LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class Unternaticmal EDITORS' PREFACE. THEOLOGY has made great and rapid advances in recent years. New lines of investigation have been opened up, fresh light has been cast upon many subjects of the deepest interest, and the historical method has been applied with important results. This has prepared the way for a Library of Theological Science, and has created the demand for it. It has also made it at once opportune and practicable now to secure the services of specialists in the different depart- ments of Theology, and to associate them in an enterprise which will furnish a record of Theological inquiry up to date. This Library is designed to cover the whole field of Chris- tian Theology. Each volume is to be complete in itself, while, at the same time, it will form part of a carefully planned whole. One of the Editors is to prepare a volume of Theological Encyclopaedia which will give the history and literature of each department, as well as of Theology as a whole. The Library is intended to form a series of Text-Books for Students of Theology. The Authors, therefore, aim at conciseness and compact- ness of statement. At the same time, they have in view EDITORS' PREFACE. that large and increasing class of students, in other depart- ments of inquiry, who desire to have a systematic and thor- ough exposition of Theological Science. Technical matters will therefore be thrown into the form of notes, and the text will be made as readable and attractive as possible. The Library is international and interconfessional. It will be conducted in a catholic spirit, and in the interests of Theology as a science. Its aim will be to give full and impartial statements both of the results of Theological Science and of the questions which are still at issue in the different departments. The Authors will be scholars of recognized reputation in the several branches of study assigned to them. They will be associated with each other and with the Editors in the effort to provide a series of volumes which may adequately represent the present condition of investigation, and indi- cate the way for further progress. CHARLES A. BRIGGS. STEWART D. F. SALMOND. Theological Encyclopaedia. By CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt., Prof, of Theological Encyclopedia and Symbolics, Union Theol. Seminary, N. Y. An Introduction to the Literature of By S. R. DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt., Regius the Old Testament. Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. (.Revised and enlarged edition). Canon and Text of the Old Testa- By Francis Crawford Burkitt, M.A., Lec- ment. turer in Cambridge University. Old Testament History. By HKNRY PRESERVED SMITH, D.D., Professor of Biblical History, Amherst College, Mass. (Now ready.) Contemporary History of the Old By FRANCIS BROWN, D.D., LL.D., D.Litt., Testament. Professor of Hebrew, Union Theological Seminary, New York. Theology of the Old Testament. By the late A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Hebrew, New College, Edinburgh. (Now ready.) An Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament. Canon and Text of the New Testa- ment. The Life of Christ. A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age. Contemporary History of the New Testament. Theology of the New Testament. Biblical Archaeology. The Ancient Catholic Church. The Later Catholic Church. By Rev. James Moffatt, B.D. By CASPAR REN GREGORY, D.D., LL.D. t Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of Leipzig. By WILLIAM SANDAY, D.D., LL.D.. Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxlord. By ARTHUR C. MCGIFFERT, D.D., Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary, New York. (Now ready.) By FRANK C. PORTER, D D., Professor of Biblical Theology, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. By GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D., Professor "of Systematic Theology, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. (Now ready.) By G. BUCHANAN GRAY, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Mansfield College, Oxford. By ROBERT RAINY, D.D., LL.D., Principal of the New College, Edinburgh. (Now ready.) By E. W. Watson, LL.D., Professor of Church History, Kings College, London. The Greek and Oriental Churches. The Reformation. Symbolics. History of Christian Doctrine. Christian Institutions. Philosophy of Religion. The History of Religions. Apologetics. The Doctrine of God. The Doctrine of Man. The Doctrine of Christ. The Christian Doctrine of Salvation, The Doctrine of the Future Life. Christian Ethics. The Christian Pastor and the Work- ing Church. The Christian Preacher. Rabbinical Literature. By W. F. ADENEY, D.D., Professor of Church History, New College, London. By T. M. LINDSAY, D.D., Principal of the United Free College, Glasgow. By CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt., Prof, of Theological Encyclopedia and Symbolics, Union Theol. Seminary, N. Y. By G. P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. (Revised and en" large d edition.) By A. V. G. ALLEN, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History, P. E. Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass. (Now ready.) By ROBERT FLINT, D.D., LL.D., sometime Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. By GEORGE F. MOORE, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Harvard University. By the late A. B. BRUCE, D.D., sometime Professor of New Testament Exegesis, Free Church College, Glasgow. (Revised and enlarged edition.) By WILLIAM N. CLARKE, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Hamilton The- ological Seminary. By WILLIAM P. PATERSON, D.D.. Professor of Divinity, University of Edinburg. (Author will be announced later.) By GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D.. Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University. (Now ready.) (Author will be announced later.) By NEWMAN SMYTH, D.D., Pastor of Con- gregational Church, New Haven. (Re- vised and enlarged edition. ) By WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., Pastor of Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio. (Now ready.) (Author will be announced later.) By S. SCHECHTER, M.A., President of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City. Unternational GbeolOQical EDITED BY CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology t Union Theological Seminary t New York; AND STEWART D. F. SALMOND, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament Exegesis^ Free Church College, Aberdeen. A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE. BY ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGIFFERT, PH.D., D.D. INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY Df THE APOSTOLIC AGE BT ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGIFFERT, PH.D., D.D. WASHBUBN PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THK UNION THEOLOGICAL 81MINARY, MIW YOBK REVISED EDITION Of THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YOKK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1906 GENERAL COFYRIGHT, 1897, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Co tfje f&nnatg of mg JFatfjer JOSEPH NELSON McGIFFERT, D.D, PREFACE THE scope of the present volume is sufficiently indi- cated by its title. It has been my endeavor in writing a history of Christianity in the Apostolic Age to treat the theme as a unit, and to trace the development so far as possible in its totality. The volume necessarily contains much that falls properly within the province of special works upon New Testament literature, exegesis, or the- ology ; for the Apostolic Age is the age of the New Tes- tament, and in the pages of the latter are found the thoughts and deeds of the leading actors in the history. But it has been my constant aim to subordinate all such special subjects to the common end, and to deal with them only in so far as they constitute a vital part of the larger whole. This aim, I hope, will serve to explain the arrangement and to some extent the selection of material. At the same time, there are some matters, not vitally connected with the development as a whole, a discussion of which is looked for in a work on the Apostolic Age, and which I have not felt at liberty, in view of the gen- eral purpose of the series of which this book forms a part, to neglect altogether ; and so in the selection of material I have departed occasionally from my own ideal. But even in such cases the attempt has been made to keep the main subject well to the fore, and to let it control the entire treatment. Many of the questions discussed in this volume have been the subject of controversy for generations, and the most various positions have of course had their champions. To state and endeavor to refute all such divergent views vii Viii PREFACE would have been neither practicable nor desirable, and the temptation to enter into extended controversy which presented itself at many points has been strenuously resisted. My aim throughout has been positive and not negative, constructive and not destructive. Where the literature is so voluminous, and where so many of the results of modern scholarship have long been common property, it is impossible to indicate or even esti- mate my indebtedness to others. But it is hardly neces- sary to say that among all the admirable books dealing with the Apostolic Age as a whole, or with one or another phase of it, I have found the great work of Weizsacker (Das apostolische Zeitalter der christlichen Kirche), in spite of many radical and far-reaching differences between his conclusions and my own, most helpful and suggestive. The two well-known books of my friend, Professor Ram- say (The Church in the Roman Empire and St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen), have been found espe- cially valuable for the light they throw upon the travels of Paul. The recent monumental work on the chronology of early Christian literature (Die Chronologie der alt- christlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius, Erster Band) by my honored teacher, Professor Harnack, in which he discusses, with his characteristic thoroughness and candor, some of the literary questions that have received attention in this volume, came into my hands after my own book was in press and too late to be utilized in any way. This is the less to be regretted, as I find myself, I am happy to say, in general agreement with Harnack in most of the mat- ters upon which he touches ; as for instance in the chro- nology of Paul's life, in the interpretation of the purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the general estimate of the pastoral Epistles, in the conviction that Second Peter is the only really pseudonymous work in the New Testa- ment, in the treatment of the Book of Acts as based in the main upon trustworthy sources. On the other hand, PREFACE IX where Harnaek's views differ from those presented in this volume, as for instance, his acceptance of the North Galatian theory, and of the second imprisonment of Paul, and his rejection of the Ephesian residence of the Apos- tle John, I find no reason, after a careful study of his arguments, to modify the conclusion which I have already expressed. To my colleagues in the Faculty of Union Theological Seminary, especially to Professor Francis Brown, D.D., and to the librarian of the Seminary, the Rev. Charles R. Gillett, I desire finally to express my hearty and affec- tionate thanks for the generous assistance they have rendered me in many ways. ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGIFFERT. UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, April 15, 1897. PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION THE call for a new edition of my book has given me an opportunity to make a number of changes and corrections, most of which, however, are of minor importance and affect the form rather than the substance. In view of the fact that the purpose and scope of my first chapter have been misapprehended in some quarters, I desire to call particular attention here to the note on p. 1 (which appeared in the first as well as in the present edition), where it is stated that the chapter is "intended solely as an introduction to the history which follows." The subject of my book is not the life and work of Christ, which are to be treated in another volume of the series, but Christianity in the age of the apostles, and to attempt to give an account of Christ's life and work, even in X PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION briefest outline, would be out of place. I am well aware of the meagreness and inadequacy of what I have said about Christ, but it was not my aim to present a finished picture of Him, or even to indicate those facts in His life and those features of His character which are most essen- tial in themselves and of most permanent significance, but solely to point out and trace the origin of that which the church actually laid hold of and built upon at the beginning of its career, and so far as possible to explain why it did so. It belongs to the later chapters of the book to exhibit those features in Christ's character and work that subsequently received emphasis and so entered into the faith and life of the church, but in respect of those matters also it should be said that they have been presented not in order to an understanding of Christ Him- self, but in order to an understanding of the Christians of the Apostolic Age, with whom, and with whom alone, my book deals; MARCH 30, 1899. CONTENTS CHAPTER I MM THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 1-35 1. Judaism 1 2. John the Baptist . . . . . . . . 9 3. Jesus 15 CHAPTER II PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 36-112 1. The New Beginning 36 2. Pentecost and the Earliest Evangelism .... 48 3. The Life of the Primitive Disciples .... 64 4. The Conflict with Judaism 81 5. The Widening Field 93 CHAPTER IH THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 113-150 CHAPTER IV THE WORK OF PAUL 151-439 1. The Roman World 151 2. The First Three Years of Paul's Christian Life . . 161 3. Paul in Syria and Cilicia 168 4. The Evangelization of Galatia . . . . .172 5. The Conflict with Judaizers ...... 192 xii CONTENTS PAOl 6. The Evangelization of Macedonia 234 7. The Evangelization of Achaia 256 8. The Evangelization of Asia 273 9. Trouble in the Church of Corinth j .... 290 10. Paul's Final Visit to Corinth, and his Epistle to the Romans . 324 11. Paul's Final Visit to Jerusalem and his Arrest and Im- prisonment 338 12. Paul in Rome . . ..'.'. . .364 13. The Companions and Discipies of Paul . . . .423 CHAPTER V THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE . . 440-545 1. The Common Conception of the Gospel .... 440 2. The Christianity of the Epistle to the Hebrews . . 463 3. The Christianity of the First Epistle of Peter . . 482 4. The Christianity of the Johannine Writings . . . 487 5. The Radical Paulinism of the Gnostics and Other Sectaries . . 502 6. The Christian Life 506 CHAPTER VI THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 546-672 1. James and the Church of Jerusalem .... 549 2. Peter and the Church of Rome 588 3. John and the Church of Asia 606 4. The Church and the Empire 627 5. The Unity of the Church 636 6. The Developing Organization . 645 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE ....... . 673 INDEX ...... . C75 A HISTOET OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 1 IN attempting to explain historically the origin of Christianity, it is necessary to take account of two factors : on the one hand, Judaism, in the midst of which Jesus of Nazareth was born and bred, and whose influence he felt throughout his life; on the other hand, his own unique religious personality. 1. JUDAISM 2 All-controlling in the religious thought and life of the Jews was their consciousness of standing in a peculiar relation to the Covenant God of Israel. Though he was the Creator and Lord of all the world, he was believed, not by the prophets alone, but by the people in general, 1 It is impossible in a volume on the apostolic age to discuss in any ade- quate and thoroughgoing way the subject of the present chapter. The chap- ter is intended solely as an introduction to the history which follows, and it has been my endeavor to confine myself exclusively to those features in Judaism and in the life and work of Christ which seem to me essential to an understanding of the rise and early development of Christianity, and to treat them in as summary a manner as possible. A complete picture would of course contain much, both in the first and third sections, at which I have not even hinted. 2 See Schiirer: Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (Eng. Trans., A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ); Wellhausen: Israelitische undjudische Geschichte; Toy: Judaism and Chris- tianity ; Bruce: Apologetics, Bk. II. ; O. Holtzmann : Das Ende des judischen Staatswesens und die Entstehung des Christenthums (in Stade's Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Bd. II.) ; also Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, 9 1 2 THE APOSTOLIC AGE graciously to have chosen from among the nations of the earth the children of Abraham to be his own peculiar pos- session, and to be the recipients of his choicest blessings. This consciousness of national election, emphasized even by the earlier prophets, and growing ever more vivid since their day, made it impossible for a true Israelite to believe that God would ever forget and desert his people. And yet nothing could be plainer in the later days of the He- brew monarchy, than that the actual condition of Israel was far from what might be expected of a people enjoying the divine care and protection. Few evidences remained of the presence and favor of the Almighty. He seemed utterly to have forsaken those whom he had once so sig- nally blessed. But the true Israelite could not believe that he had forsaken them forever. It must be that in the future, if not now, he would again turn his face in favor upon his people and bestow upon them in abundant measure the blessings so long withheld. Thus was born in Israel the Messianic hope, the hope of a better, brighter, happier, and more glorious future for the Jewish nation, a hope that sustained them in the darkest days of exile, growing year by year more vivid and controlling. But it was not enough that God would one day bless again his chosen people. Why had he ever neglected them ? The answer was not far to seek. In that they found it and gave it vigorous utterance, lay the great ethical and religious service of the Hebrew prophets to their own people and to all peoples. The God of Israel is a righteous God, and he cannot bless an unrighteous nation. He has chosen Israel and entered into covenant with his elect people, but he has covenanted to show them favor and give them prosperity only on condition that they faithfully serve and worship him. Thus is explained abundantly God's desertion of his people, and thus, at the same time, is declared the condition upon which alone God's favor can be regained. It is a remarkable evidence of the strength and vitality of the national consciousness of God's election that the great prophets, even in the darkest days of Israel's history, even when they recognize THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 3 most clearly and denounce most vigorously the national sins, never lose faith in Israel nor falter in their convic- tion that the nation will yet repent and work righteous- ness and enjoy the promised blessing. Out of the experiences of the exile the returning Israel- ites brought the unalterable conviction of the truth of the preaching of the great prophets : national apostasy result- ing in national disaster; national righteousness securing divine blessing and bringing prosperity, peace, and plenty. Apostasy had borne its legitimate fruit ; the people were now one in their desire to promote and maintain national righteousness. But righteousness had come to mean something else than it had meant to the prophets. In post-exilic Judaism, it was God's holiness or sanctity that received especial emphasis. It was his separateness from all that is low and base, and his transcendent elevation above things of sense, that seemed particularly to charac- terize him in contrast with the gods of the heathen. It was under the influence of this conception of God that there was developed the Levitical law in all its cere- monial and ritual completeness, a law which gave clearest utterance to the national belief in God's sanctity, and which aimed to raise the national life above all that could corrupt and degrade, and thus to make the people fit for God. The purity aimed at by a large proportion of the Levitical rites was not so much ethical as physical. Many natural objects and processes were regarded as essentially impure and as defiling in their influence, quite independently of any fault or sin on the part of the person affected. The result was a tendency to lose sight of the great moral principles of human life under the pressure of the constant and anxious care required to maintain cere- monial cleanness and to restore it when violated. The law accomplished its purpose in so far as it rendered apostasy and idolatry practically impossible to an Israelite, and created a nation bent above all else on showing honor to God and on preserving his name inviolate. But it secured this at a heavy expense, for the observance of the law led not unnaturally to the substitution of hard and 4 THE APOSTOLIC AGE cold formalism for the heart service of the prophets. To the Pharisees, who after the Maccabean wars were the strictest and most consistent representatives of the reli- gious spirit of the age, righteousness meant the complete and minute performance of all the duties prescribed in the law, whether in the written Torah or in the great body of traditional precepts which had grown up about it. In that law, as commonly conceived, the moral and ceremo- nial elements stood on one plane. The distinction between them was lost sight of. The universal moral law as such did not enter into consideration. Its most sacred obligations were binding only because they consti- tuted a part of the national code ; and that code embraced a far larger body of ritual than of ethical requirements. The obligation to be helpful, merciful, and charitable was, to be sure, always recognized, but if the exercise of charity and mercy, or the performance of acts prompted by filial and fraternal devotion, involved the violation of any of the innumerable prescriptions touching Sabbath observance, purification, fasting, or tithing, it must be dispensed with. The letter of the law, even in its small- est and most trivial enactments, must be obeyed at all hazards. And this minute and literal observance of the entire law was not left to the scribes and Pharisees alone ; it was demanded of all the people, and the demand was very generally met. As has been well said, " All zeal for education in the family, the school, and the synagogue aimed at making the whole people a people of the law. The common man was to know what the law commanded, and not only to know, but to do it. His whole life was to be ruled according to the norm of law ; obedience thereto was to become a fixed custom, and departure therefrom an inward impossibility. On the whole, this object was to a great degree attained. So faithfully did most of the Jews adhere to their law, that they willingly incurred even tort- ure and death itself in consequence." 1 Along with this change in the conception of righteous- ness went also a change in the idea of the covenant which i Schiirer, I.e. II. S. 387 (Eng. Trans., Div. II. Vol. II. p. 90). THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 5 God had entered into with his chosen people. It was now more and more widely conceived in a commercial sense, as a mutual agreement by which both the contract- ing parties were legally bound: the nation to observe the law given by God ; God to pay the promised recompense in proportion to its performances. But not only had the religious and ethical ideals of the Jews undergone a modification, the hopes which they had inherited from the days of the prophets, and which consti- tuted an ever more prominent element in their thinking, likewise experienced a manifold development. These hopes found expression, from the days of Antiochus Epiph- anes on, in numerous apocalyptic works, in which the era of future blessedness is pictured in all sorts of forms and colors. The appearance of these works is an index of the tendency of the times. The thinking of the Jews was centring more and more in the future, and was tak- ing on an increasingly eschatological character. 1 But of still greater significance is the fact that their thought was concerning itself to a degree not true before with the future of the individual and with his relation to the Messianic age. In earlier centuries the prophetic hope of a better time to come had reference only to the nation as a whole. The" pious Israelite looked to the present for his personal reward, finding it in health, in happiness, and in long life. In the future he saw Israel glorious, but he did not think of himself as personally participating in that glory. But in the period succeed- ing the exile, under the pressure of present misfortune, the desire arose of sharing in the promised blessings which were ere long to be poured out upon God's people. The result was the development of a belief in the resurrection of pious Israelites, in order that they might enjoy the felicity of the Messianic age. And with the belief in a resurrection went naturally, hand in hand, the expecta- 1 Upon the Messianic ideas of the Jews in the centuries immediately pre- ceding the coming of Christ see, in addition to the works already referred to, Baldensperger : Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Liclite der messianischen Hoffnungen seiner Zeit, Erster Theil, Die messianischen Hoffnungen des Judenthums ; and Briggs : Messiah of the Gospels, Chap. I. 6 THE APOSTOLIC AGE tion of a judgment, by which should be determined the future of each individual; by which it should be deter- mined whether he was to have a part in the coming pros- perity. For wicked Israelites there was no hope. The people at large had become so impressed with the impor- tance of righteousness, that the unrighteous Jew was generally regarded as no better than a Gentile, and as without hope for the future. The thought of some did not go beyond this. It was enough that the unworthy should be excluded from the felicity of the faithful. But the belief became increasingly common that there would be a resurrection of the wicked as well as of the good, and that the former would suffer the penalty for their sins in the fires of Gehenna. But this growing emphasis upon the individual's rela- tion to the future meant, of course, a growing emphasis upon the connection between reward and performance. If his participation in the coming blessings depended upon his own conduct, then there was additional reason for keeping the law in all its strictness ; not in order to show 'his gratitude and devotion to God; not because he hun- gered and thirsted after righteousness; not even, as in earlier days, with the patriotic and, in part at least, un- selfish desire to promote the welfare of the nation as a whole and to hasten the consummation of its hopes, but in order to win for himself the promised reward. Righteousness in order to future happiness now became more and more generally the watchword of believing Israelites, and the commercial idea of the covenant between God and his people had full scope to work out to the uttermost its baleful effects. It is clear that the observance of the law must become increasingly a matter of pure calculation ; not how much can I do for the God that loves me and has so signally blessed me, but how little may I do and yet secure the reward I seek. The controlling conception is that of creditor and debtor, and the inevitable tendency is for the debtor to regard his creditor not with love and devotion, but with fear, and almost repulsion; to push him as far away as possible, THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 7 and to pay him only so much as may be exacted. 1 This spirit was of course not absolutely universal in the Juda- ism of the period with which we are dealing. There were undoubtedly many who were thoroughly in earnest in their effort to serve God, not merely for the sake of reward, but because of their love for him and their innate desire to do his will. But they were certainly the excep- tion, not the rule; and even such faithful souls found commonly in the observance of the law the only expres- sion for their devotion. 2 Concerning the nature of the future happiness and bless- edness for which all pious Israelites were looking, opinions differed more or less widely; but all agreed that the bless- ings were to be national blessings, that God was to estab- lish his kingdom, and that in that kingdom, and in it alone, the promised felicity was to be realized. 3 That felicity was pictured in the most glowing colors by the apocalyptic writers of the period with which we are deal- ing. Not only were the Jews to be freed from all foreign domination arid to be raised to a position of supremacy over all the earth, the Messianic age, the age of the king- dom, was to be a period of unexampled fruitfulness, of unmeasured health and prosperity, of unbroken peace and joy. But more than that, it was to be a time of perfect holiness and righteousness, when law and temple service should be observed with scrupulous and unvarying exact- ness, and all should be pure and upright in God's sight. Upon this feature of the coming kingdom the greatest stress was naturally laid, and it was widely believed that 1 This tendency is clearly revealed in the efforts of the scribes to make the observance of the law easier, without neglecting or violating its letter. 2 Not a few passages in Jewish literature show that it was possible for the law, in spite of the formalism to which its observance led on the part of the people in general, to meet and satisfy the religious needs of many devout souls and to nourish a profound type of piety. Compare, e.g., Psa. i., xix., cxix. For an admirable though somewhat one-sided presentation of the religious value of the law, see Montefiore's Hibbert Lectures (1892) on The Origin and Growth of Religions, as illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, especially Lect. IX. 3 Other peoples might sometimes be thought of as sharing in the national felicity, but only as they recognized the God of Israel and observed his law and became incorporated into the elect race. 8 THE APOSTOLIC AGE such pt..fect and permanent holiness would be secured through the influence of the divine Spirit, who would then be poured out upon the faithful and would guide and con- trol all their activities. The presence of the Spirit is represented in many Jewish writings as a characteristic mark of the Messianic age, which was thus to be distin- guished from the present aeon with its merely human powers and energies. The anticipation of the coming era of blessedness fre- quently included the expectation of a Messiah, who should lead God's chosen people to victory and bear rule in the consummated kingdom. At the same time, that expecta- tion was not universal and did not constitute a part of the original Messianic hope. Some of those that dwell most upon the approaching period of felicity are entirely silent respecting a Messiah. All agreed that the kingdom was to be God's kingdom, and that his authority would be supreme ; and consequently it was possible to think of it without any other head than Jehovah himself, and of its establishment by his own hand without the agency of another. And yet during the century, or century and a half, preceding the birth of Christ, there can be no doubt that the conception of a Messiah, and the anticipation of his coming, were growing more and more common. The earlier Sibylline Oracles, the Psalter of Solomon, the Book of Enoch, all refer to the advent of a Messianic king, and many passages in the Gospels and in Josephus indicate the general prevalence of the idea. 1 1 By those who thus looked for the coming of a personal Messiah, it was commonly supposed that he would be, not a divine, but a human being ; in constitution a man, but a man endowed by God (or by the Holy Ghost accord- ing to the Psalter of Solomon) with extraordinary gifts and powers which should fit him to lead God's chosen people to victory, and to rule his kingdom in wisdom, holiness, and righteousness. The idea of the Messiah's pre-existence was not wholly unknown ; and though by most he was regarded as a mere man, born like other men, and passing through the same stages of development with them, he was by some invested with supernatural features which raised him above the level of ordi- nary humanity. Still it is to be noticed that there was a tendency amonir Hie Jews to attribute pre-existence to all things that had religious worth, as for instance to the Torah, to the temple, and to Jerusalem, and, therefore, the ascription of pre-existence to the Messiah does not necessarily involve the ascription to him of divinity in any sense. The basis of the idea of the Mes- THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN ITY 9 At the opening of the Christian era the belief was wide- spread that the time was ripe for the establishment of the Messianic kingdom, and that the long-expected consum- mation was near at hand. The troublous times in which the Jews had been living since the beginning of the second century before Christ seemed to indicate the approach of the great crisis when judgment should be passed upon all the enemies of Israel, and the oppressed children of God be released from their long bondage. Though there were still some unrighteous Jews that did not fear God and obey his commands, yet on the whole his law was. observed with remarkable punctiliousness by the great body of the people, and it was felt that God could not long leave the national virtue unrewarded, could not long withhold the promised peace and blessedness. The Assumption of Moses, a work written about this time, represents the kingdom as just on the eve of establishment, and calls attention to the numerous signs which were heralding its coming. We learn also from Josephus, that many pretended Messiahs appeared during this period, and succeeded in leading multitudes away after them. Evi- dently the hope of the speedy establishment of the kingdom was very widespread, and the people at large were all expectancy. 2. JOHN THE BAPTIST Just at this juncture, John the Baptist began his preach- ing. Of the early life of John we know practically noth- ing. 1 He appeared suddenly from the wilderness, in the garb of an ascetic, announcing the immediate coming of the kingdom of God, and summoning his countrymen to siah's pre-existence may be found in Micah v. 2, which can easily bear that interpretation, and in Daniel vii. 13-14, where it is necessary only to inter- pret " Son of Man " as referring to the Messiah, in order to get his pre- existence, and thus the Book of Enoch actually does interpret the phrase. On the idea of pre-existence , see especially Haruack, Dogmengeschichte, 3te Auflage, I. S. 755 sq. 1 Luke, after speaking of John's birth, says only that " the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel" (Luke i. 80). 10 THE APOSTOLIC AGE repentance. The burden of his preaching was judgment. If the kingdom of God is at hand, the expected judgment must be impending, and hence the necessity of repentance unto the remission of sins. It is fully in accord with his character, as revealed in his ascetic mode of life, that his thought dwells rather upon the obligation entailed by the approach of the kingdom than upon the blessings involved in it, that he feels himself called to warn rather than to cheer and comfort. But John did not content himself with the announce- ment of the coming of the kingdom and with the preach- ing of repentance. According to the testimony of all our Gospels, he also foretold the advent of the Messiah; for none other than the Messiah can be referred to in the words: "There cometh one that is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire; whose fan is in his hand, thoroughly to cleanse his thresh- ing-floor, and to gather the wheat into his garner ; but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire." 1 The imagery is suggested by Isaiah and Malachi, the only advance upon them lying in the fact that John represents the judgment as conducted by the Messiah instead of by God himself; but in this he only reproduced an opinion that was doubtless common in his day. 2 In fact, his thought respecting the Messiah and his work moved wholly along traditional lines. His conceptions were based apparently not upon a special revelation of his own, received directly from God, nor upon any personal knowledge that he had of Jesus. How different indeed his idea of the Messiah's work was from Christ's idea, is shown by the message that Jesus sent him in reply to his question whether Jesus was the Messiah : " Go your way and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. And blessed i Luke iii. 16, 17 ; cf . Mark i. 7, 8 ; Matt. iii. 11, 12 ; John i. 26, 27. i Cf. The Book of Enoch, 45, 55, 61, 69. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 11 is he whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in me." 1 It is a significant fact that John represented himself neither as the Messiah nor as his expected forerunner. When the rulers of the Jews sent a delegation to inquire about his person and his purposes, he distinctly denied not only that he was the Christ, but also that he was either Elijah or " The Prophet. " 2 Evidently he conceived his connection with the coming kingdom not in any sense as official or peculiar, and his work as a work belonging to himself alone. He was convinced of the nearness of the great crisis, and he simply felt himself called to summon the people to prepare for it. He was in his own esteem a preacher merely, not a prophet, and he did not claim, as did the Old Testament prophets, to be giving utterance to a divine revelation. He was doing what any one else might have done; he was, in fact, doing what, for aught he knew, many more might do, and do as well, or even better, than himself. 3 1 Luke vii. 22, 23 ; Matt. xi. 5, 6. This inquiry addressed to Jesus by John, according to Matthew, after John had been cast into prison, seems to show that up to this time Jesus was not known by John to be the Messiah ; and that even now when the fame of his teaching had reached him he was in doubt whether Jesus was really the expected one or only a preacher of right- eousness like himself. This episode makes it difficult to regard John's earlier recognition of Jesus' Messiahship, to which reference is made in the first chapter of the fourth Gospel, and perhaps in Matt. iii. 14-15, as histori- cal. There is no hint in our original sources that John knew, while he was still preaching, that the Messiah was already come, or that he had any idea where and when he would appear. It is very significant that though, perhaps, some of John's disciples later became followers of Jesus (cf. John i. 37), not all of them did. Indeed, they continued to maintain their separate and inde- pendent existence as a sort of Johannine sect, for many years (Matt. ix. 14 ; Acts xviii. 25 and xix. 1 sq.) ; and almost a generation after their leader's death, some of them at least were still expecting the Messiah of whom he had spoken. It can hardly be supposed in the face of these facts, that John had told them that Jesus was the one to whose coming both he and they had been looking forward. 2 John i. 21. The words must be authentic, for no Christian would have thought of inventing them and putting them into John's mouth when Christ had so distinctly declared John to be the expected Elijah (Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 12 ; Mark ix. 13) . 3 The rite of baptism which John performed is not to be regarded as an official thing. He apparently employed it quite informally and simply as a symbol, with the purpose of impressing vividly upon his hearers the need of that purification of life which he was preaching. 12 THE APOSTOLIC AGE In his belief that the kingdom of God was at hand, John was not alone, as we have seen. He only voiced what was at the time a widespread conviction, and for that very reason his announcement found ready credence. And yet his influence seems to have been confined largely to the common people. They flocked to him in great numbers, but the leaders of the nation, the " chief priests and the scribes and the elders," appear to have held aloof. There is nothing surprising in this. If the kingdom was ap- proaching, it was well enough for the publicans and sinners to repent of their sins and endeavor to prepare themselves for it, but no duty of the kind devolved upon the religious aristocracy among the chosen people. Hav- ing satisfied themselves that John was not the Messiah, and that he had no definite information to impart respect- ing him, there was no reason why they should concern themselves further with him, any more than with any one else who might declare the kingdom to be approaching and emphasize the need of purity and righteousness on the part of the people at large. And so we are not surprised to find that our sources contain no indication that they ever took any steps against him. They seem to have treated him in the main, as was to have been expected, with utter indifference. But this goes to confirm the impression made by our sources, that John did not con- cern himself with political affairs. There is no trace of a political purpose in any of his recorded utterances, and his advice to the soldiers, who asked him what they should do, apparently thinking that there might be some special work for them to perform in connection with the approaching kingdom: "Do violence to no man, neither exact anything wrongfully, and be content with your wages," 1 certainly does not indicate that he was looking for a political and social revolution; nor do his words addressed to the people in general: "Begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham," 2 sound as if his mind were occu- i Luke iii. 14. 2 Luke iii. 8. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 13 pied with the national aspects of the kingdom which he preached." It is significant, in fact, that John has nothing whatever to say about the nature of the future kingdom, that he draws no pictures of it, and refers to it only as a reason for his exhortation to repentance. He was con- cerned not with future conditions and developments, but only with present reformation, which he felt to be the immediate and pressing need of the hour in view of the nearness of the judgment. That reformation, as John preached it, concerned not mere external observance, but the heart as well. It in- volved the exercise of mercy, justice, honesty, fidelity, and humility. 1 And yet there is no clear assertion in his recorded utterances of a general religious and ethical ideal of such a character as to effect a thorough reconstruction of the prevailing notions of the age. Evidently he felt very keenly the artificiality and externality of the reli- gious and ethical ideals of his countrymen, and yet he seems not to have been prepared to enunciate a clean-cut and thoroughgoing principle which should effectually modify them. It is also noticeable, and the fact may throw light upon his failure to enunciate such a principle, that in his recorded utterances he never criticises nor questions in any respect the validity of the Jewish law, written or unwritten, nor is he ever accused of doing so. It would seem, indeed, that he resembled the Pharisees in his emphasis upon the strictest observance of that law, if we may judge from the habits of his disciples, who, in distinction from the disciples of Jesus, fasted often. 2 The preaching of John was not of such a character as to leave any lasting impression upon the Jews. It was neither far-reaching enough nor sufficiently radical to effect a genuine and permanent reformation. He had nothing to offer the people which could arouse their enthusiasm and enlist their devotion. His announce- ment of the coming of the kingdom attracted their atten- tion, and they went out to him, hoping doubtless that they might actually witness its establishment, or at least 1 Cf. Luke iii. 10-14. 2 Mark ii. 18; Matt. ix. 14; Luke v. 33. 14 THE APOSTOLIC AGE learn all about it. But John could not show them the kingdom, nor could he give them any very explicit infor- mation respecting it ; and time passed, and still the king- dom whose approach he had proclaimed, and in which the interest of his hearers chiefly centred, did not reveal itself, and all remained as it had been. Save for a quick- ened sense of moral responsibility, and possibly a height- ened conception of ethical values, which he can hardly have failed to impart to some at least of those to whom he spoke, the condition of the people at large, their life, their hopes, their ideas and ideals, were apparently about the same after he had passed off the scene as before he began his work. That some were prepared by his preaching for the preaching of Jesus, there can be no doubt. Though his work was not of a character to abide, some must have found it easier to understand Jesus because of the moral sentiments that John had succeeded in arousing. And this Jesus recognized, and because of it he was led to pay John the tribute and to show him the honor which alone have made him immortal. But one thing the experience of John abundantly proves, if in the presence of the numerous apocalyptic writings of the age any proof be needed, and light is thrown by it upon the career of Jesus. No religious teacher could hope to attract the attention and to hold the interest of the Jewish people in general at the time of which we are speaking, unless his teaching related itself to the expected kingdom of God; unless he had something of importance to communicate respecting it, or something of importance to do in connection with its establishment. No religious reformation could have any hope of success, except as it rooted itself in the people's thought and hope of that kingdom. It was as a preacher of the kingdom that John first attracted notice, and it was as a preacher of the king- dom that Jesus first riveted attention upon himself. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 15 3. JESUS l The Gospel of Mark opens its account of Jesus' minis- try with the words : " Now after that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye and believe in the gospel." 2 It was thus as a preacher of the kingdom that Jesus began his public career; and it is only as we recognize this fact that we can understand him at all. But in order to realize what it meant to him to be a preacher of the kingdom, we must go back a little. Our knowledge of Jesus' early life and training is very meagre. It is not altogether without significance that his youth was passed in Galilee, where the influence of the scribes and doctors of the law was less controlling than in Jerusalem, and where, though the law itself and the traditions of the elders were observed on the whole with reasonable punctiliousness, such observ- ance did not to the same extent as in Judea dominate the thought and life of the people. Galilee was regarded by the doctors of Jerusalem as much less genuinely and thor- oughly Jewish than the southern portion of the Holy Land, and it received from them the contemptuous appel- lation of the "Court of the Gentiles." It was looked upon, moreover, as inferior to Judea not simply in reli- gious devotion, but also in general culture. The schools were fewer arid poorer, and rabbinic learning much rarer, than in the south. Educated in Galilee, therefore, it was hardly to be expected that Jesus would feel the influence 1 See in addition to the Lives of Christ and the general works on New Testament theology, Wendt : Lehre Jesu (Eng. Trans, of Vol II. in two vol- umes, The Teaching of Jesus) ; Baldensperger : Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Lichte der Messianischen Hoffnungen seiner Zeit, Zweiter Theil, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu ; Toy : Judaism and Christianity ; Cone : The Gospel and its Earliest Interpretations; Briggs : The Messiah of the Gospels ; and the numerous works on the kingdom of God which have appeared in recent years, among them, Bruce: The Kingdom of God; Schmoller: Die Lehre vom Reiche Gottes in den Schriften des Neuen Testaments ; Issel : Die Lehre vom Reiche Gottes im Neuen Testament; J. Weiss: Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes; Schnedermann : Jesu Verkundigung und Lehre vom Reiche Gottes. * Mark i. 14, 15. 16 THE APOSTOLIC AGE of rabbinic methods and of the traditions of the schools to the same extent that he must have done had he lived in Jerusalem. There is no trace of anything of the kind in his recorded utterances, and he was never accused, so far as we can learn, of being a renegade scribe or Pharisee. An interesting and very instructive incident of his boy- hood has been preserved, which throws welcome light upon his religious development, and does much to explain his subsequent career. The incident is recorded in Luke ii. 44 sq. From that passage we learn that already, at the age of twelve years, Jesus had the conviction that God was his father, and that that conviction controlled him to such an extent that it seemed quite natural and right to him, upon the occasion in question, to allow what he regarded as his filial duty to his divine father to take precedence of his ordinary duty to his human parents. How and when this epoch-making conviction came to him, it would be idle to conjecture. Under the influence of the Hebrew Scriptures, with which he was very familiar, he might have been led to conceive of God as the father of the Jewish nation, for that idea finds at least occasional ex- pression in those writings which he most loved to quote; but the far more remarkable fact that God's fatherhood was interpreted by him as of individual and not simply national significance, that it meant to him not merely Israel's divine sonship, but his own, can find its ultimate explanation only in his own unique religious personality. But in whatever way and at whatever time Jesus gained the consciousness of his divine sonship, once gained, it must have dominated his thought and life, and he must have found in it more and more life's chief blessedness. And as he grew older, and learned more of the religious condition of his people, as he saw how small a place the idea of God's fatherhood occupied in contemporary thought, and to what superficiality, selfishness, formality, and hy- pocrisy the lack of it had led, he must have felt increas- ingly the importance of it, and his countrymen's supreme need of its uplifting and ennobling power. At the same time that he was finding unfailing joy in THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 17 his sense of God's fatherly love and favor, his study of the Old Testament and the surroundings in which he lived must have conspired to fill his mind with the thought of the better and brighter future in store for God's chosen people. He could hardly help sharing in the Messianic hopes that were cherished by all about him. Those hopes were most vivid not among the scribes and doctors of the law, but among the more devout and humble of the common people, who found their religious nourishment chiefly in the prophets and in the numerous apocalyptic writings of the age. There can be little doubt, then, that Jesus, like so many of his compatriots, including John himself, was looking for the speedy establishment of the Messianic kingdom; and John's proclamation of that kingdom must have found quick response in his heart. The profound impression which the great preacher made upon him is shown in his own utterances concerning him at a later time, and the emphasis which John laid upon the neces- sity of repentance and righteousness as the true prepara- tion for the approaching crisis, could not fail to meet with his hearty approval. That he should enroll himself among John's disciples, and receive baptism at his hands, was the most natural thing in the world. The act was simply an expression of his own expectation of the speedy com- ing of the kingdom to which John was giving such vigor- ous utterance, and of his own preparedness therefor. It was in connection with his baptism that Jesus seems to have received for the first time the revelation of his own Messiahship, of his own intimate and peculiar relation to the kingdom for whose coming he was looking. The words that he is reported to have heard spoken from heaven on that occasion: "Thou art my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased," 1 imply nothing less than his conviction of his Messiahship, for they combine two familiar pro- phetic utterances, which were at that time commonly regarded as referring to the Messiah ; 2 and that he had not previously reached that conviction is rendered probable i Mark i. 11 ; Luke iii. 22; cf . Matt. iii. 17. 2 Psa. ii. 7; Isa. xlii. 1. 18 THE APOSTOLIC AGE by the fact that the temptation immediately followed. 1 That experience can be understood only in its relation to Jesus' Messianic consciousness; and if that consciousness had come to him at an earlier time, the remarkable scene described in such poetic form by Matthew and Luke must have taken place then. What that temptation meant, if it was, as it must have been, a real temptation, we can hardly doubt. Our knowledge of Jesus' character forbids the supposition that he was tempted to use his Messianic calling and power for merely selfish purposes. And yet through the whole scene runs the conflict of a lower ideal with a higher, the conflict apparently of the common Messianic ideal of his countrymen, who were looking for the bestowal upon Israel of earthly plenty, earthly glory, earthly power, with the higher ideal of man's supreme blessedness which his own religious experience had given him. That Jesus had shared the common Messianic ideals of his people, the temptation itself seems to show, though we cannot believe that he had seen in improved earthly conditions the only, or even the chief, blessing of the com- ing kingdom. But the Messianic call brought him face to face with the question, not whether earthly prosperity and a life of conscious divine sonship are theoretically compatible, but whether he could, consistently with his own character and experience, devote himself to the fulfil- ment of the common earthly hopes of his countrymen; whether he could be true to himself and yet be the kind of Messiah they expected. When he had reached the conviction that he could not be, that there was nothing in him to respond to their demands, that loyalty to God, whose fatherhood had been so clearly revealed to him through the experience of years, forbade the use of his powers for any but a single end, and that the very high- est, there may perhaps have pressed upon him the tempta- tion to doubt the reality of his Messianic call. Of such a temptation, most natural under the circumstances, the repeated taunt of the Devil, "If thou be the Son of God," 1 On the baptism and temptation of Jesus, see especially Wendt, I.e., II. S. ' 65, sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. I., p. 96, sq.). THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 19 seems to contain at least a suggestion. But Jesus pre- vailed over the tempter, and his victory meant the assured and permanent conviction not only of his own Messiah- ship, but also of his call to be not an earthly prince and conqueror, but the revealer to all his brethren of the fatherhood of God; the mediator to them of the blessed- ness of divine sonship which he had himself for so long enjoyed, and which he knew to be man's highest posses- sion. But, of course, in this conviction was involved a changed conception of the nature of the expected Mes- sianic kingdom. If Jesus, being. the Messiah, was called not to secure for Israel earthly plenty and earthly power, but to be the medium for the impartation of purely spirit- ual gifts, the Messianic kingdom was to be a kingdom marked by the possession of spiritual blessings, and in it were to be fully realized God's fatherhood and man's divine sonship. It is such a kingdom that Jesus pro- claimed, according to all our sources ; and it must have been such a kingdom that he had in mind at the very beginning, when "after John was delivered up, he came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying the kingdom of God is at hand." 1 But we must not suppose that in preaching thus Jesus was proclaiming any other than the promised Messianic kingdom to which the Jews had so long been looking for- ward. Our sources make it very clear that he believed himself to be not an unannounced and unheralded mes- senger of God, but the Messiah of the prophets, and the kingdom of God which he proclaimed, the kingdom fore- told by them. This being the case, Jesus was not con- cerned, as he must otherwise have been, to turn the thoughts of his contemporaries from the kingdom of their hopes to another kingdom, and to deny the coming of the former in order to clear the way for the latter. He began with the announcement of the approach of that for which they were all looking, and throughout his ministry it was this kingdom, and none other, of which he spoke. It is very significant that Jesus nowhere sets over against the i Mark i. 14, 15. 20 THE APOSTOLIC AGE pictures of the kingdom drawn by the apocalyptic writers and current among the people, a new picture, or descrip- tion, or definition of it. He dwells with constant insis- tence upon the spirit and the life which characterize the kingdom, and which must characterize all within it, upon the state of heart without which a man cannot enter it; but beyond that he rarely goes. And so when we seek to determine his conception of it, we are left to formulate it for ourselves as best we can, upon the basis chiefly of parables which were employed by him for another purpose, the practical purpose of bringing those who heard him into the right attitude toward God their father. It has been supposed by many that Jesus adopted the phrase "kingdom of God" simply as a convenience, and that he employed it in his preaching only because he could thus best secure the attention of his countrymen and convey to them his divine message. But the supposition is un- warranted. There can be no doubt that he believed pro- foundly in the kingdom, and that his career was moulded to no small degree by that belief. Much of his teaching can be understood on no other supposition. It was not simply a Gospel that he had to preach, it was the Gospel of the kingdom. And so the conditions of realizing one's divine sonship were conceived by him as conditions of entering the kingdom, and the actual realization of that sonship as life within the kingdom. All the way through the thought of the kingdom dominates. But the combination of the idea of God's fatherhood, the fruit of Jesus' own religious experience, with the conception of the kingdom of God, which he owed to his Jewish birth and training, led him gradually, perhaps, but inevitably, to regard that kingdom as a present and not simply a future thing. 1 If the realization on man's 1 See the parables of the wheat and the tares, of the leaven and of the mustard seed, of the hid treasure, of the pearl, and of the net, recorded in Matt. xiii. Compare also Matt. xi. 11, 12, xii. 28 ; Mark xii. 34 : and Luke xvii. 20, 21. It is noticeable that these utterances do not belong to any particular period of Jesus' life. So far as we are able to judge, he spoke thus at various times, both early and late. He must have realized from the beginning to the end of his ministry that the kingdom which he preached was a present reality, for conscious fellowship with God was already possible. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 21 part of his filial relation to his father God, with all that it implies, is the chief blessing of the Messianic kingdom, if it is indeed the only blessing which the Messiah feels himself called to mediate, it cannot be that the kingdom is wholly future and will come into existence only after the close of the present seon ; for even here and now its supreme privilege may be realized by others, as it has been already realized by the Messiah himself. Thus bringing to his brethren the Gospel of God's fatherly love, and awakening in their hearts an answering love and devotion, Jesus felt that the kingdom was really come ; and he saw in those who accepted his message, and asso- ciated themselves with him as his disciples, not simply heirs of a future inheritance, but citizens of a kingdom already set up on earth. In thus regarding the kingdom as a present reality, Jesus departed in a most decisive way from the conceptions entertained by his countrymen. In fact, nowhere is the vital difference between his view and theirs revealed more clearly than here. Others might regard righteousness, and even fellowship with God, as the supreme blessing of the kingdom, but no one else, so far as we know, took the step taken by Jesus and declared that kingdom already here. But Jesus thought of the kingdom of God at the same time as a future reality, existing in the midst of a new and changed environment, after the end of the present world. This appears not simply in the apocalyptic dis- courses gathered together in the later chapters of our Sy- noptic Gospels, but also in various utterances belonging apparently to different periods of his ministry. Such, for instance, are the following: " Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works ? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from me, ye that work iniquity." l " And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of i Matt. vii. 21, 22. 22 THE APOSTOLIC AGE heaven: but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth." 1 " For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in his own glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels." 2 Indeed, in the light of such passages as these, it is clear that his proclamation of the coming of the kingdom, with which Jesus began his ministry, had reference not chiefly to the formation of a company of disciples, by which the kingdom was made a present reality, but to the final consummation, for which it behooved every one to prepare himself by repentance. Jesus' conception of the future kingdom was doubtless due in part to Jewish influence, but in still larger part to his own experience. His all-controlling consciousness of the fatherly love of God, not simply for Israel as a nation, but for himself and his brethren as individuals, and his conviction of man's divine sonship, must have invested with a new and profound significance the common belief in personal immortality. He must have found the chief value of the future life in the fact that it was to open to the individual the perfect knowledge of his divine father's will and the privilege of intimate and unbroken commu- nion with him. But when at the time of his baptism and temptation Jesus reached the conviction that in the realiza- tion of man's divine sonship consists the essence of the Messianic kingdom, he must have reached the farther conviction that in the complete and perfect and eternal realization of that sonship, which was to be the character- istic mark of the future life with God, the Messianic king- dom would also find its complete and perfect and eternal realization. Thus he was led to look forward to a time of consummation, and thus he was able to do it without involving himself in the material and sensuous ideas of his countrymen. 3 1 Matt. viii. 11, 12. Cf. Luke xiii. 28, 29. 2 Luke ix. 26. Cf. Matt. xvi. 27. See also the parables of the kingdom Avhich close with a reference to the future. 3 How widely Jesus' idea of the future kingdom differed from that of most THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 23 But it is conceivable that Jesus might have looked for- ward to the complete and perfect realization of the king- dom in the future life with God without picturing a crisis separating the future from the present, such as was ex- pected by the Jews in general. It is possible, indeed, that in the earlier days of his ministry that crisis was not in his mind. But however that may be, he cannot have preached long without discovering that there were many of his countrymen who would not repent in response to his appeals and live the life of God's sons, and who there- fore could not share in the eternal blessedness of the king- dom which he proclaimed. When he was convinced of this, the necessity of a judgment, by which should be determined man's fitness for the Messianic kingdom, was of course apparent. Jesus cannot have preached long, moreover, without realizing that the hostility of the authorities, so early manifested, would result in his speedy execution. 1 But when he saw that he was to die before the nation was won, and consequently before the time was ripe for the consummation, it was inevitable, unless he were to give up his belief in his own Messiah- ship, as of course he could not do, that he should think of himself as coming again to announce the consummated kingdom and to fulfil in preparation therefor the office of Messianic judge. The imagery of a return upon the clouds of heaven is taken from the Book of Daniel; but though that book may have colored Jesus' thought upon the subject, and though his belief in his own return and in his exercise of judgment may have found confirmation of his countrymen appears in the significant answer which he gave the Sad- ducees: " In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven" (Matt. xxii. 30). In the light of euch an utterance as this, and also of the general tendency of Jesus' teaching, it seems necessary to interpret the passages in which eating and drinking in the king- dom of the future aeon are spoken of (Luke xiii. 29, xxii. 30; Mark xiv. 25) in a figurative sense. See Wendt, Lehre Jesu, II. S. 169 sq. (Eng. Trans., I. p. 219 sq.). 1 Whether Jesus foresaw his execution from the beginning, or whether the realization of it grew upon him gradually, we cannot certainly tell. See on the one side Haupt, Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den synop- tischen Evangelien, S. 107 sq., and on the other side, Wendt, Lehre Jesu, II. S. 504 (Eng. Trans., II. p. 218). 24 THE APOSTOLIC AGE in Scripture and tradition, 1 that belief had its ultimate basis in his own Messianic consciousness. Jesus distinctly disavows, in reply to his disciples' questions, a knowledge of the date of his return, inform- ing them that God alone is cognizant of it. 2 And yet he apparently expected it to take place at an early day. 3 There are some passages, indeed, which, taken as they stand, represent him as prophesying that the consumma- tion would come even before the death of those to whom he spoke. 4 But it is difficult from such passages to deter- mine with assurance exactly what he thought and said ; for the extended apocalyptic discourses, which contain most of his declarations upon the subject, are made up of numerous detached sayings, very likely uttered on differ- ent occasions and referring perhaps to various events. They are brought together by the Evangelists in such a way that they seem to have been spoken at one time, and to refer to the same event. We cannot be certain, there- fore, that Jesus declared that the Son of Man would return within the lifetime of some of those whom he addressed. But the Evangelists, and with them the early Christians in general, believed that he did ; and though they may have misunderstood him, they could hardly have done so unless he had given expression to his expec- tation at least of an early consummation, an expectation which was entirely in line with all we know of his con- ception of the kingdom. 6 The conditions of entrance into the kingdom of God 1 The Messiah is represented as judge in Enoch, c. 45, 55, 61, 69; and John the Baptist also thought of him as such, so that there can be no doubt that the idea was common. At the same time the belief that God was himself to act as judge was also widespread. Cf. IV. Esdras vi. 1 sq., vii. 33; Enoch xc. 20, and the Assumptio Mosis, Chap. X. 2 Mark xiii. 32. 8 It is true that there are some utterances which apparently imply the lapse of a considerable interval before the consummation; as, for instance, the parables concerning the growth of the kingdom, and especially Mark xiii. 10, where it is said, " the gospel must first be preached unto all the nations." But such utterances are not absolutely irreconcilable with Jesus' expectation of a speedy return, and our sources contain so many indications of that expec- tation that it is difficult to question it. Matt. xvi. 28, xxiv. 34 ; Mark ix. 1. xiii. :;<) : Luke ix. 27, xxi. :. 6 Cf. also in addition to the passages already referred to, Mark xiv. 25 j Luke xviii. 8. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 25 were phrased by Christ in various forms, but a careful analysis of all his utterances upon the subject makes it plain that he regarded as the essential and all-embracing condition the true spirit of sonship toward the father God. The emphasis was always laid by him upon the heart rather than upon the external act. The act might be proper and right enough, but it had value in his eyes only as the disposition which prompted it was what it ought to be, only as it was the disposition of a son of God. And so when he summoned men to repentance, as we are told that he did at the very beginning of his career, it was not primarily to a repentance for unrighteous words and deeds, but for the lack at any time and in any degree of the spirit and purpose of the true son. It is in the light of this fact that Jesus' attitude toward the Jewish law must be interpreted. That law was a divine law to him as truly as to any of his countrymen, and the obedience which he insisted upon as an essential part of the conduct of a true son of God included its observance. As he inculcated the most absolute and thoroughgoing conformity to God's will, 1 so he incul- cated the most absolute and thoroughgoing conformity to the law, a conformity which should far surpass that of the Pharisees. 2 The trouble with them was that they observed the law not too much, but too little. Their boasted righteousness was immeasurably below the stand- ard which he set. Not only in their practices, but also in their precepts, they were far from what they ought to be. They were hypocrites, for they did not practise what they preached; 3 and they were at the same time blind leaders of the blind, for they taught a false observance of the law, which defeated the very purpose for which it had been given. 4 A large part of Jesus' energy was devoted to the undoing of the mischief which they had done. It was his great endeavor to interpret the law properly and to show the people what true obedience of it meant. The principle of interpretation he found in love for God and man. In 1 Cf. Matt. vii. 21; Mark iii. 35. 3 Matt, xxiii. 2 Matt. v. 17 sq. 4 Matt. xv. 14, xxiii. 16, 24. 26 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the word "love " the spirit and conduct of the true son are fully expressed, and in that word the law, which is noth- ing else than God's revealed will for the government of his children's lives, maybe comprehensively summed up. 1 But the application of that principle meant an entire change of emphasis and a new estimate of values. It meant that the external rites and ceremonies, which con- stituted so large a part of the Jewish law, were not an end in themselves, but only a means to a higher end, and that they had value only because they expressed and pro- moted the true attitude of a man toward God and his fellows. Thus the offerings and the sacrifices, the tithes, the fasts, and the Sabbath observances were significant only because of the spirit of true worship that voiced itself in them and was nourished by them. Jesus did riot mean that the external rites and ceremonies were to be neglected, but that they were to be used as aids and instruments only, and that they were therefore to be subordinated, whenever they came in conflict with them, to the weightier matters of the law, to judgment and mercy and faith. 2 This principle made it possible for Jesus to exercise a large measure of liberty in connection with the law, while at the same time maintaining its divine character and in- culcating its faithful observance. 3 That he anticipated that the law would ever be done away there is no sign. He saw no inconsistency between it and the exercise of love toward God and man, and it perhaps never occurred to him that the time would yet come for its abrogation. He certainly observed it faithfully himself, and he spoke and acted in such a way that his disciples did not think of any other course as legitimate or possible. The fact that Jesus thus maintained a conservative attitude toward the law does not indicate that he meant to exclude Gentiles from the kingdom of God. It is true 1 Matt. xxii. 37. *Matt. xxiii. 23: "Ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone." Cf. Luke xi. 42; Matt. v. 23; Mark vii. 10 sq. See Matt. xvii. 2(5 ; Mark ii. 27 sq. and parallels. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 27 that during the earlier part of his ministry he seems to have had only his own countrymen in mind, 1 but before his death, when he realized that his Gospel would be re- jected by the nation at large, he distinctly contemplated the entrance of foreign peoples into the kingdom. 2 And yet even then he said nothing of an abrogation or neglect of the Mosaic law, for had he done so, we should certainly find some trace of his words, either in the records of his life or in the conduct of his followers. He perhaps thought of the Gentiles as worshipping and serving God in the same way that the Jews did, and as taking their place with the latter, or instead of the latter, 3 in the existing household of faith. But though Jesus thus remained throughout his life a genuine Jew, both in precept and practice, he nevertheless gave utterance to a principle which must revolutionize the prevailing conception of the law, and which must make possible an attitude toward it very different from that of the Jews in general. If the law was a means only, and not an end in itself, the time might coftie when its usefulness would be outlived and when it would need to be done away in order that the higher end which it was meant to serve might be promoted and not hindered. That time did not come during Jesus' life, and he gave no clear indication that he expected it ever to come ; but the subsequent history of Christianity would not have been what it was had not his principles made its coming possible. It has been seen that the supreme condition of entrance into the kingdom of God, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the true spirit of sonship. To this one condition he adds no other. Even the passages in which he empha- sizes the importance of a man's belief in, or attachment to himself, when rightly interpreted, are seen to involve nothing more or different. It is significant that during the early part of his ministry, according to the account of Mark, who reproduces most accurately the true order 1 Matt. x. 5 ; Mark vii. 27. 2 Matt. viii. 11 sq., xxi. 43. Compare also Matt, xxviii. 19, and John x. Ifi, whose authenticity is less certain. 8 Cf. Matt. viii. 12, xxi. 43, xxiii. 37. 28 THE APOSTOLIC AGE of events, Jesus said nothing of the necessity of coming into fellowship with himself. Only after the clear declaration of his Messiahship at Csesarea Philippi 1 did he begin to bring his own personality forward and speak of a man's relation to him as determining in any. way his character or destiny. This reticence, however, re- markable as it may seem at first sight, was entirely in line with his course respecting the announcement of his Mes- siahship. Though he already believed himself to be the Christ, he began his ministry not w r ith any reference to his own character or commission, but with the preaching of the kingdom of God, and he systematically refrained for a considerable period from declaring himself to be the Messiah, and even forbade others to proclaim him as such. The incident at Csesarea Philippi marked an epoch in his ministry, for it was then that he first distinctly acknowl- edged his Messianic calling to his disciples, and even then he charged them that they should tell no one else. 2 His first public admission that he was the Messiah seems to have been made only at the very close of his life, upon the occasion of his final visit to Jerusalem. Evidently Jesus had a purpose in thus concealing his Messiahship for so long a time. Conscious, as he was, of the difference between his own mission and work, and the ideal cher- ished by the majority of his countrymen, he doubtlese feared that a premature declaration would arouse false hopes respecting his mission, would precipitate an im- mediate crisis, and would make it impossible for him to prepare his countrymen as he wished to prepare them for the coming of a spiritual kingdom. Only when he realized that he was not to succeed in influencing any great number of the people, and that, on the contrary, his speedy death was inevitable, does he seem to have deemed it necessary to declare himself clearly, in the first place to his disciples, in order to prepare them for the impending crisis, and finally to the people at large. And so when he was executed, it was as a distinct claimant to the Mes- sianic dignity. i Mark viii. 27 sq. and parallels. a Mark viii. 30. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 29 In view of the course pursued by Jesus in this matter, it is not at all surprising that he should have refrained during the earlier months of his ministry from emphasiz- ing the importance of a man's attachment to himself, and from making recognition of himself a condition of entrance into the kingdom of God. But there are in our Synoptic Gospels some utterances, belonging, according to Mark, to the latter part of Jesus' life, in which, though nothing is said about faith in him, a man's ultimate salvation is brought into some kind of connection with his attitude toward Christ. These passages are not numerous, but some of them are very striking. Among the strongest of them are such as the following: "Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's shall save it." 1 " Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." 2 "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." 3 "Every one that hath left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold and shall inherit eternal life." 4 To these are to be added those Johannine passages in which Jesus connects eternal life with belief in himself. In regard to all these utter- ances it is to be observed that it is not the failure to believe in Christ, or the failure to take a certain attitude toward him, that is condemned by Jesus, and is said to involve the loss of future salvation, but only the cowardly denial of him by his followers, or the wilful refusal to receive his message by those to whom he utters that mes- sage. While in many other passages in which a man's relation to Jesus is spoken of, it is his relation to God which is made the important thing, and belief in Christ, or the acceptance of him, is emphasized because it means i Mark viii. 35. 2 Mark viii. 38. a Matt. x. 32, 33. 4 Matt. xix. 28, 29. Compare also Matt. viii. 22, xix. 21. 30 THE APOSTOLIC AGE belief in or acceptance of the God who sent him and whom he reveals. It would seem in the light of these facts that when Jesus speaks of a man's relation to himself as deter- mining his future destiny, he is not enunciating a new condition of salvation in addition to the general condition already described ; is not requiring something more than the life of a true son of God, but is thinking of a man's connection with himself, because through him he may acquire a knowledge of his father God and come into inti- mate fellowship with him. In assuming as unquestioned the presence of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the king- dom of heaven, 1 Jesus intimates the possibility of man's coming into fellowship with God without coming into relation to the Messiah. At the same time, he evidently believes, and indeed in a number of cases, according to John, he distinctly and unequivocally asserts, that no true son of God can deny him or refuse to receive his message, for every true son of God that comes into contact with him will inevitably recognize him as God's mes- senger and revealer. We may conclude, then, that Jesus' emphasis of faith in or acceptance of himself, is through- out an emphasis not of his personality but of his message, and thus simply a reassertion of filial trust in, devotion to, and service of God, as the essential and sufficient con- dition of an eternal life of blessedness with God in heaven. Thus did Jesus in all his teaching endeavor to prepare the minds and hearts of his countrymen for the kingdom of God, whose approach he announced. Nor were his efforts entirely without effect. Many were attracted by him, and he speedily gathered about him quite a company of disciples, who did not, however, regard him as the Messiah, at least for some time, perhaps the majority of them not until almost the close of his life. Those that fol- lowed him, so far as they were not actuated by mere curi- osity,or by the desire to enjoy the benefit of his miraculous power, did it very much for the same reason that so many had followed John the Baptist, because he announced the coming of the kingdom of God, and because they believed 1 Matt. viii. 11. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 31 that from him they could learn the time and the conditions of its establishment, and in his company could best prepare themselves for it. But before he died Jesus distinctly and publicly avowed himself to be the Messiah, and thus his work took on an aspect very different from that of John the Baptist. Even after his death John was regarded as a prophet by the great mass of the people ; but when Jesus died, he left behind him only those, on the one hand, who believed him to be nothing but the worst of impostors, and those, on the other hand, who believed him to be the Messiah in spite of his death. The bond that thenceforth bound his disciples together was therefore very different from that which united John's followers. The latter were no better off than any pious Israelites who might be looking for the coming of the kingdom. But the disciples of Jesus were awaiting the return of a king whom they already knew and loved, and who had with- drawn himself only for a brief season from the public gaze. And so, though Jesus failed to secure for his Gospel of the kingdom the acceptance of the people as a whole, as he had once hoped to do ; though he left behind him only a small company of disciples, whose numbers were doubt- less sadly reduced by his execution, his life was not a failure, and he knew that it was not ; for he had succeeded in convincing them at least, if not others, that he was actually the promised Messiah, and that the Messianic kingdom was to find in him its founder and its head. He had thus given them a bond of union which he knew would serve to keep them his until the consummation, and would nerve and inspire them to carry on till then the work of preparation which he could not live to com- plete. The secret of his historic significance lies just in this fact. Jesus Christ has been thought of almost from the beginning as the incarnation of deity and as the per- fect and ideal man. But it was not upon his deity, nor yet upon the perfection of his humanity, that his dis- ciples founded the Christian Church. The men whom he gathered about him regarded him in neither of these 32 THE APOSTOLIC AGE aspects. They thought of him only as the Messiah, and the fact that he left a church behind him, instead of a mere name, and that he is known to history as the founder of a religion, and not as a mere sage or prophet, is historically due not so much to the uniqueness of his character or nature, as to the conviction which he imparted to his fol- lowers that he Avas the one who had been promised by the prophets and long awaited by the fathers. It is true that he could not have imparted that conviction, in the face of the difficulties with which it was beset, had he not been what he was ; had it not been for the overmastering impression made by his life and character. But he might have been all that he was, and yet have accomplished little more than John the Baptist did, had he not stepped into the place which had for so long been waiting to be filled, and become the centre of the accumulated hopes and expectations of centuries. The Gospel of the father- hood of God which he preached and lived is fitted to reform and beautify and save the lives of men, but the revelation of that Gospel would not itself have resulted in the Christian Church. Only the belief in Jesus' Messiahship could effect the great historic movement which bears, not his personal, but his official name. It was doubtless because of Jesus' conviction that he would be put to death before the full accomplishment of the work to which he had been devoting himself, that he turned his especial attention, during the latter part of his ministry, to his disciples, endeavoring to equip them for the important duty that was to devolve upon them after his departure. It was during this period that he warned them repeatedly of the difficulties and dangers which they would have to face ; that he cautioned them to be firm and steadfast, and encouraged them with the promise of a speedy consummation, when their faith and patience should have their full reward. It was then, also, that he promised that the Holy Spirit should be sent to instruct and assist them, and that he himself would return and abide with them. It is to be doubted whether Jesus meant to separate sharply his own coming and the coming of the THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 33 Spirit. It is more probable that he thought of the Spirit of God as mediating his fellowship with his disciples, as the power enabling them to see him with their spiritual vision, to be conscious of his abiding presence, and to live in constant communion with him. His promise, then, began to find fulfilment, not when the Spirit came at Pen- tecost, but long before Pentecost, when, after his death and the season of despair that followed, his disciples became convinced that he still lived and again entered into joyful fellowship with him, a fellowship permanent and unbroken. 1 And so Jesus did not regard his death as putting a stop to his work, or as involving the destruction of the cause for which he had lived and labored. Indeed, before the end came, he had learned to look upon his death as a positive advantage to the cause so dear to his heart and as a means of advancing the interests of the kingdom of God. He told his disciples distinctly, according to John's Gospel, that it was better for him to die, because then the Spirit could come, and his coming would prove a greater blessing than their master's continued bodily presence. He saw that only when he was gone from them, could their earthly ideas and ideals be finally done away, and they understand fully the spiritual conceptions 1 There is no indication in our sources that Jesus thought of the coming of the Spirit as instituting a new stage in the Kingdom of God, or as constituting the establishment of the Kingdom in any sense. He thought, so far as our sources enable us to judge, of only two stages of the Kingdom ; the one al- ready begun with the gathering of disciples about himself on earth, the other to be ushered in by his return in glory at the end of the present aeon. Through the Spirit his continued fellowship with his disciples was to be made possible, and he was thus to be in his Kingdom on earth as truly after his death as before. The dispensation of the Spirit therefore is not to be distinguished from the dispensation of Christ. He himself was in the Spirit when on earth; his possession by the Spirit was in fact one of the most notable features of his life and work (cf. Matt. iii. 16, iv. 1, xii. 18; Mark i. 10, 12; Luke iv. 1, 14, 18; John i. 32, 33 ; also Matt. xii. 28, where Jesus says, " If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils," while in the parallel passage, in Luke xi. 20, the phrase "finger of God " is used. Compare also the impression produced by Jesus upon his enemies, who declared that he was possessed of a devil; Mark iii. 22, 30 ; Matt. ix. 34 ; John viii. 48, x. 20 ; see Gunkel : Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes, S. 37). And so after his death Jesus simply continued to abide with his disciples in the Spirit. This at any rate is the impression produced by the words of Jesus recorded in John, who reproduces his utterances upon the sub- ject most fully, and doubtless with substantial accuracy. D 34 THE APOSTOLIC AGE and appreciate the spiritual values of which he had been endeavoring to tell them. Thus he believed that bodily separation would bring about a closeness of communion such as he and his disciples had not hitherto enjoyed, and would enable them to testify of him with a power and wisdom not hitherto possible. But Jesus was not only convinced that his death would thus lead to good results, he also believed that it possessed a real value and significance of its own. When he saw that death was inevitable, he seems also to have realized at the same time that it was the consistent carrying out of that principle of the kingdom to which he gave such frequent utterance, the principle of self-denying, self -renouncing service, and to have believed that the sacrifice of his life, as the supreme act of service, would inevitably redound to the good of all his disciples, of all those for whose sake that sacrifice was made. It is significant that in connection with the first announcement of his death, Jesus emphasized self-denial as a condition of discipleship, and even went so far as to say, " Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, shall save it." 1 Both then and later, when he spoke of the cup which he had to drink and of his life given for the ransom of many, he made his own ministry, even unto death, an example for his followers, and pointed to it as the strongest kind of an expression of the principle of service which he preached. But Jesus represented his death not simply as an act, and the supreme act, of service, but also, at the time of the last supper, as a sacrifice offered for the sealing of the covenant which God made with his disciples, just as the earlier covenant had been sealed by a sacrifice at Horeb. 2 This idea of the significance of his death can hardly have been in Jesus' mind from the beginning, for he makes no other reference to such a covenant, and his earlier allusions to his death indicate that he found the reason for it in the principle of service, and not in the 1 Mark viii. 35. 2 Ex. xxiv. 1-12. Cf . Briggs : Messiah of the Gospels, p. 120 sq. See also p. 69, below. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 35 need of a covenant sacrifice. The fact of his impending death, however, once accepted and accounted for, he might easily see in it another significance which would give it an increased value ; might interpret it in the light of Jewish history, and thus make it of added worth in its bearing upon the future. As the call of the Jewish nation to be God's peculiar people, and to enjoy peculiar favors from his hand, had been sealed by a covenant sacrifice, so it seemed most natural that the call of a new people to be heirs of the eternal blessings of the future should likewise be sealed by a sacrifice. Thus Jesus believed that his death meant, in more than one way, not evil but good to the kingdom of God. Thus he could go to his death not only with calm resignation, but with exultation, for he knew that ultimate and eternal victory lay that way, not for him alone, but for the great cause of his father God. CHAPTER II PKIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 1. THE NEW BEGINNING THE immediate effect of Jesus' crucifixion, according to our earliest sources, was the dispersion of his disciples. 1 In spite of the fact that he had endeavored so to prepare them for his approaching death that they should not be thrown into confusion by it, but should immediately take up the work which he had begun and carry it on without interruption, when his death came it found them unpre- pared, and it left them apparently demoralized. Our sources do not warrant us in asserting positively that his disciples had no idea that he would die, 2 but they make it clear that they were distressed and bewildered by his death. If it be assumed, then, that they did expect it, we mu'st conclude that they had supposed it would be immediately followed by such a manifestation of God's power as should vindicate their faith in Jesus, and intro- duce the consummation of the kingdom for which they were looking, and upon which all their hopes were centred. We must conclude, in other words, that they believed his death would be but his translation into the heavenly sphere, in order that he might at once appear in glory as the conquering Messiah. For a death unaccom- panied by any such manifestation they were certainly not prepared. Nor were they prepared for his bodily resurrec- tion after three days and for his reappearance in the same form which he had worn before his execution. There are, it is true, a number of passages in our sources in which 1 Matt. xxvi. 31, 56; Mark xiv. 27, 50. * But Luke xxiv. 21 certainly points in that direction. 36 PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 37 Jesus is represented as explicitly telling his disciples that he would rise from the dead after three days. 1 But it is clear, in the light of their subsequent attitude, that they must have interpreted his words, if they attached any meaning to them, not as a promise of his reappearance to them in his old form, but as an assurance of his immediate entrance after death upon the glorious career of the con- quering and reigning Messiah. 2 But though the disciples seem not to have been pre- pared for either the death or the resurrection of Jesus, nothing is more certain than that within a few days, or at most within a few weeks, after his execution, they reached the assured conviction that he still lived. More- over, there can be no question that the basis of this confi- dence was found in appearances of the risen Lord, which were of such a character as to convince his followers of their absolute reality. A number of manifestations are mentioned in our sources, but the accounts differ so widely, that it is impossible to construct a consistent nar- rative which shall include all the details. 3 But we shall 1 In Mark we have uniformly yuera T/>e?s ^pas (viii. 31, ix. 21, x. 34) ; in Matthew and Luke tv rrj Tpirrj -rj^pqi (Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23, xx. 19; Luke ix. 22, xviii. 23). The former is evidently the original form, the phrase of Matthew and Luke being an effort to make the statement more precise. Compare also Mark ix. 9 and Matt. xvii. 9, where the resurrection is referred to without a reference to the " three days." 2 It is significant that Jesus in none of the passages in question makes his resurrection a hodily resurrection, or speaks of his bodily reappearance to his disciples. He simply refers to a resurrection without more nearly defining its nature, and it was therefore quite possible for his disciples to interpret his words as a promise of his immediate entrance after death upon his Messianic career. Mark and Luke, who, of course, when they wrote their Gospels, interpreted the words in question as referring to Jesus' bodily resurrection and reappearance to his disciples, distinctly say that the latter did not understand what his words meant (Mark ix. 10, 32; Luke xviii. 34). It is not necessary to suppose that the words " after three days " were used by Jesus or understood by his disciples as referring to a fixed and definite interval, for the phrase was a proverbial one to denote a very brief period of time, and might therefore have been employed in the present case simply to emphasize the immediateness of his restoration to life. Compare Hos. vi. 2 ; Mark xv. 29 ; Luke xiii. 32; John ii. 19; and see Weiss, Biblische Theologie, 6te Auflage, S. 67 (Eng. Trans., Vol. I. p. 90), and Wendt, Lehre Jesu, II. S. 545 (Eng. Trans., Vol. II. p. 269). 8 An appearance to Mary Magdalene is recorded by the Gospel of John and the appendix of Mark's Gospel ; to Mary Magdalene and another Mary by the Gospel of Matthew. But Paul in 1 Cor. xv., where he enumerates various 38 THE APOSTOLIC AGE doubtless be nearest the actual facts if we assume that the great majority of Jesus' disciples, dismayed by his awful death, fled in fear and discouragement to Galilee, where most of them had their homes, and that they there became convinced that their Master still lived, and, with this con- viction already established, made their way back speedily to Jerusalem. It is here that we find them in the opening chapter of the Acts, which represents Jesus as appearing and conversing with them during a period of forty days, after which " he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight." 1 This is the most explicit account of the ascension to be found in the New Testament. The Gospels, with the exception of the appendix of Mark, contain no record of it. 2 manifestations of the risen Jesus, does not mention such an appearance, nor do the Gospel of Mark and the recently discovered Gospel of Peter. The Gospel of Luke, though it refers to the presence of the women at the sepulchre and the angels' announcement of Jesus' resurrection, evidently knows nothing of his manifestation to them (cf. Luke xxiv. 5, 22). Paul, in the epistle already referred to, which constitutes a source of the first rank and whose account of the resurrection is of indisputable trustworthiness, mentions first of all an appearance of the risen Lord to Peter, as if he knew of no earlier ones or considered them of no importance. Of such an especial manifestation to Peter we have no record in our Gospels except in Luke xxiv. 34, where the disciples of Jerusalem are represented as saying, " The Lord is risen indeed and has appeared unto Simon." But there is some confusion in our sources not only as to the persons to whom the risen Jesus appeared, but also as to the place where his appearances took place. Matthew and Mark agree in sending the disciples to Galilee for a meeting with the Master there (Matt, xxviii. 7, 10; Mark xvi. 7; cf. also Matt. xxvi. 32; Mark xiv. 28), and that meeting is described by Matthew in xxviii. 16 (cf. also the Gospel of Peter). On the other hand, while Matthew records appearances both in Galilee and Jerusalem, the appendix of Mark, Luke, and John (if John xxi., which is a later addition to the Gospel, be left out of sight) report such appearances only in Jerusalem and its vicinity. There is no reason to suppose that John was ignorant of the Galilean meeting; the closing verses of chap. xx. may include Galilee as well as Jerusalem, and the episode related in chap, xxi., though not recorded in the original Gospel, implies an acquaintance in John's immediate circle with an independent tradition of days spent in Galilee. Of Luke, however, less can be said. His silence both in the Gospel and in the Acts can be explained only on the supposition that he knew nothing of a post-resurrection visit to Galilee. Indeed, the account given in the Gospel is so constructed as to seem to exclude such a visit (cf . especially xxiv. 36, 44, and 49) . 1 Acts i. 9. 2 The textus receptus of Luke xxiv. 51, 52 is untrustworthy, for the words /cai dvefitpero cis rbv ovpavbv and TrpoaKvvhffavTes avrbv aro wanting in the best manuscripts, and are bracketed by Westcott and Hort. The Gospel of John, though it does not record the ascension, refers to it indirectly by anticipation in vi. 62 and xx. 17. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 39 But the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God, from whence he is to come again, forms an integral part of the earliest Christian tradition, and is referred to in many passages. 1 Of course, such exaltation pre- supposes an ascension, but the stress is commonly laid upon the former rather than upon the latter. Indeed, it may fairly be assumed from the silence of Matthew and Mark, that in the earliest form of the Gospel tradition, the ascension was not reported at all, and that Luke, in his account, follows, as in so many cases, an independent source. It may well be that in the beginning the act of ascension was looked upon as of minor importance; given the resurrection and the exaltation, the ascension followed as a matter of course, and testimony to the event was quite superfluous. We may perhaps go still further, and say that originally the disciples did not draw a sharp line of distinction between the numerous sudden departures of Christ, when he "vanished from their sight," and such a final departure as is recorded in the first chapter of Acts. The latter may have been marked off from the others as unique and of especial significance only after reflection upon the exaltation of Christ and upon his second coming, both of which were so prominent in the minds of the early believers. 2 We should hardly expect, after what has been said, to find any very exact data as to the length of time during which the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples. Mat- thew's account implies a period of at least some days ; 3 John's involves a week, and with the appendix some time longer; while the Book of Acts, which represents at this point the latest stage of development, fixes the time at forty days. The accounts given in the appendix of Mark and in Luke's Gospel necessitate but a single day, and 1 Acts ii. 33, v. 31, vii. 56, ix. 5; Eph. i. 20; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Heb. i. 3, x. 12, etc. Also in Jesus' apocalyptic discourses recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. 2 Compare the words "This Jesus which was received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven" (Acts i. 11), where the manner of the ascension is emphasized. One might almost think that these words were the result of reflection upon the second coming. 8 This is true also of the Gospel of Peter. 40 TTTE APOSTOLIC AGE all the events recorded by the latter seem on their face to have taken place within that time. This, however, can- not be pressed, and we are not justified in asserting that in the Acts Luke contradicts, either intentionally or un- intentionally, his account in the Gospel. He may have come into possession of new information since writing his earlier work, but had he regarded it as contravening the statements of that work, he could hardly have let those statements go unconnected. 1 There is thus no adequate ground for denying that the manifestations of the risen Jesus continued for at least some weeks, as recorded in the first chapter of Acts, and as a matter of fact the appear- ances referred to by Paul in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians can hardly be crowded into a shorter period. The effect upon Jesus' disciples of his death and of the remarkable events that followed was very great. It could not be otherwise than that a change in their thinking and living should be wrought by such occurrences. That change was most momentous in its consequences. There are many indications in our Gospels that during his life- time the followers of Jesus were looking forward to his speedy establishment of an earthly kingdom. Even his announcement of his death does not seem to have changed their expectations in this regard. If they believed he would die, they evidently believed, as has already been remarked, that his death would only usher in the consummation, and that he would immediately appear upon the clouds as the conquering Messiah, to set up his kingdom on earth 1 Luke's words in Acts i. 2 seem really to indicate that he regarded the account given in his Gospel as covering the entire post-resurrection period. Whether the "forty days" mentioned in the Acts represent a common and widespread tradition among the early disciples we do not know. The absence of all reference to the number of days in other early documents argues against the general prevalence of such a tradition, and it is interesting to notice that the author of the Epistle of Barnabas was not acquainted with it, or at least did not accept it, for he says in chap, xv., " wherefore also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose from the dead and was manifested, and ascended into heaven " (the passage is mistranslated in the Edinburgh and American editions of the Ante-Nicene Fathers) . Here the ascen- sion is distinguished from the resurrection and yet put on a Sunday, either the Sunday of the resurrection, as seems probable, or on some subsequent Sunday. In either case Barnabas disagrees with the first chapter of Ac-Is, unless the " forty days" mentioned there are to be taken simply as a round number. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 41 and to assert his dominion over all peoples. Even after his resurrection, they seem still to have held for a time substantially the same idea. 1 His death, unaccompanied as it was with convincing evidence of his Messiahship, had bewildered and distressed them, but his reappearance had revived all their old hopes in an unchanged form, and they expected now the immediate accomplishment of that for which they had so long been looking. His resurrec- tion they thought must be for this and for no other pur- pose. But it was not for this purpose, and they speedily discovered the fact. He reappeared, indeed, only to leave them again and ascend to heaven. His departure, then, must mean one of two things : either their hopes were vain and the kingdom upon earth for which they had been looking was never to have an existence, or the time for its establishment was not yet come. It is of the greatest historic moment, that the disciples adopted not the for- mer but the latter alternative. Our sources show that they, and almost the entire early church after them, con- tinued to believe that an earthly kingdom was yet to be founded by Christ. But if the time for its establishment was postponed by Jesus' departure from the earth, it was evident that the work of preparation must still go on, and thus there was thrust upon the disciples a new and unex- pected duty. Upon them rested the responsibility of carrying on, until the consummation, the work which Jesus had begun. They felt themselves now called to take up the task which he had laid down ; called to enter upon a new mission, which was not to cease until he returned in glory upon the clouds of heaven. Up to the time of Jesus' death they had been simply followers; now they were to be leaders. While he was with them, they had simply to learn of him, to attend him, to be his faith- ful adherents, that they might be ready to share with him in the glory of the coming kingdom. Now there fell to them another task : they must seek to prepare others for 1 Cf . Acts i. 6: "Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" where not only the earthly but the national character of their hopes is clearly revealed. The question is of too primitive a character to suppose it the invention of a later generation. 42 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the consummation, as he had prepared them; they must gather disciples into the kingdom, as he had done ; they must, if they could, secure for him the adherence of the Jewish nation, which had rejected him, that the nation as a whole might become the kingdom of God. It was this sense of a new duty and responsibility that led them back from Galilee to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the political and religious centre of Judaism, where were gathered the leaders arid teachers of the people, and where every movement that claimed to be of national significance must finally be vindicated or condemned; in Jerusalem itself, where their Master had met his fate, they must bear their testimony and proclaim him openly as the Messiah. The disciples' return to the city with this determination constitutes an epoch in the history of Christianity. It marks a new beginning, a resumption of the great work which had been begun by Jesus, but had been interrupted by his crucifixion. The cause for which he had given his life was hanging in the balance during the dark days succeeding his death. Was his work to be all for naught ? Was his memory to perish from the earth? That Christianity has had a history is due to the fact that these disciples did not go back disheartened to their old pursuits and live on as if they had never known him, but that, on the contrary, filled with the belief that their Master still lived, and conscious of holding a com- mission from him, they banded themselves together with the resolve of completing his work and preparing their countrymen for his return. Their resolve, put into exe- cution when they left Galilee and returned to Jerusalem, marks the real starting-point in the history of the church. But this was not all. The resurrection and exaltation of Jesus had yet another important effect upon his dis- ciples. Originally they seem to have thought of him as only a prophet; as a preacher of the kingdom of God, but not its founder. But gradually they became convinced that he was himself the Messiah, and thai he would yet assume his Messianic dignity. His resur- rection and exaltation then could hardly mean anything PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 43 else to them than his assumption of that dignity. When they had found their way back to Jerusalem, they testified not merely to what they believed or hoped, but to what they had seen. It was not that Jesus was to become the Messiah when he returned upon the clouds of heaven, but that he had become the Messiah when he entered into heaven. 1 He would return not with a new glory that was not yet his, but with a glory which he already possessed and which they had witnessed. That he had not already ushered in his kingdom and begun his reign, was not because he lacked Messianic authority and power, but because his people were not yet prepared. The heavens must receive him for a little while until they repented arid were ready to welcome his return. 2 There is no reason to suppose that in the thought of Jesus his resurrection and ascension marked such a crisis as it did in the thought of his disciples. Our Gospels indi- cate that he regarded himself as already fulfilling Messi- anic functions even during his earthly life. His assump- tion of the power to forgive sins, where it is evidently a Messianic forgiveness that he dispenses; his constant exercise of authority over demons, which he cites as a proof that the kingdom is already established, and his delegation of that authority to his disciples ; his avowed Lordship over the Sabbath; his tacit acceptance of the title of king, with which his followers hail him upon his entrance into Jerusalem, and his express adoption of that title in the presence of Pilate, all go to show that he looked upon himself as already the reigning and not simply the teaching Messiah. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that his conception of service was such that he found in his ministering life and death on earth the most genuine exercise of his Messianic sovereignty, and we should make him untrue to himself, if we assumed that he saw in his heavenly existence, or in his continued presence with his disciples after death, or in his guidance 1 In Acts ii. 36 Peter says: "God hath made (tTroltivev) this Jesus both Lord and Christ." Thus according to Peter's view Jesus assumed his Messiah- ship wheu he ascended to heaven. Cf. also Acts v. 31. 2 Acts iii. 21. 44 THE APOSTOLIC AGE of them through the Holy Spirit, or even in his exercise of judgment at his final advent upon the clouds of glory, an enthronement higher or more truly Messianic than he already enjoyed. To say, then, that the disciples of Jesus regarded his departure from earth as his induction into the office of Messiah does not mean that Jesus himself looked upon it thus. But historically the important fact is, that whatever Jesus may have thought, his followers distinguished sharply between his earthly and heavenly existence, and saw in his entrance upon the latter the assumption of Messianic authority, and thus the pledge and guarantee of his return to exercise that authority on earth. . It was therefore as witnesses, prepared by what they had themselves seen, to testify to the Messianship of Jesus, that these disciples returned to Jerusalem with the purpose of convincing others of the truth which meant so much to them. That some days should be spent before their public work began, in gathering together their scat- tered forces, and in fitting themselves by prayer and mutual converse for the task that lay before them, was but natural, and there is no reason to doubt the general accu- racy of the account of those days contained in Acts i. 13-26. The idea that the apostolate should be kept at twelve, and that consequently it was necessary to fill the place made vacant by the treachery and death of Judas, is thoroughly characteristic of the early Jewish disciples. 1 In his original appointment of the Twelve Jesus un- doubtedly had a symbolic reference to the twelve tribes of Israel, and it is not surprising, therefore, that his disciples should have thought it necessary to preserve the symbolism by keeping the number intact. They certainly anticipated at this time neither an apostolate to the Gentiles which should deprive the symbolism of its 1 Peter of course did not utter all the words that are contained in vss. 16-22. But if vss. 18 and 19 be regarded as an insertion of the author, as they commonly are, there remains nothing that may not have been said by Peter; and if vs. 17 also be ascribed to Luke, the speech forms a consistent whole. But whether the speech be accurately reported or not, it is certain that vs. 22, which describes the mission of the apostles, cannot have originated with Luke, for he had an entirely different conception of an apostle's work. PBIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 45 significance, nor such a postponement of the return of Jesus as should make it impossible to preserve the num- ber unbroken until the consummation. It is not easy to discover just what significance attached to the apostles in these early days. They apparently held no official position in the church of Jerusalem, and were not regarded as in any way entrusted with its government or empowered to exercise authority within it. It was not as an office-bearer that Matthias was appointed, but as a wit- ness to the resurrection. 1 And it was not the Twelve that were actually at the head of the church of Jerusalem and the leaders in its affairs, but certain individuals, Peter alone, or Peter and John in the earlier years, and at a later date James, the brother of the Lord. It is significant that the name "apostles," by which the Twelve are known in the Book of Acts, was early given to many others, who devoted themselves to the work of travelling missionaries, and who, so far as we are able to learn, held no official position in any church or churches. The work which they did seems to have been carried on after the pattern given by Jesus in his original commis- sion to the Twelve. 2 This fact throws light upon the tra- ditional conception of an apostle's vocation, and thus argues against the absorption of the Twelve in work of a differ- ent character. Indeed, the author of the Acts himself, though he holds another idea of their mission, gives hints that they were primarily missionaries, when he records that Jesus, after his resurrection, commanded them to wait in Jerusalem, not permanently, but only until they should be endued with power from on high (that is, accord- ing to Luke's own view of the matter, only until the day of Pentecost), in order that they might become witnesses " in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." 3 But not simply did the apostles hold no official position in the church of Jerusalem ; there exists no proof that they 1 Acts i. 22. 2 See for instance The Teaching of the Apostles, chap. xi. 3 Acts i. 4, 8. 46 THE APOSTOLIC AGE held any official position in the church at large, or that they were supposed in these early days to have been en- trusted with any kind of authority over it. They seem, as missionaries, to have done the same work that was done by many of their brethren. Matthias Avas not the only one that could testify of the resurrection, and his appointment did not imply that the others, who were more than five hun- dred in number according to Paul, were relieved from the duty or deprived of the privilege of bearing their tes- timony. The significance of the Twelve lay not in the peculiarity of the work that they did, nor in the authority with which they were entrusted, 1 but in the fact that they had been chosen by Christ to be his constant companions, had enjoyed the privilege of intimate fellowship with him, had received his especial instruction, had been sent out even during his lifetime to do the work of missionaries, and had been individually and collectively commanded to carry on that work after his death. Thus they were felt to have been particularly honored by Jesus, and to have been charged by him with a heavier responsibility than the mass of the disciples. But this is far from involving the claim or the recognition of official position and author- ity. It was, therefore, not as a member of an official board of government or control that Matthias was chosen, but simply as one of the little band of missionaries, whose significance over and above other missionaries, whatever it may have been while there were among them only those directly called by Jesus himself, after the appoint- ment of Matthias could hardly be more than symbolic or prophetic. But the author of the Book of Acts had another concep- tion of the significance of the Twelve Apostles. He apparently thought of them as constituting an apostolic college, which had in its hands from the beginning the government of the church, and the members of which remained in Jerusalem, and at the head not simply of the congregation there, but also of the church at large, 1 It cannot be shown even that they were in control of the missionary work of others. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 47 for a number of years. 1 But such a conception is out of accord with the facts as they appear even in the Book of Acts itself, 2 and cannot be made to square with what we know of the church of Jerusalem from the epistles of Paul. The notion is evidently purely dogmatic, resting upon the author's assumption of what the apostles must have been to the church in its early days. 3 Already before the end of the first century, the idea was prevalent of an apostolic college to which was com- mitted the control of the church by Christ. It was natural therefore for the author of the Book of Acts, in the absence of specific information upon the subject, to conceive of the position and work of the Twelve Apos- tles during the early years in Jerusalem in the way that he did. Historically, the most important fact connected with the appointment of Matthias was the position of leader- ship assumed by Simon Peter. That a man who but a few weeks before had repeatedly and flagrantly denied his Master, should so soon recover the confidence of his asso- ciates, and even appear as their leader and spokesman, is, to say the least, surprising, and might well be doubted, were it not confirmed by the undisputed pre-eminence accorded him on many other occasions throughout these early days. Nothing, in fact, is more certain than that he was for some years the leading figure in the church of Jerusalem. But his pre-eminence, following so close upon his cowardly denial, demands an explanation. It is not enough to point to the fact that even during Jesus' life- time he was the leading spirit among the disciples, and was recognized as such by Christ himself, for whatever repute he enjoyed then must have been forfeited by his recent conduct. We can explain the restored confidence iCf. Acts vi. 1, viii. 1, 14, xi. 1. 2 Though referring so frequently in a vague and general way to "The Apostles," the author makes it evident in many passages that it was some individual or individuals that were held in highest honor, and not the apostles as a body. 3 This idea was due in part to Paul himself, who in his controversy with the Judaizers enhanced, by his emphasis upon his equality with the Twelve, not only his own dignity and authority, but theirs as well. See below, p. 647. 48 THE APOSTOLIC AGEl of his brethren only on the supposition that he had had, since his denial, an opportunity to redeem his character and to. vindicate conclusively his loyalty to the Master and his cause. What that opportunity was, we cannot certainly say, but we may find a suggestion of it in the fact that in speaking of the appearances of the risen Jesus, Paul mentions his appearance to Peter first of all. It would seem from Paul's words that that manifestation was of especial significance, and it is possible that it was primarily to Peter that the church owed its belief in the resurrection of its crucified Master. It may have been he who was first convinced of the great fact, and when doubt as to the reality of the resurrection threatened to triumph, or when the disciples' despair had not yet been broken by any ray of hope, he may have come to the rescue with a sturdy declaration of faith such as was characteristic of him, and such as had won for him at an earlier time the blessing of Christ. 1 If this supposition be correct, Peter became in a sense the second founder of the Christian church, and the prophecy of Christ, that upon him he would build his church, 2 found literal fulfilment; for without his faith, and his bold avowal of it at this critical time, the disciples would have gone back to their old life in despair, and the church would have had no existence. Under his leadership, it would seem, with the confidence inspired, in the first instance, by his sturdy faith, and confirmed by their own visions of the risen Lord, the dis- ciples returned to Jerusalem. Under his leadership they met together there, and it was he that proposed the ap- pointment of Judas' successor. 2. PENTECOST AND THE EARLIEST EVANGELISM The day of Pentecost, immediately succeeding the death and resurrection of Jesus, has always been regarded as of epochal significance for the history of the Christian church. Luke himself evidently so considered it; for even in his Gospel the event casts its shadow before, and i Matt. xvi. 16. a Matt. xvi. 18. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 49 the first chapter of the Book of Acts is clearly intended to lead up to it. That it was an important day in the history of the church there can be no doubt, but its impor- tance is not that which is ordinarily ascribed to it. It was not the birthday of the Christian church, as it is so commonly called, for the Christian church was in exis- tence before Pentecost; nor was it the day upon which began the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, for his prom- ised coming preceded, or at least was closely connected with, Jesus' own return to his disciples after his resur- rection, so that it was through the Spirit's enlightening influence that they became convinced that he still lived and was still with them. Certainly, if the revealing agency of the Spirit was ever needed by the disciples of Jesus, it was needed in the days succeeding his death ; and if the Spirit ever did act as the revealer of truth to those disciples, and as the interpreter of the Master's promises to them, it was at the time when they became assured of his resurrection from the dead. As Jesus declared on an earlier occasion that it was not flesh and blood, but his Father in heaven that had revealed his Messiahship to Peter, it could not have been mere flesh and blood that had convinced Peter of the resurrection of the Lord. That conviction must have been the work of God. But in the thought of Jesus there was no distinc- tion in such a case between God's work and the Spirit's. It must be assumed, in the light of this and other facts, that the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus before his death, had already been received by his disciples ; that they were under the influence of that Spirit when they recognized the risen Lord, when they returned to Jerusalem to take up his work, when they met together there for prayer and conference, and when they filled Judas' vacant place, just as truly as they ever were. What, then, is the historic significance of Pentecost, if it was neither the birthday of the Christian church nor the beginning of the dispensation of the Spirit? Its signifi- cance is indicated at the close of Luke's Gospel, and in the eighth verse of the first chapter of Acts, where a bap- 50 THE APOSTOLIC AGE tism of power is foretold. Pentecost was a day of power, a day on which the Spirit of God manifested himself through the disciples as a power for the conversion of others. It was the inauguration of the evangelistic activity of the Christian church, when the disciples began the work to which they believed themselves called by the risen Lord, the work of witness-bearing. Under the influ- ence of the Holy Spirit they bore testimony on the day of Pentecost to their Master, and they bore it with power ; and it was not the coming of the Spirit, but the testimony of the disciples, that constituted the great central fact of the day, the fact that makes the day historic. But in accordance with his general conception, the author of the Book of Acts finds the chief significance of Pentecost in the descent of the Holy Spirit, whom he regards as not given until then; and that descent he represents as accompanied by certain marvellous phe- nomena, a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, tongues parting asunder like as of fire, and sitting upon each one of the disciples, and the speaking by all of them with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. These phenomena are conceived by the author, not as separate and disconnected events, but as manifestations of the one Spirit. Their significance lies in the fact that they reveal that Spirit's presence. With the sound as of wind, and with the tongues as of fire, we need not par- ticularly concern ourselves, but the " speaking with other tongues " demands brief attention. From various pas- sages in the New Testament we learn that a peculiar gift, known as the "gift of tongues," was very widely exercised in the apostolic church, and the fourteenth chapter of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians makes the general nature of the gift sufficiently plain. It was evidently the frenzied or ecstatic utterance of sounds ordinarily unintelligible both to speakers and to hearers, except such as might be endowed by the Holy Spirit with a special gift of interpretation. 1 The speaker was sup- posed to be completely under the control of the Spirit, to 1 1 Cor. xii. 10. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 51 be a mere passive instrument in his hands, and to be moved and played upon by him. His utterances were not his own, but the utterances of the Spirit, and he was commonly entirely unconscious of what he was saying. He was not endowed with the power to speak in foreign tongues; his words were divine, not human, words, and had no relation whatever to any intelligible human lan- guage. It was not unnatural, therefore, that the speaker should appear demented to an unbelieving auditor, as Paul implies was not infrequently the case. 1 But his ecstatic utterances, inspired as it was believed by the Holy Ghost, were regarded by his fellow-Christians as spiritual utterances in an eminent sense. The "speaking with tongues " constituted, in the opinion of a large part of the church, the supreme act of worship, the act which gave the clearest evidence of the presence of the Spirit and of the speaker's peculiar nearness to his God. 2 No other gift enjoyed by the early church so vividly reveals the inspired and enthusiastic character of primitive Chris- tianity. It was apparently this "gift of tongues" with which the disciples were endowed at Pentecost, and they spoke, therefore, not in foreign languages, but in the ecstatic, frenzied, unintelligible, spiritual speech of which Paul tells us in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. That the Pentecostal phenomenon is thus to be regarded not as something unique, but as the earliest known exer- cise of the common gift of tongues, is rendered very prob- able by the lack of all reference to it in other early sources ; by the absence of any hint that the disciples ever made use in their missionary labors, or indeed on any other occasion than Pentecost itself, of the miraculous power to speak in foreign languages ; by the effect produced by the phenome- non upon some of those present, who accused the speakers of intoxication, and by the fact that it is treated as a ful- filment of the prophecy of Joel, who says nothing of " other tongues," but characterizes the Messianic Age as an age of revelation and of prophecy. But the most decisive argu- 1 1 Cor. xiv. 23. 2 Paul himself had the gift pre-eminently, as he says in 1 Cor. xiv. 18. 52 THE APOSTOLIC AGE ment is to be found in Peter's discourse, which constitutes our most trustworthy source for a knowledge of what act- ually occurred. Nowhere in that discourse does he refer to the use of foreign languages by his fellow-disciples, not even when he undertakes to defend them against the charge of drunkenness, though it would certainly have constituted a most convincing refutation of such a charge. 1 The disciples then, it would seem, were endowed on the day of Pentecost with the gift of tongues, just as on many 1 It 'is clear that the author of the Book of Acts had another conception of the phenomenon in question than that presented in the text. He evidently supposed that the disciples used foreign tongues, for he took pains to empha- size the fact that those present heard them speaking in the languages severally native to the auditors. It has been claimed that the author's representation is due to a misunderstanding on his part of the common phenomenon of the glossolalia, arising from the fact that he had himself never witnessed it, and an argument is drawn therefrom for the late date of the Book of Acts. But it is to be noticed that in two other passages (Acts x. 46, xix. 6) the author mentions the glossolalia in the correct Pauline way, without any hint of a misunderstanding of it, and some other reason must therefore be given for his misinterpretation of the Pentecostal phenomenon. That reason is perhaps to be found in the glamour which surrounded the infant church in the eyes of its historian, who was himself far removed from the events which he records. Under the circumstances he could hardly avoid investing even familiar occur- rences with marvel and mystery. It may well be that the attendant wonders which he doubtless found recorded in the sources upon which he based his account, the sound as of wind and the tongues like as of fire, led him to think of the speaking with tongues, which was associated with them in his sources, as only another and similar supernatural manifestation of the inau- guration of the dispensation of the Spirit; and hence to picture it also as entirely unique in its nature, and to separate it from the common everyday phenomenon with which the church of his time was familiar. At any rate whatever the cause of his misunderstanding, it is certain that his conception of the phenomenon is borne out neither by Peter's speech nor by his own account of the farther events of the day. It was the opinion of Dr. Schaff (History of the Christian Church, Vol. I. p. 231) that while the Pentecostal "speaking with tongues" was in reality the ordinary glossolalia, and there- fore did not involve the use of foreign languages, the Holy Spirit interpreted the ecstatic utterances to some of those present, so that each supposed that he heard the disciples speaking in his own tongue. Compare also Overbeck in De Wette's Kurzgefasstes Handbuch zinn Neuen Testament, 4te Auflage, S. 23 sq.; and Wendt in Meyer's Apostelgeschichte, 7te Auflage, S. 59 sq. This makes the whole scene clearer than the ordinary view, and better explains the accusation of drunkenness brought against the speaker by some of the onlookers; but it fails entirely to account for the silence of Peter in his dis- course, and is no more nearly in accord with the conception of the author himself than is the view presented in the text, for the author evidently under- stood that the disciples actually spoke in foreign languages and were not merely supposed to have done so by certain of the hearers. For an elaborate discussion of the whole subject and a statement of the various views upon it f see Wendt, Lc. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 53 other occasions when the Holy Spirit made his presence felt, arid under the influence of that Spirit they gave utterance in ecstatic phrase to the pro roundest spiritual joy and gratitude to God. Their speaking with tongues thus constituted the earliest testimony borne by Christ's disciples after his resurrection in the presence ot unbe- lievers. It did not consist in the explicit and intelligible announcement of Jesus' Messiahship, but it was testimony nevertheless. For the impressive thing about the phe- nomenon was that men whose leader had been crucified but a few weeks before, and who had fled and scattered in fear and despair, were now gathered together again in the very city where he had been condemned, and under the very eyes of the authorities that had condemned him, and were giving evident and most demonstrative expres- sion to the liveliest joy and gratitude. The amazing fact demanded an explanation, and that explanation Peter gave in his discourse. He interpreted the unintelligible utter- ances of those who had spoken with tongues, and in the light of his words the strange phenomenon took on new meaning and became the most powerful kind of testimony to the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, for it was the testimony of the common conviction of a multitude of men. It was not Peter alone, then, that bore witness on the day of Pentecost ; witness was borne also by all the assembled disciples, and Peter acted simply as the interpreter of that testimony to those who did not understand it. 1 The Pentecostal address of Peter is peculiarly interest- ing because it constitutes the earliest extant Christian apology. It is, moreover, a thoroughly representative discourse. It reproduces not the thought of Peter alone, but the thought of his fellow-Christians as well. The spirit of primitive Jewish Christianity in general speaks in it. The first and most imperative duty of these early disciples must be to prove to their countrymen that Jesus was the promised Messiah. His crucifixion had seemingly 1 On the views of the early disciples of Jerusalem see, in addition to the general works on New Testament theology and on the history of the apos' tolic age, Briggs : Messiah of the Apostles, p. 21 sq, 54 THE APOSTOLIC AGE given the lie to his claim and proved him an impostor. To go on preaching his Gospel was therefore absurd, unless the impression left by his death could be effaced. Unless he could be shown to be what he had claimed to be, unless it could be shown that his death did not mean what it seemed to mean, the attempt to carry on the work that he had begun might as well be given up at once. Apologetics was the imperative need of the hour; not simply the proclamation of the Gospel, but the defence of it, and the defence of Jesus himself, the preacher of it. Thus the emphasis was changed from the Gospel itself to the evidence for its truth; from the message to the mes- senger. Not the fatherhood of God, but the Messiahship of Jesus formed the burden of the preaching of the apostles, and so the Master's estimate of values was reversed. But it is significant that the disciples contented them- selves with the demonstration of the proposition that Jesus is the Messiah, and that it apparently did not occur to them to ask what his Messiahship involved for Jesus himself. It was enough to know that he was the Christ. So long as that fact was true his character and nature were a matter of comparative indifference. There is no reason to suppose that the disciples in the beginning had any other idea of the Messiah than that which pre- vailed among their countrymen in general, 1 and there is no sign that they thought of asking whether that idea was correct or incorrect. Only after some time had passed did Christian thinkers begin to fill in the conception of Messiahship with this and that content ; only when the original Messianic interest had somewhat waned, and it was believed that Jesus must have had something else to do besides founding the Messianic kingdom. It was, in other words, the conception that his work was more than merely Messianic that first opened the question as to the constitution of his person. 2 1 The Messiah was commonly thought of among the Jews as a man called and chosen by God. See above, p. 8. 2 The common designation given to Jesus both by Peter and by his fellow- Christians is 6 irals TOV 6eov, " the servant of God " (Acts iii. 13, 26, iv. 27, 30). 6 vibs TOV 6eov does not occur in these early documents (another sign of their PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 55 The supreme argument urged by the disciples in sup- port of the Messiahship of Jesus was his resurrection. No event was better calculated to convince unbelievers that he was what he claimed to be ; to efface the impres- sion made by his death and to show that it had not meant, as it seemed to mean, that he was a blasphemous impostor, suffering the just vengeance of God. But it was hardly to be expected that those who had not themselves seen the risen Jesus should believe the testimony of his followers to such a startling and unheard-of event, for which even those followers themselves, in spite of their intimate fel- lowship with him and their belief in his Messiahship, were entirely unprepared. It was natural, therefore, that the effort should be made first of all to render the event cred- ible by showing that, though it formed no part of the common Messianic expectation, it had yet been distinctly foretold in the Scriptures. To a Jew no other explanation was necessaiy. His teleological conceptions were such that the fact that anything had been prophesied con- stituted a sufficient reason for it. And so Peter in his Pentecostal address appealed to a passage from the sixteenth Psalm, which he claimed foretold the resurrec- tion of the Messiah, and thus at once rendered Jesus' resurrection credible, and made it a convincing proof that he was actually the Christ. But Peter did not con- tent himself with finding the resurrection in the Script- ures; he employed prophecy also to prove that it was necessary for the Messiah to ascend into the heavens and to sit down at the right hand of God, and this he claimed that Jesus had done, as was evidenced by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which was due to him. Thus his exal- tation became a farther proof of his Messiahship. In the primitive character). The loftier titles that are ascribed to Jesus, Lord, Saviour, Prince, Cornerstone, attach to him in his exalted post-resurrection existence only, and characterize simply his calling and mission as Messiah. They say nothing as to his natural constitution. He is not represented as a pre-existent, heavenly being, but simply as a man approved of God and chosen by him to be the Messiah and then raised by him to the position of Lord. Of the Pauline conception that he had returned to the glory which was originally his, we have no hint in these early records. 56 THE APOSTOLIC AGE same way a prediction of Joel was used to establish the dis- ciples' contention, involved in their proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah, and in turn supporting his Messiahship, that the last days, the days immediately preceding the con- summation, were already come. It was thus claimed by Peter, and in making the claim he simply represented the common sentiment of the church, that the occurrences to which the disciples and the Pentecostal phenomena bore testimony were not unheralded and mysterious events, but a distinct fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, and as such demanded from all true Jews devout recognition and belief. 1 In the light of all he had to urge, Peter might well think himself justified in exclaiming triumphantly at the close of his speech: "Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know assuredly that God hath made this Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." 2 But in spite of all the evidence that could be adduced for the Messiahship of Jesus from his resurrection and exaltation and from the Scriptures which foretold those events, his death must remain a stumbling-block, and must seem to many a fatal objection to the identification of the man Jesus with God's chosen Messiah. Not that the conception of a suffering Messiah was absolutely un- known, but such a conception was certainly not common and nowhere included his official rejection and disgraceful 1 It is entirely gratuitous to find in the use of Old Testament prophecy in Peter's pentecostal discourse evidence of a later hand. It is inconceivable that he could have made any address at all upon the occasion in question without appealing to Scripture; and the fact that he attempts to prove no more than he does is an argument for the genuineness of the discourse or for the primitive character of the document from which Luke got it. Paul's words in 1 Cor. xv. 3-4 are very significant in this connection : " For I deliv- ered unto you," he says, " first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried ; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." The Scriptures are here made to prove much more than they are by Peter. Indeed, as time passed, the practice of appealing to them grew increasingly common, and the area of observed coincidence between the life and work of Jesus and Scripture prophecy grew constantly larger. Our gospels, especially the Gos- pel of Matthew, written as they were more than a generation after the events which they describe, are witnesses to the extent to which the practice had been carried by that time. Acts ii. 36. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIAKITY 57 execution by a mode of death pronounced accursed in the law. 1 It was in view of this difficulty that the disciples were led again to look for light in the Scriptures. If it could be shown that it was there foretold that the Christ should suffer and be rejected by God's chosen people, and undergo a disgraceful death, the difficulty would be at once removed, and at the same time added proof would be secured for the Messiahship of Jesus, who had in this particular also fulfilled Messianic prophecy. In Peter's Pentecostal discourse nothing is said upon this subject, though the quotation from the sixteenth Psalm, which is used as a prophecy of Jesus' resurrection, of course involves also his death. But in the address recorded in Acts iii. 12 sq., we read: "But the things which God foreshewed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled;" and the same idea appears in other passages in the early chapters of Acts. 2 With this explanation of the death of Jesus, the disciples seem for some time to have contented them- selves. At least we find no other reason for it referred to in any of the recorded speeches or prayers of Peter or of his associates. There is no sign that they thought of it as Christ did, as possessing an independent value of its own, or as contributing in any way to the well-being of his followers, or to the advancement of the kingdom. 3 1 Cf. Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, c. 89 and 90; and see Schiirer, I.e., II. p. 464 sq. (Eng. Trans., Div. II. Vol. II. p. 104). 2 Acts viii. 32 sq. Compare also iv. 11, 28. 3 The words of Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 3 : " I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received " (irapfrapov) seem to imply that the idea that Christ's death had some relation to men's release from sin, was not original with him- self, but was gained from those who were Christians before him. It is certain that the idea was widespread long before the end of the first century even in non- Pauline circles (cf. e.g. Matt. xxvi. 28, where the words ei's Afaaiv dfjutpriuv are added), and there is no reason to doubt that it arose very early. Indeed, it cannot have been long before the disciples were led to make a connection at once so obvious and so clearly suggested by such a passage as Isa. liii. But that the connection was thought of in the early days with which we are dealing, there is no sign in our sources, and it may be regarded as certain, at any rate, that it was not emphasized. It is worthy of remark that even when it was generally recognized that some connection existed, it was long before the nature of it was determined. There was, in fact, for centuries much vagueness of conception and wide lack of agreement at this point. 58 THE APOSTOLIC AGE According to the author of the Acts, Peter's Pentecostal discourse produced a profound impression upon his audi- tors, and drew from them the anxious query: "Brethren, what shall we do?" Peter's reply, taken in connection with other utterances recorded in the following chapters, reveals with sufficient clearness the conception of the Gospel prevalent among the disciples in these early days. That conception was of the most simple and primi- tive character. Christianity, as they understood it, was Judaism, and nothing more. It was not a substitute for Judaism, nor even an addition or supplement to Judaism ; it was not, indeed, in any way distinct from the national faith. It was simply the belief on the part of good and faithful Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, and it involved no disloyalty to Judaism, and no abandonment of existing principles. For a Jew to believe in the Messiah whom they preached, was not necessarily to revise his concep- tions of the nature of the Messianic kingdom, and of the blessings to be enjoyed within it, nor indeed of the con j ditions of sharing in those blessings. Peter says only, "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." 1 Both here and in iii. 19, where he again exhorts his hear- ers to repent, the sin that is uppermost in his mind is their crucifixion of Jesus. But in v. 31 the word "re- pentance " is emplo} r ed in a more general sense, and even in the two passages just mentioned, it is clear from Peter's reference to the forgiveness or remission of sins, that he did not intend to confine the needed repentance to the single crime which they had committed against the Mes- siah. It is clear, in other words, that though he was stating primarily not the conditions of salvation in gen- eral, for which, indeed, his hearers did not ask, but simply the particular duty devolving upon them under existing circumstances, he was voicing at the same time the gen- eral truth, that if one is conscious of sin committed, lie must repent before he can expect to enjoy God's promised blessings. In laying down such a condition, Peter was simply reiterating a principle universally prevalent among 1 Acts ii. 38. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 59 the Jews of his time, that righteousness is an indispen- sable condition of enjoying God's favor, whether now or hereafter. It would be a mistake to suppose that he in- tended, during those early days, to enunciate a new way of securing God's favor, or a new method of salvation. He did not put repentance in the place of righteousness, nor did he suggest any revision of the prevailing theory of righteousness, making it consist in something else than the observance of the Jewish law. Moreover, we are not justified in assuming that his words involved in any sense a rebuke of the self-righteousness of his countrymen ; that he intended to assert that every man is a sinner, and that repentance is a universal precondition of enjoying God's favor. Whatever his own opinion on the subject, the words which he is reported to have uttered during these early days leave room for the theory, which was wide- spread, at least in Pharisaic circles, that it is possible for a man to keep the law of God and thereby to secure through his own efforts the favor and blessing of the Almighty. Peter therefore preached no new and un- familiar Gospel, when he summoned his hearers to repen- tance. He was simply enforcing the application, in the case of men whom he believed to have committed a grave crime, of a long-established, widely recognized, and genu- inely Jewish principle, which they accepted as truly as he. The baptism which Peter connects with repentance, in ii. 38, was not essentially novel. Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ was, of course, a new thing to the Jews whom he addressed ; but baptism as such was entirely in line with the common Jewish rites of purification, and as a symbolical representation of cleansing from the sins or crimes of which they repented, it must seem the most natural thing in the world to them, just as John's bap- tism seemed quite natural, and was never thought of as involving any disloyalty to Judaism, or any departure from its traditional principles. The connection of the rite with the name of Jesus Christ did not alter its essen- tial character, nor make it an un- Jewish thing. It meant only that the repentance to which it gave expression was 60 THE APOSTOLIC AGE based upon and due to the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah; and it may well be that baptism in his name was demanded by Peter of the Jews whom he addressed at Pentecost, just because the great crime which they had committed was the crucifixion of that Messiah, and because they could thus best give voice to their repentance for that crime. Administered on this occasion in the name of Jesus Christ, the rite would naturally take that form on other occasions, even when administered to those that had had no part in the crucifixion. It might thus in time come to be everywhere regarded not merely as ap expres- sion of repentance, but also as an assertion of $he Mes- siahship of the crucified Jesus. We have no record in our Synoptic Gospels that Jesus himself ever baptized any one, or that baptism was prac- tised by his disciples during his lifetime. But it is dis- tinctly stated in John iv. 2, that though Jesus himself did not baptize, his disciples did, and the entire naturalness of the rite, in the light of John's baptism, and its general prevalence in the apostolic church, confirm the report, and make it practically certain that the rite was not introduced as an innovation after Jesus' death. But if practised during his lifetime, by his disciples, it is altogether prob- able, in view of his uniform policy touching the announce- ment of his Messiahship, that baptism had the simple Johannine form, and that it was riot a baptism into or in his own name. The name of Jesus is mentioned by Peter in connection with the rite only in ii. 38, in his reply to the questioners at Pentecost. 1 This might suggest a doubt as to whether the formula was really used even on that occasion. And the doubt might seem to be confirmed by the fact that only in three other passages in the Book of Acts, and then only in the narrative portions, is baptism connected with the name of Jesus. 2 It is not impossible that, even after Pentecost, the rite was sometimes admin- istered in the Johannine form, but the common use of 1 Peter refers to baptism only in one other passage (x. 47), and then does not connect it with the name of Jesus; though Luke tells us in the following verses that he " commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.' 2 Acts viii. 16, x. 48, xix. 5. But compare also the address of Paul, Acts xxii. 16. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 61 the Christian formula in the time of Paul makes it alto- gether probable that that formula was introduced at a very early day ; and the conditions at Pentecost were such as to make its introduction at that time most natural. Of the trinitarian formula, into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which later became univer- sal in the church, we have no trace in the New Testament, except in the single passage, Matt, xxviii. 19. 1 It is diffi- cult to suppose that it was employed in the early days with which we are here concerned ; for it involves a conception of the nature of the rite which was entirely foreign to the thought of these primitive Christians, and indeed no less foreign to the thought of Paul. When and how the formula arose, we do not know. We find it expressly enjoined in the Teaching of the Apostles, 2 and that it was in common use in the middle of the second century is clear from the old Roman symbol which was based upon it, and also from Justin Martyr's Apology. 8 It may have had its origin in the prophec}' of the Baptist recorded in all the Gospels, that the Messiah would baptize with the Holy Ghost, and in Jesus' own promise, that he would send the Holy Spirit as another advocate in his place, and that he and the 1 It is difficult in the light of all we know of Jesus' principles and practice, and in the light also of the fact that the early disciples, and Paul as well, baptized into the name of Christ alone, to suppose that Jesus himself uttered the words : " Baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," which are quoted in Matt, xxviii. 19. But it may be that he directed his apostles not simply to make disciples of all the nations but also to baptize them, as they had, perhaps, been in the habit already of bap- tizing those that joined their company. If, then, he simply gave the general direction to baptize (cf. the appendix of Mark xvi. 16), it would be very natu- ral for a scribe to add the formula, " Into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," which was in common use in his day. On the other hand, the fact must be recognized that Paul's indifference about per- forming the rite of baptism (see 1 Cor. i. 14 sq.) is hardly what we should expect if the eleven apostles received from Christ a direct command to bap- tize; and it is not impossible that the entire passage (Matt, xxviii. 19 b) is a later addition, as maintained by some scholars (cf. Teichmann's article, Die Taufe bei Pauhis, in the Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche, 1896, Heft 4, pp. 357 sq.). On Paul's conception of baptism, see below, p. 541. 2 Didache, vii. But baptism into the name of the Lord is also spoken of in a later chapter as if it were synonymous. Hernias ( Vis. iii. 7, 3) speaks only of baptism into the name of the Lord. Other apostolic fathers give us no light. 8 Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 6. 62 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Father and the Spirit Avould abide with his disciples. The formula of benediction employed by Paul in 2 Cor. xiii. 14 may also have contributed to its use. In stating to his hearers at Pentecost, and on other occasions as well, the means by which they might make amends for the crime they had committed, and prepare themselves for the approaching kingdom, Peter laid down no strange and un- Jewish conditions. In the same way, when describing the blessings that they might expect to enjoy if they repented and were baptized, he preached no new and unfamiliar Gospel. "Repent and be baptized," he says, "in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." 1 It was a common belief among the Jews that the presence of the Holy Spirit would be a characteristic feature of the Messianic kingdom ; that the spiritual gifts, which in earlier days were enjoyed only by favored indi- viduals here and there, would in that kingdom be bestowed upon all. Peter was therefore on familiar ground, when he connected the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost with the advent of the Messianic age. If his hearers agreed with him that the Pentecostal phenomena indicated the Spirit's presence, they could not help agreeing with him in the conclusion drawn therefrom. But in the prophecy of Joel, which he quotes, the outpouring of the Spirit is made to precede and not to follow the "Day of the Lord," and it is clear, in the light of iii. 19 sq., that Peter thus understood the prophecy, and that he re- garded the Spirit's advent as a sign not that the promised kingdom was already established upon earth, but that its establishment was at hand. The days that were intro- duced by Pentecost were only preparatory; the consum- mation was still in the future. The Messianic realm belonged, in Peter's thought, just as in the thought of his contemporaries, not to this aeon, but to another, and before its inauguration must come the day of judgment and the "end of the world," that is, the end of the pres- ent age. That Jesus was already Lord and Prince and i Acts ii. 38. s PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 63 Saviour did not mean that his kingdom was already a reality, and that he was exercising dominion therein, but only that he was preparing the way for its realization. By the outpouring of the Spirit he was fitting his follow- ers for it, and making its speedy establishment possible. That outpouring was a sign of its approach, but not off its actual presence. The disciples therefore lived in the future as truly as their unconverted brethren. The Christ was yet to come to accomplish his true work. 1 That work there is no reason to suppose that Peter and his fellows conceived in any other way than their Jewish brethren. They evidently thought of the expected king- dom as a national kingdom, for Peter distinctly makes the advent of the Messiah dependent upon the repentance and conversion of those whom he addresses. 2 Only when the Jewish nation has listened to the preaching of the apostles and has recognized Jesus as the Christ, can the times of refreshing come, and the Messiah return to set up the kingdom. Into the details of that kingdom Peter does not enter, but he implies that the expected Messianic judgment will take place, 3 and he conceives the punish- ment of the wicked in genuine Jewish form as a " destruc- tion from among the people." 4 He speaks also of the restoration of all things, a common phrase in Jewish apoca- lyptic literature, and of the fulfilment of the entire range of Messianic prediction. 5 All the blessings promised by the prophets, and longingly anticipated by the fathers, he assures his hearers they will yet enjoy, if they repent and thus secure forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Ghost. In the present is offered the opportunity not of realizing a present salvation, but of making certain the enjoyment of a future salvation. It is to make the most 1 Looking to the future as the disciples were for the consummation of the Kingdom, and for the complete fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, they must inevitably feel less interest in the life of Jesus on earth than in his future advent. The life which they had witnessed was only preparatory, not final, and had value chiefly in its relation to days to come. Thus is explained the remarkable fact that for a long time the significance of Jesus' earthly life was almost entirely overlooked. 2 Acts iii. 19. 4 Acts iii. 23. 3 Acts ii. 20, 21, iii. 23. 6 Acts iii. 21. 64 THE APOSTOLIC AGE of that opportunity that Peter exhorts his hearers on all possible occasions. 1 3. THE LIFE OF THE PRIMITIVE DISCIPLES The life of the early Christians of Jerusalem was in strictest accord with the conceptions that have been de- scribed. Their recognition of Jesus as the Messiah did not result in their neglect of the rites and ceremonies of Judaism, nor make them any less zealous than before for the religion of their fathers. They continued to discharge the various religious duties that devolved upon them as Jews, including participation in the temple worship and in the offering of the regular daily sacrifices. 2 We know also from Paul's experience with the Judaizers, that for many years after the death of Christ, there were multi- tudes of Christians zealously devoted to the laws and traditions of the fathers. Indeed, it may fairly be sup- 1 A very noticeable feature of the discourses of Peter, which he is reported to have given during these early years, is the uniform absence of a reference to faith as a condition of enjoying God's favors, and sharing in the blessings of the Messianic age. Only once during the period with which we are concerned does he refer to faith, and then he makes faith in the name of Jesus the ground of the healing of the lame man. Of course, baptism in the name of Jesus involves a certain kind of faith, or more accurately the conviction that he is the Messiah, but faith in him is nowhere expressly made a condition of bap- tism or of discipleship. In this respect the utterances of Peter very closely resemble the Synoptic Gospels, and clearly represent an early type of Christian teaching. Doubtless the later emphasis upon the necessity of faith, which was universal even in circles where most was made of the observance of law, was largely due to Paul. That emphasis did not involve a new conception of the Gospel, but only a clearer apprehension of that which had been from the beginning implicitly wrapped up in it. Peter in his address at the council of Jerusalem (Acts xv. 9) refers to faith as a means by which the heart is cleansed, and Gal. ii. 16 implies that he was one with Paul in his recognition of its necessity. Indeed, he could not do otherwise than agree that the observance of the law was insufficient unless it were supplemented by the belief in Jesus' Messiahship. The fact, therefore, that in the early discourses recorded in Acts, faith is not made a condition of salvation, argues strongly for the primitive character of the documents containing them, of which the author of the Acts made use. To him and his contemporaries Christianity was the proclamation to all the world of eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and obedi- ence to his commands, and it is inconceivable that he, or any one else in his day, can have invented and put into the mouth of Peter a number of dis- courses in which no trace of such a Christianity occurs, and in which there is no reference whatever to the importance and saving character of faith. 2 Acts iii. 1. See Schurer, I.e. II. S. 234, 237 (Eng. Trans. Div. II. Vol. I., pp. 287, 290). Cf. also Acts x. 14, xv. 5, xxi. 21 sq. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 65 posed that the effect of their Christian faith was to make all of the early disciples more devout and earnest Jews than they had ever been; for, as the consummation was at hand, it behooved them to prepare for it by the strictest and most scrupulous discharge of all their religious duties. It was fitting that they, who were the representatives of the Messiah, should reveal in their lives the mighty in- fluence of the principles which they preached, and that their righteousness and piety should commend themselves to all beholders. The idea that they constituted the elect portion of the people, called by God to be heirs of the coming kingdom, would naturally lead them to feel the necessity of observing God's law with especial scrupu- lousness ; would make them sensible of a peculiar obliga- tion, such as they cannot have felt while they were simple Galileans, on the same footing with all their fellows. Such utterances of Christ as that recorded in Matt. v. 19, "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven," doubtless influenced them greatly at this time, and it must have been their conviction that, simple Galileans though they were, they ought to exceed all other Jews, even the proudest Pharisees of Jerusalem, in their devotion to the national faith. That Jesus had intended to abrogate the Jewish law, or release his fol- lowers from its control, occurred to none of them. 1 These early Christians, then, were thoroughgoing Jews and never thought of departing from the customs of their fathers. But their Judaism had a new element in it, which modified their lives and marked them off from their unconverted countrymen. They were bound to each other, and distinguished from all without their circle, as disciples of one whom they, and they alone, believed to be the Messiah, and as heirs of the Messianic kingdom which they expected him soon to establish. Their expec- tation of Christ's speedy return dominated all their lives. They felt themselves to be citizens not of this geon, but of another, and all their interests centred in the future. i On Christ's own view of the law, see above, p. 25 sq. P 66 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Doubtless this expectation had much to do with the com- parative indifference toward the things of this world which many of them exhibited. It could not fail to foster an unworldly or other-worldly disposition, and it may have had something to do with the poverty which so long prevailed in the mother church. Interested, as they all were, more in the future than in the present, and expect- ing shortly to receive blessings greater than any that could be acquired by human effort, it is not unlikely that many of them neglected their common occupations, and spent their time largely in prayer and praise, and converse respecting the future. This at least is the impression made by the early chapters of Acts, and it is exactly what we might expect. Poverty under such circumstances was neither a disgrace nor a hardship. To be indifferent to the comforts and luxuries of life was not a duty merely, but a privilege as well. 1 But the absorption of the minds and hearts of the dis- ciples in the kingdom which was so soon to be established, and the subordination of all other interests thereto, had the effect of binding them most closely to each other. They were not simply fellow-disciples of a common Mas- ter, fellow-believers in a common faith, they were brethren in the fullest sense, and the tie that united them was far stronger than their ordinary family and social ties. Doubt- less the fact that many of them were comparative strangers in Jerusalem contributed to their sense of isolation from the outside world, and tended to enhance their feeling of brotherhood, but the impulse had a deeper basis than any such accidental circumstance. Whether at home or away from home, they constituted one household, and into this household they received all the converts to their faith. They did not conceive their mission to be simply the pro- mulgation of a truth, or the impartation, to those outside, 1 Very likely Jesus' words to the rich young man in Matt. xix. 21, and his declaration concerning the rich man's difficulty in entering the kingdom (vs. 23 sq.) tended to promote their contempt for worldly possessions. And doubt- less their evident disregard for the things of the present, and their expectation of enjoying the richest blessings in the near future, proved very attractive to the poor, and helps to explain the fact that they won converts especially from that class. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 67 of benefits that they had themselves received. Their mission was to bring others within the family circle, that they might there enjoy the blessings promised to the elect children of God. It is in the light of this sense of brotherhood that we are to explain the kind of communism which the author of the Acts represents as practised in the church of Jeru- salem. 1 It was not, to be sure, an absolute communism. Various indications show that Luke's general statements are to be taken with some qualification. 2 But even though not complete, the principle on which it was based was communistic. It was not mere charity that was prac- tised; it was the recognition of the claims of the Christian family as superior to the claims of the individual, and it was the relief of the necessities of the brethren, not simply because they were needy and suffering, but because they were brethren. 3 The expectation of the speedy re- turn of Christ, and the consequent undervaluation of earthly possessions, of course made such communism easier, but does not account for it. It was the fruit of the conception of the church as a family, which prevailed universally at this time. It is clear, in the light of all that has been said, that the early Christians of Jerusalem must have found their life very largely in their association with one another, and that they must have been much together. We should expect also that the religious impulse would make itself felt in all parts of their life. They could not confine their 1 Acts ii. 44, 45, iv. 32, 34 sq. 2 Acts vi. 1 sq. shows that it was not an equal division of all the property belonging to all the disciples that was thought of, but only a distribution to such as were in need. So Ananias and Sapphira were not condemned for fail- ing to turn over all that they had to the church, but for pretending to be more generous than they were (Acts v. 4) ; and their case clearly shows that the whole thing was voluntary and not required, while in communism in the strict sense, no room is left for individual generosity. The fact that Barnabas is especially commended for selling his field also suggests that such generosity was uncommon, and there is no implication in the account that he turned over to the apostles everything he had. 3 The love for one's neighbor upon which Christ laid such stress and which he expressly made to embrace all men, was commonly interpreted by the early Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, to mean simply love for the brethren, fellow-members of the one household of faith. See below, p. 508 sq. 68 THE APOSTOLIC AGE spiritual exercises and employments to certain fixed hours and days ; their entire life must be a life of expectation and of preparation, and thus religious in the fullest sense. It would be a mistake to picture them as holding regular and formal religious services such as are held to-day. They did not constitute a separate synagogue, and they never thought of substituting their own meetings for the regular services of the synagogue. The latter they doubtless attended faithfully, in company with their neighbors, just as they had before their conversion. They may have been in the habit of gathering together in a body from time to time for common worship and for mutual edification and inspiration, as we find them doing in the days immediately preceding Pentecost ; but as their num- bers grew larger, such general gatherings must have become increasingly difficult, and it was at any rate not in them, but in their daily intercourse with one another and in the little family gatherings from house to house, that their Christian life found fullest expression and the sense of Christian brotherhood, which was all-controlling, had freest play. The feeling of brotherhood voiced itself perhaps most clearly in the breaking of bread, which the author of the Acts refers to in ii. 42 and 46. He undoubtedly employs the expression to denote the Lord's Supper, 1 for the phrase was a technical one in his day. The accuracy of his re- port, that the Lord's Supper was eaten by the primitive disciples of Jerusalem, can hardly be questioned. The general prevalence of the rite from Paul's time on, and not in Pauline churches alone, but in all parts of Christendom, makes it almost necessary to assume that the custom was already observed in the very earliest period. 2 1 The KvpiaK&v Sriirvov, as Paul calls it. 2 Professor Percy Gardner, in a very suggestive pamphlet entitled The Ori- gin of the Lord's Supper (1893), maintains that the Supper was introduced by Paul. But it is inconceivable that the Jewish wing of the church would have taken it up had it originated with him. Its general prevalence at an early day in all parts of the church can be accounted for only on the assumption that it was pre-Pauline. At the same time, the fact must be recognized that it is not absolutely certain that Jesus himself actually instituted such a supper and directed his disciples to eat and drink in remembrance of him PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 69 That the disciples held a special service and partook of a special communion meal there is no sign. It is far (els TTJV fj.r]v di>d^.vfj,a,s Paul says in 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25). Expecting as he apparently did to return at an early day (see p. 24), he can hardly have been solicitous to provide for the preservation of his memory ; and it is a notahle fact that neither Matthew nor Mark records such a command, while the pas- sage in which it occurs in Luke is omitted in many of the oldest MSS., and is regarded as an interpolation by Westcott and Hort. Even if the words belong in the Gospel of Luke (as some maintain), they are evidently dependent upon Paul, and supply no independent testimony as to the original utterance of Christ. It is difficult to understand how Matthew and Mark can have abridged the more elaborate formula of Paul and Luke, and especially how they can have omitted the words in question. On the other hand, the enlargement o'f the briefer and simpler formula is easier to explain. There can be little doubt that Mark and Matthew, so far as they agree, represent the primitive tradi- tion as to Christ's words. But Matthew has also enlarged the original formula by adding the words et's &(j>. 13 Rom. xv. 18; 2 Cor. xii. 12 ; cf. also Acts xxviii. 8 sq. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 75 sionaries, of whom there were so many in the early church, possessed a like power. 1 There is no reason to suppose that in this respect the primitive Christians of Jerusalem differed from other Christians in the world outside. Doubtless there was as vivid a sense of the presence and miraculous activity of the divine among them as among their brethren anywhere. And yet it is a remarkable fact that, so far as our sources enable us to judge, the early disciples did not commonly connect such wonderful works with the Spirit of God. In the Gospels the agency or power by which Christ did his great works is not ordinarily specified, and only once is such a work brought into any connection with the Spirit, and then the reference to the Spirit is probably an addi- tion to the original source. 2 In the Book of Acts Christ's wonders are ascribed to the Spirit on one occasion by Peter, 3 but nowhere else in the book is the Spirit brought into connection with any such works, and the signs wrought by the disciples are commonly represented as wrought in Jesus' name or by his power. 4 Paul distinctly recognizes the Spirit as the giver of the power to perform miracles, 5 and the failure of the author of Acts to ascribe such wonders to him, when he mentions the wonders themselves so frequently, seems inexplicable, except on the assumption that he was following his sources, and that in them the marvellous works were not connected with the Spirit. But such reticence on the part of the sources of which Luke made use, can hardly have been accidental. We may fairly see in it, in fact, the influence of the traditional conception of the Jews, who always thought of the Spirit primarily as the power which worked through the prophets, revealing to them the will and truth of God, and impelling them to declare that will and truth i 2 Cor. xii. 12. a In Matt. xii. 28, Christ says : " If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils " ; but in the parallel passage in Luke (xi. 20), the phrase " ringer of God " occurs in the place of " Spirit of God," and is probably the original reading. 3 Acts x. 38. 4 Acts iii. (5, iv. 30, ix. 17, 34, xvi. 18 ; cf. also Mark xvi. 17, 18. 6 1 Cor. xii. 9 sq. ; cf. Gal. iii. 5. 76 THE APOSTOLIC AGE to others. 1 But we may perhaps go further and conclude that the wonderful works which are recorded in the early chapters of Acts were so exceptional and infrequent, that they were entirely overshadowed by the common buc no less striking manifestations of the Spirit's activity in other lines, and that they were consequently not thought of, like the latter, as characteristic signs of the Spirit's presence in the disciples, but only as special deeds wrought through them under special circumstances by Jesus himself. Paul's advance upon the earlier concep- tion at this point is of a piece with his general advance, in ascribing the entire Christian life in all its activities, the most common as well as the most uncommon, to the indwelling Spirit, whose abiding presence alone makes the Christian life possible. In the beginning the disciples were very likely largely Galileans, but they soon won over to their faith many of the residents of Jerusalem, and as their circle widened, there entered not only Palestinian, but also Hellenistic Jews, who were largely represented in Jerusalem at this time, and even proselytes, who were also numerous in the city. We first hear of such Hellenists and proselytes within the church in the sixth chapter of Acts. It is reported there that the Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, com- plained that in the daily distribution of alms their widows were neglected. 2 That this should have been the case is not surprising. Even when they were loyal or orthodox in their Judaism, the Hellenists were not always treated by their Palestinian brethren with the same measure of respect that was shown the Jew who had never made his home among the Gentiles. It may well be that their tra- 1 It is true that physical wonders are occasionally ascribed to the Spirit's influence in the Old Testament. But such a connection is exceptional. See Wendt : Die Begriffe Fleisch und Geist im biblischen Sprachgebrauch, S. 32 sq. 2 Wendt (in Meyer's Commentary, 7th ed.) maintains that up to this time the distribution of alms had been in the hands not of the apostles, or at any rate not exclusively, but of private individuals, and that the change instituted by the appointment of the Seven consisted not in transferring to the latter duties hitherto performed by the apostles, but in bringing under official over- sight and control a function which had been hitherto the business of no one in particular. But see below, p. 658. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 77 ditioual prejudice rnade itself felt even within the Chris- tian circle, and had something to do with the cavalier treatment accorded the Hellenistic widows. It cannot be supposed that the difficulty was due to the fact that these Hellenists were less orthodox and less careful in their observance of the law than their brethren; for had that been the case, the division between the two classes in the church would have been more far-reaching and lasting than it was. There is no reason, indeed, to suppose that the foreign Jews resident in Jerusalem were any less zeal- ous for the traditions of the fathers and elders than the natives of the Holy Land. Their situation in Jerusalem was very different from the situation of those Hellenists who lived in Greek and Roman communities, and the in- fluences which led the latter to allegorize and spiritualize the law were largely wanting in their case. It may safely be assumed that many of them would be particularly eager to atone for the blot upon their ancestry, or upon their own past, by uncommon zeal for the traditions of the fathers. It is worthy of notice in this connection that the attack upon Stephen, which came a little later, and which was due to his supposed hostility to the Jewish law and temple, was instigated not by Palestinian but by foreign Jews. It is probable, then, that the reason for the neglect of the Hellenistic poor lay not in any differences of opinion or of practice, but solely in the traditional attitude of native Hebrews toward their foreign brethren. It is to the credit of the apostles and the church in general that the neglect was no sooner discovered than steps were taken to correct it. The remedy proposed was simple but effective. It was the appointment of a board or committee, which should be responsible for the fair distribution of all the alms of the church. The seven men thus appointed have been commonly called deacons since the second century, and it has been the custom to regard them as the first incumbents of that historic office. But they are not called deacons by Luke, or by any other New Testament writer, and there is no sign that there were ever deacons in the church of Jerusalem. Accord- 78 THE APOSTOLIC AGE ing to Epiphanius, the Ebionitic churches of Palestine in his time had only presbyters and archisynagogi. 1 These Ebionites were the Jewish Christian reactionaries, who refused to advance with the Catholic church in its normal development. It is therefore significant that there were no deacons among them in the fourth century. But it is to be noticed, also, that the duties assigned to the Seven were not identical with the functions discharged by the regular deacons of whom we hear in the latter part of the first century. The former were put in charge of the alms- giving of the Jerusalem church, while the latter acted simply as bishops' assistants. If we cannot, then, regard these seven men as deacons, are we to suppose that they constituted only a temporary committee, 2 or are we to identify them with permanent officials in the church of Jerusalem bearing some other name? In the Book of Acts, apostles and elders are frequently mentioned as the leading personages in the mother church, 3 and it is said in chap. xi. 30 that the Antiochian Christians sent their gifts, intended for the brethren of Jerusalem, to the "elders." The latter evidently had in charge at that time the work origi- nally entrusted to the Seven. The appointment of these elders is nowhere recorded by Luke, and it is natural therefore to identify them with the Seven and to suppose that the latter were in reality the first presbyters of the church of Jerusalem. 4 But in the absence of any specific information upon the subject, and in view of the fact that Luke does not call the Seven "elders," and nowhere hints that they were the same, it is probably safer to conclude that the men whose appointment he records in Acts vi. served only a temporary purpose, and that the duties 1 Epiphanius, Haer. III. 18. 2 This opinion was held by Chrysostom, and among modern scholars by Vitringa, Dean Stanley, and others. 8 Elders are mentioned alone in xi. 30, xxi. 18; " Apostles and Elders" in xv. 2, 4, 6, 22, xvi. 4; " Apostles and elder brethren " (Trpea/Si/re/oot ddeX^ol)? in xv. 23. 4 It is clear that there cannot have been official elders in the Church of Jerusalem at the time the Seven were appointed, for otherwise the appoint- ment of the latter would have been unnecessary. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 79 originally entrusted to them were ultimately assumed by the elders or elder brethren, who seem gradually to have become the leaders of the church in its various activities. But the identity of the Seven with the so-called elders is to be questioned, not simply because of Luke's silence in the matter, but also because it is exceedingly unlikely that the elders mentioned in the Book of Acts were offi- cers of the church in any sense ; or in other words, it is exceedingly unlikely that they had been appointed to take charge of the alms of the church, or to perform any other duties, religious or ecclesiastical. That the older and more experienced disciples should gradually assume the leadership of the church was entirely natural, especially after the subsidence of the storm that broke at the time of Stephen's execution; for the occupation of the Seven was very likely interrupted by that persecution, and after it ceased there were probably few either of the apostles or of the Seven left on the ground. And so it is not surprising that in later chapters of the Book of Acts the elders com- monly appear, either alone or in company with the apostles or with James, as the leading figures in the church, even though they were not the incumbents of any ecclesiastical office. 1 From which party in the church the seven men were chosen we are not told, but it is altogether probable that both parties were represented. At least one of the Seven, Nicolas of Antioch, was a proselyte ; 2 and it is very likely that Stephen was a Hellenist, for the attack upon him 1 In my edition of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (Bk. II. chap. i. note), I took the position that the " Seven" were the first elders of the Church of Jerusalem, but I am now convinced that the elders mentioned in various pas- sages in the Book of Acts were not officers in any sense, and consequently are not to be connected with the Seven in any way. Luke himself possibly thought of the men whom he calls elders, as he did of the apostles, as regular officials of the church of Jerusalem, but the facts hardly bear out the opinion, for in Acts xv. 23, although he speaks in the previous verse of the " apostles and elders " in such a way as to leave the impression that he regards them as offi- cers, the decree itself which he quotes, and the early date of which cannot be denied (see p. 212, below), has only "apostles and elder brethren," showing clearly their unofficial character, and throwing light back upon all those pas- sages in which the word " elder " occurs, See also p. 55i, below. 2 Acts vi. 5. 80 THE APOSTOLIC AGE was made by foreign Jews, who had apparently become acquainted with his views through association with him in one of their synagogues. That all were of the same party, as assumed by some scholars on the ground of their Greek names, 1 is very unlikely, for they were entrusted with the dispensation of charity for the entire church, not for one section of it only, and the effort would naturally be made to avoid all cause of complaint in the future by giving both classes a fair representation on the committee. 2 The spread of Christianity during these early days which we have been considering, must have been very rapid. The interval between Christ's death and the death of Stephen can hardly have been more than a couple of years, 3 and yet the persecution which followed upon the latter event shows that there were already many Christians in Jerusalem. The statement concerning the number of the disciples in the early chapters of Acts are for the most part very indefinite, but a few specific figures are given. Thus, in Acts i. 15, it is said that there were "about a hundred and twenty" gath- ered together; and that they did not comprise all the dis- ciples is shown by 1 Cor. xv. 6, where Paul says that Jesus appeared to "above five hundred brethren at once." In Acts ii. 41 it is said that about three thousand per- sons were added to them, and in iv. 4, their numbers are reported to have reached five thousand. Though, as a rule, comparatively little reliance can be placed upon such general figures, the contrast between them and the vague statements in other passages seems to indicate that they were taken by Luke from his sources, and that they are not merely the result of his own idealization of the early history. 4 These are the only definite statements 1 Palestinian Jews frequently bore Greek names, and two of the Twelve Apostles, Philip and Andrew, are known to us only thus. 2 Gieseler (Church History, Eng. Trans., Vol. I. p. 74) suggests that three Hebrews, three Hellenists, and one proselyte were appointed. That such care was taken is possible, but hardly probable. A committee made up in such a way would have a decidedly modern look. 8 See below, p. 172. 4 Though the figures were probably taken from the sources, it is not at all impossible that they are something of an exaggeration, as held by many PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 81 upon the subject which we have ; and whether the larger number was intended to represent the strength of the Christian brotherhood in the early or in the later part of the period with which we are dealing, we have no means of knowing ; for there is for the most part no indication as to the chronological order of the various detached events which Luke records. In Acts ii. 47, it is said that "the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved"; in v. 14, that "believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women"; in vi. 1, that the "number of the disciples was multiply- ing"; and in ix. 31, that "the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria was multiplied." Such general statements of course add little to our knowledge ; but though they probably originated with Luke himself, and not with his sources, they are certainly true to the facts; for there can be no doubt that the growth of the little circle of disciples was steady and rapid, until the storm broke which resulted in driving so many of them from the city. 4. THE CONFLICT WITH JUDAISM There is much in the account of these days contained in the early chapters of the Book of Acts that is calcu- lated to convey the impression that the disciples passed a large part of their life in the blaze of publicity, that they were constantly before the eyes of all the people, and that their fame was upon everybody's lips. But such an idea is hardly in accord with the actual facts. That they spoke boldly in the name of Jesus there is no reason to doubt, and that they produced a profound impression upon those that heard them, and won many converts to their faith in the Messiah, cannot be questioned. They doubt- less improved the frequent opportunities afforded by the presence of Jewish worshippers in the temple to speak to scholars (cf. Wendt in Meyer's Commentary, seventh edition, S. 92 sq.). In- deed, though the growth of the church in Jerusalem must have been rapid, there is a difficulty, in the light of the account which we have of their numer- ous meetings together, in supposing that the number of those who resided in Jerusalem reached into the thousands, at any rate during the earliest days. G 82 THE APOSTOLIC AGE them of the Messiah Jesus, and it is altogether likely that they proclaimed him openly in the public streets and squares, or wherever they could get a crowd together. Conscious that their great duty was witness-bearing, they must have seized every available occasion to bear testi- mony to him, whether in public or in private. 1 But Jerusalem was a large and busy city, and the presence of the disciples can hardly have made any wide impression, at any rate for some time. That they should be preaching a faith which had been completely discredited by the death of their leader, and should still be proclaiming that leader as the Messiah, must have seemed so foolish to most of those that happened to know of it, that they could hardly regard them as anything else than witless and harmless fanatics. The fact that they never thought of attacking or questioning the validity of the Jewish law, that they were not revolutionists in any sense, but, on the contrary, the most devout observers of ancestral law and custom, removed them from the category of dangerous characters who needed to be kept under strict and constant surveil- lance. Of course it was not a crime for them to declare their continued devotion to Jesus, and that there could be any danger in allowing them to do so can hardly have suggested itself to any one, at least for some time. Only when their number had grown large, and their influence had come to be somewhat widely felt among the common people, did the authorities think it worth while to take cognizance of them. And then it is significant that it was not the Pharisees who brought accusations against them, as in the case of Jesus, but the captain of the temple and the priests and the Sadducees, 2 or, in other words, the political rather than the religious leaders of the Jews. 1 The utterances of Peter and others recorded in Acts iii. sq. are not to be regarded as formal discourses delivered on particular occasions, but rather as mere examples of the kind of testimony borne by him and by his fellows on all occasions. That they represent so accurately the views of the early dis- ciples is due, not to the fact that they are stenographic reports of particular speeches, but that they are taken from primitive Jewish Christian documents, dating, doubtless, from a very early period. 2 Acts iv. 1, v. 17. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 83 It has been asserted by many scholars that it is incon- ceivable that the Christians should have been attacked by the Sadducees, and that the Pharisees, the enemies of Christ, should not have been the ringleaders. But the assertion is based upon a misconception of the principles of the early disciples. There was no reason why the Pharisees should proceed against such strict and consis- tent Jews as they were. They might well think that the death of Jesus had taken from the movement all Messianic significance, and might well be content to leave such pious Israelites alone, as entirely harmless from a religious point of view. When they were arrested, it was apparently not as teachers of another religion, or as ene- mies of the law, but simply as disturbers of the public peace, who were gathering crowds about them without license and were threatening a tumult of serious propor- tions. But though Luke is thus undoubtedly correct in stating that the Sadducees and not the Pharisees were responsible for the attack upon the Christians that took place at this time, the reason which he gives for their hostility betrays a misapprehension of their true character. The Sadducees were not bigoted theologians, who desired to persecute and stop the mouths of all that differed with them. It was not because the disciples preached the resur- rection from the dead that they proceeded against them, but because they were creating too much of an excitement in the city, and needed to have their freedom of speech somewhat curtailed. 1 The nature of the punishment in- flicted by the authorities upon Peter and John 2 goes to confirm the general conclusion that has been drawn. Sur- prise has been expressed that when they had been arrested, they should have been released again so soon. But if the object was simpty to put some restraint upon their free- 1 There can be little doubt that the agency of the Sadducees in the arrest of the early Christians was recorded in the sources which the author of the Acts used, and that he added the motive which seemed to him alone to explain their course. There is no discoverable reason otherwise why he should have departed from the tradition as to the hostility of the Pharisees against Jesus, which he follows in his Gospel, and should have made the Sadducees rather than the Pharisees the instigators of the attack. 2 Actsiv. 3sq., v. 18 sq. 84 THE APOSTOLIC AGE dom of speech and action, and thus avoid the tumults and disturbances which their public preaching was causing, the course which the authorities are represented to have taken was entirely natural. 1 The time at which the first arrests were made we do not know, but they must not be brought into any connection with the outbreak that occurred in connection with Stephen, for that had grounds of an entirely different character. We shall probably not go far astray, if we assume that the interference of the authorities, referred to in Acts iv. and v., began in the earlier rather than in the latter part of the period that elapsed between Pentecost and the execution of Stephen, and that that interference actually accomplished the end sought, and that the disciples thence- forth refrained from creating public disturbances, and 1 The part played by Gamaliel in this connection, as reported in Acts v. 34 sq., has given rise to much discussion. The whole account has been declared by many scholars, for instance by Baur, Zeller, and Overbeck, entirely unhistorical, both because of the attitude which Gamaliel is repre- sented as taking and of the anachronism in his reported speech. But there is no reason, in the nature of things, why the great Rabbi Gamaliel may not have counselled moderation in dealing with the disciples. His attitude, as it appears in the passage in question, does not necessarily imply any secret leaning toward Christianity or any friendliness for the Christians. It is simply the attitude of a wise and cool-headed man who believes that control will accom- plish the desired purpose better than repression. That there is nothing incredi- ble in the report that Gamaliel, or any other member of the Sanhedrim, held such an attitude, is shown by the fact that the disciples were actually treated with just such moderation for a long time. But the fact must be recognized that though the general statement as to Gamaliel's position may be quite correct, the report of his speech cannot be regarded as entirely accurate. Josephus (Ant. xx. 5, 1) gives an account of an insurgent leader named Theudas, who, in the reign of Claudius, a dozen years or more after the time to which Luke is referring, announced himself as a prophet and secured a great many followers, and was finally conquered and slain by the procurator Cuspius Fadus. The identity of this man with the Theudas mentioned in Acts has been denied by many scholars in the interest of Luke's account (for instance by Wieseler : Chronologic des apost. Zeitalters, S. 138; Schaff: History of the Christian Church, Vol. I. p. 732; and many commentators on Acts), but the descriptions in the two cases agree so closely that it is very difficult to believe that they refer to different men, especially in view of the fact that the name Theudas was far from common. The accu- racy of Josephus' chronology at this point cannot be doubted, and it would seem therefore that the author of the Acts, unconscious of the anachronism involved, must have put into Gamaliel's mouth words which he did not actu- ally utter. SeeNeander: PJanzunri imd Leitvng der christlichfn Kirche durch die Apostel, 5te Auflage, S. 57; Wendt: I.e. S. 146; and Schiirer: Gesehichte des judischen Volkes, I. S, 473, where the literature is given with considerable fulness. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 85 carried on their evangelistic work more quietly than they had been inclined to do at first. 1 The arrest of Stephen at the instigation of certain for- eign Jews, who were exceedingly zealous for ancestral law and custom, 2 is a fact of great significance and demands careful examination, all the more careful because it has been widely misinterpreted. The accusations brought against Stephen doubtless had some basis in fact, but he is certainly misrepresented by the "false witnesses" whom Luke quotes in vs. 13, for had he "ceased not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law," he would have incurred the disapprobation not of the unconverted Jews alone, but of his Christian brethren as well. The rigor with which they observed the law not only in the beginning, but for years afterward, and the bitterness and persistency with which many of them later opposed the tendency to regard it as abrogated, or to neglect its observance, make it certain that, had Stephen done as he was said to have done by his accusers, even though he had not preached, as Paul later did, a Gentile Christianity, a serious and bitter conflict must have been precipitated in the church of Jerusalem. But so far as our sources enable us to judge, Stephen continued to stand in unquestioned repute and to enjoy the universal esteem of his brethren. It is not impossible that a freer tendency than that originally represented by Peter and his associates existed within the church of Jerusalem at this time, and that it made itself felt especially among the converts from the Hellenists. But the tendency can have been neither very marked nor very extreme, or it would certainly have split the infant church. It is more probable, under the circumstances, that opposition to Christianity on the part of the stricter spirits among the Hellenists of Jerusalem was aroused not by attacks made by the Christians upon the Jewish law, or by a manifest tendency among them 1 In confirmation of this supposition it may be observed that the arrest of Stephen was not caused by the Sadducees, but by the religious zealots, and hence it would seem that the action of the disciples had ceased to incur the hostility of the civic authorities. * Acts vi. 9 sq. 86 THE APOSTOLIC AGE to neglect its observance, but by such an emphasis upon the spiritual character of the future Messianic kingdom as led to a seeming neglect of its physical and political aspects, and appeared to many to threaten the permanent stability of Jewish law and custom. It may well be that in his proclamation of the impending judgment and of the return of Jesus to establish the Messianic kingdom, Stephen, as well as others, repeated the prophecies of Christ in which the destruction of the temple and of the city was foretold, prophecies which might easily be inter- preted as implying that the Jewish law had only relative and temporary validity. But there is no sign that Stephen thus interpreted them, and there is no sign that he drew from them conclusions affecting in any way the binding character of the law, or thought of suggesting, or even countenancing, its neglect. To say that Jesus the Mes- siah, as a judgment upon an unbelieving people, will destroy their temple and city, does not necessarily mean that he will change the customs that God has delivered unto them through Moses, and we may be sure that Stephen cannot have taught thus and retained the confidence of the church. The address which Stephen is reported to have made goes to confirm the conclusion that has been drawn. It is a mistake to interpret that address as implying a belief on the part of the speaker in either the immediate or ultimate abrogation of law and temple worship; or a tendency on his part to regard them as of only relative and temporary worth. The address was not directed, as is frequently said, against the Jews' valuation of the Holy Land, of the temple, and of the law. It was not the speaker's purpose to assert over against such valuation that God may be worshipped everywhere and in all ways, for the sacredness of the promised land is repeatedly empha- sized, and the sojourn of Israel in Egypt and in Babylon is regarded as a calamity because it means separation from it. Nor is there any sign of an inclination to treat the law slightingly. On the contrary, the law is called "liv- ing oracles " in vs. 38, and its divine character is empha- PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 87 sized by its connection with angels in vss. 38 and 53, l and Moses himself is accorded the greatest possible honor. In fact, one of the marked characteristics of the address is the emphasis which is put upon the sacredness both of the promised land and of the Mosaic law. The speech might more easily be interpreted as an evidence of Stephen's profound respect for and rigid adherence to those things which his countrymen regarded as holy, than as evidence of his undervaluation of them. The theme of the address is to be found not in vss. 48-50, but in vss. 51-53. Stephen's design is to show that not he and his fellow-Christians, but his accusers and the unconverted Jews in general are the real crimi- nals and violators of God's law. To bring the matter out in the clearest light, he begins with the call of Abraham and the divine promise that Abraham's de- scendants should serve God in the land to which God had called him. In the light of that promise the residence of the children of Israel in Egypt, which he recounts at considerable length, appears simply as a temporary sojourn. They are only strangers in Egypt, and their true fatherland is Canaan. Stephen is careful to refer in passing to the burial of Jacob and of the patriarchs in Shechem, thus emphasizing the fact that Canaan and not Egypt is their home and the home of their descendants. But in spite of the fact that, according to God's announced purpose, the Israelites were only strangers and sojourners in Egypt, when Moses, who had enjoyed the most eminent favors from the Egyptian court, and who had consequently the best of reasons to remain in the land of his adoption, vol- untarily relinquished all his honors in order to deliver his brethren from their bondage, they refused to go, prefer- ring to remain where they were rather than to seek the land which God had appointed them as the place in which 1 It is true that in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii. 2) , the agency of the angels in the giving of the law is regarded as a mark of its inferiority as com- pared with the Gospel which was given through Clmst. But in Stephen's address no such idea appears. It was a common belief among the Jews that the law had been promulgated by the mediation of angels, and Stephen refers to the fact for the purpose of magnifying not minimizing the dignity of the law. 88 THE APOSTOLIC AGE to serve him. This is the first instance of the Israelites unbelief and opposition to the will of God to which Stephen refers, but the instances multiply as the address proceeds. He mentions them evidently with a double purpose: on the one hand, to show that at all stages of their history the Israelites had withstood and opposed the purposes of God, even refusing to receive and obey the " living oracles " which he gave them through the agency of Moses ; and, on the other hand, because their conduct furnishes a parallel to the treatment accorded Jesus by those whom he is addressing. He calls particular atten- tion to the fact that the very Moses who had been rejected by his brethren, was afterward commissioned and sent by God to be their ruler and deliverer, and that this same Moses predicted that God would raise up another prophet like unto himself, a prediction which was fulfilled in the person of Jesus the righteous one, whose coming the prophets announced beforehand and were slain for an- nouncing. Moreover, the Israelites' idolatry and disregard of God's will continued, in spite of the fact that they had the tabernacle of the testimony, which was erected at God's express command. The presence of that tabernacle in their midst did riot prevent them from worshipping false gods. Indeed, that worship was carried so far that God could declare that they had in reality offered him no sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness. And so the building of the temple, which followed the taber- nacle, did not insure the true worship of God on the part of his people. For God's dwelling-place is not mere hand-made houses. Tabernacle and temple may be built, but the hearts of the people may be far from God, and if they are, he whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is the earth must withdraw his presence and his favor from them. Taken by themselves, vss. 48-50 might be regarded as a general statement that God is to be worshipped only in spirit and not in hand-made temples, and that consequently the Jewish temple worship is unnecessary, or even harmful, and may or should be done away. But UNiVER PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 89 read in the light of the context in which the words occur, they cannot mean that such worship is unnecessary, but only that mere external temple worship is not enough; that the temple may stand and worshippers gather therein, and yet God himself be absent, because the hearts of the worshippers are turned toward other gods, and the sacri- fices which they offer him are no sacrifices. In giving utterance to such a truth, Stephen was simply reiterating a principle repeatedly emphasized by the prophets, and not entirely forgotten among the Jews in his own day; a principle, moreover, with which all of his Christian brethren must have been in heartiest accord. To read more than this into vss. 48-50 is to overlook the fact, which cannot have escaped Stephen himself and his hearers, that Solomon at the very time of the erection of the temple gave distinct expression to the same thought, 1 and is to introduce an idea entirely foreign both to the body of the address and to its conclusion. Stephen's speech was thus not a direct defence of him- self against the accusations brought by his opponents, but a warning, addressed to his .accusers and judges, that the possession of the temple and the law, as it had not in the past, so would not now insure the pres- ence of God and the acceptance of the people by him. Only they who cease resisting his Spirit, and receive the righteous one whom he has sent, are truly wor- shipping and serving God. It is clear, in the light of all that has been said, that to call Stephen a forerunner of Paul, and to think of him as anticipating in any way Paul's treatment of the Jewish law and his assertion of a free Gentile Christianity, is to misunderstand him. He neither questioned the continued validity of the Jewish law nor suggested in any way the call of the Gentiles. 2 1 1 Kings viii. 27 ; 2 Chron. ii. 6, and vi. 18. 2 It has been maintained by many that the author of the Book of Acts him- self composed the speech with which we have been dealing, and put it into the mouth of Stephen. But if our interpretation of the address be correct, such an assumption is impossible. The author of the Acts cannot have invented and ascribed to Stephen, who was accused of blaspheming the law and the 90 THE APOSTOLIC AGE The closing sentences of Stephen's speech were not cal- culated to conciliate his hearers. His bold charac terization of his accusers and judges as stiff-necked and uncircum- cised in heart and ears, his bitter denunciation of them for resisting the Spirit of God, and for breaking his laws, and his stinging arraignment of them as betrayers and murder- ers of the righteous one whom God had sent, and whom the prophets had foretold, must have enraged them beyond measure, and we are not surprised to learn that they "gnashed on him with their teeth." But there was noth- ing in his address to substantiate the charge of blasphemy brought against him, and to justify his condemnation. That justification, however, he supplied in the words which he is reported to have uttered in vs. 56 ("Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God "), and the result was, as might have been expected, his conviction and execution. Blas- phemy, according to Jewish law, whether against Jehovah or against his law, was punishable by death, 1 and as Stephen was formally accused and brought to trial before the Sanhedrim, it is probable that he was formally con- demned by that body, and that his death was not the result of a mere tumult, as the account of Luke might seem to imply. This probability is strengthened by the fact that his death was by the legal mode prescribed for the crime of blasphemy, and that the stoning was done not by the crowd in general, but by Stephen's accusers in the orderly Jewish way. 2 The Jews, it is true, did not possess, under the Roman procurators, the right to inflict capital punishment, 3 but whether in the present instance the condemnation was confirmed by the Roman authorities, or whether the execution took place illegally without temple, a speech in which there is no hint of the abrogation of the ceremonial law or of the calling of the Gentiles. Luke undoubtedly got the substance of the discourse from an early source, and reproduced it with approximate accuracy. 1 Lev. xxiv. 6 ; Deut. xiii. 6-10. 2 Acts vii. 58; cf. Deut. xvii. 7. 8 Upon the powers of the Sanhedrim during the period when Judea was governed by Roman procurators, see Schurer, II. S. 160 sq. (Eng. Trans., Div. II. Vol. I. p. 187). PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 91 Roman sanction, as happened later in the case of James, 1 we are not informed. Either supposition is credible ; for during the closing years of his official career in Judea, Pilate was in such bad odor with the Jews, and had so much to do to retain his position, that he may well have refrained from calling them to account for their illegal action in this particular case. But it is more probable that the Sanhedrim secured at least some kind of sanction from the authorities before proceeding to the execution, for it is difficult otherwise to explain the persecution which they immediately instituted against the Christians, and the failure of the latter to defend themselves against their persecutors by complaining of their violation of Roman law. The execution of Stephen, according to the author of the Acts, was the signal for the outbreak of a general attack upon the disciples. Such an attack was entirely natural under the circumstances. There is no reason to suppose that the teachings and practices of Stephen dif- fered in any way from those of his fellow-Christians and that his arrest was due to the fact that he was more radical than they. It is probable that the hostility of the stricter Hellenistic Jews fell first upon him simply because he had first drawn their attention to the new faith. The Hellenists in general very likely knew little about Chris- tianity, an obscure movement which had arisen in Gali- lee, and had excited little public attention in Jerusalem, until it began to spread widely among their own number, and to secure the adherence of men of influence and repute, such as Stephen undoubtedly was. In the discussions which naturally ensued, and which were perhaps carried on in the synagogues, they may have learned for the first time of the startling and ominous prophecies of Jesus. That many of them should take alarm at the consequences which seemed to be involved in such teachings was inevi- table. Their hostility, once aroused, would fall not upon Stephen alone, but upon all that professed the new faith. The attack upon him would be but the beginning of a 1 See below, p. 559 sq. 92 THE APOSTOLIC AGE general attack upon the whole sect. He was arrested at the instance of his fellow-Hellenists and brought before the Sanhedrim, not as a disturber of the public peace, as Peter and John had been, but as an enemy of God and of his law, and though his address did not substanti- ate the charge, it was not calculated to quiet the suspicions aroused against him and his fellows ; and when he gave public utterance finally to a distinctly blasphemous state- ment, it must have become clear to all that heard him, that belief in the Messiahship of the revolutionary teacher Jesus, who had himself been condemned for blasphemy, even though it might not yet have led his followers in general into any overt breaches of the law, was unsettling and anarchical in its effects. That the religious leaders, who were concerned, above all, in the strict maintenance of ancestral law and custom, should take alarm and deter- mine to crush out this growing heresy, which had at first appeared so harmless and insignificant, was inevitable. The trouble begun by the attack upon Stephen brought Christianity for the first time into distinct and open con- flict with Judaism. Hitherto the disciples had been Jews, and nothing more; now they were denounced by their brethren as heretics, and thus their independent exis- tence was clearly recognized. Though they were still as strict and conscientious as ever in their observance of the law, they now began to be looked upon in Jerusalem as an heretical sect, and the first step was thus taken toward their ultimate separation from the national body corporate. For some time they seem to have been the objects of bitter and unrelenting hostility on the part of the religious leaders of the people, and their position in Jerusalem was exceed- ingly uncomfortable and dangerous, so that they found it necessary either to go into retirement or to leave the city altogether. 1 How long the persecution continued we do not know. Three years after the death of Stephen, Peter and James, 1 The notion that the apostles stood by Jerusalem after the flight of all their brethren, rests upon a misapprehension as to their position and func- tions, which is characteristic of the author of the Acts as well as of the age in which he lived. See p. 46, above. &IMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 93 the brother of the Lord, were in the city, as we learn from Gal. i. 18 sq., and their presence implies the pres- ence of other Christians as well; though whether they were obliged still to conceal themselves from the eyes of the authorities, we cannot say. 1 But whatever the position of the disciples of Jerusalem at that time, they were sufficiently numerous and well known a few years later to afford Herod Agrippa I. an opportunity, which he thought it worth his while to improve, of vindicating his devotion to the Jewish law, and of currying favor with the Pharisaic party, by executing one of the leaders of the Christians and by imprisoning another. 2 The fact that this attack was made the subject of special record in Luke's sources goes to show that it was exceptional, and that it formed a contrast to the general situation during this period. In fact, it is altogether probable that in the years immediately preceding Herod's accession, and dur- ing the greater part of his reign, the Christians were left unmolested by the authorities, and that after his death they enjoyed peace under the government of the Roman procurators, and were permitted to grow without serious interference until the troublous days that ushered in the Jewish war. 5. THE WIDENING FIELD The persecution which began with the execution of Stephen became the occasion of a vigorous missionary campaign, and thus resulted in the rapid and wide spread of Christianity. They that were scattered abroad, Luke tells us, went about preaching the Word in Judea and Samaria, and even as far away as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. It was perhaps at this time, also, that the Gos- pel reached Lydia and Joppa, where Peter found disciples some time later. 3 This was not the beginning of mission- ary work outside of Jerusalem. The Gospel had been already carried at least to Damascus, and there can be little doubt that the fugitive disciples found believers to 1 Upon the account in Acts ix. 26 sq., see p. 165, below. 2 James the son of Zebedee was executed, and Peter imprisoned (Acts xii.), Acts ix. 32, 36 sq. 94 THE APOSTOLIC AGE welcome them in many quarters. But Luke is neverthe- less undoubtedly correct in representing the persecution as constituting an epoch in the history of missionary effort. For these Christians of Jerusalem, who had for so long enjoyed such intimate fellowship and communion with one another, who had together witnessed so many manifestations of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, and who had so fully realized in their common life the ideal of the life within the kingdom to which they were constantly looking forward, could not fail to make their influence felt wherever they went, and to give a mighty impulse to the spread of the Gospel. We are not to think of them as becoming travelling evangelists, and spending all their time in going from place to place preaching the Gospel. They had their daily bread to earn, and they doubtless settled down quietly among their own countrymen in this and that place, and lived the life of faithful, scrupulous Jews, just as they had done in Jerusalem, and just as their neighbors were doing. But at the same time they must have retained the ideal of the Christian life which they had seen realized in Jerusa- lem, and the little circles in which they gathered with others of like mind, and with those whom they succeeded in winning to their faith, could not fail to take on the character of the circle to which they had there belonged ; and thus at an early day among the Jewish population of many cities, towns, and villages within and without Pal- estine, the same kind of Christian brotherhood was realized that had existed from the beginning in Jerusalem. The flight of the disciples therefore did not mean merely the spread of a knowledge of the Gospel, it meant also the formation of little companies of Christian brethren, KK\r)(Tiai, wherever they made their homes. Of the missionary work of the disciples of Jerusalem, Luke gives us some examples in the eighth and following chapters, arranging them in such a way as to lead up gradually to the work of Paul, to which he devotes more than half his book, and in which his interest evidently chiefly centres. With the seventh chapter he concludes PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 95 the record of what he regards as the first of the three stages of the programme mapped out in i. 8: "Ye shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." The history of evangelistic work in Jerusalem, of the spread of Christianity and the growth of the church there, he does not refer to again. The significance of Jerusalem in his narrative, from this point on, lies in its relation to other churches. It is henceforth not the whole Christian church, but only the mother church. The field of opera- tion becomes an ever-widening territory, which acknowl- edges Jerusalem, to be sure, as its capital and centre, but which increasingly absorbs the interest and attention of the narrator, until Jerusalem itself and the fortunes of the church there are finally forgotten. Thus the execution of Stephen, with the persecution and the scattering of the disciples that ensued, marks a distinct division in the narrative of Luke and brings the first section of his history to a close. The second section, which contains the record of the second stage of witness-bearing, opens with an account of the preaching of Philip, one of the Seven, in Samaria. 1 The Samaritans were a heterogeneous people of mixed Jewish and heathen blood, but their religion was genu- inely Israelitish, though representing a more primitive stage of development than the religion of the Jews proper. They worshipped Jehovah, practised circumcision, ob- served the Sabbath and all the Jewish feast days, but their holy city was Gerizim instead of Jerusalem, and they rejected all the Scripture canon except the Pentateuch. They were commonly hated and despised by their Jewish neighbors, but they were not put on a level with the heathen. Their membership in the family of Israel, though not certain in each individual case, was distinctly recognized as possible, and the rabbinic regulations re- specting the treatment to be accorded them by orthodox 1 On the Samaritans see Schiirer : Geschichte d.judischen Volkes, II. S. 5 sq. (Eng. Trans., Div. II. Vol. I. p. 5 sq.) ; also Kautzsch's article in Herzog's Real-Encyclopaedic, XIII. S. 340 sq. 96 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Jews were framed accordingly. Their observance of the Jewish law was regarded as very defective by the Phari- sees, but they were not treated as complete aliens, and social intercourse, even to the extent of eating with them, was pronounced entirely legitimate by the rabbinic authorities. Philip's work among them, therefore, did not involve any breach of Jewish law, or even an approach thereto; but at the same time it revealed an interest in the people of Samaria which the ordinary Jew could hardly be expected to possess, and to that degree marked a dis- tinct advance upon the spirit of Judaism in general, an advance toward the broader sympathy of Jesus. It is for this reason, no doubt, that Luke records the incident. It may not be altogether without significance that the step was taken by one who was very likely a Hellenist, and who, though he might be as strict an observer of the Jew- ish law as any one else, would naturally feel more of an interest in the outside world than most of his Palestinian brethren, and would be more inclined than they to carry the Gospel to the Samaritans. The Samaritans, like the rest of the Jews, seem to have been expecting a Messiah, 1 and Philip's proclama- tion of Jesus as the Christ was therefore understood by them, though he cannot have made use of Old Testa- ment prophecy in the same way that Peter did in his preaching at Jerusalem. Whether he found the way prepared for him by the brief sojourn of Jesus himself in Sychar some years before, we cannot tell. There is no hint of it in Luke's account, but it may well be that there were still some with whom Jesus came in contact that remembered him, possibly some that had recognized .him as the Messiah, and if so we can easily believe that they were glad to hear more about him, and to give expression to their faith in him by receiving baptism. However that may be, Philip's work in Samaria was very successful, according to Luke, and many con- verts were baptized. 1 Cf. e.g. John iv. 25 ; and the note of Weiss in Meyer's Commentary, 8th edition. Cf. also Kautzsch's article in Herzog, S. 348. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 97 It is in accordance with his general custom that the author of the Acts brings the missionary work among the Samaritans under the official oversight and control of the church of Jerusalem, or rather of the apostolic college, by recording that the assembled apostles, when they heard of what had been done, sent Peter and John to Samaria ; and that the latter prayed and laid their hands upon the new converts in order that they might receive the Holy Spirit, who had not as yet come upon any of them. That Peter and John actually visited Samaria, there is no occasion to doubt; but the idea that they were sent from Jerusalem by the apostles as an official delegation to organize the Samaritans into a church, or to give their Christianity the sanction of their approval, and thus complete the work of Philip, betrays the conceptions of a later age. The apos- tles did not constitute an official board whose function was to exercise oversight over the church at large, and whose sanction was necessary for the inauguration of any new missionary enterprise, and for the establishment of any new church. The conception of such an official apos- tolate is certainly post-apostolic. 1 So that even if Peter and John did come from Jerusalem to Samaria at this time, they came not in an official capacity, but as Christian brethren to Christian brethren. In the same way, the idea that the Holy Spirit was conveyed to the new converts by the mediation of the apostles betrays the thinking of a later age. The author evidently means to indicate that the apostles possessed a peculiar function which was not shared by Philip; that they, and they alone, could mediate the impartation of the Holy Spirit. But such a connection of the gift of the Spirit with a particular office or with a particular class of men, is foreign to the conceptions of the apostolic age, as is shown, even by Luke himself, in many other passages. For instance, in ix. 17, it is recorded that Ananias, an 1 See above, p. 45 sq. It is widely said that the bishops were the successors of the apostles. It would perhaps be as near the truth to say that the apostles were successors of the bishops ! For the official character that has been as- cribed to the apostles since the second century was the result of carrying back to them the official character of the bishops. H 98 THE APOSTOLIC AGE ordinary disciple of Damascus, laid his hands upon Paul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, who ap- peared unto thee in the way which thou earnest, hath sent me that thou mayest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost; " in ii. 4, it is stated that all the assem- bled disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, where cer- tainly no human agent can be supposed; and in vs. 33 of the same chapter, Peter tells his hearers that the exalted Jesus had poured forth the Spirit whose presence had been manifested to them. That he or any other apostle was in a position to mediate the impartation of that Spirit, and that the Spirit could not be imparted without his mediation, was certainly far from his thought. 1 The connection of the gift of the Holy Spirit with a particular rite, such as the laying on of hands, 2 is equally alien to the conceptions of the apostolic age, as is shown by Luke himself, not only in the passages already referred to, but also in x. 44 and xi. 15, where it is distinctly stated that the Spirit fell upon Cornelius and those that were with him, while Peter was still speaking, and before they had even been baptized. The coming upon them of the Holy Ghost, which constituted an indisputable evi- dence that Jesus had himself accepted them, was urged by Peter as a reason why they should receive baptism. That hands were laid upon various persons on different occa- sions, even in the days of the apostles, as recorded by Luke, 3 there is no reason to question. But it may fairly be doubted whether the impartation of the Holy Spirit was conditioned by, or even ordinarily connected with, any such rite. It is clear, from vss. 18 and 19, that the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Samaritan disciples was attended with certain visible and audible phenomena, as was com- mon in the apostolic age. 4 The gift of the Spirit meant 1 Cf. Acts iv. 31, v. 32, xi. 17, xiii. 52. 2 The connection appears again in Acts xix. 6. 8 Acts vi. 6, ix. 17, xiii. 3. 4 See above, p. 71 . Simon's desire to purchase the power to confer the Spirit upon others shows clearly enough that the effect produced by his descent upon the new converts was not their mere growth in grace and piety, but something PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 99 to the earl}* Christians in general not the inspiring and controlling power of the entire Christian life, as it did to Paul, but the ability to speak with tongues, or to prophesy, or to do some other startling and uncommon and miracu- lous thing. And so the evidence of the Spirit's presence was commonly found in these early days in such marvel- lous manifestations, which seem to have been very fre- quently witnessed. It was because of the striking effects produced by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the new converts, that a certain magician named Simon, who is represented as one of them, is reported to have tried to induce the apostles to confer upon him the power which they possessed, in order that he might be able to effect like results by the laying on of his hands. His offer of money was, of course, rejected with scorn, and a severe condemnation was drawn from Peter by his blasphemous suggestion. This Simon Magus, as he is called, played quite an important r61e in primitive church history. He was widely regarded as the father of all heresy, and the existence of an heretical sect which claimed him for its founder, and called itself after his name, is attested by a number of second century writers. There can be little doubt, in the light of the references to him in the Acts and in the writings of Justin Martyr and Irenseus, 1 that Simon claimed to be the Messiah, and that he instituted a Messianic movement in Samaria, which was intended to rival and supplant 'Christianity, or to take the place among the Samaritans of Jesus' Messianic movement among the Jews. His effort to rival and surpass Jesus very likely began after his contact with the Christians which Luke records. His religious system was apparently a syn- cretism of Jewish and Oriental elements, and resembled very closely some forms of second century Gnosticism, if much more tangible and striking. It shows, too, that the disciples who received the Spirit made the impression even upon unbelievers of being in the possession of a power outside and above themselves. Simon would never have offered money for a power that produced effects which might as easily be produced in other ways, and which gave no clear indication of supernatural influence, i Justin, Apol. I. 26, 56, II. 15; Dial. 120; Irenseus, Adv. Hser. I. 23. 100 THE APOSTOLIC AGE it did not indeed give rise to them. Such syncretism was common in Western Asia in the first as well as in the second century. Simon's movement, judging from the widespread hostility which he aroused within the church, must have had considerable success, and was certainly not confined to Samaria. With the many and conflicting legends that bring him into contact with the apostle Peter, both in East and West, and with those that gather about his career in Rome, it is not necessary to concern ourselves here. 1 The account of the work of Philip and the apostles in Samaria is followed in the same chapter of the Acts by the story of the conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch through the agency of Philip. Eusebius 2 refers to the eunuch as the first of the Gentiles to embrace Christianity, and he has been followed by many scholars, who regard the Ethiopian as an uncircumcised heathen, and therefore see in his baptism the first instance of a departure from the primitive principle that Christianity is only for Jews, native or proselyte. But there is nothing in Luke's account to suggest that Philip took a step of such far- reaching consequence on this occasion. The fact that the Ethiopian had come up to Jerusalem to worship, and was reading the Prophet Isaiah when overtaken by Philip, suggests that if not a native Jew, he was at least a prose- lyte, and thus a recognized member of the family of 1 In the pseudo-Clementine literature of the third century, where Simon Magus is represented as the arch-heretic with whom Peter contends in defence of the true faith, Ebionitic hostility to the apostle Paul finds expression in a covert attack upon him under the cloak of Simon. This fact led many scholars to deny that such a person as Simon ever existed and to resolve him into a mere fiction, invented with an anti-Pauline purpose. The account in Acts was of course regarded by such scholars as entirely unhistorical. But it is now generally recognized that such a procedure is unwarranted, and the theory has been almost universally abandoned. See my edition of Eusebius, p. 113 sq. Luke's account of Simon's dealings with the apostles can hardly be accurate in all the details, for it rests upon the assumption that the Holy Spirit was given by the laying on of the apostles' hands. But there can be little dult as to the truth of the main fact, that Simon did come into contact with the Christians at this time, and, impressed with the wonderful effects of the Spirit's presence, tried in some way to secure the power of imparting it to others. a Hist. Eccles. II. 1. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 101 Israel. 1 At any rate it is inconceivable, in the light of Luke's account of the conversion of Cornelius, that he intended to relate in this passage the conversion of an uncircumcised Gentile. The great emphasis which he laid upon the case of Cornelius, the elaborateness of detail with which he reproduced it, the scruples which he repre- sented as so difficult for Peter to overcome, the contro- versy which he recorded as precipitated in Jerusalem, and the defence of Peter which he quoted at such length, all serve to show that he was describing in that case what he regarded as the first occurrence of the kind, and that he cannot have thought of it as a mere- repetition of an earlier event already recounted by him. The conversion of the Ethiopian he found worthy of record not because it was a departure from the principles of the primitive dis- ciples, but probably because it meant the spread of the Gospel at so early a day to a land so far distant from the place of its birth. The first recorded departure from primitive principles took place in connection with the Caesarean centurion, Cornelius, of whose conversion Luke gives a detailed account in chapters x. and xi. Though a pious and God-fearing man, 2 Cornelius was neither a Jew nor a Jewish proselyte, and therefore his admission to the Christian church was a distinct violation of the prin- ciples that had hitherto controlled the action of the dis- ciples. It is in this light that Luke pictures the event. He evidently regarded it as an occurrence of the very great- est significance, as nothing less, in fact, than the official 1 According to Deut. xxiii. 1, a eunuch could not be a member of the con- gregation of Israel, and therefore could not be received as a proselyte ; but the term may have been employed in the present case simply as an official title, as it was very commonly in the East. At any rate, it is not certain that the prohibition was strictly observed at this time. Cf . Isa. Ivi. 3, which antici- pates its abrogation. 2 eva-eftr)* Kal 0oj3otV*ei>os rbv Qebv (Acts x. 2). The words have a technical sense, and indicate that Cornelius was one of the large class of Gentiles who worshipped the God of the Jews and endeavored to conform their lives in a general way to his will, while they did not accept circumcision and thus be- come proselytes. (See below, p. 160.) The term " proselytes of the gate," by which such men were formerly called, is a misnomer. See Schurer : Geschichte desjiidischen Volkes, II. S. 567 sq. (Eng. Trans., Div. II. Vol. II. p. 316 sq.). 102 THE APOSTOLIC AGE recognition by the apostles and other Christians of Jerusa- lem of the Christianity of the Gentiles, and of their right to enter the church without passing through the door of Judaism. The question is, can such action on the part of the disciples of Jerusalem be reconciled with the subse- quent course of events as revealed to us in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians ? It is claimed by many scholars that it cannot; that the apostolic council, to which Paul refers in Gal. ii., and Luke in Acts xv., implies that the question of the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity had not before presented itself to the Christians of the mother church, and that it was only by the arguments and influence of Paul that they were induced to give it the sanction they did on that occasion. But the council took place not less than fourteen years after Paul's conversion, and for at least a part of that time he had been diligently preaching the Gos- pel to the Gentiles, and had met with very large success in his work. It is upon the face of it incredible that during all that period the Christians of Jerusalem were ignorant of what he was doing, and it is equally in- credible that the question as to the legitimacy of the new form of Gospel which he was preaching did not sug- gest itself to them. Indeed, in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul distinctly states that his work had long been known to them, and that they regarded that work with approval. 1 It is to be noticed, also, that Gal. ii. 4 sq. implies that the "false brethren," as Paul calls those who opposed the legitimacy of his Gentile Christianity and endeavored to make circumcision an indispensable condition of salvation, had recently come into the church and did not represent, with their extreme views, the sentiment that had hitherto prevailed in the church of Jerusalem. The fact, then, that the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity was challenged in Jerusalem some fourteen years after Paul's conversion, cannot be made to militate against the recognition of its legitimacy at ;m earlier day. And it may well be that such recognition i " They glorified God in me " Paul says in Gal. i. 24. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 103 was a result of the conversion of Cornelius, as Luke re- cords. For the tremendous change of principle involved in it requires some exceptional event for its explanation. We cannot suppose that the Jewish Christians, loyal as they were to the law of their fathers, admitted that its observance was not a necessary condition of the enjoyment of the blessings of the Messianic kingdom, except under the pressure of the most convincing arguments. Possibly the persecution which began with the execution of Stephen had led some of them to doubt whether there was any hope of the conversion of the Jewish people as a whole, and to turn their thoughts to the Gentile world as a pos- sible field for evangelistic work; but the persecution, though it may have prepared the way for broader views, cannot have effected the change of principle which the recognition of Paul's work presupposes. The visit of Paul to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, which he refers to in Gal. i. 18, might be thought of as the pos- sible cause of the transformation ; but there is no hint in his account that the visit had any such significance, and there is no sign of a controversy or conflict such as could hardly have been avoided if the legitimacy of Gen- tile Christianity had then been discussed. In fact, no other event of which we have any knowledge is so weli. calculated as the conversion of Cornelius through the agency of Peter to account for the development that took place sometime before the apostolic council. That Peter should respond at once to the invitation of Cornelius, and should enter his house and preach the Gospel to him, was entirely in accord with his character as revealed on many other occasions. It was the same impulsive and uncalculating spirit that led him at a later time to throw aside all traditional scruples, and to live in intimate fellowship with the Gentile Christians of Anti- och. He was just the man to whom such a request as that of Cornelius would appeal most strongly, and he was just the man who would accept most unquestioningly the divine evidence of his conversion, and be quickest to act upon that evidence and receive the new convert as a 104 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Christian brother. But Peter had been from the begin- ning the foremost of the disciples, and the influence of his example, and of the experience which he had to re- count to his Jerusalem brethren, could not but be very great. Had the experience befallen some other disciple of less personal weight and authority than he, its effect upon the mother church would very likely have been far less. But it has been objected by many that the conversion of Cornelius under the preaching of Peter destroys the inde- pendence and originality of Paul's work as an apostle to the Gentiles ; and it is maintained also that Paul's refer- ence to Peter in Gal. ii., as the apostle of the circum- cision, proves that the latter cannot have preached the Gospel to Gentiles as he is represented as doing in the case in question. But though Paul claims that he has labored more abundantly than all the other apostles, 1 and though he speaks of himself frequently as the apostle to the Gentiles, and of the large work that he has done among them, and though he more than once expresses the intention not to build upon another man's foundation, he nowhere says or implies that he was the first to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and there is nothing in the cir- cumstances to lead to such a conclusion. His conscious- ness of independence and originality in his apostolic labors rested not upon the knowledge that he had begun the work among the Gentiles, and that no one had thought of doing it before him, but upon the conviction that he had been called not by man, but by God, to be their great apostle, and to do for them what others had done and were doing for the Jews. So far as his reference to Peter is concerned, his designation of him as the apostle of the cir- cumcision no more proves that Peter cannot have preached, even on a single occasion, to the Gentiles, than does the fact that Paul calls himself, in the same passage, the apostle of the uncircumcision prove that he never preached to the Jews, when we know from his own words, in 1 Cor. ix. 20, that he must have done so frequently. 1 1 Cor. xv. 10. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 105 But it is objected finally, that the trouble at Antioch to which Paul refers in Gal. ii. 11 sq., is inconceivable if the case of Cornelius be historical; for if James, and the Christians of Jerusalem in general, had signified their approval of Peter's conduct in eating with an uncircum- cised Gentile in Csesarea, they could not have found fault with him for doing the same thing later in Antioch; and Peter, though he might have been weak and vacillating, could not have been so characterless as to violate on that occasion, out of mere cowardly deference to the opin- ion of James, an express divine command which had led him to take such a decisive step as to preach the Gospel to Cornelius and break bread with him. The objection, however, implies a misunderstanding of the incident, for which Luke himself is in part responsible. In Acts xi. 3, the disciples of Jerusalem are represented as contend- ing with Peter because he had gone in to men uncircum- cised and had eaten with them; but it is a striking fact that, in the address which follows, Peter does not defend himself against that charge, but against the charge of recognizing a Gentile as a Christian disciple and admit- ting him to baptism, which is an entirely different matter. It is no less striking that the members of the church of Jerusalem glorify God not because he has broken down the wall between the Jew and the Gentile, and has made it lawful for the Jewish Christian to eat bread with his Gentile brother, but only because he has granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life. In other words, they recognized just what was recognized at a later time at the apostolic council, the legitimacy of Gentile Chris- tianity; but they did not admit the right of any Jew to cease observing the Jewish law, and to disregard the prohibition against eating with the uncircumcised. The latter step was not taken even at the council some years later, and we certainly cannot suppose that it was taken at this time. Luke evidently did not realize the differ- ence between the two steps. He supposed that the settlement of the one question was the settlement of the other, and he therefore did not distinguish them in 106 THE APOSTOLIC AGE his account. 1 But his failure to do so should not lead us to the conclusion that the whole account is unhistori- cal, and that the incident recorded never took place. It may fairly be doubted whether the idea of eating with Cornelius and the other Gentile converts presented itself to Peter, for they would certainly not expect him to. It may well be that he only preached the Gospel to them, and in view of the bestowal of the Holy Spirit recognized them as Christians and directed them to be baptized. At any rate, if he did more than this, if he actually ate with the Gentile converts, he did it not because his conscien- tious scruples had been removed by the vision on the housetop, but because of Christ's acceptance of the Gen- tiles as his disciples, which was made evident by the out- pouring of the Spirit. It was the presence of the Spirit, not the vision on the housetop, that he regarded as the de- cisivu fact, both in Ctesarea and later when he defended his course in Jerusalem. But the outpouring of the Spirit, while it meant divine recognition of Gentile Christianity, did not necessarily mean that a Jew, because he was a Christian, had a right to violate the divine law, and if Peter at this time took it to mean that, and acted accord- ingly, he certainly did not secure the approval of his brethren, and did not repeat his act for many years. We conclude, then, that whatever may be thought of the accuracy of Luke's account in all its details, there is no adequate ground for doubting that Peter preached the Gospel to the Gentile Cornelius, and that the legitimacy of his action was acknowledged by the Christians of Jeru- salem, or at any rate by the most influential among them. But that they admitted that it was lawful for a Jewish Christian to break bread with his Gentile brethren, or, in other words, to disregard the Jewish law in any particu- lar, must be unequivocally denied. 1 It is perhaps for this reason that Luke says nothing if indeed he knew anything about it of the Antiochian trouble which succeeded the conference at Jerusalem. Not realizing that any other question was involved at Antiorh than had been discussed and settled just before at Jerusalem, he may have been totally unable to understand the situation, and therefore simply omitted all reference to it. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 107 It will not do, indeed, to draw too large deductions from the case of Cornelius ; it will not do to see in the admission of the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity, which was extorted from the disciples of Jerusalem at this time, the conscious . recognition of the principle of universal fraternity and equality in the Gospel. That they foresaw the momentous consequences that were wrapped up in their action, is out of the question. They were forced by the demonstration of the Holy Spirit to admit, in spite of their native prejudices, the possibility of a Gentile's conversion, but they did not see in it the ultimate abrogation of the Jewish law, or the rise of a Christian church in which that law should have no recog- nition. It was certainly not their belief that the law was any less divine, any less binding, any less permanent, than they had hitherto thought it. When the Christians of Jerusalem approved Peter's action, neither he nor they thought for a moment of turning from the Jews to the Gentiles, or of carrying on active missionary work among the latter; nor had they any idea that Gentile Christianity would one day become so strong that it could take an independent position alongside of Jewish Christianity and demand for itself equal honor and equal rights. At best it was regarded as an exceptional form of Chris- tianity, of a distinctly lower and less perfect type, and it was doubtless their expectation that the great majority of Christians would come from the ranks of the Jews, native or proselyte, and that Gentile worshippers of Jeho- vah, who might be admitted to the church because they recognized Jesus as the Messiah, would continue to acknowledge the religious superiority of the chosen people, just as those Gentiles had always done who rever- enced Jehovah as the supreme God and attached them- selves more or less closely to the Jewish people without accepting circumcision and becoming genuine proselytes. From such pious heathen the number of the proselytes was constantly augmented, and it may have been the belief of these early Christians that the family of Israel would receive accessions in the same way from the ranks of the 108 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Gentiles that recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and thus Gentile Christianity constitute for many only a bridge to the full and complete Christianity of the believing chil- dren of Abraham. 1 They did not become any the less truly Jews, nor did they consciously waive any of their ancestral prerogatives. To think otherwise is to under- estimate the power of their traditional faith and to make inexplicable the subsequent attitude toward the heathen assumed in Jerusalem, both by those who admitted and by those who denied their conversion. In Acts xi. 19 sq., Luke records that certain men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who must have been either Hellenists or proselytes, being scattered abroad by the persecution which followed Stephen's death, came to Antioch, and there preached the Gospel to Gentiles, 2 and that a great number of the latter were converted. There is nothing surprising in this, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of the report. The fact that Luke makes this Gentile evangelism the work not of apostles, but of un- known men, and that he does not represent it as prompted by the church of Jerusalem, speaks for the trustworthiness of his account. It is no more than we might expect, that Christian Hellenists and proselytes, with their intimate acquaintance and association with the Greek world, should have been moved, when obliged to leave Jerusa- lem, to tell their Gentile friends of Christianity. And nowhere was such conduct more natural than in Antioch, for we learn from Josephus, 3 not only that there were multitudes of Jews there, but that they were especially active in the work of proselyting, and had a large follow- ing among the Greeks of the city. At any rate, whether 1 It is significant that the Galatians later used their Gentile Christianity iu just this way, finding no inconsistency in going on from the belief in Christ to the assumption of the entire law. Cf. Gal. iii. 3. 2 The best manuscripts read 'EXXrjvurrds or Hellenists, instead of "EXXTji/as or Greeks, and Westcott and Hort adopt this reading. Other editors (Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf) read "EXX^as on the ground that the word " Hellen- ists" does not offer the necessary contrast to the word "Jews " in the previ- ous verse, the Hellenists being themselves Jews. Wendt adopts the reading 'EXXTjj/uTTds, but regards the word as referring to Greeks, and he is very likely correct. At any rate, Gentiles, not Jews, must certainly be understood. *B.J., vii. 33. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 109 surprising or not, it is certain that the Gospel went to Antioch at an early day, and that there was a strong Gen- tile Christian community there some time before the council of Jerusalem. 1 Luke, as is his custom, brings the work in Antioch directly under the control of the church at Jerusalem. He records, in vss. 22 sq., that when the report of what had been done reached the ears of the Christians of that church, they sent Barnabas to Antioch, and that when he had seen the grace of God, he gave his approval to the work there. It is, of course, possible that the disciples at Jerusalem had no serious fault to find with the spread of Christianity among the heathen in Antioch, if they learned of it after Peter's experience with Cornelius had led them to admit the possibility of a Gentile Christianity; but it is not likely that they would themselves undertake to carry on the work thus begun; and Luke, as has been seen, so habitually brings all missionary activity under the direct oversight of the mother church or of the apos- tles, that little weight can be laid upon this particular account, which may so easily be due to the same interest. But there is at any rate no reason to doubt that Barnabas and Paul labored together among the Gentiles at Antioch, as Luke records, and the fact is confirmed, at least for a subsequent period, by Paul himself in Gal. ii. 11 sq. It is in this same connection that Luke reports the in- teresting and significant fact that the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Tacitus 2 says that the Romans called them by this name in the time of Nero, and some scholars have consequently thought that the name had its origin in Rome ; but Lipsius 3 has shown that the word is probably Greek, not Latin, being formed after 1 It is of course conceivable that Gentile Christianity in Antioch owed its origin to the preaching of Paul ; but it is extremely unlikely, for the city is mentioned only once in his Epistles (Gal. ii. 11), and he addressed no letter, so far as we know, to the Antiochian church. It is in itself inherently probable therefore, quite independently of Luke's account, that Paul found Gentile Christians already in Antioch when he began Christian work there, as re- corded in Acts xi. 26. 2 Ann. XV. 44. 3 Ueber den Ursprung und dltesten Gebrauch des Christennamens, 1873. 110 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the analogy of proper adjectives in -0^09, -tavo?, which were very commonly employed by the Greeks of Asia as party designations. The term might therefore easily have originated in Antioch. It is not likely, however, that it was first used by the disciples, for they called themselves commonly aSeXc^oi or ayioi', nor is it likely that it was used by the Jews, for they could not have acknowledged the disciples of Jesus as followers of the Messiah. The Jews commonly called them Nazarenes, or the "Sect of the Nazarenes." 1 The name " Christian " was doubtless first employed by the heathen, 2 the word " Christ " being understood by them not as a title, but as a proper name. The invention of the word, if it was due to them, implies that the Christians had already become more or less sharply distinguished from the Jews, and that they were recog- nized as a separate, if not independent, religious sect. That this should have been the case at an early day in Antioch is what we should expect, if Luke's report of Gentile conversions there be accepted. Such Gentile Christians could not become a part of the Jewish church. It was therefore inevitable, as their numbers increased, that they should constitute, either alone or in company with Jewish Christians that had thrown off the restraints of the law, a community of their own, which had its religious life not within but without the Jewish syna- gogue. So soon as this state of affairs existed, the con- ditions were present which made the rise of the special name " Christian " possible, and it can hardly have been very long before the name was coined. In Antioch, then, under the circumstances described, we may suppose that there came into existence at an early day a Christian community, composed, if not wholly, at least in large part, of uncircumcised Gentiles, with whom a Jew could not lawfully fraternize. This community, 1 ij TWV TXafrpalwv averts, Acts xxiv. 5; cf. also Acts xxiv. 14 and xxviii. 22. 2 Ultimately it was adopted by the disciples themselves and in the second century was commonly used by them. In the New Testament the word occurs in only two other passages (Acts xxvi. 28, 1 Peter iv. Ifi) and both times as applied by an outsider. In the Teaching of the Apostles it occurs once as a self-designation, and in Ignatius and the Apologists very frequently. PRIMITIVE JEWISH CHRISTIANITY 111 whatever the attitude of its individual members toward Judaism, did not bear the character of a Jewish sect. There cannot have been within it any Jewish Christians who still continued to observe the Mosaic law strictly and literally in all its parts, though there may have been many such in the city. It is possible that there belonged to the circle some Jewish disciples who laid aside their ancestral scruples and mingled freely and intimately with their Gentile brethren, as there certainly were some years later. 1 But there can hardly have been many such at this early day, for had the practice become general, the question as to its legitimacy would have been raised at the council of Jerusalem, and found some settlement which would have made the Antiochian episode referred to in Gal. ii. 11 sq. impossible. But whether there were or were not many Jewish Christians in Antioch that treated the Gentile disciples as brethren, and as members of a common house- hold of faith, there was at any rate a growing number of Christians there who were not circumcised, and who did not pretend to be Jews in any sense. In Antioch there was for some years the most important Gentile Christian community of which we have any knowledge. It consti- tuted for a time the centre of Gentile Christianity, as Jerusalem was the centre of Jewish Christianity, and it was one of Paul's headquarters during a considerable part of his career as an apostle. With the rise of such a Gen- tile Christian community in Antioch, a community which was not bound to the synagogue and did not pay allegiance to it, there began a separate and independent development, the results of which were of permanent and world-wide significance. Not the conversion of Cornelius, or of any individual Gentile, marks the cardinal epoch in that devel- opment, but the origin of such a Christian community as has been described, wherever and whenever it took place. The latter step was a natural result of the former, but it can hardly have been foreseen by those who recognized the conversion of Cornelius. Had it been, it may well be doubted whether that conversion would have found any i Gal. ii. 11 sq. 112 THE APOSTOLIC AGE general sanction in Jerusalem. It is significant that the process by which Gentile Christianity attained the footing which it finally enjoyed was gradual, and that the succes- sive steps were taken only one at a time. The early dis- ciples of Jerusalem would never have taken any of those steps of their own impulse. They simply followed the inevitable logic of events; they did not lead. Christi- anity had an expansive power which was too strong for the bonds that they had put upon it, and it burst those bonds, we may say, of itself. It was not deliberately sent or carried to the heathen ; it went to them and made a home for itself on Gentile soil, even while the original disciples were still steeped in Jewish prejudices and entirely un- able to recognize that the faith they preached was anything but a Jewish faith. The steps in the process of emanci- pation followed one another in natural sequence. Only as we trace them one by one can we understand the final step, and realize that it was inevitable. That final step, with the momentous transformations that resulted, we shall have to consider in a later chapter, after we have studied the Christianity of Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, whe was chiefly instrumental in bringing it about. CHAPTER III THE CHEISTIANITY OF PAUL 1 PAUL was born in Tarsus, the capital of the province of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, and one of the great literary centres of the world. 2 It is not without significance that his native place was a large and important city, renowned for its educational advantages, and proud of its Greek cult- ure and uncommon devotion to intellectual pursuits. It would be a most surprising thing if a man of Paul's mental calibre had not been more or less affected by the atmosphere which prevailed in such a place, and if he had not revealed throughout his life the influence of his early surroundings. That he got the greater part of his educa- tion in Jerusalem seems to be implied in Acts xxii. 3, and is confirmed by all that we know of him from his epistles. But in spite of that fact, his pride in his native place, and his affection for it, remained with him, 3 and his subsequent career shows that his student life in Jeru- salem did not efface the impression of the years spent at home in Tarsus, and did not stifle the instincts and im- 1 See especially, in addition to the general works on the apostolic age and on New Testament Theology, Ludemann: Die Anthropologie des Apostels Paulus und ihre Stellung innerhalb seiner Heilslehre (1872) ; Pfleiderer : Der Paulinismus (1873, 2te Auflage, 1890; Eng. Trans, from the first edition, 1877, in two volumes), also Das Urchristenthum (1887), S. 123 sq.; Me'ne'goz: Le Pfcht et la Redemption d'apres Saint Paul (1882) ; and J)u Bose: The Soteriology of the New Testament (1892). Sabatier's L'Apotre Paul (2d ed. 1881; Eng. Trans. 1891), Matheson's Spiritual Development of St. Paul (1892), Everett's Gospel of Paul (1893), Stevens' Pauline Theology (1892), and Bruce's St. Paul's Conception of Christianity (1894), may also be referred to. 2 Tarsus was already an important city in the time of Xenophon ; and Strabo celebrates the literary character of the place, ranking its citizens even above those of Athens and Alexandria in their love of learning and their devo- tion to all things intellectual. For references to the city in ancient literature, see Winer's Biblisches Realworterbuch, s.v. 8 Acts xxi. 39. I 113 114 THE ABOSTOLIC AGE pulses acquired there. That he had a regular Greek edu- cation may well be doubted. It was not the custom for strict Jews to give their children such a training, and Paul's epistles betray neither a wide knowledge of Greek literature nor a command of good Greek style. 1 . And yet, even without such an education, there must have been much in the general culture of the community whose in- fluence a youth of his intellectual alertness could not help feeling, even unconsciously to himself. It is certain that his manners were those of a citizen of the world familiar with the habits of good society, that he had the facile adaptability of a cosmopolite, and that he felt himself at home amid all surroundings and in association with all classes of people. Wherever he might be, he was master of the situation, and he displayed the same assurance arid address whether in the presence of the superstitious rabble of Lystra, of the supercilious scholars of Athens, or of magistrates, proconsuls, and princes. 2 There was nothing provincial either in his tastes or tendencies. Strict Jew though he was, he had the instincts and the interests of a .Roman citizen, and of a resident of a busy and cultured city of the world. Doubtless his social position also had something to do with the characteristics which he dis- played along these lines. He was the son of a Roman citizen, 3 and he came, therefore, from an honorable, and very likely wealthy, family, whose dignity and influence must have been considerable; 4 for citizenship meant a great deal in his day. But it was not simply in his man- ners, and in his tastes and interests, that Paul revealed the influence of Tarsus ; his philosophical and theological con- ceptions were also moulded to no small degree by certain 1 The three quotations from Greek authors, which have been pointed out in his epistles and speeches (1 Cor. xv. 32; Titus i. 12; Acts xvii. 28), count for nothing, even though it be granted that all of them are really Paul's, for they are such as might have been picked up by anybody in his intercourse with educated heathen. Paul's style is Hebraistic, and is far from being the style of a man educated in the Greek schools. 2 Acts xiii., xvi., xxiv. sq. Acts xxii. 28. 4 That he was in comparative poverty during at least a part of his mission- ary career (1 Thess. ii. 9 ; Phil. iv. 16) proves nothing to the contrary. (See Ramsay: St. Paul, the Traveller and Roman Citizen, p. 34 sq.) THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 115 intellectual tendencies which were abroad in the Greek world of the period. That he was consciously the pupil of Hellenic or Hellenistic thinkers, or that he was familiar with their writings, is altogether unlikely ; 1 but that he imbibed something of the spirit which voiced itself in them cannot be denied. But though Paul was a Hellenist, and though he felt the influence of the world at large, and absorbed some- thing of its spirit, he was, above all, a " Hebrew of He- brews," 2 sprung evidently from strict Jews and himself thoroughly steeped in the traditions and prejudices of his fathers. He was educated in Jerusalem, as was natural for the son of parents of wealth and orthodox principles, and under the tutelage of the greatest rabbinic authorities of the age. His thorough Jewish training appears plainly in all his writings. He thought like a Hebrew and wrote like a Hebrew. His familiarity with the Scriptures, which constituted the basis of Jewish education, was very great, as was also his acquaintance with the interpreta- tions of the schools. He used the Scriptures throughout his life just as they were used by all the Jewish theolo- gians of his day. There is in his epistles the same em- phasis upon the divine character of the sacred writings, resulting in their elevation almost to an equality with God himself; and the same idea of their inspiration which prevailed in the Jewish schools, and which led to the treatment of the Scriptures as a mere collection of oracles, that might be torn from their context and applied to any subject and in any way that seemed desirable, and which led also inevitably to the use of the allegorical and typical method of interpretation. Paul, to be sure, was very much freer than most of his contemporaries from exegeti- cal vagaries, and his Scripture interpretation was compara- tively sober. But there are not a few notable instances in which he follows the common custom, and shows in a 1 Pfleiderer (Paulinismus, 2te Auflage, S. 27 sq.) maintains that Paul knew and used the Hellenistic Book of Wisdom, but the parallelisms which he points out hardly do more than show that Paul felt to some extent the same influences that were felt by the author of that book. 2 Phil. iii. 5, 116 THE APOSTOLIC AGE striking way the influence of his training. Thus, in 1 Cor. ix. 9, he interprets the command, " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth the corn," as referring not to oxen, but only to Christian apostles, on the ground that God cannot care for mere brutes ; and in Gal. iv. 22 sq., he makes Hagar represent the covenant of law and Sarah the covenant of grace. 1 In the famous passage, Gal. iii. 16, we have a striking example of the common rabbinic method of building an elaborate argument upon the form of a single word. The Old Testament statement that the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed, is interpreted to refer to Christ, because the passage says "seed" and not "seeds." The subtle dialectic method of argument, which Paul employs so freely, especially in Galatians and Romans, is also characteristically rabbinic, and he repeats without question in his epistles not a few traditions which were current in the Jewish schools of the day. 2 He shows himself, in fact, a man well versed in rabbinic modes of thought and thoroughly familiar with rabbinic lore. But Paul was not simply a Jewish scholar; he was a profound, original, and independent thinker. In spite of his rabbinic training, which was certainly not calculated to encourage intellectual boldness and self-reliance, he was always alive to the teachings of his own intuition and experience, fearless in following their leading, quick to adjust traditional notions to the truth thus learned. There was nothing loose or slipshod, nothing vague and unformed in his thinking. His mental processes were close, compact, and vigorous, his vision clear and keen, his grasp firm. He could not be content with half-truths, or with truths half understood. He must view them in their completeness, determine their bearing, yield them their due weight and influence. He never confounded essentials and non-essentials, or lost sight of the main point in his interest in side issues. The great principles 1 Compare also his use of the Scriptures for types of Christianity and Chris- tian truth, as for instance in 1 Cor. x. 1 sq. j 2 Cor. iii. 13 sq. 2 Cf. especially 1 Cor. x. 4, where Pan\ speaks of the rock that followed the children of Israel. THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 117 upon which his life was based stood out always clear before his mind, and gave form and direction to all he thought and said and did. But Paul was not only a scholar and a thinker; he was a religious devotee, concerned not simply to know, but to do, the will of God, and not simply to observe the divine law himself, but to secure its observance by others as well. Even before his conversion, he desired to be not merely a rabbi, but a missionary; to devote his life to the propagation of true righteousness and to the overthrow of everything which in any way interfered with its advance, and which in any way hindered the people from giving themselves undividedly to the practice of the law. There can be little doubt that he was one of those who were look- ing forward to the coming of the promised Messianic king- dom, and that he believed with the best spirits of his age that its establishment depended upon the piety of God's chosen people. He took religion very seriously, and he wished others to do the same. It was no light matter to him. It outweighed everything else and controlled all his thinking, feeling, and acting. The ordinary con- formity to the law with which most of his contemporaries contented themselves, and upon which they complacently rested their hope of salvation, did not satisfy him. The contempt with which he regarded their easy-going ways appears in the strong words he uses in Gal. v. 3 and vi. 13. Though he had studied under the elder Gamaliel, whose spirit seems to have been more liberal and tolerant than most of his compeers, 1 Paul himself grew up a Phari- see of the most bigoted and zealous type. His natural character reveals itself in the zeal with which he put his principles into practice. The most marked features in that character were singleness of purpose and intensity of temper. What he believed, he believed with all his heart; what he did, he did with all his might. There was nothing passive, lukewarm, or indifferent about him 1 Acts xxii. 3, v. 34 sq. On Rabbi Gamaliel the elder, so-called to dis- tinguish him from his grandson, Rabbi Gamaliel the younger, see Schiirer, I.e. ii. S. 300 sq. (Eng. Trans., Div. II. Vol. I. p. 363 sq.). 118 THE APOSTOLIC AGE in any of his relations. The whole man was in every conviction and in every act. There was no dissipation of energy, no scattering of forces. Whether as a Pharisee or as a Christian, he was dominated by a single aim, and he threw himself into its accomplishment with an earnest- ness which could brook no opposition, and with an aban- don which admitted no thought of self-interest. With all his originality, freshness, and depth of thought, he was essentially a man of one idea, willing to sacrifice everything to it, willing to die in its behalf. He was of the stuff that martyrs are made of, and he would have died as readily at the hand of Antiochus Epiphanes as he did at the hand of Nero. When Paul first came into contact with the Christians we do not know, but it may well be that he had been for some time absent from Jerusalem, and that he returned thither only shortly before the execution of Stephen. It is thus easiest to explain the outbreak against Stephen and his fellows, in which he seems to have been a prime mover. He may have heard the Christians repeating utterances which seemed to him subversive of the law of God and the traditions of the fathers, and he was per- haps not aware that for a year or more the followers of the man who had spoken such dangerous words had lived the lives of faithful and consistent Jews, and that they had shown no sign of understanding the words of their Master as Paul understood them. It was therefore natural for him to judge of the movement solely from the conse- quences which seemed to be involved in the teachings of its founder. And yet it is by no means certain that Paul would have been content to leave Christianity alone even had he known that its adherents remained true to Juda- ism; for, clear-sighted as he was, he must have seen that the time would come, if it had not yet come, when the teachings of Jesus would have their natural effect, and he must have been anxious to stamp them out at once. But however that may be, he was at any rate one of the chief if not the chief instigator of the attack upon Stephen; for the executioners of the latter laid their clothes at his feet, THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 119 implying that he was the principal witness against the accused. 1 As a native of a foreign city, he would natu- rally be at home in one of the Hellenistic synagogues in Jerusalem, and it is possible that he became acquainted with Stephen there and was the first to perceive the revo- lutionary tendency of the teachings of Jesus as rehearsed by him and his fellows. Anxious as he was to serve the Lord, we may think of him as eagerly welcoming this offered opportunity to show his devotion to God and to exercise his zeal for the religion of his fathers. But he did not rest with the execution of Stephen. He felt him- self called to carry the war even beyond Jerusalem, and to put an end to the growth of the pernicious sect in for- eign parts. He was very likely particularly interested in the progress of Judaism in the heathen world. The Pharisees were naturally proselytizers, and as a native of a foreign city, who was in touch to some extent with the life of the world at large, Paul must have been even more interested than his brethren of Jerusalem in the conversion of the Roman Empire to the Jewish faith. If that was the case, he could not but be apprehensive of the consequences of the spread of Christianity among the Hellenists. It may well be, therefore, that his mission to Damascus was intended only as the beginning of a vigor- ous campaign against the Christians wherever they had secured a foothold ; and that he had deliberately determined to devote not a few days merely, but his life, to a work which was not to be abandoned until it was complete, and which he realized could not be accomplished without long effort. Such an unconditional devotion of himself to the work of exterminating Christianity seems alone to explain his immediate dedication of his entire life to its advancement, when his conversion took place. That conversion was one of the most remarkable transformations in history. Paul gives us no detailed account of the circumstances under which it occurred, 2 but in Gal. i. 12 sq. he refers to it in such a way as to indicate with sufficient clearness 1 Acts vii. 68. 2 At least not in his Epistles. 120 THE APOSTOLIC AGE its cause and its nature. 1 In the passage in question he was emphasizing the fact over against those who were attacking the validity of his apostolate and the truth of his Gospel, that he had received his Gospel not from man, but from God. "Neither did I receive it from man," he says, "nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ." And then a little farther on he adds : " But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace to reveal his Son in me . . . imme- diately I conferred not with flesh and blood." Evi- dently it was an immediate revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that made a Christian of him. With the words of the Epistle to the Galatians agrees the statement of 1 Cor. xv. 8, " And last of all, as unto one born out of due time, he [that is Christ] appeared to me also." Paul, 1 The Book of Acts contains three accounts of a vision of Christ vouchsafed to Paul upon his way to Damascus, whither he was going to carry on the war against the Christians, which he had begun in Jerusalem. The first (ix. 3 sq.) is in the words of the author of the book; the other two (xxii. 6sq., xxvi. 12 sq.) occur in speeches of Paul which he records. There are some differ- ences between the accounts, but the verbal agreements are so close that the interdependence of the three is assumed by most scholars. The account in chap. xxvi. is the simplest of the three, and bears marks of originality over against the others (see below, p. 350) ; and as it occurs in a setting whose vividness and verisimilitude are unsurpassed, it is altogether likely that the author found it in his sources and that it constituted the original upon which, with the help of oral tradition, he built the other accounts in chaps, ix. and xxii. At the same time it is clear that he made some additions even in chap. xxvi. (See below, p. 355.) The most important fact which the author added in chaps, ix. and xxii. was the agency of Ananias. Doubtless such a man played a prominent part in connection with Paul's early days as a Christian disciple, though just what that part was is not altogether clear. On the relation of the three accounts to each other see especially Zinimer in the Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theolof/ie, 1882, S. 465 sq. ; Wendt in Meyer's Commentary, 7th edition, S. 217 sq. ; Sorof: Die Entstehung der Apostelgeschichte, S. 6(5 sq. ; Spitta: Die Apostelgeschichte, S. 270 sq., and Jiingst : Quellen der Apostelgeschichte, S. 83 sq. Various difficulties in the three accounts have been pointed out by critics. It has been maintained for instance that the statement in ix. 17 that Paul received the Holy Spirit through the laying on of Ananias' hands is incon- sistent with his own account of his conversion. The descriptions of Paul's visit to Jerusalem after his conversion, in ix. 26 and xxii. 17 sq., have also been pronounced incompatible with his own statement in Gal. i. 18 sq. (cf. also xxvi. 20, where the same idea of the visit appears). In view of such dif- ficulties as these, it is safer to confine ourselves to Paul's own account, and this may the more readily be done because he gives all that is essential to an understanding of the event. THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 121 therefore, believed that at a particular period in his life the risen Christ appeared to him, and to that appearance he owed his Christian faith. 1 In order to understand what such an appearance must mean to him, and what effect it must have upon him, it is necessary to acquaint ourselves as fully as possible with his state of mind at the time the great event took place, and to inquire whether he had been in any way prepared for it by his previous experience. The Galatian passage shows that Paul conceived of his conversion to Christianity as a sudden and abrupt event, as a transformation effected not by the influence or in- struction of men, but by the direct interposition and sole agency of God. The passage also apparently excludes the idea that his conversion was the result of a gradual change in his own mind, or the consummation of a process begin- ning with doubts and fears as to the truth of the Chris- tians' claims, and as to the wisdom and justice of his own course of action, and terminating in his final decision to accept Christianity. Such a gradual process seems to be ruled out by his own statements. He was at any rate not conscious before the critical moment came of any leaning toward the new faith, or of any lack of decision and deter- mination in his attitude of hostility. The event seemed to him absolutely sudden and unheralded ; at one moment he was the determined enemy of Jesus, at the next he was his disciple. Nevertheless, though it is clear that Paul thus pictured his conversion, there can be no doubt that his experience had been such not as to effect, but certainly to prepare him for, the change. Such a transformation necessitates some preparation; without it the event is psychologically inconceivable. The preparation need not be direct, but some preparation there must be. What it actually was, we may learn from Rom. vii. 7 sq., a pas- sage which is evidently a leaf out of Paul's own experi- ence before his conversion. It is clear from that passage that, zealous as Paul was in his observance of the Jewish 1 The reference to Damascus in Gal. i. 17 indicates that the appearance took place in or near that city, as stated in the Acts. 122 THE APOSTOLIC AGE law, and blameless as his conduct was when measured by an external standard, he had become conscious that all his efforts to attain true righteousness were a complete failure. When this consciousness forced itself upon him we do not know, but it was evidently the result of his perception of the fact, which was entirely overlooked by the majority of his contemporaries, and may have been long overlooked by Paul himself, that inner as well as outer sins, sins of heart as well as of deed, were forbidden by the law ; that the tenth commandment made covetous- ness and lust a crime, even though the lust or the covet- ousness never manifested itself in acts of sensuality or of dishonesty. 1 That Paul, trained as he was in the super- ficial, legal conceptions of the Pharisees of his day, should have recognized this fact, is a mark of the profoundness of his ethical nature, and distinguishes him from most of his fellows. Only a great religious genius could thus have penetrated beneath the husk of formality to the vital kernel within. It is clear that he was no ordinary Phari- see. The condemnation which Jesus passed upon the Pharisees as a class could not have been pronounced upon him. Even though a Pharisee, he was a man after Christ's own heart. Though he apparently knew nothing as yet about Jesus' teaching, he had reached the principle of which Jesus had made so much, that all external observ- ance of the law is worthless unless it be based upon the obedience of the heart. But the fact once recognized, that the law demands more than mere external conformity, that it demands in fact the complete purification of all the thoughts and desires, a struggle was begun whose intensity, if the matter were taken seriously, as Paul took it, must grow constantly more awful, as the futility of all efforts thus to bring one's whole nature into harmony with God's holy will became increasingly apparent. But this struggle had the effect of leading Paul to recognize, not as a matter of theory merely, but of the most vivid and bitter experi- ence, a dualism within his own nature, a dualism between 1 See Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, p. 28 sq. THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 123 the will on the one hand and the passions and desires on the other. To will was present with him, but not to do that which he willed; to keep his affections centred always and only on that which he knew to be holy and right, this he found impossible. " The good which I would I do not," he cries, " but the evil which I would not that I practise." 1 But this conscious schism between will and deed drove Paul to the assumption that the unruly passions and desires which his will could not control were due not to himself, but to sin, which was dwelling in him. "So then it is no more I that do it," he says, "but sin which dwelleth in me." 2 But whence came this sin? How were its existence and its power to be explained? Paul's answer to this question is of the very greatest significance. He found the explanation of the sin within him in the fleshly nature which he possessed in common with all the race. "For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwell- eth no good thing." 3 The word "flesh," or adpj;, seems to have meant to Paul primarily the material substance of which the human body is composed, 4 and it is accordingly frequently used by him for the body itself. 5 He also employs it in an entirely natural, though secondary and derived sense, well known among the Jews, to denote not the material body alone, but the whole man as a living person. 6 But he even goes further than this and makes use of the term very commonly not for the individual man 1 Rom. vii. 19. 2 R om . v ii. 17, 21. 3 Rom. vii. 18. 4 Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 50; Col. i. 22 ; also 1 Cor. xv. 39, where the flesh of beasts, birds, and fishes, as well as of men, is spoken of. Upon the various meanings of the word . Cf. also 2 Cor. v. 19; Rom. ii. 26, and ix. 8. 2 It is the common opinion that the word diKaiovv is used by Paul solely in the forensic sense, but the opinion is not justified by the facts. Leaving out of view the ordinary meaning of the word in the classics and the LXX., which ought not to be allowed to control our interpretation of it, as used by Paul, to the exclusion of all other considerations, we find the forensic element dis- tinctly and unequivocally involved only in Rom. ii. 13, and iii. 4 (in the latter case in a quotation from the Old Testament), and in both instances real right- eousness is assumed as the basis, God himself being the one " justified " in the second passage. In Rom. iii. 20, viii. 34; 1 Cor. iv. 4; Gal. iii. 8, 11, the word might be understood, so fat as the context throws light upon the subject, in either a forensic or real sense, but in all other cases (Rom. iii. 24, 26, 28, 30, iv. 2, 5, v. 1, 9, vi. 7, viii. 30; 1 Cor. vi. 11; Gal. ii. 16 sq., iii. 11, 24, v. 4) to exclude the conception of real righteousness, and to interpret the word in an exclusively forensic sense is, in my opinion, to miss the force of the passage. This can be clearly shown at least in Rom. iv. 2-5 and 1 Cor. vi. 11. Thus in Rom. iv. 2 sq., if diKaiovv be taken in the forensic sense, we have the unmean- ing statement that if God accounted Abraham righteous on the ground of his works, Abraham had no right to boast before God, for God accounted him righteous on the ground of his faith. On the other hand, if we understand t8iKa.uS)0rj to mean was made or became actually righteous, the connection of the two parts of the passage is very clear. If Abraham was righteous as a result of his works, he had reason for boasting, but even then he could not boast before God, for according to the Scriptures it was his faith, not his works, that God reckoned as righteousness (tXoytcrdiri curry els 8iKaioeu/j.aTi makes it very clear that it is to be taken in the real and not in the forensic sense. For a defence of the interpretation of SIKCUQVV in a real sense see Vincent's Word Studies, Vol. III. p. 37 sq. ; and compare his discussion of the meaning of dtKaioffvvrj on pp. 9 sq. and 215. See also Sabatier's L'apotre Paul, p. 273 sq. (Eng. Trans., p. 297 sq.), and Abbott's Commentary on Romans, p. 54 sq. Since this note was written there has appeared in the American Jour/ml of Theology (January, 1897, p. 149 sq.) an article by Professor Gould on St. Paul's Use of BIKCUOVV, to which I am happy to be able to refer in support of the contention that SIKO.IOVV is used by Paul in a real as well as in a forensic sense. THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 145 not primary, with him. This appears very clearly in the matter of forgiveness. The Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians bear witness to his belief that God forgives sins, but the divine forgiveness is not once explicitly referred to in his other epistles, except in a quotation from the Old Testament in Rom. iv. 7. 1 Laying such emphasis as he does upon the idea of God's grace, and contrasting it so constantly and so strongly as he does with man's merit, it is a remarkable fact that the conception which is so common in the Synoptic Gospels should find such infre- quent utterance in his writings. It simply shows that his thought ran chiefly along other lines, and though his gra- cious acceptance with God of course meant much to him, it was less with forgiveness, in the ordinary sense, that he was concerned, than with the possession of the Divine Spirit which transformed him from a sinner to a saint. It is in the light, not simply of his general conception of the Gospel already outlined, but also of the fact just re- ferred to, that his use of such terms as Sucaiovv, Sifcaiocrvvrj, and SiKaLwa-is should be interpreted. When interpreted thus, the forensic element, which so many have emphasized to the exclusion of every other, is seen to be subordinate, not supreme. 2 1 The verb aQiijui, which in the Synoptic Gospels is the common word meaning " to forgive," is found in Paul's epistles in the sense of forgive or remit only in Rom. iv. 7, in a quotation from the Old Testament. The noun d0e, and Col. i. 20. 21, and in each case is connected directly with Christ's death except in 2 Cor. v. 18, 19. But all such refer- ences are to be understood in the light of that general conception of salvation L 146 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Before bringing this discussion of Paul's Gospel to a close, attention should be called to the patent fact that the belief in the release of the Christian from bondage to law in general involved, of course, his release from bondage to the Jewish law in particular. But for such release an additional warrant was given in the appearance of the risen Christ. Doubtless the chief ground of Paul's hostility to Jesus had been, not that he turned the thoughts of the people upon himself, and thus hindered their preparation for the coming of the true Messiah, though that was bad enough, but that he inculcated principles which seemed calculated to lead them away from the law and to dis- courage its observance. Such conduct was alone enough to prove him an impostor in Paul's eyes. That he should have been executed by a mode of death pronounced ac- cursed in the law was a fitting sign of the divine judgment upon him. But the revelation of Jesus' Messiahship could mean nothing less than that his teaching was true ; and a revision of Paul's conception of the law was consequently inevitable. 1 Thus even had his religious experience not been what it was, and even had it not led him to believe in the Christian's freedom from all law, understanding Christ as he did Paul could hardly have done otherwise after his conversion than assume a freer attitude toward the Jewish law than the original disciples. But the release of the Christian from the obligation to observe the Jewish law, whether based solely upon his liberty from all law or in part also upon the teaching of Jesus, meant logically the abolition of the wall of partition that separated the Gentile from the Jew. If Paul, therefore, was to be true to his principles, he could recognize no essential religious difference between circumcision and uncircumcision. Both Jewish and Gentile Christians must stand religiously upon and of the work of Christ which has been briefly outlined, and though they ought to be given their due place, they should not be allowed to control our interpretation of all Paul's thought. 1 That the Messiah had died by a mode of death pronounced accursed in the law must also have affected to some extent Paul's estimate of the law and must have tended to weaken its hold upon him. Cf. Gal. iii. 13 and see Everett's Gospel of Paul, p. 144 sq. THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 147 the same plane. This fact Paul saw clearly at an early day, and he did not shrink from the consequences in- volved in it. On the contrary, he asserted distinctly and unequivocally the equal rights of Gentiles in the Gospel. That assertion constituted the Magna Charta of Gentile Christianity, and Paul stood by it unflinchingly in spite of the bitterest criticism and the most relentless opposition. That he did his life work among the Gentiles, was due, it is true, not solely to his adoption of this principle, for he might have believed as he did and still have labored chiefly among his own countiymen, as he seems to have done for some time, but the principle was ultimately re- sponsible for his career as the great apostle to the heathen, and alone made that career possible. We have been concerned in this chapter, not with Paul's missionary labors, nor with the circumstances which led him to take the course he did as an apostle, but only with the principles that underlay his work. Those principles he reached in the early days of his Christian life, as a direct result of the revelation of the Son of God within him, and they must have been already understood and clearly formulated before he began his work as a Christian evangelist. Upon them his labors were based from the very commencement of his career. It has been maintained by many, it is true, that his Gospel was worked out slowly and gradually, and that it took shape only under the stress of conflict and after years of active service ; and an effort has been made by some scholars to trace a development in his conception of Christianity, even during the period within which his extant epistles were written; attention being called to the fact that the Christianity of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians is of a much simpler character than the Christianity, for instance, of the Epistle to the Romans. 1 But even the First Epistle to the Thessalonians was written nearly twenty years after Paul's conversion, and only a brief interval separated it from his greatest writings. Moreover, it was written some years after the 1 Cf . e.g. Sabatier, Matheson, and Clemen (Chronologic der Paulinischen grief e, 1893; S. 255 sq.). On the other side see Bruce, I.e. p. 6 sq. 148 THE APOSTOLIC AGE events at Jerusalem and at Antioch, of which he tells us in Gal. ii., and consequently the fact that in it the fun- damental principles which are emphasized to such an ex- tent in Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, have almost no place, cannot be urged as an indication of their later development, for his conduct both at Jerusalem and at Antioch presupposes those principles. It is therefore vain to attempt to discover any essential development in Paul's general conception of Christianity after the time of the writing of the earliest of his extant epistles. 1 That development lay back of the great controversy, back indeed of the beginning of his missionary work among the Gentiles. It was not due to the experience gained in that work, for the work presupposes the development. Indeed, there is little in it that may not have belonged to the earliest days of his Christian life, to a time before he preached the Gospel to either Jew or Gentile. His pre- Christian experience and the circumstances of his conver- sion were such as inevitably to lead to that very Gospel which we find presented years later in his great epistles. It is impossible to imagine what the Gospel of his earlier Christian years could have been, if it was not that Gospel. It is impossible to conceive of his stop- ping short of the controlling conception which we find him holding until the end. It was doubtless in the period immediately succeeding his conversion, during the time that preceded his entrance upon his career as an apostle, that he worked out the great problems wrapped up in his conversion, and reached convictions which he held sub- stantially unaltered throughout the remainder of his life. 2 Those convictions were the fruit not of instruction received from Christ's apostles, nor of a knowledge of the 1 This is still more evident if Galatians is the earliest of Paul's epistles, as I believe it to be. See below, p. 229. 2 It is not meant, of course, that no development took place in connection with any of Paul's conceptions during the period represented by his epistles. In some matters, as, for instance, God's ultimate purpose for the Jews, which he discusses in his Epistle to the Romans, Paul's views may have developed con- siderably after the writing of his Epistle to the Galatians. And so the Christ- ology which appears in the epistles of the imprisonment is marked by some features that very likely formed no part of his thought when he wrote hia THE CHRISTIANITY OF PAUL 149 teaching of Jesus gained by Paul before or after he became a Christian, but of the revelation of the Son of God within him, and of his own spiritual experience resulting there- from. His conceptions, consequently, bore a very different form from the conceptions to which Jesus himself gave utterance, and yet they were in the main in harmony with the Master's spirit and tendency. Paul's pre-Christian experience had been just such as to prepare him for that complete renunciation of personal merit and personal pride, and that complete dependence upon God, which were fundamental with Christ. And so in his emphasis upon the Christian life as the divine life in man, and upon the Christian's release from bondage to an external law because of the divine life within him which is its own law, Paul was in essential sympathy though not in formal agreement with the Master. In his occasional references to the divine bestowal of knowledge and power, 1 and in his promise to be with his disciples in spirit, 2 Christ cer* tainly gave some warrant to the developed view to which Paul's experience led him, and in his assertion of God's fatherhood, and in his emphasis upon love as the substance of the law, he really justified Paul in his denial of all legalism. 3 Thus, though with his more abstract conception of God and man, and with his sharp contrast between flesh and spirit, Paul held views in many respects different from Christ's, and much less simple and popular than his, he was in sympathy with the spirit of the Master, and he must be recognized as the disciple who most fully under- stood him, and most truly carried on his work. And yet, not to the teaching of Christ, but to the teaching of Paul, does the church owe its controlling emphasis upon the earlier letters. And yet the development both here and in other lines in- volved only details, and did not affect his fundamental positions. The contents of the several epistles will be considered in the next chapter, and such devel- opment as actually did take place in Paul's views will then appear. 1 See Matt. xi. 27, xiii. 11, xvi. 17, xix. 26; Mark xiii. 11, etc. 2 See above, p. 32 sq. 3 There can be no doubt that it was directly due to the influence of Jesus' teaching that Paul recognized the law of love as constituting the principle of the Christian life. 150 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Saviour's death ; and not to the former, but to the latter, is chiefly due its recognition of him as a Redeemer from sin. It was by Paul, indeed, that the way was opened for a deeper conception of the significance of Christ's work, and for a loftier conception of his personality than had prevailed among his immediate disciples. Even though Paul was understood by very few, and even though his Gospel of the complete liberty of the Christian man found almost no acceptance, his emphasis upon the significance of Christ's death, and upon the divineness of his nature, had wide and permanent influence, and in the end essen- tially modified the thinking of the church at large. Not Jesus the Messiah, but Jesus Christ the divine Saviour, was thenceforth increasingly, as time passed, the object of Christian faith and worship. CHAPTER IV THE WOKK OF PAUL 1. THE ROMAN WORLD l PAUL'S field was the Roman Empire. If we would understand his career and rightly estimate the results accomplished by him, we must acquaint ourselves, at least to some extent, with the political, social, and reli- gious conditions which prevailed within that empire in his day. In the middle of the first century the dominion of Rome extended from Britain to the African desert, and from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, embracing all the countries which bordered upon the Mediterranean Sea. This vast territory was divided into two parts, Italy and the provinces. In Italy lived the ruling nation; in the provinces, which were some thirty-five in number at the time in question, 2 the subject peoples. One of the most striking facts about the empire is the heterogeneity of the elements of which it was composed. It was nothing less than a vast conglomerate. Within its borders were gathered peoples of the most diverse origin and history. This diversity was of course most marked in the provinces. In Italy the Romanizing process had been going on for 1 See especially Marquardt : Romische Staatsverwaltung ; Momrasen : Ro- mische Geschichte, Bd. V. : Die Provinzen von Caesar bis Diocletian (Eng. Trans. The Roman Provinces, in two volumes) ; Schiller: Geschichte der Ro- mischen Kaiserzeit, Bd. I.; Arnold: Roman System of Provincial Adminis- tration ; and Friedlander : Darstellungen aus der Sittenyeschichte Roms. 2 At the time of Claudius' death (54 A.D.) there were thirty-five provinces : seven in Asia, five in Africa (Gyrene and the Island of Crete constituting a single province) , and twenty in Europe, besides the insular provinces, Cyprus, Sicily, and Sardinia. Under Nero the number was increased to thirty-six, and under later emperors the number became still larger, being increased some- times by addition, but chiefly by the division of those already existing. See the lists in Marquardt's Romische Staatsverwaltung, I. S. 489 sq. 151 152 THE APOSTOLIC AGE centuries and was practically complete before the estab- lishment of the empire. But in the provinces there existed the greatest and most manifold variety. In her conquests it had been Rome's policy from an early day to recognize and so far as possible to leave undisturbed the national customs of the people whom she conquered. She was concerned not so much to Romanize as to control them, and she was content, so long as they recognized her authority, paid their taxes, and remained loyal and peace- able subjects, to allow them to retain much that they held dear in manners, in laws, and in religion. The conse- quence was that in those parts of the world where there existed an old and highly developed civilization, as in Asia, Egypt, and Greece, the immediate changes wrought by Roman conquest were in the main only external and superficial. The traditional habits of thought and life continued much the same, and though there was political unity, there were many marked and striking diversities in other lines. It would be a mistake consequently to think of the work of Paul and other Christian mission- aries as of the same character in all parts of the empire. The mental and moral characteristics of the people, their habits of life, their prejudices and passions, their religious beliefs and superstitions, varied greatly, and methods adapted to one city might prove far from successful in another. To evangelize the Roman world was a very different thing from evangelizing a single province or a closely related group of provinces, and Paul showed on many occasions his appreciation of the fact. And yet, in spite of all the diversity, so far-reaching and deep-seated in many cases, there existed at the same time a strong bond of union between the different parts of the empire, and a degree of homogeneity which is very remarkable under the circumstances. In republican days the provinces were little more than dependencies of Rome. The line of cleavage between Italy and the rest of the world was very marked. In Italy lived the rulers ; out- side of Italy, the ruled ; and though there might be Roman citizens here and there in the provinces, they were THE WORK OF PAUL 158 few and far between, and the provincials in general were regarded by the inhabitants of Italy with undisguised contempt, and were commonly looked upon as inferior even to the freedmen of Rome. The provinces had value only for what could be got out of them, and if they were governed with leniency, and their traditions treated with respect, it was only in order that their material resources might not be in any way lessened and the income from them curtailed. But with the establishment of the empire a new era in provincial administration opened. From mere dependencies the provinces rose gradually to the dignity of integral parts of the empire. The emperors instinctively looked for support not so much to the old aristocracy of Rome as to the people of the empire at large, and the breaking down of the wall between Italy and the rest of the world, and the extension of the privi- leges of Roman citizenship to an ever-increasing number of provincials, were a natural result. Not until the time of Caracalla, in the early part of the third century, did Roman citizenship become the possession of all free inhabi- tants of the empire ; but the process which culminated then was already under way in the period with which we are dealing. The old line of demarcation still existed, to be sure, and the contempt of Romans for provincials still manifested itself; but the times, nevertheless, were changed, and the provinces were passing rapidly out of their original condition of subjection. The change was evident in many ways. The number of Roman citizens in the provinces was multiplying rapidly ; provincials of character and ability were acquiring an influence at Rome which would have been impossible in republican days; honors and emoluments were falling to them ; and the ranks of the nobility were increasingly recruited from them. Instead of being subjected to the rapacity of irresponsible governors, who regarded them as their legitimate prey, and whose sole object was to plunder them and line their own pockets, they now enjoyed the benefit of a carefully adjusted system of provincial administration, which was provided with checks and safeguards calculated to mini- 154 THE APOSTOLIC AGE mize the danger of misgovernment. Though maladminis- tration was still frequent enough, the provinces were in the main remarkably well governed under the emperors, and their condition was exceptionally good. Frequently, when the people of Rome itself were suffering from the excesses of a Caligula or a Nero, the inhabitants of the provinces were enjoying the largest measure of prosperity and happiness. The natural result of the imperial policy was the rapid growth among the provincials of a spirit of loyalty to Rome. The privilege of belonging to the empire was becoming ever more widely recognized and more highly valued, and to be a Roman citizen meant more in the eyes of most than to be a descendant of the proudest and most ancient race. The old racial pride and prejudice were rapidly breaking down, and in their place was grow- ing up a new patriotism which had the Roman state as its object and which found expression in devotion to its interests. The effect of all this was a cosmopolitanism of spirit which is one of the most marked characteristics of the age. Everywhere men felt themselves to be not mere natives of this or that land, but citizens of the world. The immense local differences only contributed to this cosmo- politan spirit, for in their contact with other peoples of such various types men became increasingly conscious of their own limitations and increasingly alive to that which they might gain from others. It was Rome's con- stant effort to foster this new sense of unity and this new spirit of cosmopolitanism. By her magnificent system of roads she bound all parts of the empire together, and made it possible not only to reach quickly every quarter of her vast dominions with her troops, but also to keep in con- stant touch with the provinces and to carry on a most active commerce with them. By removing burdensome restric- tions, she made trade easy, and opened up new markets for the products of the world. By sending out colonies, she established centres of Roman influence in various quarters. And finally, by organizing the new imperial worship, and providing for its regular practice, especially THE WORK OF PAUL 155 in the provinces, she supplied a bond of union of peculiar strength. The provincials were left free and even encour- aged to worship their own gods, and in some cases the emperors provided for the public support of the local reli- gions. But the new imperial cult was everywhere insisted upon. The worship of Rome and the emperor was made an official function, and upon the civil authorities was laid the responsibility for its proper observance. The provin- cials themselves were foremost in their recognition of the deified emperors, and they vied with each other in exhibit- ing their loyalty by devotion to the new state religion. The prevailing culture of the world was Hellenic. From the time of Alexander's conquests, Greek influence had been transforming the civilization of Egypt and of Western Asia, and when the already Hellenized East became a part of Rome's dominions, the same influences speedily made themselves felt in the West. The Greeks lacked the genius for government which was so marked a characteristic of the Romans, but they possessed a power of impressing themselves their culture, their ideas, their beliefs upon other peoples to a degree shared by no other race. They were a restless, active, enterprising people, and it was not long after the opening of intercourse between East and West before they found their way into all parts of the Roman world. In intellectual and artistic lines they had no peers, and they soon made their services indispensable to the higher classes ; while their commer- cial instinct and ability made them successful rivals of the Jews in all branches of trade. Through them the Greek language and Hellenic culture were acclimated in the Occident as well as in the Orient, and though Roman civilization was always dominant west of the Adriatic, it was permeated in no small degree by the spirit of Greece. Thus, in spite of local differences, diverse interests, and racial peculiarities, a man brought up in circles where the influence of Greek culture was felt could not fail to find himself at home in every great city of the empire, and to meet everywhere men of like sympathies and interests with himself. 156 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Ethically the Roman Empire was not in a wholesome condition. The decaying civilization of the Orient was corrupt to the last degree, and the opening of the East to the influence of Greece through the conquests of Alex- ander had meant the opening of Greece to the debasing effects of Oriental sensuality. When republican Rome extended her dominions eastward, there flowed into Italy not simply the wealth and the culture of the conquered peoples, but also their vices, and the ethical tone of the entire republic rapidly deteriorated. In those parts of the world, especially the Western world, lying away from the great centres and off the great lines of travel, fru- gality, simplicity, and austerity were still dominant even well on into imperial times, but everywhere else luxury, debauchery, and sensuality ran riot. The wide prevalence of slavery, the wealth, luxury, and pride of the nobility, and the lack of a strong, respectable, and self-respecting middle class did much to lower the general ethical tone of the world at large ; and the growing tendency toward urban life and the increasing depopulation of the rural districts contributed to the same result. And yet, in spite of the vice which had penetrated society and was fast sapping its energy and vitality, the fact must be recognized that in the period with which we are dealing a widespread ethical reformation was in progress. Thinking men had become sensible of the degeneracy of the age and had begun to labor for the betterment of the world. Philoso- phy and religion were taking on a predominantly ethical character, and noble men were preaching virtue, and were making their influence felt in all grades of society. There can be no doubt that in the first century of the Christian era there were abroad in the world a deeper consciousness of moral evil, and a more earnest desire to escape from its control, than there had ever been. And so men were be- ginning to seek in religion not a mere means of warding off calamities and securing success in this or that occupa- tion, but a way of escaping from moral evil, and of attain- ing to a higher and purer and holier state. Though in the changes that had been going on for so many genera- THE WORK OF PAUL 157 tions, the ancient faiths had lost much of their vitality, and the upper classes especially were affected by a wide- spread scepticism and indifference in religious matters, the age was nevertheless a religious age, and many were striving to discover in their ancestral cults that which could satisfy their newly awakened needs, while many more were seeking in the cults of other peoples that which they could not find in their own. It was in fact an age of religious individualism and eclecticism. And while the new imperial worship was serving the purposes of a state religion, the most various faiths were finding adherents in all parts of the empire. Among the faiths which profited by the awakening re- ligious interest of the age was Judaism. 1 Long before the opening of the Christian Era the Jews were scattered over the greater part of the known world. In Syria, in Asia Minor, in Egypt, and in the far East they were especially numerous, and before the rise of the empire they had already found their way to the West and were numbered by the thousands in Rome itself. Wherever they went, they worshipped and served the God of their fathers, and gathered regularly for religious services on the Sabbath. When their numbers were sufficient, they built a syna- gogue, and there were few large cities in the empire which did not contain several such structures. However widely they might be scattered, they retained always the warmest affection for Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and were loyal and devout members of the household of Israel, which had its centre there. To the temple they sent regu- larly the appointed tribute money, and thither they went in large numbers to attend the great annual feasts. And yet, devoted as they were to the religion of their fathers, arid conscious as they were that they belonged to an elect people and possessed a faith infinitely superior to all other faiths, they still felt in no small degree the influence of the world in which they lived, and their beliefs and their 1 On the Judaism of the Dispersion, see especially Hausrath: Neutesta- mentliche Zeitgeschichte, 2te Auflage, Bd. II. S. 91 sq. ; Schurer: Geschichte desjiidischen Volkes, Bd. II. S. 493 sq. (Enjj. Trans., Div. II. Vol. II. p. 219 sq.), and Morrison: The Jews under Roman Rale, p. 375 sq. 158 THE APOSTOLIC AGE practices differed more and more as time passed from the beliefs and practices of their Palestinian brethren. There were undoubtedly multitudes of them who endeav- ored to observe in all their strictness all the ritual ordi- nances of the law, and to hold themselves rigidly aloof from their Gentile neighbors ; but there was a widespread tendency to soften somewhat the rigor of ceremonial re- quirements in order to permit a larger measure of inter- course with those among whom they lived. The desire also made its appearance at an early day to influence the heathen world, and to propagate the true faith among the Gentiles. But as is very apt to be the case when one's pur- pose is propagandism, emphasis was laid increasingly upon the more universal and essential elements of Judaism, and the ceremonial and ritual features were proportionately mini- mized. The Jews in question did not commonly cease ob- serving the ceremonial law themselves, but many of them taught that the essence of Judaism was belief in the one true God, and a life of purity, honesty, and uprightness in the confidence that God will reward the good and punish the wicked in a future life. Emphasizing such truths as these, it was possible for them to appeal strongly to earnest and conscientious souls, and in spite of the dislike with which they were so commonly regarded and the contempt which their peculiar rites and ceremonies often inspired, they seemed to many to offer just that which was most needed by the world. Their propagandism was carried on with the utmost energy and enthusiasm, and no means were left untried. Not simply did they endeavor to influence their neigh- bors and acquaintances one by one ; the scholars and writers among them made use of all varieties of literary composition for the advancement of the work. 1 The great philosophers, poets, and tragedians of earlier days were made to declare their faith in the God of the Jews and their approval of the principles of Judaism ; and books were written bearing the names of noted Greek and Latin 1 Upon the Hellenistic Jewish literature, see Schurer, I.e. II. S. 094 sq. (Eng. Trans., Div. II. Vol. III. p. 156 sq.). THE WORK OF PAUL 159 authors long dead. Among these pseudonymous produc- tions the most remarkable and influential was a collection of so-called Sibylline Oracles. The oracles of the Sibyl, popularly supposed to have been an inspired priestess of Apollo, were highly esteemed in the ancient world, and her alleged prophetic powers were turned to good service by various Jewish writers, who made her a preacher of the true faith, and a prophet of the blessedness that was one day to be enjoyed by all that honored and served the God of the Jews, and of the misery that was to overtake the worshippers of idols. These Oracles, which were not the work of one man nor of one period, must have ex- erted a tremendous influence upon all that accepted them as genuine, as multitudes doubtless did. But Judaism appealed not simply to the people at large, it addressed itself also to the philosophers of the age and endeavored to show its own superiority to all the systems of antiquity. It was the claim of many Jewish scholars, among whom Philo of Alexandria was the most noted of all, that Judaism was the supreme philosophy and the Jewish Scriptures the original storehouse of all the truth known to the sages of the world. By the ap- plication to the Old Testament of the allegorical method of interpretation which was familiar to the writers of the day, there were drawn from it the great truths taught by Socrates and Plato and others like them, and the claim was set up that from Moses and the prophets they had learned all the truth they knew. But it was not so much by such efforts to vindicate the philosophic character of Judaism, that the Jewish propagandists influenced the world. Their pure and lofty monotheism, their ethical ideals, and their emphasis upon the doctrine of rewards and punishments beyond the grave, reinforced by their assertion of a divine revelation guaranteeing all their teaching, appealed most widely and most powerfully to the better spirits among those with whom they came in contact, and it may well be believed that the writings of the great Hebrew prophets exerted a far larger influence than the philosophical productions of Philo and his school. 160 THE APOSTOLIC AGE It may be doubted whether the Jews ever secured a very large number of proselytes in the full sense, that is, of those who accepted circumcision and assumed the obli- gation to observe the law in all its parts, for the rite of circumcision was exceedingly repugnant to the world in general. But it is certain that they attached to themselves a large multitude of devout worshippers, who attended the services of the synagogue and served and honored their God as the only true God. 1 Many such adherents seem to have observed the Sabbath and some of the Jewish laws respecting food ; 2 while others contented themselves with conforming to the moral precepts of the Decalogue, or with the general practice of justice, holiness, and mercy. It was among these Gentile adherents of Judaism that Christianity had its most rapid spread. They were pre- pared for it by their belief in the God who was worshipped both by Jews and Christians, and by their acquaintance with the Old Testament, which they heard read in the synagogue week after week. Moreover, they had no native attachment to Judaism and no ancestral traditions which made it difficult for them to break loose from the synagogue ; and when Christianity came with its assertion that the prophecies contained in the Divine Scriptures were already fulfilled, and that the promised consumma- tion was already at hand, it is not to be wondered at that they welcomed it warmly, and found in it, especially when preached by those who recognized the full and equal rights of a Gentile Christianity, that which satisfied them even better than Judaism, whose blessings they could enjoy only in part so long as they hesitated to receive circum- cision and to become fully incorporated into the family of Israel. How much the existence of such circles of God- fearing men and women in all the great cities of the em- pire must have meant to Paul, we can easily imagine, and we shall see that he was fully alive to the opportunity offered by them. 1 These Gentile worshippers of the God of the Jews were commonly spoken of as " Devout and God-fearing men." Cf., e.g., Acts x. 2, and Josephus: Ant. xiv. 7, 2; B. ,7.11. 18, 2. 2 Cf., e.g., Josephus: Contra Apionem, II. 39. THE WORK OF PAUL 161 2. THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF PAUL'S CHRISTIAN LIFE The career of Paul during the years immediately suc- ceeding his conversion is involved in obscurity. We learn from his Epistle to the Galatians, 1 that he went first of all to Arabia and returned again after a time to Damascus. For what purpose he visited Arabia, by which is meant, probably, the desert country lying to the south- east of Damascus, and how long he remained there, we are not informed. The account in Acts, which betrays no knowledge of such a visit, seems to imply that it was of brief duration and of little or no public significance, and Paul's own reference to it is not out of harmony with such a supposition. It can hardly be supposed that he went to Arabia to do missionary work, for it was the last place which he would have chosen for such a purpose. It is much more probable that 'he went thither in order to re- flect in solitude upon the great change that had come upon him, and to determine its bearing upon his subsequent career. The issues involved were too momentous to be treated lightly, and Paul was the last man to reverse his entire course of conduct without considering carefully all that such a reversal meant, and without making very clear to himself the new principles by which he was thenceforth to live and labor. He could not be satisfied with anything less than a thoroughgoing understanding of the Gospel which had been revealed to him, and of its bearing upon his own life. But such an understanding could hardly have been attained without careful meditation, and it is quite un- likely therefore that he plunged into active evangelistic work immediately after his conversion. It may fairly be assumed, then, that it was in Arabia that Paul thought out his Gospel, and that in his Epistle to the Galatians he mentions his visit thither, just because it was there, in communion with himself and with his God, and not at the feet of the apostles in Jerusalem, that he learned his mes- sage and received his equipment as a preacher of the Gospel of Christ. i Gal. i. 17, 19- If 162 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Returning from Arabia to Damascus, he doubtless began at once to preach Christ in the synagogues, as recorded in the Book of Acts. 1 That he should have begun his work among his own countrymen was entirely natural, and there is no reason whatever to doubt the accuracy of Luke's account. That he labored for the conversion of Jews as well as of Gentiles is proved by his own words in 1 Cor. ix. 20, and Rom. xi. 14, and the second passage indicates that he was even more deeply concerned in the conversion of the former than of the latter. The princi- ples of his Gospel, to be sure, were such that it was impos- sible for him to think of the Jewish law as having any binding authority over a Christian disciple whether Jew or Gentile ; it was inevitable that he should regard the " middle wall of partition " which separated the Jews and the Gentiles as broken down, and should recognize the right of the latter to become Christian disciples with- out first becoming Jews. Indeed, all this must have become clear to him even before he returned to Damascus ; for it was necessarily involved in the Gospel as he under- stood it, and he could not have remained even temporarily blind to it. But such an unqualified recognition of the rights of a Gentile Christianity might exist, and yet Paul not feel himself bound to turn from the Jews to the Gen- tiles, and to labor exclusively for the evangelization of the latter. With his ardent patriotism and with his profound love for his own countrymen, to which he bears eloquent testimony in his Epistle to the Romans, it would have been unnatural for him to do so. We should expect rather to find him laboring first and foremost for the conversion of Jews, and only secondarily for the conversion of foreign peoples. The fact that he became finally the apostle to the Gentiles in a peculiar sense, and that his great life work was done among them, and not among his own country- men, while made possible by his belief that the disciples of Christ were free from all obligation to observe the Jewish law, was not directly due to that belief, but was the result of a combination of circumstances which will be 1 Acts ix. 19 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 163 referred to later. We may safely assume, then, that upon his return from Arabia to Damascus Paul began preaching the Gospel of Christ among those whom he knew and loved best, among his fellow-members of the household of Israel. That he should feel himself called to preach was inevitable. A man of his character and talents could not remain silent after the great change which he had experi- enced. His first impulse must be to tell others of the Messiah who had been revealed to him, and as he had believed himself divinely commissioned to exterminate the followers of Jesus, he must now believe himself divinely commissioned to propagate the faith which he had been destroying. Ceasing to be a persecutor, he could not be satisfied to be a mere adherent ; he must become a cham- pion of the new sect. His earliest Christian preaching, according to the Book of Acts, agreed substantially with the preaching of the primitive disciples of Jerusalem, in so far as he proclaimed and endeavored to prove, as they had done, the Messiah- ship of Jesus. It was with this truth that we should ex- pect him to begin. " Is Jesus indeed the Messiah ? " was the burning question, and none of the disciples, least of all Paul, could refrain from stating and restating his reasons for an- swering that fundamental question in the affirmative. But we may well believe that as he had found in the crucifixion of Jesus his chief ground of offence against those who pro- claimed him as the Messiah, he would lay especial stress upon that crucifixion when he began himself to preach the faith that he had once so bitterly denounced ; and that he would not simply content himself with showing that Jesus was the Messiah in spite of his death, but would emphasize the fact that the death of Jesus constituted an essential part of his Messianic work. We shall be safe in assuming, therefore, in the absence of direct information upon the subject, that he preached to the Jews of Damascus, at the very beginning of his Christian career, the Gospel which he preached later at Corinth, and which he sums up con- cisely in the early verses of the fifteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians: "Now I make known 164 THE APOSTOLIC AGE unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand ; for I de- livered unto you first of all that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures ; and that he was buried, and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures." We are not informed whether Paul's evangelistic work in Damascus was crowned with marked success, but the fact that he was obliged to flee from the city in order to escape arrest, as related in Acts ix. 23 sq., and 2 Cor. xi. 32 sq., 1 indicates that he had become sufficiently prominent as a Christian preacher to attract public notice and to draw upon himself the hostility of the city authorities, 2 who 1 There can be no doubt that Acts ix. 23, and 2 Cor. xi. 32, refer to the same event, and that the incident took place at the time indicated in Gal. i. 18. It has been claimed that the account of the incident in Acts is based solely upon the passage in 2 Cor., and that consequently there is no sufficient ground for assuming that the event occurred at the time indicated in Acts rather than at some other time. But in view of the fact that so many of the occurrences recorded in 2 Cor. xi. find no mention in the Acts, there is little reason to sup- pose that this particular incident was taken from that chapter. The account in Acts, therefore, may fairly be regarded as supplementing the reference in 2 Corinthians, by supplying the time at which the occurrence mentioned took place. It is worthy of remark that no other time so well fits the circumstances. 2 In 2 Cor. xi. 32, Paul says that the ethnarch under Aretas the king guarded Damascus to prevent his escape. This statement, taken in connection with the fact that while many coins of Damascus with the imperial superscription are in existence, no such coins have been found dating from the years 33-62, has led some scholars to the conclusion that Damascus belonged during the reigns of Caligula and Claudius to the kingdom of Arabia, over which Aretas IV. ruled until 40 A.D., the assumption being that Caligula, who came to the throne in 37, gave the city to Aretas. See Schiirer: Geschichte des judischen Volkes, I. 617 sq. ; 11.86; (Eng. Trans., Div. I. Vol.11, p. 35(5 sq., and Div. II. Vol. I. p. 98). But such a conclusion is hardly warranted by the evidence ; and if my chronology of Paul's life is correct, the flight from Damas- cus falls within the reign of Tiberius (about 35 A.D.), when it cannot be sup- posed that any change had taken place in the status of Damascus. Mommsen (Ri)inische Geschichte, 3te Auflage, Bd. V. S. 476) remarks that the coins bear- ing the head of the emperor, while they show that Damascus was dependent upon the Roman Empire, do not show that it was independent of the Arabian king. Aretas therefore may have been in control of Damascus, as Herod was in control of Jerusalem, while at the same time the city was subject to Rome. There is, consequently, no ground in Paul's statement, that the ethnarch under Aretas guarded the city, for the assumption that Damascus was at the time not under Roman dominion, as it certainly was in earlier and later years. No argument therefore can be drawn from the incident as to the date of Paul's conversion. The incident may have occurred as well in the year 35 as in 38. On the other hand, Paul's statement in Gal. i. 17, that he went from Damascus to Arabia, cauuot be employed to prove, as it is by O. Holtzmann. THE WORK OF PAUL 165 perhaps saw that his preaching was creating a disturbance among the Jewish population of the city which might result in riot and bloodshed. In his Epistle to the Gala- tians 1 Paul puts his departure from Damascus three years after his conversion, 2 but he says nothing of the circum- stances under which he left the city. He informs the Galatians, however, that upon leaving Damascus he went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and tarried with him fifteen days, but that he saw no other apostle except James the Lord's brother. It is evident from the passage in Galatians that the purpose of his visit to Jerusalem was not to preach the Gospel there, but to make the acquaint- ance of Peter. 3 That he should desire to know personally the leading man among the disciples was certainly most natural, and it need cause no surprise that when a con- venient opportunity offered itself, he took advantage of it. (Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, S. 97 sq.), that Damascus was at that time not subject to the Arabian king ; for the city might be subject to him or under his protection and yet not be an integral part of Arabia (see Mommsen, ibid.). The ethnarch to whom Paul refers would seem, then, to have been the repre- sentative of Aretas' authority in the city and as such at the head of the municipal government or at any rate in possession of police jurisdiction. Had he not held such a position, he would have had neither cause nor right to guard the city as he did. Holtzmann's assertion that the term " ethnarch " can- not be understood in so broad a sense, but must denote simply the head of the Arabian colony in the city (I.e. S. 97), is hardly justified. Archelaus, for in- stance, was given the title Ethnarch by Augustus (see Josephus: B. J. II. 63; and compare the note of Heinrici: Das Zweite Sendschreiben an die Korin- thier, S.481). 1 Gal. i. 18. 2 It is possible, as Weizsacker maintains (I.e. S. 81), that Paul reckoned the "three years" not from his conversion, but from the time when he returned to Damascus from Arabia. But if that be the case, it may fairly be assumed that the sojourn in Arabia was of no great duration ; for otherwise, in the in- terest of his argument, which was to show that he waited a long time before seeing the older apostles, he would have specified the length of his stay there. From whichever point therefore the " three years " be reckoned, the result is practically the same. 3 iffTopfaai. K770aV It is hardly possible in the light of Gal. i. 19, 22, to suppose that Paul did such public evangelistic work in Jerusalem as he is represented as doing in Acts ix. 28 sq. He was demonstrating in the Galatian passage his independence of man and his sole dependence upon God for the Gospel which he preached ; and it would have been decidedly disingenuous for him to speak as he did concerning his visit to Jerusalem if he had mingled freely with the disciples of the Mother Church. Moreover, his statement in verse 22, that he was still unknown to the churches of Judea, must include the church of Jerusalem, for otherwise it would have no bearing upon the matter in hand, and could only mislead his readers. 166 THE APOSTOLIC AGE The fact that he waited as long as he did before visiting Jerusalem shows that he did not regard himself as in any way dependent upon Peter or the other apostles for author- ity to preach the Gospel, and there is no reason to suppose that he sought Peter for the purpose of securing his sanction, of the w r ork that he was doing ; for there is no hint that the need of such sanction was felt by any one at this early stage. On the other hand, the fact that Paul waited three years before going up to Jerusalem does not prove that he purposely avoided the Christians of Jerusa- lem, with the design of asserting his independence of them; for had he had such a design, he would have remained away still longer. The controversy, which subsequently led him to emphasize his independence, as he does in the Epistle to the Galatians, belonged to a much later period, and he could hardly have foreseen it at so early a date. It is probable that he was too much absorbed in his evangelistic work in Damascus to think of interrupting it for the purpose of visiting Peter or anybody else, and that he conceived the very natural idea of making Peter's acquaintance only when he was compelled to leave the city and was thus at least temporarily prevented from con- tinuing the work to which he had been devoting himself with such enthusiasm. That he saw none of the apostles except Peter and James the brother of the Lord, and apparently very few of the disciples, and that his visit was of such short duration may have been due to the fact that the church of Jerusalem was still undergoing perse- cution and that most of the Christians were absent or in hiding ; or it may have been due to the desire of conceal- ing from the authorities the presence in the city of a man who had fled as a fugitive from Damascus. The bearing of this visit upon Paul's subsequent career and upon his relations to the Mother Church it is difficult to determine. It is inconceivable that he can have been simply a listener during those fifteen days of converse with Peter. He must have learned much from Peter, it is true, about the Christ whom he had never seen in the flesh, and about the views of Christianity that prevailed THE WORK OF PAUL 167 among the original disciples; but he must also have im- parted much to him out of his own experience, an expe- rience which could not fail to be of surpassing interest to all that knew of his former hostility and of his sudden conversion. But he could hardly have related that expe- rience to Peter without presenting at least the main out- lines of his Christian belief, to which that experience had given rise. And yet in the light of Paul's explicit statement, 1 that at a subsequent visit he laid before the leaders of the church of Jerusalem the Gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, and secured their recogni- tion of his divine commission, and in view of his silence touching the subject of his conference on this earlier occa- sion, it can hardly be supposed that at this time Peter either approved or disapproved that Gospel. Had he ap- proved it, Paul would certainly not have failed to inform his Galatian readers of th* fact ; while had he declared his disapproval, the churches of Judea could hardly have glori- fied God for the work that Paul was doing, and he could not have been left so long unmolested in the labors which he was carrying on among the Gentiles. It is, in fact, altogether unlikely that Paul appeared in Jerusalem, on the occasion of his first visit, in the r61e of an apostle to the Gentiles, or of a champion of Gentile Christianity. It is much more probable that the " Gospel of the uncir- cumcision " was not discussed at all, or if it was, that it Avas not treated either by Peter or by Paul as a matter of immediate and pressing importance. And yet it is not altogether impossible that Peter's interview with Paul, which must in any case have suggested broader and more spiritual views of the nature of Christianity than had prevailed in the Mother Church, prepared the mind of the former at least in some measure for the Cornelius incident. It may be that he found it easier to pursue the course he did on that occasion because of the suggestions he had re- ceived from Paul, and that later, when Paul had begun his great missionary career among the Gentiles, the knowledge which Peter had already gained of the fundamental prin- i Gal. ii. 1 sq. 168 THE APOSTOLIC AGE ciples of Paul's Christianity prepared him to sympathize heartily with the apostle to the Gentiles and to approve his work unreservedly. It is certainly not without significance that it was Peter of whom Paul saw most during that fort- night in Jerusalem, and that it was Peter who of all the disciples of Jerusalem known to us showed himself most in sympathy with Christian work among the Gentiles. 3. PAUL IN SYRIA AND CILICIA After a stay of fifteen days in Jerusalem, Paul left the city and went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 1 two contiguous Roman provinces whose capitals were respec- tively Antioch and Tarsus, Paul's native place. The inter- val of eleven years 2 which elapsed between this time and his second visit to Jerusalem, recorded in Gal. ii. 1 sq., Paul passes over without a word. He was concerned not to give his readers a record of his life and works, but only to show them that he had received his Gospel from God and not from man, and for that purpose it was enough for him to enumer- ate his visits to Jerusalem, during which he might be sup- posed to have learned something from the older apostles, or from the Mother Church. Our knowledge of this inter- val is very meagre. That the time was spent in active Christian work there can be little doubt, but of much of the work we know absolutely nothing. In Acts xi. 22 sq., it is recorded that when Barnabas came down from Jeru- salem to Antioch and found Gentile Christianity already existing there, he went to Tarsus and brought Paul thence to Antioch, and that the two men labored together in the latter city for a whole year. There is nothing intrinsically improbable in this narrative. As was remarked in a pre- vious chapter, the indications are that Gentile Christianity 1 Gal. i. 21. 2 It is possible to date the " fourteen years " of Gal. ii. 1, either from Paul's conversion or from his first visit to Jerusalem, three years later. The latter alternative is adopted by the great majority of scholars, and they therefore put Paul's second visit to Jerusalem seventeen years after his conversion. But the date which I assume for Paul's death (see p. 419, below) leads me to reckon the fourteen years from the earlier date and thus to separate his Jeru- salem visits by only eleven years. Ramsay dons the same, but on other grounds (see his St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, pp. 55, 1582). THE WORK OF PAUL 169 in Antioch did not owe its origin to Paul, and as we know from Gal. ii. that he and Barnabas were at home there some years later, at the time of the council of Jerusalem, there is no reason to doubt that he may have been brought thither by Barnabas under the circumstances related in Acts, and may have labored there some time before starting upon the missionary tour recorded in Acts xiii. and xiv. Previous to that time he had doubtless been doing Chris- tian work in his own city Tarsus, and possibly in the coun- try round about, for it was there that Barnabas is said to have found him, and he tells us himself that he had spent at least a part of the time between his first and second visits to Jerusalem in Cilicia. 1 That Barnabas was anxious to secure Paul's assistance for the work in Antioch would seem to indicate that the latter had already shown himself a zealous and efficient laborer, and knowing his character and his subsequent career as we do, we cannot doubt that such was the case. These early years, about which we know so little, must have been of great importance to Paul himself; for though in the existing records they have been entirely overshadowed by the years that followed, and though we have no informa- tion of the work accomplished, it was during this time that the great apostle was preparing himself for the marvellous achievements of later days. It was not as a novice that he set out upon his missionary tours which resulted in the evangelization of so large a part of the Gentile world, but as a preacher and worker of long and varied experience, who had familiarized himself thoroughly with the most effective evangelistic methods, and who knew not only the Gospel which he had to preach, but the men to whom he had to preach it. The Paul of the great missionary journeys in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece presupposes the Paul of the quieter, but hardly less busy years spent in Syria and Cilicia. The apostle whose field was the Roman Empire presupposes the humbler evangelist whose field was only a province. Had he not been doing effective service during those years of which we know so little, the record of his i Gal. i. 21. 170 THE APOSTOLIC AGE later years would not be so illustrious as it is. We may assume, then, that from the time of his departure from Jerusalem, some three years after his conversion, until the beginning of his missionary tour recorded in Acts xiii. and xiv., Paul was actively and more or less constantly engaged in evangelistic work in the " regions of Syria and Cilicia." Between the beginning of Paul's work in Antioch and his departure upon the missionary tour described in Acts xiii. sq., the author of the Acts inserts a visit to Jerusa- lem, recording that in consequence of the impending famine, which the prophet Agabus had foretold, the An- tiochian Christians sent Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem, to carry contributions for the relief of the brethren that dwelt in Judea. 1 This journey has caused scholars a great deal of trouble. It has been generally recognized that the visit to Jerusalem, to which Paul refers in Gal. i. 18, is recorded by the author of the Acts in ix. 26 sq., and that the visit referred to in Gal. ii. 1 sq. is described in Acts xv. In the present chapter, then, we have apparently the account of a journey to Jerusalem falling in the interval between the two which Paul mentions. But it is clear that Paul intended the Galatians to understand that dur- ing the fourteen years that succeeded his conversion, he had been in Jerusalem only twice. He was concerned to show that he had received his Gospel from God, and not from man ; and for that purpose he enumerated the occa- sions on which he had visited Jerusalem, and on which, consequently, it could be supposed by any one that he had received instruction from the older apostles, and he was careful to describe what took place on those occasions, in order to prove that he had been given nothing by them. It is difficult, therefore, unless we are ready to charge Paul with intentionally deceiving the Galatians, to sup- pose that he actually made another journey to Jerusalem i Acts xi. 29 sq., xii. 25. That there was a famine in Judea during the reign of Claudius is recorded both by Josephus (Ant. xx. 2, 5; 5, 2) and Oro- sius (vii. 6), and their accounts point to the year 45 as the probable date (cf. Ramsay: St. Paul, the Traveller and Roman Citizen, p. 68). The collocation, in Luke's account, of the famine and the death of Herod which took place in 44, is no proof that the two events occurred at the same time. THE WORK OF PAUL 171 in the interval between the two which -he mentions. And yet it can hardly be doubted that a contribution was act- ually sent by the Christians of Antioch to their brethren at Jerusalem, and it is difficult to account for the report that Paul was one of the messengers that carried it, if he really had nothing to do with it. It has been supposed by some 1 that Paul was commissioned to go to Jerusalem with Barnabas on the occasion in question, and that he may have started thither, but, for some unexplained reason, failed to reach the city ; while Luke, finding in his sources the record of the appointment, drew the natural but un- warranted conclusion that both Paul and Barnabas ful- filled the mission entrusted to them. 2 This, however, is at best a lame explanation. A much simpler solution of the difficulty seems to be that Acts xi. and xv. both refer to the same event, and that we are consequently dealing here with the second of the two visits mentioned by Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians. It is entirely conceivable that Luke found two independent accounts of the same journey in his sources ; and as the occasion was given differently in the two cases, he supposed them to refer to separate events, and inserted them at what seemed to him the proper points in his narrative. It is true that it ap- pears at first sight difficult to assume that the two accounts refer to the same visit, for the setting is entirely different in the two cases ; but Gal. ii. 10 seems to imply that a double purpose was fulfilled by the journey described in that chapter, and that Paul was the bearer of alms as well as the defender of Gentile Christianity. 3 If this be the case, the difficulty disappears. One writer might well be interested to record only the generous act of the Anti- ochian church, 4 while another might see in the settlement 1 For instance, by Neander, Meyer, and Lightfoot. 2 Acts xii. 25. 3 Gal. ii. 10 reads: " Only they would that we should remember the poor; which very thing I was also zealous to do" (o KCU Iff IT ov Sacra avrb TOVTO iroiTjo-ai) . These words can hardly refer to the great collection which Paul spent some years in gathering and which he took up to Jerusalem the last time he visited (he city, for he had not begun to make that collection at the time he wrote to the Galatians (see below, p. 22(5). 4 It is to be noticed that only the occasion of the journey is mentioned in Acts xi., while nothing is said of the events that took place in Jerusalem. 172 THE APOSTOLIC AGE of the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity the only mattel worthy of mention. That Luke should then suppose the two accounts to refer to different events was but natural; and it was also natural, if he was aware, as he probably was, that the council of Jerusalem occurred after Paul's missionary tour in Galatia, that he should put the other journey to Jerusalem back into an earlier period, and con- nect it with the time of the apostle's previous sojourn in Antioch ; for it could hardly be thought that Paul and Barnabas visited the Mother Church twice within a few months. 1 4. THE EVANGELIZATION OF GALATIA With the thirteenth chapter of Acts begins, as has been generally recognized, the second part of the book. It is devoted almost exclusively to the missionary labors and personal fortunes of Paul, and constitutes practically a com- plete whole in itself. And yet this section of the work, like the first twelve chapters, is based largely upon older sources of varying worth. There are a number of passages which purport to be and doubtless are from the pen of an eyewitness, while other portions of the narrative make no such claim. There can be no doubt, however, that through- out a large part of this half of his work, the author was in possession of much fuller and more trustworthy documents i A confirmation of the conclusion that Acts xi. and xv. refer to the same event, is found in the chronology of Paul's life. The date which I assume for Ms death (see below, p. 419) makes it impossible to assign the conference, referred to in Gal. ii. and Acts xv., to a time much later than 46; but the famine recorded in Acts xi. occurred probably in that or the previous year, so that the coincidence in time is striking. Ramsay also identifies the visits to Jerusalem mentioned in Acts xi. and Gal. ii. (St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 48 sq.), but he separates Acts xi. and xv., and regards the latter chapter as referring to still another and later visit. This, however, will not do ; for the discussion recorded in Acts xv. can have taken place only on the occasion which Paul describes in Gal. ii. 1'sq. At any later time it is inconceivable ; and least of all can it have occurred, as Ramsay supposes, after the Antiochian trouble described in Gal. ii. 11 sq. (see below, p. 202 sq.). Moreover, it is impossible to see, as Ramsay does, in Paul's brief reference to the collection for the poor in Gal. ii. 10, a statement of his chief object in visiting Jerusalem. His chief object, as his entire account shows, was to secure the recognition of Gentile Christianity. The carrying of the alms with which he was entrusted was to him at least a minor matter. THE WORK OF PAUL 173 than for the period covered by the first twelve chapters. There is also a homogeneity about the last sixteen chapters which is largely wanting in the first twelve. Evidently the sources from which the author drew his knowledge of Paul's great missionary tours, and of the later years of his life, were less scattered and fragmentary than those from which he derived his information touching the fortunes of the early church of Jerusalem, and required far less expan- sion and adjustment. It may be noticed, for instance, that the early chapters of the book are almost wholly wanting in chronological data of any kind, while in many of the later chapters the chronology is fairly clear and definite. In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters is given an account of what is commonly called Paul's First Mission- ary Journey. The title is convenient, though it is a little unfortunate, for it conveys the impression that Paul's mis- sionary labors began at this time, when in point of fact he had without doubt already been engaged for some years in work of a genuinely missionary character. But of those years we know almost nothing, while from this point on we have a definite and ostensibly consecutive account of Paul's career until his arrival at Rome as a prisoner in the year 56. The journey was undertaken, according to Acts xiii. 1 sq., in conformity with a command of the Holy Spirit, who directed certain prophets and teachers of the Antiochian church to set apart two of their own number, Barnabas and Saul, and send them forth upon a missionary tour. 1 Leaving Antioch, the two men, in company with 1 Barnabas and Saul are referred to in Acts xiii. 1, as if they had not been previously mentioned by the author. It would seem, therefore, that a new document begins at this point. There can be little doubt, in fact, in view of the accuracy of many of the details recorded in chaps, xiii. and xiv., that the author had at his command a written source covering the journey there de- scribed. Most recent writers upon the sources of the Acts suppose that Luke drew in those chapters upon a larger source which he used extensively in other parts of his work, and some identify it with the document containing the " we " passages (see p. 238, below). But I am unable to find any signs of resemblance between these chapters and the sections in which the pronoun "we" occurs, and it may fairly be doubted whether the source from which the author drew his account of Paul's First Missionary Journey was used by him anywhere else. However that may be, it is evident that Luke treated the document underlying these two chapters with a free hand (see below, p. 186 sq.) . 174 THE APOSTOLIC AGE John .Mark, the cousin or nephew of Barnabas, went down to the seaport Seleucia and took ship thence for Cyprus, Barnabas' ancestral home. Their work in Cyprus is inter- esting chiefly because it was here that Paul for the first time, so far as we know, came into direct contact on the one hand with a striking and characteristic form of the superstition of the age in the person of the sorcerer Bar- Jesus, and on the other hand with the Roman government in the person of Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus. Bar-Jesus was a representative of a class of men, very numerous in that day, who possessed a familiarity with the forces of nature which was not shared by their fellows, and which was commonly regarded as supernatural in its origin. They were widely looked upon as endowed with superhuman power and wisdom, arid were able to wield a tremendous influence over the minds of their fellows, an influence which they turned often to their own private advantage. They were to be found in all parts of the world, and they knew not only how to impress and astonish the common people, but also how to ingratiate themselves with the rich and the great. That there should have been one of them in the retinue of the proconsul is not at all surprising, and it is still less surprising that he should have been hostile to Paul and Barnabas, who represented another system and whose preaching might well seem to threaten his influence and credit with his patron. Paul and other early Christian missionaries must have come into frequent contact with such men, and the incident related here may be regarded as a typical one. It was natural that Luke, finding in his sources, as he probably did, a reference to Paul's meeting with such a man, should picture the scene as an exhibition of the superior power of Christianity in the very field in which Bar-Jesus and his kind were most skilful. He could hardly conceive of Paul as coming into contact with such a man and not giving convincing evidence of his mightier control over the forces of nature, and it may have been a denunciation by Paul of the spiritual blindness of the Magian that led him to suppose that the apostle inflicted physical blindness upon him, as recorded in vs. 11. THE WORK OF PAUL 175 But the journey of Paul and Barnabas through Cyprus is significant not simply because of their meeting with Bar- Jesus, but also and chiefly because of their interview with the proconsul Sergius Paulus. 1 He seems to have been interested by the reports that reached him of the two trav- ellers, whose preaching was very likely creating some stir in Paphos, and he consequently sent for them that he might hear them for himself. Luke gives us no account of their preaching before him, his entire attention being taken up with the case of the sorcerer, but he closes the incident with the remark that the proconsul believed ; 2 and whether it is to be supposed that he was really converted to the Christian faith and became a disciple, as Luke's words imply, or only that he was strongly and favorably im- pressed by what he had seen and heard, in any case the interview must have meant a great deal to Paul. It is not impossible that the impression which he made upon the governor led him to turn his thoughts more earnestly than heretofore upon the Roman Empire as the field of his labors, and to cherish a more confident belief in the possi- bility of bringing the Roman world to Christ. At any rate, even if the event was not actually the occasion of an en- largement of his horizon and expansion of his plans, it was at least typical, for throughout his subsequent career it was the Roman Empire that he was thinking of and aiming to win for Christ. He was proud of his Roman citizenship and made a great deal of it ; he always used his Roman name Paul ; his churches he designated by the names of the Roman provinces in which they were situated, the churches of Galatia, of Asia, of Macedonia, of Achaia ; his thoughts turned continually toward Rome, and in all his journeys his gaze was fixed upon the capital which he longed to see and 1 A Sergius Paulus is known to us from the writings of Pliny, who is very likely to be identified with the proconsul mentioned by Luke, and the name of a proconsul Paulus is found in Cypriote inscriptions, who is also possibly the same man. See Lightfoot in the Contemporary Review, May, 1878, p. 290 sq. For an interesting and suggestive account of Paul's visit to Cyprus see Ramsay : St. Paul, the Traveller and Roman Citizen, p. 70 sq. 2 Acts xiii. 12. It is interesting to notice that Luke ascribes the conversion of the proconsul rather to the miracle performed by Paul in smiting the Magian with blindness than to the preaching of the Gospel by him. 176 THE APOSTOLIC AGE where he longed to preach. 1 The interview with Sergius Paulus therefore is interesting and suggestive even though it may not have marked an epoch in Paul's own career. The author of the Acts, with the instinct of a true historian, evidently felt its significance ; for it is in connection with it that he first employs Saul's Roman name Paul, 2 the name by which the apostle is thenceforth uniformly called in the Acts, 3 and which he always uses in his epistles. Luke does not mean to imply, nor is it necessary to suppose, that Paul himself began to use the new name just at this time ; but as the great apostle who had entered upon his career as a preacher of the Gospel to the Roman world, Luke proposed to treat him thenceforth not as a Jew, but as a Roman. The name itself, Paul probably bore from the beginning in addition to his Hebrew name Saul ; for such double names were not at all uncommon in the provinces, and the son of a Roman citizen could hardly have failed to possess a Roman name. It may well be that he began to use the latter to the exclusion of his Hebrew name when he defi- nitely conceived the purpose of evangelizing the Roman world. Leaving Cyprus after a stay of unknown duration, Paul and his companions sailed for Perga, an important commer- cial town of Pamphylia, situated upon the River Oestrus not far from its mouth. It was at this point that John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem. 4 His with- drawal from the work, which seems to have displeased Paul greatly, 5 suggests that a change had been made in the original plans of the party, and that Paul and Barna- bas had decided to undertake a journey which Mark had not anticipated, and which involved a longer absence from home or greater hardships than he was willing to undergo. It may be that the determination was now formed to press north and westward across Asia Minor, in order to carry the Gospel to the provinces of Asia and Bithynia or even over into Europe, as Paul did at a later time. At 1 Rom. i. 15, xv. 22 sq. 2 Acts xiii. 9. 8 Except in the discourses of Paul recorded in Acts xxii. and xxvi. 4 Acts xiii. 13. 6 cf . Acts xv. 38. THE WORK OF PAUL 177 any rate, the travellers left Perga apparently after only a short stay there, and crossing the Taurus Mountains went on to Antioch, a prominent city of Phrygia and the political centre of the southern half of the Roman prov- ince of Galatia. 1 If the plan had been formed of going on from Antioch westward or northward into Asia or Bithynia, it was for some reason abandoned at this point, and the apostles turned instead southeastward to Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, all of them cities lying within the bor- ders of the province of Galatia. 2 On the supposition that the churches of the Galatian cities visited at this time are the ones addressed by Paul in his Epistle to the Gala- tians, Ramsay 3 suggests that the trip from Perga over the mountains to Antioch was undertaken because Paul was smitten with malarial fever while in the former city, and was obliged to seek the highlands of the interior in order to throw off the attack, and that thus he was led by " an infirmity of the flesh" to preach for the first time to the Galatians. 4 The suggestion is a plausible one, but it seems much more likely that the illness of which Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Galatians overtook him at Antioch rather than at Perga. 5 For if he was taken ill at Perga, it would be more natural for him to return to his home 1 Upon the name Pisidian Antioch, by which the city was commonly known, see Ramsay : Church in the Roman Empire, p. 25 sq. 2 See Ramsay : Historical Geography of Asia Minor, pp. 26, 30, 450, and The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 13 sq. ; also Weizsacker, I.e. S. 228 sq. (Eng. Trans., I. p. 270 sq.), and Rendall in the Expositor, Vol. IX., 1894, p. 254 sq. Schiirer in the Theologische Liter aturzeitung, 1892, Sp. 468 (cf. also 1893, Sp. 410), and in the Jahrbiicher fur Protestantische Theologie, 1892, S. 471, denies that the province which included Galatia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia, bore the official name Galatia, and that the inhabitants of Pisidia and Lycao- nia could ever have been called Galatians ; but Ramsay has shown him to be in error. There can be no doubt that the Roman province Galatia did embrace at the time with which we are dealing, not only the old kingdom of Galatia, but also Pisidia, Lycaonia, and a part of Phrygia, and that the inhabitants of the latter countries might properly have been called Galatians by Paul. 8 Church in the Roman Empire, p. 61 sq. 4 Gal. iv. 13. 5 So also Weizsacker, S. 240. If his " infirmity of the flesh " was an attack of malarial fever, as is very likely, Paul may have contracted the disease in the lowlands of Pamphylia, but it may not have made its appearance until he reached Antioch. It is frequently only after a person leaves a malarial region that he feels the consequences of residence in it. 178 THE APOSTOLIC AGE or to Cyprus, where both he and Barnabas were already acquainted, than to go into an entirely unfamiliar country, which could be reached only by eight days of hard travel. 1 And it could hardly be said in Acts xv. 38, in speaking of Mark's withdrawal, that he refused to go " on to the work " with Paul and Barnabas if the trip to Antioch was undertaken merely for the sake of Paul's recovery. On the other hand, if while the travellers were pressing north or westward, not intending to stop to preach in Antioch, Paul was stricken down and obliged to remain there for some time, it would be natural for him to tell his mes- sage, when he found himself able to do so, to those among whom he was thus providentially thrown. When he was obliged to leave Antioch, as recorded in Acts xiii. 50, it may be that he turned southeastward instead of westward or northward, because he had not yet fully recovered his strength, and thought it best to return home rather than to undertake at this time the longer journey he had planned. If this were so, it would be literally true that he had preached not to the Antiochians alone, but to all the Galatians, " because of an infirmity of the flesh," and the words in which he refers to his malady and to the kind reception they had given him 2 would apply to all of them and not simply to the Christians of a single city. It has been assumed in what has just been said that the Galatian Christians, whom Paul addressed in his epistle, are to be found in the cities of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, which he visited at this time, according to the account of the Book of Acts. This opinion has been main- tained by some eminent scholars, 3 but it is by no means the prevailing view. The great majority of writers upon the New Testament hold that the Epistle to the Galatians was addressed to Christians living in the Galatian country, a dis- trict lying to the north and east of Lycaonia and Phrygia, and constituting only a part of the great Roman province of 1 See Ramsay, I.e. p. 65. 2 Qal. iv. 13-15. 8 Among others by Kenan, Hausrath, Weizsacker, Pfleiderer, and most recently by Ramsay. THE WORK OF PAUL 179 Galatia. 1 This district, whose chief cities were Ancyra, Ta- vium, and Pessinus, had been inhabited for some centuries by a Keltic people, and had constituted before its incorpora- tion in the Roman Empire the Kingdom of Galatia. It is contended by the writers who maintain the so-called "North- Galatian " theory, that only the inhabitants of this country- could have been called Galatians by Paul. But it was his uniform custom, in speaking of his churches, to use the names of the Roman provinces and not of the geographical districts in which they were situated. Thus he speaks of the churches of Asia, of Macedonia, and of Achaia, and it is fair to assume that he uses the term " Galatia " in the same official sense. The fact that the author of the Acts fre- quently uses geographical terms, such as Mysia, Phrygia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, has no bearing upon the matter, for it is Paul's usage and not the usage of the Book of Acts that we are seeking; and it should be observed that in such a narrative of travel as is given in Acts, we might expect to find the various districts of a province through which the apostles passed, referred to by their common geographical or national designations. As Ramsay has clearly shown, if Paul wished to address the Christians of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe in a single circular letter, the only gen- eral term which he could employ to designate them all, and at the same time the most honorable term, was " Galatians " or " Men of the province of Galatia." There are, moreover, a number of excellent reasons for assuming that the Epistle to the Galatians was actually in- tended for the Christians of Antioch and the other cities just referred to. It is very difficult, for instance, to under- stand how Paul can have preached the Gospel in North Galatia "because of an infirmity of the flesh." 2 So far as we know, he never visited any country so situated that his 1 Among the many that hold this view may be mentioned Lightfoot (Com- mentary on Galatians), Wendt (Meyer's Commentary on the Acts, 7th edi- tion), Lipsius (Commentary on Galatians, in the Hand-Kommentar zum Neuen Testament), Schiirer (in the articles already referred to), and Weiss and Jiilicher in their Introductions to the New Testament. For an especially thorough presentation and defence of the view, see Holsten's Evangelium des Paulus, I. S. 35 sq, 2 Gal. iv. 13. 180 THE APOSTOLIC AGE journey thither took him through North Galatia, and it is inconceivable that illness can have led him to go so far out of his way, as he must have gone, if he preached in Ancyra or Tavium or other prominent North Galatian cities. If he preached there at all, it would seem that he must have gone thither for that express purpose ; but his own words in Gal. iv. 13 preclude such a supposition. It is very difficult also to discover a time when Paul can have done evangelistic work in North Galatia. It is clear from Gal. iv. 13 sq., that he had visited the Galatians twice before he wrote them. The former of these visits the advo- cates of the North Galatian theory commonly find referred to in Acts xvi. 6, the latter in Acts xviii. 23, on the assump- tion that the word " Galatia " in these two cases can be un- derstood only in a geographical sense. But the assumption is entirely erroneous; 1 and even if it were granted, it would certainly be an extremely hazardous proceeding to insert in Acts xvi. 6, the extended and fruitful evangelistic labors which Paul's epistle shows that he did among the Gala- tians. It should be remarked still farther that the use of vpas in Gal. ii. 5, though it may not conclusively prove, does at least imply that the Galatians had been evangelized before the conference of Jerusalem which Paul describes in his epistle to them. But there is nowhere in our sources a hint that he had visited North Galatia before that time. Again the reference to Barnabas in Gal. ii. 13, is such as to suggest that the Galatians must have had reason to be particularly interested in him. But on the second and third missionary journeys, when it is assumed by the defenders of the theory in question that Paul vis- ited the country, Barnabas was not one of the company, and the North Galatians, therefore, were not personally acquainted with him, as the Christians of Antioch, Iconium, and the other South Galatian cities were. It is also a very significant fact that whereas, according to 1 Cor. xvi. 1 sq., Galatia had a part in the great collection which Paul made for the saints of the Mother Church, no disciple from North Galatia is mentioned as accompanying him when he carried i Cf. Ramsay, I.e. p. 77 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 181 it to Jerusalem, while Macedonia, Asia, and South Galatia were all well represented. 1 Finally, it is upon the face of it extremely improbable that the conversion of those disci- ples to whom Paul was so profoundly attached, and to whom he wrote one of his most important epistles, should have been entirely ignored by the author of the Book of Acts, and that he would have omitted all mention of Paul's labors among them, and of the churches which he founded, when he related with such fulness the work in other countries and especially in the South Galatian cities, to which, on the theory that we are combating, Paul makes no reference in any of his letters. 2 In view of all these considerations, there can be little doubt that, in his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul was addressing Christians who dwelt in the southern part of the great province of Galatia, in the cities, for instance, of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Weizsacker, who holds the same opinion, contends that Paul cannot have preached in Galatia before the Council of Jerusalem, and he therefore assumes that the account of the apostle's labors contained in Acts. xiii. and xiv. has been inserted in the wrong place. The only ground for this assumption is the omission of a reference to Galatia in Gal. i. 21, where Paul says that after his first visit to Jeru- salem he went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. It is true that if he preached in Cyprus, and in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, before the council, his silence is somewhat surprising, but it is not absolutely conclusive; for he does not say that he remained in Syria and Cilicia during the entire period that elapsed between his first and second visits to Jerusalem, and his argument did not re- quire that he should give an account of himself during all that time, but only that he should omit no occasion on which he came into contact with the Mother Church, or with the older apostles, and on which, therefore, he might be supposed to have received his Gospel. On the assump- 1 Acts xx. 4. 2 Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra are mentioned in 2 Tim. iii. 11, but the passage is of doubtful authenticity. 182 THE APOSTOLIC AGE tion that he was addressing in his epistle the very churches which he had founded during that period, there was still less reason for him to mention a fact so well known to his readers. On the other hand, it is difficult to suppose that Paul can have visited Galatia after the important confer- ence at Jerusalem, and not have told his Gentile converts of the significant results accomplished at that time. But his description of the conference in the second chapter of his epistle implies that he is there giving them his first account of it. It should be observed also that Barnabas was Paul's companion during the missionary tour recorded in Acts xiii. and xiv. But it is exceedingly difficult to suppose that the two men can have made such a journey together after the occurrence related in Gal. ii. 13, an occurrence which apparently took place almost imme- diately after the council. 1 If any reliance, therefore, is to be placed upon the account contained in Acts xiii. and xiv., it seems necessary to conclude that the author is correct in putting the journey in question before and not after the Council of Jerusalem, described in the fifteenth chapter. According to Acts xiii. 14, Paul and Barnabas began their evangelistic work in Antioch in the synagogue, directing their efforts primarily to the conversion of the Jews, and turning from them to the Gentiles only when the former had rejected their message and refused to be- lieve. 2 The accuracy of this report has been strenuously denied by many scholars, on the ground that such conduct on Paul's part is inconsistent with his mission as the apostle to the Gentiles. But the objection is not well taken ; for, as has already been seen, Paul's conception of the Gospel, while it involved the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity, did not compel him to preach to the Gentiles rather than 1 The Book of Acts is doubtless correct in recording that Paul and Barnabas separated soon after the council and went each his own way (xv. 35 sq.). But the reason which it gives is hardly adequate to account for their separation. It may safely be assumed that the real ground lay in the unfortunate incident to which Paul refers in Gal. ii. 13. 2 Acts xiii. 46. Paul and Barnabas are also reported to have preached in the synagogues of Cyprus (Acts xiii. 5). THE WOKK OF PAUL 183 to the Jews, nor is there any sign that during the early years of his Christian life he discriminated against his own countrymen and confined his attention exclusively or even chiefly to the heathen. The Epistle to the Galatians itself, indicates that though the Gentiles were largely in the majority in the churches addressed, 1 there were at least some Jewish disciples among them, 2 while in Antioch in Syria, where Paul labored for so long a time, there was evidently a large and influential Jewish Christian ele- ment. 3 That Paul regarded himself, as he certainly did in a peculiar sense, the apostle to the Gentiles, by no means indicates that he did not believe it his duty to labor also for the evangelization of the Jews. In fact, his own words, in his epistles to the Romans and Corinthians, 4 prove be- yond all shadow of a doubt, not only that he was profoundly concerned in the conversion of his countrymen, but also that he had done what he could to bring it about. Had we no record in the Book of Acts of the method followed by Paul, a comparison of all his own utterances upon the sub- ject would compel us to conclude, in the first place, that he desired the salvation of every man, whatever his race or country, but as a true patriot, longed most profoundly for the conversion of his own nation ; in the second place, that he believed himself, if not in the beginning, at least at the time he wrote his epistles, called by God to devote himself especially to the evangelization of the Gentile world, with the conviction that the salvation of the heathen would redound to the benefit of the children of Abraham ; in the third place, that he understood this call to mean not that he was to forget or neglect his own coun- trymen, but that he was to improve every opportunity that might offer itself to win such of them as he came in contact with while carrying on his world- wide mission ; that he was, in fact, to win every man he could, whether Gentile or Jew. The belief that he had been called to labor especially among the heathen may have come to him at the time of his conversion, as his own words in Gal. i. 16 might seem 1 Gal. iv. 8, v. 2, vi. 12, 13. a Gal. u. 13. 2 Gal. iii. 28. * Rom. ix., x. 1, xi. 11 sq. ; 1 Cor. ix. 20, 184 THE APOSTOLIC AGE to indicate, or it may have grown upon him gradually. His birth and residence in a foreign city, his consequent interest in Jewish propagandism among the heathen, which must have been vivid from an early day, his Roman citi- zenship, his profound belief in the absolute liberty of the Gospel, his knowledge of the fact that the great majority of the disciples were laboring exclusively for the conver- sion of the Jews, his recognition of the hostility which his own revolutionary principles could not fail to excite among his countrymen, and finally his own experience of their ob- durateness and inaccessibility, must all have contributed if not to the formation, at least to the confirmation of his belief. He must have recognized in all of them providen- tial indications of the peculiar work to which he was called and for which he was fitted, and his statement in Gal. i. 16 is abundantly satisfied if we suppose that it was as a result of such providential indications that he first realized just what his call meant. In view of all that has been said, the method pursued by Paul according to Acts xiii., in begin- ning his evangelistic work in Galatia, must be pronounced entirely natural. If it be granted that his object in preach- ing at all in Pisidian Antioch was to bring a knowledge of the Gospel to as many as he could, and to win as many converts as possible, and it would be difficult to show that this was not his object, the most natural thing for him to do was to enter the synagogue, and there improve the op- portunity which he knew would be readily afforded him, as an educated Jew, to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. By such a course he might reach not only Jews, but also prose- lytes and God-fearing Gentiles, who commonly attended the services of the synagogue in large numbers ; and with the converts thus secured as a nucleus, he might push the work still further, both among Jews and heathen. On the other hand, had he ignored his fellow-countrymen and begun his work among the heathen, he would have cut himself off from any possibility of influencing the Jews, whether native or proselyte, and at the same time would have failed to utilize the obvious advantage afforded by the already awakened religious interest of many Gentiles. THE WORK OK PAUL 185 In other words, he would have begun, as no wise man would have thought of beginning, with the least accessible and least promising portion of the community, and would have circumscribed permanently and quite unnecessarily his sphere of labor. The account with which we are dealing records that Paul's preaching in the Antiochian synagogue aroused much interest, but that the Jews in general finally re- jected his message and refused to believe, and that he and Barnabas then turned to the Gentiles. 1 This does not mean that it was in Pisidian Antioch that Paul first preached the Gospel to the Gentiles, 2 the Book of Acts itself refutes such an assumption, nor does it indicate that at this time occurred a permanent change in Paul's missionary policy ; for he is recorded to have preached in the synagogue again upon reaching Iconium. 3 Acts xiii. 46, therefore, does not mark and was not intended by the author to mark the close of Paul's work among the Jews, and the beginning of his work among the Gentiles. It re- cords a fact of merely local significance, and that not the beginning of Paul's effort to win the Gentile converts in Antioch, for he undoubtedly had Gentiles as well as Jews in mind when he preached in the synagogue, but the defi- nite abandonment of the attempt to convert the Jewish colony there. And yet, though the event must be recog- nized to have had merely a local significance, every such event and doubtless it was not the first of the kind that Paul had experienced must strengthen his conviction that his work lay chiefly among the Gentiles, and that his greatest successes were to be won among them. But it must have done more than that ; it must have led him to see that Gentile Christianity was to overshadow Jewish 1 Acts xiii. 46. 2 It is possible that this idea was in the mind of the writer of the document which was used by the author of the Acts in chaps, xiii. and xiv. ; for in xiv. 27 the strange remark is made that Paul and Barnabas, upon their return from their missionary tour, told the church of Syrian Antioch "how God had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles." In the light of xi. 1, 18, 19 sq., it is difficult to suppose that this statement is to be attributed to the author of the Acts. 3 Acts xiv. 1. 186 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Christianity and surpass it in influence and extent, that in the Gentile world the Gospel was to make far more rapid strides than it had in Judea, and thus there must have pre- sented itself to him at an early day the perplexing prob- lem of God's purpose for his chosen people with which he wrestled years later in his Epistle to the Romans. It was doubtless such experiences as this at Antioch that led him to see in the conversion of the heathen not simply their own salvation, but God's providential means for saving finally the whole family of Israel. 1 Though we cannot doubt, as has been said, that Paul and Barnabas preached to the Jews in Antioch, it may fairly be questioned whether the address contained in Acts xiii. actually reproduces with accuracy what Paul said. There is a resemblance in the early portion to the speech of Stephen, and in other parts to the discourses of Peter, while the style is in the main undeniably Luke's. Moreover, it is difficult to believe that Paul can have uttered vss. 38 and 39, at least in the form in which we have them. Both of them are sufficiently un-Pauline to excite surprise, occurring as they do at the climax of his address, when we should expect him, if ever, to give utterance to the very essence of the Gospel as he under- stood it. Verse 38 contains an idea of which there is little trace in his teaching, while the phrase itself, ac^ecrt? a/za/ma>z>, which is employed by Peter with the same significance and practically in the same connection in both his Pentecostal and Csesarean discourses, 2 is found in none of Paul's epistles, except once in Ephesians, and again in the parallel passage in Colossians. 3 On the other hand, in vs. 39, where it is said that " every one that be- lie veth is justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses," a conception of justification is expressed, which, if not distinctly un- Pauline, nevertheless falls far below Paul's characteristic and controlling idea of justification as the state of the saved man who is completely reconciled to God and enjoys peace with him. But though we cannot depend 1 Rom. xi. 11-26. 2 Acts ii. 38, x. 43. Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14. THE WORK OF PAUL 187 implicitly upon the address in chap. xiii. for a knowl- edge of what Paul actually preached in Galatia, we learn from Gal. iii. 1 sq. that that preaching embraced at any rate the crucifixion of Christ, salvation by faith and not by works, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, all of which constituted fundamental elements in his Gospel. Though he does not refer to the resurrection of Christ as a part of his original proclamation, he must, of course, have emphasized it from the very beginning in Galatia, as everywhere else. It may be assumed, in fact, that what- ever he may have said on any particular occasion, or how- ever he may have addressed the Jews in their synagogues, it was his Gospel of death with Christ unto the flesh and resurrection with him unto a new life in the Spirit which he inculcated in Galatia; that Gospel which he had worked out in his own experience and which constituted the sum and substance of his Christianity. He was true to his great underlying principles even in his evangelistic work. He did not reserve those principles for mature and devel- oped Christians, but began with them, and built everything else upon them. This is what we should have expected a man of Paul's character to do, and this is what his Epistle to the Galatians shows that he actually did. 1 After giving up their attempt to convert the Jews of Antioch, Paul and Barnabas, according to Acts xiii. 48 sq., remained some time in the city preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles and meeting with considerable success in their work. But the Jews, who were not content with merely contradicting the things spoken by Paul and re- jecting the message which he brought them, succeeded finally in arousing the hostility of the " devout women of honorable estate 2 and of the chief men of the city," and the result was that the two missionaries were expelled from the place ; very likely as disturbers of the public peace, and after a formal trial before the town magistrates. It is not necessary to suppose that Paul and Barnabas 1 Cf . also 1 Cor. xv. 3 sq. 2 Probably female proselytes, who were perhaps induced by the Jews to incite their heathen husbands against the apostles. 188 THE APOSTOLIC AGE were condemned for preaching false gods or for attacking the religion of the Antiochians. A large measure of re- ligious liberty was enjoyed in all parts of the empire at this time, and the existence of a Jewish synagogue in Antioch shows that it was enjoyed there as well as else- where. But any uproar or disturbance of the public peace the imperial and municipal authorities were always quick to put down with a strong hand, that it might not grow into something worse and result in widespread disaffection. It is probable, therefore, that the Jews started an outcry against Paul and Barnabas, and that the magistrates, with- out investigating very carefully the merits of the case, thought it safer to get the strangers out of the city before their presence led to any serious outbreak. Driven out of Antioch, they went on to Iconium, a large and im- portant Galatian city, situated to the southeast on the way to Tarsus and Syria. Here they remained for some time, 1 preaching, at least in the beginning, in the syna- gogue, and winning many converts among both Jews and Greeks ; but they were finally compelled to flee from Ico- nium as they had fled from Antioch, and they then found their way to Lystra, a city of Lycaonia, but belonging, like Antioch and Iconium, to the province of Galatia. At the time Paul and Barnabas visited Lystra, it was not a rude and uncivilized village, as has been frequently asserted, but an important garrison town which was a centre of Roman culture and influence. 2 Nothing is said of their preaching to the Jews in Lystra, or later in Derbe, and whether they did or not, we have no means of knowing. But the peculiar experience which they had with some of the heathen of the city, who supposed them gods and pro- posed to offer sacrifices to them, 3 would seem to indicate that they had more to do while there with Gentiles than with Jews, and that they did not reach the former merely through the instrumentality of the latter. The incident referred to, which was caused by a miracle of healing p^vovy Acts xiv. 3. 2 See Ramsay : Church in the Roman Empire, p. 47 sq. 8 Acts xiv. 11 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 189 wrought by Paul upon a cripple, 1 was entirely natural under the circumstances, and the identification of Barna- bas, the more silent and passive of the two travellers, with the supreme god Jupiter, and of the more active Paul with Mercury, is strikingly characteristic of the Oriental estimate of greatness. It is true that the account of Paul's miracle bears a close resemblance to the account of the healing of the lame man by Peter, in Acts iii. 2 sq., and that the apostles' expostulation with their would-be worshippers is analogous to Peter's expostulation with Cornelius in Acts x. 26, and that the words that follow are much like Paul's words in his address to the Athenians recorded in the seventeenth chapter of Acts. But though it may well be that the author felt the influence of other accounts given elsewhere in his work, the main incident related in this passage is too striking and unique to have been invented, and serves to attest the general trustworthi- ness of the events that precede and follow it. In spite of the enthusiasm with which Paul and Barna- bas were hailed by the heathen populace, hostility was aroused against them by Jews who came from Antioch and Iconium, 2 and doubtless worked upon the prejudices of their fellow-countrymen residing in Lystra. It may have been easy for them to incite the populace against the apostles because of the latter's rejection of the divine honors which had been offered them. At any rate, the result was that Paul was stoned by a mob and left for dead. Recovering, he departed with Barnabas for Derbe, which lay somewhat more than a day's journey to the southeast, and was the frontier city of the province in that direction. Like Lystra, Derbe was at this time a town of some importance, and a centre of Roman life and influence. 3 After making many disciples in the city, the apostles retraced the route by which they had been travel- ling, passing through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, and 1 That Paul worked miracles, is confirmed by his own statement in 2 Cor. xii. 12. No general argument, therefore, can be drawn from this and other miracles related of him in the Book of Acts against the primitive character of the documents upon which the accounts are based. 2 Acts xiv. 19. See Ramsay, I.e. p. 54 sq. 190 THE APOSTOLIC AGE thence turning southward to Perga, whence they set sail for Antioch in Syria, the place from which they had started upon their eventful tour. Why they went westward again from Derbe, instead of crossing the mountains and going on to Cilicia and Syria at once, as they seem to have intended to do when they turned eastward from Pisidian Antioch, we do not know. It may be that they reached Derbe in the winter and found the passes over the Taurus too difficult to attempt; or it may be that finding himself in good health once more, Paul decided before returning home to visit again his converts in the other cities of the province, whom he had been obliged to leave so abruptly, and who, he might well fear, were in danger of forgetting him and the Gospel which he had preached. 1 However that may be, he would certainly improve the opportunity afforded by the return trip to confirm the work that he had already done, and to encourage and strengthen his recent con- verts. 2 It need not cause surprise that Paul and Barna- bas should revisit the cities from which they had been so recently expelled. It is probable that they had spent some time in Derbe, and the excitement which their pres- ence had aroused in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra had very likely been forgotten before they made their reap- pearance, and there is no reason to suppose that any legal bar against their return existed. They owed their expul- sion from Iconium and Lystra apparently not to the magis- trates, but to the fury of the populace, and even in Antioch it is improbable that a permanent decree of exile had been 1 It might be thought that news had reached Paul that Jewish Christians were attempting to induce his Gentile converts to receive circumcision and observe the Jewish law. If this were so, we could easily explain his return at this time to Syrian Antioch and his subsequent journey to Jerusalem ; and in support of this opinion might be urged Gal. i. 6 and v. 3, which seem at first sight to imply that Paul had been compelled to warn the Galatians against Judaizers on some previous occasion (so Lightfoot, Lipsius, and many others). But it is to be noticed, on the other hand, that Paul does not say, in Gal. i. 6, " I marvel that ye are so soon again removing unto a different gospel." The defection of the Galatians which called forth his epistle to them seems indeed to have come upon him as a complete surprise ; and in view of that fact it is hardly probable that he had had to meet the difficulty before. It seems better, therefore, to interpret Gal. i. 6 and v. 3, as referring to the preceding context, and not to an earlier period when he was with the Galatians. 2 Acts xiv. 22. THE WORK OF PAUL 191 passed against them. There was, therefore, nothing for them to fear from the authorities, provided their pres- ence did not give rise to another popular tumult. It is hardly likely, under the circumstances, that they entered into the synagogues and preached the Gospel openly as they had before. It is more probable that they avoided publicity and devoted themselves solely to those who had already embraced the Christian faith, as is implied in Acts xiv. 22. According to vs. 23, Paul and Barnabas upon their return trip through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch appointed pres- byters in the various churches. In the light of Paul's epistles in general and especially of his Epistle to the Gala- tians, which contains no hint of the existence of officers in the churches addressed, it is difficult to suppose that he gave those churches a fixed and definite organization, and appointed regular officers. It is not improbable, however, that he recognized the peculiar respect and honor in which some of the disciples were held by their companions, or the gifts with which they were endowed, or the marked zeal and devotion with which they gave themselves to the spread of the Gospel and to the service of their brethren, or the diligence and faithfulness with which they looked after the interests of the church, and that he exhorted the disciples in general to follow the guidance of such Christians and to be subject unto them in the Lord, 1 in order that confusion and division might be avoided and the growth of the church be wholesome and vigorous. More than this it can hardly be supposed that he did at this time. 2 That Paul's missionary work in Galatia was productive of large results, especially among the Gentiles, and that the churches which he founded were very near his heart, is made abundantly manifest by his Galatian Epistle. Whether his stay in the province lasted only a few months, or covered a period of some years, he could look back upon it after he had returned to Syrian Antioch with joy ; for he had been received by the Galatians as an angel of God, and had won iCf. ICor. xvi. 16. 2 Upon the development of ecclesiastical organization, see below, p. 645 sq. 192 THE APOSTOLIC AGE their love and been treated by them with the utmost devo- tion. 1 His missionary journey had been a great success so far as the Gentiles were concerned, and though prevented by sickness from fulfilling his cherished plan, he had yet made large conquests and had shown himself eminently fitted to carry the Gospel into distant lands and among foreign peoples. He must have returned to Antioch with a firmer conviction than ever that his life work was to be the evangelization of the heathen world and with the fixed determination to continue at the earliest opportunity the campaign so auspiciously begun. 5. THE CONFLICT WITH JUDAIZERS But in the meantime an event occurred which threatened to undo all that Paul had accomplished, and to put an end once and for all to Gentile Christianity ; an event which caused him the greatest anxiety, and the consequences of which he felt for many years. According to Acts xv. 1, certain men came down from Judea to Antioch and taught the brethren that they could not be saved unless they received circumcision and thus became members of the family of Israel. The demand which was thus made of the Gentile Christians of Antioch involved a distinct repu- diation of the position taken by the church of Jerusalem on an earlier occasion when the legitimacy of Gentile Chris- tianity was acknowledged, 2 and yet it was a most natural thing under the circumstances that the demand should be made. It is by no means certain that all the Christians of Jerusalem acquiesced heartily in the approval given to Peter by the church as a whole. It was inevitable that there should be then and that there should continue to be two opinions as to the wisdom and propriety of such a course. But those who disapproved may have been too few in num- ber, and of too little personal weight, to be able to make their opposition seriously felt, and they may have thought it best to accept quietly what they could not prevent. But as time passed and as the church of Jerusalem increased in i Gal. iv. 14, 15. 2 See above, p. 101 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 198 size, it is conceivable that the number multiplied of those who believed that circumcision was in each and every case absolutely necessary to salvation. And even among those who had formerly given their approval to the conduct of Peter in the case of Cornelius, and had joined with their brethren in recognizing the possibility of a non-Jewish Christianity, there can hardly have failed to be some who were increasingly troubled by the rapid growth, of an inde- pendent Gentile church and by the evident tendency on the part not only of the converts from the heathen, but also of the missionaries that worked among them, to regard the form of Christianity which they possessed as of equal dignity and worth with the original Jewish Christianity of Christ himself and of his apostles, and thus to rob God's chosen people of all their prerogatives and the divine law of all its sanctity. It is not surprising, therefore, that in course of time there should be a large number within the church of Jerusalem who shared the conviction that a halt should be called and that a firm stand should be made for the religion of Moses and of Christ. How long it was after the return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch before matters came to a head and the conflict was precipitated, we do not know, but it may well be that the news of the great success which they had had in Galatia and the large number of Gentiles that had been converted there led the stricter party to feel that it would be fatal to delay longer ; that the time had come when a public and decisive stand must be made against the dangerous movement which was spreading so rapidly. And hence it may have been very soon after their return that the emissaries from Jerusalem appeared in the city, insisting that the Gospel which Paul and Barnabas were preaching was all a mistake, and that no Gentile could be saved unless he were "circumcised after the custom of Moses." l 1 The " false brethren " of Gal. ii. 5 were probably those that came down to Antioch and disturbed Paul there, and not brethren that came forward at the time of the council in Jerusalem and insisted on Titus' circumcision. The reference in Gal. ii. 5 is apparently to the larger subject. Because of the men that had made all the trouble, Paul took a firm stand at Jerusalem on the great question and yielded not a single iota at any point. o 194 THE APOSTOLIC AGE The excitement that must have been caused in the Antiochian church by such an announcement may be easily imagined. The emissaries came from Judea and doubtless claimed to represent the Mother Church of Christendom, and thus a peculiar authority seemed to attach to their declaration. The crisis was a serious one. Paul might be confident of his own apostolic calling and might be convinced that he had received his Gospel from God and not from man ; and yet it was clear that if the apostles, who had been Christ's chosen companions during his earthly ministry, and were in consequence generally be- lieved to know the Master's will most fully, if they were to declare that form of Christianity which Paul and his fellows had been preaching all a mistake, the work which they had already accomplished would be practically de- stroyed and there would remain little or no hope of winning the heathen world for Christ. It was under these circum- stances that Paul, whose heart was bound up in the preaching of the Gospel to the Roman world, felt it to be the will of God that he should go himself to Jerusalem and settle the matter once and for all with the older apostles. 1 They must be induced to repudiate distinctly the demands made by their alleged representatives. Paul was accompanied upon his journey not only by his fellow-worker Barnabas, who had himself been at one time a prominent member of the church of Jerusalem and whose influence and support must be very desirable at such a time, but also by Titus, one of his own Gentile converts, 2 by whose presence he hoped perhaps to give an ocular demon- stration of the success of his work among the heathen and of the blessing of God which had attended it. Paul's account 3 of the events that took place during his stay in Jerusalem is very brief and the details are somewhat obscure, but the general outcome is entirely clear. His 1 Paul says in Gal. ii. 2: "I went up by revelation." These words do not exclude the commission laid upon him by his Antiochian brethren which is recorded in Acts xv. 2 (and xi. 30) ; but they show that it was not their ap- pointment but his own conviction of the Divine Will that led him to under- take the journey. 2 Gal. ii. 3 ; Titus i. 4. 3 Gal. ii. 1-10. THE WORK OF PAUL 195 words in Gal. ii. 2 imply that he laid the Gospel which he preached among the Gentiles not only before the disciples in general, but also privately before those of repute, 1 meaning apparently the "pillars," James, Peter, and John. 2 The recognition of the legitimacy of Gentile Chris- tianity, which was the fundamental thing with him, was bitterly opposed by those whom he calls " false brethren," but in spite of their opposition he succeeded in carrying his point and convincing not only the apostles, but also the church as a whole, that God had already set the seal of his approval upon the Gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, and had thus distinctly declared that men may be saved without receiving circumcision. But his oppo- nents, when they found themselves defeated, proposed apparently that at least Titus should be circumcised. 3 They might with some show of reason insist that even though the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity were ac- knowleged, it was unseemly that the Jew, Paul, should have with him as his companion and fellow- worker an uncir- cumcised Greek, and that it was an unnecessary offence to the sentiment of the Christians of Jerusalem to bring such a man into their midst. They may have contended, more- over, that the circumcision of Titus at this time would have the effect of allaying somewhat the hostility of the unconverted Jews, as they saw Christianity thus becoming a bridge from heathenism to Judaism ; and they perhaps expressed themselves as willing to submit to the majority in the larger matter if an exception were made to the general principle in this particular case. The proposition was thus apparently of the nature of a compromise, and it may be that it was supported by many of those who had taken Paul's side upon the main question, possibly even by the apostles. 4 But Paul and Barnabas refused absolutely to give their consent to the proposal. 5 The reason for their refusal is 1 Ka.1 aved^/jLTjv cnJro?s rb eta.yyf\iov . . . /car' Idlav S ro 2 Gal. ii. 9. a Gal. ii. 3. 4 The words ofs ovd irpbs wpav et^a/j-ev rrj vtrorayri (vs. 5) seem to imply that Paul and Barnabas stood almost, if not quite, alone in their opposition to this compromise. 5 Gal. ii. 3. 196 THE APOSTOLIC AGE stated by Paul in vss. 4 and 5. " On account of the false brethren who came in to spy out our liberty, we stood out firmly in this matter also," he seems to say, "and did not yield even for a moment." He evidently saw clearly that the proposition was not as harmless as it seemed; that it meant practically a recognition in Jerusalem itself of a principle that had just been repudiated for the church at large, and that it was bound to be used by his opponents against him and his work among the Gentiles. By his refusal, in which the church at Jerusalem finally sustained him, he asserted unequivocally the full rights of Gentile Christianity and thus the truth of the Gospel was pre- served not for the Galatians alone, but for all converts from the heathen world. 1 But this recognition of the legitimacy of Gentile Chris- tianity was not all that Paul secured at Jerusalem. Both he and Barnabas received from those who were esteemed "pillars," that is, from James and Peter and John, the right hand of fellowship, in which was involved the ac- knowledgment of their divine call to preach the Gospel among the Gentiles ; in which was involved, moreover, the recognition of their right to preach just as they had been preaching, for Paul expressly asserts that the apostles imparted nothing to him, that they did not in any way enlarge or curtail or modify the Gospel which had been given him by God and not by man. 2 It is significant that Paul does not say that he and Barnabas received this en- dorsement from the Jerusalem church as a whole, as he could hardly have failed to had it been a fact. It may well be that though the majority of the disciples were will- ing to admit that Gentiles might become Christians with- out becoming Jews, they were not ready to set the seal of their approval upon the evangelistic methods of Paul, who unequivocally asserted the absolute liberty and indepen- dence of his Gentile converts, and flatly refused to adopt any measures to win them over to the religion of Moses, and thus make their Christianity a bridge to the Christian Judaism of the Mother Church. It was perhaps under 1 Gal. ii. 5. 2 Gal. ii. 6 sq. THE WOKK OF PAUL 197 these circumstances that Paul had the private interview with the apostles of which he speaks in vs. 2. He must have seen clearly that if he left Jerusalem without secur- ing any kind of an endorsement, the Judaizers would be certain to use the circumstance against him, and even though they might be compelled to recognize the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity in general, would undermine his influence and hinder him in his work, and would appeal to the authority of the Mother Church for so doing. To obtain from the apostles, therefore, the approval which the church at large was not prepared to give him was a mat- ter of vital importance. But though Paul received from James and Peter and John the right hand of fellowship, and though they frankly recognized his divine call to preach the Gospel among the Gentiles, and though they refrained from adding anything to or taking anything from the mes- sage with which he believed himself entrusted, it is to be noticed that there is. no sign that he was acknowledged by them as a fellow apostle. 1 It is significant, indeed, that in vs. 8, where he speaks of the apostleship of Peter, he says nothing of his own, a very surprising fact in view of the emphasis which he lays upon his apostolic commission in the opening of his Epistle to the Galatians, and in view of the special importance of maintaining his influence and authority under existing circumstances. In his Epis- tles to the Corinthians also, where he has occasion to defend himself against those who deny him to be an apostle, 2 he says nothing of having been recognized as such by the Twelve or by any of their number, though the mention of such a fact would certainly have stopped the mouths of his antagonists. 3 It may well be that 1 Cf. Holsten : Evangelium des Paulus, S. 21. 2 1 Cor. ix. ; 2 Cor. xii., etc. 3 It cannot be urged that Paul's silence both in Galatians and Corinthians was due to his wish not to seem dependent upon the earlier apostles for the Gospel which he preached ; for the statement that his apostleship had been recognized by them would no more impair or throw suspicion upon his inde- pendence, than the statement that his call to labor among the Gentiles had been so recognized. It may be that his insistence in his Epistle to the Gala- tians upon the fact that he was an apostle not by man's appointment and 198 THE APOSTOLIC AGE though James and Peter and John were ready, when they saw the grace that was given him, to acknowledge Paul's divine call to do missionary work among the Gentiles, they were not willing to grant that he had the right to share in the peculiar privileges and prerogatives which they doubtless thought would attach to Jesus' personal compan- ions and disciples in the approaching kingdom of the Mes- siah. And they may well have believed still, even though they recognized a Gentile Christianity, that in the Messi- anic kingdom the chosen people were to be supreme and that consequently no missionary to the Gentiles, however abundant his labors, could share the pre-eminence enjoyed by the apostles to the Jews, by those to whom had been entrusted the evangelization and to whom would one day be committed the judgment of the twelve tribes of Israel. 1 In the light of all that has been said, it is clear that though Paul considered himself an apostle and did not hesitate to call himself such in his epistles, and though he later declared himself to be not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles, 2 yet he was not recognized as such upon the occasion of his visit to Jerusalem, either by the older apostles or by the church. What has been said upon this subject suggests the possi- bility that James, the brother of the Lord, who was cer- tainly not one of the original Twelve, 3 had before this time been made an apostle by the choice of the brethren, as Matthias had been many years before. That appoint- ment showed that it was the belief of the church of Jerusalem, at any rate in its early days, that the number of the apostles should be kept at twelve, and we know of nothing that had happened in the meantime to lead to a change of view. In fact, it is altogether likely that the belief continued among the immediate disciples of Jesus commission, but by God's, was itself due in part to his failure to secure such recognition either from the church of Jerusalem or from its leaders. It was not that the mere name " apostle " was denied him, for the name was a very gen- eral one, and attached in those days to many besides the Twelve (see below, p. (54(>) ; but that they failed to recognize him as possessing equal dignity with themselves, and as an apostle in any such sense as they were. i Matt. xix. 28. 2 2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11. Cf . John vii. 25, and see p. 51 ( J, below. THE WORK OF PAUL 199 as long as they retained the idea that Christianity was solely or even chiefly for the Jews, or that the Jews were to enjoy a pre-eminence over Gentiles within the Messianic kingdom. It may well be, therefore, that when James the son of Zebedee was slain, James the brother of the Lord was chosen to fill his place, and that he was thence- forth numbered among the Twelve, with whom Paul him- self seems to class him in Gal. i. 19. 1 Though Paul received from James and Peter and John, as has been seen, the right hand of fellowship, and though his divine call to preach among the Gentiles was frankly recognized, and though nothing was added to or taken from his message, it was not agreed that his Gospel was in any way to supplant or take the place of the Gospel of the original apostles, or that it was to be preached among the Jews. In fact, the compact entered into by Paul and Barnabas with the " pillars " at Jerusalem in- volved not so much a union as a division. James, Peter, and John were to continue to preach as they had been in the habit of doing to the Jews, while Paul and Barna- bas Avere to go on preaching to the Gentiles. But that was not all. It was not simply two distinct fields that were provided for, but two distinct messages. Paul and Barnabas were to preach to the Gentiles the Gospel of the uncircumcision, while the others were to preach to the Jews the Gospel of the circumcision. The assumption was that the law should continue to be binding upon all Jews, and that to the heathen alone should be proclaimed liberty from its bondage. If the apostles of Jerusalem were not to go to the Gentiles and preach to them subjection to the Jewish law as the Judaizers had done at Antioch, neither was Paul to go to the Jews with his message of freedom from the law and teach them to neglect and disregard it. In securing recognition for his own Gospel, therefore, Paul gave his approval to the Gospel of the Jewish Chris- 1 That the choice should fall upon James was altogether natural, for his relationship to Jesus must have made him a conspicuous figure in the church of Jerusalem from the time of his conversion ; and his character was such as to excite the respect and admiration of all his countrymen. See below, p. 551 sq. 200 THE APOSTOLIC AGE tians. The compact was a mutual one, and it meant the division of the church by common consent into two denominations, a Jewish and a Gentile, or rather it meant the express sanction and perpetuation of a division already existing. It may have been the sense of the danger to the spirit of Christian brotherhood that lurked in such denomi- nationalism that led the apostles to suggest that Paul and Barnabas should secure contributions from their Gentile converts for the poor of Jerusalem. They may have believed, and Paul doubtless agreed with them and hence gladly fulfilled their desire, that such an exercise of charity would warm the hearts both of those that gave and those that received, and would thus prevent the loss of fraternal sympathy and affection. 1 But there was more than this in their request. It is to be noticed that they did not propose to minister to the necessities of the Gen- tiles, but only to receive their ministrations. And there can be little doubt that they made the suggestion they did with the idea that expression might thus be given to the superior dignity and prerogatives of the Jews, the sense of which the Gentile Christians would be in danger of losing when freed from all obligation to observe the Jewish law. Even Paul had something of the sort in mind when he wrote the words : " 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. Yea, it hath been their good pleasure ; and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to minister unto them in carnal things." 2 And that in spite of his strenuous assertion of the Christian's freedom from all law, including the law of Moses, he yet shared in a measure the national pride and sense of superiority, is made abundantly manifest by many other passages. 3 It is clear, therefore, that Paul could have no serious objection to the proposi- tion of the apostles, but of course he did not intend to sanction by the collection, as possibly they did, the notion 1 On the closing words of Gal. ii. 10, see above, p. 171. 2 Rom. xv. 26, 27. Rom. iii. 1 sq., xi. 24, 28, etc. THE WORK OF PAUL 201 that Jewish Christianity was in any way superior to Gen- tile Christianity, or that the Christian who was circumcised and kept the law of Moses stood upon a higher plane religiously than other Christians. Such a notion he re- pudiated over and over again in his epistles. Paul accomplished much by his visit to Jerusalem, and he might well look back with satisfaction at the way in which " the truth of the Gospel " had there been vindi- cated and maintained ; but he did not secure all that he had hoped to. It was doubtless a disappointment to him that the church of Jerusalem as a whole did not give him the right hand of fellowship and commend him to the con- fidence and affection of all the brethren ; and perhaps he was disappointed that the apostles did not recognize him as one of themselves, and declare him to be an apostle of Christ as truly as they. Moreover, the evident determina- tion, not of the church of Jerusalem alone, but of the apos- tles as well, to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the two wings of the church, and to insist that Christians of Jewish birth should continue to observe the law of their fathers in all its strictness, must have been anything but. pleasing to him. Believing as he did in the complete freedom of every Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, he must have regarded with great dissatisfaction the action of the disciples of Jerusalem in this matter, action which fell far below his large and broad conception of the Gos- pel, and which was calculated to keep alive the idea that there was saving efficacy in the observance of the law of Moses. Knowing also far better than they the conditions that existed in foreign cities, where Jews and Gentiles were unavoidably thrown into more or less intimate re- lations with each other, and where there must inevitably be many Christians of both classes, he must have seen, as they did not, that the separation which they contemplated, if vigorously enforced in all places, would give rise to endless trouble and dispute. But as he had gained his main point, he^was willing for the present to leave the mat- ter of association between Gentile and Jewish Christians unsettled. He doubtless felt that he could not demand 202 1?HE APOSTOLIC AGE any more at this time without imperilling all that he had secured, for he saw clearly that neither the church of Jerusalem nor the apostles were prepared to admit the right of a Jewish Christian to disregard the law and to mingle unrestrainedly with his Gentile brethren. To insist that a disciple of Hebrew birth had such a right would have been doubtless to turn them all against him and to give the victory to the Judaizers. 1 He therefore con- tented himself with the guarantee of Gentile liberty, which was his chief concern, and left to the future the settlement of the farther question, which he knew, as the apostles did not, was bound to arise sooner or later. It was not very long after the conference at Jerusalem that the question arose at Antioch, upon the occasion of a visit with which Peter favored the Christians of that city. Whether the action of the church and of the apostles in Jeru- salem had affected in any way the relations between the Jewish and Gentile disciples in Antioch, we do not know; but at the time when Peter visited the city, it is clear that there were at least some Jews, perhaps many, who had thrown aside their religious scruples and were associating intimately with their Gentile brethren. They may not of course have ceased to observe the law in other respects, but they were entirely disregarding it so far as it prohibited fellowship with the uncircumcised. Such conduct on the part of Jewish Christians had not been expressly forbidden at the Council of Jerusalem, probably because it was not supposed that there would arise any need of such a prohi- bition ; but its unlawfulness had been assumed in the agree- ment which the apostles had concluded with Paul ; for it 1 What was thought of Paul's own conduct and of the conduct of Barnabas in associating intimately with their heathen converts, we do not know. It maybe that it was just because an approval of their missionary work and their evangelistic methods meant the acknowledgment of their right, though Jews, to disregard the law of their fathers, that the church of Jerusalem refrained from expressing their approval. It may be that it was only with difficulty that the apostles were induced to do what the church as a whole did not do, feeling driven by the witness of the Spirit, which had been accorded in such large measure to Paul and Barnabas, to admit an exception in their case to the general rule of Jewish Christian conduct. Possibly one reason for their refusal to recognize Paul as an apostle, like themselves, lay in the fact that he did not observe the law in all its strictness. THE WORK OF PAUL 203 was stipulated by them that though Paul and Barnabas might preach to the Gentiles their Gospel of absolute free- dom from the Jewish law, they were not to preach it to the Jews. But in spite of that fact, at a time not long after the conference, Jewish Christians in Antioch were disregarding at least a part of their ancestral law, and Peter upon his arrival among them was so impressed with the faith of the Gentile converts and with the fraternal spirit which bound the two classes of disciples together, that he also threw his scruples to the wind and, following the example of Paul and Barnabas and many others, associated freely and openly with the uncircumcised. 1 Peter can hardly have expected to do this when he left Jerusalem. Certainly it was not in his thought at the time of the conference and it was a distinct step in advance of the position agreed upon there. And yet for Peter, warm-hearted and impulsive Christian as he was, the step was a most natural one. It may fairly be doubted whether he believed even at the time of the council that the observance of the Jewish law was abso- lutely essential to the salvation of any one. It is altogether likely that Acts xv. 11 is correct in representing him as tak- ing the position even then that Jewish Christians were to be saved not by the observance of the law, but by the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same manner as the Gentiles. 2 He doubtless believed with James and John that under ordi- nary circumstances the obligation rested upon the Jew to observe the law of the Fathers, even though he was a disciple of Christ, just as Jesus himself had done dur- ing his life, and that the Jewish people as a whole were to continue to observe it at least until they should be re- leased from the obligation by the Messiah. But such a belief was not inconsistent with the idea that there might be exceptions to the rule and that what was true under ordinary circumstances and of the people as a whole was 1 Pfleiderer (Urchristenthum, S. 572) suggests that the vision on the house- top recorded in Acts x. 9 sq. belongs to this time, and that it was that vision, or something similar to it, that led Peter to throw aside his scruples, and eat and drink with the uncircumcised. 2 Cf . Gal. ii. 16, where Paul seems to be stating a belief common both to Peter and himself. 204 THE APOSTOLIC AGE not necessarily true under all circumstances and of every individual. If it was this conception of the Jewish Chris- tian's relation to the law that Peter had at the time of the conference in Jerusalem, it is easy to understand how, for the sake of Paul and Barnabas and the Gentile brethren whom he found in Antioch, he could cut himself loose from the trammels of the law and could go in and out among them with perfect freedom. All went well in Antioch until messengers from James arrived and took Peter to task for his conduct. The result of their remonstrance was that he drew back and separated himself from the Gentiles, and the influence of his example was so great that the rest of the Jewish Christians, includ- ing even Barnabas, did the same thing. The occurrence was a most unfortunate one and elicited from Paul a severe arraignment of Peter. He seems to have called a meeting of the church and to have administered a public rebuke to the great apostle. " When T saw," he says, " that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Cephas before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews ? " 1 It is to be observed that Paul arraigns Peter for a double offence : on the one hand for his inconsistency, for the apparent lack of accord between his principles and his practice ; and on the other hand for his violation of the compact entered into at Jerusalem. Paul did not rebuke Peter for holding a conception of the Gospel which differed from his own, but for doing violence to that conception which his previous conduct seemed to indicate that they both shared. Peter's inconsistency did not lie in the fact that having lived like a Gentile, he afterwards lived like a Jew. That he might have done without incurring any such charge ; for though by his neglect of the law he had apparently placed himself squarely upon the ground held by Paul, that the law is binding upon no one either Jew or Gentile, he might still regard the observance of the law as advisable, and might practise it without stultifying himself in any way, as Paul i Gal. ii. 14. THE WORK OF PAUL 205 himself practised it on occasion. 1 Peter's inconsistency lay rather in the fact that having declared that he believed that the Jewish law was not binding on any one, even a Jew, he acted in such a way as to make it binding on every one, even on Gentiles. But it was not Peter's inconsist- ency alone that angered Paul, though his inconsistency gave point to the rebuke and made it possible for Paul to arraign him as he did, it was above all the fact that Peter had violated the agreement reached at Jerusalem, in entering Paul's missionary field and there preaching the Gospel of circumcision to his Gentile converts. It is to be noticed that Paul did not find fault with Peter because he lived as a Jew, but because he compelled the Gentiles to live as Jews ; because he laid upon Paul's heathen converts the obligation to observe the law, when their complete free- dom from the law had been expressly guaranteed at Jeru- salem by Peter himself as well as by the church in general. But the question arises, In what sense did Peter lay this obligation upon Paul's Gentile converts ; how did he com- pel them to live as the Jews lived ? Are we to understand that he actually followed the example of the Judaizers and told the Gentile Christians of Antioch that they could not be saved without circumcision ? 2 There is no sign that he went so far as this, nor can it be supposed that he so explicitly and wilfully violated the compact sealed at Jerusalem. But in his withdrawal from association with the Gentile Christians there was involved in reality as genuine a compulsion as if he had distinctly told them that circumcision was necessary to salvation ; for such with- drawal must seem to mean nothing else under the circum- stances than the declaration that they were not clean because they were not observing the law, and hence that there rested upon them the obligation to cleanse themselves by obeying its injunction. In observing the Jewish law in all its strictness, including its prohibition of association 1 Cf . 1 Cor. ix. 20. 2 Ritscbl (Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche, Zweite Auflage, S. 146) maintains that Peter did this. In the first edition of the same work he held that it was the decree of Acts xv. 23 sq., which Peter laid upon the Gentile Christians of Antioch. 206 THE APOSTOLIC AGE with the Gentiles, Peter acted, it is true, in harmony with one part of the Jewish compact, but at the same time he violated the other part and made it very clear that the compact could not be kept in both its terms under such conditions as existed in Antioch. The truth is that the compact provided only for the distinct and separate exist- ence of Jewish and Gentile Christianity and did not con- template their relation one to the other. It was only when they came in contact in Antioch that it was seen to be self-contradictory and to involve either the emancipation of Jewish Christians from the law or the bondage of Gen- tile Christians to it. And so Paul might justly regard Peter's conduct at Antioch not only as an act of self-stulti- fication, but also as a violation of the agreement reached at Jerusalem, and as such he was entitled to resent it bitterly. Even had Peter not eaten with the Gentiles upon his arrival in Antioch, but held himself aloof from the begin- ning, he would justly have incurred Paul's resentment; for his action would have been a practical announcement to the Gentile Christians that they must keep the law if they wished to stand on the same plane with him and enjoy the benefits of association with him, and would thus have been in reality a violation of the spirit of the Jerusalem compact. But when he took such action after he had been for some time associating with the Gentiles and had won their personal friendship and affection, it was much worse in its consequences. It is no wonder that Paul took him sharply to task before all the brethren. And yet it should be said, in justification of Peter's conduct, that his action was not necessarily due to fear of the Jewish Christians, as Paul declares. 1 It is more likely that he acted from a sense of duty in separating himself from the Gentiles. Conscious as he was that his work lay among the Jews, as Paul's among the heathen, it may well be that the messengers from James led him to see that his influence among his countrymen would be under- mined, and his power to reach them destroyed, if lie showed himself in any way careless in his observance of i Gal. ii. 12. THE WORK OF PAUL 207 the law of the Fathers. He may have realized as he had not at first that he could not live like an apostle to the Gentiles and still be a successful and effective apostle to the Jews. And so, believing that he had been called to evangelize the latter and not the former, it may have seemed to him a sacred duty to do as the brethren from Jerusalem advised, even though his action might appear inconsistent, and might work harm to the Antiochian church. The Antiochian episode was momentous in more ways than one. It opened a question which had not been dis- cussed at Jerusalem : the relation to each other of Jewish and Gentile Christians within a community containing both classes. The emissaries of James insisted that even in such communities Jewish Christians must observe the law in all its strictness, but Paul called attention to the fact that such observance meant a violation of the guaran- tee of Gentile liberty which he had secured at Jerusalem. But as the emissaries preferred to sacrifice the liberty of the Gentiles rather than consent to the neglect of the law by the Jewish Christians of Antioch, Paul went further and declared, as he had not done at Jerusalem, that their insistence upon the observance of the law by Jewish Christians meant in reality a denial of the Gospel of Christ, and that their Christianity, instead of being a higher and better form than the Christianity of the Gen- tiles, was in reality quite the opposite, involving as it did dependence upon the law rather than upon Christ for jus- tification, and thus making the death of Christ a vain thing. 1 Thus the war was carried into the camp of the Jews. The Antiochian episode, therefore, did more than merely open the question of the relation of Jewish and Gentile disciples to each other ; it revealed a fundamental difference of principle between Paul and the Christians of Jerusalem. The breach between them was thus widened and the number of Paul's enemies doubtless greatly in- creased. It may well be indeed that the episode furnished the occasion for the Judaizers to open their campaign i Gal. ii. 21. 208 THE APOSTOLIC AGE against Gentile Christianity and against Paul himself. Aroused and bitterly enraged by what had occurred at this time, with their numbers increased and with their hands strengthened by the widespread hostility to Paul to which his conduct had given rise, they probably began at once that propaganda in the churches of Galatia which called forth his epistle. We are not told what effect Paul's severe rebuke, and his clear exposition of the meaning of the Gospel, had upon Peter and Barnabas and the Jewish Christians of Antioch. It is clear at least that Peter did not yield and associate again with the Gentiles as he had been doing, for Paul would certainly have mentioned the fact if he had ; and it would have been natural for him to tell the Galatians of it, if his remonstrance had proved effective in the case of Barnabas. We shall probably be safe in assuming that whatever was true at a later date, at the time when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians, not only Peter, but also Barnabas and many of the Jewish Christians of Antioch, still felt the influence of James, 1 and that the former cordial relatipns between Jews and Gentiles within the Antiochian church were not entirely restored. In our consideration of the events that took place upon the occasion of Paul's visit to Jerusalem, and of the occurrences that followed at Antioch, we have confined ourselves to Paul's statements in his Epistle to the Gala- tians. But the fifteenth chapter of Acts contains a somewhat elaborate account of the conference in Jeru- salem which differs in some respects from that of Paul and demands examination at this point. 2 It has been widely 1 There is no reason to doubt that the messengers that came from James represented his own position in the matter. Paul's words imply as much as that, and the position taken by them in Antioch is entirely in harmony with all that we know of James himself. 2 Ramsay (St. Paul, the Traveller and Roman Citizen, p. 55 sq.), recogniz- ing the difficulty of reconciling Luke's account with that of Paul, denies that they refer to the same event. But the conference between Paul and tin- church of Jerusalem recorded in Acts xv. is impossible at any later tinn- ilnn (hat referred to in Gal. ii. 1 sq., for after the matter had been settled of !' indicates in that passage, it could not have been canvassed again in any such THE WORK OF PAUL 209 claimed that the differences between the two accounts are so numerous and radical, that Acts xv. must be pronounced entirely unhistorical. But it is to be noticed that in at least two important respects the accounts are in complete agreement ; in the first place, according to both of them the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity was recognized by the church of Jerusalem, and circumcision was not required of converts from the heathen world ; and in the second place, they both imply that it was taken for granted by the church that Jewish Christians would continue to observe their ancestral law. It should be remarked also, that there is nothing improbable in the supposition that Peter and James made such addresses as are ascribed to them in Acts xv. It may be doubted whether all the words that are put into Peter's mouth were actually spoken by hirn; 1 but that vss. 8 and 11 fairly represent the position which he held at this time is rendered exceedingly probable by his subsequent conduct at Antioch and by the words of Paul in Gal. ii. 15 sq. Upon his arrival in Antioch he acted exactly as a man naturally would who held the belief expressed in Acts xv. 8 and 11, and as we have already seen, his conduct there was due not to a change in that belief, but to the fear that his association with the Gentiles would make it impossible for him to fulfil his mission among the Jews. And so when Paul rebuked him for his action, he based his argument upon a principle that was apparently recognized by Peter as well as himself; but it is just that principle that finds expression in Acts xv. 11. Moreover, not only the address of Peter but also that of James is genuinely characteristic. We know from Gal. ii. 9 sq., that James recognized the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity as he is represented as doing in Acts xv. 19, and the passage from Amos which he quotes in vss. 16 to 18 may well have been employed by him at this time way as described in Acts xv. To find in the ministry for the poor, referred to in Gal. ii. 10, the chief object of Paul's visit to Jerusalem, as Ramsay does, and to make all that goes before it entirely subordinate and unimportant, is to do violence to the entire passage. It must be insisted upon as certain, that Gal. ii. 1 sq. and Acts xv. 1 sq. refer to the same time. 1 For instance, vs. 9, and especially the latter part of vg. 10. P 210 THE APOSTOLIC AGE as a justification of such recognition on his part. For such Old Testament prophecies must have had much to do with the approval which the Jewish Christians in general finally consented to give to the evangelization of the Gen- tiles. On the other hand, we know from Gal. ii. 12 that James was more conservative than Peter and that he was not ready even some time later to go as far as Peter did at Antioch and to associate intimately with the uncircum- cised. The recommendation which he is represented as making in vs. 20 is therefore entirely in keeping with his general tendency. Finally it is to be noticed that though Paul says nothing of the addresses of Peter and of James, he does hint, as already remarked, at a public as well as a private meeting in Jerusalem, 1 and his silence respecting the details of that meeting is no argument against the account in Acts. It is clear from his own words that the apostles, or at least James, Peter, and John, were more ready than the church as a whole to approve his work among the Gentiles, and it is therefore natural to suppose that their influence was exerted to induce the church to take the action it did. That Paul and Barnabas should rehearse the great things which God had done among the Gentiles through them, 2 and that they should then leave it to the apostles, who had much greater influence in the church of Jerusalem than they, to urge the recognition of that form of Christianity which God had so signally approved, is just what we might have expected them to do. Paul appeared in Jerusalem to defend the Christi- anity of the Gentiles, and however conscious he was of his own independence and of his divine call, it would have been the height of unwisdom, and would have defeated the very purpose which he had in view, for him to treat the apostles with anything else than the utmost respect and deference, or to insist, upon the basis of his own apostle- ship, that the church should do as he wished it to with- out regard to the desires of its own guides and leaders. In fact, it is not too much to say that the account of the proceedings in Acts xv. 6-21 is in its general features i Gal. ii. 2. 2 Ac ts xv. 4, 12 sq. ; cf. Gal. ii. 2, 7, 9. THE WORK OF PAUL 211 entirely in accord with the probabilities of the situation as revealed in Gal. ii. 1-10. But the same cannot be said of vss. 22 sq. It is very difficult to suppose that such a decree as is contained in vss. 28 and 29 was adopted at this time and carried back to Antioch by Paul and Barnabas with representatives of the church of Jerusalem, as Luke records. For it is to be noticed that there is no sign in Paul's epistles that he ever put the decree into force in any of his churches, or recom- mended any of his converts to observe it ; nor is there any sign that anything was known about the decree in the churches to which he wrote. 1 It is also a fact of the ut- most significance that Paul distinctly asserts 2 that those who were of repute in the church of Jerusalem imparted nothing to him, that is, laid no additional requirements upon him ; 3 in other words, he was left entirely free by them to preach to the Gentiles exactly as he had been preaching. But according to Acts xv. 28, the Gentiles were not simply requested, but required by the action of the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, to abstain from the four things enumerated in the decree. The latter refrain from laying upon the converts from the heathen the burden of the whole law, but abstinence from these four things they regard as " necessary." For Paul, therefore, to acquiesce in this action and to carry the decree to the Antiochian church would have been to lay a burden upon the Gen- tiles not as great, to be sure, as the Judaizers would have liked, but none the less a burden, and none the less op- posed to his principle of complete liberty. It does not help the matter to urge that Paul himself recommended a voluntary curtailment of one's liberty for the sake of the weaker brethren, as in 1 Cor. viii. and Gal. v. 13, and that therefore he might have been willing to acquiesce in this decree in order that the Jewish Christians might not be too much offended by the lives of their Gentile brethren ; for it is not that a voluntary curtailment of their liberty 1 It is significant that the Corinthians hetray no knowledge of it when they .ask Paul's advice in jie matter of meats offered to idols (1 Cor. viii. 1). 2 Gal. ii. 6. 3 e/woi yap ol doKovvres otdtv 212 THE APOSTOLIC AGE is suggested, but that an enforced submission to certain requirements is demanded by the church of Jerusalem. But it is to be remarked finally, that the decree contains the same prohibitions that were laid upon strangers living within the land of the Jews, according to Lev. xvii. and xviii., and that its formal enactment by the council implies that the disciples of Jerusalem proposed to relegate the Gentile converts to the position occupied in ancient times by such strangers, and in more recent days by the o-e/Soyue- voi, or God-fearing heathen. In other words, the decree in the form in which we have it means that the Gentile Christians were to be treated as less honorable and less pleas- ing to God than their Jewish brethren, and were to be re- quired to treat the latter as religiously on a higher plane than themselves. This feeling was entirely natural, and was doubtless shared by James as well as by the majority of the disciples of Jerusalem, but Paul certainly could not require, nor could he consent that others should require, his converts to acknowledge the religious superiority of the Jews by the observance even of the simplest require- ments of the Mosaic code. Still less could he consent that they should do anything which would lead them to think that those who observed the Jewish law were more right- eous or pleasing to God than themselves. In view of all that has been said, we are forced to conclude either that the decree was never adopted and promulgated by the church of Jerusalem, or if it was, that it was done with- out Paul's knowledge and consent, and hence not under the circumstances recorded in Acts xv. 1 The question then arises, how is the presence of the de- cree in our account to be explained ? It is impossible to suppose so pe'culiar a document an invention of the author of the Acts. Some historic basis for it must be assumed. 1 As it cannot be supposed that Paul had anything to do with the adoption of the decree, so it cannot he supposed that he had anything to do with its promulgation, and the accuracy of the statement in Acts xvi. 4 must therefore he questioned. The statement was a very natural one for the author to mak. , with the understanding he had of Paul's relation to the decree, and it is not necessary to suppose that he derived it from his sources any more than xvi. 5, which goes with it. THE WORK OF PAUL 213 Such a basis may be found either in the address of James, recorded in Acts xv. 13-21, or in the actual adoption and promulgation of the decree at some other time than that designated by our author. So far as the former alterna- tive is concerned, it is to be observed that it is not at all impossible that during the conference James may have suggested that the Gentile converts be requested to ab- stain from practices which were calculated particularly to offend the prejudices of the Jews, who had their syna- gogues in every city, and heard the law of Moses read every Sabbath. 1 Nor is it necessary to suppose that Paul must have taken exception to such a request. So long as it involved nothing more than the expression of a desire that the Gentile Christians might do nothing in the exer- cise of their liberty to offend their Jewish brethren unnec- essarily, Paul could have no fault to find with it ; for he himself exhorts his converts to give no occasion for stum- bling either to Jews or to Greeks. 2 If then it be assumed that James expressed the hope that the Gentiles would voluntarily show some consideration for the feelings of their Jewish brethren, it is not inconceivable that the expression of that hope which was contained in the origi- nal record of his speech, may have led the author of the Acts to compose and append the epistle with its formal decree as we find it in vss. 23 sq., or to give the form of an official enactment to a mere request made by the church in accordance with the suggestion of James. 3 But the second alternative referred to above, that the decree was actually adopted and promulgated by the church of Jerusalem at some other time than that desig- nated by the author of the Book of Acts, seems much more probable than the one just considered. 4 That the author of the Acts, coming into possession of a document i Acts xv. 21. 2 i Cor. x. 32. 8 Attention has been frequently called to the stylistic resemblance between the opening of the epistle in vss. 23 and 24, and the prologue of Luke's Gospel. 4 This suggestion was originally made by Ritschl in the first edition of his Entstehuny der aUkatholischen Kirche, and has been adopted by Weizsacker and others, though abandoned by Ritschl himself in the second edition of his work. 214 THE APOSTOLIC AGE containing such a decree, and being ignorant of its exact date and of the circumstances under which it had its rise, should have inserted it in his work in what seemed to him the most appropriate place, is what we should expect in view of his treatment of his sources in the composition of the third Gospel. Moreover, there are several indications that he made use of more than one authority, or that he considerably altered and expanded the authority which he followed in writing the very chapter with which we are dealing. The record as we have it contains difficul- ties which can be satisfactorily explained on no other assumption. 1 There is, therefore, upon the face of it nothing improbable in the supposition that the decree existed in a separate document and was appended by the author to his account of the conference. 2 So far as the time is concerned at which the decree of vss. 28 and 29 was adopted, it cannot have been before the meeting described in Acts xv. and Gal. ii. ; for the legiti- macy of Gentile Christianity which it presupposes was still an open question when that meeting began. On the other hand, there is nothing in Paul's account of his con- troversy with Peter 3 to suggest that the decree was en- 1 Compare vs. 1 with vs. 5, and vs. 4 with vs. 12. Compare also vss. 4, 12, and 22, where the whole church is referred to, with vss. 6 and 23, where only the apostles and elders are mentioned. It is to be noticed also that auroi)s in vs. 5, which evidently refers to the Gentiles, has no grammatical antecedent. It is not impossible that Acts xi. 27-30 formed originally the beginning of the account with which we are now concerned, and that it was separated from its context, not only because it referred to a famine which the author identified with the famine that took place in the early part of Claudius' reign, some years before the time at which he understood the council of Jerusalem to have been held, but also because it assigned a purpose to the visit described in chap, xv. which did not seem to accord well with the matter actually considered at that meeting. (But see p. 171, above.) If such a displacement were made, the author would naturally supply some such introduction to Acts xv. as we actually find in vss. 1 and 2. For various analyses of the sources of Acts xv. see especially J. Weiss (in the Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1893, S. 519 sq.) ; Voelter (Komposition der paulinischen Hauptbriefe, S. 133 sq.) ; Spitta (Apostelgesch., S. 179 sq.) ; Jiingst (Quellen der Apostelgeschichte, S. 134 sq.). 2 It is quite possible that the church of Jerusalem actually sent some such letter as is given in vss. 22-27, and that only vss. 28 and 29 are added. Some letter (and perhaps messengers) we might expect them to send, and it may well have been of this sort. The addition, then, of vss. 28 and 29 would be all the easier to explain. 8 Gal. ii. 11 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 215 acted by the church of Jerusalem before the latter visited Antioch. Weizsacker is of the opinion that the adoption of the decree took place after the Antiochian occurrence and as a result of it. But it seems hardly calculated to meet the exigencies of the situation which existed after that time, when the relations between Gentile Christianity and the Mother Church must have been greatly strained. It is less thoroughgoing than we should expect it to be, if promulgated after the open break had occurred. It says nothing whatever about the conduct of Jewish Christians, nor does it warn the Gentiles that they must not expect or desire their Jewish brethren to associate intimately with them, as they had been doing at Antioch. It is to be noticed that the abstinence of the Gentiles from the four things prohibited in the decree did not make it lawful for a Jew to meet them on terms of equality, and we can- not suppose that either James or the church of Jerusalem was ready to sanction even the slightest neglect of the law on the part of their countrymen. 1 The decree in fact betrays no apprehension of the true difficulties of such a situation as existed in Antioch, and hence bears every appearance of having been drawn up before the trouble occurred there. If any action was taken by the Mother Church after that time, it would naturally look either toward the widening and deepening of the chasm between the Jewish and Gentile wings of the church, or toward the construction of some bridge across the chasm, accord- ing as it was prompted by the more bitter or by the more conciliatory spirits. But the decree of Jerusalem answers neither of these purposes. It seems best then to suppose that it was adopted shortly after Paul left Jerusalem, and after Peter, too, had taken his departure, and that it was the result of farther deliberation in the church of Jerusa- lem upon the subject which had been discussed at the council. It may have seemed to James and to the major- ity of the church after they had considered the matter more fully, that the guarantee of complete Gentile liberty, which had been given at that time, threatened the prerog- 1 Cf . Acts xxi. 31 sq. 216 THE APOSTOLIC AGE atives of the chosen people, and they may have thought that the danger might be avoided, without intrenching upon the Gentiles' freedom from the Jewish law, if the latter were required to show some respect for that law, such respect in fact as had been of old demanded of stran- gers dwelling within the land of Israel. It is possible, then, that the emissaries from James came to Antioch, 1 not because they had heard that Peter was eating with the Gentiles, and wished to call him to account for his con- duct, but as the bearers of the decree to the Antiochian church. It is worthy of notice that this view as to the time of the adoption of the decree affords a satisfactory and much needed explanation of the conduct of Barnabas to which Paul refers in Gal. ii. 13. It is not difficult to understand why Peter should have been influenced by the arguments of the messengers from Jerusalem, for he was the apostle of the circumcision, whose work was to lie chiefly among the Jews. But that Barnabas, Paul's fellow-apostle to the heathen, whose right to work among the Gentiles had been recognized in Jerusalem, just as Paul's had been, after liv- ing for some years in intimate fellowship with his Gentile converts, should have drawn back and separated himself from them is very strange. The only plausible explana- tion of his conduct is that a new idea as to their true position within the church had presented itself to him. He may not have been in full sympathy with Paul's doc- trine of the Christian's complete liberty from all law of whatever kind, and he may originally have recognized Gentile converts as brethren only under the compulsion of the same kind of divine evidence as convinced the Christians of Jerusalem. But having become satisfied of their emancipation from the Jewish law, it perhaps did not occur to him that it was possible still to conserve the dignity of that law, however much he may have desired to do so, without denying their Christianity, which he could not do, and did not wish to do. The decree may have suggested to him for the first time the true way to i Gal. ii, 12. THE WORK OF PAUL 217 meet the difficulty, and consequently the true way to pre- serve the honor of Judaism while recognizing the Chris- tianity of the Gentiles. Of the events that occurred during the weeks and months immediately succeeding the controversy between Paul and Peter at Antioch, we have no explicit informa- tion. Paul's remonstrance apparently effected no change in the conduct of Peter and Barnabas, 1 and it must have been some time at any rate before cordial relations were re- stored between the Jewish and Gentile wings of the Anti- ochian church. Meanwhile the Judaizers, whose demands Paul had successfully resisted at Jerusalem, determined to carry the war against him, and against the Gentile Chris- tianity for which he stood, into his own territory. Some of them may have begun their Jewish propaganda imme- diately after the conference, but it is probable that they received their chief impulse from the occurrence at Antioch. Perceiving, in the light of that event, that the Gospel which Paul preached meant inevitably not simply the rise of a free Gentile church in which the law should be entirely disregarded, but also the wide and increasing neglect of that law on the part of the Jews themselves, they felt that the only way to stem the rising tide of apostasy was to insist upon the circumcision of the Gentiles. They looked upon it as a life and death matter. If the Gentiles did not become Jews, the Jews would become Gentiles, and regard for the law of Moses would entirely disappear within the Christian church outside of Palestine, and Christ would thus become a minister of sin to an ever-increasing multi- tude of the dispersion. 2 It is hardly likely that the Juda- izers would have exhibited such zeal, and would have proved themselves so bitterly and relentlessly hostile to Paul as they did, out of mere opposition to Gentile Chris- tianity as such, and with the sole desire to make proselytes of Paul's converts. It was doubtless the fear that the Christians of Jewish birth would apostatize under the influence of their Gentile brethren that did more than any- thing else to add fuel to the flame of their zeal, and that i See p. 208, above. 2 Gal. ii. 17. 218 THE APOSTOLIC AGE gave its peculiar intensity and bitterness to their enmity for Paul. Not that he preached the Gospel to the Gen- tiles, but that he taught the Jews to disregard their law, was the accusation brought against him later at Jerusalem, 1 and though the zealots that found fault with him there may not have been in full sympathy with the Judaizers who caused him so much trouble in his missionary work, they doubtless voiced in their complaint that which was his most heinous offence, not in their eyes alone, but in the eyes of all his opponents. In Gal. vi. 12 sq., Paul declares that the Judaizers were endeavoring to force circumcision upon the Gentile converts, not in order that the law might be observed by the latter, but in order that they might them- selves escape persecution from unbelieving Israel. Paul's words, both here and in Gal v. 11, imply that the persecu- tion which the Judaizers wished to escape was due, not chiefly to the fact that they preached Christ, but to the fact that they preached a religion which the Jews believed was calculated to undermine and destroy the influence of the law, and which was actually having that very effect among the Israelites of the dispersion. It was not enough to exhibit their zeal in the work of proselytism, 2 they must, above all, counteract this fatal tendency if they would relieve Christ from the accusation of inciting to sin, 3 and themselves from persecution as promoters of apostasy. And so Judaizers appeared at an early day in Galatia, where Paul and Barnabas had preached some time before, and with an entire disregard for the compact concluded at Jerusalem and for the official recognition which Gentile Christianity had received there, they announced to the Gala- tian converts that unless they became members of the house- hold of Israel by receiving circumcision and observing the law of Moses, their faith in Christ would avail them nothing, and they would be shut out as aliens from the enjoyment of the blessings which had been promised by God only to the children of Abraham. 4 The arguments which the Judaizers were able to employ in support of their position 1 Acts xxi. 25. 8 Gal. ii. 17. 2 Gal. vi. 13. 4 Gal. iii. 7, 14, 16, 29, etc. THE WOKK OF PAUL 219 were very plausible. They doubtless emphasized the fact that Jesus was a Jew, and that he was the Jewish Messiah promised in the Scriptures, as Paul himself had taught them, and that consequently the blessings which he brought were for his own people, and for them alone. 1 In support of this conclusion, which constituted their main point, they evidently appealed to God's covenant with Abraham, 2 and to the divine law given through Moses, 3 asserting that that law was still binding, and without doubt confirming the assertion by calling attention to the fact that not only Christ himself, but also all his apostles, observed the law in all its parts. 4 But they not only urged positive arguments in support of their position, they also attacked Paul, to whom the Galatians owed their belief that salvation is through faith in Christ and not by works of the law, insisting that he was not a true apostle, that he had never seen Christ and received a commission from him as the Twelve had, and that consequently his Gospel was not from God but from man, and had no independent authority. 5 Moreover, they declared that it was not simply a human Gospel but a false Gospel, 6 because it did not agree with the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, who had been called and commissioned by Christ, and who not only observed the law themselves, but also taught that its observance was an indispensable condition of salvation. 7 Paul was in reality, therefore, not a friend to the Galatians as he had seemed to be, but an enemy, because he had led them away from the true path of life. 8 But the Judaizers went even further than this, and attacked Paul's honesty of purpose, accusing him of double dealing, in that he preached circumcision when he was among those that preferred that kind of doctrine, 9 and uncircumcision when among those to whom a Gospel of liberty was most acceptable. In other words, they asserted that his sole aim was to please men, to win their approval and applause, and to gain a following; and that conse- 1 Cf. Gal. iii. 7 sq. * Cf. Gal. iii. 6. ' Cf. Paul's argument in Gal. ii. 6 sq. 2 Gal. iii. 6 sq., 15 sq. 5 Cf. Gal. i. 8 Gal. iv. 16. 3 Gal, iii, 17. Cf . Gal. i. 6 sq. Cf. Gal. v. 11. 220 THE APOSTOLIC AGE quently he suited his preaching to the tastes of those whom he addressed without any regard to the real truth. 1 It is not surprising that with such arguments and calumnies as these the Judaizers should have succeeded in unsettling the minds of the newly converted Galatians and winning many of them over to their side. Christianity had come to the Galatians through the synagogue ; they had first heard it from the lips of native Jews ; and they had learned from Paul himself to find in the Scriptures those prophecies which pointed forward to the Messiah Jesus whom he preached. There seemed good ground, therefore, for the assertion that Christianity was only for the Jews and for those of the Gentiles who should attach themselves as proselytes to the family of Israel. Paul's explanation of the method by which the Christian believer is released from all obligation to observe the law was at best difficult to understand, and the full appreciation of it presupposed a depth and maturity of spiritual experience which com- paratively few of the Galatians could as yet have attained. And so when the Judaizers asked them if Paul had based his Gospel of liberty upon distinct and unequivocal utter- ances of Christ, or if he had appealed to Christ's chosen apostles in support of the radical innovation which he had introduced among them, and they were unable to say that he had, it is not to be wondered at that they should begin to question whether Paul really was all that they had sup- posed him to be, and whether he had not actually deceived them in preaching as he had. But whatever the exact course pursued by the Judaizers, they had evidently had considerable success in the Galatian churches before Paul wrote his epistle. 2 Some, and apparently the majority, of those whom he addressed were already beginning to observe the Jewish ceremonial law at least in part ; 3 they were fall- ing away from the grace of Christ and were attempting to secure justification by works of the law; 4 though they had begun in the Spirit, they were now striving to perfect them- selves in the flesh ; 6 and though they had originally received i Of. Gal. i. 10. 2 cf. Gal. iii. 1, v. 7. 8 Gal. iv. 10. * Gal. i. 6, iv. 11), v. 4, 7. 8 Gal. iii. 3. THE WORK OF PAUL Paul himself as an angel of God, they were now regarding him as an enemy. 1 But the case was not hopeless. The success of the Judaizers was not yet complete. The Gala- tian Christians, or at any rate many of them, had not yet received circumcision, 2 and Paul had reason to believe that he might yet stem the tide; might yet win back the alle- giance of those who had been alienated from him and con- vince them of the truth of the Gospel which he had preached among them. 3 With this end in view, he wrote them a letter, fiery, impassioned, polemic ; at one moment rebuking them sharply for their fickleness, at another expressing confi- dence in their continued loyalty and faithfulness ; severe and at times even bitter in denouncing his opponents, 4 and not without heat in repudiating their calumnies and in vindicating his own character and prerogatives. 5 From beginning to end the letter bears the stamp of Paul's own personality ; and whether he attacks his enemies or defends himself, whether he discusses doctrine or urges holy living, he has constantly in mind the exigencies of the situation with which he is confronted, and everything he says has direct and sole reference to that situation. The epistle is both doctrinally and historically of the very greatest value, and yet it must be constantly borne in mind that it was intended neither as a history nor as a treatise on theology, but solely as a defence of its author and of his Gospel against a specific attack conducted along specific lines. In the very first sentence of the epistle Paul meets the assault upon his own apostleship by asserting that he is an " apostle not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father " ; and a little farther on he declares that the Gospel which he preached was received by him not from man, but through a direct revelation of Christ. 6 He then undertakes to demonstrate the truth of his assertion by a rapid sketch of his career, calling atten- tion to the great zeal with which he had practised the 1 Gal. iv. 16. 4 Cf. Gal. i. 8, v. 12, vi. 12 sq. 2 Gal. iv. 21, v. 2, vi. 13. 5 Cf. Gal. ii. 6. 3 Cf . Gal. iv. 11, v. 10, 13, vi. 10, 18. Gal. i. 11, 12. 222 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Jewish religion and the bitterness with which he had persecuted the church, in order to show that his conver- sion was no ordinary event, but that it could be accounted for only by the direct interposition of God, who had called him by his grace and had revealed his Son in him, and that it indicated that God had some special purpose to accomplish through him. That purpose Paul asserts to have been the evangelization of the Gentiles, 1 and his Gospel of the uncircumcision he thus bases immediately upon a commission received from God himself. To sub- stantiate still further the truth of his assertion, that he had received his Gospel from God and not from man, he calls attention to the fact that he did not confer with any one after his conversion, nor go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles, until three years later, when he had already been engaged for some time in the evangelistic work to which he had been called. Even then he spent only two weeks in Jerusalem and saw only Peter and James, and during the next eleven years he carried on his missionary work without once coming into contact with the Christians of Judea. Thus he demonstrates conclu- sively his independence of the original apostles and of the church of Jerusalem. But it was not enough for him to establish his independence ; he must show that his inde- pendence had not led him astray. For this purpose he gives an account of the conference at which his Gospel received official approval and he and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that they should continue to carry on their work among the Gentiles just as they had been doing in the past. This might have sufficed to refute the charges of his enemies, but Paul relates also the occurrence that took place afterward at Antioch, in order to show that Peter, the great apostle to the Jews, had not simply recognized the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity at Jeru- salem, and acknowledged Paul's call to evangelize the heathen, but that he had even gone so far as to disregard the Jewish law himself, and live like a Gentile with the Gentile Christians of Antioch. To be sure, he had drawn i Gal. i. 16. THE WORK OF PAUL 223 back again after a time, and separated himself from the uncircumcised, but that was due to fear, not principle, and his true belief as to the Christian's relation to the law was revealed by the course he pursued before he was called to account by the emissaries from Jerusalem. Thus Paul triumphantly refutes all the accusations of his adver- saries, not only demonstrating his independence as an apostle called and commissioned directly by God, but also proving that the Christianity which he preached among the Gentiles had received ample recognition from the older apostles, whom the Judaizers had claimed as their authority for declaring his Gospel false and pernicious. But Paul does not rest with this vindication of himself. He proceeds to restate, for the benefit of his Galatian readers, the Gospel which he had preached among them and the grounds upon which it was based. They evi- dently needed instruction upon the subject, and Paul devotes a large part of his epistle to it. He first summa- rizes briefly his argument with Peter, in which he had clearly stated his fundamental principles, and had clinched the matter by calling attention to the fact that Christ's death was all for naught, if righteousness were to be attained through the law. 1 He then turns directly to the Galatians, and after reminding them that it was Christ crucified who had been plainly and openly preached to them, he appeals to their own experience as a testimony to the truth of the Gospel of liberty which they had heard from him. He reminds them that they had received the Spirit, and that the works of the Spirit had been wrought among them, even though they were Gentiles s and though they had had no thought of receiving circum- cision and observing the Jewish law. Why, then, did they turn to the law now, when it had been proved unnecessary by their own Christian experience? The argument was similar to that which had been employed at Jerusalem with such good effect. God himself had borne witness in the lives of the Gentiles to the truth of the Gospel which Paul preached. But Paul appeals to the experience not i Gal. ii. 21. 224 THE APOSTOLIC AGE of his Gentile readers alone, but also of the great Abra- ham, the father of the Hebrew race, upon God's covenant with whom the Jews based their claim to be the chosen people of Jehovah. Long before the law was given, Abra* ham was justified because he believed God, and the cove* nant which God made with him and with his children was conditioned not upon works, but upon faith, so that all that have Abraham's faith are. truly his sons. The fact that a law was given four hundred and thirty years later could not disannul God's covenant. The promised inheritance, which had been expressly conditioned upon faith alone, could not now be conditioned upon the observance of a law. The law, in fact, was not given with any such pur- pose ; it was intended solely as a tutor to reveal sin and thus lead men to Christ. It has, therefore, only a tempo- rary purpose to serve, and as soon as it has accomplished that, it passes away. Christ thus becomes the end of the law to those who believe in him, and redeems them from the law whose curse they have incurred by their inability to keep it. Redeemed from it, they are henceforth entirely free from its control ; they are no longer bond-servants, but sons, sons and heirs of God, because bound to Christ by faith and possessed of his Spirit. 1 After elaborating his argument at considerable length, Paul appeals finally to the Scripture story of Sarah and Hagar, which he calls an allegory, and in which he finds a prophecy of the bond- age of unbelieving Israel, and of the liberty of believers in Christ, and a promise that not the former, who are bound to the law, but the latter, who are freed from it, shall enjoy the inheritance. Before closing his epistle, he warns his .readers 2 against regarding their freedom as a license to sin; reminding them that the true Christian has crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts, that the Christian life is a life not in the flesh but in the Spirit, and that only he who has the Spirit is freed from the law; so that liberty means only liberty to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. It is clear that the same objection was brought against Paul's Gos- i Gal. iii. 26, 29, iv. f>, 7. 2 Gal. v. 13 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 225 pel of liberty in Galatia as elsewhere. He was accused of making Christ a minister of sin and of breaking down all the safeguards of holiness. 1 He met the accusation by an appeal to that principle which was fundamental in his Christian system, and which he had evidently impressed upon the Galatians in the very beginning, 2 that the Chris- tian life is not a human but a divine life, that it is the life of Christ in the believer. That he did not elaborate this doctrine as fully in the Epistle to the Galatians as in the Epistle to the Romans, was due doubtless to the fact that he had sufficiently dwelt upon it when he was with the Galatians. A large part of his epistle to them presup- poses it, and can be fully understood only in the light of it. The letter closes with a passage written by Paul's own hand. 3 He seems to have finished dictating what he had to say, and then suddenly to have had a rush of per- sonal feeling which led him to pick up his pen for a part- ing word of attack and defence. After denouncing the Judaizers once more, and accusing them of selfish and dishonest motives, he reasserts the Gospel of liberty and closes with a solemn adjuration to his enemies to trouble him no more, for he bears upon his body the marks of Jesus : the stripes and the blows which he has suffered as a missionary of the cross. They are a sufficient testi- mony to his apostleship and a sufficient refutation of all the calumnies of his adversaries. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians was addressed primarily to his Gentile converts, who were evidently considerably in the majority in the churches of Galatia. At the same time the Gospel which he presents so clearly was a Gos- pel for Jewish as well as Gentile Christians, and that there were at least some of the former in the churches to which he wrote is evident from more than one passage. 4 That he had taught his Jewish converts in Galatia to cease observ- ing the law, and to live like Gentiles, we cannot be sure, though he must at least have insisted that they should recognke the Gentile disciples as brethren in the full sense 1 Gal. ii. 17. 3 Gal. vi. 11 sq. 2 Of. Gal. iii. 2, v. 18 sq. * Gal. iii. 28, v. i. 226 THE APOSTOLIC AGE and should fellowship with them. He must also have in- sisted that if they continued to observe the law in any particular, they should not do it as a means of justification. His principles were really such as to lead Jewish as well as Gentile disciples to neglect the law entirely, and in his epistle he clearly applies those principles to the former as well as to the latter. 1 So far as he himself was concerned, he had evidently lived among them like a Gentile, putting his principles into practice before them all, 2 and the difficul- ties which had arisen would not incline him thenceforth to look with favor upon any other course on the part of his Jewish converts, whatever he might think as to the con- duct of Jews when by themselves. 3 It was probably while Paul was still in Antioch, before he departed upon his second missionary journey, that he wrote the letter to the Galatians which we have been considering. It is true that it is the almost universal opinion of scholars that the epistle was written upon Paul's third missionary journey, 4 , either on his way to Ephesus or during his three years' stay there, 5 the Galatian visit, mentioned in Acts xviii. 23, being commonly reckoned as the second of the two to which Paul refers in his epistle. 6 But when the churches addressed by Paul are identified with the churches of Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, where he preached upon his first missionary journey, the visit mentioned in Acts xviii. 23 becomes the third i Cf. especially Gal. v. 1. 2 Cf. Gal. iv. 12. 8 The agreement into which Paul entered at Jerusalem provided for the continued observance of the law by Jewish Christians. He could take no ex- ception to such observance, provided it was not practised where there were Gentile Christians and where it would result in the withdrawal of the Jewish disciples from their Gentile brethren and the consequent implication that the latter were religiously on a lower plane than the former. 4 Described in Acts xviii. 23 sq. 6 Acts xix. 1 sq. Light foot puts the composition of the epistle still later, maintaining that it was written in Macedonia, after the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. In support of this opinion he urges the similarity of subject and style between Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Romans; but the truth is that the resemblances are far less striking than the differences. Galatians, in fact, deals with an entirely different set of problems and reveals an historic situation of which there is not the slightest trace in either of the other epistles. Gal. iv. 13. THE WORK OF PAUL 227 instead of the second Galatian visit, and it is therefore necessary, if we follow the account in Acts, to put the epistle before instead of after that visit ; for Gal. iv. 13 implies that Paul had been in Galatia only twice before he wrote. 1 The epistle, then, might have been written during his second missionary journey, between the time when he left Galatia 2 and returned to Antioch. 3 But if Paul saw the Galatian Christians during the interval that elapsed between the conference at Jerusalem and the writing of his epistle, it is exceedingly difficult to understand why he should be obliged to give them in his letter so full an account of that conference and of the events that followed. It seems clear that in Gal. ii. Paul is telling his readers of events about which they had before heard nothing, at any rate from him. But it is incredible that after his experience with Judaizers in Jerusalem, and later in Antioch, he could have been so short-sighted as to fail to foresee that they would yet cause him trouble, and hence take no pains at all to fortify his own converts against their machinations. It is incredible, in fact, that he can have visited Galatia after the occurrences referred to and have said absolutely nothing about them. He lays great stress upon those events when he writes to the Galatians. Why should he have maintained absolute silence respecting them when he was with them ? This consideration seems sufficient to prove that the epistle must have been written during the interval between the conference at Jerusalem and Paul's next visit to Galatia, which the author of the Acts mentions in xvi. 1 sq. Against this conclusion there is no serious objection to be urged, while there are, on the contrary, many indica- tions that the conclusion is correct. In the first place, the epistle seems to have been written very soon after the Judaizers had begun their work in Galatia ; for while they had already met with considerable success, the defec- tion of the Galatians was evidently in its early stages when 1 rb Trp6repov is the phrase used. 2 Acts xvi. 6. 3 Acts xviii. 22. This is the opinion of Kendall, who supposes that the epistle was written in Corinth soon after Paul's arrival there (Expositor, 1894, Vol. IX. p. 254 sq.). 228 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Paul wrote. In the second place, the apostle expresses his surprise, not simply that his converts were falling away and accepting a different Gospel, but that they were doing it so quickly. 1 It is evident that no very long interval had elapsed since the time when he first preached the Gospel to them. Again, it is to be noticed that the two visits to which Paul refers in Gal. iv. 13 seem to have been separated by only a short interval. It is so difficult, indeed, to keep them apart that it has even been denied that he refers to more than one. 2 But if our assumption be correct, we are to identify the first occasion on which Paul preached the Gospel to the Galatians with his trip eastward from Antioch to Derbe, and the second with the return trip to Antioch, when he revisited the churches he had newly founded. Thus his words seem better satisfied than if an interval of some years be inserted between the two occasions. Those who assume another and later visit to Galatia, before the writing of Paul's epistle, are obliged to reckon these two as one ; but it was in reality only on his eastward journey and not on his return west- ward, that Paul preached to the Galatians, " because of an infirmity of the. flesh." Still farther it should be remarked that the epistle contains no personal greetings from any one in Paul's company and there is no hint that he had among his companions any one with whom the Galatians were acquainted. But throughout the greater part of his second missionary journey, both Silas and Timothy were with him, the latter himself a Galatian, and the names of both of them appear in the salutations of the two epistles to the Thessalonians, which were written during that journey. Finally it is to be observed that there is no sign in any other of Paul's epistles that the Judaizers were causing him serious trouble. That fact would seem to indicate that he had fought his battle with them and won his victory over them at an early day, at a time before he had begun his missionary work in Western Asia and in Europe, so that when he went thither, he went forewarned 1 Gal. i. 6. The words OVTWS rax^ws are emphatic. 2 Cf, Volkniar : Paulus von Damascus bis zum Galaterbrief, S. 100 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 229 and forearmed and took pains to fortify his churches against the adversaries that had done so much mischief in Galatia. But if the Epistle to the Galatians was written between the conference at Jerusalem and the Galatian visit referred to in Acts xvi. 1 sq., it is natural to think of Antioch as the place of composition ; for Paul returned thither after the conference and went thence, apparently with no long delay upon the way, to Galatia. 1 There is, indeed, a possible hint in Gal. ii. 11, that Paul was actually writing at Antioch, and not long after the event there recorded. In the light of all that has been said, we shall probably be safe in concluding that the epistle was written soon after the controversy with Peter, while Paul was still in Antioch and before he had started on his second missionary journey. 2 The epistle to the Galatians is thus the earliest of Paul's epistles known to us, antedating by some two years the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, which is commonly regarded as the oldest that we have. 3 That it should have 1 Acts xv. 41, xvi. 1. 2 Volkmar (I.e. S. 31 sq.) also holds that the Epistle to the Galatiaus wag written at Antioch, but he assigns it to a later time, when Paul was in Antioch at the close of his second missionary journey (Acts xviii. 22). He maintains, however, that Paul was only once (Acts xvi. G) in Galatia (which he regards as North Galatia) before he wrote, and not after but before the conference at Jerusalem, which he thinks displaced by the author of the Acts. 3 It is an interesting fact that Marcion put the Epistle to the Galatians first in his New Testament Canon. Whether he was actuated by chronological considerations, we do not know. The difficulty of putting so doctrinal an epistle as Galatians earlier than the much simpler epistles to the Thessalo- nians, which suggests itself at once, is less real than it may seem at first sight. There can be no doubt that the great underlying principles of Paul's Gospel, which appear in the Epistle to the Galatians, were clear to him long before he wrote any of his epistles ; and the lack of emphasis upon them in the Thessalonian letters cannot be due to the early date of those letters, but only to the purpose for which they were written. There is nothing in Gala- tians, as there is possibly in Romans and in the epistles of the captivity, which points to a development in Paul's thought beyond the positions held by him at the time of the conference at Jerusalem. The epistles to the Thessalonians can be assigned an earlier date than Galatians, on the ground of their omis- sion of the doctrinal element which characterizes the latter, only if they be put before the Council at Jerusalem and the Antiochian trouble which followed. This Clemen actually d(jes(Chronologie der paulinischen Briefe, S. 205 sq.) , but without sufficient warrant. On the ordinary, and without doubt correct view, that the council preceded Paul's second missionary journey, during which the Thessalonian letters were written, no argument against the early date of Gal- atians has any validity. See also p. 147, above. 230 THE APOSTOLIC AGE been written at this early date, before Paul left Antioch, is very natural. Doubtless the council at Jerusalem and especially the controversy at Antioch were the signal for the Judaizers to begin their campaign against Paul, and it was inevitable that they should speedily find their way to Galatia, which was near at hand and recently evangelized, and the churches of which were so largely composed of Gentile converts. It was natural also that tidings of their work should quickly reach the apostle at Antioch, and if he did not happen to be able to leave for Galatia at once, he would of course write to them immediately. At the time Paul wrote, the division in the Antiochian church which had been caused by Peter's visit may still have been giving him trouble, and may have contributed to the distress and anxiety which are evident on every page of his letter. But however that may be, it was apparently not long afterward that the difficulties had so far settled themselves that he was able to start again upon a missionary tour, and as we should expect, he hastened at once to Galatia. Upon this journey he took with him as his companion, not Barnabas, who had accom- panied him before, but Silas, who, according to Acts xv. 22, was one of the messengers appointed by the church of Jerusalem to carry their decree to Antioch, 1 and who is doubtless to be identified with the Silvanus whom Paul mentions in his epistles. 2 The separation of Paul and 1 There is apparently some confusion in the account, for in vs. 33 Silas is said to have gone back to Jerusalem, and there is no notice of his return to Antioch. This fact led some copyist to insert the statement: " But it seemed good to Silas to abide there," which appears in some late manuscripts and is found in our Authorized Version. It may well be that Silas and Judas Barsab- bas actually returned to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, to carry the greet- ings of the Mother Church and to assure the Gentile disciples that they were recognized as brethren by the Christians of Jerusalem, but their connection with the decree is problematical. Had Silas been one of the emissaries from Jerusalem who brought the decree to Antioch and took Peter to task for his conduct, Paul could hardly have cared to take him on a missionary tour, and he would probably not have cared to go. Silas was with Paul apparently dur- ing the greater part of the second missionary journey, after which we hear no more of him, except in 1 Peter v. 12, where, under the name of Silvanus, he appears as the author's amanuensis. 2 1 Thess. i. 1 ; 2 Thess. i. 1 ; 2 Cor. i. 19. "The names are the same, Silas being the Greek and Silvanus the Latin form. Weizsacker questions the THE WORK OF PAUL 231 Barnabas is stated by the author of the Acts to have been the result of a disagreement concerning John Mark, who had deserted the missionaries when they were in Pam- phylia some years before. 1 It is possible, however, that the real reason lay deeper than this ; that their difference of principle touching the relations of Jews and Gentiles within the church, which the recent occurrences at An- tioch had revealed, made farther association in the work among the heathen seem undesirable to both of them. That the disagreement was not such as to alienate them permanently, is clear from Paul's reference to Barnabas in 1 Cor. ix. 6, which, if it does not show that the two men were again together, at least indicates that they were not enemies. Barnabas, therefore, was probably led finally to see the untenable nature of the position he took at Antioch and to range himself again upon Paul's side. 2 After passing through Syria and Cilicia, Paul hastened westward into the province of Galatia to revisit in com- pany with Silas the churches which had been founded some years before by himself and Barnabas, and to which he had recently written his epistle. The letter had appar- ently had the desired effect ; for Paul was received in a friendly spirit, and one of his Galatian converts, Timothy, became his companion at this time and continued until the close of his life his dearest and most trusted friend. 3 identity of the two men, suggesting that Luke displaced the Silvanusof Paul's epistles with the Silas of Jerusalem in order to emphasize Paul's connection with the Mother Church (I.e. S. 247; Eng. Trans., Vol. I. p. 292). 1 Acts xiii. 13, xv. 38. 2 It was impossible for either Barnabas or Peter to occupy permanently the ground they took at Antioch. Either they must go back to the position of James, or go on to the position of Paul, so far as it related to the observance of the law. If my theory in regard to the authorship of 1 Peter be correct, Barnabas must have reached ultimately the view of Paul upon the subject in dispute, and must have accepted also the fundamental principles of the Pauline Gospel upon which that view was based. See below, p. 485 sq. After separat- ing from Paul, Barnabas went with John Mark to Cyprus, his native home. He is not again mentioned in the writings of the period except in ICor. ix. 6. Mark appears again as Paul's companion in Col. iv. 10, 2 Tim. iv. 11, and Philemon 24, and as the companion of the author of the first epistle of Peter in 1 Peter v. 13. On his connection with the second Gospel, see below, p. 485 sq. That he was subsequently on such friendly terms with Paul shows that the separation at this time left no permanent unpleasantness. 3 Cf. especially Phil. ii. 20. 232 THE APOSTOLIC AGE There is no hint that Paul ever had any more difficulty with these churches, which were so dear to him, but which had caused him such anxiety and distress. His victory over the Judaizers seems to have been complete, and they appear to have given him no farther trouble, at any rate in Galatia, and no serious trouble anywhere. 1 The most striking incident connected with this Galatian visit is recorded in Acts xvi. 3, where it is stated that Paul circumcised Timothy "because of the Jews that were in those parts ; for they all knew that his father was a Greek." The truth of this report has been doubted by many scholars, on the ground that the action is inconsistent with Paul's attitude at Jerusalem touch- ing the proposition to circumcise Titus, and also with his principles so clearly and repeatedly avowed in his Epistle to the Galatians. 2 It should be remarked, however, that the cases of Timothy and Titus were by no means parallel. Titus was a Greek. Timothy, though his father was a Greek, was the son of a Jewish mother. In the case of Titus also there was a principle at stake, and to have circumcised him under the circumstances would have been to sacrifice that liberty of the Gentiles which Paul had gone to Jerusalem on purpose to maintain. It should be noticed, moreover, that there are other passages in Paul's epistles of a different tenor from those referred to, which make it clear that such action as he is reported to have taken in Timothy's case would not have been regarded by him under ordinary circumstances as incon- sistent and out of place, provided it could be made to contribute to the spread of the Gospel. 3 We are not warranted, therefore, in asserting on general grounds that Paul cannot have circumcised the son of a Jewess under any circumstances. If he wished to have him accompany him upon his missionary journeys, where it might prove at times a real advantage for him to be able to mingle freely 1 Paul visited the Galatians again some years later (Acts xviii. 23) and they contributed with his other churches to the great fund which he collected for the poor saints of Jerusalem (1 Cor. xvi. 1). 2 See especially Gal. v. 1 sq. and compare 1 Cor. vii. 18. 8 Cf. Rom. i. 16, iii. 1, xi. 14, and especially 1 Cor. ix. 20. THE WORK OF PAUL 233 with Jews, it is conceivable that he might have taken the unusual step. But it is not to be denied that there are certain peculiar difficulties in this particular case which cannot be met by the mere general considerations that have been urged. The visit to Derbe and Lystra, recorded in Acts xvi. 1 sq., took place not long after the conference at Jerusalem and the controversy at Antioch, when Paul must have been peculiarly sensitive upon the subject of circumcision and the observance of the Jewish law, and when he must have been unusually careful to avoid everything that might be interpreted by his enemies as a stultification of the prin- ciples for which he had so recently done battle. There is no time in his life when we should suppose him less likely to circumcise one of his converts. Moreover, Timothy was a Galatian, a member of one of the churches addressed in that very epistle in which Paul deprecates circumcision in the strongest terms. If he had circumcised Timothy before he wrote his epistle, why is there no hint of the fact in such a passage as Gal. v. 1 sq. ? Why is there no refer- ence there to the exceptional character of Timothy's case which must have been in the thoughts of many of his readers? Could he have spoken in such positive and sweeping terms with the memory of that case fresh in his mind ? Could he have done it even if Timothy had not been a Galatian ? On the other hand, if the epistle was written, as main- tained above, before the journey recorded in Acts xv. 40 sq., it is scarcely less difficult to understand the occurrence in question. It might be said indeed that having conquered his adversaries and won the renewed confidence and alle- giance of the Galatians, he could venture now without fear of misinterpretation to perform an act which at any other time would have been misunderstood. And yet what elaborate explanations and apologies he would have been obliged to make in order that his act might not plunge the weak brethren again into difficulties and open the door for a new influx of Judaizing zeal ! And what was the great end that should justify such a risk? That he did not 234 THE APOSTOLIC AGE consider it necessary for all his companions and helpers to be circumcised, is clear from the case of Titus, who was one of his most efficient and valued assistants, and did ex- cellent service in connection with the Corinthian church. 1 Evidently Timothy might have accomplished much, even though uncircumcised, and his companionship would have brought no more reproach upon Paul than the companion- ship of Titus. While if Paul felt the need of a Jewish helper, he already had one in the person of Silas. In the light of all that has been said it must be recognized that grave difficulties beset the account in Acts xvi. 3, and its immediate juxtaposition to the statement that Paul and Silas delivered the decree, which had been adopted at Jerusalem, to the churches which they visited 2 does not enhance its trustworthiness. And yet the report cannot be regarded as an invention. It is altogether probable that Timothy, though the son of a Greek father, was actu- ally circumcised, and that too under circumstances which excited remark and caused the fact to be remembered. May it be that he was one of Paul's Galatian converts who had received circumcision at the instance of the Judaizers ? And may it be that when Paul arrived in Galatia, he found him so regretful for what had taken place, and so earnest and zealous in his support of the true Gospel, that he chose him as a companion, with the declaration " circumci- sion is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing ; but a new creature " ? It would have been easy in that case for the tradition to grow up that the Gentile Timothy, Paul's convert and dearest fellow-worker, had received circumci- sion at Paul's own hands, and the fact that his mother was a Jewess might naturally seem to supply the explanation. 6. THE EVANGELIZATION OF MACEDONIA After leaving Lystra, the home of Timothy, Paul and his companions travelled westward through the province of Galatia, visiting doubtless both Iconium and Antioch and possibly other places not known to us. It is to this i Cf . 2 Cor. ii. 13, vii. 6, 13 sq., viii. 6, 16, etc. 2 Acts xvi. 4. THE WORK OF PAUL 235 journey through the southern part of the Galatian prov- ince, or Phrygia-Galatica, that Luke refers in Acts xvi. 6, and not to a trip through North Galatia. Ramsay has shown that the phrase which Luke employs 1 correctly describes that part of the Galatian province in which Antioch and Iconium were situated, and there is no ground whatever for inserting at this point a visit to North Galatia, which would have taken the travellers entirely out of their way, and a satisfactory motive for which it is impossible to discover. Paul had apparently intended to hasten on westward in the direction of Ephesus, after a brief stay in Galatia, but for some reason he was " forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia," 2 and consequently turned northward toward Bithynia until he came opposite Mysia, when, finding himself again stopped, he made his way westward through Mysia, without preaching any- where until he arrived at Troas on the ^Egean Sea. 3 He had thus come all the way from Pisidian Antioch to Troas, apparently without stopping to do any evangelistic work. He seems to have been looking all the time for an open field. He felt the whole heathen world calling him, but he did not know where to begin. Twice his designs had been frustrated, and he had finally found himself, when at the frontier of Bithynia, forced either to turn back or to go on westward. He had chosen the latter course, and was now on the shore of the Mediterranean, still without a field. All Europe lay before him, but Asia lay behind still unevangelized. Should he go forward, or should he turn 1 TTJV Qpvyiav Kal Ta\ariK7]v x^P^- See Ramsay: Church in the Roman Empire, p. 74 sq. 2 Ramsay (St. Paul, the Traveller and Roman Citizen, p. 194 sq.) is very likely right in following the inferior manuscripts in Acts xvi. 6, and reading with the textus receptus die\66vTes instead of 8iT)\0ov. But he has shown, (p. 211) that even if 8irj\9ov be read, as in the great manuscripts and the Revised Version, the sentence can be interpreted in practically the same way, making the prohibition against preaching in Asia follow and not precede the work in Galatia. See also Gifford in the Expositor, Vol. X., 1894, p. 16 sq. 3 Trape\96vTs in Acts Xvi. 8 must be understood, not in the sense of passing alongside of Mysia, but of passing through it without preaching, that is, " neglecting " it, for Troas could be reached by Paul only through Mysia (cf. Ramsay: St. Paul, p. 196 sq.). Blass (in his Acta Apostolorum) reads 8ie\66vTs, on the authority of the Bezan text, but the other reading is to be preferred. 236 THE APOSTOLIC AGE back and make another experiment? Whatever his hope may have been of ultimately preaching the Gospel in Europe, he evidently had not intended to go thither until he had established Christianity in Western Asia. It might well seem to him a step of doubtful expediency, to leave the better-known lands and peoples and plunge into new and unfamiliar scenes. It was while he was debating the question, uncertain what course to pursue, that he had the dream which Luke reports in Acts xvi. 9. " There was a man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him, and saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us." He regarded the dream as an indication of God's will that he should take the decisive step ; that he should leave Asia behind and press on to a new continent. The way in which the author represents Paul as led and guided by the Spirit throughout this entire journey from Galatia to Troas, and over into Macedonia, is very significant ; and it is undoubt- edly true to Paul's own experience. As he looked back upon these days of uncertainty and indecision, when obsta- cles hemmed him in on this side and on that in unaccount- able ways, and prevented him from carrying out one plan after another, it is not surprising that he saw God's provi- dence directing his every step and leading him on to the larger work across the seas. It is just at this juncture, when Paul, in obedience to the summons he had received, set sail from Troas for Mace- donia, that there begins, without warning or introduction, the first of those passages containing the pronoun "we," which are scattered through the second half of the Book of Acts. There are four of the passages, all of them con- taining accounts of journeys: the first, Acts xvi. 10-17, describing the journey from Troas to Philippi, with some events that occurred in the latter city; the second, Acts xx. 5-16, the journey from Philippi to Miletus, which took place some years later ; the third, if it be separated from the second, 1 Acts xxi. 1-18, the continuation of the same journey from Miletus to Jerusalem ; the fourth, Acts xxvii. 1-xxviii. 16, the sea voyage from Csesarea to Rome. These 1 But see below, p. 338. THE WORK OF PAUL 237 passages begin and end abruptly in every case, arid are dis- tinguished from other parts of the book by conciseness of style, vividness of description, and wealth of detail. They are evidently notes of travel written by one of Paul's own companions, who was a participant in the events which he records. Coming directly as they do from the pen of an eyewitness, they possess a unique value and are univer- sally recognized as exceptionally trustworthy. But they present to the student of the Book of Acts a problem of great difficulty. That the author of the book made extensive use of written sources in composing his work, as he did in composing the third Gospel, there can be no doubt ; but the question is, are the " we " passages to be regarded as a part of his sources or are we to suppose that in them the author of the book is himself the narrator ? In the latter case the Book of Acts and the third Gospel are from the pen of one of Paul's companions. This is the traditional opinion, and is still maintained by many scholars. 1 But the supposition is beset with serious diffi- culties ; for the knowledge of events displayed by the au- thor is less accurate and complete than might be expected in one who had been personally associated for any length of time with Paul himself. It is true that such a man might easily be ill informed concerning the history of the church of Jerusalem and might be ignorant of much of Paul's early life, if he did not conceive the plan of writing his work until after the apostle's death, when adequate sources of information were largely closed to him. But his work betrays a similar lack of knowledge even con- cerning the latter part of Paul's career, during which the author of the " we " passages must have been intimately associated with him, at least a part of the time ; and certain critical periods in Paul's life are treated as we should hardly expect them to be by one of his own companions. 2 1 Of. especially Weiss: Einleitung in das Neue Testament, S. 583 sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. II. p. 347). Among the most recent writers, Blass (Acta Aposto- lorum) and Ramsay (St. Paul, the Traveller and Roman Citizen) maintain the identity of the writer of the " we " passages and the author of the Acts. 2 Compare, for instance, the idea, which finds frequent expression, that Paul went to Jerusalem immediately after his conversion and did missionary 238 THE APOSTOLIC AGE It seems necessary, therefore, to conclude that the author of the Acts was not identical with the eyewitness who ap- pears in certain parts of his book. If the " we " passages then are to be ascribed to another hand, the question natu- rally suggests itself, did they constitute originally parts of a larger work ? and if so, did the author of the Book of Acts make use of other portions of that work? This double question has been answered in the affirmative by many scholars in recent years. In fact, there seems to be a growing unanimity upon the subject, and not a few have thought they could trace the document which contained the " we " passages through the greater part of Acts. 1 That an extended and generally trustworthy source, beginning with the thirteenth chapter and containing an account of Paul's missionary labors, underlies the second half of the book, 2 can hardly be doubted in the light of recent investigations ; and it is of course natural to regard the " we " paragraphs as a part of that source, and the whole consequently as the work of a companion of Paul. In favor of this assumption may be urged not only the use of the first personal pronoun, work there (ix. 26 sq., xxii. 17 sq., xxvi. 20) ; the account of the council at Jerusalem including the decree (xv.) ; the report concerning Timothy's cir- cumcision (xvi. 3) ; the lack of all reference to the great collection, which engaged so much of Paul's attention during the latter part of his missionary career ; the silence touching Paul's dealings with the Corinthian church during his stay in Ephesus, and the omission of the name of Titus, who was so. prom- inent a figure at that time in Corinth as well as earlier in Jerusalem ; the emphasis upon that part of Paul's work which was of least importance in so many of the cities which he visited; as, e.g., in the cities of Galatia, in Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, etc. Upon his failure to understand Paul's theology, little stress, perhaps, can be laid, for so few of Paul's followers comprehended him fully ; and yet we should hardly expect one so intimately acquainted with him as the writer of the "we " passages, to be so unfamiliar with his Gospel as the author of the Acts seems to have been. 1 So, for instance, Spitta (Die Apostelgeschichte, 1891) and Jiingst (Qnellcn der Apostelgeschichte , 1895). Wendt (in Meyer's Commentary on Acts, 7th edition) traces the source through the latter half of Acts, beginning with xi. 19. He also emphasizes the fact (Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1892) that the pronoun "we" occurs in xi. 28, according to Codex D. According to Clemen (Chronologic der Paulinischen Briefe, S. 110 sq.) and Hilgenfeld (Zcit- schrift fiir wiss. Theoloyie, 1895 sq.), the source begins with chap. xiii. Weizsiicker (I.e. S. 204 sq. ; Eng. Trans., Vol. I. p. 242 sq.) and more recently Sorof (Entstehung der Apostelgeschichte, S. 14) deny that the "we" pas- sages constitute a part of the larger source or sources used by the author -a source which Sorof traces through the entire book. ' And possibly also a part of chap. xi. THE WORK OF PAT7L 239 but also and especially the general uniformity of style be- tween the " we " sections and other portions of the book. 1 At the same time, the fact must be recognized that the pas- sages in question may have been originally entirely inde- pendent of the context in which they now occur, and that the author of the Acts combined them with the general source from which he drew his outline of Paul's career. That that source was one only, and that they constituted originally a part of it, cannot be asserted with the same assurance with which we assume the fact of its existence. 2 From Troas Paul and his companions, among whom were Silas, Timothy, 3 and the unknown author of the "we" passages, took ship for Neapolis and thence made their way, apparently without delay, to the important city of Philippi, which lay some eight miles inland. It was in the neighborhood of Philippi, in the year 42 B.C., that Octa- vius and Antony won their great and decisive victory over Brutus and Cassius, and in honor of that event the city had been made a Roman colony. Its citizens were Roman citizens, and its laws were Roman laws. The city was in fact, so far as language, government, and customs went, a miniature Rome. In this thoroughly Romanized town Paul's missionary labors in Europe began. There seem to have been few Jews in the place, for they had appar- ently no synagogue, and were accustomed to meet for 1 See especially Spitta, I.e. S. 235 sq., 257 sq. 2 Nowhere else is the source which the author of the Acts used marked by anything like the vividness, preciseness, and fulness of detail that charac- terize the "we" sections. If they formed part of a larger whole, the re- mainder of the document from which they were taken must have been very* meagre, as is clear when the evident additions of the author of the Acts are eliminated. That a companion of Paul writing an account of his missionary career should relate with such minuteness three episodes in his life, simply because he happened to be an eyewitness of them, and should content himself with such brief references to the rest of his career, is not altogether what we should expect. Were it not for the identity of diction between the "we" passages and other parts of the book, and the lack of any sign of a break between the former and their immediate context, it would be easiest to sup- pose that the author of the Acts, coming into possession of fragments of a journal dealing with periods covered in the general source, which he was using, substituted their fuller and more explicit account for the briefer record contained in the latter. Upon the composition of the Book of Actg, see also p. 433, below. 8 Phil. i. 1, ii. 19 sq. 240 THE APOSTOLIC AGE prayer by the river bank without the walls. 1 In the cities of Galatia Paul had begun his work in the synagogues, and following the same principle, he sought the Jews' place of worship on the Sabbath, and told his message to those that came thither. The author speaks only of women, as if no men were present, and among them he singles out as worthy of special mention a proselyte Lydia, who was apparently a woman of some wealth and conse- quence 2 and who after her conversion entertained Paul and his companions in her own house. No other converts are mentioned in Acts except the jailor and his household. But " the brethren " are referred to in xvi. 40 as if there were already many of them, and in his Epistle to the Philippians Paul alludes to two women, Euodia and Syn- tyche, 3 and three men, Epaphroditus, 4 Synzygus, and Clem- ent, 5 while in the opening of the epistle he addresses not only the Philippian disciples in general, but also the bishops and deacons, showing that the church must have had a considerable membership at the time he wrote. 6 Of Paul's work in Philippi the author of the Acts tells us very little. The greater part of his account is devoted to Paul's arrest and imprisonment, which took place as the result of a miracle performed by him upon a maid " pos- sessed with a spirit of divination." 7 The maid thus de- scribed was probably a ventriloquist, and as ventriloquism was commonly believed among the ancients to be due to supernatural influence, and to imply the possession of superhuman insight, it was natural that she should acquire the reputation common enough in those days of being a prophetess, a reputation which her masters were not slow 1 Acts xvi. 13. The text underlying the Authorized Version is doubtless to be preferred at this point to the text reproduced in the Revised Version ; " where they were wont to meet for prayer," instead of " where we supposed there was a place of prayer." See Blass, in loc. 2 Acts xvi. 15. p h ii. i v . 2. 4 p h ii. ii. 25, iv. 18. Phil. iv. 3. 6 It is interesting to notice that not only in Philippi but also in Thessalonica and Beroaa, Paul's success among the women is especially referred to by Luke. That their influence was felt at least in the church of Philippi is clear from Paul's statement in Phil. iv. 3, that Euodia and Syntyche had labored with him in the Gospel. On the position of women in Macedonia, see Lightfoot's Commentary on Philippians, p. 55 sq. ' Acts xvi. 16. THE WORK OF PAUL 241 to turn to their own account. The maid, we are told, fol- lowed Paul and his companions for some days, and testi- fied publicly to their divine mission. What led her to do so, and why her testimony so annoyed Paul, we do not know ; but as Christ frequently did under similar circum- stances, he finally turned upon her and commanded the spirit to come out of her. Paul testifies to his own belief in the reality of demons in 1 Cor. x. 20, and to his exercise of miraculous powers in 2 Cor. xii. 12, so that there is nothing in the account to betray the hand of a later writer. The occurrence was doubtless related by the eyewitness who wrote the document which Luke quotes in vs. 10 sq. 1 The first personal pronoun is not used after vs. 17, and how much of that which follows comes from the " we " source, is uncertain. But there is no reason, at any rate, to question the fact of the arrest and imprisonment ; for Paul himself refers not only in Philippians, 2 but also in 1 Thessalonians, 3 to the persecution and ill treatment which he had endured while in Philippi, 4 and the latter passage implies that he had been obliged to leave the city in consequence of his troubles there. Nor is there any reason to doubt the connection of the arrest of Paul and Silas 5 with the occurrence related in vs. 18; for though Paul's act hardly constituted a basis for the insti- tution of legal proceedings against him, it could not but arouse the enmity of the girl's masters, and it was easy for them, by accusing these travelling Jews of teach- ing strange and unlawful customs, to play upon the preju- 1 For a plausible explanation of the event, see Ramsay : St. Paul, the Trav- eller and Roman Citizen, p. 216. 2 Phil. i. 30. 3 1 Thess. ii. 2. 4 He says nothing, however, of the remarkable deliverance recorded in Acts. 5 The Book of Acts mentions the arrest of only Paul and Silas, and says nothing of Timothy and the other companion of Paul. It may be that only Paul and Silas were arrested because they were the leaders or because they alone were Jews. At any rate, we cannot argue from the omission of Timothy's name in the account of Paul's work both in Philippi and in Thessalonica that he was not with Paul in either city ; for Phil. i. 1, ii. 19, 1 Thess. i. 1, iii. 1 sq., and 2 Thess. i. 1 clearly imply that he assisted in the establishment of Chris- tianity in both places. On the other hand, the unnamed author of the " we " source evidently did not accompany Paul to Thessalonica, and it is to be doubted whether he was with him during his whole stay in Philippi. B 242 THE APOSTOLIC AGE dices, not only of the populace who instinctively hated Jews and were ready to believe any evil of them, but also of the magistrates who were jealous of the honor of their city as a Roman colony. The charge brought against Paul lacked definiteness, to be sure, and would hardly have borne investigation, but the magistrates seem to have taken the guilt of the accused men for granted, and to have beaten and imprisoned them without a trial. 1 It was doubtless the realization of the illegality and unbecoming haste of their action, that led them to release the prisoners on the following day without further examining their case. Why Paul and Silas 2 did not announce the fact that they were Roman citizens as soon as they were brought before the magistrates instead of waiting until the next day, we are not told. The law of the state guaranteed to Roman citizens immunity from scourging, and on another occa- sion Paul is reported to have saved himself from the in- dignity by claiming his legal rights. 3 It seems strange that he did not do the same thing in Philippi. But that for some reason he did not always choose to assert the pre- rogative of a Roman citizen, or that the assertion did not always avail, is proved by 2 Cor. xi. 25, where he informs his readers that he had been thrice beaten with rods. How long Paul remained in Philippi, we do not know. The account in Acts would lead us to suppose that he was there but a short time ; but it is certain that he remained long enough to gather quite a number of converts, and to lay the foundation of a strong church which he always re- garded with peculiar affection, and whose faithfulness and unwavering loyalty to him was a source of perpetual joy and gratitude. 4 From the Philippians Paul consented, contrary to his usual custom, to receive financial aid on more than one occasion. 5 They contributed to his needs while he was in Thessalonica, 6 and again in Corinth, 7 and when he was a prisoner in Rome some years later, they did the same thing. 8 Indeed Paul's epistle to them seems to 1 Acts xvi. 37. 2 They were both Romans according to Acts xvi. 37. Acts xxii. 26. Phil. iv. 15. 7 2 Cor. xi. 9. < Phil. i.3sq.,ii. 12, iv. 1. 6 P hil. i v . 16. Phil. iv. 10, 18. THE WORK OF PAUL 243 have been written chiefly for the purpose of thanking them for their kindness in this respect. 1 There is none of his epistles so filled with expressions of joy, and none that betrays such confidence and satisfaction, as his letter to his best-beloved church written from Rome some ten years after its foundation. 2 There is no hint that Paul felt the hostility of Jews or Jewish Christians while he was in Philippi. The trouble which he had there was brought upon him by heathen, and the Jews seem to have had nothing whatever to do with it. It is true that the persecutions which the Christians of Philippi were called upon to endure after his depart- ure 3 were apparently due to Jewish as well as heathen prejudice, but there is no sign that the church ever suf- fered from the machinations of Judaizers. The disagree- ments and divisions which Paul deprecates in his epistle to them were seemingly the result of personal and not doctrinal differences. A spirit of jealousy and rivalry had made its way into the church, 4 and was causing trouble, es- pecially between two women who had labored with Paul " in the gospel," and whom he held in high esteem. 6 The difficulty was evidently not of a very serious character, for it did not prevent him from expressing his great joy and confidence in the church to which he was writing ; but at the same time it was serious enough to draw from him ear- nest words of warning and of exhortation. The immunity from Judaistic attacks which the Philippian church en- joyed may have been due to the fact that there were com- paratively few Jews in Philippi, and that their credit and influence were small. 6 But inasmuch as in Thessalonica, where the Jews were certainly more numerous, there seems to have been a like immunity, this reason can hardly be regarded as sufficient. It is more probable that after his experience in Galatia, Paul was on his guard, and that he 1 Phil. ii. 25, iv. 19. 2 Upon the epistle itself see below, p. 385 sq. 3 Phil. i. 28-30. * Phil. ii. 2 sq. 5 Phil. iv. 2 sq. 6 There is no passage in Paul's epistle which proves that the Christians whom he addressed were exclusively Gentiles ; but it is altogether probable that the great majority of them were, and that the Jewish contingency within the church was of insignificant size and influence. 244 THE APOSTOLIC AGE forewarned both the Philippians and Thessalonians against Judaizers. The effect produced by his Epistle to the Gala- tians shows that all that was needed in order to forestall such Judaizers was to show that he had himself been called by God to evangelize the Gentiles, and that even the apos- tles at Jerusalem had recognized his right to preach the Gospel which he had received from God, and not from man. 1 It was not by Judaistic, but by antinomian ten- dencies, that Paul was chiefly troubled in the Philippian church. 2 Such antinomianism was very natural in con- verts from heathendom, and he had to combat it in more than one epistle. From Philippi, Paul and his companions travelled south- ward through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, the capital, and at the same time the largest and most im- portant city of Macedonia. It was characteristic of Paul that when compelled to leave Philippi, he did not go into retirement or seek some less prominent and important field of labor, but immediately betook himself to the chief city of the province. In Thessalonica, a great commercial me- tropolis, the Jews were naturally more numerous than in Philippi, and they had a synagogue, which Paul, according to the Acts, visited on three successive Sabbaths, and where he proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. 3 The summary of his preaching, given in Acts xvii. 2, 3, is based apparently not upon direct knowledge of what Paul actually said in Thes- salonica, but upon the author's inference as to what he must have said in addressing Jews. The discourse recorded in Acts xiii. made it unnecessary to do more here than to state the subject of his preaching, which the author assumed, of course, to have been the same as on all similar occasions. In addressing a Jewish audience, a Christian preacher must always prove that Jesus was the Messiah, 4 and this could best be done by showing that, according to Scripture proph- ecy, the Messiah must suffer and die and rise again, just as Jesus had suffered and died and risen. 1 There is no reference to Judaizers in either of the epistles to the Thessa- lonians, and the doctrine of liberty from the Jewish law is not mentioned. 2 Cf. Phil. iii. 19. Acts xvii. 3, 4 Cf. Acts ii., iii. 12 sq., ix. 22, xiii. 1G sq., etc. THE WORK OF PAUL 245 According to the Acts, 1 Paul secured some converts from the Jews, but more from the ranks of the pious Greeks, or proselytes, and in addition many prominent women. The implication is that the conversion of all of them was due to Paul's preaching in the synagogue, and nothing is said of his labors among the heathen, or of his preaching to them. And yet we learn from his own epistles that the Thessa- lonian church was composed very largely, if not wholly, of Gentiles, 2 and the substance of his preaching to them is indicated in 1 Thess. i. 9, 10, where nothing is said about the Messiahship of Jesus, but where the emphasis is laid upon monotheism, upon the resurrection and second com- ing of Jesus the Son of God, and upon the approaching judgment from which he delivers his disciples. Evidently the author of the Acts has recorded the least important part of Paul's labors in Thessalonica. If he began in the synagogue, he certainly did not do his chief work there, but among the heathen outside ; and it was therefore not the Messiahship of Jesus that he chiefly preached, a sub- ject which could have little interest to the Gentiles, but salvation from the wrath of God through his Son. 3 The success with which Paul met in Thessalonica aroused the hostility of the Jews, just as it had some years before in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, and they succeeded in setting the city in an uproar, which resulted in the arrest, not of Paul and his companions, whom they could not find, but of their host, Jason, and some of the new converts. The accusation brought against Jason and the other brethren was not religious, but political. As in Philippi the mis- sionaries had been accused of teaching customs which it was not lawful for Romans to observe, so here they were accused of turning the empire 4 upside down. But a worse offence was charged upon them in this case ; nothing less, in fact, than treason, in that they preached another king instead of Caesar. 5 The accusation had reference prima- rily, of course, to Paul and his companions, who were the 1 Acts xvii. 4. 2 i Thess. i. 9, ii. 14. 1 Thess. i. 10. 4 ij oiKov/j.tvrj has reference here evidently not to the world in general, but specifically to the Roman world. 5 Cf. the accusation brought against Jesus, Luke xxiii. 2, John xix. 12, 15. 246 THE APOSTOLIC AGE originators of the trouble ; but Jason and the other brethren were charged with participation in their guilt, in that they had attached themselves to them, and were engaged with them in plotting a revolution. The magistrates, after examining the prisoners, evidently found that they were not as dangerous characters as they had been represented, and that there was little fear that they would bring about a revolution ; for after they had laid bonds upon them to keep the peace, they released them without inflicting any punishment. It is interesting to notice that whereas in Philippi the attack upon Paul and his companions had been made at the instance of heathen, in Thessalonica, as in so many other cities, the Jews were the instigators. The accuracy of Luke's account at this point has been widely questioned, especially in view of the fact that Paul in his epistle refers to the afflictions which his readers had suffered at the hands of their own countrymen, 1 and says nothing about an attack of the Jews of Thessalonica either upon them or upon himself. At the same time, there seems to be a hint in 1 Thess. ii. 16 that not only in many other places, but in Thessalonica also, the Jews had given evidence of their hostility to the work of Paul, and it is quite possible that he had in mind, when he wrote the words, the particular circumstance recorded by Luke. Moreover, it should be observed that the par- ticular form which the accusation took, according to Acts xvii. 7, a passage whose trustworthiness can hardly be doubted, suggests that it emanated from the Jews ; for it was not Jesus as a king that Paul preached, but Jesus as a Saviour, and it could have occurred to no one but a Jew, who thought of the Messiah always as a king, to accuse Paul of proclaiming another sovereign instead of Caesar. Luke's account of Paul's work in Thessalonica is very meagre. Had we no other source, we might suppose that he remained there only three weeks and that he preached the Gospel only in the synagogue. We should hardly gather from the record in Acts that his labors in Thessa- lonica were uncommonly effective, especially among the 1 1 Thess. ii. 14. THE WORK OF PAUL 247 Gentile population of the city, and that he founded a church there which was peculiarly important and influen- tial. 1 But that this was the fact, we learn from Paul's two epistles to the Thessalonians, which were written from Corinth only a few months after he left them, and which make it evident that he must have spent some time in the city. In 1 Thess. i. 7 sq., and 2. Thess. i. 4, Paul declares that the Christians of Thessalonica had become an ensample to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia, and that their reputation had spread even beyond the con- fines of those two provinces. They had distinguished themselves especially by their liberality and generosity toward all the brethren of Macedonia. 2 In fact, Paul speaks of them in both his epistles in terms of the highest com- mendation and warmest affection. 3 His relations with them were perhaps not quite so close and intimate as with the Philippians; for his epistles to them lack something of the peculiar tenderness which makes his Philippian letter so beautiful, and yet they were evidently very dear to him, and their love and faithfulness and patience gave him great joy. That he did not consent to receive aid from them, as from the Philippians, was not due to any lack of regard for them, but only to the fear that he might set them a bad example ; 4 for it seems that in their absorp- tion in the approaching return of Christ, many of them were losing their interest in the world about them and were neglecting their daily work and becoming indolent and disorderly. 5 Why circumstances should have been so peculiar in Thessalonica, and why a tendency should have appeared there of which we discover no trace in Philippi, we do not know. It is possible that the unusual prevalence of vice and impurity, which may well have marked a great 1 Ramsay's emendation of the text (St. Paul, the Traveller and Roman Citizen, p. 226 sq.) by which Luke is made to refer not only to Jews and proselytes, but also to Greeks (iroXXoi rdv ffepontvwv nai 'EXX^wi/ TrX^^os TroXtf), brings Luke into better accord with Paul, but can hardly be justified on sound principles of criticism. 2 1 Thess. iv. 10. 3 1 Thess. i. 2 sq., ii. 13, 19, iii. 6 sq., v. 11 ; 2 Thess. i. 3, ii. 13, iii. *. 4 2 Thess. iii. 9. 5 1 Thess. iv. 11, 12 ; 2 Thess. iii. 6 sq. 248 THE APOSTOLIC AGE commercial metropolis like Thessalonica, 1 caused Paul to lay special stress upon the impending judgment and to make it so prominent as to overshadow every other truth, with the consequence of leading his converts to live in daily and hourly expectation of it. It is certain at any rate, whatever the cause, that Paul did say a great deal upon the subject when he was with them, and that their minds dwelt constantly upon it after he was gone. 2 From Paul's first epistle to them we learn that the Thessalonians had asked him a question, after he had left them, touching the fate of the brethren that died before the return of Christ. 3 Evidently they had originally be- lieved that Christ would come so soon that they would all be alive to greet him, and to enter the kingdom which he was to establish. But as time went on, some of their number passed away and yet Christ tarried. Were they then to be deprived of the privilege of receiving the Lord when he should come and sharing with him in his joy and glory? This question Paul answers in 1 Thess. iv. 13 sq., telling his readers that those who have fallen asleep in Jesus will rise again at his coming and be forever with him, so that those who remain alive until that time will have no advantage over their brethren that have fallen asleep. That Paul found it necessary to instruct the Thessalonians upon the subject of the resurrection, and even to bring proof in support of it, 4 is a very significant fact. It is evident in the light of this passage, read in connection with 1 Cor. xv. 12 sq., that the resurrection of believers at the return of Christ was not regarded by him as one of the primary truths of his Gospel, but that it occupied a subordinate place both in his thought and in his teaching. That the death of the individual soul with Christ unto the flesh and his resurrection with him to the new life in the Spirit, was fundamental in his thinking, and that he always emphasized it as the very heart of his 1 Cf. 1 Thess. iv. 3 sq. 2 Cf. 1 Thess. i. 10, iii. 13, iv. 6, 13 sq., v. 2 sq. ; 2 Thess. ii. 1 sq. 8 1 Thess. iv. 13. 4 1 Thess. iv. 14. THE WORK OF PAUL 249 Gospel, there can be no doubt ; l but the final resur- rection of the believer in a new spiritual body was of minor importance and was apparently discussed by him as a rule only in response to the questions of his con- verts. 2 Though Paul evidently remained quite a while in Thes- salonica, it is clear from 1 Thess. ii. IT that he was com- pelled to leave the city before he wished to, and under circumstances which made him fear for the permanence of his work and for the steadfastness of his new converts. A persecution had apparently broken out which made it necessary for him to depart in haste, and which after his departure fell heavily upon the Christians whom he left behind. It may be that his flight was misinterpreted by some of the brethren as an act of cowardice on his part, and that it was made a ground of complaint against him. At any rate, he felt it necessary later to defend himself against the accusation of being a covetous, ambitious, and selfish man, who preached the Gospel not in sincerity, but in guile and hypocrisy, and with an eye not to the advan- tage of the Thessalonians, but to his own glory and gain. 3 If the persecution was begun at the instance of the Jews, 4 it was at any rate carried on by the Gentiles, 5 and its severity was so great that Paul feared that the Thessa- lonian disciples might lose their courage and renounce their faith. It was this fear that led him to desire so earnestly, and more than once, to return to Thessalonica and see his converts face to face. 6 Finding it for some reason impossible to do so, perhaps because his friends had given bonds for his continued absence, he sent Timothy from Athens to establish and comfort them and to bring 1 That Paul had taught this great central truth in Thessalonica as well as elsewhere is suggested by 1 Thess. v. 10 (cf. also i. 10). 2 So both in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians. The passage upon the resurrection in 1 Thessalonians can therefore hardly be urged as a proof that Paul was compelled to leave Thessalonica before he had completed the instruc- tion which he was in the habit of imparting to his new converts. There is no reason to suppose that the subject of the final resurrection of believers would have been discussed more fully by him had he remained longer. 3 1 Thess. ii. 1-12. 5 i Thess. ii. 14. 4 As reported in Acts xvii. 5 sq. 6 1 Thess. ii. 17, 250 THE APOSTOLIC AGE him news concerning their state. 1 Timothy upon his return gave Paul a most cheering report of their patience and faithfulness, and of their love for him. 2 At the same time he informed him of the existence of certain evils within the church. The prevalent heathen vices of impurity and lust, 3 against which Paul had preached while he was in Thessalonica, were all too rife among them, and the un- healthful tendency to neglect their accustomed avocations under the influence of their belief in the speedy return of Christ was abroad and was causing unfavorable com- ment among those without the church. 4 It would seem also that the Thessalonian Christians were not entirely free from quarrels and divisions, and that" there was a tendency on the part of some to treat the leaders of the church with disrespect and to disregard their counsels, 5 a tendency which was entirely natural where enthusiasm and fanaticism had such play. On the other hand, in opposition to the uncontrolled enthusiasm and fanaticism of some of the disciples, there were others who were in- clined to look with disfavor upon all manifestations of the Spirit, and to "despise prophesyings." 6 Timothy also informed Paul without doubt of the accusations against him, which were upon the lips of some of the disciples, and repeated the question asked by the Thessalonians touching the resurrection of the dead. In view of all these circumstances Paul felt impelled to write them his first epistle. 7 In it he gives expression to his continued joy and confidence in them, exhorts them to increased fidelity, admonishes them to eschew the vices and to avoid the evil tendencies which were abroad among them, defends himself and his own conduct at considerable length, and answers their inquiry concerning the resurrec- tion in the way already described. The epistle seems to have accomplished its purpose at least in part; for we hear nothing more of attacks upon him or of criticisms of his motives, nor do the Thessalonians seem to have needed any farther instruction concerning the resurrection of the 1 1 Thess. iii. 1 sq. 1 Thess. iv. 4, 5. 1 Thess. v. 12-14. i i Thess. iii. 6 2 1 Thess. iii. 6 sq. * 1 Thess. iv. 11, 12. 6 i Thess. v. 20. THE WORK OF PAUL 251 dead. But in one respect the epistle failed to produce the effect intended. Some of the disciples still neglected their ordinary avocations in their expectation of the immediate return of the Lord. Paul therefore wrote them a second epistle, designed to put a stop to such unhealthy fanati- cism. After commending them for their patience and faithfulness, and encouraging and exhorting them as he had in his first epistle, he plunged in chapter two into the main subject. He had thought when he wrote before that an exhortation to live soberly and to perform their daily duties with faithfulness and diligence was all that was necessary in the premises, and he took for granted that the Thessalonians did not need instruction respecting the time and season of the consummation. 1 But he saw now that it was their belief, that the times were ripe and that Christ's return might be expected at any moment, that was unsettling the minds of so many of them, and he there- fore called attention in his second epistle to the fact that some time must yet elapse before the consummation could take place, and consequently it would not do to act as if it were already here. He had told them so, it seems, while he was with them, 2 and he therefore assumed that they were aware of it when he wrote his first epistle ; but it had evidently not made sufficient impression upon them and he found it necessary to repeat, doubtless in greater detail and with the addition of some new particulars, the sub- stance of what he had already said. Antichrist, he re- minds them, must appear before the Messiah himself can return, but Antichrist cannot appear until he that restrain- eth has been taken out of the way. Much ingenuity has been expended in the attempt to interpret this apocalypse and to discover the persons or events to which Paul refers in such mysterious terms, but the attempt is vain. The apocalypse is cast largely in Old Testament form, and it is probable that he had no concrete or definite person or appearance in mind when he referred to the " man of sin," but that he shared with the Jews in gen- eral the belief in the final outbreak of the powers opposed 1 1 Thess. v. 1. 2 2 Thess. ii. 5. 252 TtiE APOSTOLIC AGE to the Messiah under the lead of Antichrist. 1 And as that outbreak, though apparently already begun, 2 had evidently not yet reached its climax and no one corresponding to the traditional conception of Antichrist had yet appeared, he still looked forward to his advent. That Paul had in mind some definite historical person or power in speaking of that " which now restraineth," 3 is very probable, but we have no means of determining to whom or what he referred. That he may have meant the authority of the Roman state, the protection of whose laws was enjoyed by the Christians as well as by other men, 4 is possible but far from certain. But however the details of Paul's apoca- lypse may be interpreted, it is clear that though he be- lieved that the consummation was not far distant and apparently expected to live to witness it himself, 5 he was nevertheless convinced that an interval of greater or less duration must elapse before the end came, and it was this fact that he was especially concerned to emphasize in his second letter to the Thessalonians, for he saw that they especially needed to be reminded of it. Under ordinary circumstances there would have been more reason for him to emphasize the nearness of the parousia, and the duty of constant watchfulness in view of its approach, as he had done in his previous epistle. But the conditions in the Thessalonian church were peculiar, and those conditions account for the difference between his two letters, and for the fact that in the second of them he gives expression to views that appear nowhere else in his writings. The authenticity of 2 Thessalonians is widely doubted, in part because of this very fact, in part because of the striking similarity in other respects between it and the earlier epistle. But though it is beset with serious diffi- culties, its style is genuinely Pauline, and when read in the light of the conditions that existed among those to whom it was addressed, the grounds for asserting its Paul- ine authorship appear weightier than any that can be urged 1 See Schurer, I.e. II. p. 448 (Eng. Trans., Div. II. Vol. II. p. 164). 2 "The mystery of lawlessness doth already work " (2 Thess. ii. 7). 8 2 Thess. ii. 6, rb Ka.rt\ov, vs. 7, 6 Kartx^v. < Cf. Rom. xiii. 1 sq. * 1 Thess. iv. 11, THE WORK OF PAUL 253 against it. The differences have been already accounted for; the resemblances are sufficiently explained if it be assumed that the second epistle was written but a short time after the first, while the affairs both in Thessalonica and Corinth remained practically unchanged and while Paul, as well as the Thessalonians, were still enduring afflictions and trials. 1 It seems from 2 Thess. ii. 2, that those disciples of Thessalonica who were insisting that the parousia was at hand were appealing in defence of their view to a letter bearing Paul's name ; but as Paul was not conscious of having written anything to support their opinion, he leaped to the conclusion that they were making use of a forged epistle, and he was therefore careful to call attention at the close of 2 Thessalonians to his autograph signature, -which guaranteed the genuineness of all his letters. It is hardly probable that Paul's surmise was correct, for it is difficult to suppose that any one would have ventured to impose a forged epistle upon the Thessalonian church so soon after his departure ; and the fact is that the passage in 1 Thessalonians, where Paul emphasizes the duty of watchfulness, 2 might easily be interpreted in such a way as to furnish a confirmation of the belief in question, and it is very likely that good use was made of it. From Thessalonica, Paul and his companions travelled westward to Beroea, a smaller and less important city than Thessalonica, situated in the third of the four districts into which Macedonia was divided. Although in Acts xvii. 10, Paul and Silas alone are mentioned, we learn from vs. 14 that Timothy was also with them, and though nothing is said of his presence in Philippi and Thessa- lonica, various references in Paul's epistles indicate that 1 In defence of the genuineness of 2 Thessalonians, see the New Testament introductions of Weiss and Jiilicher, and especially Bornemann in Meyer's Commentary, 5th and 6th eds. The authenticity of 1 Thessalonians has also been doubted by many scholars, but is now generally recognized. 1 Thess. iv. 17, with its implication that Paul expected to live until the return of Christ, is alone enough to prove that the epistle cannot have been written after his death. But the truth is that the Pauline character of the epistle as a whole is abundantly evident. 2 1 Thess. v. 1-11. 254 THE APOSTOLIC AGE he was one of the party in both those cities as well. 1 Of Paul's work in Beroea we know only what is told us in Acts xvii. 10-14. According to that passage, he met with better success among the Jews than he had in Thessa- lonica, and secured many converts from the ranks both of Jews and Gentiles. The contrast drawn between the re- ceptivity of the Bercean and Thessalonian Jews implies the use of an older source and argues for the general trust- worthiness of the account. Some years later, when Paul went up to Jerusalem with the collection for the Mother Church, one of his Beroean converts accompanied him upon his journey. 2 His presence in the party testifies to the continued existence of the church of Beroea, and shows that it shared with Paul's other churches in contributing to the necessities of the saints of Jerusalem. Though Luke mentions Paul's work in only three Mace- donian cities, it is evident from 1 Thess. i. 7 sq. that Christianity was already widespread in the province at the time he wrote, and it may well be that he did consid- erable missionary work outside of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Beroea of which our sources tell us nothing. We learn from Rom. xv. 19 that he had preached the Gospel as far west as Illyricum before the year 53, and it is proba- ble that he did so at this time ; for when he passed through Macedonia again on his way to Corinth, 3 he was in so anxious a state of mind respecting the Corinthian church 4 that he could hardly have turned aside to undertake an extended evangelistic tour in a new country, and there is no other occasion so far as we know when he can have gone thither. At any rate, Paul evidently spent a long time in Macedonia and accomplished a large and important work there. His Macedonian labors were particularly suc- cessful, and the churches which he founded were not only peculiarly dear to him, but enjoyed remarkable exemption from the internal troubles which beset some of his other churches. They were subjected to persecutions, it is true, for many years, but their development was not impeded 1 See above, p. 241. 8 Acts xx. 1. 2 Acts xx. 4. * Cf. 2 Cor. vii. 5 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 255 by the influence of Judaizing tendencies and their conse- cration to Christ, their spirituality, their zeal for the ad- vancement of the Gospel, their love and their unselfish devotion to the brethren, were all very marked and caused Paul the profoundest joy and gratitude. Nowhere, in fact, does his preaching seem to have borne richer fruit than in Macedonia, and of none of his churches does he speak in terms of deeper satisfaction. 1 In no other part of Paul's missionary field do we get a clearer glimpse of the way in which he was accustomed to bring Christianity to the knowledge of the Gentiles, and to gather disciples from among them. He evidently did not go about through the cities of the province with a flourish of trumpets, summoning all the inhabitants to re- pentance and proclaiming from the housetops the kingdom of God ; but he sought to win converts by direct personal contact, forming acquaintances as opportunity offered, very likely first of all among those of his own trade, 2 laboring with them for his daily bread, 3 and telling them his message one by one until he had succeeded in gather- ing about himself a little circle which became the nucleus of a church. It was through this quiet hand-to-hand work that he doubtless accomplished most, and not through public preaching, whether in the synagogues or elsewhere. The fact that the author of the Acts always lays chief stress upon his public activity, has resulted in a wide mis- conception of the ordinary method of the Gospel's spread, and has led many to picture the beginnings of Christianity in the various cities of the empire in an altogether too official and artificial way. Christianity did not appear in the cities where Paul labored as a great public movement, involving religious and political consequences of civic or national proportions, but as a leaven working quietly for the conversion of one household after another, and bind- ing them all together in the bonds of a common faith and a common hope. In these Gentile churches of which we 1 Cf . not only Philippians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians, but also 2 Cor. viii. Isq. 2 Cf. Acts xviii. 2. 3 Cf. 1 Thess. ii. 9 ; 2 Thess. iii. 8. 256 THE APOSTOLIC AGE catch glimpses in Paul's epistles, we have a beautiful par- allel to the early Jewish church of Jerusalem : the same sense of belonging to a heavenly kingdom, the same sepa- rateness from the world, the same closeness of fellowship with each other, the same intimate family life, and the same unsparing generosity to those in need. Paul visited Macedonia on two subsequent occasions, in 52 A.D. on his way from Ephesus to Corinth, 1 and again a few months later on his way back from Corinth to Jerusa- lem. 2 No particulars of the latter visit have been pre- served, but the condition of the Macedonian Christians at the time of the former visit is referred to in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. It appears that they were still suffering persecution 3 and that Paul himself was suffering with them. 4 It appears, moreover, that they were very poor in this world's goods, 5 but that their generosity was great, and that they contributed voluntarily and even beyond their means to the collection which Paul was gathering for the church of Jerusalem. 6 They appointed a representative to travel with Paul and assist him in the matter of the collection, 7 and when he went up to Jerusa- lem to carry the contributions of the churches, there were at least three, or if the author of the " we " source was a Philippian, four Macedonians in his company. 8 Acts xix. 29 acquaints us with another Macedonian Christian, named Gaius, who was with Paul in Ephesus, and the Epistle to the Philippians, with a number of others. 9 7. THE EVANGELIZATION OF ACHAIA Being compelled to leave Beroea because of the trouble caused by hostile Jews from Thessalonica, Paul went 1 Acts xx. 1. s 2 Cor. viii. 1. 2 Cor. viii. 2. 1 2 Cor. viii. 18 sq. 2 Acts xx. 3. * 2 Cor. vii. 5. 6 2 Cor. viii. 3 sq., ix. 2. 8 Acts xx. 4. The three were Sopater, Aristarchus, and Secundus. Aris- tarchns was with Paul also in Ephesus (Acts xix. 29) and both he and the author of the " we " source accompanied him to Rome (Acts xxvii. 2 ; cf. also Col. iv. 10, and Philemon 24). 9 Epaphroditus, Clement, Synzygus, Euodia, and Syntyche. The Demas, who is mentioned in Col. iv. 14, 2 Tim. iv. 10, and Philemon 24 ; may also fcave been a Macedonian of Thessalonica (cf. 2 Tim. iv. 10). THE WORK OF PAUL 257 down to the coast, apparently undecided where to go next. 1 He must have had Achaia, as well as Macedonia, in mind when he crossed over into Europe, but he appar- ently did not regard his work in Macedonia as finished, and he did not wish to leave it. But the important centres seemed closed to him at the moment, and he therefore made up his mind to pass on to Achaia, the next province to the south, and begin work there. Making his way by sea to Athens, the first large city of the province, he sent back word to Silas and Timothy to join him at once. The account in Acts seems to imply that Paul left Athens before they reached the city, and went on to Corinth, where they finally overtook him. 2 But from 1 Thess. iii. 1 sq. we learn that Timothy was actually with Paul in Athens, and that Paul sent him thence to Thessa- lonica, whence he returned to the apostle after the latter had reached Corinth. The two accounts are not absolutely contradictory, for Luke, though he fails to mention Timo- thy's visit to Athens, does not expressly exclude it ; but it must at any rate be recognized that he could hardly have written as he did, had he known of Timothy's arrival in Athens, and of his journey to Thessalonica to which Paul refers. Nevertheless, though his account betrays a lack of familiarity with some of the events that occurred during this period, there are certain striking features in his report of Paul's stay in Athens which can be explained only on the supposition that he had in his hands an older document which he followed in the main quite closely. Though he states 3 that Paul preached in the synagogue to the Jews and pious Gentiles, he departs from his usual custom in laying the emphasis not upon his work among them, but upon his work among the heathen. And yet his account of that work is not drawn in such colors as one might suppose he would employ, if he invented the situation in order to provide an appropriate setting for a presentation of Paul's preaching to the heathen as he understood it. It is clear that he was keenly alive to the dramatic possibilities of the position in which the apostle i Acts xvii. 14, 2Actsxviii.5. 8 Acts xvii. 17. 258 THE APOSTOLIC AGE found himself placed, 1 and yet he refrained from making such use of them as a writer might have been expected to who was without any information as to the actual events of the stay in Athens, or who chose to disregard the in- formation which he had. The implication that in Athens, the ancestral home of Greek philosophy and the intellect- ual centre of the Hellenic world, Paul had no intention of preaching the Gospel, that he proposed to pass through the place without making any effort to bring Christianity to the knowledge of its inhabitants, and that his stay in the city and his proclamation of the Gospel there were due solely to the delay in the arrival of Silas and Timothy, can be explained only on the assumption that the author was following an earlier authority. That Paul should recognize the inaccessibility of the Athenians to such a message as he had to bring them, and should think it not worth while to undertake regular missionary -work among them, was entirely natural, but it is inconceivable that such a view of the matter should suggest itself to a later writer. Athens must seem to him just the place where Paul would be most eager to proclaim the truth of Christianity and to expose the sophistries of Greek thought. It may be remarked still farther, that the statement that he was finally led to break silence not by the false philosophy that he heard taught in the city, but by the idolatry that was practised all about him, must have emanated not from an idealizing historian of a later day, but from a writer who was well acquainted with the local conditions that prevailed at the time Paul visited Athens. Moreover, the curious piece of information that the heathen supposed that Paul was preaching two gods, Jesus and Resurrec- tion, 2 can hardly have been invented by Luke ; while his 1 Compare his references to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in vs. 18; to the Areopagus in vss. 19 and 22 ; and to the character of the Athenians in vs. 21. 2 Acts xvii. 18. A different interpretation has been put upon this passage by some commentators, but in view of the collocation of the two words (rbv 'lyarovv teal rrjv &vdto/xdx*7, regarding Apollos as a Jew who had no connection either with John or with Jesus. 9 Acts xviii. 28, THE WOKK OF PAUL 293 certainly not to be wondered at that where party spirit was naturally so strong and where the contrast between the preaching of Apollos and of Paul was so marked, there should be many in the Corinthian church who proclaimed loudly their preference for the former and declared him to be a greater man than Paul. This incipient Apollos-party may have had its strength largely among his own converts, who had never known Paul; but there was much in his teaching which would seem even to those who had learned the Gospel from Paul's lips more profound and philosophi- cal than anything the latter had to offer, and many of them must have been inclined to mingle their plaudits with those of the others, and to forget their own spiritual father. But the effort to magnify Apollos at the expense of Paul must of course arouse the animosity of others who were more loyal to the memory of the great apostle, and they in turn would loudly proclaim their devotion, and thus the har- mony and peace of the church would speedily be disturbed by rival factions. Apollos himself was evidently entirely innocent in the matter. He had no intention of stirring up party feeling when he went to Corinth, and of under- mining Paul's influence and reputation. It may be indeed that the trouble began only after he had left Corinth, or it is possible that he took his departure in consequence of it, not wishing to encourage his partisans in any way. At any rate, Paul bore him no grudge and held him in no way responsible. He speaks of him in his First Epistle to the Corinthians in terms of the fullest confidence, and he even urged him to return to Corinth in response to the wishes of the Christians there. 1 The two men were clearly on the best of terms and in complete sympathy in their work. But this fact makes it plain that the difference between the preaching of Paul and Apollos was rather a difference of form than of substance. They did not pro- claim two Gospels, but one and the same Gospel. Their method and their style of preaching might differ, but they were one in their aims, one in their devotion to Christ, one in their conception of Christianity and the Christian life. 1 1 Cor. xvi. 12. 294 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Had he not known this, Paul could not have said that he had planted and Apollos had watered, and that " both he that planteth and he that watereth are one." l The rise of the two parties that have been described might easily lead to the formation of a third. The empha- sis laid upon the merits of their respective heroes by the partisans of Apollos and of Paul would naturally suggest to others an appeal from both of them to the original apostles of the Lord, who possessed a dignity enjoyed by no other missionaries however able and successful. Thus the Cephas-party arose, taking its name from the one who had been from the beginning the leader and spokesman of the Twelve. It is not necessary to suppose, as some have done, that Peter had himself visited Corinth. In view of the fact that Paul nowhere refers to such a visit and while he speaks of himself as planting and Apollos as watering says nothing of the labors of Peter, it seems extremely improbable that he had. 2 Dionysius of Corinth, writing toward the end of the second century, says that the church of Corinth was founded by Peter and Paul ; 3 but he was interested to secure for his own church a dignity equal to that of Rome, and the reference to the Cephas-party in First Corinthians might easily have seemed to him a suffi- cient basis for the assumption that Peter had honored Corinth with his presence. In any case, even if Dionysius' statement were to be regarded as proving that Peter actu- ally visited the city, it could hardly be supposed that he arrived there before the composition of First Corinthians. It is very likely that many of those who ranged 'them- selves under the banner of Peter were of Jewish birth, 4 but it is not necessary to suppose that they all were, and there is no reason to think that any of them were Judaizing in their tendency. They evidently met on friendly terms and communed freely with the other Christians of Corinth, who were certainly largely Gentiles, and they thus lived 1 1 Cor. iii. 6 sq. 2 Cf. also 1 Cor. iv. 6. 8 Quoted by Eusebius : H. E. II. 25, 8. So far as I am aware, there is no other reference to Peter's Corinthian visit in early Christian literature. 4 The use of the Hebrew name Cephas instead of the Greek Peter is per- haps an indication of this. THE WORK OF PAUL 295 in a way entirely inconsistent with the principles of the Judaizers. The rise of a party, calling itself by the name of Peter, suggests, of course, that those who composed it regarded him and the rest of the Twelve as apostles in a special sense, and that Paul and Apollos were ranked to- gether in their minds over against the others, and placed on a distinctly lower plane than they. And it may be due in part to this that Paul emphasized his own apostleship, 1 and declared that it was a matter of small moment to him that he was judged by the Corinthians, for he was account- able as an apostle to the Lord, and not to men. 2 But such overvaluation of the dignity and authority of the Twelve as compared with Paul, by no means involves a Judaizing purpose and practice, nor does it imply the desire to under- mine and destroy Paul's influence and credit. If there was any such desire in the Corinthian church, or if there was an inclination to Judaize in any way, Paul was certainly not aware of it at the time he wrote his first epistle, for that epistle contains no hint of anything of the kind. It is commonly supposed that in addition to the parties which have been described, there was also a fourth, or Christ party, in the Corinthian church. Its character is widely dis- puted, but the prevailing view is that it was composed of Judaizers. 3 The chief ground for this opinion is found in the tenth and eleventh chapters of Second Corinthians. The persons attacked by Paul in those chapters are com- monly regarded as Judaizers, and as they apparently claimed to belong to Christ, and to be his apostles and ministers in a peculiar sense, 4 it has been assumed that they were members of the Christ-party supposed to be re- ferred to in First Corinthians. But even granting that they were Judaizers, as they probably were not, they can hardly be identified with the Christ-party of that epistle, for they were strangers who had recently come to Corinth with letters of introduction, while the Christ-party was evidently composed of members of the Corinthian church. 1 1 Cor. ix. 2 i Cor. iv. 3 sq. 3 So, for instance, Weizsacker, I.e. S. 275 sq., 299 sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. L pp. 329, 364) . *2Cor.x.7,xi. 13,23. 296 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Moreover, if there was in Corinth at the time Paul wrote his first epistle a party composed of such men as he de nounces in 2 Cor. x. and xi., it is inconceivable that he should nowhere in that epistle attack them or defend him- self against them. But not simply is it a mistake to iden- tify the persons attacked in 2 Corinthians with the Christ- party of 1 Cor. L, it is equally a mistake to suppose that there was any party in the Corinthian church arrogating to itself the name of Christ in an especial and exclusive sense. Had there been, Paul could hardly have spoken in the unguarded way he does in his epistle about those who were Christ's. We might have expected, for instance, that he would take occasion to say in such a passage as 1 Cor. xv. 23, " Not those who merely claim to be Christ's, like the members of the Christ-party, but those who really are Christ's." But the decisive argument against the existence of any Christ-party in the Corinthian church is to be found in 1 Cor. iii. 22 sq. In that passage, at the close of his dis- cussion of the divisions, and at the very climax of his de- nunciation of the party spirit, Paul speaks of three parties, but says nothing whatever of the fourth, or Christ-party, which, according to the common theory, was the worst and most dangerous of all. And more than that, he plays directly into the hands of that party, if it existed, by exhorting all the Corinthians to range themselves under the banner of Christ. "All things are yours," he cries, " whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas ; ... all are yours : and ye are Christ's." In view of these considerations, it is difficult to suppose that there was a fourth faction in Corinth, calling itself by the name of Christ. And indeed, when carefully examined, the passage in which the parties are referred to is seen itself to imply the existence of only three. The words in vs. 13, " Is Christ divided? " indicate that the fault of the Corinthians was not that they were re- jecting Christ, and substituting another leader for him, but that they were dividing him. The implication is, that they all regarded themselves as alike under the banner of Christ, but that some were Pauline Christians, some Apollos-Chris- THE WORK OF PAUL 297 tians, some Cephas-Christians. It seems clear, therefore, that the fourth term of vs. 12 was not, like the first three terms, a party watchword, but that it constituted the cry of other Corinthian disciples who belonged to none of the three factions, and who, disgusted at the display of party spirit, declared against all such divisions and announced their allegiance to Christ alone. With such a course Paul himself must have been in hearty sympathy. It was, in fact, just what he exhorted all the others to do. " Do not divide Christ," he says in effect. " We, Paul and Apollos and Cephas, whom ye are making the leaders of your par- ties, are only builders ; Christ is the one foundation upon whom we all build; we are all Christ's, and ye are all Christ's." l Paul therefore learned through the members of the household of Chloe of the existence not of four, but of three factional parties within the church of Corinth. But it is clear that though the church was thus torn and divided, open rupture had not yet occurred. All of the disciples still met together as one household of faith, and carried on their worship in common. 2 They were all addressed by Paul as one church, 3 and the epistle which they wrote him was sent, apparently, in the name of all. 4 Nevertheless, though the parties were yet in their incipi- ency, and though the church was still intact, there was decided danger in allowing such a divisive tendency to go on unchecked ; and so, being unable to go at once to Corinth himself, as he wished to do, Paul despatched Timothy thither as his representative, hoping that he might succeed in harmonizing the various factions and in restoring peace to the church. 5 1 On the Corinthian parties, see especially Pfleiderer: Urchristenthum, S. 89 sq. See also Heinrici in Meyer's Commentary on First Corinthians, 7th ed. p. 7, 27 sq., where the various views and the literature upon the subject are given with considerable fulness. 2 1 Cor. xi. 18, xiv. 26. 3 i Cor. i. 2, v. 9. 4 Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 1. 6 1 Cor. iv. 17. This journey is without doubt the one referred to in Acts xix. 22. According to that passage, Timothy upon leaving Ephesus went to Macedonia, and it is implied in 1 Corinthians that he took that road to Corinth, for Paul, though writing after Timothy's departure, expected his let- ter, which he doubtless sent by the direct sea-route, to reach there before him (ICor. xvi. 10). 298 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Meanwhile, soon after Timothy's departure, other Co- rinthian Christians made their appearance in Ephesus, bringing with them still farther news of a disturbing char- acter. 1 As has been already remarked, Corinth was one of the most immoral cities in the world, and it was inevitable that the debased ethical tone of the community at large should make itself felt even within the church. There might be a sincere desire on the part of the disciples to live worthily of the Gospel of Christ, but their standards were necessarily low, and many things must seem to them comparatively harmless which in other less corrupt commu- nities would be universally condemned. Thus they were inclined to regard fornication as the gratification of a natural appetite, involving no greater sin than eating and drinking. This was the common estimate of it in Corinth, and it is therefore hardly to be wondered at that there were Christians who held the same view. So long as Paul himself was present, such an opinion could hardly prevail within the church; but after his departure, as the number of disciples multiplied, it would be easy for it to find lodg- ment and it would be difficult for those who did not like it to prove it wrong. Already some time before the events which we have been describing, Paul seems to have learned that the tendency was abroad in the church to look with altogether too much leniency upon those who practised for- nication, and as a consequence he had written an epistle in which he had exhorted the Corinthians to have nothing to do with such persons, and to hold themselves entirely aloof from them. 2 His remonstrances, however, had not had the desired effect. Instead of doing what he commanded, they were actually tolerating within their circle a man who was living with his stepmother in defiance of the common senti- ments of decency that prevailed even in the world outside. And they were not simply tolerating him, they were even defending his course and were showing no signs of sorrow or *That this additional news was brought not by the household of Chloe, but by later arrivals, seems to appear from the fact that Paul gives as his reason for sending Timothy to Corinth not the other disorders to which he refers in his epistle, but only the divisions which have been described. 2 1 Cor. v. 9. This epistle is no longer extant. THE WORK OF PAUL 299 of shame. 1 Moreover, they were justifying their utter dis- regard of Paul's direction not to associate with fornicators, by claiming that such a command was impracticable, for they could not avoid associating with them unless they left the world altogether. 2 Their action in the matter was not due to a contempt for Paul's authority, and did not indicate that they cared nothing about him or his wishes ; for they wrote him quite an extended epistle in which they asked his instruction concerning a variety of subjects. But it is evi- dent that they had no such conception as he had of the sin- fulness of fornication, and that they regarded his scruples as due to mere prudery. They were concerned, therefore, rather to defend their course of action than to change it. But the tendency of the Corinthians to look with indif- ference upon sins of the flesh was not the only additional source of anxiety to Paul. Quarrelsomeness and a love of litigation, common fruits of the natural self-assertiveness of the Greeks, and of their almost morbid sense of individual rights, had begun to play havoc with the peace of the Chris- tian brotherhood. 3 There were also very serious disorders connected with their religious exercises; and it seems that doubts were beginning to prevail touching the reality of the resurrection of the dead, and that even the resurrection of Christ was denied by some. Such doubts affected not a mere subordinate doctrine, but the very heart of Paul's Gospel, and it is no wonder that he felt deeply concerned. But in addition to the disquieting reports which have been referred to, there was received by Paul, soon after Timothy's departure, an epistle from the Corinthians written in reply to the one he had sent them some time before. 4 The contents of this letter, which is no 1 1 Cor. v. 2. 2 cf . 1 Cor. v. 10 sq. s 1 Cor. vi. 1 sq. 4 The epistle was probably brought by Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus, to whom Paul refers in 1 Cor. xvi. 17. It may have been they, also, that brought him the news of the sad state of affairs that existed in the Corinthian church ; but his statement that they had supplied that which was lacking on the part of the Corinthians and had refreshed his spirit makes it doubtful. Still, it is possible that they brought him good news in addition to the bad, and Paul may have chosen at the close of his epistle to refer only to that which was a cause of rejoicing to him. He may not have wished, moreover, to have the Corinthians know that these men had reported bad things of them. 300 THE APOSTOLIC AGE longer extant, can be gathered at least in part from First Corinthians. The Christians of Corinth had appar- ently given utterance in it to their misunderstanding of Paul's epistle touching association with fornicators 1 and had then asked his advice concerning various practical questions about which their own opinions were divided: for instance, whether it was right for a disciple to marry ; 2 whether a believing husband or wife ought to separate from an unbelieving companion ; 3 whether it was lawful for a Christian to eat meat sacrificed to idols ; 4 and finally what was to be thought of spiritual gifts, and of their rela- tive value. 5 They seem also to have asked for directions in regard to the collection for the saints of Jerusalem, 6 and to have requested that Apollos might return to them. 7 It was in reply to this lost letter that Paul wrote the epistle which is commonly known as First Corinthians. After commending his readers in general terms, he plunged at once into the subject which had very likely been upper- most in his mind ever since the arrival of Chloe's house- hold. Though he had already sent Timothy to heal the dissensions of which he had been told, he was still troubled about them, and he could not write to the Corinthians without referring to them. He doubtless saw in the imme- diate return to Corinth of the messengers from that church, a welcome opportunity to prepare the Corinthians for the coming of Timothy and to reinforce his efforts. What he says upon the subject is directed not primarily against the parties as such, but against the party spirit which underlay them. And yet he takes pains to emphasize the ground- lessness of the dissatisfaction with himself and with his preaching which was felt by many after they had heard Apollos. He had not preached, as Apollos had, in such a way as to impress the multitude with his wisdom, but to those who had the ability to perceive it, the true wisdom of the Gospel which he had proclaimed was clearly mani- 1 Cf . 1 Cor. v. 9 sq. 1 Cor. vii. 10. 5 1 Cor. xii. 1. 2 1 Cor. vii. 1. 4 1 Cor. viii. 1. 6 1 Cor. xvi. 1. 7 1 Cor. xvi. 12. All of these subjects Paul introduces with the phrase irepl 84, as if referring in each case to matters mentioned by. the Corin- thians. THE WORK OF PAUL 301 fest. 1 Had they been more truly spiritual, he might have imparted to them many of the deep things of God, but they had not been ready to receive them, as was shown very plainly by the effect which the preaching of Apollos had had upon them. 2 Their hold upon the great central truth of the Gospel was so slight, that they lost it as they listened to Apollos, and failed to distinguish between the essential and non-essential in his teaching, and thus sup- posed that they were hearing from his lips another and more profound Gospel than they had learned from Paul. It was not the fault of Apollos that they had thus misunder- stood him ; he had preached the true Gospel ; but it was the fault of their own lack of spiritual discernment. There is an implication, to be sure, in what Paul says, 3 that Apollos may have built upon the one foundation which they both recognized something else than gold, silver, and precious stones ; but the important thing was that he had not built upon another foundation, and his teaching was therefore at bottom one with Paul's, and the Corinthians should never have overlooked the fact. Every attempt to set the two over against each other and to use their names as party watchwords was entirely unjustifiable. So far as the Cephas-party was concerned, Paul thought it necessary to say little about it. His general attack upon the party spirit was, of course, directed against those who appealed to the name of Cephas as well as against the others ; but he seems to have felt that the third party would disap- pear if the others did, and that, if the supremacy of Christ and the subordination of all his ministers were recognized as it should be, there would be no more difficulty. It was not so much an undervaluation of himself that was causing the trouble as an undervaluation of Christ; and he was concerned consequently not chiefly to exhibit his own superiority to others, but to magnify Christ, and to em- phasize the nothingness of all men, himself included, in comparison with Christ, to whom all belong. 4 Only at the close does he remind the Corinthians of all that he has 1 1 Cor. i. 24, ii. 14. 3 1 Cor. iii. 8, 10 sq. 2 1 Cor. iii. 1 sq. 4 1 Cor. iii. 22 sq., iv. G sq. 302 THE APOSTOLIC AGE suffered and endured, that he may touch their hearts and quicken their waning loyalty and affection for him ; 1 and even then he does not rank himself above others, but classes himself with them, 2 not wishing to do anything to promote comparisons, and thus turn his readers' thoughts from Christ to his ministers. Having finished what he had to say about the divisions in the church, Paul turned to other matters that were troubling him. His reference to himself and to all that he had endured and suffered was not primarily for the purpose of shaming the Corinthians, but that they might be reminded of his right to deal with them as a father with his children, and might thus accept the admonitions which he felt called upon to utter on account of the sad disorders which existed among them. As he begat them in Christ, they should not judge him, as some of them were doing in the pride of their new-found wisdom, but they should imitate him. It was to put them in remembrance of his life and teaching, which they seemed in danger of forgetting, or of disregarding altogether, that he had sent Timothy to them. He would have gone himself if he could ; for he had heard that the report was abroad among the Corinthians that he was not going to visit them again, either because of indifference for their welfare, or through fear of those who had set themselves up as his judges, and as a consequence some of them were puffed up and were confirmed in their preaching and practice of principles which they knew were entirely opposed to his. Because of such persons he feared that when he came, he should be obliged to conue with a rod instead of in love and a spirit of meekness. Meanwhile, as he could not go to Corinth at once, he applied the rod in his epistle. He first condemns in unsparing terms the flagrant case of fornication, recently reported to him, and then exhorts the church to use its rightful power and excommunicate the offender, both for the offender's sake and for its own, that he may be saved and that the church may be made pure. 3 His exhortation to the 1 1 Cor. iv. 8 sq. 21 cor. iv. <). * 1 Cor. v. 5, 7. THE WORK OF PAUL 303 church to do its duty in this matter, and to pass judgment upon the guilty man, reminds Paul that the Corinthians are sadly delinquent also in another respect, in that they allow their personal disagreements and quarrels to come into the civil courts instead of settling them among them- selves. It is bad enough for brethren to have any differ- ences, but if they must, they ought to see to it that judges be appointed from among their own number, and that all such matters be adjusted by them. 1 After a general con- demnation of intemperance and lust, not on the ground that they are a violation of law, 2 but on the ground that the Christian is a member of Christ, and that his body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, 3 Paul takes up the ques- tion of marriage, 4 about which the Corinthians had asked his advice in their epistle. He handles this difficult and delicate question with great circumspectness. Celi- bacy, he thinks, is better than marriage, because a celi- bate can give himself more unreservedly to the service of the Lord; but he is careful to insist that marriage is not in itself inconsistent with the Christian faith, and that it is better for those who have not the gift of continency to marry. Those already married should remain as they are, and should faithfully perform all the duties of the married life, even though yoked with un- believers. It is not the external state or condition that makes the Christian, but his relation to Christ, and that can be sustained even in the midst of the most unfavor- able circumstances. The general law governs all such cases that every man should abide in that vocation wherein he was called, for union with Christ frees a man from all human bondage, and makes him entirely indepen- dent of circumstance and condition. It is along the same broad lines, and yet with a like regard for practical diffi- culties and exigencies, that Paul handles the subject of meats offered to idols, 5 concerning which the Corinthians had also asked his opinion. Idols are in reality nothing, and therefore things are not defiled by being sacrificed to 1 1 Cor. vi. 1 sq. 2 1 Cor. vi. 12. 8 1 Cor. vi. 15 sq. 4 1 Cor. vii. 5 1 Cor. viii., x. 23 sq. 304 THE APOSTOLIC AGE them, and a Christian is neither the better nor the worse for eating or abstaining. But not all have this knowledge, and it seems to some a sin to eat of meat thus offered. For the sake of such weak brethren it is the Christian's duty to abstain if there is any danger that his example will lead them to do violence to their conscience. All things are lawful to the Christian, but not all things are expedient, for not all things edify ; and it is the Christian's duty not to seek his own but his neighbor's good, and to sacrifice if necessary his own liberty and his own rights for his sake. Paul would have the Corinthians imitate him in this respect, for it was this principle that had controlled his life. As an apostle he had the right to do many things which he had not chosen to do. He had the right, for instance, to look to the Corinthians for support while he was preaching the Gospel among them. That he had not availed himself of that right did not prove, as some were contending, that he was not truly an apostle, and that he did not dare to claim such a privilege. On the contrary, he had abstained from exercising that which was clearly his right for the sake of the Gospel, that he might be free from any suspicion of avarice or self-seeking, and thus might win the more to Christ. The ninth chapter is thus at once an illustration of the great principle which Paul was enforcing and a defence of himself against his enemies, who, curiously enough, were using that which was an act of self-sacrifice on his part as an argument against his apostolic character and calling. After this digression concerning the principles that had governed his own life, to which he was led by his assertion of the Christian's duty to have regard always to the welfare of his brother, Paul returned to the subject with which he was dealing, and called attention in the tenth chapter to another consideration which should govern the conduct of disciples in the matter under discussion. Though an idol is in reality nothing, yet in their sacrificial feasts, of which the heathen worshippers were in the habit of partaking, they communed with devils and not with God. And whoever voluntarily took part with them in such religious meals THE WORK OF PAUL 305 entered into the same kind of communion with devils that the believer entered into with Christ when he partook of the Lord's Supper. A Christian must therefore strenuously avoid all such feasts, and not tempt God as the children of Israel did in the wilderness. The eating of meats offered to idols is thus permitted by Paul so long as it does not cause a weaker brother to stumble, but the participation in idola- trous feasts is, under all circumstances, prohibited. The Christian need not be deterred from eating and drinking what he pleases by any idea that it has been defiled by its contact with an idol ; but he must hold himself aloof from every act of heathen worship. 1 In the next three chapters 2 Paul discusses various mat- ters connected with tjie religious services of the Corin- thians, some of them suggested by their epistle, others by reports he had heard of the condition of affairs among them. He begins by commending them for remembering him in all things, and holding fast the traditions which he had delivered -unto them, a commendation that sounds a little strange, in view of the fact that he has so many things to find fault with. But the fact that the Corin- thians had asked Paul's advice, indicated their desire to conform to his wishes so far as they could, and they had doubtless given expression in their epistle to that desire, and to the conviction that they were already following his directions so far as he had given any. Paul takes them at their word and praises them for their obedience, and then goes on to point out their faults. He declares, first of all, that it is improper for women to pray or prophesy with their heads unveiled, as some of them at least were in the habit of doing in Corinth. The practice, which was so out of accord with the custom of the age, was evidently a result of the desire to put into practice Paul's principle that in Christ all differences of rank, station, sex, and age are done away. But Paul, in spite of his principle, opposed the practice. 3 His opposition in the present case was doubt- 1 1 Cor. x. 14 sq. Cf . Pfleiderer : Urchristenthum, S. 95 ; and Heinrici : Das erste Sendschreiben an die Corinthier, in loc. 2 1 Cor. xi.-xiv. 3 i Cor. xi. 5. 306 THE APOSTOLIC AGE less due in part to traditional prejudice, in part to fear that so radical a departure from the common custom might bring disrepute upon the church, and even promote dis- order and licentiousness. But he found a basis for his opposition in the fact that by creation the woman was made subject to the man. Paul's use of such an argument from the natural order of things, when it was a funda- mental principle with him that in the spiritual realm the natural is displaced and destroyed, must have sounded strange to the Corinthians ; and Paul himself evidently felt the weakness of the argument and its inconsistency with his general principles, for he closed with an appeal to the custom of the churches : " We have no such custom, neither have the churches of God," therefore you have no right to adopt it. 1 This was the mos't he could say. Evi- dently he was on uncertain ground. The next matter upon which he touches is much more serious, and elicits a very severe rebuke. In dealing with it he shows no such embarrassment as in the previous case. The gatherings of the Christians, which should make always for the edification of all, were doing more harm than good. There were divisions among them, so Paul had heard, and those divisions were affecting even the Lord's Supper, so that it was no longer in any true sense a communion meal of brother with brother, but each was looking out for himself alone. Each was concerned only to satisfy his own appetite. The early comers left nothing for those that came later, and while some ate and drank to excess, others were obliged to go hungry. The Supper was thus a scene not merely of discord, but of debauchery, and its character, both as a com- munion-feast and as a holy meal, was entirely destroyed. In condemning their conduct, Paul reminds them in solemn words of the meaning of the Lord's Supper. The bread is the Lord's body, and the cup is the new covenant in his blood. As often as they eat of the bread, and drink of the cup, they show the Lord's death till he come. Whoever, therefore, in partaking of the Lord's Supper fails to recog- nize its holy character, and to distinguish the body and 1 1 Cor. xi. 16. THE WORK OF PAUL 307 blood of the Lord from the ordinary bread and wine, eaten and drunk at any common, secular meal, commits a sin worthy of severe punishment, for he dishonors the Lord', and it is because the Corinthians have been committing this sin that there is so much sickness and death among them. Their sin is already visited with judgment, accord- ing to Paul. 1 Turning next to the subject of spiritual gifts, concern- ing which the Corinthians had made inquiry in their epistle, Paul calls their attention to the fact that the in- dwelling of the Holy Spirit is the one great thing which distinguishes Christians from all other men. All believers possess the Spirit, for it is the Spirit alone that enables them to recognize and confess Jesus as Lord. But though it is one Spirit that dwells in all disciples, he manifests himself in different measure and in different ways. Not all possess the same spiritual gifts. Some are gifted for one kind of service, others for another; but as it is the one Spirit that has endowed every Christian, none should look with contempt upon another's gift, or boast of the superiority of his own. As a body has many members, and all the members have their uses and contribute each in its way to the well-being of the whole, so the body of Christ has many members, each of which is necessary. Paul's remonstrance against the tendency on the part of some of the Corinthians to pride themselves upon their own gifts, and to despise their brethren who are gifted in lesser measure or in other ways, leads him to emphasize the importance of love. 2 Far superior to the gift of tongues, of prophecy, of knowledge, of miracle working, is the spirit of love which leads the believer not to vaunt himself above others, and not to envy or be angry with them because of their endowments, but to think always and only of their good and to give himself unreservedly to their service. If this spirit of love prevails, all the questions touching the relative value of the charisma of 1 Upon Paul's conception of the Lord's Supper and the effect upon the Supper of the directions laid down by him in this chapter, see below, p. 537 sq. 2 1 Cor. xiii. 308 THE APOSTOLIC AGE this or that disciple, and all the rivalries and contentions to which the possession of spiritual gifts has given rise, will disappear, and the gifts will prove a blessing to the whole church instead of proving, as in too many cases, a curse. After emphasizing this fundamental principle, Paul goes on to lay down a general rule by which their value is to be tested ; not that one brother may compare himself with another and vaunt himself above him, but that all may seek the best gifts and may not estimate too highly those which are in reality of least worth. All of them, Paul says, are given not for the benefit of the recipient, but for the good of others ; arid the value of a gift, therefore, is to be measured by the degree to which it contributes to the edification of the brethren. Thus the gift of tongues, though one of the showiest of all, is of far less worth than the gift of prophecy, because it commonly does no one any good except the person exercising it. This rule Paul applies to the religious services of the Corinthians. They are to be occasions not for displaying gifts, but for using them to benefit others, and only such are to be exer- cised as contribute to that end. If there is no interpreter present, there is to be no speaking with tongues. The prophets are to utter their revelations not all at once, but in turn, so that they may be heard and understood, and each one is to give way willingly to another who may be prompted to speak, that the church may have the benefit of all the instruction the Spirit has to impart. It was the same consideration for the good of the church as a whole that led Paul in vs. 34 sq. to direct that the women keep silence in the churches. Not that they had not the right to speak, to pray, and to prophesy, as they were in the habit of doing according to xi. 2 sq. ; but that such pub- lic participation in the services would do more harm than good, because it was commonly regarded as a scandal for a woman thus to put herself forward in public, and the benefit her words might convey would be more than coun- terbalanced by the evil effect of such violation of the common rule of decency. The passage does not contra- dict xi. 2 sq., for there Paul was concerned with Another THE WORK OF PAUL 309 matter. A woman must be always veiled, even when praying and prophesying, even when exercising her reli- gious right as a child of God. The exercise even of such a right must not lead her to do violence to the traditional law of propriety. But in the present case Paul is dealing with the matter of edification, and as he believes that it will do more harm than good for a Christian woman to speak in public, he can insist with perfect consistency that she ought not to do it at all. From the religious services of the Corinthians, Paul turns to the subject of the resurrection. 1 He has learned that some of the Corinthians are denying the resurrection not only of believers, but even of Christ, and he there- fore devotes a long passage to the matter. He first points out the firm historic basis upon which the belief in Christ's resurrection is founded, as he had declared it to them while still among them. He then reminds them that their redemption rests upon the resurrection of Christ. If he has not been raised, they have not been redeemed, they are still in their sins, and their faith is vain. The fact of Christ's resurrection is therefore absolutely fundamental. There is no Christianity, no salvation, without it. A dis- cussion of the method of the resurrection follows. Evi- dently, doubt as to its reality was due to difficulties as to its method; and Paul therefore points out that he does not mean, as some evidently supposed, that the body of flesh will rise again. It is not flesh that is to rise, but a new spiritual body fitted for the indwelling Spirit. Res- urrection means not the rehabilitation of the flesh, but permanent release from it. The Christian is to look for- ward not to a new life in the old body, but to a new life in a new body. Thus Paul clears away all the difficulties that were felt to beset the idea of a revivification of the flesh, whose destruction he had himself so earnestly em- phasized. After answering the question of the Corinthians touching the collection for the saints, 2 and promising when he came to make arrangements for sending it to Jerusalem, and after 1 1 Cor. xv. 2 1 Cor. xvi. 1 sq. 310 THE APOSTOLIC AGE explaining Apollos' failure to visit Corinth in response to their request, Paul exhorted them to treat the house of Stephanas with becoming honor and to be subject to them in the Lord, 1 and then closed in the usual way, with greet- ings and a prayer for their welfare. In this 'epistle, which Paul sent by the hand of cer- tain unnamed brethren, 2 he announced his intention of visiting Corinth at an early day. 3 He was too much engaged with the work in Ephesus to go at once, but after Pentecost he intended to leave for Macedonia, and to go on thence to Corinth, and perhaps spend the winter with the Corinthians. Whither he would go afterwards, he did not know ; possibly to Jerusalem with the deputa- tion appointed to carry the collection thither, possibly in some other direction. 4 The divisions and disorders in the Corinthian church were such that he was not sure that his promised visit would be an altogether pleasant one. Timothy's mission and the epistle that followed might not accomplish all that he hoped, and it might be necessary for him to come with a rod and put down the troubles with a strong hand. 5 Paul's fear of this seems actually to have been realized. From various passages in Second Corinthians we learn that he had been in Corinth twice before he wrote that letter; 6 and as there is no hint in First Corinthians that he had been there more than once, there can be little doubt that his second visit took place during the interval that elapsed between the writing of the two epistles. The visit was evidently made before his work in Ephesus was finished ; and after leaving Cor- inth he returned to Ephesus, for when he wrote our Second Corinthians he had just come from Ephesus into 1 Possibly the party spirit had given rise to criticism of Stephanas and others like him, who represented Paul's interests in the congregation. Exhort- ing them to be subject to such as he, Paul was, perhaps, really exhorting them again to give up their divisions and to exhibit their friendliness towards him- self, whose convert and trusted friend Stephanas was. He and those with him had shown their devotion to Paul at this trying time, and this made up in part for the waning loyalty of some of the Corinthians. 2 1 Cor. xvi. 11, 12. Titus was very likely one qf these brethren, and perhaps the brother mentioned in 2 Cor. viii. 22, xii. 18 was another. See below, p. 324. * 1 Cor. iv. 19, xi. 34, xvi. 3. e i Cor. iv. 21. * 1 Cor. xvi. 3 sq. 2 Cor. ii. 1, xii. 14, xiii. 1. THE WORK OF PAUL 311 Macedonia. 1 He had therefore not carried out the plan sketched in First Corinthians. At the time that epistle was written, he had intended to remain in Ephesus until he had completed his labors there ; and then after a trip through Macedonia he had expected to make a long stay in Corinth, and go on thence to some other place. But circumstances had apparently arisen which made an earlier trip to Corinth necessary. He had learned, probably from Timothy himself, that the troubles in Corinth had in- creased rather than diminished, and that Timothy was unable to cope with them. He consequently made up his mind to go thither without delay, feeling that the difficulties were too serious to be allowed to go on unchecked. This visit proved a sorrowful one. 2 Paul was unable to accomplish his purpose, and returned to Ephesus in the greatest distress and anxiety. His author- ity had apparently been defied, and his credit and influ- ence decidedly lowered ; and he had even had to endure personal insult. 3 It was under these circumstances that he wrote another letter to the Corinthians immediately upon his return to Ephesus, defending himself against the attacks of his enemies, and calling the Corinthians sharply to account for their disloyalty to him, and for allowing themselves to be influenced by his opponents and de- tractors. This letter is referred to in 2 Cor. ii. 4 sq. and vii. 8 sq. Its general nature is clear enough. It was sor- rowful, like the visit. It was written out of much afflic- tion and anguish of heart, and with many tears ; 4 and Paul even regretted afterwards that he had sent it, 5 for he was afraid that it might have the effect of alienating the Corinthians from him. It is common to speak of this third epistle of Paul's as no longer extant. But it is not impossible that we still have it in whole or in part in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. 6 It is, to say 12 Cor. ii. 12. Cf. 2 Cor. ii. 5 sq., vii. 12, x. 1, 10. 5 2 Cor. vii. 8. 2 2 Cor. ii. 1. 4 2 Cor. ii. 4. 6 In support of this opinion see especially Hausrath : Der Vierkapitelbrief ; Prteiderer: Urchristenthum, S. 105 sq. ; Schmiedel in the Hand-Komnientar zum Neuen Testament (II. 1, S. f>6 sq.) ; Clemen : Chronologic der paulinischen Briffe, S. 226. On the other side see Heinrici : Das zweite Sendschreiben des Apostel Paulus an die Korinthier, S. 3 sq. ; and Jiilicher : Einhituny, S. 63 sq. 312 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the least, exceedingly difficult to suppose that those chap- ters constituted originally a part of the epistle with which they are now connected. Their tone is entirely different from that of the first nine chapters, and what is more, they seem to point to another situation altogether. The writer is not moved in chapters x.-xiii. merely by the remembrance of experiences that belong to the past and have been hap- pily lived down, but by the pressure of existing difficulties the outcome of which he does not yet know. He is not defending himself against calumnies which the Corinthians have already declared their disbelief in, and against enemies whom they have already repudiated. He is in the very midst of the conflict, and he is filled with anxiety lest his words will not avail, and the Corinthians will cast him off and give their entire allegiance to his foes. 1 And yet in vii. 9 sq., he had expressed his joy that his epistle had made them sorry unto repentance, and that it had wrought such earnest care in them, such clearing of themselves, such in- dignation, such fear, such longing, such zeal, such avenging. He had told them that in everything they had approved themselves pure in the matter which had caused the trouble between them, that they had vindicated their loyalty and affection for him, that the spirit of Titus had been refreshed by the conduct of all of them, and that he himself had been comforted and was in everything of good courage concern- ing them. And a little farther on, 2 in exhorting them to contribute largely to the fund for the saints of Jerusalem, he had said, " But as ye abound in everything, in faith, in utterance and knowledge, and in all earnestness, and in your love for us, see that ye abound in this grace also." It is evident that Paul and the Corinthians were again on the best of terms when he wrote those passages. Of lack of confidence or affection between them, there is not a sign. But in chapters x.-xiii. all is still uncertain. Paul hopes while writing these chapters that the Corinthians will listen to him and be convinced by him, but he is far from sure, and even fears the very worst. It seems exceedingly diffi- cult, in the light of these facts, to suppose that the earlier 1 Cf. 2 Cor. x. 2, 6 sq., xi. 3, 20, xii. 11, 13, 19, xiii. 3, 6. 2 2 Cor. viii. 7. O rHE X UNIVERSITY 1 THE WOKK OF PAUL 313 and the later chapters were originally parts of the same epistle. 1 But if it be assumed that we have in our 2 Corin- thians two separate epistles of Paul, there can be no doubt that the one contained in chapters x.-xiii. was written earlier than the other ; for otherwise we are compelled to assume a still later attack upon Paul and a second estrangement between him and the Corinthians of which we know noth- ing. 2 But if chapters x.-xiii. constitute a separate epistle written earlier than chapters i.-ix., it is of course the most natural thing to identify them with the epistle to which Paul refers in 2 Cor. ii. 4 and vii. 8 sq. The general tone of chapters x.-xiii. is exactly what Paul's references to that epistle would lead us to expect. Those chapters were evi- dently written out of much sorrow and anguish of heart, and there was good reason to doubt whether the Corin- thians would receive them kindly. 3 They were calculated, 1 Against this separation of the two parts of 2 Corinthians no valid objection can be urged. 2 Cor. x. 1, 10 sq., which speak of Paul's strong letters and weak presence, are fully justified by 1 Corinthians, while the apparent identity of the mission of Titus in 2 Cor. viii. 17 sq. and xii. 18 is apparent only. The reference in chap. viii. is to a mission which Titus is to perform, and Paul bespeaks a kind reception for him in viii. 24 ; while the mission referred to in xii. 18 is already past. " Did Titus take any advantage of you? " Paul asks. The fact that the four chapters are now a part of our second canonical epistle constitutes no great difficulty. Nothing would be easier than for two comparatively brief epistles to be joined together and to be counted as one over against the larger epistle which we know as 1 Corinthians ; and this would be particularly easy if one of the brief epistles lacked the formal introduction which most of Paul's epistles bore. The emphatic avrbs 5 tyw IlauXos with which chap. x. begins, suggests, as Pfleiderer and others have seen, that chaps, x.-xiii. may be simply Paul's part of a larger epistle written jointly by himself and some companion, very likely Timothy. It may be that Timothy expressed his mind touching the difficulties which he had not succeeded in allaying, and that then Paul added what he had to say, beginning with the words, " But as for me, Paul, I entreat you." If this supposition were correct, it would be very easy to account for the disappearance of the part of the letter written by Timothy, and for the attachment to another epistle of the part written by Paul. 2 It is perhaps not without significance that in 2 Cor. iii. 1, Paul speaks of " beginning again to commend " himself (cf. also v. 12), as if he had in mind some extended commendation of himself, such as we find only in 2 Cor. xi. sq. ; and the reference to epistles of commendation suggests that it is actually to that passage, where he defends himself against the attacks of foreign apostles, that he is referring. It is noticeable that when he does enter upon the de- tailed account of his labors and experiences in chap. x. sq., he speaks as if it were something new, and as if he had not before done any glorying. He does not use the word "again " in chaps, x. and xi., as in chaps, iii. and v. 3 Cf. especially 2 Cor. xii. 19, xiii. 3, 6. 314 THE APOSTOLIC AGE if they did not move them to repentance, to make them angry, and to widen the breach already existing. 1 On the assumption, then, that Paul's Third Epistle to the Corinthians has been preserved in 2 Cor. x.-xiii., we may turn to it for information touching the occasion of Paul's second visit to Corinth, and the state of affairs that existed there at that time. It is clear that Paul's apostolic dignity and authority had been questioned, and that he had been compared with the Twelve to his decided disadvantage. 2 It had even been denied that he was in any sense a minister of Christ, 3 and in support of that denial had been urged on the one hand the weakness of his bodily presence and the ineffectiveness of his speech ; 4 on the other hand the fact that he did not receive support from the Corinthians as all the genuine ministers of Christ were entitled to do. 5 It was insinuated that he intended to turn to his own uses the money which the Corinthians had collected for the saints at Jerusalem, and that he had hitherto refused to receive anything from the Corinthians, in order that they might be impressed with his exceptional freedom from ava- rice, and thus trust him with the large sum which they were gathering. 6 Who the enemies were that attacked Paul in this way, it is not altogether easy to determine. It is clear that they were Jews, or at least their leaders were, 7 and that some if not all of those leaders came from abroad, 8 and claimed to be ministers or apostles of Christ. 9 It is natural, of course, under such circumstances to think of 1 Cf. 2 Cor. x. 7, xi. 20, xii. 20, xiii. 2, 5, 10. There is perhaps a reference to xiii. 2 and 10 in i. 23 and ii. 1. 2 Cf. 2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11. It is a mistake to identify the virep\lav aTr(>(TTo\oi of xi. 5 and xii. 11, with the \[/v5air6:;. 4 2 Cor. xii. 17. 6 Cf. 2 Cor. xi. 4, 13. THE WORK OF PAUL 317 made the hasty trip thither referred to in 2 Cor. ii. 1, xiii. 2. But that visit proved unsuccessful and was attended with circumstances of a very trying and disagreeable nature, as already remarked. Not only had he been unable to check the growing hostility, but he had even been treated with contumely apparently by some particular person, 1 and in- stead of resenting the insult and taking his part, the church had actually shown sympathy with his detractor or at least utter indifference in the matter. Who this person was, we do not know. It is at any rate clear that whether originally a Corinthian or one of the travelling mission- aries who had been causing the trouble, he was a member of the Corinthian church at the time Paul wrote ; for the church was in a position to exercise control over him, and to subject him to discipline. He must have been a man of prominence, and his personal standing and influence must have been considerable or it would not have been possible for him to treat Paul in the way he did without suffering the church's immediate vengeance. It is a mistake to identify him, as many do, with the shameless fornicator mentioned in 1 Cor. v. 1. The cases were entirely different, and there is no reason for connecting them in any way. In 1 Cor. v. Paul was dealing with a gross offender who had sinned not against himself, but against Christ; in 2 Cor. ii. and vii. with a personal enemy against whose private character he had nothing to say. Upon his return to Ephesus, Paul wrote his Third Epistle to the Corinthians, comprised in 2 Cor. x.-xiii., hoping to accomplish by means of it what he had failed to effect when present. 2 In this epistle he does not single out his chief enemy for attack, but simply refers to all his de- tractors in a body. And yet there is a hint even here that he had one man especially in mind when he says : " If any man trusteth in himself that he is Christ's, let him consider this again with himself, that, even as he is Christ's, so also are we." 3 He does not demand that the Corinthians shall deal either with him or with any of the others in any particular way. He simply defends himself against them i 2 Cor. ii. 5, vii. 12. 2 C f . 2 Cor. x. 10. 3 2 Cor. x. 7. 318 THE APOSTOLIC AGE and endeavors to exhibit them in their true colors, leaving the Corinthians to take what course they please. 1 The letter begins with a warning to its readers not to act so that when Paul comes again he will be obliged to deal sharply with them. For he can deal sharply, in spite of what his opponents say about his weakness and cowardice. His strength is not in himself, but in Christ. He does not war with fleshly but with spiritual weapons, and with them he is mighty even for the casting down of strong- holds. He does not care to compare himself with others, and to boast himself as they do ; for not he that com- mendeth himself is approved, but he whom Christ com- mendeth. But if they claim to be Christ's, let them know that he is Christ's too, and that he has the right to glory in the authority which Christ has given him. He does not enter as they do into another's labors and reap another's fruits, but he glories only in his own labors and only in those who have been won by his own efforts. It is foolish to speak of his own successes and grounds for glorying, and yet, as his detractors have had so much to say about themselves and have so influenced the Corinthians against him, it is necessary for him to show that he is not a whit behind the very greatest apostles. It is true that he did not allow the Corinthians to support him ; but was that a sin? He took the course he did in order that no occasion might be given his enemies to accuse him of avarice, or of making merchandise of the Gospel of Christ. They are false apostles ; ministers of Satan, not of Christ. And yet the Corinthians allow themselves to be overawed and carried away by them. But what merits have they which 1 The way in which the epistle opens seems to indicate that Paul adds what he has to say to the words of another (see p. 313, above). It is possible that the insult which Paul had been compelled to endure iu Corinth had touched not himself alone, but also his friend and companion Timothy, whom he had perhaps taken with him to Corinth with the desire of re-establishing his credit and influence along with his own. At any rate, the use of the third person in 2 Cor. vii. 12 (" for his cause that suffered the wrong") suggests that it may have been not merely Paul himself that had been attacked. It was possibly because of this that Titus, and not Timothy, was employed by Paul in his subsequent negotiations with the Corinthians, and that Timothy's name was coupled with his own in his final epistle to the Corinthians (2 Cor. i. 1), which was written after the trouble was finally settled and peace restored. THE WORK OF PAUL 319 he has not? He is as much of a Hebrew as they, and if they are ministers of Christ, he is even more so ; for how much he has endured and suffered for the Master ! " In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered ship- wreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep ; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren ; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fast- ings often, in cold and nakedness." l In all these things Paul would glory. And he would glory also in his revelations, especially in a revelation received fourteen years before, so wonderful that lest he should be exalted overmuch, there was given him a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble. 2 When he besought the Lord to remove it, he had replied that his grace was sufficient for him and that his power was made perfect in weakness ; and so even the weakness itself became cause for glorying. After expressing his regret that the failure of the Corin- thians to take his part, and to defend him against the attacks of his enemies, has made it necessary for him to commend 1 2 Cor. xi. 23-27. 2 2 Cor. xii. 1 sq. The " thorn in the flesh" to which Paul refers here is probably to be connected with the " infirmity of the flesh " which led him to preach the Gospel the first time to the Galatians (Gal. iv. 13). Ramsay is very likely correct in thinking that that "infirmity" was malarial fever, and that Paul was subject to frequent attacks throughout his life (St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 94 sq.) . The common opinion that the thorn in the flesh was a malady of the eyes, Ramsay has clearly shown the improbability of (I.e. p. 38 sq.) . For other interpretations see Meyer's Com- mentary, in loc. The " fourteen years" referred to in the passage in 2 Corinthians would carry the date of the revelation back to about the year 38 or 39 (see below, p. 389), which was probably three or four years before he visited Galatia for the first time. But Paul's words do not necessarily imply that the "thorn in the flesh " was given him immediately after he had received his revelation. Where and under what circumstances that revelation was received, we have no means of determining ; we only know that it was a most remarkable one, and that Paul heard unspeakable words which it was not lawful for him to utter. 320 ME APOSTOLIC AGE himself, Paul asserts that he seeks not their property, but themselves, and that he will gladly spend and be spent for their sakes, as a father for his children. In reply to the accusation that he was intending to devote to his own uses the fund collected for the saints of Jerusalem, he calls the Corinthians to witness that neither his own con- duct nor the conduct of Titus and his other messengers has justified any such base suspicion. After warning them against quarrelsomeness and sins of the flesh to which they were so prone, he declares that if he comes again, as he gives them reason to expect he will soon, he will not spare them, but treat them with the utmost severity on the basis of the authority given him by Christ. He then closes in the customary way with a salutation and a benediction. This sharp and passionate epistle, which was carried to Corinth by Titus, 1 produced the effect for which it was in- tended. Paul had feared for the result, and had even regretted that he had written such a letter, but his fears proved groundless. The Corinthians realized their error and took their stand unequivocally on his side. He learned of their renewed loyalty from Titus, who returned from Corinth after accomplishing his errand, and met Paul in Macedonia. Paul had expected to await Titus in Ephesus, and to go thence at once to Corinth by the direct sea-route ; 2 but in the meantime trouble broke out in Ephesus, and he was compelled to leave the city before the latter's arrival. Not wishing to go to Corinth while matters were still in an unsettled condition, not wishing to go thither with a rod as he would have been compelled to do, had he gone again while the situation was unchanged, 3 he went instead to Troas, and when he did not find Titus there, became im- patient and hastened on to Macedonia, hoping the sooner to get the desired news from the Corinthian church. 4 It was in Macedonia that he met Titus, and was cheered with the most comforting report. 6 The Corinthians had vindi- cated their loyalty, and had even gone further than he had i 2 Cor. ii. 13, vii. 13 sq. 2 2 Cor. i. 15. 2 Cor. i. 23. 2 Cor. ii. 12. 6 2 Cor. ii. 13, vii. 13 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 321 asked them to in their zeal for him. They had inflicted severe punishment upon his chief enemy, the one who had openly insulted him, apparently excluding him from the church and refusing to associate with him. 1 It was under these circumstances that Paul wrote his fourth and last epistle to the Corinthians, which is found in chapters i.-ix. of our Second Corinthians. The letter was written in his own name and in that of Timothy. 2 It opens with an expression of gratitude to God for the com- fort with which he had comforted Paul in all his afflictions, and especially in the troubles, both physical and mental, through which he had so recently passed. Then after giving his reasons for not coming to Corinth directly from Ephesus, as he told the Corinthians he would when he sent Titus with his previous epistle, and after defending him- self against the charge of fickleness, to which his change of plan might naturally give rise, 3 Paul turns to the case of the person who had caused sorrow not to him alone, but to the whole church. He exhorts the Corinthians, who had already visited their vengeance upon him, to forgive him. He had written them before not for the sake of the offender, or of the offended party, but in order that their love and loyalty to himself might be put to the test, and as they had shown clearly by their action where they stood, it was not necessary now to carry the matter further and overwhelm the offender with despair. 4 His reference to the person who had caused him so much trouble recalled to Paul the distress and anxiety in which he had been while he was waiting for the return of Titus from Corinth, and the joy brought him by the report of the latter, and after giving expression again to that joy in its contrast with his previous sorrow, he points out that his claim to be a min- ister of Christ upon which he had laid such stress in his pre- vious epistle has been fully vindicated by God. But this leads him to expound at considerable length his conception of the apostolic mission with which he had been entrusted by Christ, not in order to defend himself against the at- 1 2 Cor. ii. 6 sq. 8 i. 15, ii. 4. 2 See p. 318, note. 4 2 Cor. ii. 5 sq. T 322 THE APOSTOLIC AGE tacks of his enemies, but to confirm the restored confidence of his beloved Corinthians, to show them that their loyalty to him was fully justified, and to explain his own deep con- cern in the matter. He is not one who uses the Gospel for his own profit, as so many do. On the contrary, he is always sincere, and he does everything in Christ. 1 His reference to his conduct in this regard does not mean that he is about to commend himself again. 2 He does not need commendation either to the Corinthians or from them, as some do; for the Corinthiaus are themselves his epistles known and read of all men. The work he has done among them speaks for itself, and proves that he has labored not in his own power, but in the power of God, and that he has been made by God a minister not of the old Covenant of the letter, but of the new Covenant of the Spirit, which gives life and is far more glorious than the old. 3 It is this confidence in his divine call to be a minister of the new Covenant that gives Paul his great boldness and endurance. 4 It is true that he is weak enough in himself, but that is only that the power of God may be the more clearly mani- fested in him. Endowed with that power, he is strong to meet everything. 5 His afflictions work out for him an eternal weight of glory, and even death itself means only the putting off of an earthly tabernacle, in order to be clothed upon with an heavenly, and is thus in reality better than life. 6 And so Paul is of good courage whatever hap- pens. His supreme aim at all times and in all places is to please the Lord, and he therefore devotes himself in all sincerity and earnestness to the work of preaching Christ. 7 With this work not even the worst afflictions have inter- fered. He has endured them all as a minister of God and as an ambassador of Christ. 8 The reference to the trials which he has been called upon to suffer brings him back again to the relations that exist between himself and his beloved Corinthians, and after urging them to open their 1 2 Cor. ii. 17. 2 2 Cor. iii. 1. There is an apparent reference here to his former self-com- mendation in 2 Cor. xi. 2 Cor. iii. 1-11. 2 Cor. iv. 7 sq. "2 Cor. v. 6 sq. 2 Cor. iii. 12-iv. 6. 2 Cor. iv. 16-v. 5. 2 Cor. v. 20-vi. 10. THE WORK OF PAUL 323 hearts still more widely to him, as he has opened his to them, he gives even fuller expression than before to his joy in their renewed loyalty and affection. 1 Before closing his epistle, Paul refers to the collection for the saints of Jerusalem and urges the Corinthians to give liberally and cheerfully. 2 He assures them of his satisfaction with the readiness they have already displayed, and expresses his confidence that they will more than fulfil his expectation and justify his boasting on their behalf. He also commends Titus and the other brethren whom he sends on before to look after the matter. He informs his readers that the latter have been appointed by the churches for this very purpose, that there may remain no ground for the suspicion that he intends to turn the funds to his own use. The letter ends abruptly without the usual salutations and benediction. The original ending was probably displaced when the third epistle was added, and perhaps is still to be found at the close of the latter. This fourth and final epistle to the Corinthians was sent, like the previous one, by the hand of Titus, with whom went two unnamed brethren, the one appointed by the churches to assist Paul in the matter of the collection, the other a personal companion of the apostle who had been with him for a long time. 3 Titus had already had to do with the collection in Corinth. 4 But he can hardly have concerned himself with it at the time he carried Paul's third epistle, for he was occupied then with other business of a very different character. The Corinthians had begun to gather for the fund a year before, 5 at the time doubtless when they received Paul's second letter 6 (our First Corinthians), and it was probably then that Titus made a beginning of the work. 7 He was very likely one of the 1 2 Cor. vi. 11-vii. 16. The passage upon fellowship with unbelievers (vi. 14-vii. 1) is entirely out of connection with what precedes and follows, and is in all probability an interpolation. Chap. vii. 2 continues the subject of vi. 13, and seems originally to have followed it immediately. It has been suggested that vi. 14-vii. 1, is a part of Paul's lost epistle to the Corinthians, in which he had told them not to associate with fornicators (cf. Franke's article in the Studien und Kritiken, 1884, S. 544). The suggestion is a plausible one. 2 Chaps, viii. and ix. 4 Cf. 2 Cor. viii. (>. 1 Cor. xvi. 1 sq. 8 Cf. 2 Cor. viii. 6, 18, 23, ix. 3 sq. 5 2 Cor. viii. 10, ix. 2. ~* 2 Cor. viii. 6 sq. 324 THE APOSTOLIC AGE bearers of that letter, especially entrusted with the pre- liminary arrangements for the great collection. 1 When he returned to Corinth therefore with Paul's fourth and last epistle, he went thither for the third time, and as on the first occasion a part of his business related to the fund for the Mother Church. 10. PAUL'S FINAL VISIT TO CORINTH AND HIS EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS After despatching his fourth and last epistle to Corinth, Paul tarried some time in Macedonia, apparently visiting his churches throughout the province, and devoting his attention to the collection which he wished to carry to Jerusalem at an early day. 2 He intended after leaving Corinth to go immediately to Jerusalem, and this seemed his only opportunity to see his Macedonian friends. It is therefore not surprising that he tarried, as he seems to have done, a number of months in the province. 3 He ap- parently reached Corinth only late in the fall or early in the winter, for according to Acts xx. 3, he spent three months in Greece, and according to Acts xx. 6 and 16, he made the journey thence to Jerusalem in the spring. Of the events of this Corinthian visit we have no account in 1 It is easier to understand why Paul should have chosen Titus as his repre- sentative in the serious difficulty between himself and the Corinthians, if the latter had already been in Corinth and had gained their confidence, than if he was a complete stranger to them. If Titus carried First Corinthians, he must have been one of the brethren referred to in 1 Cor. xvi. 11 and 12, and it must be his mission to Corinth at that time that Paul refers to in 2 Cor. xii. 17 sq. Probably also the brother mentioned in 2 Cor. viii. 22 was one of the messen- gers that carried First Corinthians, and it is to him, therefore, that Paul refers along with Titus in 2 Cor. xii. 18. At any rate, Paul says in viii. 22, that he had many times proved the brother there mentioned earnest in many things, and implies that the latter was already acquainted with the Corin- thians. Who this brother was we have no means of determining ; nor the brother mentioned in viii. 18. 2 2 Cor. viii. 1 sq., ix. 2 sq. For fuller particulars as to the possible move- ments of Paul, of Timothy, and of Titus at this time, see below, p. 409 sq., where the information supplied by the pastoral epistles is discussed. 3 He wrote his second epistle (our First Corinthians) apparently not many months before Pentecost (cf. 1 Cor. xvi. 9 with iv. 9), and his fourth epistle (2 Cor. i.-ix.) something over a year later (cf. 2 Cor. viii. 10 and ix. 2 with 1 Cor. xvi. 1). The latter was therefore probably written in the spring or early summer, six or eight months before his arrival in Corinth. THE WORK OF PAUL 325 our sources. 1 The Book of Acts dismisses it with a single sentence, recording only that a plot was laid against him by the Jews, and that he consequently gave up his inten- tion of sailing direct to Syria and returned to Asia by way of Macedonia. That the friendly relations which existed when he wrote his fourth letter remained undis- turbed is made evident by the Epistle to the Romans, which was written at Corinth during his final stay there and contains no hint that he was in the midst of trials or diffi- culties at the time. The victory he had won over his enemies was apparently complete and his credit and his in- fluence were not again imperilled. When Clement of Rome wrote to the Corinthians a generation later, the name of Paul was held in high esteem by both writer and readers, and he was permanently honored as the apostolic founder of the church. 2 It was during Paul's final stay in Corinth, as already remarked, that he wrote his Epistle to the Romans. That epistle is peculiar in that it was addressed to a church which he had not himself founded nor even seen. He had for a long time wished to visit Rome. 3 From an early day in his missionary career, he seems to have had distinctly in mind the evangelization of the Roman Empire, and his plan included the preaching of the Gos- pel in Rome, its capital. But in the meantime, while he was engaged in missionary work in the East, Christi- anity was carried to Rome and a church was founded there. But this made a difficulty for him, for it was one of his principles not to build on another man's foundation. 4 Rome was therefore closed to him as a field of missionary labor ; and yet the Roman church was a Gentile church, 5 and in the fulfilment of his calling as an apostle to the Gentiles, he felt it to be his right and his duty to impart to it such spiritual gifts as he could. 6 He consequently 1 It is possible that Paul visited Crete at this time. See below, p. 411. 2 Cf. Clement: Ad Cor. c. 47. Dionysius of Corinth, writing in the latter part of the second century, makes Paul and Peter the joint founders of the Corinthian church. See Eusebius: H. E. II. 25, 8. 3 Rom. i. 10, 13, xv. 22. 6 Rom. i. 6, 13, xi. 1, 13, xv. 16. * Rom. xv. 20 ; cf. 2 Cor. x. 15, 16. 6 Rom. i. 5, 11, 13, 14, xv. 16, 326 THE APOSTOLIC AGE found himself in a somewhat perplexing position. The result was that he finally determined not to give up his long-cherished plan of visiting Rome, but to look beyond for a field of farther labor and to make the capital of the empire simply a temporary halting-place on his westward journey. His work in the East being completed, and no place remaining for him there, he would make his way to Spain, whither Christianity had not yet penetrated, with the intention doubtless of carrying the Gospel thence throughout the Western world. 1 It was with this plan fully formulated that he wrote his Epistle to the Romans. His purpose in writing was apparently a double one. He wished to excuse himself to the Christians of Rome for not having visited them before, and at the same time to announce his intended coming and to prepare them for it. 2 Evidently they had for some time had reason to expect that they would see him, and his delay was causing sur- prise and even unfavorable comment. But in speaking of his projected visit he was careful to inform them that he was not coming as a missionary to the unevangelized, but as a brother with the expectation of receiving from them as well as imparting to them spiritual gifts. 3 He was care- ful also to preserve his genuine apostolic character and to guard himself against the accusation of building upon another's foundation by assuring them that his objective point was far beyond and that he desired not to labor in Rome, but only to be set forward on his journey. But even then he felt it necessary to justify his proposed visit, doubtless in view of what he knew his enemies would say about it, by appealing to the fact that his readers were Gentiles, and were therefore his especial province because he had been called of God to be an apostle to the heathen and to minister unto their needs. 4 He was evidently desir- ous of doing everything he could to conciliate his readers and to promote good feeling between himself and them. It was natural that an epistle intended to explain his past failure to visit Rome and to announce his expecta- 1 Rom. xv. 23 sq. Rom.i. 12. 2 Rom. i. 10 sq., xv. 23 sq. * Rom. i. 5, 13, xv. 16. THE WORK OF PAUL 327 tion of going thither in the near future should have been written just at this juncture, when Paul was on the point of turning eastward again, and when it might well be sup- posed by the Roman Christians that he had abandoned altogether his intention of seeing them. The reason for the epistle is thus clear enough ; but the epistle itself is not so easy to understand. The subject of his visit fills altogether only a few verses at its beginning and its close, while the remainder is almost wholly doctrinal and ethical, and bears no obvious relation to the occasion which led him to write. And yet there was a reason in the situation in which Paul found himself placed for the composition of just such a letter. If his intended visit was to have the effect which he hoped, if it was to prove helpful both to himself and to the Christians of Rome, and contribute to the success of his projected missionary work in Spain, it was necessary that all hindrances to a friendly and fra- ternal intercourse between himself and them should be removed, and that any misunderstanding they might have as to the nature of his Gospel, and any suspicions they might entertain as to its soundness, should be cleared away. It was therefore important not that he should give them a complete statement of his beliefs and of his conception of his apostolic mission, but that he should address himself to such suspicions and misunderstandings as were actually abroad in the Roman church. A care- ful examination of his epistle shows that this is exactly what he did. It is customary in many quarters to call it a presentation of Paul's system of theology, or a didactic statement of his Gospel, but it is a great mistake to think of it thus. It is a letter written to remove or to guard against certain definite misapprehensions and to oppose certain definite evils, and it contains only so much of the theology and ethics of Paul as was adapted to that pur- pose. And yet it constitutes the most elaborate exposi- tion that we have of his Gospel, and that fact shows that the misapprehensions which had to be corrected affected the very essence of his Christianity. The epistle contains an extended discussion of the relation of law and Gospel, 328 THE APOSTOLIC AGE and of God's dealings with the people of Israel, and it is thus evident that a part at least of the objections and dif faculties which Paul had to meet had their origin in or were connected with Judaism. At the same time the practical exhortations in chapters xii. xv. are not such as would be addressed to Christians who were inclined to observe the Jewish law, and to regard such observance as a means of salvation. The unhealthful tendencies which the epistle combats in those chapters are for the most part genuinely heathen and show no trace of the influence of Judaistic principles. It is noticeable also that there is less of storm and passion and less of the personal element than in almost any other of Paul's letters, and this shows that he had not been attacked in Rome by any such hostile Judaizers as undermined his work in Galatia, or by any such bitter enemies as beset him in Corinth. What, then, are we to conclude as to the condition of things in Rome which made it necessary for Paul to write as he did? The only reasonable assumption in the light of the first eleven and of the last four chapters of the epistle seems to be that the church of Rome, while its Gentile members were largely in the majority, yet contained a not inconsiderable minority of Jewish Christians, and that Paul found it necessary to address himself to both classes : on the one hand to con- vince the Jewish Christians, if possible, of the truth of his Gospel and thus remove the natural opposition which they felt to him as the apostle to the heathen, and on the other hand to combat the antinomian tendencies which were appearing among the Gentile Christians, many of whom were turning their liberty into license and were ap- pealing to his Gospel in support of their conduct. But in expounding his principle of freedom from the law for the sake of those who believed in its continued authority, Paul had in mind the Gentile majority as well as the Jew- ish minority, and was concerned not simply to convince the latter, but also to give to the former the means of defending successfully their free Christianity against the criticisms of their Jewish brethren. THE WORK OF PAUL 329 It is clear from the entire tone of his epistle that the Jewish Christians whom Paul addressed were not personally hostile to him and were not bitter in their opposition to his teachings. It was not censure and attack they needed, but instruction and enlightenment; and there was reason to hope that they might be influ- enced by what he had to say. The Gentile majority were already favorably disposed toward him. They recognized his apostolic calling and were quite ready to listen to his admonitions. In order, therefore, to con- vince the Jewish minority of the truth of his Gospel, to fortify and confirm the Gentile majority in their free Christianity, and to combat the evil tendencies to which a misunderstanding of the profound ethical significance of that Christianity was giving rise, Paul expounds his Gospel on the one hand over against legalism, and on the other hand over against libertinism. But it is worthy of .notice that it is not two Gospels nor even two different sides of one Gospel which he presents, but the very heart and essence of that Gospel, which equally precludes both legalism and libertinism. The epistle, which was thus written with a definite practical aim, opens with words of salutation and of com- mendation, followed by the expression of Paul's earnest and long-cherished desire to visit those addressed. 1 This desire has hitherto proved impossible of realization, but he hopes soon to carry it out, that he may have fruit in them even as in the rest of the Gentiles. 2 The Gospel which he has preached elsewhere, and is ready to preach in Rome also, is not a Gospel of which he is ashamed ; " for it is a power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth " ; "for in it is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith." 3 These words contain the theme of the entire epistle, which is all of a piece, though it falls naturally into three general divisions. The first of those divisions contains a thoroughgoing exposition of the Gospel thus briefly characterized, the Gospel of the divine life in man ; 4 the second, a discussion of God's dealings with 1 Rom. i. 1-12. 2 Rom. i. 13-15. 3 Rom. i. 16, 17. 4 Rom. i.-viii. 330 THE APOSTOLIC AGE and his purposes for the children of Israel, whose preroga- tives as a covenant people seem entirely destroyed by that Gospel as preached by Paul ; l the third, the practical application of the Gospel of the divine life in man to the every-day life of the Roman Christians. 2 Paul begins the exposition of his Gospel with a demon- stration of the fact that every one needs salvation ; that no one is righteous or can be righteous of himself, and that therefore no one can escape the just judgment of God. 3 Upon this truth he dwells at considerable length, showing its application not only to the Gentiles, 4 but also to the Jews, 6 and thus addressing both classes within the Roman church. Gentiles and Jews are alike responsible in the sight of God ; the former, because God has mani- fested himself from the beginning in his created works, and because they have a law written in their own hearts ; the latter, because they have been entrusted with the oracles of God and instructed in his ordinances. But though responsible, they cannot meet their responsibility. No one can become righteous in God's sight by keeping a law. Law serves only to bring man to a knowledge of his sin. 6 After showing the universality of human sinf ul- ness and the absolute non-existence of human righteous- ness, and thus demonstrating man's need, Paul declares that that need has been met by God, who has revealed in Jesus Christ a righteousness of his own, which is imparted to those, and to those alone, that have faith in Jesus. 7 This righteousness can be secured, whether by Jew or Gentile, only by faith, and not by the observance of a law. But the Jew at once objects: If faith and not the ob- servance of the law is made the condition of the attain- ment of righteousness, is not the law of God made of none effect? To this Paul replies with a decided nega- tive; 8 and then, in order to convince the Jew that the principle of righteousness by faith instead of by works, which he is emphasizing, is not, as it might seem, utterly 1 Rom. ix.-xi. 4 Rom. i. 18-ii. 16. 7 Rom. iii. 21-30. 2 Rom. xii.-xv. 13. 5 Rom. ii. 17-iii. 20. 8 Rom. iii. 31. Rom. i. 18-iii. 20. Rom. iii. 20. THE WORK OF PAUL 331 mbversive of the divine law and opposed to all God's dealings with his chosen people, he calls attention to the experience of Abraham and to the words of David. 1 Abraham, the father of God's covenant people, whether it be assumed that he lived righteously or not, was at any rate, as is proved by the express statement of Scripture, treated as righteous by God, not because of his works or of his righteous living, but because of his faith; 2 and he was treated as righteous by God while he was still un- circumcised, so that it cannot be claimed that circumcision constituted in any sense a basis of God's action in his case. 3 Thus the experience of Abraham is typical of the experi- ence of every other man, whether circumcised or uncircum- cised, whether living under law or without law. And the experience of Abraham in this respect is confirmed by the words of David, who pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works. 4 After thus answering the objection of the Jews by de- monstrating from their own Scriptures the truth of his assertion that faith, not works, is the real condition of justification, Paul returns to his Gospel of the righteous- ness of God, and indicates the blessings that flow to the believer from the possession of that righteousness : peace with God, joy in the assurance of his love, release from condemnation, and eternal life. 5 Over against this life, which is the chief fruit of the divine righteousness and the believer's supreme blessing, Paul -then places in sharp- est contrast that death which is the fruit of sin. 6 He shows that as the reign of death began with the sin of Adam, the reign of life began with the righteousness of Christ, and he asserts that where sin with its re- 1 Rom. iv. 1-22. 2 Rom. iv. 2-4 may be paraphrased as follows: If Abraham was made just from works, or was just in his works, he hath a ground of boasting, but even then he hath it not toward God, for the Scripture says that God reckoned his faith for righteousness, and therefore whether he kept the law or not he was treated by God as righteous, not because he kept the law, nor because of his works, however good those works may have been, but because of his faith. God justifies no man because he keeps the law. The only ground of justifica- tion in God's sight is faith. 8 Rom. iv. 9 sq. 4 Rom. iv. 6 sq. 5 Rom. v. 1 sq. 6 Rom. v. 12 sq. 332 THE APOSTOLIC AGE sultant death abounded, the gift of the divine righteous- ness with its resultant life abounded more exceedingly. 1 But this at once raises the question, If the prevalence of human sin was the occasion of the bestowal of the divine gift of righteousness, will not the gift be greater, the greater the sin, and ought we not therefore to con- tinue in sin that grace may abound? This question is similar to that to which Paul had referred in passing in iii. 8, and it doubtless represents both an objection to his Gospel made by Jewish Christians and a practical conclusion drawn from it by Gentiles. Paul answers the question with a decided negative, and in order to show what a com- plete misapprehension lies back of it, he enters upon a thoroughgoing exposition of the nature of the Christian life which he preaches. That life is simply the divine life in man. The Gospel which was stated briefly in i. 17 and in iii. 20 sq. contains two terms : the righteousness of God and the faith of man ; the former the gift, the latter the condition of its bestowal. In the fourth chapter Paul answered the Jews' objection to the principle of faith as the condition of righteousness ; in the following chap- ters he deals with the righteousness itself, and in doing so reveals the very heart of his Gospel and makes evident its profound religious and ethical significance. The be- liever who is buried with Christ in baptism dies with him unto sin and rises with him unto a new life of righteous- ness, a life which can be nothing else than righteous be- cause it is divine. 2 But in this new life there is freedom not only from sin, but also from law. 3 This does not mean license to sin, for the believer is already dead to sin and alive unto righteousness. 4 His death to the law Paul then illustrates for the sake of his Jewish readers by the Jewish law touching marriage. 5 But the fact that the believer, when joined to Christ, dies unto the law, does not mean that the law is sinful and unholy, as one might think. It means simply that the law has fulfilled its pur- pose, which was not to make righteous, but to convince 1 Rom. v. 20, 21. 2 Ro m . v i. 1-14. 8 Rom. vi. 14. * Rom. vi. 15-23. * Rom. vii. 1-6. THE WORK OF PAUL of sin. 1 This Paul illustrates from his own experience, showing how he was led by the law to a conviction of his sin and from that conviction to the realization of his fleshly nature, which was necessarily evil and which made righteousness absolutely impossible to him. He shows also how he was finally released from the control of the flesh, the body of death, by the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thus Christ frees from the body of flesh, and hence from sin and condemnation and death, all those that are in him, and in- troduces them into the new life in the Spirit, a life which is divine, not human, and which is consequently holy and eternal. 3 And so he that is Christ's, being no longer a debtor to the flesh but being under the control of the Spirit, cannot do otherwise than mortify the deeds of the body. 4 He is no longer a bond-servant over whom the flesh holds sway. He is a child of God. But if a child, then an heir, a joint heir with Christ in whose sufferings and death he has shared a joint heir of the glory which shall far surpass all the sufferings of the present. 6 There is a hope that into this divine sonship all men, having been subjected for so long a time to the bondage of the flesh, may yet be brought, and thus share with those who are already believers in the glory that is one day to be re- vealed. 6 Waiting in patience for that final revelation, they that are children of God know that all things work together for their good ; for to be called by God to be his sons means to be conformed to the image of his first-born Son, and to be one with him in righteousness and in glory, for nothing can separate those that are his from the love of God in Christ Jesus. 7 Thus Paul makes it clear that the righteousness of God, of which he spoke in i. 17, and which he declared in iii. 21 sq. to have been manifested in Jesus Christ, is not a mere declaration that a man is righteous, as might be supposed if we had only the third and fourth chapters, but that it is the actual righteousness of the Divine Spirit in man. Thus his fuller exposition of his Gospel has shown that that Gospel 1 Rom. vii. 7 sq. 8 Rom. viii. 1-11. 5 R om . viii. 14-18. 1 Rom. viii. 25-39. 2 Rom. vii. 7-25. 4 Rom. viii. 12 sq. 6 R om . viii. 19 sq. 334 THE APOSTOLIC AGE leaves no more room for libertinism than for legalism ; that if the divine life in man can be subjected to no law, neither can it be anything else than divine and therefore holy. It is evi- dent that Paul is taking account throughout these chapters of both classes of his readers, of Gentiles as well as of Jews, and that his exposition relates itself to the needs of both. From this presentation of his Gospel of the righteousness of God in Christ, which closes with an exultant hymn of assured confidence, Paul turns to a consideration of the relation of the Jewish people to Christianity, and of God's dealings with them. 1 Though himself a Jew, Paul was devoting his life to missionary work among the Gentiles instead of among his own countrymen, and he was accused consequently not only of a lack of patriotism and of a want of affection for his brethren after the flesh, but also of running counter to the revealed will of God, who would have the children of Abraham first brought into the king- dom, and only afterwards through their agency the nations of the world. But the Jewish Christians were not merely dissatisfied with Paul's conduct in the matter, they were also troubled and perplexed by the practical results of his preaching and of the preaching of other missionaries to the heathen. The proportion of Gentiles within the church was growing constantly larger and the Jews were falling into an ever more hopeless minority. How could this fact be reconciled with the purpose of God as declared in his promise to Abraham ? In chapters ix., x., and xi., Paul is evidently meeting not captious objections, but honest difficulties ; and is concerned not so much to repel attacks upon himself and upon his Gospel, as to explain a problem which troubled and weighed upon him as well as upon his readers. He begins his discussion with a solemn assevera- tion of his affection for his people, and of his longing to see them saved. But why are they not saved? Has God really cast them off and has he broken his promise to Abraham ? By no means ; for not all that are called Israel are truly Israel and not all of Abraham's descend-, ants are his children in the true sense. God in the exer- 1 Rom. ix.-xi. THE WORK OF PAUL 335 cise of that absolute sovereignty which is abundantly tes- tified to in the Scriptures, and which therefore no Jew ought to question, has chosen some and rejected others out of his own good pleasure ; for has not the potter the right to use the clay as he pleases, and to make vessels unto honor and vessels unto dishonor out of the same lump? God has chosen not all the descendants of Abraham, but only such of them as he wished, and with them such of the Gen- tiles as he wished. They together constitute the children of the promise, and in their election God's covenant with Abraham has been fulfilled. 1 But this assertion of God's sovereignty in the matter does not satisfy Paul. It may silence objectors, but it does not solve the problem. He is convinced that if the majority of the Jews are not saved, it is their own fault; it is because they have depended upon their own works instead of depending upon God in faith. 2 Thus they were not cast off by God, but they made it impossible for God to save them. And yet this was not true of all of them. There were some, including Paul himself, who believed and who therefore shared in the election by grace. 3 And even those Israelites who were hardened did not stumble in order that they might be finally rejected, but by their fall they became a means of the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. And the salvation of the Gentiles thus made possible by their fall will in turn re- dound to their good, provoking them to jealousy, and thus leading them to Christ. 4 It is for this reason, Paul tells his Gentile readers, that he is so earnest in preaching the Gospel to them, that through them he may save his own countrymen. 5 And so they are not to be puffed up with pride, nor to glory over the branches that were broken off that they might be grafted in ; for it is not they that bear the root but the root them, and if God spared not the natural branches but broke them off because of their unbelief, neither will he spare the branches that were ingrafted if they become high-minded and continue not in 1 Rom. ix. 6-29. 2 Rom. ix. 30-x. 21. 8 Rom. xi. 1 sq. 4 Rom. xi. 11 sq. 5 Rom. xi. 13 sq. 336 THE APOSTOLIC AGE faith. 1 Moreover, as he has grafted in strange branches, he is able to graft in again those branches that were cut off, if they renounce their unbelief; and this Paul believes will in the end actually take place. His optimism carries him so far that he makes the sweeping assertion that all Israel shall be saved. 2 A hardening in part has befallen them until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, and then they, too, shall be brought in, for "the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance." 3 No wonder that Paul breaks out in a hymn of praise to God whose "judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out." 4 Paul thus meets the national difficulties of the Jewish disciples as he met in the earlier chapters their religious difficulties ; and at the same time he removes all ground for jealousy and strife between the two classes of Christians within the Roman church. He then returns in the twelfth chapter to his Gospel of the righteousness of God in man, and applies that Gospel to the practical life of the individual believer, showing how it should manifest itself in the varied circumstances in which the Christian is placed and in the varied relations which he sustains toward others. 5 In xiv. 1-xv. 13, he addresses himself particularly to a condition of things somewhat similar to that which had existed in Corinth, where the liberty of some was offending the weak consciences of others. 6 The principles which Paul lays down are the same in both cases. Though he recognizes the liberty of the Christian in eating and drinking and in the observance of special days and times, and though he distinctly says that " nothing is unclean of itself," he nevertheless urges his readers to govern their action in all such cases by the law of love ; to have regard at all times to the good of others and to do nothing that will cause offence to a weaker brother or lead him astray. And at the same time he exhorts them to treat such a brother not with contempt, but with all kindness and consideration. It is evident that the weaker brethren referred to in this chapter were 1 Rom. xi. 17 sq. 8 Rom. xi. 29. 6 Rom. xii.-xv. 2 Rom. xi. 26. 4 Rom. xi. 33 sq. 6 Cf. 1 Cor. viii. THE WORK OF PAUL 337 not Judaizers nor under the influence of Judaizers. Had they been, Paul could not have proposed any such com- promise with them or any such consideration for their scruples. They were not observing the Jewish law and making its observance necessary to salvation, as the Juda- izers did, for the Jewish law does not forbid the use of flesh and wine. If they were Jews at all, as their observ- ance of special days might seem to suggest, they owed their scrupulosity not to Pharisaic legalism, but rather to the dualistic tendency which voiced itself in Alexandrian Judaism and in Essenism. But it is more probable in the light of xv. 7, where both parties seem to be distinguished from the Jews, that they as well as the "stronger" breth- ren were largely Gentile Christians, who felt the common ascetic impulse which was widespread in the heathen world of the period. Abstinence from flesh and wine and the observance of special fast days became very common in the church of the second and subsequent centuries, quite independently of Jewish influence. It will hardly do, therefore, to find in the stronger and weaker brethren of chapters xiv. and xv. the Jewish and Gentile wings of the Roman church, of whose existence we learn from the earlier chapters- of the epistle. 1 Doubtless the "stronger" and the " weaker " made up only a small part of the entire membership, and neither the scruples of the latter nor the independence of the former, who were apparently Paulin- ists of an extreme type, were shared by the majority of the disciples. After completing what he has to say upon this subject, Paul appeals once more to the fact that he is an apostle to the Gentiles, in justification of his writing to the Roman Christians, and informs them of his plans, which include a visit to Rome in the near future. He then closes his epistle with a request for their prayers and with a benediction. 2 1 As Pfleiderer, for instance, does in his Urchristenthum, S. 119 sq. I am in hearty sympathy with Pfleiderer's general view of the conditions in the Roman church and have learned much from his discussion ; but at this point I am unable to agree with him. 2 Rom. xv. 14-33. Upon chap, xvi., which was apparently intended origi- nally not for Rome but for Ephesus, see above, p. 275 sq. z 338 THE APOSTOLIC AGE 11. PAUL'S FINAL VISIT TO JERUSALEM AND HIS ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT When Paul wrote the epistle known as First Corin- thians, he was not sure whether he would himself go to Jerusalem with the collection for the saints or would send it by the hand of others ; 1 but at the time he wrote to the Roman church, his plans were definitely formed to make the journey himself. Possibly the size of the collection had something to do with this determination. After a stay of three months in Corinth, he set out for Jerusalem in company with a number of his disciples from Macedonia, Asia, and Galatia. 2 He took the land-route through Mace- donia instead of the more direct sea-route, in order, according to the author of the Acts, to avoid hostile Jews who were apparently lying in wait -for him on the road to Cenchrese, or had laid plans to murder him on ship-board. It is just at this point that the " we " source again appears, and from it is taken the entire account of the journey from Macedonia to Jerusalem. 3 It is true that it has been de- nied by many critics that the " we " document contained the record of Paul's meeting with the elder brethren of Ephesus in Miletus found in Acts xx. 17-38. But there seems to be sufficient reason for such denial neither in the general fact of the meeting nor in the words which Paul is reported to have spoken. That a meeting with some one at Miletus was recorded in the older source, is implied in xxi. I, 4 and there is no adequate ground for the assumption that the meeting referred to was of a different kind from that described by the author of the Acts. The known quotations from the " we " document are too few and brief to warrant the assertion that it cannot have con- tained an extended address, and while there are sentences in the speech recorded in the twentieth chapter that might with some show of reason be ascribed to the author of the Book of Acts, rather than to the writer of the original account, 5 1 1 Cor. xvi. 4. 2 Acts xx. 4. 8 Acts xx. 5, xxi. 18. 4 " And when it came to pass that we set sail, having torn ourselves away from them " (&iro sq., where the duration of the journey is carefully estimated. For a different estimate see Overbeck in De Wette's Exegetisches Handbuch zuin Ncuen Testament, I. 4, S. 336 sq. Ramsay's entire account of the journey 1o .Jeru- salem is interesting and instructive. 3 Acts xxi. 19-26. THE WORK OF PAUL 341 only, he may have lived like a Jew, 1 but such occasions constituted exceptions to the general rule of his life. His habit, apostle to the Gentiles as he was, and laboring among them almost entirely as he did, must have been to treat the law of Moses as if it no longer existed, as in fact it did not exist either for him or for any other Christian, according to his view. It is hardly possible therefore to suppose that Paul undertook in Jerusalem to prove to the Jewish Chris- tians there, that he was accustomed to " walk orderly, keeping the law." 2 Moreover, although he recognized the legitimacy of Jewish Christianity, and the right of Peter and other apostles to preach to the Jews the Gospel of circumcision, 3 and though there is no evidence that he ever undertook to lead the Jews as a people to cease observing their ancestral law, he had certainly been in the habit of insisting that his Jewish converts should associate on equal terms with their Gentile brethren, and that they should not allow their law to act in any way as a barrier to the freest and most inti- mate association with them. 4 But this, of course, meant, in so far, their violation of the law's commands. It is certain also that Paul had preached for years the doctrine that not the Gentile Christian alone but the Jewish Chris- tian as well is absolutely free from all obligation to keep the law of Moses, and though such teaching might not always result in a disregard of that law by his Jewish converts, it must have a tendency to produce that effect and doubtless did in many cases. It is clear therefore that both accusa- tions had much truth in them, and it is difficult to suppose that Paul can have deliberately attempted in Jerusalem to prove them wholly false. And yet, though as an honorable man and a man of principle he can hardly have undertaken to demonstrate that there was no truth in the reports which were cir- culated concerning him, it may well be that he tried to show that they were not wholly true. It was evi- dently assumed by those who accused him of "teaching all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake 1 Cf. 1 Cor. ix. 20. a Gal. ii. 7. 2 Acts xxi. 24. * Cf., e.g., Gal. ii. 11 sq. 342 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs," 1 that he hated the Jewish law and that he was doing all that lay in his power to destroy it ; that he believed and that he taught everywhere that its observance was under any and all cir- cumstances a positive sin. But this assumption was not true. Paul was certainly not hostile to the law in any such sense. He believed that it had no binding authority over a Christian, and he opposed with all his might the idea that its observance had any value as a means of salva- tion, or that it contributed in any way to the believer's righteousness or growth in grace ; but he held no such view of the law as made its observance necessarily sinful, and rendered it impossible for him ever to observe it him- self in any respect. And it was not at all unnatural that he should desire to convince the Christians of Jerusalem of the fact ; especially when he had come thither with the express purpose of conciliating them and winning their favor for himself and for his Gentile converts. He would have been very foolish under these circumstances to allow such a false impression touching his attitude toward the law to go uncontradicted. Had he been in the midst of his conflict with Judaizers, it might have been safer to let such an impression prevail than to run the risk of playing into their hands in the endeavor to remove it. Such a step as he is reported to have taken in Acts xxi. 26 would doubtless have been used against him by them, and would have constituted an effective weapon in their campaign among the Gentiles. But Paul's bitter war with Judaizers was a thing of the past. At least six or seven years had elapsed since it was fought through in Galatia, and the final victory won. There was consequently no such danger now as there might have been at an earlier day. It is worthy of notice that the accusations brought against him in Jerusalem did not emanate from Judaizers. There is no hint that fault was found with him because he preached a Gentile Christianity. His course was criticised by Jewish Christians, who held the position taken by the majority of i Acts xxi. 21. THE WORK OF PAUL 343 the church of Jerusalem some years before, at the time of the apostolic conference. They maintained, as had been maintained then, not that the Jewish law is binding upon the Gentiles, but that it is binding upon Jews, whether disciples of Christ or not. And so there was little rea- son for Paul to fear that his public observance of the law at this time would do harm among the Gentiles ; while he might well hope that such observance would serve to prove the falsehood of the report that he hated the law and thought it sinful to keep it under any circumstances and in any part. The action which Paul is recorded to have taken was calculated to demonstrate the falsity of just such a report. But it was entirely inadequate as a proof that he always kept the law, or that it was his regular habit to keep it ; and it was equally inadequate as a proof that he never advised Jewish Christians to neglect its observance. It seems evident in the light of all that has been said, that Paul may well have done just what he is re- ported to have done in Acts xxi. 26. But if he did, it must have been not to prove that the two accusations brought against him were wholly false, but that he was not as hos- tile to the law as those who made the accusations repre- sented, and as was commonly supposed in Jerusalem. There is therefore no sufficient ground for denying the truth of the fact recorded in xxi. 26, a fact for whose invention no plausible explanation can be given ; l but there is every reason for thinking that vs. 24 does not represent with entire accuracy the motive which prompted Paul to take the step he did. The step, though recommended by James and the other leaders of the church of Jerusalem, had quite another effect from that intended. It led, in fact, to the accusation that Paul was profaning the temple, and the result was an up- 1 It is to be noticed that the action recommended by the leaders of the church of Jerusalem and adopted by Paul failed entirely to accomplish its end ; and the reputation for wisdom enjoyed both by himself and by James must thus suffer in the eyes of the reader. When a simpler explanation of Paul's arrest would have answered every purpose, the explanation given can be accounted for only on the assumption that it is the true one and that the author of the Acts found it in his sources. 344 THE APOSTOLIC AGE roar and his arrest by the Roman authorities, as a di& turber of the peace. 1 The instigators of the attack are said to have been Jews from Asia, 2 who had seen among Paul's companions the Gentile Trophimus of Ephesus, evi- dently personally known to them,' and supposed that he was one of the men whom Paul had taken with him into the temple. Paul's arrest was not wholly unexpected to him. Of course, he had not foreseen that his effort to conciliate the Christians of Jerusalem, and to disprove the accusation brought against him, would have such an effect, but that he had serious fears that his journey would end disastrously, and would result even in his death, is shown by his request in Rom. xv. 31, that his readers would join him in the prayer that he might be " delivered from them that are disobedient in Judea." His words to the elder brethren of Ephesus, recorded in Acts xx. 22 sq., also re- veal the same apprehension. He had hoped, when he wrote to the Romans, that his mission to Jerusalem would prove successful, and that he would escape imprisonment and death ; but by the time he reached Miletus he was con- vinced that his hope was vain, and that he must be pre- pared for the worst. The same feeling was shared by others whom he met upon his journey, 3 and the effort was made by his friends to dissuade him from carrying out his purpose. 4 But Paul refused to listen to their pleadings, declaring that he was ready not only to be bound, as Agabus had foretold that he would be, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus in Jerusalem. 5 It is not sur- prising that fears should have been entertained as to the outcome of Paul's journey. He had not been in Jerusalem since the conference, more than half a dozen years before, and in the meantime his work among the Gentiles had 1 Acts xxi. 27 sq. 2 It is perhaps significant that the Jews were from Asia, where Paul had already had considerable trouble with his countrymen. 8 Acts xxi. 4, 11. The former passage is especially strong because it repre- sents the Spirit as directing him not to go up to Jerusalem. In the latter pas- sage Agabus, who on an earlier occasion had foretold the famine (Acts xi. 28), prophesies that Paul is to be bound by the Jews at Jerusalem, and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles. < Acts xxi. 12. 6 Acts xxi. 13. THE WORK OF PAUL 345 proved very successful both in Asia and in Europe, and his reputation as an apostate Jew, who was doing all he could to destroy the influence of Judaism in the world at large, had become widespread. The hostility of the Jews toward him was weir known, and it must have seemed extremely hazardous for him to make his appearance in Jerusalem. He could hardly fail, if his presence there were known, to precipitate a conflict from which it was decidedly doubtful whether he would escape with his life, in view of the known tendency of the Romans to placate the Jews in every possible way, and to guard their national and religious customs from violation. The only surpris- ing thing about the whole transaction is, that under such circumstances Paul should still have insisted upon going to Jerusalem. It may be that he decided to make the trip before he fully realized the danger that was involved in it, and that he did not wish to turn back out of seeming cowardice. But it is more probable that he felt it his duty to visit Jerusalem in order that now, after these years of separate development, the bond between the Jewish and Gentile wings of the church might be finally cemented, and thus the foundation laid for the realization of his dream of the salvation of all Israel, following upon the conversion of the Gentiles. 1 If he had such a conception as this of the possible significance of his visit to Jerusalem, he was not the man to be deterred from going thither by any dangers, however great. For the accomplishment of such an end, he would gladly lay down his life at any time. The arrest of Paul in Jerusalem, the various scenes in his trial, the circumstances under which he finally appealed to Caesar, and his journey to Rome as a prisoner are related by the author of the Acts at great length. A quarter of his entire book is devoted to these events. The great emphasis thus put upon this part of Paul's life is all the more striking when we realize that the Book of Acts falls into four nearly equal parts ; the first of which contains the history of the early church of Jerusalem ; 2 the second, 1 Cf. with Rom. ix., xi., Rom. xv. 20 sq., and especially vs. 27. 2 Acts i.-vii. 34G THE APOSTOLIC AGE the account of the spread of Christianity through the agency especially of Philip, Peter, Barnabas, and Paul, with the beginnings of the work among the Gentiles ; l the third, the record of the great missionary career of Paul after the official settlement of the question as to the con- ditions upon which the Gentiles were to be admitted to the church ; 2 and the fourth, his arrest and imprisonment. 3 That the arrest and imprisonment should fill so dispropor- tionate a space in an historical work like the Book of Acts is very surprising ; and particularly so in view of the fact that though the chapters devoted to the subject cover a period of nearly five years, they contain almost no reference to Paul's occupations and labors during that time, but describe at great length, and with many repetitions, his successive appearances before one and another tribunal. If it appeared that the remarkable fulness of the author's account of this part of Paul's life was due to the fact that he made use, in all parts of his book, of all the sources he possessed, and that for this particular period he had more extended sources than for any other, the phenomenon would be of less significance. But such a supposition is unwar- ranted. If anything is clear, it is that the Book of Acts is not a mere collection of documents, but a well-ordered and artistically arranged composition. The author, made con- siderable use of older sources, but he treated them with freedom, and arranged them in such a way as to exhibit the general course of development as he understood it. It is true that he gives a disproportionate space to the " we " passages, with their wealth of minor detail, and if it could be shown that he drew the" whole of the fourth part of his book from the same report of an eyewitness, the amount of space devoted to Paul's arrest and imprisonment might possibly thus be accounted for. But there are many things in chapters xxii.-xxvi. which it is impossible to ascribe to such a source. It would seem therefore that Luke must have had a distinct and definite purpose in devoting so much space to a matter of comparatively minor historical importance. What that purpose was can hardly be doubted. 1 Acts viii.-xiv. 2 Acts xv.-xxi. 26. 8 Acts xxi. 27-xxviii. THE WORK OF PAUL 347 It is noticeable that throughout the Book of Acts, whenever Christianity is brought in any form to the cognizance of the Roman authorities, its harmless character is vindicated to their complete satisfaction. So in Cyprus the proconsul Sergius Paulus himself becomes a believer ; l in Philippi the Roman magistrates, after scourging Paul and Silas, and committing them to prison without a trial, formally release them with an apology for the illegal punishment inflicted upon them ; 2 in Corinth the proconsul Gallio refuses to entertain the charges brought against Paul by the Jews; 3 in Ephesus certain of the Asiarchs are spoken of as the apostle's friends, 4 and the effort of Demetrius and his fellow-workmen to secure the condemnation^ of Paul and his companions comes to naught, while the city clerk, who stood nearest to the governor of the province, distinctly vindicates the missionaries and denounces the attack upon them as unjustifiable and illegal. 5 On the other hand, it is a remarkable fact that there is no record in the book of a condemnation passed, or a punishment inflicted upon Paul or his companions by the Roman authorities, except at Philippi, and then the officials them- selves apologize afterwards for their action. 6 And yet it can hardly be doubted that at least some of the sufferings which Paul was called upon to endure, according to 2 Cor. xi. 23 sq., were inflicted by Roman officials, and the death sentence passed upon him in Ephesus, to which he refers in 1 Cor. xv. 32, but of which no mention is made in the Acts, must have proceeded from the Roman governor or his representative. i Acts xiii. 12. 2 Acts xvi. 35 sq. 8 Acts xviii. 12 sq. 4 Acts xix. 31. 5 Acts xix. 35 sq. It is worthy of notice, that though the town clerk invites Demetrius and his fellows to bring their grievances before the proconsular court, Luke does not record that they did anything of the kind. 6 The trouble in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra (Acts xiii. and xiv.) is distinctly said to have been instigated by the Jews, and the impression is conveyed that Paul and Barnabas were not regularly condemned before any judicial tribunal, but were the victims of popular prejudice, and in Lystra, at least, of mob violence. In Thessalonica, in spite of the very serious charge brought against the missionaries and their converts, the rulers of the city before whom Jason and others were arraigned did nothing more than take security from them to keep the peace, and then released them without punish- ing them in any way. 348 THE APOSTOLIC AGE The tendency which thus appears in other parts of the book to exhibit Christianity in its relation to the state in as harmless a light as possible, and to empha- size the fact that the Roman authorities had uniformly regarded it in that light, is still more clearly seen in the chapters with which we are now dealing. In those chapters Paul comes into contact with three different lloman officials, and two of them bear express testimony to his innocence, 1 while the third shows him considerable favor, and refrains from setting him free only because he wishes to conciliate the Jews, and because he hopes, at the same time, to receive a bribe from Paul's friends. 2 The Jewish king Agrippa, who stood in high favor at Rome, also adds his testimony to that of Lysias and Festus. 3 And so, though Paul remains a prisoner in Csesarea for more than two years, no condemnation is passed upon him by any Roman tribunal. On the contrary, his judges uni- formly pronounce him innocent, and his final release is prevented only by the fact that he has appealed to Caesar ; and when he is sent to Rome as a prisoner, it is as an appel- lant not from an adverse decision of the governor, but in spite of a favorable decision. There can be little doubt in the light of these facts that the author of the Book of Acts devoted so much space to the arrest and imprisonment of Paul, and related his suc- cessive appearances before various tribunals with such a wealth of detail, in order to show that Christianity in the person of its chief missionary and at the very climax of his career, after he had preached it throughout a large part of the empire, was acquitted by the Roman authori- ties in the most pronounced way and after the most care- ful investigation. 4 There must have been an especial reason for the emphasis of this fact in the position in which the Christians found themselves placed at the time 1 The chief captain, Claudius Lysias, in xxiii. 29 sq., and the governor, Festus, in xxv. 26 and xxvi. 31. 2 Acts xxiv. 22 sq. 8 Acts xxvi. 32. 4 In the third Gospel, the same interest appears in connection with the trial of Jesus, Pilate's repeated declaration of Jesus' innocence being recorded only in that Gospel (Luke xxiii. 4, 14, 22). THE WORK OF PAUL 349 the book was written. They were probably looked upon with disfavor, and were treated with more or less hostility by the imperial officials at that time ; and the author was concerned not simply to write an account of the. early days of Christianity for the instruction of a friend, but also to present an apology for it to the authorities of the state. 1 Only on this assumption can we explain the dis- proportionate amount of space given to a subject which from a purely historical standpoint is of comparatively minor importance. It was doubtless this same desire that led the author to close his book without mention- ing the condemnation and execution of Paul, to whose arrest and imprisonment he had devoted so much space ; to close it rather with a reference to the large degree of liberty which he enjoyed in Rome, a liberty which in- cluded the permission to preach the Gospel without let or hindrance to all that would listen to him, and thus showed that Christianity was not regarded as harmful and dangerous by the state. The author could not, of course, deny that Paul was finally condemned and exe- cuted, and his silence does not imply that he wished his readers to think that he had not been ; but to mention the fact would have been entirely out of line with his purpose, and he therefore recorded only that part of the process which was distinctly favorable to Paul, and thus endeav- ored to leave the impression that his execution was en- tirely unjustifiable, as of course he believed that it was. 2 Turning to the account of Paul's arrest and imprison- ment contained in the chapters of which we have been 1 Various indications point to the reign of Domitian as the date of the com- position of the Book of Acts. During his reign the Christians suffered con- siderably from the hostility of the state (see below, p. (530). Moreover, the conception of Christianity which prevails throughout the book is similar in many respects to that which is found in other documents of that period. See below, pp. 437, 4(>2. 2 Ramsay also agrees in his interpretation of the purpose which governed Luke in the composition of the last part of Acts, and he emphasizes the evi- dences of that purpose, which appear in earlier chapters (St. Paul, the Travel- ler and the Roman Citizen, p. 303 sq.)- But the conclusion which he draws therefrom, that Luke must have planned to write a third work, describing the acquittal and release of Paul and his subsequent labors, I am quite unable to accept. See below, p. 418. 350 THE APOSTOLIC AGE speaking, we learn that immediately upon his arrest he wag permitted to address the excited Jewish multitude in his own defence. 1 A reference, however, to his mission to the Gentiles gave rise to a second outbreak, and he was hurried into the castle and commanded by the tribune Lysias to be examined by scourging, in order that the nature of his offence might be determined. 2 But Paul appealed to his Roman citizenship, which guaranteed immunity from such indignity, and the result was that he not only escaped a scourging, but also received much more consideration from the authorities than would otherwise have been shown him. 3 Still uncertain as to the cause of all the trouble, Lysias brought him on the following day before the Sanhedrim, in order that he might learn what it was that the Jews accused him of. 4 He got little satisfaction, 1 The address is given in xxii. 3-21. There is nothing in the early part of it that might not have been spoken by Paul upon such an occasion, but vs. 17 sq., in which he is represented as returning to Jerusalem after his conversion, with the intention of beginning his missionary work there, can hardly be regarded as his own utterance. Indeed, the relation of the speech to the parallel accounts in chaps, ix. and xxvi. is such as to make it probable that, like the former, it was composed by the author of the Acts upon the basis of the latter (see above, p. 120). Luke may have found in his sources the statement that Paul made an address on this particular occasion, and that he should reproduce what he supposed to be its general tenor and contents was but natural. He knew that Paul was guiltless of the charge of insurrection preferred against him (Acts xxi. 38, xxiv. 5) and he understood that the hos- tility of the Jews was due primarily to his preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. There was no better way, therefore, to demonstrate his innocence and to exhibit the intolerance of the Jews and the groundlessness of their enmity toward him, than to let him recount in his own words his conversion and divine commission. 2 Acts xxii. 22 sq. 3 Acts xxii. 25, xxiii. 27. 4 There is nothing improbable in the report that Lysias brought Paul before the Sanhedrim ; but the scene depicted in xxiii. 1-10 is not without difficulties. The Pharisees in the council must have been bitterly hostile to Paul as a man who taught everywhere against the people and the law and the temple. That they should have been led to support him by his declaration that he preached the resurrection of the dead, and that the Sadducees alone should have remained hostile to him, because of their opposition to that doc- trine, can hardly be believed. The resurrection, while it was accepted by the one party and denied by the other, was a minor matter with both sects, and was not at all the ground of their mutual hostility. Paul's assertion of it could not have led the Pharisees to condone his offence against the law; nor would it have sufficed to make the Sadducees his persecutors. Luke's idea is similar to that which appears in Acts iv. 2, where he represents their opposi- tion t > the doctrine of the resurrection as the ground of the Sadducees' attack upon the early disciples. The basis of the account which he gives of Paul's arraignment before the Sanhedrim may possibly have lain in Lysias' reference to it in xxiii. 28, 29. THE WORK OF PAUL 351 however, from them ; and learning of a plot which had been formed against Paul by more than forty Jews, 1 he thought it wisest to send his troublesome prisoner to Ceesarea, the residence of the procurator. He therefore hurried him away under cover of the night and in charge of a strong guard. 2 Arrived in Csesarea, Paul was brought to trial after five days 3 before the procurator Felix, and was then formally accused by the Jews not only of attempting to profane the temple, but also and especially of being an habitual insur- rectionist. 4 The latter was one of the worst charges that could be brought against a man in the eyes of the Roman state, which was quick to put down with a strong hand dis- turbances and uprisings among the provincials, whatever their character or occasion. The Jews did not succeed, however, in making their charge good. Felix, who doubt- less knew them well after his long residence among them, was aware that they cared far less about the peace of the empire than about their own law and customs ; and he no doubt saw at once that their hostility to Paul, of whose case he had alread}^ been informed by the tribune Lysias, was due solely to religious differences. At the same time, he did not wish to incur the enmity of the Jews by releas- ing immediately a prisoner in whose condemnation they were so deeply interested ; and so, after listening to Paul's defence, 5 he reserved his decision upon the pretext that he 1 Acts xxiii. 12 sq. Of Paul's sister, mentioned in vs. 16, and of her son, who discovered the plot and disclosed it to the tribune, we have no other information. 2 Acts xxiii. 23 sq. The letter which Lysias is represented to have written to Felix concerning Paul (xxiii. 26-30) bears marks of genuineness, and may possibly have constituted one of the sources used by Luke in the composition of this part of his book. 3 Acts xxiv. 1 sq. 4 Acts xxiv. 5 and 6. 5 Recorded in Acts xxiv. 10 sq. The address which Paul is reported to have made on this occasion, if not a free composition by the author of the Acts, is at any rate only partially Paul's, for it contains some utterances that are quite out of line with his character and teaching. Cf., e.g., vs. 11, and espe- cially vs. 15 with its emphasis upon the resurrection not only of the just, but also of the unjust. Verse 17 with its reference to the great collection for the saints at Jerusalem, which the author of the Acts entirely omits to mention in his account of Paul's life and work, looks like a reminiscence of words actu- ally spoken by Paul before Felix. But in its existing form it betrays a later hand. It is possible, to be sure, that Paul may have represented the collection 352 THE APOSTOLIC AGE wished to have a personal consultation with the tribune who had made the arrest. 1 In the meantime he committed Paul to the care of a centurion, with the command that he should be treated with indulgence, and that his friends should be allowed to visit him freely. 2 Such military custody, as it was called, was a regular form of imprison- ment under Roman law, and was intended to provide for the safe-keeping of an accused person, pending his trial, without subjecting him to the discomfort and misery of confinement in the public jail. 3 Felix thus held Paul a prisoner without deciding his case until the close of his term of office two years later. That Paul should have been kept in custody so long is not surprising. A Roman magistrate had the right to fix the time for the hearing of a case, and such a protracted confinement as Paul was subjected to was not at all uncommon. The author of the Acts, moreover, gives a special and entirely credible reason for the long delay in the present case, when he reports that Felix hoped to receive money for releasing Paul. 4 Such conduct was quite in accord with his char- acter as we know it from Josephus and Tacitus ; 5 and the close bond which existed among Christians, and the evi- dent affection in which Paul was held by his friends and followers, might well encourage him to expect a large bribe. which he brought to his Christian brethren as alms and offerings for his nation, but he could hardly have said that he presented them in the temple without lay- ing himself open to the charge of disingenuousness. It looks as if Luke, know- ing nothing about the collection, interpreted a reference to it as applying to the offerings made in connection with the vow which Paul had assumed in Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 23). i Acts xxiv. 22. 2 Acts xxiv. 23. 8 Persons held for trial might be confined in the public jail, which was usually a wretched hole, or they might be placed in military custody, or if they were persons of distinction, be given into the care of some official of high rank, who could grant them as much liberty as he chose, so long as he pro- duced them at the time of their trial. A man held in military custody might reside in the barracks or sometimes in a private house, but he was commonly chained to his guard, who was made responsible for his safe-keeping with his life (cf. Wieseler: Chronologic d. ap. Zeitalters, S. 380 sq.). Whether Paul, while in Cfesarea, lived in the barracks or in some private house as he did la'ter in Rome, we are not told, but the former is more probable in view of the author's silence here and of his explicit statement in xxviii. 30, in connection with the Roman imprisonment. 4 Acts xxiv. 26. 5 Josephus : Ant. XX. 8 ; Tacitus : Ann. XII. M. THE WORK OF PAUL 353 Paul's innocence was by no means so apparent as it per- haps seems to us ; and though he was a Roman citizen, Felix could hold him a long time for trial without subject- ing himself to the charge of flagrant injustice. In spite of the large amount of space which the Book of Acts devotes to Paul's Caesarean imprisonment, we know in reality very little about it. Luke's account is confined wholly to Paul's dealings with the authorities, and except for the single statement that he was treated with indul- gence and was permitted to see his friends at will, we have no information about his life and work during this period. It is true that there are three epistles, Colossians, Phile- mon, and Ephesians, which some scholars suppose to have been written at this time. 1 But it is probable that the traditional and commonly accepted opinion is correct and that they were written in Rome rather than in Csesarea, so that we cannot use them as sources for a knowledge of the apostle's activities and experiences during his stay in Csesarea. Some two years after Paul's arrest Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. 2 Immediately upon his arrival in Gees- area the new procurator went up to Jerusalem, and while there was told about the prisoner whom Felix had left in bonds, and was requested by the leading Jews to send him thither for trial before the Sanhedrim. 3 Festus, how- ever, with a proper regard for Paul's rights, refused to accede to their request, but promised to take up the matter as soon as he returned to Csesarea, and advised them to be on hand with their accusations. When the case came on for trial, Festus saw that it had to do largely with Jew- ish law and custom, about which he had very little knowl- edge, and he therefore suggested that Paul should consent to be tried in Jerusalem. But Paul knew the temper of the Jews, and was well aware that he could not expect justice at their hands, and so he refused to go, as he had a 1 So, e.g., Weiss : Einleitung in das Neue Testament, S. 249 sq. (Eng. Trans., I. p. 326). Clemen (Chronologic de.r paulinischen Briefe, S. 249 s^.J puts the composition of Colossians and Philemon into the Cajsarean imprisuu- ment, but assigns Ephesians to a later author. 2 Acts xxiv. 27. 3 Acts xxv. 1 sq. 2A 354 THE APOSTOLIC AGE perfect right to do. 1 Why he should have appealed to Caesar in this connection, as he is reported to have clone, is not altogether clear. His Roman citizenship gave him the right to be tried in Caesarea at the bar of the imperial procurator, and it was therefore not necessary for him to appeal to the emperor in order to escape a trial in Jerusa- lem. It is evident that he had good reason to fear that the case would go against him in Festus' court, and it may be that he saw that his unwillingness to be judged by his own countrymen had led the latter to think him guilty. The character of Festus, as portrayed by Josephus, 2 for- bids the assumption that he would have condemned Paul merely for the sake of pleasing the Jews and without regard to the evidence. Paul's appeal to Caesar, therefore, is a proof that his enemies had a strong case against him and that his innocence was by no means so apparent as the words of Agrippa, recorded in Acts xxvi. 32, would seem to indicate. 3 The appeal, which Festus was bound to entertain, 4 re- i Acts xxv. 10. 2 Josephus : Ant. XX. 8 ; B. J. II. 14. 8 It has been frequently claimed that the favorable treatment which Paul received from the authorities in Csesarea, and the declaration of his innocence to which Lysias, Agrippa, and possibly Festus also gave utterance, show that there was nothing in the case against him, and point to his final acquittal and release. But Paul would hardly have appealed to Caesar, with all the expense, and trouble, and delay which such an appeal involved, so long as he had a reasonable prospect of securing an acquittal at the bar of Festus. It is absurd to suppose that he appealed because he wanted to visit Rome, as has been sug- gested by some scholars (cf. Wieseler, I.e. S>. 383), for had he been released he could have gone thither as a free man whenever he wished to. That he did not appeal under Felix shows that he was in less danger while he was procu- rator. But as Festus was a much better man and a more honest official than Felix, it looks as if it were Felix's hope of receiving a bribe from Paul which led him to treat Paul with leniency. It is not impossible that the alternative of Paul's protracted imprisonment under Felix was not his release, but his conviction, and that if Felix had not hoped to receive a bribe he would have passed sentence upon him long before he was succeeded by Festus. It would seem then that Paul appealed under Festus, because the latter's reputation for honesty, and his prompt attention to his case, led him to see that he could hope for no favors from him, and as the witnesses against him in Caesarea were many and zealous, his chances of an acquittal would be better at a dis- tant court whither they might not take the trouble to pursue him. Whatever Festus' attitude toward Paul after his consultation with Agrippa, there can at any rate be no doubt that when Paul appealed to Caesar he had reason to think that the evidence against him was so strong that his trial before Festus would result in his condemnation. 4 Notorious robbers, pirates, and plotters against the government might be refused the right of appeal if their guilt was perfectly clear, but in ordinary THE WORK OF PAUL 355 moved Paul's case from the jurisdiction of the procurator and made it necessary for the latter to send him to Rome at the earliest opportunity. But before the time of his de- parture arrived, Herod Agrippa II. 1 came to Csesarea with his sister Bernice to pay his respects to the new procurator, and Festus improved the occasion to get Agrippa's opinion of Paul and his advice as to how the latter's alleged offence should be described to the emperor. 2 Agrippa expressed a desire to hear Paul for himself, and the result was that the apostle was afforded a welcome opportunity to give an ac- count of himself and of his work, not in the presence of Agrippa and Bernice merely, but also of the procurator and many other officials of high rank. 3 He seems to have im- cases the right could be denied to no Roman citizen. There was nothing in Paul's case to justify Festus in refusing him the common privilege which his citizenship guaranteed him, as he and his council clearly saw (Acts xxv. 12). 1 Son of Herod Agrippa L, whose death is recorded in Acts xii. 23. Herod Agrippa II. came to the throne in 48, and lived until 100 A.D. 2 Acts xxv. 13 sq. 3 Acts xxv. 23-xxvi. 29. The account of Paul's arraignment before Festus and of his appearance before Agrippa, given in Acts xxv. and xxvi. is more vivid and less open to criticism than the preceding context. The story of his conversion recorded in chap. xxvi. is much more compact and simple than in chaps, ix. and xxii., and at the same time reproduces his own ultimate impres- sion of the event with greater accuracy than the other accounts, when it repre- sents him as receiving his apostolic call at the time of his vision instead of later through the agency of another (cf. Gal. i. 16, and see Weudt, in Meyer's Commentary on Acts, 7th edition, S. 217 sq.). It is therefore probable that the address was found by the author in his sources, and that it constituted the original upon which the other accounts were built. But it is clear that he made additions to it as to so many of the speeches recorded by him. Thus vs. 20 is in line with the idea, which appears so frequently in Acts, that after his conversion Paul did missionary work in Jerusalem and Judea. Verse 8 also looks like an addition ; and in the light of Acts xiii. 38, it is not impossible that the reference to the remission of sins in vs. 18 is Luke's and not Paul's. See also p. 120, above. It is held by some scholars, by Wendt among others, that chaps, xxv. and xxvi. were taken from the work of the eyewitness, from which chaps, xxvii. and xxviii. also came. But I am unable to discover any grounds for such an assumption. The man who wrote xxvii. 1-xxviii. 16, and the other "we" passages was interested even in the little things which concerned Paul, and it cannot be supposed that if he was with Paul during his Caesarean imprison- ment, he would have written so impersonal and official an account as appears in chaps, xxv. and xxvi. It is to be noticed, moreover, that xxvii. 1 has no direct connection with what immediately precedes. There is a marked gap between xxvi. 32 and xxvii. 1, and yet it can hardly be supposed that the author who reproduced the " we " passage in such detail in chaps, xxvii. and xxviii., would have omitted that which must have connected chaps, xxvi. and xxvii. if they constituted originally a part of one whole. There seems to be another indication here that the " we " source was of a fragmentary character. 356 THE APOSTOLIC AGE pressed his listeners as a man of culture who had become unbalanced upon the subject of religion and was pursuing a foolish and fanatical course, but was neither a criminal nor a vicious character. Whether Festus shared the opinion as to Paul's innocence, to which Agrippa is represented as giving explicit utterance, we do not know, 1 but at any rate Paul had appealed to Csesar and to Caesar he must go. Paul's Csesarean imprisonment, which has been engaging our attention, has been commonly employed as a starting- point from which to reckon the chronology of a large part of the apostle's life. It is clear that he was sent from Csesarea to Rome soon after the accession of Festus. 2 If the date of the latter event therefore can be determined, the time of his imprisonment can be fixed with a good deal of exactness, and calculations can be based upon it respecting preceding as well as subsequent events. Unfortunately, the desired date is not directly given in any of our sources, and can be ascertained only by a combination of various more or less uncertain references. The prevailing opinion is that Fes- tus became procurator in the year 60. 3 But there is good ground, it seems to me, for revising that opinion and for pushing the date of his accession back to the year 55. Such a revision involves so considerable a change in the generally accepted chronology of Paul's life, that the mat- 1 Luke says indefinitely in xxvi. 31, that " they spake one to another, say- ing, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds " ; and more ex- plicitly in vs. 32, that "Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar." But though Paul's address may have convinced Agrippa and others, including even Festus, that he had committed no crime, it did not serve to prove that he was not a dangerous character, and that he would not stir up trouble in the future as he had in the past. It was not enough for Paul to prove that his intentions were good and that there was no valid reason why his teaching should create an excitement and lead to riots wherever he went. The fact that he was the innocent cause of such riots was enough to condemn him in the eyes of the Roman state, and Festus, as a faithful Roman official, could hardly have set him at liberty on the strength of his address and of Agrippa's opinion. 2 Cf. Acts xxv. 1, 6 sq., 13 sq., 23, xxvi. 32, xxvii. 1. 8 Many say 59, some 61. For a very clear and concise presentation and defence of the prevailing view, see Schiirer: I.e. I. S. 483 sq. (Eng. Trans., Div. I. Vol. II. p. 182 sq.). For a fuller treatment of the subject see especially Wieseler : Chronologie d. ap. Zeitalters, S. 60 sq. Schiirer, who decides for the year 60, closes his careful discussion of the subject with the words : "It is most correct to say, with Wurm, ' At the earliest 58, at the latest 61, probably 60,' " THE WORK OF PAUL 357 ter merits careful consideration. 1 Josephus records that Festus' predecessor Felix was accused before Nero by prominent Jews of Csesarea, and that he escaped punish- ment only because of the influence of his brother Pallas, who at that time enjoyed the especial friendship of the emperor. 2 But Tacitus reports that Pallas fell into dis- favor with Nero and was relieved of his offices before the end of the year 55 ; 3 and the historian's account of Nero's attitude toward Pallas and his silence touching any recon- ciliation between them, to say nothing of the emperor's treatment of Agrippina, with whose fortunes those of Pallas were so intimately bound up, make it very difficult to believe that the latter again acquired influence at court. That Pallas was acquitted of the crime of conspiracy a few months after his dismissal from office 4 cannot be urged as a proof that he subsequently regained Nero's favor, for he had expressly stipulated at the time of his dismissal that he should not be questioned for any part of his past con- duct, 5 and Tacitus remarks that his " acquittal was not so gratifying [evidently meaning to the emperor] as his arro- gance was offensive." 6 But the accusation from which Felix was relieved by the good offices of his brother was made after his departure from Palestine and after the accession of his successor Festus. 7 It seems therefore that the latter must have become procurator in 55 ; for before the end of that year Pallas was in disgrace, while Nero ascended the throne too late in the previous year (Oct. 13) to send Festus to Palestine before the early fall, when Paul was despatched to Rome. 8 Against this opinion it has been urged that the words addressed by Paul to Felix, two years before the close of the latter's term of office (" Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been for many years a judge unto this nation " 9 ) make so early a date impossible. But that is a decided 1 The substance of the following discussion of the date of Paul's Caesarean imprisonment has been already printed in the American Journal of Theology for January, 1897, p. 145 sq. 2 Ant. XX. 8, 9. 6 Ann. XIII. 14. 8 Cf . Acts xxvii. 9. 8 Ann. XIII. 14. Ann. XIII. 23. * Acts xxiv. 10. 4 Ann. XIII. 23. ' Josephus : Ant. XX. 8, 9. 358 THE APOSTOLIC AGE mistake, for even though Cumauus may not have been succeeded by Felix until 52, as Tacitus and Josephus seem to imply, 1 Tacitus expressly says that Felix had already been for a long time governor of Judea, includ- ing Samaria, while Cumanus was governor of Galilee. 2 Josephus, to be sure, says nothing of such a division of the province, but his account at this point is so improbable in many of its features and contains so many palpable inac- curacies, that we can hardly hesitate to follow Mommsen in preferring the authority of Tacitus to that of Josephus. 3 Paul's words therefore might have been uttered in 53, when, if our view be correct, he was taken a prisoner to Csesarea, as well as in 58 or any other year. Josephus' ap- parent ignorance touching Felix's presence and authority in Palestine before the year 52 probably explains the fact that he relates most of the deeds which he ascribes to Felix, including his victory over the Egyptian referred to in Acts xxi. 38, in connection with the reign of Nero. 4 At any rate, in view of that ignorance, it is clear that no valid argument against the earlier date for Paul's arrest can be drawn from the fact that such events are connected by Josephus with Nero's reign. In confirmation of the early date I have been maintaining for the accession of Festus and the arrest and imprisonment of Paul may be urged, on the one hand, the traditional resi- dence of the apostle Peter in Rome, which seems to require an earlier date for Paul's death than that commonly adopted, 5 and on the other hand the chronology of the latter's mis- sionary career. Reasons have already been given for think- ing that the apostolic council probably took place in the year 45 instead of 50 or 51, as is commonly assumed. 6 It is true that our data for determining the length of Paul's mis- sionary journeys are few and uncertain, but the generally accepted calculations are probably approximately correct. i Ann. XII. 54 ; Ant. XX. 7, 1. 2 Ann. XII. 54. 3 Mommsen : Romische Geschichte, 3te Auflage, V. S. 525 sq. Cf . also Blass: Ada apostolorum, p. 21, and Ramsay: St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 313. 4 Cf. Josephns: Ant. XX. 8; B. J. II. 13. * See below, p. 592 sq. See above, p. 172. THE WORK OF PAUL 359 They make the interval between the apostolic council and the arrest of Paul in Jerusalem about seven or eight years, and if the former event therefore be fixed at about 45, the latter can hardly be put much later than 53. 1 It may fairly be assumed then on the grounds given above, which find con- firmation in the considerations just mentioned, that Paul's imprisonment in Csesarea, which followed immediately upon his arrest in Jerusalem, began in the early summer of 53 (he was arrested soon after Pentecost) and continued until the late summer or early fall of 55, when he sailed for Rome. 2 The account of Paul's journey from Csesarea to Rome is taken from the "we" source, and is exceedingly accurate and without doubt entirely trustworthy from beginning to end. 3 Late in the summer or early in the fall 4 he left J Assuming, as is very likely, that Paul left Antioch upon his second mission- dry journey (Acts xv. 40) in the spring of 46, he must have reached Philippi before the end of the fall, for his journey through Asia Minor was evidently a rapid one, and he stopped nowhere for any length of time (see above, p. 235). The length of his stay in Macedonia is uncertain, but a year would probably cover it, so that he may have reached Corinth in the autumn of 47. Here he remained a year and a half according to Acts xviii. 11, and at the opening ot navigation iu the spring of 49 he very likely sailed at once for Syria (Acts xviii. 18). He seems to have tarried only a short time in the East, and to have hastened back to Ephesus without stopping to do evangelistic work on the way (xviii. 21 sq., xix. 1). It is therefore probable that he reached Ephesus by the middle of the year 49. From Acts xix. 8, 10, and 22, it appears that his residence in Ephesus lasted something over two and a quarter years, and in Acts xx. 31, the whole duration of it is given in round numbers as three years. We conclude from 1 Cor. xvi. 8, combined with xvi. 1 and 2 Cor. ix. 2, that he left Ephesus for the last time in the spring, so that he was probably there from the summer of 49 to the spring of 52. He reached Corinth appar- ently toward the close of the same year (see above, p. 324), and after a stay of three months there, left in the spring for Jerusalem (Acts xx. 4, 6), where he arrived in time for Pentecost in the year 53. These calculations are of course for the most part only approximate ; but they can hardly be more than a year out of the way, and they thus go to confirm, in a general way, the earlier date for Paul's imprisonment. 2 The earlier date for Festus' accession and Paul's imprisonment has been maintained also by Kelluer in the Zeitschrift fur kath. Theologie, 1888, S. 630 sq., and in other articles ; by Weber in his Kritische Geschichte der Exe- gese des Men Kapitels des Romerbriefes, 1889, S. 177 sq. ; and more recently by O. Holtzmann in his Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, S. 128 sq., and by Blass, I.e. S. 21 sq. Blass puts the arrest of Paul at Jerusalem in the year 54. 8 On Paul's voyage to Rome see especially James Smith's Voyage and Ship- wreck of St. Paul, and compare Ramsay : St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 314 sq. 4 They were at Crete in October according to Acts xxvii. 9, and they must have been already some weeks on the voyage. The fast referred to in that passage is the great fast of the day of atonement, which fell on the tenth 360 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Caesarea, in charge of a centurion named Julius, who was conducting a body of prisoners to Rome. He was accom- panied by Aristarchus of Thessalonica 1 and the unnamed author of the account of the voyage. They very likely went in the capacity of Paul's personal attendants or slaves, for otherwise such intimate association as they seem to have had with him throughout the journey would hardly have been possible. 2 Paul seems to have appeared in Csesarea and in Rome as a man of higli social rank, and he was treated as such by the authorities. 3 It was there- fore entirely natural that he should have a couple of attend- ants and that they should be allowed to accompany him to Rome. 4 The voyage from Caesarea was made by ship, and the winds proved exceedingly unpropitious, so that instead of reaching Rome before the close of navigation in the fall, they were shipwrecked on the island of Malta, and forced to remain there three months. Paul's courage, wisdom, and presence of mind were very conspicuous in all the difficulties and dangers of the voyage and made a great impression upon the centurion and all the ship's company. He showed himself equal to the emergency in this case as in every other, and we could ill spare the picture of his calm and confident demeanor in the midst of the panic- of the month Tisri, the seventh month of the Jewish year, corresponding approximately to our October. 1 Aristarchus was with Paul in Ephesus, according to Acts xix. 29, and accompanied him upon his final journey to Jerusalem, Acts xx. 4. He also remained with him for some time in Rome (Col. iv. 10; Philemon 24). 2 See Ramsay: I.e. p. 315 sq. 8 Notice the consideration shown him by the centurion at Sidon, where he was allowed to visit his friends, according to Acts xxvii. 3. 4 Ramsay (I.e. p. 310 sq.) has an interesting note upon the finances of the trial, in which he suggests that Paul had recently fallen heir to considerable prop- erty, and that he was thus in a position to defray easily the large expenses in- volved in his trial and protracted imprisonment. It is possible that this was the case, but not only at an earlier day in Macedonia and Achaia, but also later in Rome, he received gifts from the church of Philippi and found them very welcome (Phil. iv. 10 sq.). It hardly looks, therefore, as if he were a man of independent wealth at any time. That he had enough property to raise him above the level of the ordinary criminal, and to insure him a measure of respect from the authorities, is very likely, but it is probable that Felix was counting upon the devotion of Paul's disciples and not upon the apostle's purse alone when he tried to secure a bribe for his release (Acts xxiv. 26). and that frequently durinr his imprisonment Paul had the assistance as well as the sympathy of his Christian brethren. THE WORK OF PAUL 361 stricken prisoners and crew. Though only a prisoner, he was the commanding figure in the vessel, and he made his influence felt. The secret of his marvellous power and success as a missionary of Christ lay in no small measure in his superiority to circumstances so clearly manifested in such scenes as these, and in the dominating forcefulness of his personality, which was felt by high as well as low, by governors and kings as well as by soldiers and sailors. In Malta Paul is reported to have performed many mira- cles l and to have gained the confidence and affection of the inhabitants, but nothing is said about his preaching the Gospel and securing converts to the Christian faith. At the opening of navigation in the spring the voyage was resumed in another ship, and Puteoli was reached in good time and without farther mishap. After a week's stay there, during which Paul enjoyed the association of Chris- tian disciples residing in the place, the soldiers with their prisoners made their way to Rome by land. The Roman Christians had received news of Paul's coming, probably from the brethren at Puteoli, and a number of them met him at the Forum of Appius, more- than forty-five miles from the city on the Via Appia, and others at the Three Taverns, some twelve or thirteen miles nearer. 2 They gave him a warm welcome and Paul was greatly cheered and encouraged by it. It must have meant much to him, arriving a prisoner in bonds, to be greeted in such a way. The Roman church was not of his own planting and he himself was a stranger to most of its members, and he might well have entertained doubts as to whether they would care to show him any particular attention, or would dare to do it, under existing circumstances, even if they wished to. Their friendliness and sympathy thus promptly expressed, and their evident disregard of the possible con- 1 The attempt to cut out vss. 3-6 and 7-10 of chap, xxviii. as interpolations is quite unwarranted. Paul himself testifies in 2 Cor. xii. 12 to his own per- formance of signs and wonders, and the record of such events in accounts of his life and work is in itself no sufficient indication of late date. The age with which we are dealing was in an eminent sense a supernatural age, and the be- lief in miracles was universal among the disciples. 2 Acts xxviii. 15. 362 THE APOSTOLIC AGfl sequences of compromising themselves in the eyes of the authorities, must have affected him deeply. He felt him- self among friends, even though a prisoner in a strange city, and he " thanked God and took courage." 1 The " we " source apparently closes just at this point, though it may be that a part of that which follows was taken from it. At any rate, it is not at all impossible that Paul had a conference with some of the leading Jews of the city as recorded in vss. 17-20, in the hope that lie might succeed in disposing them favorably toward him, or might at least disarm their hostility, which of course would work to his decided disadvantage in his approach- ing trial. The words uttered by the Jews, according to vs. 22, convey the impression that they had not themselves come in contact with Christianity, but knew it only by hearsay. Such an impression, however, is hardly in accord with the actual facts. There were certainly Jewish Chris- tians in the church of Rome at the time Paul wrote his epistle, and it is altogether likely that the disturbances which led to the expulsion of some of the Jews from the city during the reign of Claudius were due to the preaching of Christ in the synagogue. 2 It cannot be denied, more- over, that the words attributed to Paul in vss. 25-28 seem on their face a little out of harmony with the situation and with the immediate context; for while vss. 17-20 rep- resent him as summoning the leaders of the Jews in order to disarm their prejudice against him, vss. 23-28 picture him as preaching the Gospel to them, and then pronouncing condemnation upon them for their refusal to believe, in 1 Acts xxviii. 16. 2 Cf . Acts xviii. 2, and Suetonius : Claudius, 25. Suetonius says that Clau- dius expelled the Jews from Rome because they were making disturbances at the instigation of a certain Chrestus (Judssos impulsore Chresto assidue tu- multuantes Roma expulit). The identification of Chrestus with Christ is not certain, but is very probable, and has been adopted by most scholars. Dion Cassius (LX. 6), referring probably to the same event, says that Claudius did not expel the Jews from the city, as there were too many of them, but forbade them to hold meetings. Very likely an edict of expulsion was passed and some of the Jews, including Aquila and Priscilla (Acts xviii. 2), left the city; but the Jewish colony was so large that it was found impracticable to carry out the edict, and so a prohibition of their religions services was substituted. The date of the edict is unknown to us, and no chronological conclusions can be drawn from it. THE WORK OF PAUL words calculated only to enrage and embitter them. So too the utterance recorded in vs. 28 (" Be it therefore known unto you that this salvation of God hath been sent unto the Gentiles; they also will hear") sounds like an anachronism at this time and place. When Paul arrived in Rome, there was already a Christian church there com- posed largely of Gentiles, and it was undoubtedly among them that he had most of his friends, and by them that he was welcomed most warmly. It is a little strange under such circumstances that he should say to the Jews of the city that their refusal to believe would result in the salva- tion of the heathen. That he actually did come in contact with unconverted Jews in Rome, and that he even endeav- ored to win them over to the Christian faith, need not be doubted, but the particular form which his intercourse with them takes in the account of Acts was possibly due to the author, who perhaps represented Raul as having such an interview as is described in order to emphasize at the very close of his book the fact upon which he had laid frequent stress, that Paul was not to blame for the non-conversion of the Jews, and for the predominantly Gentile character of the church, but that the Jews themselves were to blame for it ; that he had offered the Gospel to the Jews of Rome be- fore turning to the Gentiles, just as he had in nearly all the cities which he visited ; that everything possible had been done to induce them to accept Christianity, but that they had persistently refused, and that, too, in spite of the fact that Christianity was the true form of Judaism which all their prophets had been foretelling, and to which all their past had been leading up. This fact, which thus received renewed and final emphasis, had also an apologetic signifi- cance. It was calculated to explain and, at the same time, to show the injustice of the Jews' enmity for the Christians, which was undoubtedly very marked at the time our author wrote, and which contributed not a little to the hostile treatment accorded the church by the Roman authorities. 364 THE APOSTOLIC AGE 12. PAUL IN ROME The Book of Acts closes with the statement that Paul " abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling, and received all that went in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him." 1 That Paul during the two years thus described actually did enjoy a large measure of freedom in communicating with his friends and with any others who were interested enough to visit him, and that he continued his activity as a preacher of the Gospel to those about him and retained his interest in his own churches and in the progress of Christianity in the world at large, is evidenced by four epistles from his pen, all of which were apparently written at this time : the epistles to Philemon, to the Colossians, to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians. That the last-named was written in Rome, while Paul was a prisoner there, is commonly taken for granted. 2 The expectation of death which haunted the imprisoned apostle while he wrote ; 3 the large and active circle of Christian disciples with which he was surrounded, and the various tendencies exhibited among them ; 4 the reference to the praetorian guard, 5 and the greetings from the members of Csesar's household, 6 all point to Rome. But there are some scholars that maintain that the first three of the epistles mentioned were written not in Rome, but in Csesarea during Paul's imprisonment there. 7 It is certain that the three cannot be separated from each other. If they are genuine epistles of Paul, they must have been written at the same time and place. But for the opinion that that place was Rome and not Csesarea speaks the fact 1 Acts xxviii. 30, 31. 2 The Epistle to the Philippians is put into the Caesarean imprisonment by O. Holtzmann : Theologische Litteraturzeilung, 1890, Sp. 177, and by Spitta : Die Apostelgeschichte, S. 281, but so far as I know by no other recent scholars. Clemen, who divides the epistle into two, puts the earlier into the Caesarean imprisonment, the later into the Roman (Die Chronologic der paulinischen Brief e, S. 197). Phil. i. 20 sq., ii. 17. 5 Phil. i. 13. 7 See above, p. 363. < Phil. i. 12 sq. Phil. iv. 22. THE WORK OF PAUL 36f) that while Paul was in Csesarea, all his thoughts were turned toward Rome, and it is exceedingly unlikely that he would plan to visit Asia Minor again in case of his re- lease, as he announces his intention of doing in Philemon 22, instead of carrying out his long-cherished purpose to go at once to Rome. But that he actually had the inten- tion, while a prisoner in the latter city, to return East if he were released, is proved by Phil. i. 27 and ii. 24. More- over, it should be observed that the marked resemblances that exist between Colossians and Philippians make it exceedingly difficult to separate them by any long in- terval. 1 In view of these considerations there can be little doubt of the correctness of the traditional and com- monly accepted opinion that Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon were written during Paul's imprisonment in Rome. Their date it is impossible to determine more exactly. On the ground, on the one hand, of resemblances between Philippians and Romans and, on the other hand, of the less Pauline style and of the more highly developed Christology and ecclesiology of Colossians and Ephesians, Lightfoot has maintained, in disagreement with the great majority of scholars, that the Epistle to the Philippians was written before the other three. 2 But the resemblance to Romans has no weight ; for the epistles were separated at any rate by an interval of at least three years, and the literary style of Colossians and Ephesians and the alleged doctrinal difficulties which beset them cannot be accounted for by the lapse of twelve or fifteen months, which at the very most intervened between them and the Epistle to the Philippians. On the other hand, the fact that Timothy was with Paul when he wrote Philemon, Colossians, and Philippians, but that the last-named epistle announces his impending departure for the East, suggests that it was writ- ten later than the others ; for Timothy was certainly in the East toward the close of Paul's imprisonment, as appears 1 Upon these resemblances, see especially Von Soden in the Hand-Kom< mentar zum Neuen Testament, III. 1, S. 14. 2 See his Commentary on Philippians, edition of 1894, p. 30 sq. 366 THE APOSTOLIC AGE from 2 Tim. iv. 19. The tone of the Epistle to the Philip- pians is very different from that of the others. Though Paul hopes to be released, he is occupied much with the thought of death, and evidently realizes that it may be im- minent ; while in Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon there is no reference to his death, and he seems to be looking forward to a protracted period of activity in Rome. 1 It may fairly be assumed, then, that the common opinion is correct, and that the Epistle' to the Philippians was written later than the other three. But how long an interval separated it from them, we have no means of determining. The first of the epistles of the captivity was addressed to a church which Paul had neither founded nor visited, 2 the church of Colossse in southwestern Phrygia. But the Colossians apparently owed their Christianity to one of Paul's own disciples, a man named Epaphras; 3 and he therefore felt no hesitation in treating them as his own converts and writing them an epistle. The contrast between Paul's attitude toward the Colossians and the Romans is noticeable. He does not think it necessary to apologize for addressing the former as he did in the case of the latter. Though not his own converts, they are the converts of one of his disciples and thus they owe their Christianity indirectly if not directly to him, and consider themselves a part of his missionary field. He is therefore not building upon another man's foundation or entering another man's territory in writing to them, but only fulfil- ling the duty which he owes to all his churches, among which Colossse reckons itself and is reckoned by Paul as truly as any other. Paul's epistle is thus significant for the light it throws upon the respect in which he was held even among those who had not seen his face and the authority which he exercised over them. He was the apostle of a much wider field than he had himself person- ally traversed. The Colossian Christians were Gentiles, 4 and they had 1 Cf. Eph. vi. 19; Col. iv. 3. 8 Col. i. 7, iv. 12. 2 Col. ii. 1. * Cf. Col. i. 21, ii. 13. THE WORK OF PAUL 367 learned from Epaphras Paul's own Gospel ; 1 but at the time he wrote an ascetic and legalistic tendency was ap- pearing among them, not dissimilar to that referred to in Rom. xiv. 2 This tendency was evidently not due to the influence of Judaizers, such as Paul had to contend with in Jerusalem and Galatia ; for there is no sign that the attempt was made to impose circumcision upon the Colos- sians or to insist upon the observance of the Jewish law as a condition of salvation. Nor is there any sign of hostility to Paul himself, or of an inclination to question his author- ity or the truth of the Gospel which he preached. There is no "indication, moreover, that the men who advocated the practices which Paul attacks in his epistle denied the salvation of those who failed to observe them. They seem only to have recommended them as the means of reaching a higher stage of Christian perfection, and of making one's salvation more secure. 3 They did not preach another Gos- pel, as did the Judaizers in Galatia whom Paul was com- pelled to anathematize. They accepted the Gospel of Paul, but they believed that only by abstinence from certain kinds of food and drink, and by the observance of certain days, was it possible to reach that stage of perfection to which all Christians should aspire ; and they were there- fore condemning those who did not adopt their practices as less perfect than themselves. The differences between their principles and Paul's lay not in the sphere of theology or philosophy, but in the sphere of ethics. Their aims were wholly practical ; and Paul opposed them not because they taught a false philosophy of the universe or even a false doctrine of Christ, but because they advocated per- nicious observances, the practical effect of which was to obscure the full significance of Christ's work and to loosen the. Christian's grasp upon him. The rites and ceremo- nies and the ascetic practices which they inculcated they apparently based upon the need of conciliating and ward- ing off the hostility of those spiritual beings or angels who 1 Col. ii. 6 sq. 2 On the Colossian errorists, see especially Von Soden: Hand-Kommentar, III. 1, S. 5 sq. 8 Of. Col. i. 6, 9 sq., 22, 27, 28, ii. 3, 10, iii. 14. 368 THE APOSTOLIC AGE were widely supposed among the Jews to be active in the affairs of the world, and to exercise a large measure of control over the destinies of men. A belief in the exist- ence of such intermediate spiritual agents and a tendency to ritual observance and ascetic practice were also wide- spread in heathen circles, especially in the East ; but there are indications in Paul's Epistle to the Colossians that the errorists whom he opposes there were Jews rather than Gentiles, or at least owed their principles to Jewish in- fluence. At any rate, their insistence upon the observ- ance of new moons and Sabbath days, 1 and their apparent high estimate of circumcision, 2 both point in that direction. 3 At the same time it is evident that they were not Pharisaic legalists ; and it is almost equally clear that they were not Essenes as some scholars have supposed. 4 Ascetic ten- dencies and such a belief in angels as they held were cer- tainly not confined to that sect ; and there is no reference in our epistle to any of the most characteristic features of Essenism: celibacy, communism, and scrupulosity in con- nection with rites of purification. It is likely, in view of their special emphasis upon such practices as were most com- mon among Gentile adherents of Judaism in the world at large outside of- Palestine abstinence from certain kinds of food and the observance of sacred days, and in view of their angelology and their appeal to philosophy and visions 5 in support of their demands, that the errorists were under the influence of Alexandrian rather than Palestinian Juda- ism. There is nothing surprising in this, for the Judaism of Alexandria made itself widely felt in the world at large, and we have other traces of its influence in Asia Minor. 6 But though the Colossian errorists were either Jews themselves or under Jewish influence, the principles which iCol. ii. 16. 2 col. ii. 11, iii. 11. 8 Cf. also the words irapASoffu (ii. 8), d6jfj.ara (ii. 14 and 20), and ffroixeia (ii. 8, 20), the last of which is used in Gal. iv. 3 and 9 to designate the require- ments of the Jewish law. 4 So, e.ff. t Weiss: Einleitung in das Neue Testament, S. 253 (Eng. Trans., 1. p. 330). 6 Col. ii. 8, 18. 6 Compare, for instance, Paul himself, who was trained in Tarsus ; also Apollos and the author of the prologue of the Fourth Gospel. THE WORK OF PAUL 369 they preached were such as to appeal naturally to the Gen- tile Christians of Colossse ; for the same kind of a belief in spiritual beings, bridging the chasm between man and the invisible God, and the same tendency to conciliate them and win their assistance in the effort to acquire perfection and rise to an immediate contemplation of Deity, were widespread throughout the East, and later played a large part in the development of Christian theology and practice. We have in Colossse the first appearance of that syncretism of Oriental theosophy and Christian faith which in one form or another characterized all the Gnostic systems of the second century, and which was not without its influence upon the ultimate conception of the end and means of re- demption that prevailed in the orthodox church. We have also the first appearance of that syncretism of heathen and Christian ritual which in a developed form was so marked a feature of the religious life of the church of the fourth arid following centuries. It was not a mere form of Jewish Christianity which Paul attacked in his epistle, but a superimposition of Jewish and heathen elements, pri- marily practical, secondarily speculative, upon the Christian faith and' life. The effect of such elements, Paul saw at once, was to belittle the significance of Christ and of his work, and to lead Christians ultimately to depend for sal- vation upon their own efforts instead of the divine Christ within them, and thus to substitute the old life in the flesh for the new life in the Spirit, to their inevitable destruction. 1 And so, after commending in high terms the faith of his Colossian readers and offering a prayer for their growth in the knowledge of God's will and in true Christian vir- tue, Paul emphasizes in the strongest terms the exalted nature of Christ, in whom dwelleth the fulness of God, and his superiority to and sovereignty over all the visible and invisible forces of the universe, 2 in order to show the Colos- sians that the man whom Christ has redeemed and in whom Christ dwells need have no fear of principalities and pow- ers, either earthly or heavenly. It is with this aim in view that he asserts that redemption in Christ means the i Col. ii. 6, 8, 10, 18, 20, 23, iii. 2. 2 Col. i. 15 sq. 370 THE APOSTOLIC AGE forgiveness of sins, 1 so that the Colossian Christians need not suppose that they have any debt to pay to those beings whose hostility they fear. And it is with the same aim that he emphasizes the fact that Christ has not only created all things visible and invisible, but has also recon- ciled them all to himself through his death, 2 meaning thereby not that he has saved them, for Paul does not speak of reconciling them to God, but that he has put an end to their hostility to himself and to those in whom he dwells, possibly by demonstrating the uselessness of that hostility ; so that they are no longer to be feared by the Christian. With the same motive Paul then goes on to emphasize the completeness of the Christian's redemption in Christ, which not only insures him against the machina- tions of all hostile spirits, but also makes him holy and without blemish and unreprovable before God, 3 and thus renders unnecessary such efforts to acquire perfection as are urged by the false teachers. After this preliminary statement of what Christ has done for the Christian, Paul indicates that his purpose in writing thus is to show the groundlessness and harmfulness of the practices and observ- ances which the errorists are endeavoring to impose upon the Colossians ; 4 and in order to clinch the matter he em- phasizes again Christ's authority over all principalities and powers, and repeats in even clearer and more explicit terms his account of Christ's work, which has resulted in the complete redemption of the Christian and in his release from the bondage of the law. 5 Freed as he has been from that bondage, let the Christian not subject himself again to the ordinances of men and endeavor unnecessarily to pro- pitiate the angels, with whom he has really nothing more to do since he died -with Christ ; for the ritual observances and ascetic practices which he undertakes with that end i Col. i. 14. 2 Col. i. 20. 8 Col. i. 22. 4 Col. ii. 4 sq. 5 Col. ii. 8-15. In ii. 14, 15 we have another indication that the Colossian errorists were Jews or under Jewish influence ; for the angels, or the princi- palities and powers (dpx a * Ka -l tovciv in iii. 1 apparently refer not to what pre- cedes, but to what follows ; and as there is nothing like the latter in the earlier chapters, it looks as if Paul were referring to another epistle in which he had written of the same subject. It is certainly quite unlikely that during all the years which had elapsed since he first preached in Philippi he had not once written to his converts there. It is true that no other epistle to them is known to us, but that does not prove that none was written. Undoubtedly, Paul wrote many letters of which we have no knowledge. It is perhaps significant that Polycarp speaks in his Epistle to the Philippians (c. 3) of " letters " which Paul had written to them (os KCU a.iruv V[MV eyptvj/ev THE WORK OF PAUL 387 character of Christ. 1 After this digression he returns to a matter which was very likely in his mind while he was exhorting his readers to peace and unity in the early part of his letter, and addressing certain individuals by name, he beseeches them to be reconciled to each other. 2 After a final exhortation to joy and peace and purity in thought and life, 3 he thanks them heartily for their gifts and closes with salutations and a benediction. 4 The immediate occasion of the epistle was evidently Epaphroditus' intended return to Philippi, and the letter is primarily a commendation of Epaphroditus himself and an expression of thanks for the gifts which the Philippians had sent by him. Epaphroditus can hardly have remained very long in Rome, for otherwise Paul would doubtless have found some earlier opportunity of expressing his gratitude to his benefactors. He seems to have left for home much sooner than he had expected to ; for Paul takes pains to give the reasons for his return, and to explain that it is not because of any lack of courage or devotion on his part. It seems that he had been taken ill, 5 prob- ably very soon after his arrival in Rome, and had almost lost his life. Upon his recovery he naturally longed to see his home and his friends again, and so, though it was apparently his original intention to remain much longer in Rome, assisting the apostle in his work and ministering to his needs in such ways as he could, Paul sent him back to Philippi, assuring the friends whose representative he was, that he had done his duty faithfully and well, and exhorting them to receive him with all honor. Paul's treatment of Epaphroditus reveals most beautifully his tenderness and though tfuln ess toward his companions and disciples, and the unselfishness of his love for them. The whole epistle in fact, with its warm expression of affection, with its hearty recognition of the devotion of the Philip- pians, and with its unaffected gratitude for their liberality, combined with its kindly and yet frank and earnest ad- monitions, furnishes one of the most charming revelations i Phil. iii. 2-21. 2 Phil. i v . I sq. 8 Phil. iv. 4r-9. 4 Phil. iv. 10-20, 21-23. 5 Phil. ii. 25 sq. 388 THE APOSTOLIC AGE we have of the apostle's personal character, and of the closeness of the ties which bound him and his converts together. If he seems in some of his epistles sharp and censorious in his dealings with his churches, we see him in this one overflowing with tenderness and appreciation, and we realize how much they all were to him and how deeply his heart was enlisted in their welfare, and we understand better than we otherwise might the keenness with which he must feel defection or faithlessness on the part of any of them. The Epistle to the Philippians, as we have seen, was primarily a note of thanks and of commendation, but Paul had evidently learned from Epaphroditus, or from some other source, of the existence of a spirit of faction or jeal- ousy-within the church, and he consequently improved the opportunity to urge his readers to peace and unity. The difficulty, whatever it was, seems not to have been very seri- ous, but it prompted the apostle to emphasize the importance of harmony and to call attention to the example of Christ's humility and self-sacrifice, in a striking passage l which closely resembles some of his utterances in the Epistle to the Colossians. This Christological passage has commonly been given an undue amount of weight, and some have seen in it a reason for denying the authenticity of the epistle. But such a use of it is entirely unjustifiable, for it goes beyond Paul's statement in 2 Cor. viii. 9 only in form of expression, and there is nothing un-Pauline in it. It should be observed also that the passage was inserted not with a dogmatic but with a practical purpose. It was not the author's aim to teach Christology, but to remind his readers of the example of Christ, and thus to inspire them to similar love and sacrifice. The passage thus constitutes an integral part of the epistle arid finds its explanation in the practical aim that dictated the entire chapter in which it stands. The polemical passage in the third chapter is not alto- gether easy to explain. It is the common opinion that those against whom Paul warns his readers were Jewish Chris- i Phil. ii. 5 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 389 tians, who were endeavoring to force circumcision and the observance of the Jewish law upon the Gentile Christians either of Philippi or of Rome, as they had tried to do years before in Galatia. But it is certainly strange that such Judaizers should suddenly make their appearance, whether in Philippi or in Rome, so many years after Paul had won his decisive victory over them in Galatia, when during the entire interval we have no trace of their ac- tivity in any part of his missionary field. Our knowledge of Philippi during the years that had elapsed since Paul first preached Christianity there is, to be sure, very meagre, and we do not know all the forces that had been at work in the interval. But it is certain that Paul could not have commended the Philippians in such glowing terms if they had been already led astray by Judaizers, and that he could not have brought his epistle to a close, as he seems to have intended to do at the beginning of the third chapter, without warning them against such Judaizers, if he had known that they were threatened by them. It is possible that he learned for the first time after his letter was partly written, that Judaizers had recently made their appearance in Philippi ; but their sudden and unheralded activity there is, to say the least, very improbable. On the other hand, it seems even more difficult to account for their presence in Rome, for there is no sign that they were there when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, and the utter absence of any reference to them in Colos- sians, Ephesians, and Philemon makes their presence there when those letters were written extremely unlikely. More- over, in the first chapter of the Philippian epistle itself, Paul speaks of his fellow-Christians in such a way as to preclude utterly the supposition that there were any active Judaizers among them at the time he began to write. 1 All the probabilities therefore are against the supposition that they were at work in Rome when the third chapter was written. It is to be noticed also that the course which Paul pursues in the chapter in question is not that which we should ex 1 Phil. i. 14 sq. 390 THE APOSTOLIC AGE pect him to follow, if his purpose was to fortify his readers against Judaizing influences and prevent them from ac- cepting circumcision and observing the Jewish law. Abso- lutely nothing is said about the effect of such conduct upon his readers ; about their separation from Christ and the loss of the benefits of his redemptive work which would result from their adoption of Judaistic principles. 1 It is equally difficult to suppose, if the passionate words in iii. 2 sq. were prompted by a fear of Judaistic machina- tions, that Paul could drop the subject again so soon, and devote the latter part of his epistle to matters of an en- tirely different character. It would seem that the sudden reappearance of an enemy which had caused him such distress and anxiety a dozen years before, and over which he had gained a decisive and apparently lasting victory, must have stirred him so deeply and filled him with such terrible forebodings as to make it impossible for him to revert so easily to matters of comparatively little impor- tance, and to write of them in a bright and cheerful vein, and finally to close his epistle with evident joy and gratitude. In view of these facts, it seems better to assume, with Lipsius 2 and others, that Paul had in mind in writing Phil. iii. 2 sq. not Judaizers or Jewish Christians, but un- believing Jews. It is true that the language of the passage, read in the light of his earlier experiences, naturally sug- gests Judaizers. But in 2 Cor. xi. he employs similar language in defending himself against Jewish Christian opponents who were not Judaizers ; and there is no reason in the present case, where there is a notable absence of any reference to their Christian profession, and to the fact that they claimed to be apostles or ministers of Christ, why the language may not refer to unconverted Jews. There is a possible suggestion that the latter were actually in Paul's mind in the sixth verse of the third chapter, where he cites, as the only instance of his zeal, his persecution of the Christian church, which could hardly tend to strengthen 1 Compare with this passage the Epistle to the Galatians. 2 In the Hand-Kommentar, II. 2, S. 217. THE WORK OF PAUL 391 his case, if those with whom he was comparing himself were Christians. 1 If the passage be taken to apply to Jews, instead of being entirely out of line with all that precedes and fol- lows, as it certainly is if it refers to Judaizers, it can be shown to be in close connection with other parts of the epistle, and to be in harmony with the general course of the apostle's thought. We know from i. 28 sq. 2 that the Philippians at the time Paul wrote were exposed to perse- cution, 3 and it was his evident desire throughout his epis- tle to encourage them in the face of the trials which they were called upon to endure, and to strengthen their Chris- tian faith, which was subjected to the strain not of their own sufferings alone but also of Paul's, in whose imprison- ment and threatened death it might well seem that the cause of Christianity was doomed to perish. Thus, almost at the beginning of his epistle, 4 Paul assures them that his own imprisonment was contributing to the progress of the Gospel, and that the brethren in Rome were becoming bolder and more zealous than ever under the influence of his bonds. And he expresses his belief that he will yet be released and be enabled to carry on his work for the benefit of his converts ; but he gives utterance at the same time to his confidence that Christ will in any case be magnified, whether by his life or by his death. It was doubtless with the opposition of the enemies of Christ in mind, that he laid so much stress upon the importance of healing all divisions and of preserving peace and unity within the church, and that he repeated so frequently and 1 Paul's reference to his persecution of the Christian church is introduced here in a connection very different from that in which it occurs in Gal. i. 13. In the latter passage Paul was concerned to show that he received his Gospel not from man, but from God, and he therefore cited his attitude toward the church up to the time of his conversion, to show how far he was from getting his Christianity from the disciples. 2 Cf. also Phil. ii. 15 and 19. 3 Though the enemies of the Philippians may have heen for the most part heathen, as they seem to have been in Thessalonica when Paul wrote his epistles to that church ten years before, there is no reason for denying that the hostility of the Jews was also making itself felt ; and for aught we know to the contrary, it may have been largely from their machinations that the Philippians were now suffering. 4 Phil. i. 12 sq. 392 THE APOSTOLIC AGE with such emphasis his exhortations to rejoice at all times and under all circumstances. 1 The same consideration very likely had something to do with his reference to Christ's endurance even unto death, and to the glory which he received as his reward. 2 Read in the light of this idea, the bearing of the passage with which we are dealing becomes very plain. It is possible that the sudden outbreak of passion in iii. 2 was caused by some new manifestation of hostility to himself on the part of the unbelieving Jews, or by some new evidence of the effect of that hostility upon his situation and prospects ; for it was to their enmity that he owed his imprisonment and that he was yet to owe his execution. But however that may be, it was but natural, with his own sufferings and the sufferings of the Philippians in mind, due very likely in both instances to the same Jewish hatred of Christian- ity, that he should give vent to his feelings, and should not only emphasize the superiority of Christianity to Juda- ism and contrast the true spiritual circumcision of the Christian with the fleshly concision of the Jew, but also com- pare his own devotion with the devotion of those who were persecuting him as a renegade and apostate, and dwell upon the fact that he possessed all and more than they were boasting of, but had risen above it and counted it as naught, in order that he might attain to the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ his Lord. The passage has the appearance almost of a soliloquy, for it is only of his own experience that Paul speaks ; and yet it was en- tirely natural under the circumstances for him to express himself thus, and his words were certainly calculated to strengthen the Philippians and to inspire them to press on toward the same goal. The exhortation to be of like mind and to imitate him in his Christian struggle follows easily upon Paul's descrip- tion of his own life, as does also the warning to avoid the conduct of those corrupt and carnal-minded disciples whose hearts were more engrossed in earthly than in heavenly 1 Phil. ii. 17 sq., iii. 1, iv. 4. 2 Phil. ii. 3 sq. ; cf. also ii. 10, iii. 11, 20 sq. THE WOBK OF PAUL 393 things and who possibly made use of Paul's own doctrine of freedom to justify their libertinism and antinomianism. 1 Paul's agitation in speaking of them and his sorrow even unto tears are best explained by the supposition that they claimed thus to be carrying out his principles, and to be consequently his true disciples, 2 as we know that many did in his own and subsequent days. The authenticity of the Epistle to the Philippians is now so generally recognized that it is not necessary to consider it at any length. There is, in fact, nothing in the epistle which need cause doubt as to its genuineness. Its style is thoroughly Pauline, and the only doctrinal passages in it 3 are in entire accord with the apostle's positions as known from his other writings. It is simply incon- ceivable that any one else would or could have produced in his name a letter in which no doctrinal or ecclesi- astical motive can be discovered, and in which the per- sonal element so largely predominates and the character of the man and of the apostle is revealed with so great vivid- ness and fidelity. The epistle deserves to rank alongside of Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans as an undoubted product of Paul's pen, and as a co-ordinate standard by which to test the genuineness of other and less certain writings. The epistles which we have been considering, especially that to the Philippians, throw considerable light upon Paul's condition in Rome. Though a prisoner, bound night and day by a chain, according to Roman custom, to the soldier who guarded him, 4 he had made good use of the opportunities which were afforded him for intercourse with those about him 5 and had thus succeeded by converse 1 Cf.Rom. vi. 1 sq. ; 1 Cor. vi. 12 sq. ; Gal. v. 13 sq. ; Eph. v. 1. sq. ; Col. iii. 1 sq. 2 Cf . Lightfoot's Commentary, in loc. It will hardly do to identify, as is commonly done, the enemies of the cross of Christ in iii. 18 with those who are attacked in iii. 2 sq., for Paul's vehe- ment words in vs. 18 seem to imply a fear that the Philippians may be influenced by those whom he there denounces and may imitate their conduct; but there could certainly be no danger that they would renounce their Christianity and become Jews. 3 Phil. ii. 5 sq., iii. 8 sq. 4 Acts xxviii. 1(>, 20; Eph. vi. 20; Phil. i. 7, 13, 14, 17, etc. 6 Cf. Eph. vi. 19; Col. i. 29, iv. 3, 11. 894 THE APOSTOLIC AGE with his guards, who relieved each other in succession, in making the name of Christ known throughout the whole praetorium, 1 that is, throughout the whole body of imperial troops under the command of the praetorian prefect, to whose custody Paul had been committed. His bonds were thus redounding to the advantage of Christianity by the spread of a knowledge of the Gospel which was resulting from his association with those about him, and which went so far that even some members of the imperial house- hold, probably court officials or servants, had been won to Christ. 2 His imprisonment, moreover, was enhancing the zeal and activity of other disciples in Rome, and was thus indirectly as well as directly contributing to the advance of the cause. Not all of those who were preaching the Gospel there were in sympathy with Paul and friendly to him. Some were moved rather by party spirit than by a sincere desire to promote the cause of Christ, and were striving to outdo Paul and show themselves greater mis- sionaries than he. But in spite of that he rejoiced in the labors of all of them, whether his friends or his enemies, for by all of them Christ was proclaimed. 3 There can be little doubt that those who preached in a spirit of unfriend- liness toward Paul belonged to the Jewish wing of the church, whose existence we find testified to in the Epistle to the Romans. But the fact that Paul rejoiced in their labors shows clearly enough that they were not Judaizers. They were apparently unfriendly to Paul not on account of any radical difference of principle or of doctrine, but because the great work which he had been doing among the Gentiles in other parts of the world, and was now doing in Rome, was overshadowing the work which they and others were accomplishing among the Jews, and was pushing the Jewish wing of the church more and more into the background. It was not that they wished to impose Judaism upon all Gentile Christians, or that they wished to exclude the latter from the church, but that they 1 Phil. i. 13. On the meaning of the word " praetorium," see Lightfoot's Commentary, p. 99 sq. 2 Phil. iv. 22. Phil. i. 18. THE WORK OF PAUL 395 were impatient and jealous of their growing numbers and supremacy. They were redoubling their efforts among their own countrymen simply in order to outdo Paul, and to check the increasing disparity between the two wings of the Roman church. Paul's situation under such circumstances must have been peculiarly trying. He was not the founder of the Roman church, and he was not at home in Rome. He had come in as a stranger long after Christianity had made a place for itself there, and highly as he was esteemed arid honored by perhaps a large majority of the Christians of the city, he realized that whatever success he might have in winning converts would inevitably be compared with the success of those who were on the ground before him, either to his own or to their disparagement, and that the greater the work accomplished by him, the greater would be the jealousy and hostility engendered in many quarters. He was in some sense an outsider, and there could not be that same oneness of interest and sympathy between him- self and those about him that there was in his own churches and among his own converts. There is evidently a touch of resignation in the declaration of Phil. i. 18. Paul asserts that he rejoices in the proclamation of the Gospel even by his rivals, but his joy is tinged with a natural and pardon- able sadness as he realizes not only that the work which he sees going on about him is not his work, but also that the greater its success, the more will his own influence be cur- tailed and the supremacy of other men and of other in- terests be established. It is true that there were many in Rome who were preaching Christ in a spirit of loy- alty to Paul, 1 but even they, so far as they did not owe their Christian faith to him, must have been less concerned for his honor and for the supremacy of his peculiar princi- ples than his own disciples. And so it is not strange that he felt lonely in Rome ; and it is hardly to be wondered at that in spite of his many friends in the city, he should complain, in writing to the Philippians, that they all sought their own and not the things of Jesus Christ. 2 He did not i Phil. i. 14 sq. 2 Phil. ji. 21. 396 THE APOSTOLIC AGE mean to accuse them of self-seeking and of faithlessness to Christ, but their lack of interest in his especial work which lay so largely outside of Rome, and their absorption in their own labors, made him feel his isolation keenly, and made him long for that undivided sympathy and devotion which he had enjoyed in his own churches, and which had served to bind all his converts closely together, even though they dwelt widely apart. The memory of the oneness of interest that had existed between himself and his beloved Philippians must have had much to do under these circumstances with the tone of affection and of con- fidence which so strongly marks his letter to them. The situation in which Paul found himself in Rome was prophetic of the subsequent development of the Roman church. Though his name was always held in honor, and though he even came to be looked upon as the joint founder with Peter of the church of Rome, the development of Christianity there went largely its own independent way, and the influence of his principles was little felt. He may have realized this. He may have seen that though he was the great apostle to the Gentiles, there was arising upon Gentile soil, in the very capital of the world, a form of Christianity which owed little to him, and which bore a char- acter widely different from his. And it may have been this that led him to think of the possible continuance of his life as profitable not so much for the world or the church at large as for his beloved Philippians. 1 And yet though Paul's epistle reveals a consciousness of isolation and of separateness from those about him, he was not without intimate friends and companions. Timothy was with him when he wrote to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Philippians ; Tychicus of Asia and the Colos- sian slave Onesimus, when he wrote the earlier letters. 2 But the last two went East immediately thereafter, and were doubtless absent when the Epistle to the Philippians was written. Aristarchus of Thessalonica, who had made JPhil. i.24sq. 2 Tychicus is mentioned in Eph. vi. 21 and Col. iv. 7; Onesimus in Col. iv 9 and Philemon 10. THE WORK OF PAUL 397 the journey from Csesarea to Rome in Paul's company, was still with him when he wrote to the Colossians and Philemon, 1 as were Mark, Luke, Demas, Epaphras of Colossse, and Jesus Justus, a Jewish Christian otherwise unknown to us. 2 But in the Epistle to the Philippians only Timothy and the Philippian Epaphroditus are men- tioned by name. Onesiphorus of Ephesus evidently did not come to Rome until after Timothy's departure for the East ; 3 and the same is possibly true of Crescens and Titus, who left him again before the letter to Timothy was writ- ten. 4 Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia, with whom Timothy was personally acquainted, 5 were very likely already Paul's friends, but their names seem to indi- cate that they belonged to Rome, and they were therefore probably not of the number of his old companions and disciples. It is true that Luke, the beloved physician, who was with him when he wrote to the Colossians and Philemon, was still at his side when he wrote to Timothy ; 6 and that Demas, who was also in his company at that earlier time, did not leave Rome until after the Philippian epistle was written. 7 It is true also that the " brethren " from whom Paul sends greetings in Phil. iv. 21, and whom he distinguishes from " all the saints," might be supposed to include them, as well as others of his old-time companions. But the terms in which he speaks of those about him in Phil. ii. 21 make it improbable that any such companions were on the ground. At any rate, it could hardly be true of them, as it might be of the Romans, that they were not interested in Paul's work in that part of the world whence they themselves had come. It seems best therefore to interpret the "brethren" of Phil. iv. 21 as referring to Roman Christians who were assisting Paul in his work, and to conclude that Luke was temporarily absent, and that Demas was either absent or was already beginning to display that lack of devotion which led him finally to desert Paul entirely ; 8 while the other old friends who were with 1 Col. iv. 10 ; Philemon 24. 3 2 Tim. i. 16. 5 2 Tim. iv. 21. 2 Col. iv. 11 sq. 4 2 Tim. iv. 10. 6 2 Tim. iv. 11. 7 For otherwise Timothy would have known of his departure. 8 2 Tim. iv. 10. 398 THE APOSTOLIC AGE him when he wrote Colossians and Philemon, but whose names are mentioned neither in Philippians nor in 2 Tim- othy, had left the city permanently. That Paul should feel much alone under these cir- cumstances is not to be wondered at. Friendly as many of the Roman Christians might be, and actively as they might co-operate with him in his Christian work, they were not like the companions whom he had with him during his great missionary campaigns. They knew him only as a prisoner, and they could hardly regard him with that enthusiastic devotion and homage which were shown him by his friends and disciples in his days of battle and of triumph. Paul was large-hearted and broad- minded enough to rejoice in the extension of the Gospel in Rome, even though his own share in the work was small, and even though some of it was done by those who regarded him with jealousy and hostility ; but he was at the same time human enough to feel keenly the contrast between his present and his former position. So long as he remained where he was, he would do his part in spreading the name of Christ as he had always done ; he would be faithful and bold and zealous even in his bonds, and he would rejoice in the thought that his own confinement, which prevented him from carrying on his great work in the world at large, was yet bearing fruit in the narrower and more limited circle of the camp and the court, and was indirectly pro- moting the cause of Christ throughout the city. But he could not do otherwise than regret the loss of the tremen- dous personal influence which he had been accustomed to wield wherever he went and sigh for the days when he was himself in the van of the battle, the leader to whom all looked and whom alone all followed. Of the remainder of Paul's life we know very little. It is true that there exist three more epistles bearing his name, two addressed to Timothy, and one to Titus, which, if they be genuine, involve his release from his Roman imprisonment and his return to the East, and from which, therefore, much added information may be gathered concerning the closing years of his life. But the authen- THE WORK OF PAUL 399 ticity of these epistles has been widely questioned, and there is grave reason to doubt whether they are actually Paul's. 1 It is to be noticed, first of all, that the external testimony to their genuineness is far weaker than in the case of any of his other letters. There are traces of an acquaintance with them in Ignatius and possibly in Poly- carp, but in no other writings until after the middle of the second century; and not until the time of Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria, and the Muratorian Fragment are they expressly included in the number of Paul's epistles. 2 They are the only letters bearing his name which are not found in the New Testament of Marcion, the earliest canon known to us, formed in the second quarter of the second century. As Marcion had no hesitation in expur- gating the Pauline epistles when he found anything that did not suit him, the fact that there are anti-heretical passages in these epistles does not account for his omission of them, if he knew them to be Paul's. In the second place, the tone employed by the author in addressing Timothy and Titus is not what we should ex- pect from Paul. They had been for many }^ears beloved and trusted disciples and intimate friends and companions, and yet Paul finds it necessary to emphasize his apostle- ship, to defend his character and authority, to assert that he is not lying, just as if he were addressing strangers or even enemies such as he had to deal with in Galatia and Corinth. 3 On the other hand, the instructions which he gives, and the warnings and exhortations which he ad- dresses to Timothy and Titus, are of a kind entirely suited to immature and untried disciples, or to the com- mon multitude of Christians, but certainly not at all suited to men such as they had proved themselves to be. The author instructs them, especially Timothy, in regard to the most elementary duties of the Christian life and the most elementary truths of Christianity ; he warns 1 In defence of the authenticity of the pastoral epistles, see especially Weiss : Einleitung in das Neue Testament, S. 286 sq. (Eug. Trans., Vol. I. p. 374 sq.). 2 Tatian, writing possibly a decade or two earlier, accepts Titus as genuine (according to Jerome in his Preface to Titus). 3 1 Tim. i. 12 sq., ii. 7; 2 Tim. i 3, 11. Compare the greetings of all three of the epistles with the opening of the Epistle to Philemon. 400 THE APOSTOLIC AGE them against vice and lust, and urges them repeatedly to be honest, faithful, sober, and pure, as if he were greatly in doubt not only as to their official but also as to their private character. 1 It looks very much as if they were simply lay figures, and the letters were intended not for them, but for the church at large. Such a course was entirely natural in a later writer to whom Timothy and Titus were only names, but not in Paul, whose loved friends and disciples they were. In the third place, the style of the epistles is un-Pauline. That Pauline words and phrases occur not infrequently is quite true. There are, in fact, certain superficial resem- blances to the language of Paul. But the resemblances are not such as to indicate identity of authorship. They might naturally occur in the writings of any one familiarly acquainted with his epistles. The differences over against the superficial likenesses are so extensive, so radical, and so thoroughgoing, that it seems impossible to account for them, except on the supposition that the letters are, at least in their present form, the work of another than Paul. The divergence in style appears not so much in the vocabulary, though there are striking differences there, as in the use of peculiar phrases and combinations of words, in the displacement of favorite Pauline forms of expression by others of a totally different kind, in the employment of particles, in the construction of sentences and periods, and finally in the total lack of that compres- sion of thought and of that vigor of expression which are so characteristic of Paul as he appears in all the other epistles that bear his name. The attempt is frequently made to break the force of this argument by calling atten- tion to the fact that the pastorals were written at a later period in Paul's life than any of the other epistles, and when he was already an old man. But how little there is in such a consideration appears when we realize that at latest they cannot have been written more than three or four years after the letter to the Philippians, and that the 1 Cf. 1 Tim. i. 19, iv. 12, vi. 11 ; 2 Tim. i. 6 sq., ii. 1 sq., 22, iii. 14 sq. ; Titus ii.7. THE WORK OF PAUL 401 differences between them and the latter are immeasurably greater than between the latter and Paul's earliest epistles, which were written a decade before. We know Paul's literary style very well, for we have it exhibited in ten epistles covering a period of a dozen years, and its essen- tial features, in spite of modifications due to differing subject-matter and circumstances, appear in all of those epistles, but are entirely lacking in the pastorals. 1 Closely related to the matter of language and style is the striking lack of order and arrangement which characterizes the letters with which we are dealing. Whatever else Paul may have been, he was not a loose and illogical thinker and writer. Even in his most hastily written and most informal epistles, his ideas bear a most intimate relation to each other. But in the pastorals, especially in 1 Timothy, we have for the most part a mere collection of detached passages, betraying a writer largely lacking in the direct- ness, incisiveness, and grasp which were so characteristic of Paul. In the fourth place, the attitude of the author toward false teachers and their teachings should be noticed. The difficulty is not so much with the heresies attacked, as with the way in which the author attacks them. It is true that many of the things said point to the existence of Gnosticism, at least in an incipient form, 2 but though this suggests a later date for the epistles, it does not prove it ; for it is possible that such Gnostic ideas had made their appearance in some parts of the church even before the death of Paul. The Epistle to the Colossians, for instance, shows that heretical tendencies may have existed at that early date of which we have no hint in any other sources. But though we cannot, with many critics, draw a conclusion adverse to Pauline authorship from the existence of such heresies as we find alluded to, we are compelled to see in the way they are handled by the author 1 The best and most exhaustive treatment of the style of the pastoral epistles is to be found in Holtzmaim's Pastomlbricfe (1880), S. 84 sq. 2 It is possible that the reference in 1 Tim. vi. 20 (avridtceis TTJS ev8uvv/ju)v yvuvews} is to the " Antitheses " of Marcion. But if so, the passage is a later addition. 2D 402 THE APOSTOLIC AGE a convincing proof that he was not Paul. He evi- dently had a very confused idea of the nature of the heresies which he denounces. His references to them are extremely vague, and he apparently fails to perceive that there is any real distinction between tendencies of an exactly opposite character. Whether the false teachers are antinomian or ascetic, 1 whether they are spiritualistic or legalistic, 2 the author does not treat them as if there were any vital difference between them. They are all alike given to foolish and ignorant questionings, disputes about words, strifes about the law, fables, genealogies, and profane babblings. Such indiscriminate denunciations are certainly not what we should expect from a man like Paul, who was an uncommonly clear-headed dialectician, accustomed to draw fine distinctions, and whose penetra- tion and ability to discover and display the vital point of difference between himself and an antagonist have never been surpassed. Those who ascribe to Paul the references to false teaching which occur in the pastoral epistles do him a serious injustice. But it is not simply the author's imperfect apprehension of the significance of the heresies which he attacks, that makes it difficult to identify him with Paul ; his polemical method is equally un-Pauline. Instead of demonstrating the falseness of the positions taken by the heretical teachers, he simply denounces them ; and instead of exhibiting his own Gospel and showing its bearing upon the questions in dispute, he simply appeals to the fact that a deposit of faith has been handed down as a safeguard against all heresies of whatever sort. The contrast between this kind of procedure and that which Paul follows in Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and Colossians, in all the epistles, in fact, in which he has to deal with heresy, is most striking. The spirit that actuates the pastorals is not the spirit of Paul, but the spirit of 2 John and of Polycarp. In the fifth place, and most decisive of all, the Chris- tianity of the pastoral epistles is not the Christianity 1 1 Tim. i. 4 sq., iv. 3 sq. 2 2 Tim. ii. 18 ; Titus i. 10-14, etc. THE WORK OF PAUL 403 of Paul. It is true that there are some Pauline ideas and passages, 1 but they are altogether exceptional. For the most part there is no trace whatever of the great funda- mental truth of Paul's Gospel, death unto the flesh and life in the Spirit, although in many cases we might fairly look for a reference to it, especially over against the false teachers. We should expect also in 2 Tim. ii. 18, where those are mentioned who declare that the resurrection is past already, a statement of Paul's conception of the resur- rection ; for it is clear that the declaration referred to was due to a misunderstanding of his own teaching upon the subject. One who laid the emphasis as he did upon the resurrection at baptism to the new life in the Spirit, and thus suggested the view of Hymenseus and Philetus, could hardly dismiss that view without a word of explanation. Only one who understood by the resurrection nothing else than the resurrection of the fleshly body could express him- self as our author does in this passage. But it is not simply the absence of the great fundamen- tal conceptions of the Pauline Gospel, it is the presence of another Gospel of a different aspect, that is most signifi- cant. Instead of faith by which a man becomes identified with Christ, so that Christ lives in him and his life is divine not human, we find piety and good works chiefly emphasized. A man's salvation is conditioned upon his piety or godliness, which manifests itself in his good works. 2 The word translated piety or godliness, 3 which occurs in none of Paul's epistles, is found eleven times in the pas- torals, nine times in 1 Timothy alone, and plays the promi- nent part which the word " faith " plays in Paul ; while the latter word is not employed in its profound Pauline sense, but is used to signify one of the cardinal virtues, along with love, peace, purity, righteousness, sanctification, pa- tience, and meekness. 4 Occasionally it denotes the intel- lectual acceptance of certain truths, or the truth itself; Christianity being conceived as an objective system which 1 For instance, 2 Tim. i. 9-11, ii. 11 sq. ; Titus iii. 4-7. 2 1 Tim. v. 8. 3 etW/3eia ; once deoa-^eta. * Of. 1 Tim. ii. 15, iv. 12, vi. 11 ; 2 Tim. ii. 22, iii. 10 ; Titus ii. 2. 404 THE APOSTOLIC AGE one may accept or deny. 1 All this reminds us of the common conception of faith and of the Christian life, which prevailed widely in the second century and finally became universal in the church, but which is widely removed from the conception of Paul. If we admit the authenticity of the pastoral epistles in their present form, we must sup- pose that Paul in the two or three years which succeeded the composition of the letters to the Colossians and Ephe- vsians, in which his fundamental conceptions as we know them from Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans find clear and unequivocal expression, gave up that form of the Gospel which he had held and taught throughout his life, and descended from the lofty religious plane upon which he had always moved, since Christ had been revealed in him, to the level of mere piety and morality. 2 But if Paul was not the author of the pastoral epistles, how are we to explain their ascription to him ? It has been widely supposed that they are wholly pseudonymous ; that they were composed from beginning to end by some disciple of Paul or by some Christian of a later generation, under the apostle's name, in order to give wider currency and greater authority to his own views, especially in rela- tion to church government and heresy. But it is clear that it would be much easier to account for the existence of the epistles in their present form, if we could sup- pose them based upon genuine letters or notes of Paul to Timothy and Titus. And upon examining them carefully, we find many indications that such documents actually do underlie them. In some cases the connections between paragraphs and sentences are such as to suggest interpola- tion, and one or two striking inconsistencies point in the same direction. 3 Moreover, there are some passages, es- 1 Cf. 1 Tim. i. 19, iii. 9, iv. 1,6, v. 8. 2 The contrast between the Christianity of Paul and that of the pastoral epistles appears with especial clearness in such passages as the following: 1 Tim. iv. 16, ii. 15, iv. 8, vi. 18, 19; Titus iii. 8. Cf. also 1 Tim. i. 5, 19, iv. 12; 2 Tim. iii. 14-17, ii. 22, iii. 10. Upon the Christianity of the pasmml epistles, see especially Von Soden in the Hand-Kommentar, III. 1, 8. 167 sq. 8 Compare, for instance, 2 Tim. i. 15-18, which is entirely out of relation to the context ; so also Titus i. 7-9. Compare also the reference tQ ttw bishop in 1 Tim. iii. 1 sq. with the reference to the elders in v. 17 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 405 pecially in 2 Timothy and Titus, which have a genuinely Pauline look and in which a conception of Christianity finds expression that is in sharp contrast to the epistles as a whole. 1 Some of the personal notices also which occur in 2 Timothy and Titus bear every mark of genuineness. It is very difficult to suppose such passages as 2 Tim. i. 15-18, iv. 9-21, and Titus iii. 12, 13, the work of another than Paul ; for they have no relation whatever to the evi- dent tendency of the epistles as a whole, and no adequate reason can be discovered for their composition by a later writer. We may fairly conclude, then, in agreement with many modern scholars, 2 that we have in the pastoral epistles authentic letters of Paul to Timothy and Titus, worked over and enlarged by another hand. But when we attempt to distinguish the genuine portions from the later addi- tions, we find ourselves faced with a problem of peculiar difficulty. It is easier to draw the lines in 2 Timothy than in either of the others, but even in 2 Timothy it is impossible to divide with any degree of accuracy. The greater part of the first chapter might have been written by Paul. Verses 9-11 at least are genuinely Pauline ; but vs. 6b is doubtful, and vss. 12-14 are so unlike Paul, and are so closely related both in thought and language to 1 Timo- thy, that we cannot hesitate to ascribe them to a later hand. The first part of the second chapter contains Pauline conceptions in vss. 1 and 8-13 ; and there is nothing in the section which might not have been written by Paul, though the words " Faithful is the saying " 3 are very likely an interpolation, for they occur in both of the other pastorals, but nowhere else in Paul's epistles. The section extend- ing from ii. 14-iii. 17 is both in style and in content the most un-Pauline part of the epistle, and though there may 1 See p. 403, above. 2 See, among others, Lemme: Das echte Ermahnungschreiben des Apostels Paulus an Timotheus (1882), and Hesse: Die Entstehung der neutestament- lichen Hirtenbrirfe (1889). For a statement of the various views of scholars upon the subject, see Holtzmann: Einleitung, 3te Auflage. S. 275. Those who recognize genuine letters of Paul, underlying the epistles in their present form, differ very widely in their reconstruction of them. g Tim. ii. 11 ? 406 THE APOSTOLIC AGE be genuine passages in it, the greater part of it at any rate is from another -hand. The fourth chapter contains only two verses (3 and 4) which it is necessary to ascribe to the interpolator, and there can be no doubt that at least vss. 9-21 are Paul's. We have in 2 Timothy, then, a gen- uine letter of Paul, including very likely a large part of the first chapter, the first twelve verses of the second chapter, and the greater part of the fourth chapter. In Titus vss. 7-9 and the greater part of vss. 10-16 of the first chapter, most of the second chapter and vss. 8-11 and 14 of the third chapter are probably by another writer than Paul. On the other hand, in iii. 1-7 there is much that has a genuinely Pauline ring and may well be his ; while there can be no doubt about the authenticity of iii. 12, 13. We thus have in Titus one of Paul's own letters whose limits are not so well defined as in 2 Timothy, but which doubtless included chapter iii. vss. 1-7, 12 and 13, and possibly parts of the first chapter. Both in 2 Timo- thy and Titus, the original greeting has probably been added to. In 1 Timothy it is even more difficult to distinguish authentic passages. Both in style and in contents, it is less Pauline than either of the other pastorals. It might fairly be doubted whether there is any genuine element in it ; whether it is not simply a free composition by the interpolator of 2 Timothy and Titus, designed to enforce and to supplement the instruction contained in those epis- tles. If it be assumed, as is probable, that it was composed some time later than the others, it is easy to explain its composition on the ground that the need of such addi- tional instruction had made itself felt since the others were written. But if it be assumed that 1 Timothy was throughout the free composition of the interpolator of 2 Timothy and Titus, we find it difficult to explain the historic reference in chapter i. vs. 3 and the anacoluthon in the same passage. It looks very much as if the first half of vs. 3 constituted a part of the opening sentence of a genuine letter addressed by Paul to Timothy, while the latter was in Ephesus, and as if the conclusion of the sen- THE WORK OF PAUL 407 tence had been displaced by the insertion of the passage on the false teachers. But I am inclined to look for the remainder of the original letter not in 1 Timothy, where 1 can find no convincing evidence of it, but in 2 Timothy, where there are indications that two letters have been combined. It may be that when the two were put to- gether, the opening of one of them, including the greeting and the introductory sentences, had to be dropped out, and that it was this beginning upon which the author built up another epistle to Timothy, when he felt the need of saying what he had not said in the earlier one. 1 But if the existence of genuine Pauline epistles to Timothy and Titus underlying those that we have be assumed, the question arises when and under what circum- stances were they written ? Second Timothy apparently contains two letters of Paul, or fragments of them. For, in the first place, it is impossible, unless we assume a second Roman imprisonment, to reconcile the various his- torical notices which the epistle contains. According to 2 Tim. i, 8 and 17, the apostle was writing while a prisoner in Rome ; 2 but if during the imprisonment known to us, 2 Tim. iv. 13 is very difficult to explain, for it was at least three or four years since he had been in Troas ; and iv. 12 is also difficult, since it necessitates the assump- tion that during the same imprisonment, he sent Tychicus all the way to Asia Minor at least twice ; 3 while iv. 20 is impossible, for Paul had not been at Miletus since he stopped there on his way from Troas to Jerusalem, some years before, and at that time Trophimus had not been left behind, but had gone on with him to Jerusalem. 4 In 1 It is very likely that there are scattered fragments of the original epistle in 1 Timothy, as, for instance, in v. 23. But it is difficult to find anything which we can be confident was written by Paul. 2 Cf. also 2 Tim. iv. 6 sq. and 21. 3 Cf. Col. iv. 7 ; Eph. vi. 21. * Acts xxi. 29. The epistle as it stands can hardly be put earlier than Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians, for the apostle's isolation and loneli- ness, and the cowardice of Demas (compared with his presence at the time Colossians was written), point to a later date in his imprisonment, when death was at hand. But if it be put later than the others, all the facts referred to must have been known to Timothy, who was with Paul when those letters were written. 408 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the second place, whether the epistle was written during the imprisonment known to us or another and later one, it is, as it stands, inconsistent with itself ; for it is assumed down to iv. 5 that Timothy is to remain in Ephesus and continue his work there, while in iv. 9 he is directed to leave Ephesus and join Paul at once. In the third place, it is easier to explain the evident displacement of i. 15-18, if we suppose another epistle combined with the first in iv. 9 sq. Knowing that 2 Timothy, as we have it, is at any rate largely interpolated, there is no more difficulty in assuming that the author used two letters of Paul, which happened to come into his hands, than in assuming that he used only one. One of the two epistles of Paul, thus employed by the redactor, included probably the greater part of 2 Tim. i. 1-12, ii. 1-13, iv. 1, 2, 5-8, 16-19, 21 \ 10, and i. 15-18. It was thus an epistle of some length, intended to encourage Timothy and to exhort him to carry on his work with vigor and fidelity, in spite of the fact that Paul himself was soon to be put to death. It was written from Rome while Paul was a prisoner there, 1 and apparently toward the close of his imprisonment; for, of those who were with him when he wrote Colossians and Philemon, Luke was the only one left, 2 and the apostle was expecting to die shortly. 3 All hope of release, such as he had when he wrote the other epistles, had disappeared. 4 The letter constituted, in a sense, his dying testament addressed to his dearest disciple, who was carrying on and w r as to con- tinue to carry on the apostle's work in Ephesus. It would seem that we still have the complete epistle, and that it formed the basis upon which was built our 2 Timothy, by the addition of the section ii. 14-iii. 17, and of other brief passages, phrases, and sentences in other parts of the epistle. 1 Cf. 2 Tim. i. 17, and the salutations in iv. 21 ; also i. 8 and iv. 6 sq. 2 2 Tim. iv. 11. 2 Tim. iv. 6 sq. 4 That it was not written before the other epistles is clear, not only from the reasons given in a previous note, but also from the fact that Timothy, who was with him when he wrote those epistles, was now absent and appar- ently expecting to remain in Ephesus. THE WORK OF PAUL 409 But with it was combined, as has been seen, another letter from Paul to Timothy, apparently much briefer than the former, probably nothing more in fact than a note urging Timothy to join him as soon as possible. This note* the address of which is possibly preserved in a modified form in the early verses of 1 Timothy, very likely included 2 Tim. iv. 9, 11-18, 20, 21 a , and ran somewhat as follows : " Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is useful to me for minister- ing. I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord will render to him according to his works: of him be thou ware also; for he greatly withstood our words. Erastus abode -at Corinth: but Trophimus I left at Miletus sick. Do thy diligence to come before winter." The situation is very uncertain, but it seems most probable that the note was written from Macedonia, after Paul had left Ephesus for the last time. This final departure from Ephesus is referred to in Acts xx. 1 and in 2 Cor. ii. 12, vii. 5 sq., and though the route taken by Paul to Troas is not stated, he may have had reasons for making the trip by boat from Miletus,, and therefore have left Trophimus there sick, as he says in 2 Tim. iv. 20. Timothy was apparently not in Ephesus; at the time of Paul's departure from the city, otherwise the information contained in vs. 14 sq. would have been unnecessary. But he was evidently expecting to arrive there shortly, 1 very likely from the East, whither he may have gone on a visit, or on a mission for Paul. It had been Paul's intention, it would seem, to have him remain in Ephesus when he arrived there, and he had apparently written him to that effect when he left Ephesus him- self. 2 Meanwhile, however, he found that he needed him, and he therefore wrote him from Macedonia to come at once, and he took occasion to utter a warning against Alexander the coppersmith, who had done him much evil, and who had, perhaps, brought him into the danger to, l Cf. 1 Tim. i. 3, 2 Tim. iv. 13 and 15. 2 i Tim. i. 3. 410 THE APOSTOLIC AGE which he refers in Second Corinthians, written shortly afterward. 1 He also asks Timothy to bring certain things from Troas, tells him of the illness of Trophimus, and the whereabouts of Erastus, who had apparently been expected to join Timothy in Ephesus, or Paul himself in Macedonia. He also requests him to bring Mark, and informs him that he has sent Tychicus to Ephesus, apparently to take either Mark or Timothy's place. If this sketch of the course of events at this time be correct, Timothy must have obeyed Paul's summons speedily; for he was already with him in Macedonia when Second Corinthians was written, 2 which cannot have been long afterward. It is true, of course, that this reconstruction is merely hypothetical. But the Pauline authorship, whether of the pastoral epistles in their present form or of briefer letters underlying them, can be maintained only on the basis of a hypothetical reconstruction, either of an entire period subsequent to the Roman imprisonment or of the events within some period known to us. And it is claimed only that the one here attempted has more points of contact with known facts than others that have been suggested, and that it accounts better for all the phenomena of the case. Turning to the Epistle to Titus, we find that Titus was in Crete at the time Paul wrote to him, according to i. 5. We can account for this reference only on the ground of its genuineness, and there is no reason for question- ing it. But Titus' stay in Crete, and Paul's letter to him, can hardly be put at any other time than during the apostle's final visit to Achaia, recorded in Acts xx. 1 sq. The mention of Apollos excludes a date earlier than Paul's long residence in Ephesus ; and his proposal to winter in Nicopolis, and his direction to Titus to join him there, make against the assumption that the epistle was written in the earlier part of that period. But during the greater part of the last year spent in Ephesus, and until the com- position of 2 Corinthians, Titus was fully occupied with the difficulties in the church of Corinth, and could not have gone to Crete to do work there. It would seem, 12 Cor. i.8sq. 2 2 Cor.i.l. THE WORK OF PAUL 411 therefore, that he must have made his way thither after he had carried Paul's final epistle to the Corinthian church, and while Paul himself was still on his way to Corinth. 1 The original letter to Titus, then, which underlies the epistle in its present form, must have been written before Paul's three months' stay in Corinth ; for, at the time he wrote, he was planning to spend the winter in Nicopolis, a plan which he did not carry out, though he may have spent a little while there. 2 Whether Paul himself had been in Crete before he wrote to Titus, as implied in Titus i. 5, we cannot be absolutely sure. It is possible that he went thither soon after writing 2 Corinthians, during the inter- val of six or eight months which elapsed before his final arrival in Corinth. 3 But the fact must be recognized that it would have been easy for a later writer, in composing alleged instructions of Paul to Titus, to add the reference to Paul's presence in Crete, which might naturally suggest itself as furnishing a justification for such instructions and a proper setting for the epistle. Paul's letter to Titus, which underlies our present epis- tle, was apparently written primarily for the purpose of asking Titus to join him for the winter. But that he should take occasion to add words of instruction, exhorta- tion, and encouragement, such as we find in the third chap- ter, is not at all surprising. The letter seems to have been carried by Zenas and Apollos, who were intending to pass through Crete, and whom Paul commends to Titus' hos- pitality. 4 Whether Titus actually rejoined Paul before the latter's departure for Jerusalem, we do not know. He was apparently not among the number of those that 1 Titus may have been already acquainted in Crete, and may have gone there simply to resume work begun some time before. 2 Paul actually spent, at any rate, the latter part of the winter in Corinth, for he was three months there according to Acts xx. 3, and he left there some time before Passover (xx. 6) . 8 It is possible that the three months of Acts xx. 3 are to be reckoned, not from the time of Paul's arrival in Corinth from Macedonia, but from the time of his return thither after a trip to Crete. The indefiniteness of xx. 2 suggests that the author of Acts knew very little about the details of Paul's life at this time. 4 Titus iii. 13. Zenas is mentioned only here ; Apollos in Acts and 1 Corin- thians. 412 THE APOSTOLIC AGE accompanied him thither; 1 but at a later time we find him making his way from Rome to Dalmatia, some dis- tance to the north of Nicopolis, as if he were already ac- quainted there, and his acquaintance throughout the whole region lying along the eastern coast of the Adriatic may have begun at this time. He may now have taken up and carried on the work which Paul had possibly already done in Illyricum. 2 The purpose of the redactor of the pastoral epistles it is not at all difficult to discover. He desired to provide for the healthy development of the church by the institution of permanent safeguards and by the formulation of per- manent rules. Paul's brief letters to Timothy and Titus coming into his hands, he added to them in good faith what he believed Paul would himself say in the light of the peculiar needs of the day. He regarded himself as a loyal follower of Paul, who understood his teaching thor- oughly, and was thus justified in acting as his mouthpiece. As the evils which seemed to him especially to require combating lay in the spheres of life, and doctrine, he em- phasized particularly the importance of living righteously and piously, and of renouncing and eschewing all novel- ties and vagaries of faith. In 2 Timothy he denounces at considerable length and with great vehemence the doctrine of certain false teachers and the practices of certain liber- tines. In the Epistle to Titus he is also concerned to do away with false doctrine and corrupt practice, but he takes a somewhat different course, emphasizing the need of proper officers who shall guard the churches against such evils. There is less denunciation of heresy in Titus than in 2 Tim- othy, but much more emphasis is laid upon church organi- zation and upon the practical duties of the Christian life. 1 Cf . Acts xx. 4 sq. 2 Cf. Rom. xv. 19; and see above, p. 254. The terra Illyricum was proba- bly used by Paul in the passage referred to in its general sense to designate the country lying along the eastern coast of the Adriatic from Epirns north- ward to the Danube, and including with other territory the provinces of Pannonia and Dalmatia, and the western part of Moesia and Macedonia. In its narrower sense Illyricum was the name of the Roman province which, from the time of Augustus on, was more commonly called D.ilmatia. See Marquaid : K-iinische Staatsverwaltung , I. S. 295. THE WORK OF PAUL 413 Having produced these two epistles, the redactor was led some time afterward to feel that there was a need of re- newed exhortations and of fuller and more explicit instruc- tion, not only in the matters already dealt with, but also in connection with worship and organization, in which cer- tain evil tendencies were making their appearance. He therefore composed a third epistle, using the greeting and the opening sentence which he had been obliged to omit, when he combined Paul's briefer letter with the longer one to form our 2 Timothy. 1 The arrangement of the material is much less orderly in 1 Timothy than in either 2 Timothy or Titus. Various subjects are thrown together without any apparent relation to each other. But in spite of the lack of order, the general purpose which controls all three of the epistles, to provide for the healthy development of the church by the institution of safeguards and by the for- mulation of rules, is kept constantly in mind ; and all that is said has a more or less direct reference to it, though it may have no immediate relation to the context. That pur- pose, in fact, is carried out more fully in 1 Timothy than in either of the other epistles. More space is given to false teachers, and greater emphasis is laid upon church organi- zation. The epistle constitutes an excellent supplement to the others, stating with greater elaborateness and complete- ness principles which find expression in them. Who the redactor of the pastoral epistles was, and where he lived, we have no means of determining. He can hardly have been a personal disciple of Paul, certainly not an intimate disciple ; but he evidently regarded Paul as his master, and believed himself to be a genuine Paulinist. The time when he did his work can be fixed only approxi- mately. The three epistles were almost certainly known to Ignatius and Polycarp, and therefore cannot well be put later than the first or second decade of the second century. On the other hand, the emphasis upon heresy in all three epistles, the lack of the primitive idea of the 1 That the latter, though written first, is traditionally known as 2 Timothy, is due, of course, to the fact that it represents a later period in Paul's life than 1 Timothy. 414 THE APOSTOLIC AGE endowment of all believers with spiritual gifts, fitting them for special forms of service, and the substitution for such inspired believers of appointed officers, charged with the performance of teaching as well as of financial and dis- ciplinary functions, point to a time as late as the close of the first century, or the early years of the second. But though the pastoral epistles in their present form are the work of a later hand than Paul's, we may yet gather from the longer of the two letters which underlie 2 Timothy some information touching Paul's life during the period subsequent to the composition of the Epistle to the Philippians. It was arranged that after Epaphroditus had departed with that epistle, Timothy should remain in Rome for a time until Paul had some assurance as to the outcome of the preliminary trial which seems to have been expected in the near future. 1 Apparently, however, Timothy left for the East before the hearing took place, for Paul tells him something about it in 2 Tim. iv. 16. Very likely it was postponed longer than had been looked for, and it was therefore thought best that Timothy should not wait for it. He must have visited Philippi and de- spatched his business there before Paul wrote to him, for he was already in Ephesus and was apparently intending to remain there. 2 An interval of at least some months therefore separated the Epistle to Timothy from the Epis- tle to the Philippians. The letter to his beloved disciple, the last product of Paul's pen known to us, was evidently written shortly before his execution. His death was im- mediately impending and he no longer entertained any such hopes as he had when he wrote to the Philippians. The preliminary trial had not had the favorable issue which he had thought possible at that time, and his fore- bodings had proved to be fully justified. The companions that were with him had failed to stand by him in his hour of need, 3 and now upon the eve of his execution only Luke remained at his side. He still had friends, to be sure, for he sends greetings to Timothy from Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and "all the brethren"; 4 but apparently 1 Phil. ii. 23 sq. 2 2 Tim. iv. 19 and iv. 1 sq. 8 2 Tim. iv. 16. 4 2 Tim. iv. 21 THE WORK OF PAUL 415 Luke alone now shared his quarters with him, as his other old-time companions had done during the earlier part of his imprisonment, 1 and Luke alone therefore was left to perform their ministrations and to fill their place. 2 From Acts xxviii. 30, it may fairly be inferred that Paul's execution took place about two years after his ar- rival in Rome. It is plain enough, at any rate, that some decisive and permanent change in his situation occurred at that time. That change may have been simply his removal from his lodging and his committal to prison after his con- demnation, to await the execution of the sentence passed upon him ; but the end could not be long delayed in any case, and the two years may therefore be taken as repre- senting at least approximately the time that elapsed between his arrival in Rome and his death. It is true that it is believed by many that Paul's Roman imprisonment was brought to an end not by his condem- nation and execution, but by his acquittal and release. 3 In support of this opinion are urged, on the one hand, a journey to Spain which Paul is reported to have made, and which he cannot have made before his Roman imprison- ment, and on the other hand, a final trip to the East, sub- sequent to the period covered by the Book of Acts, which must be assumed if the pastoral epistles are genuine in their present form. So far as the alleged journey to Spain is concerned, it may be dismissed on the ground of insuf- ficient evidence. Clement of Rome, who wrote before the end of the first century, is cited by many as a witness to 1 Paul's reference to Aristarchus in Col. iv. 10 and Epaphras in Philemon 23, as his " fellow-prisoners," seems to imply that they were living with him in his own dwelling. It may be that his friends took turns in sharing his confinement in order that they might minister to him in such personal ways as they could not otherwise. 2 The reference in 2 Tim. i. 17 to Onesiphorus' diligent search for Paul seems to imply that he was no longer living where he had been, and enjoying the same degree of freedom. Condemnation had perhaps already been passed upon him, and he was confined in prison pending his execution. 8 In support of Paul's alleged release and second Roman imprisonment, see especially the most recent work upon the subject by Spitta: Die zweimalige romische Gefangenschaft des Paulus (Zur Geschichte und Litteratur des Urchristenthums, Bd. I. S. 2-108). In it may be found all that can be said in favor of the theory. 416 THE APOSTOLIC AGE it; but his words are as easily referable to Rome as to Spain, and to use them in support of Paul's release from his Roman imprisonment, and a missionary tour in the West, is to attribute to Clement an elliptical mode of expression and a compression of thought and style utterly foreign to the remainder of his epistle. 1 The earliest dis- tinct references to a Spanish journey are found in the Muratorian Fragment, a document dating from the close of the second century, 2 and in certain apocryphal Acts of Peter and Paul which probably contain material dating from the latter half of the same century. 3 But such late testimonies, utterly unsupported as they are by the Fathers of the second and third centuries, and running counter as they do to the tacit assumption of most of the writers of the period, that Paul met his death in Rome at the close of his two years' imprisonment there, can have little weight over against the significant fact that there is absolutely no trace of Paul's visit to Spain in the tradition of any Spanish church. That it should have been supposed by 1 Clement's words are as follows : " On account of jealousy and strife Paul pointed out the prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven times in bonds, had been exiled, had been stoned, had become a herald in the East and in the West, he received the noble renown of his faith ; having taught righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the end of the West, and having borne testimony before the rulers, he departed thus from the world, and went to the holy place, having become a supreme example of patient endurance " (Ad Cor. 5). A journey to Spain is supposed by many to be involved in the words: "having come to the end of the West" (tirl rb rtpua TTJJ Si/crews t\6uv). It is true that rb rtpua TT;S S&rews taken alone might naturally be interpreted as referring to the Columns of Hercules or Spain (though it is a mistake to say that the phrase was a technical one for that or any other place), but the connection in which the words occur make such a reference extremely unlikely. The next two clauses certainly refer to Paul's trial and death in Rome, and it is difficult to suppose that in the clause in question Clement can be recording a journey beyond Rome from which Paulhad to return in order to bear his testimony before the rulers. It is worthy of notice that the early Fathers who read Clement's epistle never thought of interpreting the words as referring to Spain (cf . Harnack : Putrum Apostolicorum Opera, in Joe.). The truth is that if Rome was the western- most point that Paul reached, the phrase Ttpua T^S Suo-ews might be used of Rome with perfect propriety in speaking of his career. 2 The Muratorian Fragment reads : " Acta autem omnium apostolorum sub uno libro scripta suut. Lucas optime Theophile comprendit, quia sub prae- sentia ejus singula gerebantur, sicuti et semote passionem Petri evidenter declarat, sed et profectionem Pauli ab urbe ad Spaniam profiscentis." See Spitta, I.e. S. 64 sq. THE WORK OF PAUL 417 the authors of the Muratorian Fragment and of the apocry- phal Acts referred to, that Paul actually visited Spain, is easy to understand in the light of his intention to go thither expressed in Rom. xv. 24, 28. 1 On the other hand, so far as another visit to the East is concerned, the only evidence we have for such a visit is found in the pastoral epistles, whose authenticity in their present form has already been shown to be untenable, and the genuine fragments of which have been fully explained on the assumption of a single Roman imprisonment. Under such circumstances not much of an argument can be drawn from them in favor of another trip to Ephesus and other eastern points. Moreover, it is exceedingly difficult to understand how Luke can have repeated on his own ac- count and without any comment, in Acts xx. 38, Paul's categorical declaration to the Ephesian elders, that they should see his face no more, 2 if he knew that five years later Paul visited Ephesus again, as he can hardly have failed to know if he actually did so. Thus the arguments that are urged in support of Paul's release from his Roman imprisonment must be pronounced inconclusive, whether they are drawn from an alleged visit to Spain or from an assumed journey to the Orient. But there are positive reasons for asserting that Paul cannot have been released, and we may therefore go beyond the mere conclusion that such release has not been proven. It is, to say the least, surprising that in his second imprisonment, as in his first, Demas and Luke and Tychicus should be his companions, all the more sur- prising in view of Demas' ultimate cowardice and faithless- ness referred to in 2 Tim. iv. 10. But the decisive fact is the silence not of the Book of Acts alone but of all our sources. That silence constitutes the strongest kind of an 1 It is very significant that the author of the Muratorian Fragment says nothing about Luke's failure to record Paul's release from imprisonment, a more surprising omission than the journey to Spain, if he really was released. But this seems to show clearly enough that the writer had no knowledge of the Spanish journey, but that he simply drew a conclusion from the passage in Romans ; assuming, very likely, that Paul went to Spain before the Roman captivity recorded in Acts. 2 Acts xx. 25. 2 E 418 THE APOSTOLIC AGE argument against Paul's release, and consequently against a journey either eastward or westward after his two years' imprisonment in Rome. Paul had appealed to Csesar. If Luke could have recorded that he was acquitted and re- leased by the emperor, it seems inconceivable that he would have failed to do so. Such an acquittal would have con- stituted a magnificent climax in the long series of in- stances which he gives of the favorable treatment accorded Christianity by the Roman authorities. 1 If a Roman em- 1 See above, p. 346 sq. Ramsay apparently feels the force of this consideration and recognizes the difficulty of believing that Luke, after dwelling at such length upon the vari- ous stages of Paul's trial, can have intended to let his acquittal and release go unmentioned. But instead of drawing the conclusion that Paul was not re- leased, he maintains that Luke contemplated the composition of a third work, " in which should be related the final stages of the trial, the acquittal of Paul, the active use which he made of his permission to preach, the organization of the church in the new provinces, and the second trial occurring at the worst and most detested period of Nero's rule" (St. Paul, p. 309). But of such a third work there is absolutely no sign ; for the use, by such a writer as Luke, of trp&Tov instead of wpbrepov in referring to the Gospel (Acts i. 1) can hardly be intended by Ramsay to be taken as a serious argument. The book, as we have it, comes to a well-defined conclusion and there is no hint that any farther account is intended. Indeed the plan of the book is so comprehensive that it is difficult to suppose that the author had in mind the composition of a third work, for which there was left only a comparatively brief and unim- portant period. Had he had any such work in mind, he would certainly have divided his material differently and would have covered much less ground than he does in his second book. Moreover, it is inconceivable, if he intended to relate the close of Paul's trial and his release from imprisonment, that he should have postponed it to a third work. If he had any historic sense, and Ramsay is right in emphasizing the fact that he had a great deal, he could not do otherwise than put the whole of the trial into one work, either includ- ing it all in the Book of Acts, or saving the entire subject, from the arrest at Jerusalem on, for the third book. To break off in the midst of the trial \\as most irrational, especially since if Paul was set free, his release must consti- tute the climax of the entire account of his imprisonment. Not only, then, is there nothing to support the theory that Luke contemplated a third work in which the release of Paul was to be recorded ; the theory runs exactly counter to all the probabilities of the case. Spitta also maintains that Luke planned to write a third work in continu- ation of the Book of Acts (Die Apostelgeschichte, S. 318 sq.). He is led to his opinion by the observation that the two sources which he claims were used by the author of the Acts do not reach a definite and final conclusion with the close of that work. But even if the existence of his two sources were admitted, and even if it were recognized that they are not followed to their end by the author of the Acts, the proof that he intended to continue the use of them in a third work would still be lacking; for his plan might well lead him to close his history where he did, without regard to his sources, as it certainly led him to omit much that must have been recorded in his sources if they were the kind of documents that Spitta supposes. Spitta's argument consequently can- THE WORK OF PAUL 419 peror had officially declared the great apostle of the Gen- tiles innocent, and had sent him away a free man after his five years of imprisonment, it is difficult to suppose that the fact can have been entirely unknown to Luke, and it is impossible to suppose that it can have been un- known to the whole early church. And yet it is men- tioned by no early writer. When apologetics was made so much of in the first and early second centuries, and every means was employed to prove that Christianity was innocent and harmless, it is inconceivable, if such a strik- ing vindication of it was known to have occurred, that it could be passed by in absolute silence, and be appealed to by not a single Christian. 1 In the light of this considera- tion alone, even were there no other, it would be necessary to pronounce Paul's release a fiction, and to conclude that his two years' imprisonment in Rome closed with his con- viction and execution. As Paul left Csesarea in the fall of 55, and reached Rome the following spring, he must have died in 58, some six years before the great persecution of Nero. It will not do, therefore, to connect his death in any way with that persecution. He was not convicted of preaching not make the assumed continuation of the Book of Acts probable. And indeed, even if the possibility were granted that Luke intended to write a third work, the remarkable fact would remain unexplained, that Paul's acquittal and release is mentioned by no early writer, and that no one even hints that Christianity had received official vindication, in the person of its greatest apostle, at the bar of a Roman emperor. To assume, in the presence of such eloquent silence, that Paul was actually acquitted, and that Luke intended to record the important fact in a work which he after all failed to write, is to say the least venturesome. 1 The fact that Paul was arrested not as a Christian, but as a disturber of the peace, does not affect the matter; for in whatever light he may have appeared to the authorities, he regarded himself and was regarded by all his brethren as a sufferer for his Christian faith, and his acquittal consequently must seem a verdict in Christianity's favor. That Nero subsequently persecuted the Christians would be a reason not for keeping silence in regard to his earlier acquittal of Paul, but rather for appealing to that acquittal and contrasting it with the Emperor's later action. Every one recognized that in the butchery of the Christians he had been actu- ated by anything but motives of justice and a care for the welfare of the state, and if it could be shown that at an earlier time, when his worst pas- sions had not yet broken loose, he had acquitted the leader of the Christians after a full and fair trial, it would be a magnificent argument in favor of the harmlessness of Christianity. 420 THE APOSTOLIC AGE new gods, or of promulgating a novel and illegal religion; Had he been condemned on that ground, the matter could not have stopped with his execution. Other leading Chris- tians as well must have fallen under condemnation, and have suffered a like fate. In other words, Paul's death must have been but the beginning of a persecution of the sect to which he belonged. But there is absolutely no evi- dence that such a persecution took place. Nero's attack upon the Christians half a dozen years later was due to causes of an entirely different character. 1 The crime for which Paul was ultimately executed was that which had been charged against him in Csesarea, the crime of incit- ing riots. It was not simply that he had created a dis- turbance in Jerusalem, but that he was a " pestilent fellow, and a mover of insurrection among all the Jews through- out the world." 2 Doubtless, when he came up for trial before Nero, his Jewish accusers were on hand to testify against him ; and very likely they had taken pains to gather evidence in other cities than Jerusalem, which went to substantiate their charge. Jews from Asia had pre- cipitated the attack upon liim in Jerusalem, and they, of course, knew of his conduct in Ephesus and of the dis- turbances which he had caused there. It may be that they collected testimony also in the cities of Galatia, and in Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, and many other places where his presence and his teaching had led to more or less serious outbreaks. Certainly it was possible to make out a very damaging case against him quite independently of his connection with the Christian sect. Even though it could not be proved that he -had himself incited any riots, or that he had uttered disloyal and revolutionary sentiments, or committed any overt breaches of the peace, still the fact that wherever he went disturbances resulted was in itself enough to condemn him in the eyes of the. state. Such a man was dangerous to the peace of society, and the Roman government never hesitated to dispose of dangerous characters however innocent their intentions, and however pure their purposes might be. Ruling as 1 See below, p. 628. 2 Acts xxiv. 5. THE WOKK OF PAUL 421 it did so many diverse races and nationalities, Rome wae quick to repress anything like sedition or rebellion even of the most insignificant character. Peace must be pre- served at all hazards, and the arm of the law fell heavily upon every one that endangered it in any way. Paul's offence in the eyes of the state could not seem as light and trifling as it seems to us. It must have had a very serious' aspect, and the result cannot be wondered at. An acquittal could hardly be expected, unless his enemies saw fit not to press the charge against him and took no pains to gather evidence. Paul may have hoped for a time after his arrival in Rome that they would take that course, and his interview with leading Jews of the city was very likely directed to that end. But his hope was vain. When his trial finally came on, long delayed as trials very commonly were in those days, his enemies were evidently ready with their evidence ; and though the first hearing resulted in a suspension of judgment, 1 he knew that the case against him was too strong to be met and he looked forward to a speedy sentence. 2 The earliest extant reference to Paul's death is found in Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, 3 written toward the close of the first century. Clement records that Paul suf- fered martyrdom, but he gives no particulars as to the place, time, or manner of his execution. Origen of Alex- andria, writing early in the third century, reports that he suffered martyrdom under Nero in Rome, 4 and a somewhat older contemporary, Tertullian of North Africa, says that he was beheaded there. 5 There is no reason to doubt Ter- tullian's statement. Paul was a Roman citizen, and he was entitled to die by the sword. 6 Though he was executed a? i 2 Tim. iv. 16. 2 2 Tim. iv. 6 sq. 8 Clement : Ad Cor. 5, quoted above, p. 416. 4 Quoted by Eusebius: H. E. III. 1. 6 Scorpiace, 15 ; cf . De prssscriptione hser. 36. 6 Caius of Rome, writing early in the third century, reports that Paul was buried on the Ostian way outside the walls of Rome (Eusebius: H. E. II. 25), and the tradition is very old and probably trustworthy that he was beheaded there. The supposed site has been occupied for centuries by the Abbey of the Three Fountains. The fountains which give the abbey its name are said to have sprung up at the spots where Paul's head struck the ground three times after his decapitation, and the pillar to which he is said to have been 422 THE APOSTOLIC AGE an insurrectionist and not as a Christian, he died a martyr to his Christian faith, and the memory of his martyrdom was cherished by the church. Thus ended the life of the greatest of the apostles, the man who had done more than any other to spread the knowledge of Christ's name and to bring the world to him. From the beginning to the end of his Christian career he was controlled by a fixed and definite purpose, and he carried it out with remarkable tenacity and suc- cess. After a few years spent first in Damascus and then in Tarsus and Antioch, laboring in places where Christian- ity was already known, and apparently largely among his own countrymen, he started upon the great missionary campaigns which continued almost without interruption for ten or a dozen years, and resulted in the evangeliza- tion of the four great provinces of Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia, in the first three of which at least little or nothing had been done before his arrival. That he should have been able to accomplish as much as he did in so short a time is an eloquent testimony to his zeal and power. Brief as his stay in each province was, he suc- ceeded in establishing Christianity permanently in all of them. He confined himself almost wholly to the great centres of population, but the influence of the word which he preached spread rapidly until large districts of the country round about were reached and won. He had an eye always for the strategic points, and he did his work not in any haphazard and aimless way, but with system and farsightedness. He succeeded, wherever he went, in enlisting the enthusiastic friendship and support of his converts, and they carried on his work during his lifetime and after his decease, and became the means of spreading the Gospel into districts which he had not himself visited. He thus became a power over a much larger territory than he had traversed, and his name was honored and revered throughout the Gentile church. His experiences and his bound is still shown ! In the fourth century, at the same time that Peter's remains were transferred to the Vatican, Paul's body is reported to have been buried in the Basilica of St. Paul, which stood upon the site now occupied by the church of San Paolo fuori le mura. THE WORK OF PAUL 423 fortunes during his missionary career are known to us only imperfectly. Something of what he did in the vari- ous parts of his great field we can gather from his epistles and from the Book of Acts. We have enough in those writings to show what an able, active, courageous, self- sacrificing missionary he was, and to reveal the principles upon which he labored and the wisdom with which he put them into practice ; but the work which he did speaks more eloquently than any words and shows how fragmen- tary our records are. How little we know is sufficiently illustrated by a single passage in one of his epistles, where he enumerates a long series of trials and hardships, hardly any of which are referred to elsewhere. 1 The shipwrecks alone which he there mentions prove that he must have travelled much more widely than our records indicate. We have traced the work of Paul in such detail because of the light thrown by it upon the spread of Christianity and upon the fortunes of the church during the period with which we are concerned. The study of Paul's career is a study of Christian history. He was the greatest mission- ary of the age, and in him the Gospel fought its mightiest battles and won its most splendid victories. He more than any one else was instrumental in giving it world-wide influence and power, and in his successes and defeats, in the obstacles which he had to meet, and in the encourage- ments which he found, we see foreshadowed the experi- ences of the church at large during its early days of world-wide evangelism. 13. THE COMPANIONS AND DISCIPLES OF PAUL About fourscore companions and disciples of Paul are mentioned by name in his epistles, 2 and nearly a score 1 2 Cor. xi. 23 sq. 2 In addition to Aquila and Prisca, Apollos, Aristarchus, Barnabas, Crispus, Erastus, Jason, Mark, Silvanus (Silas), Timothy, Trophimus, and Tychicus, who are mentioned both in Paul's epistles and in the Acts, we have in the Epistle to the Galatians the name of Titus (referred to also in 2 Corinthians, 2 Timothy, and Titus) ; in 1 Corinthians the names of Sosthenes (possibly the ruler of the synagogue referred to in Acts xviii. 17), Gains, Stephanas, Fortuna- tus, and Achaicus. Whether Chloe, members of whose household are referred 424 THE APOSTOLIC AGE more in the Book of Acts. 1 A large proportion of them were doubtless his own converts ; but some of them owed their Christianity to others. 2 Only a few of them have any particular claim to be remembered; of only a few, in fact, do we know anything beyond their names. The man who stood closest to Paul and was most inti- mately associated with him during the early years of his Christian career was the Cypriote Jew, Barnabas, 3 who was a member of the church of Jerusalem in its primitive days, and who seems to have been one of the first to recog- nize the Christian zeal and devotion of the young convert Saul. 4 His friendship meant much to the latter, and to in 1 Cor. i. 11, was herself one of Paul's friends or disciples, we do not know. In one or more of the epistles of the imprisonment occur, in addition to some of those already mentioned, the names of the Galatian women Lois and Eunice, grandmother and mother of Timothy (if 2 Tim. i. 5 constitutes a part of Paul's farewell note to Timothy) ; also the names of Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, Epaphras, and Onesimus of Colossae, and Nymphas of Colossae or Laodicea ; Epaphroditus, Clement, Euodia, Syntyche, and Synzygus (if it be a proper name) of Philippi ; Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia, who apparently resided in Rome ; Carpus of Troas ; Onesiphorus of Ephesus ; Crescens and Demas, the former of whom possibly belonged to Galatia, the latter to Thessalonica (2 Tim. iv. 10) ; and Jesus Justus, Luke, and Titus, whose residence is unknown. In the note addressed to the church of Ephesus and preserved in Rom. xvi. occur, in addition to some of those already mentioned, the names of Phoebe of Cen- chreae ; Epenaetus, Mary, Andronicus, Junias, Ampliatus, Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, Herodion, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis, Rufus, Asyncritus, Phlegou, Hermes, Patrobas, Hennas, Philologus, Julia, Nereus, Olympas, all of them apparently of Ephesus ; and Lucius, Sosipater, Tertius, Erastus, and Quartus, the last two at least of Corinth. Whether Aristobulus and Narcissus, mem- bers of whose households are greeted in vss. 10 and 11, were also friends or disciples of Paul, we do not know. Finally, we have in Paul's note to Titus the names of Artemas and Zenas, and in his earlier note to Timothy (2 Tim. i. 15) the names of Phygelus and Hermogenes, none of whom is mentioned elsewhere. In the enlarged epistles to Timothy, Hymenseus, Alexander, and Philetus are also referred to with censure (1 Tim. i. 20; 2 Tim. ii. 17). Whether they were personal disciples of Paul or belonged to a later day, we do not know. 1 In addition to Philip the evangelist (xxi. 8), Agabus the prophet (xi. 28), and Paul's fellow-laborers in the church of Antioch, Lucius of Gyrene (by some identified with the Lucius of Rom. xvi. 21), Symeon, Niger, and Manncn. we have in the Acts the following names not mentioned in Paul's epistles: Gaius of Macedonia (xix. 29) and Gains of Derbe (xx. 4), Dionysius and Damaris of Athens (xvii. itt), Eutychns of Troas (xx. 9), Lydia of Philippi (xvi. 14), Secundus of Thessalonica, and Sopater of Berrca (xx. 4), Titius Justus of Corinth (xviii. 7), and the proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus (xiii. 7 sq. ; see above, p. 175). 2 For instance, Barnabas, Silvanus, Apollos, Mark, Andronicus, Junias, and very likely others. 8 Cf. Acts iv. 36 * Acts ix. 27, xi. 125. THE WORK OF PAUL 425 doubtless contributed in no small degree to his credit and influence with Christians of Jewish birth. And yet, though Barnabas was a disciple before Paul, and though he seems to have stood sponsor for him in the earlier days when the memory of his persecuting career was fresh in the mind of the church, it was not long before Paul took the lead; and during the years of their joint missionary activity, so far as those years are known to us, he was the more prominent figure of the two, and Barnabas appears in our sources as little more than his assistant. 1 Paul's was evidently the stronger and more forceful char- acter, and he influenced Barnabas far more than the latter influenced him. When the two men separated after the unfortunate occurrence at Antioch, 2 Paul turned his steps to Galatia, while Barnabas made his way to Cyprus in company with his nephew Mark. 3 At this point we lose sight of him. All that we know certainly about his sub- sequent career is contained in the casual reference to him in 1 Cor. ix. 6, which indicates that he was still actively engaged in missionary work, and implies that he and Paul were once more on good terms. He! seems to have con- tinued his apostolic labors for a number of years longer, at least a part of the time in Asia Minor, 4 and if my hypothesis in regard to the authorship of First Peter is correct, he was in Rome toward the close of his life, a couple of decades or more after the death of Paul. 6 With the later legends that cluster about his name, we need not concern ourselves. 6 Clement of Alexandria calls him one of the seventy disciples, 7 and the tradition is not in itself incredible; but the same statement is made by early writers touching so many persons belonging to the apos- tolic age that no weight can be attached to it. An epistle i Cf. Acts xiii. and xiv. ; Gal. ii. 1, 9. 2 Gal. ii. 11. 8 Acts xv. 39. 4 Paul's reference to him in Col. iv. 10 implies that he was well known to the readers of that epistle. See helow, p. 598 sq. 6 The Clementine Recognitions and Homilies frequently mention Barnabas, and speak of his activity in Alexandria and Rome. One tradition sends him to Milan and makes him the first hishop of the church there, but the silence of Ambrose is a sufficient proof of its falsity. 7 In Strom. II. 20. See my edition of Eusebius, Bk. I. chap. 12. 426 tftE APOSTOLIC AGfi belonging to the late first or early second century is still extant, which has been ascribed to Barnabas since the time of Clement of Alexandria. The epistle, however, abounds in misconceptions touching the ceremonial law of the Jews and is marked by bitter hostility to historic Judaism, and it is clear that it cannot have been written by a Jew, much less by a Levite, as Barnabas is said to have been in Acts iv. 36. l The Epistle to the Hebrews was also ascribed to him by an ancient tradition, but that, too, contains some statements in regard to the Jewish ritual which a Levite would not be likely to make, and is much more probably the work of another man. 2 The only extant writing to which the name of Barnabas can be attached with any show of reason, is the First Epistle of Peter. If that epistle is his work, interesting con- clusions may be drawn from it as to the degree to which Paul's thinking influenced him, and as to the fidelity with which he carried on the work of his greater com- panion after the latter 's death. 3 Of Paul's companion, Silvanus, or Silas, as he is called in the Book of Acts, 4 we know very little. He seems to have been a member of the church of Jerusalem, 5 and therefore did not owe his conversion to Paul. He accom- panied the apostle upon his second missionary journey, according to the Book of Acts, 6 and his presence with him in Macedonia and Achaia is testified to in Paul's own epistles. 7 After that time he disappears from view until the latter part of the century, when he was appar- ently in Rome with the author of the First Epistle of Peter. 8 Our complete ignorance concerning his where- abouts during the thirty years or more separating that epistle from the time of Paul's first stay in Corinth is simply one of the many indications of the limits of our knowledge of the apostolic age. 1 See my edition of Eusebius, Bk. III. chap. 25, note 20. 2 See below, p. 480. The only father to connect the Epistle to the Hebrews with Barnabas is Tertullian in his De Pudicitia, 20. 8 See below, p. 485 sq. 4 Weizsiicker questions the identity of the two. See above, p. 230. 6 Acts xv. 22, 27. 6 Acts xv. 40 sq. f xvi. 19 sq., xvii. 4 sq., xviii. 5 sq. 7 2 Cor. i. 19 ; 1 Thess. i. 1 ; 2 Thess. i. 1. ' 1 Pet. v. 12. THE WORK OF PAUL 427 Another member of the church of Jerusalem who was a companion of Paul for some time was John Mark, a nephew or cousin of Barnabas, 1 who started with the apostles upon their first missionary journey, but turned back at Perga, to Paul's great displeasure, 2 and some years later went to Cyprus with Barnabas, when the latter separated from Paul at the beginning of the second mis- sionary journey. 3 We know nothing more about him until the time of the third missionary journey, when he was apparently in Ephesus and again enjoyed the affec- tion and confidence of the apostle. 4 Whether he actually joined Paul in Macedonia in accordance with the latter 's wish, and whether he remained with him during the months that followed, we do not know; but he was with him in his Roman imprisonment, 5 and was a companion of Peter during the latter's stay in Rome, 6 and was also there some years later when the First Epistle of Peter was written. 7 An ancient tradition connects him with the foundation of the church of Alexandria, but little reliance can be placed upon it. 8 Other Jewish Christians whom we know to have been among Paul's companions and fellow- workers were Apollos of Alexandria, who' labored both in Corinth and in Ephe- sus ; 9 Andronicus, Junias, Herodion, and Maiy, who were in Ephesus at the time Paul wrote the note contained in Rom. xvi. ; 10 Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, who were in Corinth at the time that note was written ; n Jesus Justus, who was with the apostle in his Roman imprisonment; 12 Aristarchus of Thessalonica, who was one of his com- panions not only then but on many earlier occasions; 13 and finally Aquila and his wife Prisca (or Priscilla, as she is called in the Acts), Jews of Rome, with whom he 1 Cf. Col. iv. 10. 5 Col. iv. 10 ; Philemon 24. ' 2 Acts xiii. 13, xv. 38. 6 See below, p. 603. 3 Acts xv. 39. ' 1 Pet. v. 13. 4 Cf. 2 Tim. iv. 11, and see above, p. 409. 8 See Eusebius : H. E. II. 16 and 24, and compare my note upon the former passage. 9 Acts xviii. 24 sq. ; 1 Cor. i. 12 sq., xvi. 12. n Rom. xvi. 21. 10 See above, p. 277 sq. 12 Col. iv. 11. 18 Acts xix. 29, xx. 4, xxvii. 2; Col. iv. 10; Philemon 24. 428 THE APOSTOLIC AGE made his home in Corinth, and who later resided in Ephesus. 1 Their house in the latter city was the meeting- place of one of the Christian circles of the town, and they were evidently very active and zealous and possessed a large measure of influence among the brethren. 2 Their devotion to Paul was signalized in some remarkable way, apparently at a time when he was in great danger; for he says that they laid down their own necks for his life. 3 Evidently the tie that bound them to the apostle was a very strong one, and he returned their devotion with deep affection. They are always mentioned together, both in the Acts and in the epistles, and they furnish the most beauti- ful example known to us in the apostolic age of the power for good that could be exerted by a husband and wife working in unison for the advancement of the Gospel. 4 More important to Paul himself than any of those already mentioned was the Galatian Timothy, whose mother was a Jewess, but whose father was a Greek. 6 He was one of Paul's converts, and joined him when he passed through Galatia on his second missionary jour- ney. 6 During the remainder of the apostle's life he was his most beloved and trusted disciple and companion. After the farewell note which was sent him from Rome shortly before Paul's execution, Timothy disappears from view except for a passing reference at the close of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 7 which was written probably twenty-five years or more after the apostle's death. From that reference we learn that he had recently been released from some imprisonment, and that he was expect- ing shortly to see the readers of the epistle, who were very likely resident in Rome. 8 Of the place and circum- stances of his imprisonment we know nothing, nor have 1 Acts xviii. 2, 18 sq. ; Rom. xvi. 3; 1 Cor. xvi. 19; 2 Tim. iv. 19. 2 Cf. Rom. xvi. 3 sq. ; 1 Cor. xvi. 19. 8 Rom. xvi. 4. 4 The fact that Prisea is mentioned before Aquila in a number of passages seems to indicate that she possessed peculiar pre-eminence, which was due possibly to her greater ability and forcefulness of character, possibly to the fact that she was of higher rank than Aquila. See Ramsay : St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 2H8. Acts xvi. 1. 7 Heb. xiii. 23. 6 See above, p. 231 sq. 8 See below, p. 468. THE WORK OF PAUL 429 we any information as to his whereabouts during the years preceding and following. An ancient tradition makes him bishop of Ephesus, 1 and that he actually did labor there for some time is clear from Paul's farewell note to him; but no particular reliance can be placed upon the report that he was the official head of the church, in view of the tendency in the second century to assign to all the followers of the apostles episcopal sees. There remain no writings from his pen,' and so far as we know he wrote nothing, except possibly a lost letter to the Corinthians ; 2 but his name is joined with Paul's in the salutations of six epistles, in itself a clear enough indication of the apostle's affection for him and confidence in him. One of the most mysterious figures in the apostolic age is the figure of the Gentile Titus, whom Paul took with him to the council of Jerusalem in the year 45 or 46, as an example of the work that God was doing among the heathen through him. 3 His birthplace and his national- ity it is impossible to determine. It is not unlikely that he was a Galatian, as Paul's largest work among the Gentiles, before the time of the council, was done in that country, but he may have been from Syria or Cilicia. The delicate and responsible mission with which he was entrusted in connection with the church of Corinth, and which he discharged with such success,* shows that he enjoyed the confidence of the apostle, and it may fairly be concluded that he had been an intimate and trusted companion for some years, and had had other opportuni- ties of proving his fidelity and ability. And yet he is referred to by Paul only in the Epistle to the Galatians, 5 in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 6 and in the later of the two notes to Timothy preserved in Second Timothy. 7 He must have been with the apostle at least a part of the time that elapsed between the council at Jerusalem and the outbreak of the troubles at Corinth, 1 See Eusebius : H. E. III. 4. 4 See above, p. 320 sq. 2 See above, p. 313. 6 Gal. ii. 1, 3. See above, p. 194. 6 2 Cor. ii. 13, vii. 6, 13, 14, viii. 6, 16, 23, xii. 18. 7 2 Tim. iv. 10. Paul also addressed a letter to him, which is found in our canonical Epistle to Titus. See above, p. 410. 430 THE APOSTOLIC AGE and between the settlement of those troubles and the closing days of Paul's imprisonment in Rome; but there is no trace of him during those intervals in any of our sources. His name is not joined with Paul's in the salutations of any of the latter's epistles, and there is no reference to him in connection with the evangelization of any city or province. Moreover, he is not once men- tioned in the Book of Acts, which has so much to say about Barnabas, Silas, and Timothy, and which contains the names of more than a score of Paul's disciples and companions. It might almost seem as if his name must have been omitted by the author of the Acts with a pur- pose, as has been maintained by many scholars ; but what that purpose can have been, it is impossible to discover. The old idea that the work was written with an irenic aim, in the hope of contributing to a better understanding between the Jewish and Gentile wings of the Christian church, is not borne out by the book itself, and has been generally abandoned. 1 And so the suggestion that the name of Titus was omitted as offensive to Jewish Chris- tians because of the occurrence at the council of Jerusalem must be rejected as quite without foundation. It is alto- gether probable, in fact, that the omission was due not to any design on the part of the author, but simply to the silence of his sources. It may well be that the account of the council which came into his hands said nothing about Titus, and as he was probably not acquainted with the Epistle to the Galatians, he had no information as to his presence in Jerusalem. It is to be noticed that nothing is said in the Book of Acts about the troubles in the church of Corinth and about the dealings which Paul had with that church during his stay in Ephesus, and so we could not expect to find in it any record of Titus' connection with that affair. That he was a less prominent and important figure than Timothy can be gathered from Paul's own epistles, and there was perhaps no more reason why he should be mentioned than 1 This was the contention of the Tubingen school, and is still maintained in a modified form; among others by Weizsiicker. THE WORK OF PAUL 43l many others of Paul's disciples. We should not be mis- led by the existence in our canon of an epistle addressed to him, and conclude that both he and Timothy were pre- eminent above all their companions in the affections of Paul, and that they were singled out from all the rest and commissioned by the apostle to carry on his work during his lifetime and after his death in a way that no one else was. We have seen that the Epistle to Titus in its present form is not Paul's, and there is no reason why he may not have written notes resembling the one which lies at the basis of it to many of his companions. That this particular one was used by a later writer, together with the notes to Timothy, was not necessarily due to the fact that, next to Timothy, Titus was the most prominent and best known of Paul's disciples. It may be that only the notes to Timothy and Titus came into the writer's hands. Of the later career of Titus after his journey to Dal- matia, to which reference is made in 2 Tim. iv. 10, we have no information. The tradition that he was the first bishop of Crete l has no more weight than most such tradi- tions. His presence in Crete at the time Paul wrote to him, that is, about the year 52, was alone sufficient to give rise to the tradition. It is to be noticed that when he left Rome five or six years later, it was not to Crete that he went, but to Dalmatia. 2 He left no writings so far as we know, and it is a remarkable fact that neither to him nor to Timothy has tradition ascribed any literary productions. The names of Linus 3 and Clement 4 have acquired some importance from the fact that our most ancient catalogues of the earliest bishops of Rome have both a Linus and a Clement among the first four names, and that many writ- ings are extant which are ascribed by tradition to the latter. That the Linus from whom greetings are sent in 2 Tim. iv. 21 is the same man who appears in all our lists as the first bishop of Rome after Peter, is quite possible, and it is also possible that he was a leading figure in the 1 See Eusebius : H. E. III. 4. 2 Tim. iv. 21. 2 2 Tim. iv. 10. * Phil. iv. 3. 432 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Roman church during its early days, and that he bore with others the title of bishop, which was widely in use in the closing decades of the first century; but in so far as the lists represent him as the official head of the church, they carry back into primitive days the condi- tions of a later time. 1 That the Clement who appears in the various catalogues as the second or third bishop of the Roman church was also a prominent figure in that church during the latter part of the first century cannot be doubted, but the same may be said of his official position that has just been said of the position of Linus. His name is much better known and is much more prominent in the early history of the church than the name of the latter. A number of writ- ings of different periods have been assigned to him by tradition, and in the case of the epistle sent by the church of Rome to the church of Corinth almost at the close of the first century, the tradition is probably correct. Eusebius, doubtless following the suggestion of earlier fathers, identifies this well-known Clement of Rome with the man mentioned in Phil. iv. 3; 2 but the latter was living in Philippi, not in Rome, and there is no ground whatever for making the identification. The tendency to connect the prominent figures of the post-apostolic age with the apostles themselves is a very natural one, but some stronger basis than mere identity of name must be found before any such connection can be regarded as probable. There were doubtless many Christians in the post-apostolic age whose names were the same as those borne by disciples of the time of Paul, and only the smallest fraction of them are known to us. It is quite possible that the Roman Clement had known Paul, and Peter too, in his earlier days, 3 but no reference to him occurs in the New Testament. The same may be said of Hernias, the author of the remarkable allegorical work entitled The Shepherd, which was written by a Roman Christian some time before the 1 See below, p. 659 sq. 2 Eusebius : //. E. III. 4, 10. See my note in loc. s Cf. Irenaeus: Adv. Hser. III. 3, 3. THE WORK OF PAUL 433 middle of the second century. Origen suggested that its author was identical with the Hernias mentioned in Rom. xvi. 14, l but the date of the work makes the identifica- tion impossible, and it is to be noticed, moreover, that the Hernias mentioned by Paul was a resident of Ephesus, not of Rome. 2 Among all the companions of Paul none has been so highly honored by tradition as Luke, "the beloved physi- cian," 3 to whom has been ascribed the authorship of the third Gospel and of the Book of Acts. Of Luke himself we know very little. He is mentioned only in Col. iv. 14, Philemon 24, and 2 Tim. iv. 11, and nothing is told us as to his nationality or the time and circumstances of his conversion, and we do not know whether he had long been a friend and companion of Paul or was one of his more recent converts. It is evident, however, that he was very intimate with the apostle and peculiarly dear to him during his imprisonment in Rome, and he must have been in a position to learn much about his life and work. At the same time, the tradition which makes him the author of the third Gospel and of the Book of Acts, both of which are by the same hand, can hardly be maintained. The reasons for thinking that the latter work, at any rate, was not written by one of Paul's own disciples have already been given. and need not be repeated. 4 But the question arises, how came these two important works to be ascribed to a man who fills so small a place in Paul's epistles and who has left no other trace of himself in his- tory? It would seem that there must be some foundation for the tradition, or otherwise it might fairly be expected that the writings in question would have been attributed to some better known man. Two possible alternatives suggest themselves. Either the Gospel and the Acts were actually written by a man named Luke, who was not a companion of Paul, but whom tradition identified with " the beloved physician " referred to in Col. iv. 14, 1 Origen: In Epist. ad Rom., Lib. X. c. 31. See also Eusebius: //. E. III. 3,6. 2 See above, p. 275 sq. s Col. iv. 14. * See above, p. 237. 2F 434 THE APOSTOLIC AGE or the latter was the writer of the document containing the " we " passages, of which the author of the Acts made use in composing his book, and his name thus became attached to the completed work. The latter is a common opinion, and there is much to be said in favor of it. The man who wrote the " we " passages was evidently an intimate companion of Paul, and he made the journey from Caesarea to Rome in his company. 1 We naturally look for him, therefore, among those whom we know to have been with the apostle in his Roman imprisonment. The only ones whose names are known to us are Jesus Justus, mentioned in the Epistle to the Colossians, Timo- thy, Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Mark, Epaphras, Luke, and Demas, mentioned both in that epistle and in the Epistle to Philemon; 2 Epaphroditus, mentioned in Philippians; and Onesiphorus, Crescens, Titus, Eubu- lus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia, in Second Timothy. Claudia, a woman, cannot be thought of. Onesimus was converted to Christianity while Paul was in Rome ; 3 and Onesiphorus, Epaphroditus, and apparently Epaphras also, came thither only after the apostle was already there. 4 Timothy, Tychicus, and Aristarchus are ruled out by the way in which they are referred to in the " we " passages themselves. 5 Mark was not with the apostle on his second missionary journey, when the author of the first of the passages in question was in his company. 6 Titus, who must have been very offensive to many of the Christians of Jerusalem after the experience at the coun- cil, would hardly have accompanied Paul, as the author of the " we " document did, 7 upon his last journey thither, when the apostle was particularly anxious to conciliate the Mother Church. Of his other companions in Rome, Jesus Justus, Luke, Demas, Crescens, Eubulus, Pudens, and Linus, none is more likely to have written the per- sonal notes of travel than Luke, who seems, indeed, to 1 Acts xxvii. and xxviii. 2 Timothy is mentioned also in Philippians, Tychicus in Ephesians, and Luke and Demas in Paul's farewell note to Timothy. 8 Philemon 10. 2 Tim. i. 17 ; Phil. iv. 18 ; Col. i. 8. * Acts xx. 4, xxvii. 2. Acts xv. 39, xvi. 10 sq. 7 Acts xxi. 17, 18. THE WORK OF PAUL 485 have been the nearest and dearest to Paul of them all. 1 It is true that we have no reference to Luke except in the epistles of the imprisonment; but it is quite possible that he was with Paul during the periods covered by the "we " passages, when none of the extant epistles was written, and those passages themselves seem to show that their author was not with the apostle very constantly, if at all, in the intervals between. 2 If "the beloved physician" was the author of the passages with Avhich we are dealing, it is easy to explain the ascription to him of the entire work in which his own personal notes were used. His name might well be remembered when the name of the later writer who incorporated those notes into his larger work was entirely forgotten. At the same time the fact must be recognized that there is no positive evidence connecting Luke with the " we " passages, and that some other companion of Paul entirely unknown to us, or known only by name, may have been their author. For the former of the two alternatives referred to above is not impossible, and explains the ascription of the Acts to Paul's companion, Luke, fully as well as the alternative which has been discussed. Luke was not an uncommon name, and not only one but many Christians may have borne it in the latter part of the first century. The tendency to identify the disciples of that period with companions of the apostles that hap- pened to bear the same names has been already referred to, and certainly nothing would be more natural than to find in the Luke, to whom tradition ascribed the third Gospel and the Book of Acts, the beloved physician referred to in terms of such affection by Paul himself, as Origen found in the author of Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians the Clement of Phil. iv. 3, and in the author of The Shepherd of Hernias the Hermas of Rom. xvi. 14. 3 1 Cf. 2 Tim. iv. 10. 2 For a statement of the various companions of Paul to whom the " we " document has been ascribed by scholars, see Holtzmann : Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 3te Auflage, S. 394. 3 The third Gospel and the Acts are first ascribed to Luke, the companion of Paul, in the Muratorian Fragment, which dates from the latter part of the second century. 436 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Whether the " we " passages were the work of Luke or of some other companion of Paul, it was entirely natural that a writer living in the latter part of the first century, a generation after the apostle's death, in undertaking to write an account of the early days of the Christian church, and particularly of the work of Paul, should make use of such accounts of an eyewitness, as we know that he made use of many other documents both in the Gospel and in the Acts. The only surprising thing is that he did not make larger use of them than he seems to have done. It looks as if there had come into his hands not a complete work containing an account of Paul's missionary career, but only fragments of such a work, or detached leaves of a journal, or mere letters describing certain episodes, and it may well be that he inserted them all in his history, and that their extent is approximately indicated by the actual occurrence of the first personal pronoun. 1 Our study of the events recorded in the Book of Acts has shown us that the author of that book drew much of his material from excellent and entirely trustworthy sources ; but it is a remarkable fact that he seems to have made no use of Paul's epistles, all of which were written long before he composed his work, and many of which throw light upon occurrences that he relates and supply much additional information. It is true that many schol- ars hold that he did make a large use of Paul's epistles, 2 but I am unable to discover any trace of such use. The two sources Qpistles and Acts go their independent way, apparently quite oblivious of each other. Where the epistles are fullest and most explicit in their his- torical references, the author of the Book of Acts seems frequently to have had least knowledge, and in some cases his account is out of accord with Paul's statements. He certainly did not undertake to conform his narrative to Paul's epistles and to control it by them, and it can hardly be supposed in the light of his evident respect for 1 See also p. 239, above. 2 Cf., e.g., Weizsacker, I.e. S. 170 (Eng. Trans., Vol. I. p. 209), Ramsay: St. Paul, the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 35, and especially Jacob- sen: Die Qnellen der Apostelgeschichte. THE WORK OF PAUL 437 his memory that he would have ventured consciously to correct the apostle. To ascribe to him the deliberate purpose of making Paul seem something other than he really was, and of modifying the facts in order to bring him into closer accord with the principles and practice of the older apostles, is to do him an injustice. Nothing in the Gospel or in the Acts warrants us in accusing him of intentional perversion of the facts. The defects in his narrative, and his divergences from the epistles of Paul, can be fully and most satisfactorily accounted for by his lack of information ; and the assumption of a con- scious deviation from the facts in the interest of a cause cannot be made to square with all the phenomena. It must be concluded, then, that if the author of the Acts had read any of Paul's epistles, he did not at any rate have them in his hands at the time he wrote his work, and was not so familiar with them that they materially affected his narrative. The epistles and the Acts do con- firm and supplement each other in many cases, but such confirmation is largely of an indirect and evidently un- designed character. It is worthy of notice that the author of the Acts does not once speak of Paul's correspondence with his churches, and it is a mistake to suppose that within twenty-five or thirty years after the apostle's death his epistles were so widely circulated that every intelli- gent Christian of the Gentile world must have been familiar with them. The literature of the early church shows that the acquaintance with many of his writings was very limited even as late as the beginning of the second century. The date and place of the composition of the "we" passages, and the residence and personality of their author, it is impossible to determine; and much the same may^be said of the Book of Acts. The indications, how- ever, point to the reign of Domitian as the time when the latter was composed. The date of the third Gospel pre- vents us from putting it much earlier than that reign, 1 and the apparent need felt by the author of defending gee below, p. 577. 438 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Christianity before the Roman authorities points to a time when the Christians were beginning to experience the disfavor of the state, 1 as we know that they were in the time of Domitian; while, on the other hand, the author's lack of acquaintance with many of Paul's epis- tles, and the indications of a knowledge of his book on the part of Christian writers of the early second century, make it inadvisable to put it into a later period. That Paul had many other companions and disciples besides those mentioned in his epistles and in the Book of Acts cannot be doubted, and it may be that some of them were of greater importance and exerted a far larger influence than many whose names we know. Except in the case of a very few, the preservation of those names was largely due to accidental circumstances. The brief note to the church of Ephesus introducing Phoebe of Cenchrese furnishes us, for instance, with some thirty otherwise entirely unknown. But Paul's influence was not measured by the men who counted themselves his disciples or who were immediate^ associated with him in his work. His influence was felt by multitudes who never saw his face and whose names he never knew. His historic significance is to be estimated not by the number of his converts nor by their names, but by the amazing success with which he carried out his great plan of world- wide evangelism and still more by the impulse which he gave to the preaching of the Gospel in all parts of the empire. By his tireless activity he brought a knowledge of the Gospel to many of the most important cities of the world ; and not simply that, he started Christianity upon its world-conquering career, and, above all, he made it com- pletely and forever independent of Judaism. His prin- ciples might not be fully appreciated and the arguments upon which he based his assertion of the independence of the Gospel might be generally misapprehended, but the fact for which he stood could not be mistaken ; and though he was not the only one that stood for it, it was due to him more than to any one else that Jewish exclusiveness 1 See above, p. 348. THE WORK OF PAUL 439 was broken down and the evangelization of the Gentile world made possible. He not only won a victory over the Judaizers, but he clinched his victory and made it per- manent by the active, eager, successful work which he carried on for years afterward, and by which he demon- strated, so clearly that it could never be questioned, the universality of the Gospel and its permanent independence of all racial and national limitations. Whatever else he did, he at least gave to his disciples and companions, and through them to multitudes of others, the impulse and the courage to preach such a Gospel to all the world. CHAPTER V THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 1. THE COMMON CONCEPTION OF THE GOSPEL PAUL was not the founder of Christianity; he was only its greatest missionary. The Gentile church, the church of the world at large, owed its existence and its rapid spread very largely to him, but it was by no means a Pauline church; it was a Christian church, and there was room in it, as the event proved, for many other concep- tions of the Gospel than that which Paul himself preached. His name outside of Ebionitic circles was always held in high honor, but the Christianity of the world-church of the second and subsequent centuries had little likeness to the Christianity of the epistles to the Galatians, Corin- thians, and Romans. This does not mean that the teachings of Paul were entirely neglected or misunderstood. Some of those teachings are reproduced in many post-Pauline writings. But even where they are thus found, they appear in nearly every case in proportions and in rela- tions different from those in which they were originally uttered, and combined with other ideas entirely foreign to Paul's thought. Now one element, now another of his teaching is seized upon by this or that Christian, and given a prominent or even a controlling place in his sys- tem, but Paul's total conception of Christianity is lost. Almost no one looks upon the Gospel as he does, and repro- duces his interpretation of it in its original proportions. This remarkable lack of a true and genuine Paulinism in the writings of the early Christians was due in part to the fact that Paul's teachings, which were so largely the fruit of his own experience, were too profound to be understood or appreciated by the mass of his converts, 440 THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 441 who possessed no such religious nature as he was gifted with, and who had passed through no such spiritual crisis as had preceded his conversion to the Christian faith. 1 But it was due still more largely to the fact that Paul was not the only missionary of Christ, and that multi- tudes of Gentile Christians received the Gospel from other lips than his. This was true of the Christians of Alexandria, a city which he never visited, and of Rome, where he spent the closing years of his life. It was true also of many provinces lying both east and west of his missionary field, and of many communities even within the territory which he covered. Thus Pontus and Bithynia on the east, Gaul, Spain, and North Africa on the west, were never visited by him, and even in the province of Asia, where he labored for so long, Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis had not seen his face. If even those who owed their conversion directly to him were commonly unable to apprehend the full nature and significance of his Gospel, much less was it to be expected that those who knew him only by reputation, or those who heard him only after their own conceptions of Christianity were already formed and crystallized, should understand and make his Gospel their own. And still less was it to be expected, when the Gospel which they received from others was commonly far more in line with their own previous thought and experience, and thus far easier of comprehension and acceptance. This Gospel, which was brought to the Gentile world by other missionaries than Paul, it is impossible to recon- 1 Most of them knew nothing of that discipline of the conscience which Paul had undergone in his effort to conform his life in all respects to the require- ments of an exacting and minute code of religion and ethics; for nearly all of them were Gentiles or Hellenists, who either knew nothing about the Jewish law, or regarded it simply as a general expression of the proper atti- tude of devotion towards the supreme God, and observed it at most only in its larger lines. It is not to be wondered at that such men failed to make Paul's conception of Christianity their own. It is a great mistake to identify Paulin- ism with primitive Gentile Christianity, and to place him and the early Gen- tile Christians over against Jewish Christians, as representatives of a distinct and independent development. Paul was a Jew, and his conception of the Gospel rests upon Jewish presuppositions which distinguish it sharply from various other conceptions that made their appearance in the Gentile world. 442 THE APOSTOLIC AGE struct in all its details ; for the sources upon which we have to depend for our knowledge of it are very limited. But the main features of it, which must have been much the same even when it was preached by Christians who held widely different views on many points, can be repro- duced with some degree of confidence. Upon one point all of them were in agreement, both with each other and with Paul. All believed that the Gentile Christian is free from the obligation to observe the Jewish law. Moreover, the men that carried the Gospel to the heathen world were commonly agreed that the Jewish Christian, as well as his Gentile brother, is free from such obligation. This principle, to be sure, was longer than the other in finding general recognition. In Jerusalem, long after the freedom of Gentile Chris- tians had been admitted, the disciples of Jewish birth continued to observe their ancestral law in all its strict- ness, and to insist upon the duty of all their Christian compatriots to do the same. 1 And there can be no doubt that there were at that time many outside of Palestine who followed the same course. But there were many, too, and probably far more, in the church at large, who believed in the abrogation of the national code for Jewish as well as Gentile disciples. As was seen in an earlier chapter, there were those, even before Paul entered upon his great missionary career, who held this opinion and acted upon it in Antioch and elsewhere quite inde- pendently of him. And as time passed, and Christianity spread ever more widely in the Roman world, and the Gentile disciples grew more numerous and influential, the number of such Jewish liberals must have increased with great rapidity. It was inevitable, indeed, that those who still clung to the old forms, and refused to meet their Gentile brethren on equal terms, should find themselves in an ever more hopeless minorit} T , and that the church at large should go its way without seriously concerning it- self about them. It is a mistake to think that the ques- tion remained a burning one for any length of time. All 1 Acts xxi. 20. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE' CHURCH AT LARGE 443 the writings of the first century bear witness to the con- trary. It will not do to explain the lack of references to the controversy touching the law in the non-Pauline literature of that century by assuming a desire on the part of the writers to rise above the differences that had agitated the church, and to construct a platform upon which both parties could stand. Such an assumption is entirely groundless. The truth is that there was no dispute at the time that literature was written, and the controversy had never been so widespread as to impress its memory upon the church at large. That Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, were entirely free from the ob- ligation to observe the law of Moses, simply went with- out saying in most parts of Christendom, even before the time of Paul's death, and there was no reason whatever for a Christian writer to spend either time or thought upon a question that concerned neither himself nor his brethren. But though complete freedom from Jewish ceremonial was thus widely taken for granted, Paul's principle that the Christian is released from all external law was not generally accepted. The Gospel was understood by the original disciples in Jerusalem as a Gospel of righteous- ness, and righteousness meant to them, as to the Jews in general, the strict observance of the revealed law of God. When it came to be believed that the national code of the Jews was no longer binding, the result was the belief not that the Christian is subject to no objective law, but that he is subject to a new and higher one. It is significant that the Christians in general, who agreed with Paul as to the abrogation of the Jewish law, reached their position, whether under Paul's influence or independently of him, by an entirely different route from that which he pursued. His conviction rested upon a principle which was fundamental in his thinking, the principle that the Christian life is a life of freedom from the flesh; and his conviction involved, therefore, the Christian's release from subjection to law in general and not simply to the Jewish law. But among other mis- 444 THE APOSTOLIC AGE sionaries to the Gentiles there were many who were led to the same conclusion touching the Jewish law by mere force of circumstance or example, and probably still more who had already before their conversion ceased to lay any great stress upon the observance of ceremonial rites, and contented themselves with conforming their lives to the general principles of good morals. Among the Hellenistic Jews of the period there were many such. In their hands Judaism had become transformed in many quarters into a universal religion, whose sum was the belief in one supreme, spiritual God, and in a final judgment, when men were to be rewarded or punished for their observance or non-observance of the general moral law. They dif- fered from many of the better and more thoughtful spirits in the heathen world about them only in their belief in revelation. In the Jewish Scriptures, interpreted largely in an allegorical manner, they were convinced that they had an authentic revelation of the character and will of the true God and of his future purposes for men. It was in large part due to the efforts of such Hellenists as these that Jewish propagandism was so amazingly successful in the first and second centuries of our era, and among them doubtless Christianity won multitudes of adherents. But of course to such men as these Christianity could not mean the observance of the Jewish ceremonial law. Their Christian faith and life must be conditioned by their previous convictions; and that meant not simply that the Christianity which they professed, and which they preached to their Gentile neighbors, must be superior to Jewish exclusiveness, whether national or religious, but also that it must be marked by the features which they regarded as essential in the older faith. It must be the supreme and final revelation of the true God, who had already revealed himself through Moses and the prophets, and it must contain a still clearer and more emphatic expression of his will and of the consequences to follow its observance or non-observance. It was thus inevitable that the Christianity of the world at large, so far as it felt the influence of these men, should bear a legal character, THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 445 and should be in this respect widely removed from that of Paul. But there was no perversion in all this of the principles of the original disciples. To them, too, Chris- tianity bore a strictly legal character, just as Judaism had done. The only difference lay in their conception of the content of the law which it was the duty of Christ's fol- lowers to observe. This being the case, the Christianity accepted and preached by these liberal Hellenistic Jews must agree in principle with the Christianity of other missionaries to the Gentiles, who were in more immediate connection with the Mother Church. Whether or not the latter continued to think that the observance of the Jew- ish ceremonial law was necessary to any one's salvation, they were at any rate at one in their belief that to be a Christian meant to keep the commandments of God, what- ever they might be. And so, besides that form of Christianity which Paul preached, sometimes before and sometimes after it, there went to the Gentile world another form, preached by multitudes of missionaries, both Palestinian and Hellen- istic, missionaries who were doubtless for the most part entirely friendly to Paul, so far as they knew anything about him, and who believed themselves to be carrying on the same work that he was doing. They were in gen- eral agreement with each other and with him, at an early day if riot from the beginning, in the belief that the ceremonial law is no longer binding upon the Christian, and they inculcated the same kind of living that he did: faith in God and devotion to him, honesty, sobriety, purity, temperance, patience under afflictions, joy, peace, long-suffering, hospitality, love for the brethren. It is not to be wondered at that they, and those to whom they preached, should be generally unconscious that there was any disagreement between them and him. They were proclaiming the same Christ, and they seemed to be preaching the same Gospel. And indeed Paul himself recognized them as fellow-disciples, and never denied that their message, different as it was from his in its interpretation of the work of Christ and of the nature and 446 THE APOSTOLIC AGE basis of the Christian life, was a Christian message fitted to lead men to the Master. 1 It is only as we recognize this oneness of purpose which actuated Paul and the many other missionaries of the day, and their conscious- ness of being engaged in the promotion of a common cause which bound them all together, that we can under- stand the subsequent development, in which the peculiar views of Paul were so largely crowded out, while his name continued -to be held in the highest honor and all believed themselves true to his memory. The common legal conception of Christianity which has been referred to is found in nearly all the non-Pauline writings of the. first and second centuries, whether of Jewish or of Gentile origin. In the Epistle of James, in the Apocalypse, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the pastoral epistles, in Jude and Second Peter, in Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, in Barnabas, in the Didaehe, in II. Clement, in Polycarp, in Justin Martyr, the same general idea appears, in spite of the large variety in the subject-matter and the wide diversity of view at many points. The Epistle of James, which bears in reality more the character of a homily than of an epistle, is very signifi- cant in this connection. It was addressed by a Christian of Jewish birth, possibly primarily to Christians of the same race, 2 more probably to Christian brethren in general without regard to race. 3 In either case the author's atti- tude toward the ceremonial law of the Jews was that of a member of the world-church. There is no trace of the idea that that law was still binding upon any Christian, and no hint that it was still observed by either writer or readers. And yet Christianity is conceived distinctly under the aspect of a law. 4 It is called a law of liberty, 6 to be sure, but that does not destroy its legal character. It simply means that the observance of it, which involves 1 Cf. Phil. i. 15 sq. 2 Cf. Jas. i. 1, ii. 2. 8 Upon the date and authorship of the epistle and the character of its readers, see below, p. 580 sq. 4 Cf. Jas. i. 25, ii. 8, 12. 6 Jas. i. 25, ii. 8. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE) CHURCH AT LARGE 44? love and mercy for one's neighbor, will secure a merciful judgment from God, 1 and that a man, therefore, whose heart is right toward those about him, need not fear God's vengeance, as he must if he were to be judged only by the letter of an external code. There is evidently a great advance here upon the common pharisaic notion of the law. In fact, the principle enunciated by James resembles closely the principle of Christ, who came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it by revealing and emphasizing its inner meaning. And yet it is not the principle of Paul ; for to him the Christian life is not obedience to any ob- jective law, even the law of love, but the working out in the man of the life of Christ within him. The resultant character and conduct may be the same in both cases, but the process and the principle are different. Moreover, the contrast between Paul and James is greater than between Paul and Jesus; for though Jesus pictures the Christian life as the observance of the law of love, he views that law always as the expression of a Father's will, and he accordingly emphasizes love for God as well as love for men. At this point there is a close resem- blance between Paul's teaching and the Master's ; for Paul sees in love an expression of the divine character, whether in God himself or in man, and can thus say that love is the fulfilling of the law. 2 But in James there is no such conception of the fatherhood of God, and of the Chris- tian's love for him. 3 "Pure religion and undefiled" is defined by him as " visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction," and keeping oneself "unspotted from the world." 4 And so it is not the Christian's filial relation to God, as in Jesus' teaching, nor the presence of Christ himself in the believer, making him a son of God, as iJas. ii. 13. 2R om . xiji. 10. 8 There is no reference to love for God (except in a traditional phrase in i. 12 and ii. 5) , and the word " Father " is used of God ouly three times ; once in the phrase " Father of lights " (i. 17) ; again in the phrase " the God and Father " (r 6e$ Kal irarpl, i. 27), where the Revised Version wrongly inserts the word "our " ; and finally in the phrase "the Lord and Father" (rbv Kvpiov Kal irartpa, iii. 9). In each case it is evident that the word is used in a merely traditional sense, with no deeper meaning than it had to Jews. 4 Jas. i. 27. 448 THE APOSTOLIC AGE in Paul's teaching, that insures his salvation, but the observance of God's law. 1 The conception of Christianity as a law, which is so clearly voiced by James, is very prominent also in the Apocalypse, though there it is obedience to the com- mands of God in general which is emphasized, and the summary of the law which James gives, and his charac- terization of it as a law of liberty, do not appear. 2 The same may be said also of the pastoral epistles, 3 and even more emphatically of 2 Peter. 4 So even in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which reveals the influence of Paul in many ways, the Christian life is represented as a life of obedi- ence, or of endurance in the service of God unto the end. 5 That this conception of Christianity as a law, which finds clear expression in so many of the writings of the period, and which was doubtless shared by the great majority of the early missionaries, should meet with a cordial response, and should secure a much wider accept- ance in the Gentile world than the peculiar doctrines of Paul, was but natural. For Paul's views there was little preparation in the world at large. Few, in fact, were in a position either to understand or appreciate them. But the views of James and others like him were calculated to appeal strongly to the better and more earnest spirits everywhere. The period with which we are dealing was 1 Jas. i. 21 sq., 25, ii. 8 sq., 14 sq., iv. 11. Though James sums up the content of this law as love for one's neighbor, he also speaks of the Christian's duty to have faith when he prays (i. 6 sq.), to subject himself to God (iv. 7), to draw near unto him (iv. 8) , to humble himself before him (iv. 10) , to submit to his will (iv. 15), and on the other hand to keep himself unspotted from the world (i. 27). He thus implies that the law involves more than one's duties to one's neighbor. 2 Compare the letters to the seven churches in Rev. ii. and iii. ; also xii. 17. xiv. 12, xix. 8, xx. 12 sq., xxi. 7, xxii. 12. a Cf . 1 Tim. ii. 15, iv. 8, vi. 18 sq. 4 Cf. 2 Peter i. 10, ii. 9 sq., 20, iii. 11, 14, 17. 6 Heb. iii. 18, iv. 11, v. 9, vi. 10, ix. 14, x. 36, xii. 28 ; and iii. 6, 14, vi. 6, 12, x. 23 sq., xii. 1. The conception of Christianity as a law is found also in nearly all the patristic writings of the period. Cf., e.g., I. Clem. 1, 2, 7, 9, 10; Barnabas 2, 21; Polycarp 2; II. Clem. 8, 11; Hermas: Sim. VI. 1, VIII. 3, 7 ; Mand. IV. 2, etc. And it is in accordance with this conception that Christ's Gospel of the Fatherhood of God is almost entirely lacking in the extaut literature of the early church. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 449 marked by a widespread impulse toward moral reforma- tion. However low the average moral condition of the Roman world in the closing years of the Republic, it is certain that during the first and second centuries of our era, a mighty ethical movement was in progress quite in- dependently of the Christian church, and that its effects were widely felt among all classes of people. There was "a growing reaction in the popular mind against the vices of the great centres of population," 1 and an ever- increasing emphasis upon the importance of pure and upright living. But of most significance to us is the fact that this movement meant the growing recognition of moral law and the growing sense of the necessity of conforming one's life to its dictates. The movement found its philo- sophical expression and justification chiefly in Stoicism, which underwent a remarkable revival during the first and second centuries. It is perhaps worth while to quote a few characteristic sentences from the greatest represen- tative of the tendency of which I am speaking, the moral philosopher and teacher Epictetus. "In all cases," he says, "progress is the approaching to that to which per- fection finally brings us." "Where is progress then?" he continues. "If any of you, withdrawing himself from externals, turns to his own will, to train and perfect and render it conformable to nature : noble, free, unrestrained, unhindered, faithful, humble ; if rising in the morning he observes and keeps to these rules: bathes regularly, eats frugally, and to every subject faithfully applies the same fixed principles, if a racer to racing, if an orator to oratory, this is he who truly makes progress." It is the law of nature which Epictetus here insists upon as the law of human conduct. The duty of every man is to strive to bring his will into harmony with nature. But Epictetus goes further than this. He finds the law for the government of human life not in nature alone, but in God. It is not simply that man must conform his con- 1 Hatch : Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, p. 141. Upon this whole subject see that notable work. 450 THE APOSTOLIC AGE duct to the law of nature ; he must conform it to the law of God. " We must learn what the gods are, for such as they are found to be, such must he seek to be to the utmost of his power who would please and obey them. If the deity is faithful, he too must be faithful; if free, beneficent, and noble, he must be free, beneficent, and noble likewise, in all his words and actions behaving as an imitator of God." "Our duty is to follow God; " "to be of one mind with him;" "to acquiesce in his adminis- tration ; " " to devote ourselves to the performance of his commands. If we will not do it, we suffer loss. There are penalties imposed, not by a vindictive tyrant, but by a self-acting law." "Lastly, for all other pleasures sub- stitute the consciousness that you are obeying God and performing not in word but in deed the duty of a wise and good man." 1 Thus does Epictetus give expression to his conception of man's duty, and thus it is upon duty that he lays chief emphasis. And in this he was at one with the best senti- ment of his day. Conformity to law, whether the law of nature or the law of God, was the ethical watchword of the age. 2 And so the Gentile world was in a position to appreciate the conception of Christianity as a divine law, which was taught, not by Paul, but by his fellow- missionaries. Thus, indeed, must most of them regard Christianity if they accepted it at all. It is certainly not surprising that they did not make their own Paul's view of the Christian life as a release from law; it is not sur- prising that they saw in such a view only an encourage- ment to libertinism and immorality, and that they refused to believe that Paul, whom they so highly esteemed, taught any such thing. He was read by the early Chris- tians in the light of their own ideas, and though they all recognized his refusal to admit the binding authority of the ceremonial law of the Jews, they considered him as truly a teacher of Christian law as any of his fellows. 1 The passages are taken from various parts of the Discourses of Epictetus (Hiicuiuson's Trails.). Cf. also Hatch, I.e. pp. 144, 155. - (' mipare the words of Seneca: " We should not only submit to God, but assent to him, and obey him out of duty, even if there be no necessity." THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 451 Had he not been thus interpreted, he must have been repudiated by the church at large, as he was by the Judaizers and by their successors, the Ebionites. That Christianity, then, secured converts in the Roman world of the first and second centuries, was largely due not to the fact that it was what Paul conceived it to be, but to the fact that it was regarded as the promulgation of a law for the government of human life, a law resting, as it was claimed, upon the clearest divine sanctions. But Christianity, as understood by its early mission- aries, was something more than a law; it was a promise as well. They were conscious of proclaiming to the world above all else a Gospel, the Gospel of eternal life. The law was not an end unto itself. It was simply a means to the attainment of salvation, and it was as a message of salvation that Christianity was preached to the world at large. But it was in accordance with their conception of Christianity as a law, that the disciples of whom Ave have been speaking conceived of salvation solely as a future thing, as the condition of blessedness into which, after the coming of Christ, those shall enter who have kept the law unto the end. 1 The eschatological element was all-controlling in the church at large of the first and second centuries, just as in the church of Jerusalem in the days immediately preceding Christ's departure. The disciples in all parts of the world lived in the future as truly as their brethren of Jerusalem, and it was their hope of a salvation soon to be revealed that sustained them in all their troubles, nerved them in all their conflicts, and inspired them to endure in faith and virtue even to the end. They looked for the blessings of salvation not to the present, with its emptiness and vanity and evil, but to the future. In that future they lived, and its glory and splendor were vivid to their gaze. The enthusiasm thus kindled permeated all their thought and life, and the evidences of it that still remain i Cf. Jas. i. 12, ii. 5, v. 7 sq. ; Heb. i. 14, vi. 19, ix. 28, x. 34 sq., xii. 28, xiii. 14; 1 Tim. vi. 19; 2 Pet. i. 11, Hi. 4,8 sq.; Rev. ii. 7, 10,26 et passim; I. Clem. 28, 34, 35, 50; Polycarp 5 ; Barnabas 4 ; Didache 16 ; II. Clem. 5, 16 sq. ; Hermas : Vis. III. 8 et passim. 452 THE APOSTOLIC AGE constitute one of the most marked and striking features of the literature of the period. So far as concerns the nature of that future salvation to which all were looking forward, it was assumed, as a matter of course, that it meant eternal life and everlast- ing felicity in the presence of God and in company with Christ and with his saints. But there were many who believed that it was to include also the enjoyment of the blessings of a visible and material kingdom to be established upon earth at Christ's second coming. This sensuous conception of the future was widespread in the early church. We find it in the Apocalypses of John and of Peter, in Barnabas, II. Clement, Hernias, and Papias, and possibly also in the Didache^ and the importance that was widely attached to it is clearly shown by Justin Martyr, who, though he admits that some Christians do not accept it, regards it himself as a foundation-stone of the Christian faith. 2 The belief was Jewish in its origin, and though of course the national hopes of the Hebrews played no part in the anticipations of the church at large, the belief retained for a long time many of the details of the older Jewish conception, which are found in such writings as the Book of Enoch and the Apocalypses of Ezra and Baruch. Connected with the idea of an earthly kingdom of Christ is the belief in a resurrection of the body, which, at least in the case of believers, is a necessary corollary of that idea. The expectation of a resurrection, at least of pious 1 Upon this conception of salvation, see Harnack : Dogmengeschichte, 3te Auflage, I. S. 158 sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. I. p. 167 sq.). While sensuous views of the future were very widespread in the early church, chiliasm, specifically so called, that is, the belief that Christ upon his return will set up a kingdom on earth, to be shared in by his saints, and to endure only for a definite period, until the general resurrection and the Day of Judgment, was not quite so general as Harnack's note upon the subject would seem to indicate. By some of the writers to whom he refers only a future kingdom is mentioned, and nothing is said about its limited duration and the general resurrection and judgment to follow. The genuine chiliastic view does appear, however, in many of the documents of the period, as, for instance, in the Apocalypses of John and Peter, in Papias (Eusebius: H. E. III. 39, 12), in Justin Martyr (Dial. c. 80 sq.), in Irenams (Adv. User. V. 33 sq.), and apparently also in Barnabas 15, and possibly in the Didache 16. 2 Cf., e.g., Dialogue with Trypho, 80. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 453 Israelites, who were expected to rise in order to share in the blessings of the Messianic kingdom, was widespread among the Jews at the opening of the Christian era. The idea was foreign to the Greek mind, though the belief in immortality had secured acceptance in the Greek and Roman world of the period. In the beginning, when Christians expected the speedy return of Christ to set up his kingdom, the thought of a resurrection of Christian believers can hardly have suggested itself. But in time, as the consummation was postponed, and death carried away an ever-growing number of disciples, a difficulty arose. Were the brethren that died before the return of Christ to be excluded from the enjoyment of the blessings of his kingdom? A Jewish Christian would find the answer ready to hand in the common belief of his coun- trymen touching a resurrection. But the traditions of the world in which he lived offered no such relief to a Gentile Christian, and it is very likely that the question caused wide perplexity. It is evident, at any rate, that the Thessalonians were troubled by it: for Paul, in his first epistle to them, found it necessary to exhort them not to sorrow concerning those that had fallen asleep, for the dead in Christ were to rise at his coming and share with the living in the blessings which he was to bring. 1 At a very early day, perhaps under the impulse of the same difficulty which presented itself to the Thessalo- nians, the expectation of a resurrection of the body had become almost universal among Christians, and it is explicitly avowed or tacitly assumed by nearly all the writers of our period. Paul's belief in the resurrec- tion, as was seen in a previous chapter, was not due to his desire to give all Christian believers a part in the blessedness inaugurated by the return of Christ. As he conceived it, it was a purely spiritual thing, and a part of the process of redemption from the flesh. But Paul's idea did not find wide acceptance. When the belief in the resurrection had become general, it was a bodily resurrection in the material sense, a resurrection of the 1 1 Thess. iv. 13 sq. ; cf . also 1 Cor. xv, 454 THE APOSTOLIC AGE flesh, that was commonly assumed. 1 Of course the belief found support in the resurrection of Christ, which had been pictured from an early day by most Christians as a mere revivification of the fleshly body which had lain in the tomb; but it would be a mistake to suppose that Christ's resurrection was the primary ground of the belief. In strict consistency, the idea of a resurrection of the flesh should have existed only where the expecta- tion of an earthty and visible kingdom of Christ pre- vailed; but in reality it was shared by many who do not seem to have looked for such a kingdom. Clement, for example, who is entirely free from sensuous views of the future, makes much of the resurrection of the flesh, and takes great pains to show its credibility. 2 Clearly it was regarded by him and by others, in the period with which we are dealing, as an essential article of the Christian faith, and as such it entered into the creed of the church, and maintained itself even after chiliasm and everything like it had entirely disappeared. But it was natural that where the resurrection of the fleshly body of believers was conceived to be necessary to the enjoyment of the blessings of salvation, the idea should also find acceptance that a resurrection was neces- sary in the case of unbelievers, in order that they should suffer the punishment for their sins from which the dis- ciples of Christ were to escape. A similar consideration had led to the growth of the same belief among the Jews, and it was natural that it should in the end find general acceptance among Christians. Paul teaches only the resurrection of believers, the sole ground of a resurrec- tion being the oneness of a man with Christ. But where this idea did not exist, and the resurrection was based, as it commonly was, solely upon the action of God, there was as much ground for the resurrection of unbelievers as for that of believers, and the need of the former was of course enhanced, as the wickedness of the Jewish and 1 Compare, for instance, the old Roman symbol which has the words dvdffTaa-iv 8, below), suffered at any rate under Nero and Domitian, and it is natural to think of the persecution under Nero as the earlier time of distress referred to in x. 32 sq., and the persecuting 464 THE APOSTOLIC AGE to Jewish Christians, and many scholars have accordingly thought of the church of Jerusalem or the churches of Palestine as its recipients. But only a Christian who was intimately connected with the Mother Church, and whose authority was very high there, could have addressed the members of that church in the tone employed in this epistle, and certainly we should not expect such a man to write to his Aramaic-speaking brethren in Greek, and elegant Greek at that, and to use uniformly the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, even where the two texts differ widely. Moreover, the reference to the great generosity of those addressed, and to their con- tinued ministrations to the necessities of the saints, 1 does not accord well with what we know of the long-continued poverty of the church of Jerusalem; and that Timothy should be expected to return thither upon his release from imprisonment, 2 is the last thing we should expect. measures of Domitian as the trials which the Christians were enduring at the time the epistle was written (x. 36 sq., xii. 3 sq.). Many scholars contend that the author's language in regard to the Jew- ish ceremonial implies that the temple of Jerusalem was still standing at the time he wrote, and that if it had been already destroyed he would cer- tainly have referred to the fact, and would have used it as an argument against apostasy to Judaism. Had he been writing to Christians who were in danger of falling back into Judaism, it is true that he might have been expected to make use of the great catastrophe as an ocular demonstration of God's final condemnation of the Jewish people, and of his definitive abroga- tion of the old covenant. But he was not addressing such persons (see below, p. 467), and the destruction of the temple had no bearing whatever upon his argument. He was dealing throughout with Judaism, not in its existing but in its original form, and whether the Jewish rites and cere- monies were still practised, and the Jewish religion still had its adherents, was a matter of no consequence to him. It is noticeable indeed that he never mentions the temple. It is always the tabernacle of which he speaks, thus making it clear enough that the changes which took place in the course of the centuries in the condition of the Jewish people, and in the external features and accessories of their worship, were of no significance to him. He uses in his comparison of the old and the new covenant, not the Judaism of his own time, a religious system which he and his readers knew from their own observation or experience, but the Judaism of the Scriptures, and he might have written in just the way he does had he never seen a Jew, and had the rites and cere- monies of Judaism ceased to be practised centuries before his day. It is worthy of notice in this connection, that in Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians (written certainly twenty-five years or more after the destruction of the temple) there is the same disregard of the fact that the temple is already destroyed and tin- sacrifices no longer offered (cf. chap. 4). 1 Heb. vi. 10. 2 Heb. xiii. 23. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 465 But not simply is it altogether improbable that the epistle was addressed to the church of Jerusalem or to the churches of Palestine, it is extremely unlikely that it was addressed to Jewish Christians at all. It is true that the title 777309 f E/3/Jcuou? is found in all our manuscripts. But it does not constitute a part of the text of the epistle, and no weight whatever can be attached to it, any more than to the name of Paul, which is connected with it. The internal indications which are commonly assumed to confirm the correctness of the title signally fail to do so. The apparent identification of the readers with the chil- dren of Abraham and with the chosen people of the Old Testament 1 proves nothing ; for Abraham is made by Paul the father of all Christians, Gentiles as well as Jews, 2 and what is more to the point in this particular case, Clement of Rome, in his letter to the Corinthians, which was addressed to a Gentile church, and was written shortly after the Epistle to the Hebrews, speaks of " our Father Jacob" 3 and "our Father Abraham," 4 and when referring to the Old Testament worthies in general, he calls them "our fathers." 5 Nor is anything proved by the extended use which the author makes of- the Old Testament, for Clement makes even larger use of it than the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Jewish Scriptures con- stituted the chief source for a knowledge of God's will and truth, not to Clement alone, but to his readers as well; and he assumes throughout a thorough acquaintance with those Scriptures on the part of those to whom he writes. 6 The truth is that from the very beginning the Gentiles accepted the Old Testament as a Christian book, and it was for a long time the only authoritative Script- ures that they had. They used it in their services, they 1 Heb. i. 1, ii. 16. 4 chap. 31. 2 Rom. iv. 1-12. 6 Chap. 62. 8 Clement: Ad Cor., chap. 4. 6 Compare chap. 45: "Ye have searched the Scriptures which are true, which were given through the Holy Ghost ; and ye know that nothing un- righteous or counterfeit is written in them " ; and chap. 53: " Ye know, and know well, the sacred Scriptures, dearly beloved, and ye have searched into the oracles of God." Compare also chap. 02, which contains words to the same effect. 466 THE APOSTOLIC AGE read and studied it diligently, they accepted its state- ments as the word of God, and they never thought of questioning its authority in any respect. It belonged to the Gentile as truly as to the Jewish wing of the church, and an argument drawn from it had just as much weight with the former as with the latter. It is clear therefore that the extended use of the Old Testament in the Epistle to the Hebrews indicates nothing as to the Jewish or Gentile character of its readers. The detailed comparison which the author institutes between the old covenant and the new, and the emphasis which he lays upon the superiority of the latter, likewise prove nothing; for the superiority is emphasized not in order to derogate from the dignity of the old, but simply in order to magnify the glory of the new, and there is every evidence that it is done not to convince sceptical minds, but only to quicken and arouse the courage and zeal of believing but weak and fainting souls. A "word of exhortation," the author calls his epistle, 1 not a "word of instruction." And certainly nothing could be better calculated to strengthen the confidence and inspire the enthusiasm of Christians who believed in the divine authority of the Old Testament Scriptures, even though they were not Jews and had no inclination to become Jews, than such considerations as he presents. The Epistle to the Hebrews was at the time it was written, and is still, just as effective a weapon against weakness and discouragement, and loss of Christian faith and zeal in general, as against apostasy to Judaism, which it is commonly assumed it must have been the author's chief aim to prevent. It is to be noticed, indeed, that in the practical exhortations and warnings with which the epistle is filled, and which reveal most clearly the real aim it was written for, nothing whatever is said about apostasy to Judaism. The readers are never warned against falling back into the religion of Moses, although if that is what the writer feared, it would seem that he could hardly have failed, when he contrasted the new i Heb. xiii. 22. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 467 covenant with the old, to call direct attention to the folly of deserting the one for the other. But instead of doing that, he draws lessons of an entirely different kind: " How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salva- tion?" 1 "Take heed lest there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief." 2 "Let us draw near with boldness that we may receive mercy." 3 "Be not slug- gish, but imitators of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." 4 "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not." 5 These are fair samples of the exhortations scattered through the epistle. 6 And when the author warns his readers against the worst of all sins, the wilful denial and repudia- tion of Christ, after once accepting him, 7 there is no sign that he thinks of such apostasy as due to the influence of Judaism, or as connected with it in any way. 8 But not simply is there no sign that the author was addressing Jewish Christians, who he feared would apos- tatize to their old faith : there are some passages, on the other hand, which make it evident that he was addressing Gentiles, and Gentiles who had apparently come to Chris- tianity not through Judaism, but directly from heathen- ism. Thus he says significantly: "How much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God ? " 9 and again : " Wherefore let us cease to speak of the first principles of Christ and press on unto perfection; not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the teaching of baptisms and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judg- i Heb. ii. 3. 2 He b. iii. 12. 3 Heb. iv. 16. * Heb. vi. 12. 5 Heb. x. 23. 6 It is to be noticed also that Clement, who was certainly addressing Gen- tile Christians, draws the same lesson of the greater responsibility of Christians, as compared with Jews, due to their greater knowledge (chap. 41) . 7 Heb. x. 26 sq. 8 Heb. xii. 16 is instructive in this connection. Esau sold his birthright not because he did not believe it had value, but because of the weakness of the flesh. He gave away a future blessing for a present good. This is a fault not of sceptics and unbelievers, but of weak people who need inspiration and encouragement. 9 Heb. ix. 14. 468 THE APOSTOLIC AGE meiit." 1 These passages do not necessarily show that the epistle was addressed exclusively to Gentile Chris- tians, but they do prove that there were Gentile Chris- tians among those addressed, and that they were chiefly in the mind of the writer. 2 In fact, all the indications point to a church or group of churches whose membership was largely Gentile, where the Jews, so far as there were any, had become amalgamated with their Gentile brethren, so that all race distinctions were lost sight of, and the disciples were thought of not as Jews or Gentiles, but as Christians. 3 Such were most of the churches of Paul's missionary field, most of the churches, indeed, of the world at large at an early day. The congregation or group of congregations addressed by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews might be looked for, therefore, almost anywhere in the Roman Empire outside of Pales- tine. But there are some hints that point in the direc- tion of Rome, and at least suggest that the letter may have been sent to the Christians of that church. It was first used by Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians, which was written from Rome certainly not very long afterward. There is little doubt that it was well known also to Hernias, who wrote in Rome a generation later. Elsewhere we find traces of it only in the latter part of the second century. The somewhat peculiar phrase, "Those from Italy," by which the author apparently designates certain disciples in his own company, 4 seems 1 Heb. vi. 1,2. Nearly all the "principles" enumerated in this passage were common to Jews and Christians, and a Christian, therefore, in writing to Jewish disciples could not refer to them in such a way. Only a heathen would need to lay such a foundation in accepting Christ. 2 Notice also the prohibition of fornication and adultery in xiii. 4. 8 That the Epistle to the Hebrews was addressed to Jewish Christians, has been the universal opinion of scholars until comparatively recent years. For a defence of this opinion see, especially, Westcott : The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 35 sq. ; and Me'ne'goz: La Theologie de Vtipitre aux Hebreux, p. 18 sq. On the other hand, that it was addressed to Gentile Christians, or to Christians in general without regard to race, is maintained by Pfleiderer: Das Urchristenthum, S. 624 sq.; Von Soden: Hand-Kommentnr, III. 2, S. 10 sq. ; and Julicher: Einlf.itvng in das Neue Testament, S. 108 sq. Cf. also Weizsacker: Das apostoliscfre Zeitalter, S. 473 sq. (Bag. Trans., Vol. II. p. l.TTsq.). * Heb. xiii. 24. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 469 also to point to Rome or to Italy as the home of the Christians addressed, and the reference to the generosity of the latter agrees exactly with what we know of the church of Rome from many other sources. 1 At the time the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, the Christians addressed were suffering persecution, 2 and the pressure was so great that some of them were growing discouraged, and the danger was imminent that they might even forsake Christ and deny their faith altogether. The epistle was written therefore with. an eminently practical aim. It was the writer's chief concern to arouse his readers to their old-time faith and zeal, to impart re- newed courage, and to warn them against the danger of backsliding and apostasy. With this end in view, he undertook to exhibit the superlative glory of Christ's person and work, in order, on the one hand, to kindle their pride in and enthusiasm for their Christian faith, and to convince them that the greatest sacrifices and the worst sufferings ought to be looked upon as a small price to pay for the supreme blessings which Christ had secured for his followers; and, on the other hand, to impress them with the awful consequences of denying such a Christ and repudiating such a salvation. All that he has to say about Christ and his work is said not with a doctrinal but with a practical purpose, and that purpose leads him to use every opportunity offered by the course of his argument to exhort his readers to greater fidelity, or to warn them against faithlessness and disobedience. The epistle thus bears a practical character throughout and is as far as possible from a systematic theological treatise. As a consequence, it will not do to declare the author's conception of Christianity different from Paul's, simply because he follows another line of thought from that found in the epistles of the latter, and emphasizes matters which are left subordinate in them. The line of thought which he pursues, and the emphasis which he puts upon certain 1 Compare, for instance, the words of Dionysius of Corinth quoted by Eusebius: H. E. IV. 23. The responsibility felt by that church for the wel- fare of other parts of Christendom is revealed already in Clement's Epistle. 2 Heb. x. 36 sq., xii. 3 sq. 470 THE APOSTOLIC AGE subjects, might be fully explained by his practical purpose. But it is true, nevertheless, that the difference between his conceptions and those of Paul is clearly revealed in many ways, and the practical character of the epistle does not serve in the least to obscure the wide chasm that sepa- rates them; for it is just in their treatment of the practical questions of the Christian life that their ideas concerning the origin, basis, and nature of that life, and the redeeming work of Christ, voice themselves most unequivocally. With the practical purpose already referred to, of arousing his readers to their old-time faith and zeal and of imparting renewed courage and inspiration, the author gives concise expression in the opening words of his epistle to the supreme greatness of Christ, as the Son of God, and as God's agent in creation, revelation, and redemption ; and then goes on to compare him with the angels and with Moses, God's chief agents in the earlier revelations of his will and truth, pointing out how far superior Christ is to them in all respects ; for they are but servants, while he is a son. 1 His elevation above the angels is not nullified by the fact that for a little while he was made lower than they, and partook of human flesh and blood and underwent suffering and death; for this was only temporary, and it was all done with a purpose, the purpose of saving men by becoming one with them and passing through all their experiences with them. 2 But Christ's superiority to the angels involves a like superiority of the revelation mediated by him, and the writer is thus led to warn his readers in passing against the peculiar enormity of neglecting the salvation offered by Christ; 3 and in the same way his demonstration of Christ's superiority to Moses 4 is followed immediately by a practical exhortation to faith and obedience, based upon the unbelieving and disobedient conduct of those whom Moses led through the wilderness. 6 Thus a large part of the first section of the epistle is filled with direct practical appeals to the readers. i Heb. i. 4-ii. 5. Heb. ii. 6-18. 8 Heb. ii. 1-4. * Heb. iii. 1 sq. 6 Heb. iii. 7-iv. 13. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 471 After exhibiting Christ's superiority to other agents of divine revelation, and drawing some of the practical lessons therefrom, the writer turns to a subject which is evidently a favorite one with him, and to which he devotes more than a third of his work, the priestly office of Christ. 1 Bat though he dwells upon this subject at so great length, it is a mistake to call it the theme of his epistle. As already remarked, the epistle is not doctrinal but practical, and its theme is to be found not in any of its theological passages, but in its repeated exhortations and warnings, to which everything else is subservient, and which look to the one end of confirming the faith and zeal of its readers. And so the long passage upon the priesthood of Christ is intended primarily not to convey instruction, but to quicken faith and inspire courage. In the very beginning of it, the fact that Christ is our high priest is made a reason for fidelity and a ground of assured confidence. 2 Though our high priest is from heaven, yet he is one of us, and has that human sympathy which is essential to the true discharge of the priestly office. 3 After showing that Christ possesses also another funda- mental quality of the true priest, in that he was appointed by God and did not take the office upon himself, 4 the writer proceeds to compare him with Aaron and his suc- cessors, the God-appointed priestly line of the old dispen- sation, and to exhibit in the most elaborate way his infinite superiority to them. He introduces the subject with a passage of mingled reproof and exhortation ; 6 then, taking his departure from the words of Psalm ex. : " Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, " 6 he shows how Christ, as the antitype of Melchizedek, a greater than Abraham and Levi, 7 is a priest of a new and higher order than the line of Aaron. They were made priests after the law of a carnal commandment, he after the power of an endless life ; they were mortal and suc- ceeded one another in rapid succession, he is immortal * Heb. iv. 14-x. 18. 3 Heb. v. 1 sq. Heb. v. 11-vi. 20. * Heb. vii. 1-10. 2 Heb. iv. 14-16. * H eb. v. 4 sq. Heb. vi. 20. 472 THE APOSTOLIC AGE and abide th a priest forever; they were earthly, he is higher than the heavens; they were sinners, he is holy; they were men of infirmity, he is a son perfected for- ever more. But not simply in his person, in his work as well, Christ is exalted infinitely above the high priests of Aaron's line. He has obtained a more excellent ministry than they, for they are the ministers of an old covenant which passes away, he of a new covenant which endures forever; they minister in an earthly tabernacle, he in a heavenly; they with carnal ordinances, he with spiritual; they offer the blood of bulls and goats, which can at most cleanse only the flesh, he offers his own blood, which is efficacious for the cleansing of the conscience from dead works unto the service of the living God; their imperfect sacrifices they must repeat continually, and yet they can never take away sins, while he by the offering of himself once for all has "obtained eternal redemption," has "put away sin," and "perfected forever them that are sancti- fied." 1 Having thus exhibited the superiority and the infinite perfection of the priestly character and work of Christ, the author proceeds at once 2 to draw practical lessons from what has been said, exhorting his readers to renewed boldness and faith and steadfastness, and warn- ing them against the awful consequences of sinning wilfully after they have once come to the knowledge of the truth, for there remains no second sacrifice for sins; 3 the sacrifice of Christ is the final one, as he has shown. Appealing then to the boldness and steadfastness which had been manifested by his readers in the face of a perse- cution they had been called upon to endure at an ear- lier time, he reminds them that they have need under the present circumstances of the same patience, and he encourages them with the prospect of the speedy return of Christ, when they shall receive their reward if they continue in their faith ; 4 for the faith without which they cannot be saved is a faith that takes hold upon the future and upon the unseen, the assurance that God will yet reward those that serve him. This is the faith which has i Heb. vii. 11-x. 18. . 2 Heb. x. 19 sq. * Heb. x. 20-31. 4 Heb. x. 3?-39. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 473 actuated all the holy and heroic men of God in days that are past, as the author shows by a long list of Hebrew worthies, whose experiences he recounts in eloquent lan- guage, and the inspiration of whose example, reinforced by the example of Christ, he employs to nerve the faint- ing hearts of his readers. 1 He finds still another reason for continued faithfulness on their part in the fact that their suffering is for their own good; that it is the chast- ening of God, who deals' with them as a loving father deals with his children, that there may be worked out in them the peaceable fruit of righteousness. 2 After remind- ing them once more of the contrast between the old and the new covenant, and of the fact that their responsibility is larger than that of the fathers, and the penalty for un- belief and disobedience proportionately greater, 3 he exhorts them to the practice of various virtues, and warns them against sundry vices, and finally concludes in the cus- tomary way with salutations and a benediction. 4 The brief outline which has been given shows how far the epistle is from being a systematic theological treatise. Theology there is in it, indeed, much of it of a very pro- found character; but all of it is made subservient to a practical end, and more than that, the form and disposi- tion of the letter, as well as the matter of it, are largely controlled by that end. It is, as the writer himself calls it, both in form and in content a \6yos Trapa/cXrjo-ea)?. 5 But the outline which has been given shows also clearly enough the marked contrast between the author's concep- tions and those of Paul. The fundamental difference is in their conception of the Christian life. By the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, as by James and most of the other writers whom we have been considering, the Christian life is regarded as the faithful and continued observance of God's will, by which a man finally secures salvation. Salvation is thus wholly a future blessing, and faith, upon which the author lays great emphasis, is nothing more than a motive which leads a man to become a 1 Heb. xi. 1-xii. 3. 2 Heb. xii. 5-13. 3 Heb. xii. 18-29. < Heb. xiii. 5 Heb. xiii. 22. 474 THE APOSTOLIC AGE disciple of Christ and to endure unto the end. 1 Of Paul's controlling idea of the Christian life as the divine life in man, a life of complete freedom from the flesh and the law, brought about by his mystical oneness with Christ in the latter's death and resurrection, no use is made, although that idea was peculiarly adapted to add force to the author's practical appeal. 2 But though the Christian life is thus a life of obedience by which a man gains salvation, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews lays great stress upon the covenant rela- tion that exists between the Christian and his God. The idea of the Gospel as a new covenant is, in fact, very prom- inent and largely determines the direction of his thinking. That the Christians were heirs of God's covenant with the children of Israel was generally believed by the early disciples, as has been already seen. But the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was the first one, so far as we know, distinctly to formulate and elaborate the concep- tion of a new covenant, and he did it possibly under the influence of Paul. 3 And yet his interpretation is not Paul's. It is, in fact, identical with the common view of those writers whom we have been considering. The new covenant, -according to the Epistle to the Hebrews,, is a covenant at once of law and of grace. It includes the promise of the clear revelation of the divine law, by whose observance a man may gain life, and also the 1 It is in accordance with this idea that conversion to Christianity is repre- sented as " enlightenment " in x. 32, and as a reception of the " knowledge of the truth " in x. 26. 2 It is true that the author speaks of his readers as " partakers of Christ " in iii. 14, as "partakers of the Holy Spirit" in vi. 4, and as "partakers of God's holiness " in xii. 10; but both in iii. 14 and in xii. 10 he is thinking not of the present, but of the ultimate end to which the Christian that endures may look forward. And in view of his general conception of the Christian life, which is too clear to be mistaken, it is evident that the participation in the Spirit, which Christians already enjoy, is understood not in the Pauline sense, but in the sense of the church at large, which believed that the gift of the Spirit was bestowed upon every disciple for his strengthening and enlight- enment (cf. x. 29). And so the statement in ii. 11 is to be understood to mean only that salvation is a gift of God, and not the mere natural product of man's labors. With this the entire church was in agreement. 8 Cf. 1 Cor. xi. 25; 2 Cor. iii. 6, 14. Christ's reference to the covenant at the time of the Last Supper undoubtedly influenced both Paul and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 475 promise of forgiveness and assistance. 1 It does not differ in principle, therefore, from the old covenant. That in- volved the observance of the divine law, and sacrificial institutions were provided with a view to the forgiveness of transgressions. Thus though the author agrees with Paul that the old covenant has been abrogated in favor of the new, he represents its abrogation as due not to the fact that it is radically different from the latter, but that it is imperfect and only a shadow of that which is per- fectty realized in the new covenant. Under the old dis- pensation men were saved, just as under the new, by faithful and continued obedience and by patient endurance unto the end. 2 The controlling place which the conception of a new covenant had in the author's mind explains his emphasis upon the work of Christ, in which he goes beyond all his predecessors and contemporaries except Paul. As the old covenant had been sealed with a sacrifice, the new cove- nant must be also, 3 and so a real significance is given to the death of Christ, a significance to which Jesus him- self had referred, but which seems not to have been gener- ally recognized by his early followers. But the death of Christ, in order to seal the new covenant, was not the whole of his work ; it was, in fact, but a minor part of it. It was in the carrying out of the covenant that he was chiefly concerned. It was through him that it was re- vealed to men, and thus the conditions of enjoying its blessings made known. 4 It was by him, moreover, that an example of obedience was set, which served both to instruct them and to inspire them to the fulfilment of those conditions, 5 and that a victory was gained over Satan which was calculated to free them from that fear of death which had always kept them in bondage to the 1 Cf., e.g., Heb. viii. 8 sq., x. 16 sq. ; also i. 14, iv. 16, xiii. 21, etc. 2 The author had evidently reflected deeply upon the relation of Judaism and Christianity, and it is interesting to notice how his conception of Chris- tianity as a law led him to a conclusion so widely different from that of Paul. 3 Heb. x. 29, xiii. 20. 4 Heb. i. 2, ii. 3, viii. 6, etc. 5 Especial stress is laid throughout the epistle upon the example of Christ. Such emphasis was quite natural in view of the practical end which the author had in mind. 476 THE APOSTOLIC AGE devil. 1 But it was through him above all that the for- giveness and assistance needed by men and promised by God were actually secured, and thus the covenant com- pletely fulfilled. It was by the continued exercise of his high-priestly office in heaven that Christ accomplished this part of his work, and it is accordingly upon that office that the author lays chief emphasis. Everything else that Christ has done is subordinated to this his supreme and permanent function. 2 In the exercise of his high-priestly office, he offered himself upon the heavenly altar as a sacrifice for sin, perfect and of lasting efficacy; 8 and he now devotes himself to the sanctification of those that are truly his, standing surety for their ultimate per- fection, and at the same time, conscious of their need, interceding in their behalf, and securing from God con- tinued forgiveness and the bestowal of grace to assist them in their efforts. 4 It is noteworthy that our author does not represent the priestly work of Christ as con- sisting merely in the offering of the sacrifice, but as including also the sanctification of his followers, and continued intercession with God for forgiveness and grace. It is all the more noteworthy because the priestly office as exercised among the Jews offered no parallel to this service, and the idea therefore was not simply a result of the comparison between Christ and the Jewish high priest. It should be observed, moreover, that it is upon this continued action of Christ that the author lays chief stress. What the Saviour is now doing for his fol- lowers in heaven is his supreme work. To him they owe not simply the forgiveness of their sins, but purification from them, which alone makes salvation possible. 6 To i Heb. ii. 14 sq. 2 Cf. Heb. viii. 1 sq. Heb. vii. 27, ix. 12 sq., 26, x. 10 sq., 18. Christ offered his sacrifice, not upon the cross, but at the heavenly altar. He did not begin the exercise of his priestly work upon the cross, there he was only the victim, but when he entered heaven and presented his sacrifice to God. See Briggs: Messiah of the Apostles, p. 263 sq. 4 Heb. ii. 11, 14 sq., 18, iv. 16, vi. 17 sq., vii. 25, ix. 14, x. 12 sq., 21, xii. 2, 10, 15, xiii. 20 sq. 6 Heb. xii. 14. The blood of Christ is thus represented as fulfilling a double purpose. It acts not simply as sacrificial but also as cleansing blood (cf. ix. 13 sq., x. 22, 29). THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 477 him they owe also the assistance which is rendered them by the Spirit of grace ; l and to him they owe final perfec- tion. 2 It was this controlling interest in the work which the Lord is doing for his followers in heaven, that led the author to emphasize his life on earth and his genu- inely human experiences, which were such as to enable him to understand man's needs and the difficulties that lie in the Avay of the perfect fulfilment of God's law. Jesus was thus fitted, as he could not otherwise have been, to be our high priest, to offer a sacrifice for us, and to intercede with God on our behalf. It was thus the humanity, and not the divinity or pre- existence of Christ, which chiefly concerned our author. His references to the pre-existence and to the divine character of the Son, in the beginning of his epistle, were due solely to his desire to emphasize the superla- tive worth and dignity of the new covenant of which Christ was the mediator. The Messiah's pre-existence had nothing to do with his work as Redeemer, as our author conceived that work, and his belief in it therefore had a very different root from Paul's. The idea resem- bles that which finds expression in Philippians and Colossians, and it is possible that he learned it from Paul. But the truth is that the same idea was widely current in the Hellenistic Judaism of the day, especially in Phi Ionic circles, and it would be surprising if a writer who owed so much to Philo had failed to make use of his conception of the Logos, especially when it was so admi- rably adapted to explain the relation of the old and the new covenant, and to show the superiority of the latter 1 Heb. vi. 4, x. 29. 2 Heb. x. 14, xii. 2. The exercise of his high-priestly office by Christ does not mean, as our author conceives it, that God was not inclined to fulfil the promises which he had himself made under the new covenant, and needed to be induced by Christ to do so. For Christ did not take the priestly office upon himself, but was appointed thereto by God (v. 4 sq.) ; and all the work that he did constituted a part of God's own arrangement for the fulfilment of his covenant. It was due to God's grace that Christ died (ii. 9), and it was by God that he was perfected (ii. 10), and thus enabled to accomplish the work entrusted to him. God himself is thought of throughout as the ultimate author of salvation, just as he is by all the writers of the period. 478 THE APOSTOLIC AGE to the former. And indeed the fact should not be over- looked that the "Son of God" in the Epistle to the Hebrews occupies the same position as the Logos in Philo, 1 and almost identical language is frequently used in speaking of him. Thus he is the " first-born " ; 2 he is above the angels; he is the "image of God," 3 and his representative; he is the agent in creation, and he sus- tains the world; he is the great high priest who is with- out sin and intercedes for sinners; he is the mediator between God and man. Philo, moreover, sees in Mel- chizedek a type of the Logos, just as the author of our epistle makes him a type of the "Son of God," and the two interpret the name " Melchizedek " in the same way and almost in the same words. 4 In the light of such re- semblances as these, and of the unmistakable Philonism of the epistle in many other respects, 5 there can be little doubt that it was not solely to the influence of Paul but 1 Philo calls the Logos also the " Son of God " and the omission of the for- mer designation by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is no argument against his dependence on Philo ; for he may well have preferred to use the phrase " Son of God," which had been applied to Christ from the beginning, and which expressed the idea with equal clearness, rather than the philo- sophical term " Logos." 2 6 trpwrttroKos. Philo calls the Logos the irpurbyovos ui6y. 8 The same terms, dira\jya. He was, moreover, a Levite, according to Acts iv. .".(I, ami lie would not be likely to represent the high priest as offering sacrifices daily I'or his own sins and tin- sins of the people, as our author does, in agreement with Philo. It is also im- probable, though of course not impossible, that Harnabas had had the Alexan- drian education which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews had evidently THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 481 any rate, in reading his epistle we are in a genuinely Philonic atmosphere. Only a man who had been thor- oughly trained in Philonic modes of thought, who had studied the Old Testament in the light of Philo's treat- ment of it, and who was so thoroughly under the influence of his thinking that he instinctively interpreted even the Gospel itself in the light of it, could have written the epistle. The author's relation to Philo is significant from a literary as well as from a theological point of view. He is the first Christian known to us to make distinct and extended use of that master's peculiar theo- logical conceptions and exegetical methods, but he was by no means the last. In fact, he was the progenitor of a long line of Christian theologians, through whom the thinking of the great Jewish philosopher influenced the thinking of the church at large for many centuries. Though religiously and in vigor and force of personal- ity the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was in- ferior to the great apostle to the Gentiles, he was without doubt the finest and most cultured literary genius of the primitive church. His thought moves throughout on an elevated plane, and his language is uniformly worthy of his thought, in certain passages becoming genuinely eloquent and even sublime. The fact that a writer of such rare power and grace should have left us only a single monument of his genius, and that a mere letter, written for a definite practical purpose, and that his name should have been entirely forgotten within less .than a century after his death, serves to remind us in a very forcible way of the limitations of our knowledge respect- ing the early days of Christianity. It would seem as if enjoyed. In my edition of Eusebius I defended the view that Barnabas wrote the epistle, but I have been led to. modify the opinion there expressed. The name of Apollos was suggested by Luther and has been adopted by many modern scholars. What we know of the character and training of Apollos agrees with what we can gather from the Epistle to the Hebrews concerning the character and training of its author. But there may have been many other Christians who had enjoyed the same kind of training and who were as eloquent and as mighty in the Scriptures as Apollos, and since no tradition connects the epistle with his name, and there are no personal references which can furnish a clue to the identity of the author, we shall do well to content ourselves with a non liquet. 482 THE APOSTOLIC AGE in a society so small in numbers, and for the most part so uncultured as the early church, such a man must have made a reputation for himself that could never be for- gotten, and that his writings (for the Epistle to the Hebrews can hardly have been the only thing he ever wrote) must have been diligently collected and carefully preserved. But in point of fact absolutely nothing was known about him two generations after his death. It is evident that there may have been other geniuses in the primitive church of whom we know nothing, and that there may have been many things written which have left no trace. The apostles were not the only thinkers and writers in those early days, and with the exception of Paul probably not the greatest, but they have crowded all their fellow-Christians into obscurity. In that age names meant nothing; literature meant still less. The Spirit of God speaking in and through believers was everything. Had it not been for the crisis through which the church passed in the second century, subsequent generations would have retained no knowledge either of the men or the writings of its primitive days. As it was, they re- tained for the most part only what was supposed to be apostolic, and only because it was. And all those who could not lay claim to the dignity of apostles passed into oblivion, and the few brief and scattered products of their pens which have survived the ravages of time owe their preservation to the fact that they were fortunate enough to lose their identity and to get themselves attached in one way or another to some apostolic name. 3. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER Much more closely akin to Paul than the writer whom we have been considering was the author of the work known as the First Epistle of Peter. 1 That work was called forth by the trials which were befalling the Chris- tians of the five provinces named in the salutation, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 1 Upon the authorship of the epistle, see below, p. 593 sq. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 483 comprising the whole of Asia Minor north of Mount Taurus. It seems that they were suffering persecu- tion, 1 and it was because of it that the author wrote them a letter of exhortation. 2 His purpose was a double one: on the one hand, to encourage and inspire them in the face of the severe trials they were called upon to undergo ; and on the other hand, to urge them to conduct them- selves in such a way as to give their enemies no ground for their hostility. After the customary salutation, the author begins, much after the style of Paul, with an expression of his gratitude to God that his readers have been born again unto a living hope, and unto a salvation which is surely to be enjoyed by them, even though for a little while their faith is tried by suffering. 3 This introductory passage, in which the occasion that called forth the epistle is clearly indicated, 4 is followed by an exhortation to those addressed to live worthily of the promised salvation, in holiness, in brotherly love, in sincerity, and in vital union with Christ; for they are God's elect people, chosen to show forth in their own lives the virtues of him who called them out of darkness into the light. 5 After this general exhortation, the writer turns his attention to the particular circumstances in which his readers are placed and points out the especial importance of the conduct which he has been urging upon them, in order that their heathen enemies may have no just ground for attacking them, but may, on the con- trary, be led by their good works to glorify God. 6 With this end in view he takes up the matter of conduct in detail, urging his readers to be loyal citizens, 7 and those that are servants to be in subjection to their masters, even though they are treated cruelly and unjustly by them ; for Christ left them an example that they should bear patiently even undeserved evils. 8 He then exhorts wives to be obedient to their husbands, husbands to 1 1 Pet. i. 6, iii. 14 sq., iv. 1, 12 sq., 16, v. 8 sq. 1 Pet. ii. 11 sq. 2 1 Pet. v. 12. * 1 Pet. i. 6. 7 1 Pet. ii. 13-17. 3 1 Pet. i. 3-12. 6 1 Pet. i. 13-ii.lO. 8 1 Pet. ii. 18-25. 484 THE APOSTOLIC AGE honor their wives, and all to be kind, tender-hearted, and humble-minded. 1 If they live thus, no one will harm them, and those who revile *them will be put to shame. But even if they still have to bear the attacks of their enemies, let them realize that it is better to be attacked for well-doing than for evil-doing, for even Christ suf- fered, though he was righteous, and his passion redounded both to his own good and to the good of others ; for, hav- ing been put to death in the flesh, he was raised and glorified in the spirit. By his death, moreover, he saved not simply his own followers, but also men of earlier generations who had been disobedient to God; for he preached the Gospel to the dead as well as to the living. 2 Inasmuch, then, as Christ thus suffered in the flesh, it behooves those to whom the epistle is addressed to arm themselves with the same conviction that he had, the conviction that he that has suffered in the flesh has been freed from sin, in order that they may devote the re- mainder of their lives not to the desires of the flesh, but to the will of God. 3 The need of such living is espe- cially urgent now, for the end of all things is at hand. They ought therefore to be sober and prayerful, and above all to love one another, overlooking each other's faults, freely dispensing hospitality, ministering accord- ing to the gift of God imparted to each, that in all things God may be glorified. 4 The author then turns once more to the persecution, and begs his readers to rejoice in it; for if they are partakers of Christ's sufferings, they will have reason to rejoice when the time comes for the revela- tion of his glory ; if they suffer, that is, not for evil deeds, but for the name of Christ. 5 In a closing passage he urges the older men to discharge their duties faithfully, the younger to be subject to the older, and all to be hum- ble, sober, watchful, and steadfast in the face of persecu- tion, knowing that the same trials . beset their brethren everywhere, and that after they have suffered a little while they will be perfected by God, who called them 1 1 Pet. iii. 1-12. 2 i p e t. m. 13-22. 1 Pet. iv. 1-6. 4 1 Pet. iv. 7-11. 6 1 Pet. iv. 12-18. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 48.5 unto his eternal glory in Christ. 1 After a reference to Silvanus, the writer's amanuensis, and a final exhortation to steadfastness, the letter closes in the customary way with greetings and a benediction. It is clear enough, in the light of this outline, that the author's purpose in writing was exclusively practical. There is no sign that he had any theological aim, or that he was concerned to impart instruction of any kind to his readers except in so far as it was needed for their encouragement and inspiration in the face of persecution. What he says about election, about Christ's sufferings, about his preaching to the dead, about man's redemption, about the impending judgment and the approaching reve- lation of Christ's glory, all has direct and immediate application to the conduct of those to whom he writes, and is referred to with no other aim. It is therefore a great mistake to see in 1 Peter, as some have done, a presentation of the theology of Peter, either in opposition to or in confirmation of the theology of Paul, or an effort on the part of a post-apostolic writer to reconcile the Petrine and Pauline types of thought, or to give expres- sion to that form of theology which had developed after their death upon the basis of the teaching of either or of both. And yet in spite of the distinctly practical character of the epistle there can be no mistaking the fact that the author was a Paulinist, that his Gospel was the Gospel of Paul, and that his mind was saturated with Paul's ideas. There is no other early Christian document, by another hand than Paul's, whose Paulinism can begin to compare with that of 1 Peter. The author, whoever he was, understood the great apostle to the Gentiles far better than any one else known to us. 'In support of this assertion, attention may be called to such passages as the following: "Having been begotten again, not of cor- ruptible seed, but of incorruptible." 2 "He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." 3 "As free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, 1 1 Pet. v. 1-11. 2 1 Pet. i. 23. 8 1 Pet. iv. 1, 486 . THE APOSTOLIC AGE but as bondservants of God." 1 "Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit." 2 "For unto this end was the Gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." 8 And most striking of all: "Who his own self carried our sins in his body up to the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness." 4 It is true that there is no discussion in the epistle of the Christian's relation to the law, 5 that there is nothing said about justification by faith instead of works, and that the polemic utterances of Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and Philippians are wanting. But the essence of the Pauline Gospel is there, and the omis- sions referred to do not indicate a failure on the author's part to comprehend Paul, or a lack of sympathy with his teachings, but simply show that he was writing under different conditions and with a different purpose. And yet it is evident that though at bottom a genuine Paulinist in his conception of Christianity, he had felt to some extent the influence of the common views which have been already described and which prevailed so widely in his day. Thus there is an apparent tendency to give to the ethical side of the Christian life an inde- pendent value which it lacks in Paul, who always lays chief stress upon its religious basis. There is a ten- dency also to emphasize the future, and to treat faith as almost synonymous with the hope which looks forward to the glory of Christ and his saints, and thus furnishes an incentive to Christian living, instead of making it as clearly and distinctly as it is in Paul the mystical one- ness of the believer with Christ. And so baptism in the same way takes on the aspect rather of a pledge of right conduct than of a bond between the Christian and his i 1 Pet. ii. 16. 2 1 Pet. iii. 18. 8 1 Pet. iv. 6. 4 1 Pet. ii. 24. With these passages compare, also, iii. 15, 16, 21, iv. 10, 13, 14, v. 10, 14. 6 But the Christian's freedom is assumed in genuine Pauline fashion in ii. 16. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 487 Lord. Similarly, the sufferings of Christ are looked upon not simply in their redemptive value, as effecting the death of the flesh, and thus the believer's release from its bondage, but also in their moral value as an example for the Christian. These differences are not marked enough to warrant us in asserting that the author was in fundamental disagreement with Paul, but they illus- trate the natural tendency, in dealing with the duties and temptations of the Christian life, to view that life chiefly in its ethical aspect, and thus to approach the common conception of the church at large ; and they indicate the direction which even Paul's truest followers might take in addressing themselves in a practical way to the condi- tions which faced the author of 1 Peter. There are slight traces of the same tendency even in one of Paul's own epistles, 1 and it is therefore not to be wondered at that it should be apparent in the work of another, who naturally felt more than he did the influence of alien conceptions. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we see the common con- ception of Christianity which prevailed in the church at large developing under the influence of Pauline ideas; in the First Epistle of Peter Paulinism developing under the influence of that common conception. Elements from two independent views appear in both, but in the one case the conception of the church at large, and in the other that of Paul, is the controlling factor, and the results accordingly are widely different. The First Epistle of Peter bears testimony to the survival after Paul's death of his conception of Christianity in a somewhat modified, but still comparatively pure form. But in this respect it stands alone among extant documents. In no other sources do we find his characteristic views reproduced with equal fidelity. 4. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS And yet some of Paul's views made their influence felt long after his death in the churches of Asia Minor, as is evidenced especially by the Johannine writings and by 1 Cf. Eph. v. 1 sq., vi. 16. 488 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch; and in combination with other independent and even inconsistent elements, they had a long and fruitful history in the Christian church. The Johannine writings present a problem of peculiar difficulty to one who attempts to trace the development of thought during the early days of Chris- tianity. 1 Both in the Gospel and in the First Epistle of John we find two striking points of resemblance with the teaching of Paul. On the one hand the pre-existence of Christ is strongly emphasized, 2 and on the other hand the Christian life is pictured as the divine life in man, divine both in its inception and in its continuance. The Christian man is born from above, and the Spirit of God or of Christ, or God or Christ himself, dwells in him and makes him what he is. If these views of Christ and of the Christian life were found only in the epistle; or only in the narrative portions of the Gospel, the matter would be comparatively simple ; for it might easily be assumed that the author learned them from Paul, even though in 1 On the connection of these writings with the apostle John, see below, p. 613 sq. 2 It is to be observed that the belief in Christ's pre-existence, which appears in the fourth Gospel, cannot be explained as the same belief in the Epistle to the Hebrews was explained, as a result of Philo's influence. Aside from the term " Logos," which is confined to the prologue, there' is no trace of Philo's ideas. In fact, there is more than one passage which runs exactly counter to all Philo's thinking (cf., e.g., vi. 37, 44, 66, x. 29) . In the light of this fact, the use of the term " Logos " proves little. It was doubtless already widely current in Hellenistic circles, and the author adopted it and put it in the forefront of his Gospel, simply because he was convinced that all that his contemporaries found in the Logos he and his fellow-disciples actually had in Christ in visible form ; and he believed that he could thus best interest them in the Saviour of whom he wrote. That the author did not owe his belief in Christ's pre-exist- ence to Philo is made still more evident by the fact that he connects that pre- existence directly with Christ's work of redemption as Paul does. It is because he came down from heaven that he can reveal the Father, and give the bread of life to men, and thus save them. Of this connection there is no trace in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and hence, though that epistle agrees both with Paul and with John in its emphasis upon the fact of Christ's pre-exist- ence, the three do not represent a single line of development. Paul and John stand together at this point, as the representatives of the religious interest, while the Epistle to the Hebrews stands apart as the exponent of the philo- sophic interest which voiced itself in the school of Philo. The fact that two independent interests thus led up to the same belief is of the greatest historic significance. It was possible, as it proved, for the Logos Christology ultimately to satisfy both the religious and the philosophic needs of Christendom, and to take complete possession of the field. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHtTRCH AT LARGE 489 other respects he did not reproduce the teachings of the great apostle to the Gentiles. But the difficulty is that both the pre-existence of Christ and the divine origin and basis of the Christian life are found clearly and unequivocally expressed in the discourses of Jesus him- self, one or the other of them being in fact the subject of the majority of those discourses. And yet in the Synoptic Gospels there is hardly a trace of either of them. Is it, then, to be supposed that the discourses are wholly John's, and that he has simply put into the mouth of Jesus ideas learned from Paul ? This was formerly a common opinion among critical scholars, and is still held by many. 1 And yet there are reasons for thinking that the conclusion is unfounded. Such a method on the part of the author of the fourth Gospel implies an indifference to historic truth which is by no means borne out by the Gospel as a whole. In spite of some evidences of lack of informa- tion, or of intentional disregard of chronological sequence, there are recorded in many cases words and actions of Jesus entirely out of line with the author's own concep- tion of his character and person, and their insertion in the Gospel can be explained only by his desire to write a true account of the Master's life. Thus, although Christ is represented as a divine being, come down from heaven and living upon earth, words and deeds are recorded which show that he was conscious of human weakness and insufficiency, and was in a true sense a child of the earth, like the other men about him with whom he asso- ciated day by day. 2 Such words and deeds seem to destroy the unity and consistency of the author's por- traiture of the divine Christ, and could have found no place in his work except under the pressure of his wish to record the actual facts as he knew them. But if he had such a desire, it can hardly be supposed that he put into Jesus' mouth extended discourses which had no basis whatever in his actual words. 1 For the best presentation of this view, see O. Holtzmann's Johannes- evangelium (1887). 2 Cf., e.g., John iv. 6, v. 19, 30, vii. 1, xi. 33 sq., 4!, xii. 27, 49, xix. 11, 28. 490 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Again, it is to be noticed that although the picture of Jesus drawn by the author of the fourth Gospel is in striking contrast to that portrayed by the Synoptists, and though the discourses of the one are very different from the pregnant and sententious sayings of the others, there are some utterances recorded in the earlier Gos- pels which suggest on the one hand the exalted per- sonal consciousness, and on the other hand the conception of the Christian life which find such extended expression in the fourth Gospel. Thus in Matthew and Luke we have the words: "All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him." 1 And in the eschatological passages of the Synoptic Gos- pels Jesus' Messianic consciousness appears highly devel- oped, and involves his exaltation above the level of the mere earthly and human. Though, to be sure, the con- sciousness of pre-existence, to which the fourth Gospel bears witness, does not appear in the other Gospels, there is nothing in it absolutely irreconcilable with Synoptic teaching, and hence, in view of the utterances just referred to, it cannot fairly be said that there is sufficient ground for denying the authenticity of the discourses of the fourth Gospel, simply because they give expression to a conscious- ness on Christ's part of the possession of a superhuman, supramundane character. The same may be said in regard to the discourses in which the divine origin and basis of the Christian life are emphasized. There are in the Synoptic Gospels a few isolated utterances which go to show that the Christ there depicted might have represented the Christian life under such an aspect. Thus we read: "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them it is not given." 2 "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- Jonah ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." 3 "With 1 Matt. xi. 27 ; Luke x. 22. 2 Matt. xiii. 11 ; cf . Mark iv. 11. s Matt. xvi. 17. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 491 men this is impossible, but with God all things are pos- sible." 1 "For it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." 2 In the light of these passages it cannot be said that there is sufficient ground for denying the authenticity of the discourses of the fourth Gospel, sim- ply because they represent the Christian life as divine in its inception and continuance. 3 It must be maintained, then, that the author of the fourth Gospel may have been true to historic fact in rep- resenting Christ as giving utterance to a belief in his own pre-existence and to the conception of the divine origin and basis of the Christian life, and that he cannot fairly be accused of ascribing to Jesus a truth which originated only with Paul. How, then, are we to explain Paul's relation on the one hand to that truth itself, and on the other hand to the expression of it in the fourth Gospel? It can hardly be supposed that Paul adopted, even under the guidance of his own religious experience, a view of Christ and of the Christian life out of line with all that he knew of the teaching of the Master; or that he was led by the revelation vouchsafed him on the road to Damas- cus to the same view to which Jesus had given utterance, and yet remained in ignorance of his agreement with him. It is more natural to assume that in reaching his position, Paul felt to some extent the guiding influence of Christ's instruction as well as the leading of his own experience. And yet in view of the almost total silence of the Synoptic Gospels, and of Paul's lack of reference to words of Christ upon the subject ; in view, moreover, of his account of his conversion, and his emphatic declaration that he did not learn his Gospel through converse with the apostles, it certainly will not do to assume that the discourses of the 1 Matt. xix. 26 ; cf . Mark x. 27. 2 Mark xiii. 11 ; cf . Matt. x. 19 sq. ; Luke xii. 12. Compare also Matt, xxviii. 20 ; Luke xi. 13, xxii. 32, and the passages already quoted from Matt, xi. 27 and Luke x. 22. 3 It is to be noticed also that in the Epistle of James, which contains much that is closely related to the teaching of Jesus, especially to the Sermon on the Mount, there is a hint of an acquaintance with the conception of the divine origin of the Christian life which appears in the fourth Gospel. Thus we read in i. 18: " Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth." 492 THE APOSTOLIC AGE fourth Gospel, which were first given to the world at large more than half a century after the Saviour's death, or even the substance of those discourses, was already known to Paul at the time of his conversion or during the early years of his Christian life, when his conception of the Gospel took permanent shape. But it is not impos- sible that scattered words of Christ, which were generally known among his followers but had made little impres- sion upon them, and of which only the vaguest hints are found in the Synoptic Gospels, came to Paul's ears, and took on new meaning to him in the light of his own experience, and confirmed and clarified his conception of the Gospel, and that, thus set in their true light by him, their significance was finally understood by a disciple who had known Christ personally, and led him to recall still other words to the same effect which had been com- monly forgotten or neglected. It was, at any rate, under the indirect influence of Paul that the discourses of the fourth Gospel were composed. That many of the ideas which find expression in them go back to Jesus himself there is no sufficient ground for denying, but it is diffi- cult to account for their preservation, and it is impossi- ble to explain the form and the emphasis given to them, except in the light of Paul's teaching. And yet though the author of the fourth Gospel had undoubtedly learned much from Paul, he was by no means a slavish imitator of the great apostle to the Gentiles. He was a disciple of Christ before he was a disciple of Paul, and though the latter influenced mightily his con- ception of the Master, he was still under the sway of the historic Jesus, and it was of him he wrote. The prologue of the Gospel should not lead us into the mistake of sup- posing that the author was concerned primarily with the pre-existent Son of God, and that his Gospel was in- tended simply to recount his manifestation in the flesh. The truth is that he was interested first of all in the man Jesus and took his departure from him. His belief that Christ had come from heaven, and that he had returned thither to be again with Him from whom he came forth, THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 493 rested ultimately upon the impression of his oneness with God which had been gained from a study of his earthly life. That impression alone might not perhaps have led the author to the conclusion which finds its most explicit utterance in the first verse of the prologue, but the con- clusion once suggested, that impression constituted its immediate and only adequate confirmation. He wrote his Gospel not in order to prove that the Logos had come down to earth, but in order to prove that " Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." 1 It was only because of his primary interest in the man Jesus that he wrote his Gospel at all. Paul would hardly have thought of writ- ing a Gospel, even had he known all about Christ's life. His interest centred, altogether in the dying and risen Christ. The contrast between John and Paul at this point appears very clearly in the fact that the former represents Christ as dwelling in his followers even during his earthly life among them, and not simply after his departure from them. 2 Only one who had himself known Jesus, or had learned of him first from one of his own disciples, could thus have given to him during his life on earth, before his death and resurrection, the saving significance which Paul ascribed to him only in his exalted spiritual existence, after he had laid aside the trammels of the flesh. It was this same impression of the historic life of Jesus that led the author of the fourth Gospel to picture his work chiefly under the aspect of the impartation to men of the life of God by the manifestation of God in his own person and teaching. Although reference is made occa- sionally to the saving significance of his death, 3 there is no trace of the Pauline idea that he accomplished the redemption of men by dying unto the flesh and by rising again in the Spirit. His death is viewed commonly sim- ply as a manifestation of the love of God drawing men unto him. 4 Thus the death of Christ had not the funda- 1 John xx. 31. 2 John xv. 1 sq. John iii. 14, x. 11 sq., xi. 51, xii. 32, xv. 13 ; 1 John i. 7, iii. 16. 4 Cf. John iii. 14 sq., xii. 32. 494 THE APOSTOLIC AGE mental and controlling significance to John that it had to Paul. 1 The same may be said also of his resurrection. Instead of meaning, as it did to Paul, release from the flesh and a new life in the Spirit, it meant to John, just as it did to the Synoptists, Christ's resurrection in the flesh; 2 and the only saving efficacy that attached to it beyond the confirmation of his disciples' faith in him, 3 was that it made it possible for him to return to the Father and to send down the Spirit for their aid and guidance. 4 This is all the more significant, because John had Paul's idea that the Christian man has already passed from death unto life, and has thus already enjoyed a spiritual resurrection. 5 That with this conception of the Christian life he should fail to ascribe to Christ's resurrection the effect which Paul ascribed to it, confirms the impression made by his omission of Paul's interpre- 1 In only one passage in the Johannine writings is the death of Christ ex- plicitly connected with sin, namely, in 1 John i. 7, where it is said, " The blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin." A connection is also implied in the Baptist's words in John i. 29: "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world " ; and in 1 John ii. 2, and iv. 10, where Christ is called a propitiation for sins. The contrast at this point not only between John and Paul, but also between John and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is very marked. That John felt to a less degree than the latter did the influence of Paul in this matter, was doubtless due in part to the fact that his interest was not so predominantly ethical (see below, p. 496) , in part to the controlling impression upon him of the earthly life of Christ. 2 How little John appreciated or sympathized with Paul's conception of redemption as a release from the flesh is made clear enough by his emphasis upon the fact that Christ rose in the flesh, and in the same flesh which he had before his death (cf. xx. 20, 27). It is instructive in this connection to compare Ignatius (Srnyr. 3), who is still more pronounced in his departure from the conception of Paul. 8 John xx. 8, 28. 4 John xiv., xvi. 7 sq., xx. 17. John's idea of Christ as an advocate with the Father (1 John ii. 1) resembles the idea that he intercedes with the Father, which appears in Rom. viii. 34, and in Heb. vii. 25. Doubtless we have a sign of Paul's influence at this point, but the conception is not carried out as it is by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 6 1 John ii. 29, iii. 14, v. 12 sq. (cf. John v. 21, 24). The idea, in fact, is so prominent in John's thought that it almost completely overshadows the common expectation of the final bodily resurrection. Christ speaks of the final resurrection in John v. 29, vi. 39 sq., 44, 54, but there is no reference to it in John's epistle, and it is evident that it is subordinated in the author's mind to the spiritual resurrection of believers which takes place in this life. According to v. 29, unbelievers as well as believers share in the final resurrec- tion. Paul's idea, therefore, that that resurrection is simply a fruit of the present spiritual resurrection, is wanting. THE CHRISTIANITY OF TBE CHURCH AT LARGE 495 tation of Christ's death, and by his general view of the significance of Christ's life on earth. His system was evidently not merely a development of Paul's. It had, in fact, another basis, and Paul's influence was but secondary. Another striking mark of difference between John and Paul lies in their conception of the believer's relation to law. John agrees with Paul, to be sure, that the Gospel is for all men, not merely for the Jews, and he never thinks of requiring of Gentile converts circumcision and the observance of the Jewish law. He even goes beyond Paul in his hostility to his unbelieving countrymen, and he holds out no hope of the ultimate salvation of Israel, such as Paul gives expression to in his Epistle to the Romans. But although he thus occupies in this respect the standpoint of a Christian of the world, to whom Jewish law and prerogative mean nothing, he has no con- ception of the believer's liberty from all law in his new spiritual life with Christ. When he speaks of the free- dom which Christ brings his disciples, it is freedom from sin of which he thinks, 1 and he regards the Christian as just as truly subject to law as any one else. " We receive what we ask of God," he says, "because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight." 2 There can be no doubt that this idea of the Christian life as the keeping of God's commandments, which is somewhat out of line with the author's view that Christ dwells in the Christian, making his life truly divine, was due, in part at least, to the influence of the legal conception of Christianity, which was so widely prevalent in the church at large. Though he was so saturated with the Pauline view of the Christian life, John felt the influence of that common conception even more than the author of 1 Peter did. Another marked difference between John and Paul appears in the views which they take of the redemption accomplished by Christ. To Paul it is release from the 1 Cf. the words of Christ which John quotes in viii. 31 sq. siJohniii. 22; cf. vs. 24. 496 THE APOSTOLIC AGE sinful flesh, and thus escape from death, and an entrance upon a new life of complete holiness in the Spirit. The idea of salvation as an escape from death and the attain- ment of eternal life is common in John's writings, 1 and the complete holiness of the believer is asserted in his epistle. 2 Moreover, in the conversation with Nicodemus we have the flesh and the Spirit contrasted in a way that reminds us of Paul. 3 But the contrast is not carried out, and redemption is not represented as accomplishing a man's release from the flesh. In place of this idea, which is so prominent in Paul, we find redemption repeatedly pictured as a transfer from the realm of darkness into the realm of light. 4 In spite of all he has to say about sin, and in spite of the fact that he more than once represents Christ as coming to take away sin, 5 John had apparently no such controlling ethical interest as characterized Paul and the Synoptists, and indeed the church at large of his day. Not to escape from sin, but to know God, he regarded as the chief thing, the summum bonum. 6 And so Christ's great work was to manifest the Father; and where that manifestation is recognized and accepted is eternal life, where it is rejected is eternal death. 7 John's supreme interest in this aspect of redemption and in this side of Christ's work is revealed very clearly in the idea, to which he gives occasional expression, that the Gospel is not for the sinful but for the righteous; that Christ came to save only those that were already his own ; and that only the prepared can receive him and come into the light and enjoy eternal life. 8 This idea, which tends to take away from Jesus' work much of its ethical sig- 1 1 John iii. 14 sq., iv. 9, v. 11 sq. ; cf. John v. 24, vi. 48 sq., viii. 51, etc. 2 1 John iii. G, 9, v. 18, where the author denies that the Christian can sin, just as Paul does in Rom viii. and elsewhere. Cf. also John xiii. 10, xv. 3. 8 John iii. 6 sq. ; cf . also i. 13, vi. 63. * 1 John i. 7 sq., ii. 9 sq., etc. ; cf. John i. 4 sq., iii. 19 sq., viii. 12, ix. 5, xii. 35 sq., 46. 6 John i. 29 ; 1 John iii. 5 ; cf. also John viii. 24, 36 ; 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10. 6 1 John ii. 3, 13, 22, iii. 1, iv. 6 sq., v. 20; cf. also John xiv. 20 sq., xvii. 3. 7 1 John ii. 23 sq., v. 20; cf. John i. 18, iii. 32, v. 24, viii. 31 sq., 51 sq., xii. 36, xiv. 6 sq., xvii. 6, 26, xviii. 37. 8 John ix. 31, xi. 52, xiii. 1 ; 1 John v. 20; cf. John iii. 20 sq., viii. 44, xv. 13, xviii. 37. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHUKCH AT LARGE 497 nificance and efficacy, is so different from his general teaching contained in all four of the Gospels, that it would seem that it must be John's and not Christ's, at least in the form in which we have it. Our author's view of redemption as the transfer of man from the realm of darkness to the realm of light, and of Christ's work as primarily a work of illumination, has been supposed by many to be due to Hellenic influence, or more particularly to the influence of Gnosticism. And there can be little doubt that at any rate the same ten- dency that voiced itself in Gnosticism had something to do with the marked emphasis which the idea receives, and the peculiar form which it takes in John's writings. But it is a mistake to derive the idea itself either wholly or chiefly from that source. It is, in fact, simply a result of the common impression of the life of Jesus upon those with whom he came in contact, a result entirely natural to one who believed in the pre-existent oneness of Christ with God, and in the divine origin of the Christian life. The impression made by Jesus upon those that heard him was primarily that of a teacher who told them of heavenly things; and it was almost inevitable that one who was under the control of that impression, and at the same time believed that Christ had come from God to bring down the gift of life to men, should conceive of that life as mediated by his manifestation of the Father, and should consequently picture his work chiefly under the aspect of revelation or illumination. The idea, therefore, though it may perhaps testify to the influence of a tendency which was widespread in the contemporary Greek world, consti- tutes at the same time another evidence of the degree to which the author felt the impression of the earthly life of Jesus. The contrast between John and Paul in their attitude toward the life of Christ on earth, which appears in so many ways, is especially noticeable just at this point. To both of them the Christian life is the divine life in man ; but while Paul, though he has much to say about the virtues of the believer's life, never calls atten- tion to their connection with the corresponding virtues in 2K 498 THE APOSTOLIC AGE God, John, true to his impression of Christ as primarily the revealer of the Father, traces back the various features of the Christian character to the character of God himself, and emphasizes the fact that they have their root in him. 1 Thus men are to cleave to the truth because God is truth ; 2 they are to be pure because God is pure, and righteous because he is righteous; 3 they are to walk in the light because God is light; 4 they are to love God and their brethren because God is love ; 5 and it is because God is life that they who are Christ's have life. 6 The difference of conception between Paul and John touching the work of Christ and the redemption accom- plished by him resulted in a difference in their ideas of faith. To both of them the word has profound spiritual significance, but as used by Paul it denotes the oneness of the believer with Christ in his death and resurrection, a oneness so complete that the acts of Christ become in a real sense the acts of the believer, and the latter actually dies and rises again with his Master. The object of faith is thus not merely Christ, but Christ dying and rising again. To John, on the other hand, faith is the attitude of receptivity toward Christ in the totality of his person, as the complete manifestation of God. Receiving Christ in the Johannine sense, the believer receives his revelation of the Father, and passes from darkness to light, and thus from death to life. The fact upon which faith lays hold, therefore, is not Christ's work for the sinner, but Christ's relation to God, which makes him a manifestation of the Father. Thus John was driven, not by a speculative, but by a practical interest, to consider more fully than Paul the nature of Christ, and to exhibit his pre-existent connection with God. And thus at the same time faith tended to become more of an intellectual act and to lose something of its religious significance. Instead of binding the soul immediately to Christ, and 1 Cf. Stevens: The Johannine Theology, p. 4 sq. 2 1 John v. 20; cf. John iii. 21, viii. 26, 31 sq. 8 1 John ii. 6, 29, iii. 3, 7. 4 1 John i. 5. 1 John iv. 7, 16 sq. 6 1 John i. 2 sq. ; cf . John vi. 57. And so, according to Jesus, as quoted in John iv. 24, men are to worship God in spirit, because God is a Spirit. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 499 bringing about the mystical identity of the believer and his divine Master, it was thought of as preparing the soul for the reception of that knowledge of God which leads to eternal life ; and however spiritually and vitally that knowl- edge might be conceived, the stress laid upon it promoted the tendency to emphasize the intellectual at the expense of the religious element, a tendency which already makes its appearance in John's first epistle, where the recogni- tion of the divine sonship of Jesus and of the reality of his incarnation is made a test of Christian character. 1 The brief comparison we have made of the conceptions of Paul and John shows how widely and in how many respects two of the most influential thinkers of the primi- tive church could differ, while at the same time funda- mentally agreed touching the person of Christ and the nature of the Christian life. It shows also how some of Paul's controlling conceptions lived after him and had a history in the Christian church, while others which con- stituted a no less essential part of his system were entirely neglected. With his conception of the pre-existence of the Son of God, those who came after him had no trouble. But his idea of the believer's oneness with Christ in his death and resurrection was too profoundly spiritual, and too much out of line with the common experience of the ordinary Christian man, to make its way in the church at large. In the form, however, which the conception of the unity between Christ and the believer took in the writ- ings of John, it was much easier of comprehension and of verification. The divine origin of the Christian life, and the abiding presence of the spiritual Christ, were facts to which the ordinary experience of the primitive Christian 1 Cf. 1 John iv. 15, v. 1, 5. John's conception of faith was evidently much more profound than that which prevailed in the church at large. But the common idea of the Christian life as the observance of a law had something of an influence even upon his view of faith, though the result was not the same as appears in the writings which we have already considered. Thus in 1 John iii. 23, he makes the commandments of God include belief in the "name of his Son Jesus Christ." This is very instructive, because it shows how the way was opened for regarding faith as a meritorious act, and for ranging it alongside of other virtues as a part of man's obedience to the divine will, and thus one of the means by which he gains salvation. 500 THE APOSTOLIC AGE bore constant testimony; and this belief, thanks above all to the fourth Gospel, lived on in spite of the oblivion which overtook so much that Paul taught. Closely related both to Paul and to John was another Christian belonging to the same part of the world as the latter, Ignatius of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in the first quarter of the second century. Into his views we cannot enter here, but it is worthy of notice that he was one with both Paul and John in his recognition of the pre-existence of Christ, and especially in his empha- sis upon the real and actual oneness of the believer with Christ. Salvation meant to him the deification of man by his union with the divine ; and though under influences similar to those which made themselves felt in the Greek mysteries and kindred religious developments, Ignatius' conception of Christianity took on many features foreign to that of John, and even more alien to the thought of Paul, 1 the agreement of all three in the two fundamental positions referred to just above is of the very greatest historic significance. That Paul permanently influenced the thought of the church at large, was due in no small degree to the fact that at least a part of his fundamental conception of the Gospel made itself felt after his death in Asia Minor, and that its harmony with the life and teachings of Jesus himself was there exhibited in a mas- terful way by one of the greatest spirits of the early church, and that it was combined by a fervent and pro- found religious genius with other ideas easier of compre- hension by the popular mind and more in line with the prevailing religious tendencies of the age. 2 1 The most striking differences between Paul and Ignatius arose from their difference of conception touching the constitution of man, and the consequent impossibility of an agreement concerning the nature and need of redemption. To Ignatius salvation did not mean, as it meant to Paul, release from the flesh, and entrance upon a new life in the spirit ; for he regarded both flesh and spirit as essential elements of humanity, and man therefore could not exist without his flesh. Redemption consequently meant to Ignatius the endowment of the whole man, both flesh and spirit, with immortality through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the incarnation of Deity. 2 Upon Ignatius and his relation to Paul and John, see especially von der Goltz: Ignatius von Antiochien als Christ und Theologe, in von Gebhardt and Harnack's Texte und Untersuchungen, XII. 3. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 501 At two points Christians of subsequent centuries felt the influence of Paul, where it was not felt, at any rate to any marked degree, by the author of the fourth Gospel. In the first place, the emphasis which Paul put upon Christ's death gave to that event a value in the eyes of the church which it would not otherwise have had. Upon this subject John has more to say than the Synoptists, but his overmastering impression of the earthly life of Jesus pre- vented him from giving his death the prominence which it had in Paul's thought. In this respect the church at large followed the lead of Paul. But they followed him only in emphasizing the importance of Christ's death; Paul's interpretation of it they utterly failed to under- stand. Even Ignatius, though he laid great stress upon it, gave it no real significance of its own. The truth is, that it was centuries before the event, in spite of all that was said and thought about it, was given any vital and controlling place in Christian theology. In the second place, Paul's conception of the church as the body of Christ, and of the consequent oneness of all be- lievers, to which he gave fullest and most distinct expres- sion in his Epistle to the Ephesians, was taken up by those who came after him and had overmastering and permanent influence in the development of ecclesiastical theory and practice. The idea was too foreign to the conceptions of Christ and to all the traditions of his teaching, to find much of a place in John's writings ; l but it was made a great deal of by Ignatius, and he was in reality the first to emphasize and develop it, and to turn it to practical use in the interest both of unity and of discipline. Thus, though Ignatius departed from Paul at some points even further than John did, more of Paul's thought lived on in him than in John, and we really find reproduced in his writings the substance of practically all the Paulinism that the church at large permanently made its own. 2 1 But compare John xvii. and 1 John ii. 19 sq. 2 The pre-existence and deity of Christ ; the union of the believer with Christ, without which the Christian life is impossible ; the importance of Christ's death ; the church the body of Christ. 502 THE APOSTOLIC AGE 5. THE RADICAL PAULINISM OF THE GNOSTICS AND OTHER SECTARIES And yet, though the church in general accepted only a part of Paul's gospel, other views of his lived on, for a time at least, and enjoyed a considerable development in the thought of Christians of other schools than the school of John and Ignatius. Some of his ideas, in fact, found emphatic though one-sided expression in the teachings of many who were looked upon as heretical by the church at large of their own and subsequent generations. There can be no doubt, for instance, that the Hymenseus and Philetus who were condemned by the redactor of the pastoral epis- tles because they taught that the resurrection was already past 1 were led to take the position they did by Paul's teaching concerning the believer's death with Christ unto the flesh at baptism, and his resurrection with him unto a new life in the Spirit. Only such a view as we know Paul held of a spiritual resurrection in this life can account for their belief that the resurrection had already taken place. Similarly, the asceticism in Colosste, Hie- rapolis, and Laodicea, which Paul opposed in his Epistle to the Colossians, very likely found something of a basis in his dualism of flesh and spirit, and in his constant emphasis upon the spiritual character of the Christian life. The same may be said of the asceticism which is denounced in the First Epistle to Timothy. 2 Such liber- tinists, moreover, as are combated in 1 John, in Jude, and in the letters of John to the churches of Pergamum and Thyatira, 3 can hardly have gained their principles from any other source than from Paul's doctrine of the freedom of the Christian man, or at any rate they can hardly have failed to find confirmation for their principles in that doctrine. But in the great Christian reformer, Marcion, who flourished in the second quarter of the second century, and in the various Gnostic schools of the same period, the characteristic views of Paul found their fullest acceptance i 2 Tim. ii. 17 sq. 2 i Tim. iv. 3 sq. 8 Rev. ii. 14 sq,, 20 sq. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 503 and their most remarkable development. The teachings of these men we cannot reproduce here. It may simply be said that the dualism which was common to all their systems, whether the result of metaphysical considera- tions, as it was with most of them, or due merely to a practical interest, as was the case with Marcion, found its warrant in the dualism of Paul, and that its existence within the church, and the belief of its representatives that it was genuinely Christian, can be explained only in the light of Paul's doctrine of flesh and spirit. And so the antinomy between Judaism and Christianity, and be- tween the creating and redeeming God, upon which most of them laid so much stress ; the asceticism upon which many of them insisted, and the libertinism inculcated by others ; their assertion of the impossibility of salvation for any man not endowed from above with a spiritual nature ; their Docetic views of Christ, and their identification of him with one of the pre-existing beings or aeons, which were supposed to bridge the chasm between God and matter; their denial of the fleshly resurrection, and their insistence upon the purely spiritual character of eternal life, all have their points of contact in the system of Paul, and may be recognized as more or less perverted and distorted reproductions of his views touching the relation of law and gospel, the origin and nature of the Christian life, and the person and work of Christ. The Gnostics simply carried out consistently the Hellenistic tendency which voiced itself to a limited degree in Paul. The dual- ism, which in his thinking was religious merely, because he was concerned only to interpret his own experience, in their thinking was cosmical as well. The contrast and the irreconcilability between matter, or flesh, and spirit was to them not simply a means of understanding the reli- gious experience of the redeemed man, but a fundamental postulate in the light of which Christianity and the history of the universe as a whole must be read. And so, in spite of the fact that their teaching was so closely related to Paul's in many respects, and their fun- damental postulate but the consistent carrying out of a 504 THE APOSTOLIC AGE principle upon which he too laid great stress, he could not have seen in them his legitimate followers. Their thoroughgoing dualism, which left no room for a belief in providence, their attitude toward historic Judaism, their asceticism (or libertinism), and above all their Doce- tism, which made the death of Christ impossible, must have been as distasteful to him as they actually were to the church at large. And yet the controlling influence of his principles upon their thought is not to be mistaken. They were nearest him in their doctrine of flesh and spirit, and in their recognition of the Christian life as the divine life in man, eventuating in his complete and permanent release from the trammels of the flesh; they were farthest from him in their Docetism, and in their conception of the work of Christ as a mere illumination instead of a real redemption by participation in human flesh. The close kinship that existed between these men and John, in spite of the pronounced hostility of the latter to every form of Docetism, is at once interesting and instruc- tive. They and he represent in part an identical, in part a divergent, development of the principles of Paul. All of them felt Paul's influence and were one with each other and with him in their belief in the pre-existence of Christ and in the divine origin of the Christian life; but the form which those beliefs took, both in John and in the Gnostics, reveals the common operation of influences which Paul did not feel. It was due in part, moreover, to a common influence, that while following Paul in his emphasis upon the work of Christ as the sole ground of redemption, they nevertheless departed from him in conceiving that work under the aspect primarily of revelation or illumination, by which is opened to the children of God, that is, to those possessed of a truly spiritual nature, the way of entrance into the realm of light, and thus into the enjoyment of eternal life with God. But at other points, under the control of widely different interests, they went their sepa- rate ways : John, under the impression of the earthly life of Jesus, refraining from carrying the Pauline antithesis of flesh and spirit as far as Paul himself had carried it; THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 505 the Gnostics, on the other hand, under the influence of their thoroughgoing dualism, carrying it much further, and reaching positions entirely out of line with the tradi- tional belief of the church at large. Our study of the leading ideas which found expression in the Christian church during the first century has suf- ficed to show that the development of theology which had its beginning then could not fail to be exceedingly complicated. That development we cannot trace any further here. It may simply be said that the common primitive conception of Christianity, which was described in the earlier part of this chapter, continued in control. Christianity remained a law and the Christian life its observance. But the influence of Paul made itself per- manently felt in the combination with it of the idea of Christianity as a redemption, and in the development and elaboration of that idea Christian theology has had its larg- est exercise. Out of it grew the church's historic insist- ence upon the deity of Christ, and upon the completeness and reality of his manhood ; out of it grew the doctrine of regeneration, with all that flows from it ; out of it grew the belief in the real presence, and at least some of the essential features of the catholic theory of grace. But most striking of all is the fact that though Paul was so little understood and appreciated by those that came after him, and though his fundamental principles never came and never could come to their full rights in the Catholic church, the ecclesiastical theory upon which that church was built was due ultimately to him. The belief that the church is the body of Christ, which finds its classic expres- sion in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and which is itself the natural outgrowth of his controlling conception of salvation, constitutes the basis upon which rests the entire ecclesiastical system of the Catholic church. Rome is not wholly deluded when she traces her establishment to Paul as well as to Peter, and believes herself the heir of both. 506 THE APOSTOLIC AGE! 6. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE Our study has revealed the existence in the apostolic age of two radically different conceptions of the nature and basis of the Christian life, but in spite of the differ- ence there was general agreement as to the ideal of that life. Whether it was believed with Paul that the Chris- tian life is the divine life in man, or that it is man's own life governed by a divine law, in either case the ideal was conformity to the will and character of God. To be perfect even as God is perfect, to exhibit in one's life the traits of the divine character, was the supreme ideal of all. The disciples believed themselves to be God's pecul- iar and elect people. They were not simply ^aOr^rai or disciples, they were ayioi or saints, men set apart by God to his own service, and hence they must be governed by divine principles, and must conform their conduct to the divine will. Whether they regarded salvation as a pres- ent possession, or thought of it as future only, and pictured it under the aspect of a reward bestowed upon those who lived righteously and endured faithfully unto the end, in either case they were at one in their conviction that the Christian life is distinguished from the life of the unbe- liever by its heavenly character; by the fact that the law which governs it and the standard which measures it are from .God and not from man. But when it came to the specific traits of character, or the specific duties which conformity to the divine .will required, it is a notable fact that there was comparatively little difference between the ethical principles of the Christians and the principles of the best men of the Pagan world. The general ideal of the Christian life was practically little else than complete conformity to the highest ethical standards, of the world at large. As in Jerusalem the primitive disciples be- lieved that they ought to distinguish themselves above their unconverted brethren by a stricter and more faithful observance of the law of their fathers, so in the Gentile world the Christians believed that they ought to distin- guish themselves above their neighbors by their more per- THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 507 feet exhibition of those traits of character which were everywhere recognized as truly virtuous. Honesty, jus- tice, truthfulness, purity, sobriety, peaceableness, were all emphasized by Christian and Pagan writers alike. Paul, indeed, on more than one occasion appealed directly to the existing ethical standards of the day as standards for his own converts : " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatso- ever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, what- soever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, arid if there be any praise, think on these things," are his words in Phil. iv. 8; and in Rom. ii. 15, he declares that even the heathen have the law of God written on their hearts. And yet, though to live in conformity with the divine will meant to the early Christians to live in conformity with the dictates of the universal human con- science, especial emphasis was laid by them upon certain points, and thus their life bore a character differing in some respects from that of the best Pagans of the age. The most distinctive elements in the Christian life were love and holiness. Upon love emphasis was laid by all the writers of the period, and it constituted a prominent and permanent element in the ethical ideal. It could not be otherwise, indeed, in the light of the teaching of Jesus. But it is significant that the Master's profound conception of love for God and man lost much of its depth and reach in the teaching of his disciples. Of love for God we hear in some of the writings of the period, 1 but not in all; and in none of them has it any such fundamental and control- ling place as in the teaching of Christ, and in none of them is it filled so full of meaning. The conception of God as lawgiver and judge largely displaced Christ's conception of him as a father, and fear and honor were increasingly regarded as the proper attitude toward him. 2 In Paul and in John, to be sure, the conception of divine 1 Cf. Rom. viii. 28; 1 Cor. viii. 3; Heb. vi. 10; Jas. i. 12, ii. 5; 1 John iv. 21, v. 2. 2 Cf . 1 Pet. ii. 17. 508 THE APOSTOLIC AGE fatherhood is preserved, but even in their writings it is less controlling than in the teaching of Jesus, and else- where in the literature of the period there is practically nothing of it. It is not that the belief in God's goodness and grace disappears that is everywhere maintained ; but the closeness and intimacy which are involved in the word "father," as used by Christ, are largely lost sight of by his disciples, and when the term " father " is used of God, it is commonly employed in the sense of creator, or characterizes him only in his relation to Christ. But not simply love for God, love for man as well, lost among the early Christians something of the meaning which it had to Jesus. The notable fact about it is the growing tendency to narrow the circle, so that Christian love becomes love for the brotherhood, that is, for one's fellow-disciples. It is true that love as a constant atti- tude of the heart is inculcated by many of the writers of the period, and that in some cases love for those without the church is explicitly referred to, 1 but as a rule the emphasis is laid solely upon love for the brethren. Espe- cially significant in this connection is the injunction of the First Epistle of Peter: "Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king." 2 That Christians should treat all with whom they came in contact with becoming respect, and that they should show them kindness as opportunity offered, and should avoid hatred, resentment, and anger toward them, was of course believed by all ; but it was the active exercise of love, not toward one's neighbors in general, but toward one's fellow-disciples, fellow-members of the one house- hold of faith, that was chiefly emphasized. In this the feeling of brotherhood in Christ found expression, and the stress laid upon such love is an evidence of the vivid reali- zation of that brotherhood on the part of the early Chris- tians. Within the circle of disciples the love which Jesus inculcated burned warm and vivid, and one of the most 1 Cf. Rom. xiii. 8; 1 Thess. iii. 12. 2 1 Pet. ii. 17; cf. also i. 22, iii. 8, iv. 8, and Rom. xii. 10; 1 Thess. iv. 9, etc. The writings of John, both Gospel and Epistle, are especially notable in this respect. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 509 characteristic marks of the life of his followers in the apostolic age was their devotion to one another and their unselfish regard for each other's good. It was this more than anything else that gave its peculiar character to their Christian life, and it did much to attract others to them. That the circle within which love found its chief exercise should thus have been narrowed to coincide with the limits of the Christian brotherhood, instead of retaining that breadth and universality which it had in the thought of Christ, to whom all men were brethren, common sons of a common Father, was due largely to the fact that the Chris- tians regarded themselves as an elect people called by God out of the world and separated from it as his own pecul- iar possession. This feeling gave them a profound attach- ment to each other, and marked them off from all without their pale to such a degree that the narrowing of the sphere of love was inevitable. It was this same sense of being a peculiar people of God, that had much to do with the emphasis which they laid upon holiness. That which separated the world from God, and fundamentally characterized it over against him, was its impurity and corruptness; and the distinguishing feature of the Christian life, as contrasted with the life of the world at large, must consequently be its purity and incorruptness. In this all the writers of our period were agreed. Not only Paul, to whom the contrast be- tween flesh and spirit was fundamental, but also those who least felt his influence, were at one in their emphasis upon the virtue of holiness. 1 Whatever else a Christian was, he must at any rate be holy; the very name, c^yto?, 2 indeed, by which he was commonly called by his brethren, meant not simply set apart to the service of God, but also free from moral blemish or sin. That holiness or sinlessness which their character as children of God required was commonly conceived by 1 In addition to Paul's epistles, in which so much is made of holiness, see also 1 Tim. ii. 15; 2 Tim. i. 9; Heb. xii. 14; Jas. i. 27 ; 1 Pet. i. 15; 2 Pet. iii. 11 ; 1 John iii. 4; Rev. xxii. 14, etc. 2 Cf. not only Paul's epistles, but also Acts ix. 13, 32, 41; 1 Tim. v. 10; Heb. vi. 10, xiii. 24; Jude 3; Rev. v. 8 et passim. 510 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the early disciples as primarily the avoidance of fleshly impurity and lust. The crying sins of the age were fleshly sins, and it was natural that Paul and the other early missionaries to the Gentiles should see in such fleshliness the chief obstacle to the presence of the Holy Spirit, whose very nature made association with corrupt- ness and impurity impossible. But without the Holy Spirit there could be no church and no elect people of God; only in the Spirit was Christ himself present with his disciples to bless and assist them; and so it is not surprising that the emphasis was increasingly laid upon the cleanness of the Christian life, and that everything else was more and more subordinated to it. The result was that holiness, interpreted in a purely negative sense, finally acquired the controlling place in the Christian ideal which active love and devotion to the good of others occupied in the teaching of Jesus, and the entire bent of the Christian life was thus changed. It was not that love was lost, but that it was subordinated, and that its vitalizing and ener- gizing power was thus largely sacrificed. But such holiness as was preached by the early disciples involved not only abstinence from lust, intemperance, and other fleshly sins which were so common in that age, but also the alienation of the affections from the world. Love for the world was regarded as essentially the love of that which is impure and unholy and consequently as incom- patible with the service of God. 1 But the natural tendency of such a belief was of course to lead to the growth of asceticism, and of a spirit of world-renunciation which meant the repudiation of all the natural relations of life. That tendency was very widespread in the early church, and it caused much trouble and perplexity. It was felt by most of the sober-minded disciples that the tendency was unhealthful and ought to be checked, but where to check it, and on what principle, was by no means clear. Paul asserts that all the creatures of God are good and to be received with thanksgiving, that there is nothing evil 1 Cf., e.g., 2 Cor. vi. 16 sq.; 2 Tim. iii. 4; Jas. iv. 4; 2 Pet. i. 4; 1 John ii. 15 sq. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 511 iii itself, and that all things are lawful to the Christian, and yet Paul himself gave utterance on various occasions to principles of a genuinely ascetic character. Thus he says, in 1 Cor. ix. 27: "I bruise my body and bring it into bondage " ; and in 1 Cor. vii. 1 sq. he implies that celibacy is a higher state than marriage, and that marriage is only a concession to fleshly lust for the benefit of those who are weak and cannot restrain their passions. 1 The line between friendship for the world, or love of it and of the things that are in it, 2 and such use of it as is not sinful, the disciples found it very difficult to draw, and there was much doubt and uncertainty as to where it should be drawn. The church at large finally settled down upon the principle that not the world itself is evil, but only the wrong use of it, and that it is not necessary to repudiate or flee from the world, but only to overcome its temptations and to preserve oneself pure in the midst of its corruptions. But there were many who believed themselves too weak thus to withstand the temptations of the world, and many more who were too thoroughgoing in their interpretation of the holiness demanded by the Gospel, to be willing to content themselves with such half-hearted measures, and so asceticism finally blossomed into monasticism, and Christians in general applauded, as the highest ideal of the Christian life, a world-renun- ciation which they did not themselves practise. The rise of monasticism lies far beyond the close of the apostolic age, but in the tendencies which were already at work in that age we can see the roots of all that followed. But the significance of Christianity as an ethics lay not so much in the difference, even where there was a differ- ence, between its ideal and that of the world at large, as in the motive power within it. As an ethical system it was noble, lofty, and pure, but as an ethical system it could never have accomplished what it did. The teachings of many others besides Christ were noble, lofty, and pure. 1 Cf . also 2 Cor. vi. 17 sq. ; and Rev. xiv. 4. On the other hand, Paul takes a higher view of marriage in 1 Cur. vii. 13 sq., xi. 11, and 1 Thess. iv. 4 sq. 2 Cf. Jas. iv. 4; 1 John ii. 15. 512 THE APOSTOLIC AGE That which chiefly differentiated Christianity from other ethical systems was the power with which it appealed not to the wise and virtuous and noble-minded, but to the common people, and the moral energy which it supplied to those who had hitherto been entirely without such energy* That it should lead the ignorant and the low and the worthless to live like philosophers, that is, to live soberly, temperately, and purely, was the remarkable thing about it in the eyes of thinking men, when they once be- came aware of the fact. That it could appeal with such power to the masses, was due on the one hand to its belief in a future life, with its blessedness for the saved and with its misery for the lost, and on the other hand to its emphasis upon the eternal worth and the infinite possi- bilities of every human soul. The power of the eschatological beliefs of the early Christians has been already referred to. 1 They had a far more vivid sense of the reality and nearness of the future world than any of their contemporaries, and they could preach it with a vigor and certainty possible to no one else. The persuasive power of their appeal to it is evi- denced over and over again in the literature of the period. The consummation is at hand, the judgment is approach- ing, the Lord himself is about to return, and into eternal bliss and felicity are soon to enter all that are truly his, while those whom he condemns are to suffer the fitting penalty for their unrighteous and unholy lives. But it was not simply this emphasis upon the future which gave the Gospel its persuasiveness and its impelling power; its appeal to the moral possibilities of every man meant even more. The ethical systems of the Pagan world were essentially aristocratic. They appealed to the naturally high-minded and virtuous, and they beautified and ennobled the lives of mjultitudes of the better classes; but for the ignorant and the degraded, for the vicious and the abandoned, they had no message. For such there was no hope. But the Gospel appealed with peculiar power to just such classes. To every man, however degraded, i See p. 455. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 513 the message was brought that he possessed ethical and spiritual possibilities hitherto undreamed of, and he was invited to become, as he might become if he would, a child of God, to enroll himself among God's chosen people, and to enter into the heritage prepared for those that love and serve him. The power of this appeal under existing conditions cannot be overestimated. In it is to be found, doubtless, one of the chief causes of the rapi'd spread of the Gospel, and of the tremendous hold which it took upon the world. New ideals, new hopes, new visions, were opened to the common people, who had never shared in the delights of philosophy, and whose existence had been circumscribed hitherto by the bounds of their daily round of toil. How much it must have meant to such as they, to be told that there was a larger life open to them, that they were not mere slaves of circumstance, but children of God, entitled to share, if they would, on equal terms with the highest and the noblest of men, in blessings and glories of infinite richness and worth! The divine sonship and the universal brotherhood of man might be believed in by this or that philosopher as an abstract theory, and their realization might be looked forward to as a beautiful dream, but here were divine sonship and human brother- hood made real and actual ; here was the explicit announce- ment to every man, on the basis of an immediate divine revelation, of his rights and privileges as a child of God, and here was the explicit offer to every man of the great- est conceivable blessings. It is not to be wondered at that the Gospel proved itself a power for the conversion of multitudes, especially from the lower classes of society. 1 But the appeal which Christianity made to their moral and spiritual natures not simply moved and attracted men, it also proved a real and permanent power for righteous- ness in their lives. It would be a mistake to suppose, even where the Christian life was thought of as the observ- 1 Those who were conscious of possessing already sufficient moral impulse and power, as a rule cared little about Christianity, except as they were attracted to it hecause of its observed ability to create virtue in the most unpromising quarters. And so its spread for some generations was more rapid among the lower than the higher classes. 2L 514 THE APOSTOLIC AGE ance of the law of God and salvation as the reward given for faithful endurance in such observance to the end, that it was only the hope of reward or the fear of punishment that deterred the disciples from sin and kept them up to their duty. The truth is, that the sense of their privilege and responsibility as the elect people of God had much to do with their earnestness and faithfulness. The appeal is made in the writings of the period with which we are dealing oftener to higher than to lower motives and im- pulses. The hope of reward and the fear of punishment are urged not infrequently, but stronger and more con- stant emphasis is laid, not by Paul alone but by others as well, upon the duty of Christians to walk worthily of their calling as children of God and as his elect people, to be true to their opportunities and responsibilities, to be all that God would have them be, and thus honor both him and themselves. 1 To the man who had never believed in his own ethical and spiritual worth came the message that God desired to make a holy man of him and fit him for communion with himself. Such a message appealed to the best in every man, and laid hold mightily upon whatever of divinity he possessed. Responding to it, a man became conscious of a power above his own, of im- pulses and capabilities hitherto unsuspected, and in them he recognized the action of the Spirit of God and believed himself to be a spiritual man, however imperfectly his newly felt power might work itself out in action. It could not be expected, of course, that the Christians of the apostolic age, any more than of any other age, should realize completely their own ideals. Many pas- sages in our sources show that the ethical conditions of the church at large were not all that they should have been in the days of the apostles. Not simply the sins which beset men of all ages and climes, but sins to which that age was particularly prone, made their way into the infant church and called forth earnest and re- 1 Cf. on the one hand 1 Cor. vi. 9 sq. ; Gal. v. 21, vi. 9 ; Heb. ii. 1 sq., iv. 1, vi. 10 et passim; 2 Pet. iii. 8; Rev. ii. and iii. ; on the other hand Rom. rii. 1 sq. ; 1 Cor. vi. 20 ; Eph. iv. 13 sq., v. 8 sq. ; Phil. ii. 13 sq. ; Col. i. 28, iii. 1 sq. ; 1 Thess. iv. 1 sq. ; 1 Pet. iv. 1 sq., and Clement: Ad Cor. 30. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 515 peated admonitions from all the writers of the period. The prevailing vices of the heathen world were licen- tiousness and intemperance, vices fostered rather than restrained by many of the religious cults of the age, and it proved exceedingly difficult for converts from heathen- ism to break loose from their past and to repudiate com- pletely the habits of the society in which they had been trained, and in the midst of which they still lived. Many of them brought their vices with them into the church, and conditions of the most shocking character existed in some congregations. Moreover, the looseness of life which characterized some Christians was not due simply to the prevailing immorality of the age and the difficulty in overcoming its constantly recurring temptations; the truth is that the principles of many of the disciples were such as to make various questionable practices seem indif- ferent and harmless. An antinomianism in principle as well as in practice grew up early in the church, on the basis chiefly of Paul's teaching of the Christian's freedom from law, which cost the apostle much anxiety and played havoc in many quarters. The better and more healthful senti- ment of the church, however, was against such antinomi- anism, and it was ultimately excluded, though it had a considerable lease of life in some of the Gnostic sects of the second century. 1 But though antinomianism was ex- cluded, the tendency to look with indifference upon many practices which others regarded as sinful continued and gave rise to difficulties in many places and on many occa- sions. In Corinth the question of eating meat offered to idols was a burning one for a time at any rate, and Paul was obliged to deal with it in one of his epistles at con- siderable length. 2 So in Rome, differences concerning meats and drinks and days and times caused much trouble and claimed the apostle's attention in his epistle to the Christians of that city. 3 All such questions were settled by him along the same broad lines, the principle being laid down that a consideration for the good of others should 1 See above, p. 502 sq. 2 1 Cor. viii. See above, p. 303 sq. 8 Rom. xiv. See above, p. 336 sq. 516 THE APOSTOLIC AGE govern one's conduct in all matters of the kind. But the principle was too broad and general for the church at large of subsequent da}^s, and there was a growing tendency to insist upon a rigid conformity to rule on the part of all alike, and to deny so great liberty of conscience as Paul had insisted on. In addition to such sins as have been indicated, sins due to the general instincts and impulses of men, or to the peculiar conditions that prevailed in the world of the period, there were certain specific temptations to which the disciples were liable that were immediately due to Christianity itself, and to the new hopes and aspirations which it implanted in their souls. The awakening of the ethical and spiritual natures of the new converts led them often into spiritual pride and self-assertion which threat- ened ruin to themselves and destruction to the well-being of the church. Against such spiritual pride Paul and other writers of the age uttered frequent warnings, and the quarrels and rivalries to which it inevitably led were a constant source of distress and anxiety. 1 The spirit of other- worldlin ess, moreover, which permeated the life of the primitive believers, was a spirit which could easily be carried to excess, and our sources show that it actually was. In Thessalonica, at an early day, Christians were becoming fanatical and were neglecting their regular occu- pations, to the great scandal of their neighbors and to the ill repute of the church. 2 It was such manifestations as these that called forth the exhortations to diligence, so- briety, and quietness, which are so frequent in the epistles of the New Testament. 8 But the consciousness of belonging to a higher kingdom, controlled by principles very different from those of this 1 Compare the condition of things in Corinth as depicted in 1 Cor. i., xii.- xiv. ; see above, pp. 290, 307 sq. 2 See above, p. 247. 3 Cf., e.g., Eph. iv. 28 ; 1 Thess. iv. 11 ; 2 Thess. iii. 10 sq. ; 1 Tim. ii. 15 : Titus ii. 2 sq. ; 1 Pet, iv. 15. The principle laid down by Paul in 2 Thess. iii. 10 : " If any will not work, neither let him eat," is emphasized also in the Dldache, XII. The importance attached to diligence and labor among the early Chris- tians was undoubtedly one of the secrets of their healthful growth and their permanent power. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 517 world, led many Christians to desire to reform the present world in accordance with those higher principles, to repu- diate the authority of the existing government, to do away with the existing social inequalities, to assert the equal worth of all classes and individuals, to free the slaves, to elevate the position of women, and in general to revolu- tionize society and transform it into the image of the kingdom of heaven. Against all such desires and ten- dencies not only Paul but also others protested with ear- nestness, and Paul at least not alone on the ground of expediency, but also on the ground of right. 1 It is God's will, he says, that the world shall be governed as it is, and he himself has appointed its rulers and given them their power. 2 It is his will also that the inequalities in social rank and condition shall continue to exist, and that Christians shall be content with their position, whatever it may be. Whether poor or rich, whether bond or free, every man is to remain in the place where God has put him. He is a free man in Christ, but that freedom does not mean any change in his social status or environment. 3 Paul is very emphatic upon this point. He denies une- quivocally that the Gospel was intended to work any political or social revolution in the world. And Chris- tianity was perhaps saved by his insistence and by the insistence of other leaders of the church from becoming a mere social agitation, and from bringing upon itself, as it must inevitably have done, speedy destruction. But it is not enough to speak of the ethical principles and practice of the early Christians ; their life was above all else religious, and it was its dominant religiousness that gave it its peculiar and distinctive character. The controlling fact in their life was the consciousness of being citizens of a heavenly kingdom and heirs of a heavenly inheritance. 4 They might go about their ordinary occupa- tions as they had always done and might mingle with their 1 Cf., e.g., Rom. xiii. 1 sq. ; 1 Thess. iv. 11 ; 2 Thess. iii. 6 sq.; 2 Tim. ii. 1 ; Titus iii. 1 sq. ; Heb. xiii. 5; 1 Pet. ii. 13. 2 Rom. xiii. 1. 8 Cf., e.g., 1 Cor. vii. 18 sq. * Cf., e.g., Phil. iii. 20; Heb. x. 34; Jas. iv'. 4; 1 Pet. ii. 11; 1 John ii. IT, Rev. xxii. 1 sq. 518 THE APOSTOLIC AGE neighbors as before, but they were conscious all the time that they were living in another world, and that the forces and influences which controlled them were from above This consciousness found concrete expression in the belief that the Holy Spirit was in the church, guiding and inspiring the followers of Christ, and endowing them with power far beyond their own. From the very begin- ning it was believed that the Spirit was the common pos- session of all believers. At Pentecost he descended upon the assembled disciples and they all spoke with tongues, and Peter held out the promise to the onlookers whom he addressed on that occasion that they too should receive the gift of the Holy Ghost if they repented and were bap- tized in the name of Jesus Christ. 1 And so when the dis- ciples were gathered together for prayer after the release of Peter and John, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke the word of God with boldness. 2 In the mani- fest presence of the Spirit was found the chief evidence that the promised Messianic age had already dawned, for it was generally believed among the Jews that that age would be the age of the Spirit in an eminent sense. 3 But what was true of the early disciples of Jerusalem was true also of the church at large throughout the greater part of the apostolic age. Everywhere the presence of the Spirit was taken for granted, and his operations constituted the most characteristic feature in the life of the church. 4 Those operations were of a very vivid and striking char- acter. Speaking with tongues and prophecy were common, and even miracle-working was not unknown, and such mysterious phenomena were uniformly attributed to the Spirit, and in them was found the guarantee of his activ- ity. 5 The influence of the Spirit, to be sure, was not exhausted in such striking operations. It was believed, 1 Acts ii. 38. 2 Acts iv. 31 ; cf . also v. 32, x. 47, xv. 8, xix. 6, and see above, p. 71 sq. 3 See p. 62, above. 4 Cf., e.g., in addition to Paul's epistles which are filled with references to the Spirit's presence, 2 Tim. i. 14; Titus iii. 5; Heb. vi. 4; 1 Pet. i. 2, iv. 14; 1 John iii. 24, iv. 13; Jude 19 sq. 6 But compare the remarks made on p. 75 relative to the connection of the Spirit with the working of miracles in the Book of Acts. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 519 at any rate where the influence of Paul was felt, that Christians enjoyed the constant aid and enlightenment of the Spirit, 1 but it was nevertheless in the marvellous phe- nomena indicated that his activity was thought chiefly to manifest itself, and hence such phenomena were valued very highly as the clearest evidences of his presence. 2 The consequence of all this was that the life of the primitive Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, bore a very peculiar character. Soberness and self-restraint were at a discount, and uncontrolled enthusiasm, ecstasy, and spiritual abandonment seemed the natural expression of the Christian life. To what extent the disciples indulged in such manifestations of their possession by the Spirit in their every-day intercourse with their friends and neigh- bors we cannot tell. There are evidences that the mani- festations were frequent enough to produce a considerable impression upon those with whom they came in contact. There can be little doubt, in fact, that the reputation which they thus acquired of being under the sway of supernatural powers did much to enhance the influence of the Gospel and to contribute to its spread, especially among the less intelligent and more superstitious classes. This would be eminently the case in connection with the travelling missionaries, who were endowed with the Spirit in larger measure than most of their fellows, and who exercised everywhere the gifts of tongues, of prophecy, of miracle- working. 3 On the other hand, these manifestations of the activity of the Spirit doubtless had much to do with the reputation for folly and fanaticism which very commonly attached to the Christians in the communities in which they lived, and contributed to the belief, which we know was widespread at an early day, that they were in league with demons, and were devoted to the practice of the dark arts. 4 1 Cf., e.g., Heb. vi. 4 ; 1 Pet. i. 2 ; 1 John iii. 24, iv. 13; Jude 20. 2 Cf., e.g., Acts viii. 18, x. 45, xix. 6; and 1 Cor. xii. and xiv. 3Cf. Mark xvi. 17; Acts viii. 13, xiv. 8 sq., xxviii. 3 sq.; 2 Cor. xii. 12; Heb. ii. 4. 4 The accusation of demoniacal possession was brought even against Jesus, as we learn from Mark iii. 22 ; and so Paul was pronounced mad by Festus 520 THE APOSTOLIC AGE But the gifts of the Spirit were exercised especially in the religious meetings of the Christians. Nowhere else, in fact, was there such opportunity and encouragement for their use. In possession of the Spirit, as they all believed themselves to be, it was when they came together to wor- ship God and to commune with each other that their spiritual enthusiasm naturally manifested itself most freely and unrestrainedly. The clearest picture we have of those early meetings is found in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians ; and the picture is especially significant and valuable because it shows not only the characteristic features of the services themselves, but also the principle underlying them and the results to which the unrestrained operation of that principle was already leading. The pict- ure, moreover, is evidently true not for Corinth alone, but for the church at large. The natural temper of the Corinthians, and the surroundings in which they lived, may have promoted to some extent the excesses into which they were running, but such exceptional circumstances do not account for those excesses ; they were, in fact, exactly what must be expected wherever Christians were conscious of the Spirit's presence, and believed that he must make his presence known in marvellous and mysterious ways. Corinth certainly was not alone in that consciousness and in that belief; both were widespread in the apostolic age. The most notable and characteristic feature of the Corin- thian services, as described by Paul, is the immediate activity and the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit. It was supposed that those who took part in the meetings did it not on their own impulse, but under the impulse of the Spirit, and that all their utterances consequently were divinely inspired. The Spirit was supposed to be the ac- (Acts xxvi. 24), very likely under the impression of the same kind of enwrapt and enthusiastic utterance which marked the addresses of the prophets, and aroused in believers the conviction that they spoke under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Cf. also 1 Cor. xiv. 23, where the same accusation of 'mad- ness follows the speaking with tongues. The reputation of being adepts in the arts of magic, which was naturally prompted not only by their exhibition of miraculous power, but also by their prophesying, had not a little to do with the persecutions which the Christians had to suffer. See below, p. 628 sq. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 521 tive power; the Christians that spoke were simply his in- struments or organs. Whoever had a psalm, or a teaching, or a revelation, or a tongue, or an interpretation, 1 received it from the Spirit, and when he communicated it to his brethren, it was accepted as a divine and not a mere human utterance. It is in the light of this fact that the freedom which characterized the Corinthian services must be inter- preted. That freedom seems at first sight to have been complete. The confinement of the right to participate in the meetings to a certain class or to certain regularly appointed individuals was evidently quite unknown. Every Christian had the right to take such part as he wished, and the woman's right was equal to the man's. But the recognition of that right was not due to the Corinthians' recognition of the equality of all believers; it was due to their reverence for the Spirit of God. A disciple had the right to take part in the services not because he was a Christian possessed of equal privileges with all his brethren, but simply because he was an organ of the Spirit, and it was the Spirit's will that he should speak. Unless the Spirit prompted him, he had no right whatever. And hence the freedom which is so character- istic a mark of the services as they appear in Paul's epis- tle was, after all, decidedly limited. There was freedom only for the Spirit, not for men as men. But it was their belief in the Spirit's presence and activity that led the Corinthians to value most highly, as they evidently did, those gifts which were most striking and mysterious and seemed therefore to involve a larger measure of the Spirit's action. Thus the gift of tongues, in the exercise of which a man was least master of himself and most completely under the influence of another power, was especially esteemed. 2 And in this the Corinthians were not alone. So pre-eminently did this gift seem to reveal the action of the Spirit, that the speaker with tongues was called "The Spiritual " in an especial sense. 3 1 1 Cor. xiv. 26. 2 Of. 1 Cor. xiv. 2. On the gift of tongues, see above, p. 50 sq. 3 Thus Paul apparently uses the word irvev/j.a.TiK6s in 1 Cor. xii. 1, and xiv. 37 ; and as his own conception of the spiritual man was very different, it 522 THE APOSTOLIC AGE This of course does not mean that the gift of tongues was regarded as the only truly spiritual gift, but it does indicate that it was looked upon as peculiarly such. But the Corinthians' belief in the presence of the Spirit, and in his controlling activity in the religious services of the church, led naturally and almost universally to just such disorder and confusion as Paul condemns in his epistle. A man might be controlled by his brethren. If he spoke too long or too often, if he interrupted others that were speaking or disregarded the ordinary rules of decorum, he might easily be checked and quiet and order- liness be preserved. But when it was the Holy Spirit who was prompting his utterances, who could venture to interfere ? Would it not be blasphemy to -put restraints upon the divine activity? It is clear that the question was a serious one. It cannot be supposed that the Corin- thian Christians were entirely indifferent to the condi- tion of things which existed among them, that they were quite satisfied with the confusion and disorder that reigned in their services and cared nothing about it. The very fact that they asked for light from Paul touching those endowed with the Spirit, 1 indicates that many of them, at least, were troubled about the matter. The confusion, therefore, is not to be ascribed to bad motives on the part of the Corinthians, as if they were governed solely by per- sonal pride or ambition or jealousy and each one desired to take a prominent place in the meetings, to display his own gift, and to show himself superior to his brethren. Doubtless the speakers themselves were for the most part entirely honest and sincere, and deprecated the confusion and disorder ; but when the Spirit prompted them to speak, what could they do ? Must they not obey at once ? Were they not mere instruments of the Spirit, subject completely to his control? Evidently it was not merely a question between true and pretended inspiration, or between the would seem that he must have followed in these passages the usage common among his readers or in the church at large. Cf . also 1 Thess. v. 19 ; and see Gunkel : Die Wlrkungen des he'digen Geistes, S. 20 sq. ; and Heinrici : Das erste Sendschreiben an die Korinthier, S. 347 sq. l Cf. 1 Cor. xii. 1. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 523 worthy and unworthy exercise of spiritual functions ; it was a question of conscience, and it demanded careful consideration. In his treatment of the subject Paul lays down two principles of far-reaching importance. The first is, that all that is done in the services of the church must be done primarily for the edification of those present. The pur- pose of the service, according to Paul, is not that the individual may exercise his spiritual gifts, or commune with God and offer prayer and praise to him, but that all may be edified. If any one takes part, he is to do it for the sake of his brethren ; that he may contribute something which will bless them. And so only such gifts are to be exercised, and only under such conditions, as will best promote the edification of all. Thus the value of any gift depends not upon its mysterious and marvellous character, but upon its usefulness. But the application of such a test involved of course a great change in the Corin- thians' estimate of the various charismata. Speaking with tongues, instead of being the most important of all, was relegated by Paul to an inferior place and the exercise of it was brought within narrow limits, and even forbidden alto- gether unless an interpreter were present. 1 This does not mean that Paul intended to deny the spiritual character of the gift of tongues ; on the contrary, he saw in it a clear evidence of the Spirit's presence and activity, and he con- sequently wished that all his readers might exercise the gift, 2 and thanked God that he had it in larger measure than any of them. 3 But in spite of that, he would rather in the church speak five words with his understanding that he might instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue. 4 In the church, that is, in the meet- ings of the Christians, all must be done for edification ; each one must there have in view not his own but his brother's profit. Whatever gifts, therefore, a man may exercise at home or in private, when he meets with his brethren, let him eschew everything that will not benefit and bless them. 1 1 Cor. xiv. 27 sq. 2 1 Cor. xiv. 5. 3 1 Cor. xiv. 18. 4 1 Cor. xiv. 19. 524 THE APOSTOLIC AGE But the statement of this principle at once raises a difficulty. How can a man refuse to utter what the Spirit gives him? How can he refrain from speaking with tongues when prompted thereto, even though there be no interpreter present, and hoAV can he refrain from prophesying when the revelation is imparted to him, even though another is prophesying at the same time? In answer to this question Paul lays down a second prin- ciple, no less important and far-reaching than the first. "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets," he says in vs. 32. In other words, an inspired man not only can, but has the right to utter or refrain from utter- ing that which is given him, to use it in such a way as his judgment dictates, and to hold it in subservience to the well-being of the church. The utterance is a startling one, but it does not indicate any tendency on Paul's part to detract from the dignity of the Spirit or to disparage his gifts. It is to be noticed that he does not say that the spirits of the prophets are subject to other uninspired men, but only that they are subject to the prophets themselves, and the assumption evidently is that with the gift, if it be a true gift, goes always wisdom to guide the prophet in its use; "for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace," 1 and he cannot intend that his gifts should be employed in such a way as to impede instead of promote the good of the church. But the principle nevertheless is of far-reaching consequence, and its utterance marks an epoch in the history of Christian worship. For the effect of it, in association with the other principle that all things are for edification, must evidently be in the end to subject the action of the Spirit to the will not only of the prophet himself, but also of the church. If he does not exercise discretion in the use of his spiritual gifts, the church has the right and the duty to exercise it for him, and the complete freedom of the inspired individual must thus yield to the control of the assembled congregation. The way is thus prepared for a regular and stereotyped order of services, and the way is prepared also for the appoint- 1 1 Cor. xiv. 33. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 525 ment of certain persons to take charge of the services and to see that the established routine is followed and all things done decently and in order. Such a stereotyping process and such a development of officialism Paul seems not to have contemplated in writing to the Corinthians, but the principles enunciated by him could hardly have any other effect in the long run. And our sources indicate that the effect ensued in due time. In Rome, before the end of the first century, the process was already well under way, and regularly appointed officials were in control of the services. 1 And long before the middle of the second century, the original freedom seems to have given place almost everywhere to the bondage of liturgical rules, and instead of the simple informal gatherings of the ear- liest days, regular services were held, in which a fixed order was followed, and the privilege of participation was granted only to certain persons and only under well- defined restrictions. 2 In 1 Cor. xiv. 33 Paul implies that the principles laid down in the preceding context were applicable to other churches as well, and he doubtless inculcated them elsewhere as need arose. And so, though the development was due in part to natural conditions and needs which were everywhere similar, 3 there can be no doubt that Paul's influence had much to do with that de- velopment, and that the two principles first enunciated, so far as we know, by him were ultimately responsible for it. It is impossible, of course, when the meetings were of such an informal and spontaneous character as they were in the earliest days, to give a detailed description of them. But the First Epistle to the Corinthians indicates clearly enough the exercises which ordinarily took place. The gift of tongues, as we have seen, was very common and especially prized. But Paul's direction that it should be employed only when an interpreter was present, must 1 Cf. Clement: Ad Cor. 40-42, 44, 59 sq. 2 Cf., e.g., Didache, IX. sq. ; Justin Martyr's Apology, I. 67; and Ignatius: Magn. 4, 7 ; Trail. 7 ; Smyr. 8. 8 In Thessalonica the excesses to which the free exercise of spiritual gifts was leading were producing a reaction against their exercise (1 Thess. v. 19, 20), and what was true there may well have heeii true elsewhere. 526 THE APOSTOLIC AGE ultimately, though not immediately, have put a stop to it. Interpretation involved some peculiar rapport between speaker and interpreter; the latter must be spiritually endowed as well as the former, and such reciprocal endowment cannot have been general at any time and must have grown increasingly uncommon. And so it is not surprising that tongues ceased, as they seem to have done, at a comparatively early day. Prophesying, too, usually constituted a part of the ser- vice. 1 It was as truly a spiritual act as the speaking with tongues, being nothing else than the utterance of revela- tions received directly from God. Whether those revela- tions had to do with the past, the present, or the future, with belief or with conduct, with the individual or with the church, the act was the same. Whatever was imme- diately imparted to a man by the Spirit, and uttered by him under the Spirit's influence, was prophecy. 2 The gift of prophecy was distinguished from the gift of tongues by the fact that the person exercising it, though he might be under great excitement, was entirely aware of what he was saying and of what was going on about him. He was not beside himself, or deprived of consciousness in any such way as the speaker with tongues. Moreover, his ut- terances were intelligible both to himself and to others. 3 1 It is to prophecy that Paul refers in 1 Cor. xiv. 26, when he uses the word " revelation " (dTro/cdXui/'ts). Cf. also the whole of the fourteenth chapter. 2 Examples of various kinds of prophecy are found in the New Testament. Agabus foretells a famine which leads the brethren of Antioch to send help to the Mother Church (Acts xi. 28) . He also announces to Paul the fate that is to befall him in Jerusalem (xxi. 11). The same kind of a prophetic warning is given also by the disciples of Tyre (xxi. 4). So Paul frequently received divine direction at critical junctures (cf. Gal. ii. 2; Acts xvi. 6, 9), and the same was true of Peter and Philip (Acts x. and viii.). Paul had, moreover, many visions and revelations (see, for instance, 2 Cor. xii. 1 sq. and compare the vision of Stephen, Acts vii. 56) ; and indeed his whole Gospel rested upon a revelation, and was thus an inspired Gospel. He received announcements of God's will, also, for the guidance of the church (compare, for instance, 1 Cor. vii. 10, xiv. 37) and was granted knowledge of the future for the instruction and encouragement of his brethren (compare 1 Cor. xv. 23, 50; 2 Thess. ii. 3). The most notable example of prophecy in the New Testament is the Apocalypse, which purports to be from beginning to end the record of a revelation vouchsafed by Christ to the author, while he was in the Spirit (Rev. i. 1, 10). 8 Tongues required interpretation, prophecy did not (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 2 sq., 28 sq.). THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 527 The prophet was thus at the same time a teacher, for the revelations which he received and uttered were for the instruction of those to whom he spoke; but he differed from the ordinary teacher in that he imparted not what he had acquired by study or thought or reflection, but only what was directly given him, only what he saw or heard. He \vas simply the mouthpiece of the Spirit, and his own wisdom and attainments played no part in the matter. It was because the utterances of the prophet were fitted to instruct and edify others, that Paul ranked the gift of prophecy so much higher than the gift of tongues. "He that speaketh in a tongue, edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth, edifieth the cl\urch," he says in 1 Cor. xiv. 4, and while he expresses the wish that all might speak with tongues, he is much more anxious that all should prophesy. 1 In prophecy he sees the greatest power, not only for the upbuilding of the saints, but also for the conviction and conversion of unbelievers. 2 The gift upon which Paul lays such emphasis was a very common one in the apostolic age. There were prophets not only in Paul's churches, but also in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Csesarea. 3 Moreover, the gift was confined to no particular class of Christians. Women as well as men prophesied in Cor- inth, 4 and Paul's wish that all might prophesy, shows that the gift was not the prerogative of a special order or office. 5 But when the gifts of the Spirit were valued so highly as they were in those early days, it was natural that there should be some who pretended to gifts which they did not 1 1 Cor. xiv. 5. 3 Acts xi. 27, xiii. 1, xv. 32, xxi. 9. 2 1 Cor. xiv. 24. 4 1 Cor. xi. 5 ; cf. also Acts xxi. 9. 5 1 Cor. xiv. 5, 24, 31 ; cf . also Acts xix. G. It is one of the most notable signs of the enthusiastic spiritual character of the early church and of its vivid consciousness of being under direct divine control and in intimate com- munion with God, that the belief in prophecy was universal and the exercise of the gift so widespread. Even in the second century when the primitive enthusiasm and spontaneity had already largely passed away, Christians still believed in the continuation of prophecy and there were still prophets in the church (cf., e.g., Didache, XI. ; Epistle of Barnabas, XVI. ; Ignatius: Phil. 1 ; Hernias: Mand. XI.; Justin: Dial. 81, 88; and see Harnack's edition of the Didache in the Texte and Untersuchungen, II. 1, S. 123. Only under the pressure of its controversy with the Montanists in the latter part of the second century did the church at large finally come to the conclusion that prophecy had ceased. 528 THE APOSTOLIC AGE possess, and when all were under excitement and in con- stant expectation of receiving inspiration from on high, it was inevitable that some should imagine themselves prompted by the Spirit when they were not. It was there- fore important that there should be a means of determining whether a speaker was really under the influence of the Spirit, and this was especially needful in connection with the prophets, whose utterances purported to be the word of God for the guidance and instruction of their brethren. And so Paul, in 1 Cor. xiv. 29, directs that while the prophets are speaking the others shall discern, that is, shall determine whether their utterances are really the Spirit's or only their own; and in xii. 3 he gives a test by which the true and the false prophet may be determined : "No man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema ; and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit." This can mean nothing else than that if a man is truly inspired, all that he says will be for the glory of Christ and not the reverse. 1 And so the character of that which is uttered in any meeting by a prophet is to be weighed by his brethren before its divine origin is ad- mitted. If there is in it anything unchristian or anything that detracts from the honor of Christ, it cannot be accepted as God's word. 2 But evidently no test could be given which would enable Christians to determine absolutely in every case whether the Spirit of God was speaking or only a man, and hence some were supposed to be endowed with a special charisma which made it possible for them to dis- tinguish the false from the true : the charisma of " discern- ing of Spirits," as Paul calls it. 8 In addition to prophecy and speaking with tongues, Paul mentions teaching as another part of the religious ser- vices. 4 Prophecy was itself a form of teaching, but in 1 Cor. xiv. 6 and 26, teaching is distinguished from prophecy 1 A similar though somewhat more specific test is given in 1 John iv. 2 (cf . also Gal. i. 8) . In the Didache (XI.) the prophet's conduct is made a test of his divine calling, but it is implied in the beginning of the same chapter that the agreement of his teaching with that which the readers have already received must also be taken into account. 2 Cf. also 1 Thess. v. 21. * 1 Cor. xii. 10. 4 1 Cor. xiv. 2. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 529 as a special function, and the gift of teaching is likewise distinguished from the gift of prophecy in 1 Cor. xii. 8 sq. and Rom. xii. 6 sq. 1 The difference between the two lay in the fact that while prophecy was the utterance of a reve- lation received directly from God, teaching, specifically so called, was the utterance of that which one had gained by thought and reflection. The teacher might be led and guided by the Spirit, indeed, he must be, if he were to be a true teacher and his teaching truly spiritual, but what he said was in a real sense his own. He was thus an inspired man, but not a mere mouthpiece of the Spirit. It was the especial function of the man endowed with the gift of teaching to expound and apply and draw lessons from the revelations of God imparted either to the ancient prophets or to the prophets of the present, and he might deal with the simplest matters or delve deep into the mys- teries of divine truth. His gift might not display the immediate activity of the Spirit to the same extent as the gift of tongues or of prophecy, but its usefulness was very great, as Paul himself indicates in more than one passage. 2 It was largely by its exercise that the church was enabled to preserve its balance and was kept from running into all sorts of spiritual excesses and eccentricities. The quietness and soberness which naturally attached to it constituted an excellent counterpoise to the excitement and frenzy which attended prophecy and speaking with tongues. The exercise of the gift in the service invited those present to thought and reflection, and enabled them to understand better both themselves and the Gospel, and to make a wiser use of the spiritual riches offered them by the prophets. It was, indeed, only as they were care- fully instructed in the meaning of the Gospel that they were competent to test the truth of the utterances of the prophets, and to estimate their worth. Paul's epistles are very largely devoted to the impartation of instruction which his teaching charisma fitted him to give, and in all of them 1 Cf. also 1 Cor. xii. 28, and Eph. iv. 11, where teachers are distinguished from prophets. 2 Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 6; also xii. 8, and xiv. 26, in both of which passages teach- ing is mentioned before prophecy. 530 THE APOSTOLIC AGE he assumes that his readers have received such instruction from the beginning. The common conceptions of Chris- tianity which prevailed in the church, and some of which finally crystallized into the creeds and confessions of the second and subsequent centuries, were much more largely the fruit of thought and reflection than of immediate reve- lation. Teaching, specifically so called, had more to do with them than prophecy. And yet though the gift of teaching was so useful, and though its permanent influence upon the life and thought of Christendom was so great, in a church like that of Corinth, where so much was made of those gifts which were most mysterious and marvellous (and Corinth was not unique in this respect), the gift of teaching must have seemed of comparatively little value, and its exercise was very likely completely overshadowed by tongues and prophecy. There can have been little opportunity for quiet instruction and little inclination to listen to it where there was such activity and where so many were clamoring for utterance as in the meetings described by Paul. But when the principles laid down by Paul for the conduct of the services were put into practice, the teaching function found a much larger exer- cise, and as the early enthusiasm abated somewhat and spiritual ecstasy grew less general and constant, the influ- ence of the man endowed with the teaching charisma rapidly increased. Other exercises which commonly constituted a part of the services of the early Christians were praise and prayer. In 1 Cor. xiv. 26 Paul mentions praise first of all, and from the word he uses, 1 and the way in which he speaks of it, it is evident that it took the form ordinarily of a psalm, which was sung or spoken by this or that individual believer under the impulse of the Spirit. The psalm of praise might be unintelligible, constituting simply a form of the speaking with tongues, or it might promote the edification of those present, just as prophecy and teaching did. 2 In either case it was the utterance of a man spiritu- ally endowed, and it formed his contribution to the service. 3 Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 15. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 531 Paul does not indicate whether the psalm was ordinarily sung or simply spoken. It was as much a psalm in the one case as in the other, and doubtless the practice varied according to individual tastes and talents. That singing was common is clear from Eph. v. 19 and Col. iii. 16, as well as from Pliny's epistle to Trajan, in which he says that the Christians were accustomed "to sing responsively a song unto Christ as God." 1 The psalms thus sung or spoken were doubtless in some cases new and original with those that uttered them, in other cases old and familiar to all. Their spiritual character and their fitness to voice one's praise did not depend upon their originality. A few examples of early Christian hymns are found in the New Testament, some of them without doubt composed by the writers themselves with an immediate reference to the subject in hand, others possibly already current in the church. 2 Paul does not mention prayer as distinguished from praise in 1 Cor. xiv. 26, but that it must have consti- tuted a part of every religious service of the early Chris- tians goes without saying, 3 and in xi. 4 it is explicitly referred to, and in xiv. 15 is expressly distinguished from praise. Like the latter, it might be intelligible, and thus edifying to all present, or it might be simply a form of the speaking with tongues, and as such of benefit to no one except the man himself; 4 but in either case it was thought of, like all the other exercises, as prompted by the Spirit, and of course the same freedom attached to it as to them. Any one might offer prayer at any time and in any form, just as he might speak with tongues or prophesy. The earliest set form of Christian prayer known to us is the Lord's prayer, which is reported only by two of the evan- gelists, Matthew and Luke, but of whose authenticity 1 Carmenque christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem; in epistle No. 96 (07) of Pliny's collected epistles, written in 110 or 111 A.D. See my transla- tion of Eusebius, p. 165. 2 Cf., e.g., Rev. xix. 1-3, 6 sq., xi. 17 sq., iv. 11, v. 9-13, xv. 3 sq. For other songs see Luke i. 40 sq., (J8 sq., ii. 14, 29 sq. Upon the whole subject see Weizsacker, I.e. S. 557 sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. II. p. 259 sq.). 3 Cf. Acts ii. 42; also 2 Cor. i. 11, where common prayer is spoken of. 4 1 Cor. xiv. 14, 532 THE APOSTOLIC AGE there can be no doubt. It is possible that the Aramaic word "Abba," in Rom. viii. 15 and Gal. iv. 6, points to its common use in Paul's day. 1 At any rate, it was gener- ally employed in the second century, if not already in the first. The earliest distinct reference to it outside of the Gospels is in the Teaching of the Apostles, where it is repeated in full, and Christians are directed to pray thus three times a day. 2 In the same work other set forms of prayer are given, to be used in connection with the eucharistic service, 3 but it is expressly stipulated that the prophets shall not be bound by such forms, but shall be permitted to give thanks at as great length as they please. This stipulation is very significant, for it shows how pre- scribed forms of prayer gradually took the place of the free prayers of the earliest days. Prayer being regarded as a spiritual exercise indulged in only under the prompting of the Spirit, it became necessary in the services, as the consciousness of inspiration grew less general, to depend for it, as well as for prophecy and teaching, upon certain peculiarly favored individuals, and in their absence to repeat the prayers offered by them when present. The forms prescribed in the Didache for use in the absence of prophets were without doubt regarded as inspired utter- ances, and the repetition of them was thought to be the best that could be done when genuine inspiration for new and spontaneous prayer was lacking. 4 In addition to prayer, praise, teaching, prophecy, and tongues, there is reason to suppose that the reading of the Scriptures also constituted commonly a part of the services of the early Christians. Such reading is not mentioned in 1 Cor. xiv. 26, but the omission of a specific reference 1 See Weizsacker, I.e. S. 556 sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. II. p. 258 sq.). 2 Didache, VIII. See the notes in loc. in Harnack's edition of the Didache (Texte und Untersuchungen, II. 1). * Didache, IX. sq. * In Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, chaps. 59-61 , an extended prayer is given which was doubtless in common use in the church of Rome, for it bears no relation to the object of the epistle, and can hardly have been composed by Clement for the occasion. According to Justin (Apol. I. 67), the president, that is, evidently, the bishop, who was in charge of the service prayed in such form as he pleased. But before the end of the second, century an established liturgy was almost everywhere in use. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 533 to prayer in the same passage shows that the enumeration was not intended to be exhaustive, and Paul's silence therefore cannot be urged as a proof that the Scriptures were not read in the services of the Corinthian church. 1 There is the same lack of reference to the matter in all our first century sources, 2 but the familiar acquaintance with the Old Testament which Paul and other early writers assume on the part of those whom they address, and the emphasis upon its divine character and upon its value both as law and prophecy, which was so widespread from the beginning, among Gentile as well as Jewish Christians, make it practically certain that the Scriptures were dili- gently read and expounded in their meetings. 3 Justin Martyr tells us that they were thus read in his day, 4 and there is every reason to think that the custom existed from the beginning. Least of all the exercises which have been described could the reading of the Scriptures be regarded as a spir- itual function. And yet even here the influence of the Spirit must have been recognized, prompting a Christian to impart something from the word of God for the instruc- tion and edification of those present, and quickening his appreciation and apprehension of its meaning. A pre- scribed exercise in the service the reading can hardly have been in the early days of informality and freedom. It must have been, like all the other functions, the voluntary contribution of this or that brother ; and it was doubtless by those endowed with the gift of teaching that the Script- ures were most commonly employed in the meetings. Upon selected passages, either read or repeated from mem- ory, they very likely based much of the instruction which 1 The fact that reading was not naturally subject to abuse, may have led to the omission of it in 1 Cor. xiv. 26. 2 But see Acts i. 20, iv. 25, xv. 10 sq. 8 Cf., e.g., in the epistles of Paul such passages as Rom. vii. 1 ; 1 Cor. ix. 18, xiv. 21, 34, xv. 1 sq. ; 2 Cor. vi. 16 sq. ; Gal. iv. 26. The large use of the Old Testament in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in 1 Peter, and in Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians is also to be noticed. Especially significant are the words of Clement in chap. 5'i : " For ye know and know well the sacred Scriptures, dearly beloved, and ye have searched into the oracles of God " (cf. also chap. 62). 4 Justin's Apology, I. 67, 534 THE APOSTOLIC AGE they had to impart to their fellows. Thus is best ex- plained the fact that the familiarity of the church at large with the Old Testament seems to have been confined in the main to certain portions of it, particularly to such portions as could be understood in a Messianic sense. A body of Messianic predictions was thus brought together at an early day, and nearly all the apologetic writers of the second and subsequent centuries drew largely upon it, the same passages recurring again and again in early Christian literature, and nearly always with the same interpretations. In addition to the Old Testament Scriptures, there is reason to think that records of Christ's life, and especially of his words, were widely read in the meetings of the primitive Christians. We know that such records were composed at an early day, and that some of them were made use of by the authors of our Gospels ; l and as the words of Christ were everywhere recognized as possessing authority in the church, 2 it is altogether probable that Christians were increasingly careful to acquaint them- selves and their brethren with those words as transmitted either orally or in writing. At the same time it would be a grave mistake to suppose that our Gospels or any other Gospel records were looked upon as " Scripture " during the period with which we are dealing. The only "Scripture," that is, the only sacred and authoritative text which the church had, was the Jewish Bible. The ascription to the records which contained them of the sacredness and authority which attached to Christ's words was not thought of until well on in the second century. Not because they were written, but because they had fallen from Christ's lips, were his words authoritative, and their authority was not in the least diminished because they were transmitted orally rather than in writing. Indeed, Papias valued the oral traditions more highly than the written records, and in this he doubtless voiced the senti- ment of many of his contemporaries. 3 So far, therefore, 1 See below, p. 569 sq. 2 Cf., e.g., 1 Cor. vii. 10, ix. 14, xi. 23. 8 Cf. Eusebius: H.E. III. 39, 4. I embrace this opportunity to correct the interpretation of Papias' words given in my edition of Eusebius, Bk. III. chap. 39, note 11. I am now convinced that the words &K TUV Bi^SX/wi/ refer not, THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 535 as such Gospel records were read or quoted in the services of the early Christians, they were regarded not as the revealed and inspired word of God, but simply as sources from which a knowledge of Christ's utterances or of his deeds might be drawn. That the epistles of Paul were also read to the assembled Christians in the various churches addressed is clear from such passages as 1 Thess. v. 27 and Col. iv. 16. That they must have been thus read goes, indeed, without saying. And the same is equally true of other epistles, whether written by one church to another, 1 or by apostles, prophets, and other men of like repute. 2 The public reading of such epistles and other writings did not, of course, mean that they were regarded as Scripture and put upon the same plane with the Jewish Bible. Many of them might in time acquire such canoni- cal dignity and authority, but during the period with which we are dealing there was no thought of such a thing. As already remarked, the only " Scripture " was the traditional Jewish canon, and neither gospels nor epistles nor apocalypses found in those early days a place alongside of the old law and prophets. 3 We have been dealing thus far only with those parts of the religious service in which there was a mutual inter- change of the gifts of the Spirit, or in which the impart- ing of inspiration, instruction, and edification was the as maintained by Lightfoot, to written expositions or interpretations of the utterances of Christ, but to the Gospel records themselves which contained such utterances. 1 As, for instance, the epistle of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth, commonly known as Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians, which was read in the church of Corinth on the Lord's day as late as 170 A.D., as was also the later epistle of the same church, written by the hand of Bishop Soter. See Eusebius : H.E. IV. 23, 11. 2 Not only the epistles which are contained in our New Testament canon, including the Apocalypse (compare Rev. i. 3, and xxii. 16, 18), were thus read, but also many other epistles and works of various kinds. Thus, for instance, the Shepherd of Hennas was widely read in the public services in the second century (compare Vis. II. 4) , not to mention the epistles of Barnabas, Ignatius, Polycarp, and many others. 8 The implied inclusion of Paul's epistles in the " Scriptures " by the author of 2 Peter (iii. 16)- is one of the many signs of the late date of that epistle (see below, p. 602). Neither Paul's letters nor any of the other writings which are contained in our New Testament canon were regarded as Scripture until well on in the second century. 536 THE APOSTOLIC AGE chief end subserved. But there was another function of an entirely different kind which constituted from the very beginning an important feature of the gatherings of Christian disciples, and that was the Lord's Supper. It is not necessary to suppose that such exercises as have been described did not occur in connection with that feast. It is altogether probable that when Christians came together to break bread, they spoke and prayed and prophesied as they had opportunity or as the Spirit gave them utterance. 1 But at the same time a distinction may fairly be drawn between the services which have been considered and the meetings for partaking of the Lord's Supper. Such services might be held on many occasions and in many circumstances when there was no opportunity for eating a common meal. According to Pliny, the Chris- tians of Bithynia in his time met twice on a stated day: in the morning to sing a hymn and to join in a pledge, and again later to partake of a common meal, 2 and there are indications that in Corinth a similar custom was ob- served. At any rate, the exercises which Paul mentions in the fourteenth chapter of First Corinthians cannot well have taken place in the meeting which he describes in the eleventh chapter under the circumstances that existed in that meeting; and in xiv. 24 unbelievers are repre- sented as being in attendance, while they can hardly have been present at the common meal. 3 Though the custom which thus seems to have been followed in Cor- inth, and later in Bithynia, may not have been universal, and though hard and fast lines between the two kinds of services must not be drawn, it is safe to assume that Christians everywhere met together, sometimes with the particular purpose of partaking of the Lord's Supper, at other times with an altogether different aim. It was seen in an earlier chapter that the Lord's Supper was eaten by the primitive disciples of Jerusalem, and there can be no doubt that it was everywhere celebrated in the churches of the apostolic age. The only descrip- 1 Cf., e.g., Acts xx. 7. 2 See Pliny's epistle referred to on p. 531, above. 8 Cf. also Weizsiicker, I.e. S. 548 sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. II. p. 249 sq.). THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHtTRCH AT LARGE 537 tion of it which we have in the literature of the period is found in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. 1 In that epistle he is led by certain abuses which attached to the Supper in Corinth to reprove his readers very sharply, and to indicate his own conception of the service and the principles which ought to govern its observance. It seems that the Corinthians were in the habit of meeting together for the purpose of partaking of a common meal, just as the early disciples of Jerusalem had been in the habit of doing, and that at that meal they ate bread and drank wine with an especial reference to Jesus, thus making a commemora- tive and religious feast of it. 2 But at the time Paul wrote his epistle, the meal, which should have been a holy meal from beginning to end, had degenerated into a scene of discord and debauchery. Each was concerned to satisfy his own appetite without any regard to his brethren, and the spirit of Christian brotherhood, and even the common rules of decency, were violated in a shocking way. It was under these circumstances that Paul reminded them that the commemoration of Christ's death was the chief purpose of the meal and not the eating and drinking for their own sakes, and he therefore commanded them to satisfy their hunger at home, so that when they came together they might give themselves wholly to the reli- gious part of the service, and might be in a condition to commemorate Christ in the right spirit. 3 The principle thus voiced by Paul is of far-reaching significance. It means logically the doing away of the simple and informal character of the Lord's Supper, of the identification of that Supper with every meal eaten by Christians, and the substi- tution of a specific and formal religious service in which 1 1 Cor. xi. 18 sq. 2 The common meals which were very much in vogue in the heathen world of the period may have had some influence upon the common meals of the Christians, contributing to their frequency and moulding to some extent the practices connected with them (cf . especially Hatch's Hibbert Lectures on the Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages on the Christian Church, p. 300), but it is not necessary to look to those feasts for an explanation of the common meals of the Christians. The impulse thus to meet together was given by the con- ception of the church as a family, and Paul without doubt instituted the Lord's Supper in all his churches at the very beginning. 3 1 Cor. xi. 22, 34. 538 THE APOSTOLIC AGE eating and drinking are purely symbolic acts. Thus a ceremonial rite takes the place of a real meal, and a line is drawn between the sacred and the secular. Instead of the permeation of every ordinary meal with a sacred char- acter, there is the distinct setting apart of a particular feast, or rather the institution of a special symbolic feast, to which attaches a purely religious meaning, so that the secular character of all other meals is tacitly recog- nized. Though the Lord's Supper was everywhere eaten by Christian disciples before Paul, it may be said in a certain sense that it was established by him; for it was he, so far as our sources enable us to judge, who first made it a special meal, and separated it from all others. It is significant that his action was due to the abuses which had arisen in connection with the Supper as eaten in the ordinary way. It was in order to meet a practical emer- gency that he laid down a principle which was destined ultimately to find acceptance everywhere, not only because of his authority, but also and chiefly because the same difficulties which made their appearance at an early day in Corinth must at some time or other make their appearance in other places as well, even though in less offensive form. While the original sense of Christ's immediate presence was real and vivid, every meal, as every meeting, of the disciples would naturally bear a sacred character and be permeated with a holy meaning; but as that sense grew gradually fainter, as it did with the passage of time, with the multiplication of converts, and with the delay of the parousia, the difficulty of preserving the sacred character of all meals and all times must increase, and the need of setting apart certain special times and instituting certain special meals of a more sacred character must be increas- ingly felt. It is one of the strange paradoxes of history that the great apostle of liberty, who did more than any one else to oppose and destroy the reign of rites and cere- monies, should yet have laid down principles in relation both to the services of the church in general, and to the Lord's Supper in particular, which were essentially formal and stereotyping in their effect. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 539 It was some time before the principle enunciated by Paul in connection with the Lord's Supper was carried out to its logical result. It was not his intention in his Epistle to the Corinthians to lay down a general law which should govern all churches. He was concerned simply to provide against a particular difficulty which had arisen in Corinth, and to prevent the recurrence of disgraceful scenes which may not have been common elsewhere at that time. And so it is not strange that so long as similar diffi- culties did not arise in other churches, they should con- tinue to unite the observance of the Lord's Supper with a regular meal. In Syria and Asia Minor at the time the Teaching of the Apostles and the epistles of Ignatius were written, and in Bithynia in the time of Pliny, the Lord's Supper and the common meal, or agape, seem to have been combined. 1 But in Rome, when Justin Martyr wrote his Apology, the Lord's Supper was attached to the regular Sunday service of worship, and the agape had dis- appeared altogether or was held at some other time. 2 And though the common meal lingered on in some quarters for many generations, it was gradually prohibited because of the excesses to which it frequently gave rise, as it had done at an early day in Corinth. Paul's conception of the significance of the Lord's Sup- per appears in 1 Cor. xi. 24 sq. and x. 16 sq. In the former passage he repeats the words of institution as he had learned them, and then adds, in vs. 26, a comment of his own, which shows that he conceived of the Supper primarily as a memorial feast in which the death of the Lord, the great central fact in the Pauline theology, was commemorated. In x. 16 sq., on the other hand, he speaks of the Lord's Supper as a communion feast, in partaking of which believers become united not simply with each other, but also with Christ, whose body and blood are symbolized in the bread and wine of which all partake. Thus Paul finds in the Eucharist a symbolic representa- 1 Cf. Didache, X. ; Ignatius: Rom. 7; Smyr. 7, 8, and the Epistle of Pliny referred to above. 2 See Justin's Apology, I. 66. 540 ' THE APOSTOLIC AGE tion of that real and vital union of the believer with the risen Saviour which was fundamental in his conception of the Christian life. In the Lord's Supper are symbolized at once the believer's death with Christ, when he partakes of the cup which represents Christ's blood, and his living union with him, when he partakes of the bread which represents his abiding presence Avith his disciples. 1 That Paul does not think of the communion with Christ as a realistic or material participation in his body and blood is made plain enough by vs. 18, where he speaks of the Jews as having communion with the altar at their sacrificial feasts ; but he does think, nevertheless, of the real union of the believer with Christ and of the consequent union of believers with each other as symbolized in the common meal, in which one bread and one cup are partaken of by all. The unity of the church, the body of Christ, to which Paul refers in 1 Cor. xii. 27, and which he emphasizes so strongly in his Epistle to the Ephesians, is thus clearly shown forth in the Lord's Supper as he interprets it. Our sources throw little light upon the common concep- tion of the Lord's Supper which prevailed in the church at large during our period. 2 It must have been commonly regarded as a commemoration of Christ's death, and yet that this idea of it was not everywhere prominent appears from more than one second-century writing. 3 It was not long before there were read into it many ideas entirely foreign to the thought of Christ himself and equally for- eign to the thought of Paul, ideas developed on the one hand out of the notion of sacrifice, which attached to the Supper at an early day, and on the other hand out of the 1 Weizsacker's reference of the bread to the living Christ and of the wine to his death (I.e. S. 576; Eug. Trans., Vol. II. p. 282) is justified by Paul's words in 1 Cor. x. 16 sq., but not by his words in xi. 24 sq. Verse 26 of the latter chapter makes it clear that in writing that passage Paul was thinking of Christ's death as symbolized by both elements. The fact must be recognized that he was looking at the service from different points of view in the two chapters, and that in chap. x. he brings out with a special purpose a special and secondary idea which does not appear in the other passage. 2 The supper is mentioned in the New Testament only in the Synoptic Gos- pels, in Acts ii. 42, 46, and xx. 7, in 1 Cor. x. and xi., and in Jude 12. 8 Cf., e.g., Didache, IX. and X. ; Ignatius: Eph. 20; Trail. 8; Smyr. 6. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 541 conception of it as a means of grace or of the bestowal of divine gifts upon the participants. 1 In the Teaching of the Apostles, 2 it is expressly com- manded that the Eucharist shall be given only to the bap- tized. The emphasis upon the matter suggests that the principle was not always observed, and that even unbap- tized persons were sometimes permitted to partake of the Supper. But the command doubtless represents the com- mon sentiment and custom of the church at large, and the disregard of it must have been exceptional. As was seen in an earlier chapter, baptism was probably practised in the Christian church from the beginning, 3 and was every- where regarded as the rite by which a believer was received into the Christian circle. It seems to have been origi- nally a baptism of repentance, like the baptism of John, and to have symbolized the purification of the penitent from the sins of which he repented. With his deeper and more spiritual conception of the Christian life, Paul attached a new and profound meaning to the rite, making it symbolize the death of the believer with Christ unto the flesh and his resurrection with him unto the new life in the Spirit. 4 But as Paul's conception of the process of redemption did not find general acceptance, so his inter- pretation of baptism seems not to have prevailed widely. 6 Since it was commonly regarded as the rite which symbol- ized or marked a believer's entrance upon the Christian life, it was possible for it to be interpreted in many ways, according as one or another element in that life was empha- sized. The writings of our period throw no light upon the subject, but in the literature of the second century 6 1 These later ideas cannot be traced here, but the reader may be referred to Harnack's Dogmengeschichte, 3te Auflage, I. S. 200 sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. I. p. 209 sq.). Tlik idea that the Eucharist (a name for the Supper which appears first in the Didache, IX. and in many other second-century writings) is a sacrifice is found early in the second century, the name 6vala being first applied to it in the Didache, XIV. 2 Chap. X. 3 gee above, p. 59 sq. 4 See Rom. vi. 3 sq.; Gal. iii. 27 ; Col. ii. 12 ; and cf. 1 Cor. xii. 13. 5 But compare 1 Pet. iii. 21. 6 See Harnack: Doymengeschichte, 3te Auflage, I. S. 198 sq. (Eng. Trans., Vol. I. p. 206 sq.). Upon the original and later baptismal formula, see above, p. 60 sq. 542 THE APOSTOLIC AGE we find the ceremony pictured under the most diverse aspects. Paul apparently did not perform the rite himself very often; for he regarded it as his business not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. 1 At the same time, his words in 1 Cor. xii. 13 make it clear that all his converts were baptized, as we should expect them to be in view of the profound symbolical meaning which he attached to the rite. 2 It is evident from 1 Cor. i. 14 sq. that he did not regard its administration as the peculiar function or pre- rogative of an apostle or of any ecclesiastical official, and the separation of the descent of the Holy Spirit from the act of baptism, and the ascription to him and to other apostles of the power to impart the Spirit by the laying on of hands, which we find in the Book of Acts, is cer- tainly not in accord with his conception. 3 The ordinary mode of baptism in the apostolic age was immersion, as is proved not only by Paul's figure in Rom. vi. 3 and 1 Cor. x. 2, but also by the Teaching of the Apostles.* The latter prescribes immersion in ordinary cases, but allows pouring under exceptional circumstances, when water is not at hand in sufficient quantity to permit baptism by the former mode. It may safely be inferred from this that while from the beginning baptism was com- monly by immersion, the essential feature of the rite was the use of water and not the mode of its use, and that such an exception as is made in the Teaching of the Apos- tles would have been generally recognized as valid. To assert that in the time of the apostles particular stress was laid upon the external form in connection with such a rite is to run counter to all that we know of the temper of the age. The insistence upon form began early, to be sure, but it did not mark the earliest stag in Christian history. 5 1 1 Cor. i. 14 sq. 2 Cf. also Eph. iv. 5. On the practice of baptizing for the dead, referred to in 1 Cor. xv. 29, see above, p. 272. a See above, p. 97 sq. * C hap. VII. 6 Upon the mode of baptism in earlier and later days, see especially Schaff 's Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, p. 29 sq. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 543 Whether infants were baptized in the apostolic age, we have no means of determining. Where the original idea of baptism as a baptism of repentance, or where Paul's profound conception of it as a symbol of the death and resurrection of the believer with Christ prevailed, the practice would not be likely to arise. But where the rite was regarded as a mere sign of one's reception into the Christian circle, it would be possible for the custom to grow up under the influence of the ancient idea of the family as a unit in religion as well as in all other mat- ters. Before the end of the second century, at any rate, the custom was common, but it did not become universal until a much later time. 1 There can be little doubt that throughout the period with which we are dealing the disciples came together in larger or smaller companies, whether for the break- ing of bread or for mutual edification, as often as they could, and that they did not confine their religious meet- ings to stated days and times. Where the idea of the church as a family and the sense of brotherhood and of separation from all the rest of the world prevailed, as they did in the early days in Jerusalem, 2 and as they seem to have done in all parts of Christendom for a long time, the closest possible association would be natural, and all such association would inevitably bear more or less of a religious character. But in Jerusalem and in other Jew- ish communities the Sabbath or seventh day of the week, when all orthodox Jews refrained from labor, would afford unusual opportunities for religious meetings, and it is very likely that on that day special services were held by the disciples almost from the beginning. It was natural, also, that the first day of the week, on which Jesus arose from the dead, should be an occasion for peculiar rejoicing, and that an effort should be made to mark the day by gathering together in as large numbers as possible; and 1 Tertullian (De Bapt. 18) refers to the practice but condemns it, while Origen defends it and declares that it had existed since the days of the apostles (Ep. ad Rom. Lib. V. c. 9). See Schaff: I.e. p. 31, and Church History, Vol. II. p. 258 sq. * See above, p. 6G sq. 544 THE APOSTOLIC AGE thus the special observance of the Lord's day, which had become established in the second century, may have begun in the very earliest period. 1 We have no command upon the subject in the writings of apostles or in the literature of the apostolic age. Paul esteemed all days alike sacred, and his principles were not such as to lead to the setting apart of any particular times as exclusively or especially holy; but on the other hand he doubtless observed the Sabbath, at any rate when he was in Jerusalem, and he doubtless united with his converts everywhere in com- memorating the resurrection of Christ on the Lord's day, as he commemorated his death in the Lord's Sapper. 2 Our study of the Christian life of the apostolic age has revealed the moving and controlling power of that life in the disciples' vivid sense of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit. It is its spiritual character which dis- tinguishes the age from all subsequent periods in the his- tory of the church. But before the apostles themselves 1 In Pliny's epistle to Trajan it is said that the Christians of Bithynia met twice on a stated day (die stato), which can hardly have been any other day than Sunday. In the Epistle of Barnabas, xv., we read: "Therefore also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose from the dead and was manifested and ascended into heaven." In the Didache, XIV., occurs the command: "On the Lord's day of the Lord (/card KvptaKrjv Kvplov) come together and break bread " ; and in Justin Martyr's Apology, I. 67, is given an elaborate description of the regular Sunday service. That the practice of holding special services on the first day of the week, which were more important and more generally attended than other services, existed already in the apostolic age may be fairly inferred from 1 Cor. xvi. 2, where the Corinthian disciples are directed to lay aside on that day their contributions to the great collection for the saints of Jerusalem ; and from Rev. i. 10, where the author seems to have had in mind the gathering of Christian brethren on the Lord's day. Cf. also John xx. 26, and Acts xx. 7. In addition to the Lord's day weekly fast-days were also widely observed in the second century. The Didache (VIII.) prescribes Wednesday and Friday, and they were for a long time regular fast-days in the church, the former commemorating the betrayal, the latter the crucifixion of Christ. Of such special fast-days we have no trace in the apostolic age. 2 We learn from Rom. xiv. 5 sq. that there was already at the time that epistle was written a decided difference of sentiment in Rome touching the observance of special days, and what was true there was doubtless true in many other places. Cf. Col. ii. 1<5 sq., and see above, pp. 337 and 367 sq. We learn from Heb. x. 25 that there were some Christians who were in the habit of absenting themselves from the services of the church, and the author of the epistle found it necessary to exhort his readers not to follow their example. A similar exhortation i<> faithful attendance is found more than once in the epistles of Ignatius (cf. Mayn. IV.; Phil. VI. ; Smyr. VI.). THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE 545 passed off the scene conditions arose which were calcu- lated to do away ultimately with the primitive spirit and the primitive practice, and which must inevitably lead to the development of formalism and to the partial, if not complete, subjection of the spirit to the letter, of the individual to the organism. The beginnings of that process in the sphere of worship have already been pointed out. We shall have occasion in the next chapter to trace its beginnings along other lines as well. 2N CHAPTER VI THE DEVELOPING CHURCH THE age of the apostles was primarily a missionary age, the age of Christian origins. But it was not simply that, for long before they passed off the scene, the days of seed- sowing were succeeded in many quarters by the days of tendance and husbanding, and the churches planted by the earliest missionaries had entered upon that period of devel- opment which culminated in the orthodox catholic church of the third and following centuries. It is impossible to draw any hard and fast lines in this connection. The attempt to separate distinctly the earlier from the later period must necessarily end in failure. It has been fre- quently said that the apostolic age really came to an end with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., but there is no reason to suppose that that event had any such vital and far-reaching significance as to justify its use as the point of division between the apostolic and post-apostolic ages. The destruction of Jerusalem of course affected Jewish Christians. But the church at large was not Jew- ish, and Jerusalem had long ceased to be the centre of Christendom. The fall of the city was commonly inter- preted by the disciples as God's judgment upon the Jews for their rejection of Christ ; but it did not bring about any break between Judaism and the Christianity of the world at large, for that break had occurred long before, and the judgment of Judaism current in the Gentile church was not in any way affected by it. Not enough attention has been paid to the significant silence of the literature of the late first and early second centuries touching the destruc- tion of Jerusalem. It was formerly thought that many documents must have been written before 70, because they 546 THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 547 do not refer to it. It is now known that they were written after 70, though they do not refer to it, and the fact certainly suggests that the event had far less impor- tance in the eyes of most Christians than has been com- monly supposed. To make the event an epoch in the history of the church, is to give to later Jewish Chris- tianity a far more important place in the development of the church than it deserves, and is to obscure the fact that Christianity had become independent long before, and that its independence was due to causes of a far more vital character than the destruction of a city. The arrest of Paul in Jerusalem at the instance of the Jews, when he was endeavoring to cement the bond between the Jewish and Gentile wings of the church, may fairly be regarded as of greater historic significance for the development of Christianity than the destruction of Jerusalem; but it would involve an equal exaggeration of the significance of Judaism, to make even that the dividing line between the apostolic and post-apostolic ages. It has been claimed that the apostolic age really closed with the death of Paul. But while its history is very largely a history of his life and work, it is not wholly that. There were apostles before he came upon the scene, and there were still apostles after he had passed away. It is true that we know much less about Christianity in the last forty years of the first century than during the life- time of Paul, and that the current was setting very rapidly during those years in the direction of the distinctly sub- apostolic Christianity of the second century. But neither of these considerations justifies us in excluding the years in question from the apostolic age. Paul's death was undoubtedly a fact of momentous importance. But the tendencies which we find dominant in the latter part of the first century were already at work long before his death. Even in his own churches the conditions that existed at the close of the century had begun to exist during his lifetime, and in the churches where his personal influence was not felt his death meant little. If the term " apostle " were to be taken in the broader 548 THE APOSTOLIC AGE sense in which it was widely employed in the primitive church, we should have to bring the apostolic age down well into the second century, when there were still travel- ling missionaries who bore the name of apostles ; but the term early acquired a narrower significance, and has been employed ever since to denote the Twelve and Paul exclu- sively. The phrase "apostolic age " accordingly means in ordinary usage the period in which the Twelve Apostles and Paul, all or any of them, were still upon the scene. And as there is no particular event which can be regarded as a vital epoch dividing the age of origins from the age of development, we shall do well to employ the phrase in its traditional sense, and to bring our study to a close at the time, if that time can be determined, when John, the last of the Twelve, passed away. Not that his death had any great historic significance. It meant even less to the church in general than the death of Paul, but so long as he was alive, it cannot fairly be said that the days of the apostles were gone. The most marked characteristic of the closing decades of the apostolic age is the rapid progress made in the direction of the institutionalism of the second and follow- ing centuries. The chapter dealing with that period, there- fore, may fairly be denominated The Developing Church, and the chief subject of interest in it must be the beginning of the historic process of consolidation and conservation. But the entire history of the period concerns us so far as it can be known, and we may not confine ourselves to the single subject. Indeed, that subject itself can be under- stood only in the light of the general history of which it forms a part. The history of the church of Jerusalem after the rise and spread of Gentile Christianity lies largely aside from the general history of the church ; but it cannot be neglected in a work like this, and it may fitly be considered in the present chapter, because the same process which went on outside of Palestine began in the church of Jerusalem at an early day. It entered, indeed, upon its period of con- solidation and conservation even earlier than other com' THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 549 munities. And so before turning to the developing church in the world at large, we may consider the independent development of the Mother Church of Christendom, and \ve can study it best in connection with the life and character of James, the brother of the Lord, who was for many years the dominant personality in it, and who was the great representative of Jewish Christianity, as Paul was of the Christianity of the world at large. 1. JAMES AND THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM From Mark vi. 3 and Matt. xiii. 55 we learn that Jesus had four brothers : James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. 1 The first named of these brothers, and the oldest of them, if we may judge from his position in the list, was one of the most important figures in the church of the apostolic age, and exerted an influence within the Jewish wing of the church second to that of no other man. And yet he was not one of the Twelve, and apparently not even a disciple until after Christ's resurrection. At least John, in speaking of the brethren of Jesus, records that they did not believe on him, 2 which can mean nothing else than that they did not believe him to be the Messiah ; and though the statement is made in connection with a particular event, whose chrono- logical place in the life of Christ is not certain, it may fairly be concluded from it that they continued in the same state of unbelief throughout the period of his ministry. 3 It is hardly to be wondered at that such should have been the case. That Jesus made a great impression upon his younger brothers during their boyhood life in Galilee cannot be doubted. They must have grown up with an unbounded affection and admiration for him. And yet the very intimacy 1 These " brethren of Jesus " were probably his own brothers, younger sons of Joseph and Mary. Upon the various theories touching their relationship to Jesus, see note in my edition of Eusebius, Bk. I. chap. 12; and especially the elaborate discussion by Mayor in his Epistle of St. James, p. vi. sq. 2 John vii. 5. Mark iii. 31, when compared with iii. 21, suggests that Jesus' brethren, like others of his friends, feared that he was demented, as was not unnatural if they did not believe in his divine call and mission. 8 The fact that Jesus, on the cross, committed his mother to the apostle John, when her own children were still living, goes to show that they were not disciples at the time of his death. 550 THE APOSTOLIC AGE of their association with him, and the simplicity and natu- ralness of his life in the home circle, would make it difficult for them to see in him the Messiah ; and much as they loved him, and confident as they must have been of his honesty and purity of purpose, they could hardly think of one of their own number, who was of humble extraction like themselves, and had passed with them through all the simple and homely experiences of boyhood and youth, as the great Messiah of God, as the chosen one who was to deliver Israel from the yoke of the oppressor and establish the kingdom foretold by the prophets. All those difficul- ties which hindered his townspeople and fellow-countrymen from recognizing him as the Messiah must act upon them, with double force. The words " A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and among his own kin and in his own house," 1 were spoken by Jesus out of his own experience, and no other experience was possible under the circumstances. But within a few weeks after his resurrection, the breth- ren of Jesus were gathered with his followers in Jerusalem, and evidently belonged to the company of his disciples. 2 In the interval, therefore, they must have become con- vinced of their brother's Messiahship. When and under what circumstances their conversion took place, we are not told ; but we have a hint of the occasion that led to it, at least in the case of James. In his First Epistle to the Corin- thians Paul mentions an appearance of the risen Jesus to James, and separates it from his appearances to Peter, to the Twelve, and to the five hundred brethren, in such a way as to imply that it took place later than the others. 3 This fact at once suggests the conclusion that James was not a disciple at the time of those earlier manifestations, but became such as a result of his own vision of the risen Lord. 4 The cir- 1 Mark vi. 4. 2 Acts i. 14. 8 1 Cor. xv. 7. 4 Compare the account of Christ's appearance to James, in the apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews, quoted by Jerome in his De vir. ill. c. 2. Jerome's words are as follows: "The Gospel also which is called the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and which I have recently translated into Greek and Latin and which Origj'ii also often makes use of, after ihc account of the resurrection of the Saviour, says, ' But the Lord, after he had given his grave- plothes to the servant of the priest, appeared to James, for James had sworn THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 551 cumstances under which the other brethren of Christ be- came believers, we have no means of determining. They, too, may have enjoyed, as James did, a special manifesta- tion of the risen Lord, or James may have succeeded in convincing them of the reality of the resurrection, and they may have become believers under his influence. They were at any rate of less importance than James, and we know nothing about their Christian career, except that they were gathered with the disciples in Jerusalem in the days pre- ceding Pentecost, 1 and some twenty or more years later were travelling about apparently doing missionary work. 2 It is necessary to assume, in the light of subsequent events, that James' conversion was complete and thorough- going, and led him to throw himself heart and soul into the service of the Master. He cannot have been a half- hearted disciple. He must have been one of the most zealous, active, and devoted of them all to secure the position which he ultimately held. His relationship to Jesus, and his intimate acquaintance with him from boy- hood, of course made him a marked man among the dis- ciples, and doubtless contributed greatly to his reputation and authority; but such natural advantages do not alone account for the tremendous influence which he wielded for so many years, an influence which he did not share with his brothers. Only because he possessed at the same time the qualities of a leader, and an uncommon zeal and devo- tion, could he acquire the universal credit he enjoyed. But it was not simply his character as a Christian that contributed to James' influence and authority. His char- acter as a Jew counted for a great deal with the strict Jews of the Mother Church. Though he was converted by a vision of the risen Jesus, as Paul was, his conversion pro- that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he drank the cup of the Lord until he should see him rising from the dead.' And again a little later it says, 'Bring a table and bread, said the Lord.' And immediately it is added, 'He took bread and blessed and brake and gave to James the Just, and said to him, My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man is risen from among those that sleep.' " 1 Acts i. 14. 2 1 Cor. ix. 5. In this passage Paul mentions the " brethren of the Lord," without indicating how many of them he has in mind. 552 THE APOSTOLIC AGE duced an entirely different effect upon him. He had appar ently passed through no such experience of the futility of endeavoring to keep the law, and it was not a sense of the need of justification, or of deliverance from sin and death, that led him to Christ. He was evidently before his con- version an uncommonly devout and faithful Jew, and in ac- cepting Christ he never thought of ceasing to be such, or of regarding the observance of the law as of less importance than before. Rather, like his other Christian brethren, he must have regarded it as of even greater importance ; and nothing in the teaching or conduct of Jesus suggested any- thing else to him. All that we know of him points to an excessive reverence for the Jewish law in all its parts, and a most scrupulous observance of it throughout his life, 1 and in a church constituted as the church of Jerusalem was such a tendency naturally promoted greatly his repu- tation for piety. He was thoroughly in sympathy with the religious ideal which prevailed from the beginning in the Mother Church, and he was himself apparently one of the most earnest and faithful of the disciples in its realization. In this respect he was much more nearly in accord with the spirit and tendency of the Christianity of Jerusalem than Peter was, at any rate, after the latter's experience with Cornelius; and it is not to be wondered at that even while Peter and perhaps other apostles were still on the ground, his influence should have been very great, and that after they left the city to carry on missionary work elsewhere, he should have been universally recog- nized as the leading figure in the church. Already, at the time of Paul's first visit to Jerusalem, three years after his conversion, James occupied, appar- ently, a prominent position among the disciples, 2 and eleven years later he was one of the three " pillars " of the church, from whom Paul received the right hand of fellow- ship and with whom he entered into the compact by which 1 Cf. Acts xv. 20 sq., xxi. 20 sq., Gal. ii. 12 sq. ; also Hegesippus, in Euse- bius: H.E. II. 22; and Clement of Alexandria, in Eusebius: H. E. II. 1. 2 Gal. i. 10. Cf. also Acts xii. 17, where it is recorded that Peter, after his release from prison, directed the disciples in Mary's house to tell " James and the brethren " what had happened to him. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 558 Christendom was divided into a Jewish and a Gentile wing. 1 It is significant that James is here associated with Peter and John in the same way that James the son of Zebedee was during the lifetime of Jesus, and it may well be, as suggested in a previous chapter, 2 that after the martyrdom of his apostolic namesake he was chosen as his successor, as Matthias at an earlier time had been chosen to succeed Judas Iscariot. But however that may be, he was at any rate the chief personage in the church of Jerusalem shortly afterwards, when messengers sent by him to Antioch took Peter to task for his conduct and persuaded him to with- draw from association with his Gentile brethren. 3 He was also the leading figure among the disciples some seven or eight years later when Paul visited the city for the last time. 4 The exact position which James held in the church of Jerusalem, it is impossible to define with absolute assur- ance. Tradition, beginning with Clement of Alexandria, who lived and wrote in the latter part of the second cen- tury, makes him the first bishop of the Mother Church, and reports that he was appointed to the office by the apostles. 5 But similar traditions were abroad at that time concerning all the great churches of the world, and little reliance can 1 Gal. ii. 9. It is to be noticed that Paul in this passage mentions James before Peter and John, as if he were of more importance in the church of Jerusalem than even those two apostles. 2 See p. 198, above. Gal. ii. 11 sq. * Acts xxi. 18. 5 Cf . Eusebius : H. E. II. 1, where Clement is quoted as follows : " For they say that Peter and James and John after the ascension of our Saviour, strove not after honour, because preferred by our Lord, but chose James the Just bishop of Jerusalem." There is some doubt as to whether 2\eurrd> dpvovfju-voi in the same verse. 4 Cf . vs. 19. 6 Cf . vss. 4, 8, 13, 16. They were thus closely related in some respects to the false teachers attacked in the Epistle of John, but they bore a still more dis- tinctly Gnostic character, and represented apparently a somewhat later stage of development. Cf . vss. 22 and 23. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 587 The author and the time and place of composition are uncertain. He seems to have been familiar with at least some of Paul's epistles, and he makes use of two late apocryphal works, the Assumptio Mosis and the Book of Enoch, taking the incident which he relates in vs. 9, con- cerning the archangel Michael's contention with the devil, from the former work, and vss. 6 and 14 sq. from the lat- ter. It is worthy of notice that the words in vs. 14 sq. are expressly ascribed by him to the patriarch Enoch. He speaks of the apostles as if they had lived long before, 1 and he uses the word " faith " in the same objective way in which it is used in the pastorals, to denote the deposit handed down from earlier days and which it is necessary for all true Christians to accept and preserve ; and he even goes so far as to speak of such faith as delivered once for all, implying apparently that no farther revelation is possible. 2 These facts, taken in connection with the distinct anti- Gnostic purpose of the author, point to the second century or to the closing years of the first as the time when he wrote. On the other hand, it will hardly do to assign a date later than the first quarter of the second century ; for those whom the writer denounces are still within the church and meet with their fellow-Christians in their love feasts. 3 External testimony does not help us in the matter ; for the first reference to the epistle is in the Muratorian Frag- ment, which belongs to the closing decades of the second century. So far as the personality of the author is concerned, he designates himself as " Judas, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James." The epistle accordingly passes in tra- dition as the work of the Judas who is mentioned in the Gospels as one of the brethren of Jesus, the James referred to being naturally regarded as the well-known brother of the Lord. It may safely be assumed, however, for the reasons already given, that the letter was not written by a Christian of the first generation. The age of Christ and his apostles had long passed, and the author nowhere hints that he himself was a survivor of that earlier i Jude 17. Cf. also vs. 4. 2 C f . vss. 3 and 20. 3 Cf . vs. 12. 588 THE APOSTOLIC AGE age. 1 But it is not necessary to assume that the epistle is a pseudonymous work. It may have been written by a Christian named Jude, who is otherwise entirely unknown to us. It is, at any rate, difficult to understand why an author who wished to give his epistle apostolic authority should have selected the name of Jude, and why, having chosen that name, he should have called himself simply the brother of James, instead of the brother of the Lord, which would have enhanced greatly the dignity and authority of his letter. The same considerations may be urged against the assumption that the name " Jude " was attached to the epistle by some copyist or scribe. But if the author act- ually bore the name, and designated himself in the salu- tation of his epistle, "Judas, a servant of Jesus Christ," it would be the most natural thing in the world for some one in the second century, supposing him to be the brother of the great James referred to in the Gospels, to add the words aSe\0o9 8e 'Ia/cd>/3ot;, thus innocently ascribing the work to the wrong man. 2. PETER AND THE CHURCH OP ROME Of Peter's career during the period when Paul was carrying on his great missionary campaigns, we are almost entirely ignorant. In the earliest days he was the lead- ing figure among the disciples in Jerusalem; and he seems still to have been regarded as such three years after Paul's conversion, for the latter went up to Jerusalem at that time for the express purpose of seeing him. 2 Whether his visits to Lydda, Joppa, and Csesarea, described in the ninth and tenth chapters of Acts, took place before or after this, we do not know. But he was in Jerusalem, at any rate, some eight or ten years later, and was still so prominent a figure among the Christians there that when 1 The brothers of Jesus were doubtless all of them dead long before the Epistle of Jude was written. It is worthy of notice that Hegesippus says in Eusebius (//. E. III. 20) : " Of the family of the Lord there were still living [that is, in the time of Domitian] the grandchildren of Jude, who is said to have been the Lord's brother according to the flesh." The statement of course implies the prior death of all Jesus' immediate family. a Gal. i. 18. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 589 Herod wished to persecute them, he singled him out, along with James, the son of Zebedee, as a special object of attack, beheading James, and throwing Peter into prison. 1 Immediately after his miraculous escape, Peter left the city, 2 and we hear nothing more of him until the time of the council, in the year 45 or 46. It would hardly have been safe for him to return to Jerusalem until after Herod's death, and it is therefore probable that he spent at least a part of the interval away from the city, very likely in missionary work. At the council his influence seems to have been less controlling than in earlier days, and the position of leadership, which he had originally held by common consent, was apparently occupied by James, the brother of the Lord. 3 From that time on, if not already before that time, James, and not Peter, was the prominent figure in the Mother Church. The pre-eminence which he enjoyed may have been largely due to Peter's repeated and extended absences from the city ; but he was naturally more in sympathy with the spirit of the strict Jewish Christians of Jerusalem than Peter, and the knowledge of that fact doubtless tended to undermine somewhat the credit and authority of the latter. James seems to have remained closely at home, and his horizon was not broad- ened by any such experiences as came to Peter in his missionary journeys in the world outside. The liberal tendency of the latter, evinced by his action in connec- tion with Cornelius, by his speech at the council, and by his subsequent conduct at Antioch, was not in harmony with the prevailing tendency in Jerusalem ; and it may fairly be doubted whether he could have retained the com- plete confidence of all his brethren, and could have kept his original hold upon the Mother Church, even had he made his permanent residence there. But however that 1 Acts xii. Herod Agrippa died in 44 A. D. How long before his death the arrest of James and Peter took place, we do not know ; for there is no neces- sary chronological connection between Acts xii. 20 and the preceding context. 2 Acts xii. 17. The author of the Acts seems to have known no more than we know about Peter's whereabouts between this time and the Council of Jerusalem. 3 Not simply is James given a more prominent position in the account of the conference contained in Acts xv. ; he is mentioned before Peter in Gal. ii. 9. 590 THE APOSTOLIC AGE may be, he at any rate left the leadership of the church to others, and spent the greater part of his life in mis- sionary labors elsewhere. Already, at the time of the council, he was known as the great apostle of the circum- cision ; l that is, 'it would seem, as the one who was doing the largest missionary work among the Jews in foreign parts. His presence in Jerusalem is not again referred to, and it is clear, at least, that he was not there when Paul visited the city for the last time seven or eight years later. 2 Where he went after his unfortunate experience in Antioch, to which Paul refers in Gal. ii. 11 sq., we do not know. A few years later he was travelling about as an apostle, in company with his wife, as we learn from 1 Cor. ix. 5 ; but no hint is given as to the scene of his labors. It may well be that he confined himself during this period very largely, if not exclusively, to the province of Syria. It is significant that, although Paul labored in that prov- ince for a number of years after his conversion, he did nothing there in the latter part of his career, and that he wrote no epistle, so far as we know, to any Syrian church. His complete withdrawal from his earlier field of labor, and his apparent lack of responsibility for its welfare, may have been due to the fact that Peter was working there, and thus making Paul's presence and interest unneces- sary. 3 Syria was very thickly populated with Jews, and Peter, who was regarded by Paul and regarded himself as the apostle of the circumcision, would find there a natural and an ample field. But whether there or else- where, he was evidently doing a large work and vindicat- ing his reputation as the greatest of the original apostles. James' credit might be greater in the church of Jerusalem, but in the church at large Peter's missionary activity and his broader spirit, which brought him into closer sympathy with Christians outside of Palestine, could not fail to give him more prominence and influence than James possessed. 4 i Gal. ii. 8. 2 Acts xxi. 18 sq. 8 See Weizsiicker, I.e. S. 46 (Bug. Trans., Vol. II. p. 149). 4 Cf., for instance, the credit and authority which he enjoyed in Corinth, where one of the three parties was named after him (1 Cor. i. 12), and the special emphasis which Paul lays upon his name in 1 Cor. ix. 5. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 591 But though Peter very likely confined himself to Syria during much of the time when Paul was carrying on his missionary campaigns, there can be little doubt that he made his way to Rome before the end of his life and labored there for some time. Clement of Rome, writing before the end of the first century, though he does not explicitly state, certainly does imply that Peter had been in Rome and that he had suffered martyrdom there. 1 Igna- tius of Antioch, also, in writing to the Romans a few years later, says, " I do not enjoin you as Peter and Paul did," 2 which has no meaning unless Peter had preached to them as well as Paul. Dionysius of Corinth, Clement of Alexandria, Irenseus of Gaul, and Tertullian of North Africa, all writing before the end of the second century, refer to Peter's presence in Rome as a well-known fact, 3 and it is mentioned over and over again in the literature of the third and following centuries. But though in the light of such early and unanimous testimony it may be regarded as an established fact that Peter visited Rome, it is equally certain that he cannot have gone thither during Paul's lifetime. His presence there, either before or at the time Paul's Epistle to the Romans was written, is incon- ceivable in view of the absolute silence of that epistle and of the situation which it presupposes. It is equally in- conceivable that he can have been there during Paul's imprisonment when Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and a part of 2 Timothy were written. And yet a somewhat prolonged residence and activity in Rome seem to be imperatively demanded by the traditions of the Roman church, and by the universal recognition which was later given to the claim of that church to be the See of Peter. It is true that there is no single witness to whom we can appeal with any degree of confidence, and it is true, moreover, that the tradition of a twenty-five years' episcopate is worthless. 4 But the honor in which Peter's i Ad Cor. 5 and 6. 2 Ad Rom. 4. 3 Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius : H. E. II. 25 ; Clement in Eusebius, VI. 14 ; Irenaeus : Adv. Hssr. III. 1, 1 ; Tertullian : De Bapt. 4, De Prsescr. Hser. 32, 36 (cf. also Scorpiace, 15). 4 That tradition is found first in Jerome : De vir. ill. 1. 692 THE APOSTOLIC AGE memory was universally held by the Christians of Rome, and the way in which his figure overshadowed that of Paul, can hardly be explained on merely dogmatic grounds. Nothing less than his leadership and personal domination in the Roman church can account for the result. But such leadership and domination could hardly be secured, where there was so much rivalry and division as in Rome at the time Paul wrote to the Philippians, until Peter had labored some time there and gained the confi- dence of all parties. His liberal spirit and his practical sense made it possible for him to unify and consolidate opposing factions as another might not have been able to do, but even he could not do it in an instant. Under these circumstances it is difficult to believe, as is widely taken for granted, that he spent only a few weeks or months in Rome, coming thither just before the Neronian persecution and perishing in that deluge of blood. It must be assumed either that his death did not occur until some years after that time, or that he came to Rome some years before it. The former alternative, though possible, is far from probable. That Peter suffered martyrdom is too well attested to admit of doubt, 1 and that his death oc- curred under Nero was the common belief of the church, at least from the second century on. 2 Moreover, that he suffered in the great Neronian persecution, or at any rate not later than that time, though not explicitly stated by Clement of Rome, is certainly implied in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Corinthians, where the victims of that persecution are said to have been " gathered unto " Peter and Paul; and the tradition that he was crucified, 3 and the statement of Caius of Rome 4 that he was buried in the Vatican, which was the scene of the butchery, both go to confirm the assumption that he was one of those vic- 1 Cf., for instance, John xxi. 19; Clement: Ad Cor. 5. 2 Cf. Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius: H. E. II. 25, and Tertullian : Scorp. 15. Compare also the Chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome, which put Peter's death in 67 and 68 respectively. 3 See Tertullian : De Prsescr. Hser. 36 ; also Origen (quoted by Eusebius : H. E. III. 1). Some scholars find a reference to Peter's crucifixion in John xxi. 18. See, for instance, Lightfoot: St. Clement of Home, II. p. 492. 4 Quoted by Eusebius : //. E. II. 25. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 593 tims. It is not easy, therefore, to believe that he lived until a later time. 1 But if the death of Paul be put back into the year 58, there is no difficulty in supposing that Peter came to Rome some five or six years before Nero's attack upon the Christians, and remained there the rest of his life. His presence and his labors there during that time would then help to account for the fact that the Christians were well enough known in the city before the great conflagration to make it possible for Nero to single them out as scapegoats in order to divert from himself the suspicion of having been the author of the fire ; and a residence of half a dozen years is amply suffi- cient to account for the overmastering influence which he acquired, and for the permanent impression which he left upon the Roman church. Three New Testament books are connected by tradition more or less directly with Peter's name, the First and Second Epistles of Peter and the Gospel of Mark. The occasion, the purpose, and the contents of the First Epistle of Peter have been already indicated; and it has been shown that its author was a genuine Paulinist, truer to the teaching of the great apostle to the Gentiles than any other writer known to us. 2 But this fact sug- gests the question whether the epistle can have been written by the apostle Peter, whose name it bears. And the question is rendered still more pressing by the fact that the Christians addressed in it were Gentiles, 3 and that they lived in that part of the world which had been evangelized by Paul, at least a part of them residing within 1 Ramsay (Church in the Roman Empire, p. 2(52 sq.) assumes that Peter was still alive as late as the year 80, but though it is not impossible it is cer- tainly extremely improbable that he lived until so late a date. 2 See above, p. 485 sq. 3 Cf. 1 Pet. i. 14, ii. 9 sq., iii. 6, iv. 3. The fact that they are called "the elect who are sojourners of the dispersion " in i. 1 cannot be urged as proof that they were Jewish Christians ; for Paul, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Ctement, and Barnabas all looked upon the Christians as children of Abraham and heirs of God's covenant with the fathers ; and there is, there- fore, no difficulty in supposing these words to have been used in a figurative sense of the people of God, the true children of Abraham (whose fatherland is heaven) scattered throughout the world, and surrounded not with their own brethren but with unbelievers aud heathen (compare also i. 17 and ii. 11). 594 THE APOSTOLIC AGE liis own missionary territory, the provinces of Galatia arid Asia. It is surprising, to say the least, that the man who was recognized at the time of the conference at Jeru- salem as "the apostle of the circumcision," and who believed his life-work to be the evangelization of the Jews (as is clear from his conduct at Antioch), should have written an epistle to Gentile Christians, to those, more- over, who owed their conversion to Paul ; and it is still more surprising that a man who had learned his Chris- tianity from Jesus himself, who had been most intimately associated with him throughout his entire ministay, and who, both before and after Christ's death, was the leader among the apostles, should have gone to school to Paul, and should have studied him so faithfully and sympa- thetically that the only epistle which we have from his pen is essentially Pauline from beginning to end. But it is not simply the Paulinism of the epistle that is surprising. No less striking is the entire lack of that element of personal reminiscence which we might justly expect to be very prominent in the letters of a man who stood as near to Christ as Peter did. So far as this letter goes, there is not a hint in it that the author had ever known Jesus personally, except the bare reference in v. 1 to the fact that he was a witness of Christ's sufferings, which probably means that he had seen him crucified. All that he says about him might have been said equally well by Paul, or even by one of Paul's converts. 1 If our epistle was written by Peter, it is necessary to assume that he who was Jesus' leading disciple, and one of his closest companions during his entire ministry, felt Paul's influ- ence to such a degree that his own personal impression 1 The only passage in which there is any reference to Christ's earthly life over and above his death and resurrection, which of course are spoken of fre- quently, as in the epistles of Paul and in all the literature of the period, is 1 Pet. ii. 22-23, where we read: " Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously." But there is nothing in this to betray personal acquaintance with Jesus and quite as much is found in many early Christian documents written by men who were not Christ's immediate disciples (compare, for instance, Rom. xv. 3 ; 2 Cor. x. 1; Clement: Ad Cor. l(i; Barnabas. r; Ignatius: Sniyr. 3; Poly- carp, 10; and especially Heb. ii. 18, iv. 15, v. 7 sq.)> THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 595 of the Master was replaced by Paul's conception of him, and that he who had known Jesus so intimately saw him in his later years only through the eyes of a man who had never looked upon him. The improbability of such an assumption goes without saying. 1 But if we question the Petrine authorship, how are we to explain the words, " Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ," which occur at the beginning of the epistle, and which constitute the sole ground for its ascription to him ? That the letter was originally pseudonymous, that it was given Peter's name by its author, it is very difficult to believe. For if the writer wished his epistle to pass for the work of Peter, it is hardly likely that he would have contented himself with the mere mention of his name in the salutation. We should certainly expect him to assume the character of Peter in other parts of the epistle, or to indi- cate its alleged origin in other ways, as we find the author of Second Peter doing in more than one passage. 2 More- over, it might fairly be expected that if the author wished to write in the name of an apostle, he would choose Paul's name rather than Peter's; for those whom he addressed owed their Christianity to Paul, and with him the writer himself was in closest sympathy. It is difficult, also, to discover any adequate motive for pseudonymity. There were still, at the time the epistle was written, apostles and prophets in the church who were speaking and writing under the influence of the Spirit of God, and it was not necessary for the author to invoke the name of one of the Twelve, in order to secure a hearing and give his words effect. Finally, it is to be remembered that the epistle was called forth by a particular emergency; that it was written to Christians who had recently begun to suffer persecution, and that its aim was to exhort and encourage 1 The difficulty of ascribing the epistle to Peter is enhanced by the fact that the condition of the Christians addressed makes it necessary to bring its composition down to the time of Domitian. Ramsay lays stress upon the late date of the epistle, and is able to ascribe it to Peter only on the assumption that he lived until the year 80 or thereabouts (see above, p. 593). But, as already seen, it is altogether probable that Peter perished in the persecution of Nero in the year 6i. 2 2 Pet, i. 14, 18, iii. 1, 596 THE APOSTOLIC AGE them in the face of the trials they were undergoing. Under these circumstances, to give the letter the name of an apostle who must have been already dead or the writer would not have ventured to use his name would be to defeat its purpose by destroying its special applica- bility to the case in hand. In view of all these considera- tions, it can hardly be supposed that the epistle was origi- nally pseudonymous. It is much more probable that it was anonymous, like Hebrews, Barnabas, and the epis- tles of John, and that it became attached to the name o Peter only in the second century, his name, perhaps, being written upon the margin of a manuscript by some scribe, and adopted thence into the text. This supposition is not without confirmation in the literature of the second cen- tury. Though the epistle was known and used certainly by Polycarp and Papias, and possibly by other early writers, it is nowhere quoted or referred to as Peter's until almost the close of the second century, by Clement of Alexandria, Irenseus, and Tertullian. Even the Mura- torian Fragment fails altogether to mention it, which is very surprising if the author of that fragment knew it to be Peter's. 1 The date of the epistle it is possible to determine with considerable exactness. There can be no doubt that its writer was acquainted at least with the epistles to the Romans and Ephesians, if not with others of Paul's letters. Its composition therefore must be put later than the time of Paul's Roman imprisonment. Still farther, the work shows that a regular and systematic persecution was taking place in Asia Minor as well as elsewhere ; 2 a per- 1 The suggestion that the epistle was originally anonymous was first made by Harnack in his Texte und Untersuchungen, II. 1, S. 100 sq. (cf. also Das Neue Testament um das Jahr 200, S. 81) . But Harnack holds that the name of Peter was added in the second century at the time of the canonization of the epistle in order to give it the requisite apostolic authority. The latter opinion, however, can hardly be maintained in view of the fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews and the three epistles of John found their way into the canon without the addition of an apostolic name. It seems better indeed to regard the addi- tion of Peter's name as the mere chance act of an individual scrilio, who had no idea of giving the epistle canonical authority, but thought he &w good reason for regarding it as the work of Peter. 2 1 Pet. v. 0. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 597 secution which was carried on under the direction of the Roman authorities, and was resulting even in the death of Christians. 1 It had already gone so far, indeed, that the profession of Christianity was itself regarded as wor- thy of punishment, even though other offences could not be proved. 2 This can hardly have been the case during the reign of Nero ; for the disciples were executed by him not as Christians, but as men who were guilty of particular crimes, and there is, besides, no evidence that his persecution extended beyond Rome. Such a state of affairs, therefore, as is depicted in First Peter can hardly have existed until a later day. On the other hand, there is no indication in the epistle that the Chris- tians addressed were called upon to worship the image of the emperor, and that their refusal to do so was visited with punishment, as was the case during the later years of Domitian's reign when the Apocalypse was written with its letters to the seven churches of Asia. 3 The author of the latter work, moreover, looks back apparently upon a period of long-continued persecution, 4 while the author of First Peter speaks of the trial which his readers are under- going as a new thing. 5 And indeed the whole tone of the Apocalypse, with its uncompromising hostility to the em- pire, and with its conviction that between it and the church only enmity is possible, contrasts strikingly with Peter's friendly attitude toward the state, and his hope that the persecution will soon cease. 6 In view of all these consid- erations, it seems probable that our epistle was written later than the reign of Nero, but before the composition of the Apocalypse; that is, probably in the early part of Domitian's reign, some time before the year 90. 7 First Peter was apparently written in Rome. The author sends greetings, in v. 13, from the church " that is in Baby- 1 Cf . 1 Pet. i. 6, iii. 15, iv. 15, 16. * Rev. ii. 13, vi. 10, xviii. 24. 2 1 Pet. iv. 15. 6 i Pet. iv. 12. 3 Cf. Rev. xiii. 15, xx. 4; and see p. 634, below. 6 Cf. 1 Pet, iii. 13 sq., iv. 7, v. 10. 7 If Professor Ramsay be correct in contending that the Christians were persecuted also under Vespasian and Titus (Church in the Roman Empire, p. 253 sq.), it is possible to date the epistle before Domitian's accession, that is, between 70 and 81. But of such persecution there is little evidence. 598 THE APOSTOLIC AGE Ion." The name " Babylon " is employed in the Apocalypse to designate Rome, and though its use in an epistle is somewhat surprising, other equally figurative expressions occur in i. 1 and v. 13, 1 and it is certainly upon the face of it much more likely that a letter to the Christians of Asia Minor should be written from Rome than from dis- tant Babylon, which -played, so far as we know, no part in early church history. The author's acquaintance with Romans and Ephesians also suggests Rome as the place of composition, and the general character of the epistle, with its emphasis upon loyalty to the state and subjection to the civil authorities, points in the same direction. Finally, it is to be noticed that Mark, from whom the author sends greetings, 2 was in Rome, certainly during the latter years of Paul's life, 3 and probably still later with Peter. The writer of the epistle, if it be assumed that it was not Peter himself, we have no means of determining with certainty; but it is at any rate not beyond the bounds of possibility that he may have been Paul's old friend and companion, Barnabas. Barnabas was a Jew, and that the author of our letter was the same is ren- dered exceedingly probable by more than one passage. 1 Barnabas, moreover, was a Hellenist, and the excellent Greek of the epistle and the writer's familiarity with the Septuagint, and his use of it to the complete exclusion of the Hebrew original, point in the same direction. 5 Barna- bas was also a Levite, and the conception of all Christians as priests, which appears in 1 Peter ii. 5 and 9, would be a natural one to him. Still farther, Barnabas was for many years an intimate friend and companion of Paul, and rec- ognizing Paul as he did as the leader in the missionary work they were carrying on together, he must have been greatly influenced by his thinking; and though he did not at once understand him fully and make his profound con- ceptions his own, 6 no one had a better opportunity than he UPet. i. 1: "The elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion"; v. 13: " She that is elect together with you." a 1 Pet. v. 13. s Col. iv. 10. 1 Pet. i. 11, 14, ii. 9. 5 These considerations, of course, make against the Petrine authorship. 6 See above, p. 216. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 599 to become acquainted with them, and he may have been convinced ultimately of their truth. Possibly his experi- ence at Antioch, when he followed Peter in separating himself from his Gentile brethren, was the means of opening his eyes to the real significance of Paul's teach- ing as they had not before been opened. Certainly, the course he took at Antioch could not permanently satisfy him, and a reaction must ultimately set in. That such a reaction actually did take place, and that he resumed his missionary work among the Gentiles, is rendered probable by Paul's reference to him in 1 Cor. ix. 6. But if he again put himself squarely upon the platform of a universal Christianity, the Gospel of Paul must have appealed to him more powerfully than ever; for in it alone could he find a complete and satisfactory solution of the difficulties which he had so keenly felt in his own experience, and which he had found it vain to endeavor to solve by any halfway and compromising measures. On the other hand, while Barnabas was a companion of Paul and undoubtedly felt his influence most profoundly, he was a member of the church of Jerusalem in its early days and may have been in the city at the time of Christ's death. If so, he was one of the very few companions of Paul who could fulfil the conditions apparently involved in 1 Peter v. 1. Again, it would be very natural for Bar- nabas to write to the Christians of Asia Minor. Some of them certainly owed their Christianity to him as well as to Paul ; and it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that he carried on the work in that part of the world after the latter's departure for the West. He was, at any rate, still a travelling missionary while Paul was residing at Ephesus, 1 and was well known to the Colossians when Paul wrote to them from Rome. 2 Moreover, Silvanus, who is referred to in v. 12, was one of his old acquaintances, 3 and what is still more significant, Mark, whom the writer calls his "son" in v. 13, was his nephew or cousin, 4 and a favorite protege and companion. 5 That Barnabas should speak of il Cor. ix. 6. 2 Col. iv. 10. 8 Acts xv. 25 sq. 4 Col. iv. 10. 6 Acts xv. 37 sq. 600 THE APOSTOLIC AGE him as his son was very natural, but it is not likely that any one else would do it save Paul himself. Finally, if it be assumed that Barnabas was the author of First Peter, the striking fact is explained that both in East and in West an epistle was ascribed to him which was in reality written by some one else. In Alexandria his name was attached at an early day to the work which is still erroneously called the Epistle of Barnabas, while in Carthage he was reputed to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 1 It may have been widely known that he had written an important work; but as he had not chosen to inscribe it with his name, its identity was uncertain, and in the East one anonymous letter was ascribed to him, in the West another. So far as I am aware, the name of Bar- nabas has not before been suggested in connection with First Peter, and it is of course suggested now as little more than a possibility. There is, at any rate, no one else known to us save Barnabas to whom it can be ascribed with any show of reason, if the Petrine authorship be questioned. The second of the two epistles ascribed by tradition to the apostle Peter is still more evidently the work of another hand than his. The letter is very closely related to the Epistle of Jude. Indeed, nearly the whole of the latter is incorporated substantially in 2 Peter ii. 1-iii. 3. At the same time the author of Second Peter did not write with the purpose of combating false teachers, as Jude did, but simply with the aim of confirming his readers in their faith in the second coming of Christ for salvation and for judgment, a faith which was beginning to grow faint in many quarters because of the long and unexpected delay. 2 That the author attacks and denounces false teachers in the second and third chapters is only because such teachers were denying the second coming, and were thus leading many astray and contributing to the widespread uncertainty and doubt. The work is very practical and contains some striking utterances, 3 but in the parallel passage it is by no means as pregnant and incisive as Jude, and it lacks the i See above, p. 480. 2 C f. 2 Pet. ii. 12 sq., iii. 1 sq. Cf. especially 2 Pet. i. 5-7. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH ()0l profoundness and richness of thought that mark First Peter. The diction is Greek rather than Hellenistic, but the style is awkward and betrays an author without liter- ary training and of comparatively little education. The repeated emphasis, however, upon knowledge is very marked and shows that the writer, though not a man of culture and though a decided opponent of the heretical Gnostics, was a genuine Greek in his conception of the function of knowledge in the accomplishment of salvation. 1 The epistle bears the name of " Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ " ; and it is not possible in this case, as in the case of First Peter, to suppose that the name was added to a letter originally anonymous, for Petrine authorship is assumed in i. 14, 16 sq., iii. 1, 15. The author, in fact, if he was not Peter himself, took par- ticular pains to have his epistle pass as Peter's. We are dealing therefore either with a genuine Petrine production, or with a pseudonymous work in the strict sense. But that we are dealing with the latter and not with a writing from the pen of the apostle Peter, there can be, it seems to me, no doubt. It is true that the denial of the Petrine authorship of First Peter makes it easier to accept the Petrine authorship of Second Peter; for nothing could well be clearer than that the two epistles are not the work of the same hand. The differences, both in style and in theological conception, are too thoroughgoing and funda- mental to permit the assumption of identity of authorship. 2 But such denial does not help us in the present case, for the epistle contains many indications of a post-apostolic date. In the first place, the author certainly knew and made extensive use of the Epistle of Jude, which, as has 1 Cf. 2 Pet. i. 2, 3, 6, 8, iii. 18, and especially i. 4, where the author gives utterance to the Greek idea (of which the Gnostics made so much) of partici- pation in the divine nature and liberation from the corruption of the world. 2 The style of 1 Peter is more Hellenistic than that of 2 Peter, but it is much smoother and richer. The author of the former was a man of consider- able culture : the author of the latter was entirely without it. So far as the dif- ference of theological conception is concerned, it is enough to remark that the Paulinism of 1 Peter is entirely wanting in 2 Peter, and that the sufferings and resurrection of Christ, which are so strongly emphasized in the former, are not mentioned in the latter. 602 THE APOSTOLIC AGE been already seen, cannot have been written before the closing years of the first century. 1 It is significant also that the false teachers are condemned still more unmerci- fully than in Jude, and that all idea of saving them from their errors, an idea which appears in Jude, seems to have been definitely abandoned. 2 It is a still farther indication of the post-apostolic date of Second Peter that the days of the original Christians are referred to in iii. 4 as already long past, and that the prophets, the Lord, and the apos- tles are mentioned in iii. 2, as the three authorities for a knowledge of Christian truth, just as they are by the old Catholic fathers of the late second and following centuries. Finally, the author is not only acquainted with Paul's epis- tles, but he even ascribes to them, it would seem, canon- ical authority, placing them on a level with, or at any rate ranging them alongside of, "the other Scriptures." 3 All these indications point to a time at least as late as the be- ginning and very probably as late as the middle of the second century. So far as external testimony goes, the epistle might have been written even as late as the very end of the second century; for the earliest traces of its existence are found in the writings of the fathers of the third century, and it was later than any other work in acquiring general recognition as a part of the canon. 4 Its authenticity is widely questioned even in conservative cir- cles, more widely questioned than the authenticity of any 1 Spitta has recently endeavored to show that Jude is dependent upon 2 Peter (Der zweite Brief Petri und der Brief Judae) ; but his attempt is a failure. The dependence of 2 Peter on Jude is, in fact, abundantly manifest, and is almost universally recognized by scholars. It is to be noticed that the Epistle of Jude is controlled throughout by a single definite purpose, while the parallel passage in Peter clearly shows the effort to make use of Jude's words, and at the same time to turn them to another purpose than that for which Jude employed them, and so we find in 2 Peter numerous additions which are in entire accord with the purpose of the epistle as a whole, but are out of accord with the original purpose of the words quoted from Jude. In a number of cases, moreover, the words of 2 Peter can be understood only in the light of Jude, the original and natural significance of the words, being lost in the form in which they are used in 2 Peter. Compare, for instance, 2 Pet. ii. 11, which can be understood only in the light of Jude 9j 2 Pet. ii. 12, in the light of Jude 10; and 2 Pet. ii. 17, in the light of Jude 12. 2 Compare 2 Pet. ii. 20 sq. with Jude 22 sq. 8 2 Pet. iii. 16. 4 See Holtzmann: Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 3te Auflage, S. 326. THE DEVELOPING CHUKCH 603 other canonical book, and there can be little doubt that it is the latest of the writings of the New Testament. But though First Peter is probably and Second Peter certainly not the work of Peter, the tradition which con- nects the Gospel of Mark with his name has more to com- mend it. That tradition has been already referred to, and Papias' account of the composition of the Gospel has been quoted. 1 There is no reason for referring his words to any other work than our second Gospel, nor is there any reason for doubting the general accuracy of his account. All that we know of Mark goes to confirm the ascription of the Gospel to him. As has been already seen, its style and contents show that it was written primarily for Gen- tile Christians by a Christian Jew, who had broken en- tirely loose from the trammels of Judaism, and was a member of the world-church to whom distinctions of race and lineage meant nothing. But Mark was exactly such a man. A resident of Jerusalem in his earlier days, he became later a disciple and companion of Paul, and labored with him both in East and West for the spread of Christianity among the Gentiles. All the indications also, which point to Rome as the place of the composition of the Gospel, are favorable to the tradition that Mark was its author; for he was in Rome at any rate in the late fifties, and twenty years or more later when the First Epis- tle of Peter was written. 2 It should be noticed, finally, that our second Gospel nowhere claims to be the work of an eyewitness of the events recorded, nor even hints at such a thing, and in this respect, too, Mark apparently satisfies the conditions ; for nothing that we know of him suggests that he was a personal disciple of Jesus, and Papias distinctly asserts that he was not. Papias' report that Mark got the material for his Gospel from Peter also finds confirmation in the Gospel itself. There are many indications in it that the author was par- ticularly interested in Peter, and many of Peter's own characteristics appear in it. It is just such a work as we should expect a man to write who had been intimately i See above, p. 571 sq. 2 Cf. Col. iv. 10 ; Philemon 24 and 1 Pet. v. 13. 604 THE APOSTOLIC AGE associated with the apostle, and had gained his knowl- edge of Christ largely from him. In view of these various considerations, the accuracy of Papias' account may safely be relied upon, and it may be assumed that though our second Gospel was not Peter's own work, and though use was made in it of other sources besides his teaching, it yet contains in large measure his reminiscences of Jesus, and represents, at least in a general way, his conception of the Master's character and work* But if the Gospel of Mark be connected with Peter in the way that has been indicated, it is perhaps possible to gain from it not simply his picture of Jesus, but also some knowledge of the views of Christianity which he held in the later years of his life. All that we learn from it is entirely in keeping with what we know of him from other sources. The work reveals the same impression of Jesus' power which Peter felt so strongly. It is in Christ's mighty works that the writer is chiefly interested; his words concern him far less. The simplicity and directness which were so characteristic of Peter also appear in the Gospel, and it is marked by the same practical interest that controlled him so largely. It is no accident that re- pentance, upon which he laid special emphasis in his dis- courses recorded in the early chapters of Acts, stands in the very forefront of Mark's Gospel. It can hardly be doubted that with his decidedly practical interest Peter was heartily in accord with the common conception of Christianity which prevailed in his day, and that in his later years, as well as in his earlier, he conceived of the Christian life as the faithful observance of God's law. If Peter was thus a representative of the ordinary un-Pauline conception of the Gospel, and if he taught it to the Chris- tians of Rome, it is much easier to explain the fact that that type of thought was permanently accepted by them, and that while honoring the name of Paul they failed to adopt the latter's views. If Peter followed the lead of Paul and preached the Gospel which he preached, it is certainly surprising that the Roman Christians so com- pletely misunderstood or disregarded Paul's teaching. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 605 Taught by both of the men whom the church most highly venerated, it would seem that his distinctive views must have made more impression than they did* If First Peter contains the conceptions of the apostle Peter, the subsequent history of thought in the Roman church is much more difficult to explain than if the Gospel of Mark represents him. That both of them can be traced back to him is impossible. If he wrote First Peter, the influence of his thought was not felt to any appreciable degree by the author of Mark; if the author of Mark wrote in the spirit of Peter, then the epistle is by some other hand. But the Gospel may also be supposed to represent accurately Peter's final views touching the Christian's relation to the Jewish law. His earlier progress in the direction of liberalism has been already sketched, and it cannot be doubted that before the end of his life he reached that position which was evidently held by the author of the second Gospel, a position of complete superiority and indifference to all national and race dis- tinctions within the Christian church, and that he rose not alone above bigotry and narrowness, but also above controversy upon the subject. 1 Had he not reached this position he could not have secured the confidence of the Christians of Rome and exerted the influence there that he did. Thus, though the first and second epistles of Peter cannot be employed as sources for a knowledge of the apostle's views, we may gather some instructive hints from the Gospel of Mark, hints that make the history of the Roman church much easier to understand than it would otherwise be. The epistle of Clement, sent by the Christians of Rome to their Corinthian brethren almost at the close of the century, shows the development well under way. The common conceptions of the church at large were already in control, and though words and formulae of Paul were still current, the underlying prin- 1 It is not without significance that Peter remembered, and emphasized so that Mark too remembered them, the striking words of Christ recorded in Mark vii. 15 sq. These words must have been vividly recalled to him by his experience on the housetop in Joppa. 606 THE APOSTOLIC AGE ciples were largely Peter's, and not Paul's. It was not simply because Peter was the leader of the Twelve Apos- tles, nor merely because he spent some time in Rome after Paul's death, that his figure overshadowed the figure of the great apostle to the Gentiles in the memory of the Roman church ; but also because the Christianity which he preached was entirely in accord with the principles that naturally prevailed most widely among the Christians of Rome, both Jews and Gentiles, and was fitted to unite them in practical, aggressive work whatever their theoreti- cal and speculative differences. The Roman church is not wholly in error in claiming Peter as its founder. It was he and not Paul whose impress was chiefly felt in the formative period of its career, and through it he ultimately became the great apostle of the entire Western church, which always felt the dominating influence of Rome. 1 3. JOHN AND THE CHURCH OF ASIA Our sources bear witness not only to the presence of the apostle Peter in Rome, but also to the residence of the apostle John in Ephesus. Like Peter's presence in Rome, John's Ephesian residence has been disputed by many scholars, 2 but the tradition seems too strong to be shaken. The chief witness for it is Irenseus, a pupil of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who reports that Polycarp was a personal disciple of John, and that the latter lived in Ephesus until the reign of Trajan, who became emperor in the year 98. 3 1 The ancient theory that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, or that he appointed its first bishop, was due to the assumption of the fathers of the late second and third centuries that the ecclesiastical organization and insti- tutions of their own day were all apostolic. But the rejection of that theory need not involve a denial of the fact that Peter spent some years in Rome, and profoundly influenced the development of Roman Christianity. 2 Most recently by Harnack (Chronologie d. alt-christlichen Litteratur, S. 656 sq.). 8 In his epistle to Florinus (quoted by Eusebius : H. E. V. 20) Irenaeus men- tions his own acquaintance with Polycarp in Asia, and records that the latter was a personal disciple of John. In his Adv. User. II. 22, 5 and III. 3, 4, he reports that John resided in Asia (in the latter passage he says more specifically Ephe- sus) until the time of Trajan. In another passage in the same work (III. 1,1) he says that "John, the disciple of the Lord who leaned upon his breast, pub- lished a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia." Wci/si'n-kcr justly remarks that this is not tradition, but documentary evidence (I.e. S. 482; Eng. Trans., 11. p. 168). THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 607 In addition to the direct and explicit statements of Irenseus, whose acquaintance with Polycarp gives his statements peculiar force, we have the independent testimony of Polycrates, bishop of Hierapolis in the latter part of the second century, 1 and of his contemporary, Clement of Alexandria, 2 both of whom refer to John's residence in Ephesus, though without mentioning the fact that he lived until the time of Trajan. The force of all this testimony cannot be broken by the suggestion that the apostle John may have been confounded with the presbyter John, who lived in Asia about the same time. 3 For though the tra- dition of the latter part of the second century, to which Polycrates and Clement are witnesses, might be mistaken in the matter, it cannot be supposed that Irenaeus, who knew Polycarp personally, could commit such a blunder. He had not merely met Polycarp casually; he was his pupil, and he must have known of whom he spoke when he referred to John. But the evidence for John's Ephesian residence is not external alone. The Johannine writings themselves testify to the fact ; for whatever may be thought as to their authorship, they at any rate belong to Asia, and they prove beyond all peradventure that there lived in that quarter of the world, in the latter part of the first century, a controlling personality, who had himself felt the personal influence of Jesus and who stamped his conceptions upon a large circle of disciples. In the light of this consideration, taken in connection with the direct testimonies already referred to, the argument against John's presence in Asia, based upon the silence of Ignatius 4 and of other contem- porary writers can be allowed no great weight ; and it may safely be concluded that the apostle John spent the latter 1 In his epistle to Victor, quoted by Eusebius : H. E. III. 23 and V. 24. 2 In his Qitis dives salvetur? Chap. 42 ; also quoted by Eusebius : H. E. III. 23. 3 The presbyter John is mentioned by Papias in a passage quoted by Euse- bius : H. E. III. 39. See below, p. (523. 4 Ignatius of Antioch felt the influence of the same conceptions that find expression in the Johannine writings, as was seen in the previous chapter, and his silence respecting John and his residence in Asia is certainly surpris- ing, but not conclusive. There is no passage in his epistles in which he must have referred to John, if he knew that he had resided there. 008 THE APOSTOLIC AGE part of his life in Ephesus and that he died there at a great age, in the reign of Trajan, as reported by Irenseus. Of his career before he took up his residence there, we know even less than of Peter's. He appears with Peter as a leading figure in the church of Jerusalem during its early years, but the latter is always represented as the spokesman and chief actor in the various scenes re- corded. Together with James and Peter, he is referred to by Paul as a " pillar " in Gal. i. 9, but here, too, he is less conspicuous than either of the others ; and although the passage shows that he was in Jerusalem at the time of the council, he is not mentioned in Acts xv. Paul speaks of him only in the Galatian passage just referred to, and from this time on we know absolutely nothing about him until we hear of him in Ephesus in the latter part of the century. Where he went and what he did during the long interval, we have no means of deter- mining. He was evidently not in Jerusalem when Paul visited the city for the last time, 1 and it is probable that, like Peter, he had already sought other fields of labor. We may gather from the fourth Gospel, whether it be his own work or the work of one of his followers, that before the end of his life he had cut entirely loose from the particu- larism of the primitive Jewish disciples and had ceased to draw a line between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. It is by no means likely that he reached this broader view at an early day, for in that case Paul would probably have found some occasion to refer to the fact ; but it may well be that he was more in sympathy with Peter than with James, and that he, too, finally found the extreme conserva- tism of the church of Jerusalem uncongenial. He cannot have taken up his residence in Asia during Paul's life- time, as is clear from the epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, and especially from Paul's final note to Timo- thy, written just before his death. It is possible that he had been laboring in Palestine, and when the Jewish war broke out, and made successful work among the Jews there no longer possible, he found his way to Ephesus, which i Acts xxi. 18 sq. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 609 was a natural place for him to choose as the centre of his future labors ; for it was the most important city of the East after Antioch, and had a large and influential Jewish population. It is, at any rate, necessary to assume that he came to Ephesus not many years after the death of Paul ; for only a long residence there is sufficient to account on the one hand for the marked impression which Paul's con- ceptions made upon him, 1 and on the other hand for his own predominating influence over the church of Asia Minor. Five writings in our New Testament a Gospel, three epistles, and an apocalypse are ascribed by tradition to the apostle John. The Gospel, though historical in form, is not an historical work in the strict sense. It is an attempt to present in the form of a record of the words and works of Jesus the author's idea of his character and personality. The work has a double purpose ; on the one hand to prove that " Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," and on the other hand to lead its readers into such belief in him that they may be truly united to him and have life in his name. 2 In its effort to prove that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," the Gospel of John resembles the Gospel of Matthew ; but its apologetic purpose is avowed even more distinctly and is carried out with even more consistency and thoroughness than in the latter work. Moreover, the author undertakes to show not simply that Jesus is the Messiah, as Matthew does, but that he is a spiritual being of a higher order than man. This, in fact, is what the term "Messiah" or "Son of God" means to him when he applies it to Jesus. Jesus is not simply a man called and anointed by God to do a particular work in the world ; he is the incarnation of a pre-existent heavenly being, who came from God and at the end of his earthly career returns to God. Thus the author represents Jesus as living constantly under the sense of his higher nature, and all his words and deeds are interpreted in the light of it. His omniscience and his omnipotence are frequently emphasized and viewed as manifestations of his higher nature ; and the miracles which he performs are not pri- 1 See above, p. 487 sq. 2 John xx, 31. 2R 610 THE APOSTOLIC AGE marily for the good of others, as in the Synoptic Gospels, but many of them at least are done simply as signs to show his superhuman power. 1 And so the author's apolo- getic purpose leads him to represent John the Baptist solely in the character of a witness to Jesus ; 2 leads him to emphasize the testimony of Christ's enemies to the wonderful nature of his signs and miracles ; 3 leads him to call attention to the fact that the betrayal of Jesus and his death at the hands of his enemies were only a fulfil- ment of his own purposes, that they took place only in his own good time and in accordance with his will, and were thus a sign of his power and not of his weakness. 4 Many other objections urged against the Messiahship of Jesus are met and answered by Jesus himself in the Gos- pel: for instance, that he has appeared without proper legitimation ; 6 that he has not the Spirit of God, which the true Messiah should have, but oh the contrary a devil ; 6 and finally that he suffers death instead of abiding and setting up a permanent kingdom as the true Messiah is to do. 7 But the Gospel of John, though so largely apologetic both in form and in content, is not simply an apology. As already said, it is also an effort to lead its readers into such belief in Christ as shall truly unite them to him and thus give them life. And so the significance of Christ to the believer, and the true relation between them, are emphasized at great length, that relation being represented in genuine Pauline fashion as a complete mystical unity. It is thus not only Christ in himself in whom the author is interested, but also Christ in his relation to man, and particularly to believers. Indeed, the saving fellowship of the believer with him is the ultimate aim of the work. The author would prove Jesus to be the Christ in order to arouse faith in him, and thus bring about that fellowship which means salvation. 8 I have spoken of the Gospel of John as a presentation of the author's ideal of Jesus 7 character and personality. 1 Cf. John xx. 30, 31. John ix. 29. a John i. 29 sq. John viii. 48 sq. 8 John vii. 45, xi. 46, xii. 19, 42, etc. 7 John x. 15 sq., xi. 51 sq., xii. 32. < John x. 18, xviii. 4 sq., xix. 11. Cf. John xx. 31. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 611 The Gospel of Matthew is also to some degree an ideal picture, portraying Christ primarily as Messiah, and group- ing together the words and works which serve to bring out most clearly this or that feature of his Messianic character. But the process of idealization is carried much further by the author of the fourth Gospel. While Matthew, though largely disregarding the historic order and setting, repro- duces the contents of the Logia apparently for the most part with fidelity, John composes with a free hand, and though he does not invent the contents of the discourses which he puts into Jesus' mouth, he at least gives them their peculiar form. A comparison of the utterances of Christ recorded in the fourth Gospel with those recorded in the Synoptics is sufficient to prove this beyond all shadow of a doubt ; and a comparison of them with the narrative portions of the Gospel and with the First Epistle of John only confirms what needs no confirmation. But it is to be noticed that the impression of Christ's personality which is gained from the fourth Gospel is due not simply to the matter, but also to the form of the discourses which it con- tains. The ideas in many of those discourses, if uttered in the brief, incisive, gnomic style, or in the parabolic form which is so common in the Synoptic Gospels, and only at the impulse of a particular occasion or suggestion, would leave a very different impression. As it is, they are re- peated and elaborated and emphasized to such an extent, that they leave the impression that Jesus was thinking and talking constantly of his own divine personality, and of his own unique significance, not alone for those who were following him, but also for all the world. But if reliance is to be placed upon the united testimony of the Synoptic Gospels, such an impression as this can hardly be accurate. Another indication of the author's idealization of Jesus appears in the fact that he takes no account of any historic development in his public ministry. Instead of the gradual unfolding of his Messianic character and mission, such as is portrayed with the utmost naturalness in the Gospel of Mark, we find Jesus in the Gospel of John assuming pub- 612 THE APOSTOLIC AGE licly the position of Messiah at the beginning of his career. John the Baptist proclaims his identity clearly and unmis- takably, and he himself goes almost immediately to Jeru- salem and exhibits himself in his Messianic character before the multitudes gathered there for the feast of the Passover ; and though his ministry continues three full years, accord- ing to John's chronology, no appreciable development ap- pears in his own announcement of himself or in the attitude of the people toward him. The account of John is in this respect very different from that of the Synoptists, especially of Mark ; and it is clear that it was the author's desire to present Jesus throughout his work in his character of Mes- siah and Son of God that led him to regard the historic sequence of events with indifference and to paint the early days of Christ's ministry in the same colors as the later. But though it is evident, in the light of what has been said, that the fourth Gospel contains an ideal picture of Christ, this is a very different thing from saying that it is simply the elaboration of an idea which has no basis in fact. The truth is, that there are many evidences in the Gospel that the picture, ideal as it is in the form in which it is presented, is the picture of a real person. Such a combination of exaltation and humility as was referred to in a previous chapter 1 it is impossible to suppose the in- vention of any author. Moreover there are many evidences that the writer had an accurate acquaintance, over and above that gained from the Synoptic Gospels, not simply with the manners and customs of the people of Palestine, but also with the events in the life of Jesus himself. 2 In the light of these facts it may fairly be said that the time is past when the fourth Gospel can be explained as a mere piece of religious fiction from the pen of a second-centuiy writer ; but on the other hand the time is not yet come, and possibly may never come, when it can be claimed to be either an absolutely exact picture of Jesus' character, or a really historical account of his ministry. 1 See above, p. 489. 2 Upon this whole question, see P. Ewald : Das ffauptproblem der Evanye? lienfrage, S. 51 sq. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 613 Under such circumstances it would seem most natural to assume that the Gospel, like the Gospel of Matthew, was written by one who was not himself a personal disciple of Christ and an eyewitness of the events which he records, but was possessed of sources of the first rank ; so that his account is accurate so far as it is based on his sources, but unreliable in other parts. Wendt, following the sugges- tion of earlier scholars, has attempted to prove that the author used an authentic and trustworthy Johannine source containing nearly all the discourses, but covering only the closing period of Jesus' life, which he spent in Jerusalem. 1 The striking dissimilarity between the Synoptic and Johan- nine narratives, and their respective portraits of Christ, would then be due to the fact that the author of the fourth Gospel distributed the material contained in his source over the entire ministry of Christ, and thus repre- sented him as teaching and acting at the beginning of his career and during his Galilean days, as he actually taught and acted only during the closing days of his life in Jeru- salem, when he felt that the time had come to emphasize and impress upon his followers his Messianic character. This theory is a very suggestive one, and has much to recommend it; but the difficulty is, that the sharp dis- tinction in tendency and purpose which Wendt draws be- tween the completed Gospel and its original source, and which alone justifies such a division as he makes, is largely imaginary. Indeed, the work as we have it is too homo- geneous, and is controlled too completely by a single spirit and purpose, to give to any such attempt as Wendt's much hope of success. If the author used sources, he handled them in so sovereign a way that it is simply impossible to separate them from the work as a whole. What he really had was the vivid picture of an actual, living per- sonality ; and with an accurate knowledge of the people, the customs, and the scenes among which Jesus lived, and with more or less extensive information as to the events of his life, he composed a Gospel which was not in any sense a compilation, but which was an attempt to portray i See Wendt: Lehre Jesit, I. S. 215 sq. 614 THE APOSTOLIC AGE that personality in living form as he saw him in his own mind, and to give the portrait such an historical framework as his knowledge enabled him to supply. The question is, can such a Gospel have been written by a personal disciple of Jesus, by the apostle John, to whom it is ascribed by tradition, or must we attribute it to a Christian of the second or third generation ? Most of the considerations commonly urged in support of the former alternative fail to help us in the matter. It is true that there are traces in the literature of the second century both of the Gospel itself and of the first epistle, which com- pel us to push them back at least as far as the early years of that century. But to assign them to the begin- ning of the second century, or even to the latter part of the first, is not necessarily to ascribe them to the apostle John or to any other personal disciple of Jesus. It is trua, still farther, that the author was a Jew. He shows himself thoroughly familiar not with the letter of the Old Testament merely, but with its spirit as well, which means of course much more. His style is that of a man whose native tongue was Hebrew, not Greek; and his acquaint- ance with Palestinian localities, manners, and customs is so intimate and accurate that there can be no doubt that he was a native of the Holy Land or had, at any rate, re- sided there for a long period. We get more material for a knowledge of contemporary Palestinian Judaism from the Gospel of John than from all the other Gospels com- bined. But there is no guarantee of apostolic authorship in all this. Nor can the fact that the author was unde- niably possessed of a large amount of trustworthy infor- mation, over and above that derived from the Synoptic Gospels, be made to prove that he was a personal disciple of Jesus. Even the many vivid and minute details scat- tered through his work may be fully accounted for if he gained his information from an eyewitness of the events, as Mark, for example, gained his. Moreover, the author's evident interest in John, which is manifested in many ways, notably by his uniform designation of him as " the disciple whom Jesus loved," and the testimony of the THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 615 appendix of the Gospel, 1 which emanated from the same circle, prove no more than that John was held in peculiar honor where the work was written, and that he was the author's chief authority. The same is true also of the tradition for Johannine authorship upon which so much stress is commonly laid. The tradition, though not abso- lutely unanimous, 2 is certainly very strong. The Johan- nine authorship is testified to, toward the close of the second century, by Theophilus of Antioch, by the Mura- torian Fragment, which belongs probably to Rome, and by Irenaeus of Lyons. The last named was a pupil of Poly- carp, who was himself in turn a pupil of John, so that his opportunities for knowing the truth were excellent. At the same time, the fact that both the Apocalypse and the Gospel, which were certainly not written by the same hand, are ascribed by Irenseus to the apostle John, throws some suspicion upon the accuracy of his statement in re- gard to the Gospel. And the fact must in any case be rec- ognized that the tradition might have arisen even if John was only indirectly connected with the production of the Gospel ; if, in other words, it was composed by one of his disciples or companions who had gained much of his mate- rial from John himself, and whose work was written in the spirit of John and represented his type of teaching. The Logia of Matthew gave his name to the Greek Gospel in which they were so largely incorporated, and in the same way the name of John may have become attached at an early date to a Gospel for which he was indirectly respon- sible. More than this, the tradition, strong though it is, does not permit us to assert with confidence. Only one fact, indeed, carries us beyond the general conclusion that the author was in some way connected with the apostle John, and seems to make direct Johannine authorship 1 Cf. John xxi. 24. Verse 23 of the same chapter seems to point to a time when John was already dead, and when the necessity was consequently felt of explaining the apparent assurance of Christ that he would live until the second advent. 2 The sect of the Alogi in the middle of the second century denied that the Gospel was written by John, but they had a theological bias against it, and their denial must therefore be discounted to some extent. 616 THE APOSTOLIC AGE necessary. In John i. 14, and also in the opening words of the First Epistle of John, which was certainly written by the same hand as the Gospel, the author himself apparently claims to have been a personal disciple of Jesus and a wit- ness of the events which he records. 1 The former passage has little weight, 2 but the latter can be reconciled with the assumption that the author was any one else than John only by interpreting it in a spiritual sense. This is diffi- cult but not impossible, 3 and the reasons for regarding the Gospel as the work of a disciple and companion of John rather than of the apostle himself seem too strong to be resisted. One thing, however, may fairly be in- sisted upon as a result of the painstaking criticism to which the Gospel has been subjected in recent years. It contains a large body of genuine apostolic matter ; and though the picture of Christ is one-sided, its several feat- ures are in the main trustworthy, and though the dis- courses, in the form in which we have them, are the composition of the author, they embody Christ's genuine teaching, at least to some extent. So much we can be sure of even though we ascribe the Gospel to a disciple of John instead of to John himself, and more than this it is impos- sible to claim even if we ascribe the Gospel to John. So that the question of authorship is, after all, of no great practical importance. We must use the work in any case in connection with the Synoptic Gospels, and must inter- pret it in the light of the picture of Christ portrayed by them ; and its authorship can neither increase nor dimmish our confidence in it. But the Gospel of John alone reveals fully the secret of Christ's marvellous power in his pro- found God-consciousness, and it is this that gives it its permanent historic as well as religious value. It consti- tutes an indispensable supplement of the Synoptic Gospels for the historian who would know not simply the actual words and deeds of Jesus and the course of his daily life, 1 John xiz. 35 and xxi. 24, which are often said to involve the same thing, prove no more than that John was the ultimate authority for the facts recorded in the Gospel. 2 The " we " need not include the author himself. 8 Compare 1 John iii. 6 and 3 John 11. THE DEVELOPING CHTJRCH 617 but the ultimate basis of his religious ideas and ideals, and thus the explanation of his controlling and abiding influence. Of the three epistles ascribed by tradition to the apostle John, the first and longest is certainly by the same author as the Gospel. Both literary style and religious concep- tions are too closely related to permit any doubt upon this point. The epistle, like the Gospel, bears no name, and it is therefore not a pseudonymous work even if it be the production of some one else than John. It was addressed to a" church or group of churches whose locality is not indicated, but its connection with John suggests that its readers lived in the province of Asia. 1 The epistle was evidently called forth by the existence of false teachers, who were at once Docetists and libertines. Their error consisted, on the one hand, in the denial that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, 2 and on the other hand, in the assertion that a Christian man is bound by no law and that he is under no obligation to obey God's commands; that he is, in fact, above law, and that no sin is possible to him, even though he live in utter disregard of all moral precepts, whether human or divine. 3 In this denial and in this asser- tion, these false teachers were in entire accord with at least some of the Gnostic sects known to us. The Docetic dis- tinction between the man Jesus and the higher heavenly being or Christ was genuinely Gnostic, being based upon the dualism which lay at the root of all the Gnostic sys- tem ; while the antinomianism that marked some of the Gnostic sects was the direct result of the teaching of Paul, who made so much of the believer's freedom from external law, and whose contrast between the old and new dispen- sations, and between the flesh and the spirit, made him the great apostle of the Gnostics. 4 It is this Gnostic combi- nation of Docetism and antinomianism against which our author feels it necessary to warn his readers. But though 1 It is maintained by some scholars that the work is a discourse rather than an epistle, but i. 4, ii. 1, 12 sq., and v. 13, make against the assumption. 2 1 John ii. 22, iv. 2, 15, etc. 1 John i. 8 sq. ; ii. 3 sq. 29 ; iii. 3 sq., etc. * See above, p. 502 sq. 618 THE APOSTOLIC AGE he insists as strenuously as some other writers of his day for instance, Jude and the interpolator of the pastoral epis- tles upon the importance of cleaving to the old faith which was received in the beginning, 1 he does not content himself as they do with simply denouncing and condemn- ing the false teachers ; on the contrary, he undertakes to exhibit over against them the true Gospel, or, in other words, to place in opposition to their false gnosis the true gnosis which alone is eternal life. 2 The purpose of his epistle, therefore, is primarily not negative, but positive; not to attack error merely, but to impart the truth, and thus to fortify his readers against all the assaults of false teachers and of false teaching. The Gospel, or the true gnosis, which the author presents in his epistle, has two elements : the one ethical, and the other Christological. He empha- sizes not only right living, but also right thinking ; not only the necessity of obeying God's commands, but also the necessity of believing Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. And these, moreover, are not two separate and independent elements, placed over against two separate and independent errors;, they are so closely bound together in the author's thought that one cannot be detached from the other. A man cannot obey God's commands, the sum of which is love, unless he abides in God ; and he cannot abide in God unless he recognizes Jesus Christ as his Son, and becomes one with him. 3 Thus righteous living is conditioned upon belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and upon oneness with him, in true Pauline fashion. It is this theme which controls the writer's thought throughout his epistle. All that he says bears upon it. But the epistle follows no definite and logical plan. The author takes up first one side of the matter, and then the other; then, apparently with the feeling that he has not said enough, he takes them up again, and finally a third time. The similarity between the epistle and the Gospel is so great that it is safe to assume that not many years sepa- rated them ; and yet the polemic tone of the epistle con- 1 1 John ii. 7, 24, iii. 11. * cf. 1 John i. 1 sq., v. 20. Cf. 1 John iii. 6 sq., iv. 15 sq. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 619 trasts strongly with the calm and even tone of the Gospel, and makes it altogether probable that the two were written under very different circumstances. The false teachers whom the author attacks in his epistle seem not to have been in his mind when he wrote the Gospel, and it may well be that they had come into prominence since its com- position, being aroused to open hostility by its publication, especially by its assertion of the incarnation of the Son of God, and at the same time turning to their own use such conceptions in it as were in line with their own ten- dencies. It is clear, for instance, that they claimed that, in an eminent degree and in contrast with other Chris- tians, they were free from sin, 1 were walking in the light, 2 were acquainted with God 3 and loved him, 4 were in close fellowship with him, 5 were abiding in him, 6 and possessed his Spirit. 7 The importance of all these things is empha- sized over and over again in the fourth Gospel. And so our author finds it necessary to deny the claims of the men in question, pointing out that their refusal to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and their corruptness and lack of brotherly love, prove the emptiness of their claims. The false teachers did not get their views from the fourth Gospel. They doubtless had them already ; for they gained them, as the author of our epistle gained his, largely from Paul. 8 But they found in the Gospel much that fell in with their own ideas, and they appropriated it to themselves. The tremendous impression which Paul left on the Chris- tianity of Asia Minor is made very manifest by the fact that two so widely different schools as those represented on the one hand by the author of our epistle and of the fourth Gospel, and on the other hand by the false teachers UJohni.8. 8 Uohn ii. 4. 5 Uohn i. 6. 7 1 John iv. 1 sq. 2 1 John ii. 10. 1 John iv. 20. 1 John ii. 6. 8 It is interesting to notice in this connection that our author exhibits the same sort of rigorous superiority to observed facts that is exhibited by Paul himself. In one part of his epistle, to be sure, he asserts that no man is without sin (i. 8 sq.); but in other passages he declares unequivocally, and in genuine Pauline fashion, that the man who is begotten of God cannot sin (iii. 5. !, v. 18) : and the same kind of reliance upon theory over against the testi- mony of appearances is seen in v. 15, where the author says, " If we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him." 620 THE APOSTOLIC AGE whom he combats, should both have adopted certain of his fundamental conceptions, and based their divergent sys- tems thereupon. 1 The two brief epistles, known as Second and Third John, were written by one hand and at about the same time. Whether they, too, are by the author of the Gospel and of the First Epistle of John is not certain. The use of the term " elder " in the opening salutation is against the identification, as are also certain differences in style. But on the other hand there are striking resemblances both in thought and in language, which naturally suggest, and indeed make it quite probable, that the author was the same in both cases. Tradition does not help us in the matter, for it begins very late, and even then is not unani- mous. Some of the fathers ascribe the letters to the apostle John, others to John the presbyter, others are in doubt as to their authorship. But, at any rate, even if not identical with the author of the first epistle, the writer of the two short epistles must have belonged to the same school and breathed the same atmosphere, and must have been familiar with the Johannine literature. One of the epistles is addressed to some church, prob- ably in the province of Asia, which the author designates by the figurative expression " elect lady " ; 2 the other to a member of the same church, Gaius by name. 3 The author's purpose in writing to the church was to warn his readers to have nothing to do with certain false teachers who were travelling about, and who, he feared, might be received by his readers and lead them astray. They seem, in fact, already to have found a welcome from some in the church, and to have gained adherents among them. 4 There 1 In the light of this fact it will hardly do to assume with Weizsacker (I.e. 8. 47G sq., Eng. Trans., II. p. 16 sq.) that the church of Ephesus which Paul planted was practically destroyed after his departure from the city, and that the church of the latter part of the century was to all intents and purposes a new foundation. In spite of the opposition which Paul had to encounter, and of the hostility that continued to manifest itself after he had left, his influence was more deep and lasting there than in any other part of Christendom. See above, p. 487 sq., where the Paulinism of John, of Ignatius, and of the Gnostics and other sectaries is exhibited. 2 2 John 1. 3 John 1. * Cf. 3 John 9 sq. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 621 was therefore special reason for the author to denounce them and to warn his readers against them. The heresy of which they were guilty seems to have been the same as that attacked in 1 John, involving both Docetism and anti- nomianism. The author's purpose in writing to Gaius, a member of the church addressed in 2 John, was to introduce and commend to him the brethren who carried the latter epistle. His hospitality is highly commended, and he is exhorted to welcome them, in accordance with his well- known custom, and to set them forward on their journey. The brethren, thus referred to, were evidently travelling evangelists who went from place to place preaching the word. The author improved the opportunity at the same time to beg Gaius not to imitate the example of Diotre- phes, a prominent if not the chief official in the church, 1 who was hostile to the writer and received kindly neither himself nor his messengers. Apparently Diotrephes was inclined to favor the false teachers who are denounced in the other epistle. Thus, though the letters are so brief, they give us an interesting glimpse of the life of an early church, and reveal one of the means by which the unity of Christendom was preserved, and a uniform development secured, even in the midst of the widest diversity of local conditions and tendencies. But of this it will be necessary to say more later. The Apocalypse, the last of the five works ascribed by tradition to the apostle John, is the only one of the five that bears the name of John. Justin Martyr ex- pressly identifies the author with the apostle, 2 and no one seems to have questioned the identification except the sect of the Alogi, until toward the close of the third cen- tury, when Dionysius of Alexandria, to whom the chili- asm of the book was offensive, expressed doubts as to its apostolic origin. His dtoubts were echoed by Eusebius, who reports that many in his day ascribed the work to the presbyter John, of whose existence we learn from Papias. 3 Eusebius consequently put the work among the antilegom- i 3 John 9. 2 j ust i n . Dia i 81 . a See below, p. 623. 622 THE APOSTOLIC AGE ena, 1 and it was long before it acquired an unquestioned place within the canon. Qne thing, at any rate, is entirely certain, and that is that the author of the Apocalypse was not the author of the fourth Gospel. The few superficial parallels that can be pointed out between the two works 2 count for nothing over against the total difference in their style, and especially in their conception of Christianity. There is absolutely nothing in the Apocalypse of that pro- found mysticism which is fundamental both in the Gospel and in the First Epistle of John, and in spite of the author's emphasis upon the death and the pre-existence of Christ, his standpoint is essentially the standpoint of the primitive church at large. Whether the writer of the Apocalypse was the apostle John is another question. If the apostle John was the author of the fourth Gospel, he cannot have written the Apocalypse. But even if he was not the author of the fourth Gospel there are strong grounds for assuming, as has been already seen, that that work proceeded from a circle in which he was the leading figure, and that it bears the stamp of his teaching, and represents with more or less accuracy his controlling conception of Christianity. But if that be so, it is almost as difficult as in the other case to regard the Apocalypse as his work, for it represents in the main an entirely different type of thought. It is to be noticed that the author does not himself claim to be an apostle, and his work contains no hint that the one whom he saw in his vision was the beloved Master upon whose bosom he had leaned and with whom he had been so intimately asso- ciated during the whole period of his earthly ministry. 3 1 Ensebius : H. E. III. 25. 2 For instance, the frequent characterization of Christ as the Lamb of God, a phrase which is used of him in John i. 29, 36 ; and the occurrence of the term " Logos " in Rev. xix. 13. So far as the latter is concerned, there is no trace in the entire work of the Logos conception of the fourth Gospel, and in the pas- sage referred to there is no ground for identifying the phrase X67os rov 0eou, which is due to a mere personification of the revelation given through Christ (Rev. i. 2), with the technical term X67os employed in John i. 1 sq. 8 This fact makes not only against the ascription of the work to the apostle John, but also against its pseudonymity. There is no sign, indeed, that the author wished his work to pass as the work of the apostle John, or of anyone else than himself. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 62S It is a mistake, moreover, to assume that the author claims or must have possessed any special authority over the seven churches to which he writes. He speaks simply as a Christian prophet, and what he says demands belief and attention not because it is his own word, but because it is the word of God revealed to him, just as that word was supposed in his day to be revealed to Christian proph- ets everywhere. Any Christian who was recognized as a prophet in the churches addressed, and who commanded the respect and confidence of his brethren, might have written the Apocalypse. (All that we can certainly say, then, about the author is that he was a Christian prophet of Jewish birth, 1 but of universalistic principles, 2 whose name was John and who resided in Asia ;iand that he was thoroughly familiar with the conditions of all the churches addressed, and thoroughly at home among them. An early tradition knows of a certain presbyter John who lived in Asia during the latter part of the first century, 3 and to him the Apocalypse is ascribed by Dionysius of Alexandria, 4 1 The Hebraistic style of the work is alone sufficient to prove him a Jew ; and his conceptions bear throughout a genuinely Jewish character. 2 The author evidently made use of Jewish or Jewish Christian sources in which the national particularism had considerable play (cf., e,g., vii. 4 sq., xxi. 12) ; but he himself was thoroughly in sympathy with the church at large in its recognition of the salvation of uncircumcised Gentiles, and he evidently never thought of the Jewish ceremonial law as binding upon any Christian (cf. v. 9, vii. 9sq.). 3 The presbyter John is mentioned by Papias in a passage quoted by Euse- bius: H. E. III. 39, 4. Irenseus failed to distinguish him from the apostle John, and supposed consequently that Papias was a hearer of the latter, and many modern scholars agree with Irenseus. See, for instance, Salmon's arti- cle Joannes the Presbyter in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. But Eusebius saw that Papias was referring in the passage in question to another John, and he therefore concluded quite rightly that Papias was a hearer of the latter and not of the apostle. We have no other information about this presbyter John. He was confounded at an early day with the apostle, and his memory seems to have perished entirely. But there is no reason for doubt- ing his existence, as some scholars do. That two Johns were buried at Ephe- sus is said by Dionysius of Alexandria (in Eusebius: H. E. VII. 25), by Eusebius himself (//. E. III. 39), and by Jerome (De vir. ill. 9). Not much weight can be attached to the report, but so far as it goes it tends to con- firm the separate existence of the presbyter John. 4 Dionysius, quoted by Eusebius : H. E. VII. 25, does not say that the Apoca- lypse was written by the "presbyter John," but only by another John than the apostle ; and he calls attention to the fact that there were two tonibj ia Ephesus bearing the name of John. 624 THE APOSTOLIC AGE by Eusebius, 1 and by many modern scholars. We know so little about this presbyter John that it is impossible either to prove or to disprove his identity with the author of the Apocalypse ; but if John the apostle was not its author, it is altogether probable that John the presbyter was, for otherwise we should have to assume that still a third influential man of the same name lived and labored 'in Asia at the same time with the apostle and presbyter. This of course is not impossible, for the name was a very common one among the Jews ; but it is hardly likely. Of the date and general character of the Apocalypse, and of the circumstances which called it forth, I shall speak a little later in connection with the subject of persecution. The writings which we have been considering throw considerable light upon the conditions that existed in the churches of Asia Minor during the closing years of the first century. The picture of an unknown church which is contained in the second and third epistles of John, has already been referred to. The first epistle, as has been seen, reveals the prevalence of a heresy which was at once antinomian and Docetic, and we know from the letters of Ignatius, and from other later sources, that the Gnostics, to whom the false teachers attacked in 1 John were closely related, had large influence throughout Asia Minor in the second century. From the seven epistles contained in the second and third chapters of the Apocalypse, we get a peculiarly interesting and vivid glimpse of the diverse conditions that existed in seven specified churches, and our knowledge of the general course of development in Christendom at large is greatly enhanced thereby. That the author of the Apocalypse addressed only seven churches, when there were doubtless many others in the province, was due simply to his love of symbolism. The sacred number seven was a favorite one with him and con- trolled to a large degree the composition of his book. Undoubtedly he chose the seven churches he did, either because they were the most prominent in the province or 1 Eusebius: H. E. III. 39, 6. See my edition of Eusebius, uote in loc., and also III. 24, note 20. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 625 because their needs were greatest. The truth is that in all but two of them he found much to criticise. Only the churches of Smyrna and of Philadelphia receive undivided commendation, and even they appear to have been far from strong. 1 In both cities, moreover, the Jews were evidently exceedingly hostile, and were making the Christians considerable trouble ; for the author denounces them sharply, and characterizes them as a synagogue of Satan. 2 The church of Laodicea receives the most unsparing con- demnation. It was apparently prosperous from a worldly point of view, but its prosperity had resulted in a lack of spiritual earnestness and consecration which the author severely rebukes. In Sardis the state of affairs seems to have been almost as bad as in Laodicea. The writer even speaks of the church as dead, but at the same time he declares that there are some of its members who have not defiled their garments, and are worthy of commenda- tion. In Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira the condition of things was more complicated. The most prominent factor in the situation was the presence of certain antino- mian teachers who were leading some of the disciples astray, and whom the author found it necessary to con- demn in strong terms and to warn his readers against. These Nicolaitans and Balaamites were evidently akin to the libertines who are denounced in other New Testa- ment epistles, but it is worthy of note that there is no hint that they were also Docetic in their views, as were the false teachers attacked in the epistles of John and Igna- tius. Their error seems to have been only practical. They very likely found a warrant for their libertinism in the principles of Paul, though there is no reason to sup- pose that our author had Paul or his teachings in mind 1 Rev. ii. 9, iii. 8. It is interesting to notice in this connection that Ignatius in writing to the church of Philadelphia a few years later found it necessary to warn his readers against those who preached Judaism (chap. (5) Appar- ently the Jews were still prominent there, and were attempting to secure con- verts among the Christians. In Smyrna they seem to have heen doing no harm when Ignatius wrote, for he says nothing about them in his Epistle to the Bmyrnaeans. 2 Rev. ii. 9, iii. 9. 2s 626 THE APOSTOLIC AGE in writing to them. 1 In fact, though Paul's principle touching the freedom of believers from all objective law was not generally accepted, there was no disposition on the part of the church at large to denounce him, or to declare its disagreement with him, for the simple reason that his principle was not generally understood, and it was commonly believed that he was as true a supporter of the Christian law as anybody else. And in this the church was right so far as the practical question was con- cerned ; for Paul was as bitterly opposed to libertinism and licentiousness as any of his brethren, and was heartily at one with the author of the Apocalypse in condemn- ing everything that savored of looseness or laxity in morals. 2 In Ephesus the disciples had already repudiated the false apostles and the teachings of the Nicolaitans, and the only thing which the author ha~d against them was that their original love had grown cold. Possibly the writer himself was at home in Ephesus, and his presence may have had something to do with their rejection of false teachers; but their zeal against heresy may also have had something to do with their growing coldness in Christian love and their neglect of the practical duties of the Christian life. In Pergamum the false teachings of the Nicolaitans seem to have found some acceptance within the church, and in Thyatira there were apparently many who had been led astray. Conditions in the latter place were, in fact, the reverse of those in Ephesus. Love and devotion to the practical duties of the Christian life were on the increase among the disciples of Thyatira, while their attitude toward the false teachers was not all that could be desired. There seems to have been in the city a heathen prophetess, to whom the author, with evident reference to the notori- ous wife of the Israelitish king Ahab, gives the name 1 It is entirely unwarranted to find in the false apostles of Rev. ii. 2, a ref- erence to Paul, for the author was evidently referring to recent events ; but Paul had not been in Ephesus for more than thirty years. 2 Irenaeus, followed by other fathers, connects the Nicolaitans mentioned in Rev. ii. 6, 15, with Nicolas, one of the seven who were appointed to take charge of the charities of the church of Jerusalem. But there is no ground for such a connection. Cf. Eusebius: H. E. III. 29, and my notes in loc. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 627 Jezebel. She was apparently wielding considerable influ- ence, and was leading even some Christians astray. 1 The picture of the conditions that prevailed in the seven churches is thus a variegated one, but it is exceedingly in- teresting on that very account. It shows clearly the many difficulties, both external and internal, with which Chris- tianity had to contend in its early days. From without not only hostility and persecution, but also the seductive and insidious influence of Jewish and heathen principles and practices ; from within coldness and indifference, un- sound thinking and corrupt living. It is not to be won- dered at that as time passed the need of organization should be increasingly felt, and that tried and true men should be more and more looked to to control the destinies of the churches and to guard them from the growing dan- gers. But of this it will be necessary to speak more par- ticularly in another connection. * 4. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE The apostle Paul came into frequent contact with the authorities of the Roman Empire during his great mission- ary campaigns, but in every instance he found in them, according to the Book of Acts, a protecting and not an attacking power. And there can be no doubt that the representation of that book is in this respect quite true, at least for the period preceding his Roman captivity. That he was finally executed as a criminal was due not to the fact that he was a Christian, but to the fact that he was a disturber of the public peace, and his condemnation had no effect upon the status of his Christian brethren. They were not participants in his crime, and no obloquy or suspicion attached to them because of it. For some years after his death the church seems to have gone quietly on its way without attracting the attention of the authorities and without suffering any molestation from them. Matters might have gone on thus for years longer, had it not been 1 See Sc'hiirer's essay: Die Prophet in Isabel in Thyatira, in the Theolo- C, vo?i Weizsacker geroidmet, S. 37 sq. 628 THE APOSTOLIC AGE for the great conflagration which swept away a considerable part of Rome in the summer of 64, and which brought upon the Christians of that city the terrible baptism of blood known as the persecution of Nero. 1 The term is a some- what misleading one, for it seems to imply that Nero was an enemy of the Christian religion, and that he undertook to exterminate it or to check its growth, as some of his successors did. But the truth is that he did nothing of the sort. There is no reason to doubt the statement of Tacitus, 2 that he inflicted tortures and death upon the Christians of Rome simply in order to relieve himself from the suspicion of being the author of the conflagration and to turn the rage of the people upon another object. That the Christians should have been thus selected as the scape- goats was not in the least strange. The emperor was en- tirely under the influence of his wife, Poppsea, who was a Jewish proselyte, and it is quite possible that his attention was called to the Christians by her. Once brought to his notice, their notorious lack of patriotism, their reputed atheism, their unsociability, their alleged devotion to the black arts, and their general unpopularity might well lead him to see in them the best possible persons to accuse of the crime which he had himself committed. It may be that the trial and conviction of Paul had already acquainted him with the existence of the Christians, and that he was all the more ready when the emergency arose to make such use of them. It would seem from the account of Tacitus and the somewhat ambiguous words of Suetonius, 3 that the majority of the Christians were not punished for the actual crime of incendiarism, which Tacitus says could not be proved against them, but were put to death as enemies of society and as dangerous characters, whose principles and practices were such as to imperil the welfare of the people and of the state. In the exercise of his extraordi- nary police jurisdiction, the emperor had the right to pro- ceed against such persons, as against brigands and pirates, 1 Upon the Neronian persecution, see Arnold: Die neronische Christenver- folannfi, and especially Ramsay: Church in the Roman Empire, p. 226 s<^ 2 Annals, XV. 44. Suetonius,; Nero, X6, THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 629 without recourse to the courts or to the regular legal forms of criminal procedure. 1 What began, therefore, simply as an attempt on the part of the emperor to throw the blame of the great conflagration upon the disciples, eventuated, when the charge against them could not be proved, in a wholesale attack upon them as dangerous characters, whose destruction was demanded by the good of the community at large ; and the attack doubtless came to an end only when the emperor tired of the executions, and according to Tacitus not until the people's hatred for the Christians had been turned into pity by the awful suf- ferings to which they were subjected. The inhumanity and brutality which attended their exe- cution almost pass belief. According to Tacitus, " They were also made the subjects of sport in their death, for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and wor- ried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when day declined they were burned to serve as noc- turnal lights." It is doubtless to the same occasion that Clement refers in his Epistle to the Corinthians in the words, " To these men . . . there is to be added a great multitude of the elect, who, having through envy endured many indignities and tortures, furnished us with a most excellent example. Through envy those women, the Danaides and Dircse, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments, finished the course of their faith with steadfastness, and though weak in body received a glorious reward/' 2 It is not to be won- dered at that the people of Rome, little as they might care for the victims (who were evidently from the lowest classes of society, or the emperor would not have dared to treat them thus), and heartily as they might despise them for their foolish delusion, should feel that they were pun- ished less to satisfy justice than to satiate the bloodthirsti- ness of Nero, and that their hatred and contempt should ultimately give way to compassion. 1 See Mommsen in the Historische Zeitschrift, 1890, S. 490 sq. ; and Hardy : Christianity and the Roman Government, p. 101, 2 Clement : Ad Cor. 6. 630 THE APOSTOLIC AGE There is no reason to suppose that the massacre ex- tended beyond the confines of Rome, or that any law was passed or edict issued making the profession of Chris- tianity a crime, or placing the Christian society under the ban of the empire. But it was to be expected that the emperor's action should be widely known, and that provin- cial governors should feel at liberty, in the exercise of their extraordinary police jurisdiction, to follow his example in treating the Christians as outlaws and criminals whenever their own inclination or the hatred of the populace sug- gested such a course. The Christians, therefore, were thenceforth in a precarious condition, liable at any time to be held responsible for local or national disaster, and to be sacrificed to popular prejudice and passion, or to be made the victims either of religious and patriotic zeal, or of petty jealousy and spite. Of their actual condition in Rome and elsewhere, during the years succeeding Nero's attack upon them, we have no explicit information, though there are possible hints of outbreaks against them under Vespasian and Titus. 1 But the emperor Domitian was avowedly hostile to them as well as to the Jews, and they suffered considerably dur- ing his reign both in Rome and in the East. Domitiaii's enmity, both to Christians and to Jews, seems to have been due in part to the widespread attempt to evade the pay- ment of the tax to the Capitoline Jupiter which was levied upon all the Jews, after the destruction of Jeru- salem, as a substitute for the ancient temple tax which they had been accustomed to send to the latter city. The tax, of course, was collected from Jewish Christians as well as from other Jews, and there were so many of the former that the Christian church, as well as the Jewish synagogue, must have had the attention of the Roman officials particularly drawn to it ; and thus Christianity in general must have shared with Judaism, to some extent, at least, the hostility of the authorities, even though the two faiths were not confounded by them. But Domitian's enmity, both to Jews and to Christians, was due especially 1 See Ramsay : Church in the Roman Empire, p. 256 sq. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 631 to their known disinclination to pay the emperor such divine honors as he desired to receive from all his sub- jects. Upon the respect and homage due to himself, his jealous and suspicious disposition made him peculiarly sensitive, and many besides Jews and Christians suffered his vengeance for real or fancied slights which were inter- preted to mean disloyalty and rebellion. Dion Cassius records that during his reign a large number of persons were put to death, or had their property confiscated on the charge of sacrilege. 1 Among them were Flavius Clement, a cousin of the emperor and consul in the year 95, and his wife Domitilla. The former was executed; the latter banished. There can be no doubt that Domitilla at least was a Christian, 2 and in all probability it was primarily their attachment to the Christian faith which brought the emperor's vengeance upon her and her husband, as well as upon the many others referred to by Dion Cassius. We also know that outside of Rome the disciples had to en- dure severe persecution during the reign of Domitian, 3 and that the mere profession of Christianity was regarded as a crime and punished with death in some sections ; 4 while the refusal to worship the image of the emperor was treated in the same way. 5 The emphasis laid by Domitian upon the worship of the emperor, as a mark of loyalty to the empire, must necessarily lead the authori- ties ultimately to regard the profession of Christianity as tantamount to a declaration of disloyalty ; and though no law seems to have been passed upon the subject, we find that already before Pliny became governor of Bithynia, it was generally recognized as a capital crime to be con- nected with the church, and it had become the custom to put an accused Christian to the test by requiring him to sacrifice to the image of the emperor. 6 Just when this s, Dion Cassius, LXVII. 14 (see Neumann : Der rihnische Staat unddie allgemeine Kirche, S. 14 sq. ; and Ramsay, I.e. p. 260). 2 Compare Eusebius : H. E. III. 18 ; and see Ramsay, I.e. p. 261. 8 Cf. 1 Pet. i. 6, iii. 15, Sv. 15, v. 9, and the Apocalypse, passim. * 1 Pet. iv, 14, Ifi; Rev. ii. i:j, vi. 9, etc. 6 Rev. xiii. 15, xiv. 9, xix. 20, xx. 4. 6 See Pliny's Epistle to Trajan referred to on p. 531, above. 632 THE APOSTOLIC AGE custom arose we do not know, but there can be little doubt that it had its origin during the reign of Domitian. The Christians, then, during the latter part of the first century in Rome, as well as elsewhere, were regarded as dangerous and disloyal characters, and though no law was passed against them, and no systematic policy of ex- termination was entered upon by the authorities either imperial or provincial, they were subjected not infrequently both in Rome and in the provinces to suffering and even to death. But the hostility of the state thus manifested, and the per- secutions which the Christians were called upon to endure, had a marked effect upon the development of the church. Especially striking is the hatred which was engendered among the disciples for the power which oppressed them, and their sense of the irreconcilable and permanent oppo- sition between the church and the empire. In the epistles of Paul no such feeling is exhibited. On the contrary, believers are exhorted to honor and obey the constituted authorities, and it is said expressly that the powers that be are ordained of God, and that rulers are a terror not to the good but to the evil. 1 The same attitude toward the state is inculcated in First Peter, 2 and it is implied in that epistle that the authorities may put a stop to their perse- cution, if the Christians show by their conduct the purity and harmlessness of their lives. 3 But in the Apocalypse we find an entirely different spirit. The state there ap- pears as the irreconcilable foe of the church, and the war between the two is to be fought out to the bitter end. Instead of preaching submission to the state and recogniz- ing it as a power ordained of God, the author represents it as a satanic might and thinks only of vengeance upon it. Enmity for it knows no bounds, and he calls upon all the people of God to rejoice over its approaching destruction. 4 The Apocalypse constitutes the classic ex- ample of that bitter enmity for the empire with which 1 Rom. xiii. 1, 3. Compare also 2 Thess. ii. G, where the Roman Empire seems to be represented as a restraining power. 2 1 Pet. ii. 13 sq. 1 Pet. ii. 12, 15, iii. 16. 4 Rev. xviii. 20. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 633 many disciples returned the latter's hostility, and it con- stitutes at the same time the classic example of the way in which persecution led the church to lay emphasis upon the approaching consummation and upon the blessedness and glory to be enjoyed by Christ's followers in his king- dom. This, in fact, was the second marked effect of persecution. The original expectation that Christ would speedily return to establish his kingdom could not fail to be enhanced by the terrible experiences of the latter part of the first century, and Christians must be more than ever convinced that the time was at hand. It was under the impulse of this feeling that the author of the Apocalypse, like so many Jewish writers from the time of Daniel on, took up his pen to depict, for the com- fort and inspiration of his suffering brethren, the good time coming, when their enemies should be trampled under foot and they should enjoy blessedness and glory unspeakable. The aim of the work, which was addressed primarily to the seven churches of Asia mentioned in the first three chapters, was the same as that of First Peter and the Epistle to the Hebrews. It was to quicken and arouse Christian courage and zeal and to nerve the follow- ers of Christ to continued faithfulness and .endurance. But the method employed for the purpose was very dif- ferent from that followed in those epistles ; and yet it was a most natural method, especially for one familiar, as the writer evidently was, with the apocalyptic literature of the Jews and imbued with its spirit. 1 In carrying out his task, the author made large use of earlier apocalyptic writ- ings, probably both Christian and Jewish. 2 That much of 1 It is significant of the degree to which he felt the influence of Jewish conceptions that he represents Christ as setting up an earthly kingdom at the time of his return, in which the saints are to rule with him for a thousand years before the final onslaught of Satan and the Last Judgment (xx. 4 sq.). This is the earliest distinct statement known to us of the chiliastic view which was so common in the church of the second century. 2 The investigations of scholars during recent years have made it abun- dantly clear that the author of the Apocalypse made large use of earlier sources, though the number and extent of those sources are still a matter of debate, and will probably remain so. It is not my purpose here either to reprcd u-e tho ivMilts of others, or to attempt an independent analysis of my own. Dr. Briggs' recent work on ibe Mcsxi.th of the Apostles contains a very 634 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the material besides the epistles to the seven churches was original with himself, there can be little doubt ; but it is impossible to fix its limits with exactness, and the line separating the various sources from each other can be drawn only approximately. The work in its present form evidently dates from the reign of Domitian. The persecution of Nero is distin- guished in vi. 9 sq. from the persecution which the read- ers were enduring at the time the author was writing. Domitian, moreover, is referred to in xvii. 11 under the figure of the eighth beast, and is pictured as a Nero re- divivus, under the influence of a widespread popular belief that that emperor still lived and would yet appear upon the scene, and in accordance with the common Christian estimate of Domitian as a second Nero, which grew up only after his character as a bitter persecutor had become well established. But various indications point not simply to the reign of Domitian, but to the latter part of his reign, as the date of the Apocalypse. The policy of persecution had been established for some time when the work was written, and many had suffered for their faith. It was not a new condition which the author faced, as was the case when First Peter was written. The battle had been raging so long and so bitterly that all hope of compromise and reconciliation was past, and nothing but the final ad- vent of Christ for the destruction of his enemies could put an end to the conflict. Moreover, the practice of testing Christian discipleship by requiring those accused of being Christians to worship the image of the emperor was already in vogue, as it was later in the time of Pliny, but as it careful and elaborate analysis which may be studied with great profit (p. 284 sq.). Other works of especial importance are those of Volter (Die Entstehung der Apokalypse, 1882 ; 2te Auflage, 1885 ; and Das Problem der Apokalypse, 1893), Vischer (Die Offenbarung des Johannes; einejiidische Apokalypse, in Gebhardt and Harnack's Texte und Untersuchunf/en, II. 2, 1880), Weizsiicker (Das apostolische Zeitalter, 188fi, S. 504 sq.), Sabatier (Les Origines littera- raires et la Composition de r Apocalypse de St. Jean, 1887), and Spitta (Die Offenbarung des Johannes untersucht, 1889). For farther literature upon the subject, see the chapter in Dr. Briggs' work referred to just above, -and also a valuable article by Baldensperger (in the Zeitschrift filr Theoloyie und Kirche, 1894, S. 232 sq.), in which is given an excellent review of the progress of recent investigation. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 635 seems not to have been when First Peter was written. All these conditions point to the latter part of Domitian's reign, the period to which the Apocalypse is expressly ascribed by Irenseus, the earliest father to tell us anything about its composition. 1 The work, as has been already remarked, constitutes the classic example of that strong hatred for the Roman Empire which its persecuting meas- ures aroused in the hearts of many Christians. But it is to be noticed that the seven epistles in the second and third chapters lead to something of a modification of the impression made by the work as a whole, that at the time it was written the church of Asia was in the midst of an awful and bloody persecution which was resulting in the torture and death of multitudes of Christians. Though it is implied in i. 9 and iii. 10 that persecution was the common lot of the churches addressed, and though through- out the seven epistles emphasis is laid upon the need of patience and endurance, persecution is explicitly referred to in only two of them : in the epistles to the churches of Smyrna and Pergamum. Moreover, in Smyrna the death penalty had apparently not yet been inflicted, 2 while in Pergamum it would seem that only one martyr, Antipas, had lost his life. 3 Evidently it was not so much specific cases of suffering that led the author to give vent to his hatred for the empire, as the general policy to which the authorities had committed themselves, a policy which might not lead to many deaths in any one place or at any one time, but which meant permanent and irreconcilable conflict between state and church. The same conditions prevailed during a large part of the century that followed. The number of deaths seems never to have been large, but 1 Irenseus: Adv. Hser. V. 30, 3. The indications of an earlier date, which occur in some parts of the Apocalypse, are due to the sources of which the author made use, and cannot be urged against the later date, which is too well established to admit of doubt. Among those indications of an earlier origin, one of the most notable is found in xi. 1 sq. That passage, 'whether part of a larger work or not, was apparently written by a Jew during the latter part of the Jewish war, while the Romans were in possession of Jerusalem, but when the temple was not yet destroyed. To about the same period, or possi- bly to the reign of Vespasian, parts of chaps, xiii. and xvii. are also probably to be referred. 2 Rev. ii. 10. Rev. ii. 13, 636 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the enmity of the empire was as clearly manifested in one death, as in a hundred. The principle was the same in either case; and whenever any special circumstances led the authorities to take particular cognizance of Christian- ity, increased severity was always the result. But the hostility of the state thus manifested had the effect not simply of arousing the hatred of Christians, but also of compacting the church and broadening the line which separated it from the world at large, and thus mak- ing more real and vivid the sense of unity and of brother- hood which had always existed among the disciples of Christ. One of the notable facts to which the literature of the late first and early second centuries bears testimony is the increasing realization of the ideal of Christian unity and the growing effort to give that ideal practical expres- sion and visible embodiment. 5. THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH The conception of the unity of the church of Christ was a possession of Christian believers from the beginning. It is true that the word "church," in the universal sense, cannot be proved to have been employed before Paul, 1 but the con- ception, to which that word in the usage of Paul and of those that followed him gives expression, existed from the first. The original disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem thought of themselves as a family, and conversion meant their in- corporation into the one household of faith. As the Gospel made its way beyond Palestine the same feeling continued. Christians everywhere were conscious of be- longing to one family, and Christ's disciples were brethren wherever they might be. It was one of Paul's chief con- cerns throughout his missionary career to foster this sense of unity among his churches, and to make it practical. He was interested not simply in individual conversions, but in the growth of the church of God, the body of Christ. 2 It was that church which he had persecuted, 3 1 The word ^KK\rj. The word is not found, so far as I am aware, in the literature of the second century, but it is used by Eusebius (H. E. III. 37 and V. 10) to designate the missionaries who are called apostles in the Didache. Evidently the evange- lists were simply apostles, and the only reason for the use of the word " evange- list " was the desire to confine the title " apostle " to the Twelve and Paul. 8 Barnabas, V. 9, VIII. 3. 4 In Rev. ii. 2 the reference to false apostles implies the existence of true apostles besides the Twelve, for they were known to be false only after trial. 6 Didache, XI. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 649 in that sense. In the Book of Acts, on the other hand, the broader meaning appears only twice, 1 and then appar- ently under the influence of an older source ; while in Clement and Ignatius the word is used as the exclusive title of Paul and the Twelve. 2 In other writings of the same period the usage is ambiguous. It is clear that as Paul used the title, and as it was used in the Apocalypse and in the Didache, it did not imply that the person designated by it had necessarily seen Jesus ; for Paul uses it of Timothy in 1 Thess. ii. 6 and of Apollos in 1 Cor. iv. 9, and even though it is possible that Silvanus, Andronicus, and Junias, to whom he also applies it, 3 may have seen Christ, Timothy and Apollos certainly had not. 4 Moreover, in view of the late date of the Didache, it is ot course impossible that the travelling apostles whom it mentions can have been personal disciples of Jesus, and the same is true of the false apostles referred to and of the true apostles implied in Rev. ii. 2. Thus even in circles where the influence of Jewish Christianity was felt to a marked degree, personal association with Jesus during his earthly life was not regarded as an essential precondition of apostleship. But a divine call and endowment were universally regarded as necessary. The mere fact that a man proclaimed the Gospel did not make him an apostle. Only as he was doing the work under the direct impulse and guidance of the Spirit could he lay claim to the title of apostle, and only in so far as it was recognized that he was working thus would the title be accorded him by those 1 Acts xiv. 4, 14. 2 Cf . Clement : Ad Cor. 42, 44, 47 ; and especially Ignatius : Magn. 6, Trail. 3, 7, Rom. 4, Phil. 9. See also Harnack, I.e. S. 117, note. 3 1 Thess. ii. G ; Rom. xvi. 7. 4 It is true that 1 Cor. ix. 1 seems at first glance to indicate that no one could be an apostle who had not actually seen Jesus, but that interpretation will not hold. Paul in that passage is not mentioning qualifications of apos- tles in general, but qualifications which he himself possesses, and which put him on the same plane with the Twelve, and make him the equal of any apostle however high his standing. Strange to say, even Sohm (I.e. S. 42) fol- lows Lightfoot in accepting the common opinion as to the necessity of the qualification in question, but the passage which he cites (1 Cor. xv. 7) does not prove that according to Paul there could never be any apostles except such as had seen Christ, but only that Christ appeared to all that were then apostles. 650 THE APOSTOLIC AGE to whom he ministered. The basis of his apostleship was divine, not human, and his credentials were God-given. 1 It is very likely true that apostles were sometimes appointed and sent out by this or that church, and that they were given letters of introduction and commendation which vouched for their apostolic character and mission. 2 But even in such cases it was not the appointment of the church which made them apostles ; only the divine call could do that. All that the church could do was to bear testimony to its conviction that such a call had been received, and that the person in question was consequently fitted to do apostolic work and worthy to receive recognition and honor. And even then a man's apostleship must be continually tested by his character and accomplishment. The right of churches and of individuals to test the claims of those who came to them as apostles was everywhere recognized, and it is a decisive proof of the unofficial character of the latter. 3 It was seen in an earlier chapter that the Twelve did not occupy any official position in the church of Jeru- salem or in the church at large. 4 Their personal signifi- cance was due not to the fact that they were the incumbents of the highest office in the church, but simply to the fact that they were Christ's chosen missionaries, and as such had a peculiar responsibility for the spread of the Gospel. They were preachers and teachers, and their true mission was not to hold office, but to proclaim the message of Christ. They owed whatever dignity and authority they possessed solely to their spiritual character and endowment. What was true of them was true also of all the other apostles. They were officials neither of a local congregation nor of the church at large. They served the church universal, devoting themselves to the conversion of the world and 1 Among those credentials were the performance of signs and wonders (2 Cor. xii. 12), the patient endurance of hardships and trials (2 Cor. xii. 12 and xi. 23), the spiritual power of his preaching (1 Cor. ii. 4 sq.), and the success of his missionary work (1 Cor. ix. 2). 2 Cf. 2 Cor. iii. 1. 8 Cf., for instance, 1 Cor. ix. 1 sq. ; also 2 Cor. xi. 13, 22 sq., xii. 12 sq., xiii. 3, and in general the whole of chaps, x.-xiii., in which Paul defends his own apostleship. Cf. also Gal. i. 8 sq. ; Rev. ii. 2 ; Didache, XI. 4 See above, p. 45 sq. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 651 thus to the extension of the kingdom ; but they did it not because they were elected or appointed to the office of missionary or apostle, but because they were impelled thereto by the Spirit. Accordingly, whatever authority they exercised in the church was a purely spiritual author- ity, and depended always upon the recognition of their divine commission and endowment by their brethren. That their influence was great wherever their apostolic character was recognized, and especially in the churches which they had themselves founded, of course goes without saying, 1 and that they were in a position not simply to advise and recommend, but even to utter commands, is equally clear. 2 But there existed no legal relation between them and their converts which bound the latter to listen to them and obey them. Only because they were conscious that they were speaking God's word could they demand obedience, and only as those to whom they spoke recognized the same fact could they expect them to render such obedience. 3 The test of the truth of their preaching and teaching of course could not always be found in the content of that which they preached and taught. Much must be accepted by those who heard on the personal authority of men already tried and approved, and hence the authority of one who was recognized as an apostle must be greater than that of an ordinary disciple, and the authority of the apostle who had first preached the Gospel in a city, and to whom the dis- ciples owed their Christian faith, must be peculiarly great and lasting. But it was not they themselves, it was the Master whom they represented, that uttered commands and required compliance. What was true of the apostles was true also of the prophets. In 1 Cor. xii. 28, Paul says, " And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers " ; and the prophets who are thus ranked next to the apostles are mentioned frequently in the lit- 1 Cf. 1 Cor. iv. 14 sq. ; Gal. iv. 13 sq. 2 Cf. 1 Cor. v. 13, vii. 6, xi. 34, xvi. 1 ; 2 Cor. ii. 9, etc. ; also Ignatius; Trail. 3, Rom. 4. Compare also 1 Cor. ix. 14, and Rom. xiii. 2, where the same word diardffffeffdai is used of Christ and of God. 3 Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 10, xiv. 37; 2 Cor. i. 24. 652 THE APOSTOLIC AGE erature of our period. 1 It is evident that they were very numerous, and that they were not confined to the churches founded by Paul. 2 The gift of prophecy, as we have already seen, 3 was exercised not exclusively by any par- ticular class in the church, but by disciples of all classes. At the same time there were those who possessed the gift in an eminent degree, and who exercised it so frequently that they acquired the name of prophets and were distin- guished thereby from the brethren in general. They were not simply the occasional recipients of a revelation ; they were in possession of a permanent prophetic gift, which enabled them to know and to utter the will and truth of God. And so, like the apostles, they received special honor from their fellow-Christians and were looked to for guidance and for instruction. They possessed, moreover, as the apostles did, a large measure of authority ; not be- cause of any official position or rank, but simply because they were the mouthpiece of Christ, whose will was law to his church. So far as they were believed to speak for him, their utterances were authoritative, and were gladly heeded by the faithful. But there were false prophets as well as true, and so it was necessary to test all that claimed to be prophets before accepting their declarations as the word of God; 4 and even after they had approved them- selves it was not their authority that was recognized, but only the authority of the Spirit that spoke through them. Even true prophets might speak when not under the influence of the Spirit. They might on their own im- pulse instruct or advise or exhort their fellows, 5 but speak- ing thus they could claim nothing more than the respect and attention due to any other approved disciple. That the prophets are uniformly mentioned after the apostles by Paul and by other writers, when the two classes are spoken of together, does not mean that they 1 Cf. Acts xi. 27. xiii. 1, xv. 32 ; Rom. xii. 6; 1 Cor. xiv. ; Eph. ii. 20, iii. 5, iv. 11 ; Rev. xxii. <); also Matt. x. 41, xxiii. 34. 2 See above, p. 527. Ibid. < Cf. 1 Cor. xii. 10, xiv. 29 ; 1 John iv. 1 sq. ; Didache, XI. ; Hermas: Mand. Jvl. 8 Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 12, 25, xiv. 37. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH held an official rank below that of the apostles, for neither they nor the apostles were officers in the church ; but it indicates that their mission was regarded as less exalted and responsible than that of the apostles. All the apos- tles were prophets, endowed by the Spirit with the power to proclaim the will and the truth of God. But not all prophets were apostles ; for the latter were called to the special and much more laborious and self-sacrificing work of preaching the Gospel and planting the church in new territory. Their work was therefore primary and funda- mental, and their dignity as founders was naturally greater than the dignity of those who came after them. But it would be a mistake to draw hard and fast lines in this connection ; to suppose that the functions of the apostles in these early days were carefully distinguished from the functions of the prophets. An apostle might tarry for a longer or a shorter time, or might even take up his resi- dence in this or that place and perform what was practi- cally a prophet's work there, while a prophet might at any time be called to do the work of an apostle and to carry the Gospel to the unevangelized portions of the world. 1 It would be a mistake, moreover, to speak of the relative authority of apostles and prophets, regarding the former as possessed of higher authority in virtue of their higher 1 Paul and Barnabas, who were prophets in the church at Antioch, were sent out to do the work of apostles (Acts xiii. 1), and in the time of the Didache prophets travelled about from church to church as well as apostles (Didache, XI., XIII.). On the other hand, Paul not simply founded churches, but watched over their fortunes with care and solicitude, visiting them repeatedly, and residing in some places for a considerable length of time. And the same is true of others to whom he gives the name " apostles," as, for instance, Barnabas, Apollos, Timothy, Andronicus, and Junias. So Peter came to Rome and labored for some time there, though Christianity had long been established in the city ; and so John resided for many years in Ephesus. Paul's boast that he had never built on another man's foundation does not imply that an apostle had no right to preach in already existing churches, but simply indicates his indi- vidual principle of action. So the apostles mentioned in the Didache did not preach solely in unevangelized places, but went about from church to church. On the other hand, the Didache represents a later stage of development, due clearly to the prevalence of abuses, when it insists that apostles must not remain more than two days in any one place and must receive only their bare subsistence, while the prophets are permitted to settle down permanently wherever they please, and Christians are instructed to give them tithes of all their property. 654 THE APOSTOLIC AGE rank. The only authority in the church was the will of Christ, the sole head of the church, and that will was absolute, whether uttered by apostle or by prophet. A conflict of authority was therefore impossible. The apos- tle and the prophet must agree, or else one of them was speaking of himself and not of the Spirit, and in that case he had no authority whatever. Thus a prophet might judge an apostle or an apostle a prophet. Thus, indeed, any Christian possessed of the Spirit of God might judge them both. Neither the one nor the other could claim any authority of his own. 1 If the influence of an apostle was greater than that of a prophet in any particular church, or in the church at large, it was not because one was an apostle and the other only a prophet, but simply because the one had secured, as it was easy under ordi- nary circumstances for an apostle to secure, a more assured place than the other in the respect and confidence of his converts and of his brethren. In the passage already quoted from Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, teachers are mentioned in the third place after the apostles and prophets. 2 They, too, were common in the early church, and shared in the honor en- joyed by the apostles and prophets. Their function was similar to the function of the prophet, for it consisted in the impartation of spiritual instruction ; 3 but at the same time there was a marked difference, for the instruction given by them was the fruit of thought and reflection, and not of immediate revelation. 4 As prophecy was a gift 1 The reproof administered by Paul to Peter at Antioch (Gal. ii. 11 sq.) is an illustration of the principle. Compare also 1 Cor. xiv. 37 ; Didache, XL, etc. 2 Cf . also Acts xiii. 1 ; Rom. xii. 7 ; Eph. iv. 11 ; Jas. iii. 1 ; Didache, XIII. ; Hermas: Sim. IX., Vis. III., etc.; and see Harnack, I.e. S. 110, note. 8 It will not do to draw hard and fast lines here any more than in connec- tion with the apostles and prophets. All prophets were in a sense teachers, for they imparted divine truth. But not all teachers were prophets, for not all of them received immediate revelations from God. But the same persons might, and doubtless frequently did, impart revelations, and also give their fellows the benefit of their own thought and reflection; or, in other words, exercised both the gift of prophecy and the gift of teaching in its narrower sense. Compare Acts xiii. 1; 1 Cor. iv. 17 ; 1 Tim. ii. 7; 2 Tim. i. 11, etc. ; and the epistles of Paul in general, which contain both immediate revelations and the fruits of reflection. 4 Upon the gift of teaching, see above, p. 528 sq. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 655 which was not confined to a favored few, or to any one class within the church, so the gift of teaching might also be possessed in a measure by all. Thus Paul exhorts the Colossians to teach and admonish one another, 1 and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells his readers that they ought to be teachers instead of mere learners. 2 And yet, as wisdom and experience were pre-eminently required in an instructor, the number of those endowed with the charisma in so great degree as to entitle them to be called teachers, must have been limited; and hence those who did possess the gift in so large measure were held in high honor, and were regarded with the greatest respect and deference. 3 They had no official position in the church ; they were no more officers than were the apos- tles and prophets. But they possessed influence and exer- cised a measure of authority on the same ground as the latter. They, too, spoke the word of God, and it was that which gave their utterances weight. At the same time they did not claim to utter immediate revelations, and therefore what they said was not the word of God in the same sense as the prophet's message. There was a large human element in it which the prophet's utterances did not have, and for that reason their words carried less weight than the latter's, and their dignity and authority were not as great as his. It is thus easy to understand why in the literature of the period they should be com- monly mentioned after the apostles and prophets. And yet their practical influence in the conduct of the church and in the development of Christian thought and life was very great. They were endowed from on high with wis- dom and knowledge, 4 a permanent gift, which fitted them always to instruct and edify the church, while the prophet might receive his revelations only occasionally, and at other times have nothing to impart to his brethren. And i Col. iii. 16. 2 Heb. v. 12. 3 Compare the words of the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, who disclaims the right to speak as a teacher (chaps, i. and iv.). Cf. also Didache, XIII., where it is said that the teacher, like the prophet, deserves to be supported by the church. 4 \6yos ffoflas and \6yos yvuxreus, 1 Cor. xii. 8. 656 THE APOSTOLIC AGE so even after the enthusiastic age of the church had passed, and when the consciousness of the immediate presence of the Spirit was no longer vivid and widespread, and when there were no more prophets to impart new revelations from God, the gift of teaching continued to find exercise, and Christians looked to those who possessed it for the instruction and guidance which they had formerly received from apostles and prophets as well. The apostles, prophets, and teachers, whom we have been considering, all belonged to the church at large, and not merely to some local congregation. 1 The apostles might be the only ones who spent their lives in travelling about from place to place ; but the prophets and teachers also, even though they may have remained commonly in a single city, had their significance for the general church, and not for the local congregation alone. If they were endowed with the gift of prophecy or of teaching, that gift was good everywhere, and they were at liberty to exercise it in any church. Not that they had an absolute right to do so, and could insist that a congregation should listen to them whether it would or no ; 2 but every congregation would gladly listen if they had the Spirit and could utter God's word, and their utterances, whenever their inspired char- acter was recognized, must have the same weight in one part of Christendom as in another. The apostles, prophets, and teachers were, of all the Christian brethren, the ones who were held in highest honor by the early church, and their honor was due to the fact that they proclaimed the word of God. Thus, the author of the Didache says, " My child, him that speaketh unto thee the word of God 3 thou shalt remember night and day, and thou shalt honor him as the Lord " ; and from the eleventh, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters it is clear that 1 Cf., for instance, Didache, XL, XIII.; Hermas: Vis. II. 4; and see Har- nack, I.e. S. 100 sq. 2 Only those whom the congregation permitted could take part in the ser- vices. Cf. 1 Thess. v. 19; 1 Cor. xiv. ; Didache, X. Not only was the church to judge those who claimed to be inspired, but also to regulate their speaking as occasion demanded. See above, p. 5'24. " TOV XaXoCfToy r)rai in the other; and Clement: Ad Cor. 1, 21. The yyotfjievoi mentioned in Heb. xiii. 7 are not to be identified with the rjyov/jLevoi of vss. 17 and 24. The reference in vs. 7 is apparently to the apostles and prophets who first preached the Gospel to those addressed, while in vss. 17 and 24 there can be little doubt, in view of the late date of the epistle and the implication that those spoken of belong to the church addressed, that the reference is to such rulers as are elsewhere called bishops. 4 Cf., for instance, Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, where instruction is given for the ordering not simply of the life of the individual, but also of the services of the church. See also Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians with its directions concerning the government of the church, and the Shepherd of Hennas with its directions concerning penance. 2u 658 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the brethren that were in need. Such gifts were thought of from the very beginning as offerings to God, and not merely to men ; the act of charity was a religious, not simply a humane act. 1 The brethren were helped prima- rily, not because they were needy, but because they were brethren, members of the one body of Christ, and in serving them a Christian served his Lord and Master. The distribution of the offerings, therefore, would most naturally devolve upon the inspired persons in the church, upon those who were God's representatives in an especial sense, and were acquainted with his will. And so, in the church of Jerusalem, the matter was originally in the hands of the apostles, and when they needed to be released, men " full of the Spirit and of wisdom," that is, other inspired men, were selected to take their place. 2 So, also, in the matter of discipline, the apostles', prophets, and teachers naturally exercised a controlling influence. The word, which it was their function to proclaim, con- cerned not simply belief, but conduct as well, and ij; was to them, consequently, that Christians looked for a knowl- edge of the will of God which they were to observe, and it was upon them, for the same reason, that the duty de- volved of warning and reproving those who did not live aright, and in extreme cases, of taking steps to have them excluded from Christian fellowship. 3 They knew better than others the will of God for any particular offender ; they knew better than others whether admonition, or re- buke, or some severer punishment should be administered. Thus inspiration to declare the word of God meant inspiration to lead the church in many lines ; in fact, in all its varied activities. So far therefore as the church in its earliest days had any rulers except Christ, it had them in the apostles, prophets, and teachers who have been de- 1 Cf - Acts v. 3, where Peter tells Ananias that he has sinned not against man, but against God. Cf. also Phil. iv. 18, where the Philippians' gifts to Paul are spoken of as a sacrifice to God. 2 Acts vi. 1 sq. Cf. also Didache, XIV., where the firstfruits are given to the prophets, certainly not solely for their own use, but also for distribution to the needy. a Cf . 1 Cor. iv. 21, v. 3 sq. ; 2 Cor. xiii. 2 ; Gal. vi. 1 ; 1 Thess. ii. 11 ; 1 Tim v. 1, 20 ; 2 Tim. iv. 2 ; Tit. iii. 10, etc. THE DEVELOPING CHUKCH 659 scribed. 1 But their rule was purely spiritual, as has been seen, and depended not on human appointment or election, nor upon the existence of any official or legal relation between them and other Christians, but simply upon their own belief and the belief of their brethren that they were commissioned by God to speak for him. 2 But what if there were no apostles, prophets, and teach- ers ? What if at any time the Christians of a particular city should have among them no one especially endowed with the teaching charisma ; no one immediately called of God to do the work of an apostle, prophet, or teacher? That such a contingency might arise occasionally, and with increasing frequency as time passed and the number of churches multiplied, goes, of course, without saying. There could not be apostles everywhere and all the time, even though their number was great; and although in Corinth there might be a large number of prophets, as there were when Paul wrote, there may well have been many churches, especially after the original enthusiasm had somewhat cooled, in which they were not always present. The Didache, indeed, in the early part of the second century distinctly contemplates such a condition of affairs. 3 And, of course, what was true of prophets might also be true of teachers ; and what was true in the churches addressed by the author of the Didache might be true in other churches, and at an earlier time as well. But as soon as such a contingency arose anywhere, the need 1 The common distinction between the functions of teaching and ruling will not hold for these earliest days. The teachers ruled just because they were teachers, and they ruled by teaching ; that is, by declaring the will of God. 2 Rebuke and denunciation could have no effect, unless it was recognized as uttered in accordance with the divine will. And so the power to exclude from Christian fellowship lay not with the apostles, or the prophets, or the teachers, but with the church. (Compare, for instance, 1 Cor. v. 5 sq., 13; 2 Cor. ii. 6.) Not that the church ruled itself, but that Christ alone was sov- ereign, and that his disciples, so far as they were true to him, would act only under his direction and would withdraw their fellowship from any one only when they believed that Christ wished them to do so. The church in these days was not a democracy, it was an absolute monarchy, but Christ, and Christ alone, was Kins:. 3 nirlache, XIII. : " The firstfruits ye shall give to the prophets. . . . But if ye have no prophets, give to the poor." 660 THE APOSTOLIC AGE must be felt of providing in some other way for the per- formance of those duties which ordinarily devolved upon the apostles, prophets, and teachers. Those duties were manifold, but among them none de- manded more regular attention than the collection and distribution of the alms, which constituted an essential part of Christian worship. Only as the varying wants of all the needy brethren were known could the charity of the church be wisely and helpfully dispensed. Even where apostles, prophets, or teachers were on the ground, it might be difficult for them always to give to the matter the attention which it required ; and so we find the apos- tles in Jerusalem recommending, at an early day, the selection of seven men to whom the matter might be entrusted, and they thus be left free to devote themselves more exclusively to the preaching of the word. 1 What happened in Jerusalem may well have happened in other places also, and especially where the apostles, prophets, and teachers were coming and going, and there was no certainty that the permanent presence of any of them could be counted upon. The need, in fact, must have been very widely felt at an early day of making some provision for the regular and official discharge of at least this important function of the church's life. It was very likely this need more than any other which gave rise to the earliest bishops. They are mentioned for the first time in the salutation of Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, and it is a significant fact that that letter was primarily a note of thanks for gifts sent to Paul by the Philippian church. So Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians says, "It will be no light sin for us if we thrust out those who have offered the gifts of the bishop's office unblamably and holily"; 2 and Justin Martyr, a gen- eration later, expressly declares that the president (by whom he evidently means the bishop) receives and dis- penses the alms offered at the Eucharistic service. 3 But it was not this need alone that gave rise to bishops, and 1 Acts vi. 1 sq, 3ee above, p. 77 sq. 2 Clement : Ad Cor. 44. Justin : Apol. I. 67, THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 661 it is a mistake to confine the attention too exclusively to this point, as has frequently been done. The need must also have been widely felt at an early day of putting into the hands of competent men the responsibility for the proper conduct of the religious services of the church, and especially of the Eucharistic service, which was most im- portant of all. When the services began to take on a formal character, we do not know; but the influences which must ultimately lead to the repression of the origi- nal freedom were at work at an early day, and already before the end of the first century the stereotyping process was well under way. 1 But, of course, where order and form were emphasized, the need of leaders to conduct the services, and to see that such form and order were properly observed, would naturally be felt. So long as apostles, prophets, and teachers were on the ground, all was well ; but in their absence there must be others found to take their place. And so bishops arose to meet this need also, and it fell to their lot not simply to receive and dispense alms, but to preside at the religious services as well. 2 But the requirements of ecclesiastical discipline also contributed to the rise of bishops, making necessary the appointment of men charged with a special responsibility, which had originally devolved chiefly upon the apostles, prophets, and teachers. The inspiration of the latter, as has been already seen, fitted them above all others to exer- cise control in the matter of discipline. But as time passed, and such inspired men grew relatively fewer, the need of the careful and faithful administration of disci- pline only increased, and with it the need of men espe- cially charged with its oversight. It is an interesting fact that in the Didache, where the churches addressed are especially directed to appoint bishops and deacons, the reason given for such appointment is that the Eucharist may be kept pure, or, in other words, that unworthy men may be excluded from participation in the sacred 1 Cf. Didache, VII., IX. sq. ; and see above, p. 525. 2 Compare Didache, XV. 1, where the needs of the Eucharistic service lead to the appointment of the bishops and deacons. Compare also Justin : Apol. 1.67. 662 THE APOSTOLIC AGE service. 1 And so in 1 Tim. iii. 4 sq., the fact is empha- sized that it is a bishop's duty to rule in the church and to exercise discipline when discipline is needed. 2 The bishops thus constituted the successors, or, better, the substitutes of the apostles, prophets, and teachers in the performance of the varied and responsible functions which have been described. They owed their existence to the fact that men especially inspired to declare the will of God were not always on hand, and therefore could not always be depended upon by the Christians of any particu- lar city for the needed direction and leadership. In the absence of such inspired men the church did the best thing it could. It looked to the most thoroughly tried and trusted disciples it had to take their place. But it goes without saying that such men were to be found commonly among the more mature and experienced brethren ; among those who were oldest, not necessarily in years, but in length of Christian service. From the beginning, the dis- ciples fell naturally into two classes, the older and the younger, -and so far as the latter were not distinguished by special inspiration, which made them apostles, prophets, or teachers, they were inferior in dignity and influence to the former, and instinctively looked to them, in the absence of inspired men, as their guides and leaders. The Chris- tian life itself was universally regarded as a gift of God, and the man who had proved himself a true disciple of Christ by a long life of faithful and devoted service must be in possession of a large measure of the Spirit, and must be especially qualified to instruct and lead the younger and less experienced believers, who had not yet been so long and so thoroughly tried as he. 3 And so, when the church needed leaders in place of the inspired apostles, prophets, and teachers, it found them naturally among the older and more mature disciples. 1 Compare Chap. XIV. with XV. 1. The qualification of gentleness, or meekness which is mentioned first among those required of the bishops in XV. 1, doubtless has special significance in this connection. 2 Compare also Titus i. 6, 7 ; Acts xx. 28, 31 ; Clement : Ad Cor. 42-44. 8 An illustration of this belief is found in the large measure of control which the confessors, that is, those who had endured persecution for their Christian faith, exercised in the church of the second and third centuries. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 663 But not all, even of the tried and experienced Christians, were equally fitted to perform all the functions that have been described, and it was inevitable, especially where there were many such Christians, that some of their num- ber should seem to be more especially set apart by the Spirit for the work that needed to be done ; and that the church should therefore ratify the divine will by appoint- ing them to do a particular service, and by laying upon them the responsibility for its regular and efficient per- formance. Thus it came about that some of the elder brethren, whether more or fewer, were made bishops. As soon as that happened, a distinction existed between bishops and elders. But it is a mistake to suppose that the dis- tinction was the same as that which existed in the second century, when bishops and presbyters were both ecclesias- tical officers, charged each with their own separate func- tions ; for the elders or presbyters, in the period with which we are dealing, were not officers in any sense. They were not men appointed for any service. They were simply the older and more mature disciples ; natu- rally honored by their younger and less experienced breth- ren, but holding no official position of any kind. But that being the case, it is equally a mistake to deny all dis- tinction between bishops and elders, and to regard them as identical in the primitive church. The truth is, that though all bishops were elders, because chosen from the more mature and experienced brethren, not all elders were bishops by any means. 1 i The unofficial character of the elders, during the period with which we are dealing, appears from the contrast which is drawn between them and the younger brethren (the j/eoi) in 1 Pet. v. 5; 1 Tim. v. 1 ; Titus ii. 2 sq. ; Clem- ent: Ad Cor. I, 3, 21 ; and from the fact that where the several officers of the church are enumerated bishops and deacons are mentioned, but never presby- ters (so in Phil. i. 1 ; 1 Tim. iii. ; Clement : Ad Cor. 42, 44; Didache, XV.). On the other hand, Acts xiv. 23, Titus i. 5, and Clement: Ad Cor. 54 ("Only let the flock of Christ be at peace with its appointed elders "), seem to imply that the elders were regularly appointed officers of the church. But in the light of the passages in Clement's epistle, already referred to, it is evident that in chap. 54 the "appointed elders" must be the bishops whom the author speaks of elsewhere, and cannot be the same as the elders in general, of whom he also speaks frequently. There were thus in Corinth, when Clement wrote, both elders and "ap- pointed elders," the latter being the bishops, who were taken from among the 664 THE APOSTOLIC AGE But the fact that the bishops were taken from the elder brethren explains, as it could not otherwise be explained, the historic relation which they sustained to teaching in the narrow and specific sense of that word. The chief function of the apostles, prophets, and teachers was to de- clare the will and truth of God for the instruction of their brethren. It was because they were endowed with the power to do it, that the leadership of the church, in all its varied functions, devolved upon them. But after them, the more mature and experienced disciples must be best fitted to impart the information as to God's will and truth which the church needed ; for they had passed through a longer tutelage than their brethren; they had heard the word preached by inspired apostles, prophets, and teachers year after year, and their memory reached back to earlier days, and brought down into the present a knowledge of the utterances of messengers of God long since departed. In the absence, therefore, of special and immediate revela- tions or of any one commissioned to impart new truth, their wide and long familiarity with the truth of God revealed by inspired men of the past, as well as of the present, must lead their brethren to look to them for the instruction which was always needed. And so the teaching function, elders, and might therefore be called simply " elders," or, to distinguish them from the others who had no official position, " appointed elders." In the light of Clement's use of the two words, there can be little doubt that the presby- ters of Acts xiv. 23 and of Titus i. 5 are to be understood in the same way. Titus was not directed to appoint men to the office of elder, but to appoint elders to office, that is, as i. 7 indicates, to the office of bishop. And so the author of the Acts did not mean that Paul and Barnabas made men elders, they were elders already, but that they made officers out of elders, i.e. appointed certain of the elder brethren to official position in the churches which they planted. That the author did not give them the name " bishops " is of a piece with his course in connection with the Seven. He was careful not to give the latter any specific name, and he was equally careful to avoid a definite title in the present case. He assumed that rulers were appointed by Paul and Barnabas, but he did not venture to identify them with any par- ticular ecclesiastical officers of his own day. The " elders that rule well " of 1 Tim. v. 17 are doubtless also to be regarded as " appointed elders," or bishops. The author, in speaking of the elder brethren in general, and of the treatment to be accorded them, directs that double honor be paid to such elders as rule well, i.e. to such as exercise faithfully the bishop's office, of which he had already spoken earlier in his epistle. On the unofficial character o'f the primitive elders, see especially Weizsiicker, I.e. S. 617 sq. (Eng. Trans., II. p. 330), and Sohm, I.e. S. 92 sq. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 665 as well as the functions of dispensing the charity of the church, of leading the religious services, and of adminis- tering discipline, belonged to the bishops from the begin- ning. When the inspired apostles, prophets, and teachers were absent, they were their substitutes, so far as substi- tutes were needed, for the performance of all the duties which had commonly devolved upon the former. But the instruction which the bishops gave was distinguished by its traditional character. They could impart only what they had received from others, and the value of their instruction must depend wholly upon the faithful- ness with which they reproduced what they had heard. Thus it came about that it was regarded as their func- tion not to impart fresh truth, but to conserve the truth imparted by others, by inspired apostles, prophets, and teachers of their own and earlier days. And thus it came about that when the line was finally drawn, as it was before the end of the second century, between the apos- tolic and all subsequent ages, and the apostles, in the narrower sense, were regarded, along with the Old Testa- ment prophets, as the sole recipients of God's revelations, the bishops could be thought of quite naturally, and with- out any apparent violation of historic fact, as the deposi- taries of the teaching of the apostles, and the authoritative exponents and expounders of apostolic truth. 1 The date of the appointment of the earliest bishops we do not know. There is no reference to them in the epis- tles to the Galatians and Romans ; and what is still more significant there is none in the epistles to the Corinthians. Had there been any in the church of Corinth, Paul would certainly have referred to them in emphasizing the need of conducting the religious services in a decent and orderly manner. The Corinthians, to be sure, are directed to be in subjection to all those who, like the household of 1 It is interesting to notice that according to the Didache, X. 7, only the prophets are to be allowed to indulge in free prayer, a spiritual exercise in an eminent sense, while others, including in this case the bishops also, are to use certain prescribed forms. This is simply an indication of the common belief that a man not endowed with special inspiration must confine himself in the services of the church to the utterances of others who are thus endowed. 666 THE APOSTOLIC AGfi Stephanas, serve and labor for the good of the saints ; * but there is no hint that such persons had been appointed to any office, or been entrusted with any special work. The passage, however, is significant, because it shows that before the churches began to appoint officers there were those who took it upon themselves to serve in vari- ous capacities, and whose services were such as to entitle them to peculiar deference and to a large measure of con- trol in the affairs of the congregation. 2 The same condi- tions existed apparently in Thessalonica, when Paul wrote his first epistle to that church. It is possible that the Trpoio-TafjLevoi, to whom he refers in v. 12, had been regu- larly appointed by the congregation; but his exhorta- tion implies rather that their service was purely voluntary, and that it was on that very account that they were not receiving the honor which was their due. 3 Light is thus thrown upon the way in which the earliest bishops were selected. There can be little doubt that when the need of regularly appointed officers was felt, the church instinc- tively chose those who had proved themselves, by their long and faithful services, best fitted to discharge the re- quired functions. Their appointment, in fact, was very likely nothing more in the beginning than a tacit recogni- tion by the brethren of their call to serve the church as they were already doing, and only gradually did such recognition develop into regular choice and induction into an office. The reference in Phil. i. 1 to the two classes, bishops and deacons, seems to imply that there were al- ready ecclesiastical officials in Philippi; and Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians shows that there had long been regularly appointed bishops and deacons both in Rome 1 1 Cor. xvi. 15. 2 It is significant also that Stephanas and his household were the first con- verts of Achaia, and thus enjoyed a natural pre-eminence in virtue of their Christian maturity and experience. 8 Rom. xii. 8, where the same word (TrpoiVrd/zfros) is used, and 1 Cor. xii. 28 imply that the function of ruling or governing was a common one in the church ; but in Corinth certainly, and in Rome probably, there were no regularly appointed officers at that time. Such officers, however, are very likely to be found in the Tj-yovpevoi. of Heb. xiii. 17 and 24. See above, p. 657. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 667 and in Corinth. 1 It would seem from the Didache, on the other hand, that the custom of appointing such officers, though common, was not universal even at the beginning of the second century. 2 Where apostles and prophets were as numerous as they were in the churches with which the author of the Didache was acquainted, it was, of course, natural that the official development should be slower than in some other parts of Christendom. But even in places where the need of officers was later in making itself felt, the influence of other parts of the one church of Christ, whose unity was so strongly emphasized, soon led to their appointment, and before the middle of the second century there were bishops (and deacons) almost everywhere. 3 But it would be a mistake to think of these bishops as possessing in the beginning an official status in the church, in such a sense that they had an absolute right to bear rule, and could insist upon the obedience and submission of their brethren. The ability to rule in the church was as much a charisma or divine gift as the ability to teach or prophesy, 4 and if any one was appointed to the i Cf . Clement : Ad Cor, 42, 44. 2 Didache, XV. 1. 3 The deacons, who are commonly mentioned with the bishops in our sources (Phil. i. 1 ; 1 Tim. iii. 8 sq. ; Didache, XV. ; Clement : Ad Cor. 42), were evidently nothing more than the assistants of the latter. That is what the literature of the second and following centuries, in which their relation to the bishops is explicitly stated, shows them to have been then, and the mean- ing of the title itself, and the fact that they are always mentioned after bishops, and that no additional qualifications are demanded of them, confirms the assumption that they were the same from the beginning. Our second-cen- tury sources show that they assisted the bishop in the conduct of the Eucha- rist, in the dispensing of alms by informing him of the needs of the brethren and ministering to them in accordance with his directions, and in the admin- istration of discipline, by bringing to his knowledge such offences as needed at- tention. As they were servants, or assistants simply, not rulers, they might be taken from the younger brethren, and very likely commonly were ; but they must be men of thoroughly approved character (compare, for instance, 1 Tim. iii. 8 sq. and Didache, XV.)- In the Didache the qualifications demanded are the same for both bishops and deacons: they must be worthy of the Lord, meek, free from avarice, true, and approved. In First Timothy, where the qualifications are given with greater fulness, it is required of the bishop, but not of the deacon, that he shall be no novice or neophyte (i/e60uros). The word Sidicovos is used some thirty times in the New Testament, but in an official sense apparently only in the passages already referred to (Phil, i 1; ITim. iii. 8 and 12). 4 Compare 1 Cor. xii. 28 and Rom. xii. 8. 668 THE APOSTOLIC AGE office of bishop, it was simply because it was believed that he had been called by God to such office. 1 The appoint- ment was originally only the recognition by the church of his possession of a charisma fitting him for special service. And so his right to hold office and to discharge its duties was dependent upon his brethren's recognition of his divine call. If at any time they doubted his possession of the requisite gifts ; if at any time they doubted whether the Holy Spirit was with him authorizing him to lead the services, to dispense alms, to administer discipline, to pro- claim the divine truths learned from God's inspired wit- nesses, they could refuse to permit him to exercise his functions, and could refuse to follow him and to listen to his words. His right was thus no more a legal right than that of the apostles, prophets, and teachers. He was sim- ply a substitute for the latter, and his privileges and pre- rogatives were no greater than theirs had been. . Indeed, the presence of an apostle, prophet, or teacher might at any time make his offices entirely unnecessary. But as time passed, and the duties devolving upon the bishops became more complicated and pressing, and the need of regularity and order more apparent, it was inevitable that a feeling should grow up that the control of the affairs of a particular church should remain permanently in the hands of its bishops, and should not be committed to such apostles, prophets, and teachers as might chance to appear, especially since they were growing fewer year by year. It was inevitable, as a result of this, that the bishops should increasingly regard themselves, and be regarded by their brethren, as possessed of certain exclusive rights of which they ought not to be deprived. This feeling we first find voiced in Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, where he says, "Those [bishops], therefore, who were appointed by them [that is, by the apostles], or afterwards by other men 1 Compare Acts xx. 28: " Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock in the which the Holy Ghost hath made youbishops." It may be doubted, however, whether tirlffKotroi is to be taken in this passage in an official sense ; whether it is not rather to be understood in the sense of natural overseers upon whom a special responsibility devolved because of their age and maturity. And the doubt is confirmed by the lack of a reference to bishops in Eph. iv. 11. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH GG9 of repute with the consent of the whole church, and have ministered unblamably to the flock of Christ in lowliness of mind, peacefully and with all modesty, and for a long time have borne a good report with all, these men we con- sider to be unjustly thrust out from their ministration. For it will be no light sin to us if we thrust out those who have offered the gifts of the bishop's office unblamably and holily." l The epistle in which these words occur was called forth by the existence of trouble in the Corinthian church, apparently due to a conflict between those who believed that, when men possessed of special inspiration were on hand, they should take precedence even of the regular officers of the church, and should have the con- duct of the religious services, together with the man- agement of the charity of the church; and those, on the other hand, who maintained that the duly appointed officers should remain constantly in full control. The majority of the church evidently sympathized with the former, and the result was that some of the bishops, who made a stand against them, were deposed from office. It was under these circumstances that Clement's epistle was written in the name of the church of Rome. It is in- structive to notice the way in which the trouble is dealt with. The author does not enter at all into the merits of the particular case in hand. He institutes no inquiry as to the character of the prophets and teachers who were the cause of the difficulty. Evidently, for aught he knew to the contrary, they were true prophets, and their teach- ing was entirely sound; but he insists that in any case the conduct of the services must be in the hands of the duly appointed officers, and no one has a right to take any part except under their direction or with their consent. He asserts distinctly that the church is subject to its officers in all respects, and that it has no right to disobey or to rebel against them, or to remove them from office so long as they do not disgrace their position by immorality and irreligion ; and he bases his principle not upon custom or expediency, or anything of the kind, but upon the will l Clement : Ad Cor. 44. 670 THE APOSTOLIC AGE of God. God sent forth Christ, Christ sent forth the apostles, and they in turn appointed bishops and deacons, so that the bishops and deacons hold their office by divine right. 1 The significance of this principle for the subse- quent history of the constitution and government of the church can hardly be overestimated. 2 But into that sub- sequent history we cannot enter here. It is enough to see the principle clearly and explicitly avowed in a letter sent by the church of Rome to the church of Corinth before the end of the first century. The future greatness of the church of Rome was already foreshadowed, not simply in the interest it felt in the fortunes of a sister church, and in the responsibility it assumed for the settlement of that church's difficulties, but also in the clearness of vision and in the resoluteness of purpose with which it entered upon that development in which it has always led the world. The bishops and deacons, whom we have been consider- ing, did not belong to the church at large in the sense in which the apostles, prophets, and teachers did. They served the local congregation primarily, not the universal church, and their official position gave them no rights in other congregations than their own. And yet the local congregation was not an independent and separate church ; 1 It was in accordance with this principle that the laying on of hands, or ordination, came finally to be regarded as the bestowal of special divine grace through which a man was made art officer by God, and had imparted to him an indelible character. In the beginning the laying on of hands signi- fied nothing of the sort. In the apostolic age it was nothing more than the public recognition of a person's call to a particular service. The person was supposed to have the grace or charisma already. It was the possession of it which constituted his call, and therefore there could be no virtue or efficacy in the laying on of hands which followed (compare Acts vi. 3, 6, xiii. 1,3, and 1 Tim. iv. 14). The laying on of hands is mentioned also in 2 Tim. i. 6, where hands are laid upon Timothy by Paul ; in Acts ix. 17, where hands are laid upon Paul immediately after his conversion by Ananias, an ordinary disciple; and in Acts viii. 17 and xix. 6, where hands are laid upon new converts by apostles in order that they may receive the Holy Spirit. In the last two passages the later conception of the act is foreshadowed, but as the rite of confirmation, not of ordination. 2 Cf. Sohm, I.e. S. 157 sq. Sohm is certainly right in emphasizing the importance of the principle voiced in Clement's epistle, but he goes too far when he makes that epistle responsible for the principle itself and for the results to which it led. Clement doubtless simply gave utterance to a prin- ciple already recognized generally in Rome and by many even in Corinth. THE DEVELOPING CHURCH 671 it was only a manifestation of the one church of Christ, and, as such, constituted one body with all sister congre- gations everywhere. And hence the conception of a uni- versal episcopate ruling the universal church was a natural outgrowth of the conception of a local episcopate ruling the local congregation. But the conception, though im- plicitly wrapped up in the original idea of the bishops as substitutes or successors of the apostles, prophets, and teachers, did not make its appearance until a later time. During the period with which we are dealing the churches, so far as we are acquainted with them, were ruled each by a number of bishops. The substitution of a single bishop for the original plurality was the result of a process which followed inevitably upon the principle avowed in the epistle of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth ; but that process lies beyond our horizon and cannot be discussed here. Nor can we enter here upon the steps by which the elder brethren of the apostolic age developed into the official presbyters of the second and following centuries. 1 At the close of the apostolic age, that is, at the close of the first century, we find at least some churches in possession of regularly appointed bishops and deacons, and we find the principle already accepted in some quarters that they are officers in the strict sense, and as such have a right to exercise the functions attaching to their position, which no inspired man, nor even the church itself, can deny them, except on the ground of malfeasance of office. When this principle, so distinctly voiced by Clement of Rome, was adopted by the church at large, as it was during the second century, that church was organized in a true sense, and its institutional character was an established fact. The change from the original condition of things was stupendous, but the process by which the change was wrought was gradual and entirely natural, as has been seen. It did not mean the loss of the primitive belief in 1 Upon the rise of monarchical episcopacy and upon the evolution of an official eldership out of the unofficial elder brethren of the earliest days, see especially Sohm, I.e. S. 146 sq. 672 THE APOSTOLIC AGE the presence of the Spirit, and in the special inspiration of certain individuals and their enjoyment of immediate revelations from on high ; but it did mean the subjection of spirit to law and of the individual to the institution, and thus foreshadowed the rise of Catholicism. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE A.D. Death of Jesus c. 30. Death of Stephen 31 or 32. Conversion of Paul 31 or 32. Paul's first visit to Jerusalem 34 or 35. Paul in Syria and Cilicia after 35. Evangelization of Galatia (Paul's first missionary journey) before 45. Death of Herod Agrippa 1 44. Death of James the son of Zebedee and imprison- ment of Peter 44 (or earlier?) Paul's second visit to Jerusalem (apostolic council) 45 or 46. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians c. 46. Evangelization of Macedonia and Achaia (Paul's second missionary journey) c. 46-49. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians c. 48. Evangelization of Asia (Paul's third missionary journey) c. 49-52. Trouble in the church of Corinth, and Paul's Epis- tles to the Corinthians, and notes to Timothy and Titus c. 51-52. Paul's last visit in Corinth 52-53. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and note to the Ephe- sians 52-53. Paul's last visit to Jerusalem and arrest there . . 53. Paul's imprisonment in Csesarea 53-55. Paul's journey to Rome 55-56. Paul's imprisonment in Rome 56-58. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians, Philemon, Ephe- sians, and Philippians, and note to Timothy . 56-58. Paul's death 58. Peter in Rome after 58. Death of James, the brother of the Lord .... 61 or 62. Burning of Rome and persecution of Nero . . . summer of 64. Death of Peter summer of 64. Jewish war 66-73. Destruction of Jerusalem September, 70. Death of John . , , , , , , ..... 98+, INDEX Achaia, evangelization of, 256 sq. Achaicus of Corinth, 269, 299, 423. Acts, sources of, 214, 237, 346, 436 sq.; author of, 237, 433 sq. ; apologetic purpose of, 345 sq. ; date of, 349, 437 sq. Aelia Capitoliua, 566. Agabus the prophet, 170, 344, 424. Albinus the procurator, 559. Alexander, a Jew of Ephesus, 282. Alexander the coppersmith, 280, 409. Alexander (the coppersmith?), 280 n. Ampliatus, 424. Ananias of Damascus, 97. Ananus the high priest, 559. Andronicus, 277, 278, 281, 288, 424, 427, 653 ; apostleship of, 649. Antichrist, in Epistles to Thessalo- nians, 252. Antiuomianism, 140, 244, 515, 586, 617. Antipas of Pergamum, 635. Antioch in Syria, origin of Christian- ity in, 109. Antioch, Pisidian, 177, 182 sq. Apelles, 424. Apocalypse, Christianity of, 448 ; au- thorship of, 621 sq. ; purpose of, 632 sq. ; sources of, 633 sq. ; date of, 634. Apollos, 290 sq., 300, 310, 410, 411, 423, 653; party of, in Corinth, 292 sq. ; possible author of Epistle to He- brews, 481 ; apostleship of, 649. Apologetics, primitive Jewish Chris- tian, 54 sq. Apostles, original significance of, 44 sq. ; conception of, in Acts, 46 ; vocation of, 45, 640; not an official board in control of the church, 45sq.,97; use of term, 646 sq.; qual- ifications, 649 sq. ; position and au- thority, 650 sq. See also Twelve. Apostolic age, limits of, 546 sq. Apphia of Colossae, 377, 424. Aquila, 269, 273, 275, 276 sq., 292, 423, 427 sq. Arabia, Paul in, 161. Archippus of Colossae, 371, 377, 424. Aretas, king of Arabia, 164 n. Aristarchus of Thessalonica, 360, 397, 415 n., 423, 427, 434. Aristobulus of Ephesus, 278, 424. Artemas, 424. Asceticism, 502, 510 sq.; in Paul, 136; in church of Rome, 337 ; in Colossae, 367 sq. Asia, evangelization of, 273 sq. Asiarchs of Ephesus, 347. Asyncritus, 424. Athens, Paul's visit to, 257 sq. Atticus, governor of Judea, 566 sq. Balaamites, 625. Baptism, at Pentecost, 59; original formula of, 60 ; Trinitarian formula of, 61; for the dead, 272; Paul's administration of, in Corinth, 271 ; common conception of, 541; Paul's conception of, 541 ; mode of, 542 ; of infants, 542 sq. Barcocheba, 566. Bar-Jesus the sorcerer, 174. Barnabas, in Antioch, 109, 168; visit to Jerusalem (Acts xii), 170 sq. ; in Cyprus, 174; at council of Jerusa- lem, 194 sq. ; Peter's influence upon, at Antioch, 216 ; goes with Mark to Cyprus, 231 ; career of, 424 sq. ; au- thor of 1 Peter ( ?) , 598 sq. ; as prophet and apostle, 653. Barnabas, epistle of, 426. Beroea, Paul's work in, 253 sq. Bishops, origin of, 659 sq., 665 sq. ; re- lation to apostles, prophets, etc., 662; relation to elders, 663; func- tions of, 664 ; qualifications of, 667 ; rights defined by Clement, 668. Bishops of Ephesus, 288. "Brethren," as name of disciples, 110. Caesarea, 340; Paul's imprisonment in, 351 sq. 2x 675 676 INDEX Carpus of Troas, 424. Catholic epistles, 642 sq. Celibacy, recommended by Paul (I. Cor.) , 303. Cenchreae, 338. Chiliasm, 452. Chloe of Corinth, 269, 423. Christ, ascension of, 38 sq. Christ, death of, his own interpretation of, 32 sq. ; effect of, upon disciples, 36, 40; early Jewish Christian ex- planation of, 56 sq. ; Paul's inter- pretation of, 129; in Epistle to the Hebrews, 475 sq. ; in Johannine writings, 493 sq. ; in later church, 501. Christ, life and teaching of, 15 sq. Christ, pre-existence of, according to Paul, 127; in Epistle to the He- brews, 477 sq. ; in Johannine writ- ings, 488. Christ, resurrection of, 36 sq. ; effect on disciples, 40 sq. ; preached by early Jewish Christians, 55 sq. ; Paul's interpretation of, 126 sq. ; in Johannine writings, 494. Christ, second coming of, according to early Jewish Christians, 63. Christ, union with, according to Paul, 130 sq. Christ, work of, 15 sq. ; according to Paul, 126 ; in Epistle to Colossians, 370 ; in Epistle to Hebrews, 475 sq. ; in Johannine writings, 493 sq. "Christian," first use of the name, 109. Christology of Philippians, 388 ; of Co- lossians, 372 sq. Christ-party in Corinth, 295 sq. Church, the body of Christ, 383 sq., 501, 505 ; senses of the word, 636 sq. ; unity of, 636 sq. ; organization of, 645 sq. Cilicia, Paul's work in, 168. Claudia of Rome, 397, 414, 424, 434. Clement of Philippi, 240, 256, 424, 431. Clement of Rome, 432, 454, 668 sq. Collection for saints at Jerusalem, 300, 309, 314, 323 sq., 338. Colossse, 287 ; false teachers in, 367. Colossians, epistle to, written in Rome, 353, 364 sq. ; purpose and contents, 366 sq.; authenticity of, 372 sq.; Christology of, 372 sq. Communism in early church at Jeru- salem, 67, Confirmation, 670 n. Corinth, Paul's work in, 262 sq. ; par- ties in church of, 290 sq. ; immorality in church of, 298; hurried visit of Paul to, 310 sq. ; Paul's final visit to, 324 sq. Corinthians, lost epistle of, to Paul, 299 sq. Corinthians, lost epistle of Paul to, 298, 323 n. Corinthians I., purpose and contents, 300 sq. Corinthians, Third Epistle to, still ex- tant, 311 sq. ; purpose and contents, 317 sq. Corinthians II., purpose and contents, 321 sq. Cornelius, conversion of, 101 sq. ; effect of his conversion on Christians of Jerusalem, 107. Crescens, 397, 424, 434. Crete, 410. Crispus of Corinth, 267, 269, 271, 423. Cumanus the procurator, 358. Cyprus, work of Paul in, 174 sq. Dalmatia, 412. Damaris of Athens, 259, 424. Damascus, Paul in, 162 sq. Deacons, 77, 661, 667, 670. Death, Paul's conception of, 125, 133. Death of Jesus. See Christ. Decree of council of Jerusalem, 211 sq. Demas, 256 n., 397,407 n., 417, 424, 434. Demetrius the silversmith, 281 sq., 347. Derbe, 178, 189. Dionysius the Areopagite, 259, 424. Diotrephes, 621. Docetism, 503, 586, 617. Domitian, treatment of Jews, 566; of Christians. See Persecution. Domitilla, 631. Ebionites, 567. Elders, 191, 288, 554 sq., 663, 671. Election, according to Paul, 141 n. ; common conception of, 460 sq. Elymas. See Bar-Jesus. Eprenetus of Asia, 276, 287, 424. Epaphras of Colossae, 374, 382, 397, 415 n., 424, 434. Epaphroditus of Philippi, 240, 256, 385 sq., 397, 414, 424, 434. Ephesians, Epistle to, not addressed to church of Ephesus, 275; place of composition, 353, 364 sq. ; purpose INDEX 677 and contents of, 377 sq. ; recipients of, 379 sq. ; authenticity of, 382 sq. Ephesians, note of introduction ad- dressed to, 275 sq. Ephesus, work of Paul in, 275 sq. ; work of John in, 606 sq. ; conditions late in first century, 625 sq. Epictetus, 449 sq. Erastus of Corinth, 267, 276, 410, 423. Essenism, influence not felt in Rome, 337 ; influence not felt in Colossse, 368. Ethics of church at large, 506 sq. Ethiopian eunuch, conversion of, 100. Eubulus of Rome, 397, 414, 424, 434. Eunice, 424. Euodia of Philippi, 240, 256, 424, Eutychus of Troas, 424. Exorcists in Ephesus, 286. Faith, Paul's view of, 141 ; common conception of, 458 sq. ; conception of, in Hebrews, 473 sq. ; conception of, in John, 498. Fatherhood of God, 16, 447, 507 sq., 582. Felix the procurator, 351, 357 sq. Festus the procurator, 348, 353, 355 sq. Flavins Clement, 631. Flesh, Paul's conception of, 123 ; treat- ment of, urged by Paul, 136. Forgiveness, according to Paul, 145. Fortunatus of Corinth, 269, 299, 423. Gaius of Asia, 620 sq. Gaius of Corinth, 267, 269, 271, 423. Gaius of Derbe, 424. Gaius of Macedonia, 256, 424. Galatia, evangelization of, 172 sq. Galatians, Epistle to, recipients of, 178 sq. ; purpose and contents of, 221 sq. ; place and date of composi- tion, 226 sq. Gallic, proconsul of Achaia, 270, 347. Gamaliel, 84. Gentiles, Jesus' attitude toward, 26; earliest missionary work among, 101 sq., 108 ; Paul's attitude toward, 146, 183. Gentile church, origin of, 110 sq. Gessius Florus the procurator, 561. Glossolalia, 50 sq., 308, 521 sq., 526. Gnostics, 502 sq., 586, 617, 624. Gospels, origin of, 568 sq. ; as bonds of unity, 643. Hebrews, Epistle to, date, 463 ; Chris- tianity of, 463 sq. ; recipients of, 463 sq. ; purpose of, 469; contents of, 470 sq. Hellenists, in early church at Jerusa- lem, 76. Heresy, effect of, 644. Hermas of Ephesus, 424, 432. Hermas of Rome, 432. Hermes of Ephesus, 424. Hermogenes of Ephesus, 280, 424. Herod Agrippa I., 93, 559. Herod Agrippa II., 348, 355. Herodion of Ephesus, 277, 424, 427. Holiness, 509 sq. Holy Spirit. See Spirit. Hospitality, 639. House-churches in Ephesus, 278. Hymenseus, 280, 424. Iconium, 178, 188. Idols , eating of meats offered to, 303 sq. Ignatius of Antioch, 500. Illyricum, 254, 412. Infant baptism. See Baptism. Inspiration of apostles, prophets, etc., 526, 653 sq. Interpretation, gift of, 526. James, brother of the Lord, 198, 199, 209 sq., 340, 549 sq. James, epistle of, Christianity of, 446 sq. James, epistle of, authorship and com- position, 579 sq. James, son of Zebedee, death of, 93, 199. Jason of Thessalonica, 245, 347 n., 423. Jerusalem, church of, later history, 559 sq. Jerusalem, council of, 194 sq., 208 sq. Jerusalem, destruction of, 546 sq., 562 sq. Jesus. See Christ. Jesus Justus, 397, 424, 427, 434. Jewish Christianity, early days of, 36 sq. Jewish Christians, in later church at Jerusalem, 342 ; in Corinth, 315. Jewish law. See Law. Jewish war, 561 sq. Jews, Paul's attitude toward, 162, 182 sq., 334 sq. ; Paul's preaching to in Ephesus, 284; in Philippi, 239; in Thessalonica, 246 sq. ; in Beroea, 254 sq.; in Corinth, 267 sq. ; God's treat- 678 INDEX ment of, according to Paul, 334 sq. ; expelled from Rome by Claudius, 3(32 sq. Jews in Philippi, trouble caused by, Johannine writings, Christianity of, 487 sq. ; Paulinisrn of, 488 sq. John the apostle, at council of Jeru- salem, 199; later career of, 606; in Ephesus, G06 sq. John, Gospel of, purpose and plan, 609 sq. ; authorship, 614 sq. John, First Epistle of, 617 sq. John, Second Epistle of, 620. John, Third Epistle of, 620. John, Revelation of. See Apocalypse. John the Baptist, 9 sq. ; disciples of, 11, 285 sq.; 290. John Mark. See Mark. John the presbyter, 621, 623 sq. Judaism, 1 sq. ; early Jewish Chris- tians' attitude toward, 64; of the dispersion, 157 sq., 444; proselytes of, 159. Judaizers, 192 sq., 315, 647; in Gala- tia, 218 sq. ; not in Corinth, 295 sq., 350; not in Colossse, 367; not in Philippi, 389; not in Rome, 389, 394. Judas, brother of Jesus, 565 sq. Judas, Epistle of, 585 sq. Judgment, Jewish conception of, 6. Julia, 424. Junias, 277, 278, 281, 288, 424, 427, 653; apostleship of, 649. Justification, Paul's doctrine of, 139, 143. Kingdom of God, conception of Jews, 7, 24, 27 sq.; of John the Baptist, 12 ; of Jesus, 19 sq. ; of early disci- pies, 41, 62. Laodicea, 287, 625. Laodiceans, possible recipients of Epistle to Ephesians, 380. Law, Paul's conception of, 124, 138; Christian's relation to, according to Paul, 138 sq. ; function of, accord- ing to Paul, 139; Christ's relation to, according to Paul, 139. Law, the Christian, 443 sq., 495. Law, the Levitical, influence upon the Jews, 3 sq. Law, the Jewish, John the Baptist's attitude toward, 13; Jesus' attitude toward, 25; early Christians' atti- tude toward, 59, 64 sq. ; Christian's relation to, according to Paul, 146 ; view of in Johannine writings, 495. Libertinism. See Antinomianism. Liberty, Paul's doctrine of, 140, 304, 336. Life of primitive disciples, 64 sq. ; of Christians of world church, 506 sq. Life, the Christian, according to Paul, 135 sq., 332 ; divinity of, 137, 141. Linus of Rome, 397, 414, 424, 431, 434. Logia,71,569sq. Logos in Philo, 478. Logos-Christology, of Epistle to He- brews, 478, 488; of John, 488. Lois, 424. Lord's Day, observance of, 543 sq. Lord's Prayer, 531 sq. Lord's Supper, origin of, 68 n. ; in early church at Jerusalem, 68 sq. ; in Cor- inth, 306 ; in church at large, 536 sq. ; Paul's view of, 305, 539; common conception of, 540. Love, for brethren, 508 sq. ; for God, 507 sq. ; for man, 508 sq. Love, law of, according to Jesus, 25 sq. : according to James, 446 sq. ; accord- ing to Paul, 307 sq. Lucius, 424, 427. Lucius of Gyrene, 424. Luke, 397, 414 sq., 417, 424, 433 sq. Luke, Gospel of, 433 sq., 574 sq. Lydia of Philippi, 240, 424. Lysias, the tribune, 348, 350. Lystra, 178, 188. Macedonia, evangelization of, 234 sq. ; Paul's second visit to, 324; Paul's final visit to, 338. Malta, Paul in, 361. Manaen, 424. Marcion, 502. Mark, 174, 231, 397, 410, 423, 427, 434. Mark, Gospel of, 571 sq. ; relation to Peter, 603 sq. Marriage discussed by Paul (I. Cor.), 303. Mary of Ephesus, 277, 424, 427. Matthew, Gospel of, 574 sq. Matthew, Logia of. See Logia. Matthias, appointment to the Aposto- late, 45 sq. Messiah, Jewish conception of, 8 ; pre- existence of, according to the Jews, 8; John the Baptist's conception of, 10 ; primitive Jewish Christian idea of, 54. INDEX 679 Messiahship of Jesus, early disciples' idea of, 42; his own idea of, 43; primitive Jewish Christian proof of, 55 sq. ; preached by Paul at Damas- cus, 163. Messianic age, Jewish conception of, 5,7. Messianic hope, origin of, 2 ; develop- ment of, 5 ; effect of, upon Jesus, 17 sq. ; effect of, upon Jesus' suc- cess, 31. Messianic prophecy, use of, by early Jewish Christians, 55 sq. Miletus, Paul's meeting with Ephesian elders in, 338 sq. Miracles in the early church at Jeru- salem, 74 sq. Monarchical episcopacy, 671. Narcissus, 278, 424. " Nazarenes " as name of disciples, 110. Nereus, 424. Nero and the burning of Rome, 628 sq. Nero, persecution by. See Persecu- tion. Nicolaitans, 625 sq. Nicolas, one of the Seven, 79, 626. Nicopolis, 410. Niger, 424. Number of Christians in early church at Jerusalem, 80. Nymphas, 424. Old Testament. See Scriptures. Olympas, 424. Onesimus of Colossae, 374, 396, 424, 434. Onesiphorus of Ephesus, 279, 397, 415, 424, 434. Ordination, 670 n. Organization of the church, 645 sq. Pamphylia, 176. Pastoral Epistles, authenticity of, 398 sq. ; Christianity of, 403 sq.; in- tegrity of, 404 sq. ; purpose of re- dactor, 412 sq. ; date of redaction, 413. Patrobas, 424. Paul, Christianity of, 113 sq. ; early training, 114 ; use of Scriptures, 115 ; intellectual gifts, 116 ; religious char- acter, 117 ; conversion, 119 sq. ; doc- trine of salvation, 123 sq. ; attitude toward Gentiles, 146, 183; develop- ment of his thought, 148 ; relation of his teaching to that of Jesus, 149; influence of his teaching on later generations, 149; early years of Christian life, 161 sq. ; in Arabia, 161 ; in Damascus, 162 sq. ; attitude toward the Jews, 162, 182 sq. ; chronology of his life, 164, 172, 356 sq. ; first visit to Jerusalem, 165 ; in Syria and Cilicia, 166 sq. ; al- leged visit to Jerusalem (Acts xii.), 170 sq. ; in Cyprus, 174 sq. ; name of, 176 ; in Galatia, 178 sq. ; illness of, 177 ; conflict with Judaizers, 192 sq. ; at council of Jerusalem, 194 sq.; apostleship of, not recognized at Jerusalem, 197 ; rebukes Peter at Antioch, 204; Epistle to the Gala- tians, 221 sq. ; in Macedonia, 239 sq. ; Epistles to the Thessalonians, 250 sq.; in Athens, 257 sq. ; in Corinth, 262 sq. ; alleged visit to Jerusalem (Acts xviii.) , 274; in Ephesus, 275 sq.; condemned to the arena in Ephesus, 280; lost epistle to Corinthians, 298, 323 n.; lost epistle of Corinthians to Paul, 299 sq. ; First Corinthians, 300 sq. ; Third Epistle to Corinthians, 311, 317 sq. ; thorn in the flesh, 319 ; Second Corinthians, 321 sq.; final visit to Corinth, 324 sq. ; Epistle to Romans, 325 sq. ; final visit to Jerusalem, 340 sq. ; arrest in Jeru- salem, 343 sq. ; imprisonment in Caesarea, 351 sq. ; appeal to Caesar, 348, 354; address before Agrippa, 355 sq. ; journey to Rome, 359 sq. ; in Rome, 362 sq. ; Epistle to Colos- sians, 366 sq. ; Epistlo to Philemon, 375 ; attitude toward existing social institutions, 376; Epistle to Ephe- sians, 377 sq. ; Epistle to Philippians, 385 sq. ; alleged release, 415 sq. ; al- leged journey to Spain, 415 sq. ; trial and final condemnation, 420 sq. ; execution, 415, 420 sq., 627; date of death, 419; disciples and compan- ions of, 423 sq. Pella, 563 sq. Pentecost, significance of, 48 sq. Perga, 176. Pergamum, Christianity in, 625 sq. Persecution , in Jerusalem , 91 ; by Nero, 430, 593, (528 sq. : by Vespasian (?), 630 ; by Titus ( ?), 630 ; by Domitian, 630 sq.; effect of, 644. 680 INDEX Persis, 424. Peter, leadership of, in early church of Jerusalem, 47 sq. ; appearance of risen Jesus to, 48 ; Pentecostal dis- course of, 53 sq. ; preaches to Cor- nelius, 101 sq. ; Paul's first interview with, 165 sq. ; at council of Jeru- salem, 199, 209 sq. ; at Antioch, 202 sq. ; apostle of the circumcision, 206 ; party of, in Corinth, 294 sq. ; missionary work of, 588 sq. ; in Rome, 591 sq. ; martyrdom of, 592 ; relation to Gospel of Mark, 603 sq. ; influence on Roman church, 605 sq. Peter, First Epistle of, Christianity, 482 sq.; contents, 483 sq.; Paulinism, 485 sq. ; purpose, 482 sq. ; authorship, 593 sq., 598 sq. ; date and place of composition, 596 sq. Peter, Second Epistle of, 600 sq. Pharisees, religious principles of, 4; attitude toward early Christians, 82. Philadelphia, church of, 625. Philemon of Colossae, 374 sq., 424. Philemon, Epistle to, 353, 364 sq., 375 sq. Philetus, 280, 424. Philip, one of the Seven, 73 sq., 95, 340, 424. Philippi, Paul's work in, 239 sq. Philippians, Epistle to, written in Rome, 364; purpose and contents, 385 sq. ; Christology, 388; authen- ticity, 393. Philo of Alexandria, 159, 478. Philologus, 424. Phlegon, 424. Phoebe of CenchreaB, 275, 278, 424. Phygelus of Ephesus, 280, 424. Praise in worship, 530. Prayer, 530 sq. Presbyters. See Elders. Priscilla, 269, 273, 275, 276 sq., 292, 423, 427 sq. Prophecy, 308, 526. Prophets, 527 sq., 640 sq., 651 sq. Provinces. See Roman Empire. Ptolemseus, 340. Pudens of Rome, 397, 414, 424, 434. Quartus, 424. Reconciliation, according to Paul, 145 n. Redemption, Paul's conception of. 129 sq. ; doctrine of, in Romans, 332 ; in Colossians, 369 sq.; in John, 494 sq. Repentance, inculcated by Peter at Pentecost, 58 ; emphasized in church at large, 457 sq. Resurrection, Jewish conception of, 5 ; Paul's conception of, 134, 309; in epistles to Thessalonians, 248 ; com- mon conception of, 452 sq. Resurrection of Christ. See Christ, Resurrection of. Revelation. See Apocalypse. Righteousness, Jewish conception of, 3, 6 ; John the Baptist's conception of, 13 ; Jewish Christian idea of, 59. Righteousness of faith, 142, 330 sq. Righteousness of works, 142, 330 sq. Roman Empire, provinces of, 151; heterogeneity of, 151; provincial policy of, 152 sq. ; unity of, 152 sq. ; culture of, 155 sq. ; religion of, 155, 157 ; ethical condition of, 156, 448 sq. : attitude toward Christianity, 627 sq. Romans, Epistle to, last chapter ad- dressed to Ephesus, 275 sq. ; purpose and contents, 325 sq. Rome, church of, 325, 328, 588 sq., 669 sq. Rome, Paul's imprisonment in, 362 sq. ; burning of, 628. Rufus, 279, 424. Sabbath in the Christian church, 543: Sacrifice of Christ, according to Paul, 145 n. Sadducees, attitude toward early Christians, 82. " Saints " as name of disciples, 110. Salvation, early Jewish Christian idea of, 63 ; Paul's doctrine of, 123 sq. ; Gentile conception of, 451 sq. ; in Epistle to Hebrews, 473 sq. Samaria, preaching of Gospel in, 95. Sardis, Christianity in, 625. Sceva, a Jewish priest, 287 n. Scriptures, as used by the early Jewish Christians, 71; Paul's use of, 115; as used by Jews of dispersion, 159; as a Christian book, 465 ; in Chris- tian worship, 532. Secundus, 424. Seneca, 450 n. Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus, 175, 347, 424. Seven, the, appointment of, 77; func- tions of, 78. INDEX 681 Sibylline Oracles, 159. Silas. See Silvanus. Silvanus, 230, 239 sq., 269, 423, 426, 485 ; apostleship of, 649. Simon Magus, 99. Sin, Paul's conception of, 123. Slavery, Paul's attitude toward, 376. Smyrna, church of, 625. Sopater of Beroea, 424. Sosipater, 424, 427. Sosthenes of Corinth, 270. Spain, Paul's alleged journey to, 415 sq. Spirit, presence of, a characteristic of the Messianic age, 8 ; Jesus' promise of, 32 sq. ; work of, in days after Jesus' death, 49 ; activity of, at Pen- tecost, 50 ; activity of, in early church at Jerusalem, 71 sq. ; mediation of, by apostles, 97, 286; mediated by laying on of hands, 98, 286; Paul's conception of, 132 ; in the Christian, 135 sq., 307 ; in the church, 518. Spiritual gifts, Paul's view of, 307. Stachys, 424. Stephanas of Corinth, 267, 269, 271, 273, 299, 310, 423. Stephen, 73, 74, 79, 85 sq. ; discourse of, 86 sq. Symeon of Antioch, 424. Symeon, son of Clopas, 564 sq. Synoptic gospels, Christianity of, 462 sq. Syntyche of Philippi, 240, 256, 424. Synzygus of Philippi, 240, 256, 424. Tarsus, 113, 168. Teachers, 640 sq., 654 sq. Teaching, gift of, 528 sq. Tertius, 424. Thessalonians, Paul's Epistles to, 250 sq. Thessalonica, Paul's work in, 244 sq. Theudas, 84 n. Thyatira, Christianity in, 625 sq. Timothy, 231, 239 sq., 249, 257, 269, 276, 297, 300, 310, 321, 386, 396 sq., 423, 428 ; circumcision of, 232 sq. ; epistles of Paul to, 398 sq. ; genuine notes of Paul to, 279, 405 sq. ; apostleship of, 649. Titus, companion of Paul, 194, 310 n., 320 sq., 397, 423, 429 sq., 434 ; epistle of Paul to, 398 sq. ; genuine note of Paul to, 410 sq. Titus, emperor of Rome, 561 ; attitude toward Christians. See Persecution. Titius Justus of Corinth, 268, 269, 424. Tongues, gift of. See Glossolalia. Trajan, treatment of Jews, 566. Troas, 284, 287, 339, 407, 410; Paul's vision in, 235. Trophimus of Asia, 344, 407, 410, 423. Tryphaena, 424. Tryphosa, 424. Twelve, Paul compared with, in Cor- inth, 314 ; use of term, 646 sq. See also Apostles. Tychicus of Asia, 374, 377, 382, 396, 410, 417, 423, 434. Tyrannus, school of, in Ephesus, 284 sq. Tyre, 339. Unity of the chiych, 636 sq. Urbanus, 424. Vespasian, treatment of the Jews, 561, 566; of the Christians. See Persecution. " We " passages in Acts, 173 n., 236 sq., 338, 359, 362. Women in religious services, 305, 308. Worship in early church of Jerusalem, 68 ; in the church at large, 520 sq. Zeuas, 411, 424. Jttfcrnaftonaf ^^eofogtcaf fet AN INTRODUCTION TO The Literature of the Old Testament By Prof. S. R. DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt Canon of Christ Church, Oxford * New Edition Revised Crown 8vo, 558 pages, $2.50 net It is the most scholarly and critical work in the English Ian- guage on the literature of the Old Testament, and fully up to the present state of research in Gc many." Prof. PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D. " Canon Driver has arrang 1 his material excellently, ir, succinct without being hurried or uncleai, and treats the various critical prob- lems involved with admirable fairness and good judgment." Prof. C. H. TOY. " His judgment is singularly fair, calm, unbiassed, and inde- pendent. It is also thoroughly reverential. . . . The service, which his book will render in the present confusion of mind on this great subject, can scarcely be overestimated." The London Times. "As a whole, there is probably no book in the English language equal to this ' Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament' for the student who desires to understand what the modern criticism thinks about the Bible." Dr. LYMAN ABBOTT, in the Outlook. "The book is one worthy of its subject, thorough in its treat- ment, reverent in its tone, sympathetic in its estimate, frank in its recognition of difficulties, conservative (in the best sense of the word) in its statement of results " Prof. HENRY P. SMITH, in the Magazine of Christian Literature. " In working out his method our author takes up each book in order and goes through it with marvelous and microscopic care. Every verse, every clause, word by word, is sifted and weighed, and its place in the literary organism decided upon." The Presbyterian Quarterly. " It contains just that presentation of the results o* Old Testa- ment criticism for which English readers in this department have been waiting. . . . The whole book is excellent; it will be found helpful, characterized as it is all through by that scholarly poise of mind, which, when it does not know, is not ashamed to present de- grees of probability." New World. ... Canon Driver's book is characterized throughout by thorough Christian scholarship, faithful research, caution in the expression of mere opinions, candor in the statement of facts and of the necessary inferences from them, and the devout recognition of the divine inworking in the religious life of the Hebrews, and of the tokens of divine inspiration in the literature which records and em- bodies it." Dr. A. P. PEABODY, in the Cambridge Tribune* OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY By HENRY PRESERVED SMITH, D.D. PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL HISTORY AND INTERPRETATION, AMHERST COLLEGE Crown 8vo, 538 pages, $2.50 net This book gives a history of Old Testament times. This it does by a narrative based upon those Bibli- cal books which are historical in form. The nature of these books is carefully considered, their data are used according to historical methods, and the con- clusions of recent criticism are set forth. The other books of the Old Testament with the more impor- tant of the Apocrypha are given their proper place so far as they throw light on the development of the Old Testament people. 44 Professor Smith has, by his comprehensive and vitalized history, laid all who care for the Old Testament under great obligations." The Independent. 44 The volume is characterized by extraordinary clearness of con- ception and representation, thorough scholarly ability, and charm of style." The Interior. ' Dr. Smith's volume is critical without being polemical, inter- esting though not imaginative, scholarly without pedantry, and radi- cal but not destructive. The author is himself an authority, and his volume is the best single presentation with which we are familiar of the modern view of Old Testament history." The Outlook. "This volume is the result of thorough study, is free from the controversial spirit and from any evidence of desire to challenge older theories of the Bible, is written in straightforward, clear style, does not linger unduly in discussion of doubtful matters, Is reverent and at the same time fearless. If one has accepted the main positions of the Higher Criticism, while he may still differ with Professor Smith's conclusions here and there, he will find himself in accord with the spirit of the author, whose scholarship and achievement he will gladly honor." The Congregationalist. 44 We have a clear, interesting, instructive account of the growth of Israel, embodying a series of careful judgments on the countless problems that face the man who tries to understand the life of that remarkable people. The ' History' takes its place worthily by the side of Driver's Introduction. The student of to-day is to be congratulated on having so valuable an addition made to his stock of tools." The Expository Times. The Theology of the Old Testament. BY THE LATE A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D., Litt.D. Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis, New College, Edinburgh. EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MANUSCRIPTS BY S. D. F. SALMOND, D.D., F.E.I.S. Principal of the United Free Church College, Aberdeen. Crown 8vo. 568 pages. $2,50 net. "It is one of those monumental works whose publication the scholar hails with gratitude. Principal Salmond has edited Professor Davidson's manu- scripts with care and fidelity. It would require much more space than we can give this volume in our crowded columns even to indicate the many points in which this, one of the greatest of Hebrew scholars, shows himself a lineal descendant and successor of the ancient prophets whom he loved so well; but it is enough to say that the work is fitted by its scholarship and its tone to become a standard in every theological seminary. Great pains have been taken with the Hebrew text, so frequently quoted, and its use is distinctly illuminative. His learning is never introduced to dazzle, but always to en- lighten the reader." The Interior. " We hope every clergyman will not rest content till he has procured and studied this most admirable and useful book. Every really useful question relating to man his nature, his fall, and his redemption, his present life of grace, his life after death, his future life is treated of. We may add that the most conservatively inclined believer in the Old Testament will find nothing in this book to startle him, while, at the same time, the book is fully cogni- zant of the altered views regarding the ancient Scriptures. The tone is rever- ent throughout, and no one who reads attentively can fail to derive fresh light and benefit from the exposition here given." The Canadian Churchman. " Dr. Davidson was so keen a student, and yet so reverent as to his Bible, that anything from his pen must be of profit. The book gives evidence that his eyes were wide open to all modern research, but yet he was not led astray by any of the vagaries of the schools. Through all the treatment of the theme he remains conservative, while seeking to know the truth." Examiner. " No one can fail to gain immense profit from its careful study. We rejoice that such a work is added to the store of helpful literature on the Old Testa- ment, and we express the hope that it may find wide reading among ministers and teachers of the Bible." The Standard. " In its treatment of Old Testament theology, there is nothing to equal it in the English language, and nothing to surpass it in any language. While it is prepared for scholars it will prove an education in the Old Testament to the intelligent laymen or Sunday-school teachers who will give it a faithful read- ing. The style is so clear that it cannot help but prove interesting. We com- mend this book with a special prayer, believing that it will make the Old Testament a richer book; and make the foundation upon which the teachings of the New Testament stand more secure to every one who reads it. 1 " The Heidelberg Ttachet. Jnfernaftonaf 0eofogtcaf A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE BY ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGIFFERT, Ph.D., D.D. Washburn Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Seminary, Nrw Ye Crown 8vo, 681 Pages, $2.50 Net. " The author's work is ably done. . . . This volume is worthy of fts place in the series." The Congregationalist. ' ' Invaluable as a resume of the latest critical work upon the great forma- tive period of the Christian Church." The Christian World (London). "There can be no doubt that this is a remarkable work, both on account of the thoroughness of its c/i v; cism and the boldness of its views." The Scotsman. " The ability and learning of Processor McGiffert's work on the Apos- tolic Age, and, whatever dissent there may be from its critical opinion, its manifest sincerity, candid scholars will not fail to appreciate." DR. GEORGE P. FISHER, of Yale University. " Pre-eminently a clergyman's book ; but there are many reasons why it should be in the library of every thoughtful Christian person. The style is vivid and at times picturesque. The results rather than the processes of learning are exhibited. It is full of local color, of striking narrative, and of keen, often brilliant, character analysis. It is an admirable book for the Sunday-school teacher." Boston Advertiser. " For a work of such wide learning and ciitical accuracy, and which deals with so many difficult and abstruse problems of Christian history, this is re- markably readable." The Independent. "It is certain that Professor McGiffert's work has set the mark for future effort in the obscure fields of research into Christian origin." New York Tribune. " Dr. McGiffert has produced an able, scholarly, suggestive, and con- structive work. He is in thorough and easy possession of his sources and materials, so that his positive construction is seldom interrupted by citations, '.he demolition of opposing views, or the irrelevant discussion of subordinate questions." The Methodist Review. "The clearness, self-consistency, and force of the whole impression of Apostolic Christianity with which we leave this book, goes far to guarantee its permanent value and success." The Expositor. THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT By GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D. ftofessor of Systematic Theology, Yale University. Crown 8vo, 538 pages, $2.50 net. In style it is rarely clear, simple, and strong, adapted alike to the gen- ei-il reader and the theological student. The former class will find it read- able and interesting to an unusual degree, while the student will value its thorough scholarship and completeness of treatment. His work has a sim- plicity, beauty, and freshness that add greatly to its scholarly excellence and worth." Christian Advocate. " Professor Stevens is a profound student and interpreter of the Bible, as far as possible divested of any prepossessions concerning its message. In his study of it his object has been not to find texts that might seem to bol- ster up some system of theological speculation, but to find out what the writers of the various books meant to say and teach. " N. K Tribune. "It is a fine example of painstaking, discriminating, impartial research and statement." The Congregationalist. " Professor Stevens has given us a very good book. A liberal conser- vative, he takes cautious and moderate positions in the field of New Testa- ment criticism, yet is admirably fair-minded. His method is patient and tnorough. He states the opinions of those who differ from him with care and clearness. The proportion of quotation and reference is well adjusted and the reader is kept well informed concerning the course of opinion with- out being drawn away from the text of the author's own thought. His iudgments on difficult questions are always put with self-restraint and sobriety." The Churchman. " It will certainly take its place, after careful reading, as a valuable *vnopsis, neither bare nor over-elaborate, to which recourse will be had by the student or teacher who requires within moderate compass the gist of aodern research." The Literary World. THE ANCIENT CATHOLIC CHURCH From the Accession of Trajan to the Fourth General Council (A.D. 98-451) By ROBERT RAINY, D.D. Principal of the New College, Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. 554 Pages. Net, $2.50. "This is verily and indeed a book to thank God for; and if anybody has been despairing of a restoration of true catholic unity in God's good time, it is a book to fill him with hope and confidence." The Church Standard. ' Principal Rainy has written a fascinating book. He has the gifts of an historian and an expositor. His fresh presentation of so intricate and time- worn a subject as Gnosticism grips and holds the attention from first to last. Familiarity with most of the subjects which fall to be treated within these limits of Christian history had bred a fancy that we might safely and profit, ably skip some of the chapters, but we found ourselves returning to close up the gaps ; we should advise those who are led to read the book through this notice not to repeat our experiment. It is a dish of well-cooked and well- seasoned meat, savory and rich, with abundance of gravy; and, while no one wishes to be a glutton, he will miss something nutritious if he does not take time to consume it all." Methodist Review. "It covers the period from 98-451 A.D., with a well-marked order, and is written in a downright style, simple and unpretentious. Simplicity, in- deed, and perspicuity are the keynotes, and too great burden of detail is avoided. A very fresh and able book." The Nation. " The International Theological Library is certainly a very valuable collec- tion of books on the science of Theology. And among the set ** good books, Dr. Rainy's volume on The Ancient Catholic Church * entitled to a high place. We know of no one volume which contains ^o much matter which is necessary to a student of theology." The Living Church. " Of course, a history so condensed is not to be read satisfactorily in a day or even a week. The reader often will find ample food for thought for a day or more in what he may have read in two hours. But the man who will master the whole book will be amply rewarded, and will be convinced that he has been consenting with a company of the world's greatest men, and has attained an accurate knowledge of one of the world's greatest and most important periods." Christian Intelligencer. 41 As a compend of church history for the first five centuries, this volume will be found most useful, for ready reference, both to those who possess the more elaborate church histories, and for the general information desired by a wider reading public ; while the temperate presentations of the author's own theories upon disputed points are in themselves of great value." Bibliotheca Sacra. " Principal Rainy of the New College, Edinburgh, is one of the foremost scholars of Great Britain, and in Scotland, his home, he is regarded by his countrymen as the chief figure in their ecclesiastical life. There can be little doubt that this recent volume will enhance his reputation and serve to introduce him to a wider circle of friends." Congregattonalist, Boston* l)e History of Christian Doctrine, BY GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale University* Crown 8vo, 583 pages, $2.50 net. " He gives ample proof of rare scholarship. Many of the old doc- trines are restated with a freshness, lucidity and elegance of style which make it a very readable book." The New York Observer. *' Intrinsically tlrs volume is worthy of a foremost place in our modern literature . . . We have no work on the subject in English eoual to it, tor variety and range, clearness of statement, judicious guidance, and catholicity of tone." London Nonconformist and Inde- pendent " It is only just to say that Dr. Fisher has produced the best His- tor\ of Doctiine that we have in English." The New York Evangelist, " It is to me quite a marvel how a book of this kind (Fisher's 'History of Christian Doctrine') can be written so accurately to scale. It could only be done by one who had a very complete com- mand of all the periods." PROF. WILLIAM SANDAY, Oxford. ' It presents so many new and fresh points and is so thoroughly treated, and brings into view contemporaneous thought, especially the American, that it is a pleasure to read it, and will be an equal pleasure to go back to it again and again." BISHOP JOHN F. HURST. " Throughout there is manifest wide reading, careful prepara- tion, spirit and good judgment," Philadelphia Presbyterian. 41 The language and style are alike delightfully fresh and easy . . . A book which will be found both stimulating and instructive to the student of theology." 7"he Churchman. " Professor Fisher has trained the public to expect the excellen cies of scholarship, candor, judicial equipoise and admirable lucidity and elegance of style in whatever comes from his pen. But in the present work he has surpassed himself." PROF. J. H. THAYER, o/ Harvard Divinity School. " It meets the severest standard; there is fullness of knowledge; thorough research, keenly analytic thought, and rarest enrichment for a positive, profound s.nd learned critic. There is interpretative and revealing sympathy. It is of the class of works that mark epochs in their several departments." The Outlook. " As a first study of the History of Doctrine, Professor Fisher's volume has the merit of being full, accurate and interesting." Prof. MARCUS DODS * . . . He gathers up, reorganizes and presents the results of tovestigation in a style rarely full of literary charm," The s 3nfernationaf 2$ecfo 2Ccm (testaments. EDITORS' PREFACE. THERE are now before the public many Commentaries, written by British and American divines, of a popular or homiletical character. The Cambridge Bible for Schools, the Handbooks for Bible Classes and Private Students, The Speaker's Commentary^ The Popular Commentary (Schaff), The Expositor's Bible, and other similar series, have their special place and importance. But they do not enter into the field of Critical Biblical scholarship occupied by such series of Commentaries as the Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum A. T.; De Wette's Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum N. T.; Meyer's Kritisch-exegetischer Kom- mentar; Keil and Delitzsch's Biblischer Commentar uter das A. T.; Lange's Theologisch-homiletisches Bibelwerk; Nowack's Handkommentar zum A. T. ; Holtzmann's Handkommentar zum N. T. Several of these have been translated, edited, and in some cases enlarged and adapted, for the English- speaking public ; others are in process of translation. But no corresponding series by British or American divines has hitherto been produced. The way has been prepared by special Commentaries by Cheyne, Ellicott, Kalisch, Lightfoot, Perowne, Westcott, and others ; and the time has come, in the judgment of the projectors of this enterprise, when it is practicable to combine British and American Scholars in the production of a critical, comprehensive EDITORS PREFACE Commentary that will be abreast of modern biblical scholar- ship, and in a measure lead its van. Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons of New York, and Messrs. T. & T. Clark of Edinburgh, propose to publish *uch a series of Commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, under the editorship of Prof. C. A. BRIGGS, D.D., in America, and of Prof. S. R. DRIVER, D.D., for the Old Testament, and the Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, D.D., for the New Testament, in Great Britain. The Commentaries will be international and inter-con- fessional, and will be free from polemical and ecclesiastical bias. They will be based upon a thorough critical study of i;he original texts of the Bible, and upon critical methods of interpretation. They are designed chiefly for students and clergymen, and will be written in a compact style. Each book will be preceded by an Introduction, stating the results of criticism upon it, and discussing impartially the questions utill remaining open. The details of criticism will appear in their proper place in the body of the Commentary. Each section of the Text will be introduced with a paraphrase, or summary of contents. Technical details of textual and 'philological criticism will, as a rule, be kept distinct from matter of a more general character ; and in the Old Testa- ment the exegetical notes will be arranged, as far as possible, so as to be serviceable to students not acquainted with Hebrew. The History of Interpretation of the Books will be dealt with, when necessary, in the Introductions, with critical notices of the most important literature of the subject. Historical and Archaeological questions, as well as questions of Biblical Theology, are included in the plan of the Commentaries, but not Practical or HomileticaJ Exegesis. The Volumes will constitute a uniform series. THE INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL COMMENTARY. THE following eminent Scholars are engaged upon the Volumes named below: Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Samuel Kings Chronicles Ezra and Nehemiah Psalms Proverbs Job Isaiah Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Daniel Amos and Hosea Micah to Malachi Esther THE OLD TESTAMENT. The Rev. JOHN SKINNER, D.D., Professor of Old Tes- tament Language and Literature, College of Pres- byterian Church of England, Cambridge, England. The Rev. A. R. S. KENNEDY, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, University of Edinburgh. J. F. STENNING, M.A., Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. G. BUCHANAN GRAY, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Mansfield College, Oxford. [Now Ready. The Rev. S. R. DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Pro- fessor of Hebrew, Oxford. [Now Ready. The Rev. GEORGE ADAM SMITH, D.D., LL.D., Pro- fessor of Hebrew, Free Church College, Glasgow. The Rev. GEORGE MOORE, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Theology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. [Now Ready. The Rev. H. P. SMITH, D.D., Professor of Biblical History, Amherst College, Mass. [Now Ready. The Rev. FRANCIS BROWN, D.D., D.Litt., LL.D., Professor of Hebrew and Cognate Languages, Union Theological Seminary, New York City. The Rev. EDWARD L. CURTIS, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. The Rev. L. W. BATTEN, Ph.D., D.D., Rector of St. Marks Church, New York City, sometime Professor of Hebrew, P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia. The Rev. CHAS. A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt., Pro- fessor of Biblical Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York. The Rev. C. H. TOY, D.D., LL D., Professor of Hebrew, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. [Now Ready. The Rev. S. R. DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Professor of Hebrew, Oxford. Chaps. I-XXXIX. The Rev. S. R. DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Professor of Hebrew, Oxford. Chaps. XL-LXVI. The late Rev. Prof. A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D. The Rev. A. F. KIRKPATRICK, D.D., Master of Selwyn College, Regius Professor of Hebrew, Cambridge, England. By the Rev. G. A. COOKE, M.A., Fellow Mag- dalen College, and tha Rev. CHARLES F. BURNEY, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer in Hebrew, St. Johns College, Oxford. The Rev. JOHN P. PETERS, Ph.D., D.D., sometime Professor of Hebrew, P. E. Divinity* School, Philadelphia, now Rector of St. Michael's Church, New York City. W. R. HARPER, Ph.D., LL.D., President of the University of Chicago, Illinois. [Now Ready. W. R. HARPER, Ph.D., LL.D., President of the University of Chicago. The Rev. L. B. PATON, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew, Hartford Theological Seminary. CnftcafCommenfarp. Ecclesiastes Ruth Song of Songs and Lamentations St. Matthew St. Mark St. Luke St. John Harmony of the Gospels Acts Romans Corinthians Galatians Ephesians and Colossians Philippians and Philemon Thessalonians The Pastoral Epistles Hebrews St. James Peter and Jude The Epistles of St. John Revelation Prof. GEORGE A. BARTON, Ph.D., Professor of Biblical Literature, Bryn Mawr College, Pa. Rev. CHARLES P. FAGNANI, D.D., Associate Profes- sor of Hebrew, Union Theological Seminary, New York. Rev. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt., Professor of Biblical Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York. THE NEW TESTAMENT. The Rev. WILLOUGHBY C. ALLEN, M.A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. The late Rev. E. P. GOULD, D.D., sometime Professor of New Testament Literature, P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia. [Now Ready. The Rev. ALFRED PLUMMER, D.D., sometime Master of University College, Durham. [Now Ready. The Very Rev. JOHN HENRY BERNARD, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's and Lecturer in Divinity, University of Dublin. The Rev. WILLIAM SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Oxford, and the Rev. WILLOUGHBY C. ALLEN, M.A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. The Rev. FREDERICK H. CHASE, Norissonian Pro- fessor of Divinity, President of Queens College and Vice-Chancellor, Cambridge, England. The Rev. WILLIAM SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Rev. A. C. HEADLAM, M. A., D.D., Principal of Kings College, London. [Now Ready. The Right Rev. ARCH. ROBERTSON, D.D., LL.D., Lord Bishop of Exeter, and the Rev. RICHARD J. KNOWLING, D.D., Professor of New Testament Exegesis, Kings College, London. The Rev. ERNEST D. BURTON, D.D., Professor of New Testament Literature, University of Chicago. The Rev. T. K. ABBOTT, B.D., D.Litt., sometime Professor of Biblical Greek, Trinity College, Dublin, now Librarian of the same. [Now Ready. The Rev. MARVIN R. VINCENT, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature, Union Theological Seminary, New York City. [Now Ready. The Rev. JAMES E. FRAME, M.A., Associate Profes- sor in the New Testament, Union Theological Seminary, New York. The Rev. WALTER LOCK, D.D., Warden of Keble College and Professor of Exegesis, Oxford. The Rev. A. NAIRNE, M.A., Professor of Hebrew in Kings College, London. The Rev. JAMES H. ROPES, D.D., Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism in Harvard University. The Rev. CHARLES BIGG, D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. [Now Ready. The Rev. S. D. F. SALMOND, D.D., Principal of the United Free Church College, Aberdeen. The Rev. ROBERT H. CHARLES, M.A., D.D., Profes- sor of Biblical Greek in the University of Dublin. |ttimmti0irol (Critical decided advance on all other commentaries" THE OUTLOOK. DEUTERONOMY. By the Rev. S. R, DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Crown 8vo. Net, $3 oo. "No one could be better qualified ihan Professor Driver to write a critical and exegeticai commentary on Deuteronomy. His previous works are author- ities in all the departments involved; the grammar and lexicon of the Hebrew language, the lower and higher criticism, as well as exegesis and Biblical the- ology; the interpretation in this commentary is careful and sober in the main. A wealth of historical, geographical, and philological information illus- trates and elucidates both the narrative and the discourses. Valuable, though concise, excursuses are often given." The Congregation alist. " It is a pleasure to see at last a really critical Old Testament commentary in English upon a portion of the Pentateuch, and especially one of such merit. This I find superior to any other Commentary in any language upon Deuter- onomy." Professor E. L. CURTIS, of Yale University. "This volume of Professor Driver's is marked by his well-known care and accuracy, and it will be a great boon to every one who wishes to acquire a thorough knowledge, either of the Hebrew language, or of the contents of the Book of Deuteronomy, and their significance for the development of Old Tes- tament thought. The author finds scope for displaying his well-known wide and accurate knowledge, and delicate appreciation of the genius of the Hebrew language, and his readers are supplied with many carefully con- structed lists of words and expressions. He is at his best in the detailed examination of the text." London Athenaum. " It must be said that this work is bound to take rank among the best com- mentaries in any language on the important book with which it deals. On every page there is abundant evidence of a scholarly knowledge of the litera- ture, and of the most painstaking care to make the book useful tp thorough students." The Lutheran Churchman. "The deep and difficult questions raised by Deuteronomy are, in every in- stance, considered with care, insight, and critical acumen. The student who wishes for solid information, or a knowledge of method and temper of the new criticism, will find advantage in consulting the pages ot Dr Driver." Zion's Herald. ulertiatimml O^rtttcal "We believe this series to be of epoch-making importance':' The N. Y. EVANGELIST. JUDGES. By Dr. GEORGE FOOT MOORE, D.D., Professor of Theology, Harvard University. Crown 8vo. Net, $3.00. " The typographical execution of this handsome volume is worthy of the scholarly character of the contents, and higher praise could not be given it." Professor C. H. TOY, of Harvard University. "This work represents the latest results of 'Scientific Biblical Scholarship,' and as such has the greatest value for the purely critical student, especially on the side of textual and literary criticism." The Church Standard. " Professor Moore has more than sustained his scholarly reputation in this work, which gives us for the first time in English a commentary on Judges not excelled, if indeed equalled, in any language of the world." Professor L. W. BATTEN, of P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia. " Although a critical commentary, this work has ks practical uses, and by its divisions, headlines, etc., it is admirably adapted to the wants of all thoughtful students of the Scriptures. Indeed, with the other books of the series, it is sure to find its way into the hands of pastors and scholarly lay- men." Portland Zion's Herald. " Like its predecessors, this volume will be warmly welcomed whilst to those whose means of securing up-to-date information on the subject of which it treats are limited, it is simply invaluable." Edinburgh Scotsman. " The work is done in an atmosphere of scholarly interest and indifference to dogmatism and controversy, which is at least refreshing. ... It is a noble introduction to the moral forces, ideas, and influences that controlled the period of the Judges, and a model of what a historical commentary, with a practical end in view should be." The Independent. " The work is marked by a clear and forcible style, by scholarly research, by .critical acumen, by extensive reading, and by evident familiarity with the Hebrew. Many of the comments and suggestions are valua^e, whiit, die index at the close is serviceable and satisfactory." j. hiladelphia Presbyterian. "This volume sustains the reputation of the series for accurate and wide scholarship given in clear and strong English, . . . the scholarly reader will find delight in the perusal U this admirable commentary." Zion's Herald. Jnfcrncxfionaf Cnticdt Commcnforj. ' Richly hetfiful to scholar* and minister* '- -THE PRESBYTERIAN JANNER. The Books of Samuel av REV. HENRY PRESERVED SMITH, D.D., Projesf"- of Biblical History and Interpretation in Amherst CoUege. Crown 8vo, Net $3.00. "Proiessor Smith's Commentary will for some time be the standard work an Samuel, and we heartily congratulate him on scholarly work s faithiully accomplished." The Athen&um. "It is both critical and exegetical, and deals with original Plebrew and Greek. It shows painstaking diligence and considerable research." The Presby teria n . " The style is clear and forcible and sustains the well -won reputation of the distinguished author for scholarship and candor. All thoughtful stu- dents of the Scriptures will find the work helpful, not only on account of its specific treatment of the Books of Samuel, on which it is based, but because of the light it throws on and the aid it gives in the general interpretation of the Scriptures as modified by present-day criticism." The Philadelphia Press. "The literary quality of the book deserves mention. We do not usually go to commentaries for models of English style. But this book has a dis- tinct, though unobtrusive, literary flavor. It is delightful reading. The translation is always felicitous, and often renders further comment need- less." The Evangelist. "The treatment is critical, and at the same time expository. Conserva- tive students may find much in this volume with which they cannot agree, but no one wishing to know the most recent conclusions concerning this part of sacred history can afford to be without it." Philadelphia Presby terian Journal. "The author exhibits precisely that scholarly attitude which will com- mend his work to f ,he widest audience." The Churchman. "The commentary is the most complete and minute hitherto published by an English-speaking scholar." Literature. "The volumes of Driver and Moore set a high standard for the Old Testament writers ; but I think Professor Smith's work has reached the same high level It is scholarly and critical, and yet it is written in a spirit of reverent devotion, a worthy treatment of the sacred text." PROF. L. W, BATTEN, of P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia. 3itfernaftonaf Crittcaf Commentary *A detided advance on all other commenta zV'j." THE OUTLOOK PROVERBS By the Rev. CRAWFORD H. TOY, D.D., LL.D. Professor of Hebrew in Harvard University, Crown 8vo. Net, $3.00. "In careful scholarship this volume leaves nothing to be desired Its in- terpretation is free from theological prejudice [t will be indispensable to the careful student, whether lay or clerical.*' The Outlook. " Professor Toy's ' Commentary ' will for many years to come remain a handbook for both teachers and learners, and. its details will be studied with critical care and general appreciation." The Athenaum. " The commentary itself is a most thorough treatment of each verse in detail, in which the light of the fullest scholarship is thrown upon the mean- ing. The learning displayed throughout the work is enormous. Here is a commentary at last that does not skip the hard places, but grapples with every problem and point, and says the best that can be said " Prc <-byterian Banner " Professor Toy's commentary on Proverbs maintains the highest standard of the International Critical Commentaries. We can give no higher praise. Proverbs presents comparatively few problems in criticism, but offers large opportunities to the expositor and exegete. Professor Toy's work is thorough and complete." The Congregationalist. "This addition to 'The International Critical Commentary' has the same characteristics of thoroughness and painstaking scholarship as the preceding issues of the series. In the critical treatment of the text, in noting the various readings and the force of the words in the original Hebrew, it leaves nothing to be desired." The Christian Jntelhgencer. "A first-class, up-to-date, critical and exegetical commentary on the Book of Proverbs in the English language was one of the crying needs of Biblical scholarship. Accordingly, we may not be yielding to the latest addition to the International Critical Series the tribute it deserves, when we say that it at once takes the first place in its class That place it undoubtedly deserves, however, and would have secured even against much more formidable com- petitors than it happens to have. It is altogether a well -arranged, lucid exposition of this unique book in the Bible, based on a careful study of the text and the linguistic and historical background of every part of it." The Interior. "While this commentary is called 'critical ' an8 is such, it is not one in which the apparatus is spread out in detail; it is one which any mtelli fint English reader can readily use and thoroughly understand " 7~* vangclist. utevuatioual Critical AMOS AND HOSEA. By WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER, Ph.D., LL.D. Prqftssor of Semitic Languages and Literatures in the University of Chic*g. Crown 8vo. Net, $3.00. Postage, 20 cents. " His book combines thorough technical scholarship with large measure of ethical and spiritual insight, and we think his Commentary on Amos and Hosea will take its place among the best in this very excellent series." The Outlook. " It is unnecessary to say that in scholarly completeness, Dr. Harper's volume ranks with the best of the International Critical Commentary Series." The Standard. " The commentary is remarkable for its clear analysis, and exhaustive in its minute completeness. It furnishes materials to the student from which he may form his own judgment rather than seeks to impress dogmatic conclusions." The Watchman. "I think it safe to say that in no language can there be found such a scholarly piece of work on the two important prophets, Amos and Hosea." Rev. L. W. BATTEN, Ph.D., D.D., Rector of St. Mark's Church, New York City, sometime Professor of Hebrew, P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia. " Professor Harper's critical position is that of sound progressive scholar- ship. He possesses also the gift of the true teacher of interesting others in his subject. The volume will easily take its place as a most important com- mentary on these prophets." Congregationalist. " I shall have pleasure in recommending it to all students in our Seminary. This book fills, in the most favorable manner, a long-felt want for a good critical commentary OP two of the most interesting books in the Old Testament." Rev. LEWIS B. PATON, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew, Hartford Theological Seminary. " He has gone, with characteristic minuteness, not only into the analysis and discussion of each point, endeavoring in every case to be thoroughly exhaustive, but also into the history of exegesis and discussion. Nothing at all worthy of consideration has been passed by. The consequence is that when one carefully studies what has been brought together in this volume, either upon some passage of the two prophets treated, or upon some question of critical or antiquarian importance in the introductory portion of the volume, one feels that he has obtained an adequately exhaustive view of the subject." The Interior. $he Jutevnaticuml Cvftical (Cmumeutavtj. " We deem it as needful for the studious pastor to possess himself ef these volumes as to obtain the best dictionary and encyclopedia" THE CONGREGATIONALISM ST. MARK. By the Rev. E. P. GOULD, D.D., or Ptv/fssor of New Testament Extgesis, P. E, Divinity School* Ftiitadelpkia. Crown 8vo. Net, $2.50. ** lu point of scholarship, of accuracy, of originality, this last addition to tu< . series is worthy of its predecessors, while for terseness and keenness of exegesis we should put it first of them all." The Congregationalist. "The whole make-up is that of a thoroughly helpful, instructive critical tudy of the Word, surpassing anything of the kind ever attempted in th.- English language, and to students and clergymen knowing the proper use o< a commentary it will prove an invaluable aid." The Lutheran Quarterly. " Professor Gould has done his work well and thoroughly. . . . The com mentary is an admirable example of the critical method at its best. . . . Th( Word study . . . shows not only familiarity with all the literature of the sub ject, but patient, faithful, and independent investigation. ... It will rani, among the best, as it is the latest commentary on this basal Gospel." Th* Christian Intelligencer. " It will give the student the vigorously expressed thought of a very thought ful scholar." The Church Standard. " Dr. Gould's commentary on Mark is a large success, . . . and a credit to American scholarship. . . . He has undoubtedly given us a commentary on Mark which surpasses all others, a thing we have reason to expect will be true in the case of every volume of the series to which it belongs." The Biblical World. "The volume is characterized by extensive learning, patient attention to details and a fair degree of caution." Bibliotheca Sacra. "The exegetical portion of the book is simple in arrangement, admirable in form and condensed in statement. ... Dr. Gould does not slavishly follow any authority, but expresses his own opinions in language both concise and clear." The Chicago Standard. " In clear, forcible and elegant language the author furnishes the results of the best investigations on the second Gospel, both early and late. He treats these various subjects with the hand of a master." Boston Ziorfs Herald. " The author gives abundant evidence of thorough acquaintance with the facts and history in the case. . . . His treatment of them is always fresh and ly, and oftentimes helpful."' 2'he New York Observer. *gltc International (jfaititat " // is hardly necessary to say that this series will stand firsi among all English serial commentaries on the Bible" THE BIBLICAL WORLD. ST. LUKE. By the Rev. ALFRED PLUflflER, D.D., Master of University College, Durham. Formerly Fellow and Senior Tutor of Trinity College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. Net, $3.00. In the author's Critical Introduction to the Commentary is contained a full treatment of a large number of important topics connected with the study of the Gospel, among which are the following : The Author of the Book The Sources of the Gospel Object and Plan of the Gospel Characteristics, Style and Language The Integrity of the Gospel The Text Literary History. FROM THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. If this Commentary has any special features, they will perhaps be found in the illustrations from Jewish writings, in the abundance of references to the Septuagint, and to the Acts and other books of the New Testament, in the frequent quotations of renderings in the Latin versions, and in the attention which has been paid, both in the Introduction and throughout the Notes, to the marks of St. Luke's style. " It is distinguished throughout by learning, sobriety of judgment, and sound exegesis. It is a weighty contribution to the interpretation of the Third Gospel, and will take an honorable place in the series of which it forms a part." Prof. D. D. SALMOND, in the Critical Review. " We are pleased with the thoroughness and scientific accuracy of the inter- pretations. ... It seems to us that the prevailing characteristic of the book is common sense, fortified by learning and piety." The Herald and Presbyter. "An important work, which no student of the Word of God can safely jieglect." The Church Standard. "The author has both the scholar's knowledge and the scholar's spirit Accessary for the preparation of such a commentary. . . . We know of nothing on the Third Gospel which more thoroughly meets the wants of the Biblical scholar." The Outlook. " The author is not only a profound scholar, but a chastened and reverent Christian, who undertakes to interpret a Gospel of Christ, so as to show Christ in his grandeur and loveliness of character." The Southern Church- man. " It is a valuable and welcome addition to our somewhat scanty stock of first-class commentaries on the Third Gospel. By its scholarly thoroughness it well sustains the reputation which the INTERNATIONAL SERIES has already won." Prof. J. H. THAYER, of Harvard University. This volume having been so recently published, further notices are not yet available. ^ntenmummt Critical "For the student this new commentary promises to be indispen* fable" The METHODIST RECORDER. ROMANS. By the Rev. WILLIAM SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., fj&dy Margaret Professor of Divinity, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. AND THE Rev. A. C. HEADLAM, M.A., D.D., Principal of King's College, London. Crown 8vo. Net, $3.00. From my knowledge of Dr. Sanday, and from a brief examination of the book, I am led to believe that it is our best critical handbook to the Epistle. It combines great learning with practical and suggestive interpretation." Professor GEORGE B. STEVENS, of Yale University. " Professor Sanday is excellent in scholarship, and of unsurpassed candor. The introduction and detached notes are highly interesting and instructive. This commentary cannot fail to render the most valuable assistance to all earnest students. The volume augurs well for the series of which it is a mem- ber." Professor GEORGE P. FISHER, of Yale University. "The scholarship and spirit of Dr. Sanday give assurance of an interpreta- tion of the Epistle to the Romans which will be both scholarly and spiritual." Dr. LYMAN ABBOTT. " The work of the authors has been carefully done, and will prove an acceptable addition to the literature of the great Epistle. The exegesis is acute and learned . . . The authors show much familiarity with the work of their predecessors, and write with calmness and lucidity." New York Observer. " We are confident that this commentary will find a place in every thought- ful minister's library. One may not be able to agree with the authors at some points, 7 and this is true of all commentaries, but they have given us a work which cannot but prove valuable to the critical study of Paul's masterly epis- tle." Zion's Advocate. " We do not hesitate to commend this as the best commentary on Romans yet written in English. It will do much to popularize this admirable and much needed series, by showing that it is possible to be critical and scholarly and at the same time devout and spiritual, and intelligible to plain Bible readers." The Church Standard. "A commentary with a very distinct character and purpose of its own, which brings to students and ministers an aid which they cannot obtain else- where. . . . There is probably no other commentary in which criticism has been employed so successfully and impartially to bring out the author's thought." N. Y. Independent. " We hav- nothing but heartiest praise for the weightier matters of the commentary. It is not only critical, but exegetical, expository, doctrinal, practical, and eminently spiritual. The positive conclusions of the books are very numerous and are stoutly, gloriously evangelical. . . . The commentary does net fail to speak with the utmost reverence of the whole word f G displays every mark of conscientious judgment, wide reading, and grammatical insight. ' ' Literature. " In discrimination, learning, and candor, it is the peer of the other vol. umes of the series. The elaborate introductions are of special value."-- Professor GEORGE B. STEVENS, of Yale University. "It is rich in philological material, clearly arranged, and judiciously handled. The studies of words are uncommonly good. ... In the balancing of opinions, in the distinguishing between fine shades of mean- ing, it is both acute and sound." The Church. " The exegesis based so solidly on the rock foundation of philology is argumentatively and convincingly strong. A spiritual and evangelical tenor pervades the interpretation from first to last. . . . These elements, to- gether with the author's full-orbed vision of the truth, with his discrimina- tive judgment and his felicity of expression, make this the peer of any com- mentary on these important letters." The Standard. " An exceedingly careful and painstaking piece of work The introduc- tory discussions of questions bearing on the authenticity and integrity (of the epistles) are clear and candid, and the exposition of the text displays a fine scholarship and insight." Northwestern Christian Advocate. "The book is from first to last exegetical and critical. Every phrase in the two Epistles is searched as with lighted candles. The authorities for variant readings are canvassed but weighed, rather t'.an counted. The mul- tiform ancient and modern interpretations are investigated with the ex- haustr/r-,ess of a German lecture-room, and the judicial spirit of an English court-r. om. Special discussions are numerous and thorough." Thg Con* yegationalist. 3nfem