition to see in the beginnings what transpired in the end. It is marvelous, I say, considering that the mother church was practically annihilated in the second Jewish rebellion (132- 135 A. D.), how slight the measure of distortion is. Considering that Christianity became preponder- antly a Greek-speaking, Gentile religion before the writing of any one of the historical books of the New Testament, and that by the end of the first century its original Jewish adherents were scarcely more than a dwindling sect soon to be cast out en- tirely as heretical, it is marvelous that so fair a f PREAMBLE 7 presentation of pre-Pauline Christianity as actually survives in Synoptic story should be accessible to us. And yet discrimination is certainly necessary in reading the Synoptic story. All three of these evangelists belong to the broader world-church, principally Pauline and Gentile in their time. They would not have written in Greek if they had not meant their narratives for this Gentile church, and the only three Aramaic gospel writings of which we have any knowledge disappeared from general use in the second century. The most important of them, a collection of the teachings of Jesus, which has given its name to our first gospel, was known only through tradition as a relic of the past, already superseded by Greek writings, when Papias was a young man in the early years of the second century. The earliest of our Synoptic evangelists wrote after the death of the Apostle who could have given an orderly account of Jesus’ life, and consequently, as the Church reports, was unable to give a correct order. The latest acknowledges that the historical order is lost. Doctrinally, too, these writers repre- sent the post-Pauline time. On all the essential points of Pauline doctrine, Christ as the universal Redeemer of humanity from the curse of sin, aboli- tion of the Law and of the prerogative of Israel, the kingdom of God as not something to be restored to Israel according to “ the oath which he sware to 8 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Abraham our father,” but as man’s reconciliation to God, and the brotherhood of the race, the evan- gelists take the Pauline view as a matter of course. Considering, I say, their date and standpoint, our Gospels are surprisingly little affected by the changed ideas and conditions; they preserve to a remarkable degree the type of apostolic preaching from which their authors were separated by the im- mense gulf which divides European from Asiatic, Hellene from Jew, Greek speech from Aramaic, the Jewish world before the destruction of Jerusalem from the Greco-Roman after the downfall of the Jewish nationality. But we should be very far from understanding Christianity as it is, if we had only the Synoptic story. Both its factors must be | understood, as well in separate as in their combined form. We must understand Christianity genetically if we wish to really understand it, and its genesis is twofold. To ascertain the earliest form of gospel tradition and leave out the accessions of Pauline and post-Pauline development, is to put asunder what God has joined together. The Jewish and the Gentile factor must both be studied in their origins. We may drink water to be refreshed without knowing anything of chemistry. So we may profit by Christianity and know nothing of its origins. In- deed, we must beware of the false notion that it consists merely of its two factors added together. ' ) ! PREAMBLE ~ 9 Water is something more than oxygen plus hy- drogen. Christianity is something more than the religion of the Orient plus the philosophy of the Occident, something more than the teachings of Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth and martyr-Messiah of Judaism, plus the theology of Paul the Grzeo- Roman Pharisee. All the same it is an immense advantage to know the chemical composition of water, and it is also an immense advantage to know the component elements of our religion and theology. To do this there is but one method. We must lay hold upon that primitive tradition our evangel- ists have on the whole so faithfully preserved, and over against it we must trace the development and history of the man who admittedly was the first to supply the infant religion with a theology, and plant it as a new world-religion on Greco-Roman soil. We must then use this history to understand that system’ of thought which Paul made the mould of all his acquisitions, whether from his earlier train- ing or from Christian sources, and which through him more than any other became the mould of Christianity as we now have it. Both in the actual development of doctrine and the relative date of documentary evidence/ Paul is the middle link be- tween Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth and Galilean Messiah, and the Christ of modern Christendom. What have we, then, whereby to understand Paul? 10 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL We have two sources. First: A very unequally or more after Paul’s death. It is not a biography “of Paul. It tells practically nothing of his early life, next to nothing of two thirds of his career as an apostle ; it expands to great fullness on a few scenes of the years 55-60 A. D., and then leaves us absolutely in the dark as to the Apostle’s fate. On the one hand it is disappointingly incomplete, and its date and the purpose of the author who gives it such, that in certain parts, especially the earlier period, it is from the critical point of view quite unhistorical, for it comes into fundamental collision with Paul’s own explicit and emphatic declarations. On the other hand, this Lucan story of Paul’s career is of the utmost value and of the highest degree of historical trustworthiness, because upon just the snatches of his later career selected by the author of Acts for full treatment we have the broad, full daylight afforded by the actual diary of a traveling companion. In Acts xvi. 10-18, the source known as the ‘“* We-source,” or, as Professor Ramsay calls it, the “ Travel-document,” comes in to cover the journey of some Christian companion who traveled with Paul from Troas to Philippi, and spent a few days or weeks with him there (in all perhapsa , ¥ PREAMBLE 11 fortnight) about the year 49. Five years later, at Philippi again, the same writer resumes his diary in Acts xx. 5—xxi. 18, as he rejoins Paul and ac- companies him to Jerusalem; more than two years later still, the diary breaks in again at xxvii. 1- xxviii. 16, with the voyage to Rome, where we are finally left in the dark. What came before the meeting at Troas, what intervened between the journeys, what ensued after the arrival in Rome, the author who incorporates the diary has either not told us at all, or told in his own language from unknown sources, which, in proportion as we recede from the full light of the periods covered by the diary, are demonstrably less and less reliable; so that the beginnings of Paul’s career in Acts ix. are altogether out of harmony, as already noted, with his own positive statements in Galatians. This is the tradition, a// excellent for the purposes which the author of Acts had in view, namely, the edification of his readers and defense of Christian- ity,! but of varied character and value for the histor- ical critic, whose immediate object is different. As a source for critical history the tradition as it comes to us is partly of the very highest value, partly in- ferior, in high degree incomplete and fragmentary. The other source for-the-studyof Paul's life and | work is the group of Epistles, which have passed 1 Luke i. 4. 12 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL through a fiery storm of criticism, and come out almost wascathed. Only one important letter is now seriously questioned. This is Ephesians, for whose authenticity arguments which seem to me sufficient are given in my “ Introdyction to New ; Testament Literature.” 1 The Epistles to Timothy and Titus are generally regarded as at least par- tially later fabrications, and 2 Thessalonians has still some haze of doubt about it. But put all doubtful material together and it makes but a very small part of the whole; while as to doctrinal con- tents there is not one principle or doctrine, or phase of doctrine, belonging to Paul’s system, that is not amply supported by the admittedly genuine letters, without resort to the disputed ones. If only Paul had thought best to give us the report of his own life! Unfortunately for our pre- sent purpose, it was only by merest chance that he has once or twice been driven to autobiography. Where he has, as in Rom. vii., Gal. i., and 2 Cor. xi., his utterances are of course a standard in oppo- sition to which mere later tradition, as we have it * in the anonymous Book of Acts, has no standing. Only before rejecting anything we have to be sure there is real opposition, and to account for the error. Meagre and fragmentary as is the autobiographic 1 Macmillan Company, 1900. FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 13 material of the Epistles, it avails to supplement the story of Acts, as well as to hold a check upon it. The significance of events is to be learned in vastly greater degree from the Epistles than from Acts. The method of our present inquiry, therefore, suggests itself. We have found it essential to an understanding of the beginnings of Christianity to understand Paul. The study we are to give is to be “historical and literary.” Accordingly, we divide our subject into First: /Paul’s Life and _Mission-— ary Work. Second :-his-Letters-as-embodying-his~~ “aystem of thought and interpretation of Chris- tiamty. Our principal reliance for the life and work of the Apostle will necessarily be the story of the Book of Acts, but only as carefully verified and interpreted from the allusions and occasional fuller statements of the Epistles. Conversely, our prin- cipal reliance for the teaching must be the Epistles, but always interpreted in the light of the history as . we have been able critically to reconstruct it; for ) obviously nothing is more blind than one half a correspondence, where one has no knowledge of the circumstances which called it forth. FORMATIVE INFLUENCES. The mere outward facts of Paul’s early life are soon told, because tradition is so meagre. He ap- 14 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL pears in Acts a young man, but certainly mature enough and high enough in station to be intrusted by the high-priest with very great and responsible authority. Paul himself in his Epistles and the anti-Pauline author of the “‘ Clementine Homilies ” —an Ebionite romance, whose elements date back to about 170 a. p. — corroborate this view of his rank and importance. He had come to Jerusalem from Tarsus, one of the foremost university centres of the world at the time, and as a free-born Roman citizen. We find later a married sister of his living in Jerusalem. Perhaps Paul went to her home. He became, according to Acts, the pupil of Gama- liel, the most renowned rabbi of the age, celebrated especially for the broad tolerance of his views, which even led him to make use of Greek litera- ture, to the scandal of more conservative teach- ers. Gamaliel in Acts is correctly represented as leader, if not creator, of the type of Pharisaism which demanded toleration for Christianity, on broad grounds of abstention from what is God’s concern. Later tradition in the Clementine writings | goes farther and declares him (of course unwar- || . rantably) a secret believer and friend of the Chureh. | The fact that Paul himself declares that at this time he outdid many of his contemporaries as a | zealot for the traditions of the Jewish fathers, evin- cing his zeal in fierce persecution of the Church, is FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 15 not sufficient warrant for denying the tradition that he was a pupil of Gamaliel. Others besides the young man himself may have had a voice in the selection of his teacher. Indeed, that will be neither the first nor the last time that a pupil has taken narrower views than his master, and acted in violation of his principles. Gamaliel’s influence may have affected Paul more in later life than just at the time of the disputes with Stephen. That also would not be unexampled. Had we any reason to suppose that Saul of Tarsus had ever seen Jesus we must of course reckon it, however brief the contact, among the vital forma- tive influences. Probably he had never seen or heard him. Certainly not to the extent of any personal intercourse. It is the constant reproach of Paul’s bitter antagonists that he had no such know- ledge. And Paul’s answer is never to deny the al- legation, but always to fall back upon his spiritual apprehension of Christ. When, in defending his apostleship, he makes a claim of having “ seen the Lord,” the reference turns out to be to the vision on the road to Damascus. The one passage which seems to imply something more, “‘ Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet would we know him so no more,” is simply a mistranslation, as the very italics of Authorized and Revised Versions should show. We should render: “ Yea, though 16 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL (as Jews) we have known a Messiah of the fleshly type (what Jesus designates ‘ savoring the things that be of men’), yet would we know such a Messiah no more.” Moreover, with all his bitter regrets of his persecuting career, Paul never re- proaches himself with any part in the plots against Jesus himself. The result is clear. Paul had had no personal contact with the Prophet of Nazareth. He may have been absent from Jerusalem at the special period of Jesus’ activity, or his student days under Gamaliel may have begun at a later time. God’s Son was revealed in Paul; not to the eves of the flesh. Paul’s career as a persecutor began after the first attacks upon the infant Church had ceased. These were of a purely political character. The Sadducees, or priestly nobility and hierocracy, had no motive in the abortive attempt to stop the preaching of Peter and John, save to enforce order and suppress what they regarded as a revival of the imsurrectionary messianism of the crucified Galilean. Orthodoxy was no concern of theirs; they were unorthodox themselves, when not rank infidels. As soon as the Nazarene sect appeared to be politically harmless they let it alone. The persecution which brought Saul of Tarsus to the front had a totally different motive. It sprang from a new fear, perhaps excited by the FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 17 more radical type of teaching introduced by Stephen and the Hellenists. These Christians of the Greek world presented a type of doctrine which their orthodox Pharisean opponents in the Synagogue declared to be ‘blasphemy against Moses and against God.” They alleged that it destroyed the exclusive sanctity of the Templé and the author- ity of the Law. In the disputes, which we are particularly told took place “in the Synagogue of the Cilicians,’ among others, it is almost certain Paul must have had apart. The stoning of Stephen was less a judicial act than an outbreak of mob vio- lence. That Paul’s part in this was as prominent as tradition reports is mich more doubtful. But one trait of the story sounds almost like an echo from Paul’s own remorseful memory, the appeal of Stephen from his unjust earthly judges to One whom he declared he saw standing as Son of man —the heavenly Judge — beside the throne of God. The apostrophe was silenced with stones. But one that had been witness, if not participant, in that scene might well carry Stephen’s dying vision _in his memory until he too, arrested in midcourse of persecution, should see the Son of man standing as one exalted, in the glory of God. 1 See Historical and Critical Contributions to Biblical Science (Yale Bicentennial Publications), Scribner’s, 1901, pp. 211 ff. _ “Stephen’s Speech.” 4 18 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL I am but recalling to you an outline of very familiar facts. Later we shall take up in detail the story of Paul’s conversion. For the present I wish to speak simply of the formative influences that had gone to make the impetus of this mighty career, already launched as it were in mideourse where we meet it, but suddenly, almost unaecountably, to be turned in a new direction. It is not brought to a standstill, the impetus is still there, the elements of the man’s mental and moral make-up are the same ; only they are suddenly cast in a new and unexpected combination. We must inquire, What were those elements? What was it, in Saul of Tarsus, that made it possible for him to undergo the experience that made him Paul the Apostle? For I take it no one imagines that such an experience could come to any and everybody, or that Paul’s conversion was a magical alteration of his nature, a tour de force of the Almighty, so that the perse- cutor found himself thinking, believing, hoping the opposite of what he had thought, hoped, believed, a few moments before, without being able to account for it, or explain why he had changed his mind. He would have had poor suecess as a missionary if he could give no better reason for the faith that was in him than such an experience. I must refer you for all details concerning Tarsus and its schools of philosophy, its citizens, Greek, FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 19 : : Jewish, Roman, Paul’s parentage, probable train- : ing, attitude toward the world around him and to- ward Jerusalem and the Law, to the many excellent lives of the Apostle which have appeared since Conybeare and Howson, or better still to the Bible Dictionaries or general treatises on contemporary _ Jewish history, such as Hausrath’s or Schiirer’s. We are but making a comparison of the story and the letters; but archeology can do a great deal for us by supplementing our lack of individual knowledge of the youthful Saul himself from the — atmosphere we know he must have breathed. “A glance at the standard histories will enable us to classify the formative influences under two great heads, the Greco-Roman, or Hellenistic, and the Pharisean,. There can be no question that the youthful Saul’s supreme pride was in the latter. To him from childhood the one great goal of life had been “the righteousness of the Law.” His proudest consciousness was that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of his great namesake, Saul; as touching religion, a Pharisee of the strait- est sect ; as touching zeal, fiercely intolerant of those whom he conceived to blaspheme the Law and the es place; as touching the righteousness of the _ Law, blameless. All this we may conceive to have lf ed his heart with a fierce disdain as he looked t the temples and shrines and halls of learning of 20 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL his native city, or gazed upon the statue of Atheno- dorus, its great Stoic philosopher, the instructor of two Roman emperors, and benefactor of the city whither he had returned to teach in honored old ager The youthful Saul, free-born Roman citizen as he was, can hardly have shared im person the contempt and opprobrium too often visited upon his unpopular race; but we may be sure which way his sympathies were directed, and that every Gen- tile insult was fully requited. Toward Gentile thought, as later toward Christian, we must conceive Saul’s attitude to have been rather that of active hostility than of indifference or ignorance. _~ Still there was another side. At Jerusalem it was the Hellenist Jew in whose behalf chivalrous feeling would be called forth. As pupil of Gama- liel, if not in his own right, Saul of Tarsus would feel it a duty to show that the Greek learning, of which his native town was one of the foremost representatives, was not altogether despicable, that _Stoicism in particular had “a zeal for righteous- ness,” if not “‘according to knowledge.” And, if we may trust the report of Paul’s speeches in Acts, Paul had room alongside his Jewish pride of race for a very distinct feeling of patriotism toward Tarsus as “no mean city.” He even seems to have had quite a well-developed sense of the dig- nity that hedged about the man who could defy, FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 21 the petty magistrates of provincial towns with the magic words, “Civis Romanus sum.” The more he saw of the bigotry and provincial- ism of Jerusalem, condemning in its narrow intoler- ance even the imperfect Greek studies of his great master Gamaliel, the more must his mind have re- verted to doctrines which could not but be famil- iar to him, doctrines of the Stoics of Tarsus. For the Stoic and Cynic philosopher, from Diogenes to Epictetus, was also a street preacher and ex- horter of the common-man, a zealot for the law that is written on the fleshly tables of the heart,} a profound believer in prayer to the One God of heaven and earth, as our ally in the struggle against the weakness of the flesh. Paul’s speech at Athens, if it be a composition of the author of Acts, has at least an extraordinary correspondence with the outline of his missionary preaching given by Paul himself in 1 Thess. i. 10.2 __ At least it depends on real knowledge of such preaching. Down to the startling conclusion of, verse 31, which introduces Jesus and the resurrec- tion, with the judgment to come, the whole sermon might be from one of the Cynic or Stoic preachers of Paul’s native city, not merely the famous quota- 1 As Lightfoot has pointed out, it is to the coinage of Stoicism _ that Paul resorts for his great word cuveldno1s — “ conscience.” 2 See Sabatier, The Apostle Paul, chap. i. 22 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tion from the Hymn, or Prayer, of Cleanthes the Stoic, the noblest religious utterance of heathen antiquity.? But when Paul began to speak of Jesus and the resurrection they stopped him with derision. And certain of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers who were there expressed their opinion of the speaker in a term which, Ramsay tells us, was as much the Athenian university slang of the period as the term “ Philister” in the Gottingen slang of Heine’s day. ‘“ Babbler,” our versions render it; literally, “‘ seed-picker.” Ramsay has beautifully paraphrased the word by the epithet Browning’s Karshish ap- plies to himself, “a picker-up of learning’s crumbs.” / Paul was not schooled in Greek learning. He had only “picked it up,” as we see from his inaecu- rate quotation of the Epicurean poet Menander in 1 Cor. xv. 33. Thus the quick-witted Athenians found an easy target for their ridicule. In Athens he won small results, and by his own account de- 1 The sermonas a whole is more closely paralleled in the litera- ture of Jewish and Jewish-Christian missionary propaganda. The parallel is almost verbatim in the fragment of the Kyptyua TMeérpou quoted by Clem. Al. Strom. vi. But the Stoie preaching furnishes its quota of close parallels. Cf. e. g. verse 24 with the passage from Seneca quoted by Lactantius (Div. Inst. vi. 25): “* Temples are not to be built to God of stones piled on high: he must be consecrated in each man’s heart.” Lightfoot says of this speech, “* Tt shows a studied coincidence with Stoic modes of expression.” St. Paul and Seneca, p. 804. Cf. Wisd. xi. 23, xiii. 1-10. FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 23 termined at Corinth, his next missionary field, to know nothing of philosophy, but only of “ Christ and him crucified.” But among the f formatiye influences.whieh-went to the make-up of Paul we cannot afford to neglect the environment of his early years. However Paul “may have despised and reacted against it in his youth, the Stoic philosophy was in itself a noble and worthy teaching, and one which, as both tradi- tion and his own writings prove, left an indelible impress on his memory. Whether he would or no, Paul went to Jerusalem something more than a Pharisee. “Hay eaennee lenist, — a cosmopolitan _in both the political and acces ated with the atmosphere of the noblest Greek learning of the age, imbued with a sense of that passionate craving for right- eousness which distinguished its most exalted and spiritual philosophy, conscious also of its deep reli- gious feeling; for where will you find a tenderer, “ more pathetic expression for the noblest aspirations of heathen antiquity than that which Paul himself applies: “a groping after God, if haply they might feel after him and find him; though he be not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” Of the two great formative influences of Paul’s early life, the first and most important is certainly 24 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Pharisaism, — Pharisaism of the best and broadest type, that of the young nobleman who “came running and kneeled to Jesus, saying, Good Mas- ter, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” On the earnest but naive longing displayed by it for the righteousness of the Law, to obtain by it eternal life, Jesus had looked with a yearning affec- tion. Of this kind of Pharisaism Paul said before the Sanhedrin at his last visit to Jerusalem that he had never ceased to be a Pharisee. ' But in Stoicism also, as revealed in that Hymn of Cleanthes which he quotes at Athens, we should not fail to see a more indirect but not less real influence, fitting him unconsciously for his prodigious task. In our study of Paul’s teaching I shall try to show that some of his profoundest and most char- acteristic ideas are, to say the least, not mainly rooted in the soil of Judaism, but draw their prin- cipal nourishment from sources directly or indi- rectly Stoic. Lightfoot’s excursus on “St. Paul and Seneca” in his Commentary on Philippians has shown that the coincidences in expression be-. tween the Christian Apostle and his contempo- rary the statesman-philosopher are quite imexpli- cable unless we admit some common source. Pfleiderer’s chapter on Formative Influences in the recent (1902) edition of his “ Urchristenthum ” shows that there are great key-thoughts of Paul, FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 25 such as the conception of Christ as the heavenly, spiritual Man, and of the kingdom as the new social organism of humanity, whose affinities are not He- brew but Greek. These are only symptoms of an awakening among biblical scholars to the fact that Jewish thought had not been so impervious as we have been wont to imagine to that of the great age of Hellenization around it.} But I must turn to the light thrown, however casually and indirectly, by Paul himself on his own early career and the influences which shaped it toward ends unforeseen by himself. Y Gal. i. 15, where Paul applies to himself the language of Jeremiah, “ The word of the Lord came unto me saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth from the womb I sanctified thee: I have appointed thee a prophet unto the Gentiles,” is a profoundly significant and characteristic expression of Paul’s own feeling regarding the formative influences of his early life. God had adapted everything in it to 1 Since the above was written a new evidence of the broader study of this subject has been given in the first of a proposed series of Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des alten und neuen Testaments, edited by W. Bousset and H. Gunkel. Gunkel’s present contribution, “ Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verstandniss des neuen Testaments ” (1903), is a worthy demonstration of the undercurrent of participation by popular, if not official, Judaism in the contemporary world-movements of religious thought. 26 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL a great purpose of his own, to which Paul himself had been blind. His very birth, with its political immunities, his Greek life and training, his fanat- ical zeal for Mosaism, — yes, even, we may believe, the disputations in which he had engaged with the followers of the Nazarene, the testimony against them, in which he was compelled to specify wherein their doctrines blasphemed the Law or the Temple, —all these had been of God’s ordering for the unforeseen end. And the forgiving prayers of his victims — think what they must have been to the heart of a Paul! How blind he had been! All those struggles of his to steel his heart in his own way had been a kicking of the ox against the goad. Steadily, surely, he had been driven along the path, until the scales had fallen from his eyes and he knew “ whereunto he was called.” But what was that great thing for which he had, as he says, been “ apprehended of God?” The use of the passage from Jeremiah is a suggestion of Paul’s conception of its magnitude. The conference in Jerusalem at which, as he tells us, he convineed the pillar Apostles that “ God who energized in Peter an apostleship to the circumcision, had wrought in him for an apostleship to the Gentiles,” the con- ference where he deliberately took for himself and Barnabas as their province nothing less than the entire world outside of the Jewish people, is con- FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 27 clusive evidence of the magnitude of Paul’s ideas. The greatness of it is almost incredible; it seemed so to Paul himself; he marveled that God should have taken him, unworthy as he was, for so sublimely great a vocation. Yet nothing can be clearer than the reiterated utterances in which over and over again he shows, directly and indirectly, that nothing less than this could express the divinely ordered meaning of his life. His vocation was the com-. mending of Christianity to the heathen world as a gospel of God absolutely adequate to the great reli- gious needs it was dimly beginning to feel, groping after an Unknown God, crying out of the darkness for a “ Saviour-God” to give it moral strength and life. ! Was it then that Paul regarded himself as per- sonally able to evangelize the entire Greco-Roman world ?— Surely not. Prodigious as were his labors, surpassing all the Twelve as he did both in perse- eutions and in fruitful labors, he certainly enter- tained no such extravagant idea of his own personal abilities. We are indeed amazed to hear him de- elare in his letter to the Romans that “there remaineth no more room for me in these parts. From Jerusalem round about unto Ilyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.” We must be- ware, too, of imagining that Paul looked forward to long centuries of intellectual and religious develop- 28 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ment in which the gospel he had preached would gradually win its way to supremacy in Greco- Roman civilization. Nothing can be clearer than his participation in the universal belief of the Christians of his age that the wind-up of the world was immediately impending. In his earliest letters Paul expects himself to be among those who should be alive and remain at the coming of the Lord to judgment. In the latest he expects rather to depart and be with Christ, leaving others to complete his unfinished task. But in no case has he any idea of the long perspective of growth. The gathering in of the Gentiles was to him only the gathering of the few ripe sheaves that might be gleaned in a life- time. None, surely, can have been more conscious than Paul that his personal work was but the barest scattering of the seed here and there. In what sense, then, can he have thought of himself as des- tined for so prodigious a vocation ? — Simply in the insight which God had given him into the meaning of all his providence, in the appearance of Jesus risen from the dead, a glorified world’s Messiah, for whom not only Israel but also the heathen world had all these ages been preparing. The time was indeed to be short, though Rom. ix.—xi. opens a far longer perspective than 2 Thess. But the arch was already built. It needed only the key- stone. Heathen religious thought at its best had FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 29 been God’s disciplinary preparation for the Gospel. Paul’s revelation would make it complete. He had but to proclaim “the secret,” the “mystery long hid but now revealed,” which would commend itself to every right-minded Gentile whose heart God had prepared. This would then disseminate itself with the swiftness of a spreading fire. This is what he calls “ the dispensation of the grace of God toward the Gentiles which was given to me:” “ how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, how that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and fellow-mem- bers of the body and fellow-partakers of the pro- mise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery, which from all ages hath been hid in God, who created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our. Lord.” 4 1 Eph. iii. 1-11, abridged. 30 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL All the experiences of Paul’s life np to the time of his conversion had to his mind been unconsciously ' leading up to this. God had made known to him a “mystery” hidden from times eternal. But once proclaimed it could be hid no longer. Christianity makes of Judaism the world-religion. That was the heart of it. I hope to show as we engage in the study of the Pauline Epistles how truly and in what sense Paul’s conception of Christianity made it a re- sponse to the need of the whole world, the capstone of a double arch whose buttress on the one side was planted on Jewish, on the other on Gentile soil. In conclusion of the lecture of to-day let me only try to illustrate the view which Paul may have taken of his divine calling as the Apostle to the Gentiles, by the career of his great predecessor. Philo the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria. Philo’s works may or may not have been known to Paul, but they have survived to our time just because they embody to such an extent ideas which to us seem altogether Christian. Medizval ecclesiastics and scribes, ignorant of the fact that they were written before the preaching of Jesus, classified and tran- scribed them for this reason among the works of the Christian Fathers. For centuries even in Philo’s day the Greek- speaking world had been morally and religiously approaching a type of thought closely similar to FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 31 that of the Hebrew prophets. The old polytheism was no longer anything more than a rapidly crum- bling superstition of the ignorant rabble. Not phi- losophers only, but all intelligent and earnest- minded people revered the One supreme divinity, the 6 eds of Plato. What the Stoic and Cynic philosophers were busy with Hausrath has told in his chapters on their propaganda. In Alexandria the mythologic tales of Homer and Hesiod were’ rejected as fables, or interpreted allegorically, so as to remove what was incompatible with the con- ception of a supreme God, wise and just and holy. W hat wonder that in this seat of Jewish progressive * thought and Greek learning Jews should lay hold of Greek philosophy to claim it as an off-shoot of Mosaism? And not only Greek but Egyptian and Oriental thought had been laid under contribution. Philo is the greatest representative of this effort. To him the great ideas of Plato are mere sparks from the divine revelation vouchsafed to Moses. In the Law and the Prophets he discovers the whole Platonic philosophy by means of allegorical ‘interpretation ; and this system, half Jewish, half Greek, he launches on the stream of Alexandrian thought, convinced that it meets the world’s need, embodying the sum and substance of philosophy and religion. To us it seems a mere hybrid, which appeals 32 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL neither with the force of Platonism nor of Mosaism. But certainly the conception was a magnificent one, and worthy of the age which had seen the world made politically one. To conceive Judaism enriched with all of Greek philosophic thought, expanding from the mere religion of a petty nation into a world-religion, and this before the preaching of the Gospel, was no mean ideal. Our fourth evangelist employs the phraseology of Philo for his great doctrine of the Logos. Philo himself borrows the term from the Ionic philo- sophers to signify the supreme link between the Creator and his world, God and man. “John” is but the systematizer of Paul in his feeling that this Logos-doetrine needs but the knowledge of Jesus as Messiah to make it complete. “The Logos be- came flesh and dwelt among us.” With these words he adopts the highest thought of Philo and, giving it Christian baptism, transmits it to the Church as the philosophic expression of the Pauline Chris- tology. For “John” is but the “vindicator” —_ the goel — of Paul, the true “ Apostle of love,” whose Logos-doctrine, as Sabatier has said, lacks but the name to be Johannine; just as Sanday, conversely, has designated the Johannine as Pauline in all but the name. We must not think of Paulas diréetly dependent on any Stoic writer, any more than the fourth evan- _ FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 33 gelist is directly dependent on Philo. We do know, however, that Paul was profoundly influenced by the book called the Wisdom of Solomon, which presents some of the most characteristic Stoic ideas in Pharisean garb, and we have at least some rea- son to think he was not wholly unaffected by the teaching of Gamaliel. At any rate, that which Philo’s philosophic system, grandly conceived as it was, could not do in that it remained, in the absence of any knowledge of the actual historic Christ, a bare abstract speculation, that Paul did, uniting the lighest thought of Hebrew prophet and Greek philosopher in a gospel which for Jew and Greek is forever “ Christ, the Power of God and the Wis- dom of God.” Our best attainable explanation of Paul’s sense of his vocation, so unmistakable and at the same time so almost incredibly great, will be found in his own sense of the working of God in the forma- tive influences of his life. For therein Paul realized that God had “revealed His Son in him,” as the common goal of Gentile groping after God, and wish striving for righteousness, the Wisdom and the Power of God. y LECTURE II CONVERSION AND VOCATION In discussing the formative influences of Paul’s — pre-Christian career we found it reasonable to infer from Gal. i. 15 that Paul had come to regard the whole experience of his early life as a providential shaping of his character and capacities for his divinely appointed calling. However blind He had been until the moment of his conversion, after it he could see that everything in his life had really been leading up to it. Even his fierce persecution of the faith was part of that unconscious prepara- tion. So that there is nothing improbable in the representation of one of the three parallel accounts in the Book of Acts, that he heard a voice saying to him, not in his own Greek mother-tongue, but in the Aramaic of the Galilean Prophet, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.” The three Lucan ac- counts differ indeed quite widely among themselves, so that it is clear to the unprejudiced reader that the narrator is not attempting to give a critically exact account, but to interpret for his readers what significance the experience had for Paul, and for CONVERSION AND VOCATION 35 the Church at large. His interpretations differ in fact most widely of all on a point which special circumstances made one of vital importance to Paul, namely, his apostleship to the Gentiles, whose directness and immediacy, as we shall see, Paul defends with the ‘utmost vehemence. In Acts, on the contrary, one report makes it come indirectly through Ananias; a second gives it directly to Paul, but not until he has first begun his mission- ary career in Jerusalem under direction of the Apostles ; only the third and last agrees with the sworn declaration of Galatians. Thus the need for remembering that the story.of Luke is later, and not written for the purposes of the critical historian, is abundantly manifest. Yet we have no need to reject this saying, re- ported only in the last and most trustworthy of the three Lucan accounts: “It is hard for thee to kick against the goad,” for it is not only quite reconcilable to all we can learn from the Epistles, it is also corroborated by Paul’s own disposition to look upon his past as an unconscious prepara- tion. In fact, it seems to strike the very key-note of Paul’s mental condition in approaching the great /- crisis. He had been lashing out blindly, fiercely, / like a restive ox, who fails to realize that the path he is to travel in is laid out before him, and that the One who controls him is both wiser and stronger 36 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL than he. He feels the sharp prick of the steel- pointed goad, and at first only kicks the harder ; till mere brute strength can bear the pain no longer, and the stronger, wiser will prevails. We have unceasing debate concerning the psy- chology of Paul’s conversion, because each of the contending parties maintains a truth. On the one side it is justly contended that if the conversion had no rational preparation, Paul must have gone back to his previous convictions and beliefs as soon as the immediate effects wore off. He would have said to himself, “« That was a very strange experience I had, when that vision came to me and ~ I fell from my horse in a trance. Surely these Christians have an ally in Beelzebub, as my fellow Pharisees allege. Either I had a sunstroke, and have been delirious, or their incantations haye cast a spell upon me.” Such reasoning is just: it is impossible to regard the transition of Paul’s mind as the passing from a condition of stable to un- stable equilibrium. His former condition of mind, fixed as it seemed, was really unstable. The condi- tion into which he passed was: one in which ey>ry fact of his experience, every reasoning faculty of his mind, found thenceforth complete and unshaken satisfaction.\, Those, therefore, who insist that Paut’s experience in conversion cannot have been unpre- pared have an impregnable element of truth on CONVE = their side. It is a pity it to a length which ma appear a conscious hypocrite, hands in the blood of innocent while at the least doubtful in his justice of their cause. For the opposite contention has at least in its favor. Paul himself reiterates and emphas the point that he was in some way quite unpre- pared; that his conversion was the act of God; _ that he neither elaborated his gospel, nor was taught it, but that it came to him by divine reve- lation. God wrought it in him even as he wrought in Peter, to whom, after a momentous decision of faith, Jesus himself had said, “ Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” What is to reconcile these two apparently irre- concilable truths ? Nothing so well, perhaps, as the phrase from that ill-supported tradition of Acts, “ Saul, Saul, it is hard for thee to kick against the goad.” Paul is absolutely guiltless of conscious prepara-| tion for the gospel. This is clearly involved in his | strong assertions against those who compared his” “ self-elaborated system,” as they called it, with the “ revelation of the Son of God” to Peter.t 1 Clem. Hom. xvii. 19. 38 “ST. PAUL that Paul had had no ; for he has fortunately — rtant autobiographie chapter he contrary that he was full of t were simply “ goading” him to Only they were not misgivings in to the faith he was persecuting. In that “verily thought he did God service.” His isgivings were born of that same restless con- science — so he had learned from Stoic preachers to call it — which had made “zeal for righteous- ness” the ruling passion of his life, and at the same time implanted in him an ideal of right- eousness that no mere Pharisaism could satisfy. - He was learning the strength of the “ law of sin in his members.” The crisis was unavoidable; but Paul was blind even to that. Much less had it «‘ dawned ” upon him (the figure is his own)? that in the gospel he was persecuting there was “re- vealed a righteousness of God by faith unto faith.” So far as Paul himself knew, he was unprepared ' for a change to the Christian faith. In reality, all the defenses of his Pharisean self-righteousness, | honeyeombed as they were with misgivings, were on the point of crumbling like dikes invisibly wa- dermined before the inrush of the sea. Moreover, his nervous system, keyed to the highest pitch by 1 2 Cor. iv. 4. mack CONVERSION AND VOCATION 39 the fearful tension of those scenes of blood to which e forced a nature exceptionally gentle and tender, paroxysms that afterwards marked great epochs of his life. In them he experienced “visions and rey- elations of the Lord,” whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell, God only knew. After them his physical constitution reacted. He felt sore and bruised, as though pounded by the fists of an athlete. “« Weakness” was the symptom most pronounced, or at least the one Paul felt it hardest to bear; but he also felt, whether with others it was really so or not, that his condition made him repulsive, so as to be a “ temptation in his flesh”’ to those to whom he then preached, “ to despise and loathe” him. This physical reaction Paul at first counted “a messenger of Satan,” per- mitted by God to “buffet” him, that he “ might not be exalted overmuch by the exceeding great- ness of the revelations.” Not merely the author of Acts, but the very companion of Paul who writes the Diary tells us of at least two instances wherein action was deter- mined, under most trying and depressing circum- stances, by these visions of Paul; and in both cases the Apostle rose from his weakness to meet the 1 Gal. iv. 14. 40 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL emergency like one inspired, winning on these oc- casions some of the most striking triumphs of his life. The first is at Troas, where, after a long and perilous journey, over the mountains behind the Ionic coast whither Paul had intended to go, the little missionary party found themselves at the end of their resources. Paul’s faith reacted then in the vision of the ‘‘ man of Macedonia” summoning them to their great mission in Hellas. a The other vision came after a night of peril in the deep, after “they had been long without food,” ‘‘when neither sun nor stars had shone for many days ” on the drifting wreck. Our informant is again the Diarist, who recalls the man of Tarsus standing forth with a rallying cry of hope and courage : “For,” said he, “‘there stood by me this night an angel of the God whose I am, whom also I worship, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must stand before Cesar: and, lo, God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee.” We may say of these visions, too, that they were ‘unprepared ;” and yet they grew out of the situ- “ation, The very days of fasting, casually referred to in the story of the shipwreck, were a factor of the physical conditions of vision well-known to the psychologist.1 Paul is not conscious of any codp- 99 1 As for the positive assurance, “Thou must stand before Cesar,” we know from Phil. i. 19-25 how Paul was accustomed to CONVERSION AND VOCATION 41 eration of his own mind in these great leaps of faith, as I may call them, and yet the result is always such that, as he looks back upon his former thought,” it appears as the true and rational conclusion. He gladly and gratefully accepts it as the direct gift of God. Revelation therefore it is, and ever will be; no matter how much we may learn as to the mode of God’s working in it. It is no detraction from the divineness of the source of such bursts of in- sight, that we can adduce a certain number of more or less parallel cases. In fact some of the greatest minds in history have been so constituted that the solution of their problems burst upon them unfore- seen, in dreams, or even visions and trances, accord- ing to temperament and conditions. We can all think of Archimedes rushing naked from the bath with his ery “ Eureka!” We can think of Coleridge and De Quincey “ receiving,” as they themselves put it, entire poems and prose compositions, suddenly, in a manner to them inexplicable, because they, more than all others, are unaware of that auto- matic action of the mind which modern psychology designates “ subliminal.” Still such merely intellec- tual revelations are not the true analogy for Paul’s reason from the needs of his cause as to his own deliverance. We also know from 2 Cor. v. 20, that he regarded himself as an am- bassador on behalf of Christ,” and therefore under God’s safe-con- duct to the emperor. 42 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ease. We must rather recall the story of Luther, a kind of second Paul, vainly seeking relief for the anguish of a conscience that will not down, by climb- ing on his knees the Holy Stair at Rome. With muttered prayers he nears the top, thinking at least to lay to his soul the unction of indulgence, when lo, a voice, so seemingly outside himself he can hardly believe that others have not heard it, proclaims aloud, “The just shall live by faith ;” and Martin Luther the penitent rises from his knees, and deliberately walks down the stair through the midst of the astonished worshipers.? Every one of us has had more or less experience of these subconscious processes of mind, operating without our knowledge or control and frequent!y almost startling us, sometimes in dreams, some- times in waking hours, but all unaccountably, by presenting ready-made solutions of long-vexed and perhaps distressing problems.? But such little new light as we have gained on the mode by which these revelations come need not lead us to repudiate our gratitude to God, nor to say “« Not God, but my own reason is the Source and Giver of Light.”) The last and final explanation of every increase of 1 The story is told by Paul Luther as an experience he had heard his father relate. 2 This subconscious reasoning, often designated intuition, is commoner in the female sex. Women claim to know without be- ing able to tell how or why ; and the claim has an element of truth. CONVERSION AND VOCATION 43 truth is still: “There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understand- ing.” : Paul, at least, is reverently assured that the in- sight which he has into the “ mystery of the eternal purpose of God who created all things, which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men,” is nothing of his own invention, but | a revelation, for which he owes devout thanksgiv- ing to God. To Peter he allowed the same; and Peter had the authorization of Jesus himself for the reverent ascription. And yet Paul is critic as well as mystic. If we imagined him as accepting without question what- ever came in the form of vision or revelation, we should be utterly mistaking our man. Paul is no more open to delusion by the mere mode in which an alleged truth presents itself than your modern scientist, who knows that genius is nothing in the world but the scientific or poetic imagination (another term for brilliant guessing), and yet, how- ever grateful he may be for this mysterious endow- ment, holds every tempting suggestion down to the cold test of fact. It is Paul, this same seer of “visions and revelations of the Lord,” who bids the Thessalonians “prove all things” (he is speaking of “ revelations”’), holding fast only that which can stand the test of moral judgment. It is this same 44 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL dreamer, Paul, who demands that his Corinthian converts shall subject every revelation to the test of reason and conscience, reminding them that “ the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets,” and no claims of inspired utterance can excuse the violation of the homely principles of reverence, good order, and edification. The man who thus inculeates criticism is no dweller in a fool’s paradise of feeling and fancy. No matter what the comfort Paul has had from his faith in the risen Christ, no matter how glorious it has made his life, if it has been a delusion, “ if Christ be not risen from the dead,” then he is “of all men most miserable,” wretched for all his hope and joy, because he has believed a lie.’ Paul does not credit barren logic with the fruit of intui- tion ; but neither does he present as revelation any- thing which cannot stand the test of reason. Truth for him is that fine gold which comes from the cru- cible of an incorruptible rational and moral judg- ment. Were it otherwise, his “ revelations ” would have far less weight with us than they do. : The conversion of St. Paul has been justly called the most _important.event~in™ the history~of the Christian Church. That is not so much because our whole conception of his life and doctrine hinges on it, as(because it forms the foundation proof of the resurrection appearances of Christ) First-hand CONVERSION AND ‘VOCATION 45 documentary evidence of this, I need scarcely say, is attainable only in the writings of Paul. (In 1 Co- rinthians we have, not only the oldest record, but the solitary document in which a known individual tells us in so many words {1 saw the risen Lord.” Tt is this psychological experience which we have now to discuss, though its bearing for our present interest is simply upon Paul’s life and teaching. For actual narration of the occurrence we are exclusively dependent upon the author of Acts, whose account, as already shown, gives evidence of its uncritical, popular character by discrepancies between the three parallel narratives which the compiler might perfectly well have removed if he had cared to take the trouble.? As it is, we have only the allusions of ‘the Epistles from which to 1 Whether, in case it should appear that no objective factor were required to account for the experiences of the first disciples on which they based their belief in the resurrection, practical Christianity could still rest upon the faith of Jesus previous to his death in the “God not of the dead but of the living ” is a ques- tion for the practical theologian. Historically, the foundation has been the alleged appearances, of which we have no direct evidence but Paul’s. 2 We haye no right to blame Luke for writing his narrative as he did, and for the purpose of simple edification that he proposes. The modern critical historian must not expect his work to be done for him. He should rather be thankful that the ancient writer has ~ not obliterated the traces of his own uncritical methods, but has left both the means and the stimulus to independent inyestiga- tion. 46 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL verify the story, for Paul’s correspondents are assumed to know of the event. I scarcely need enumerate the variant data of Acts, which are generally familiar. It was midday on the desert road near the gates of Damascus. Saul, armed with letters from Caiaphas to the syna- gogue authorities, and accompanied by certain others, was abdut to renew the persecution which had but shortly before resulted in the death of Stephen. What follows is the experience of Saul, ultimately derived, of course, from his own report, not that of his unbelieving companions. There shone forth suddenly a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun, and Saul fell prostrate,1 hearing a voice that addressed him in the Hebrew (Aramaic) tongue :? “ Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.”3 To Saul’s question, “ Who art thou, Lord?” the answer was, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” Stunned and blinded, Saul was brought by his companions to Damascus, and there 1 According to xxvi. 14 all fell to the ground. According to ix. 7 Paul’s companions remained standing. 2 The voice according to xxii. 9 was not heard by Paul’s com- panions, though there they are said to have seen the light. Ac- cording to ix. 7 they heard a voice (which, however, is understood in one form of the text to be Saul’s voice), but did not see the light. 3 This last clause only in xxyi. 14. CONVERSION AND VOCATION 47 made himself known to the church he had come to persecute. The most important of the variations in the three accounts of Acts is that which concerns the healing, baptism, and instruction of the new con- vert by Ananias, and the beginnings of Paul’s preaching. In ‘Acts xxvi. 16-18 Ananias disap- pears entirely from view.! Paul receives his call to preach to the Gentiles directly in the vision itself, and at once obeys. In the narrative of ix. 6-30 Ananias is told of Paul’s commission to the Gen- tiles, which we are left to infer he reported to Paul. This account has a very complicated appa- ratus of visions, and visions of visions.? Besides that to Paul on the Damascus road, there is a vision to Ananias, who is told in the vision that Paul has had a second, supplementary vision, in which he, Paul, has seen Ananias coming in and healing his blindness. This no doubt is very similar to the apparatus of complementary visions by which Peter and Cornelius are made mutually acquainted ; but the literary analogy does not make the proba- 1 Acts ix., a narrative which the author seems to have derived from Jewish-Christian tradition, is farthest from Paul’s own repre- sentations. The speeches of Paul in cc. xxii. and xxvi. seem to be derived from a more Pauline source. The former is partially adjusted to c. ix.; the latter scarcely touched. : 2 However, a single manuscript of the Old Latin version omits the subsidiary vision of Acts ix. 12. 48 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL bility any greater that such things occurred in real life. It is a way certain Jewish and Jewish-Christian authors have of telling things, but so far as our knowledge extends, it is not at all God’s way of doing things.1 Doubtless the church in Damascus could long point to the very house in the street called Straight (still the main street of the city) where Paul was baptized. Doubtless it made the most of Ananias’s part in the wonderful story. But while the Epistles furnish a number of hints to corroborate the narrative as a whole, it is an 1 This part of Acts shows many traces of derivation from a Jewish-Christian source, and it is one of the characteristics of these sources, as we see in the early chapters of Matthew and Luke, as well as constantly in the Talmnd, that the writer ac- quaints his reader with the inner, providential significance of what is taking place on the earth — introduces him, as it were, behind the scenes — by the literary fiction of a vision. Thus the significance of Peter’s intercourse with the Gentile Cornelius (“ Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them”) is revealed by the vision of the sheet let down from heaven. Jesus employs the figure several times (e. g. “I saw Satan as lightning fallen from heaven”), and surely must have done so in acquainting the Twelve with his experience at baptism. The evangelists employ this method of showing the real nature of Jesus as Son of God, in the Transfiguration Story, which by Matthew is expressly called a “‘ vision” (8paua), and which repeats the baptismal bath gol (“voice from heayen”). Because Paul was a “psychic” we should not make “ psychics ” of Cornelius, Peter, Zacharias, Joseph, James, John, and the authors of the Apocalypses. Vision is a literary device, in both the historical and the apocalyptic literature. CONVERSION AND VOCATION 49 absolute certainty that Paul did not receive his apostleship to the Gentiles at second-hand; nory ean any believer in Damascus have played more than an external part in the great drama that was being enacted in his soul. It is with deeper interest that we turn from the mere outward reports, handed down in later tradi- tion, to the allusions of Paul’s own letters, which supply the inward significance of these events. The hints of outward corroboration already spoken of are soon told. Paul refers in Gal. i. 15-17 to his conversion in the midst of a career of persecu- tion by God’s revealing his Son “ in him,” confirm- ing Acts; while the expression “in me” certainly agrees better with that representation in which Paul’s companions are wholly outside the sphere of his experience. The reference is so brief that Paul does not even directly tell us where the event. took place; but after a positive denial of any kind of instruction, or opportunity for instruction, in the new faith, and a declaration that he “ went away into Arabia,” he shows it by implication in the addition, ‘ and again I returned to Damascus.” Further, in 1 Corinthians Paul twice speaks of having seen Jesus as the risen Lord, in one case connecting his apostleship with it. Finally in 2 Cor. iv. 6 he makes a most poetic allusion to it in words which seem to corroborate the sensation of dazzling f 50 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL light spoken of in the story. He is speaking of the ministry of the new covenant as against that of Moses, who carried from his intercourse with God on Sinai a fading reflection of the glory he had seen. Then turning to the “ blinding of the eyes of the unbelieving ” by Satan,! “ so that the light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, may not dawn upon them,” he compares the new creation which those have experienced who have seen that dawn, with the creation of the physical world in Gen. i. 1: “ For God, who said Let light shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ.” One can hardly doubt but he is thinking of the glory of that face as he had seen it when the world had been new created for him, and he had received his ministry of the new covenant.” 1 In the Epistle of Pseudo Barnabas this blinding of the unbe- lieving Jews has become the work of “ an eyil angel.” It reappears in the Altercatio Theophili et Simonis, where the Jew on conversion recognizes the withdrawal of the Satanic veil. 2 The figure is, as usual, an adaptation of one of the most beau- tiful of Messianic prophecy, by simple application to Jesus. In 2 Sam. xxiii. 3-4 the Ruler of the House of David is compared to “the light of the morning when the sun riseth, a morning without clouds, when the tender grass springs from the earth by clear shining after rain.’’ The “Sun of righteousness that rises with healing beams” of Mal. iv. 2, and the “ Day-spring from on high ” of Lk. i. 78, are echoes of the same. Paul compares it to the cre- ative dawn of Gen.i. 3. ; CONVERSION AND VOCATION 51 But we must go deeper than these mere surface correspondences, or disagreements. We must ask, What has Paul himself to tell us regarding the in- ner meaning of this great crisis of his life? What did he bring to it of his own? What did he receive in it? As we try to frame our answer to these vital questions you will see why it was needful first of all to discuss the formative influences of Paul’s life, and the question in what sense he was pre- pared, in what sense unprepared, for his conversion. ‘ In one sense of the word, we are seeking an “explanation ” of Paul’s conversion, but not in the sense of defining its ultimate cause. “ Explana- tion” consists of the grouping of related facts in such a way that we may see all that it is humanly possible to see of the mode of the divine working in a given event. Ultimate causation is always in- scrutable. Explanation, then, may take away the “ magical” character of an event, for “ magic” has to do with the mode of operation. It cannot take away the “ supernatural” character of the simplest event ; for the word ‘“‘ supernatural,” if we use it in its right sense, has to do with the ultimate cause, the fact of the divine working. We may often, in cases like the conversion of Paul, wish to substitute . for the ancient word “miraculous” the modern “ pro- vidential,’’ which harmonizes better with the mod- ern conception of the divine Personality as involv- 52 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ing no element of caprice, and therefore achieving all its results without the slightest infraction or violation of law. There will be no religious loss in such a substitution, because we retain the essential religious idea of the “ supernatural,” namely, that, (whatever the mode of working, the effect is a re- ¥ sponse of the divine Personality to the appeal of the finite.) 1. The more or less intelligible factors of this ulti- mately inscrutable and “ supernatural” event seem to me to be four. First, and on the lowest scale, we may rank the purely physical. These will include the midday heat and burning sun of the desert, whose effect upon the parched and fevered traveler is well known. These include, too, the naturally ‘ecstatic temperament of Paul, to whom, if ever to mortal man, the words “tense” and * strenuous ” apply in even his pre-Christian career, and whose subsequent experiences of ecstasy and vision cannot, of course, be overlooked. Finally, we must add as something on the border line between physical and hyper-physical conditions, the fearful nervous strain which had steeled that tender, compassionate heart against cries and tears and prayers, until, because he “thought he did God service,” Paul could dip his own hands in the blood of men like the martyr Stephen, and listen while with the face of an angel he prayed, “ Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” CONVERSION AND VOCATION 53 That strain was reaching its culmination now that Damascus lay just before him calling him to resume the bloody work. All these physical considerations _ have something to do with the crisis; but in them- selves they do not explain it. We may classify them simply as external “ providential ” conditions. __ 2. Paul is emphatic in his statements in Gala- tians, that he began his missionary career, not only without instruction from other Christians, but with- out any opportunity for it. “After three years” (therefore long after the time when Luke intro- duces him to the Apostles in Jerusalem and they are afraid of him because they have not yet heard of his conversion), — after three years of labor, says Paul, he went to visit Peter in Jerusalem and stayed with him two weeks, acquainting himself with _Peter’s store of recollections and teachings of the ‘Lord ; and he saw besides not one of the apostolic body save James the Lord’s brother. Thereafter for eleven — perhaps fourteen — years he continued his missionary work without even being “ known by face to the churches in Judea.” I have already said enough of the entire disagreement of Luke from this. I mention it now for a different reason. The same Paul who resorted to Peter for knowledge of Jesus’ earthly life! cannot have regarded himself 1 Paul says he went up for the purpose of “ hearing Peter’s story ’’ (icropjoa: Kynar). 54 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL as fully equipped to “ preach the faith he once per- secuted ”” without any knowledge of Jesus’ life and teaching whereto his own distinctive gospel might attach itself. We may and must do full justice to the independence of Paul’s gospel; we may and shall recognize the surprisingly meagre reference in his Epistles to anything of the nature of Synoptic tradition: but that does not mean that Paul was ignorant of the life and teaching of Jesus, nor of fundamental Christian doctrine. Indeed, how could he be the leader of persecution against the sect, bear witness to the blasphemous character of their doctrines, cast his vote against them on a life and death issue, and yet know nothing of their his- tory and teachings? fe e may and must put down as latent elements in Paul’s mind, perhaps not ac- cepted, perhaps rather abhorred, but present never- theless, the raw material, so to speak, of his later faith) First of all, the Pauline persecution was not like the Sadducean of Acts i—v., a mere police measure against Messianistic agitation. It was a reversion to the Pharisaic charge of “ blasphemy,” and for its legal justification must have rested upon Deut. xiii., with its specific command to pur- sue the teacher of false worship to any “ one of thy cities.” Jesus had perished for an alleged claim of the title “ Son of man.” The nature of Paul’s bloody persecution “even unto foreign cities” implies, CONVERSION AND VOCATION even at that time, a Christology which to the Phar- isees’ eyes’ encroached upon the prerogatives of God. Moreover, we know of another doctrine, already fundamental with those whom Paul persecuted, namely, that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ;” in other words, the explanation of the cruel death of the Nazarene as vicarious, in accordance with Is. liii. Paul tells us in so many words that this doctrine was one which he received from Christians before him.! About this doctrine may well have revolved the disputes with Stephen in “the synagogue of the Cilicians.” At any rate, in his controversy with Peter at Antioch, where he is obliged to fall back on common ground, not in- volved in his own special gospel, Paul forces Peter to acknowledge that this doctrine of forgiveness of sin through Jesus’ death on the cross, and not through obedience to the Law, is the foundation of the Christian’s hope of salvation. Thereupon he proceeds to show that the Christian and the Jewish exclude one another. “ If righteousness is through _ the Law, then Christ died in vain.”’ As persecutor 11 Cor. xy. 3, “I delivered (mrapédwxa) that which I received (xapéAaBov), how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” The Greek words are technical terms for the inculea- tion of transmitted doctrine. It is a fact of peculiar significance that Paul nowhere makes the slightest independent use of this “ creat argument.” THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Paul had reasoned the other way from the same major premiss: “If righteousness is through the death of Christ, then the Law is in vain.” That was the ‘“‘ blasphemy against Moses.” Acts is perfectly right, therefore, in representing this great doctrine of vicarious atonement based on Is. liii. as fundamental even when Philip preached to the eunuch. If the Church had not found some such explanation of the awful catastrophe it never could have come into existence at all. On the other hand, it is perfectly true, as Paul, the keen logician, could see better than Peter, that the adoption of this doctrine (which of course was subsequent to the crucifixion), brought Christian- ity into an unexpected rivalry with Judaism as a new way of salvation. “The doctrine of the atonement is the gospel,” says Ritschl. “ If right eousness is through the Law,” says Paul, “then Christ died in vain.” Conversely, if righteousness is through the grace of God in Christ, then the Law is in vain. Legalism could ill brook even John the Baptist’s revival of the old prophetic doctrine of grace, “ Wash you, make you clean.” Pharisaism looked askance, to say the least, at the publicans and sinners flocking to a “baptism of repentance unto remission of sins.” When over and above this a doctrine of remission of sins through the vicarious suffering of the Nazarene was CONVERSION AND VOCATION 57 promulgated, its opposition blazed into bloody per- secution. I might go farther and say that if Paul had any part in the disputes and martyrdom of Stephen, he must also have become familiar with that great doctrine wherein the limits of Jewish nationalism are first transcended, the doctrine of the access of Jew and Gentile “in one Spirit unto the Father.” This to the Pharisee “destroyed the temple ” by abolishing its exclusive sanctity as the one place of approach to God. It is the special onus of the charge against Stephen and the Hel- lenists, that in addition to their disloyalty to Moses and the Law they had “ spoken words against that Holy Place.” This may have added fuel to the special rage of the Pharisean zealot against Ste- phen and the Hellenists ; but Paul’s writings afford no allusion to the teaching of this broader school. We can only say with certainty, Paul was not un- familiar with the essential doctrines of the new sect. On the contrary, he saw much more clearly than they did what the logical outcome must inevi- tably be. Still, the mere existence in Paul’s mind of the raw material of conversion is not yet explanation. He had no sympathy with the doctrine of the vica- rious suffering of the innocent, though it is ear- nestly advocated by the author of 4 Maccabees.! 1 In 4 Maccabees the Jewish martyr prays that God will take 58 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Paul probably knew, as Philo certainly does, that Deutero-Isaiah does not mean Jesus, nor even an impersonal coming Messiah, by his “ Suffering Servant ;” Isaiah means, as he states repeatedly, the martyr-people. “Thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob is he whom I have chosen, the seed of Abra- ham, my friend.” Even after Paul had become a Christian, and of course had adopted in a form of his own this fundamental doctrine, it is surely no accident that in all his discussions of it he never once refers to the Isaian prophecy, though in Acts and 1 Peter it is a proof-text of constant resort. Paul’s knowledge of Christian doctrine is an unde- niable factor in his conversion. Moreover, it is in- ternal and not external; but we must still classify it as only a “ providential”’ condition, not an ex- planation. 3. There is a third factor whose vital importance Paul himself forbids us to ignore. It is found in the seventh of Romans,—a chapter to which I have already alluded as autobiographic. If Phil. iti. 4-11 reveals to us “ righteousness” as the rul- ing passion of Paul’s whole pre-Christian career, the seventh chapter of Romans reveals to us the culmination of a soul-conflict in which the zealot for righteousness was involved d- through eircum- . his life as a substitute (avthpuyxov) for the life of his people, and make his outpoured blood a purification («a@dpoiov) for their sins. CONVERSION AND VOCATION 59 stances which he himself has taught us to regard as providential. These are Paul’s references to that conflict : — « And I was alive apart from the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died ; and the commandment which was unto life I found to be unto death: for sin, finding occa- sion through the commandment, beguiled me, and through it slew me. . . . For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the good which I would I do not : but the evil which I would not, that I practice. _ For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity under the law of sm which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death ? — I thank God through Jesus Christ cur Lerd.”? We know that Saul of Tarsus had gene to Jeru- salem a Pharisee of the Pharisees, bent on achiev- ing “a righteousness of his én, even that which is of the Law,” as something immeasurably mors precious than any earthly treasure. Well, what "was the reason he could not be satisfied, as other Pharisees were, with punctilious obedience to the 1 Rom. vii. 7-11, abridged. 60 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL moral and ceremonial law, with the additonal merit acquired by almsgiving, fasting, and prayer? — This chapter of Romans tells us. In the first place, Saul could not be content with mere out- ward requirements. Was it his keener, innate, moral sense? Or was it that he must needs blush to con- fess that the Law of Moses established a less lofty moral standard than the Stoic preachers of his native Tarsus,! to say nothing of the Nazarene? Was it birth? Or was it bringing up? He him- self knows only that God wrought in both, shaping the unseen end. & all events, Paul’s pre-Christian interpretation of the moral requirement of the Law is characteristically Stoic. )He passes over all the ten commandments down fo the last, and there he rests. Not on the Hebrew, observe, but on the Greek. Paul can read the Hebrew, but he was brought up on the Greek, and to the end of his days kis common version was the Septuagint. In the Greek the tenth commandment is more exact- ing than all the rest. Alone of the ten it demands the conquest of self: od« émOvyjoes — “thou shalt not desire.” There, by Paul’s own statement, was his sticking-point, the very ideal of the Stoic, the 1 Compare Seneca, De Benef. i. 1 ff. ap. Lightfoot, Phil. p. 283, for an extraordinary parallel to the higher law found in imitating the goodness and liberality of God, over against mere rule of _ thumb ethics, a contrast like that drawn in the Sermon on the Mount. CONVERSION AND VOCATION 61 conquest of unworthy desire. “I had not known sin,” he writes, “ except through the law, for I had not known desire [7. e. as an evil] except the law had said, ‘ Thou shalt not desire ;’ but sin, finding oceasion, wrought in me through the command- ment all manner of [evil] desire, for apart from the Law sin is dead. And I was alive apart from the Law once, but the commandment which was ordained for life I found to be unto death.” Why? Because the deeper nature of the man, inborn or inbred, forbade him to be satisfied with the ex- ternal obedience of the average Pharisee. That inwardness which Jesus’ purity of soul led him to read into the law as its true requirement, Paul’s aweidyois had forced upon him also: but to Paul the requirement is impracticable, hopeless, because the Law is “ spiritual,” whereas “I am carnal, sold \, into slavery under sin.” The bitterness of death, not mere physical death, but the everlasting, hopeless death of the soul — that was what Saul of Tarsus was finding as the fruit of a pursuit of righteous- ness that stopped at no sacrifice, that impelled him to deeds from which his whole nature recoiled with / horror. “ Anything, anything that I may inherit / ternal life!” had been his ery; and this was his/ : Death, — bitter, hopeless, eternal death. uf 1 Cf. 2 Cor. iii. 7-9, the law a “ ministration of death,” a ** ministration of condemnation.” 62 ~ THE STORY OF ST. PAUL I said that Paul’s nature, inborn or inbred, made it impossible for him to be satisfied with the exter- nalism of the ordinary Pharisee; but we are fortu- nately not without evidences of others who even under Judaism, whether by direct or indirect in- fluence of Stoic ethics, had come in like manner, to perceive that the supreme want is of a Deliverer from sin, and to this end from a carnal nature which has become the seat of sin. Two hundred years before Paul, a Jewish writer whose work Paul uses had groaned in almost Stoic language at our “ eorruptible body which weigheth down the soul,” accusing it as “held in pledge by sin,” the seat of that death which “ was not made by God” but “ ungodly men drew upon them,” as a “ poison of destruction in them.”! It is a later contemporary of Paul, the substance of whose Jewish doctrine betrays no trace of Christian influence, whose an- guished ery for deliverance from the same foes of our common humanity seems to echo the very ex- perience of Paul. «« O Adam, what hast thou done?” he cries, “‘for though it was thou that sinned, the evil is not fallen on thee alone, but upon all of us that come of thee. For what profit is it unto us if 1 Wisdom ix. 15; i.4, 12-16. Compare Seneea, “ God made the world because he is good, and as the good never grudges anything good. He therefore made everything the best possible.” Hp. Mor. lxy. 10. CONVERSION AND VOCATION 63 there be promised us an immortal time, whereas we have done the works that bring death?” + For this attitude of despair in face of the re- quirements of the moral law, above all the found- ing of it on the antithesis of flesh and spirit, the conception of the body as a prison-house of the soul, — this is not Hebrew thought. In what one of the prophets or psalmists can one find the concep- tion of flesh as the seat of sin and death, a drag- ing weight upon the soul till death has set it free ? Our nearest approach to this in the Old Testa- ment is the late penitential psalms; but even the ery “I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me” is not the expression of any philosophy of natural inability. To find a doctrine of original sin we must come down to a period in which the pessimistic attitude of Greek philosophy toward material existence had begun to affect Hebrew thought, and man’s bodily frame and the material creation were no longer regarded as “ very good.” 2 The book of the Wisdom of Solomon (30 B. c.— 40 A. D.) represents a type of Pharisean thought dyed and double-dyed with Greek and particularly Stoic ideas. And Wisdom first enunciates a clear 1 2 Esd. vii. 48-50; cf. viii. 30-36. 2 Since the above was delivered, the admirable exposition by Tennant of the history of this doctrine has appeared in The Fall and Original Sin, Cambridge, 1903. 64 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL and consistent doctrine of the Fall. All Hebrew lit- erature affords besides only the passage quoted but now from 2 Esdras, a book no less affected than Wisdom by Gentile thought, wherein Adam figures as the source of human woe by the inheritance of sin and death transmitted to his posterity. Have the prophets, the psalmists, or Jesus, anything to say about Adam, the Fall, and original sin? But Wisdom, from which Paul borrows repeatedly in Romans, declares that “ God created man to be im- mortal, but by envy of the Devil death came into the world.” Its doctrine is that the original creation was perfect and man made in God’s image, the heir of his immortality. The present creation represents only the ruin and corruption produced by the in- vasion of the great Seducer, the author of sin and death, which thenceforth reign supreme. The mortal anguish depicted in the seventh chap- ter of Romans is due to a new and deeper sense of sin. There is a profounder despair, rooted in a deeper philosophy of humanity than that which sent the simple peasants of Galilee, the publicans and sinners, flocking to the baptism of John, fully con- scious that under the technical requirements of the Law they fell far short of justification. Paul’s striv- ing for righteousness is something deeper even than the sense of unworthiness which led them to inter- pret the martyr-death of the Son of David, as a 7 CONVERSION AND VOCATION 65 propitiation required by their sin. The cry that is voicing itself in the agony of this great soul is the ery of broad humanity, as only Stoic philoso- phy had hitherto struggled to give it utterance, the groaning of the human spirit against “this body of death,” the deadly legacy of the race. Israel longed for a Son of David to give her her promised king- dom. Her lowly ones, that had no “ righteousness of their own, ‘even that which is of the law,” went to the baptism of John, and thence to the blood of Calvary as tokens of divine forgiveness, making good the deficiency of their merit. But this sense of sin, this despair in the conflict between a law of “conscience” in the inner man and a dominion of sin in the “ flesh,” hopeless, fatal, unless death it- self may free the spirit from its insupportable bur- den — this need has a broader basis and demands a different type of Messiah. It is the ery of a lost humanity demanding a Son of man, rather than a Son of David, a Second Adam, who as life-giving Spirit shall undo the work of doom, and as the Man from heaven become head of a new and spiritual race. Saul of Tarsus may possibly have been ignorant of the ancient principle of Heraclitus of Ephesus, “ Out of death life: into life death.” There is no direct indebtedness on either side between Paul and Seneca for the comparison of the body to a prison- 66 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL house, a heavy weight upon the soul, nor for the comparison of life to a warfare against imperious desire. Paul need not ever haye heard a Cynic preacher declare, “ We shall ever be obliged to pro- nounce the same sentence on ourselves, that we are evil, that we have been evil, and (I add it unwill- ingly) we shall be evil ; ”! nor for the saying, “ The first and greatest punishment of sinners is the fact of having sinned.” He need not have known the Stoic principle that “‘No man can be righteous without God,”’? nor that the indwelling Spirit’ of God is man’s only hope of victory over fleshly im- pulse; but whether known or unknown to Paul, his consciousness of the need of a delivering God (Gcds cwryp), which wrings from him the ery for an emancipation of the spirit, is no mere Jewish con- sciousness. It is a groaning humanity, striving for righteousness against the burden of sin and death, that speaks from the soul of Saul on the road to Damascus: “ O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body, this body of death?” That agony of soul, as of some blind Titan strug- gling against the overwhelming flood, ignorant that the outstretched hand of a “ Saviour God” is al- ready within reach —that is the third factor that goes to make up the providential conditions of Paul’s experience. 1 De Benef. i. 10. 2 Ep. Mor. xli. CONVERSION AND VOCATION 67 4. And lastly there is that without which all these factors, external and internal, can no more be called an “explanation” than intermingling clouds of oxygen and hydrogen are an explanation of their product without the exploding spark. Be- sides these providential conditions, without and within the man, there was, we believe, a cause from beyond himself. There was One who had not left comfortless the little band of stricken, despair- ing followers, but had come unto them, had rallied them, had infused into them the power to make his cause after all victorious. There was the grace of God in Jesus Christ, who through death had over- come the power of death, and who now drew near once more to meet the need of our common human- ity, “groping after God” in the person of its great unconscious representative. The cause of Paul’s conversion was the grace of God in Jesus Christ, changing the ery of agony, “ Who shall deliver me,” on his very lips, into the sigh of utter grati- tude and peace: “I thank my God, through Jesug¥ Christ our Lord.” The Son of God had been revealed “in” Paul. oe per LECTURE III THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL AS A WORLD-RELIGION THE preceding lectures will have failed of their ob- ject if it has not already become in some measure apparent why Paul should speak of his conversion as if the very experience itself was a summons to proclaim Christ among the Gentiles.1 For reasons which have to do with the whole structure of the book— or rather of its principal Jewish-Christian source — Acts represents the mat- ter quite otherwise. As we shall see, its compiler manages for his own reasons to hold back this ac- tivity of Paul among the Gentiles until a period, 1 Gal. i. 15, “ God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb, and called me through his grace, revealed his Son in me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.”” Compare Eph. iii. 2-12. ‘‘There was given me a stewardship of the grace of God for you. The mystery hid in other generations from the sons of men was made known to me by revelation, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-par- takers of the promise (with Israel) in the person of Christ. . . . I was intrusted with the mission of preaching to Gentiles, to make all men —nay, the whole universe of intelligent beings, who be- hold the Church as the people of God’s new creation — under- stand the wisdom of God’s creative and proyidential working ” (paraphrased and abridged). THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL _ 69 estimated in other early Jewish-Christian writings at twelve years, during which Israel is to have the exclusive opportunity. Paul is a chosen vessel in- tended by the Lord ultimately to bear his name before Gentiles and kings. But if we ask why this was so, we can draw no conclusion from Luke’s con- flicting reports; for they are clearly not intended to record certain definite words or impressions on Saul’s sensorium, but to interpret for us his ex- perience in the light of his known career. Paul’s career as a missionary to the Gentiles does not begin, according to “ Luke,” until Barnabas and he are “set apart” under the church in Antioch, by special direction of the Spirit, for the work where- unto God was then calling them. (Acts xiii. 1-3.) It is when we turn to Paul’s autobiographic references, his allusions to his own state of mind before, and during, and after the great crisis, that we begin to realize why-it had for him the special sense of a mission to the Gentiles, and why he took the action that-at first sight appears so strange, of conducting as it were an independent mission, turn- ing his back not only on his own people, and Jerusa- lem, but even on “those that were Apostles before” him, and on “the churches of Judea that were in Christ.” Both Paul’s utterances and his silence are highly unfavorable to the idea that he had the conscious- 70 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ness of any spoken words of special commission, beyond those which related to his personal attitude toward the Nazarene: “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest; it is hard for thee to kick against the goad.” The rest of Luke’s report, which so widely varies in the parallel narratives, forms no part of the actual experience of the vision. For on the one hand it is noteworthy that Paul, in claiming for himself and Barnabas the exclusive field of the Gentile world, does not urge that Jesus had so directed, but that God had wrought in him to this end, as he had wrought in Peter toward a different end, and had confirmed the providential predispo- sition by the abundant fruits he had enabled Paul to reap. On the other hand, any supposition of a spoken direction to go to the Gentiles becomes wholly superfluous when we realize the significance, as Paul himself looks at it, of the original reve- lation of the Son of God in him. As we have seen, Paul had been brought to Christ by a totally different road from Peter and the older Apostles. There is not the slightest indi- cation that they had ever concerned themselves about Adam and original sin, or the antithesis of flesh and spirit. They certainly were in no agony of soul over natural inability and the requirement of righteousness, the doom of humanity through the irrepressible conflict of the “‘ law of sin in the mem- THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 7i bers warring against the law of the mind.” This was probably “all Greek” to them, even if they felt some general sympathy with it. Of course their Messianic hope had its ethical and religious aspects. They were not mere zealots, though one of them bears the cognomen. They were of those who had gone out along with the pub- licans and sinners to John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, because they were quite aware that from the standpoint of strict legalism they were by no means ready for the coming Messianic kingdom, which would be initiated by a “ gather- ing out ” from the Elect People “ of all things that offend.” They knew it could be given only to a righteous people, and they knew well enough that they were not “righteous.” Their simple, unsophis- ticated conscience joyfully responded to the simpler “hicher law” of the Sermon on the Mount. As against the scrupulous, pettifogging, minute casuis- try which constituted the righteousness of scribes and Pharisees, it was indeed an easy yoke, and gave them rest for their heavy-laden souls. Jesus indeed made no concealment of the fact that this inner standard was in reality more exacting than that of scribe and Pharisee; but the question of moral ability or inability never obtrudes itself upon their horizon. The “new commandment” was certainly as much simpler as it was truer to man’s moral 72 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL sense; and the God in whose name it was given ~ was set forth not as an inexorable taskmaster and judge, but as a Father in Heaven. That made the keeping of it immeasurably more hopeful for the common man. If all the commandment was summed up in the twofold law of love, and to ob- serve this was “ much more than all whole burnt offering and sacrifice,” then the preaching of the Prophet of Nazareth was indeed glad tidings: for the lowly, however indignant those who conceived themselves to “need no repentance” might be to see the loosing of the “ heavy burdens and grievous to be borne ” of scribal imposition. Thus when the campaign of education in Galilee had been forcibly ended, and Jesus, ready for a last effort at Jerusalem, disclosed the real nature of his mission, something had undoubtedly been accom- plished to emphasize the religious and ethical side of his disciples’ anticipations of the Messianic king- dom. Peter and the rest did not conceive it in the crudely material and political sense that they might have done without their year or more of association with One to whom its essential content was the filial relation of each individual in it to the Heavenly Father. Nothing, however, can be more certain than that Peter and James and John —and, if these, then certainly the rest — expected an actual reénthrone- ment of the Davidic dynasty in the person of Jesus, —_ THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 73 the “restoration of the kingdom to Israel,’ the beginning of a new political and social order, with the poor getting their rights in domestic affairs, “the last first,’ and a similar reversal of fortune in the relative position of Israel and the Gentiles. They would not even admit the prospect of failure and martyr-death of which Jesus forewarned them. They believed the kingdom of God was immediately to appear, and were correspondingly despairing when the catastrophe came, when there was no uprising even of the Galilean multitude, to say nothing of the divine intervention on which Jesus had taught them rather to rely. That was a catastrophe indeed; but it had the effect which other catastrophes had had before in Israel’s religious history. Faith rose from it purified and spiritualized. The teaching of Jesus came back to mind and was read in a new light. Their hearts burned within them as they read in the Scriptures that these things must needs be so, and that ‘* Mes- siah must through suffering enter into his glory.” The Messianic kingdom as they conceived it now was both postponed and spiritualized. The cost was fearful, but as Jesus had foreseen, the gain was in- estimable. The Messianic kingdom was postponed, but not for long. A brief period must intervene wherein opportunity of repentance should be given to Israel, so unready for the crisis; yes, and to 74 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ‘“‘all that are afar off, even as many as the Laat our God shall call.” The same prophecy, in fact, which furnished the Church with its first explanation of the tragedy of the cross, is also that which alone in Jewish litera- ture conceives of Jehovah’s suffering Servant as set for “a light to lighten the Gentiles.” 1 It was also spiritualized. The Twelve were conscious now that they had been “considering the things that be of men.” They could not but realize, after their own cowardly flight, how ill prepared were even they themselves for the Messianic kingdom. Looked at in the perspective of Calvary, it seemed not only a broader, but a more spiritual thing. The king was no longer a Son of David in the flesh, but the Danielic Son of man revealed in the glory of God, now visibly conqueror of death. Yes, there was deep need in themselves, as well as in Israel, to repent and be baptized every one of them for the remission of their sins. In fact, right here was the explanation so sorely needed of that dark day of Calvary. The Christ had suffered for them, “ the 1 On the influence of Deutero-Isaiah in determining the wider outlook of Jesus’ followers after his death, see Chase, Credibility of Acts, Lecture II. No better commentary on the real sense of this aspect of the Isaian doctrine of the Servant can be had than the paraphrase in Apocalypse of Baruch, i. 4, quoted by Chase: “I will scatter this people among the Gentiles that they may do doar to the Gentiles.” THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 75 chastisement of their peace was laid upon him.” } If, therefore, Israel would now repent and turn again _ from their sins, God would soon “send the ap- pointed Christ, even Jesus, whom the heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began.” Such is the preaching of Peter as we learn it from the early chapters of Acts. Certainly it con- tains the germs of those great doctrines of vicari- ous atonement and universality of redemption, which, as already shown, were destined to bring Christianity into the position of a new way of sal- vation, a rival to Judaistic legalism, yes, even to transcend the mother-faith by becoming a world- religion. Certainly the germs; but certainly no more than the germs: and these quite uncon- sciously to Peter and the Eleven. We look in vain. through all these early exhortations for the faintest trace of the Pauline Christology, the doctrine of a Second Adam, delivering humanity from the curse of Eden, Messiah conceived as the archetypal, spir- itual Man, the dvOpwros éroupavios, the preéxistent One “ made in the form of God,” who enters into humanity as the God-sent spiritual reénforcement without which its struggle of spirit against flesh is 1 Cf. 1 Pet. ii. 21-24. 76 THE STORY OF ST PAUL ie . ho. It a conflict of despair issuing in eternal deat is not the Christianity of Peter, nor even the Chris- tianity of Peter plus that of Stephen, to which Paul was converted.) Their Christ was still pri- marily the Son of David,? in whom was to be ful- filled at last, now that a righteous, or at least a repentant, forgiven and justified people are pre- pared for him, “the oath which God sware unto Abraham our father, that we, being delivered out of the hand of all our enemies, should serve him in holiness and righteousness all our days.” Even the Danielic figure of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven recedes into the background and gives place to that of the Prophet like unto Moses, or the suffering Servant of Jehovah. Paul’s Christ was the Son of God, Head of a new humanity, be- 1 The remark is just that in Paul the self-designation of Jesus, “Son of man,” which would be unintelligible to his Greek con- verts, unfamiliar as they were with the apocalyptie terminology, is changed to &y@pwmos émoupdyios, “ heavenly man,” a conception readily intelligible to readers familiar with the Platonic-Stoic con- ception of the ideal or divine man in whom spirit and the “ law of the mind” haye won their complete victory over “ desire’ and the fleshly tenement of decay. On the other hand, it is equally re- markable that in the non-Pauline church the title “Son of man” is simply dropped. Once, in his supreme moment, it appears on the lips of Stephen (Acts vii. 56). After that it is completely lost. The disappearance coincides with the transformation of the prim- itive eschatology, already traceable in Mk. xiii. when compared with Mt. xxiv. 2 Cf. Acts ii. 25-52. THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 17 ginning of the second, spiritual creation, ‘a life- giving spirit,” through whom the inheritance of sin and death entailed through the first Adam “ of the earth earthy” is overcome. This is a “ Deliverer God,” who gives meaning to the ancient maxim *“ Out of death life: into life death,” inasmuch as it is by an ethical participation in his obedience unto death that we human slaves of flesh and sin become sharers also of his resurrection and eternal life of glory. Paul’s Christology includes Peter’s, but Peter’s is very far, as yet at least, from includ- ing Paul’s. This archetypal “ heavenly man,” this glorious One, revealed as conqueror over death, having exchanged the body of his humiliation for one whose glory outshines sun and stars, is indeed no other than that same Jesus whom Paul had been persecuting. Historically he is the Messiah of Israel, “‘ born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” but now revealed by the power of the resur- rection to Paul as how much more! The preéxist- ent Son of God, the Redeemer of humanity! Over- whelmed by this larger insight, was Paul to go and put himself under the instruction of those who were Apostles before him? No, Paul knew well enough, though he does not say it, that they had far more to learn of him than he of them, as to the real sig- nificance of Jesus’ Messiahship. They could tell him nothing that he did not know before of a Mes- 78 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL siahship after the flesh.1 He had all too much for them to take in of the larger revelation, the redemp- tion of humanity by a Christ in whom, since he is the archetypal divine man, “ there can be neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, neither male nor fe- male,” but all, “ circumcision and uncireumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freemen, are one new man in Christ Jesus.” As Paul had come to his gospel and his Christ along a totally different road, and yet his Christ was the same Jesus, only far more profoundly and broadly conceived, both in the significance of his teaching and of his life; so the need which was met by this gospel was not the mere hope of Israel, but the hope of the world. Peter’s gospel was the promise to Abraham and his seed, together with such from those that were afar off as the Lord, Abraham’s God, should call to lay hold upon the skirts of him that is a Jew. Paul’s is to the chil- dren of Adam. Nay, Paul’s conception of redemp- tion goes even back of Adam to the creation itself, subject as it is, not willingly, nor for its fault, to “‘ vanity,” the creation that groans in its bondage waiting for the manifestation of the new humanity, the sons of God. That which in other generations was not made known unto tlie sons of men, namely, the meaning of existence, the purpose of God in 1 2 Cor. v. 16. THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 79 creation and history, redemption, had been revealed to him, Paul, by the vision of “the Man that is to be,” the type and head of a spiritual humanity, vic- torious over sin and flesh and death, the whole curse entailed from Eden. He is the Alpha as arche- type, the Omega as heir and lord of the creation. How could Paul, after such a revelation, go to men whose ideas of Christ as a Jewish Messiah he knew to be incomparably more limited than his own? How could he lay before them, in the attitude of a neophyte and learner, the gospel which had been delivered to him by the act of God from heaven, but which they could not possibly appreciate as he did? Rather, as Jesus after the vision at Jordan was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, Saul “conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before him, but went away into Arabia,” where Elijah had sought communion with God, and thence returned to begin his task among the Gentiles, where the word of Christ had “ apprehended ” him, at Damascus. Besides, the great new truths that were seething in Paul’s soul and struggling for utterance would have a poor reception in Israel. The gospel he had received was a gospel for the Gentile world, and one which only the Gentile world could easily tolerate. It met the need not of the Jew as such, 80 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL but of our common humanity. It taught “a right- eousness of God by faith unto faith,” beside which that of the Law was ‘in vain.” It “ destroyed the Temple” by teaching “access for Jew and Gen- tile in one Spirit unto the Father;” for union with Christ in ethical death and resurrection was entrance into the filial relation. To offer these ideas to Israel Paul knew to be worse than hope- less. It would only carry discord into the bosom of the infant Church. Finally, here were all the Twelve binding their united efforts to win tht lost sheep of the house of Israel, and he alone had felt and realized the cry of the vast world outside, “ oroping after God, if haply they might feel after him and find him.” “ Hopeless, lifting blinded eyes _To the silence of the skies.” If, like the Master he now served, he would ‘call not the righteous but sinners,” where should Paul turn, save to “ the world that lieth in wicked- ness” under the gloom of the impending “ wrath of God”? Hence it was not until after three years of missionary labor that Paul made his one brief and furtive visit to Jerusalem to draw on Peter’s stores of personal recollection of the Lord. It is true that the Book of Acts takes for granted that from the very outset the Twelve re- garded themselves as commissioned to the whole THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 81 world. From the very day of the resurrection the little company assembled in Jerusalem stand ready for the work of witnesses “in Jerusalem and Ju- dza and Samaria, and unto the uttermost: parts of the earth.” The earlier representations of Matthew and Mark notwithstanding, the Jerusalem com- munity thus appears as constant from the very start. There was no scattering of the sheep when the shepherd was smitten.1 They did not return to Galilee. Quietly waiting in Jerusalem for the pro- mise of the Father, they contemplated from the start the broadest horizon, and carried the work in widening circles to the very ends of the earth. In _ conformity with this conception of the Apostles, Acts has no idea whatever of admitting Paul’s claim to be the one appointed by God an Apostle to the Gentiles, even as Peter to the Circumcision. On the contrary, with absolute distinctness and explicitness this book makes Peter say at the council in Jerusalem, ‘“‘ Brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel and believe.” Yet this, be it understood, is the very same occasion as to which Paul himself reports that he convinced the pillar Apostles, Peter, James, and John, that “as God 1 This certainly authentic saying of Jesus on the night of Geth- semane is omitted in Luke’s gospel. 82 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL had wrought in Peter for an apostleship to the circumcision, so God had wrought in him, Paul, for an apostleship to the Gentiles.” He even tells us that thereupon they exchanged a solemn pledge by the right hand of covenant that Peter and the rest should go to the Jews, and he and Barnabas to the Gentiles! It is the same exaltation of the original Twelve which accounts for the extraordinary contradictions of Paul in Acts ix. where Paul begins his ministry in Jerusalem under tutelage of the Twelve, sent forth by them to Tarsus, and thence brought back by Barnabas to Antioch, whence Barnabas and Saul — not Saul and Barnabas — are at last, some twelve to fourteen years after Paul’s conversion, after due and careful preparation, fasting, and prayer, set apart by the church in Antioch, by direction of the Spirit, for the special work of a mission among the Gentiles. This, of course, is considerably after the time when all the questions pertaining to Gentile missions, including even that about eating together, which made the trouble at Antioch described in Gal. ii. 10-21, have been settled by Peter in the test case of Cornelius. Then Paul is permitted to take up his career. But not as if he were at all on an equality with the Twelve. Far from it. Only once does Acts allow him the title of “apostle” at all, and then THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 83 only in the broader sense of delegate, and as sharer in it with Barnabas, his fellow-delegate from the church in Antioch. At Lystra, we are told, “‘when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul [not yet Paul and Barnabas], heard [of the proposed wor- ship] they rent their garments,” and tried to stop it. Tn all the other twenty-nine cases of Acts, the word “apostle” is strictly reserved for the holy Twelve. Indeed, the author shows how impossible it would be for him to admit Paul to that circle, where he describes how they selected a successor to Judas. Peter says, “Of the men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the bap- tism of John . . . of these one must be chosen.” So the Eleven, in genuine Jewish fashion, cast lots, and made up their minds that the Lord had chosen Matthias ; but the Lord preferred to choose for himself, and he selected Paul. Acts does reluctantly permit us to see that there may have been some as it were irregular and unauthorized conversions of Gentiles before Peter 1 The narrower sense is a specialization which as late as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (120 a.p.) has not yet displaced the general meaning of “delegate.” In Paul, Luke, and Revelation ce “apostle of the Lord” is often shortened to simple “apostle,” especially where the sense is made clear by “the twelve” or otherwise. Paul also speaks, however, of Silas, of Andronicus and ” He himself is “an apostle, not of men, nor through a man, but of God.” Junias, and perhaps of James, as “ apostles. 84 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL was divinely commissioned to Cornelius. The Sa- maritans, who stood halfway between Jew and heathen, were converted by Philip, Stephen’s fellow evangelist. However, the matter was at once taken in control by the Apostles, who sent down Peter and John from Jerusalem, and the gift of tongues and other manifestations of the Spirit were reserved until after the imposition of the Apostles’ hands. This same precipitate Philip also converted and baptized an Ethiopian eunuch; but he was already a convert to Judaism, and not strictly a heathen.t Philip actually passes through the Philistine cities to Czsarea, and is on the very point of found- ing the church there in the capital of the procura- tordom of Galilee, Samaria, and Judza, when Luke breaks off from the source he is here following to introduce Peter and Cornelius in the nick of time. The really reckless ones were some unknown adherents of the radical Stephen that were scat- . tered abroad at the time of Stephen’s martyrdom, and while their activity is not related until after the episode of Cornelius, and the author of Acts is careful to insist that “ they spake the word to none save only to Jews,” in the next breath he takes it back and admits that “there were some of them, men of Cyprus [Barnabas was of Cyprus] and Cyrene [Lucius, one of the leading spirits at 1 The question of circumcision could not, of course, be raised. THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 85 Antioch was of Cyrene], who when they were come to Antioch spake unto the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.” The text is given as it stands in all the best and most ancient manuscripts, in spite of its making nonsense. The Hellenists were Greek-speaking Jews, and nobody could have the slightest objec- tion to Jews hearing the Gospel. Therefore the later manuscripts and modern versions, as our own Authorized and Revised, correct to “ Hellenes;”’ but Hellenists is what the author wrote. “For the reason he changed “ Hellenes ” to “ Hellenists” is because he could not permit unknown, obscure fugi- tives from the persecution that arose about Stephen to rob Peter of the honor of being the first to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles. The source must have had «Hellenes,” as the sense requires ; the editor is responsible for the text as it stands. In reality God’s providence did not wait upon the caution of Peter and the Eleven. The Gos- pel spread in a dozen directions; and earnest men, especially those of the school of Stephen and 1 Chase, Credibility of Acts, p. 83, admits ‘EAAnvicrds to be the true reading, as one would expect from a textual critic of such unquestioned merit. He seems on the point of pronouncing a purely scientific judgment, when suddenly, without other ostensi- ble reason than to smooth the difficulty he proposes, confessedly without one shred of manuscript evidence, to strike out the inconvenient kal ! 86 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Philip, did not stop to ask whether a man was a Jew or not, before they told him the story of the cross. Long before the comparatively heavy-witted Galileans had begun to think of looking beyond their petty province, and Peter had won the con- vert that seemed to him and the Jerusalem church of such epoch-making importance,! Paul had begun systematic and vigorous labor, on a purely univer- salistic basis, at Damascus. Certainly not much later, perhaps even earlier, the unknown fugitives of Acts xi. 20 had planted a free non-legalistic gospel in Antioch, the vast Greek metropolis of Syria. The new sect received there the designa- tion “ Christians,” while elsewhere they were either not differentiated at all from other Jews, or were known as Nazarenes or Galileans. The invention of the new name alone would prove that others than Jews were included, even did we not have Gal. ii. 12, 13, with its plain reference to a Jewish and a Gentile element there. Thus Antioch, at least 1 Cornelius is to the church of Cxsarea (next to Jerusalem, or even beyond it, in importance) what Sergius Paulus is to that of Paphos, the jailer to Philippi, Clement (early identified with Flavius Clemens of the imperial family) to Rome, Andronicus to Ephesus, tc. Tradition associated the founding of the churches with important converts. The simpler account of Acts viii. 40, with no mention of Cornelius, is of course historically preferable ; especially as the Diary in Acts xxi. 8 shows Philip still in Cxsarea and the host of Paul. In later legend Peter supplants in similar fashion the actual founders of the church in Rome. THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 87 a partially Gentile church, became a second cradle of the faith, which already was threatening to become something far more important than a mere new sect of Judaism. Meantime Paul was at work in Damascus. We know he was there as late as the year 38, because a stray fragment, Pauline, but apparently out of connection with its context, in 2 Cor. xi. 32, 33, tells us he escaped in a basket let down through a window over the city wall, escaping “the ethnarch under Aretas the king.” No mere commercial re- presentative, or, as we should call him, “ consul,” of a petty Arabian prince could guard a Roman frontier city to prevent the escape of a free Roman citizen! The ethnarch was indeed “ governor under Aretas the king,” as our Revised Version reads; but we have reason to believe that Damascus was a Roman city until, in all probability, Caligula, in the second year of his reign,” readjusting the fron- tiers of the East, presented it to Aretas, toward whom he had the same reasons for friendly feeling as his predecessor, Tiberius, for hostile. Paul’s 1 O. Holtzmann, in his Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, seeks to avoid the difficulty by this rendering of e@vapxos. 2 Suetonius, Calig. xvi. 8 Tiberius’ command to Vitellius, proconsul of Syria, to take Aretas, dead or alive, was prevented from execution only by the news of Tiberius’ death, which reached Vitellius in Jerusalem in April, a. D. 37. ‘a 88 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL escape from Damascus, accordingly, which Luke places almost immediately after his conversion, before the news of it has reached Jerusalem, can- not have been earlier than 38, and may haye been several years later. Paul’s conversion was certainly not later than/36, when Caiaphas was deposed, and probably was several years earlier. This incident belongs, accordingly, not before, but after Paul’s furtive two weeks’ visit to Jerusalem. We must place it in the period of missionary activity con- cerning which we know nothing except the bare statement of Gal. i. 22-24, that he “ came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,” working, it would seem, northwestward from Damascus, on the south- eastern border of Syria, toward his native province. Either thirteen or fifteen years were spent in this mission field, Paul preaching his gospel of re- demption for Jew and Gentile without the yoke of the law, “unknown by face to the churches of Judza which were in Christ,” but believing: him- self to be fundamentally in accord with them, and they on their part praising God for what little they heard of his activity, that he was now preach- ing the same faith he once persecuted. It was a career of hardship, suffering, adventure : fightings without, cares, anxieties, burdens within, lit up, however, by glorious revelations and visions of the Lord, including one more fully described in THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 89 2 Cor. xii. 1-4, wherein he was caught up seem- ingly to the third heaven! and heard unutterable things. This experience Paul dates ‘‘ above fourteen years before,” 7. e. A. D. 40, when he was “in the regions of Syria and Cilicia.” It was offset by a recurrent and distressing malady. Five times dur- ing this earlier missionary career Paul suffered the Mosaic scourging of the synagogue, once or more beatings by the Roman lictors’ rods. Three times , »/ he suffered shipwreck, once spending a whole night’ and day in the deep, in perils by rivers, by robbers, by his fellow countrymen, by Gentiles, by false brethren, from the city, the wilderness, the sea. Of all this we know nothing save the bare facts. What Luke has to tell us is almost worse than nothing, for it is manifestly inaccurate, and is dom- inated by his ruling idea of the Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem as the sole “ board of commissioners for foreign missions.” He knows of the escape from Damascus, though not when it occurred, and that is all. As for Paul’s independent missionary career of some fifteen years, he simply excludes it altogether. He knows that when Paul came to Antioch, which became his base for the so-called First Missionary Journey, with its momentous con- 1 Current apocalypse conceived of seven heavens, the “ Para- dise’’ visited by Panl in the spirit, the place of departed saints, being placed by some in the fourth, some in the third, as here. 90 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL sequences, he came there from Cilicia. We have no reason to question the fact that Tarsus was Paul’s headquarters at the time. That is Luke’s one historical datum. To interpret the narrative of Acts by itself alone, however, would involve an utterly false conception. We should think of Paul not as avoiding Jerusalem and the apostolic body, to pursue an independent course as God’s envoy to the Gentiles, but as going to Jerusalem, after “a number of days,” so soon as he had “ confounded the Jews which dwelt in Damascus” and escaped their rage, and as there introduced by Barnabas} to the frightened apostolic body, with an account of his conversion. We should think of him as “ going in and out with the Twelve, boldly preach- ing in the name of the Lord,” in particular taking up the work of Stephen among the Hellenists (Jews), until at last, after some ten years, per- haps, plots of the Jews against his life compel the church dignitaries to “send him away” to his native city, there apparently to wait until called for. Of his taking it into his head even at this time to start a Gentile mission there is not the slightest idea. All that must wait for Peter to begin in the tenth chapter with the episode of Cor- nelius. There, for the first time, by direct divine 1 Paul seems to have been really introduced to the church in Antioch by Barnabas. THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 91 revelation, the discovery is made to Peter, and by him made known to the Church, that “to the Gentiles also God hath granted repentance unto life.” If we turn from this thoroughly Jewish-Christian account in Acts ix. 1—-xi. 18 to one which stands nearer to Paul in Acts xxii., we shall find a little more initiative allowed to Paul, a little less of the Twelve directing and “sending” him to his work, a little more of his receiving a commission directly from Christ himself, and that, too, a commission specifically to the Gentiles, in spite of the fact that by putting this and that together the reader may infer that the Cornelius incident is still in the future. Acts xxii. knows of no actual work of Paul in Jerusalem. Before he has a chance to begin it, he has a trance, as he is praying in the temple, in which Jesus appears and tells him to go to the Gentiles. Paul is quite surprised to be told that the Jews will not listen to him, so that clearly he knows nothing of the plot against his life of ix. 29. To all appearance, this is the first suggestion that has come to him of an apostle- ship to the Gentiles, in spite of ix. 15. For surely we are not intended to understand that Paul per- sisted in keeping to his own plan in spite of the vision; but the alternative is to recognize that the two accounts are not in accord. Chapter xxii. 92 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL represents a partial adjustment of chapter xxvi. to the Jewish-Christian narrative of chapter ix. Paul is still baptized by Ananias and does take his original commission from him. On the other hand, he does not work in Jerusalem under direction of the Apostles. He receives a new commission from Jesus himself, which diverts him from his intended course of evangelistic work. In reality, as we have seen, Paul was not intro- duced to the Twelve at all. He purposely kept out of their way and worked independently. Once during his fifteen years of missionary activity ex- tending from Damascus to Tarsus, and covering the two great provinces of Syria and Cilicia, he made a furtive visit of two weeks to Peter in Jerusalem; but he had the best of reasons for making it strictly incognito. His life was far from safe in Jerusalem, and while he had less to fear at this time than later from “false brethren,” not one of the Christian community saw him but Peter and James. ' With all Paul’s zeal and activity in Syria and Cilicia, it was the day of small things. Had he been able to work upon the scale of later times, the churches of Christ in Judea would have taken the alarm much sooner than they did. Tradition, doubt- less, would also have had something more to tell of that great period of which Paul gives us a THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 93 glimpse in 2 Cor. xi. 23-27. That which made a tremendous change both in the scale of Paul’s mis- sion work and, partly as a consequence, in the rela- tion of it to the Jerusalem disciples, was the coming of Barnabas to Antioch. Antioch, as we have seen, had a Christian com- munity of mixed type. It was not of Paul’s found- ing, and in accordance with the rule which he tells us in Rom. xv. 20 he had always followed, for which indeed he had more than one excellent reason, he did not at first identify himself with it. His rule was to “ preach where Christ had not so much as been named, and not to build on another man’s foundation.” Here, as later at Ephesus and at Rome, Paul felt a reluctance to enter, though the church had certainly liberal tendencies, and the city was the great metropolis of his mission field. The first suspicions at Jerusalem that the bars were being let down too easily to the Gentile world were not provoked by the smaller cities, where Paul was laboring. For Paul’s practice was to be ‘“‘to them that are under the Law as under the Law, and to them that are without the Law as without it,” and he was doubtless at this time quite as solicitous as later to ‘“‘ give no offense either to Jews or Gen- tiles, or to the Church of God.” Antioch gave them rise, and the Jerusalem authorities, it must be con- fessed, showed the greatest wisdom and tolerance 94 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ' in the type of man whom they selected to send thither as their representative. Himself, like Paul, a Hellenist, Barnabas was both broad-minded and devoutly consecrated. He was a Levite, a brother of that Mary, mother of John Mark, in whose house the Church had been wont to meet, in all probability from the very night when Jesus had gone forth from it to his betrayal, when the boy Mark, roused from his bed by the approach of the traitor’s posse, had fled, covered only with the bed-linen, to give the alarm in Gethsemane. Barnabas himself had been the owner of a field near Jerusalem, which he sold to cast the proceeds into the common purse. His devotion accordingly could not be questioned in Jerusalem; but he was also of Greek birth, “a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and faith.” Consequently, “‘ when he came to Antioch and had seen the grace of God,” he made no scruples of approving the work. Heartily he cast in his lot with them, “and much people were added to the Lord,” of course by no means all Jews. By far the most important step which Barnabas took is related in the following verse: “ He went forth to Tarsus to seek for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.” 4 1 In the text of Acts followed by the English versions this pas- sage is brought into agreement with the statements of Acts ix. 30, that Paul had been ‘‘ sent to Tarsus” by “the brethren ; but THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 95 Nothing is told us of the first year of this mo- mentous partnership save a single incident; but that one is significant, and, moreover, it enables us to fix the date with accuracy. It was after the sud- den death of Herod Agrippa in the summer of 44. Poor Judea, after four years’ rejoicing under an independent sovereign who on his mother’s side was of the ancient Maccabzan stock, a Pharisee of the most ‘“‘ Pharisaic”” type, was reduced to the lowest scale of political humiliation by incorporation into the Roman province of Syria. The resistance of Theudas was quenched in blood by Cuspius Fadus, the new procurator, sent to take charge in 45. Then, famine supervening upon war, came the ter- rible drought which reached its culmination in the procuratorship of Tiberius Alexander, successor to Fadus, a. p. 46-48. It was specially remembered at Jerusalem for the benefactions of Queen Helena of Adiabene, a proselyte, who relieved the distress by sending a shipload of provisions from Cyprus. It was characteristic of men like Barnabas and Paul, that when certain prophets came down to Antioch from Jerusalem and made known the im- an important variant gives a reading in better agreement with the real historical conditions. “ And when he [Barnabas] heard that Saul was in Tarsus he went forth to seek him, and when he had come across him he entreated him to come to Antioch.” The real independence of Paul’s work here still shines through; but com- pare the common text. 96 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL pending distress,!— for when the fall rains fail, everybody in Palestine knows it means famine for the ensuing summer, — Paul and Barnabas should move the church to minister in carnal things to the church whence they had received their spiritual things. Luke is certainly mistaken again at this point. Either it was not Paul and Barnabas who administered, as he says, the relief in Jerusalem ; for Paul explicitly says he did not go to Jerusalem between the visit to get acquainted with Peter and that of the great conference as to circumcision ; or else the famine relief visit is the same as that of the conference, Luke being misled by the various interests of the sources he followed into relating them as two separate occasions. In the latter case we should probably adopt the view of Pfleiderer, very recently, but very positively put forth, that its date was before, not after, the so-called First Mis- sionary Journey. At all events, we may be sure that the year 46 or 47 was marked by this great act of fellowship between the centre of Gentile and the centre of Jewish Christianity “in the matter of 1 The statement of Luke that the famine extended “ over the whole world ”’ indicates, in conjunction with the very loose dating “in the days of Claudius,” how little knowledge he has of the facts. He is confounding the well-known-famine in Judza with the assiduae sterilitates in various parts of the world, for which the reign of Claudius was remembered because they led to the erection of the vast jetties and piers at Ostia. THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 97 giving and receiving.” In Acts it is made to take the place of the far more important one of Rom. xv. 25-28. It was not till a year later that an epoch-making enterprise was undertaken by the two kindred spirits who now appear as leaders among the “ prophets and teachers ”’ of the church in Antioch. For Bar- nabas heads the list of Acts xiii. 1; Paul, perhaps because a new-comer, is mentioned last. Still, we can hardly imagine his influence to have been sub- ordinate in the present plan; for the enterprise was nothing less than the organization of the first Christian foreign mission standing on a definite base. Indeed, if Pfleiderer’s view be adopted, Paul had paved the way for it first by a distinct under- standing with the “ pillar-apostles”’ in Jerusalem that “he and Barnabas should go unto the Gen- tiles.” At any rate, the church in Antioch, as such, formally commissioned two dzécroAo to carry the Gospel into Gentile territory. Barnabas and Saul were to go forth under formal sanction of the church, to do this work, and to report home to Antioch. “So then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” The missionaries set sail for Cyprus, the native province of Barnabas, “ being sent forth,” as Luke is careful to add, “ by the Holy Ghost ;” which means that the Antioch prophets and teachers 98 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL had signified in inspired utterance that the enter- prise was the work of God. Time forbids me to dwell upon a story that is familiar. In Acts xiii. and xiv. we have a full re- port of the great undertaking, which in one sense of the term well deserves its title of the “ First Mis- sionary Journey.” For the sudden expansion of the hitherto unaccountably meagre and _ ill-informed narrative of Acts is plainly connected with the central theme of the book now treated in chapter xv., the decision of “the Apostles and Elders” in Jeru- salem on the question of the terms of admission. Luke has reached the point at last where his ideas of propriety permit him to tell about the conversion of Gentiles. One of the principal reasons, indeed, for identifying the Galatian churches, so markedly involved in the great battle that now broke out between Paul and the conservatives of Jerusalem, with those of Derbe and Lystra, Ieonium and Antioch in Pisidia, founded on this journey, is that the, circumstances of their origin are related in Acts xiii._xiv. so fully, and in such immediate relation to the story of the controversy in Acts xv. ; whereas if these are not the principal representa- tives of “ the churches of Galatia,” Luke has passed by entirely the founding of this historically most important of all the great Pauline provincial churches, to dwell at great length on certain others THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 99 which had comparatively little to do with the great struggle. Besides, the indications of the Epistle, as well, are such as point to this same journey. True, Luke speaks of Derbe and Lystra as cities of Lycaonia, and of Antioch as “in Pisidia,” but all had been for seventy-five years cities of the Roman province of Galatia when Paul wrote; and Paul’s practice differs from Luke’s in that he in- variably uses the Roman geographical divisions. Pisidia and Lycaonia had no existence on the Roman map. By what common term, forsooth, could Paul address these many churches, except, “Galatians”?! Is he to say, “O ye Pisidians, Phrygians, and Ly- caonians, why are ye so foolish?” Is it probable that an attack of debilitating illness? suggested to him a foot-journey over the sparsely peopled plains of North Galatia, among a population where the very language would be unintelligible to him save in the few large cities ? You will find great names, from Lightfoot to Holtzmann, Schmiedel and Schirer with arguments far too elaborate for con- sideration here, in favor of the so-called North- Galatian theory. This theory demands a journey to Pessinus, Ancyra, and Tavium of which Acts knows nothing, but for which a crevice is pried open in Acts xvi. 6. For my own part, I must hold to the view of Renan, Hausrath, and Pfleiderer, 1 Gal. iii. 1. 2 Gal. iv. 18. 100 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL recently reinforced by Ramsay and the weightier names of English scholarship, which regards our Epistle to the Galatians as addressed in the first instance to Derbe and Lystra, Iconium and Antioch in Pisidia, with such other churches of this region of “ Phrygian Galatia” and “ Galatian Phrygia” as had subsequently received the Gospel.} v I must again refer to the story of Acts xiii.—xiv. for the trials and successes of the little party. To repeat the story of the voyage from Seleucia, port of Antioch, to Cyprus, of the preaching “in the synagogues of the Jews’ throughout the island, from Salamis to Paphos, where Sergius Paulus the proconsul becomes the first Gentile convert, of the plunging still deeper into Gentile territory, crossing from Paphos to Perga on the south coast of Asia Minor and striking up into the interior (as Ramsay thinks because of malarial fever contracted by Paul on the miasmatic coast, and referred to in Gal. iv. 13 as the occasion of his visit) of the great results among the Gentiles at Antioch in Pisidia, to tell of the riot in Iconium, the healing of a paralytic in Lystra, followed first by attempted deification then by stoning, of the return through Pisidia, Pam- phylia, and Attalia, and so by sea to Antioch, would be to repeat a familiar story already retold with Zahn has adopted the South Galatian theory with this amend- ment, in his Hinleitung, 1897. THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 101 new significance in the interesting reports of Ram- say's exploration and research. We must look at the enterprise from the point of view of the movers; and thus seen it is apparent that there were two partners in the undertaking, of whom Barnabas and those whom he represented furnished the capital and authority, and Paul the experience. Mark, nephew of the senior partner, was the “Company.” Partnerships of this sort are said to dissolve frequently with the capitalist having the experience and the other man the capital. This partnership too was soon dissolved. In the Second Missionary Journey, if Jerusalem or Antioch are represented, it is in a minor capacity. Meantime it is no discredit to Paul that when they started out, it was “ Barnabas and Saul ;” when they left Cyprus after converting Sergius Paulus, it was “ Paul and his company;” and when they returned from Galatia and forever after (except in the letter of commen- dation which “the Apostles and elder brethren” in Jerusalem are graciously pleased to bestow‘), it is “ Paul and Barnabas.” It is not strange that a comparatively full flood 1 Tt argues a lack of the sense of congruity when those familiar with Paul’s feeling toward men who required of him credentials, and to show “ letters of commendation, as do some,” accept with- out question the statement of Acts xvi. 4, that Paul went about his own previously founded churches of Galatia delivering this document. 102 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL of light begins at this point in Acts to be thrown upon the career of Paul. Doubtless when the story was written, traditions, if not actual records, could be had at Jerusalem! and Antioch of its general results. There are even scholars who maintain, on the basis of a variant reading in Acts xi. 28, “ And there was great joy; and as we were assembled,” that the diary of Paul’s unknown companion is al- ready brought into use even here. In reality, the reading only shows that the tradition of the Antio- chian origin of Luke, which itself has very inse- cure foundation,? was current at the time when the scribe who originated this reading copied his manu- seript. The account of Acts xiii._xiv. has slight resemblance to the diary. It is full, but not free from legend. The story of Elymas the sorcerer dis- plays but one of many variant forms of an ancient theme ;* in its present form, it cannot be strictly 1 On the assumption that Acts xiii—xiv. belong chronologically after Acts xv., the letter of commendation of xy. 24-27 correspond- ing to the formal agreement of Gal. ii. 9, we should expect tradi- tions, if not records, in Jerusalem also of this journey ; ef. Acts xiii. 13. 2 Tt has been traced by some scholars to the mere resemblance of the name to Lucius of Cyrene, one of the Antiochian leaders. 3 The duel of signs between the true and the false prophet in presence of some heathen potentate is as old as the story of Moses and Aaron confuting the Egyptian magicians before Pharaoh. Its favorite form in early Christian romance is the dispute between Simon Peter and Simon Magus before Nero, Simon Magus in the THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 103 historical. The speech placed in Paul’s mouth at Pisidian Antioch cannot be more than the historian’s attempt to tell what Paul might have said; for as a whole it simply rehearses the speech of Peter at Pentecost, with a few variations, some of which re- mind us of the speech,of Stephen. At all events, it is quite un-Pauline, and contains not one trait of his characteristic gospel, least of all in xiii. 39.1 Verses 27-87, on the other hand, give the same arguments, based on the same scripture proof-texts already employed by Peter. The speech in Lystra also, Acts xiv. 14-17, is scarcely more than an abstract of the literature of the rabidly anti-Pauline sects actually being deline- ated in traits unmistakably intended to suggest the Apostle Paul. In apocalyptic literature Enoch and Elias, or, as in Rey. xi. 3-13, Moses and Elias, are withstood by the false prophet “as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses,’’ until he is overcome by miraculous power. It has even been plausibly suggested that the temporarily inflicted blindness of Elymas the sorcerer, who called himself Bar- Jesus, and who when the mist and darkness fell upon him went about ‘‘ seeking some to lead him by the hand” (xe1paydéyous), is but an inverted echo of Saul himself, depicted in some caricature of Acts ix. 3-9, like that of the Clementine romances, as smitten with his temporary blindness because he was “ full of all guile and all villany, a son of the Devil, an enemy of all righteousness, who ceased not to pervert the right ways of the Lord.” 1 The language of xiii. 39 is claimed as Pauline because of the single word ‘‘ justify.” The doctrine is exactly that which Paul fundamentally repudiates, and which in Gal. ii. 15-21 he demon- strates against Peter to be untenable, namely, that a man may rest upon the works of the law for his general justification, and tely on the death of Christ to make up deficiencies. 104 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL sermon on Mars Hill. I am afraid we must even make some further discount from Luke’s narrative in its representation of the scrupulous care taken by the missionaries always to present the Gospel first to the Jews, and not until these have obstinately put it from them to turn solemnly to the Gentiles. As this same stereotyped procedure is gone through with on every single occasion, even in Rome, where there was before Paul’s arrival a large and flourish- ing Christian community, a general review of Acts compels us to regard it as belonging largely to the pragmatism of the historian, who is profoundly in- terested to show that the Christians are the true heirs of the promise; while the obstinate and stiff- necked Jews, having rejected and slain the Mes- siah, bring thus to fulfillment the so often quoted plaint of Isaiah against the willfully unbelieving. There is no need to doubt that the missionaries habitually sought the synagogue as the fulerum of their work in every place; but they were certainly not engaged in a search for “ the lost sheep of the hoyse of Israel” as their main object, and to im- agine Paul, already for some fifteen years zealously fulfilling his calling of God to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, obliged now in every city to wait until the Jews have definitively rejected it before he feels justified in “turning to the Gentiles,” is to make 1 See Is. vi. 9-10 as quoted e. g. in Acts xxyiii. 25-28. THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 105 him constantly repeat a solemn farce. The whole ex- pedition was a “ turning to the Gentiles,” or rather a raising to tenfold greater efficiency of a work among the Gentiles to which Paul had given him- self heart and soul some fifteen years before, and for which he had now obtained the support of the church in Antioch, if not that of Jerusalem as well. These are pretty serious exceptions to take to the aceuracy of Luke’s story of the First Missionary Journey ; and yet, in spite of all, the light it sheds isinvaluable. It shows us the Syrian church, by this great enterprise of Barnabas and Paul, giving prac- tical realization to the dream of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. Antioch, where those of the new faith “‘ were first called Christians,” had become the cradle of a new world-religion. That is the signifi- cance of the First Missionary Journey. As might have been expected, when the mis- sionaries reported on their return a Roman pro- consul converted, two entire new Gentile provinces added to the Lord, whole churches entirely made up of Gentile members, “ rehearsed,” in short, “all things that God had done with them and how he had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles,” trouble began. One member of the expedition, in fact, had 1 This would be true even on Pfleiderer’s order, placing the Jerusalem conference before the First Missionary Journey. For the “ false brethren privily brought in to spy out our liberty” 106 THE STORY OF ST. A been beforehand with them, and had gotten back to Jerusalem, with his own report, doubtless not untinged by the scruples which had driven him to desert. John Mark had turned back after the party reached Pamphylia, and “ went not with them to the work.” Trouble in plenty was brewing, both in Antioch and Jerusalem; but the history of the great conflict that now broke out demands a lecture to itself. (Gal. ii. 4) were unable at Jerusalem to disturb seriously the har- mony of Paul’s relations with the “ pillars.” LECTURE IV THE UNDERSTANDING IN JERUSALEM AND MISUNDERSTANDING AT ANTIOCH You will have foreseen during the course of the preceding lectures that a rupture in the Church was sooner or later inevitable, and that the line of cleavage must be the prerogative of Israel. The broader, more radical views of Stephen and the Hellenists were no doubt instrumental in bringing the Pharisees, under the leadership of the master- ful logician Saul, to see that the Law and the Temple were both threatened by the new sect, the former as the sole means of justification in the sight of God, the latter as the sole avenue of approach to God; but when the arch-persecutor deserted to the other side, active opposition ceased. Some of Ste- phen’s fellow Hellenists carried these broader ideas into the surrounding countries, Samaria, Philistia, as far north as Antioch; but at Jerusalem things quieted down. The radical element had perished with Stephen, or been driven off. Those who remained of the more conservative type were not - conscious of holding any views inimical to Law or 108 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Temple, and were left unmolested.1 These included, Luke tells us, the whole body of the Apostles. On one interpretation of Paul’s words,? even the arch- persecutor himself, when on his way to seize and punish the Christians in Damascus, was aware all the time that the Apostles were in Jerusalem within easy reach ; but it is perhaps equally reasonable to suppose that the implied knowledge was obtained after his conversion from fellow believers. Saul, however, when he had made his sudden change to the opposite pole of conviction, was care- ful to preach his doctrines of the abolition of the Law and superseding of the Temple away from Jerusalem. Not because he feared collision with the Apostles. On the contrary, he was confident of ultimately gaining their fundamental sympathy. He believed he could prove to them, when the time came, that his gospel was indeed “ the same faith ” he had once persecuted. It was another class that Paul dreaded, one which, since the scattering of the followers of Stephen, had grown stronger and stronger in the church, until, at Paul’s last visit, James himself seems to feel that they are not to be 1 Acts xxi. 20-24. 2 Gal. i. 17. 3 This hope was fully realized at the conference. We cannot too strongly insist that both informants, Paul and “ Luke,” emphatically assert this fact. The disagreement with Peter and “ certain from James ” broke out subsequently, not at Jerusalem, but at Antioch. IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 109 dictated to even by him. “Thou seest, brother, how many myriads there are of the Jews that believe, and they are all [such was James’ esti- mate of the relative strength of old and new school in Jerusalem]— ail zealots for the Law.”1 With all the friendship and confidence James himself and the Apostles seem to have still continued to repose in Paul,? James was further obliged to confess that these Jerusalem Christians did not believe in Paul, but looked on him as an enemy of that Law of which they themselves were so zealous. They regarded him as one who goes to the Jews that are among the Gentiles, “ teaching them to forsake Moses, and not to circumcise their children.” That was in A. D. 55, some seven years after the period with which we are dealing; but in the mean time the Jerusalem church had not changed its attitude as to the necessity of Jews — Christians or not — obeying the Law of Moses. It was some of the more aggressive men of this old-school type who, as Luke tells us, joining the statement to his ac- count of the missionary report of Paul and Barna- bas, “ came down to Antioch from Judea and taught the brethren, saying, ‘ Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved.’” 3 1 Acts xxi. 20. 2 Thid. verse 24. 3 On Pfleiderer’s view, the controversy arose earlier. The author who transforms the Antioch church itself from asemi-Gentile foun- 110 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL It does not appear from the references of either Luke or Paul that the new-comers were authorized by anybody to attempt this tightening up of the orthodoxy of Antioch. The Apostles had shown their attitude by sending Barnabas some two or three years before. We know what position Barna- bas had taken. Peter had baptized Cornelius; but the new-comers in Antioch seem to have belonged to the class of the ultra-orthodox laity. Possibly they may have gone down with Agabus at the time of the famine. Upon the Jerusalem adherents of the same party Luke bestows the description, “ cer- tain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed.” Paul speaks his mind about them with less reserve. There even seems to be a contrast in his tone that should not be disregarded. So far as I can see, there is no ground for the contention that he applies in the Epistles the language of reproba- tion, or even of disrespect, to any single one of the Apostles at any time; nor to James. He does speak of “‘ those who were reputed to be somewhat dation into a church of converts from the “ Hellenists,” would logi- cally be compelled to defer it until the First Missionary Journey had introduced that Gentile element which gaye rise to the dis- sension; but among other clear traces of manipulation of the pas- sage xi. 19-30 is the indication of verse 22 that something more than the conversion of ‘‘ Jews” is in the air. The analogy of xi. 1-3 suggests that this and not the First Missionary Journey was the real occasion of the Jerusalem Conference. IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 111 —what they once were makes no matter to me. God accepteth no man’s person—they who were reputed to be ‘pillars, James and Cephas and John,” if that can be called disrespect. But this language is found in the very assertion of their hearty support of Paul. On the other hand, he certainly does speak with contempt of certain “super-extra apostles” (izepAiav axrocroho), whom he also calls “ ministers of Satan.” But only those who are ignorant of the broader use of the term dzdotoXos can imagine that he is here speaking of the Twelve. The Judzan interlopers in Antioch, on the contrary, Paul calls plumply “ false brethren ” and “spies.” He says they were brought in there by stealth; they “sneaked in” as spies to carry tales to Jerusalem about the liberty Christians were enjoying at Antioch. Unless I mistake the sense of Gal. ii. 4, he assures us that it was on their account that he took the uncircumcised Titus to Jerusalem, foreseeing a pitched battle over his per- son, and meaning to have a living witness of the outcome. Let us not anticipate. We need to realize how broad a distinction there was in Paul’s mind be- tween these “false brethren” and the Apostles. We also need to discriminate with the utmost pains between that occasion and subject whereon Paul found himself, to his unbounded relief, in 112 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL complete accord with the older Apostles, and that subsequent occasion, and much more limited sub- ject, on which he felt obliged to take peremptory issue, not only with Peter, the very chief Apostle, but even with his beloved Barnabas. In our last lecture I felt obliged, in the interest - of our appreciation of Paul, to take decided excep- tion to the story in the form given it in Acts. To-day I shall have some further occasion to criti- cise Luke’s narrative, but first of all I must put myself on the side of both Luke and Paul against a very modern tradition that is pure misunder- standing even of Luke. Unless I greatly misconceive the facts, the aver- age reader of Acts xv. regards the four require- ments which “ the Apostles and elder brethren ” ! in Jerusalem undertake to impose upon the Gentiles as “ necessary ” (éravayxés), in the light of a compro- mise. Having conceded that it was impracticable to impose upon them the whole Mosaic law, they decided that no more than these four things, “ ab- stinence from things strangled and from blood, from things offered to idols and from fornication,” should be retained as obligatory. Accordingly, you will find the requirements referred to as “ the No- 1 I employ the text as it stands. The expression is peculiar, and may be corrupted from “ The Apostles and Elders unto the brethren,” ete. IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 113 achian precepts,’ with some dim idea that they correspond to the legislation of Gen. ix., in which man is permitted to eat flesh on condition of pre- serving the sanctity of the blood. Others inform us that the Jews at this period distinguished two . kinds of proselytes, those fully identified with Israel by the rite of circumcision and observance of the whole Mosaic law, called “ proselytes of righteous- ness,’ and partial converts, called “ proselytes of the gate.” Others still point to Lev. xvii.—xviii. as similar legislation imposed upon the ger or adopted Israelite. It is true that there was great difference of opinion as to how much should be required of proselytes, some rabbis being stricter, others alto- gether lax ;1 but of a division into two classes, bear- ing the distinctive titles Proselytes of the Gate and Proselytes of Righteousness, there is, I believe, no real evidence. Still less is there the faintest trace of evidence that either by custom or authority the Noachian precepts, plus those two requirements of the Jerusalem decrees which have nothing to do with the Noachian precepts, were substituted by anybody for the Mosaic law as a standard for prose- lytes. The whole character and object of the decrees is misunderstood, with injustice to Luke, and still more to Paul, if we imagine that either party in Jerusalem had any idea of compromise. The ques- 1 See Josephus, Ant. xx. ii. 4. 114 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tion did not admit it. Either the Law in its en- tirety was obligatory on everybody, or none of it was obligatory on anybody. So, at least, said Paul. The Jewish party were divided ; the extreme legal- ists agreed with Paul that all must stand upon the same footing; only in their view, that footing for both parties, Jew and Gentile, was the Law in its entirety. The more liberal element at Jerusalem, including James and the Apostles, and apparently later Peter and Barnabas, thought it possible to maintain two standards. They did not agree with Paul, if they understood him,! that the Law was done away for Jews.? The Jew who believed was to continue, as before, a devout observer of the Law of Moses. This was the distinctive mark of God’s choice of Israel to know and be known of Him. This type of believer understood his Chris- tianity in the sense which in the speech in Lystra 1 In Acts xxi. 24, the author (and James also, if correctly re- ported) misunderstands Paul. Paul did not “ walk orderly keep- ing the Law.” He kept it when he thought best, #. e., did not keep it. 2 Tn the second century we find abundant proof of that division of the Law into ceremonial and moral requirements, the former temporary, the latter of perpetual obligation. This distinction, however, — natural as it appears to us, and more or less consist- ently adopted by the Church catholic from the second century down, — is wholly unknown to Paul. It is certainly of later de- velopment, although the germs of the distinction are traceable in parts of the New Testament. See below, p. 135, note. IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 115 is so incongruously placed in the mouth of Paul. His faith in Christ was supplementary; by it he would “ be justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the Law of Moses.” The Gentile, having no justification at all by the Law of Moses, would depend exclusively upon his faith in Christ. Such is the point of view of “ they of Cephas” in Corinth. Such is the view of the Epis- tle of James. Such is the view of Acts, at least in its principal source. To imagine that anybody, on either side, supposed that the matter could be compromised by drawing a line through the Law of Moses and saying to the Gentiles, ‘ There, these four things are necessary; we will dispense you from the rest,” is utterly to misconceive it. Who were these ‘“ Apostles and elder brethren,” that they could say to their Lord’s creditors, “ Here, take thy bill, sit down quickly and for four-score write fifty —for fifty write thirty”? If there is one point of perfect agreement between the Epistle to the Galatians and the Epistle of James, it is that if a man would be justified by the Law, “ he is a debtor to do the whole Law,” ! and cannot pick and choose. ‘ For, whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet stumble at one point, is be- come guilty of all.” 2 We may set it down, then, as certain, no matter how much we may be told 1 Gal. v. 3; ef. iii. 10. 2 Jas. ii. 10, 11. 116 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL about “‘ Noachian precepts” and “ proselytes of the gate,” that the idea of compromising on a part of the Law for Gentiles is pure nonsense. Moreover, it is wholly modern nonsense. Luke does not assert it any more than Paul does; and Paul is explicit and peremptory in his denial. Who- ever carefully reads Gal. ii. 1-10 alongside of Acts xv, 5-29 will find, indeed, important differences ; the differences are so great as to lead Professor Ram- say even to deny that the two accounts refer to the same occasion; but the differences are very far from outweighing the points of coincidence, and the most weighty of all, the alleged statement of Luke 1 Professor Ramsay would have us suppose that this visit of Gal. ii. 1-10 is the famine-relief visit, and that the rupture be- tween Paul and Peter at Antioch (Gal. ii. 11-21) took place before it, both preceding the visit of Acts xv. The weakness of this theory lies in Professor Ramsay’s inability to transcend the old Tiibingen point of view, which falsely assumes that the con- flict in Antioch was over the old question whether circumcision and obedience to the Mosaic law should be required of the Gen- tiles; whereas Paul is explicit in stating that it was over the question of converted Jews ‘‘ eating with [converted] Gentiles.’ The very nature of the difficulty presupposes that the Gentiles in question have first been admitted to the brotherhood ‘‘ without the yoke of the law;” for it is the point of departure in Paul’s argument. Hence the fundamental question of principle involved in Gal. ii. 1-10 (Acts xv. 1-12) had already been settled at this time. In short, if the conference of Acts xv. is of later date than that of Gal. ii. 1-10, then Paul sacrificed the unconditional liberty of the Gentiles he had once won for a conditional liberty subsequently allowed. IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 117 that “the Apostles and elder brethren” refused to acknowledge the entire freedom of the Gentiles from the yoke of the Law, is pure modern fiction. Peter’s speech explicitly takes the ground of Paul. It even goes so far in this direction as to arouse very serious question regarding the accuracy of the report ; but at any rate, Peter shows not the slight- est idea of dividing. He pleads for the abolition — for Gentiles — of the whole yoke of the Law. And James agrees to it. He does not move to amend by reserving a part. He introduces a separate motion on a new subject not supposed to conflict with the original motion. Whether it did or not, we shall see presently. What we note now is that Luke agrees with Paul, that the Apostles “ added nothing to his gospel,’ but bade him God-speed in his preaching to the Gentiles of salvation ‘ through the grace of the Lord Jesus” without the yoke of the Law. The minor points of difference we may consider very briefly. (a) Luke calls this Paul’s third visit to Jerusalem. That, we have seen, is simply an error.! Paul did not carry the alms of the Anti- 1 Many critics maintain, however, that something of intention goes along with the error. As Acts now reads, the great occasion of Paul’s fateful journey to Jerusalem carrying as alms the gifts of all the churches of the Gentiles is suppressed (save for the allu- sion in Paul’s speech, Acts xxvi.). This suppression can hardly be unrelated to the slander of the Simon-Magus-Paul legend that 118 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL och church to Jerusalem in 46-47 ; unless, indeed, we identify the visit of Acts xy. with this, placing it before the First Missionary Journey. (b) Paul says he went up “ by revelation ;” Luke, by vote of the church. There is no conflict. It was the rule in the Church to consider and adopt by vote measures which were proposed under the claim of prophetic inspiration. Paul emphasizes the divine- ness of the suggestion. (It very likely was his own “‘ revelation.” ) Luke, with his characteristic eccle- siasticism, emphasizes the official sanction. Paul and Barnabas at Antioch “ had no small dissension and questioning ” with the self-appointed inquisitors from Judza. Paul, or Barnabas, or some other of the “prophets and teachers,” brought before the church as a suggestion of God’s own Spirit the re- ferring of the question to the Twelve. Of course it was a critical matter for Paul, but he had faith in God and in the ability of men like Peter, who had “companied with the Lord J esus,” to appreci- ate his point of view. He believed he could bring them to see that his Gentile gospel was really in- volved in their own. His decision was a triumph of faith — faith in God, faith in man. To Paul, characteristically, it was a “revelation;” and represented Paul as seeking to bribe the Apostles. Perhaps the representation of Paul and Barnabas bringing alms from Antioch before the outbreak of the controversy may be due partly to a purpose of compensation for suppression of the later instance. ¢ IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH § 119 “the brethren appointed that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to Jeru- salem.” (c) “ That certain other of them” of Luke does not seem a grave point of difference from Paul’s “and I took Titus along.” In reality, it is a mat- ter of decided significance that in the whole Book of Acts this man, Titus, probably the first and most trusted of all Paul’s Gentile helpers, certainly the man whose case became the pivot of the whole controversy, should never be mentioned. It is a fact which goes along with that of the omission of all mention of the rupture between Paul and Peter at Antioch; along with the explanation of Paul’s separation from Barnabas by the trivial difference of his dissatisfaction with Mark; along with the silence regarding the real occasion for Paul’s risk- ing his life to go at all costs to Jerusalem ; along with the representation of Peter as eating with the Gentiles and obtaining the sanction of the Church for it way back in the Cornelius episode ; along with his maintaining at the Jerusalem council that the yoke of the Law was not only too heavy for the Gentiles, but for Jews also. Professor Chase puts it mildly when he says:! “The history was written long after the controversy had passed away. To drag out again into the daylight all the mistakes and heart- 1 Credibility of Acts, p. 92. 120 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL burnings of the time, if indeed St. Luke knew them, would have been a useless outrage; and he was not guilty of it. . . . The reticence of Acts is not an argument against its veracity. It is an example to be followed. The tomb of dead controversies ought to be an inviolable resting-place.” Professor Chase is quite right in his sympathy for Luke’s feeling. It would be indeed inconceivable that one writing when Luke did, and for the purpose simply of con- firming the faith of a Christian convert in the divine establishment of Christianity, should bring out all the family skeletons. The reticence of Acts does not “argue inveracity.” It simply shows that the author really does tell his story as in accordance with his professed purpose we ought to expect, in- stead of treating his book as if he were a-Tacitus or a Mommsen. It shows what kind of a book Acts is, and Luke had a perfect right to construct that kind of a book. The “reticence” is not made by any decent critic the basis for any blame of Luke ; we blame those who insist on putting him in a false light. It must be admitted to show that there are a number of things which Luke not only does not tell, but purposely avoids telling. Yet Paul found it necessary to tell these things; and we also may rightly assume to investigate for the same reason, namely, that we wish to understand Paul. What, then, of the “reticence” of Acts, and the IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 121 reluctant frankness of Paul, in regard to Titus? To take Titus to Jerusalem was throwing down the gauntlet to the “false brethren.” Paul knew that. It is probably the thing that he refers to in the broken sentence of Gal. ii. 4, ‘« Z¢ was because of the false brethren who came in to spy out our liberty.” He means, “I would not have offered what some might deem a wanton affront to the Apostles and Elders, —I would not have brought this apple of discord into the case, if I had not known that the crisis was unavoidable and fundamental.” ! (d) In line with this silence as to Titus is Luke’s reticence about any difference of opinion between Paul and the Pillars, his silence about any private interview in which pressure was brought to bear upon Paul to induce him to give way; but Paul tells us of it, and adds that he would not yield for so much as one hour, because he felt it would compromise the liberty of the Gentiles he had come there to champion. He who was all things to all men, as under the Law to them that are under the Law, so considerate of the scruples of others that he would agree to eat no meat while the world 1 On the horror with which this bringing an uncircumcised Gentile into “the holy city”? would be viewed by “‘ the Pharisees that believed,” and its possible connection with the false charge which the author of Acts makes the occasion of the riot in the temple and arrest of Paul (Acts. xxi. 29), see Lucht, in Zeitschrift fiir wiss. Theologie, 1872. 122 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL standeth, rather than give offense to the Church of God, or put a stumbling-block before the weakest, now stood like a rock. James, who afterwards ad-— vised him to conciliate Jewish-Christian feeling in Jerusalem by offering the sacrifices in the temple for the men who had Nazirite vows (advice which Paul followed at the cost of his liberty and ultimately of his life), — James, we may be sure, entreated him to make some concession. In vain, Paul had brought Titus there on purpose to settle the mat- ter once for all, and there was but one way to settle it. They could not deny that the grace of God had been poured out in all the tokens of the Spirit — prophecy, tongues, miracles —on these Gentiles, to whom Paul had offered no other way of salvation than “the grace of the Lord Jesus,” utterly regardless of the works of the Law. Like honest, true men, as they were, they not only admitted it, not only acknowledged that Paul’s calling to the Gentiles was as truly divine as Peter’s and their own, and his gospel of justification by faith in Jesus ample without a single word of addition or qualification, they also gave him a cor- dial, full, sincere weleome as an Apostle of Jesus Christ, on full equality with themselves. It was in- deed a momentous step. It meant more for the his- tory of Christianity than can easily be appreciated; but Paul’s faith in God and in the Pillar Apostles IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 123 was vindicated. We may well believe that Peter’s part was no small one, as Luke suggests. Even if ‘the case of Cornelius was not cited, — for Cornelius is possibly conceived as a proselyte before his con- version, — Paul’s cordial relations with Peter both before and for at least a short time after, as well as Peter’s own temperament, make it easy to see which side Peter must have inclined to. So Titus was not circumcised. Paul’s gospel without the Law was approved for Gentiles. Some concession, however, must be made if the Church was not to be rent to the foundations. It was along the lines of Paul’s original practice. The two classes, so far as possible, should be kept separate. Paul agreed on his part not to go as an iconoclast among the Jews, “teaching them to forsake Moses, and not to circumcise their children, nor obey the cus- toms.” ! The representatives of the mother church, on their part, agreed not to propagate Mosaism in Paul’s field.2 Mutual respect and equality ; both parties in the right, but careful to avoid collision; reciprocal non-interference: such was the basis of 1 Acts xxi. 21. 2 Of course the division had to be in the main geographical. It did not mean that Paul would pass by the synagogues which he found in Gentile territory, nor Peter avoid preaching salvation by faith plus works of the Law to Gentiles in his territory. The division was general, and, so far as the principals were concerned, it was faithfully observed during all the years of controversy. 124 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL agreement, and it seemed a very happy and com- plete one. Paul and Barnabas parted from the Jerusalem Pillars with a hearty grasp of the hand (not a mere conventional greeting, but the solemn pledge of unity), and the momentous interview was over. Against Acts xv. 20-28 (29) we can assert positively that there was nothing more of an official character. The very exception which Paul makes is evidence both of the complete unity of feel- ing, and of the absence of the alleged “ decrees.” One does not ask gifts of money from those with whom relations are strained. Paul states both the official and the unofficial action; his assertion is positive and exclusive that the Pillars added no- thing whatever (officially) to their indorsement of his gospel, only (unofficially) “they would that we should remember the poor, which I had already made a matter of zealous concern.” We have in- deed seen that this was really the case. This is Paul’s representation. Luke, it must be admitted, goes beyond the limits of mere “reti- cence” in his representation of how the great dispute was settled. What shall we do with these further very decided variations : (e) The general conclave of the church, publicly assuming jurisdiction over Paul and the terms of his gospel for the Gentiles ; (f) the “decrees” and letter of commendation ; g) the delegation of Judas and Silas to Antioch ? IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 125 Here I am afraid I must again insist that Paul is right and Luke wrong; that the latter is yielding to his constant tendency to regard the Apostles and Elders in Jerusalem as in control of all foreign mis- sions, not to say that speech-making before public tribunals is a favorite device of our historiographer. It is not that Gal. ii. 1-10 excludes a public gather- ing. I am rather disposed to think that it even throws a sort of side-glance! at the public reports of the spread of the Gospel by the missionaries, of which Acts makes so much. The trouble is that Luke plainly thinks (and represents) that the matter of Paul’s gospel of salvation for the Gentiles without the yoke of the Law was made a matter of public debate before “all the multitude” of the Jerusalem church. In fact, he has not a word about any other kind of gathering. Now we can say with complete certainty that Paul did not submit this question to any such promiscuous assembly, nor did he recognize any right whatever on their part to legislate as to what was or was not obligatory (éravayxés) for his free Gentile churches. Therefore he could not have quietly sat by and let them pass votes as to what they would permit or would not 1 Lightfoot, Commentary on Gal., ad. loc., considers that kat’ iSfay 5é of ii. 2 contrasts the private meeting with the church at large. This is not impossible. We might even assume @ priori that there would be general gatherings to hear of the spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles. 126 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL permit. All this is wholly excluded by Gal. ii. 1- 10. Paul peremptorily excludes the alleged de- erees; but that is only the beginning. We can say with equal certainty from all the Epistles that Paul would have regarded himself as guilty of the most inexcusable folly, if, knowing as he did the temper of the “‘ many myriads of believers” in Jeru- salem, he had consented to go up there and lay be- fore them his free gospel, and ask them ‘ whether he were running or had run in vain.” Was Paul the man to want an indorsement of the revelation he had received from God by assembly vote? Did he imagine he would get an indorsement of such doctrines from the Jerusalem believers? Not for one instant. It is Paul’s statement, and only Paul’s, which the historical conditions make possible. It was a bold move to appeal directly over the heads of the Judaizers to those to whom they were point- ing as of doxotvres, “ those of repute,’ — the orvAo, “ Pillars,” —“ Apostles with whom Jesus abode and taught in the flesh a whole year;”! but we know on what grounds Paul dared to do it, and how his confidence was justified — probably to the equal amazement and discomfiture of his opponents. ‘“‘ Privately, to them that were of repute,” Paul put the question: ‘Is this gospel of the redeeming love of God in Christ as the only reliance of every human 1 Clem. Hom. iii. 18. IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 127 creature, the real gospel of Jesus of Nazareth?” Privately, he challenged them to say from their experience with Jesus whether such faith was or was not of itself alone sufficient to save a man; even if he have no more works of the Law than the publican or the harlot or the repentant thief. And like honest, true followers of Jesus, James, Jesus’ brother, and Peter and John, his two most intimate disciples, “‘ when they perceived the grace of God that was given him,” acknowledged that so __ it was in fact. So Jesus had taught. That was the only authority Paul acknowledged. Where is the first paragraph or line of his Epistles that does not cry out against the idea that he ever sought the authorization of the Jerusalem church, or even of those that were Apostles before him, save as witnesses to the teaching of Jesus? Paul went to Jerusalem to get that witness. After that was given, the “ Apostles and Elders ” and “ whole multitude” of Christian “‘ zealots for the Law” might pass votes and resolutions till domesday for all it mattered to Paul and the Gentile churches. Luke’s “ reticence,” if you call it so, is all very well for Luke’s purposes; but it sheds darkness and not light on the Pauline Epistles. Let us have this brief word in favor of the “ credibility of Paul.” This does not mean that there is no foundation for Luke’s story of the conclave in Jerusalem and 128 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL the decrees and delegation to Antioch. On the con- trary, there is the amplest evidence, both internal and external, that they did have such a meeting of the Jerusalem church; did enact certain “ decrees” which they deemed “ necessary” for the Gentiles of « Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia” (not Galatia or Cy- prus) ;/ did send them to Antioch by a delegation (all in an entirely friendly and egregiously mis- taken spirit) ; and did make no end of trouble by them. It only means that we must not forget that Luke abridges the story to the extent of dropping out what Professor Chase calls “the mistakes and heartburnings of the time;” and having dropped out the most vitally important incident of Paul’s whole missionary career, he naturally produces some confusion in his narrative. After such a proceed- ing, the severed ends do not come together without an adjustment which must be very skillful indeed to escape the eye of the critic,? aided as it is by the letters of Paul. 1 Again we note the confirmation of Pfleiderer’s conjecture. The letter of Acts xv. 23-27, if we omit the addendum of verses 28, 29, might well be genuine. It agrees perfectly with Gal. ii. 7-9; put if the controversy was really in regard to the converts of the First Missionary Journey through Cyprus and (Southern) Galatia, why is the letter addressed to “the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia” (cf. Gal. i. 21), with no mention of Cyprus or Galatia ? 2 One of the minor traces of readjustment attracted the eye of even the uncritical medizval scribe. Our revisers haye properly IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 129 We must return to Paul’s account in Galatians to see what the happenings were which fill the gap in Luke’s story. At ii. 10 we left Paul and Bar- nabas returning from Jerusalem with Titus, their hearts overflowing with thankfulness, and the warm pressure of that hand-clasp still lingering grate- fully in their memories. In ii. 11 comes the visit of Peter to Antioch,! a worthy token of the era of good-feeling. For a time all went well. Peter adopted for his personal conduct the rule of Paul, “to them that were without the Law he became as without the Law.” The Law sat pretty lightly on the shoulders of a Galilean fisherman anyway, to say nothing of one who had often eaten with Jesus with unwashen hands in the houses of publicans and sin- ners. Peter knew well enough, of course, that in agreeing that the Gentiles were free from the Law, James and the rest in Jerusalem had no idea what- soever of absolving Jews from it. But when one is in Rome, one does as the Romans do. Here was Paul, the rabbi, eating whatever was set before him in Gentile houses, and “asking none of the questions thrown into the margin Acts xy. 34, a late correction of the state- ment of verse 33 that Silas returned to Jerusalem, verse 40 clearly showing that he remained. Had Luke not stricken out the second delegation from Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 12), there might have been no occasion for the scribe’s correction. 1 Pfleiderer considers that this visit took place during the ab- sence of the missionaries, the collision occurring after their return. 130 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL asked for conscience’ sake: ” “ Is this kosher! meat? Has the blood been all removed, or was it perhaps strangled? Has this piece of beef come from the market where they sell what was offered to the idol? Is my neighbor over there ceremonially clean, or is he perhaps tainted with the pollutions of idols?” 1 The term is gradually becoming familiar even in our Ameri- can cities. We have learned of late that the orthodox Jew must have his own meat market, where everything has been bled, if not actually slaughtered, by the rabbi’s own hands. Otherwise he will “eat no meat while the world standeth.” We are obliged, how- ever, to go to ancient writers for an answer to the question why the matter is deemed so important. The eating of flesh is permitted in the Covenant with Noah (Gen. ix 1-7), on condition of serupu- lous regard for the sacredness of the blood, ‘‘ which is the life.” (The Priestly Document assumes that human food was previously grain and fruit, Gen. i. 29.) Later Jewish superstition explained, as we learn from Origen, that the eating of blood, or flesh imper- fectly drained of blood, might introduce strange life into the sys- tem. Similarly the prohibition of flesh torn of beasts was based on the belief that this is the food of the demons and vampires who inhabit the wilderness, with whom one thus becomes a “communicant ;” but it may still be given or sold to a Gentile, for the obvious reason that he is in communion with demons any- © way, to whom all his sacrifices are offered (1 Cor. x. 20). The same reason is distinctly applied by Paul (1 Cor. x. 14-22) to eating of cidwAd@ura, unless the spell be broken (so to speak) by the giving God the thanks (evxapiorhv), which transforms the act into an “eating unto the Lord” (Rom. xiy. 6). Analogy sug- gests that the prohibition of “ things strangled ”’ was based on the same conception, the unobstructed breathing forth of the breath being as essential to the dissipation of the sacred life as the pour- ing out of the blood. On Jewish carefulness against these pollu- tions, see the Book of Jubilees. IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 131 Paul was careful to give no offense, he was scrupu- lously considerate of weak consciences in others, but so far as his own conscience was concerned, he gave God the thanks, and let the demons, those that are understood to secure entrance into a man who eats blood or exposes himself to the pollu- tions of idols, do their worst. To Paul there was nothing unclean of itself; neither if he ate not was he the better, nor if he ate was he the worse ; and Peter, nothing loath, followed Paul’s example, and ‘‘ ate with the Gentiles.” That was the opportunity for the Pharisean be- lievers, against whom the tide had so long been running. O horror! The chief Apostle, under the spell of .Paul, throwing off the yoke of the Law! Peter, the Jew, living as do the Gentiles! The awful news was carried in whispered waves of scan- dal, — to Jerusalem, first of all, by the assiduous aid of the Pharisean believers. ‘“ Had the Apostles in- tended to dispense Jews from keeping the Law?” «« Was it known that Peter was now living without its restraint, in open imitation of the renegade Paul?” “ What would be the effect of this on the good name of the Church?” “How much would the mission to the circumcision be likely to effect, if it were known that the chief Apostle no longer observed the Law?” They were startling questions, indeed, which 132 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Peter’s conduct thus suddenly precipitated upon the church in Jerusalem. They had indeed settled everything comfortably enough for the Gentile churches, among which Paul and Barnabas went, and for the purely Jewish communities, among which they themselves went; but they had for- gotten the mixed communities, like Antioch, where Peter now was, and where one could not follow both standards at once. Of course it was all very simple for Paul, for whom the Law no longer ex- isted for either Jew or Gentile ; for he could obey it or not, as circumstances required. For him neither circumcision nor uncireumcision availed anything, but faith working through love; but neither James nor John, nor even Peter, had gone quite to the length of admitting that all their righteousness as Jews and observers of the Law was absolutely of no value whatsoever — that they were not a whit better than “ sinners of the Gen- tiles.” Consequently, it behooved them with all speed to draw up a modus vivendi to meet this special case. They could not undo what had been done. They would not be able altogether to prevent sim- ilar occurrences in the future. The one thing that could be done was to fall back on the agreement, wherein they had undertaken not to proselytize Paul’s converts, and Paul had agreed not to heathenize Jews. It seemed to them that they had IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 133 a right, on this basis, to demand that a Jew among Gentiles, like Peter, should not be compelled, against his will, to sacrifice his ceremonial clean- ness, perhaps become tainted with the pollutions of idols, under penalty of disfellowship. Therefore they enacted the four decrees of Acts xv. 29, which have no other object, significance, or possible ap- plication than to make it possible for a Jew to eat with a Gentile without the sacrifice of his ceremo- nial cleanness. If the Gentile will only be kind enough to see that the meat is kosher meat, not strangled, but free from blood, and that it has not been offered to an idol, which would make him who ate of it a communicant with that particular false god (demon) worshiped in the idol, and if no fornicator or unclean person? sits at the board, then there is no reason in the world why the Jew should not eat with him. The Law has nothing to say against eating with Gentiles as such, but only against the pollutions of idols. Now among these, we must particularly note, is one which to our ideas seems strangely incongruous with the other 1 Cf. Heb. xii. 15, 16. The renegade Jew who has abandoned his ceremonial cleanness is, in the eyes of the Jewish-Christian, an “ Hsau,’’ a fornicator or profane person, who for one mess of (forbidden) meat has sold his birthright. He becomes “a root of bitterness ” (cf. Deut. xxix. 18 and Acts viii. 23), “ whereby the many are defiled.” On the “defilement” of others by the for- nicator, see below. 134 THE STORY OF ST, PAUL three “ pollutions.” It is the same anti-Pauline Jew- ish-Christian document already quoted, the Olem- entine Homilies, which furnishes true explanation of the fourth decree. It was not that the Jerusalem Christians were so insane as to attempt to break up matrimonial relations in the Gentile church by im- posing the Mosaic “ prohibited decrees.” It was not primarily because of the loose ideas on sexual mo- rality prevailing among Gentiles, and especially connected with idolatry. Had they attempted to furnish a moral code, it certainly would have been otherwise constructed than the four decrees. It would have contained at least the golden rule, which the scribe from whom comes the “ Western ” form of the text is kind enough to insert in place of the prohibition of things strangled, being rightly persuaded that the four decrees as they stand make rather a poor substitute for the ten commandments, and somewhat lack proportion. No, it was not for the moral improvement of the Gentiles that these decrees were ever enacted, but for the protection of the Jew who should eat with one; “ for,” says the Jewish-Christian writer of Clementine Homilies, iii. 68, ‘ fornication and adultery are not like other sins; for these destroy not only the person himself who sins, but those also who eat and associate with him.” The internal character and application of the IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH = 135 Jerusalem decrees is the proof of their real occa- sion. They were prepared to meet the emergency when Peter at Antioch “ate with the Gentiles,” a story which has been stricken out by Luke. Not simply because it was, in Professor Chase’s words, a dead controversy whose tomb should be left in- violate. Suppression of facts of vital importance and favorable adjustment of the story, when it is carried to the extent that we perceive in Acts, would make it difficult for us to acquit Luke of the charge of out and out inveracity, were this the whole story. It is not. Luke has not taken the plain facts and distorted them. He has taken another narrative of how Peter came to eat with the Gentiles, which was far more creditable to his hero than that of Paul, and adjusted it as well as he could to his other sources. We have neither surprise nor blame for his choosing the story of Acts xi. 1-18 in preference to one giving the facts as related in Galatians. He does not seem to have read Galatians. He doubtless considered this the truest as well as the most edifying account. In this Jewish-Christian source Peter partakes of Gentile food by express divine direction, and with the rebuke of a voice from heaven when he ventures to expostulate, — “ Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”! In 1 Tt is very remarkable that a Jewish-Christian source, such as 136 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL this narrative Peter subsequently defends his course on this special issue — “ Thou wentest in to men un- circumcised and didst eat with them” — before the church in Jerusalem, and obtains its full approval. It is hardly necessary to point out that Paul’s ac- count is the historical one. Nevertheless, Luke adopted the other, and having adopted this account of the matter in chapter xi., of course he had no room in chapter xv. for one of the other type. It is when we look at Gal. ii. 11-23 that we see how the omission has resulted in the representa- tion of the conclave in Jerusalem and enactment of the decrees. Gal. ii. 12 refers to the coming to Antioch of a delegation “from James,” with cer- tain representations which induced Peter to quietly withdraw himself and cease his eating with the Gentiles. So we see that there must have been a second conclave in Jerusalem, held after the de- Acts ix. 32-xi. 18 shows itself in every line to be, should take ground more radical, apparently, than that of the “ decrees,” on the subject of clean and unclean meats. The vision, Acts x. 9-16, sweeps away all distinctions on the ground of God’s haying created all clean. In the same way the evangelist who is credibly declared to present the preaching of Peter adduces the logion, “Not that which goeth into a man defileth him, but that which ~ cometh forth out of his heart,” as “ making all meats clean” (Mk. vii. 19; ef. Lk. xi. 41). Have we here evidence that Peter finally did take the broader view of Paul, and only the Jerusalem and Antiochian churches struggled for a time to maintain the compromise of the decrees ? IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 137 parture of Paul and Barnabas, in which the Apostles and elders took their stand on this question of eat- ing with the Gentiles. When the delegates reached Antioch, they set themselves first of all to win privately the assent of Peter and Barnabas, and they succeeded. The whole Jewish element gradually withdrew from table-fellowship with the Gentile, and “even Barnabas,” says Paul with keen emo- tion, “‘ was carried away with their hypocrisy.” In point of fact, Peter was unable to take a con- sistent position because not only his conduct but his fundamental principles were inherently incon- sistent. Paul, the keen logician, was quick to see this, and unsparing to denounce it; for the issue to him was vital. It may at first seem strange to us that Paul should be unwilling to concede a proposition of James to the Jerusalem authorities which Peter, and even Barnabas, clearly regarded as no more than a fair application of the agreement. It seemed a small thing to ask of the Gentiles, and on the other hand it meant more than we can easily realize to the Jews.! Paul himself had 1 Ti is difficult for us to conceive that so small a matter (as it seemed even to the Corinthian correspondents of Paul, who de- clared “ meats will not commend us to God”’), should be made the subject of solemn discussion and enactment in Jerusalem. In point of fact, one has only to count the pages in the Pauline Hpistles devoted to this question of meats that defile or do not defile, to see how large importance it assumed in the Jewish mind. The 138 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL engaged not to heathenize the Jewish Christians by inducing them to give up the Law. If a Jewish Christian ate at the church love-feast with a Gentile brother without these precautions against the “ pol- lutions of idols,” he brought himself under the ban of the Law. He was reduced, in other words, to the alternative of renouncing either his legal purity or Christian table-fellowship. Was it not fair to re- gard these stipulations as a “ necessary” corollary of the agreement ? Must the Jewish Christian con- cede everything, and Paul nothing at all? So | Peter felt. So even Barnabas felt. So felt all the Jewish element at Antioch; but so did not Paul. Paul had lived for fifteen years the life of a practical missionary among the Gentiles, and he knew, as these Jews, even Barnabas, did not, that the attempt to impose these rules of diet on the Gentiles was hopeless.1 Two of the rules (kosher Jerusalem conference was not the last occasion on which the Church has thought peace attained by settlement of the great principles, only to see war breaking out with tenfold violence over some triv- ial but concrete and tangible point of application. How the Jew- ish Christian felt may be perceived by reading the tales of Mac- eabean martyrs, who suffered torture and death rather than eat “ unclean ” food, and from Peter’s protest of horror even against asuggestion from heaven itself: Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 1 How impracticable it is may be judged by our own conduct. Of all writings and parts of writings in the Bible, there is not one which claims for itself such authority, human and divine, and IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 139 meat and abstinence from blood) proved in actual practice a dead letter from the start. The other two were needless, because already covered by moral considerations. The result of attempts to enforce the decrees appears in stray references of the later Jewish-Christian literature. Thus the Western text of Acts already partially transforms them into a moral code. The author of Revelation (about 95 A. D.) excuses his readers from the “other bur- dens,” retaining only the prohibition of :dolothuta and fornication. On these he is strenuous. Finally, the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” in about 120, leaves the matter of meats to the individual conscience. “ But as concerning foods, bear that which thou art able; however, abstain by all means from meat sacrificed to idols; for it is the worship of dead gods.” Thus the two prohibitions which remained were such as were superfluous; for you will see from Paul’s Epistles how strenuous he is everywhere in opposing the loose morality of the Greeks, and you such importance, as the Jerusalem decrees. In regard to apostolic authorship, we have no reason to doubt their claim to emanate directly from the whole body of “the Apostles and Elders.” In regard to inspiration, they begin, “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost.’’ In regard to importance, the decrees are expressly declared to be “ necessary.” And what Christian to-day pays the slightest attention to them ? 1 See the articles by alrenralall in Zeitschrift fiir wiss. Theo- logie, 1898-99. 140 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL have only to read the section of 1 Cor. in which he answers the questions of the church “ concerning things offered to idols,” 1 to see that he peremptorily forbade participation in an idol feast, comparing it to the sin of Beth-Peor. On the other hand, in the market, or a friend’s house, the Christian should take what came and eat it without fear or question “as untothe Lord;” forif he gave God the thanks (cixapioria), his communion in eating would be with God, the original giver, and not with the * demon ” to whom it might possibly have been offered. Thus all things were clean to him, and he insisted on this liberty for himself and his churches. However, to avoid giving offense, or tempting a weak brother, he would go to any length in the voluntary sur- render of his liberty ; and his converts must do like- wise. So, for Paul, the matter solved itself, and Peter at first followed this example. But it was not the impracticability of the pro- posed modus vivendi which made Paul stand out against it. It was the principle of liberty involved. He makes two serious accusations against Peter and Barnabas: (1) “hypocrisy” (he is using strong language), by which he means that they were false to their acknowledged principles ; and (2) violation of the agreement: dvayxdles 7a Evy "Tovdailew, “ Why art thou compelling the Gentiles to Judaize?” 1 1 Cor. viii.—x. IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 141 That was rather turning the tables on the dele- gation from James. Their contention was that un- restricted table-fellowship compelled the Jew to heathenize. Paul claimed that restriction compelled the Gentiles to Judaize; but was not one side as much in the right as the other? Technically, yes ; for the difficulty was an inherent weakness of the agreement itself in making no provision for mixed communities. Technically, one side had as much ground of complaint as the other, and certainly both were honest.1 In reality, Paul alone was in the right, because the ultimate question was as to the nature of Christianity itself. Paul knew that on this ques- tion of the perpetuation or surrender of Jewish privilege in the matter of ceremonial “cleanness ” he represented Jesus better than did the authors ? of the “decrees;”’ and he could and did prove it, though he does not seem at first to have carried the church in Antioch with him. That indeed was too much to expect. Paul, in the argument which he reports to us as held by him against Peter in the presence of the whole Antioch church, strikes right at the funda- mental weakness of his opponent’s position. Peter’s 1 It is simply absurd to think of men like Peter and Barnabas intentionally going back, under the feeble pressure of “ certain from James,” on the principles they had heroically and victoriously championed in Jerusalem. Their violation of the agreement was not intentional any more than their ‘‘ hypocrisy ” was conscious. 142 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL vacillating conduct was the logical outcome of their general halfway attitude. They had conceded that Gentiles might be saved without the Law, but were not prepared to let go the superior claims of right- eousness which in their view the observarice of it conferred upon Jews like themselves. A man could be saved without the Law through faith in Christ, even if he were a “sinner of the Gentiles” — that they had admitted ; and we cannot deny that they had admitted it freely and generously ; but they by no means admitted that it would be wise, or even safe, for one who was “ by nature a Jew, and nota sinner of the Gentiles,” to let go his claims on this score, and trust to'the grace of God in Christ alone. Conversely, it was sufficient for salvation if a sin- ner of the Gentiles simply had faith in Christ, but it was much safer and better for him if he was cir- cumcised and became in every respect an adopted son of Abraham. Hence, on the disputed point, Jews should not be forced to come down to the Gentile level. The Gentile, in table-fellowship with the Jew, should come wp to the Jew’s level. It was Paul’s profound and agonizing religious experience which enabled him to puncture the spe- cious plausibility of this logic; and he drove his argument directly at that which, in Peter’s experi- ence, came nearest to his own. There had been a time when Peter, too, had wept bitterly over his sin. ———— + IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 143 Nor was it works of the Law which had brought him out of his despair, but the simple grace of God in Christ, the conviction, borne in through the shadow of Calvary itself, a gloom blacker for Peter than for all the rest, borne in with the light of the resurrection dawn in the simple words of the most ancient doctrine of the Church: “ He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.” Peter, if any one, could appreciate that which had been clear to Paul ever since the days of his fierce persecution of the Way, — that there cannot be two ways of salvation, one for Jews, the other for Gentiles, nor two pleas before the judgment seat of God, a righteousness of one’s own, even that which is of the Law, and then, to cover deficien- cies, faith in Christ to justify one “‘ from all things from which we could not be justified by the Law of Moses.” Peter, if any one, should appreciate that “if righteousness is through the Law, then Christ died in vain.” So, then, the step of coming down to the level of these “sinners of the Gentiles” is one which Paul had no need to ask at Jerusalem, because he had a right to assume it as already taken. For when we, Jews as we were, believed on Christ Jesus, it was “that we might be justified by faith in Christ Jesus, and not by works of the Law.” With our own hands we destroyed the barrier be- see +. 144 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tween Jew and Gentile because we found it to be also a barrier between us and God. If now we attempt to build up again that barrier, we stand self-condemned “hypocrites,” false to our own principles. Those were cutting words that Paul used against the chief Apostle, and against his own old mission- ary companion. They echo still, the very self-same words, through the denunciations of the Simon- Magus-Paul in one branch of the Church which never forgave him. Probably Paul foresaw what it would cost him. He must have known that he could not expect to retain the confidence of the Antioch church, and that the alliance with Barna- bas would be broken off. If Peter and the elder Apostles ever forgave him, it would be because the Spirit of Christ worked in them beyond the power of common men. As for the agreement, won after so great a struggle at Jerusalem, he was sure it .would not be repudiated by the Apostles. They would undoubtedly respect it to the letter, and make no attempt to invade his mission field; but from the “false brethren,” he must expect the worst. They considered his inducing Peter to dis- regard the Law a distinct violation on his part. They certainly would not consider themselves bound by it, even if James and the Pillars did. He was thrown back now upon his own resources, j IN JERUSALEM AND AT ANTIOCH 145 and instead of the tacit support of the mother church, he would have, he knew, the active hos- tility of some, while he would ba unable to appeal to the support of even the most friendly. On the other hand, the irrepressible conflict had come. The storm had broken, and he had main- tained his cause, however few he carried with him. Paul was conscious that he had stood for the right, and in the light of truth and history had won his ease. The half-gospel Peter and the rest were pre- pared to offer to the Gentiles, its limits prescribed from Jerusalem, always with the tacit assumption that to be a Christian is well enough, but to be a Jewish Christian is a little better, was hopelessly impracticable. It certainly was no gospel Paul could preach. Moreover it was not true. After all, if Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia accepted the decrees, and Cyprus clung to Barnabas, there remained the churches of Galatia for a new base of operations, and at least the coast was clear. He would abide strictly by the agreement of non-interference ; nay, he would avail himself of that parting request to 23 ‘remember the poor.” He would take up in devo- tion and charity and utmost scrupulousness of con- sideration his vast work of evangelization, and see if God would not vindicate his calling in the har- vest given, while the Spirit of Christ should heal the breach which seemed now irreparable. 146 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL With such reflections Paul bade a long farewell to Antioch and the scenes of his earlier labors, to begin, as it were, his missionary career anew; but in departing for Galatia he took with him one token of happy augury, one link of connection with the mother church. Silas, one of the delegates from James, if Acts be right, cast in his lot with Paul. LECTURE V FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES AND BATTLE WITH THE JUDAIZERS We left the Apostle Paul as he was setting out from Antioch after a rupture with the Jerusalem church in the person of Peter, and with the Antioch church in the person of Barnabas. Conditions outwardly seemed little less than disastrous. Paul had prac- tically to begin his missionary career anew: and not only must he rely exclusively upon his own resources for support and authority ; he had good | reason to expect active hostility, if not from the Apostles and church-leaders in Jerusalem, certainly from subordinates, whom he could not, of course, under present circumstances, ask their ecclesiastical superiors to restrain. On the other hand, he was in the right, and he knew it. He had with him, besides, in the per- son of Titus, the undeniable, speaking indorsement of his free gospel, without the yoke of the Law. Wherever Titus went, there it was impossible to deny that in the test-instance the very Pillars had acknowledged that Paul’s essential principle of sal- vation without the works of the Law was right. He 148 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL had with him also Silas, or Silvanus as he is ealled in the Epistles, as further witness, if required. Moreover, this was not the first time that Paul had carried on missionary work among the Gentiles on his own resources. The labors, perils, sufferings, successes, of those fifteen years “in the regions of Syria and Cilicia,” of which we catch so brief a glimpse in 2 Cor. xi. 23-31, were an asset not easy to overestimate in the inventory of external resources. Finally, there was Galatia as a new base of opera- tions, churches of so predominantly Gentile origin, and so clearly the fruit of Paul’s personal initiative, that even the Jerusalem decrees leave them out from their attempted “sphere of influence.” To these, accordingly, Paul now betook himself with Silva- nus, resolved, we may be sure, to do all in his power to avoid further offense to the Jewish brethren, even while he counted it his greatest ground of hope and confidence that he had vindicated, even through painful strife, his free gospel and his apos- tleship “‘ not from men, neither through a man, but from Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” The solitary incident Luke is able to report of this second visit to Galatia is one on which erities have thrown what seems to me unwarranted sus-— picion. For example, Professor MeGiffert! argues 1 Apostolic Age, pp. 282 f. FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 149 from the vehement denunciations in Galatians! of Christians submitting to circumcision, without spe- cific mention of Timothy’s case, that it is quite impossible that Paul, in Galatia, immediately after the test case of Titus, should have taken Timothy of Lystra, whose mother only was a Jewess, “and circumcised him, because of the Jews that were in those parts.” If, indeed, we are to hold, with McGiffert, that Galatians was written before this visit, then there is not the slightest possibility of the statement being true; but it is not easy to see how Luke, who from this point on begins to be fully informed,? could be mistaken on such a mat- ter; and there are independent and very strong reasons, such as the allusion to a second visit? to Galatia in the letter, for thinking that Galatians was written some time after. If so, then the alleged place and time and purpose of the circum- cision of Timothy are all exactly what we might expect. Indeed, Galatians itself has no objection to cireumcision as such. Twice it declares that cir- cumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is no- thing. Nay, more, it implies a still more conciliatory attitude in previous times. Paul’s enemies were 1 EF. g. Gal. v. 2. 2 The Diary begins six verses further on. 8 Gal. iv. 13. McGiffert explains the second visit as being the return journey from the furthest Galatian city (Derbe), throuzh Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch (Acts xiv. 21). 150 ; THE STORY OF ST. PAUL citing his own action as inconsistent on this point. Paul is obliged to defend his conduct by saying, “Tf I still preach circumcision, why am I still per- secuted?” Clearly his Judaizing opponents have seized upon some act of his which, in their inter- pretation, was “still preaching circumcision.” ! What case better than the circumcision of Timothy in Lystra can we imagine, then, which might be effectively used to the Galatians as proof that Paul was not always so rigid as in Jerusalem? We may, indeed, be sure that after one such experience of the abuse of his generous dealing Paul did not re- peat the act; but under the special circumstances immediately following the conflict in Antioch, Paul might well go so far in the application of the prin- ciple by which he proposed to solve the difficulties of a modus vivendi, as to expose himself to the danger of misrepresentation.2, And if Paul had 1 Compare the question after the anathema on the disturbers, Gal. i. 10, “ Am I now showing myself a man-pleaser ? ”’ 2 The case is parallel to that alleged in Acts xxi. 26. Both are denied by critics, on the ground that Paul would have been false to his principles. Of course it is not accidental that Acts inserts both of these test instances and omits the greater instance of Titus on the other side. “ Reticence ” cannot be denied; but inveracity does not seem probable. Both in- stances are deliberately chosen, the one by Paul, the other by James, and are highly conspicuous. The object in both cases is the same. Paul is to demonstrate in a public way that he is not an iconoclast, inducing the Jews among the Gentiles to forsake FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 151 just come from Galatia, and taken this conciliatory action — of course not without full explanation of his motives —‘“on account of the Jews in those parts,’ why should we expect him in his letter to repeat the explanation, and not rather say, “ Here- after I will make no concessions.” ! Needless to say that Luke is not correct in representing that as the new missionary party “passed through the cities” from Lystra north- westward, “through the Phrygo-Galatic region,” aiming at Ephesus, the great metropolis of Asia Minor, “they delivered them the decrees for to keep, which had been ordained of the Apostles and Elders that were at Jerusalem.”” Paul undoubtedly took the same pains he takes in his letters to the the Law. It cannot, indeed, be denied that Paul did teach Jews, as well as Gentiles, wherever he came across them in his mission- field, to put no confidence whatever in obedience to the Law as a ground of justification. In that sense he did teach them to “ for- sake ” it. On the other hand, he was scrupulous to the last degree against leading ‘ the weak brother” to give up any legal practice without the full approval of his conscience. Nay, more, he did all in his power to sustain among Jews, and Gentiles too, the teaching value of the Law and all its rites. Circumcision itself was to him a type of baptism (Col. ii. 11), and had it not been transformed by his opponents into a token of subjection to the » Law, Paul himself would have continued to reeommend Jewish parents to perform it. The test cases of Luke are, therefore, as true to one pole of Pauline principle as the test case of Galatians is to the other. 1 Cf. Gal. i. 10; v. 11. 152 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Thessalonians and Corinthians to enforce such morality in sexual relations, and such avoidance of real “ pollutions of idols” by participation in hea- then temple-revelry and feasting, as would leave no cause of ‘offence either to Jews or Greeks, or to the Church of God.” Still he cannot have placed his Galatian converts on a less liberal footing than the Corinthian; and in Corinth the only law is ‘“‘in necessariis puritas, in non-necessariis libertas, in omnibus caritas.” In fact, the decrees followed, to Paul’s mind, just the wrong way. His letter suggests almost the contrary of Luke’s statement. Gal. i. 9 and iv. 16 allude to warnings already given against Judaizing teaching. These cannot, of course, have been given on the original tour of evangelization,! and if on the second, they antago- nize the decrees. It is with the so-called Second Missionary Jour- ney, whose base was the lesser Antioch of Pisidia (for it was Paul's practice to depend on the free gift of churches in the rear for carrying on the war at the front”), that we begin to get, in patches of 1 Gal. i. 9 seems even to present a contrast in the number of the verbs. ‘‘ As we warned you before, so say I now again.” The companion included under the “we” can scarcely be Barnabas ; it might well be Silvanus, who at the time of writing (Corinth, A. D. 50, as per Acts xviii. 1-4) was not with Paul. 2 To imagine that Paul by his personal manual labor could defray the expenses of the whole missionary party is not only FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 153 light falling here and there upon Paul’s toilsome path, the actual words of a traveling companion, we know not who, incorporated in the history of Luke much as, in the Old Testament, fragments of the diary of Nehemiah are incorporated in the priestly history called Chronicies. When this unknown companion joined the party, they were at the little port of Troas, at the very extremity of Asia, and apparently at the extremity of their slender resources as well. From Antioch Paul had looked down longingly at the teeming province of Proconsular Asia. There lay Ephesus, the vast metropolis of the Greek world, ancient seat of Ionic philosophy. Nearer at hand lay the Lyeus valley, soon to number the great churches of Laodicea, Hierapolis, and Colosse among “the Churches of Asia.” As Rome later, so Ephesus now was the strategic point, the goal of Paul’s sublime ambition. But “they were forbidden of to tax credulity, but to tax it unnecessarily. The idea rests on a misunderstanding of Paul’s principle: to “ make the Gospel with- out charge” to those to whom he brought it. So hedid. He was more scrupulous than the most honorable rabbi, or disciple of Socrates, who scorns to receive a fee for his teaching. He “labored night and day with his own hands, that he might not be charge- able to any.” But churches which had once received the Gospel were urged to contribute toward its transmission to others. Even while Paul was laboring in Thessalonica, and found it hard work to keep alive (1 Thess. ii. 9), the very recent converts of Philippi “sent once and again to relieve his need ” (Phil. iy. 15, 16). 154 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia.” Why? Doubtless for the same reason which led Paul, when after some three years’ mission work in Greece he returned to Ephesus, to still put off an urgent . invitation of the Christians! there, to remain with them and lead them. “ When they asked him to abide, he consented not, but saying, I will return again unto you if God will, he set sail for Czsa. rea and Antioch.” We know Paul’s rule to preach the Gospel only where Christ had not even been named. There was double reason now for not ‘building on another man’s foundation.” The coming of Paul into an existing Christian commu- nity at this time, even if not a violation of the agreement, could only lead to the most painful rekindling of strife. This was not apparent to— Paul alone. The expression of Acts, “they were - forbidden of the Holy Ghost,” means, as we see by the subsequent use of the same expression for the warnings given Paul by Agabus and other prophets against going to Jerusalem, that in Pisidian Anti- och, where conditions in the neighboring province were of course better known than to Paul, the pro- phets gave inspired utterance to a disapproval of his plan. 1 Acts has “ Jews” in accordance with its regular pragma- tism; but the story itself, though confused, shows the existence of “disciples” (xiv. 1) of a peculiar Johannine type of Chris- tianity in Ephesus. FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 155 With saddened hearts, but undiscouraged, the little party turned northward. Bithynia was their next objective, where Greek commerce had already long ago established its flourishing colonies along ‘the south shore of the Euxine. It was a long and toilsome journey over sparsely peopled mountain districts to the southern frontier of Mysia, whence they could strike northeast into Bithynia. We may well believe their slender means were now well-nigh exhausted ; but here again they were met by the same disappointment. “The Spirit of Jesus suf- fered them not to enter.”1 To borrow Paul’s own expression of a few years later, “there remained no more room for them in those parts.” Skirting the southern border of Mysia, they came to the ex- treme limit of Asia. At Troas they stood beside the Hellespont, conscious of a nobler mission than that of the Persian conqueror who, a half-millen- nium before, had here paused to survey his fancied prey, the Grecian west, but conscious also that their help must come from God if complete collapse were not to be the fate of Paul’s Gentile mission. 1 Pliny’s letter to Trajan at the beginning of the second cen- tury shows that Bithynia at that time was one of the very ancient seats of Christianity. Not improbably Paul found himself here also forestalled in his plans, as at Ephesus. ‘“‘ The Spirit of Je- sus” will haye found utterance in the words of some Christian prophet (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 3), this time probably one of the mission- ary party. 156 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Such are the circumstances which give us the inward significance of Paul’s vision of the “man of Macedonia.” Professor Ramsay conjectures that the author of the Diary, who here joins the party, and who clearly stands in some peculiarly intimate relation with Philippi, was objectified in Paul’s vision. To this there seems to be no objection, provided we do not identify the new-comer with the author of Acts as it stands. Tradition attributes this book to a certain Luke, said to have been of Antioch, of whom we know nothing whatever, except that he is one of a group surrounding Paul at Rome, a physician and a Gentile. There are strong indi- cations, per contra, that the Diarist was a Jew,! be- 1 Who but a Jew would date the season of year by the Jew- ish calendar: “ We sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread ’’ (mazzoth, Acts xx. 6); “the yoyage was now dangerous because the Fast [day of Atonement] was now already gone by” (Acts xxvii. 9) ? So of the parts which are too closely connected with the Diary to be readily attributed to the final compiler, and yet in the nature of the case must haye been subse- quently added, such as Paul’s speech in Athens, in Miletus, and on shipboard (Acts xvii. 22-31, xx. 18-35, xxvii. 21-26). The understanding of Paul is superior to the final editor’s here, as well as in the speech before Agrippa (Acts xxvi. 1-23), already discussed. Yet the Jewish point of view is apparent in the appeal to visions and angels (xxvi. 23; cf. xxvi. 10), and in phrases such as “the people (6 Aads) and the Gentiles” (xxvi. 17-23). Dalman (Worte Jesu, pp. 23-26, 33) has shown that expressions character- izing the Diary itself are unlikely in a writer of Greek birth. Thus kal éyévero (Heb. $7759) is a pronounced Septuagintism, im- probable for a Greek. Yet it is used habitually by the Diarist _ FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 157 longed in Philippi, and certainly was too closely associated with Paul to so entirely mistake his stand- point as does the author of Acts. In proportion as we come nearer the Diary Acts tends to agree with Paul. In the earlier parts, where, as we have seen, the compiler rests on a Jewish-Christian source, he swings almost to the other pole ; but even to the end the ecclesiastical pragmatism dominates. The Diary is overlaid with more or less legendary embellish- ments, such as the story of the earthquake which releases Paul and Silas from prison in Philippi, and with expansions, such as elaborate speeches which the author particularly delights to put in the mouth of Paul “before governors and kings,” the Coun- cil of the Areopagus in Athens, the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, Felix, and later Festus and Agrippa in Cesarea, and the “chief of the Jews” in Rome. There is thus a foundation which is strictly histori- cal, and a superstructure which is less historical in proportion as it rises above the base. With which shall we connect the name of Luke? If we consider (xxi. 1-5, xxvii. 44, xxviii. 8); and similar Jewish modes of speech occur in the adjoining contexts (cf. xxviii. 17, and ém mayTos mpooémov THs yis, xvii. 26). If it be maintained that the mention of the ‘‘ many lights’’ in xx. 8, as if connected with the drowsiness of Eutychus, xx. 9, betokens the observation of the physician, the remark will be more than counterbalanced by the application in the same verse of the word vexpés to the body of Eutychus in its condition of insensibility. 158 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Luke to be the Diarist, the name will have passed thence to the whole work, much as the name Mat- thew has passed from the Original Hebrew compila- tion of Logia to our first Gospel, and “ Nehemiah ” to that portion of Chronicles which incorporates his diary ; but there is much to be said for the reverse conclusion. There is some weight in the argument for the tradition based on the “ medical language ” of the final author, and his Gentile and Pauline predilections. The strong Jewish colora- tion of a large part of Luke-Acts can then be explained by minimizing the author’s connection with Paul, so as to include no more than is im- plied in Col. iv. 11-14, Philem. 24, 2 Tim. iv. 10, and throwing the responsibility for the errors, legendary traits, and un-Pauline views upon Jew- ish-Christian and Petrine sources; but along with the other sources manipulated by the final compiler for his own purposes, and sometimes against the original sense, will be the Diary too. For the Gentile Luke surely did not write his Diary in Jewish Greek, nor is it natural to suppose that so close a companion as the Diarist could fail to ap- preciate Paul’s keen and sensitive feeling as to his apostleship and commission to the Gentiles; but this we have seen to be the case with the Book of Acts as a whole. Indorsement of the early tradition which makes : FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 159 : the Gentile physician Luke the author of the com- plete work seems, therefore, to involve giving up the idea that he was the Diarist; for besides the lan- guage, the adjustment of the Diary to the sources followed in the rest of the book is such as could not well be made by any early companion of Paul, least of all by the author of the Diary himself. Our plan restricts us to the most cursory treat- ment of those portions of the story where the light of contemporary narrative shines most unobscured. The narrative of Acts is supremely interesting just where the Diary comes in, and therefore it is with regret that we hurry past the months of labor in Macedonia, Paul’s second great provincial founda- tion, and the most beloved. Here the story is both vivid and familiar: the Sabbath meeting at the place of prayer by the river, Lydia of Thyatira, and the exorcism of the Pythoness. I trust you know it also in the light of Ramsay’s interesting contribu- tions, which are not unnaturally fullest where the Diarist is nearest at hand; but we already pass into the penumbra at the point where Paul and 1 Tt surely is incredible that the author of the Diary, who, in company with Paul, met the delegation from the church in Rome at Appii Forum (Acts xxviii. 15), should carry his pragmatism to the extent of making Paul, even here in Rome, go through the recular form of going first to the synagogue and offering the Gospel to the Jews, then when they — who now hear it for the first time ! — have proved obduraie, “ turning to the Gentiles.” 160 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Silas are arrested for the exorcism. Their new- found companion was then separated from them. He no longer speaks until the first person is re- sumed years after, when Paul returns again to Philippi on his way to Jerusalem. The narrative continues, however, in the third person, to tell of the imprisonment, the miraculous release, the flight through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, and the founding there of a second Macedonian church. I have already said that the miraculous release shows the idealizing influence of legend, for there is no allusion to it in Paul’s letters, nor even in the story of Acts itself, when in the morning Paul and Silas are brought again before the magistrates. The scribe of the Western text, indeed, succeeds in removing the surprising ignorance of the magis- trates that anything unusual had oceurred dur- ing the night; but the older and better manuscripts leave the difficulty unexplained. It is here as in the imprisonment and miraculous release of Peter and all the Apostles in Acts v. 19-42. Events take their course precisely as if there had been no super- natural intervention. The magistrates summon them in the morning and the case is nolled ; not because anybody appears to know anything of the angelic liberation, or the earthquake, but because the prosecution have no case. In both instances iin at FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 161 the real story has gained a reflected light from the providential deliverance of Peter from prison and martyrdom through the sudden death of Agrippa. Peter might well exclaim, “ Now know I of a truth that the Lord hath sent his angel and delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the ex- pectation of the people of the Jews.’ In the nar- rative as we have it, this angel, the death angel of Agrippa, becomes an actual visible being, who opens iron doors for Peter. Something of his hea- venly radiance sheds a reflected glow both over the previous release in Jerusalem! and the release of Paul and Silas in Philippi. The story of Thessalonica has not the legendary embellishments, but here, too, Luke falls into his stereotyped form: (1) The evangelists prove to the Jews from the Scriptures, that Jesus is the Christ. (2) The Greek proselytes believe, while the Jews are hardened. (3) The Jews provoke a riot and drive out the apostles. “ Three sabbath days ” is the time within which Luke frames his whole story; but even Ramsay admits that some six months at least must have been spent in Thessalonica. For Paul, in his letters written to the church a few weeks or months later, implies a work of at least this extent, and years after reminds the Philippians how they had made repeated contributions for his 1 Acts v. 19-26. Compare this and xvi. 23-39 with xii. 5-11. 162 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL support at this time of the “ beginning of the Gospel in Macedonia.” ! It is not, however, Luke’s ignorance of, or indifference to, some of the real events of the Macedonian mission; nor his dis- agreement with 1 Thess. ii. 1, where it appears, contrary to Acts xvii. 14, that Timothy accom- panied Paul to Athens, which merits any special remark. We concern ourselves only with the general viewpoint of Luke, because that affects all his descriptions. Thus 1 Thess. i. 9, 10, shows that the church in Thessalonica consisted, as a whole, of converts made by Paul from heathenism. The next chapter, verse 14, shows that the persecutions endured were from Greeks. Both Epistles imply a Gentile church. There is not a line in either to indicate that there was so much as a single Jew in the whole city. Now we have no need to deny that Paul began in Thessalonica by preaching for three sabbaths in the synagogue. We know from the Diary that the missionaries started in some such way at Philippi. We need not question the Jews provoking the riot. We must realize, however, that what Luke tells us as if it were the whole is often only the beginning (in the case of Rome not even that), because Luke is simply finding confirmation of his theory of the relation of Church and Syn- 1 Pinching poverty is one of the impressions of this period which we get from 1 Thess. ii. 6-12. ee FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 163 agogue. Thus in Corinth, too, the only thing Luke has to tell is Paul’s relation with the synagogue, and the discomfiture of the Jews at Gallio’s decision ; but read the letters to the Corinthians, and the Jews and synagogue again sink wholly out of view. Accordingly we must look at the story of this great campaign of the Gospel in Greece with our own eyes, and not merely through the spectacles of a writer who is all preoccupied with the relative claims of Synagogue and Church. On this great campaign against Macedonia and Achaia Paul was, in his own language, “‘ turning men unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivereth us from the wrath to come.” It is because it corresponds so closely to this outline that the speech of Paul in Athens, Acts xvii. 18-34, is deserving of con- sideration, as well representing the type of his mis- sionary preaching ;! not because of the highly im- probable representation that it was delivered to an audience of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers assembled at the world-famous Athenian tribunal. I have already pointed out how genuinely Pau- line is the longing to meet the yearning of the best in heathendom after the Unknown God. This fig- 1 See Sabatier, The Apostle Paul, chapter i., “ Paul’s Mission- ary Preaching.” 164 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ' ure of the groping hands outstretched in the dark- ness strikes the same note as the vision at Troas, the man of Macedonia entreating, “ Come and help us.” “The passing over of sins done aforetime in the forbearance of God” of Rom. iii. 24 has its parallel in the “ times of ignorance which God over- looked ” of Acts xvii. 30, and the impending judg- ment whereof assurance has been given by the ~ resurrection of Christ reminds one strongly of 1 Thess. i. 10. Thus the address, in distinction from that attributed to Paul in Acts xiii. 16-41, is really of Pauline type ; but it must also be acknowledged that the address as a whole contains rather the commonplaces of the Jewish propaganda against heathenism, than anything distinctive of Paul. It should be read side by side with the typical mis- sionary address quoted by Clement of Alexandria from the so-called Preaching of Peter ;1 for in sub- stance the same “ preaching” appears in yarious forms in Tatian, Athenagoras, the Epistle to Dio- gnetus, and the Apology of Aristides. It is even recognizable in a pre-Christian form in the Wisdom of Solomon and the Epistle of Aristeas. “ Luke,” accordingly, did not need short-hand notes of Paul’s _ sermon to write a good description. ‘ Peter says,” quotes Clement, “ Know then that there is one God, who made the beginning of all things, and holds 1 Dated by Harnack about 140. 1 FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 165 the power of the end; and is the Invisible, who sees all things, uncontainable, all-containing, needing nothing, whom all things need, and by whom they are ; incomprehensible, everlasting, unmade, Maker of all things by the word of his power. Worship this God, not as the Greeks, since they are carried away by ignorance and know not God, but giving shape to the things he gave them power to use, stocks and stones, brass and iron, gold and silver —matter, and setting up the things which are slaves for use and possession, worship them.” The baseness of the Egyptian worship of living animals is next denounced, heathen sacrifice being declared an “offering of dead things to the dead,! as to gods,” a proof of “ unthankfulness to God in the denial of his existence by these things.” 2 In the Christian form of the comparison, this Egyptian type of false worship, which in the pre-Christian ® offsets the Greek, becomes simply a part of the description 1 Cf. Ps.-Aristeas (Kautzsch), 138, “The Egyptians worship animals and creeping things, and offer sacrifice to living and even dead.” Compare also the Teaching of the Twelve, offerings to idols “the worship of dead gods,” and Jubilees, loc. cit. 2 Cf. Acts xiv. 17; Rom. i. 21-23; Wisdom xi. 23, xiii. 1-9, 10, xiy. 21-28. See Bousset, Rel. d. Jud., 1902, pp. 170-174. 8 In Wisdom xy. 18 the text is corrupt, but the succeeding con- text, xv. 18—xix. 22, shows that it is the Egyptians who are, as in Aristeas, the type of that baser heathenism which does not even clothe divinity in the beauty of the human form, but worships animals and creeping things. 166 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL of heathenism, as in Rom. i. 23. In Aets it is naturally omitted as unsuited to an Athenian audi- ence. That also is omitted in Acts which in the Preaching of Peter, Apology of Aristides, Tatian, etc., is substituted as second element in the com- parison : “ Neither worship as do the Jews, for they fancy themselves alone to know God, yet know him not, for they worship angels and archangels, the month and the moon;? and, unless the moon ap- pear, they will not hold the Sabbath which is called first, nor observe the new-moon, nor Unleayened Bread, nor the Feast [of Tabernacles] nor any great day.” Then comes, as third element in the comparison, instead of Judaism in the pre-Christian — form, the presentation of Christianity as the true religion. “‘So that it is for you, finally, who shall have learned the holy and righteous ordinances which we deliver to you, to keep them, worshipping God in a new way by Christ.’”’ As to what followed, 1 The Jewish calendar system, being the foundation of the priestly ritual (Gen. i. 14, Jubilees, passim), naturally led to com- parisons with heathen ritual systems which haye a similar basis, though with frank avowal of the astral character of the divinities worshiped. The Jews, however, classed the beings who govern the motions of sun, moon, and stars as “ angels and archangels ” (Enoch, passim). But worship of “‘ Month and Moon” is an unin- telligible accusation, unless the words Mnv) kal SeAnv@ are taken as proper names, — perhaps the ancient Phrygian divine pair, Men and Selene. See Ramsay, Galatians, p. 202, and Cities and Bish- oprics of Phrygia, ii. p. 626. FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 167 Clement only tells us that Peter “ shows that the same God was the giver of Greek philosophy to the Greeks.” Another fragment, however, surviving elsewhere, goes on to declare: “As for all the things which any one of you hath done in igno- rance, not clearly knowing God, if, having come to full knowledge, he repent, all his sins shall be for- given him.” One might almost think the fragments of the Preaching of Peter were based on Acts xiv. 15— 17, and xvii. 18-31. In reality this document simply holds in common with the group of early writings already cited, in common with Acts, in common with Paul himself in Rom. i. 16-ii. 16, and 1 Thess. i. 9, 10, a stock predicatio of early Jewish monotheistic propaganda, so modified in Christian use as to make Judaism itself take second place in the comparison. Even the conception of God’s “ overlooking” the times of ignorance appears in Wisdom xi. 23.1 Acts, therefore, in its description of preaching to the heathen at Lystra and Athens is true to Paul, but simply because Paul was true to the standard of even pre-Christian times. The Jewish Stoic who 1 “Thou overlookest the sins of men to the end they may re- pent.’’ Cf. Rom. ii. 4, “ Or despisest thou the long-suffering and forbearance, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ?” t 168 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ‘wrote the Wisdom of Solomon is Paul’s real teacher of missionary preaching, according to the joint testimony of Acts xvii. 22-31, and Rom. i. 18-ii. 16. At Corinth, where Luke returns to his preoceu- pation with Paul’s relations to the synagogue, Acts has simply a repetition in dramatic form of the scene of xiii. 45-48 on the First Missionary Journey, where the Apostles “turn to the Gentiles.” Luke tells us, indeed, that Paul met in Corinth his subse- quent helpers, Aquila and Prisca, recently expelled from Rome by the decree of Claudius against Jews (dated by Orosius in 49 A. D.), and that he re- mained there at work among the Gentiles for eigh- _teen months, Silas and Timothy meantime having come down from Macedonia ; but the only incident he has to relate of these whole eighteen months is the characteristic one referred to. These eighteen months are the period of the founding of the church in Achaia, the consolidating of that in Macedonia, and above all of the great crisis through which Paul succeeded in preventing the Judaizers from filching from him his first great missionary field of Galatia ; But Luke has nothing to tell of all this. His inter- est is taken up by an unsuccessful attempt of the Jews to denounce Paul before Gallio, brother of Seneca, from whom we have had so much oceasion to quote. Apparently they brought suit under the law FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 169 forbidding the propagation of unauthorized faiths, so that it became necessary to show that Christianity was so different from Judaism as not to be included under the sanction Rome gave to it. Gallio, how- ever, very easily perceived that it was simply a matter of the perpetual synagogue quarreling about words and (Messianic) names and the obligation of the Law; the sort of ‘quarrels which, according to Suetonius, had led to the recent Claudian decree. Gallio, accordingly, contemptuously dismissed the ease. Luke says he even permitted the crowd, who had no liking for Jews, to take the archi-synagogus, whose prosecution of the case had proved so unsuc- cessful, and beat him before the judgment-seat. Luke calls the man Sosthenes, not at all a common name. Hither, then, there is some confusion,! or the beating must have led to a very remarkable and unexpected change of heart; for in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians written two or three years later, it is “ Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and Sos- thenes our brother”! All this as to Paul’s relations to the synagogue in Corinth is unquestionably interesting, — doubly so, since the American excavators, three years ago, turned up the marble lintel of a door with the rude 1 Crispus, the one Corinthian convert whom Paul and Luke men- tion in common, is said in Acts xviii. 8 to have been the ruler of the synagogue. This may partly account for the confusion in v. 17. 170 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL inscription which designated the place as the “ Syn- agogue of the Hebrews.” Moreover, it is of supreme importance to get trustworthy dates such as the appointment of Gallio, which cannot have been earlier than 50 A. D., and was probably in 51, so that the eighteen months in Corinth may be dated as in 50-51; but when we turn to Paul’s letters, these matters of the synagogue fall utterly below the horizon. The real interests appear, and Gallio and Jews alike are wholly forgotten. By almost universal admission it is here at Cor- inth that the series of Pauline letters begins, the only question being as to the priority of Galatians or the Thessalonian correspondence, In either case it is probably a question of only a few months, or even of weeks. In the letters we hear of Athens, but only that Paul had come there with Timothy, whom he sent back to Macedonia, but he seems to have left the city for Corinth before Timothy’s return. Results, then, were probably as meagre as Luke reports, for Paul reached Corinth in great discouragement, and was with them “in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling, and his speech and preaching were not in persuasive words of ” wisdom.” | Whether through adverse experience at Athens, or otherwise, he had determined to eschew philosophizing, and to know nothing among them but the simple story of the cross. In reality this FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 171 proved the one effective thing. The story of a dy- ing Redeemer brought the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” tongues, prophecies, mighty works. No church surpassed this of Corinth in spiritual gifts. Once more Paul’s extremity had been God’s opportunity. ‘God chose the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are strong,’ so that out’ of the motley company which gathered about the missionaries, few rich, few noble, many mere slaves and outcasts, there grew up the most flourishing of all Paul’s founda- tions hitherto. Acts xviii. 9, 10, tells us that the beginning of this was one of those experiences of Paul which he refers to as “ visions and revelations of the Lord,” and we may well believe it. They seem to have marked the reaction of his indomi- table faith in periods of his profoundest dejection. There was indeed ground enough for dejection. If the reasoning of Zahn, the greatest of German conservative scholars, is to be trusted, it was shortly after Paul’s arrival in Corinth with his new-found friends Aquila and Prisca, but before Timothy and Silas had returned from Macedonia, that Paul had news of the most disquieting sort from Galatia, the home of Timothy. In 1 Thess. i. 8, 9, we learn that the story of Paul’s missionary activity in Macedonia had spread in advance of him to Achaia, and, as he says, still further beyond. Nor was this 172 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL all. The report of this report had come back to Paul. He can hardly mean from Rome, with which Aquila and Prisca were doubtless in correspond- ence. It is much more probable that it was from Galatia, whither Timothy had surely reported home the course of events, that Paul now received back the echo of his own doings across the Adgean, over the much-traveled route from Ephesus to Corinth. With the echo came also the report of what his enemies were doing: Not the Gentile slanderers and persecutors in Thessalonica, with whom he deals briefly in 1 Thessalonians, passing quickly to the internal conditions which specially required his attention, but Christian fellow countrymen of those Jews of whom he speaks so bitterly in 1 Thess. ii. 15,16. Taking advantage of Paul’s absence,! the ‘false brethren” had cut in upon his rear, follow- ing up their success at Antioch by an endeavor to win away from him his Galatian churches. They could not, of course, deny the Pillar Apostles’ re- ception of Titus the uncircumcised, and therefore could not insist, as formerly, on circumcision as an absolute condition of salvation, but only as a coun- sel of perfection. The Galatians having begun in the Spirit should be ‘‘ made perfect” in the flesh. It was in fact a different gospel from Paul’s which they preached to his converts, even representing to 1 Gal. iv. 18. j FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 173 them that Paul himself was no real Apostle, that he took his knowledge of Christ at second hand, and supplemented what little he had learned out of his own lax and free-thinking speculations. Base as were their libels, they made no small headway. Paul tells the Galatians frankly that he despairs of them. They were already observing Sabbaths, new moons, feasts, and all the Jewish sacred calendar. They had not yet submitted to circumcision; but in recognizing the literal seed of Abraham as the true heirs of the Messianic promise, they had con- ceded the principle. It remained only that they should accept the logical conclusion. They would then have cut themselves off from Christ and put themselves back in a bondage but little better than the heathenism from which Paul had rescued them. We must see how Paul met the assault upon his apostleship and his gospel when we proceed to study his letters. At present we must leave his corre- spondence with Thessalonica and Galatia, and ac- company him, as with Aquila and Prisca he takes leave of Corinth, crosses the Agean to Ephesus, where he leaves Aquila and Prisca, and reémbarks, so Luke tells us, for Antioch, having in the mean time received an urgent request from the Jews! in Ephesus to abide with them. 1 Luke, in accordance with his invariable rule, makes Paul present the Gospel first to the Jews in the synagogue, so that the 174 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL — Why, then, should Paul defer it, since we know that Asia had been his first objective, and insist first on returning to Antioch? Perhaps for the same rea- son that he persisted at the risk of his life in going to Jerusalem before he would visit Rome, the still more ardently desired goal of his missionary effort. At any rate, both these great Gentile centres were already occupied by Christian churches before Paul’s arrival, and as he takes great pains to ex- plain to the Romans, he always scrupulously avoids intrusion on another man’s foundation. Acts tells us nothing of whom Paul saw in Antioch, nor what his purpose was in going, only that he spent some time there, and afterward returned to Ephesus over land, “stablishing the churches of Galatia and Phrygia in order.” We can only draw more or less probable inferences ; but it is a fact that Paul for three years made Ephesus his headquarters, and that in the letters written thence not long after to Corinth he speaks of his arrangements in Gala- tia for the great contribution that he intends to send, or carry, to Jerusalem, says that his work invitation is made to appear — very improbably — to be from the synagogue. We know, however from the subsequent story that there was already a Christian community in Ephesus, and it will therefore be this which urged Paul to remain. In Rom. xvi., among the Ephesian Christians saluted are several of Jewish birth, of whom two are expressly said to have been in Christ before Paul himself. Compare Luke’s similar ignoring of the pre-Pauline church in Rome, Acts xxviii. FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 175 in Ephesus is very prosperous, though “there are many adversaries,” and finally couples his own name again first with that of the Apostles, the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas, then with that of Barnabas, as controlled by the same principles. All this at least suggests a more hopeful prospect of healing the breach. Paul, however, was by no means done with the Judaizers. The churches of Macedonia seem to have been beyond their reach, but all along the great southern route to Rome from Antioch through South Galatia, Ephesus, and Corinth they zealously followed on his track, endeavoring by every means, even the basest slander, to undermine his authority, make proselytes of his converts, and deny his gospel. During this period of Paul’s work in Proconsular Asia, Corinth became the focus of their activity, and, as we shall see from our study of the Corinthian correspondence, gave more en- couragement to their design of ousting Paul than Galatia itself. Paul was compelled to write at least four letters, to/send both his most trusted lieuten- ants, and at last to come himself to the rescue, or this important church would have deserted. All this, however, is passed over in absolute silence by Luke (another example of “ reticence”), so that the appropriate place for us to consider it is in connection with the correspondence. 176 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL There is more to be learned from Acts concern- ing a new complication that now for the first time appears in Ephesus and Corinth, but which was destined to make as great drafts upon the genius of Paul in defense of his gospel as the Judaizing heresy itself, though from the opposite quarter. The first great conflict of the new faith had been a war of independence, to emancipate the Gospel from the swathing-bands of Judaistic legalism. Its watchword was “ Justification by faith without the works of the Law.” Paul was the champion who achieved its victory. The second great conflict had only its beginnings within the lifetime of Paul, and in fact rested very largely on Pauline teach- ings., For while in its earliest forms the principal heresiarchs were of Jewish race (Simon Magus and Menander Samaritans, Cerinthus of Ephesus a Jew), it was essentially Hellenistic in type and Alexandrian in derivation. I refer to Gnosticism, a title which covers an immense variety of sects, extending from even pre-Christian times through- out the second century, and from Jewish to the most intensely anti-Jewish forms. All Gnostics, as the word itself suggests, from Philo down, are in their own view philosophers, or at least theosophists. All are eclecties, bor- rowing from this system of thought and that, more or less crudely understood, the elements of a new FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 177 universal religion. The one point which all have in common is their dualism; the conviction that matter is essentially evil. Their common watch- word was, Emancipation of the spirit from fleshly existence, which made Paulinism seem a kindred doctrine. The spirit of redeeming love in God and man played, however, a smaller réle than enlightenment and speculative thought in their system. If they favored Indian philosophy, they accounted for material existence by the imperfect knowledge of the Creator (Demiurge); if the Persian type, by the intervention of an actively evil power. Sometimes they were extreme ascet- ies, seeking thus to free spirit from the toils of matter, sometimes utter libertines, declaring that the flesh and its passions had no relation to the spirit, whose deliverance is accomplished only by enlightenment (gnosis). Sometimes they were really profound and acute philosophers, like Valen- tinus; sometimes the mere Blavatskys and Diss Debars of the age. Such were Elymas the mage at the court of Sergius Paulus, and Simon the mage at Samaria. Such were now at Ephesus the seven sons of the Jew Sceva, who claimed to be a chief priest. All belong to the class designated by Luke as “strolling Jews, exorcists.’ The Epistle to Titus describes them as “vain talkers and deceiv- ” ers,’ who in Crete were “overthrowing whole 178 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL households, teaching things which they ought not,” “Jewish fables” and “endless genealogies,” men disreputable and impure. It also adds that the worst of the whole class were “those of the cir- cumcision.” Modern discovery is just beginning to make us acquainted with this type of mongrel, debased Judaism, the type that calls forth the scorn and hatred of Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Tacitus. We have now whole libraries of the so-called magic papyri, or “‘ Ephesian letters” as they were called, from the seat of principal manufacture. Their in- cantations and abracadabra are made up largely of the formule of the Jewish Law, and such terms as “ Jehovah Sabaoth,” « Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ” recur, with all the angelology and demonology of current Jewish superstition. Hellenistic Judaism and Christianity alike were infested with this pest all through the latter part of the first and the whole of the second century,! and Paul in Ephesus had made his headquarters in its very seat and hotbed. 1 For further data on Jewish and early Christian magie see Deissmann, Bible Studies, [V. (An Epigraphie Memorial of the LXX.) and VI. (Greek Transcriptions of the Tetragrammaton), noting especially the quotation (p. 336) from the letter of Hadrian to Servianus, “in which it is said that the Samaritans in Egypt, together with the Jews and Christians dwelling in that country, are all astrologers, haruspices, and quacksalvers.”’ FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 179 Neither did he now shrink any longer from applying all the powers of a naturally philosophic and well-trained mind to the problem. First Co- rinthians begins with a declaration of Paul’s ability, had he chosen, to bring to bear a higher philosophy at Corinth; for Corinth, too, had caught the infec- tion from Ephesus, apparently through Apollos, who himself had come to Ephesus from Alexandria equipped with its Philonic subtleties. In Asia, at least, Paul fought fire with fire. Luke, after his stereotyped account of separation from the syna- gogue, xix. 8, 9, tells us that his preaching in Ephe- sus consisted of “reasoning daily for two whole years in the school of one Tyrannus.” The very place is significant; still more so the statement of results. I do not refer to the relic miracles of the healing handkerchiefs and napkins taken from Paul’s body, which only betray the element of Jew- ish legendary accretion, traceable even from the language in this chapter; I refer to the bonfire with which the conclusion of Paul’s ministry was celebrated. ‘ Many of those who practised magic,” says Luke, brought their books together, and burned them in the sight of all, and they counted the price of them and found it $50,000.41 1 The valuation must be understood as representing their worth in the eyes of those who believed in them. If inventoried at cost, the figures would hardly be accepted by fire-insurance adjusters. 180 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Of the community of disciples of John the Bap- tist, from whom Aquila and Prisca won over, dur- ing Paul’s absence at Antioch, the cultured Alex- andrian Apollos, sending him soon after to Corinth, I can only stop to say that all we know of the sect, which spread all the way to the Persian Gulf and maintained its existence even down to the nine- teenth century, indicates that it was of a strongly Gnostic type; for Gnosticism fastened upon the leaderless Johannine movement with even greater ease and avidity than upon Christianity. Apollos, however, though the speculative, Alexandrian type of his preaching in Corinth had some unfortunate results, was in warm sympathy with Paul, and Paul with him; so that we must not imagine him as tainted with Gnostic error. Finally, as to Paul’s fighting with beasts in Ephesus (1 Cor. xv. 32), which McGiffert with other first-rate authorities understands to mean literal ‘“‘combat with wild beasts in the arena,” we can only say, either Luke has told us nothing whatever about it; or else, if it be the riot in the theatre of Acts xix. 23-41,— at which, however, Paul, according to Luke, was not himself present, —it is placed too near his final departure, for Paul alludes to it, in 1 Corinthians, a year before his departure. We only know from 2 Cor. i. 8— 11 that Paul’s final departure from Ephesus was FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 181 indeed at such imminent risk of his life, that he and his companions, felt that the sentence of death had been pronounced, and that they owed their escape to “God that raiseth the dead.” Aquila and Prisca, however, have a generous share in his gratitude, for in a brief letter of commendation, which in our canon is attached to Romans, but was originally a commendation of the deaconess Phebe from Corinth to the church in Ephesus, Paul sends greeting to many Ephesian friends, includ- ing “Prisca and Aquila, who for my life laid down their own necks,” and Andronicus? and Junia, his fellow countrymen, who had shared his “‘ imprisonment.” Clearly, Luke gives anything but a complete ac- count of Paul’s work in Ephesus. Nevertheless, in the following chapter the Diary begins again, after a brief statement of Paul’s journey of confirmation from Ephesus through Macedonia to Achaia, and of his return, after wintering in Corinth, by the same route, instead of by sea to Jerusalem, on account of another plot against his life from the Jews. 1 Rom. xvi. 2 Andronicus may perhaps be added to the list of names which indicate an Ephesian address for this letter, Rom. xvi. The only Andronicus of early Christian tradition is he of the Acts of John (A. D. 160-170), located in Ephesus in the time of the Apostles. Ten of the names indicate some locality in Paul’s Grecian mission- field, three (with Andronicus four) suggest specifically Ephesus. ey one) ll "a 182 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL This dry statement is lighted up with gleams of vivid dramatic interest as we read our 2 Cor., written from Macedonia when Paul had barely es- caped with his life from Ephesus. As,we learn from the Epistles, he was even then more than half afraid that if he reached Corinth at all, it would be only to find the church completely alienated from him, and the door shut in his face; but this last and most critical period of all Paul’s mission- ary career can be considered only in connection with the correspondence, for the usual reason, — the “‘ reticence” of Acts, which regards the Judaizers as suppressed after the Jerusalem decrees. It remains for us, therefore, only to recall the touching picture of the final journey from Cor- inth, now at last won back to its allegiance. It is drawn in the main by one of the great company of delegates who accompanied Paul, two from each of his great provincial churches. Enlargement upon the Diary would be “ gilding refined gold.” Such scenes as the partings at Philippi and Troas, at Miletus, and above all, on the beach at Tyre (Acts xxi. 5), speak from the very life; for there was no concealment of the expectation that Paul was going to his doom. Prophet after prophet expressed in word and symbol the voice of the Spirit that “bonds and imprisonment awaited him;” but Paul no longer turned back even at the voice of FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 183 the Spirit, when it gave only warnings of his own fate. Indeed, the reported address at Miletus re- presents, not so much what Paul would most wish to say, if we can judge by his letters to his Ephe- sian helpers, as what the historian wished to say; for its motive, to make clear that the blood of the unbelieving Jews was on their own heads, is more Lucan than Pauline. Yet it does embody in the allusions to the appointed bishops (xx. 28, if there were “ bishops” in 55 A. D.), and to Paul’s working with his own hands (xx. 34), traits un- known to the Lucan story; so that we seem to have an intermediate stage between the Diary and the final compiler. The few golden pages of Acts xx. 0-17, xxi. 1-18, must speak for themselves. The great question that concerns us relates to the understanding of Paul’s life. Why was he so bent upon this almost inevitably fatal journey? What was the meaning of this great delegation from all * the churches of the Gentiles’ to Jerusalem, Paul among their number? Why had he for years past been ordaining in all his churches, from Galatia to Macedonia and Achaia, gatherings of money on the first day of the week? Why does he write to the Corinthians repeatedly about the collections and the delegates who are to go, either alone, or, ac- cording to the subsequent plan, with Paul to Jeru- salem? Why does he finally, on the eve of setting 184 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL out, send a letter to Rome, assuring them of his prayers and yearning hopes to see them, but de- claring that he must first go to Jerusalem, to per- form a ministration to the saints? “For it hath been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints that are at Jerusalem.” What, finally, is the meaning of that touching figure by which Paul describes his own part in the great undertak- ing? “The grace was given me of God that I should be a ministrant priest of Christ Jesus, offi- ciating in the sacrifice of the Gentiles, that it might prove acceptable, as being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” The secret is not hard to guess, if we look away from Acts, which has only silence on this whole un- dertaking,! to the series of letters from Galatians to Romans. This was Paul’s olive-branch. This was the goal toward which he had striven these seven years of danger and toil and devotion incomparable. While Jewish Christians were plotting against his churches, and Jews against his life, Paul was laboring and toiling, living on the work of his own hands that 1 The only reference in Acts is in the chance allusion of Paul’s speech before Felix (another instance in which the Pauline speeches seem to stand a stage nearer the facts than Luke), “I come to bring alms to my nation,’’ Acts xxiv. 17. .— FOUNDING OF THE GREEK CHURCHES 185 he might not be chargeable to any, determined to prove at last, even at the risk of his life, to his fellow countrymen and fellow believers in Jerusa- lem, that he had not forgotten or been false to that first warm-hearted understanding with the Pillar Apostles, when they had asked but this one thing, that he would “ remember the poor.” Would it be acceptable to the saints? Would the terrible breach be healed? Would the Apostles and Elders receive him as on that first occasion, almost ten years before? Or would the “ bonds, the imprisonment,” the death he foresaw, be all incurred in vain? We must leave Paul where his letter leaves the church he is yearning to see in Rome. “Now I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, that ye wrestle together with me in your prayers to God for me: that I may be delivered from them that are unbelieving in Judea, and that my min- istration which I have for Jerusalem may be ac- ceptable to the saints; that I may come unto you in joy through the will of God, and together with you may find a breathing space. May the God of peace be with you all, Amen.” LECTURE VI THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS Tue Diary of Paul’s nameless companion, after bringing him from Philippi to Jerusalem, breaks off again at the point where Paul and the whole delegation together “ went in unto James ; and all the Elders were present.” Apparently none of the Twelve were in Jerusalem. If it told more, the author of Acts has not included it. I am afraid it is somewhat disappointing to pass from the Epistle to the Romans, where interest is centred on the great internal problem of church unity, and keyed up to the highest point, as we realize that Paul, though face to face with death, is reaching the goal of seven years of superhuman effort, to another writer, who is systematically “reticent” on the whole subject of internal discord in the Church ; but so our method requires. Unfor- tunately, Luke is not always interested in what interests us. In Galatia, at Thessalonica, at Corinth, at Ephesus, everywhere he rigidly confines his attention to Paul’s relations with the Synagogue on the one side and the Roman authorities on the other. Internal questions are ignored. We have THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 187 again in the Lucan story of this momentous visit to Jerusalem, on the large scale, simply what we had in the account of Corinth? on the small. One quarter of the entire Book of Acts is occupied with this story of Paul’s ill-treatment by the Jews in Jerusalem, and his successful appeal to Roman protection, which was the providential occasion of his being brought to Rome. In all this the author has not found room for one word on the subject which to Paul was more than an issue of life and death, an issue in comparison with which he * counted not his life dear unto him,” the issue of the union or disunion of the Church. Was the gift of the Gentile churches “ acceptable to the saints ” ‘the issue for which Paul begged the Christians in Rome to wrestle together with him in prayer to God ? Or was it not? At the very point where Paul and his fellow delegates from these churches enter the presence of “ James and all the Elders” the curtain drops. If the Diary reported the result, its account has been superseded by the long chapters dealing with Paul’s delivering up to the Gentiles, the plots of the Jews, and Paul’s speeches of defense ‘* before governors and kings.” Instead of being told the outcome of that momentous crisis which the Epistles have taught us was the supreme interest to Paul’s mind, the healing of the great schism be- ' Acts xviii. 1-17. 0 ay 188 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tween Gentile and Jewish Christianity, the reader of Acts finds absolutely no allusion to the matter, except a casual, and as it were accidental, reference in Paul’s speech before Felix, — “ After many years I came to bring alms to my nation and offerings ;” implying that whatever Paul brought had only the significance of the alms and offerings customary with the every-day Jewish pilgrim to the temple. The reader who comes anxiously inquiring, “ Well, what of the great issue for which Paul was risking all?” is, as it were, taken confidentially by the arm, with an “ Oh, come now, never mind those little misunderstandings of the past about the relations of Jews and Gentiles in the Church. You know I told you how the Apostles and Elders settled all that by the Jerusalem decrees.” That is simply the nature of the material, which each reader must use in his own way. If the object is to establish “the credibility of Luke,” one may ~ be content to write a Shakespearian epitaph over the sepulchre of this dead controversy, and know nothing of what the apologist does not volunteer to tell; but if it be to understand the true story of Paul, on its inward as well as outward side, one will be more disposed to accept the tacit invitation of the New Testament to comparison. The caution must be against an impatience born of the assumption that it was Luke’s duty to write the kind of history © THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 189 we would have him. Having been fully warned that his book was written for the purpose of confirming Theophilus in “the things wherein he had been catechized,” it is our business to let our guide take his own course, simply remembering his interests. According to Luke, then, Paul simply reported his work, and James and the Elders glorified God. However, James is somehow aware of certain slan- ders concerning Paul which declare that he teaches the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses. There is no explanation of how so strange a slander should have obtained currency, and even be generally believed by the Judzan churches. However, James proposes that Paul should pay the costs of sacrifice for four members of the Jerusa- lem church who were to be discharged from a Nazi- rite vow, and Paul offers no objection, but dutifully does as he is bid. Incidentally James states, — ap- parently to refresh Paul’s memory,*— “ But as touching the Gentiles which have believed, we wrote, giving judgment that they should keep them- selves from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from fornica- 1 Or is it that now for the first time Paul is given opportunity to express his mind on this proposed application of the agree- ment? Certainly Acts xxiii. 25 comes in strangely here if the . course of events was as described in Acts xv. It seems to pre- _ suppose rather such a history as we have deduced from Gal. u. 12. 190 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tion.” ! As for the delegates of the Gentile churches, they suddenly and permanently disappear. No one knows what becomes of them, nor of the great fund collected for these many months through all Galatia and Asia, Macedonia and Achaia. The author of the slanderous Simon Magus legend? will have it that Peter roundly denounced the gift as an attempt at bribery, telling Paul, “ Thy silver per- ish with thee, because thou hast thought to obtain the gift of God with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this word [of the Gospel], for thy heart is not right before God .. . for I foresee that thou wilt become a gall-root of bitterness and a bond [%. e. organizer] of iniquity.” 8 1 Thus Paul has always done exactly as directed from Jerusa- lem. It would seem as if here more of the real historical situation were permitted to shine through from the underlying Diary than the historian really intended. 2 On this legend in its various forms see the articles s. v., in Encycl. Bibl. and Hastings’ Bible Dictionary. 3 The representation of Simon of Gitta, in Acts viii. 18-24, is a mere caricature. The man himself was certainly a theosophist of great repute in his day, and even a whole century later his fel- low countryman, Justin Martyr, could testify that all the Samari- tans were infatuated with his doctrines. He is in fact regarded by all the fathers as the fons et origo of Gnosticism. But how- ever large a part mere thaumaturgy may have played in his prac- tice, this was no such “ Simple Simon” as Acts represents, nor can he ever have taken this humble attitude toward the Apostles. These traits, and perhaps those of the Elymas Bar-Jesus episode of Acts xiii. 6-11, are borrowed from a special type of the legend of which but a few traces survive, principally in the Clementine THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 191 Doubtless that represents exactly the attitude the “false brethren ” would have liked to see as- sumed by “ James and the Elders ;” but it is very far from probable that they did assume it. Paul’s subsequent letters are some of them disputed, prin- cipally that which has most to say of the glorious unity of the Church, founded on “the Apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone,” and about the “slaying of the en- mity,” and the “ breaking down of the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile.” In none of them is there any direct allusion to the out- come of this great effort of true Christian diplo- macy; but in all of them there is a new tone of serene cheerfulness on the point that had been so critically sensitive,! and a turning to new problems with high confidence and courage. My own convic- tion 2 is strong that Ephesians also is a genuine let- ter of Paul, written some three years after these events; and if Ephesians, with its sublime pean of thanksgiving for the unity of the Church, be Homilies. In this Jewish-Christian form of the legend, Simon Magus is clothed with the attributes of Paul, to fall discomfited before the logic and miraculous power of Peter. Of course the author of our Book of Acts has no idea that the discomfitures of Simon Magus and Elymas as he relates them were originally intended to set forth the discomfiture of Paul. 1 #. g. Phil. i. 18. 2 See Bacon, Introd. to New Test. 192 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL genuine, there is no more room for doubt as to the way in which the balance inclined; but Philip- pians alone, the most universally acknowledged of the later Epistles, is enough to show that Paul was not wholly unsuccessful. Did the Jerusalem church accept the gift? — The question may be propounded as a Bible-class puzzle of the first grade: What became of the money Paul took to Jerusalem? It would be pleasant to believe that those for whom it was — intended consented to accept it unconditionally. If so, then Paul was successful indeed. After that, the slanders and innuendoes and hostility, against which he had striven all these years, must at least have been wholly silenced, if they did not give place to humble retractations and apology. Unfor- tunately, such does not seem to have been the case. Before any very effective action could be taken, Paul had been arrested, transferred to the Roman governor’s residence in Czsarea, and was in con- finement, though his friends were permitted access to him. As to the great fund Acts tells us nothing. Paul tells us nothing. Paul’s Jewish-Christian ene- mies only repudiate the idea that the true Apostles would touch it. We should like to think that it was simply and gratefully accepted by the Jerusalem church; but there is at least enough doubt about this to justify the suggestion of another possibility. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 193 Professor Ramsay points out that this visit to_ Jerusalem seems to be coincident with a change in Paul’s financial conditions. He no longer appears so pinched with actual want. He travels to Rome almost in state. At least, he is allowed a compan- ion, whose expenses certainly were not paid from the imperial exchequer,! and when he arrives in 1 Have we here, possibly, a clue to the origin of the Diary ? How should such an intinerary come to be in the hands of the Church as a semi-public document? Why should it have its peculiar character of an itinerary, varied only with such inci- dents as would be of special interest to supporters of Pauline missions ? Why, most of all, should it cover just those portions of Paul’s career in which we have reason to know he must haye had assistance by contributions from churches already founded, since Paul’s own resources cannot possibly have paid the expense of these long sea voyages for himself and his companions? All these questions are fully answered, if the primary purpose of the Diary was to serve as a report to contributing Pauline churches, a matter on which Paul had reason to be scrupulously exact, since misappropriation of such funds was one of the slanders cir- culated against him (2 Cor. xii. 14-18). If this be so, then the opportune arrival of the new-comer in Troas explains how the discouraged travelers are able to reach the larger field ; also why, at the conclusion of this campaign, Paul finds it so imperative to report back to Antioch (Acts xviii. 22), whence we may perhaps suppose the contributions to have come. Paul himself informs us that his missionary party had a burser or treasurer, as the Twelve had (Jn. xii. 6). In 2 Cor. viii. 18-21, we learn that he had been appointed by the churches, and that some time before. Paul speaks of him as “the brother whose praise in the Gospel is spread through all the churches, and not only so, but who was also appointed by the churches to travel with us in the matter of this bounty which is administered by us for the glory of the Lord, 194 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Rome, he lives in his own hired house. Moreover, he is treated with more deference than we should expect by the Roman officers who have him in cus- tody. Most significant of all, Felix, whose scent for money was the keenest of his servile faculties, is convinced that the friends of this prisoner Paul are (in thieves’ parlance) “ good for” a consider- able bribe. Professor Ramsay suggests that Paul on becoming a Christian had suffered the loss of his estates, but that the family, represented at this visit by the “sister’s son” who made known to Paul the plot against his life, had become recon- ciled to him, and restored him his property. All this is conceivable ; but some disposition had also to be made of a very considerable sum which we know to have been brought to Jerusalem by Paul’s friends. What did they do with it? Unless they really were successful in securing its acceptance and in accordance with our own forwardness (for our precautions are taken to this end, that no man may impugn us regarding this munificence which we administer; for our concern is for what is honorable not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men).” Ancient tradition maintains that this was no other than Luke, the author of the Gospel and Acts. That this brother was indeed the author of the Diary seems to me a theory which largely meets the facts; but that his name was Luke, or that he was a physician, we have no indication in the text; and the idea that he was a Gentile seems scarcely tenable ; while that which makes him the author of the work Luke-Acts as it stands seems to me excluded. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 195 by the Jerusalem church, they must surely have referred the question of its disposal back to the donors, and in view of what in the mean time had happened to Paul, we can easily infer what directions the Pauline churches would give. They did not bribe Felix; of that we have the evi- dence of Acts; but from this time on “ Paul the prisoner ” finds his sufferings alleviated, and the doors of opportunity opened for further activity in spreading the Gospel even from his dungeon, by repeated delegations and gifts from the Gentile churches. What, then, of the Jerusalem church and its myriads of “zealots for the Law”? Where were James and the Elders, when Paul, acting under their directions, had been seized in the temple, and was sorely in need of friends? Where were the “four brethren” who could testify to the falsity of the charge against him of having brought Greeks into the temple?! Were there no relations 1 There is much to be said in favor of the argument of Lucht (Z. f. w. Theol., 1872), denying that this was the real charge against Paul. Its baselessness could of course have been proved at once by establishing the identity of the “four brethren.” Lucht regards it as a mere concrete application of the general charge that Paul “destroyed the Temple”’ by preaching “ access of Jew and Gentile in one Spirit unto the Father,” in defense of which gospel he had brought Titus to Jerusalem, and, as it were, forced the Jerusalem church to admit him to fellowship. Cer- tainly it was not on this charge that Paul appealed to Cesar, as 196 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL whatever between Paul and the mother church all those two years of his captivity in Caesarea, when Felix permitted his friends to have access to him? In all this Luke preserves an absolutely unbroken silence. From the point where Paul leaves the presence of James and the Elders, one would not know from the narrative that there was another Christian in Palestine. It would not be just to argue from this silence that the Jerusalem church simply left Paul to his fate. James and the Elders at least will have done what they could for his rescue. There is, however, a Pauline fragment now incorporated in 2 Timothy, which, if not written at this time, at least cannot have been written at the same time as the rest of 2 Timothy. For the rest of the letter is written Acts itself rhakes clear (xxv. 7-11, 25-27, xxvi. 31, 32), and his defenses are in fact simply pleas for the harmlessness of Chris- tianity (not the innocence of Paul), and its good right to be considered the religion of the Law and the Prophets. In the estimation of Luke, Christianity is practically acquitted in the person of Paul (xxvi. 31,32), the authorities taking precisely the view of Gallio. Only the jealous envy of the Jews trumps up baseless charges, which the Roman authorities at once see through. In reality, as we know from Tacitus and Pliny, Chris- tianity as such was not put on trial at this time. Paul’s case was treated individually, and his execution was not ‘‘for the Name ” nor “as a Christian.” The legality or illegality of Christianity as such remained unsettled for years after, and Paul’s ease was not made a precedent for either side, though it is the earnest effort of Luke to make it count in favor of Christianity. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 197 but little later than Philippians, from Rome, later than the “ two years in his own hired house,” and in immediate prospect of martyrdom. This portion, however, interwoven in the last chapter (vv. 9, 11— 18, 20, 21a), presupposes an entirely different situation. Paul has recently come from Corinth by way of Troas, where he left a cloak and some papyrus books and parchment rolls of the Old Tes- tament.’ These he wants to use, and hopes to get with the cloak before winter. Death, therefore, is not immediately impending. Moreover, his journey to the place where he now is -had included a stop at Miletus, where he left a companion, Trophimus, sick. Tychicus had also been with him, but Paul had sent him back to Ephesus, his native place. All these features presuppose exactly the journey which was described for us in the Diary, starting from Corinth (after Philippi) at Troas and Mile- tus. Paul’s companions, so far as referred to, are on that journey, with one exception. In Acts xxi. 29 (not part of the Diary), the charge that Paul had brought Greeks into the temple is ex- 1 Papyrus was used for ordinary books; the much more expen- sive and durable parchment it was obligatory on scribes to use for the sacred writings. Some account thus for the Talmudic term for canonical “ defiling the hands,”’ the skins as dead animal matter being ceremonially unclean. Paul wants his books and his Bible. The “ cloak” may be the cover or case for the volumina or rolls. The word is ambiguous. 198 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL plained by the parenthetical remark that the Jews had seen Trophimus in Jerusalem with Paul, and supposed that he had brought him into the temple, which would of course imply that he had not been left behind in Miletus. But the historicity of the verse has been assailed on independent grounds,}! and is connected with a wrong idea of the real charges against Paul; so that it alone can hardly outweigh the many points of coincidence indicat- ing that the fragment 2 Tim. iv. 9, 11-18, 20, 21 a, was written from Czsarea at this time ; for clearly the outlook is by no means so fateful as in Philip- pians and the rest of 2 Timothy. Paul has made a first defense, and with very encouraging results. He uses the same confident expression as in 2 Cor. i. 10, in speaking of the great deliverance he had then just experienced in Ephesus. His principal adversary also was Alexander the coppersmith, apparently the same Jew whom the Jews in the riot at Ephesus put forward in the theatre as their champion (Acts xix. 33, 34). Paul’s correspond- ent? is warned to look out for him as a dangerous 1 See Lucht, loc. cit., Overbeck, and J. Weiss, Absicht und Char- akter der Apg. 1898, p. 39. 2 There are difficulties in the way of supposing him to have been Timothy. Timothy might easily have returned to Ephesus from Jerusalem, even if his accompanying of Paul on this journey was not simply ‘‘ as far as Asia’ (best MSS. in Acts xx. 4). But would Timothy even then need information about Trophimus ? THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 199 man. So in Acts xsi. 27 and xxiv. 18, it is “ certain Jews from Asia” who stir up the tumult in the tem- ple and make the charges against Paul. Finally the letter declares, ‘“‘ The Lord stood by me and strength- ened me; that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear,” which is paralleled by Acts after its usual form? in xxiii. 11, “ And the night following [after his defense before the Sanhedrin], the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer: for as thou hast testified concerning me at Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.” Accordingly it would seem at least a possibility that the silence of those years of imprisonment in Cesarea is not absolutely unbroken. And if the fragment really is of this date, the few words it has to say are sadly significant of Paul’s friendlessness among his kinsmen according to the flesh. “ At my first defense no one took my part, but all forsook me: may it not be laid to their account.” Nevertheless, we should probably be doing great injustice, at least to the leaders of the Jerusalem church, if we inferred from the mere silence of Luke regarding all Paul’s relations with the mother ehurch during this long period of his trials and imprisonment, that there was nothing at all to tell. We must account for it in the same way that 1 Cf. Acts xviii. 9. 200 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL we account for his uniform silence on matters of the inner relations of the Church so vital to Paul, and his volubility on the subject of the hostility of the Jews and the good right of Christianity, when per- mitted to make its defense before the authorities. As we are in search not so much of interesting reading, the romance and adventure of Paul’s life, as of that which sheds light upon the Epistles, we shall pass over lightly the riot in the temple and the speech which Luke represents him to have made to the mob from the stairs of the castle by permission of the Roman military tribune, who had just res- cued him. The scene is true to the life in all but the speech. Not that one cannot imagine a Paul having the nerve and courage to turn around the very instant he is lifted beyond the reach of the murderous mob and ask leave to address them. But it is difficult to imagine his fidus Achates, note-book in hand, ready on the spot to take down the very words he said. It is also difficult to imagine the mob now quietly listening in “a great silence,” even when Paul, completely ignoring the false charge for which we are told they were trying to kill him, proceeds simply to tell the story of his conversion, and how he received his commission from Jesus to preach to the Gentiles. In fact, we have already seen that this story, while less unhis- torical than Acts ix., is incompatible with Galatians THE. AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 201 in representing that Paul sought to begin his career in Jerusalem. We must also dismiss with still briefer consider- ation the second speech, wherein Paul on the mor- row addresses the Sanhedrin. His faithful reporter will scarcely have found it easy to gain admission here, even if his tablets were this time all ready, so that we need not trouble ourselves greatly with the question how Paul, an ex-member of the body, should not even be able to recognize the high priest, sitting in his robes of office, nor why, supposing Paul to have had no scruples about declaring him- self still a Pharisee, and that the question in debate was simply that of Pharisee against Sadducee on the possibility of resurrection, he should have been able so easily to effect the desired diversion in his favor. In short, the scene is ideal. The author holds that even in Judaism the better element, re- presented by Pharisees of the type of Gamaliel, is “not far from the kingdom of God.” The opposi- tion comes from the bitter jealousy of the Saddu- cean aristocracy, who have mercenary reasons for resisting what is really the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.1 He improves the occasion as he had done before in the speech of Gamaliel. Of the vision of the Lord the succeeding night, 1 Cf. John xi. 48, Mt. xxvii. 18 = Mk. xv. 10; and see Acts iy. it, 2, v. 13, 26. 202 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL in which Paul is encouraged by the assurance that he is to bear his witness similarly in Rome, we have already spoken. Its relation to Paul’s own state- ment (2 Tim. iv. 17) is analogous to the relation of the visible, tangible, operative angel of Peter’s deliverance to that of Peter’s devout utterance, Acts xii. 11. The plot to kill Paul is no doubt quite historical, in spite of the fact that it forms the stereotyped occasion of Paul’s leaving every city. Paul’s sister’s son is an agent through whom our informant may well have gotten his information. It is much more probable that some of the previous “plots of the Jews to kill him,” which occasion his departure from Jerusalem in ix. 29 and from Corinth in xx. 3, to say nothing of the riots provoked by them against him in xiii. 50, xiv. 2, 5, 19, xvii. 5, 13, xviii. 12, xix. 33, are reflections of this, than that so graphic, circumstantial, and self-consistent a nar- rative, in which the church is conspicuous only by its absence, should be unhistorical. If there seems to be a disproportionate insistence in the book as a whole on the wi Jews as always sole authors of every disturbance,! we must remember that in the period when it was written the Jews were odi- 1 The only exception is Philippi. It is significant that this should be just the one where we stand nearest the first-hand in- formant. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 203 ously prominent in procuring the persecution of Christians. We must also admit that Luke probably did not have access to Claudius Lysias’ letter-press, nor the files of Felix’s correspondence, so that the let- ter of the former in Acts xxiii. 26-30 is more creditable to Luke’s literary ability? than to the fullness of his information. Also the contrasted speeches of Tertullus and Paul in Acts xxiv. 2-8 and 10—21 show equal skill, and we have already seen that the allusion to the fund Paul had brought seems to indicate a hand nearer the historical facts than Luke’s. But here, too, it is not supposable that Paul would have given so false an impression,’ to say nothing of the prac- tical disappearance of the real points at issue. Once more, the real plea is not Paul’s case before Felix, but the narrator is arguing the case of Christianity before the tribunal of the Flavian emperors. Tf we omit the speeches, nearly all the rest — the scenes, the characters, the whole story of Paul’s 1 See, e. g., the part played by the Jews i: the martyrdom of Polycarp, Mart. Polyc. xiii. 1. 2 There is a touch of Lucan humor in the phrase of verse 27, “having learned that he was a Roman,” where Lysias claims a credit for patriotic interest that does not belong to him. 8 “T came to bring alms to my nation and offerings. . Believing all things which are according to the Law and which are written in the Prophets.” 204 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL transfer from Jerusalem to Cesarea—is so true to life, we can have little doubt that the narrative of the Diary lies but slightly below the surface. It is when we come to the sudden gap of xxiv. 27, and two whole years of absolute silence, that we realize how completely at a loss the historian is, as soon as this document fails him. What became of the Diarist during these two years? We know not; but we may safely conjec- ture that he did not merely loiter about Cesarea, waiting for the occasional visits he might be allowed to make on the prisoner. Neither Paul nor he could allow the churches of the Gentiles to remain without information regarding Paul’s fate. It is true we have no letters from this imprisonment,} which argues, like the expression of Acts xxiv. 23 in comparison with xxviii. 30, for much closer con- finement than in Rome. But, so far as permitted, Paul must have been engaged, here as there, with the care of all the churches, through his established system of correspondence. The company of dele- gates must have returned to their churches. Tro- phimus had been left at Miletus sick. It is the last we hear of him. Gaius, Secundus, and Sopater also disappear now from Paul’s story. Timothy, Tychi- 1 The attempt of Meyer and a few others to attribute the group Ephesians-Colossians-Philemon, and eyen Philippians, to the Cesarean captivity is now practically abandoned. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 205 cus, and Aristarchus we find again later in Rome, with Paul, or executing his commissions to the churches. Doubtless the Diarist, too, was not idle. Was he perhaps the bearer of that letter wherein Paul sent for his books and cloak, and asked that Mark, who in the neighborhood of Jerusalem would be specially serviceable, might be brought to be of service to him?! We must be content with silence. Not indeed because there was nothing to tell. On the contrary, these were years of tremendous importance for the Jerusalem church. They were days of increasing political agitation. The Egyptian whom Claudius Lysias had at first conceived to be his captive was only one of a multiplying succession of insurrec- tionists and pseudo-Messiahs, with whom Felix was partly in collusion for plunder, partly in conflict. The Zealot party had taken to secret assassination as a system for promoting their ends. The country was filled with increasing disorder, which made all sane minds ever clearer as to the justice of Jesus’ prediction of doom within forty years upon a nation that had rejected both the message of John and his own, and “knew not the things that belonged to its peace.” For the Jerusalem church the disorders 1 The request is pleasantly significant of better relations be- tween the old-time friends Paul and Barnabas, the latter the uncle of Mark. 206 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL culminated in a riot, wherein the saintly James met a bloody death at the hands of the mob, a tragedy at which the better element of Jews felt as much out- raged as the Christians themselves. Not long after, the church as a body forsook Jerusalem, convinced that the fate Jesus had foretold was now immedi- ately impending, as indeed it was. The Christians took refuge beyond Jordan, in and around the city of Pella. Jerusalem became the prey alternately of piratical Roman governors and still more ferocious and greedy Jewish marauders, till the irrepressi- ble war broke out in 67, and ended in 70 with the sack of the city and burning of the temple. Of all this Luke has nothing to say, not even of the death of James. There was one worthy Roman governor of all the series, who at the end of the two years’ im- prisonment of Paul became successor to Felix, and then, as if fate itself were against Israel, he fell victim to disease and died. Festus, had he lived, would have done all that good administration could do to avert the impending catastrophe. And Paul also, when news reached him in his prison of the new appointee, must have plucked up heart and laid his plans again to see, after all, his longed-for goal in the west, the church in Rome. Meantime his churches in Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia had been growing and developing apace. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 207 We can only conjecture what their course of de- velopment was. At least the Judaizers were no longer to be greatly dreaded. Paul’s letters and Paul’s lieutenants were a power not easy to over- come, to say nothing of the effect of the delegation to Jerusalem. When the light breaks in again, we find Paul in correspondence with Macedonia and Asia, and the ever faithful Philippi is assured that Paul gives thanks to God “‘ on every remembrance of them.” Macedonia receives only a prophylactic warning against the “ concision.” They have never made headway in the north. No; the danger-point is in Asia, where, as we saw, theosophy and religious charlatanism sank their roots deep in congenial soil. Doubtless the speech of Paul at Miletus re- flects the events only as known in a much later time. Still it is undoubtedly a correct view of what actually took place, when the author makes Paul say, “I know that after my departing, grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock ; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.” In our study of Ephesians and Colossians we shall have occasion to see what the nature of the “ perverse” teachings was. At present we can only note the growth that is going on during these years of silence. And as for Paul himself. Is his mind stationary ? 208 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Or have we reason to infer that he, too, during these years of enforced idleness, is growing and maturing his system of belief? The letters from Rome, often designated the “ Christological Epis- tles,” are sufficient proof that Paul’s mind during ‘these silent years was not wholly preoccupied with the preparation of his own defense. The very fact that Colossians and Ephesians show such a develop- ment of Pauline thought, in particular such an enlargement in the conception of Christ’s preéx- istence, of his relation as archetype and head of humanity to creation as its ultimate goal and therefore also its final cause, such an extension of the doctrine of redemption to cover not only the human race but all races, “not only things on earth but things in the heavens,” has been used against them to disprove their authenticity. But it is admitted that these conceptions are all present in a partly developed form in the earlier Epistles, — the preéxistence in 1 Cor. x. 4, 2 Cor. viii. 9, Gal. iv. 4; the identification with the creative “ Wis- dom” of God in 1 Cor. i. 24, vill. 6; the cosmic nature of the redemption in Rom. viii. 19-22, 38, 39; the universal lordship and reign over angelic powers in 1 Cor. vi. 3, xv. 25-28. It is admit- ted that Paul had his own cosmological philoso- phy even while in Ephesus (1 Cor. ii. 6-16), — a philosophy which he had only withheld from the , THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 209 Corinthians because of their unreadiness; it is admitted that in Ephesus there had been abundant occasion to call it forth, and that the Christological Epistles were written for the purpose of meeting a gnosis falsely so-called, i. e. a speculative theo- sophic system, partly related to Jewish apocalyptic, and partly to the mythology of the Greek and Phrygian mysteries. The fact, then, that we should find Paul’s letters to these Asiatic churches, writ- ten after this interval of at least three years, which includes the Cesarean imprisonment, displaying a marked development in what may be called specu- lative theology, is no more than we should expect. I cannot, indeed, lay any weight upon Paul’s send- ing for his rolls of the Scriptures, and certain other “ books,” in preparation for this long inter- val of quiet ; because the location of the fragment in 2 Timothy at the beginning of his Cesarean imprisonment is only a conjecture. But one thing more is evident from the language, as well as the subject-matter, particularly of Ephesians, namely, that Paul had been reading as well as reflecting ; for there are terms and phrases borrowed from the writings of others, and not only so, but express quotations from books unknown to us,one of which (Eph. v. 14) Epiphanius tells us is taken from the Apocalypse of Elias, the same writing identified _by Origen as source of the quotation in 1 Cor. ii. 210 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL 9. There is also evidence here that Paul had read the Assumptio Mosis, a writing of about 30 A. p., of the school of apocalyptic Judaism. But of this we must speak hereafter. When Luke resumes his story with the coming of Festus, it is to avail himself again of the apolo- ” gia of Paul “ before governors and kings.” True we have seen already that the speech before Festus, Agrippa, and Bernice gives a version of Paul’s con- version and vocation so much nearer the facts than the narrative of chapter ix. that we can only sup- pose the author had here some better information, which he has partially adjusted to the Jewish-Chris- tian version in the speech of chapter xxii. In point of fact, the Diary resumes at this point, where Paul, having appealed to the Emperor, is sent by Festus to Rome. The Diarist evidently once more becomes Paul’s companion for this last eventful journey. He breaks in suddenly at xxvii. 1, “And when it was determined that we should sail for Italy.” Not improbably the source contained some report of how Paul by appealing to Cesar had won his ” How much opportunity to “see Rome and die. of the speech under these circumstances belongs to the Diarist and how much to “ Luke” is a problem perhaps insoluble.1 At any rate, we have here, as 1 Compare, however, Acts xxvi. 22, 23, with Luke xxiy. 27, 26, 4448, THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 211 in the case of the speech at Athens, a comparatively trustworthy account of what Paul might have said. One would like to believe at least that the touching answer of Paul to the flippant sneer of Agrippa,“ A little more and you would have me turn Christian,” came by genuine historical tradition: ‘I would that whether by little or by much, not thou only, but also all that hear me this day, might become such as I am, except these bonds.” If to be a true Christian gentleman is Pauline, that answer is so. Again I am compelled to pass lightly over the romance of Paul’s life, the adventure and shipwreck so graphically told in the Diary. These are the scenes familiar to us from childhood. For what child does not appreciate the difference between these graphic pages and the marvelous but unreal tales of the early chapters of Acts? But just be- cause James Smith in his “ Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul,” and Ramsay again in his “St. Paul the Traveller,” have made them live again and yet again before us, I should deserve to be classed with those commentators who pass by deep obscurities and “hold a candle to the sun,” were I to repeat the story. We merely note how they first sailed to Myra, having Aristarchus with them, who had probably come on from Macedonia with the Diarist, and now returned ; how Julius the centurion there put them aboard a wheat ship of Alexandria bound 212 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL for Italy ; how they touched at Crete, though with- out establishing communication with the Christians of the island; how Paul’s experience and dignity seem to have impressed Julius, though he naturally paid more heed to the master and owner; how the latter’s advice prevailed! (the Diarist indulges in something of the pleasure of saying in Paul’s name, “I told you so”) ; how in the shipwreck on Malta Paul’s grand personality came as it were to domi- nate the whole company of two hundred and sey- enty-six? souls, and subsequently on the island his adventure with the viper and his healing of the father of Publius of fever and dysentery procured him almost, or quite, superhuman reverence from “the barbarians,” as our Hellenistic Diarist dis- dainfully calls them ; how after three months in Malta they again embarked, touched at Syracuse and Rhegium, and at last landed at Puteoli. In all this we cannot dwell upon details, but only seek to read something of the Diarist’s personality and purpose in his writing, since the problem is all-im- portant in regard to the trustworthiness and rela- tion of our sources. At least it will appear that the Diary was not all written on the voyage itself. While its author was himself engaged like a com- 1 As Ramsay points out, the Roman officer, though a landsman, was in command, as the superior in rank, by Roman law. 2 Or, according to the Western text, seventy-six. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 213 mon seaman in frapping the ship, jettisoning the cargo, if not in hewing away the mast, he is not likely to have gotten out his notes to report the very words of Paul’s speech of encouragement after his vision. The vision itself is what we might al- most expect. Once more face to face with death, “long without food,” “all hope that they should be saved taken away,” the conditions are just those in which Paul’s faith has ever been wont to react with an energy that shook his physical frame. ‘¢ Fear not, Paul, thou must stand before Cesar ;” such was the message. It is what we know his faith would surely dictate. When first he had defi- nitely undertaken this journey to Rome he had written to the Corinthians, “ Now we are ambas- | sadors on behalf of Christ.”” Rome had given him his safe-conduct from the fury of the Jews. A higher than Cesar would give him safe-conduct from the fury of the elements. And one thing more: “ God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee.” It shows what Paul had been praying for during those nights and days of terror and suf- fering. God was with Paul. Do we need further explanation why his personality becomes as it were a protection to his very captors? We need not conceal from ourselves that the Diarist, too, is under the spell of that sublime per- sonality, and like the “ barbarians,” thinks of Paul ——— ‘ 214 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL as almost more than human. To him the escape of all to land is something fully foreknown to Paul. Indeed, he thinks it almost an evidence of incapa- city in Julius that he should not have followed Paul’s advice rather than that of the owner and master of the ship. The fact that Paul should have shaken off the viper benumbed with cold into the fire and felt no harm seems to him not indeed evi- dence “ that he was a god,” but certainly more than the “‘ providential escape’? we would have called it. When, after the healing of Publius’ father, he tells us that “the rest also which had diseases in the island came and were cured,” he displays the same naive point of view as when at Philippi he related the exorcism of the girl with a spirit of divination, and at Troas Eutychus (to his mind) was restored to life from actual death, — “ insensibility,” we should call it. We do not get away from miracles as we get farther back toward contemporary re- ports. We find allusions to them as habitual oceur- rences in Paul’s own letters. We do get near enough to exclude the kind of miracle which is related in some parts of Acts, and near enough to see how the line between the miraculous and the providential quite vanishes away. If the Diary had contained no evidence of the author’s belief in having seen miracles, it would almost prejudice its authenticity. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 215 The last chapter of Acts has two curiously con- trasting conceptions of Paul’s arrival at Rome. The one is that of the Diary, recounting to us how already at Puteoli they “found brethren” and spent seven days in company with them. From the church in Rome itself a delegation was sent to meet Paul at Appii Forum and Tres Taberne. “ And when Paul saw them, he thanked God, and took courage.” For the first time since he bade farewell, three years before, at Miletus to the elders of Ephe- sus, Paul was surrounded by loyal and true friends. This was the response to the letter from Corinth, written so long ago that it seemed almost a miracle that its aspiration and prayer should be answered at length. In Rome itself, «« Paul was permitted to) abide by himself with the soldier that guarded him,” and in that hired house he abode two whole years, receiving all that went in unto him, preach- ing+the kingdom of God without molestation, administering his great system of missionary corre- spondence, the centre again of a great field of evangelistic activity, at the “ goal of the west.” } Such is the Diarist’s report, and it joins exactly with what we know from the letters of the great 1 This expression, repua tis dUcews, is employed by Clement of Rome, about 95 A. D., of Paul’s attaining his westward limit. It rests upon Paul’s own comparison of his €areer to a race with its two “ goals,” of which Jerusalem was one, the starting-point or goal of the east (Rom. xy. 19), and Rome, apparently, the other. 216 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Christian church already long established at Rome and even in the outlying towns. But side by side with it the author of the Christian apology, our Book of Acts, repeats his stereotyped formula of the pre- sentation of the Gospel first to the Jews, then, when these are mainly unbelieving, the turning to the Gentiles. And here as a kind of moral, or Q. E. D., to his entire work he appends the classic passage of Isaiah : — “Go thou unto this people and say, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive : For this people’s [the Jews] heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them.” To which Paul adds, “ Be it known, therefore, unto you, that this salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles : they will also hear.” With this parting denunciation of the unbeliey- ing Jews, the author concludes his task. His pur- pose and his main source reach an end together. Most likely the Diary, as in previous instances, came to an end with the journey; and as for the Apologist, he has reached his conclusion with the THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 217 unhindered proclamation of the Gospel to the Gen- tiles, in spite of Jewish opposition, at the metropo- lis of the empire, the centre of the Gentile world. Men ask, Why did he not relate the martyrdom of Paul at the hands of Nero? But to what end? He was not writing a history of Paul, but of the planting of the Gospel among the Gentiles. When Peter, his first great champion of the Gentile Gos- pel, has stood out for and achieved their liberty, he has no more to tell of Peter. Peter’s martyrdom is © passed over. He sinks into oblivion. When James has received the report of Paul and signified its ac- ceptance by the Jerusalem church, he wastes not a word onthe martyrdom of James. James, too, sinks into oblivion. The accidental fact that he possesses a source of exceptional fullness for the later life of Paul, and Paul’s career as a witness “ before gov- ernors and kings,” gives him just the opportunity he wants to plead the cause of Christianity against hos- tile Judaism before the tribunal of Roman justice. This necessarily brings the heroic figure of Paul into superlative prominence in all the last half of the book, and to ws makes it seem strange that he should stop where he does. But how much interest does he show in Paul’s earlier career? Paul is not to him the Apostle to the Gentiles. Peter, to him, has the better right to this title! Paul is not an 1 Acts x. 1-xi. 18, and xv. 7. 218 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Apostle at all save as “delegate” with, and after, Barnabas, from the church in Antioch. It is only in those portions of Paul’s career which have to do with the relations of the Church with Judaism on the one side and the Roman government on the other, that he takes any interest in it even for the period best known to him and to us. His subject is not Paul, nor Peter; but the Gospel, which by prediction of the prophets, and promise of Jesus, and providential working of God, was to extend from Jerusalem “to Judza and Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” If he has no- thing to say of the martyrdom of James and of Peter, why should we expect him to go beyond the point where the Gospel in Rome has free course and is glorified, to tell of the darker days that fol- lowed, and the martyrdom of Paul? In point of fact, he really does tell. Paul’s fare- well speech at Miletus is not meant to be after- ward corrected and taken back. When, twice over, ‘“‘ Luke” emphasizes the point that Paul declared they should see his face no more, that his life would be the price of his journey, and that for this reason he takes them to witness that he has done his whole duty as a messenger of Christ, when he depicts their sorrow because this is a dast farewell, he does not have in mind a subsequent return from Rome, and revisiting of all these very churches —_—S |S THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 219 that Paul had parted from with such scenes of weeping. No, the reader is not left wholly in the dark as to Paul’s fate. He is given to know, with- out breach of the artistic design, that Paul’s life became indeed the sacrifice for which Paul freely offered it. Two more glimpses we have of Paul in Rome. But both are glimpses only, for they are the mere accidental revelations of two groups of letters. The narrative has ceased. The first reflects still the bright picture of the closing scene of Acts. Among those whom Paul “received,” that “went in unto him,” was one whom he had known in Ephesus as slave of Philemon, one of his own converts. This slave, Onesimus, had escaped to Rome. There, per- haps because he needed a friend to make peace for him,” he sought out Paul, and his heart was opened to the Gospel. To Paul, who now calls himself “Paul the aged,” Onesimus became as a son be- gotten in his bonds. And yet to keep him and say nothing to Philemon was not Paul’s idea of Chris- 1 Tt is sufficient refutation of the argument for regarding Acts as only the second treatise of an intended (or actual) trilogy, based on the use of mp@Tos instead of mpérepos in Actsi. 1, to refer fo Mt. xxi. 31. There is no more need of a third treatise than of a third term for the antithesis of Hosea employed by Paul in Rom. ix. 25, 26, and by Peter in 1 Pet. ii. 10. 2 An interesting parallel is afforded by one of the letters of Pliny, written to a friend to intercede on behalf of a runaway slave, at whose solicitation it seems to be written. 220 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tian emancipation. On the contrary, as he is send- ing Tychicus with letters for the region of Colossz and Ephesus, he sends Onesimus also, bearer of a personal note to Philemon, than which none more exquisite or touching survives in any literature. Here speaks again the grace, even the humorous playfulness, of the true, high-born, Christian gen- tleman. And Paul, withal, though aged, and, as he says, an “‘ ambassador in chains,” is yet hopeful and buoyant. Playfully he bids Philemon “ prepare him also a lodging, for he hopes soon to visit him.” Such are the circumstances of the first group of letters, for Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon were dispatched together. Of the circumstances of the churches we have already said somewhat. More will appear in the discussion of the letters themselves. As for Paul, Tychicus the bearer was to explain how he fared. His friends were anxious, but he bids them be of good cheer. He himself has good hope and courage. The other glimpse is near the end. Philippians and 2 Timothy were written not far apart; but Paul’s situation has altered, and that not for the better, though, writing to the Philippians, he still cheers them up, and promises to send Timothy so soon as he shall know how it will go with him. But now, though he has great hope in God, it is clear that he no longer has earthly ground of en- THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 221 couragement to give. Moreover, in Philippians it is apparent that he has recently suffered actual want and misery. Epaphroditus had reached him at last with a belated gift from Paul’s beloved Philippians, but only at the risk of his life. Paul’s preaching, too, is at an end. He looks forward to but one more last service for Christ, when his blood shall be “ poured out a libation upon the sac- rifice and service of their faith.” 1 Once more we hear, and for the last time. Timo- thy has now departed. If Philippians is the swan- song of the martyr, 2 Timothy is the dying legacy of the great Apostle. In Philippians he wrote, “ If I am poured out a libation upon your offering; ” now he writes, “I am already being poured out a libation, and the time of my departure is come. [ have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me [as its prize] the wreath of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge [Paul is no longer expecting justice from Nero], shall give to me at that day, and to all them also that have loved his appearing.” Ss The object of the letter is to transmit to Timo- 1 As in Rom. xy. 16, Paul conceives himself as a priest pre- senting to God the offering of the Gentiles, only now the gift will be accompanied by his own blood poured out as a libation. He repeats the figure in 2 Tim. iv. 6. t 222 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL thy, his “beloved child,”’! the “ deposit” with which Paul felt that he had been intrusted. As in Rom. iii. 2 he had called it the supreme greatness of the Israel that had been, that “to them were intrusted the oracles of God,’ so now what he has to bequeath from the foot of the scaffold is not lands or wealth, but the gospel God had revealed to him as a “trust” for men. The last duty of the dying ‘ambassador for Christ” is to place in faithful hands the message wherewith he was intrusted, “the mystery of the divine purpose and grace, given us in the person of Christ, before times eternal, but manifested now by the appearing of Christ as a Saviour abolishing death and bringing life and in- corruption to light through the Gospel.” Paul is now suffering a felon’s death for it; but he is not confounded, because he believes God can guard it against that day. Timothy too must “guard it __through the Holy Ghost.” There is no evidence in any of these letters of the presence of Peter in Rome, so strongly attested by tradition. It can hardly have been until after Paul’s death that Peter took the position toward “the flock of God,” ‘ the elect who are sojourners 1 Not in the sense of youth (so 1 Tim. iy. 12 seems erroneously to take it), but as ‘‘ son and heir.” 22 Tim. i. 9-14. See R. V. margin. “The deposit” in verse 12 as well as verse 14 is that which God has intrusted to Paul, not vice versa. Cf. 1 Tim. vi. 20, and Jude 3 and 20. so THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 223 of the dispersion,” in all Paul’s Asiatic field, which appears in 1 Peter. After Paul’s death Peter may have become his real spiritual successor, and not only in the service of administration from Rome, but also in martyrdom; but Peter does not even appear upon the horizon of the letters. It is only through the gray mists of tradition that we dimly see the end. From a generation later Clement of Rome leoks back to the “ brave exam- ple” of “« Peter, who endured, not one or two, but many labors, and having borne his testimony (vaprupyicas) went to his appointed place of glory,” and that of “ Paul, who by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven ! times in bonds, had been driven into ex- ile, had been stoned, had preached in the East and in the West. he won the noble renown which was the reward of his faith, having taught righteous- ness unto the whole world, and reached the goal? 1 We know of but three imprisonments of Paul. The accounts of his life in cireulation in Clement’s day (95 A.D.) have not all been preserved in Acts. 2 Some endeavor to find in the highly rhetorical phraseology of 1 Clem. vy. 7 evidence of a release of Paul from imprisonment, and carrying out of the journey to Spain planned before his arrest, Rom. xy. 28. They then proceed to argue for further journeys in the old missionary field, so as to make room for the Pastoral Epis— tles in their present form. In reality Clement is here simply fol- lowing (as already shown) the figure suggested by Paul himself (e.g. 2 Tim. iv. 7). Note Clement’s allusion to “the prize of patient 224 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL of the West. So, when he had borne his testimony (paptupjcas) before the rulers, Paul also departed from the world and went unto the holy place.” Of these martyrdoms there are but faint traces in the New Testament. Hebrews, written probably to a Jewish-Christian church (in Rome?) about 80 A. D., has a similar but fainter allusion (Clement’s epistle is in fact largely an imitation of Hebrews) to “ resistance unto blood,” and ‘one specific com- mendation of the example of those which had the rule over you, which spake unto you the word of — God,” the “issue of whose lives” (éBaow ris dva- atpopys) should be remembered. Rome is the guilty city henceforth to Christian thought, the Babylon of 1 Peter, the ally of Anti- christ, and not his “restrainer” as in Paul. To the seer of Revelation she is “ drunk with the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus.” The Apocalyptist, too, has one marked expression which certainly did not apply to many of the victims of Nero’s fear and fury. “I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded [executed, as the Roman citizen had a right to be, and as tradition reports that Paul was, by the lictor’s axe] for the testi- mony of Jesus.” 4 endurance ” (cf. Heb. xii. 1). In the next sentence he applies the same figure to the women martyrs of the Roman church. 1 Rey. xx. 4. THE AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS 225 Paul’s fate must have seemed a frightful foretaste of what the Church had to expect from that em- peror to whom they had looked as a protector.! Perhaps in the secrecy of the prison itself, perhaps without the walls, as tradition says, but with no outward show or possibility of public demonstra- tion, that good gray head, with its countenance “full of graciousness, like an angel’s,”? was laid upon the block, and the blood of the Apostle of the Gentiles was “ poured out a libation upon the sac- rifice and service of their faith.” And was there no meeting and reconciliation with Peter? In one way there was. Church tradi- tion insists that “in their death they were not divided.” That form of it embodied as prediction in an appendix to the Gospel of John ° is too early 1 To the people, especially of the East, Nero, during all the earlier part of his reign, was a model ruler. His palace intrigues and family murders scarcely affected them. Only at the very last is there a sudden change. Nero becomes Antichrist himself after his horrible cruelties inflicted on the Christians as authors of the great fire of July, 64. 2 A very ancient and credible description of Paul’s personal appearance is found in the second century romance called the Acts of Paul and Thekla, as well as in some anti-Pauline sources. Besides the stunted stature, the meeting eyebrows, the long, hooked nose, the trait which strikes us as surely true to life is the expression of an angelic “ graciousness.” At least it well accords with all the bearing of this true gentleman, as we know him from his letters. 8 John xxi. 1S, 19. 226 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL not to rest on reasonably trustworthy remembrance ; and there we are told in symbol and allegory “ by what manner of death ” Peter also “ glorified God.” The grotesque and ingenious cruelty of the torture bespeaks the inventive brutality of Nero, as Tacitus himself describes his onslaught on the Christians of Rome. Tradition as to the manner and date of Peter’s crucifixion, head downward, and in the Ne- ronian persecution at Rome in the summer of 64, is at least consistent with itself and with the report of the great Roman historian. Peter is found worthy at last to fulfill the offer, “ Lord, why cannot I fol- low thee now? I will lay down my life for thee.” It was not long after the lictor’s axe had fallen that Peter and Paul met again. Having witnessed a good confession, they entered in together to sit down with their common Lord in his heavenly kingdom, “even as he also overcame, and entered in to sit down at the right hand of the Father.” PART If _ THE LETTERS IN THE LIGHT OF THE “Sas HISTORY LECTURE VII LETTERS OF THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY We have found reason to think that Paul wrote three letters from Corinth, the ultimate and most important station of his so-called Second Mission- ary Journey, really the first journey of his inde- pendent missionary career. Busily laboring and preaching from place to place, he had forced his way down through the Greek peninsula, until in the principal city of all, centre of its southernmost division, he took up a somewhat more permanent abode, and had leisure to review the situation. What that situation was we already know in a general way from Acts, and from the surface indications of the letters themselves. Paul has been laboring already some time in Achaia in con- junction with his new-found helpers, Aquila and Prisca. Silvanus and Timothy are now with him too, the latter just arrived from Thessalonica. Silas! appears to have been left in Berza, but to have returned to Paul in Corinth earlier.2 As for 1 Not “ Timothy and Silas,” as in Acts xvii. 14. We see from 1 Thess. iii. 1 that Timothy went on with Paul to Athens. 2 1 Thess. iii. 6. 230 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL conditions in the Pauline churches, the situation varies. In Macedonia the general outlook is very favorable ; for Timothy has just “ brought word of their faith and love, and that they have good re- membrance of Paul always, and long to see him.” Their difficulties are partly external, partly such as are incidental to immaturity in the Christian life. The two letters show one side of a correspondence in which Paul seeks to make his converts “ abound more and more” in the life of Christian service, and they on their part ask further instructions and directions as to particulars. The character which the two letters bear upon their surface has led to their being classified by themselves as the so- called Missionary Epistles, though Paul’s attitude in them is that of confirmer rather than proclaimer of the Gospel. In Galatia the situation is highly critical, and this letter reflects vividly the strong emotion of the Apostle. Because his mood is so polemic, and the news received has so deeply agitated him, it is argued with much force that it must have come later than the writing of the Thessalonian letters, which (it is urged) would otherwise surely exhibit more traces of the Apostile’s feeling. On the other hand, were Galatians written after the coming of Silas and Timothy from Macedonia, it would seem strange that Paul should neither associate their LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 231 names with his, as in the superscription of both Thessalonian epistles, nor even send a greeting to those who knew them so well in Galatia. We may indeed suppose that Silas and Timothy were again temporarily absent, but on the whole it seems a _more reasonable view to consider Galatians the earlier, Silas and Timothy not yet arrived, and the agitation of Paul’s mind so far quieted by the good report from Macedonia as to leave no very marked impress upon his letters to the Thessalonians.! Nevertheless, since the Thessalonian correspondence stands apart from the great battle waged in the other epistles, we may appropriately begin with these, seeking an acquaintance with Paul’s inner life through the medium of utterances drawn out by the situation of his correspondents. We premise a word as to Paul’s correspondence in general and the literary character of his Epistles. Are they true letters, or do they deserve rather the title of “epistle” in the sense Deissmann would give it, namely, a literary product having the form of a letter, but really rather an essay or sermon? Not only does the literature of the time abound with such “ epistles” or ostensible letters of celebrities, 1 Tt would not be true to hold that there are no such indications of agitation even in the relatively calm exhortations of the Thes- salonian epistles. See my Introduction to the New Testament, p. 71, note. 232 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL usually published under a transparent pseudonym, but among the later writings of the New Testament there are several writings, such as Hebrews, James, 1 John, which are clearly literary, or at least ser- monic, compositions. They have more or less defi- nite address, but were intended from the first for general circulation. In a measure this is trie even of some of Paul’s letters. Romans is almost a the- ological essay. It is addressed to a church where Paul had no direct personal acquaintance, and was meant in some degree to give a general outline of his doctrine, perhaps was adapted for general cir- culation from a very early time. Even Galatians is not meant for one church, but for several; and Colossians contains specific directions regarding exchange with a sister epistle which is to reach Colosse via Laodicea. On the other hand, the Co- rinthian letters, especially the bitter letter spoken of in 2 Cor. ii. 4, whether or not we identify it with the last four chapters of 2 Corinthians, form an intimately personal correspondence. The probably spurious second half of 1 Cor. i. 2, which in an awkward and ungrammatical way extends the ori- ginal address to the church in Corinth to cover “all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their [Lord ?] and ours,” illustrates the process of adaptation. The letter is not a gen- eral “ epistle,” but the answer to a letter written to LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 233 Paul from Corinth. Obviously, the drawing of a hard and fast line between “letters” and “ epis- tles” would be untrue to fact. It is a question of more or less. At the same time it is easy to see that the church epistle, as a regular, recognized ° mode of edification, such as it became in the second century, grew out of the simple letter called forth by some special occasion, and not vice versa. We have “ epistles ” because Paul, not being gifted with ubiquity, was forced to write letters under press of circumstances to help his churches in their diffi- culties. He did not sit down deliberately and say, Come now, and let us embody the doctrine in a literature. He wrote as occasion demanded, and the practice he inaugurated was subsequently de- veloped. The Catholic Epistles rest on Paul; not Paul on the Catholic Epistles. /But Paul also wrote with the care and literary painstaking one gives to a letter that is to be read, say in a half-dozen large assemblies, on matters of vital moment. He naturally maintained, too, the forms prescribed in communications of the kind by good usage, with modifications suggested by Christian courtesy and perhaps by the usages of synagogue and church order. The external address on the envelope, or wrapper, has naturally disappeared from all the New Testa- ment letters. In the case of all the Pauline Epis- 234 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tles the inner superscription, containing address, greeting, and signature in one, has been preserved, though textual corruption appears in some eases.’ In this greeting Christian influence is very appar- ent in the joming of the Hebrew shalom to the Greek xaipew. Perhaps this double form,? with its tenfold increase of significance through the reli- gious connotation the words have acquired, displays also the influence of synagogue practice upon the custom of the Church; for synagogue worship began with a blessing, introducing the Shema, or creed, and ended with a benediction, pronounced by a priest, if any were present. We know that in Paul’s time synagogue worship was the model for the Church in many respects (e. g. the responsive « Amen” of the congregation, 1 Cor. xiv. 16), and letters meant to be read to the churches may well have conformed in their opening salutation and closing benediction to church custom. At least this is the invariable practice of Paul. Whether the division of the practical section into exhortations 1 The words év ’Epécw, Eph. i. 1, are proved by MS. evidence to be unauthentic, a scribal substitute for some original address now irrecoverable. Also 1 Cor. i. 2 6, we have seen to be a later addi- tion. Otherwise the Pauline superscriptions appear to be un- touched. The superscription of Hebrews is missing altogether ; those of James and Jude are apparently of scribal composition. These two even seem to be from the same hand. 2 In the Pastoral Epistles triple: “‘ grace, mercy and peace.” LETTERS OF THE SYZCOND JOURNEY 235 particularly addressed to the various social classes, husbands, wives, children, slaves, which is so marked in Ephesians and Colossians, and has been imitated in 1 Peter, is in any degree suggested by the seating arrangements, a division for each class, which also seem to have followed synagogue practice, is much more doubtful. But it is not unreasonable to see traces of the ‘“ homiletic habit” in Paul’s custom- ary arrangement of his material in such a way as to present first his doctrinal argument, then, in conclusion, by way of practical application, a direct moral exhortation forcing home the doctrinal truths. Finally, this main substance of the letter in its doctrinal and practical divisions is inclosed in a framework wholly epistolary in character. At the beginning, immediately after the salutation, it is Paul’s almost invariable! rule to insert a thanks- giving for what he hears of his correspondents’ favorable condition, and a prayer for its continu- ance. A similar custom is observed in the secular letters of the period. It has been compared to the stereotyped phrase of the latter-day “‘ complete let- ter-writer :” “ Yours received and contents noted. We are in good health and trust you enjoy the same.’ Deissmann and Rendel Harris have shown, in fact, from a comparison of this feature of Paul’s letters with the similar phraseology of the masses 1 Galatians, for special reasons, forms an exception. 236 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL of contemporary correspondence unearthed in the Fayoum, that it is possible in several cases to re- store the very phraseology of the letter Paul is "answering. Such is very notably the case in the Thessalonian correspondence with which we are now dealing. When Timothy came down from Thessa- lonica, he did not bring merely a verbal report, but a letter, which Paul is answering in 1 Thess. i—iii. From ii. 13 it is apparent that the letter to Paul began, like his own, with such expressions of Chris- tian courtesy. They had said, « We give thanks to God for you” (Paul and Sylvanus), to which Paul replies, “ We also thank God without ceasing for 9 . you.” There is no other adequate explanation of the “also” of 1 Thess. ii. 13, corresponding as it does to the same expression in Eph. vi. 211 and elsewhere. We may go even farther. The Thessa- lonians’ letter had proceeded, much as Paul de- scribes its contents in ili. 6, with an expression of their warm remembrance of the “apostles,” and their longing to see them. It spoke of the persecu- tions they had suffered,? and probably of certain slanders against Paul, against which they vehe- mently declared that they made the “apostles” 1 Emphasize thus: “ That ye also may know my affairs, how I do,’’ ete. 2 Cf. iii. 3, ‘‘ these afflictions,” alluding to ii. 14, but probably also to the Thessalonians’ own report. S ee eee LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 237 their joy and glorying. Paul answers in ii. 19, 20, “Ve are our glory and our joy.”1 In fact, this refrain seems to be carried over even into 2 Thes- salonians, the answer to a second letter to. Paul, Perhaps in answer to a modest deprecation on their part of Paul’s boasting of them, Paul replies in 2 Thess. i. 3, 4, ii. 13, that it is only meet and right. He feels it his bounden duty to give thanks to God for them, and their example has given him occasion to boast of their patience and faith under persecu- tion. Another expression that runs through the whole correspondence (1 Thess. i. 6, ii. 14, 2 Thess. iii. T-9) is “imitation.” The Thessalonians seem also to have declared their determination to “ imi- 1 The Corinthian correspondence furnishes a remarkable par- allel in 2 Cor. i. 14. In the painful letter Paul had declared him- self forced by the silence of the Corinthians to commend himself, whereas it was their province rather to be his living “ letters of commendation,’’ boasting of him and glorying in him. In 2 Cor. i. 12-14 he seems to be answering a protest that he was too hard upon them. Paul replies that he only meant that they had not vindicated him as his own conscience told him he should have been. He grants that they did “ acknowledge us in part that we are your glorying, even as ye also are ours.” He will not again resort to self-commendation (iii. 1-3). But in ix. 1-5 he boasts of the generosity of the Macedonians, and says he has boasted to them of that of the Corinthians. It appears, thus, that it was habitual with Paul to inculcate this reciprocal trust and confi- dence between himself and his churches, as well it might be in those times of slander and “devices of Satan.’”’ He purposely made the churches his boast. They owed him the same loyal confidence. 238 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tate” Paul and his helpers, in the taking of trials patiently. Paul, in 1 Thessalonians, declares it to be an imitation of the Lord also,1 and an imitation of the Judean churches. In 2 Thessalonians he bids them tell the busybodies to “ imitate” his honest industry. Remembrances, prayers, and good wishes occupy this place after the salutation in nearly all the Epis- tles, sometimes extending to great length.2 At the close, however, just before the benediction, Paul— customarily inserts matters of business, his plans of travel, directions to church officers, details concern- ing his arrangements for the collection, the dispatch of his messengers, or the like, and greetings from friends about him. This “ epistolary matter” is thus subordinated to the main purpose of doctrinal instruction and practical guidance. The relative proportions of the two may even afford some indica- tion of the extent to which we should classify these compositions as letter, sermon, or doctrinal treatise. Reserving Galatians, let us see, then, in outline, wherever the subject does not call for fuller treat- 1 Cf. Eph. v. 1. 2 In Ephesians the thanksgiving and prayer hice completely displaced the usual doctrinal section, leaving only the practical exhortation to follow after chapters i—iii. The similarity in this respect to both Thessalonian epistles is a support to the authenti- city of Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians, the two most disputed of the ten. LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 239 ment, what Paul has to say to this Macedonian church. The salutation is without exceptional feature : 1 “Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, to the commonwealth of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ : Grace to you and peace.” The thanksgiving and prayer are dominated by the note which rings through all the first three chapters — mutual confidence. “‘We remember and pray for you, thanking God for you, because we know that you belong to his ‘election.’ Because our preaching of the Gospel to you was not a mere matter of words. There was power [miracles], there was outpouring of the Spirit [tongues], there was great conviction. We re- member your faith and hope and love. You too know what kind of men we showed ourselves to be toward you.” 1 That is, it forms no exception to the Pauline practice. As compared with secular practice, the clause ‘‘in God... and Christ ” has the highest significance. As Deissmann has shown (Die neutestamentliche Formel *Ev Xpiot@ “Inood), the use of the preposition ev with persons is most exceptional. The phrases “in God,” “ in Christ,” are a coinage of Paul’s. The value of the prepo- sition can be best appreciated by recalling the original significance of the Greek “ enthusiasm,”’ literally ‘‘ possession ” by the divin- ity, as the Gospels speak of possession by evil spirits as being “in an unclean spirit.” The phrase here, and elsewhere in the Pauline writings, is analogous to that of Rev. i. 10, iv. 2, “I was in the Spirit,” only that for Paul to be “in the Spirit” is not a spas- modie condition of ecstasy, but the normal condition of the Chris- tian who ‘ “no longer lives, but Christ, the Spirit, lives in him.” So the communication between him and his correspondents is “ in God and Christ.” 240 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL This strain continues to the end of chapter iii., with so much appeal to the evidence of the apos- tles’ conduct when in Thessalonica as proof that they had no insidious, self-seeking aims, and ex- planation of why, in spite of the persecution the church had endured, Paul had not been able to come to them, that it is apparent that slanders had been circulated, probably from Jewish sources, and that the Thessalonians had reported them. The sec- tion of mingled prayer, thanksgiving, and reply which thus in 1 Thessalonians takes the place of the ordinary doctrinal section, reminds us partly of Ephesians, where the prayer and thanksgiving are similarly extended, partly of 1 Corinthians, where reply to the letter from Corinth oceupies the same position. But we may pass on to the second half, chapters iv., v., where Paul appends his practical exhortation. He concludes the first part with thanksgiving for their good progress, and prayer to see them again. The second part is an entreaty to abound more and more in their obedience to what Paul had taught them. Thus courteously he makes opportunity to speak of the particulars in which there is — in mod- ern phrase — room for improvement. We are not surprised, in view of the special cir- cumstances of a Greek community, and the spe- cial occasion in the critical attitude of the mother LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 241 church, that sexual morality occupies first place in the exhortation. Love of the brethren, Paul says, they hardly need to be urged to. But they can abound herein still more, and perhaps they’ may need to be re- minded that this virtue should show itself in the homely, practical way of quiet industry and atten- tion to business. Dependence on others under the plea of religion is a breach of the law of love.1. The warning is significant. Practical experience had brought up one doctrinal point in regard to which a Greek church would naturally not be clear in its views. Several of the church had died. Would they miss the resurrection and appearing of Jesus to judgment and the setting up of his kingdom? Jewish eschatology had been adopted, but all its refinements had not found en- trance. As with the Corinthians, among whom the differences between the Greek doctrine of spiritual immortality and the Jewish of bodily resurrection had developed more serious conflicts, Paul makes 1 Cf. Eph. iv. 28, where dishonesty is excluded because the fun- damental principle of the Christian social order is reciprocal ser- vice, industry, “that one may have whereof to give to him that hath need.” Lying, in the same connection, is forbidden “ because we are members one of another.” The spirit of the world is predatory, that of Christ ministrative. Paul at least apprehends “the law of Christ” as a new social principle, though he does not (at least at first) look for its full application, in the present world. 249 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL, the resurrection of Jesus the type and norm of be- lief. At the same time the mould of Paul’s present conceptions is the conventional Jewish, or Rabbinic. God will bring with Jesus, when he comes again, those who have died “in him.” These, then, will have already received that body of “ glory,” like the Lord’s, which, as incorruptible, is alone capa- ble of “ inheriting the kingdom of God.” Or, more probably, since they are said to “rise” after the “voice of the archangel” and the “trumpet of God,” Paul now conceives! that they receive it at _ that moment, having in the mean time remained “‘unclothed ” (bodiless) in the under-world : — “ Afterwards we that are left, that are alive at the parousia [Paul at this time expected it during his lifetime, and the retention of the mistaken idea is proof of the genuineness of the letter], will be caught up into the air to meet the Lord. There, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, our corrupt- ible bodies will be changed by the mighty working whereby God changed the body of Jesus in the resurrection, into the likeness of his own body of glory-substance. The earth meantime will have also been transformed,? and the Messianic reign will begin.” Such, in the simplicity of Jewish apocalyptic thought, is Paul’s eschatology, as it would seem to have been in the days of his missionary preaching. 1 The later letters show considerable change in Paul’s escha- tology. 2 This seems to be the purpose of believers being caught up into the air; ef. Rev. xxi. 1,5; 2 Pet. iii. 5-7. LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 243 Part of it, at least, he assures the Thessalonians, is based on direct teaching of Jesus. If he means more than the simple statement that “we that are alive and are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede them that are fallen asleep,” he is alluding to some teaching of which we have no record. If he means only this, the reference may be possibly to the promise, ‘“ He that loseth his life for my sake and the Gospel’s shall save it,” or some connected saying. As for the time of the cataclysm, Paul has no- thing to tell, save to repeat the warning of Jesus, to watch and be ready, because it will overtake the unprepared as a thief in the night. With this exhortation to watchfulness for the great Day, and a few words of special advice regarding church administration, the First Epistle closes. -But the correspondence continues. Again in 2 Thess. i. 11, the “ we also pray always for you” in- dicates that the Thessalonians had replied, intimat- ing that they had not been forgetful of the request of 1 Thess. v. 25, “ Brethren, pray for us.” But the second installment of the correspondence is almost wholly occupied with the subject which in ourselves also principally awakens curiosity and questioning in the first letter, namely, Paul’s doctrine of the end of the world. Apparently such mistaken no- tions of his meaning had been evinced that Paul 244 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL questions whether the doctrines imputed to him are not the invention of his enemies in some forgery. Hence he adopts for future safety the plan of an autograph postscript (the letters in their main con- tents are dictated), which is to be the token of genuineness in every letter. Under the same epistolary outline as before, a thanksgiving and prayer, followed by practical ex- hortation, Paul now gives a restatement of his eschatology, guarding against the impression appar- ently created by his first letter, that the end was immediately impending. He had said it would be sudden, and implied that he and his readers would witness it; he had urged them to watch and be ready. But they, instead of giving heed also to his gentle and courteous suggestion in regard to quiet industry and self-dependence, had rather suffered the superstitious tendencies to increase which in our day are designated “ Millerite.” Now, Paul imposes a check; first by interjecting as a prelimi- nary to the end the doctrine of Antichrist; next, in the practical section, by changing his gentle ex- 1 This provision (2 Thess. ii. 2, iii. 17) has been the principal occasion of suspicion of the genuineness of 2 Thessalonians itself, since it was obvious that forgery in Paul’s lifetime was improb- able. Jiilicher, however, has suggested with plausibility that Paul’s suspicions were aroused by reports which really were founded on his own letter, only so distorted in meaning that he did not recognize it. LETTERS OF THE SSCOND JOURNEY 245 hortation of 1 Thess. iv. Li, 12, into a more per- emptory and fuller direction to the church leaders to enforce discipline and suppress the disorders. The expressions suggest that the leaders them- selves had desired him to speak authoritatively. But we must return to Paul’s eschatology. Next to the Pastoral Epistles and Ephesians, 2 Thessa- lonians is the most disputed of the Pauline Epis- tles, principally because of its exposition of current Jewish apocalypse. The doctrine of Antichrist, modifying the simple exhortation to watch and be ready for the sudden coming of Christ to judgment which characterizes the First Epistle, is new and strange, at least to us. Something similar appears in the apocalyptic chapter (Mt. xxiv.= Mk. xiii.= Lk. xxi.) of the Synoptic Gospels. There the basis is a simple exhortation of Jesus to watch and be ready, undisturbed by the cries of false teachers and pseudo-Messiahs. To this has been added a brief sketch of the end of all things, which is sim- ply the stereotyped outline of Jewish apocalypse. It includes, in particular, the doctrine of a climax of evil, when the Abomination of Desolation (a heathen idol ?)! should be set up in the temple, as 1 Abomination that desolates is probably a word-play. It is the Greek rendering of OMY Vw, standing for nyav by2- For by>, which no pious Jew pend pronounce, the rabbis substi- tuted \aplean i.e. “ abominable thing ;” for hal) they put OD» 246 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL had happened under Antiochus Epiphanes, and as would have happened in the year 40 if the assas- sin’s knife had not interrupted the insane demand of Caligula. There can be little doubt that in this particular, at least, Jesus’ own teaching regarding the “last things” has been seriously affected by apocalyptic ‘ prophecy,” which itself reflects the horror of those years of suspense. It is by no means so clear that he did not actually teach sub- stantially what appears in the rest of the chapter, though not at one time. Most critics, however, be- lieve that in the gospel outline depicting (1) the beginning of travail, (2) the birth-pangs of Mes- siah, (3) the coming of the Son of Man, we have the actual insertion of one of the innumerable apocalypses which circulated about the middle of the first century in both church and synagogue. Similarly, many believe that 2 Thessalonians bears the same relation to the teaching of Paul as this interpolated apocalypse of Mk. xiii. 7, 8, 14-20, 24-27, to the teaching of Jesus. If we deem it im- portant to our faith to be able to hold that Jesus and Paul were not sharers in the current beliefs of their time regarding the end of the world, then this is certainly the easiest way out. But why should it “ desolating.” Coins of the Phenician and Philistine coast of the period of Antiochus show that DOYDW Dyn was the Semitic equivalent of Zeds "Oupdvios. LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 247 detract from the grandeur of those inspired minds to see them frankly sharing the ideas of their time regarding the wind-up of the world, uncouth as they seem to us, and yet unfettered by them ; wear- ing them, not as Saul’s armor, but with the light- ness and ease of those who have been made free by the knowledge of greater truth? Later, the out- worn ideas drop from the Gospel as the encasing sheath drops from the opening bud. To the extent that the disputed verses in the Gospels can be shown to be out of keeping with Jesus’ undeniable utterances, or to bear the marks of a later time, we should be ready to admit their unauthenticity. The same applies to the teaching here imputed to Paul; but it remains to be proved that both Jesus and Paul did not at this time still retain precisely such ideas, crude as they seem to us. For there is abundant evidence that they domi- nated the thought of most Jews and Christians of that time, and such slight traces as appear in Paul’s later epistles of a less catastrophic type of doctrine are evidence, not so much that he did not at first hold the views characteristic of his age and people, as that he simply did not permit them to keep his mind in bondage, but outgrew them as the prospect of his own “departing to be with Christ ” drew nearer, while that of witnessing the wind-up of creation according to apocalyptic pro- 248 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL % \ gramme became more remote.! As the author of \ the Thessalonian letter, even if a forger, expects Antichrist to “sit in the temple of God setting himself forth as God,” it is clear that he wrote be- fore the destruction of the temple in the year 70. He betrays no knowledge even of the insurrection of 66-70, which culminated in that destruction. The awful Neronic persecution, which brought Paul himself to the scaffold and Peter to impalement, struck the Church dumb with horror as they beheld the empire, to which they had looked as their natural protector against Jewish hatred, turning its whole power against them. From that time Rome becomes 1 The conventional apocalyptic doctrine of the apostasy of the last times culminating in the triumph of Antichrist receives classic expression in 2 Esdras v. 9, vi. 24, 25, ix. 1-8, xvi. 18; Apoc. of Baruch, xxvii. 6,7, but is clearly reflected both in the Gospels and Revelation. That Paul shared it is manifest not only here, but in his discussion of the fate of Israel in Romans ix.—xi., where the hardening of Israel is something more than a matter of pre- sentexperience. ‘‘ Thismystery ”’ (Rom. xi.25) is the same spoken of in 2 Thess. ii. 7 as ‘‘ the mystery of lawlessness already work- ing.’? The Pastoral Epistles afford of course very dubious evi- _ dence; but in 2 Tim. iii. 8 the apocalyptic writing, The Repent- ance of Jannes and Jambres, seems to be accepted (by Paul ?) as “a seripture inspired of God and profitable,” and to be the immedi- ate source of his doctrine of the apostasy. In the apokryphon Jannes and Jambres are Pharaoh’s magicians, and play the part of the beast and the false prophet as agents of Antichrist in Reve- lation. They are swallowed up alive by the earth, but not before their ‘‘ repentance” and confession, which leads to the turning back of their dupes to the true faith. Cf. 1 Tim. iy. 1. LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 249 to Christian thought no longer protectress, but « Babylon the great, mother of harlots,” “ drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus ;” Nero is himself Antichrist, or “the beast” that parodies the claims of divine sonship, of dominion over the world, of death and resurrection — for popular superstition declared that Nero would rise again from the dead. But all this lies beyond the horizon of our Epistle. Rome, if not Claudius him- self,! is still the protecting, “ restraining” power. The temple is still standing. But to go back so far as this is to go back to Paul’s own time, a time when no unauthentic letter could easily be put in circulation. So that it seems altogether more rea- sonable to think of Paul himself as looking at this time for — ‘‘ The revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God [Gentiles], and to them that hearken not to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus [unbelieving Jews]; men who shall pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of his might, when he shall come to be glorified among his saints and to be wondered at among all believers [for our witness found be- lief among you]? in that day.” 1 Hitzig conjectured that in the obscure allusion to a xatexav (mase.), which is also katexéy (neuter), a “ restraining ” man, or thing, by which nearly all agree that the Roman power is in some way meant, there is a play upon the name of the Emperor Claudius. 2 The expressions of this passage are borrowed largely from Ps. 250 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL True, we must look to Hnoch and 2 Esdras, the Apocalypse of Baruch and the Sibylline Ora- cles, rather than to the “ word of the Lord,” for at least the ultimate source of these conceptions, and so must we also for the picture of the coming of Antichrist which follows, wherein Paul is largely quoting! from some unknown apocalyptic writ- ing : — “Now, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we pray you not to be hastily disturbed from your sober mind, nor dis- quieted by a spirit [speaking through prophets in the church assembly ],? or by a word [saying of Jesus], or by a letter purporting to come from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is immediate. Let no one beguile youinany way. For first must come the apostasy [one of the stereotyped features of apocalypse], with the manifestation of the ‘Man of law- lessness,’ the ‘Son of perdition,’ the ‘Adversary, who uplifts himself over all that is called divine, or that is an object of worship, seating himself at length in the temple of God, giving himself out to be God.’ Do you not remember that I used to tell you this while I was still with you? Well, now you know what restrains him from being revealed before his proper time. For already the ‘mystery of lawlessness’ is at work. Only it cannot be manifested until he who at present restrains it is removed. Then shall the Lawless One be re- Ixyiii. (LXX.), which winds up @avyaords 6 beds ev Tots dotois abTod (‘God is wondered at among his saints”). Paul interjects the parenthetic clause to show wherein the prophecy is fulfilled. 1 Verses 9 a and 10 } contain explanatory comments showing that the rest is quoted, as in i. 10. 2 Cf. 1 Tim. iy. 1. LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 251 vealed, — whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and put down by his manifestation and appearing, the Lawless One whose manifestation is due to Satan’s power — with all his power and signs and lying wonders, and with all the deceit of iniquity for those who are destined to perish — because they did not accept the love of the truth for their salvation; therefore does God send them an impulse of error, so that they believe the falsehood — that all might be judged who believed not the truth, but delighted in iniquity.” Perhaps it is a lurid picture with which we take leave of St. Paul’s correspondence with Thessalo- nica, but we must remember that it is the brighter hope of deliverance which is Paul’s real message. It is “ Jesus which delivereth us from the wrath to come ;” the dark and lurid background is simply Jewish thought as it was without the features of divine compassion for the sinner and the Gentile. These curiosities of obsolete Jewish thought are use- ful to us only historically, as showing the atmos- phere in which Paul moved, the background against which the great principles he had imbibed from Jesus had to develop. We must turn now to the great letter wherein Paul takes up the chief battle of his life, one which reveals to us in the glare of conflict the deepest principles of the man and his faith. No wonder Luther called Galatians his bride, his Katharine von Bora. Without it the odds in the great battle of the Reformation would have been almost over- 252° THE STORY OF ST. PAUL whelming against the right of private judgment ; churchly authority might almost have crushed the attempt to vindicate the divine right of the individ- ual conscience. I need not repeat the nature of the reports that came to Paul in Corinth as to the activity of the Judaizers in his rear. Our previous canvass of the situation has shown what it would have meant to Paul had they been really able to detach from him the loyalty of his Galatian churches, persuading them that Paul’s gospel was unduly lax, and Paul himself a mere subordinate whose authority could not bear comparison with those who had lived in actual intercourse with the Lord. The Judaizer’s case was plausible. What divine Scripture had Paul to appeal to, save the Law of Moses? And certainly on its face this seemed to directly oppose his teaching. What gospel authority had he to present, save Jesus, whom he had never known in the flesh? Luther and the Reformers had at least the authority of Sacred Scripture with which to offset the author- ity of Church and ecclesiastical tradition. Paul had both Scripture and ecclesiastical authority against him. And yet he not only convinced the Gentile world that his mission was by authority of God, and his interpretation of Jesus and the Gospel the true interpretation, rather than that of the personal disciples of the Christ; Paul even carried with him LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 253 these very disciples themselves. James and Cephas and John acknowledged the equal standing and au- thority of his apostleship and the truth of his gos- pel ; and what could the mother church do when its leaders had given in, save to yield also? Yield it did, therefore, with the exception of a minority of inflexible conservatives, left stranded at last, when, by the destruction of Jerusalem, the centre of gray- ity had irrevocably passed to the Gentile Church. The tremendous influence of this man cannot be ac- counted for merely by his superiority in training, education, and social standing over his Galilean predecessors, is not accounted for by his power of logic, nor by his almost superhuman energy and re- sistless activity. Nothing can account for it that disregards the evidence afforded in this “ thunder- bolt epistle,” the evidence of Paul’s overwhelming, burning conviction of immediate divine vocation. ‘The very salutation blazes with indignant scorn of those who demanded the credentials of his apos- tleship. To the Thessalonians and Philippians he does not sign himself an “ Apostle.” Here, and in all subsequent epistles save to his beloved Mace- donians, he stands on his apostolic dignity. At the same time he demands a new significance for the rs title. It shall mean more than a matter of let- ters of commendation, ceremonies of ordination by church dignitaries, evidences of association even 254 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL with Christ himself after the flesh: “Paul, an Apostle not from men, nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” That is one new feature of the salutation of this letter. It foreshadows a treatment of “ apostleship ” that will be a surprise to his detractors. The other special feature is the allusion to his gospel of the cross: “ Grace to you and peace from God, and from Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil world.” That foreshadows a presenta- tion of the doctrine of redemption that will leave no room for legalism. After this salutation Paul makes no pause for the usual courtesies of thanksgiving and prayer for the welfare in the Gospel of his correspondents, but plunges directly into sharpest rebuke : — “T marvel at you, that like renegades you are deserting to another gospel. There is no other. Men call me ‘man- pleaser,’ over-conciliatory. Hearken, then. I pronounce the man anathema — man, do I say, yes, angel from heayen — who presents to you any other way of salvation than that we preached.” With that Paul takes up the theme which is to occupy the whole epistle, the proof that his apostle- ship and his gospel are not from man. Jesus had startled the synagogues of Galilee by a proclama- tion “ with authority, and not as the scribes; ” he LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 255 had confounded the hierarchs who asked, “ By what authority doest thou these things ?” with the ques- tion, “The baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men?” So Paul now rescues the Church from the verge of relapse into the same traditionalism of scribe and ecclesiastic, by raising again the protest of the individual conscience which has heard the voice of the living God, and becomes the champion of the liberty of the faith. Paul now demands again whether the Gospel was “from heaven, or of men.” There are but two main divisions of the epistle in its doctrinal part. (1) The defense of the divine nature of Paul’s apostleship. This is demonstrated in the historical review we have already followed in comparison with Acts. We have, then, (2) the vindication of his gospel of salvation apart from the control of the Law, by argument (@) from ex- perience, and (6) from the Law itself. After that come (3) two chapters of practical exhortation, guarding against the perversion of his doctrine of freedom from the Law into mere license. Of these main divisions we need consider only the argument for freedom from the Law, and the practical section, since the story of Paul’s con- version, early missionary career, vindication at Jerusalem, and stand against Peter at Antioch is already familiar to us. 256 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL At the beginning of chapter iii. Paul takes up his position against the Judaizers on the merits of the case. Their contention is for the prerogative of Israel. The Messianic inheritance is for “ Abraham and his seed.” The covenant of circumcision was given as a token that in Abraham and his seed all nations should be blessed; those from the Gentiles who become heirs with Israel should accept cireum- cision as the token of adoption, and bow to the yoke of the Law. Paul’s answer is first of all the appeal to experi- ence :! — “ When did the phenomena of tongues, prophecies, ecstatic utterances and miracles appear ? Was the outpouring of the Spirit an accompaniment of your evangelization by Paul, or of the proselyting efforts of the Judaizers? But the gifts of the Spirit are the very pledge and supreme evidence of the Messianic kingdom. They are the foretaste of that life which is to be, because the Spirit is itself the sin and death destroy- ing, the life-giving principle. Therefore the true ‘seed of Abraham’ is that which was constituted by the ‘hearing of faith’ which brought the Spirit. Not physical descent, not adoption by circumcision and acceptance of the Law, makes the ‘seed of Abraham’ in the real sense of the promise, but imitation of Abraham’s faith.” 1 Acts is undoubtedly correct in presenting this as the argument which in every case overwhelms opposition in the early Church: “The Holy Ghost fell on them, even as on us at the beginning. If, then, God gave unto them the like gift as unto us, who was I, that I should withstand God?” Acts xi. 16-18; ef. ii, 14-21, viii. 14-24, x. 4447, xv. 8. LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 257 «Moreover, this appears from the relation of Abraham and of us non-legalistic Christians to the Law respectively. Abra- ham’s blessing was pronounced on him for believing God — it was reckoned to him for righteousness. [In Romans Paul adds, ‘ while he was still uncircumcised.’] So we, like Abra- ham, have nothing but our trust in God as a basis for salva- tion. But as against the blessing pronounced on Abraham and this [spiritual] seed, Scripture pronounces a curse on those who are under the Law. It says, ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them.’ And to do them all is impossi- ble. There would be no salvation possible for any man if this divine curse had not been removed. But this curse was removed ; and here is the very heart and substance of the Gospel, which the Judaizers make valueless. Christ became himself accursed under the Law—the very mode of his death is significant — to remove it from us, so that the bless- ing of Abraham might come upon all who have faith, irre- spective of race; and so you Gentiles might receive the promised Messianic gift of the Spirit through simple believ- ing. “ But of course my opponents will say, What, then, was the use of the Law? They will say I make the Law of none effect, as I accuse them of making the cross of none effect. Let us see if that is so. I maintain that the Law cannot be a condition of the promise, because what God promised un- conditionally to Abraham he could not, even if he were a man, impose conditions upon 430 years after. What, then, is the Law? It is a disciplinary arrangement imposed to prepare the heir for what he was to receive. The heir is the new humanity, which collectively forms the body of Christ. This is indicated in the very expression ‘seed,’ a collective singular. But the righteousness of faith, which was Abra- ham’s, could not be produced in humanity without a disci- 258 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL plinary dispensation of law. Without law there is no con- sciousness of sin. Without having struggled to attain a standard above himself a man cannot have the knowledge of his weakness and need that are indispensably prerequisite to faith. There would be nothing but self-righteousness, ‘boasting,’ Pharisaism. So the Law was given that sin might abound. Jews, most of all, were shut up under it as a hard taskmaster. Through angels, and by the hand of Moses as mediator, a multitude of ordinances were imposed upon them, not life-giving as claimed, but on the contrary calculated to make men feel the sting of death, which is sin.! And as the Jews were thus placed under the tutelage of angels, so the Gentiles also were permitted to serve the Ele- mental Beings ? of the world, which control sun and moon and stars, the revolution of the seasons, and the order of outward nature. For nature’s order is symbolized in all religious feasts and calendar systems. Until the time of redemption was ripe, and God was ready to send forth his Christ as the head of a new humanity, Jews and Gentiles alike were under law, the former explicitly, the latter implicitly; just as children, until the time appointed by their father, are put 1 Here Paul is obviously speaking from the standpoint of his own very exceptional religious experience. The practical difficulty which prevented Paulinism from ever gaining real acceptance in the Church was right here. Other men had no such experience of deadly conflict, of the Law as an impracticable, yet inexorable, requirement of God. Every Jew, above all, regarded the Law as his delight and rejoicing, his assurance of favor with God. Hence the Pauline explanation that it was superimposed to increase not only the sense of sin, but sin itself in its heinousness, seemed to the Jew an extravagant and blasphemous paradox. To the Gen- tile Christian it was a scarcely intelligible strife “‘about words and names and their Law.” 2 See Encycl. Bibl. s. v. ‘‘ Elements.” LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 259 under the contro] of mentors and guardians, who impose ar- bitrary rules as they see fit. “Such is the function of the Law. But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor. For ye are all sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who had yourselves baptized into Christ did put on Christ, as an in- corporating being. You became a single new man, a new social organism.? There is no place for distinction of Jew or 1 The treatment of the Mosaic ritual as a “ worship of angels” (Kerygma Petri, Apology of Aristides, Ep. to Diognetus, etc.) in Gal. iii. 19, iv. 1-11 (where the orotyeia Tod Kéopov are to be com- pared with the same angelic objects of reverence in Col. ii. 8, 20), together with the repeated warning against magic (iii. 1, v. 20), suggests that even in Galatia the Judaizing heresy was not of the pure Pharisaic-nomistie type, but exhibited something already of that bastard Judaism of the “strolling Jews, exorcists,” of Ephe- sus, to which Harnack has given the name “ syncretistic Judaism.” Tté led the way to Gnosticism, treating the Law like a book of spells, to control angelic powers. 2 Weshall have occasion hereafter, especially in connection with Ephesians, to give further consideration to this great Pauline con- ception of the new humanity as a single organism, the unio mys- tica in Christ. The idea is obviously not Jewish, but Stoic in its roots. Seneca is only transmitting a cosmopolitanism which Plu- tarch attributes to Alexander himself (intrusted with a divine mission to “reconcile the whole world”) when he writes: “ All this which thou seest, in which are comprised things human and divine, is one. We are members of a vast body. Nature made us kin, when she produced us from the same things and to the same ends.” “ Nature bids me assist men ; and whether they be bond or free, whether gentlefolk or freedmen, whether they enjoy liberty as a right, or as a friendly gift, what matter ? Wherever a man is, there is room. for doing good.” “ This mind may belong as well to a Roman knight as to a freedman, as to a slave; for what is a Roman knight, a freedman or a slave ? Names which 260 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Greek, of bond or free, of male or female. You became one man in Christ Jesus, and as such the ‘seed of Abraham,’ the heirs according to the promise.” In this third chapter, which I have thus para- phrased, Paul has outlined his whole conception of the pre-Christian dispensation, Abrahamic and Mo- saic. Of course the argument has special applica- tion against Jewish pretensions, and must not be judged as if Paul were outlining an abstract system of religion for all time. We must make our own theory of the relation of law and grace, sin and atonement, faith and works, in the light of the great principles Paul applies. But what a magnificent example of mingled freedom and loyalty is his ap- plication of the example and teaching, the life and death, of Jesus to the special problem of his time. Different as this teaching is in form from the Ser- had their origin in ambition or injustice.” Lightfoot is right when, after citing example after example, both from Seneca and his pre- decessors of this Stoic cosmopolitanism, he asks: ‘‘ Did St. Paul speak quite independently of this Stoic imagery, when the vision of a nobler polity rose before him, the revelation of a city not made with hands eternal in the heayens? Is there not a strange coincidence in his language — a coincidence only the more strik- ing because it clothes an idea in many respects very different ? ” Cosmopolitanism is the last thing Paul would learn from his Jew- ish antecedents, it was strange doctrine even to the elder Apos- tles. 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. And the life which he gave it was the prin- ciple of self-denying service as the unifying bond of the social organism, the new Law of Christ. LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 261 mon on the Mount and the Parable of the Prodigal Son, after all it is Paul, and not the elder Apostles, who fights the real battle of the Gospel of Jesus. But Paul is not done yet with his argument. In chapter four he reiterates his doctrine of adoption by the Spirit, or coming of age into the filial re- lation with God, to hold up in contrast with it the self-enslaving present conduct of the Galatians. Finally, to make his scorn of their present leader- ship still more pointed, he turns upon them one of the contrasts of Genesis, wherein Jewish pride had recorded its sense of superiority to Ishmael the elder stock. I will paraphrase again : — “ Now what I mean is this. The condition of subservience to Law is a slavish one. Even the heir of a great estate until he comes of age is in a servile position, seeing his pro- perty administered by stewards, and his own actions directed by guardians. Such was our relation hitherto to the Elemen- tal Beings in present control of the creation, the beings worshipped in all ceremonial religions ; for even the Jewish religion with its lunar calendar, its days and months and seasons and years, clearly involves ‘ordinances of angels.’ But now we have attained majority. We have come into the relation of sons through the work of Christ. The Spirit of the Son sent forth by God into our hearts cries in the prayers uttered in a tongue, Abba, Abba, that is, ‘Father.’ So that thou art no longer in subserviency, but a son, and if a son, then an heir to the estate of God, that is the world.” 1 The Messianic inheritance is another conception which needs much further development in the light of contemporary thought. Suffice it for the present that Paul distinctly says that Abraham 262 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL “ And now, forsooth, you who have been rescued from this condition of pupilage wish to turn back from your condition of freedom, and heirship, and direct filial relations with God, and to be in bondage over again to beings which by nature are no gods! Nothing else is meant by this observance of Sabbaths and new moons, Mosaic feasts and Sabbatical yeare, which you have taken up. It is homage paid to angelic or elemental Beings, temporarily placed by God in charge of the estate of creation and in the direction of nations, but which have neither power nor property in their own right. They are weak and beggarly. Christ alone is the heir, and you are joint heirs with him. You should rather look to sit- ting in judgment with him on their administration.+ “Oh, the pity of this change! Instead of the ardor of your love and gratitude and zeal, when at my former coming you would have plucked out your eyes to give me in return for the gospel I preached, there is now coldness toward was made “ heir of the world” (Rom. iy. 18) ; that he also declares to the Corinthians that “all things are yours,’’ in particular “the world; ” that he appeals to Scripture in proof that “ All things are to be put in subjection under the feet of Christ,” where the passage employed is the same (Gen. i. 26-28; Ps. viii. 6) to which apocalyptic writers of both synagogue and church appealed as proof that “God created the world on behalf of Israel ” (2 Esdr. vi. 55, 59, Assumptio Mosis, i. 12-14, Apoc. of Baruch, xiv. 18 f., xy. 7, xxi. 24), or “on behalf of the Church” (Hermas, Vis. ii. 4,1, Mand. xii. 4; Justin, Apol. i. 10, ii. 4. 5, Dial. xli.; Ireneus, Her. v. 29.1, ete.). See R. H. Charles, Assumptio Mosis, i. 14, note, and my article ‘““Stephen’s Speech ’’ in Yale Bicentennial Contri- butions, pp. 242-244, 1 The consideration is added from 1 Cor. vi. 3, as throwing needful light on a portion of Paul’s cosmology very ill understood in modern times. In Enoch the judgment of the angels (seventy shepherds) for their administration of the world is antecedent to the general judgment: LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 263 me, now I am regarded as your ‘enemy.’ The new-comers. assume airs of exclusiveness and superiority to make you cringe to them, and I the author of your spiritual being am robbed of my children, suffering the pangs of motherhood in vain. “But hearken to an allegory from the Law, since you crave to be under it. According to the Law, Abraham had two sons, one born according to the flesh, the elder son, one later, born according to the Spirit by the promise of God, when only the faith of his aged parents availed to overcome the laws of nature. If the promise be indeed to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, then who is the legal heir ? — Ishmael, the son of Hagar the slave-woman. But ifit be, as I have shown, according to the spirit, and ‘they who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham,’ then who are they that correspond to Ishmael and his slave mother, whose very name recalls the mountain of the Law? Surely Hagar and Ishmael are the Jerusalem that now is and her sons, that per- secute us Christians, as legend declares that Ishmael per- secuted Isaac. This is the seed according to the flesh. Sarah and her-child Isaac born by a ‘word of promise’ is the heavenly, coming Jerusalem, the seat of Christ our Lord, the place of our citizenship, capital of the kingdom that is to be. Long has this daughter of Zion been barren and desolate, but now, like the new Jerusalem of Isaiah’s day, she is al- ready teeming with a multitude of children. We, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise, not of the flesh, nor of the will of man. It is they who boast their fleshly relation to Abraham that are the Ishmaelites. Howbeit, what saith the Scripture ? ‘Cast out the slave-woman and her son: for the son of the slave-woman shall not inherit with the son of the free-woman.’ Wherefore, brethren, we are not children of a slave-woman but of the free. For freedom did Christ set us free; be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.” 264 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL I need scarcely paraphrase the practical appeal of this epistle. Read in the light of our knowledge of Paul and his circumstances, it is tremulous with vivid emotion. Its key-note after all is not polemic, but the note of unity. Paul is peremptory and un- eompromising where the principle of salvation by faith apart from works seems to him endangered. But in chapter five he has no sooner made it clear that faith is either all or nothing, that to resort to circumcision and works of the law to supplement it is simply a confession that one has no faith, than he begins to warn against the opposite error. To acknowledge no intermediary between us and God, no law but his pleasure, is far from laxity. Our liberty was given by endowment with the Spirit. To conduct one’s self according to the selfish impulses of the flesh would be to deny the very source of this liberty, for the impulses of Spirit and flesh are contrary one to the other. And the first and high- est impulse of the Christ-Spirit is that “ through love we be servants one to another.” The law of love is the law of life ; the predatory spirit is self- destructive. There is, then, in a sense, a “ Law of Christ,” for where his Spirit is, there is purification of self and reciprocal kindness and self-denying service to others. The leaders help the weak, those who are taught support those who teach, the spirit of meek- ¢ LETTERS OF THE SECOND JOURNEY 265 ness in those appointed to authority banishes strife and vainglory, love and mutual helpfulness become anew bond of social order. These are Paul’s in- structions to leaders and subordinates alike. Then he resumes his whole exhortation : — “Tn all that has been said, let it not be understood that the law of retribution is set aside. A man is indeed not saved by any righteous works he can do; but it is falsehood to say that then the evil-doer can mock at God. It is still true, for all the forgiving grace, that each must reap what he has sown; if to the flesh, then corruption, which is its fruit; if to the Spirit, eternal life, for life is the very dowry of the Spirit.” So he closes. One final paragraph he writes with his own big scrawling hand, humorously com- paring it to the neat chirography of the scribe’s preceding lines. Those who would have them cir- cumcised seek the outward show. For Paul there is but one thing glorious —that cross of which these men appear to be ashamed. By it the world has been crucified to him and he to the world. Since Calvary, neither circumcision nor uncireumci- sion is anything; but a new creation. Peace, then, and mercy, upon such as walk by this rule, and upon the spiritual Israel — the Israel of God. LECTURE VIII LETTERS OF THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY It is no very long interval which we pass over in proceeding to the letters of the Third Missionary Journey. Paul has transferred his headquarters from Corinth to Ephesus, the great metropolis at which he was probably aiming at the beginning of the second period of his missionary career. Before definitely settling there, he revisited Antioch, and made a tour of confirmation through Galatia, whose results must have been favorable, since in 1 Cor. xvi. 1 he makes the arrangements he had established in Galatia for the collections a model for Corinth. The correspondence, from which four letters of Paul are preserved to us wholly or in part, began a year or more after Paul’s return to Ephesus from this tour, at a time when he himself had gone through many trying experiences in Ephesus, and the church in Corinth, on its part, had had consid- erable growth, not in all respects for the better, - under Apollos. It was on the recommendation of Aquila and Prisca that this Alexandrian convert had gone from Ephesus to take Paul’s place ia LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 267 Corinth,! but at the time of writing Paul’s second letter, our 1 Corinthians, he had returned to Ephe- sus, and was with Paul. Our 1 Corinthians, I say, was Paul’s second letter, for he refers to a pre- ceding letter in 1 Cor. v. 9. Paul’s third letter, referred to in 2 Cor. ii. 4 as “ written out of much affliction and anguish of heart,” is now widely re- cognized to be embodied, at least in part, in the last four chapters of our 2 Corinthians, so that 2 Cor. i.—ix. constitutes Paul’s fourth letter in the series, later copyists having attached the substance of the third letter (2 Cor. x.—xiii.) at the end, with- out a separate title. The letters written to Paul from the church have disappeared; but we can form some notion of their contents from Paul’s citations. Apparently the correspondence began with a let- ter from Paul, calling for stricter discipline in the church in the matter of sexual morality. Reports of a scandalous case in Corinth had reached him in Ephesus (perhaps through Apollos), and he had written demanding that they “have no company with fornicators.”? The demand, however, had 1 Acts xviii. 27. The Western text has the interesting addition: “ But certain Corinthians who were tarrying in Ephesus and had heard him [Apollos], besought him to go over with them to their country. And when he had consented, the Ephesians wrote to the disciples in Corinth to receive the man.” 2 1 Cor. v. 9. 268 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL been made in such general terms that the Corin- thians in their reply could plead that his require- ment was impracticable, they would have to leave the world entirely to carry it out.1 To which Paul answered that he had no reference to outsiders. They should excommunicate a member guilty of immorality.” There is some reason to think that this first letter of the correspondence has partially survived. Its general purport is already clear; moreover, I have indicated that 2 Corinthians, which seems to have been put in circulation considerably later than 1 Co- rinthians,? contains the remaining Pauline material of the church archives, in more or less disorder. This is true not only of the last four chapters, but of six verses which intervene between 2 Cor. vi. 13 and vii. 2 without any recognizable sense connec- tion. In fact, they break the connection of what Paul is there saying in a very striking way. He writes, “Our heart is enlarged toward you, O Co- rinthians ; now, for a recompense in like kind, be ye also enlarged, . . . open your hearts to us.” Be- tween the clause “be ye also enlarged” and the clause “ open your hearts to us ” are interjected six verses on the subject of the relations of the sexes 1 1 Cor. v. 10. 2 1 Cor. v. 11. 8 Clement of Rome, writing to the Corinthians in 95 A. D., speaks of Paul’s “ Epistle ” to them as if he knew of only one. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 269 in Corinth. We are strongly reminded of what Paul says of the contents of his first letter, and why its demand was treated by the Corinthians as im- practicable. These are the interjected verses : — “ Have no conjugal relations, incongruous as they must be, with unbelievers. For what partnership can exist between righteousness and iniquity, between light and darkness, or what has Christ in common with Beliar (Antichrist) ? What part has a believer with an unbeliever, and what concord has God’s temple with idols ? For we constitute a temple of the living God; even as God said: ‘ I will dwell in them and walk in them. And I will be their God and they shall be my people.’ Therefore (to quote another Scripture) ‘Come out from the midst of them and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch nothing unclean, and I will welcome you with favor: So will I be to you a father, and you shall be to me sons and daugh- ters, saith the Lord Almighty.’ Since, then, we have these promises, my beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all pollu- tions outward or inward, making our holiness perfect in the fear of God.” Remembering what demands were made by the Jewish Christians of their Gentile brethren on the score of “the pollutions of idols,” and how they considered the “many to be defiled” by mere con- tact with one such “ Esau,” 1 we need not wonder that Pauline believers in Corinth should protest against language like that of 2 Cor. vi. 14—vii. 1, that it would require them to leave the world en- tirely. If this paragraph on the sexual relations at 1 See above, p. 133. 270 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Corinth which so strangely interrupts the connec- tion of 2 Cor. vi. 13 with vii. 2 is really a remnant of the lost first letter, we can well understand why Paul takes this subject up first, after his rebuke of the dissensions reported by ‘them of the household of Chloe,” and in just the way that he does, in 1 Cor. v.—vii., before proceeding to answer the new inquiries. At any rate, the Corinthians replied, as we know, and at considerable length, taking up not only the whole question of marriage, in particular conjugal relations between believers and heathen, but the whole list of questions principally in debate at the time, to all of which Paul gives his answers seria- tim. From the point where Paul begins in 1 Cor. vii. 1, “ Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote,” we can follow the letter of inquiry para- graph by paragraph in Paul’s reply. And as Paul’s reply throws light on the Corinthians’ letter of in- quiry, so, more dimly, even as the dark disk of the moon is seen “in the arms of the new” by reflec- tion of earth-light, Paul’s first letter itself can be traced in outline through the inquiries. It certainly dealt with questions of sex and marital relations between believers and unbelievers. Apparently it used the figure of the body as “a temple of God.” 1 But Paul had other things to say to them, which 1 Cf. 1 Cor. vi. 19 (“ Know ye not,” ete.) with 2 Cor. vi. 16. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 271 to his mind took precedence in importance over an- swering their questions. The first six chapters of 1 Corinthians are devoted to these: (1) in chapters i—iy. the conditions of factiousness which Paul has learned about from a family recently come from Corinth ; (2) in chapters v., vi., the scandalous lax- ity of discipline of which he continues to hear, and which now manifests itself not only in disregard of his former demand for the excommunication of the sexually immoral, but in litigation between Chris- tians before heathen tribunals. This practice the Apostle regards as disgracing the church. We have only time barely to touch upon Paul’s rebuke of their factiousness, passing thence to a few of his replies to their most important questions, and disregarding all the rest. There were some in the church at Corinth who had begun to speak of themselves as adherents “ of Peter,’ and some who called themselves adherents “of Christ” in an invidious sense, though just what sense is obscure. There were also personal adherents “of Paul,” among whom the authors of the letter of inquiry must have classed themselves ; for they boast of their fidelity to his instructions, and make quite too unqualified an application of well-known Pauline principles. Finally, there were personal adherents “ of Apollos;” for Apollos also 1 1 Cor. xi. 1. 272 - THE STORY OF ST. PAUL had won a great following for himself by his Alex- andrian, philosophizing type of doctrine, to which indeed Paul has no objection, any more than he feels jealousy of the popularity of his successor. So far is he from this that he urges Apollos, who had probably left Corinth before Paul’s first admo- nition,! to return to Corinth. Apollos was doubt- less wise in declining. But while Paul has no objection to Apollos’ somewhat speculative type of doctrine, and intimates rather that he himself would have preached similar “ wisdom,” if he had regarded them as prepared for it, he does vehe- mently deprecate the factious, self-exalting, divisive spirit which is evinced in those who raise the ery, “Tam of Apollos,” as much as in the other parti- sans. Accordingly he discusses this divisiveness under application to himself and Apollos only? dropping from the start all consideration of the Petrinists and the Christ-party, because his own entire sympathy with Apollos will set their factious emulation in the more vivid light of reprehension. It would let in a flood of light upon the history of early Christian thought if we knew wherein the doctrine of Apollos, the learned Jew from Alex- 1 Paul would hardly have written in the manner described (1 Cor. vy. 9) if Apollos had still been in charge. More probably it was through the coming of Apollos that Paul learned the facts which prompted this somewhat peremptory letter. 2 1 Cor. iv. 6. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 273 andria, mighty in the Scriptures, differed from Paul’s. Certainly Apollos cannot have been igno- rant of the Logos doctrine of Philo, the great phi- losopher of Hellenistic Judaism. Philo must have been to Apollos what Gamaliel was to Paul. Paul found in Baruch,! Sirach,? and the Book of Wis- dom? some of the noblest elements of Greek mysti- cism cast in Pharisean mould. In its hypostasis or personalized conception of the Wisdom of God he found the best expression for his own conception of Christ as preéxistent spirit, the medium of both creation and revelation in the past, as well as of humanity’s present redemption * and ultimate glori- fication in a new spiritual and eternal social order. Apollos may not have been the introducer of the Greek term “ Logos,” for the Palestinian-Hellen- istic “ Wisdom,” but he must have found in the Alexandrian hypostasis, which is Philo’s adapta- tion of the Heraclitean doctrine of the Logos of | God,® immanent, pervasive Reason, the medium of 1 Baruch iii. 28-37; cf. Rom. x. 6, 7. 2 Eeelus. xxiv. 1-22. 8 Wisdom i. 6, "7, vii. 22-30, viii. 3, 4, x. 15, ete. * Tt is the noblest attribute of the Palestino-Hellenistie hypo- stasis Wisdom, that in distinction from the Greek, it represents the redemptive agency of God. Prov. viii. 1-21, ix. 3-6; Wisd. vi. 13. 5 Heraclitus was a native of Ephesus. The opening lines of his Philosophy of Nature, describing the Logos of God and human incapacity to receive it, remind one of the Prologue of John: “The law of things is a law of Universal Reason (Logos), but 274 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL creation, revelation, and redemption, a kindred, if not an identical idea. As we see the two learned Jews working side by side in their common cause in Ephesus, in “ the school of Tyrannus,” the pupil of Gamaliel saturated with the ideas of Tarsus, the home of Greek Stoicism, and the pupil of Philo saturated with the Alexandrian Logos doctrine, we are not surprised that Ephesus should appear a generation later as the home of the greatest school of Christian theological thought. The ideas of Paul and Apollos will have harmonized and strengthened one another as the Christological Epistles and the Johannine Epistles and Gospel harmonize and supplement one another. But Paul had been wiser than Apollos in the use made at Corinth of his speculative ideas. He knew the craving of the Jew for signs and of the Greek for wisdom, but had determined among them to know only the story of the cross, and to let Christ himself appear, as he is, both the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.! In their very eall- most men live as though they had an individual Reason (Logos) of their own.” Cf. Jn. i. 1-5, x.—xiii. 1 The use of the words seems to be technical. Advayuis and cola are the two modes of divine manifestation, and are adopted from the start, in the current theosophy, as names for personal- ized abstractions. Thus Simon Magus was given out to be that dvvauis of God which is called MeydAn. In Lk. xxi. 26 the duvdueis that are in the heavens totter to their fall at the coming _ LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 275 ing God had chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and weak things to put to shame the mighty. Christ is not commended by the marvel of miracles, nor the subtlety of philo- sophie systems setting him forth. There is a power of God; but it is inward: the in-working of the life-giving Spirit. There is a wisdom of God; but it also is inward. It consists in our participation in the mind of Christ. For just as man’s own con- sciousness instructs him in the things of a man, so those who partake of God’s Spirit are admitted to a perception of even the deep things of God. Ina sense they are admitted to the self-consciousness of the Creator himself, so as to know the things he created to be ours.! So among adepts Paul is able of Christ. In Ephesians and Colossians we shall hear much of the “Suyduers in the heavenly regions.’ Similarly with the term copia. We have seen how Paul is influenced by the book called Wisdom of Solomon. In Lk. xi. 49 the utterance of Wisdom personified, from some current writing of the Wisdom literature, is placed without more ado in the mouth of Jesus himself. What “the Wisdom of God” says is Jesus’ saying. Of course we know how large a part the emanation Sophia plays in all Gnostic sys- tems and among the early fathers, where the term is used of Christ as synonymous with Logos and interchangeably with it, so that the greatest sanctuary of the Greek-Christian world bears to this day the name “ Church of St. Sophia.” But in the Johannine writings the word never appears. By the end of the century Gnostic use had brought it into ill repute, and the fourth evan- gelist adopts instead the Alexandrian or Philonic title Logos.” 1 Cf. Wisdom vii. 17-22, viii. 4, with 1 Cor. ii. 10-12. 276 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL to develop his knowledge of God’s foreordaining purpose, a great hidden mystery, concealed even from the angelic powers which (temporarily) rule the world. They know not the mystery of their own origin,! because they do not share the spirit of - adoption, and are not sons, but servants. They are destined to annihilation, as enemies of Christ, for the crucifixion was really their work. But through the Spirit of God, which we have as sons, God has revealed the significance of his creative and re- demptive providence, glories to come, which in the words of the Apocalyptic writing? are described as “ Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, which came not up in the imagination of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him.” “So there is room for both planting and watering in the ministry. I put in the seed, Apollos nourished it. But the 1 So in Assumptio Mosis, i. 12-14, the hiding of the mystery of God’s purpose in creation is to confound the speculations of the Gentiles. God revealed the true answer to the question why and how the world was created to Moses: “He created the world on behalf of his people” (referring to Gen. i. 26). So Secrets of Enoch, xxiv. 3 (see edition of R. H. Charles, with comments on pp. xxii and xli), where the angels vainly strive to learn the mystery of their origin, and 1 Pet. i. 12, “ which [things the promised glory of the saints] angels desire to look into.” 2 Paul is quoting an unknown “Scripture.” Origen found the citation in a work known to him as the Apocalypse of Elias. This work has disappeared, at least in its early form. ey = LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 277 harvest depends on God, who gives the vital power of growth. The new commonwealth of God is a temple built of spiritual materials. One lays the first course of stones, another builds on it. The relative worth of what I furnished and what Apollos is something only the judgment-day can reveal. For you the one important thing is the foundation, which is the story of Jesus as I told it. Instead of quarrel- ling about the various parts of the superstructure, to the injury of the building itself, you ought to realize the value of the fundamentals. For the leaders whom you invidi- ously compare, Paul and Apollos and Cephas, are yours in common. I will not say Christ is yours in common, but rather you are under Christ in common, and Christ is under God. In this unity the world belongs to you, and life with all it can give, and death with all it can give, present and future ; but not by the spirit of envy and emulation, only in the Spirit of Christ.” The rebuke concludes with the promise to send Timothy to regulate affairs and to come himself if possible. I must pass over the rebuke of lax discipline and the first question raised by the letter of in- quiry taken up in chapter vil. on sexual relations. Chapters viii—x. have the most vivid historical in- terest, because the question raised was regarding “things sacrificed to idols,’! and whether or not those who demanded abstinence had a right to require it. Manifestly Paul has told them nothing 1 Note the constant collocation, “fornication and idolothuta.” These are the pollutions of the Gentiles nat’ etoxnv. Cf. Rev. ii 14, 20. 7 of the Jerusalem decrees. The inquirers are clearly appealing to Paul’s principle (twice quoted), “ All things are lawful.” Another party designated “ the weak,” probably they “of Peter,” are more scru- 278 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL pulous. But there are also some who deny that Paul is an Apostle, and demand that he be brought to trial regarding the liberty which he claims. He digresses for a brief ‘defence to them that would put me on trial.” As for the inquirers, we have already seen the ground Paul took, qualifying the. principle of unrestricted liberty by the comple- mentary principle of consideration for the more scrupulous. As an example of Paul’s correspond- ence, I cannot do better than transcribe the begin- ning of chapter vili., employing the modern device of quotation marks for the passages which he cites from the letter of inquiry : — “Now concerning meats from idol offerings: [You say] ‘We know that we all have knowledge.’ [Very well, but] knowledge puffs up; love builds up. If any man thinks he knows, it is a sign that his knowledge is not of the right kind. But if a man loves God, it does imply knowledge. Well, then, concerning the eating of meats from idol offer- ings, you continue : ‘We know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there doubtless are, gods many and world-masters many, yet so far as we are concerned there is but one God, the Father, and but one world-master, Jesus Christ, by means of whom all things came into existence, including ourselves.’ LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 279 [Did the Corinthians learn their Logos doctrine of Paul, or of Apollos? At any rate, this primitive cosmological Chris- tology which they advance as a sample of their gnosis is highly interesting. But let us see how Paul comments on it.]| Howbeit all men are not gifted with your gnosis [in- sight], but some, through accustomed association with the idol, eat as of something offered to an idol, and their con- science, holding such scruples, is polluted. [Continuing, then, from your letter] ‘But meat will not commend us to God: neither if we eat not are we the worse ; nor if we eat are we the better.’ All very well, only see to it lest this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to the scrupulous. For if one sees you with your gnosis, sitting at meat in an idol’s temple, will not he be emboldened against his conscientious scruples to eat idolothuta? So through your gnosis, he that is weak is led to perdition, the brother for whom Christ died !” The significant thing in this noble answer of Paul to those who were pleading his own prin- ciples of freedom through knowledge of God and Christ from superstitious scruples, is the way in which he makes the law of love a check upon the sense of superiority and the consequent division so apt to appear where men feel themselves emanci- pated by new enlightenment. It anticipates the burden of 1 John. Unloving knowledge is not the true knowledge of God. “ Knowledge puffs up; love builds up.” _I must pass over the inquiry of chapter xi! 1 It is accompanied by another interesting quotation from the letter of inquiry : “ Now I praise you that ye ‘remember me in all things, and hold fast the traditions [that is, the forms of church 280 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL about matters of good order in the church, the place and demeanor of the women, and the pro- prieties to be observed at the love-feast and sacra- ment, to come to another section in which one of the great Pauline principles is exemplified. We are all familiar with the great Hymn to Love of the thirteenth chapter, and I scarcely hope to add to its significance in our devotional use. But we shall understand it better, we shall get new insight into the grand principles that lie behind it, if we read it once historically in its con- nection with chapters xii. and xiy., and against its background of Corinthian self-satisfaction in what they regarded as the most remarkable manifesta- tions of the Spirit. The section is devoted in Paul’s methodical way to the charismata, or “ spiritual gifts,” that is, the phenomena of “tongues,” ‘ prophecies,” “ mira- cles,” exorcisms, and the other endowments ser- viceable to the brotherhood, in which the church saw the outpouring upon themselves of the Messi- anic gift. “Now concerning spiritual gifts,” says Paul, taking up their inquiry as to the relative value of various gifts, and in particular as to cer- observance ; ef. verse 23], even as I delivered them to you.” The inquirers had prefaced their request for further instructions with the assurance that they remembered his previous directions and held fast to them. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 281 tain blasphemous utterances which had claimed to be made “in the Spirit.” The one great principle, says Paul, applying here his Stoic conception of the new humanity as an organism comparable to the human body, is that all who belong to Christ constitute one body, so that we are members one of another. Thus serviceableness to the common life is the measure of worth. ‘The Spirit is the all-pervading life, and determines the proper func- tion of each part, foot and hand and head : — “ Desire then earnestly the best gifts. But I will point out to you a still more excellent way. ‘Tongues’ [i. e. ecstatic utterances] of men or angels, are no more than the blowing of a trumpet or rattling of a tambourine ; ‘ prophecies,’ with insight into all mysteries and knowledge ; ‘ wonder-working faith’ to the removal of mountains ; ‘helps,’ to the extent of giving one’s property to the poor and one’s body to the fire, all amount to nothing without the spirit of love, which is the root from which they spring. The essential distinction is that the phenomena you take such pride im are outward, and necessarily transitory. The ‘tongues’ will cease, the gnosis will disappear, the ‘prophesying’ will become extinct, be- cause the perfect involves the extinction of the partial. But even in the perfected social order of Christ’s kingdom the deeper qualities of the Spirit will not disappear. Faith and hope and love are the supreme charismata, because they are involved in the very nature of the eternal Spirit. These three abide forever: and the greatest of the three is love.” The picture which follows of the Corinthian church-assembly, with its prophets, prayers in a 282 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ‘“‘tongue,” and “interpreters,” its individual con- tributions of “a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation,” is historically fasci- nating ; but we must pass it by. We must even do likewise with chapter xv., the sublime exposi- tion by Paul against certain opponents of his doctrine of the bodily resurrection, including his distinction between resurrection of the flesh and resurrection of the body. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom because in their nature cor- ruptible. God clothes the spirit with an appro- priate body, made of glory-substance, which is like that of the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, stars, a body like the resurrection body of Christ. And we who remain alive at his coming will be suddenly transformed. Thus the objection to the material- ism of Jewish ideas loses it force, while the idea is not lost in the vagueness of Platonic survival of the life-principle. The resurrection must be under- stood in the light of the after-death appearances of Jesus. The epistle closes with plans for the collection, directions about receiving Timothy, who is already on the way to them through Macedonia, changes in Paul’s own proposed itinerary. He must stay for the present in Ephesus, but will remain all the longer with them on his way to Jerusalem, for his present intention is to follow Timothy through Ma- LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 283 cedonia, and to spend some time, perhaps the whole winter, with them. Apollos will not come for the present. Salutations follow; then Paul’s personal signature with two technical words: Anathema on every man that does not love the Lord (an answer to the blasphemy that had occurred in the church- assembly), and the Aramaic watchword Maran- atha: «Come, Lord,” with the benediction. The curtain drops. When it rises again, it reveals a scene of disaster. Hither Paul has been forced to intervene personally, and has himself met rebuff and insult provoked by the hostile element in Corinth; or he has met it in the person of Timothy, his lieutenant. The exact nature of the church’s action is impossible to determine. What is certain is that. the opposition centres around some individual, perhaps the same offender whose excommunication Paul had demanded in the letter we have just been considering, perhaps another ; and that the church, instead of standing by Paul, had been at least weak, if not wholly disloyal. Some had even gone so far as to seriously demand the putting of Paul on trial, in accordance with the proposals which Paul contemptuously alludes to in 1 Cor. ix. 8. The nature of the accusations, too, is tolerably clear from that chapter. It be- comes much clearer in the vehement and indignant four chapters which conclude our 2 Corinthians. 284 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL The probability is to my mind a very strong one that these four chapters form an improper conclu- sion to 2 Corinthians, and substantially represent, as has been argued for half a century by a rapidly increasing number of critics, the “ painful letter” referred to in 2 Cor. ii. 1-4, iii. 1, and vii. 8, 12-14. The wind-up of 2 Cor. i.-ix. is the opposite of indignant reprehension. It is glad and thankful reassurance and renewed confidence. In vii. 8 Paul writes: “For though I made you sorry with my letter, I do not now regret it; though I did regret it; for I see that that letter made you sorry, though for a time only. Now I rejoice in your repentance. My glorying in you to Titus has been justified. He found you ready to receive him with fear and trembling and was refreshed by you. I rejoice that in everything I am of good courage concerning you.” If anything could make it more apparent that here the crisis is past, and the church as a whole returned to its loyalty, it is the succeeding two chapters, which urge the chureh to contribute liberally toward the collection which Titus and “the brother whose praise in the Gospel is spread through all the churches” are to arrange for, going in advance of Paul himself, and which express the confidence that herein too the Corin- thians will justify Paul’s boasting of them to the generous Macedonian givers. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY = 285 After this the abrupt violence of the first words of chapter x. is simply unintelligible : — “Now I, Paul, in my own name [apparently some one else had held the pen in what preceded] mtreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, —I who [as they allege] am ‘in your presence very meek among you, but absent bold enough ’—JI even entreat you, in order that I may not be compelled to show that boldness in your presence.” The only explanation offered by those who cling to the belief that the whole epistle is a single writ- ing is the supposition of an interruption of some kind at this point, and that when Paul returned to his writing his attention was directed no longer to the repentant majority, but to the still recalcitrant minority. But this misconceives the facts. The recalcitrants in these denunciatory chapters are not a minority. It is the church as a whole which Paul is castigating for allowing his enemies and detractors to usurp the place in their loyalty and affection which belonged to him alone. If 2 Cor. x. 1—xiii. 10 follows after 2 Cor. i—ix., then a second and worse disaster to Paul’s standing with them followed after the apparent complete reéstab- lishment of their repentant obedience and loyalty. But more than this. If these four chapters are in place, Paul flagrantly violated his assurance of iii. 1-3 that he would not “again” begin to com- mend himself, but would rely on them as his 286 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL “letters of commendation.” The one most dis- tinctive feature of 2 Cor. ix.—xiii., next to the unsparing castigation of the church for its disloyal attitude, and the bitter sarcasm against his odious rivals, is the self-commendation. Paul admits it to be folly, but is driven to it by their disloyal silence or avowed suspicion. How can this follow after an assurance that the need for any further self-commendation has been removed by their re- turn to loyal support ?1 Therefore I must needs take 2 Cor. x. 1—xiii. 10 as Paul’s third letter — or more properly a portion of it.2 2 Cor. iix. and xiii. 11-14 constitutes Paul’s fourth letter. Painful as it was to Paul to be compelled to write his own “letter of commendation,” and to compare himself with the rivals who were usurping his place, — painful even to the point of a regret at having written it, which was dispelled only by Titus’ report of its good effect, — we cannot our- selves but be grateful for both portraits. Of the 1 Cf. 2 Cor. iii. 1-3, v. 12, vii. 8-11, 16. 2 The beginning and end have been amputated to admit of connection with its present setting. It is also apparent from the reference to specific demands made in the painful letter in 2 Cor. vii. 12, that if this be the letter in question, the portions relating to the personal affront to Paul have also been omitted; as was natural. The sending of Titus and “the brother ” referred to in xii. 18 must of course be distinguished from the sending of Titus and two others in yiii. 16-24, which is still in the future. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 287 nationality and belief of Paul’s opponents we get a vivid idea in such words as these : — “Since many boast after the flesh, I too will boast. For you who are ‘discreet’ gladly bear with the ‘crazed.’ You put up with a man if he enslaves you, exploits you, ensnares you, if he uplifts himself, if he smites you on the face,. . . But whereinsoever others make bold (I am speaking in my ‘eraziness’), I make bold as well. Are they ‘ Hebrews’ ? — So am I. Are they ‘Israelites’?—so am I. Are they ‘ministers of Christ’ ? (still my ‘craziness’) I am more so: far beyond them in imprisonments, scourgings, death.” Then follows the glimpse already given! into Paul’s adventurous missionary career, and after- ward his visions and revelations, counterbalanced by his “stake in the flesh.” But we return to his sarcastic portrait of his Jewish-Christian rivals. What they preached, and what they accused Paul of, appears from the following in xi. 4 :— “For indeed if the new-comer preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach [Paul preached the spiritual Christ, a second Adam, the Redeemer of humanity to the spiritual inheritance ; the Judaizers, another Jesus; the Son of David, restorer of the kingdom of Israel], or if you get a different Spirit, which you did not get [Paul, as we have seen, laid the emphasis on the inward, abiding ethical gifts of the Spirit, they on ‘revelations’ and ‘tongues’], or a dif- ferent Gospel which you were not given, you put up with them well enough! Why not with me? I am not a whit inferior to those super-extra apostles. Perhaps I am ‘uned- 1 Above, pp. 87 £. 288 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ucated in speech’ [as compared, for example, with Apollos]; in knowledge I am not. Or perhaps I committed a wrong in humbling myself for your advantage, and preaching the Gos- pel of God to you for nothing! But I shall continue just as I have, not for lack of love to you, but to deprive these detrac- tors of the handle they seek against me. For these men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as ‘apostles of Christ.’ And no wonder! Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. His ministers follow his example.” What Paul means by the reference to their mis- interpretation of his support having come from Macedonia while he was preaching in Achaia ap- pears more plainly when, after excusing again his self-commendation, he asks them satirically to for- give him the wrong of not imposing on them the burden of his support. It was, the detractors al- leged, his “craftiness.” Paul caught them with guile. At first he asked nothing, afterward he got large sums of money. Paul asks whether Titus and “the brother,” whom we now learn that he had sent on a previous occasion, had been de- tected in fraudulent dealing. Then he adds : — “TI suppose you think I am writing this as a defence before your tribunal. Well, I am coming, a third time, and since you wish to have me give a proof that Christ speaks in me, I will give it. I am not coming to plead at your bar. I shall come with unsparing severity. Put your own selves on trial. Look into your own condition, and see if you are not ‘reprobates.’ I say it not because I care for my own vindi- eation at your bar, but I write that when I come I may not LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 289 be compelled to deal severely, using my authority from the Lord, given me for purposes of upbuilding, for purposes of destruction.” With that ominous word the fragment closes. It is clear how sharp was the crisis, how unbridled the hatred and calumny against Paul, which actu- ally impugned his honesty, stopped at no personal insult or slander, and sought to turn his own churches into a court before which Paul was to be tried as a “‘ reprobate” from the faith. And these men called themselves Christians, nay, “ ministers of Christ,” and even “apostles” in a sense which they denied to Paul! Tt is with relief that we turn to the final letter, written when Paul, driven out from Ephesus at extreme peril of his life, stopping at Troas, has at last in Macedonia met Titus bringing good news from Corinth. The first two chapters report his recent experi- ences, how he has escaped from the very sentence of death “ through God which raiseth dead men to life,” and is now in Macedonia, carrying out the plan proposed in 1 Cor. xvi. 5—9. Incidentally, it appears that one of the counts of the indictment against him had been his change from the earlier plan of going to them direct; for he stops to ex- plain that the change had not been from his vacil- lation, as alleged, but really on their account. He 290 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL bids the church now forgive the author of the af- front, and then passes to a contrast of his ministry with the Mosaic, introduced by the assurances al- ready noted ! that he will not again commend him- self, because they are in their persons his “ letter of commendation,” that is, testify to his “ ministry.”’ In this connection he draws the most noble and at the same time touching picture of what is meant by ‘“‘the ministry of Christ” that has ever been delin- eated. It is that which begins in chapter iii.” with a comparison of the “ministration of righteous- ness,” ? his “veiled gospel,” as they call it, to the dawn of the creative morning. “So,” says Paul, ‘God shined in our hearts in the glorious face of Jesus.” It ends with v. 20—vi. 10, in the sublime description of the “ministry of reconciliation.” God in Christ is beseeching the world by his ministers to accept his redeeming love. They are “ ambassadors on behalf of Christ.” 1 Above, p. 286. 2 Strictly the starting-point is the transition in ii. 15-17. 3 In the painful letter, xi. 15, the Judaizers are represented as calling themselves “ ministers of righteousness,” of course in dis- tinction from Paul, whom they designated a “ minister of sin.’’ Cf. Gal. ii. 17, where Paul answers the argument that if we step down to the level of “sinners of the Gentiles,” whose only hope of salvation is the cross, we make Christ a “‘ minister of sin.’’ In the present contrast he even speaks of the Law, regarded as the ground of salvation, as a “ ministration of death and condemna- tion,’’ 2 Cor. iii. 7-9. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 291 A personal appeal of affection to the Corinthians follows in vi. 11-18, vii. 2-4,1 reverting again to the painful letter and Paul’s anxiety since writing it, until Titus brought the good word from them that has just reached him. So he ends by promising his speedy coming, telling of the liberality of the Mace- donian churches, and urging them to justify his boasting of them. The exhortation winds up with a thanksgiving for God’s unspeakable gift, and (in xiii. 11-14) the simple “ Farewell ; be perfected, be comforted, and the God of love and peace shall be with you.” Then the full Trinitarian benediction. The next letter is written out of a period of brief but well-earned peace, which, however, is but the lull before the supreme fury of the storm. It dates some two or three months later. Paul has reached Corinth and wintered there.? Before undertaking 1 Omitting the fragment vi. 14—vii. 1. 2 Tf any authentic elements underlie the note to Titus, it is probably this same winter which is referred to in Tit. iii. 12. At the time of writing, Paul was expecting to winter in Nicopolis. Ti- tus accordingly had not yet been directed to go to Corinth and thence come to meet Paul in Troas. The allusions in 2 Cor. ii. 12 f. show that there had been a miscarriage of plans, due, no doubt, either to the expulsion of Paul from Ephesus, or the disturbances in Corinth. If the note underlying Titus was written from Ephe- sus, Paul then expected to await the repentance of the Corinthians in Epirus. More serious developments in Corinth will have com- pelled him, after writing the painful letter, to countermand the former instructions, and bid Titus come to him in Troas or Macedo- nia via Corinth, bringing news of the effect of the peremptory 292 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL the highly dangerous journey to Jerusalem, he seeks to pave the way for his coming to Rome; for he hopes through the prayers of Christians there, and the grace of God, he may, in spite of all, be successful in Jerusalem, and come to them in peace. Then the long desire of his heart will be satisfied. The very centre and metropolis of the Gentile world will be his missionary headquarters. By their help he can carry the Gospel even to Spain, the Ultima Thule of Oriental thought. The adaptation of Romans to these conditions of Paul’s own, and of the Gentile church he is address- ing, is worthy of the Apostle. They are not his foundation, yet the very centre of his province. He cannot pass them by. But neither can he assume that they have not been prejudiced against him by his assiduous defamers. The best of all would be that he should succeed in restoring at Jerusalem the same cordial relations as on his former visit from Antioch, eight years before. If so, he can come “ in the fulness of the blessing of Christ,” coming unto them “in joy through the will of God, and together with them finding rest.” If imprisonment or death prevents his coming, or if he can come only to face the same relentless slander and hostility as on all letter. Titus took longer than Paul expected in Corinth, and their meeting was thus put off till Paul had proceeded to Macedonia, where his extreme anxiety was at last relieved. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 293 his Greek mission-field hitherto, still the remedy is the same. He must lay before them the gospel he preaches in its simplicity, silencing slander, prepar- ing for his coming by the full opening of his heart. Or else, if he “ be absent,” the letter will speak for him the message he would have given. Out of this situation comes the most systematic of Paul’s pre- sentations of his gospel, that which to him is “ the power of God unto salvation to every one that hath faith, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile,” be- cause it reveals a divinely supplied “ righteousness ” on the basis of faith alone. In the development of this thesis of the univer- salizing of redemption by its being conditioned on faith alone, Paul shows first that the Jew, in spite of his boasted knowledge of the Law, is as much under the wrath of God as the heathen. Thus the atonement is equally indispensable to Jew and Gen- tile; for it is a manifestation, through the vicarious death of the Messiah, at once of the extent of God’s reclaiming love for the sinner, and of his hatred for sin. Thus God cannot be accused of laxity in pass- ing it over, seeing he pays such a price to free us from it. This is Paul’s ethical interpretation of the cruder doctrine of substitution he had “ received.” 1 The doctrine of 4 Maccabees neither satisfied his moral sense nor gave his reason any answer to the 1 1 Cor. xy. 3. 294 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL fundamental question why the divine scheme of things must necessarily include suffering. The rebuttal of the objection, “ But this makes the Law of none effect,” proceeds then as in Gala- tians, only more fully, in chapters iv.—vii. : — ‘« The real prerogative of Abraham is not the setting apart of a preferred race, who should win at length the Messianic heavenly reward by obedience to a prescribed series of obser- vances subsequently made known. It is simply discipline in faith. The promise to Abraham was for his faith. The redemption was not meant for his [physical] descendants, but for the descendants of Adam [that is, the evil was world- wide]. Whoever of all these exercised Abraham’s faith would become the spiritual descendant of Abraham and heir of the promise, Christ, the second Adam, being the leader of this new humanity into its inheritance. Until Christ, men were simply being prepared to exercise faith. Jews were under the discipline of the Mosaic Law, Gentiles under an analogous discipline. The Law supervened to increase sin and the consciousness thereof, that ultimately grace might much more abound. “Baptism accordingly typifies death, burial, resurrection. The immersion under the water is a putting off of the life we inherit from Adam, as Christ put it off on the cross, the emergence and clothing with white garments is the putting on of the life conveyed in the Spirit, the Messianic gift, as Christ by the same Spirit was raised to immortal life. Con- sequently, whoever has been baptized furnishes his body as the organism of a life which is not his own, but is at the same time Christ’s, and God’s, and his own. His members are rendered as instruments of righteousness to God. The dominance of this Spirit-life in us is the answer to the ob- LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 295 jection that if the Law is done away, men will give free rein to their passions. On the contrary, they will give free rein to the impulse of love and goodness; for it is this which is now dominant in them. Moreover, it is this incoming of the tide of divine life which solves the whole hopeless problem of Stoic philosophy. Christ, revealed by God as the spiritual man from heaven, at once himself life-giving Spirit and type of the man that is to be, is the answer to the piteous cry of humanity voiced in the Greek mysteries, in the poets, in the Stoic philosophers — yes, in Paul’s own experience — for an évOovciacués, an influx of divinity, to turn the scales of the hopeless inner conflict against brute nature in favor of the higher divine nature. “ This, then, is the solution of the riddle of humanity. The Spirit in us is the guarantee of immortality. It transforms the moral nature, but not that alone; it transforms the very physical nature, subtly working even in our mortal bodies, preparing them for transformation into counterparts of the glory-body in which Jesus appeared after his death. Yes, and even the whole material creation will be transformed by it at the manifestation of the sons of God, a new-created spiritual humanity dwelling in a new-created spiritual uni- verse. No power in earth or heaven or hell, not life or death, or things present or future, can prevent this consum- mation; for the power which effects it in us is the love of God exhibited in Christ.” Interesting as it is, as Paul’s retrospect and prospect over the history of our race, I must pass over the second division of the letter, in which Paul supplements his theory of world-redemption with a special explanation of the relation of Jew and Gentile, in God’s providential dealing. Also I 296 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL must omit the admirable practical section by which the teachings of both main divisions are combined in chapters xiii_xv. We see that Paul is still, as ever, striving to make love the perfect “bond of unity.” There are in Rome, as elsewhere, the “strong” and the “ weak.” In fact, the “ strong,” the Paulinists, have clearly the upper hand, and, as in Corinth, Paul has to remind them to qualify their liberty by consideration for the scrupulous ; to eat herbs, if necessary, in order not to over- throw for meat’s sake the redeeming work of God. Mutual tolerance is the one rule, “ receiving” one another as Christ accepted you. It is the Hymn of Love over again in practical application. In xv. 14-33 we have the epistolary close, with its matters of present and future plans already mentioned,! and in xvi. 21-23 the salutations. Only in xvi. 25-27 and xvi. 1-20 we have some Pauline fragments, which have found a place here? probably because Romans stood, as we are told by the earliest writers, at the close of the Pauline col- lection. The doxology, xvi. 25-27, is a stray frag- ment ; xvi. 1-16 is a letter of commendation, which the numerous greetings and other indications show was originally addressed to Ephesus. Paul may 1 Above, p. 292. 2 Rom, xvi. 25-27 does not appear, however, in all manu- scripts, and in some is placed elsewhere. 3 See Bacon, Introd. to New Test. p. 101. LETTERS OF THE THIRD JOURNEY 297 have dictated it to Tertius at the same sitting as the letter to Rome, and so the two come to be copied together. It introduces Phebe, a deaconess of the church in Cenchreex, the port of Corinth. To the critical historian it is of extreme interest for the ray of light thrown on the obscure begin- nings of that all-important Pauline church in Ephesus. But to us it is hardly available as a source of Pauline doctrine. Verses 17-20 appear to be a fragment. We must bid farewell to Paul on his way to imprisonment, and soon to death, with the noble outline of his gospel of world-wide redemption by faith, and cosmic re-creation by the Spirit, the great Epistle to the Romans, of which an unknown writer of the second century declares that it presents “the whole tenor of the Scrip- tures.” LECTURE IX THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES From the time of Paul’s writing to the Romans from Corinth, on the eve of setting out for the peace-making journey to Jerusalem, there is no certain trace of any word from his pen until sey- eral years after, when special circumstances draw from his prison in Rome a group of three letters, all written on the same occasion, and to the same region. No wonder they present a new type. We have conjectured! that the fragment in 2 Timothy sending for his cloak and books left in Troas, in preparation for the “ winter,’ may have been written just at the beginning of his two years’ imprisonment at Cesarea. For the rest we must think of these three or four years as a time of enforced retirement, when the Apostle was thrown in upon himself. Meantime the tides of battle without had veered. Just how the conflict brought to a crisis by the visit of the great delegation from “the churches of the Gentiles” to Jerusalem had turned out, we are not told. We only know that when the curtain lifts again, that phase of things 1 Above, p. 196. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 299 has passed. The old battle-cries of Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, about Paul’s apostleship, his gospel of justification by faith without works, free- dom from circumcision and the obligation of the Law, have faded out of hearing. Or if some echoes remain, they have a different ring, and they no more affect Paul as of old. Then there is the rhapsody of Ephesians on the Church as the Bride of Christ, a New Jerusalem builded like a city that is compact together, on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, the enmity slain, the middle wall of partition broken down, an undivided Body of Christ. Some, indeed, cannot admit Ephesians to be genuine; but make it even deutero-Pauline, and still what sort of feeling is here evinced, in deutero-Pauline circles, toward the mother church? Surely no one can read Ephesians and say that Paul risked his life in vain at Jerusalem. There is now a new danger; yet a danger not wholly new. Already in the Corinthian corre- spondence, Paul had had occasion to rebuke a type of speculative thought calling itself after Apollos. There were men puffed up with the notion of their own superior insight into “ mysteries.” Gnosticism, as it came later to be called, the doctrine of re- demption by enlightenment, was already present in these regions of Hellenic and Hellenistic theosophy while Paul was spending there his last five years 300 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL of missionary effort. It was a danger only tempo- rarily obscured by the more immediate peril of the Judaizing assaults upon his apostleship and gospel. Now Paul’s hands are free to grapple with it. The group of three letters, Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, in which we next hear from Paul, is written to a region unvisited by him, though ap- parently evangelized during his three years’ stay in Ephesus. Philemon indeed is a personal convert of Paul himself, but not at Colosse, his home, which Paul has never visited.2_ Epaphras, who is now sharing Paul’s imprisonment, whence or why we know not, seems to have been the evangelizer of the region,’ and is now evincing to Paul his great anxiety for its three churches in the adjoining towns on the upper Lycus, Laodicea, Hierapolis, and Colosse. But Paul has two other reasons for writing; one is that the runaway slave of Phile- mon, Onesimus, has come to Rome, perhaps to secure Paul’s intercession with his master, and has been converted. Paul would gladly have kept him as an attendant, but his conscience forbids. Finally, the immediate occasion of all three letters appears to be that the churches in question have written to Paul, expressing their deep concern for his wel- fare. Why they did so may perhaps be explained by the fact that Epaphras their founder and Aris- 1 Philem. 19. 2 Col. ii. 1. Sal's. f. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 301 tarchus (apparently a free man at last accounts in Acts xxvii. 2) are now in captivity along with Paul. How long the Apostle has been in Rome there is no indication; but these new imprison- ments (?) and the anxiety on his account, which Paul seeks to allay in Eph. iii. 13, Col. i. 24, Philem. 22, may perhaps be taken to show that his condition is not so favorable as during the “two years in his own hired house” with which Acts breaks off. At all events, whether during, or later than, these two years, a group of churches not known to Paul by face have written him. This we infer from the reference to a letter from the Colos- sians in Col. i. 9, “ We also cease not to pray for you,” and from two similar references in the other letter, “‘I also cease not to give thanks for you,” and, “ But that ye also may know my affairs how I do, Tychieus shall make known all.”? The cor- respondents addressed had written Paul that they gave thanks and prayed for him, and had told him their affairs, how they did. This other epistle is called by us Ephesians, but it certainly was not sent to Ephesus, as practically all scholars now admit. The most ancient manuscripts do not even have the words “in Ephesus” in the first verse, but merely “ Paul . . . to the saints that are, and the faithful in Christ Jesus,” the place-name being 1 ph. i. 15. 2 Eph. vi. 21. "7 wanting. The most ancient form of the title known to us is “To the Laodiceans.”1 In any event, those to whom it was sent were strangers to Paul, for their faith is known to him only by report, and his career only by report to them. 302 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL This of course excludes Ephesus; but there is no reason why the epistle may not be the one Paul tells the Colossians will reach them by way of Laodicea, and the copies with év "E¢éow have come from Ephesus. To study the group we should begin with Philemon ; for that will reveal to us the external situation on both sides. Then we should examine Colossians for traces of the special conditions that are giving so much anxiety to Epaphras. That will give us the situation on the inner side of things among those Paul is writing to. Lastly we should pursue Paul’s own thought in its more extended form in the general letter known to us as Ephesians. The study of this letter, how- ever, we shall undertake later, in connection with Philippians and 2 Timothy. It should be remem- bered, however, that its historical and literary con- nections are with Philemon and Colossians. 1 Tertullian taunts Marcion with using this title as if pluming himself on a discovery. Tertullian’s texts seem to have been, like our own earliest authorities, destitute of any indication of the place. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 303 The picture we can outline from the gentle, playful note borne by Onesimus to his former master, Paul’s friend in Colosse, is an idyllic one. Imagine a handsome estate in the inland city, its owner, Philemon, converted long since by Paul, together with Apphia his wife. Their son Archip- pus is “minister” of the Colossian church, and the estate itself with its numerous slaves and clients forms now a church, or community of Christians, in which the relation of master and slave is not done away, but sanctified by the Gospel. Even in his distant prison Paul hears (through Epaphras) of the refreshment to the hearts of all the saints that has flowed from this household of consecrated wealth. Only five or six miles away is wealthy and prosperous Laodicea, where the estate of Nymphas shelters a similar community of Christians; and just across the Lycus is still another large town, Hierapolis, with its own Christian community. The earthquake which destroyed Laodicea in 61— 64 has not yet occurred. All three churches had, perhaps, united in the letter to Paul. Writing now to his personal friend, Paul asks the manumission of the runaway returned. This will be a refreshment to his heart.1 He knows Philemon will do even beyond what he asks, and yet he makes the letter a note of hand. Paul will 1 Verse 20; cf. verse 7. 304 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL repay whatever Onesimus took for his escape. Philemon will find himself none the poorer for exchanging an “unprofitable” slave for a Chris- tian brother made “ profitable” to him by ties of gratitude — for the name Onesimus means “ profit- able.” Such is the scene at Colosse. And what-at Rome? The letter gives a glimpse at Paul’s situa- tion also. He is “such an one as Paul the aged, and now a prisoner also of Christ Jesus ;” needing one to minister to him in the bonds of the Gospel. But he is not secluded. Epaphras of Colosse and Aristarchus of Thessalonica are his fellow prison- ers, Mark, Demas, and Luke his fellow workers ; all send greetings. Another, a certain Jesus, called Justus, one of the few Jews who have been a com- fort to Paul, sends his greeting to the Colossians, but he seems not to have known Philemon, or else was not present at the time of writing. More- over, Paul now thinks his prospects of release are bright. At least he playfully bids Philemon get ready a room for him too, because he hopes that their prayers for him will be granted. Tychicus is to tell by word of mouth Paul’s real condition and prospects, so we hear nothing of the progress of his case. But the Jewish Christians are not friendly.} 1 Col. iy. 11. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 305 That is all we learn directly of Paul. Indirectly we catch a glimpse in this little note of the true gentleman, whose honorable dealing and courtesy in daily life agree with those peerless lessons of love and consideration we read in the great Epistles. But along with this personal letter to Philemon Paul had sent to the church in Colosse by Tychicus an epistle designed to meet the special conditions which aroused the anxiety of Epaphras, and which Paul’s own experience would give him only too much reason to fear for churches in just this re- gion midway between Galatia and Ephesus. And here I must digress for a word on the background of gospel-preaching on Hellenistic soil. We must remember that Christianity could not go to the Greek world offering a “Son of David” who would “restore the kingdom to Israel.” It belongs to the fundamentals of Pauline thought that from the very start he conceived the redemp- tion in Christ on a basis wholly transcending this nationalistic Jewish Messianism. In his Christ there could be neither Jew nor Greek, but only a Deliverer of the common humanity from its com- mon woes of sin and death. Paul brought to the Gentile world Christ as a second Adam, the spirit- ual man from heaven, deliverer from the burden of ° carnality and the doom of death. Now the Greek world was anything but unconscious of these woes. 306 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL 7 For centuries, as the national pantheons had crum- bled, so, proportionally, a new type of religion had grown, whose centre was the individual man, with his struggle to subordinate the lower to the diviner element in himself and thus to lay hold upon immortality. This new and vigorously spread- ing type of religion found lodgment wherever the sense of the worth of the individual had sprung up with the decay of the old nationalities. It was the religion of so-called “mysteries,” Eleusinian, Orphic, Bacchic, Greek, and Oriental, supported by voluntary organizations (@/acov) of neophytes and adepts, with their symbolic rites and sacraments. Perhaps the most widespread of all was the reli- gion of Mithra, of Persian-Babylonian origin, with its doctrine of the divinity incarnate by a virgin in the sacred cave, a hero-demigod, victorious over death and the under-world, and delivering the fol- lower likewise. Its “sacraments” of baptisms purging from sin, and its mystic meal, a com- munion of consecrated bread and water (or wine), were so like the Christian that the second century fathers can only account for the resemblance as the Jesuit missionaries in China accounted for the Buddhist mass. They were parodies devised by the Devil to throw ridicule upon Christian rites. The monuments of Mithra-worship scattered all over the Greco-Roman world furnish to this day THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 307 constant puzzles to the archeologist as to whether he is dealing with Christian or heathen symbolism.1 But it is not the religion of Mithra alone which before the day of Christianity was attempting to meet the wants which the Gospel at last should satisfy. All the mysteries, both Greek and Orien- tal, have as their common theme the Indian doc- trine of avatar, which Barth in his “ Religions of India” (p. 170) describes as “the presence, at once mystical and real, of the Supreme Being in a human individual, who is at once and at the same time true God and true man; and this intimate union of the two natures is represented as contin- uing after the death of the individual in whom it took place.” Some forms of the mystery myths are familiar, that, e. g., of Orpheus rescuing Eury- dice from the under-world. But we sometimes fail to recognize these redemption myths in their older, cruder forms, as in the ancient Babylonian legend of the descent of Ishtar to the under-world, whence she is rescued by Asusunisim; until we find them in Egypt, in Persia, in Scandinavia, the world over, testifying to man’s longing for life, and. how hope has spurred imagination to find in nature her- self a type of immortality. The ancient prophets 1 See Cumont, Textes et Monuments relatifs aux Mystéres de Mithra, 1899. English abstract by Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 1903. 308 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL struggled in vain in Israel to wholly detach the popular faith from Egyptian and Babylonian my- thology. Even the appearance of complete detach- ment in Rabbinic literature is delusive. With Christianity, Judaism threw off a type of Messian- ism represented in the Apocalyptic literature which otherwise would have left Judaism not without a succession to the speculative and quasi-mythological literature of the non-canonical books. If even Judaism, until the reaction against Christianity led her to a violent repudiation of these syncretistic ideas, had admitted something of that world-messianism, in particular the great doc- trine, never to be relinquished, of personal immor- tality in a world to come, we may well conceive into what a chaotic world of unformed religious thought and aspiration Paul entered. The national religions had broken down and their elements were fused together. Religious faith turned to the an- cient mythologies and gave them a new interpreta- tion. Myths of the dying and resurrected sun-god ; Heracles, son of the father of the gods and a human mother, who, when on earth, went about righting wrongs, and after laboring and suffering for mankind, ascended to heaven from the pyre on (Eta; Prometheus, crucified for revealing to man- kind the beneficent arts and sciences ;—— these are Greek forms of earlier myths of Egypt and Baby- 7 THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 309 lon, Marduk, son of Ea the Creator, who over- comes Tiamat the Chaos dragon, and still older myths, which furnished to Greek and Oriental mys- teries their symbolic stories of the G«ds cwryp, the - Saviour-God, who delivers humanity by incarnation and victory over death. Our word “enthusiasm” is simply taken over from the coinage of the Greek mystery. The worshiper sought mystical union with the Geds cwryp ; he purged away sin by ceremo- nial lustrations and ascetic practices; he covered - himself with a mask representing the divinity, or with blood representing the blood of the hero; he ate and drank elements which represented the flesh and life of the god; he sought by every means of symbol and imagery to establish intercommunion of life, so that, living, he might ,be infused with that reinforcement of the diviner element in himself giving conquest of the lower self, and dying, might attain immortality. Beliefs and rites of this type preoccupied the ground on which Paul labored, and they furnish him no inconsiderable part of his special vocabu- lary and mode of representation. His “ gospel of the reconciliation, how that God was in Christ re- conciling the world,” was also a doctrine of the Geos cwryp; only he (or a disciple) spoke of “God our Saviour,” not “Christ our Saviour,’ which would have had in that time a ring of the demigod 310 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL or hero myth. The Stoics had been beforehand with Paul in utilizing the conceptions of mystery reli- gion. They had set forth the doctrine of our com- mon humanity as an organism and man’s sense of the need of divine “ inanimation ” of our mortality. But Paul does not hesitate to borrow even the phraseology and symbolism of the Greek mystery religion. No other origin can be found for such expres- sions as “the mystery of Christ,’ God as the eds cwr7p, or Christ as the composite, collective “* new man,” into the measure of the stature of whose fullness we are growing up together. Such concep- tions as union through baptism with the death of Christ, in the putting off of the body of flesh, that we may also be united to him in the power of his resurrection, “ putting on” the new man, are con- ceptions that cannot be fully appreciated by us till we realize the material Paul is building with, the ideas inbred in his readers. It was not possible to preach the Gospel on such soil, and not employ this phraseology and these ideas. If it had been possible, it would have been a foolish neglect of germs of truth which God in his own way had sown in millions of hearts that were groping after him in heathen darkness, longing for deliverance from the dominion of sin and death. But that is only one aspect of Greek religious THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 311 ideas of the time, the popular, the religion of in- . stinct. We know more about the religion of intel- lect, philosophy, and speculation. Here in Ephesus and Ionia was the birthplace and cradle of Greek philosophy, which had done its full part to over- throw the old national pantheon. Enlightened peo- ple everywhere treated Zeus and Athene, Hermes and Aphrodite, as names of childish fable. They spoke of God (6 @eds) as we do. They defined his nature and attributes as modern theistic writers do. Since Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the mo- notheism of all thinking people was as distinct as ours. But the tendency to monotheism is always and inevitably associated with some form of belief in intermediate agencies, supplying the necessary connection between the invisible absolute God and the visible creation. The Jews created a hierarchy of angels and demons. Greek philosophy formu- lated a Logos doctrine; and this is what we mean by a Logos doctrine. Pure monism is an unattaina- ble ideal of thought. As soon as we have conceived of all existence as an original unit, we are obliged to imagine something to account for existing differ- ence. Something went forth from the Absolute and became objective to him, and in that Some- thing was involved whatever is finite, conditioned, dependent. God filling the universe of being with its content is distinguished from God self-existent 312 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL before creation ; and the Greek thinker terms this * content ” of the universe Pleroma. Look at it from another aspect. We think of God as pure spirit. But we perceive about us a universe of matter. Cannot one be derived from the other? Or must we hold the two eternally un- related ? Man’s own structure furnishes the solitary key. He is himself a union of spirit and matter. Pervading and controlling his body is his reason and will (Adyos or vots). When it is imperfectly dominant, man’s nature is full of disorder and evil. When it disappears, there is dissolution. In like manner the visible universe is permeated, con- trolled, animated, by a rationality (Logos) which makes it a cosmos and not a chaos! The mere formless material (ij) may be conceived as eter- nally self-existent, or as thrown off by the Logos principle. In either event, that which makes the universe intelligibly existent must be kin to human intelligence. Then that which gives the universe existence (as a cosmos, if not absolutely), that by which it consists, is what we know in ourselves as Reason. In Paul’s day a succession of the greatest spec- ulative thinkers the world has ever known had developed this line of cosmogonic or cosmological 1 See the Jewish mode of presenting this idea in Wisdom i. 7; Eccelus. xxiv. 3. : 7 THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 313 philosophy. Wherever Greek civilization was known men were familiar with this Logos doc- trine. The term in one sense of the word (Adyos éviidGeros) means thought, in the other (Adyos zpo- gopixds) means expression. The Palestinian Stoic prefers the term Wisdom. However expressed, this conception is the great contribution of Greek philosophy to solve the insoluble problem of mo- nism vs. dualism. Logos, Nous, Wisdom, a dif- fused divine entity, personal and yet not person, is its principle of unity in God and man and nature, making change and difference conceivable. Thus Thales of Miletus, first of the Ionian philosophers, already taught that “ Intelligence (vois) is the God of the world, which is animated throughout and full of deity.” Pythagoras refines still further, and identifies the mediating principle with that which gives us the purely abstract science of num- ber. Heraclitus of Ephesus (about 500 B. c.) began his treatise on the universe with words which recall to us the prologue of the Fourth Gospel, for he not only makes the Logos principle the link of rela- tion between the Absolute and the finite, but also the principle of knowledge and revelation in man. «Of this Logos, though it be an eternal principle, men have no comprehension, neither before nor after they have been told of it. For although all things take place in accordance with this Logos, 314 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL men are as though senseless. Although the Logos enters into all, most men live as if their perception were a personal belonging of their own.” Manifestly, the popular avatar doctrine of the Redeemer God, becoming incarnate to deliver man and give him immortality, stands all ready for com- bination with the more philosophical Logos doc- trine of cosmological speculation. In reality, the Hellenistic conception of hypostatic Wisdom, the agent of God both in creation and redemption, combines the essential features of both. So after Thales and Heraclitus and Pythagoras, the Ionians, the Eleatics, the Sophists, come Plato and Aristotle with their idealism, followed by the Stoics, who develop the Logos doctrine in their own way, not only to explain the universe, but ap- plying it as the divine redemptive agency for their ethics and anthropology. To the second century fathers this Logos doctrine of the Greek philoso- phers was a phenomenon more unaccountable even than the sacraments of the mysteries. The philoso- phers, they said, had preached Christianity before Christ. Athanasius, a master of the whole subject, is far from admitting any indebtedness of Chris- tianity to Greek metaphysics, but demands to know of heathen philosophers of his time what there is in the whole Logos doctrine of Christianity which is not identical with their own, “except that the _. pauaaiall ” THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 315 Logos became flesh.” Now we have seen that the Logos doctrine had found its way into Jewish thought even before the Christian era, and in two almost wholly independent directions. In the Book of Wisdom the mediating principle is designated by the Hebrew term Wisdom, and defined as “a breath of God’s power, a pure efful- gence of the glory of the Almighty, the brightness of the everlasting light, and partaker of the life of God.” Wisdom in all the so-called Wisdom lit- erature is the agent of God in both creation and redemption, the medium by which God made the world, works in it, and which, “passing from gen- eration to generation into holy souls, makes men friends of God and prophets.” In Alexandria, however, the Jewish philosopher Philo frankly adopts the Greek term Logos, and explains Greek philosophy as borrowed from Moses. Paul in Ephesus worked in the very centre of this speculative atmosphere. Moreover he was asso- ciated there with the learned Alexandrian Apollos, who previously had taught in Corinth. In Corinth there appears a disposition of Apollos’ converts — to exaggerate the redemptive worth of “ enlighten- ment” (yéors). In fact, the Corinthians enunciate in their letter to Paul, as we saw, an out and out Logos doctrine: “ We know that no idol is any- thing in the world, and that there is no God but 316 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL one. For though there be that are called gods, .. + yet to us there is 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.” This gnosis Paul does not disapprove. He only warns them that all men do not have it. He himself could have taught them a philosophy of “the mystery of Christ” if he had thought them ready for it, and he gives us, in fact, glimpses into his cosmology in the second and the fifteenth chapters of Corinthians, as well as in the eighth of Romans. So even before his imprisonment Paul clearly takes up something of this speculative thought. In Ephesians and Colossians its phraseology recurs again and again. Christ as the “ Pleroma of Him that filleth all with all” is an example. And this philosophy which Paul holds, but did not preach, was apparently, even in the earlier epistles, both an avatar and a Logos doctrine. At least, he thinks of Christ as preéxistent, and identifies him with this Jewish hypostasis of creative and redemp- tive Wisdom. In 1 Cor. ii. 6-16 the “mind of Christ” is identified with the mind of God operative in crea- tion, and not only are the terms copia and divayis Geos applied here in a technical sense to Christ, but in Rom. x. 6, 7, it is distinctly declared that THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 317 the “word” (Asyos) of which Moses wrote, “ Who shall ascend into heaven and bring it down; or who shall descend into the abyss and bring it up?” was Christ.1 What Paul means becomes apparent, when we compare the use made in Ba- ruch ui. 29-37 of the same passage from Deut. xxx. 12-14, in a long discourse on Wisdom as the agent of redemption. Baruch says, “* Who hath gone up into heaven and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds? Who hath gone over the sea, and found her, and will bring her for choice gold? He that knoweth all things knoweth her; he found her out with his understanding. . . . He hath found out all the way of know- ledge, and hath given it unto Jacob his servant, and to Israel his ‘beloved.’ Afterward did she _ [Wisdom] appear upon earth, and was conversant with men.”? Baruch simply substitutes for the 1 Trenzus (Her. III. xviii. 2) applies Rom. x. 6-9 to the Logos. In I. ix. 3 he quotes Eph. iv. 9 as a Logos avatar. “The Logos that descended is the same,” etc. 2 Cf. the Wisdom utterances in Lk. xi. 49-51, xiii. 34, 35 (=Mbt. xxiii. 34-39); Mt. xi. 28-30 (?); and especially the Oxy- rhynchus Fragment, Log. iv.: ‘‘ Jesus [Wisdom] saith: I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them; and I found all men drunken, and none athirst [sc. for the ‘ foun- tains of wisdom,’ Enoch, xlviii.1] among them. And my soul grieveth over the sons of men, because they are blind in their heart.” See also Enoch, xlii. 1-3; Ecclus. xxiy. 6-12; Wisd. i. 6, vi. 13-16, ix. 4, 6, 9-11; Prov. i. 20-33; Pirke Aboth, iii. 14. 318 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ” word “Torah” in Deuteronomy the philosophic term “ Wisdom,” and Paul takes the next step and proceeds to identify this “« Wisdom ” in the hea- ven above and the abyss beneath with “ Christ.” Again a Logos doctrine identifying Christ with this personalized Wisdom of God is implied in 1 Cor. x. 4, where Paul declares that the rock of which Israel drank in the desert was Christ, just as Philo had called it the Logos. It is implied where he speaks of Christ as the agent of creation in 1 Cor. viii. 6, and in the preéxistence implied in saying that Christ for our sakes “‘ became poor, though he was rich” (2 Cor. viii. 9). In Ephe- — sians, Colossians, and Philippians we shall see how it develops. It seems to me, therefore, undeniable that Paul positively held a Logos doctrine. Still his cosmological ideas are formed, on the whole, in a different school from the Alexandrian. He can be, but does not wish to be, a philosopher. He em- ploys the phraseology of mystery religion with its sacramentarian mysticism of union with the De- liverer God, but he does not surrender to it; nor to cosmological philosophy with its Logos specula- tion. There is a third factor of peculiarly Jewish type that perhaps has more influence with Paul than either of those described, namely, apocalypse. But before I leave Paul’s Logos doctrine, half-revealed THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 319 in 1 Cor. ii. as a philosophy he reserves for such as are ripe for it, I should like to set side by side with that chapter the Logos and avatar doctrine of one who may exist only in the form of a travesty of Paul, but who is more probably what all the earliest church fathers declare, the prime perverter of Christian doctrine, Simon Magus of Gitta in Samaria, the father of Gnosticism. In Acts he is simply caricatured, as we have seen; but Justin, his fellow countryman, Irenzus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian ! enable us to form some idea of his Wis- dom doctrine and thus to throw light upon Paul’s. For, whether this be the actual doctrine of Simon, or the mere fiction of Paul’s antagonists in the church, it presents a contemporary imitation of Pauline philosophy. According to Simon, Jesus had been indeed a divine incarnation, but he himself was a greater, “that Power (dvvauis) of God called Great.” For the Supreme Father descended among men to deliver them from captivity? to the angelic rulers of this world, whose dogmata are the rules of Mosaic and other prescribed systems of ethics (that is, arbitrary, not corresponding to natural right). 3 Among the Jews he was revealed as the Son, among 1 See the original passages quoted by Hilgenfeld, Ketzerge- schichte, pp. 178-180. 2 Cf. Eph. iv. 8. 8 Col. ii. 20-23; Gal. iv. 3, 8-11. 320 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL the Gentiles as the Spirit, among the Samaritans as the Father. To deceive the angels, who were jealous of their dominion, God, in this avatar, took on him among them the angelic form;! among men the human, so that they did not know him.? But I have said that Paul was more apocalyptist than either philosopher or mystagogue. And when I have explained what is meant by apocalypse, I shall have opened to you a third set of influences which are primarily Palestinian, but which among the Jews of Phrygian Asia also were combining with those of the mysteries and of philosophic spec- ulation to develop the ideas of the Christians to whom Paul is writing. For apocalypse is the Jew- ish substitute for cosmological philosophy, and we know from Acts, to say nothing of the Jewish magic papyri, how enormous was the influence in just this region of the “strolling Jews, exorcists,” and those that “‘ practised magic arts.” Consider, then, this third set of influences which Paul must control as part of the basis on which he builds. It represents the same world-tendencies already considered, but embodied in a Jewish literary species. Apocalypse differs from prophecy in making not the national future of Israel, but the destiny of 1 Cf. Heb. ii. 16. 2 1 Cor. ii. 7, 8. 3 The Revelation of John is an example of such Palestinian importation at a later time in the same region. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 321 creation and of the human race its subject-matter. Its universalistic outlook was an inevitable result of the absorption of Israel into the world empires. In this trait it shows its affinity with the Gospel. It differs from Greek cosmogonic speculation in that its eye rests mainly on the future, and only inciden- tally on the past; but there is a close resemblance. The seer is lifted into the heavens and permitted to inspect the structure of the universe, or told the story of creation, for the sake of the explanation of the wind-up of all things that he anticipates in the immediate future. He is led through the seven superimposed heavens, and shown the various hierarchies of angels in charge of all the mechan- ism of the universe: he is also made acquainted with the history of the bad spirits, whose interven- tion in history since the Fall accounts for the phy- sical and moral evil of the world. In all its concep- tion of angels and demons and the world conflict against the Prince of the power of the air, Jewish apocalypse is just as liberal as the Greek mystery in borrowing from Oriental mythology. In fact, for its Prince of evil, dominant in this world, it takes the same chaos monster and his satellites whom the hero of the “ mystery ” legend battles against, since the days of the Marduk-Tiamat, or the Heracles- Cerberus conflict. Only, of course, ‘instead of the Geos owryjp we have in apocalypse the Messiah com- 322 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ing, as in the Book of Daniel and the Enoch writ- ings, on the clouds of heaven, or, in the Apocalypse of Baruch, like Oannes, out of the sea. Also, of course, the world, which according to the Mosaic account of creation, and the Stoic as well, was made on man’s account, that he might have dominion over it, is given to Messiah and his people for their eternal inheritance. Now Paul is not only familiar with the apoca- lyptic cosmology ; he thoroughly sympathizes with its interpretation of Gen. i. 26-28. Wherever he has occasion to reveal his conception of the uni- verse, its structure, administration, and destiny, he uses the ideas, the aspirations, the angelology and demonology, and the terminology of apocalypse. These ideas are the groundwork of his thinking in regard to the universe. They are modified in- deed by his conception of Jesus as the Messiah ; they are more profoundly modified by his Stoic Logos doctrine, but it is absolutely certain that Paul’s Christianity did not come in to furnish him with a whole new stock of modern scientific ideas about the universe, any more than he manufactured a cosmology for himself. Paul quotes the apocalypses, believes in them, conceives of the universe and his- tory under their categories of angels and demons. Nay, he had apocalyptic visions himself, in which he believed he had been transported into the third THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 323 heaven, and initiated into secrets hid from the an- gels. If Paul himself was saturated with these strange, to us grotesque, ideas, what shall we think of the Jewish “ prophets ” and “seers” who filled the Church with their marvelous visions, and of the conceptions of the common man! What most of all draws Paul closer to apocalypse than to Greek metaphysic is the fact that he is far more interested inthe future than in the past of the creation. He accepts a Logos doctrine on condition that it be understood that that Wisdom-spirit from God, or whatever you call it, be identified with the Spirit of Christ, so that all things may be said to have come into existence through him; but he is far more interested in the application of it to the future. He insists that Christ is the © as well as the A. For Paul cannot conceive of the universe as har- monized and coordinated in its condition of ultimate and ideal stability by any other agency than the Spirit of Christ, the bond of perfectness. All things must “consist” in Him. It is the good pleasure of God dvaxedadaioacba (literally to * head up a) all things in Christ. Just as a Stoie might say: *“ The Logos is the rational element of creation, accounting for it as a cosmos; therefore the crea- tion must achieve its ideal by this Logos element pervading and dominating all its parts, as man achieves his ideal when the Logos element in him 324 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL fully dominates,” so Paul too conceives of the uni- verse as an organism, but the Logos-Christ is the unifying, vitalizing element corresponding to the blood or spirit. Christ is the Pleroma of God because his Spirit is that by which God * fills ” all existences with their content ; a spirit not so much of Wisdom as of redeeming Love. Now apocalyptic cosmology is not scientific, and our own ideas two thousand years hence may seem equally unscientific. Apocalypse is not even philo- sophical, as Greek speculation deserves to be called, however strange both are to our ideas. But neither Greek cosmology nor Jewish apocalypse is reli- giously objectionable, so long as a man is not dis- tracted by it from the true object of his faith. It does not hurt a man to believe there are as many devils around him as tiles on the housetops, so long as his faith in God makes him go his way and bid defiance to them. Luther believed in a “world of devils full, and threatening to undo us,” but had a complete antidote to the evils of his age’s superstition in his heroic faith in “ the right man on his side, the man of God’s own choosing.” So Paul. was not only a man of his time, but a Jew of his time. He believed in a Prince of the power of the air, temporarily controlling this world, and in spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places, struggling to defeat man’s redemption which THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 325 robs them of the inheritance. He conceived the universe as a complex organism of personal exist- ences. As on the title-page of Hobbes’s “ Levia- than,” we see the universe represented as a gigan- tic human being composed of an infinite multitude of microscopic men.! To Paul sin is at least quasi- personal, the angel of death is a real angel, an enemy who must be defeated by God in Christ. The “elements”? (crovxela tod xéopov) are for Paul semi-personal beings governing the physical order, and the structure and administration of the world involves angels and archangels, thrones, principali- ties, powers. The redemption, accordingly, con- cerns all these, because the Messiah, for whom with his people the universe was created,? must take away from them their lordship, and with his saints pronounce judgment on their control and stewardship. Having these ideas himself, Paul could not deny them to his converts; but what he 1 The mental picture represented by Wisdom xviii. 15, 16, and dependent passages descriptive of the Logos-Christ, would per- haps be best reproduced in modern minds by the conception of a nebula in human form on the background of the midnight sky. See below, p. 331, note 2. 2 See the articles, “‘ Elements” by Deissmann, in Encycl. Bibl., and by Massie in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary. 3 Gen. i. 26; Ps. viii. 6; Rom. iv. 13; 1 Cor. ii. 9, iti. 22, xv. 26; Eph. i. 10,11; Heb. i. 2, ii. 8; Rev. xxi. 7; cf. 2 Esdr. vi. 55-59, vii. 11; Apoc. Baruch, xiv. 18,19, xv. 7, xxi. 24; Hermas, Vis. I. i. 6, I. iv. 1, 1V.5; Mand. XII. iv., ete. 326 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL could and did insist upon was the supremacy of Christ as the manifested Spirit of the divine love. He insisted on the insignificance of the weak and beggarly “ Elemental Beings” (crorxeta), which by nature are no gods, in comparison with the absolute lordship of Christ as the Son and Heir of God. He found the very framework of his thinking in the cosmological ideas of the Logos doctrine and the angelology and demonology of apocalypse ; but on one condition: Christ must dominate; other- wise there was danger. Jewish influence in the Hellenistic world was not objectionable for simple legalism only, but for a superstition which was rap- idly declining into mere magic and black art, a treatment of the Law literally as “‘an ordinance of angels,” and its prescriptions of touch not, taste not, handle not as an occult science of relations with angels and spirits, its feasts and calendar system as affording a hold upon the spirits of the sun and moon and heavenly bodies. This was evil and dan- gerous, and when, as now at Colosse, this type of Jewish magi, exorcists, and “ practicers of curious arts’ came about “ deluding his converts with per- suasiveness of speech,’ “making spoil of them through their philosophy and vain deceit, after human myths, after the Elemental Beings and not after Christ,” robbing them of their prize by a gratuitous self-humiliation and worship of the an- THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 327 gels, men who vaunted their apocalyptic visions, puffed up by their own fleshly minds and not hold- ing fast the Head, men who taught his churches to discriminate in regard to meats and drinks, in re- gard to new moons and feast days and Sabbaths, then Paul was roused. He cared less about whether “all things were through Christ and we through him,” that is, the identification of the preéxistent Christ with the creative Wisdom or Logos, than he did about whether all things were “ unto him,” that is, the doctrine that Christ as head of re deemed humanity was the Son and Heir of God, who was to have the dominion over the creation. Tf so, his conquest of death by the power of God’s Spirit in him was the beginning and pledge of the great world-victory. The Strong Man Armed, tem- porarily master of this earthly house,! had been cast out by the Stronger than he. To the Corinthians Paul had written his idea of the teaching in the eighth and the one hundred and tenth Psalms. Christ is to abolish all (angelic) rule and authority and power, because he must reign until (as is written in the Psalm) he hath put all his enemies under his feet. The last to be abolished will be Death. For it says in the eighth Psalm: “ He put all 1 The term for the Prince of this world is a play upon the name Beelzebub, which means “ Master of the house,’’ an Aramaic ren- dering of Zeds Odpavios. 328 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL things in subjection under his feet.”’ So, then, hom- age paid to angels and principalities and powers, subjection to ordinances of meats and drinks, and observances directed to the Elemental Beings of the world, are disloyalty to Christ. Bid defiance to such existences. Be “ persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The one thing that Paul finds of supreme worth in apocalypse is the absolute victory and lordship of Christ; so the demons and angels and authorities, thrones, dominions, powers, and all their hierarchy, are no concern of ours. It has been the object of this digression to give , some idea of the mixed background of ideas against which we must trace the development of the Pauline doctrine of Christ, as the one “ of whom, through whom, and unto whom are all things ;” the main groundwork on which grew up, though not without codperation from the Pales- tinian side, the Johannine Logos doctrine, and ultimately our doctrine of the Trinity. In that hotbed of mingled theosophy, magic, gnosticism, speculation, and mysticism, Ephesus and Phrygian Asia, there were present, even in Paul’s day, (1) the conceptions of the Greek mystery religion, the THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 329 Deliverer God or 6cés cwryp, the avatar doctrine of incarnation and mystic union of life with the life of God; (2) the cosmological ideas of the Logos- Wisdom doctrine, accounting for the universe by a unifying principle in God and man and nature ; (3) the angelology and demonology of Jewish apoca- lypse, with its doctrine of lordship over the crea- tion for Messiah and his people as the final aim of the Creator. All these ideas were in men’s minds. Christianity could not empty them out and leave them vacant, if it wished. Moreover, they were all of them simply crude and imperfect ways of appre- hending great truths. The task of the truly great herald of Christianity was to hold up Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as dominant over every one of them, his law of loving service the “ bond of per- fectness ” by which all things’ consist, and to let that one great principle work and work until all that was false and superstitious had gradually fil- tered down and out. That is precisely what Paul has done, and it simply remains for us to see how the twin epistles, ~ Colossians-Ephesians, aim to hold fast for God and Christ just the essential true element in these pre- Christian conceptions, by fastening them to the fundamental principle of Paul’s gospel —-“* God in Christ reconciling the world,” — and leaving it for the future to decide the rest. 330 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Let us see first how the Logos idea enters into Paul’s letter to the Colossians. After the salutation and a thanksgiving for what he has heard through Epaphras of their faith and love, Paul begins a prayer for their increase in all spiritual wisdom and understanding in the knowledge of God and of his “ will ” — our des- tiny. Perhaps the foregoing attempt to explain the background of strange ideas on which Paul is working may elicit from us also an Amen to that prayer. For Paul means now to fight false gnosis with true, and starts with a definition of Christ as ‘‘the Son of God’s love.” In Ephesians the paral- lel has the technical apocalyptic term, “ the Be- loved,” meaning the Elect, or foreordained Head of the Messianic kingdom. That is the first step of creation. But here Paul launches into the termi- nology of the Wisdom and Logos literature. This pre-creative Christ was the Absolute objectified, “the image of the invisible God,”’! and as such the medium of revelation, “the first-born of all creation.” 2 For in him — that is, in the sphere of the pervading Logos substance — “all things were created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible.” Thus by the pre- 1 Wisdom vii. 26 says of Wisdom, “ She is an unspotted mirror of the working of God and an image of his goodness.” 2 So Wisdom in Prov. viii. 22 and elsewhere. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 331 creative decree of God the whole Pleroma — con- tent of the universe, personal and impersonal— was made to dwell in him. Paul then enumerates the orders of angelic beings created in the Logos, «« Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers.’ For the exact definition of the rank and functions of these various angelic orders I must refer you to the apocalypses ;1 but all, says Paul, “‘ were created through the Son and for the Son,” because the Christ that is to be is a collective being. There is a pervasive common life of the codrdinated, har- monized universe which is Christ’s life. All indi- vidual existence will be subjected to that. Angelic beings must either be “ abolished,” or find their rank and order in it as subservient. So in Hebrews Paul’s disciple tells us that the angels are mere attendant spirits, sent forth to do service to those who are to be the heirs. Paul goes on to say that the Logos-Christ “is before all things and in him all consist ;” ? also that God effects the reconcilia- 1 See the commentary of T. K. Abbott on Eph. i. 21 (Intern. Crit. Commentary, p. 33), where patristic authorities are cited on this point. 2 In Wisdom i. 7, “ The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the world, and that which holdeth all things together hath knowledge of every utterance; ” cf. Wisdom vii.. 24, “‘ Wisdom pervadeth and penetrateth all things by reason of her pureness.’’ Wisdom to Hebrew thought seems half-personality, half-substance like the luminiferous ether. We have noted that where Hebrews and the Johannine writer employ the term “ Logos,” Paul uses the native 332 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL tion of all beings to himself — brings about the harmony or codrdination of the universe — by the peace-making blood of the cross ; for the effect of this commendation of the divine love is not only on earthly beings, but on the heavenly also.1 This gives us insight into Paul’s way of meeting the speculative Logos doctrine. This intermediate Being demanded by philosophy as the agent and medium of creation, revelation, and redemption is nothing else than the spirit that was in Christ, called “* Wisdom ” in the Jewish literature, called “‘ Logos” by Philo and the Greeks, but nothing else but the Spirit of God himself. ; But in the second chapter Paul attacks directly the Jewish theosophists. Against their advocacy of Palestinian “‘ Wisdom,” which had the disadvantage of becoming a feminine when translated into Greek. In Wisdom the Angel of Redemption (identifiable with Wisdom) is twice called Logos, in xvi. 5-13 (cf. Jn. iii. 14), and xviii. 15, 16. The latter passage throws light upon Eph. iv. 13. The “stature of Christ” in the Gospel of Peter (x. 40) and Gnostic writings is taken literally. 1 Here is the root of the Gnostic representation of the cross as the central point of discrimination of the universe. See Acts of John, on the cross of wood and the cross of light. The latter in the Gnostic systems is called ‘‘ Horos” (Boundary), as separating upper from lower (spiritual from material) and right from left (good from evil). Paul’s thought is that the manifestation of the love of God in the cross either “ reconciles’’ those who were “ enemies,’’ or else God ‘‘ triumphs over them in it.” It is central in history and central in the universe of being. Gnostic extrava- gances are an elaboration of this. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTLES 333 the mysterious virtue of circumcision he holds up baptism as a rite that gives mystic union with the life of our Deliverer God. All that which is con- tained in the Godhead takes bodily expression in Christ, and in him we become participant in a divine existence, for he is the head of every Prin- cipality and Power. In baptism we are buried in a participation in his death, putting off the body of flesh and receiving the forgiveness of our sins. In the imparted Spirit we become participant with him in his resurrection, ‘‘ putting on” his life. In the cross God removed the bond of the Law which held us. It was an obligation which the angelic powers could claim against us. He blotted it out; he took it out of the way; he nailed it to the eross. For in the cross God made an open mani- festation of himself, divesting himself of the inter- mediate beings by whom his manifestation of his will had previously been made.! In the tragedy of 1 Better perhaps with the A. V., “stripping off for himself” (7. e. “spoiling,” as a warrior spoils his defeated foe) ; for the figure is based on Ps. lxviii. 18, God triumphing over his enemies, and per- ‘ haps was suggested by the Parable of the Strong Man Armed (the Prince of this World), whose vessels (here and in Ps. Ixviii., captives) are taken from him by the Stronger than he (the Spirit of God in Christ). This parable is already interpreted by the second century fathers in the sense of the mystery myths as de- picting Christ’s conflict with the powers of the under-world (Hui- dekoper’s Works, vol. ii., ‘‘ Christ’s Mission to the Under-world ’’). Eph. iv. 8 ff.; Col. ii. 15, show the beginnings of this tendency. 334 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Calvary he made a spectacle of the demonic powers and led a triumphal procession of deliver- ance.! So, then, the life of those who participate by the Spirit in the resurrection of Christ is a life whose centre is with Christ in God. We shall be manifested in glory when Christ, whose being is our being, stands revealed. Things above, there- fore, not things on the earth, should control our interest and aspiration. So Paul passes to the hortatory part of his epistle, bidding his readers put on the New Man, that one organism of the new humanity, the Christ of whom we are all members, not an organization, but an organism, which is in process of creation in the spiritual image of God, without the distinctions of Jew or Gentile, Greek or barbarian, bond or free, male or female; for the new creation is a Christ not only in all but who is all. A few words of more specific direction how to put on this new man, namely, by cultivating the spirit of love and mutual service, by infusing our - human social and family relations with the spirit of Christ’s love, and the epistle closes with requests for prayer and greetings from friends. 1 For the meaning of this obscure figure, see Eph. iy., deyelop- ing Ps. lxviii. 18 and the note preceding. LECTURE X PAUL’S REVELATION OF THE MYSTERY AND FAREWELL TO THE CHURCHES In Colossians, as we have seen, there are hints of a conception that occupies Paul’s mind, correspond- ing in some degree to that of the Greek mys- tery. Three times over, in fact, he refers there to his gospel as “the mystery of God.” In i. 26 it is “the mystery hid from all ages and generations but now manifested to the saints.” In i. 27 he says, « God was pleased to make known to them among the Gentiles what is the riches of the glory of this mystery ;” and he defines it as “Christ in them the hope of glory.” They “ put on Christ,” as the Deliverer God of the Greek mysteries was “ put on” by his devotees, insuring to them participa- tion in his immortality. In ii. 2 he says he is striy- ing in prayer for them and the Laodiceans and the rest whom he had never seen personally, for their knitting together in love, and their obtaining full- ness of understanding to comprehend “the mys- tery of God, which is Christ, in the understanding of whose person are involved all the treasures of philosophy and science.” In Colossians, therefore, 336 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL we can guess at Paul’s “mystery of God.” It involved somehow his conception of Christ as the being through whom and unto whom are all things, in whom all things consist, a Logos doctrine — cos- mological ; an avatar doctrine — soteriological ; and an apocalypse — eschatological. But we need to read the fuller companion epistle, Ephesians, and above all to read it in the light of contemporary writings, some of the very books which may have been included in Paul’s reading for his winter of imprisonment, to get a full, clear view. The whole first part of Ephesians, comprising the first three chapters, is constructed like 1 Thes- salonians by elaboration of the conventional episto- lary thanksgiving and supplication. There is no doctrinal section, for Paul has “ cast his remarks into the form of a prayer.” The subject of the thanksgiving is God’s glorious creative and redemp- tive decree, as made known to us in “ the mystery of his will;” and on this Paul elaborates through thirteen verses. That is characteristic of the man whose cosmological ideas are based on apocalypse, and on the rabbinic doctrine of the foreordina- tion or election of Messiah and his people to be ‘heirs of the world,” as God’s reason for creat- ing it. Thereafter, in i. 15, Paul begins an attempt to tell how, having heard of the faith of his readers, PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 337 he has been unceasingly praying “ that God may give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, so that they may appreciate the contents of Christian aspiration ;” but at the men- tion of the “riches ” of God given us in Christ as the heir, and the “ power’ of God shown in Christ’s resurrection, wherein we participate, he is led off into a digression. God’s power shown in the resur- rection is the same which will accomplish the work of redemption, raising from the death of carnality and sin a twin people of God, a new humanity de- rived from Jew and Gentile. The common access of both in one Spirit unto the Father was effected by the cross. We shall hear more of this avatar doctrine at a later point. After this digression in iii. 1 he begins again to tell how he is praying for his readers’ enlightenment, but a second time is led off into a reference to the “ revelation of the mys- tery ” specially given to him, apropos of his speak- ing of himself as a prisoner “ on behalf of you Gentiles.” For the third and last time he resumes in iii. 14-21, and this time completes the sentence. He prays to God that they may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man, that after rooting and grounding in love (more important than knowledge) they may be strong to comprehend the full dimensions, — the context alone tells us of what, namely, of the inheritance prepared, 338 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL the city which Revelation depicts in cubical form, the Pleroma or contents of creation, — and thus to know the surpassing love of Christ. This portion of the letter winds up with a suitable doxology. The second half, comprising chapters iv.—vi., is an appeal to them to do the part which belongs to men, to achieve this divine ideal of the Pleroma, or God, in Christ, “ filling” creation. For here in chapter iv. we come upon Paul’s avatar doctrine, if I may call it so, his conception of God in Christ as a Geos cwryp “ making peace” throughout the universe, the idea presented in Colossians under the figure of a triumphal procession. He takes his departure from a standpoint of absolute monism: the cosmos is one great body or organism, dependent on, existing in, the “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all;” but this pure monism is supplemented by a Pleroma doctrine of the “ filling ” of the cosmos by God in Christ.!. This Paul expresses by an adaptation of Ps. Ixviii. 18, which makes it read like one of the mystery myths. In the person of Christ, God de- scended from heaven, passed through the under- world, ascended again to heaven, and thence by the outpoured Spirit infuses with his own divine per- sonality the whole organism of a redeemed ecrea- 1 Based on Wisd. i.7: “ The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the world, even that which holdeth all things together.” PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 339 tion.1 God’s Spirit and life are thus made to course through all the parts of this Pleroma, the cosmos conceived as a living organism. Then the application. We as Christians must be actively participant in this life of God, not, as formerly, “alienated ” from it. We must individually “ put on Christ,” being renewed in the spirit of our mind. The social relations of life between neighbor and neighbor, the relation of Christians to one another in the brotherhood, the reciprocal duties of wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters, are so many “joints of supply” in the great collective body, whose head is Christ, — chan- nels for the diffusion of the Spirit of love, the unifying Spirit of Christ and God. Such is the theme of Eph. iv.—vi. The epistle concludes with an exhortation to the readers to equip themselves with the armor of God against the hierarchy of demonic powers that must be overcome in the soul’s ascent to its seat of victory. This also is based on 1 Tn the doctrine attributed to Simon Magus (see below), this Logos which descends and ascends is identified with God. In the Christian apocalypse, Visio Isaie (about 150), Christ in person makes the descent and ascent, assuming in each of the seven hea- yens, as he descends, the form of its denizens, so as not to be re- cognized, — but ascending in full glory. On its mythological side, this apocalypse is in direct line of descent from the descent of Ishtar in Babylonian legend, who divests herself successively of her garments at the seven portals. On its Christian side, it simply gives the concrete form of vision to the avatar doctrine of Paul. 340 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL 7 Is. lix. 17, where God is described as putting on his armor to fight for his people; but even in Isa- iah we cannot but feel a suspicion of the influence of mythological descriptions of the arming of the Deliverer God (Marduk? ), and when we find the Isaian picture still further elaborated in. Wisdom v. 17-23, and thus handed on to Paul, we can scarcely resist the impression that mythology has found its own again in Eph. vi. 10-17. To fill in this somewhat bare outline of the epistle, and for the sake of showing something of the atmosphere of the time, let me adduce certain kindred speculations of the later perverters of Pau- linism, the Gnostic sects. The author of the J: chan: nine literature rightly touches these in the very heart of their departure from true Paulinism, when he insists, as Paul had done, that the vital point is the ethical one, the ‘“ new commandment.” To Paul, cosmological and soteriological ideas alike were mere vehicles for his principle — Jesus’ prin- ciple — of the divine Jove as the key to both crea- tion and redemption; but even a later travesty of Paulinism can illustrate his use of the conception of a descent~of the Logos into the world in the person of Christ.“In 1 Cor. ii. 8 the “rulers of this world” (7. e. angels in charge of the nations, the “ stewards and governors” of Gal. iv. 8) are conceived as not recognizing him, but compassing PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 341 his crucifixion, as the vinedressers in the parable of Jesus slay the heir, that the inheritance may be theirs. In Eph. iv. 8 the descent of this same Logos or Wisdom spirit extends to the lowest sphere of all, the region “ under the earth,” where salva- tion and liberation are proclaimed to the captives of Death, the arch-enemy.t The ascent is described in terms which form the Old Testament counter- part of the “ascents ” or apotheoses of mythology. In Ps. xlvii. 5, 8, lvii. 11, there are traces, but Paul boldly borrows the description of Jehovah’s , triumphal march in Ps. Ixviii. 18; for Christ is to him simply the embodiment of that Spirit of God which “ filleth all things,” and Jesus himself had quoted Ps. ex. 1: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thine enemies [according to Paul these are the world-powers of whom Death is last] the footstool of thy feet.” 2 I have already referred to the doctrine of the 1 In the Visio Isaie the Wisdom-Christ receives commandment to descend to the under-world (Sheol), but not to the lewest depth of all (Gehenna). 2 This avatar of the Wisdom-Spirit-Christ passes from Eph. iv. 9 to 1 Pet. iii. 19, and thence to the early fathers. We see it in the clauses of the creed: He descended into Hell; He rose; He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God. In medieval times it develops elaborately as the doctrine of the Harrowing of Hell. Of course the mythological element is pre- historic. Only the adaptation to the scheme of redemption origi- nates with Paul. 342 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL descent of the Father! as taught by Simon Magus, “to deliver men from those angelic potentates to ’ deceive whom he himself assumed the same like- ness, and among men the likeness of a man.” His most famous successor was Basilides, who ex- panded the limited Pleroma of Simon, which con- sisted, like the Jewish, of seven heavens, into 365 heavens, according to the accepted solar year.? According to Irenzus? Basilides expanded the corresponding “ names and principalities and angels _and powers, and showed how the name in which the Saviour descended and ascended was Caulacau.” A later sect* gave the three Logoi the names Caulacau, Saulasau, Zeésar, which are correctly ex- plained by Epiphanius as nothing but the Hebrew 1 As Cheetham (Mysteries, Pagan and Christian) has shown, it was the tendency among enlightened devotees of the mysteries to merge the various gods and demigods to whom the function of the delivering men by battle with the powers of death and dark- ness was assigned, in the countless forms of the myth, into the single 5 @eds of monotheistic belief. This is of course the case with the Samaritan Simon, whose Logos doctrine was a Sabellian ~—_Trinitarianism. 2 Jerome tells us that he gave the supreme God the name Abraxas because its numerical value was 365 (A=1, B=2, P=100, A= 1, 2= 200, A= 1, = = 60), “as the Gentiles call him Mei@pas ’? (=365). 3 Her. I. xxiv. 3-7. * Hippolytus (Philos. v. 8) makes the Naassene Gnosties say : ovrot cicly of rpets bwepoyKor Adyot KavAakav ZavAacav Zenoap = Is. xxviii. 13. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 343 for “‘Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little,” in Is. xxvii. 13. What has that to do with Basilides’ idea of the “ descent and ascent of the Saviour”? In Is. xxviii. 13 this is said to be the Word (Logos) of the Lord unto the scornful “rulers (4pxovres) that rule my people;” and these “rulers” ' are demonic, for they say: “ We have made a cove- nant with Death, and with Sheol we have an agree- ment.” We have already seen how the Christian seer of Visio Jsaiw conceives this descent and ascent of Christ without the subtleties of the metaphysical Logos doctrine, or the mythological feature of the conflict with the powers of darkness. For the sake, then, of appreciating in how realistic a sense and how widely these ideas prevailed in the Church, take the good orthodox father, Justin, writing about 145, and supporting Paul’s state- ment that the “rulers of this world (dpxovres rod koopov Tovrov) did not know the Wisdom of God in a mystery; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Says Justin: “ For because those who are rulers (dpxovtes) in hea- ven saw that his appearance was humble and without honor, and that he had no glory, they enquired, be- cause they did not recognize him, Who is this King of glory?” (Ps. xxiv.8). In the same mythologi- zing sense Basilides continues: ‘ Therefore he that 1 Dial. xxxvi. 344 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL has learned these things [mystic formularies] and recognized all the angels and their causes of being? will become invisible and incomprehensible to all the angels and potentates, just as Caulacau was.” I must ask indulgence for this excursus into ‘“‘ Ephesian letters,” magic, and “ worship of the angels.” It is the travesty which throws most light upon the original. The first half of Ephesians, as I said, contains Paul’s Logos doctrine ; but in the apocalyptic form which the Jew is wont to give to his cosmogonic ideas. The revelation of God’s purpose in creating the universe (it was intended for the inheritance of his Son the Beloved and the Beloved People) is “ the wisdom of God in a mys- tery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden,” a ‘mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God who created all things,” but which has been given Paul to proclaim, “ that the eternal purpose of God’s wisdom, which he purposed in Christ, might appear in the development of the Church, even to the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places.” For this “mystery of Christ 1 See Slavonic Enoch, xxiv. 3. God speaks: ‘*‘ Not even to my angels have I told my secrets, nor haye I informed them of their origin, nor have they understood my infinite creation which I tell thee of to-day.” Cf. 1 Pet.i. 12. Basilides’ magic formule for es- caping the world-rulers show the influence of Egyptian magic. Compare the formule of the Book of the Dead, by which the dis- embodied spirit passes the hostile world-rulers. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 345 which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men,” the sphinx-riddle of crea- tion which the philosophers have vainly tried to solve, is also and specifically “hid from the an- gels.” 1 The revelation of Christ as Heir and Lord is thus a manifestation of God’s creative and re- demptive plan, a Logos doctrine and an avatar doctrine in one. In him as the Man that is to be, the “first-born of many brethren,” the creation, which “ groans in subjection to ‘ vanity’ while it waits for the manifestation of the sons of God,” beholds the dawn of a new creative day. In the face of the glo- rified Son and Heir of God we havea “ revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now, manifested by the Scriptures of the Prophets, according to the com- mandment of the eternal God, is made known to all the nations unto obedience of faith.” Wesee, then, why 1 Peter, building on the basis of Ephesians, declares that the prophets were search- 1 Thus in Slavonic Enoch, as the seer ascends through the seven heavens, the angels peer after him, eager to learn the mys- tery of their existence. In the seventh heayen, whence they are excluded, God says to him, “ Enoch, the things which thou sawest at rest or in motion [the mechanism of the universe] were com- pleted by me. I will tell thee now from the beginning what things I created from the non-existent, and what visible things from the invisible. Not even to my angels have I told my secrets, nor have I informed them of their origin, nor have they understood my infinite creation which I tell thee of to-day.” 346 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL ing into the meaning of the Logos-Wisdom, the Spirit of Christ which was in them, unable to know the meaning of their own prophecies, and that even angels long to stoop down and peer into (wapaxiya) these things. ‘To the author of 1 Peter also the knowledge of Christ is the solution of the problems of apocalypse. Again we see why Paul in 1 Cor. ii. 6-16, speaking of the philoso- phy he had not used, and quoting a Jewish writ- ing called the Apocalypse of Elias, declares that the spirit of Christ in Christian apostles and pro- phets gives them a perception of the creative pur- pose of God, just as a man’s own spirit gives him the consciousness of his own purposes.! The creative Wisdom, first-born of God, his agent in making the worlds, was “the mind of Christ.” Hence we, in whom it resides, are able to speak ‘* God’s wisdom in a mystery, even that which hath been hidden,” not known to the (angelic) rulers of this world who are to be abolished. The content of this rev- elation is God’s foreordaining purpose when he made the worlds unto our glory; for, to speak with 1 So Solomon, in Wisdom vii. 17-28, attributes his knowledge of “the things that exist, the constitution of the world and opera- tion of the Elements, the beginning, end, and middle of [calendar] times, alternation of solstices and changing of seasons,” ete., to ‘‘the spirit of Wisdom ” which came to him. “ All things, seeret or manifest, have I learned, because she that is the artificer of all things taught me, even Wisdom.” PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 347 “‘ Elias,” the final cause of creation was God’s pur- pose to prepare “ Things which eye saw not and ear heard not, nor man imagined, for the race of men that should love him.” This is Paul’s way of presenting Christ as the solution of the problems of cosmogony and the Logos doctrine. If in one place he declares that the mystery was “ hid in God as Creator of all things,” and in another as “hid in Christ,” and in still another as being itself “Christ in you the hope of glory,” all these are unified and explained by the earliest of his utter- ances on the subject (1 Cor. ii. 6-16), where “the mind of Christ” is expressly identified with the consciousness of God in creation, or in other words the creative Wisdom of Proy. viii. 22-31. There is a contemporary Jewish writing which might well have been among the books of Paul’s prison-library, called the Assumption of Moses, from which we can see how Paul must have felt, like every Jew, the proud consciousness that Moses and the prophets knew incomparably more than all the Greek cosmological philosophers regarding the why and how of creation. But like every Christian, © he must also have conceived that the manifestation of Christ as the Heir of creation gave the Christian incomparably more knowledge on this point than even Moses and the prophets. The Jewish concep- tion is as follows : — 348 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL “God created the world on behalf of his people [a con- ception based on Gen. i. 26-28, which pervades contemporary Jewish and Christian writings 1]; but he was not pleased to manifest this purpose of creation from the foundation of the world, in order that the Gentiles might thereby be convicted, yea, to their own humiliation might convict one another [the reference is to the mutually conflicting speculations of Greek cosmological philosophy, in contrast with the plain, revealed statements of Genesis]. Accordingly he designed and deyised me [Moses], and prepared me before the foundation of the world, that I should be the mediator of his covenant [the promise to give the world for an inherit- ance to his people].” ? The thanksgiving of Eph. i. 3-14 has the same theme as this passage from the Assumptio Mosis, the same as 1 Cor. ii. 6-16, namely, the purpose of God in founding the world, only Paul presents a Logos doctrine cast in the mould of apocalypse, and finds the ultimate ground of creation in love as the motive of the divine will. Three times over he reiterates his theme. First in i. 5: God’s foreordaining election of us, before he founded the world, in the person of the Beloved, having in love foreordained us to be an adoption, through Jesus Christ, unto himself, according to the gracious decree of his will. Then ini. 9: It is 1 Cf. 2 Esdr. vi. 55-59, vii. 11.; Apoc. Baruch, xiy. 18, 19, xy. 7, xxi. 24; Hermas, Vis. IL. iv. 1, Vis. L. i. 6, iv., v.; Mand. xii. 4, ete. 2 Assumptio Mosis, i. 12-14. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 349 the revealed mystery of God’s will according to the gracious decree which he enacted in the person of Christ, for an administration of the full content (Pleroma) of the ages, to “head up (dvaxedadat- ocacGar) all things in Christ.”” Then a third time in i. 11: “In predetermining all things according to the counsel of his will, he predesignated us to be an occasion of the praising of his glory.” Paul even returns again to this same theme in iii. 1- 13, where he wishes his readers to appreciate his consciousness of initiation by a special revelation into the mystery of God’s creative purpose. This mystery, he says, was made known to him by reve- lation, as he wrote before (in the first chapter) in "few words, whereby they can realize how he has been given an insight by God into the mystery of Christ. Then he continues: In other generations it was not made known unto the sons of men as it hath now (since the resurrection) been revealed to Christ’s consecrated Apostles and prophets by the Spirit (the gift of insight, gnosis, and prophecy). Unworthy as he is, Paul also has been called to an apostleship by God’s revelation of Christ in him. In particular Christ had been revealed to Paul as the Head of every man, the spiritual Being who forms the Pleroma and gives unity to the new organism of creation. Paul, therefore, felt called to make all men see what is the economy of the 350 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God, who created all things. God meant that now in the last age there should be displayed before the whole hierarchy of angelic beings, throughout the orders of successive heavens, his providential wisdom. This will be the case when they witness what he does for the Church, his adoptive people, accom- plishing the eternal purpose which he decreed in the person of Christ, the original Elect One. Christ and his people in mystic union of life will be mani- fested in perfect dominion. Then all the redeemed hierarchies will burst into praise of the glory of his grace, as the Gentile nations stood in wonder, saying, “ What hath God wrought?” when Israel was redeemed out of Egypt. Such is the theme of - doxology and prayer in Eph. i.—ii. The key-word by which Paul solves the prob- lems of Logos-Wisdom speculation, whether crea- tive or redemptive, is the word “love.” The Logos- Wisdom spirit in God and man and nature is a necessary postulate of cosmogonic philosophy. Paul admits that. But the dominant attribute of that mediating personality, or quasi-personality, is not the intellectual ; we do not chiefly enlarge our par- ticipation in it by “ enlightenment” (yécis). It is moral. It is the will of God (Oya God) which was active in the creation, and that “will” was love. He created not for his own sake but for our PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 351 sakes.1 The first step was in love to elect the Beloved, and us in him, that we might be an adop- ‘tion, to inherit the whole. Therefore the preéxis- tent Christ-spirit is indeed to be identified with the Wisdom of God and the Power of God, but above and beyond all, with the Love of God. Let me, then, simply read to you the opening thanksgiving of Ephesians in a translation which aims at greater exactness by means of greater freedom. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has endowed us with every blessing belonging to spiritual existence, as sharers in the life of Christ, which pervades the Heavenly regions. For God Elected us in Christ’s person before the founding of the world, designing us to be holy and without blemish in his sight. By an act of love he Foreordained us to be an Adoption of sons to him- self through the agency of Jesus the Messiah. It was the gracious decree of his ordaining Will, which aimed at the praising of his glory, as manifested in the grace wherewith he endowed us in the person of the Beloved.” In a word, we 1 A Stoic doctrine in which Paul heartily sympathized. 2 This Messianic title is the favorite one in the Visio Isaice, and some other examples of the apocalyptic literature. It is also used in the Enoch fragment quoted in Epistle of Barnabas: “ God shortened the days that his Beloved might hasten and come to his inheritance.”’ It is also employed in the Voice from heaven at the Baptism and the Transfiguration : ‘‘ Thou art my Son, the Beloved,” resting there on Is. xlii.1. Its special appropriateness here is its relation to the “ beloved”’ people, the people of Elec- tion. Titles of the Messiah in general are formed by the singular of the term applied to the “ chosen” people. 352 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL have in him a Redemption of our own (eclipsing the redemp- tion of Israel out of Egypt) through Jesus’ blood, consisting in the forgiveness of our trespasses. This is in accordance with the abounding liberality of God, the riches of his grace which we experience in being supplied with the Gifts of wis- dom and insight. For God has made known to us believers the Mystery of his Will. Christians understand the gracious determination to which God gave expression in the person of Christ, contemplating an economy of the whole series of ages, a determination to bring all things into relation to Christ as their head, both the existences located in the heavens and those located on the earth. This is the same Christ in whose person we Jews, who first cherished the Messianic hope, were made God’s Heirs ; for we were fore- ordained to this by the divine decree of One who does not fail to accomplish the purposes of his wisdom, and who in- tended us to be an occasion of the praising of his glory : the same Christ in whom you Gentiles also believed, when you heard the word of the truth, the glad tidings of your salva- tion, and were stamped with his Seal! when the Holy Spirit, the promised Gift of the Messianic age, was poured out on you. For this is the earnest-money of the full Inheritance ; pointing to God’s Redemption of us as an Own Possession, with the design that his glory should be praised.” I need not repeat Paul’s prayer that his readers may be given “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the complete knowledge of God; haying the eyes of their heart enlightened so as to appreci- ate what the hope set before us by the calling of God into his kingdom involves.” It leads him, as we saw, to digress upon the inconceivable wealth 1 A term of the mystery rites. 2 Another mystery term. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 353 there is in the inheritance of glory God intends for the saints, and the irresistible power that is work- ing in us toward this end, seeing that power is the same working of divine omnipotence which was exhibited when God raised Christ from the dead, and promoted him over the heads of all angelic hierarchies. For God not only brought him out from the domain of death, but as the 110th Psalm says, “made him to sit at his own right hand on his throne in heaven.” So all angelic and demonic hier- archies, in this world and the future, fall below him, as the 8th Psalm says, “ He put all things in sub- jection under his feet.”” So God has given Christ to the Church as the head is united to the body; and not only so, but as a Head of all existences. Christ is the Pleroma of the universe. He is that wherein God gives to all existences their content of being. This is the power that is raising us above the heads of all hierarchies of angelic beings. But here we have taken up already the avatar doctrine. You know how the rhapsody runs on in the second chapter, the raising of a dead people to life (the figure rests ultimately on the vision of the valley of dry bones in Ezek. xxxvii.), by * quickening together with Christ,” and exaltation by participation in his nature toa share in his royal tule. Gentiles and Jews share together in this raising from the death of fleshliness and sin. Then 354 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL the overcoming of the enmity, the cross, breaking down the barrier between man and God, and man and man as well; so that Isaiah’s word, “ Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is nigh, saith the Lord; and I will heal him,” is ful- filled. The figure is that of the Living Temple ereated on the basis of apostles and prophets, in which there is no more a middle wall of partition - between the inner sanctuary and the “ court of the Gentiles,” no longer a veil dividing God’s shrine from men, but the whole is a building erected by God on Christ as the corner-stone, having various parts, but all as a whole a Habitation of God per- vaded by the Spirit. Then in iii. 1-18, as I have already shown, another return to the “ mystery of Christ” spoken of before in few words, whereby when they read they will be assured of the fact that God really did grant him a revelation of the secret of his purpose in creating the world, namely, to make of Jews and Gentiles fellow heirs, and fel- low members of the body, and fellow partakers of the (Messianic) promise, in the person of Christ Jesus. This half of the epistle concludes with the prayer that they may be filled with the spirit of love and understanding. By paraphrasing thus Eph. i.—ii., a glimpse may perhaps be afforded of Paul’s handling of the con- ceptions of Jewish apocalypse and the Greek Logos PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 355 doctrine, how the revelation of God’s Son in Paul was to him the key to God’s purpose in creation, for the reason that it conveyed a revelation of its destiny in the divine motive of love. It remains to illustrate from contemporary writ- ings Paul’s mode of dealing with the avatar doc- trine of the mysteries, the descent and ascent of the Deliverer God achieving immortality for his vo- taries. This theme, already glanced at in the para- graph on the Power of God, i. 19-ii. 10, underlies the practical section Eph. iv.—vi., because the section is an exhortation to participate in the redemptive process by cultivating this redeeming, unifying Spirit, the mind of Christ. It rests on Paul’s Ple- roma doctrine, God “filling ”’ the cosmos, as in Wisdom i. 7, the Spirit of the Lord, that which holdeth all things together, “ hath filled the world.” “There exists,” he says, “but a single cosmic body, a single universal Spirit, a single common destiny, namely, the hope presented in the divine vocation, God’s call to us to be his sons, heirs of his creation, joint heirs with the Messi- anic Son. For all existences there is one common Lord, one common faith, one baptism wherein our life is merged into the divine life. There is one God and Father of all, at once transcendent over all being, penetrating all, filling all.” How, then, is the Pleroma of God achieved ? How does God oceupy the whole creation of being with his own life? Paul finds an expression for his 356 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL thought in Ps. lxviii., a psalm very diffieult and obscure, and which for that very reason, perhaps, had been seized upon, even before Paul’s writing, as a basis for apocalyptic mysticism. We have seen that Paul shows close relation in the first chapter with the writing of about 30 a. D., called the Assumption of Moses. The legend which gives the book its name appears to be based on one of several interpretations of the passage from Ps. lxviii. 18, which Paul now quotes. How could it be said of God, it was argued, that he ascended on high and took tribute from men? ? The one who led the captivity captive (took prisoner the enemy’s prisoners) was Moses, who released Israel from Egyptian bondage. It was therefore Moses who ascended on high. This is the rendering of the Targum. Paul is exegetically more correct in insisting that God is the subject. The psalmist does refer to God when he says: “Thou hast ascended on high.” He is employing the literary figures of the triumph of the mytho- logical Deliverer God. On the other hand, Paul’s 1 The objection felt to this verse in its intended sense is ex- hibited in two ways: (1) The “ ascending,” which implied, as Paul says, an antecedent “ descending,’ was interpreted in the Targum as applying to Moses. (2) The statement that God mp> ‘took ” (tribute) among men was changed to port by transposition of letters, making it read ‘‘distributed spoils” among men. Paul adopts the latter but not the former. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 357 reading is incorrect where he quotes “gave gifts unto men.” It is the alteration of the order of the letters in the Hebrew which transforms “ received gifts” to “ distributed spoils.” It leads Paul to the idea, as we see from the parallel passage in Colos- sians and the adoption of the Isaian description of God putting on his armor in vi. 11, of a triumphal march and the division of the spoils of victory. He may not have been influenced by the succeed- ing verses, which continue, ‘‘ Blessed be the Lord daily ; if one oppress us, God is our salvation, God is unto us a God of deliverances, and unto Jeho- vah the Lord belong the issues from death,” but he certainly conceives of God as fulfilling the part of the Geos cwryp in the avatar doctrine of the mys- teries. In the person of Christ, Paul maintains, God did ascend, for he previously descended even into the regions of the under-world. He led captive a train of redeemed captives, and when he seated himself upon his heavenly throne, he distributed to men the spoils of victory as conquerors do. The relation of this triumphal march of God in the person of Christ to the medieval church doc- trine of the Harrowing of Hell, as it appears in some forms of the Apostles’ Creed, I have already touched upon. It furnished a point for recrudes- cence of the old mystery myths; but I think even in Ephesians we are not quite back at the very 358 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL foundations. Jewish apocalyptists were not content with the interpretation of the Targum. They had already been adapting the triumph ode of Ps. Ixviii. to this conception of Paul’s of God himself as the leader of Israel’s triumphal procession. In Eph. v. 14 we have something more than conjecture, some- thing like positive evidence that Paul is using their work. I have already said that in Eph. i. 19-ii. 6 Paul illustrates the power of God by applying to the people of Christ, Jewish and Gentile, Ezekiel’s figure of the people raised from the dead by God’s Spirit in the valley of dry bones. This was a favor- ite in the times of the apocalyptic writers. The prayer referred to by Jesus as the “* Power of God,” the second Blessing of the so-called Shemoneh Esreh, or “ Eighteen Blessings,” applies it thus to Israel : — ; “Thou art mighty forever, O Lord, thou restorest life to the dead; thou art mighty to save ; who sustainest the liy- ing with beneficence, quickenest the dead with great mercy, supporting the fallen, and healing the sick, and setting at liberty them that were bound, and upholding thy faithfulness to them that sleep in the dust. Who is like unto Thee, Lord, the Almighty One; or who can be compared unto Thee, O King, who killest and makest alive again, and causest help to spring forth, and art faithful to quicken the dead.!_ Blessed art thou, O Lord, who restorest the dead.” 1Cf£. Wisdom xvi. 12, 13, “Thy word [Logos], O Lord, which PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 359. Now in Eph: v. 14 Paul quotes an unknown apocalyptic writing as follows: “ Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and the Messiah shall shine upon thee.” The ancient manuscript G has a marginal note which tells us that the quotation is taken from noch, in that case part of the unknown portions; but Epiphanius declares it to be from the Apocalypse of Elias, and this is not improbable, because we know from Origen that Paul’s quotation in 1 Cor. ii. 9 is from that writ- ing. Finally, the link of connection between Eph. i, 19-ii. 6, Eph. iv. 8-10, and Eph. v. 14, appears when we turn to a third apocalyptic fragment of unknown derivation, employed once by Justin Mar- tyr, and no less than five times by Ireneus. The fragment throws light upon the meaning of all its kindred : — “The Lord God remembered his dead people Israel, who lay in the graves ; and he descended to preach to them his own salvation.” It is attributed by Justin and Irenzus to vari- ous Old Testament authors ; but most significantly of all is connected by both! with Ps. Ixviii. 18, the very passage employed by Paul in Eph. iv. healeth all things; for thou hast authority over life and death, and thou leadest down to the gates of Hades, and leadest up again.”’ The passage in question underlies Jn. iii. 14, but also Jn. v. 21 ff. 1 Justin, Dial. with Trypho, 87 ; Irenzeus, Her. III. xx. 4 (attrib- uted to “ Isaiah”), IV. xxii. 1 (attributed to “‘ Jeremiah ”’). 360 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL 8-10. In reality it is not a “Scripture,” but a mid- rash, or edifying paraphrase of Scripture, which interprets the triumphal ode Ps. lxviii. 18-21 much as Paul does, giving it the sense of the prayer called the “* Power of God” in the Shemoneh Esreh. It was the Lord God who descended to his dead people Israel. He came down to preach his own salvation to them. That, says this writer, is the meaning of the triumphal ode, with its declaration that God is unto us @ Deliverer God, and unto Jehovah the Lord belong the isswes from death. In the person of his Messiah he will descend, deliver his captive people, and distribute the spoil of their conquerors: ‘«‘ Awake, thou people that sleepest, arise, daughter of Sion from the dead, and Messiah the Sun of Righteousness shall dawn upon thee.” Thus we have evidence that already in pre- Christian times Jewish apocalyptists had found a kind of avatar doctrine in Ps. Ixviii. 18-21, and spoke of God as ‘ coming down to deliver his peo- ple and raise them from the dead.” Accordingly the author of 1 Peter, whom we have already found to borrow appreciatively from Ephesians, and who also shows acquaintance with apocalyptic writings, appreciates the true sense. Paul means that God was in Christ effecting by his Spirit the resurree- tion of Christ and his people together, and the cos- mic “ reconciliation.” He that descended and as- PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 361 cended again, leading a triumphal train of released captives, was not Moses. The ode celebrates the avatar of Him who filleth all things by his Spirit of Wisdom.! In the self-oblation of Christ on the eross God triumphed over the principalities and powers (Col. ii. 15), and from heaven distributes to us their spoils. First Peter shows at least a par- tial appreciation by saying that in the life-giving Spirit of God, Christ went and “ preached the glad tidings to the spirits in prison which had been diso- bedient in the times of Noah,” when angels kept not their first estate but corrupted themselves dur- ing the long-suffering of God while the ark was preparing, so that the Gospel was proclaimed even to the dead. But I think Paul is influenced quite as much by a saying of Jesus, as by these speculative interpre- tations of Ps. lxviii. 18. Jesus, when accused of being in league with Beelzebul in his exorcism of evil spirits, replied that his exorcising them “ by the Spirit of God” was a proof of the advent of God to establish his kingdom. This proposition he illustrated by a parable which plays upon the word Beelzebul (“ Lord of the House”). Beelzebul, like a strong man armed, may keep his house, but when, unknown to him, the Stronger than he (God’s delivering Spirit) appears, he takes from 1 Eph. iv. 10 ff.; ef, Wisdom i. 7; Ps. lxviii. 11, 17, 18 362 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL the Prince of this world his belongings (freeing his slaves) and distributes his spoils. God in Christ as the spoiler of Beelzebul was, therefore, a theme as old as the Gospel itself. Moreover, independently of Paul, this applica- tion of the parable is made by the second century fathers, including Apollinaris of Hierapolis, who rhetorically refers to Jesus as the “Servant of God who, after having been bound, bound the Strong Man.” It is quite possibly, then, on the basis of Jesus’ reference to the Spirit of God by which he cast out the Strong Man and “ spoiled his house ” that Paul argues for a real avatar of God in the Psalm, God who “ filled all things ” by his divine Wisdom, and wrought redemption. For in the person of Christ he “ descended” to earth and (to borrow the language of Paul’s pupil) “ through death over- came him that had the power of death, that is the Devil, and delivered all those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” This descent and ascent of God in Christ is, then, according to Paul, not only a spoiling of the Prin- cipalities and the Powers, and a leading of them in triumph through the cross, but effects a “ recon- ciliation of all things, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens ;” 1 for it makes the uni- 1 Col. i. 20. PAUL’S REVELATION. AND FAREWELL 363 verse a divine Pleroma, animated by his Spirit. The “ mystery’ of the Gospel is that in the “ fill- ing” of all things by God with the person of his redeeming, reconciling Son, God descended to the lowest depths, released the captives of the under- world, stripped off the armor from the Strong Man armed, led a triumphal procession up through all the seven heavens above, hierarchy after hier- arehy, to his own throne, and thence sent forth the Spirit which fills the Church with the divine life, the bond of perfectness, even love. Such is the strange background of the exhorta- tion in the second half of Ephesians to “put on the new Man.” “The gifts poured out from heaven make some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers. All is for the perfecting of the saints, unto the building up of the cosmic organism, the Body of Christ. Ultimately, by increase of faith and knowledge, we shall be- come a full-grown Man, attaining the full dimensions of the Pleroma of Christ. Avoiding, then, the wiles of error, by truth spoken in the spirit of love, we should grow up into ‘him who is the Head, that is, Christ, who supplies through all the avenues of the common organism the life-giving cur- rent of his Spirit. Each part then codperates to the build- ing up of the whole in love.” Here I must break off. Time forbids that I should speak further of the Logos doctrine of Paul, how it made conquest in the name of Jesus the Christ 364 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL of the whole domain of Oriental mystery religion, Jewish apocalyptics, and Greek speculative cos- mology ; how Ephesians, containing as it did the fullest statement of Paul’s “ mystery,” exercised the greatest and most far-reaching influence of any of his Epistles, being earlier and more generally quoted and employed than any other, with the pos- sible exception of Romans and 1 Corinthians. Close study of the Fourth Gospel reveals how largely it has influenced the writer of that mar- velous Logos literature that comes to us under the name of “ John;” though we may well suspect that if we knew more of pre-Pauline apocalyptic Christology, we should find collateral development as well as direct dependence. But already we can appreciate the appropriateness of Ignatius’ con- gratulation of the Ephesian church, when, writing to them in A. p. 110-11T, he calls them cvppiora TlavAo#, « Paul’s fellow adepts in the mystery.” _ We must again pass over an interval of silence, how long we know not, to come to Paul’s parting words, a letter of farewell to his best-beloved church, and a spiritual testament to Timothy, his ‘‘ child in the Gospel.” Philippians and 2 Timothy are written not far apart in date ; for the situation is practically identical, the end in both is imme- diately impending, and the outlook is expressed by exactly the same figure of speech: Paul’s blood is PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 365 about to be “ poured out a libation to God.”! In Phil. ii. 19, Paul was about to send Timothy to Macedonia. He was to come back and report to Paul their state, “ that I also may be of good com- fort ” (that is, as well as you Macedonians, whom I have been exhorting to “be of good comfort ’’). Three verses further on he says he hopes to send him “ forthwith, as soon as I shall see how it will go with me.” Paul accordingly did send him; but the news which Timothy carried was not in ac- cordance with Paul’s “ trust in the Lord that he himself would come shortly.”2 On the contrary, some other messenger carried to Timothy the last legacy of the Apostle. It was the bequest of his “trust” from the Lord, the gospel message with which he felt himself to have been “ entrusted,” as Israel of old —this Paul declares in Rom. iii. 2 to be Israel’s chief prerogative — had been.“ entrusted with the oracles of God.” ; These two farewell letters we must therefore take up, not knowing how long an interval has elapsed since the letters dispatched to the Lycus valley, but only that in the mean time the situation of the prisoner at Rome has visibly changed for the worse. Philippians is part of a correspondence in which there had been gifts of money from the 1 Phil. ii. 17; 2 Tim. iv. 6. 2 Phil. ii. 24. 366 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL chureh, and reciprocal acknowledgments by the captive Apostle. The go-between had been a cer- tain Epaphroditus, whom Paul calls affectionately “‘ my brother, and fellow worker, and fellow soldier, and your dzdcroAos [*messenger”] and Actroupyds [‘minister’] to my need.” The titles “ apostle” and “minister” (conductor of the worship) are bestowed in an affectionate word-play. Moreover, the road between Rome and Philippi had been traversed repeatedly back and forth; for first, Paul had been through a period of physical priva- tion on account of delay in their contributions,! to the extent of actual suffering from lack of food,? “not that they did not take thought for him, but that they lacked opportunity to send.”* Then Epaphroditus had been sent with an abundant gift, which, however, he was obliged in some way to risk his life to convey to Paul, probably by con- tinuing his journey in spite of the “ sickness nigh unto death” of ii. 26. Next, word had gone from Rome to Philippi of Epaphroditus’ illness — jour- ney number two. Then word had come from Phi- lippi to Paul that the Philippians were in anxiety for Epaphroditus — journey number three. This was an occasion of worry and distress to the con- 1 ii. 30, iv. 10-12. 2 iv. 12. 3 Doubtless a quotation from their letter of apology. * iv. 10, 18. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 367 valescent, who “ longed after his Philippian friends, ‘and was sore troubled at their having heard of his illness.” ! Now Paul is sending him back happily recovered by the mercy of God, who spared Paul this “sorrow upon some, other sorrow” (perhaps the turn for the worse in his own affairs 2) — journey number four. Thus there had been quite a correspondence. In fact, some account for the abrupt transition after Phil. i., ii., to a new sub- ject treated in an utterly different tone, and the unusual structure of this epistle, — which has one doctrinal section followed by a practical applica- tion and the usual paragraph devoted to personal matters,? then a second, unrelated doctrinal section Giii. 1-16), followed by a second practical applica- tion (iii. 17-iv. 9), and a second paragraph of personal business (iv. 10-23), — by supposing our epistle to be composite. There is nothing against this conjecture but the fact that the manuscripts make no division. And we have so repeatedly had occasion to see that the ancient editors were not careful to keep separate letters apart (cf. Rom. xvi.) that this is not a decisive reason. On the other hand, unless Phil. iii., iv., is really a separate letter, we must suppose that Paul allowed the news of Epaphroditus’ illness to be carried to Philippi, 1 ii. 26. 2 Cf. iv. 14. 8 j, 12-80, ii. 1-11, 12-18, 19-30. " 368 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL and yet neglected to acknowledge the gift and letter he had brought, leaving the Philippians uninformed ’ as to whether their gift had even reached him, until he had heard from them a second time. It is hard to believe that Paul was guilty of such discourtesy. Therefore I shall here assume that we have two letters of Paul to the Philippians joined together at ili. 1, the earlier letter comprising the last two chapters, the later the first two. The earlier letter (Phil. iii., iv.) does not mention the sickness of Epaphroditus, but only acknow- ledges the long-delayed gift.1 We know from the later letter ? that Epaphroditus had been very un- willing his illness should be reported; but the Philippians would naturally hear of it from the messenger. The doctrinal matter Paul writes about is the heresy of the legalists, Jews whom he de- nounces as ‘dogs, evil-workers, a concision ” (men who turn Jewish rites into heathenism). In iii. 18, 19, he calls them “ enemies of the cross of Christ,” declares that “their end is perdition, their god is their own belly, their glory in their shame,” and that they “ mind earthly things.” These terms seem inappropriate to mere Judaizing Christians, who were scrupulous about the Law, and could not fully trust in the atonement of Christ without trying to supplement it by Mosaic observances. 1 iy, 10-14. 2 ii, 26, PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 369 The latter class Paul speaks of as “ weak” breth- ren, and when they are not actively seeking to un- dermine his influence, denying his apostleship and gospel, and trying to make proselytes of Gentile believers, he shows the utmost gentleness and con- sideration toward them. There is not the slightest reason to think Paul felt his apostolic authority endangered in Philippi; it was the last place in which he could have anything to fear from the “ weak brethren,” or from denials of his apostle- ship, of which there is no trace here. Moreover, these denunciations are less characteristic of simple Pharisean legalists than of a very different type of Jewish propagandists, the same mongrel theoso- phists, in fact, who were.at work .in Colosse. The Colossians were bidden to “set their minds on things above, not on things on the earth.” These The Colossians were 9 men “mind earthly things. warned against men who had no appreciation of the doctrine of the cross, and God’s triumph in it over the “ Principalities and Powers;” the innovators taught them discriminations of meats and drinks, besides the Mosaic ordinances of feast-days, Sab- baths, new moons, and the like, mere dogmata of the «« Elements,” making the kingdom of God a matter of eating and drinking.! In the only real letter to Ephesus we possess (Rom. xvi.), Paul uses exactly 1 Cf. Rom. xiv. 17. 370 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL the same expression as here, “ Turn away from those who serve not our Lord Christ, but their own belly, and by their smooth and fair speech beguile the hearts of the innocent.” The warning to the Philip- pians is doubtless against a type of Judaizers, and advocates of salvation by the Mosaic ordinances ; else Paul would not cite against them his own turn- ing away from “ the righteousness which is after the Law ” to “that which is through faith in Christ ;” 1 but the application to the doctrine of the resurree- tion, as the demonstration of God’s omnipotent power in us (Phil. iii. 10), reminds one so strongly of Ephesians and Colossians, and the characteriza- tion of the heretics implies so much more of hea- thenish superstition and carnality, that it seems more natural to suppose that Paul is thinking of this type of Jewish Christians rather than the type seen in Galatians. Possibly Phil. iii., iv., was writ- ten not long after the letters to the Lycus valley. It is characteristic of Paul that the exhortation with which he follows up this denunciation is an exhortation to unity. It is the “ peace of God” in their hearts which he longs to see (iv. 7), the “ God of peace ” to whom he commits them (iv. 9). Paul’s warfare is always to “ slay the enmity.” If there is such a thing as fighting for peace, he shows it. 1 iii. 4-16. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 371 And in his last farewell letter to this beloved church the “peace of God” is manifestly ruling in Paul’s own heart. The “ things which happened to him ” we are in the dark about. Clearly, to his Philippian correspondents they were far from pro- pitious ; but Paul teaches them to see the bright side. Some have been frightened, but most of the brethren have been rather emboldened. At all events, the whole Pretorium, in which Paul had made his defense, had heard the truth from him; and the salutations at the end of the letter include some from members of “ Czesar’s household.” True, there are false brethren in Rome too, who take ad- vantage of Paul’s confinement to “ preach Christ even of envy and strife, thinking to raise up afflic- tion for Paul in his bonds;” but they have a wrong estimate of the man. Paul does not “think of himself more highly than he ought to think,” nor regard the welfare of the Gospel as bound up with his fate. He may be a prisoner, but the word of God is not bound. While he was a free man he struggled manfully against these perverters of the truth. Now it is God’s will that he should preach no more. Then God knows best. ‘ In every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached, and therein he rejoices and wil! rejoice.” As for the deposit intrusted to him, he is persuaded that God is able to guard it against that Day: as for 372 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL himself, Christ will certainly be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death.! J Now although Paul does proceed after this to encourage and comfort his beloved Philippians, and even to express a confidence that God will let - him abide with them because he knows he is so much needed, it should be clear to every reader that the man who thus writes to grieving friends sees no earthly chance of escape. He does not give up trust in God. He expresses, on the contrary, absolute confidence that God will do what is best for his church. He tries to think, for the Philip- pians’ sake, that it clearly is best he should not be taken away; but what he prepares them for, and warns them of, is his “ departing and being with Christ, which is very far better.” They are “in nothing to be affrighted by the adversaries.” We have seen that the letter concludes with a promise to send Timothy as soon as he knows the decision which seals his fate. These facts are the best evi- dence we have on the question whether the Lycus valley letters come before or after Philippians. We can, of course, suppose that the verdict was favorable; but then why should Paul be stilla prisoner ; and why should nothing be said of so great a deliverance? If, however, it was unfavor- able, we shall understand why Phil. ii. 17 and 2 Tim. 1 Phil. i. 18-20; cf. 2 Tim. i. 12. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 373 iv. 6 answer so exactly to one another: “If I am poured out a libation,” and “I am now being poured out a libation.” The literature of the first two centuries has not a word, nor is there a feature of Paul’s case before Nero, to indicate that Rome ever would or did relax her cruel grasp upon him. Paul is not preparing the Philippians for a visit —his “ presence” —in this letter; but for his ‘‘ absence,” and that forever. It is just this motive which introduces the brief doctrinal section of Philippians. The paragraph presents Paul’s last dying commendation of his gos- pel,—not for a polemic purpose, not for their increase in knowledge, but in love. And most touchingly, most characteristically noble is this supreme message of that great Apostle whom we have learned to call the Apostle of Faith, but ought to call the Apostle of Love : — So, then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not in my ‘ presence’ only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, know- ing that it is God that worketh in you for his own gracious de- sign, cooperating with your very willing, as well as your doing.”’ Such is the exhortation. And what is the doctrine that sums up all Paul’s gospel? In the last letter, as in the first, Paul’s supreme loyalty is to the one new commandment, “the Law of Christ.” 374 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL “Tf there be any comfort in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any tender mercies and com- passions, fulfil ye my joy that ye be of the same mind. .. . Have in you this mind which was also in Christ Jesus, who when he [like the first Adam] was ‘in the form of God’ did not [like the sinful pair in Paradise] count it a matter to be grasped at. with robber hand to be ‘as God,’ but emptied himself, taking the form not of Son but of Servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in outward form as a man, he exemplified the principle, ‘He that hum- bleth himself shall be exalted.’ For he became obedient unto death, yea, even the death of the cross. For which very rea- son God on his side ‘exalted’ him highly ; for he has given him in the Psalm the name Kdpwos, as Jesus himself testi- fied, ‘ The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet.? And now shall they indeed bow the knee to Jesus’ Name, creatures on earth, yes, and in the regions of Death and Hades under the earth, and all hierarchies of angelic Powers in heaven. For every tongue of men and angels shall confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Is it an avatar doctrine? It is humanity’s aspiration for a “ Saviour-God” taken up and glo- rified by permeation with the Law of him who ‘came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life in redemption of the many.” Does it employ mythology? Over against the Adam of Jewish fable it places a Second Adam, a spiritual Man from heaven, whom to “put on,” whose mind to “ have in us,” is to realize all that mystery religion sought by the “enthusiasm” of PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 375 its Saviour-God. Over against the descent and as- cent, the incarnation and apotheosis, of the hero, it puts the redeeming Wisdom of God, loving and restoring, incarnate in Jesus Christ, victorious over sin and death, triumphant at the right hand of God. Yes, mythology is there, the pathos and prayer of a world groping after God; but it is mythology come true. Such ig Paul’s farewell to his “ beloved,” a supreme appeal not to doctrine, not to miraculous power, but to the spirit of love. We have but one brief fragment more, Paul’s testament, wherein he delegates to Timothy the “trust” which had been committed to him. Not all the epistle we designate 2 Timothy is authentic, and, as we have seen, some of that which is authen- tic belongs probably to an earlier date. The so- called Pastoral Epistles, in the form in which we have them, contain in fact mere fragments of Pauline material, fragments so slight in the case of 1 Timothy and Titus, and so mingled with later elements, that it is scarcely worth while to try to extricate them, or to define the occasion of Paul’s life to which they should be assigned. But 1 The winter Paul proposes in Titus iii. 12 to spend in Ni- copolis (Epirus) is probably the winter actually spent in Cor- inth before the last journey to Jerusalem. Titus came indeed to Corinth, — whence we know not,—and thence joined Paul in Macedonia; but the unexpectedly favorable turn in affairs at Corinth (largely due to Titus) enabled Paul to spend the winter 376 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL a large proportion of critics recognize in 2 Timothy a greater element of authentic Pauline matter, and in particular those portions of chapter iv. not already identified as written from Cesarea. What can be thus identified is sufficient to indicate the date and character of the writing as that which I have already defined it to be, a farewell message to Timothy, intrusting him, as Paul’s “ beloved child,” with the only legacy he could give — his gospel. It is later than Philippians ; for not only was Timothy then with Paul, — very shortly to be sent Greecewards with further news, whereas now he ap- pears to be in Ephesus, — but the situation of Paul shows only the darker alternative of Phil. i. 21-30. Demas, who in Philemon and Colossians is still faithful, has now forsaken Paul, “ having loved this present world.” Phygelus and Hermogenes, with “all that are in Asia ”— persons of whom we can only see that Timothy is expected to know who was meant — also turned away from Paul. He has heard, too, probably by letter from Timothy, of the death of Onesiphorus, an Ephesian, who when there instead of at Nicopolis. Titus was sent on to Corinth before him. The genuine elements of Titus (iii. 12 f.) suggest that Paul was writing from Ephesus. So large a proportion of 1 Timothy comes from the later hand that perhaps very slight importance attaches to the date and occasion of the genuine elements. Fromi. 3 a date slightly later than Titus (Troas, just before 2 Corinthians ?) might be inferred. PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 377 in Rome had visited and refreshed him, unashamed of his chain. Condolences are sent to the family, and greetings to them and to Aquila and Prisca. This is about all we can make out of the situation, and the inferences to be drawn from it allow us to see only the progressive darkening of the prospect. The “things which happened ” to Paul, which in Phil. i. 12-14 had led to the desertion of only a few, have had much more serious effect now on Paul’s adherents, even to his immediate circle. To Timothy he turns as to the one genuinely devoted, disinterested servant of Christ. Besides the warn- ings of the epistle against heresy, much of which is probably later interpolation, we catch the old Pau- line ring where the writer speaks of his “ gospel according to the power of God.” We are reminded again of Ephesians as he continues: ** Who saved us, and called us with a holy vocation, not accord- ing to our works, but according to his own Purpose ; the grace which was given us in the person of Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been manifested by the ‘shining forth’? of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the 1 Phil. ii. 19-21. 2 The Epiphany (émipavela), a new term for Paul, who uses the ordinary one, Parousia, in the earlier epistles. The transition to this expression (smacking of mystery religion) is very plain in Eph. y. 14; the idea appears in 2 Cor. iv. 6. 378 THE STORY OF ST. PAUL Gospel.” You will find no difficulty in appreciat- ing these ideas of i. 9, 10, since our treatment of them in Ephesians, though there is here a differ- ence of phraseology. The real sense of verses 12— 14 must be, as we have seen : — “Tam not put to shame by the malefactor’s fate which Iam made to suffer, because I know him in whom I have put my trust, and I am convinced that he is able to guard in safety till the day of Christ’s coming to judgment, the Deposit he committed to me. [Hold the pattern of sound words which thou hast heard from me in faith and love which is in Christ]. Guard thou that good Deposit through the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” We may pass over the special warnings and personal injunctions of the epistle, some of which seem to be later interpolations,? and come to the parting exhortation ; for in these solemn words of farewell we have the last echo of the Apostle’s voice, as he sets his brave face toward the scaf- fold : — “T charge thee, in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by his shining forth [Epiphany] and his kingdom ; preach the word, be tire- 1 Verse 13 is probably interpolated. 2 Tt is hard to see what relation ii. 20-26 bears to the context, and surely it contains most superfluous advice for Timothy, warn- ing him to “ flee youthful lusts,” as if Paul, in addressmg him as “ my beloved child ” (i. 1), had meant to imply that he was a boy in years. These verses sound like the moral requirements of ecclesiastical discipline in the later church manuals. . PAUL’S REVELATION AND FAREWELL 379 less in season and out of season. . . . Be thou sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil thy ministry. For I am already being poured out a libation to God, and the time of my departure is come. I have fought the good fight, I have run the race to its goal, I have main- tained the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge [reversing the decision of the bloody tyrant here], shall give to me, at the day of his coming. And not to me alone, but also to all those who have loved his shining forth.” The Story and the Epistles of St. Paul are both to us revelations of God’s propagation of the Gos- pel. The outward narration by its character and purpose is more than a colorless record of what the great Apostle did. Acts shows what it gives of Paul’s career as part of a world-movement, of which the author’s own composition and its con- stituent elements form also part. The Epistles, too, are far more than a colorless exposition of Paulinism. They are photographs of mental con- ditions (not Paul’s only but those of his readers, and even his rivals and antagonists) in that mar- velous time when the national religions of the world had broken down, and out of the confusion that supreme type of personal religion which we call “the Gospel” was drawing to itself the elements of truth from Jewish and Gentile sources, infus- ing and quickening them with the Spirit of Jesus. Not “ That which is Scriptural” was Paul’s motto, but “ Whatsoever things are true, wh are i whatsoever things a if there be any virtue, if there He any pre Gamaliel the teacher had been the great | narian of the Synagogue. Paul the pupil, greater Master, shows himself, among other things, the great latitudinarian of the Chi zh s 1 Phil. iy. 8. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS Axssort, T. K., Comm. on Eph— Col., 331. Abomination of Desolation, 245. Acts, ill-informed, 89f., 162 £.; attitude on the Law, 115, 125 ; reticence of, 68f., 82, 126, 175; silence on Paul’s end, 217. Acts of John, 332. Acts of Paul, 225. Agabus, 154. Alpha and Omega, 79. Altercatio Simonis et Theophili, 50. Ananias, 47, 48, 92. Andronicus, 187. Angelology and demonology, 330 £ Antichrist, 245, 250. Antioch in Pisidia, 103, 152. Antioch in Syria, 87, 93, 94, 110 #f., 136 #., 154, 174. Apocalypse, 320 ff. Apocalypse of Baruch, 74, 248, 250, 252, 322, 325, 348. Aeecolapre of Elias, 276, 346, Apolo, 266, 315 ; adherents of, 271. Apostles, earlier, 71. Apostleship of James et al., 83. Apostleship of Paul, 83, 253. Aquila and Prisca, 168, 172f., 180, 229, 377. Aretas, 87. Aristeas, Epistle of, 164. Ae Apology of, 164, 166, 59. Assumptio Mosis, 262, 276, 347 £., 356. oo doctrine of Paul, Avatar doctrine, 314, 328 f., 337 £., 341, 345, 353, 355, 374. Bacon, Introduction to N. T., 191, 231; Stephen’s Speech, 17, 262. Baptism a type of death, 140, 294. Barnabas, 69, 82, 84, 90, 94, 140. Barnabas, Epistle of, 50, 351. Basilides, 342. Beelzebul, 327, 361. Book of the Dead, 344. Bousset and Gunkel, Forschun- gen, 25. Browning, The Epistle, 22. Cesarea, 204 ff. Calendar, 173, 262. Charismata, 281. Chase, Credibility of Acts, 74, 85, 128. Cheetham, Mysteries, 342-344. Christology, of Paul, 75-77, 208, ee 306, 326 f.; of Peter, 77. Cireumcision, 150. Clement Al., Strom., 22. Clement of Rome, 215, 223, 268. Clementine Homilies, 14, 37, 126, 134, 190. Colossians, 303 ff., 330 ff. Concision, 207, 368. Contrast of Acts and Epistles, 10-12. Contribution for Jerusalem, 183 #., 192. Conversion of Paul, 36-49, 69. aa 168, 267 ff. orinthian correspondence 268 #. se ; Cornelius, 48, 86, 90, 123. 384 INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS Cosmology in Greek and He- brew thought, 313. Damaseus, 46-49, 53, 87. Decrees of Jerusalem, 130. Deissmann, Bible Studies, 178, 231, 235, 239. Diary, or Travel, or We-docu- ment, 102, 153, 156 ff., 182, 186, 210, 214. Diatessaron of Tatian, 5. Early career of Paul, 87-89. Elements of the world, 325 f., 369. Elymas, 102, 177, 190. Enoch, 250, 317, 359. Enoch, Slavonic or Secrets of, 276, 344, 345. Epaphras, ’300. Epaphroditus, 366 ff. Ephesian letters, 178. Ephesians, 299 ff. Ephesus, 174 ff. Epiphany for Parousia, 377. Epistle to Diognetus, 164, 259. Epistles, primary sources of the, 5-9. Epistles vs. letters, 231. Epistolary forms, 236 f. Eschatology, Pauline, 241 ff. Esdras, doctrine of Fall in, 64. Famine, Claudian, 96. Felix, 194 f., 205. Galatia, South and North, 99, 175, 266. Galatian churches, defection in, 1738, 230; founding of, 97-100. Galatians, 252 ff. Gallio, 168 f. Gamaliel, 14, 16, 20, 380. Gentiles, Gospel for, 79, 81. Gnosticism, 176, 299. Gospel of Peter, 332. Gunkel and Bousset, Forschun- gen, 25. Hagar and Sarah, 263. Harrowing of Hell, 341, 357. Hausrath, History of N. T. Times, 19, 99. Heirship of ‘Christ, 261. Helena of Adiabene, 95. Hellenists, 85, 107, 110. Heraclitus, 65, 273, 313. Hees Vis., Mand., Sim., 325, Hilgenfeld, Zts. f. w. Th., 139, Hippolytus, Philos., 342. Historical and Critical Contribu- tions (Yale), 17%, 262. Hitzig on 2 Thess. ii. 7, 249. a 0., Nil. Zeitgesch., 87. ie Conese eresies, oly se 7, 359. James, 109 ff., 122, 141, 187, 190, 206. Jerusalem Conference, 110, 112 ff., 126 £.; decrees, 112 ff., 188. Jewish Christians, 71. Johannine disciples, 174, 180. Jubilees, 165. Judaizers, of Corinth, 287; of Galatians, 256. Justin Martyr, Dialogue, 359. Kerygma Petri, 166 £., 259. Kosher meat, 130. Law of Moses, an enactment of angels, 259; obligatory, 114, 131 f£., 257, 294, Life and Letters of St. Paul (Conybeare and Howson), 19. Lightfoot, Comm. on Gal., 125; St. Paul and Seneca, 60, 260. Logia of Oxyrhynchus, 317. Logos doctrine, '273,311f.,316£., 328 £., 330 f£., 345, 350. Lucht, Zts. Sf. w. Th., 121, 195, 198. Luke, purpose of, 45, 168, 186. Luther at Rome, 42. Maccabees, Fourth, 57. Magic, 178. INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS 385 Malta, 212. Mark, 94, 106. Martyrdom of Paul, 217, 221. Martyrdom of Polycarp, 203. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, 148, 180. Messianism, Petrine, 71. Miletus, 218. Ministry of the new Covenant, 290. ° Mission of the Twelve, 80. Mysteries, 306 ff., 335. Neronic persecution, 248 f. Onesimus, 219, 300, 303 f. ** Painful letter,’’ 284 ff. Paradise, visited by Paul in vi- sion, 89. Pastoral Epistles. and Titus. Persecution, Pharisean and Pau- Tine, 54; Sadducean, 16, 54. Peter, 48, 85 f., 129, 135 £., 144, 161; adherents of, 271; in Rome, 223. Pfleiderer, Urchristenthum, 24, 97, 99, 105, 109, 128. Philemon, 220, 300, 302 f. Philip, 84. Philippi, 160. Philippians, 364 ff. Philo, 30-82, 273. Philosophy, its effect on heathen belief, 311. Pillar Apostles, 122 ff., 144, 172. FPleroma doctrine, 316, 324, 338, 349, 355. Pliny, Ep. ad Traj., 150. Plots to kill Paul, 202. Pollutions of idols, 133, 1389, 152, 269, 277. Preaching of Peter. See Keryg- ma Petri. Pre-Pauline Christianity, 4, 55 £. See Timothy Ramsay, St. Paul, Church in Empire, ete., 100, 116, 156, 159, 193, 211. Resurrection-body, 282. Rome, 215, 224. Romans, 292 ff. Sabatier, The Apostle Paul, 21. Sadducean persecution, 16, 54. Saviour-God, 66, 309 £.,321, 3338, 335, 388, 340, 355, 360, 374. Sceva, sons of, 177. Schiirer, History of the Jewish People, 19, 99. Self-commendation of Paul, 286. Seneca, De Benef., 60, 66; Ep. Mor., 62, 66, 259; quoted by Lactantius, Div. Inst., 22. Servant, of Deutero-Isaiah, 58, 74, 76. Shemoneh Esreh, 358, 360. Sibylline Oracles, 250. Silas, 146, 148, 229. Simon Magus, 102, 177, 190, 274. Slavonic Secrets of Enoch. See Enoch. Smith, James, Voyage and Ship- wreck, 211. Son of man as title, 76. Stephen, 84, 107; vision of, 17, - 262. Stoicism, influence on Paul, 21, 60, 260, 281, 310. Strong and weak brethren, 131, 296, 369. Suetonius, Lives of the Emperors, 87. Supernatural vs. miraculous vs. providential, 51, 52. Synagogue worship, 234. Syria and Cilicia, 88-93. Tarsus, Paul’s boyhood in, 19, 20. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 83, 165. Temple, blasphemy against, 57, 108. ; Tennant, Fall and Original Sin, 8, 63. Gevs cwryp. See Saviour-God. Thessalonica, 162. Thessalonian Hpistles, 288 ff. Timothy, 149, 229 ; First Epistle Visio Isaie, 339, 341, 351. Vision of Paul, 3943, 201. Vision of Peter, 48. INDEX TO SCRIPTURE REFERENCES Genesis Leviticus Deut. 2 Samuel Psalm 2 Esdras Wisdom OLD TESTAMENT Tel ee ers el Ose sale 5 RS) 8 ones 50 iAP. 166, 276 15 2G sete ‘276, 325 i. 26-28 . 262, 322, 348 | Proverbs 1 2ON e: 130 ixe Jens 130 Te igd ett i- 113 xvil., Xviil. . 113 babi seme 54 | Isaiah xxix. 18. 133 xxx. 12-14 317 Exiles, 4.) . 50 viii. . 327, 328, 353 viii. Ge - 262, 325 xxiv. 8 . 9843 | Jeremiah xlvii. 5, 8 341 | Ezekiel Tvii. 11 : 411 | Malachi Dyas. 249, 250, 383, 356, 358 APOCRYPHA vic Olt sma 248 | Wisdom vi. 24,25. . 248 vi. 55-59 262, 325, 348 vii. 11 348 vii. 48-50 62 viii. 80-36 62 ix.1-8 . 248 Tels 248 i. 4, 12-16 62 eG Wt 273 POM ee OLE 17 . 312, 331, 338, 355, 3861 v. 17-238. 840 vi. 13. 278 Ixyiii. 18-21 . 333, 334, 338, 341, 356, 359-361 CX: igs .- 3853 ex. 1. S35 6! i. 20-33 shi 7/ viii. 22 = SE viii. 1-21 «Lake viii. 22-31 . 847 ix. 3-6 . 23 v9. oy MELE vi. 9,10 + LOL xxvii. 13 .342,343 sli. 1 cee lix. 17 340 rey © 6 55, 56 i 5 25, 26 XXXVil 353 Ty Zeon 50 vi. 18-16 . 317 vii. 17-22 . 275 vii. 17-28 346 vil. 24 . 331 vii. 22-80 273 vill. 3, 4 273 viii. 4 275 ix. 4, 6, 9-11 317 ix. 15 62 x. 15 273 Doss 165, 167 xiii. 1-10 165 xiy. 21-28 165 Kv: See 165 xy. 18-xix. 22. 165 xvi. 5-13 832 388 INDEX TO SCRIPTURE REFERE Wisdom xvi 12,18. . 858|Eeclus. -aaaeeeeee xviii. 15, 16 . 325, 332 xxiv, 6218 § Ecclus. xxiv. 1-22. . 273|Baruch iii. 28-37 2738, NEW TESTAMENT Matthew xi.28-80 . . Siqiiem ese Xx. OL uae ix. 6-30 xxiii. 34-39 . 317 Ee xxiv.. . . 16, 245 ix. 12 REV ES 5) 20d ix. 15 Mark Vil, £9. ye ueleo ix. 29 KU. is) ee 10, eee ix. 30 5 xili. 7, 8, 14-20, ix. 32-xi. 1 24-27." . . 246 4 xv AOA OS SO x. 9-16 . Luke 454 lle ys seen x. 4447 % TS + BO xi. 1-3 m1,'415) ou. eo lee xi-xy. . =u 4902. « te xi. 1-18. xi. 49-51 . . 317 xi. 84-35. . 317 xi. 19-30 es xi. 20 2 3 ek xi. 28 xxiv. 26, 217, xii. 5-11 » Wie ao xii. 11 John 3. 1-55) fhe xiii., Xiv. iii. 14 332, 359 ‘ Vide: ee wooo xin, 3/93 X.—-xiii. . . 214 xiii. 1-3. xi. 48 201 xiii. 6-11 xil. Gi.) 193 parity iii xxi. 18-19 225 xiii. 16-41 Acts TAS in ty Ae ocak xili. 27-37 i.-v. oh De xii. 39 . ii. 14-21 256 xiii. 45-48 li. 25-32 76 xiii. 50 jy. 1-2 . 201 xiv. 1 v. 13-26 201 xiv. 2, 5, 1 Verhnch Ls . 169 xiv. 14-17 103, 167 v. 19-42 160 f. xiv. 21 5 Ae Ge 203 Xv. vii. 56. AMG: viii. 14-24. . 256 xv. 1-12, 5-29 viii. 18-24. . 190 xv: Tous VEZ Satis EOD xy. 8. iii Be yes xy. 20- ix, 11, 47, 82, 92, 200, 210 xy. 33, ix. 1-xi. 18 91 xvi. 4 Acts xvi.10-18. . 10 xvi. 23-39 . 161 xvii. 5, 13 202 xvii. 14. . 162, 229 xyii. 18-31 SiG xvii. 18-34. . 1638 xvii. 22-31 . 156, 168 xv 26) 00 eo. Dd xvid) . |. 164 xviii. +4 =, 152 xviii. 1-17 187 xvii.S . 169 xvii.9 . . 199 xviii. 9,10 171 xviii. 12 = 2OZ xvii. 22 193 SV oh. s | cd m8, 9. 179 xix. 23-41 . 180 Rx: ss 202 xix. 33, 34. 198 oso eee 202 $e to ae 198 ps yas ly (ae 183 xx. 5-xxi. 18 11 ee Ge ss 156 | Romans To ANS 157 xx. 18-35 . 156 ee 2S) 183 x34 . 183 xxi.1-5. 157 xxi. 1-18 183 a Dy 182 xxi. 8 OG =. 20) > 109 xxi. 20-24 . 108 Ee. 123 xxi. 24 . 109,114 xxi. 26 . - 150 posting . 199 eee OO. 921 197 pS Tike og 91, 210 52-21 hal hee 210 Sek AG xxii. 11 199 REE =~. 189 xxiii. 26-30 203 xxiv. 2-8 203 xxiv. 10-21 203 xxiv. 17. 184 INDEX TO SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 389 muv.J8. . . 199 xxiv. 23. - 204 SRT VeIAt). «) came 204: xxy. 7-11 - 196 xxy. 23-27. . 196 52 ee 92, 117 xxvi. 1-23 . 156 xxvi. 10. Ba oid 03107 xxvi. 14. 46, 47 xxvi.16-18 . 47 xxvi. 17-23 . 156 XxvE 22,23 . 240 REVI 2 = 2) ee xxvi. 31,32 . 196 xxvii. l-xxyiii. 16, 11 mxvan. 2. . 7’) s. SOe Vito)... e oro xxvii. 21-26 . 156 xxyn.44 . . 252 xxvii. . 174, 215 xxviii. 8. on) kOe xxviii. 15 159 xxvii. 17 157 xxviii. 25-28 104 xxviii. 30 204 i. 16-ii. 16 167 i. 18-ii. 16 168 i. 21-23 165 i. 23 166 4 . . 167 pire 222, 365 iui. 24 .. 164 iv. 13 262, 325 Wil.) &. - 56 vii. 7-11 . . 59 vill. 19-22, 38, 3g iris eS ixxi. . . 28,248 1.25 |, o> ees ix. 25,26 . 219 x.6,7 ... 2BSSl6 x. 6,9 whet ese xii.—xv Tee ele xiv. 6 130 xiy. 17 . 369 xy. 14-33 296 . 16 221 xy. 19 215 xv. 20 93 xy. 25-28 97 390 INDEX TO SCRIPTURE Romans xv.28 . . . 223)2 Cor. xvi. .174, 181, yo 369 xvi. 1-16 296 xvi. 1-20 . 296 xvi. 17-20 . 297 xvi. 21-23 . 296 xvi. 25-27 . 296 1 Cor. Soave lois 271 IZ 232 i. 2 b. 234 i. 24 208 TE} 4 ist tare aomes Lee ii. 6-16. 208, 316, 346, 347, 348 TE Os = Mi eee 0 11.9 . 209-210, 325, 359 ie iii. 22 . 325 269, iv.6. . 272 201 Visi . Za 270 V.-vii. He eae 270 v9. 267, 272 . 291 v.10. . 268 vii. oe ee ve La: 2 ii ee vi.3. 208, 262 i a! vi. 19. - 210 ii. 1 ewe vii. 1. 270 viii. 9. . 208, 318 viii. . 278 vill. 16-24. . 4 vili.—x. 140, 277 vii. 18-21 . . 1 yiii. 6 208, 318 ix.xnL.s 2) gies Toh et ee 279 ix. 1-5 «. 5 Gee TX yous Pas 283 XX eee tier x45), 208,318 x. 1-xiii. 10. 5 x. 14-22. 130 Pook OOF 130 =xi'4 Ae oe xi 271 xi. 15). 5) ee xil., Xiv. 280 ‘si, 23-3: A a xiv. 3 155 xi. 25-2, 0 OS ee xiv. 16 234 xi. '82, 83° . (2 SC vos 282 xi. 1-4: 3 80a xy.3. 55, 293 xii. 14-18 . . 193 xm. 264. 325 xii. 18 . - KV. 32 180 xili, 11-14 . . 286, © xu Se bh 22 291 — Viel ties 266 | Gal. i,1 seus ee xvi. 5-9. 289 i. 6-10). ). eee 2 Cor. as: pe eke SO 1.9. 20. ) ee i-ix. 267, 284-286 i. 10°. «... eee 6-1) LW ee eo i 10=v.41 Soo INDEX TO SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 391 Gal. B15 % 25,68 | Ephesians ii1.1-13. .354, 349 rte 15-17 . aa: ie 2 oh ce OS Hee ced «toe LOS Th 03 ge 301 Ty De ie oe Lee 11,1421 . . 3387 22-04. . . 88 iv.. . . 004,338 ii. 1-10, 116, 125, iv.-vi. 338, 339, 355 126 iv.8 . 7319, 341 ie Des reed 03 iv. 8-10 isk te OU i. 4 106, tt don iv.9 . . 817, 341 ii. T- we 128 iv. 10 ff.. 361 hie DE geey ci shy LOS iv. 13 332 IPO se ae 129 iv. Fad 241 1-40-21... 82 eos Welder hh 129 Vv. ee , 209, 358, 359, ii. 11-23 116, 136 377 ii. 12 . 129, 189, 136 vi. 10-17 340 ii. ca a: See 808 Vis ee) lot ene Teet2y 1S a) 1 8G vi. 21. . 236, 801 Tels) Oe e290 Phil: Tie ee 367 Tie eet! ey 3 200 i. 12-14. 377 Sisles © cece omy OD i. 12-30. 367 Ephesians riers 259 ii. 10 115 ii. 19 259 tye ge et oy Ol iv.-vii. 294 weit. 259 iv. 3, 8-11 . 319 iv. 4 208 iy. 8 + 840 iv. 13 99, 100, 149 iv. 14. 39 LysMlOniren «De HVelGtore «Ue ke wee 264 Weis 149 OTe crest 1. ALO ¥. 20); amr 209 i.-ill. 238, 350, 354 risgil Ltee (Zoe i. 3-14 348, 351 Lo os ots i.9 ee Ons i. 10, 11 5 65) Tbe. . 349 ib. 301, 336 i. 19-i1.10 . 355 i. 19-ii. 6 858, 859 Bey 331 iii. 1 337 29 | Colossians i. 7 i,18-20. . . 312 roger J) ao AD Te RODD fa A ela) £ See .17. . .365,372 Wiss . 3866 ui. 19-21. 7 OnE i. 24. . 865 i 26% 366-368 ii. 30. 24 e806 lit, ives. | SOngoGsy 370 itis dh). 368 im: 1-65. ..5 386% in 410. 5) eo ii.4-16. . . 370 il, 10." . 370 iii. 17-iy. 9. 367 iii. 18,19 368 Peet lero « 310 LV."O0 Sg 380 LV Oh cles 370 iv. 10-12 366 iv. 10-14 368 iy. 10, 18 366 iv. 10-23 367 Tyl2) 2 er ooo, Lv chide am OOU Live Los 1 Gree «hele oats 300 392 INDEX TO SCRIPTURE REFERENCES Colossians i. 9 1 Thess. 2 Thess. 1 Tim. . 801]1 Tim. vi.'20) |». 2 ce . 862|2 Tim. i.9,10 . . oa 301 iL O-14 |. 6S ee 835 i. 12°27 /.5 2 ee 835 i, 12-14),.°.. 2 ee 300 i138. oi) 6 A 335 in, 8°. “sh seas 259 iii. 20-26 . . 378 151 IV.*) oc Su eee 361 iv.6 221, 365, 372- 819 . 804 iy. idee . 158 iv. 9, 11-18, 5 OE 20-21. 197, 198 Bae St iv. 10 Maye Pees til iv. 17 93, Gee 162, 167 | Titus ili. 12f.. 291, 375, 21, 164 376 162| Philemon 119... . 300 162 i. 'T, 20 gee eenens 153 i, 22.) 2 See Se A236 i 24% . ee . « 237|2 Peter i. b=-7 cee . » 243) Jude 3 «oleh RO . 244 205k oi ee 2 248 | Revelationi.10 . . . . 239 A OS Tf ii. 14, 20 seen oon iVow er, Seas xi. $-138¢0. ue PA Skt) xx.4. spe) Rea . 248, 250 xxi. 1, bi) eee ae PD xxiat - 825 Div. $. 229.92 “. P624B 52898 a8 F * NLOTS¢E LOO Man