THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL THEIR MOTIVE AND ORIGIN BY KIRSOPP LAKE A RIVINGTONS 34, KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN LONDON 1911 TO THE SENATUS ACADEMICUS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS PREFACE r T"'HE difficulty which undoubtedly attends any attempt -* to understand the Epistles of St. Paul is largely due to the fact that they are letters ; for the writer of a letter assumes the knowledge of a whole series of facts, which are, as he is quite aware, equally familiar to his correspondent and to himself. But as time goes on this knowledge is gradually forgotten, and what was originally quite plain becomes difficult and obscure ; it has to be rediscovered from stray hints and from other documents by a process of laborious research, before it is possible for the letters to be read with anything approaching to the ease and intelligence possessed by those to whom they were originally sent. It is necessary to reconstruct the story of the motive and origin of the letters, and create a picture of the background of thought and practice against which they were set in the beginning. The following pages are an attempt to do this for the earlier Epistles of St. Paul. I have not tried to give a description of St. Paul's own thoughts I trust that I may attempt this task later but to reconstruct the background, a knowledge of which renders it possible to read the Epistles with intelligence ; and for this purpose two main types of problems have been attacked. Vlii THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL In the first place, an effort has been made to deal with the literary and critical questions introductory to these letters, concerning their integrity, destination, and history. These problems are often somewhat tedious, but they acquire interest if they are seriously studied, and in any case they cannot be neglected by those who desire to have a real grasp of the nature of early Christian literature. Secondly, attention has been given to the intricate question of the world of religious thought to which the earliest Gentile Christians belonged the world of the Hellenistic Mystery Religions. This is much more difficult, and much more important, but has as yet been much less adequately studied than the more purely literary questions. Students of the New Testament have been somewhat slow to grasp its importance, or to make use of the rich material which has been given by classical and archaeological scholars, such as (if I may mention two names out of a great number) Cumont and Reitzenstein. Nevertheless, I have no fear but that the immediate future will make good the remissness of the past. The study of the religious life of the Graeco- Roman world as a whole is now fully recognized to be absolutely necessary if we do not wish our notions about early Christianity to be a mere caricature of the truth. There is, however, one subsidiary point to which I have drawn attention in more than one chapter, and desire to emphasize once more, the psychological aspect of religion. To understand the history of religions we must understand PREFACE IX the psychology of religious men. I have endeavoured in the following pages to use what knowledge of psychology I possess, but I am confident that this method ought to be extended far more widely. The difficulty is due to our ignorance of co-ordinated facts, and this again is partly caused by the unnatural limitation of the modern study of theology. We desire to arrive at an intelligent understanding of religion ; we grow old and weary in the study of texts and inscriptions, and we do well, for they have much to teach us ; but we forget that religion is to be found in men, not in manuscripts, and we need to take a lesson from our brothers the doctors. They are the students of the body, as we are of the soul ; they make the centre of their work the study of the body as it is found here and now, and their use of the books of past generations is always subsidiary to that study. It is the fatal mistake of the theologian to think that he can do otherwise, and understand the soul from the study of ancient books. Our great need at present is the study of the living soul, and I venture to say this, because it is, among other more important things, very necessary for the study of those Epistles on which I am writing. KIRSOPP LAKE. LEIDEN, September, 1911. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE OUTLINE GIVEN IN ACTS OF EVENTS IN ST. PAUL'S LIFE i II. THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY, THE GENTILE CONVERTS, AND THE BACKGROUND OF GENTILE CHRISTIANITY . 14 APPENDIX THE TEXT OF THE APOSTOLIC DECREES . 48 III. THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS 61 IV. CORINTH 102 APPENDIX I. THE APOCRYPHAL CORRESPONDENCE OF ST. PAUL WITH THE CORINTHIANS . . . 236 APPENDIX II. GLOSSOLALIA AND PSYCHOLOGY . . 241 V. THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 253 APPENDIX I. GALATIA, KINGDOM AND PROVINCE . . 309 MAP SHOWING THE BOUNDARIES OF GALATIA To face page 316 APPENDIX II. THE TEXT OF ACTS xn. 25 . . . 317 APPENDIX III. ST. PAUL'S JOURNEY TO ARABIA . . 320 VI. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS * . 324 APPENDIX THE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE OF THE GROUP DEFG 414 VII. CONCLUSION . . 421 INDEX 449 CHAPTER I THE OUTLINE GIVEN IN ACTS OF EVENTS IN ST. PAUL'S LIFE TT needs no argument to show that the problems 1 concerning the Pauline Epistles can only be stated, much less solved, in connection with the evidence of the Acts. In the Acts we have not, indeed, any attempt to give an account of all St. Paul's work, but we have an outline of a great part of it, and in some places detailed information as to his journeys, which it is impossible to overvalue. This outline of the course of events is the necessary basis of any attempt to reconstruct the back- ground of the Epistles. Fortunately, it is quite easy to follow, and presents in itself hardly any serious difficulties. The writer of Acts takes us from city to city with St. Paul, and often gives us some indication of the time spent in each, so that with surprisingly few exceptions we can reconstruct St. Paul's route, and (though here the degree of certainty is markedly less) the duration of his work in various districts. Nevertheless, the matter is occasionally complicated by a series of critical questions, some of which in turn depend on the Epistles. Therefore we are to some extent dealing, in connection with St. Paul, with a problem involving two factors, one of which must always be assumed as certain when the other is under discussion, though neither can i B 2 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS really be finally treated as possessing its assumed stability. Ideally the proper method is first to assume one factor, and afterwards to consider the necessary correction to be allowed for, owing to the possible range of error in the assumption. But in practice certain limitations can be usefully observed in carrying out such a plan. It is neither necessary nor desirable to fight all over again the battle of the Acts in the spirit of Zeller, or of his immediate opponents. Zeller l is still worth reading, but even though half a century of criticism has not been able to settle all the problems which have been raised in connection with the Acts, it has gone some way towards reducing them to manageable dimensions, so that for the purpose of the present book, which is concerned primarily with the Epistles, it is possible within very short limits to present a sufficient statement of the subject, showing the points on which there is especial room for doubt, and the general position which most commends itself to those who have fully investigated the Acts. It would be generally admitted that the central point of all study of the Acts is the " we-clauses," in which the writer speaks of himself and St. Paul in the first person plural. These clauses, by an almost unanimous consent, are regarded as the work of a companion of St. Paul ; and there is scarcely less agreement in tracing most of the important facts of the " Pauline " half of Acts to the same source. The contentious points are concerned with the relation of this writer to the redactor, and with the earlier or " Petrine " half of the book. Many critics, by no means 1 Die Apostelgeschichte nach ihrem Inhalt und Ursprung kritisch untersucht, 1854. Published in English by Williams and Norgate in 1875 as The Contents and Origin of the Acts of the Apostles, THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 3 belonging to an extreme school, think that the " we-clauses " and the source to which they belong which is very commonly recognized to have been the work of St. Luke, the friend of St. Paul ought to be distinguished from the final redactor, who may have lived in the last days of the first century, and have compiled the Third Gospel and Acts from earlier documents. Others think that the writer of the " we-clauses " was himself the redactor, whom they identify with St. Luke, and consider that he used the first person in order to indicate the occasions on which he had been actually present at the incidents described. Professor Harnack's studies on the question 1 have done much to commend the latter opinion, but he has not yet succeeded in obtaining such a measure of agreement as to justify a writer on the Epistles in disregarding the alter- native view. 2 This question is not, however, of the first importance for the present subject, as there is in any case something approaching unanimity in assigning a high value to the " Pauline" half of Acts, though its accuracy is still questioned cm some individual details; these will be considered, so far as is necessary, when they are met with in discussing the Epistles. Far more serious is the problem raised by the "Petrine" half of the Acts Here it is conceded generally that the redactor, whether he was St. 1 Untersnchungen zu den Schriften des Lukas, Hinrichs, 1906-8. These studies were originally published in three volumes, under the titles of Lukas der Arzt, Sprue he und Reden Jesu, and Die Apostelgeschichte. They have been published in English by Williams and Norgate, as Luke the Physician, The Sayings and Words of Jesus, and The Acts of the Apostles. 2 No special book more recent than Harnack can be cited ; but very impor- tant articles will be found in the 7'heol. Literaturztitung, vol. xxxiii. pp. 172-6, by Schiirer ; in the Theologische Rundschau, vol. xi. pp. 185-205, by Bousset in the American Journal of Theology^ vol. xi. pp. 454-474, by Bacon ; and in ibzZeitschriftfurwiss. Theologie, vol. 1. pp. 176-214, by Hilgenfeld. Bousset's article gives a full account of all recent studies of the Acts of any importance. 4 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS Luke or a later writer, was using various sources ; but there is no agreement as to whether these sources were written or oral, or, if they were written, Greek or Aramaic. It is also generally conceded that these sources were not all of equal value, and that some difficulties in the opening narratives can best be explained on the hypothesis that the redactor, or one of his sources, had misunderstood the narrative. The importance of this fact for the Pauline Epistles is chiefly in connection with the Judaistic controversy. If, for instance, we assume that the redactor of Acts, as redactors are wont to do, made two incidents out of two narratives of the same incident, we have to face the possibility that Acts has multiplied the visits of St. Paul to Jerusalem, and this is an 'important factor in considering the problem of the relation between the visit mentioned in Gal. ii. and the Apostolic Council. It will be seen that it will be necessary in the end to consider several points of this nature in relation to the Epistles ; but the clearest method seems unquestionably to be found in starting with the narrative of Acts as we have in the ordinary Greek text, using this as the working hypothesis from which a study of the historical side of the Epistles must begin, and taking into consideration in the course of this study the modifications rendered possible by the criticism of the Acts. The narrative of the Acts, which it is proposed to use in this way, is familiar to every one, but for convenience it is perhaps not super- fluous to state in the shortest possible summary the facts which it contains relating to St. Paul. The Acts describe St. Paul as a Roman citizen, 1 a Jew of 1 Acts xxii. 25-29. ST. PAUL'S CONVERSION 5 Tarsus, 1 called Saul in Jewish circles, who had been educated in Jerusalem under the guidance of Gamaliel. 2 He was a zealous defender of a strict Pharisaic Judaism, 3 and took part in the persecution of Christians. 4 He was at his own request employed in this connection by the High Priest to go to Damascus in the interests of the anti-Christian Jewish propaganda, 5 but on the way to that city he was suddenly converted by a vision of the risen Lord to believe the doctrine, which he had hitherto repudiated, that the Messiah was Jesus, and became as zealous a defender of Christianity, as he had previously been a persecutor of it. 6 After his conversion he went first to Damascus, 7 where he was cured of the temporary blindness which had be- fallen him, and was baptized by Ananias, a Christian of Damascus, 8 who had been told in a vision to do this. Here he stayed for some time, preaching Christianity in the Jewish synagogues, but when the Jews became enraged at his gospel 9 he escaped to Jerusalem, where the disciples were at first afraid of him, but afterwards accepted him on the recommendation of St. Barnabas. 10 He then spent some time in Jerusalem arguing with the Greek-speaking Jews, but when a plot was formed to kill him the disciples sent him to Caesarea and thence to Tarsus. 11 How long he stayed in Tarsus is not stated : but it is probable that he spent his time in energetically preaching the gospel, for the next that is heard of him is that St. Barnabas, who had been sent from Jerusalem to Antioch to investigate and 1 Acts xxi. 39 ; 22-3. 2 xxii. 3. 3 xxii. 3 ; xxiii. 6. 4 vii. 58 ; viii. 3 ; xxvi. 9-10. 5 ix. 1-2 ; xxii. 5 ; xxvi. 12. a ix. 3-8; xxii. 6-10; xxvi. 13-19. T ix. 8. 8 ix. 10-19. 8 ix- 19-25. 10 ix. 26-27. 11 ix. 28-30. ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS supervise the growing Christian community in that city, fetched St. Paul from Tarsus to assist him. 1 From this point onwards our information becomes much fuller. The first important incident was the sending of St. Paul and St. Barnabas from Antioch to Jerusalem in order to bring help in the time of the famine. 2 This is the second visit of St. Paul to Jerusalem that is mentioned in the Acts : what happened beyond the distribution of alms is not stated, and when it was finished St. Paul and St. Barnabas returned to Antioch. 3 At Antioch the Church decided to take the important step of sending St. Barnabas and St. Paul, accompanied by John Mark, on a missionary expedition outside the province Syria Cilicia in which they had hitherto worked. 4 They first went to Cyprus, 5 and then crossed over to Perga in Pamphylia, where John Mark appears to have been reluctant to go any further and returned to Jerusalem. 6 From Perga St. Barnabas and St. Paul went to Antioch in Pisidia, 7 Iconium, 8 Lystra, 9 and Derbe, 10 passing in this way from the province of Pamphylia to that of Galatia, which is, however, not actually mentioned by name, and then retraced their steps to Perga. 11 From Perga they went to the neigh- bouring port of Attalia, and thence sailed to Antioch in Syria, whence they had started. 12 In Antioch they found that the peace of the community was disturbed by the arrival of members of the Church at Jerusalem who insisted on the necessity of circumcision, 13 and in order to settle the disputes which arose it was arranged that St. Paul and St. Barnabas should go up to 1 Acts xi. 22-26. z xi. 27-30. 3 xii. 25. 4 xiii. 1-3, 5. 5 xiii. 4-12. * xiii. 13. 7 xiii. 14-50. 8 xiii. 51 xiv. 5- 9 xiv. 6-20. 10 xiv. 20-21. 11 xiv. 21-25. 12 x i v - 2 S- 2 6. u xv. I. THE FIRST JOURNEY AND THE COUNCIL 7 Jerusalem to confer with the Apostles and elders, and represent the Antiochene point of view. 1 The result was the famous " Council of Jerusalem " which decided, after hearing St. Paul and St. Barnabas, various Christians of the Pharisaic party, and finally St. Peter and St. James, that circumcision ought not to be demanded from Gentile Christians, but that they should be exhorted to keep them- selves from "the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, [and from things strangled], and from blood." 2 This deci- sion, the text of which is doubtful (see pp. 48 ff.), was made the substance of a letter to the Christians of Antioch and its Province, Syria Cilicia, and entrusted to Judas Barsabbas and Silas to take to Antioch, whither St. Paul and St. Barnabas also returned. 3 In Antioch they remained for some time ; after which St. Paul and St. Barnabas formed the plan of revisiting the communities which they had established already. But as St. Paul would not agree to take again John Mark, who had turned back on the first journey, they separated, and St. Barnabas went to Cyprus, while St. Paul went with Silas through Syria Cilicia, and ultimately reached Derbe, Lystra (in which Timothy joined them), and Iconium. 4 What next happened is a matter of dispute. The text of Acts says : " And they went through the Phrygian and Galatian Region (r^\v av) having been prevented by the Holy Spirit from speaking the word in Asia, and when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not, and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas," 5 but exactly what this means is not quite certain, and, as 1 Acts xv. 2. 2 xv. 4-21. 3 xv. 22-32. 4 xv. 36 ; xvi. 2. 5 xvi. 6-8. 8 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS it has some bearing on the Epistle to the Galatians, it will be discussed later in connection with that Epistle (see Chap. V.). In any case, whatever route St. Paul may have followed, in the end he reached Troas and thence went to Neapolis (the modern Cavalla), Philippi, where he was imprisoned and beaten, 1 Thessalonica, 2 and Beroea, 3 (in both of which Jewish opposition put an end to his work,) and thus founded the Christian Churches of the Province of Macedonia. From Beroea, leaving Timothy and Silas behind, he went, partly by sea, to Athens 4 and then to Corinth where Timothy and Silas rejoined him. Here he stayed a year and six months, and founded the Church in that city, living with Aquila and Priscflla, Jews of Pontus who had recently come from Rome, and teaching first in the synagogue, and afterwards in the house of Titus 5 Justus who lived next to it. He was here also brought before the Roman magistrate, Gallic, but acquitted. 6 From Corinth he went for a short time to Ephesus, and then returned, possibly after a short visit to Jerusalem, to Antioch. This is generally regarded as the end of the second missionary journey. 7 After an interval, spent in Antioch, St. Paul started on his third missionary journey, returning through the " Galatic Region and Phrygia," along the hill country of the province of Asia, to Ephesus. 8 In Ephesus he preached for three months in the synagogue, and afterwards for two years in the " school of Tyrannus," with the result, according to St. Luke, that " all they which dwelt in Asia heard the 1 Acts xvi. 11-40. * xvii. 1-9. 3 xvii. 10-14. 4 xvii. 15-34. 5 Or Titius ; the text is doubtful. 6 xviii. 1-17. " xviii. 18-22. * xviii. 23. THE SECOND AND THIRD JOURNEYS 9 word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks." 1 Towards the end of the period St. Paul formed the plan of going to Jerusalem, after paying a visit to his converts in Macedonia and Achaia, and then extending his field of preaching to Rome. 2 It would also seem, from an allusion in his speech before Felix, that the reason for his desire to visit Jerusalem was the bringing of alms to the poor of the community. 3 As a preliminary to this journey he sent Timothy and Erastus into Macedonia shortly before the time when he . intended to leave Ephesus. 4 His last days in Ephesus / were rendered unpleasant by a riot raised against him by ' Demetrius, a silversmith, and worshipper of Artemis, who thought that St. Paul's teaching was derogatory to his goddess, and harmful to his trade. 5 After the agitation raised by Demetrius had died down, St. Paul went through Macedonia to Achaia 6 probably Corinth is intended and formed the plan of sailing direct to Syria, but finding a plot among the Jews, changed his mind and returned over land through Macedonia to Philippi, 7 whence after the Passover he crossed, in the company of the writer of the we-clauses, to Troas, where Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, Tychicus, and Trophimus joined him. 8 Here they waited seven days, and the main body of the party then went in a coasting vessel to Assos, where St. Paul, who had gone by road, was again taken up. 9 From Assos they sailed in stages to Mitylene, Chios, Samos, and Miletus, where St. Paul bade farewell to the Ephesian Presbyters, who came to see him. 10 From Miletus they sailed to Cos, Rhodes, and 1 Acts xix. i-io. * xix. 21. 3 xxiv. 17. 4 xix. 22. s xix. 23-41. xx. 1-2. 7 xx. 3-6. 8 xx. 4-6. 8 xx. 6, 13. lo xx. 14-38. io ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS Patara, and then changing ships sailed south of Cyprus to Tyre, where the ship stopped seven days, thence to Ptolemais, and Caesarea. 1 In Caesarea they stayed for some time with Philip the Evangelist, who, it is mentioned, had four prophetess daughters, 2 and during this stay Agabus prophesied that St. Paul would be imprisoned by the Jews, in Jerusalem. 3 This made both his own party, and also the Caesarean community, urge him not to go to Jerusalem ; but he held to his plan and insisted on going. 4 On his arrival at Jerusalem St. Paul was received by St. James, 5 who told him that the Jews regarded him as a renegade who preached to the Jews of the Diaspora that they should not circumcise their children nor " walk after the customs." He suggested, therefore, that St. Paul should show his respect for the Jewish law by taking part in a vow which four men of the community had taken, and by paying their expenses. 6 St. Paul agreed to do this, but before the week of the vow was completed Jews from Asia saw him in the temple and raised a tumult by accusing him of teaching against the law and of introducing Greeks into the temple. 7 He was violently turned out of the temple, and only saved from being lynched by the interposition of Lysias, the tribunns militum in charge of the Roman garrison at Jerusalem, who arrested him. 8 This arrest was the beginning of a long imprison- ment. St. Paul was tried four times without any decisive verdict being given, (i) By the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem. 9 (2) By the Governor Felix in Caesarea, where he had been 1 Acts xxi. 1-8. 2 xxi. 8-9. 3 xxi. 10-11. 4 xxi. 12-14. 5 xx i- X S- xxi. 19-24. " xxi. 25-29. 8 xxi. 33 ; xxiii. 26. a xxii. 30; xxiii. IO. ARREST, TRIAL, AND VOYAGE n sent by Lysias in consequence of a Jewish plot which rendered it unsafe to keep him in Jerusalem. 1 (3) After two years, when Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, St. Paul was brought before Festus, who proposed that he should go to Jerusalem and there be tried. St. Paul, how- ever, stood on his rights and demanded to be tried by Caesar's tribunal, and Festus determined to send him to Rome. 2 (4) A short time after this Herod Agrippa II. was staying in Caesarea, and Festus brought St. Paul before him. The result of this trial before Agrippa was favourable to St. Paul, but having appealed to Caesar (whose repre- sentative Agrippa was not) he could not be released, 3 and soon afterwards was sent off by sea, accompanied, it would seem, by St. Luke and by Aristarchus of Thessalonica. 4 Thus ended the first period of imprisonment, at Caesarea, which seems to have lasted rather more than two years. 5 St. Paul's voyage to Rome was adventurous : he started from Caesarea in a ship of Adramyttium which was going to the coast of the Province of Asia. After touching at Sidon they sailed across, leeward of Cyprus, to Myra. 6 Here they changed into a ship of Alexandria, bound for Italy, and made their way with difficulty to Fair Havens, near Lasea in Crete. It was now the late autumn, and sailing became dangerous, but the captain tried to push on, and being caught in a strong north-easterly wind was wrecked on the island of Malta. 7 Here St. Paul, his friends, and escort spent the winter, 8 and after three months sailed in another Alex- andrian ship, called the Dioscuri, to Syracuse, Rhegium, and 1 Acts xxiii. 12-27. 2 xxv. 1-12. * xxv. 13 ; xxvi. 32. 4 xxvii. 1-2. 4 xxiv. 27. " xxvii. 2-5. 7 xxvii. 6-44. It is sometimes disputed if the island was really Malta, but the point is immaterial for the present purpose. " xxviii. i-io. 12 ST. PAUL IN THE ACTS finally Puteoli, 1 where they landed, and, after a week's rest, made their way to Rome, being met at Appii Forum and Three Taverns by members of the Christian community at Rome. 2 On his arrival, St. Paul was lodged by himself, pos- sibly in an inn 3 (cf. Zeviav, xxviii. 23), in the custody of a soldier. 4 After three days he summoned the Jews to hear him, and on two separate occasions they came. On the first the main issue of the meeting was the charges brought against him : of these the Jews professed complete ignorance, and said that no instruction had reached them from Jeru- salem. 5 On the second occasion St. Paul explained his teaching, and when the Jews, with some exceptions, would not believe, he announced to them, with a quotation from Isaiah, his intention of preaching to the Gentiles. 6 At this point the narrative in Acts is closed by the state- ment " And he abode two full years in his own hired dwelling, and received all that went in unto him, preaching the king- dom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him," 7 a curious and enigmatic conclusion, which has often been discussed, and leaves us doubtful whether St. Paul was acquitted, condemned, or dismissed for lack of evidence. 8 Such is the sequence of events with which the Acts provide us. For the present purpose it is invaluable as affording the outline of the missionary activity of St. Paul 1 Acts xxviii. 11-13. 2 xxviii. 14-15. 3 This is the traditional view : but the evidence of the Papyri points to the probability that |eWa means " hospitality " ; see Moulton and Milligan in the Expositor, March, 1910, p. 286, who regard this view as "practically certain." 4 xxviii. 16. 5 xxviii. 17-22. 8 xxviii. 23-28. " xxviii. 30-31. 8 In favour of the view that the trial was quashed because no hostile witnesses appeared, see Interpreter, 1909, pp. 147 ff. and 438 f., What was the end of St. Paul's trial? THE END OF THE ACTS 13 which is one of the chief features in that background of the Epistles which it is proposed to reconstruct. It is no doubt imperfect ; St. Paul must have done much more than St. Luke recorded, and, therefore, the mention in the Epistles of events which find no place in the Acts is not surprising. But, imperfect though it be, it covers most fully precisely that period to which all the Epistles, except the Pastorals, belong. As will be seen, we are able to fix with tolerable certainty the time when the Epistles were written, even though the degree of certainty is by no means always the same, and this result is chiefly owing to the record of the sequence of events in the Acts. It is, of course, obvious that the statements in the Acts are not always plain, and so far as this is the case they will be discussed fully in con- nection with the Epistles on which they have a bearing, but on the whole, and considering the character of the book, Acts is a first-rate historical document, and singularly easy to understand, so far as the mere enumeration of events is concerned. The enumeration of events, however, is only the begin- ning of historical research, and it is far more difficult, as well as more important, to discover from the Acts that development of tendencies and ideas which produced the controversies and problems that called forth the Pauline Epistles. For this purpose it will be necessary to consider the real meaning of the Judaistic controversy, of which the Council at Jerusalem was the culminating point, but by no means the end, and the results which sprang from the ensuing propagation of Christianity in the Graeco-Roman world. CHAPTER II THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY, THE GENTILE CONVERTS, AND THE BACK- GROUND OF GENTILE CHRISTIANITY. THE earliest Christian community was in Jerusalem : the fact that it was here and not in Galilee is perhaps a curious problem, but it cannot be denied. Moreover it was a community within the limits of Judaism rather than one clearly separated from it. The disciples frequented the Temple, observed the Jewish Law, and believed all the articles of the Jewish faith. That which distinguished them from other Jews was that to the usual Pharisaic belief that in the last days the Messiah the Lord's Anointed would appear on earth, to break the powers of evil and to establish the kingdom of God, they added the assurance that they knew who the Messiah was. He was Jesus, who had appeared already as Son of man that is, as Messiah in per- sonality, but not yet in function, 1 had been crucified and buried, and had been raised again by God to the glorified existence of the heavenly Messiah who would soon come in the clouds of heaven to inaugurate in power that Kingdom of God of which He was already the proleptic 2 head, and 1 This fact is to be found most clearly expressed in Professor Burkitt's The Earliest Sources for the Life of/esus, p. 66. 2 The use of this technical term of the grammarians may be excused by the difficulty of finding any expression to convey the required meaning. The point 14 THE CHRISTIANS IN JERUSALEM 15 the Christians were already the proleptic members, and as such had received the Holy Spirit which was to be given in the " last days." This was the point on which Jews and Christians differed, the identification or the non-identifi- cation of the Messiah, whom they both expected, with Jesus ; and they found their common ground for argument in the Law and in the Prophets, which each regarded as the infallibly inspired word of God. Probably there was a dispute between them as to the interpretation of the Old Testament, for it is likely l that the Christians explained passages such as Isaiah liii., in which allusion is made to a suffering servant of Jahweh, in relation to the Messiah, while such a view did not obtain among the Jews. Never- theless, this was relatively a matter of domestic difference of opinion, and could scarcely be regarded, except in the heat of controversy, as unfaithfulness to the hope of Israel. Christians in no sense felt that they had ceased to be Jews, and the question of the admission of the Gentiles was not raised. It is true that there had been an open rupture between Jesus and the Galilaean synagogues, and that the Priests had conspired to put Him to death, but the disciples clung to the Temple, and never accepted the situation. Perhaps the most instructive parallel to their position (though of course only in this respect) is afforded by that of Catholic Modernists, who have been frequently is that the kingdom was not yet come, and therefore there could not yet be- any king ; but it was quite certain that it was coming, and that Jesus would be the King. Thus Christians lived in a constant anticipation of the future, a "prolepsis " of things to come. 1 The point is, however, not quite certain ; see H. Gressmann, Der Ursprung der Israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie, References to other books on the subject are given by Bousset, Religion des Jiidentums, p. 266. The most important authority for the view taken above is Dalman, Der leidende und sterbende Messias der Synagoge. 1 6 THE J UD A IS TIC CONTROVERSY disavowed by Catholic authority, yet have never accepted the situation. That there was more or less severe, but probably intermittent rather than continuous persecution of the Christians by the Jews is probable in itself, and corrobo- rated by the accounts in Acts iv. and v. 1 But there is no suggestion that either the Jews or the Christians felt that the latter were in any way outside the Jewish Church. 2 The Christians held that the crucifixion of their leader had been a crime, and the Jews believed that it was a necessary incident in the development of political life, but the former did not think themselves outside the covenant or the service of the Temple, and the latter were not pre- pared to drive out those whose only fault was an erroneous belief that they knew who the Messiah was, for it must be remembered that the strong eschatological and Messianic belief of the Christians was apart from the question of the identity of the Messiah shared by many of the Jews, and especially by those who were most enthusiastic for the - Hope of Israel "). 3 J Nevertheless, looking back on history, it is clear that this situation could not last. If Christianity had re- mained unchanged it would have died out, as indeed it did among the Jews, so soon as the eschatological expecta- tion was clearly falsified, for to the Jews who had already 1 It seems unnecessary to discuss Harnack's suggestion that these two accounts may be " doublet " narratives of one event. Possibly he is right ; (see his Apostelgeschichte, chap, v.), but it is also possible that there were two attempts by the Jews to suppress Christianity. What is here important is merely the fact that the attempts (or attempt) were unsuccessful and not vigorously carried out. * Jewish "Church" is of course an anachronism, but it is too convenient a phrase to abandon. 3 Cf. Acts xxiii. 6. The Pharisees immediately accepted St . Paul's state- ment that " for ' Hope ' and a resurrection of the dead am I being judged." THE CHRISTIANS IN JERUSALEM 17 a divinely instituted Church it was impossible to adopt the point of view which identified or confused the Kingdom with the Church, and put into the background the expectation of the Parousia. It was impossible for Christianity to flourish for long within the limits of the Judaism of Jerusalem. But already partially distinct from the Judaism of Jerusalem there was a Judaism in the Diaspora which offered a far more hopeful prospect, and from the beginning it was the Hellenistic Jews belonging to this who were at- tracted. Apart altogether from questions as to the accuracy of~the account given in Acts of the day of Pentecost, it is clear that the point which St. Luke wishes to emphasize, in addition to the inspiration of the Church, is the Hellenistic character of the converts. They were Jews, but they were Jews of the Diaspora, " Jews, devout men . . . Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites " and St. Luke exhausts language in his attempt to make plain their diversity of nationality. 1 The introduction of this ne\v element could not but profoundly affect the development of the community. The first sign which we find of its influence is in Acts vi. 1-7, which describes how there was friction between the Hellenist and Palestinian Christians as to the distri- bution of alms among their " widows." The result of this was the introduction into the community of a new element of organization. Up till now the leaders had been "the Twelve." They had been promised by Jesus positions of authority in the Kingdom, and were to be the Judges over the twelve tribes of Israel. 2 Among other 1 Just as a Jew of to-day can call himself an Englishman or a German, a Jew of the first century could call himself a Parthian, a Mede, or even a Roman if he were fortunate enough to possess the right to do soj as St. Paul did. * This statement belongs to the oldest stratum of the Gospels. It is C i8 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY things they had apparently undertaken various social and financial arrangements which at the least were regular aad organized charity, at the most, something approaching communism it is probably impossible to define them more accurately. But now a great part, or perhaps all, of this work was handed over to "the Seven," who seem mostly to have belonged to the Hellenist section. 1 Accord- ing to St. Luke, then, the duties of " the Seven " were primarily practical and internal to the community ; but they also seem to have attracted attention by their development of certain lines of thought which were probably present in the teaching of Jesus Himself, but were not taken up by the original Jerusalem community. These lines were concerned with the Temple and the official class connected with it, which was treated by St. Stephen in a manner which seems to find no parallel in the teaching of the Twelve, and certainly not in that of other Jewish Christians. This new development of Christianity met with active hostility from the orthodox Hellenists in Jerusalem ; St. Stephen was summoned before the Sanhedrin, and stoned to death, while other Hellenists were forced to leave Jerusalem. It appears, however, that this persecution did not extend found in Matt. xix. 28 and Luke xxii. 30, and probably no one would dispute that it belongs to Q. 1 Harnack thinks that they were in some sense rivals of the Twelve. The evidence for this view is small, but if one does not regard rivals as implying an unfriendly attitude there is something to be said for it (see Harnack's Kirchenverfassung, p. 23). The whole question of " The Seven " is obscure, and we have no sufficient evidence to help much in dealing with it. The point is that we need some explanation of the fact that those who were appointed in order to relieve the Twelve from the practical and charitable side of their work, and to set them free to preach, nevertheless only appear in the capacity of missionaries and controversalists, and as such seem to have attracted more attention than the " Twelve." CHRISTIAN HELLENISTS 19 to the original disciples, for St. Luke expressly excepts the Apostles, by which he probably means the Twelve. Probably, therefore, we ought to consider that the perse- cution connected with the death of St. Stephen was primarily a persecution of Hellenists by Hellenists, and did not largely affect the original Palestinian Christians. The Christian Hellenists scattered ; St. Philip among others preached in Samaria, and on one occasion returning to Judaea converted an Ethiopian probably a proselyte. Ultimately he went farther north, and settled in Caesarea. Thus a Christian propaganda began to spread among the Hellenist Jews outside Jerusalem. What form their teach- ing took we do not know in any detail, but we may be sure that it varied to some extent from that of the original disciples, and the account given in the Acts of the teaching of St. Stephen seems to show that it was perceptibly less attached to the Temple and to the Law, an attitude which was probably not uncommon among Hellenists entirely apart from Christianity. In answer to this propaganda a persecution was instituted among the orthodox Hel- lenists, with the support of the priests at Jerusalem, and among those who took part in it was Saul of Tarsus. Obviously the original Jewish community could not stand entirely outside this movement. Possibly some of its members doubted whether it ought to meet with approbation. At all events, some of the leaders felt compelled to investigate it ; among them St. Peter and St. John the son of Zebedee, who went to Samaria where Philip had been preaching. What they saw led them to approve, so that they joined in the work of evange- lization outside Jerusalem, and thus began careers which 20 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY ultimately led both of them l far afield into the Roman Empire. The result of this development was that the history of the Church began to divide into two branches. On the one hand, there was the propaganda of the Hellenists, ever spread- ing further and further from the centre ; and on the other, the preaching of the members of the Jerusalem community, for the time, at least, confined to a circle of a smaller radius. Turning first to the Jerusalem community, two facts are of outstanding importance. The absence of St. Peter, and probably of other members of the " Twelve " led to a change in organization. Instead of the Twelve being the rulers, we find James, the brother of the Lord, apparently becoming the head of the community. Whether this took place 2 in consequence of a definite arrangement, or more or less imperceptibly in consequence of the absence of the Twelve, we do not know, but it probably marks the acceptance of the Seo-TToo-uvot the family of the Lord as having in some sense a claim to the headship of the community in Jerusalem. St. James appears to have belonged to the original type of Christianity, and was for many years unharmed ; indeed, tradition represents him as enjoying the general respect of the Jews. 3 Thus a conservative 1 If tradition may be trusted, St. Peter went to Rome and St. John toEphesus. But, of course, there is considerable doubt as to this. The evidence in neither case is quite convincing, and in the case of St. John there is some evidence (that of Papias but in a doubtful passage) that he was put to death by the Jews. See Schwartz, Uberden Todder S'dhneZebedaei, and San day, The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 1030. 2 Tradition says that it took place twelve years after the Ascension, i.e. c. 42. It may have been connected with the persecution of the Christians under Herod ; but I think it was more probably the result of the absence of the Twelve. 3 See Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. 23, for a long account of St. James, taken from Hegesippus. CHRISTIAN GENTILES 21 and essentially Jewish type of Christianity became fixed in Jerusalem. On the other hand, St. Peter, the leader of the Twelve, was induced to take a new and profoundly important step, which he was successful in commending at all events to the theoretical approbation of the Christians in Jerusalem. This was the conversion of Cornelius. 1 Cornelius was a centurion stationed in Caesarea, not a proselyte but a "God-fearer" who desired to hear the teaching of St. Peter. St Peter hesitated whether he might go to a Gentile, but was convinced by a vision that he ought to do so, and after hearing his gospel Cornelius visibly received the gift of the Spirit. St. Peter interpreted this fact to mean that he might at once be formally admitted by Baptism into the Christian community. It is important here to notice how central was the belief that Christians were men who were inspired v/ith a Holy Spirit : there are many problems in con- nection with this fact for instance, its relation to Baptism but as to the fact itself there can be no doubt. When, therefore, St. Peter found that Cornelius and his house- hold presented all the signs of being "filled with the Spirit," he naturally was forced to the conclusion that Cornelius, Gentile though he was, had been placed within the Christian Community. The great importance of this decision of St. Peter was that it forced him, and the Church of Jerusalem with him, to acknowledge that it was both theoretically and practically possible for a Gentile to become a Christian, or in other words, a proleptic member of the Messianic Kingdom. It did not, however, settle the further question, 1 Acts x. For the importance of the Godfearers, see pp. 37 ff, 22 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY I which was sure to arise, whether Gentiles who became Christians were free from the obligation of the Jewish Law. St. Peter himself does not seem at the moment to have seen clearly that this question must arise, and his action in baptizing Cornelius was to some extent a confusion of thought. Before the incident of Cornelius he had held that the Christian community was open to Jews only, and that the method of entry was Baptism. From the gift of the Spirit he concluded that Cornelius had been divinely admitted into the Church, and therefore that the limitation of Church membership to Jews was untenable. By a strict parity of reasoning he ought to have decided that it also proved that Baptism was not the only method of entry into the Church, for Cornelius was, by the evidence of the Spirit, among its members, though he had never been baptized. But this reasoning was not followed by St. Peter, who baptized Cornelius, opening, as it were, the door after the guest was already in the house. It was therefore possible for the Jewish Christians to argue that even if Gentiles had been admitted into the Church, they ought to be circumcised as well as baptized. If they followed the reasoning which led St. Peter to admit Gentiles, and to reject the limitation to Jews because of the evidence of the Spirit, naturally they would not require circumcision ; but if they followed the reasoning which led him in spite of that evidence to baptize Cornelius, they would logically demand circumcision as well. That this attitude was actu- ally adopted is clear from the course of events, though it is not actually stated in connection with the case of Cornelius. Thus the result of the incident of Cornelius may be stated to have been that the Christians in Jerusalem and Palestine generally recognized the admission of Gentiles to THE ANTIOCHENE MOVEMENT 23 the Christian Church, but that the exact conditions imposed on them remained undetermined. Meanwhile events of equal importance had happened in the circle of the Hellenists. St. Paul, the enthusiast for orthodoxy had seen a vision on the road to Damascus, had joined the ranks of the Hellenist Christians whom he had previously persecuted, and was engaged in preaching in Cilicia in the district of which Tarsus, his native city, was the centre. Moreover, some of the Hellenists who had been driven out of Jerusalem according to St. Luke they were Cypriotes and Cyrenaeans had settled in Antioch, and had taken the epoch-making step of preaching to the Gentiles, no doubt chiefly among the God-fearers, with immediate and great success, without insisting on their adopting the Law or practices of Judaism. 1 Obviously this raised in an acute form the same question as the incident of Cornelius, and it was impossible here to regard the cir- cumstances as exceptional they represented a fixed policy. The Church at Jerusalem therefore decided to send St. Barnabas to investigate the situation. He was admirably fitfeoTYor the task, for he was himself a Hellenist from Cyprus, but had always belonged to the Jerusalem com- munity, and had relations in the city. St. Barnabas was completely persuaded, by the facts which he saw, that the new movement was desirable, threw himself into the work, and called St. Paul from Tarsus to help him. In this way a vigorous Christianity grew up among the Gentiles, which recognized neither the circumcision nor the ceremonial law of the Jews. If this had been a wholly new doctrine in Judaism it 1 This is not stated in Acts, but is clear from the context of the events implied by the Council, see Acts xv. 24 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY would be almost inconceivable that St. Paul and St. Barnabas would have started it without further discussion, but, as a matter of fact, they were only following a line of thought which had already found supporters among a minority of the Jews, not only in the Diaspora, but even in Jerusalem. It is, for instance, related by Josephus that when Izates, King of Adiabene, was converted to Judaism, the merchant Ananias l whom he consulted urged him not to be circumcised, because of the offence which he would give to his subjects, but to content himself with a general observance of the Jewish Law, and adherence to the Jewish creed. This was almost exactly contemporaneous with the teaching of St. Barnabas and St. Paul in Antioch. But perhaps the most important witness to the existence of a "liberal" school among the Jews of the first century is Philo. In his book De Migratione A brahami? he refers definitely to a class of Jews who attached only a symbolic importance to the Law. " There are persons," he says, " who regard the traditional law as a symbol of spiritual life ; the symbolic meaning they seek with every care, but despise the literal meaning. Such laxness I can only deprecate. They ought to be zealous for both, both the exact search for the hidden meaning as well as the punctilious observance of the literal sense. . . . Although it be true that the law of the Sabbath contains the deeper meaning that the Creator (TO ayivrirov) is active and the Creation (TO jtvrjTov) is passive, we have no right to ignore the command to 1 The words of Ananias are important enough to be quoted : . . . Swd/j-evof 5' ourbj', er], Kal X U P^ S T ^ s TfpiTOfj.r)s Tb Ot'iov affittv, efye Traj/rcos KfKpiKf ITJA.OUJ' ra irdrpia TWV 'lovSaiuv rovr' tlvai Kvpiu-rfpov TOV irepiTefj.veo'da.i . . . Ultimately, however, Izates listened to his other Jewish adviser, Eleazar, and was circumcised. See Josephus, Antiquit., xx. 2. 4. 2 Ed. Mangey, I. 450, and Cohn and Wendland, II. p. 285 ff. LIBERAL JUDAISM 25 keep it holy. . . . Even though the Feast is a symbol of the joy of the soul and of thankfulness to God, we have no right to give up the annual festivities, and though the circumcision signifies the cutting away of every passion and lust, and the destruction of all godless thoughts . . . we are still not justified in departing from the law of circumcision which was laid upon us." It is plain that Philo, who, of course, fully accepted the symbolic or allegorical meaning of the law, was acquainted with Jews who went further than he did, and regarded this not as the hidden meaning, but as the only valid meaning, so that they abandoned Circumcision, Sabbath, Feasting and Fasting, and, in a word, the whole of the ceremonial law. If Jews were inclined in Alexandria to doubt in this manner whether the law was, in its literal sense, really valid for themselves, it is not surprising that some of them did not insist on its observance by Gentiles who desired not to be excluded from the Kingdom of God. Thus we find a few years later than Philo that the Jewish writer of the fourth book of the Oracula Sibyllina^ promised entry into 1 The Oracula Sibyllina are a curious collection of Jewish and Christian verse, written in a bad imitation of Homeric Greek, giving a series of Apocalyptic prophecies. They vary in date from the first century before Christ to the third century after Christ. The best text is that of Geffcken in the Berlin edition of Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte. The best introductions are probably those of Alexandre (the first edition, of 1841-56, not the second of 1869, which is less valuable), and of Geffcken, Koinposition und Enstehungszeit der Oracula Sibyllina in Texte und Unter- suchungen t xxiii. I ; but sufficient for all except special purposes will be found in Schiirer's Gcschichte des Jiidischen Valkcs, ed. 4, iii. pp. 555-592. This is one of the places in which Schiirer's fourth edition is considerably fuller than the third. In the fourth book the Sibyl is supposed to be speaking to the first genera- tion of mankind, and gives a prophetic sketch of the successive dominations of Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, up to the flight of Nero and the destruction of Jerusalem, and apparently mentioning the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. It then goes on to foretell that Nero will return from the East, and 26 THE J UD A IS TIC CONTROVERSY the Messianic kingdom to all of the heathen who accept the true God, abandon idolatry, murder, theft, fornication, and sodomy, generally lead a good life, and are baptized. 1 Nothing whatever is said of circumcision or the Jewish Law. Less well attested, and much less important, is the story of the Babylonian Talmud ( Yebhamoth, f. 4.60) that in the first century Rabbi Joshua maintained that Baptism without circumcision was sufficient for the admission of a proselyte, and was opposed by Rabbi Eliezer who argued in favour of circumcision without Baptism. Thus the more advanced position held among the Christians at Antioch as to the method by which a Gentile might be admitted was only the continuation of a discussion which had already arisen among the Jews. Neither the admission of Gentiles, nor omission of circumcision were quite new things in the history of Judaism, but both represented the adhesion of the Christians at Antioch to the more liberal principles of a minority, probably found chiefly in the Diaspora, and the rejection of the narrower and stricter point of view which was dominant in Jerusalem. Moreover, this latter view was dominant not only among the Jews but also among many of the Christians at Jeru- salem, who probably still held fast to their original point of view, and had not grasped the importance of the incident history will close with the judgment, resurrection, and establishment of the righteous. It is clear from this summary that the book was written during the time after the fall of Nero when his death was still doubted and his return expected at the head of a Parthian army. This might be at any time after the death of Nero, and before about 90 A.D. (the last false Nero appeared in 88), but the reference to Vesuvius narrows the range of possible dates to 79-90 A.D. 1 The important passages are Or. Sib., iv. 24-33 an( i : 162-1 70. The text is quoted on pp. 56-7. THE ANTIOCHENE CHURCH 27 of Cornelius, so that in this way Antioch became in a few years the centre of a type of Christianity which really differed from that in Jerusalem, and was adopted chiefly by Gentiles rather than by Jews. The importance of it was that, although it may possibly have been the view of St. Barnabas and St. Paul that their converts were made members of the true Jewish Church by their Baptism, this rapidly ceased to be true of the Gentile Christians them- selves. They had accepted much of the Jewish theology, and especially the doctrine of the Messiah, but the com- munity which they desired to enter was the Messianic kingdom, not the Jewish Church, and to their mind it was plain that membership in this kingdom was the privilege of those who accepted the Messiah, and was independent of the Law, which was an exclusively Jewish possession. Let the Jews keep their own Law, they were themselves free. Either they argued like this, or else they accepted the teaching of the liberal Jews, whom Philo reprobated, to the effect that the Law had only a symbolical meaning. We find, for instance, that the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas, who may have lived in the first century, took exactly this standpoint, and regarded a literal exegesis of the Old Testament as the invention of an Evil Angel. 2 We cannot reconstruct the precise standpoint of the Gentile converts, indeed, we may be certain that they had more than one but it is at any rate plain that under the leadership of St. Barnabas and St. Paul the new type of Christianity which rejected the Law for Gentile Christians 1 The probable range of date is about 90-135. 2 Cf. Barn. ix. 4, irepiTo^v yap flpijtcev ov ei& " means " idolatry, murder, and fornication," or "sacrificial food, sacrificial blood, and fornication in connection with worship " ; but in neither case does it imply a compromise. D 34 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY of this Antiochene triumph. That it was not the end of the Judaistic controversy need scarcely be said ; in such a struggle the minority is defeated without being either convinced or destroyed. Even if we had no proof we should be justified in assuming that there remained a party which continued to unite Christian propaganda with a strict adhesion to the Jewish Law, and regarded the Council as a lamentable mistake. Moreover, it is obvious that the Jews would regard this new development of Christianity with increased dislike : for it was no longer merely the identification of the Messiah with Jesus, but a definite denial of the universal validity of the Jewish Law and cultus the participation by the Christians, already heretical enough, in the dangerous latitudinarianism which Ananias had so lamentably suggested to Izates, and the Jews of the Diaspora had occasionally been so weak as to encourage. At the other end of the scale, also, human nature suggests the probability that some of the Antiochene Christians, or their converts, would rush to extremes and introduce a dangerous antinomianism in the name of liberty, and force the Antiochene leaders to protest, and to contend against extravagant perversions of their teaching. It is therefore natural to expect to find that the Jeru- salem propaganda continued among Christians, though now rather as a protesting and reactionary conservatism ; that the opposition of the Jews to Christianity was strengthened and embittered ; and that a new school of thought soon arose which exaggerated the plea for liberty which had been so successfully put forward by Antioch, and threatened to convert liberty into libertinism. As a matter of fact, the two first of these phenomena can be traced in the Acts, in the events of St. Paul's final visit to Jerusalem, THE CHRISTIANITY OF JERUSALEM 35 and the last, though it can scarcely be found in the Acts, can clearly be traced in several of the Pauline Epistles. On the occasion of St. Paul's visit to Jerusalem, St. James, while reaffirming his acceptance of the Apostolic Decrees, emphasized the existence of " many myriads " of Christian Jews, who were all zealous for the Law and were afraid that St. Paul was not content with absolving the heathen who became Christians from the obligation of the Law, but was also teaching the Jews that it was no longer binding on them and their children. It is for our purpose immaterial whether this be accepted as really an utterance of St. James, or as representing St. Luke's idea of the attitude of the Jewish Christians and of their leader. In either case, it is good evidence of the Jewish Christians' position, and of their attitude towards St. Paul and the Antiochene movement generally. Equally instructive is St. Paul's conduct : he at once agreed to show by his actions that he recognized the validity of the Law for Jews. The Jewish Christians honestly believed that the direct result of his writing and preaching must be the abandonment of the Law even by Jews ; and St. Paul's action was intended to convince them that, although the observance of the Law was not demanded from Gentiles, it was nevertheless recognized as binding on Jewish Christians. At the same time, the seriousness with which both St. James and St. Paul faced the situation suggests that some of St. Paul's adherents were pushing his principles further, and denying that circumcision and the Law were binding on any one. We may also assume with much probability that this question was connected with a certain vagueness as to whether it was possible to say that the Messiah was already come or not. The original position was no 36 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY doubt that Jesus was the Messiah, but it was equally clearly held that He had not yet come as Messiah. The Parousia which means " coming," not " return " was still future, and the Messianic kingdom did not yet exist, except in a certain proleptic sense. But until the Messiah came not until it was known who He was the Law was binding. This was probably the original position, so far as it was consciously thought out at all, but almost from the first amongst Gentile Christians the "proleptic" element began to be forgotten, more and more importance came to be given to the actual work of Jesus, His life to be regarded as really a "coming" of the Messiah, and the concept of the Kingdom to gain a somewhat different meaning. With such a position the Law naturally seemed to be entirely superseded. Over against this extreme Gentile position stood the mass of Jewish Christians, who were zealous for the Law, had not St. James's personal knowledge of St. Paul, but identified him with the extreme position of some of his followerSj and so came more and more to stand aloof, and to dislike the whole Antiochene movement. The increased hostility of the non-Christian Jews is equally well shown by the Pauline Epistles and by the Acts. According to these, St. Paul's most determined enemies were the Jews. In Galatia, Asia, Macedonia ; and Achaia Jewish hostility was strong and irreconcile- able, and in Jerusalem it was the direct cause of his imprisonment. It is clear that the Jews in the capital tolerated St. James and his party, even though their toleration was tempered with contempt and dislike : after all, they seem to have argued, though these people have foolish ideas as to the identity of the Messiah, they nevertheless observe the Law, and are otherwise orthodox. THE GOD-FEARERS 37 But for St. Paul nothing was bad enough he was a renegade and a traitor, and as such worthy of death. Moreover, this Jewish hatred of St. Paul was especially stimulated by a fact which also was prominent in pro- ducing the antinomian extremists, and later on in intro- ducing other problems into the life of the Gentile Churches. This fact was the existence in the Graeco-Roman world of the class of "God-fearers" whom the synagogue had attracted towards itself by much careful preparation, and hoped ultimately to convert into proselytes. This class is often mentioned in the New Testament, 1 and a more accurate understanding of its position is one of the great steps forward which have been made of recent years in the interpretation of early Christianity. The source of most statements on the subject was formerly the essay of Deyling, De StjSo/^'vote rbv Gtov in his Observations Sacrae, ii. pp. 462-69, in which he identified them with the "proselytes of the gate" mentioned in the Talmud. On this view the theory was based that the Jews recognized two sorts of proselytes those " of the gate " and those " of righteousness," of whom the former stood in a less close relation to the Jews than the latter and that "God-fearers" is a synonym for the former. This view will be found expressed at length in the first edition of Schiirer's Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes in Zeitalter Jesu Christi, and it was long the dominant opinion. But, in the light of further study, in his third, and still more completely in his fourth edition (1909), Schiirer completely gave up this theory, and showed convincingly 1 They are referred to in the following places : as " tyo&ovpfvoi rbv in Acts x. 2, 22, 35 ; xiii. 16, 26 ; as " Qf6v," Acts xvi. 14 ; xviii. 7; as " (rcjSJ/icyot " in Acts xiii. 50; xvii. 4, 17; and as " oi Qtbv V^HTTOV ebendaselbst (Sitzungsberichte der kbnigl. preussischen Academiezu Berlin, 1897) ; and F. Cumont, Hypsistos in the Supplement to the Revue de V instruction publique en Belgique, 1897. * The passages indicated are the following: Jos., Contra Ap., ii. 39: ' ' KO! irXi\6f5' e edvos, evQa (JL^ TO rjjs ffiSofidfios, %]v apyov/jifv ^/teTs, ri e8os [5e] SieireoirriKfv Koi at vi](Tre7ai Kal \{>xv(av avaicavffeis i.al vo\\a riav els fipiaffiv TJ/JLIV ov vfvofj.ur/j.ei'wt' iropaTeT^pjjTat." Tertullian, Ad Nationes, i. 13 : " Vos certe estis, qui etiam in laterculum septem dierum solem recepistis, et ex diebus ipso priorem praelegistis, quo die lavacrum subtrahatis aut in vesperam difierads, aut otium et prandium curetis. Quod quidem facitis exorbitantes et ipsi a vestris ad alienas religiones. Judaei enim festi sabbata et coena pura et Judaici ritus lucernarum et jejunia cum azymis et orationes litorales, quae utique aliena sunt a diis vestris." Juvenal, Sat., xiv. 96-106 " Quidam sortiti metuentem sabbata patrem nil praeter nubes et caeli numen adorant, nee distare putant humana came suillam qua pater abstinuit ; mox et praeputia ponunt. Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges Judaicum ediscunt et servant ac metuunt jus THE GOD-FEARERS 39 the observance of the Sabbath, and the food law which most generally obtained in these circles. . . . Their adherence would vary in degree, and it is improbable that there were fixed limits." l To this statement of Schiirer's no exception can be taken on the ground of what it says, but it ought to be added that the evidence of Philo shows that there were Jews who regarded the Law as merely allegorical, and that the Sibylline Oracles (see pp. 25 f. and 56 f.) show that there were also circles among the God-fearers in which the food law and even the sabbath were disregarded, and that monotheism and the moral law alone were observed. This would no doubt vary in different places, and would be influenced by the type of Judaism which was dominant : in places, for instance, where the extreme allegorizing party had representatives, and the Law was explained in the manner which the Epistle of Barnabas tried to popu- larize among Christians, the observance of the ceremonial law would naturally sink into the background among the God-fearers. It does not need the testimony of Juvenal to convince us that it was from this circle of God-fearers that the Jews drew their proselytes, and the Acts give us superabundant proof that it was in the same circle that St. Paul met with the greatest success in making converts ; it is therefore easy to understand the bitterness of Jewish feeling against St Paul and other Christians of the Antiochene school, for it is not in human nature to regard with equanimity the sight tradidit arcane quodcunque volumine Moses : non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos. Sed pater in causa cui septima cuique fuu lux ignava et partem vitae non attigit ullam." 1 Geschichte dts fudischen Volkes t ed. 4, iii. I73ff. 40 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY of heretics successfully reaping a harvest which the orthodox had sown, had seen grow up, and had expected to gather, and the rapid passing over of God-fearers to the ranks of the Christians was in the eyes of the orthodox Jews a triumph for heresy as bitter as it was unexpected. In this way the existence of the God-fearers helps to explain the increased hatred of the Jews ; it also explains the existence of the extreme antinomian party of which Acts tells us nothing, but the Epistles more than a little. For the God-fearers brought Christianity into the troubled world of thought of the Roman Empire. They represent to a large extent the general attitude of the " religious man " of the first century. He was, as a rule, dissatisfied with the ancestral forms of culture, as well as with the traditional theology. It was an age of religious unrest and theological inquiry. The propaganda of Judaism and Christianity were only two of the many efforts which were being made to answer this intellectual curiosity and to satisfy the yearnings of unhappy souls, and, on the whole, we can distinguish two main currents to one or the other of which these efforts usually belonged. Those whose interest was primarily intellectual, or, at all events, demanded a theology which was intellectually acceptable, were strongly influenced by the metaphysics of the Neo-Platonists, and the ethics of the Stoics. In them they seemed to find a reasonable explana- tion of the universe, a " Weltanschauung " which corresponded to facts, and a rule of life which satisfied the conscience and seemed to offer a lasting happiness. On the other hand, those whose interest was chiefly religious, in the narrower sense of the word, were attracted by the Oriental " Mystery Religions," so diverse in detail, yet so similar in essentials, which held out the offer of happiness in this world and SYNCRETISM AND THE MYSTERIES 41 salvation in the next to all who by initiation into their sacraments joined in the risen life of a redeemer God, and thus secured a knowledge of the great secret, which would guard the traveller when he passed hence through the gate of death on his long and dangerous journey, and bring him safely to the eternal life which he desired. Finally, we can see in such a man as Plutarch the curious combination of these two currents which' fully accepted all these mysteries, but by a vigorous use of allegory and symbolism brought them in agreement with philosophy, and felt that whether the God whom they celebrated was called Isis, or Attis, or Mithras, or any other name, it was, nevertheless, the divine Logos, " the Word," who was working in them all the Logos who is the source of all life and all wisdom, though he be called by different names in different lands. Plutarch was, we may be sure, no exception, save in so far as he was of exceptional ability, and doubtless there were many in the Roman Empire who, in some such way as he had done, united the practice of the mysteries with the philosophy of the Stoics or Platonists. But in the lower and less educated classes this syncretism must have been less common. Men felt that spiritually they were ill, and needed a physician, nor were they able to see, as Plutarch did, that all the physicians offered the same prescription, though they varied the exact form of its composition. No doubt, they had their own syncretism, but it was not the philosophic syncretism of Plutarch, but rather a tendency to modify the practices of the various cults, to borrow attractive features from others, and to give up objectionable even though characteristic customs. This influence of the Oriental " Mystery Religions " was increased by the fact that not only the Jews, but every 42 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY Eastern nation had its " Diaspora " in the Roman Empire. We are apt to overlook this because, for obvious reasons, it is the Jewish Diaspora of which we hear most, but after all it was the Orontes, not the Jordan, which seemed to the Roman eye to be flowing into the Tiber, and we ought to remember that just as there was a Jewish Diaspora, with its proselytizing propaganda, there were Egyptian, Syrian, Persian, and other Diasporae, in which the various cults were taught, though each probably with more or less pronounced variations from the native type. Each Diaspora of this kind was a centre for a wider circle, corresponding to the God-fearers of the Jewish com- munity, composed of those who were interested in what they saw and heard, but were only prepared to accept the cult partially, eclectically, and in combination with features taken from other cults, of which they had obtained knowledge in a similar way. An excellent example of this type of syncretism is to be found in the cults, 1 found in Asia Minor, which combined Judaism with the worship of Zeus Hypsistos and of Attis the Phrygian Redeemer- God whose worship united an originally local cult with that of the Magna Mater and her mysteries. 2 But it is safe to assume that for one form of eclecticism which endured long enough to crystallize into a definite shape there must have been many which were purely ephemeral, or, even if they lasted longer, failed to be preserved in any inscription or literary reference which has survived. 1 See F. Cumont's Hypsistos, in the Supplement to thefievuf de f instruction publique en Belgique. 1897. 2 For a farther description reference may be made to F. Cumont's Les Religions orientates dans le Paganisme romain. This book affords an indis- pensable introduction to the study of the Oriental side of the background of early Christianity. It has, also, the advantage of being more easily intelligible and more interesting than most works of fiction. SYNCRETISM AND THE MYSTERIES 43 It is easy to see how these influences must have worked in the case of those who were brought into contact with Judaism as well as with the " Mystery 'Religions." In the Jewish theology they found a monotheism which satisfied their intellects. The Messianic expectation presented no difficulties to those who, since the time of Augustus, had learnt to believe that the world-cycle was approaching its completion, and that a Deliverer 1 would soon appear to lead mankind into the glories of the golden age of which the poets sang and the Sibyl prophesied. 2 In the deeply ethical and spiritual austerity of the synagogue they found a satisfaction and a stimulus for their religious life. 3 Some of them also appreciated the moral and practical value of the observance of the sabbath, and felt that there was an element of truth in the distinction between clean and unclean foods a distinction which is, indeed, more obviously valuable in hot climates than in Northern Europe. But the rest of the ceremonial law, circumcision, and the national pretensions of the Jew to the especial favour of God, had no value in their eyes, so that they either re- jected them, or accepted the position which changed their meaning by allegory and symbolism. But they were very unlikely to stop at this point ; the metaphysics of the Neo-Platonists, and the ethics of the Stoics agreed with and supplemented the teaching of the Old Testament and the 1 It is remarkable that the title of Scor^p was actually given to Augustus ; Cf. Deissman, Licht vom Ocsten, p. 248. * Cf. Bousset, Religion des Judentums, p. 576 ; and Wendland, Die Hellenistisch-Rb'mische A'u/tur, pp. 87 f. 3 That this was the strength of Judaism has often been unfairly over- looked by Christian writers, who have judged Judaism by the polemics of early Christian literature and the subtleties of the Talmud, rather than by the ethical spirit of, for instance, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, or the many noble sayings of Philo. 44 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY synagogue, while the " Mystery Religions," with their elaborate and impressive ritual, made a reiterated appeal to the sympathy of those who found in the stern and cold worship of the Jews, bracing though its atmosphere might be, insufficient scope for the permanent satisfaction of an aesthetic and mystical imagination. Such must have been the result of the contact of this type of eclectic mind with Judaism a result which doubt- less caused the synagogue to ponder long and anxiously over the problem of such God-fearers but what kind of impression must have been made by Christianity on those who belonged to such a circle ? They must have been but little attracted by Christianity of the original Jerusalem .school, except in so far as it accentuated the doctrine of the Messiah and His kingdom, and introduced an element of superior certainty by being able to give the name of the Messiah, nor, as a matter of fact, is there any evidence to show that the Jerusalem school ever obtained any very important or permanent hold in the Graeco-Roman world. It was very different with the Antiochene movement In this the eclectic Gentile found all the features which he most admired in Judaism, set free from the ceremonial law and from the custom of circum- cision which had repelled him. But he saw more than this : in the teaching of St. Paul as to the meaning of the death of Jesus he saw every reason for equating the Lord with the Redeemer-God of the Mystery Religions, with the advantage that this Redeemer possessed an historic character which could scarcely be claimed for Attis or Mithras. Similarly in Baptism and in the Eucharist he found " mysteries " which could immediately be equated with the other "mysteries," offering eternal life to those who partook of them. In other SYNCRETISM AND THE MYSTERIES 45 words, many of the Greeks must have regarded Christianity as a superior form of " Mystery Religion." The importance of this fact is not easily exhausted ; it will be found to be one of the most important elements in the situation at Corinth, which led to the Epistles, and in the wider sphere of the history of doctrine it can scarcely be over-estimated. It is, for instance, of enormous importance in considering the course of the development of Christian doctrine from the belief that the Messiah was Jesus, and that He was speedily coming to set up the Kingdom of God, to the creed in which the original meaning of the word " Messiah," or " Christ," was almost wholly forgotten, Jesus was regarded as a Redeemer-God, and the Sacraments became the real centre of Christianity. That we find one type dominant in Jerusalem in the middle of the first century, and the other type dominant in Rome in the middle of the second seems incontrovertible, but the exact course of the development is outside the present purpose : it is sufficient to call attention to the fact that the existence of the eclectic type of God-fearer is an extremely important factor in the situation. Or, again, the existence of this type is of enormous importance in considering the origin of Gnosticism. Formerly it was the custom to regard Gnosticism as a development from Christianity under the influence of Greek thought. We have now, however, learnt 1 that it was in basis neither Christian nor Hellenic, but eclectic and Oriental. It comprised an almost infinite variety of sects which combined parts of various Oriental religions, includ- ing Christianity, and united the fragments by the application of a more or less intelligent application of philosophy. It 1 See especially Bousset's Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 46 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY will be seen that such a movement was independent of Christianity, and this point is of importance because it used to be argued that documents such as some of the Pauline Epistles which imply a point of view similar to that of the Gnostics, must be late, because time must be allowed for the development of Gnostic " heresy " from Christianity. The argument is unsound : Gnostic ideas are earlier, not later, than Christianity, and to prove that any given document is engaged in controverting a Gnostic point of view, shows merely that it was addressed to the eclectic circles described in the preceding paragraphs it has no necessary bearing on the question of date. Putting aside, however, these larger questions it is clear that the attitude which regarded Christianity as a " Mystery Religion " inevitably must have led men to exaggerate and misinterpret the Pauline doctrine of freedom, to regard the cleansing from sin gained by the Christian as giving him permission henceforth to do as he liked without incurring guilt, and to consider Baptism as an opus operatum which secured his admission into the Kingdom apart from the character of his future conduct. Thus there was from the beginning an antinomian and unethical spirit which offered the most difficult problem for St. Paul and other Christians, who would naturally reject with horror this licentious liberty of conduct so different from the ethical standards of Judaism, and we can imagine though I do not know that there is any extant example of it that it was often flung by the Jewish Christians in the face of the Pauline school of Christianity as the natural result of its mistaken freedom. Such are the main characteristics of the background which we must expect to find in the Pauline Epistles. The chief feature is the large confused mass of unsatisfied seekers CHRISTIANITY A MYSTERY RELIGION 47 after religious truth, who were testing all the various offers made to them by the preachers of diverse cults, and were inclined to combine select features of them all in a strange medley of ritual and doctrine. And emerging from the struggle fully to convert this class a struggle in which con- vinced Jews, Christians of Jerusalem, Christians of Antioch, worshippers of Isis and other Oriental cults, magicians, astrologers, and wizards jostled each other in a theological confusion to which no parallel can be found we can distinguish the endeavours of St. Paul to preach freedom without libertinism, and his constant efforts against the hatred of the Jew for a renegade Rabbi, against the scarcely less fierce opposition of Christians who held firmly to the principles of the stiffly conservative party at Jerusalem, and against the even more serious danger of a tendency to mis- understand his teaching of Christian freedom, to misinter- pret the nature of Christianity, and to regard him as a narrow-minded preacher, who had little appreciation of the mysteries of the spirit, and was scarcely better than the Jews whom he had deserted. It will be one of the tasks of the following chapters to trace more fully the details of this background in connec- tion with each of the Epistles, so as to render it possible for them to be read with a somewhat better appreciation of the circumstances which caused them to be written. LITERATURE. Besides the references which have been for special points, the following books will be found generally valuable : E. Schiirer, Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes (ed. 4), vol. iii., Das Judentum in der Zerstretoatg tout die judtscKe Literatur. W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums (ed. 2). W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, and St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen. K. ^eitzenstein, Die hellcnistischen Mysterienreligionen, ihre Griindgedanken und IVirkungen. J. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, chap, x., The Orphic Mysteries. L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, vol. v. chap. v. Dionysiac ritual. T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire. F. Cumont, Les Religions orientals dans Te Paganisme romafii'.~" APPENDIX THE TEXT OF THE APOSTOLIC DECREES 'T^HE textual variants in the Apostolic Decrees are -*- numerous and complicated : they can be found most fully in G. Resch's Das Aposteldecret, pp. 7-17, and the material in the later Greek MSS. will no doubt be in- creased when von Soden's new critical edition is published. But for the purposes of all except students of the later history of the text the facts may be stated as follows : The text of all the manuscripts which represent the dominant Greek tradition xABCP, etc. supported by the Alexandrian Fathers Clement and Origen, states that the Apostles told the Gentile converts to keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication. Thus there is a four- clause text of which the first three clauses seem, when united in this way, to give a food law, 1 to fix, as it were, the conditions of intercourse between Jewish and Gentile Christians, while the last clause against fornication seems to have nothing to do with food, but to belong to a different category altogether. Over against this reading is the evidence of D, the Latin version, Irenaeus (in Greek as well as in the Latin translation), 1 For a different interpretation, see p. 60. 48 TEXTUAL EVIDENCE 49 Tertullian, Cyprian, and other Latin writers, who omit " things strangled," generally l insert after the reference to fornication, " and do not do to others what you would not that they should do to you," and at the end of all add, "Ye shall do well, being carried along by the Holy Spirit" Thus it is plain that a widely received text of the decrees ran somewhat as follows : airixetrBat aSa>Ao0ur KOI at/iaroc KOI iropvtiag, icai ocra /xrj OeXtTt eaurotc yive&Oai tripy /IT} TTOtetv' a^' S)v StaTTjioouvrtc w 7T;oare [or 7r/oaare?] ep6[jitvot tv T(J> ayt Trvev/iart, and was opposed, ultimately successfully, by a rival form which ran fl$(t)\o9vT(i)V KOI aVittTOC KO.I TTVIKT&V Kftl eauroue tv Now, the evidence of Irenaeus and Tertullian on the one hand, and of Clement on the other, shows that both these readings are very old. Moreover, the history of exegesis confirms them. For in Alexandria the Apostolic Decrees were always interpreted as a food law, but in Africa (up to the time of Augustine) and in Europe as referring to the three deadly sins. Irenaeus and Tertullian were, it is true, acquainted with a food law, but they did not connect it with the Apostolic Decrees. Nevertheless, the three-clause text, in its entirety, cannot be maintained. Among modern critics there is an almost complete 2 agreement that the additions of the negative form of the golden rule, and the reference to the Spirit cannot be original : partly because the former introduces a very harsh parenthesis or change of thought, 3 but chiefly 1 Tertnllian is the extremely important exception. * G. Resch, whose work on the subject entitles him to great respect, is the most important exception. 3 "From which if ye keep yourselves ye shall do well," reads awkwardly after the golden rule. E 50 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY because if the golden rule had been in the text from the beginning, the interpretation of the decrees as a food law would have been impossible. This consensus of opinion has prejudiced critics against the omission of " things strangled," which is supported by much the same witnesses, and Dr. Sanday in particular has argued that as D and Irenaeus have made a mistake in adding the golden rule, they ought not to be trusted where they omit " things strangled." His view is that the same people left out " things strangled " and inserted the golden rule in order to change a food law into a moral enactment. Against this argument serious objections can be brought. In the first place, it is not the case that the evidence for the golden rule is quite the same as that for the omission of "things strangled"; Tertullian omits "things strangled," but does not insert the golden rule. There is, therefore, important if not extensive evidence that the two readings are independent of each other. In the second place, there is no historical evidence whatever that the circles which can be shown to have read a text which omitted " things strangled " had any objection to a food law. On the con- trary, in the second century Gaul, in which Irenaeus lived, observed a food law, and Tertullian, the other earlier witness for the omission, observed a food law which actually mentioned " things strangled " (suffocatis}. 1 Thus there is no possibility of alleging any motive for the change of text. Finally, it is difficult to suppose that any scribe of Acts in the second century deliberately changed the obvious meaning of an important passage. No doubt redactors may have treated their sources in this way, but the scribes who copied the Gospels and Acts confined themselves to elucidating the 1 See p. 58. THE THREE-CLAUSE TEX7 51 meaning of the text. They made additions, alterations, and omissions, but their intention was to explain, not to alter. Of course they made many lamentable mistakes, but where is the evidence that they consciously set to work to change the manifest meaning of the text which they read ? When- ever, therefore, we find a considerable variety of readings, we ought, if possible, to look for an original text offering some ambiguity which scribes would seek to clear up, first by notes in the margin, and afterwards by their insertion in the text. Such a text would be excellently provided by the read- ing of Tertullian, which omits " things strangled," but does not insert the golden rule. 1 This three-clause text presents just the ambiguity necessary to account for the early diversity both of text and of exegesis. The first clause (etSuAoflura) means " things offered to idols," and may be as well taken in a narrow sense, a literal command not to eat that sort of food (which was often sold in the market), as in the wider sense of a synonym for idolatry. 2 In the former case it is a food law, in the latter it is a moral or ethical rule. The next clause " from blood," 1 The insertion of the reference to the Spirit in the last clause seems to have no bearing on the question. Supposing it to be (as I am inclined to believe) an insertion, it neither negatives nor affirms the other readings. To be " carried along by the Holy Spirit " was a general characteristic of the early Christians. 2 i Cor. x. 14 ff. is an instructive commentary on the word. It is part of the answer to the question of the Corinthians irepl flSos\odvr\66\rrov is treated as an act of idolatry, the actual sacrifice to a false god, and is forbidden : in the second half (w. 23-33) it is treated in the sense of merely food which, after having been used in sacrifice, was sold in the shops and used for an ordinary meal, and this is in principle allowed, though St. Paul makes practical reservations because of the chance of giving offence to the weaker brethren. It is clear that in this chapter, St. Paul is either deliberately ignoring the Apostolic Decrees, or interpreting them as forbidding idolatry, not as establishing a food law. Cf. G. Resch, Aposteldecret^ p. 21. 52 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY (atjuaroe), is equally ambiguous, and was probably the cause of the later confusion. To any one who had already inter- preted the first clause in the sense of an ethical forbidding of idolatry it would either mean " murder," l or possibly blood as used ritually in sacrifices in the temples (see p. 60), but if the first clause were taken in the stricter sense of a literal command not to eat that sort of food, the second would naturally be interpreted as a reference to the Jewish objection to the use of blood as food. It is plain that the tendency of scribes would be to clear up this ambiguity, and in some way to indicate which interpretation was correct. Those who favoured the sense of a food law made it clear by adding " things strangled " first perhaps as a gloss in the margin, afterwards in the text itself thus explaining blood as "meat in which the blood had been retained," " sanguine suffocate " as the Vulgate (in some manuscripts) puts it. 2 Those, on the other hand, who regarded the decrees as a moral law made their meaning plain by adding the negative form of the golden rule. It is possible that the addition of the reference to the Spirit was made at the same time, and for the same purpose, but the evidence of Tertullian (who has it, but has not yet adopted the golden rule) suggests that it is an earlier interpolation, and probably has nothing to do with the addition of the golden rule, or 1 Probably few will doubt that aT/io can be used in the sense of murder blood-guiltiness but G. Resch has met any such objection by a convincing list of quotations in his Aposteldecret, p. 42. The passages he quotes are: Lev. xvii. 4 ; Num. xxxv. 27; Eccles. xxxiv. 21; Matt, xxiii. 30; Rev. vi. 10. Demosthenes, In Meidiam, 548; Pausanias, v. I, 6; ^Eschylus, Eumen., 203. Plato, Laws, 872, DE, and others of less importance. 2 It is significant also that Origen (In Matthaeum, ii. 837), though he seems to have known the ordinary four-clause text, also quotes the decrees in a three-clause form with irvucrov instead of aT/j.aros. Methodius, too, has the same curious text. This may be a slip, or may be an instance of the gloss replacing the word glossed. HISTORICAL ARGUMENT 53 the omission of "things strangled," but is merely one of the edifying remarks which the early scribes loved and sometimes allowed to pass into the text. Each of these two ways of altering the text rendered the meaning unmistakable that is exactly the reason why neither can be original. But the short three-clause text used by Tertullian is ambiguous ; it adequately explains the origin of both readings, and is implicitly borne witness to by both of them. It would no doubt be foolish to claim that the textual question can be solved with certainty ; there must be an element of doubt in a text on which second-century evidence two hundred years before our best manuscripts was sharply divided, but reflection is likely to convince all who concede that our most famous uncials only represent an Alexandrian recension of the third or fourth century, that the argument on purely textual grounds is against the four-clause text, and in favour of the shorter form. To the textual argument can be added a far stronger historical argument, to show that the Apostolic Decrees were originally of the nature of moral requirements rather than a food law. This historical argument is contained in the answers given to the questions : Which is really more likely to have been the decision of the Council ? Which is more consistent with the subsequent course of events? Which is implied more probably by the Pauline Epistles ? Taking the two last questions first, the superiority of the three-clause form of the decree is as follows : (i) It removes the obvious difficulties of the sudden association of a food law with fornication ; (2) the absolute silence of St. Paul on the decrees in I Cor. x., when he is discuss- ing " things offered to idols," and in Rom. xiv., when he 54 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY is discussing food in general, is almost unintelligible if we suppose that the decrees were a food law. Even more difficult is the statement in Gal. ii. 6, that the Jerusalem Apostles added nothing (ov'Siv TrpoaavttievTo) to St. Paul, that is to say, made no additions to his gospel. If we suppose 1 that Gal. ii. refers to the Apostolic Council, and that the Council enacted a food law, it would be hard for St. Paul to say that the Apostles had made no additions to his gospel : for it is plain from all his Epistles that a food law was widely removed from his thoughts. On the other hand, it would be quite true if the decrees were merely a moral requirement to abstain from idolatry, murder, and fornication. There is no evidence that St. Paul ever con- doned these offences or needed an Apostolic Decree to persuade him to require his converts to abstain from them. The remaining question which form of decree is in itself more likely to have been adopted by the Council ? is more difficult to answer, but again there is a decided balance of argument in favour of the three-clause text. Generally speaking, commentators have been inclined to argue that a food law is a probable decree, because the Jews placed so much importance on such regulations. It is probably true that this argument is partly based on the very unfair attitude which so many Christian theologians have adopted towards Jewish religion always emphasizing the ritual and legalist elements in it, and ignoring the ethical and religious basis. Still, when all possible allow- ance has been made for this factor, it remains true that the outward side of religious life had great importance for the Jews of the first century. So much must be admitted. 1 Personally I do not think so (see Chap. V.), but in deference to a widely spread opinion I adopt the view for the moment. JEWISH FOOD LAW 55 But when one goes on to ask for proof that " things strangled " was a point on which the Jewish element in the Christian Church at Jerusalem would probably have laid stress, it is simply not forthcoming. There is no evidence earlier than the fifth century after Christ that the Jews regarded the command not to eat blood as mean- ing more than that they were not to collect and use for cooking blood which was shed in the act of slaughtering an animal. 1 Even if we concede that in some circles the Jews had this custom in the first century, and that this is the origin of the later Christian practice, it is at least obvious that this rule was not likely to have been so crucial a point at the Jerusalem Council, that the Jewish party would have given way on the question of circumcision, but have held firm on the question of extracting blood from slaughtered animals. Moreover, the suggestion which is sometimes made that the Apostolic Decrees correspond to the so-called Noachic regulations, which on the basis of Gen. ix. 4 were supposed to be binding on Gentiles living in Palestine, is unfortunately negatived by a comparison of the seven Noachic commands with the Apostolic Decrees. The seven commands 2 were: (i) on the foundation of courts (Beth din] ; (2) against blasphemy ; (3) against idolatry ; (4) against shedding of blood ; (5) against incest ; (6) against robbery ; (7) against cutting flesh from a living 1 Once more reference must be made to Resch, who collects all the evidence (Das Aposteldecret, pp. 21 ff.). It would seem that the present Jewish custom of extracting all blood from meat (the " Kosher " meat) can only be traced back to the tractate Chullim of the fifth or sixth century. The matter is, of course, one on which only Rabbinical scholars have a right to speak, but I do not gather that Resch's view is disputed by them. 2 Sanhedrin, 56 a. ff. I am indebted to my friend Prof. Oort for the verifica- tion, and correction, of the reference. Cf. Schiirer, Gachichte des judischtn Volkts (Fourth Edition), III. p. 178, note 77 (Third Edition, p. 128). 56 THE JUDAISTIC CONTROVERSY animal. It is also said l that the last of these commands is a later addition. It is clear that there is here if anything a closer resemblance to the three-clause than to the four- clause form of the Apostolic Decrees. 2 Thus there is no reason to think that the Jewish feeling of the first century would have been inclined to accept a food law as the basis of a compromise with the Antiochene movement. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the evidence of the advice given to King Izates, the statement of Philo (see above, pp. 24-26), and the fourth book of the Sibylline Oracles are the proof that the requirement of the moral law alone would have been nothing unique in the history of Judaism. Moreover, a comparison of the text of the Sibyllines raises the question whether the actual formula of the three-clause text of Acts xv. does not go back to some Jewish form of which there is also a trace in the Oracles. The two passages which are important are as follows : (i) Or. Sib., iv. 24-34 oX/3tot avSp6vov pl^avreg araff^aXov cure (cXoTratov Ktpcog aTTtjUTroXfovre^, a 17 /otytora 1 By Hamburger, Realencyclopaedie, in the article on " Noachiden." 2 The fact probably is that the Noachian rules are a later crystallization of the primarily moral requirements of the early Jewish Propaganda in the Diaspora. SIBYLLINE ORACLES AND THE ACTS 57 ouS' ap ETT' aXXor/oiy icotry iroOov ala^pbv t^ovrcc, owS' TT' apatvoq vfipiv aKt\Ota re ntyav, aXXa [itOivrtc; (yavTt ought to be taken as meaning that St. Paul broke his journey at Amphipolis and Apollonia in order to preach in those towns, though St. Luke knew of no inci- dents worth recording in connection with this work. This use of Sio&uav is parallel to the constant use of SiepxtaOai, which almost always means " to make a missionary journey," and it is to some extent covered by Luke viii. i StwSevtv Kara TroXtv icai icwjui/v Kripvcratov, ic.r.X. The same comments apply with even more force to the Bezan text of Acts xvii. I StoStvcravTes St TTJV 'A/i^nroXtv [KCU 1 Acts xvii. i. - Slightly less than English miles. 3 Conditions are no doubt worse now in Macedonia than they were in the first century, but the difference for travelling cannot be very great, and nothing would induce me to attempt such a pace, unless life and death depended. ST. PAUL AT THESSALONICA 63 C 'ATToAAeovt'Sa KUKtlBtv etc QtaaaXoviKiiv. Kither this text means, " They made a missionary journey to Amphipolis, came down to Apollonia, and thence to Thessalonica," or it means something impossible that is, that St. Paul went from Philippi to Thessalonica in two stages, "passing through " Amphipolis. 1 However this may be, the important point of the narrative both to St. Luke and ourselves is the arrival of St. Paul and his companions at Thessalonica. It is not quite clear who ought to be reckoned as certainly among the latter. In Philippi St. Paul had been accompanied by Silas, who had come with him from Antioch, presumably by Timothy, whom he had brought from Lystra, 2 and accord- ing to the implicit testimony of the " we-sections " by St. Luke. Of these St. Luke according to the same implicit testimony remained in Philippi, and Silas, accord- ing to Acts xvii. 4, came on with St. Paul. The case of Timothy is more doubtful : he is not directly mentioned in Acts between Philippi and Beroea, but in the latter place he is spoken of as though his presence was natural, so that he probably came with St. Paul to Thessalonica. 3 1 It seems to me to be probable that the Bezan text is here clearly secondary. The redactor thought that SioSeijeiv meant "to pass through," and altered the text to bring out this meaning. As a matter of fact, the emphasis is not on the Sta but on the 6Sbs implied in the verb. I suspect that St. Luke used SwSfvetv here instead of SitpxtcrOai because he wished to indicate that St. Paul went along the great <55 Kal T< 2iAcu'a rff 8i5axj7 p, Kal yvvaiKes Ttav irptinuiv OVK 6\iyat. ST. PAUL AT THESSALONICA 65 however, argued by many commentators that I Thessalonians implies a degree of success which is incompatible with so short a period of preaching. They therefore consider that St. Paul must have spent a much longer time in Thessalonica than the three weeks mentioned in Acts, and that the truth must be that he gave up three sabbaths to the synagogue, after which there was an unrecorded quarrel with the Jews, followed by a longer period, probably some months, of preaching outside the synagogue to the God-fearers and possibly to others. There is, of course, no reason to suppose that St. Luke is infallible ; in other places he has certainly omitted incidents. But here the suggestion of a more prolonged preaching in Thessalonica seems psychologically as unnecessary as it is certainly historically unvouched for. Christianity did not succeed through the slow and laborious efforts of hard-working missionaries, but by the contagion of an enthusiasm which spread from St. Paul to his hearers. St. Paul and Silas must not be compared to men who preach to a heathen population tolerably well satisfied with its creed, or seek to convince minds which are not especially interested, and do not share in the general point of view of the mission- aries, but rather to "revival preachers" such as Wesley or Whitefield, who understood and were understood by their hearers, and had a definite message for a clearly felt want. For such men three weeks is long enough for anything ; certainly it is long enough to create a considerable body of fervent believers among men who are dissatisfied with their own position and that is exactly what the God-fearers were. Furthermore, although it is possible that St. Luke accidentally omitted any reference to the preaching outside the synagogue, which is supposed F 66 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS to be necessary, it is remarkable that in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome St. Luke is careful to mention the conditions of St Paul's preaching, and to indicate with some precision the point at which he broke with the Jews. Probably, therefore, there is insufficient reason for deserting the testimony of Acts, and we ought to conclude (though with considerable reserve) that St. Paul's visit to Thessalonica was only three weeks x or, more accurately, only included three sabbaths, during which he met with some slight success among the Jews, and great success among the God-fearers. As was pointed out on pp. 37 ff., this was exactly what was to be expected ; the God-fearers pro- vided, as it were, soil specially fitted for the sowers of the Christian word. Here is also, perhaps, the best place to draw attention to a small side-light on St. Paul's life in Thessalonica given by the Epistles. In i Thess. ii. 9 he says that he supported himself by working night and day, but it would seem that this was not his only source of livelihood, for in Phil. iv. 16 he mentions that the Philippians more than once sent help to him at Thessalonica, and this point may fairly be used by those who think that St. Paul's preaching in Thessalonica must have lasted longer than in xvii. 2, is taken by Zahn (.//., p. 152) to mean weeks rather than sabbaths. Of course, three Sabbaths imply three weeks, more or less, but I do not think rpia aafrfSara. is likely to mean anything except " three sabbaths." St. Luke uses the plural in Luke iv. 31 ; vi. 2 ; xiii. 10, each time in the sense of "sabbath day." At the same time, the point is far from certain, for the genitive, either singular or plural, is used, with a numeral prefixed, to give the days of the week. It is possible that an extension of this use gave the meaning of week to aa&Ra.Tov, but I know no evidence in favour of this (generally accepted) view. Ah TOV aafifraTov is the nearest approach, but here also it is the genitive. See E. Schiirer, Die Siebentatige Wocheva. the Zeitschrift fiir die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, vi. (1905) p. 8. THESSALONIAN CONVERTS 67 three weeks, for it is possible to argue with much plausi- bility that the Philippians are not likely to have sent more than once in so short a time. The names of some of the converts at Thessalonica have been preserved. Jason seems to have been the host of St. Paul and Silas in Thessalonica, and in Acts xx. 4 Aristarchus and Secundus are mentioned as two of the Thessalonians who went with St. Paul to Jerusalem on his journey with alms for the poor. To these some editors add a fourth Gaius. Their method of reaching this result is as follows: in Acts xix. 29 in the scene in the theatre at Ephesus we are told that the crowd seized " Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, comrades of Paul (r. Kai \\. MaKtCm'ar, cruvK$i')[j.ovc; IlauAov), and it is thought that this Gaius ought to be identical with the Gaius in Acts xx. 4. The difficulty is that in xx. 4 Gaius is described as a native of Derbe, and therefore Blass emends the text from KOI Faiog Af/o/Bcuoc, KOL Tt/*o0toc into KOI reu'oe, AejOjSatoe & TifioBtog. If this were correct, Gaius was a Thessalonian, for the preceding words are, "And of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus," to which would now be added "and Gaius, and the man of Derbe, Timotheus." The objection to this is that in Acts xvi. I Timothy seems to be a Lystran. It is therefore probably better either to make the neat emenda- tion (which is actually found in some MSS.) in xix. 29 of MawSova for MaicfSovae, explaining the usual reading as a dittography of the initial a in xe. If, however, Harnack's suggestion be followed, the matter appears in a new light, for the Jewish Christians in Thessalonica were, according to the Acts, the first-fruits of St. Paul's preaching in that city, though they were soon surpassed in numbers by the Gentile converts. The obvious objection to which this theory is liable is that the address given in 2 Thess. i. i is " To the Church of the Thessalonians," just as it is in i Thess. i. i, and Harnack suggests that we ought to regard this as probably not original. He points out that the address of Ephesians, (and, it might be added, of Romans) shows signs of having been tampered with, and that that of the Epistle to the Hebrews has been wholly lost. He thinks that the original address may have been ry tiocArjo-t'p T&V t)i> T&V tic rflg TrtpiTOfjir}(; t and that the last four words dropped out early in the tradition of the Epistle. An alternative suggestion might be that the bearers of the Epistle were given special instructions, or that the name of the individual to whom it was sent secured that it would reach the Jewish Christians ; it may have been inexpedient in the letter itself to emphasize the difference between the two classes of Christians. As Harnack himself admits, his theory is open to some objections, but on the whole it seems to be far more acceptable than any other which has yet been put forward, and whereas before its publication the balance of argument 86 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS seemed to be in favour of some such hypothesis as that of Wrede, and against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians, the situation is now reversed, and there is sufficient justifica- tion for accepting the Epistle as a genuine document belonging, together with i Thessalonians, even if not so certainly, to the earliest period of Christian life in Thessalonica. In any case, however, the point which it is most desirable to emphasize is that the main argument against the Epistle is the difficulty of imagining circum- stances to account for its curious combination of likeness to and difference from the First Epistle and such an argument is too negative to be ever quite decisive; while, on the other hand, the main argument in favour of it is traditional ascription, which, however highly it be valued, is insufficient to give absolute confidence, if it be impossible to present a probable reconstruction of the circumstances under which the letter was written. Harnack has suc- ceeded in producing a reconstruction which is, at the least, not impossible, and therefore we are justified in using 2 Thessalonians in reconstructing Timothy's report, even though it must be conceded that points derived exclusively from it have not the same certainty as those derived from the First Epistle. III. THE REPORT BROUGHT BY TIMOTHY FROM THESSALONICA. It is very probable, on general grounds, that Timothy brought back with him a letter from Thessalonica to St. Paul, and that i Thessalonians is in part an answer to it. Nor are hints wanting in the Epistle that this was actually the case. Far the most cogent of these is the TIMOTHYS REPORT 87 expression in I Thess. ii. 1 3 Sm rouro KCU TJJUEIC i'X a / otc Kotjurjflt'vrae Sia row 'Irja-ou. It is extremely probable that here &a TOV 'Iijo-ow ought to be taken closely with KOf/of&vraft but it is less certain (though, on the whole, I believe it to be probable) that it means martyrdom rather than (as the R.V. takes it) a natural death in the faith of Jesus. 1 So far the news brought back by Timothy was distressing enough ; but it was partly compensated for by the fact that the Christians were standing firm, so that their constancy under persecution was famous among all the brethren in Macedonia and Achaia (i Thess. i. 2-8, which describes, not only the original conversion of the Thessalonians, but also the permanent effects of it, up to the time when the Epistle was written). i Thessalonians is primarily comment on and answer to Timothy's report as to the Gentile Christians ; in 2 Thessalonians 2 we can probably see what he had to say 1 The objection that Koi/wjfleVras implies a peaceful death, and therefore not martyrdom, is unsupported either by literary or psychological criticism. The same word is used of the death of St. Stephen (Acts vii. 60), and a martyr's death is, as a rule, pre-eminently peaceful. There is no doubt disturbance and distress, but it is not the martyr who feels them. The real difficulty is rather the curious genitival phrase, Sia TOV 'Iricrov in what sense Sid ? * The warning on p. 86 must be repeated that this, and all other refer- ence to 2 Thessalonians, is based on the hypothesis that the Epistle is genuine, TIMOTHY'S REPORT 89 as to the persecution of the Jewish Christians. They also were suffering from persecution, and it is possible that the reference in 2 Thess. i. 8, to the persecutors as those who "know not God," ought to be taken as a sign that they were Gentiles. Moreover, St. Paul repeats perhaps one may say, is careful to repeat the commendation given to the Gentile Christians for their steadfastness ; the Jewish Christians were not their inferiors in this respect. Thus the news brought by Timothy was consoling, both as to Gentile and Jewish Christians so far as their constancy under the pressure of persecution was con- cerned ; but if we piece together the indications in the Epistles we can see that on some other points his information was less satisfactory. Timothy reported that there was a line of cleavage between the Gentile and Jewish parts of the community. 1 So much was this the case that it was necessary for St. Paul to insist strongly when writing to the Gentile half (in i Thessalonians) that his letter should be read by all the brethren, and that his readers should greet all the brethren with a holy kiss (i Thess. v. 26 f.). Possibly also traces of the same anxiety for the unity of the community may be found in the emphatic injunctions "to abound in love to each other and to all" (i Thess. iii. 12), and "ever to pursue that which is good for each other and for all " (i Thess. v. 15). Conversely it is possible to see a trace of the same feeling in 2 Thessalonians in the notice drawn and that Harnack's theory is correct. But this is by no means so certain as the authenticity of I Thessalonians ; and to this extent the whole of the reconstruc- tion of Timothy's report varies in probability according to the Epistle on which it is based. 1 This, again, is based on Harnack's theory of 2 Thessalonians, and cannot be regarded as certain. 90 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS to the signature guaranteeing the letter, as if the Jewish Christians were suspicious of anything coming from the Gentile community. Possibly we ought even to agree with Harnack that the Epistles imply that the Jewish and Gentile parts of the community rarely or never met together for common intercourse. To this separateness of the Jewish and Gentile Christians from each other must be ascribed the fact that 2 Thessalonians was ever written. Obviously it was not necessary to instruct Jews, who believed in a Messiah, in the doctrine of a Resurrection, nor is it in the least pro- bable that their conversion had led them to adopt a lax standard of morality, such as would justify St. Paul in urging them to abstain from fornication. Moreover, St. Paul's statement as to the Parousia was, no doubt, defec- tive l from the Jewish point of view in that it omitted a statement of the necessary development of evil in the days immediately preceding the coming of Messiah. St. Paul seemed to have felt these objections, and to have perceived that his first letter, in spite of his personal good will, might actually tend to increase the division in the community, and, therefore, he wrote 2 Thessalonians, immediately after the First Epistle, repeating much of what he had already said, but omitting that which might be offensive to Jewish Christians, or was in any case unnecessary, and adding the section about the Antichrist in order to show that he did not intend to give teaching contrary to the general faith of the Jews as to the Parousia. 1 Bousset's work is here the necessary complement of Harnack's : if we did not know that an expectation of an Antichrist was common among the Jews, we should be unable to understand why St. Paul's teaching as to the Tarousia in I Thessalonians could be regarded as defective. TIMOTHY'S REPORT 91 Timothy had to report that the main subject of interest in the community at Thessalonica was eschato- logical ; St. Paul's preaching l had, no doubt, been that of all the earliest Christians that the kingdom of God, with its sudden dramatic judgment, and the catastrophic end of society as it was then, was close at hand, and that it was the especial privilege of Christians that their master would be the King in this kingdom. So emphatic had been this preaching of the immediate coming of the kingdom, that it had, no doubt, given colour to the accusation of treason brought against St. Paul, and it had driven the thought of death and its relation to the kingdom out of the minds of the Gentile converts. When, therefore, some of the brethren died possibly as martyrs the question arose what their fate would be. Such is clearly the question implied by i Thess. iv. 1 3, " Now we wish you not to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those that sleep, in order that you may not mourn, as do the others that have no hope." But the implications of this fact are not so simply seen. It is difficult to realize that there was a period in the early history of Christianity when convinced and enthusi- astic believers did not necessarily look forward to the resurrection of the " faithful departed," and that this subject was so much at or beyond the circumference rather than the centre of Christian preaching that St. Paul was obliged to supplement his teaching on the point by written instruc- tion. Yet it is intelligible if we consider that the hope of the first Christians was not that they should pass through 1 Cf. the summary which he gives himself in I Thess. i. 9, as to the result which he regards as satisfactory of his preaching : "Ye turned to God from idols, to become the servants of a living and real God, and to await His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who saves us from the coming wrath." 92 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS death to life, but that they should pass, without dying, from life temporal to life eternal, when the kingdom of God was established, and death, which was the result of sin, not an essential feature of man's nature, was abolished. The hope and belief of the first Christians was that they were proleptic members of that kingdom, and that it was but a short time before its glories would become manifest. It was, more- over, just at this point that there was originally a funda- mental difference between Christianity and the "Mystery Religions." The latter also offered men eternal life, and a proleptic participation in its blessings ; but they offered its full realization only through the Way of Death, along which the traveller was guarded by the magic formulae com- municated to him in Mysteries. The Oriental mysteries offered a " medicine of immortality," but it was an im- mortality through death, and not over death. Thus the fact that the Gentile Christians in Thessalonica were dis- tressed by the question of the " faithful departed " is a proof that they had accepted Christianity as something different from the Mystery Religions. In this respect they offer a contrast to some of the Corinthian Christians (see pp. 215 ff.). When, therefore, cases of death were found among them, the survivors began to ask whether they ought to add to their eschatological hope a further, or alternative, promise of life through death, similar to that of the Greek Mysteries, or to accept the Jewish doctrine of a resurrection of the dead at the Parousia a view which was still strange to Gentile minds. It was therefore necessary for St. Paul to point out to his converts that the latter was the true answer, even though he makes it plain that he regards as the norm survival until the coming of the kingdom, rather than THE PAROUSIA AND RESURRECTION 93 death and resurrection into the kingdom (cf. i Thess. vi. 15). In this case we probably have another side-light on the clash of opinion between three factors. First, the really primitive point of view of the first Christians who expected a triumph of Life over Death, by which they would pass directly into the Kingdom without dying ; secondly, the natural expansion of this view along Jewish lines which postulated a physical resurrection l for those who died before the coming of the Kingdom ; and thirdly, an expansion along Hellenistic or rather Graeco-Oriental lines, which treated the promise of Christianity for those who died as parallel to that of the Mysteries which offered eternal life through death, and so left no room for the idea of a resurrection. It is interesting to note that the development of Christian doctrine united the two last factors. The belief in an ultimate, though remote, day of judgment and of resurrection represents the originally Jewish factor, and the belief in a Paradise of rest and joy for the faithful departed until the Great Day represents the weakened survival of the originally Greek factor which emphasized the idea that eternal life is given by the Sacra- ments, and that for the initiated Dying is not Death but the passage into a wider and a freer life. Among the Jewish part of the community, if we may take 2 Thessalonians as a guide, there was as indeed might have been expected an equal interest in the eschatological expectation of the coming of the Kingdom, though it is not easy to define it exactly. The passage 1 The Apocalypse of Baruch shows that the Jewish idea, at least in some circles, was a resurrection of the dead in the form in which they died, followed by a speedy transfiguration into a more glorious condition. 94 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS which is important is 2 Thess. ii. 2 : " Now I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our meeting with Him, that ye be not quickly moved in your mind, or shaken, either by a spirit (of prophecy) or by a ' saying,' or by a letter, as though from me, to the effect that the day of the Lord has set in (eWorijicsv)." The meaning of ivta-rr\vnv is here a difficulty. It cannot be denied that it means " is present " as distinct from " is future " (cf. the usual antithesis between ra Evtorwra and TU juiXXovra, Rom. viii. 38 ; I Cor. iii. 22 ; Gal. i. 4), but it is impossible to think that any one believed that the Day of the Lord was already come in the sense of the last judgment. The answer to these difficulties is, how- ever, found in the more accurate consideration both of the linguistic and of the dogmatic point. The meaning of ivf oTTjicev is " is present " not " is future," or even " is imminent," and also not " is already past " ; and the " Day of the Lord" meant not merely the last judgment, but a whole complex of events leading up to the final dtnoue- ment it was a " day " in the sense of a " period of time." Thus the meaning of eWoTTjKEv 17 rififpa roO Kvpiov may be paraphrased as " we are living in the day of the Lord," and St. Paul's answer is that he rejects this view, and that nothing which he has written must be interpreted as giving it any support, because before the day of the Lord the Man of Lawlessness must be revealed. His posi- tion is that the Day of the Lord is imminent it will, he imagines, come before his own death but it has not yet come. What were the reasons which made it necessary for St. Paul to emphasize this point ? Two explanations are possible, and it is hard to say which of the two is the FORGERIES OR MISUNDERSTANDING 95 more probable. They turn on the interpretation of Si' fTnoroAi/c d>e &' rivi&v in 2 Thess. ii. 2. It is possible that Timothy reported that there were in circulation forged letters, purporting to be from St. Paul, stating that the Day of the Lord had already begun. If so, we must connect with this passage 2 Thess. iii. 17, in which St. Paul draws attention to his hand- writing as a guarantee of the genuineness of the letter. " The ' greeting ' is in my own Paul's hand. This is the sign of genuineness in all my letters my own hand- writing." It must be remembered that letters were, as a rule, dictated (e.g. Tertius was the actual scribe of the Epistle to the Romans), so that, unless it was known that some part of the letter was in the actual hand of the sender, identity or difference of script was no proof for or against the genuineness of a communication. It is, however, difficult to see why St. Paul should have written in this way to the Jewish part of the community, rather than to the whole Church, and this view is .therefore less accept- able if Harnack's theory be adopted, than on the older (and probably untenable) theory that 2 Thessalonians was written a little later than i Thessalonians to the whole community. The alternative view, which Harnack recommends, is that after St. Paul had written i Thessalonians, either before or immediately after sending it, he noticed that his remarks on the Day of the Lord in i Thess. v. i ff. were open to misconstruction, and that this misconstruc- tion would be especially obnoxious to the Jewish Christians. In this case the reference in Si' tTnoroATjc o>e Si ri/u&v is to an erroneous interpretation of i Thessalonians, not to the possible existence of forged letters. 1 1 The fact that neither of these alternative views is quite satisfactory is in 96 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS If this view be adopted Timothy must have reported to St. Paul that there was a tendency among the Thessa- lonians to regard the " Day of the Lord " as having already begun, and pointed out as a criticism on I Thessalonians, after it had been already dictated, that it might seem to encourage this mistake. If so we have here a curious parallel to Hymenaeus and Philetus (in 2 Tim. ii. 18), who said that the Resurrection had already taken place, and it is instructive to compare this point of view with that implied in the reference in i Cor. xv. to those who doubted if there would be a resurrection. It is also possible that in connection with the danger of a misinterpretation of i Thessalonians Timothy was obliged to report that among the Gentile Christians there was a tendency to throw doubt on St. Paul's motives. The suggestion is that when St. Paul wrote in i Thess. ii. 5 ff., "For neither at any time were we found using words of flattery, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness, God is witness. . . . For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail : working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God," he was hinting that there were some who suggested that he had been animated by the motives which he disclaims and had forgotten the unselfish conduct to which he refers. This is by no means improbable, though we have no means of extracting any further information from the Epistle, and it is possible that St. Paul is not rebutting accusations itself an argument for Wrede's opinion that 2 Thessalonians is not genuine. Certainly he can explain this particular difficulty better than it is possible to do on the theory of its Pauline authorship. But, then again, he fails, as these views do not, to explain the other features in 2 Thessalonians which seem to be strikingly Pauline. The whole problem is very difficult. No theory is without its weak point, and certainty is unattainable. IMMORALITY IN THE CHURCH 97 against himself, but hinting that his conduct and preaching affords a pleasant contrast to that of other teachers to whom the Gentile Christians were inclined to listen. In either case we have a hint that tendencies were at work at the community of which St. Paul did not approve, and that he endeavoured to find the antidote by reminding his readers of his own example. The question then arises whether we can identify these tendencies. The first point which attracts attention is the emphatic warnings against immorality Jn^ijrhjejjs^jfv.^ ff. It is pos- sible^ that this la merely a general warning against the weakness of human nature ; but it is more probable that it is connected with a tendency to regard Christianity as an qpns operatum after which no material act can affect the spiritual welfare of the believer. Such an attitude would be natural if there were any tendency to regard Christianity solely as a Mystery Religion, and its influence can be traced in several of the Pauline Epistles. In this case we have to consider that in Thessalonica a tendency (more fully described on pp. 176 ff.) was already at work, which pressed in an illegitimate manner the preaching of freedom, and regarded St. Paul as weak and narrow-minded in his attitude towards what was regarded as a merely carnal morality unworthy of attention from the truly spiritual. Besides this danger of immorality St. Paul warns his readers against neglecting their ordinary work. It is not plain what was tne cause oi this tendency to idleness : it has often been suggested that iF~wajf due to "the vivid expectation of the Parousia, which made men regard it as unnecessary to busy themselves with the affairs of a world which would so soon cease to exist. That a vivid expec- tation of the end has sometimes led to this result is H 98 THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS undeniable : Hippolytus * narrates the story of a bishop in Pontus who announced that the Parousia would come before the end of the year, with the result that many Christians, who had sold their possessions, were in the end reduced to beggary. But there is no special reason for thinking that this was the case in Thessalonica. In the First Epistle 2 St. Paul says : " But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more, and that ye study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands, even as we charged you, that ye may walk honestly towards them that are without, and may have need of nothing." If this passage followed the eschatological section it might be legitimately supposed that the rest- lessness described was the result of the expectation of the Parousia, but as a matter of fact it precedes it, and therefore there is no decisive reason for supposing that St. Paul is speaking of "eschatological restlessness and idleness " if the expression may be used. A comparison with other passages in early Christian literature suggests a different explanation. It is clear from I Corinthians (see p. 223) as well as from i Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians, that St Paul found it desirable to avoid slander by never being indebted to his converts, and that there were other Christians who by no means followed his example. Moreover, in the later literature, especially in the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas, there are traces in abundance of an unpleasant type of "professional Christian" who lived on the community. It is not impossible that Timothy's report roused St. Paul's suspicion that this danger was present in Thessalonica, 1 Commentary on Dan. iv. 19. 2 i Thess. iv. 4 f. IDLENESS AND RESTLESSNESS 99 and that this rather than any " eschatological restlessness " was the source of the idleness against which he warns his hearers. However this may be and the data are insufficient to allow of a decision in 2 Thessalonians more emphasis is laid on this question. In 2 Thess. Hi. 6-12 he says: "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which they received of us. For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us : for we behaved not ourselves dis- orderly among you ; neither did we eat any man's bread for nought ; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you : not because we have not the right, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear of some which walk among you disorderly, who work not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we com- mand and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread." This passage cannot be said to add anything to the information given in I Thessalonians : nor does it help us to decide whether we have to do with "eschatological unrest," or an undesirable "professionalism," which led men to spend all their time in exciting religious dis- cussions, and to neglect their own affairs. But it puts far more stress on the whole question, and if Harnack's theory be adopted, we are obliged to conclude that this evil was especially present in the Jewish rather than the Gentile part of the community. There is no reason for rejecting ioo THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS this conclusion, even though one would perhaps have rather expected to find restlessness and idleness in Gentile circles. At the same time, it is only fair to notice that this again is one of the strong points against the genuine- ness of 2 Thessalonians. The natural conclusion from a comparison of the passages in i and 2 Thessalonians is that there was a development of the evil in question ; but this implies an interval between the two Epistles, and it is generally conceded that if both Epistles are Pauline they must have been written almost at the same time. Thus Timothy's report may be summed as covering the following points : (i) The persecution of the Christians in the community. (2) The division between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. (3) The anxiety in the community concerning the Parousia, and the fate of those who died before it. (3) The existence of either forged letters, or the probability of doubt as to the meaning of i Thessa- lonians. (4) The evil tendencies in the community to immorality (especially in the Gentile section) and to an idle restlessness especially, but not exclusively, in the Jewish section. The two Epistles are the comment of St. Paul on this report, and were presumably written soon after Timothy joined St. Paul, according to Acts, in Corinth. The order of events which the foregoing discussion has made appear the most probable may finally be summarized as follows : 1. St. Paul arrived at Thessalonica in the company of Silas (and possibly Timothy). 2. Three weeks' preaching in Thessalonica with the synagogue as headquarters, some success among the Jews, and much among the God-fearers. CONCLUSION 101 3. The Jews accuse the Christians, before the Politarchs, of treason to the Roman Emperor ; security is taken from Jason, and St. Paul and Silas are condemned by default. 4. St. Paul and Silas (and Timothy ?) go to Beroea. 5. The Jews from Thessalonica force St. Paul to leave Beroea. 6. The Beroeans take St. Paul to Athens: Silas and Timothy remain. 7. St. Paul sends a message back to Silas and Timothy to join him in Athens. 8. Silas and Timothy come to Athens. 9. Timothy is sent to Thessalonica, Silas probably to Beroea or Philippi. 10. St. Paul leaves Athens and goes to Corinth. 11. Timothy and Silas join St. Paul at Corinth. 12. On hearing Timothy's report, St. Paul sends i Thessalonians to the Gentile Christian community in Thessalonica. 13. Almost immediately after sending I Thessalonians St. Paul sends 2 Thessalonians to the Jewish Christian community in Thessalonica. LITERATURE. The best commentaries are those of E. von Dobschiitz, in Meyer's Kritischexegetisck kommentar iiber das Neue Testament, 1909 ; G. Milligan, 1908; W. Lueken inj. Weiss' Schriften des N. Ts. ; P. W. Schmiedel, in Holtzmann's Handkommentar (1891) ; and J. B. Lightfoot, in his posthumous Notes on the Pauline Epistles. Older and only sfightly less valuable works are fully given by E. von Dobschiitz (pp. 49-56) in his chapter Zur Geschichte der Auslegung. Apart from commentaries, attention may especially be called to Lightfoot, The Churches of Macedonia, and The Church of Thessalonica in his />/>'//, -a! A'..--, /;., ; \V. Luti;urt, Die F.nth us/as ten in 7'//<-.oW(>///V//, in />W//v.,v ftr I-\'i\L-nin^ >>in>t!ichcr Thcou>gie, xiii. 6 (1909) ; W. \Yredc, Die l-'.chHicit =.v.> - rweiten Thessalonicherbriefs, in Texte und Untersuchungen, xxiv, 2 ; A. Harnack, Das Problem des ziueiten Thessalonicherbriefs, in the Sitzungsberichte der konigl, preuss. Akademie su Berlin, 1910. CHAPTER IV. CORINTH. NONE of the Epistles of St. Paul afford us such ample material for reconstructing the general outlines of Christianity among converts from heathenism as do I and 2 Corinthians. There are, of course, many points which will always remain doubtful ; but the main difficulty is rather an embarras de richesse, and the danger of obscuring the main picture by too close an attention to details. The in- vestigator has two main tasks : first, to trace the course of the current of incident which flows through the Epistles ; and secondly, to discover the various points of view which explain the obvious clash of opinions which gave rise to these incidents. Both tasks can only be accomplished by a series of discussions of small problems, followed by the welding together of the results in the form of general conclusions. The clearest way of proceeding seems to be to divide the discussion into the following divisions : I. The foundation of the Church at Corinth. II. A short preliminary statement of the series of incidents which explain the existence and cha- racter of the Epistles. III. The critical problems connected with these incidents. IV. The conditions of thought and practice revealed by the Epistles. THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH 103 I. THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AT CORINTH. The story of the foundation of the Church in Corinth circles round three points St. Paul, Apollos, and St Peter and can best be told in connection with them. St. Paul. In Acts xviii. 1-18 we have an account of the work of St. Paul at Corinth, which it is possible to supplement in a few details from information in i Corin- thians. The facts are these: after St. Paul left Athens he went to Corinth and joined the family of Aquila, a Jewish tent-maker St. Paul's own trade who, though originally belonging to the province of Pontus, had 'settled in Rome, and only left it in consequence of the decree of Claudius banishing all Jews from Rome. Of this decree we know something more from Suetonius, who connects the riots which led to it with " Chrestus." This must at least mean that a Messianic movement, such as that of the disciples of St. John the Baptist, had reached Rome, and may even mean that Christians had made their way there. 1 It is there- fore exceedingly probable either that Aquila and his wife belonged to this type of Messianic Jews, or that they were actually Christians before they met St. Paul. The second alternative is supported by the fact that St. Luke does not state that they were converted by St. Paul's preaching, though it is of course possible that this is merely an accident. In any case, it was with Aquila that St. Paul lodged. The centre of his preaching was at first, as usual, the 1 See Chap. VI. ; the whole question is naturally more important in connection with the foundation of the Church in Rome, and is discussed under that heading. 104 CORINTH synagogue, and he converted Crispus, the " archisynagogue." This title probably means a rank more or less corresponding to the " Elders " of Protestant churches. 1 But the Jews, as a whole, rejected his teaching, and after a stormy scene he abandoned his preaching in the synagogue and took a room for the purpose next door in the house of Titus Justus, a God-fearer. It must be admitted that he chose a position which was not likely to avoid trouble, though it had the advantage of being easily found by the God-fearer who had previously frequented the synagogue. St. Paul's preaching met with considerable success among the Corinthians, and continued, apparently without any serious hindrance, for two years and six months, during which time, as has been shown (pp. 73 ff.), the Epistles to the Thessalonians were written. But then the Jews brought an accusation against St. Paul that irapa TOV VO/ULOV avcnrdOti OVTOQ Toiig avOpwirovg atfiecrOat TOV Qeov. The accusation clearly was that his preaching was illegal, and the illegality seems to be connected with the manner of his 1 'ApxuTvvdyiayos is found in Mark v. 22, 35, 36, 38 ; Luke viii. 49 ; xiii. 14 ; Acts xiii. 15 ; xviii. 17. In Mark v. (and the parallel Luke viii.) and Acts xiii. 15, it is clear that there was more than one apxiffwdywyos. Luke xiii. 14 seems to point only to one, but it may quite well mean " the apx t" turn gallio fingebat eum non uidere." io6 CORINTH scarcely with Christian principles. It was no doubt the latter fact which led the scribes of a few late MSS. to read 'lov&uoi instead of "EAArjvEe, as an explanation of TrcivTEe, and gave rise to the usual exegesis of the common text that Sosthenes was the successor of Crispus, and that the Jews beat him for mismanaging the case. This explanation is almost certainly wrong in so far as it assumes that the archisynagogal office was monarchical, and has otherwise not much to recommend it. The fact is that all we know is that Sosthenes was beaten, but whether by Greeks or Jews, and whether because he was an unsuc- cessful leader of the prosecution or as a convert of St. Paul, it is impossible to determine. 1 It is, however, interesting to note that a Sosthenes is joined with St. Paul in the open- ing salutations of I Corinthians ; this may be pure accident, or it is possible that the Sosthenes who was beaten was already a convert, or, as later legend would have it, that he was afterwards converted by St. Paul. Other converts of whom we hear are Gaius (i Cor. i. 14), with whom St. Paul stayed on a later visit to Corinth (Rom. xvi. 23), Stephanas, Fortunatus, Achaicus, and perhaps Chloe, all of whom play parts of importance in the period of the history of the Church at Corinth im- mediately after its foundation. To these must be added Erastus the olKovofjiog of the city (Rom. xvi. 23), and possibly also Lucius, Jason, Sosipater, Quartus, and Tertius (Rom. xvi. 21 ff.). It will be seen from the above facts that the Corinthian 1 So also thought Ammonius: *H Sta. TOVTO ervirrovrbv ~2.uff6evr}v, , . avTbs i\v juaAA.oj' irpoffTiOefjavos TtjJ Tlau\(f, aiy Kal Kpiffiros 6 a.p-^Krvva.yta'yos, t) eh TOffovrov e\T)\an6Tfs /J.av(as on diroTt/x Kai els T^V TjfjLtrfpai'K.opifOoi' qvrevffavTfs fyuas 6/xoi'coj tSiSa^Av, K.T.A., quoted by Eusebius, Hist. EccL, II. 25, 8. ST. PETER 113 am very doubtful whether we have, and I think that in this respect we are too much under the influence of Tubingen criticism, or criticism which has unconsciously absorbed much of the principles of Tubingen, even when consciously opposing them. The result has been an exaggeration of the Judaism of St. Peter, and this has in turn created a strong prejudice against any tradition which ascribes to St. Peter missionary activity outside the circle of Palestinian Judaistic Christianity. Nevertheless, this prejudice is not supported by facts. What do we know from the Acts about St. Peter ? It is not difficult to summarize our knowledge. He appears, first of all, as the leader of " the Twelve " in Jerusalem ; at Pentecost he preaches with success to Hellenistic Jews ; he comes into conflict with the Jewish authorities, but in the end succeeds in maintaining his position. He next appears as supporting and following up the work of the Hellenist " Seven," outside Jerusalem, in Samaria and elsewhere, and takes the serious step of admit- ting a Gentile without insisting on his becoming a proselyte and undergoing circumcision. So far from appearing to be the leader of a Judaistic type of Christianity, he is steadily depicted by St. Luke as favouring expansion and liberality. Going on still further, he is represented as supporting the claims of the Antiochene movement at the Apostolic Council. He then disappears from the pages of Acts, but it is note- worthy that later, when St. Paul returns to Jerusalem for the last time, St. Peter is apparently not present. The fact is that for some reason of his own St. Luke did not see fit to tell the further story of any of the Apostles' labours except St. Paul's. The silence of Acts as to St. Peter after the Council does not imply in any sense that he stayed in Palestine, or did not preach either to Hellenistic Jews or to- I H4 CORINTH Gentiles. Did St. Luke intend to return to the story of St. Peter in that third book which he surely proposed writing ? But, it used to be alleged, the Acts is a "mediating" book ; we have here not St. Peter as he was, but a Paulin- ized version of him ; the Epistle to the Galatians gives us truth shows us that St. Paul and St. Peter were opponents, not allies, and that the latter only preached to Jews. This contention seems to be greatly exaggerated so far as Acts is concerned. No doubt St. Luke saw history in the light of later events ; no doubt, also, he was writing with a purpose, and not merely in order to chronicle facts. But the whole tendency of criticism is to show that he was, according to the standards of his day, a competent and honest historian. It is absurd to treat him as infallible, or to find a deep significance in every change of expression, but it is equally a"bsurd to look for apologetic reasons for every statement, and to ignore the probability that the main reason for most of them is that he believed them to be true. Moreover, the conclusion drawn from Galatians cannot stand investigation. All that St. Paul says is that when St. Peter was in Antioch he gave up his usual intercourse with the Gentile Christians under pressure from the emis- saries from St. James of Jerusalem, and that St. Paul rebuked him. So far from implying that St. Peter was the consistent antagonist of Paulinism, or of the Antiochene movement, he is represented as friendly to it, and only yielding under pressure to the extremists from Jerusalem. Nor does the statement that it was agreed at Jerusalem that St. Paul should preach to the Gentiles, 1 and the others 1 Whether the scene at Antioch was before or after the Council, and whether the agreement at Jerusalem was at the Council, or earlier, are points which are here unimportant (see Chap. V.). ST. PETER 115 to "the circumcision," in the least imply that St. Peter should not travel in the Roman Empire. " The circum- cision " covers the Diaspora, as well as Palestinian Jewry, and even if we suppose that St. Peter always wished to keep strictly and literally to this compact, there is nothing to show that he did not travel all over the Roman Empire, as tradition says that he did, preaching to the Jews in the Diaspora, and finally reaching Rome. But if he did this it is practically certain that he would be brought into contact with Gentile God-fearers, just as St. Paul was, and so in the end would be obliged to preach to Gentiles, however much his original plan may have been to confine his teaching to Jews. In this case we have to repeat the question, why should we not think that St. Peter really was in Corinth, and that the party of Cephas was composed of those who had been converted by him, just as the other parties were composed of the converts of St. Paul and of A polios? The real objection is probably the feeling that if St. Peter had been in Corinth, St. Paul would have said more about him. No doubt he would have done so had he been writing for our benefit, but in writing to the Corinthians the necessity was not so clear ; in writing letters no one expatiates on points well known to his correspondent, but on those which are unknown or disputed. We can see this in the precisely parallel case of Apollos ; he had been prominent in Corinth, and also had a party of followers, yet we should hear nothing of him in I Corinthians, apart from the existence of his party, if it had not been for the accidental fact that he was in Ephesus when St Paul was writing. Thus, the absence of further references in ii6 CORINTH i Corinthians is no proof that St. Peter had not been in Corinth. 1 Probably, then, St. Peter ought to be regarded, along with St. Paul and Apollos, as one of the founders of the Church at Corinth, 2 and, at least, we must suppose that some of his disciples had visited the city. It is, moreover, not inconceivable that the use of the name Cephas, not Peter, implies that St. Peter was here also preaching to the Jews rather than to the Gentiles, but this is probably too subtle, for, unless the text in Galatians is corrupt, it would seem that St. Paul used " Cephas " and " Peter " indifferently, and on no fixed principle (cf. Gal. i. 18 ; ii. 7, 8, n, 14). More important, however, than any of these points, and much more certain, is the fact that there is no trace in these Epistles that the party of Cephas (or any other party) was Judaistic, or represented the principles of the stiff Jerusalem Church. This is equally important for the understanding of the Epistles to the Corinthians, and as a corroboration of the view expressed above that the figure of a Judaizing St. Peter is a figment of the Tubingen critics with no basis in history. 3 1 It is true that St. Paul says, " I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase," and does not mention Cephas. Still this can scarcely be regarded as a very serious point. 2 It is curious that Silvanus, according to i and 2 Thessalonians, was in Corinth with St. Paul ; that he then disappears from the Pauline circle ; and that he reappears later (if it be the same Silvanus) in the company of St. Peter (i Pet. v. 12). Is this because the three Apostles, St. Paul, St. Peter, and Silvanus, met in Corinth ? 3 I should be sorry if these remarks seemed to imply disrespect of the Tubingen critics. There is no school to whom we are so much indebted ; and Baur's Paulus is a work of genius. But they were not infallible, and in some respects their methods had the roughness of pioneers. Largely owing to their efforts we are able in many respects to improve on their results ; but those who speak most evil of the Tubingen school have usually never read their books. THE OUTLINE OF THE EPISTLES 117 In this way the Corinthian Church was founded and built up, first by St. Paul, afterwards by Apollos, and either by St. Peter or some unknown disciple of St. Peter. 1 For our knowledge of the next period in the history of the com- munity we are dependent on the Epistles, and it is now necessary to turn to them and try to extract from them the history which is behind them. II. THE INCIDENTS WHICH EXPLAIN THE EXISTENCE AND CHARACTER OF THE EPISTLES. The general outlines of these incidents can be stated in a very few words it is the history of a quarrel. To us the principles which lie behind this quarrel are more important than the actual course of its development ; but neither the one nor the other is intelligible, unless the fact be grasped that the Epistles were not written by St. Paul to illustrate general principles, or to give an expose of Christian practice, but as definite attempts to deal with extremely concrete questions, which gave rise to a violent quarrel between St. Paul and the Corinthians. Of this quarrel we can see the beginnings in i Corinthians, the middle and the end in 2 Corinthians. Who the persons were who opposed St. Paul must be discussed at length later, but it is clear that the difference of opinion was partly doctrinal, partly practical. 1 There is a curious reference to St. Barnabas in I Cor. ix. 6. It is difficult to think that it hints that St. Barnabas had been in Corinth, though there is no reason why he should not have been ; perhaps the best suggestion is that it is a reference to the first missionary journey (see J. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief> P- 235)- n 8 CORINTH What was the general course of the quarrel ? To answer this question shortly the results reached in pp. 120- 175 must be assumed for the moment, in the hope that the appearance of undue certainty with regard to much-dis- puted passages may be counteracted by the later paragraphs in which the difficulties are discussed in detail. The first step which we can distinguish is a letter, no longer extant (it is convenient to call it the " previous letter "), sent by St. Paul to the Corinthians, warning them against associating with immoral persons. No doubt this letter was led up to by information which he had received from Corinth that such a warning was necessary. After this he was told by members of the household of Chloe, an unknown person who had some relations with Corinth, that the practical question of immorality in the community remained, that it was complicated by a spirit of partizanship and litigiousness, and perhaps also that his letter had not been fully understood. At the same time, or almost immediately afterwards, three Corinthians, Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, arrived at Ephesus bearing a letter for St. Paul, asking him a series of questions on practical and doctrinal problems. No doubt they also supplemented their letter in conversation. In consequence of these communications St. Paul wrote I Corinthians, dealing in the first half with the informa- tion given by Chloe, in the second with the Corinthians' letter and the information of Stephanas and his comrades. But before sending the Epistle St. Paul instructed Timothy, who was just starting for Macedonia, to go on to Corinth, and to do his best to remedy the scandals in the Church. He also announced his intention half hopefully, half threateningly of himself coming before long to Corinth. THE OUTLINE OF THE EPISTLES 119 Timothy returned, with the unpleasant news that the situation was worse instead of better, and St. Paul himself hurried across to Corinth. Even this failed, and the crisis appeared desperate. As a last resort he wrote a severe letter to the Corinthians, and sent it by Titus, warning the disobedient members of the Church that he proposed to come again, and this time would know how to secure their submission. It is probable that 2 Corinthians x.-xiii. is part of this severe letter. Soon after this St. Paul left Asia, and made his way overland through Macedonia to Corinth, greatly longing for the report of Titus as to the Corinthian crisis. Titus met him in Macedonia, and was able to report a complete success. The disobedient had been disowned and punished by the majority and had submitted, the crisis was over, and peace restored, though there was a stern minority which still pressed for severer punishment St. Paul was overjoyed, and 2 Corinthians i.-ix. is the outpouring of gratitude and relief which he at once wrote, and sent back by Titus to Corinth, commissioning him at the same time to take charge of the arrangements for a contribution for the poor which St. Paul hoped to be able to take to Jerusalem. Such is the outline of the history of the quarrel which lies behind the Epistles. It will be necessary in the following sections to go through it in detail, to discuss the various points of which it is composed, and to attempt the reconstruction of a picture of the community, or, at all events, of the opposition in it to St. Paul, and the practical questions which were agitating it. 120 CORINTH III. THE CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH THE EPISTLES. These problems may best be treated in two subdivisions, according as they belong to i or 2 Corinthians, because whereas those belonging to i Corinthians are comparatively simple, those belonging to 2 Corinthians form a complex of difficulties which is not surpassed in intricacy by anything in the New Testament. i CORINTHIANS. The points connected with i Corinthians are : (1) The " Previous Letter " of St. Paul to the Corinthians. (2) The information given to St. Paul by "those of Chloe." (3) The mission of Timothy. (4) The letter of the Corinthians to St. Paul, and the supplementary information given by its bearers. (5) The time and place of the writing of the Epistle. (i) TJie Previous Letter. According to the Acts St. Paul was eighteen months in Corinth, and, when he left it, he went in the company of Aquila and Priscilla as far as Ephesus, and afterwards alone to Antioch and possibly Jerusalem, 1 returning thence to 1 This is at least a possible interpretation of Acts xviii. 22, al aTeA0a/ fls Ka.Lffa.piav, avafias Kal aoTrcwrojuecoj rty ^KK\f](riav, /care'^T? es 'AvriSxftWt in wHich Ramsay thinks that " going up " means going up to Jerusalem. This seems at first sight far-fetched : the natural meaning is that he went up from the harbour to the town ; but the same view seems to have been held by the Bezan scribe, who makes St. Paul gives as his excuse for not staying in Ephesus, " I must at any rate keep the coming feast at Jerusalem." Perhaps it is right. THE PREVIOUS LETTER 121 Ephesus, where he stayed for three years. 1 It is during these three years that the letters to the Corinthians were written, and that the crisis in the Corinthian Church developed. The first stage probably was that St. Paul was in- formed by some friend that the Corinthian Christians had a somewhat low standard as to the morality which they expected to find in their associates, and that he wrote them a letter the " previous letter " warning them against this failing. This Epistle is no longer extant, but the fact that it was written and the nature of at least part of its contents is revealed by i Cor. v. 9-11, "I wrote to you (ty/oa^a) in my letter not to have company with fornicators, not that I meant literally (TTOVTWC) with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters ; for then must ye needs go out of the world, but now I write (fy/oeu^a) unto you not to keep company with any man that is called a Brother if he be a fornicator," etc. In the trans- lation just given there is, of course, no room for doubt, but the English, unfortunately, does not convey a point of ambiguity which is present in the Greek. A Greek said ty/oa^a, " I wrote," equally of a letter which he had penned ten years previously, and of one which he actually was writing in referring to which we should say " I am writing " because he regarded it from the standpoint of the recipient. It is therefore grammatically possible that St. Paul, in I Cor. v. 9, is referring to the letter he is actually writing, but this grammatical possibility is ex- cluded in practice by the fact that there is nothing in i Corinthians to which he could be referring, and also by 1 Possibly "in Ephesus" ought not to be taken too strictly. It may include the district of which Ephesus was the centre (see p. 142 f.). 122 CORINTH the general drift of the passage. The translation of the first typa\fja is therefore certain ; as will be seen the second tjpa-^a gives rise to more doubt. It is therefore universally recognized that the Corinthians must have received a letter from St. Paul, enjoining on them circumspection in their relations to immoral persons. That this letter is, in its entirety, lost, is of course obvious, but there is nevertheless some degree of probability in the theory, which has often been put forward, that a fragment of it is imbedded in 2 Cor. vi. 14 vii. I, which runs as follows : " Be ye not unequally yoked together with un- believers : for what fellowship hath righteousness with iniquity ? or what communion hath light with darkness ? And what concord hath Christ with Beliar? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel ? And what agreement hath a temple of God with idols ? for ye are a temple of the living God ; as God hath said, ' I will dwell in them, and walk in them ; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean ; and I will receive you. And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.' Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." This passage would clearly be exactly the sort of advice which afterwards would necessitate the explanation given in i Cor. v. 9 ; and the theory that it really is a fragment of the lost first letter of St. Paul, is materially supported by the facts that it has no apparent connection with the immediate context before or after in 2 Corinthians, and that if it be removed, 2 Cor. vii. 2 fits on to 2 Cor. vi. 13 in the THE PREVIOUS LETTER 123 most natural manner. If the suggested interpolation be removed, we obtain the text : " O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own affections. Now for a recompence in like kind, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged. Open your hearts to us ; we wronged no man, we corrupted no man, we de- frauded no man. I speak not this to condemn you : for I have said before, that ye are in our hearts to die and live with you." No one who did not know would ever guess that anything had been removed from the middle of this passage. Although therefore this theory can from its nature never be regarded as more than a probable guess, it must at least be conceded that the guess is attractive ; and its probability is enhanced, if the theory be accepted that 2 Corinthians shows signs in other places of not being originally a single letter (see pp. 155-164). Besides this hypothesis, J. Weiss, in his commentary on the Epistle, has made the suggestion that other fragments of the "previous letter" are embedded in I Corinthians. He thinks that there is so great a difference of tone between I Cor. x. 1-22 (23) and the remainder of the section as to " things offered to idols," that he attributes it to a different source, probably the " previous letter," and thinks that vi. 12-20, as well as possibly ix. 24-37 an< ^ xl - 2 ~34 belong to the same document. It must be admitted that there is a difference of tone, but an alternative suggestion (and I think a preferable one) is that St. Paul is address- ing two different parties in Corinth (see pp. 199-202), partly agreeing with and partly differing from both, and that this explains the change of tone and emphasis in the various 124 CORINTH sections. However this may be, the fact that a " previous " letter was written seems to be clearly established. 1 But it must remain permanently uncertain at what time it was sent, though, if it be conceded that it was probably written in consequence of information which St. Paul had received from Corinth, it is clearly almost certain that it was written after his return to Ephesus from Syria. It is not certain how much of the passage in I Cor. v. 9 ff. ought to be considered as a quotation of the " previous letter," nor can we be sure of St. Paul's precise motive in referring to it. The context is the case of the incestuous person (see p. 131), and St. Paul emphasized the enormity of the offence by a reference to the " previous letter," but as to the exact meaning of this reference there are two possibilities. In the first place, it is possible that it had been reported to St. Paul, either by " those of Chloe " or by others, that his letter had been misunderstood, and taken to imply a degree of seclusion for Christians which was practically impossible ; in the second place, it is possible that it is really only quoted by St. Paul to strengthen his argument, by showing that he is, in the case of the incestu- ous person, only asking for the particular application of a rule which he had previously stated and the Corinthians had recognized as generally valid. Between these possi- bilities a decision cannot be made. It would of course be better, if possible, to treat the two eypa^d 's in the same way, and it is clear that the first one means " I wrote." This supports the view that the whole passage (v. 9-11) is a quotation, or more probably a paraphrase, from the " previous letter," and ought to be translated, " I 1 This was seen by the writer of the Ada Fault, who invented an apocryphal correspondence between St. Paul and the Corinthians ; see Appendix I. "THOSE OF CHLOE" 125 wrote to you in my previous letter not to associate with evil livers not literally the evil livers of the world, . . . for then I admit (apa) you would needs go out of the world altogether. But I meant under existing circumstances (vCv & typa^a) not to associate with professing Christians who were evil livers," etc. This translation does justice to the double typai^a, but it strains the meaning of vvv &=. There- fore it is possible that we ought to think that St. Paul is correcting a misunderstanding, that only the first few words are quotation, and that the rest is correction. In this case vvv & typeset must be taken as an instance of the common epistolary aorist, and translated, " but now I write." This is the view which is more generally adopted ; if it be correct, it is probable that part of the information given by " those of Chloe " (though conceivably by some one else) was that the "previous letter" was not fully under- stood, and perhaps that it had been adversely commented on as practically impossible. (2) The Information given by " Those of Chloe" Of Chloe herself nothing is known : the most probable hypothesis is that she was a rich lady, either widowed or unmarried, who had a household of slaves or dependents, some of whom were acquainted with St. Paul and probably had been converted by him. But there is nothing to show whether Chloe lived in Corinth or in Ephesus, for the general conditions of the problem are equally well fulfilled by the view that she was an Ephesian connected in some way perhaps by business of some kind with Corinth, as by the more usual guess that she was a Corinthian who had relations with Ephesus. The only point certain and also 126 CORINTH the only one important is that " those of Chloe " were in a position to give St. Paul valuable information about the state of things among the Christians in Corinth. The extent of their information cannot be accurately defined, but it is at least certain that it laid emphasis on the growth of party feeling among the Christians at Corinth. This is shown by i Cor. i. 11-12: "It has been told me, brethren, by the [representatives^ of Chloe that there are divisions among you. I mean that each says ' I am of Paul/ ' and I of Apollos,' ' and I of Cephas,' ' and I of Christ.' " The view which has to be taken of the information implied by these verses depends on the exegesis given to them, and this is unfortunately by no means clear. The most simple view is that " those of Chloe " reported that the community was split up into the parties of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ, and in some form this view is now generally taken. The difficulties in it are : (i) the curious statement in i Cor. iv. 6, " Now these things, brethren, I have transferred in a figure to myself and Apollos for your sakes " ; (2) the difficulty of understanding who the Christ party can have been. The statement in i Cor. iv. 6 has sometimes been inter- preted as implying that St. Paul had throughout used the names of himself and Apollos as screens for the real party leaders : but this exegesis, 1 though not impossible, is improbable. The natural meaning is that in the previous section (iii. 18 iv. 5), in which St. Paul warns the Corinthians against an excessive estimate of the importance of himself and other leaders, who are after all merely the " ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God," his intention was really to warn his readers against a similarly excessive 1 Made popular by Chrysostom and dominant until the time of Beza, who rejected it. THE CORINTHIAN PARTIES 127 estimate of their spiritual gifts and personal importance. He does not in the least mean that the parties of St. Paul and Apollos did not exist. The difficulty of identifying the " Christ party " is greater. In no other passage in i Corinthians does St. Paul ever refer to any party which regarded itself as especially that of Christ. And in iii. 2I, 1 while purposely, as it seems, mention- ing the other parties of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas he says nothing of a " Christ party," but continues " and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Influenced by this fact Rabiger 2 has suggested that eyo> & X/otorov in I Cor. i. 12 is not co-ordinate with the other phrases. In a writer who pays regard to stylistic propriety such a suggestion would be absurd ; but St. Paul's style is far from being formally correct, and I am not sure that the least difficult solution to an exceedingly difficult problem is not to translate and punctuate thus : " I mean that each says ' I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas,' but / am of Christ ! Is Christ divided ? was Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized into the name of Paul ? " The advantages of it are that it adds to the force of /nefilptaTai 6 X/otoroc ; and changes it from a most difficult phrase to an intelligible and well-pointed question, and that it brings the whole passage into line with i Cor. iii. 4 (cf. iii. n) and i Cor. iii. 2^-23, in which the Paul, Apollos, and Cephas parties are mentioned, but Christ appears only as the bond of common unity in which all the parties ought to sink their differences. It is also supported by the fact that Clement in his epistle to Corinth 1 " For all things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come ; all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Kritische Untersuchunqen iiber den Inhalt der beiden Briefen an die korinthischc Gemeinde. Second edition, 1886. 128 CORINTH (xlvii. 3) mentions the parties of Paul, Cephas, and Apollos, but not the Christ party. The objections are, first, that it makes the lyw in lyu Si X/OIOTOI) mean something different from what it means in the precisely parallel phrases i-yo> & Krj^a and 70* St 'ATroAAw, and, secondly, that there seems to be a possible reference to the Christ party in 2 Cor. x. 7, " 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." This last passage is not absolute proof that the phrase in the First Epistle really refers to a definite party, for, after all, the claim to be Christ's was the ultimate contention of all the parties, and in an inclusive sense was admitted by St. Paul ; it is not impossible that St. Paul here means no more than an appeal to the fact that he and his opponent both relied, in the end, on their spiritual experience the conviction that they were Christ's. Nevertheless, it certainly is the strongest argument that exists, and perhaps turns the scales of probability against the ingenious and otherwise attractive suggestion of Rabiger. A still more radical suggestion, commended among others by J. Weiss, is that iyw Se Xpiarov is an interpolation, and due to an original marginal interjection by a pious scribe. This is possible, though personally I prefer Rabiger's hypothesis. If these views be rejected, and the existence of a Christ party be accepted, we must clearly take as referring to it 2 Cor. x. 7, which practically means that the Christ party was that against which St. Paul fulminates in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. The characteristics of this party will have to be discussed later (see pp. 219 ff.). There is comparatively little room for profitable discus- sion as to the parties of Cephas and Apollos. As was said above (p. 116) it has been suggested that the party of THE CORINTHIAN PARTIES 129 Cephas represents Judaizing propaganda. This is quite improbable, and rests partly on an unnecessary inference from the use of the name Cephas instead of Peter, partly on a largely antiquated theory of Church history, which invented a double stream in early Christianity under the leadership of St. Peter and St. Paul. That there was opposition to St. Paul is unquestionable, but that it was inspired by St. Peter is more than doubtful. Moreover, if there really had been definitely Judaizing propaganda at this time against St. Paul, it is surely more likely to have taken to itself the name of St. James rather than that of St. Peter. It has also been suggested that the party of Apollos was especially addicted to an exaggeration of Alexandrian philosophy. This theory is partly based on facts, but it is not clear that reference is especially made to Apollos or his party. The point is that immediately after his direct rebuke of partizanship, St. Paul passes, in I Cor. i. 17 iv. 21, into a long section in which it may be said that two themes are interlaced, the relation of his gospel to "wisdom," and a renewed deprecation of partizanship. Certainly it is clear that the partizan spirit in Corinth was in some way connected with an exaltation of " wisdom," and the bear- ing of this fact will have to be considered when the oppo- sition to St. Paul is discussed (see pp. 231 ff.) ; but there is no real evidence for thinking that the " exaltation of wisdom" was especially the characteristic of the party of Apollos. It may have been so ; and, if so, it may have been due to his Alexandrian associations, but there is nothing to prove it. Moreover, if we may judge from the obviously friendly relationship between St. Paul and Apollos (cf. i Cor. xvi. 12) K 130 CORINTH it is, in any case, improbable that the latter was, any more than St. Paul himself, the conscious cause of partizanship. It was not the leaders or at least not those whom St. Paul mentions who were responsible for the parties, but their rash and imperfectly instructed followers. This, no doubt, did give rise among other things to an undue exaltation of " wisdom," and, as will be seen in connection with 2 Corin- thians, helped to produce a very critical situation in the Christian community at Corinth. This information as to the partizanship in the Church at Corinth seems to have been the chief information given to St. Paul by "those of Chloe." It is evident from I Corin- thians that he regarded it very seriously, and foresaw the possibility that it might give an unpleasant character to the visit to Corinth which he contemplated. 1 " Some," he says, 2 " are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and I will know, not the word of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. What will ye ? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of meekness ? " To avoid this possi- bility he sent Timothy 3 to try to bring the Corinthians into a better frame of mind. But before discussing this visit of Timothy, it is desirable to consider certain points which " those of Chloe " may have told St. Paul, and with which Timothy would certainly have had to deal on his arrival. These points are indicated in I Cor. v.-vi., and may be shortly described as (a) an instance either of incest or of incestuous marriage ; (/3) a tendency to litigation among 1 As will be seen (pp. 149 fif.)> his forebodings were probably realized. 2 I Cor. iv. 18. 3 I Cor. iv. 17. INCEST AND LITIGATION 131 Christians in the heathen courts ; (7) a tendency to immo- rality. (a) The Case of Incest. What precisely was the question at issue is not clear. St. Paul merely says, " It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles, that one of you hath his father's wife." Whether this was incest or an incestuous marriage is not stated, nor is it possible to say whether it was " those of Chloe " who brought the report, or some one else. In any case it would seem that the com- munity had not treated the matter seriously enough. " And ye," said St. Paul, 1 "are puffed up, and did not rather mourn, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from you." He therefore reminds them of the prin- ciples laid down in the " previous letter," and adjures them to adopt a firm attitude in this matter, and exclude the offender from their midst. ()3) TJie Tendency to Litigation. From I Cor. vi. i ff., it would seem that there was a tendency in Corinth to litiga- tion in the heathen courts between Christians, and St. Paul suggests that these matters ought to be settled by the Christians among themselves. This much is certain ; but no hint is given as to the nature of the questions which had led to litigation. It is, of course, plain that the preceding incident the man who had taken his father's wife can, whatever it may have exactly been, have easily led to litiga- tion of more than one sort ; but there is nothing to prove that this was or was not the case. The chief importance of the incident is that it is by far the most weighty, if not the only, evidence in the Epistle as to the vexed question whether the Christian Churches 1 i Cor. v. 2. 132 CORINTH were organized on a Jewish or Gentile model. There is no evidence in the earlier Epistles of St. Paul which really enables us to sketch, even in outline, the organization of a Christian community at this time, not because there probably was no organization, but because it was not yet a matter which had given rise to polemical discussion. St. Paul says nothing about it, because it was not contro- versial, and his Epistles are controversial letters, not general statements of universally accepted facts. But here, in the question of litigation, we are given a single valuable hint as to the attitude of the Corinthian Christians. Clearly there was a party which held that disputes ought to be settled by the Church, and another which held that they might be brought before the Roman courts. Apparently the latter was in the majority, though this is not quite plain. Now, this is just one of the points which dis- tinguishes Greek from Jewish ideas. The Jews always claimed that the synagogue was a competent court for all disputes. 1 The Greek Otaaoi, on the other hand, never seem to have entertained the idea (which would certainly have had a short life at the hands of Roman lawyers) that they had any general jurisdiction over their members. An initiate in the mysteries of Isis went to law with another initiate about ordinary disputes (St. Paul's /Stwrtica), without any hesitation. The fact that some of the Corinthians were taking the Greek line is therefore important and interesting. 2 1 See Josephus, Antiquit,, xiv. 10. 2 ; cf. Schiirer, Geschichte des judischen Volkes, ed. 4, HI. 113 ff., and Mommsen in the Zeitschriftf. d. N. Tliche Wiss., 1901, p. 88 ff. 2 The whole question of the growth of organization belongs rather to the investigation of the background of the later Epistles ; but an admirable resumd, with references to other literature, will be found in J. Weiss' Der erste Korin- therbricfc pp. xvi. ff. IMMORALITY AT CORINTH 133 (7) TJie General Tendency to Immorality. Much the same must be said of the third point. In I Cor. vi. 12-20, St. Paul is clearly warning the Corinthians against a laxity of morals, of which he has heard either from " those of Chloe " or from some other source. Obviously it is possible that this is con- nected with the case of incest, which might not unnaturally have given rise to inquiries by St. Paul from his informant on this subject as to the general level of morality among the Corinthian Christians, while it is, on the other hand, equally possible that there is no connection between the two sections. The view to be taken of the question depends largely on that adopted towards the previous point. If there was a connection between the case of incest dealt with in i Cor. v., and the tendency to litigation reproved in the following passage, it is extremely probable that the third section is still connected with the same incident ; if, on the other hand, there was no such connection, it is less probable that St. Paul, after dealing with the case of incest and going on to another topic, should turn back once more to his original subject. Further than this it is impossible to go : we only possess a letter written for the edification of the Corinthians not to give information to historians, and it is unreason- able to expect that we can reconstruct out of it all the circumstances to which it refers. Much, no doubt, can be done, but there remains much which can never be entirely cleared up. The question as to the possible relation between this moral difficulty and the doctrinal disputes in Corinth is discussed on pp. 176 ff. 134 CORINTH (3) The Mission of Timothy, Closely connected with the information given by " those of Chloe " is the mission of Timothy. In consequence of the reports as to the partizan scandals in Corinth, St. Paul sent Timothy to see if he could reduce the evil, especially as he heard that his own absence was having a bad effect. "I have sent 1 Timothy," he says, in I Cor. iv. 17, "for this very purpose to you, ... to remind you of my behaviour in Christ," etc. And in I Cor. xvi. 10, he returns to the subject, and says, " If Timothy come, see that he be with you without fear ; for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do : let no man therefore despise him. But set him forward on his journey in peace, that he may come unto me, for I expect him with the brethren." From these two passages it would seem that Timothy was sent off from Ephesus after St. Paul had received the information given him by "those of Chloe," and before the departure of the bearers of I Corinthians : but in the second passage St. Paul seems strangely uncertain whether Timothy would really reach Corinth, or, if he did, whether he would not arrive later than the bearers of his letter, in spite of the fact that he had started first. Further information is not given in i Corinthians, nor is the visit of Timothy mentioned in 2 Corinthians, but in Acts xix. 22 it is stated that St. Paul "sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timothy and Erastus," and it is generally supposed that this refers to the mission of Timothy referred to in I Corinthians. The obvious 1 Surely the aorist must be so translated. TIMOTHY THE CORINTHIANS' LETTER 135 advantage of this theory is that it explains why St. Paul thought that Timothy might possibly reach Corinth later than i Corinthians. This becomes intelligible if Timothy went round through Macedonia, while the bearers of the letter went by sea. On the other hand, it is true that it is strange to describe a journey from Ephesus through Mace- donia and Achaia, merely by a reference to Macedonia. But the possibility of a slight inaccuracy in the Acts ought not to be lost sight of, or it may be that St. Luke wrote Macedonia, because in practice Macedonia was further from Ephesus than was Corinth. On the evidence we can go no further than to say that the visit of Timothy in i Corinthians may be identical with that in Acts xix. 21, but that this is not proved, and that the two visits may be separate. As will be seen, the matter is chiefly important in connection with the dating of i Corinthians. (4) The Letter of the Corinthians to St. Paul, and the Information of its Bearers. It would appear from the preceding discussion that i Cor. i. vi. is probably based in the main on the informa- tion given to St. Paul by those of Chloe. The rest of the Epistle (vii. xvi.) seems to rest on a different basis. In i Cor. xvi. 17, St. Paul says, " I rejoice at the arrival of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, for that which was lacking on your part they supplied " ; and in vii. i, he refers to a letter which he had received from the Corin- thians. It is obvious, putting these two references together, that St. Paul used the verbal communications of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus to supplement the Corinthians' 136 CORINTH information, and it is not unlikely that they were them- selves the bearers of the letter. To distinguish exactly between the information given by the letter and the supplementary matter added by the three Corinthians is neither possible nor really important. But it seems as though the greater part of I Cor. vii. xvi. is directly based on the letter, the various points in which are indicated by a more or less regularly recurring formula. This is to be found as follows : Trspl $1 &v typaijjaTt ... ... vii. I T&V TTapOevw ... ... vii. 25 t TWV d$d)\o6vTb)v ... ... viu. I E T&V Trvtv/maTiK&v ... ... xii. I irepl Se TTJC Aoyui ... ... ... xvi. I t 'ATroXXw ... ... ... xvi. 12 It will be seen at once that these introductory formulae take with them the greater part of I Cor. vii. I xvi. 12, that is, the whole of the second half of the Epistle ; but there are a few important paragraphs which present difficulties. It is clear that there is no break between vii. I and vii. 24, the section concerning marriage, or between vii. 25 and vii. 40, concerning " virgins," or between viii. i and viii. 13, concerning things offered to idols, but the next section, ix. i x. 13, is not so easy. At first sight it seems to have nothing to do with things offered to idols, but to deal with the question of St. Paul's own behaviour, and it is sometimes regarded as primarily an answer to attacks made upon his authority. It is possible, indeed probable, that there is some reference to these attacks, but if this be taken as the main object of the section it is hard to find any satisfactory explanation for THE CORINTHIANS' LETTER 137 the references to the Jews who were " baptized in the sea and the cloud" in x. 1-13, or for the fact that in x. 14 St. Paul returns to the question of idolatry in such a way as to suggest that he regarded the section ix. I x. 13 as contributing to the solution of the question raised by the things offered to idols. It is therefore much more prob- able that the point which explains the relation between the different parts of the whole answer to the question about "things offered to idols," covering viii. I x. I, is that some of the Corinthians defended the custom of eating such things, partly on the ground that they were free and had authority to eat them which St. Paul controverts by means of his own example in other matters and partly on the ground that having been baptized and become Christians they were safe from all evil which St. Paul controverts by the example of the Israelites who fell in the wilderness in spite of the privileges which they had received. 1 Thus, from vii. I to xi. I is entirely given up to questions raised by the Corinthians' letter. The next section is more doubtful. The beginning ("Now I praise you that ye remember me in all things," xi. 2) seems to be a quotation from, or a reference to, an assurance given in their letter, and it is probable that this led up to questions concerning the behaviour of men and women in the Church. Thus, xi. 1-16 is probably directly inspired by the Corinthians' letter, but xi. 17-34, dealing with the question of the celebration of the Eucharist, is introduced by a different formula : St. Paul says, " But in giving this instruction (as to men and women), I do not commend the fact that your meetings are deteriorating instead of 1 See pp. 178 ff. and 200 ff. 138 CORINTH improving ; for I hear," etc. That is to say, he is not commenting on their letter, but on information given to him orally, presumably by Stephanas and his companions. This section, therefore, is only indirectly connected with the Corinthians' letter, and was inspired by the verbal communications of Stephanas. In the next section, xii. I xiv. 40, dealing with TTvcvjutmicaiv ("spirituals") the introductory formula shows that St. Paul is dealing with the letter, and for the present purpose there are no difficulties to discuss. Chap. xv. is more difficult : it discusses the Resurrection, and begins with the formula "yvwpt^w St v/nlv" "I would have you to know" is perhaps the best translation. Although this is not the same formula as St. Paul elsewhere uses in connection with the letter, it is probable that it is never- theless a reference, and that we ought to conclude that the Corinthians asked a question concerning the resurrection of the dead. The alternative is to suppose that Stephanas and his friends reported that there were doubts on the subject. The remaining chapter is less difficult : xvi. i-i I is concerned with a question in the letter relating to a collection for the poor, and with the projected arrivals of Timothy and St. Paul in connection with it: xvi. 12 is also concerned with a simple question in the letter as to the plans of Apollos, and the remaining verses, xvi. 13-24, are the final greetings and advice of St. Paul, in which he expresses his pleasure at having seen Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, and apparently thinking once more of the parties advises the Corinthians to follow the guidance of Stephanas. Thus, the letter of the Corinthians was a series of THE DATE OF i CORINTHIANS 139 questions about practical and doctrinal points as to which the community was in doubt. The fact that there was at that time controversy, or at least uncertainty, on those points is of the greatest importance for the understanding of the general position of Christianity in Corinth, and must be discussed later. It is for the moment sufficient to set out the probable list of questions, together with the references to the places in I Corinthians in which St. Paul deals with them. Marriage, sexual relations, and divorce I Cor. vii. 1-24 "Virgins" I Cor. vii. 25-38 Re-marriage of widows ... ... i Cor. vii. 39-40 Things sacrificed to idols ... ... i Cor. viii. i xi. i Customs during worship ... ... I Cor. xi. 2 xi. 16 The Eucharist (arising out of sup- plementary information) ... ... i Cor. xi. 17-34 "Spirituals" ... ... ... ... i Cor. xii. i xiv. 40 The resurrection of the dead ... i Cor. xv. 1-58 The collection for the poor ... ... i Cor. xvi. l-n The plans of Apollos ... ... i Cor. xvi. 12 (5) The Time and Place of tJie Writing of i Corinthians. It has been seen that i Corinthians is partly comment on information given by those of Chloe, and partly an answer to a letter sent by the Corinthians to St Paul. The questions are, when and whence did he send it ? By the first question is meant not so much the absolute date of the Epistle, as its relative position in the three years that St. Paul spent in Asia. The general opinion is that it was early in the year 140 CORINTH (according to our reckoning) in which St. Paul left Ephesus and came to Corinth on his way up to Jerusalem for the last time. This view is based on I Cor. xvi. 3 ff. : " When I arrive, whomsoever ye approve, them will I send with letters to carry your bounty to Jerusalem ; and if it be meet for me to go also, they shall go with me. But I shall come unto you, when I have passed through Macedonia ; for I do pass through Macedonia ; but with you it may be that I shall abide, or even winter, that ye may set me forward on my journey whithersoever I go, for I do not wish to pay you merely a passing visit. But I shall wait at Ephesus until Pentecost ; for a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries." The suggestion is that these verses show that St. Paul wrote not long before Pentecost, and that the visit which he states that he proposes to pay to Corinth is identical with that which, according to Acts xx. 2, he actually paid after he left Ephesus and had travelled through Macedonia. In this case the letter was written in the spring of the year in the autumn of which St. Paul left Ephesus ; and if the intended visit mentioned in I Corinthians must be identified with the actual visit described in Acts, no other conclusion can be possible. This identification can be controlled by references to a collection in 2 Cor. viii. 10 and ix. I ff., as compared with the First Epistle. In I Cor. xvi. I ff., St. Paul says, "Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I gave order to the Churches of Galatia, so also do ye. Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I arrive." It is impossible with any straight- forward exegesis to explain this as meaning anything except that the collection was not ready probably scarcely begun THE DATE OF i CORINTHIANS 141 at the time when St. Paul wrote. But in 2 Cor. ix. i ff. he says, "For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you, for I know your readiness, of which I glory on your behalf to them of Macedonia, that Achaia has been ready since last year " ; and in 2 Cor. viii. 10 he gives the same reference to time : " This is expedient for you, who were the first to make a beginning last year, not only to do, but also to will." In both these places the R.V. translates aVo irepvai, "a year ago," which means, in ordinary English, twelve months, but the more accurate rendering is " last year." Now, for St. Paul, as a Greek Jew, the year must have begun in October, and therefore, if he be writing 2 Corinthians after that date, last year could mean in the previous spring assuming, that is to say, that i Corinthians was written in the spring before Pentecost. If, however, he was writing before October, the date of the Epistle must be put back a full year. The evidence of Acts suggests that the former alternative is the more probable, though it scarcely enables us to form a decisive opinion. According to Acts xx. 6, St. Paul left Philippi on his last journey to Jerusalem in the spring (after the days of unleavened bread). He had reached Philippi from Corinth, where he had stayed three months (Acts xx. 3), so that he must have reached Corinth about the beginning of January. He had come to Corinth from Ephesus through Macedonia, where he must have been in December and probably also in November, as Acts states that he gave them " much exhortation." He was, however, already in Macedonia when he wrote 2 Cor, viii. referring to "last year," and the impression given by 2 Corinthians is that he had already been there some time. Thus the probability certainly seems to be that H2 CORINTH 2 Corinthians was written during November, early in the Jewish new year ; so that I Corinthians and the arrange- ments made in the spring, for the collection at Corinth would naturally be described as " last year." Thus the probability is . that I Corinthians was written about nine months befojre St. Paul's visit to Corinth, narrated in Acts xx. 2, to which he was looking forward when he wrote the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians. It will be noted that this implies that he stayed in Ephesus after Pentecost, which he had not originally intended to do. This must be granted on any theory which does not abandon the trustworthiness of Acts. So far it has been assumed that the Epistle was written from Ephesus. Probably this assumption is correct ; but there is one objection which deserves statement. In I Cor. xv. 32, St. Paul says : " If after the manner of men (K.OT avOpuirov) I fought with beasts at Ephesus," etc. ; and in xvi. 8, he says, " But I shall wait at Ephesus until Pente- cost." Would he have spoken in this way, especially in xv. 32, if at the time of writing he was still at Ephesus ? J. Weiss l thinks this extremely improbable, and is inclined to believe that the Epistle was written in Macedonia. Apparently he interprets I Cor. xvi. 5, MaiccSovtav 70^ 3tEjox<>juat, to mean, " I am now passing through Macedonia." Curiously enough, however, although he draws this con- clusion from xv. 32, he does not accept it for xvi. 8, which he considers to have been really written in Ephesus, and he attributes xvi. 7^-9 and 15-20 to the "previous letter." Admitting, however, that there is a superficial difficulty, I cannot see that this partition is here necessary. &tepxoiu.ai may refer to a future plan : or it may be that I Corinthians 1 J. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, pp. xl. ff. and 366. THE PLACE WHENCE ST. PAUL WROTE 143 was really written from Macedonia, but that St. Paul regarded Ephesus as his centre to which he meant to return after his Macedonian journey. In this case, how- ever, the " greetings of the Churches of Asia " are a difficulty. Or again, taking Siepxopai as a reference to future plans, it is possible that the letter was written from some other town in Asia : we need not suppose that St. Paul actually stayed in Ephesus during the whole of the three years that he made that city his headquarters. 1 The admission that there is a certain difficulty in the usual view that the Epistle was written from Ephesus is therefore the most that can be granted. The difficulty is not, after all, insurmountable : it is possible to say, " If I had fought with the beasts at Ephesus," 2 even in Ephesus, though it would be more natural to say "here" instead of "at Ephesus," and the alternative theories seem to raise more difficulties than they solve. Probably, then, the Epistle was written from Ephesus in the last spring which St. Paul spent in that city. 1 According to DEFG al pauc., St. Paul stayed at Ephesus with Aquila and Priscilla, for they add to I Cor. xvi. 19, after the mention of the Church in their house, irop' o?s Kal fi>tonat. 2 A further problem, which it is not necessary to discuss at length, is quite definitely raised by this verse. When was St. Paul ever in danger of this kind at Ephesus? Either he is alluding to some incident at Ephesus, which can scarcely be that connected with Demetrius the silversmith (Acts xix. 23 ff.), unless St. Luke has greatly understated the situation, or he is stating a wholly imaginary possibility. I think the former is somewhat the more probable, and that St. Paul must have passed through some form of persecution, and presumably imprisonment, of which Acts says nothing. The importance of this is twofold : (i) It corroborates (or is corroborated by) 2 Cor. xi. 23, which, among other trials, wholly unmentioned in Acts, mentions imprison- ment. (2) It suggests that critics are perhaps a little rash in thinking that the " Epistles of the captivity," which certainly were written from prison, must necessarily have been written either from Rome or Caesarea. If there be any truth in this view, the flAtyis ^ -yevoufvri iv 'Atritf (2 Cor. i. 8) is probably a reference to this, not to the incident of Demetrius ; but the further discussion of the point belongs to the history of Ephesus rather than Corinth. 144 CORINTH Such are the main critical problems introductory to the study of i Corinthians : it will be seen that they prepare the way for a consideration of the far more interesting questions as to the reasons why the Corinthians were divided in their opinions as to things offered to idols, marriage, the resurrection of the dead, and the other points on which they consulted St. Paul. 2 CORINTHIANS. It is far more difficult to reconstruct the events implied by 2 Corinthians than those underlying the earlier Epistle. In the latter, though there are difficulties as to details, the main point that it was called out by the information given by " those of Chloe " and by a letter from the Corin- thians has never been in dispute ; but in 2 Corinthians more than one point of great importance is likely always to be a matter of controversy. Starting with the state of affairs which obtained when 1 Corinthians was written and sent off, we know that St. Paul was in Asia, and that Timothy had been sent to Corinth in order to deal with the spirit of partizanship. It was this spirit which had especially distressed St. Paul, especially since it was coupled in practice, if not in origin with a low level of morality, and by personal attacks on his own position. The question is how this situation developed in the period, probably only about six months, between the two Epistles. What sort of report did Timothy bring back, and what further circumstances gave rise to 2 Corinthians ? In so controversial a subject the fairest, and in the end probably the clearest, method is to begin by stating the 2 CORINTHIANS H5 facts, and afterwards to discuss the various interpretations which seem possible. The indisputable facts, then, may be summarized thus : (1) The Mission of Timothy. There is an absolute silence on this subject in 2 Corinthians : it is certain that he had returned, for he is joined with St. Paul in the opening salutation (2 Cor. i. i), but there is nothing to say whether he had ever reached Corinth, much less any positive evidence as to his reception there. (2) A Visit of St. Paid to Corinth. Reference is made to a visit of St. Paul to Corinth, unrecorded in the Acts, and unmentioned in i Corinthians. This is proved by 2 Cor. xii. 14, u Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you," and 2 Cor. xiii. 1,2," This is the third time I am coming to you." The former of these passages might possibly be explained as referring merely to an intention, and meaning, "This is the third time that I have formed the plan of coming to you," though this interpretation is not at all natural, but the latter is quite definite and must mean that St. Paul had visited Corinth twice before his final visit, recorded in Acts xx. 2, which he was on his way to make when he wrote the opening section of 2 Corinthians. There is, however, nothing to show unmistakably whether the "second" visit ought to be placed before or after i Corinthians. (3) A Severe Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. In 2 Cor. ii. 4, St. Paul says, " Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears," and in 2 Cor. vii. 8, " Though I made you sorry with my Epistle, I do not now regret it, though I did so once." These descriptions can only apply to a letter which, written under the pressure of circumstances, was so severe that St. Paul was at one time inclined to think that it had been too L 146 CORINTH harsh. There is no definite proof that it is not identical either with i Corinthians or with the " previous Epistle " (see pp. 120-125), but there is a general consensus of opinion that neither of these possibilities is probable, and that the " severe letter " was sent off subsequently to I Corinthians. (4) The Visits of Titus. It is clear that Titus had been sent to Corinth, and that he had rejoined St. Paul in Macedonia. In 2 Cor. ii. 12, St. Paul says, " When I came to Troas . . . I found not Titus, my brother, but taking my leave of them, 1 went forth into Macedonia," and in 2 Cor. vii. 5, " For even when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no relief, but we were afflicted on every side. . . . Nevertheless God comforted us by the coming of Titus," etc. Moreover, from the context of these passages it appears that Titus' mission was successful, for St. Paul expresses both in 2 Cor. ii. and 2 Cor. vii. his satisfaction at the result, and says (in vii. 13) that the spirit of Titus " hath been refreshed by you all," and in vii. 15, that "his (i.e. Titus') inward affection is more abundantly toward you, whilst he remembereth the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling ye received him." It would also appear that Titus, after thus rejoining St. Paul, went back to Corinth. His return and St. Paul's expression of hope for his good reception form the substance of 2 Cor. viii. I ix. 15. Thus we have clear evidence that Titus paid two visits to Corinth, one before and one after 2 Corinthians ; that between these two visits he had an interview with St. Paul in Macedonia ; and that he then reported his experiences on his first visit. (5) The Report of Titus to St. Paul. Titus was success- ful in his first visit to Corinth, but what was the report which he brought from Corinth to Macedonia ? Three points are TITUS AND HIS REPORT 147 plain, but each of them gives rise to a further problem which is by no means clear. In the first place, it may be stated with positiveness that the difficulty at Corinth centred in a personal dispute. There were two persons whom St Paul calls in 2 Cor. vii. 12, "he who did the wrong" (6 aStk-j'/o-ae), "he who suffered the wrong" (oaSiKnOtis). We can even go further and identify him who did the wrong with the person who is described in 2 Cor. ii. 6 ff. as condemned, punished, and penitent. 1 But there is nothing whatever to throw any direct light on the identity of the persons referred to, or on the nature of the offence committed. In the second place, it is clear that the guilty person was condemned to some form of punishment, but there is nothing to show what the nature of this punishment was. Finally, it is in the third place clear that this punish- ment was inflicted, not by the unanimous vote of the whole community, but by that of a majority. It is described in 2 Cor. ii. 6 as fi tiriTifiia avrij ?j viro T&V TrAaovwv, which cannot mean as the R.V. text reads, " this punishment which was inflicted by the many" but must be, as it is put in the margin, " by the more," or, as we usually say in modern English, "by the majority." But it is uncertain whether the corresponding minority, which this phrase implies, consisted of those who wished for a severer punishment, or of those who desired greater leniency, or sided with the offender. These, then, are the facts for which room has to be made in any reconstruction of the events leading up to 2 Corinthians, a "severe letter" from St Paul to the Corinthians, and a successful visit by Titus. 1 " Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority, so that contrariwise ye should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow " (2 Cor. ii. 6 ff.). 148 CORINTH The problems which must be faced are (1) The significance of the silence of 2 Corinthians on the mission of Timothy. (2) The position of the " second " visit of St. Paul. (3) The possible identification of the " severe letter " with 2 Cor. x.-xiii. (4) The visits of Titus to Corinth. (5) The reconstruction of the report of Titus. It will also be noticed that, just as the consideration of the critical problems in I Corinthians leaves for further discussion the really important question of the point of view of the Corinthian Christians, as implied by their questions to St. Paul, so also the consideration of the critical problems in 2 Corinthians leaves over the question of the character of the party opposed to St. Paul. (i) THE MISSION OF TIMOTHY. The silence of 2 Corinthians as to the mission of Timothy has been explained in two ways. Either Timothy never reached Corinth which explains why St. Luke describes his journey as " to Macedonia " or he was thoroughly unsuccessful in his object of bringing the Corinthians to a better frame of mind, and when, after all, peace was made between St. Paul and his converts, it was neither necessary nor tactful to refer to his visit. Between these two possibilities final judgment is im- possible, but the latter seems much the more probable, and the supposition that Timothy returned to Ephesus, not long after i Corinthians was sent, with an extremely un- pleasant report, to the effect that the Corinthians would not listen to his counsels, and that the troubles continued,. ST. PAUL'S UNSUCCESSFUL VISIT 149 fits in very well with the most probable solutions to the other problems, 1 while as much can scarcely be said for the view that Timothy never reached Corinth at all. (2) THE VISIT OF ST. PAUL TO CORINTH. Ought the " second " visit of St. Paul to be placed before i Corinthians, or inserted between it and 2 Corinthians? The points which have to be taken into consideration are these: (a) I Cor. iv. 21, "What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of meekness ? " supported by i Cor. xi. 34, " The rest will I set in order when I come," seems to prove that he not only contemplated a visit, but doubted whether it would be an entirely peaceful one, owing to the parties in the Church. (/3) 2 Cor. ii. i, "But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you with sorrow again," seems to show that he had, when he wrote, the memory of an unpleasant visit, and it should be noted that in the undoubtedly best text 2 the "again" is closely connected with the " with sorrow." Moreover, in the immediate context of this verse St. Paul's meaning clearly is that some one, who had opposed him originally, had now been punished by the majority. The whole passage 2 Cor. ii. i-ii must be studied from this point of view. " But I determined this with myself, that I would not 1 As a matter of method it should be noted that complicated questions of this kind can only be satisfactorily handled by reducing them to a number of subordinate problems. Each of these problems is capable of alternative solutions, and in choosing between these the critic has to be guided by considering which is consistent with the solutions of other co-ordinate problems. The solutions not consistent with any of the alternatives must be struck out. - "E/cpu/o 8e tuavry TOVTO, rb ju^ v^Kiv iv \VTTTI irpbs upas t\8f?i>, NABCDEFGKLOP al plu., latt.,, syrr. . . . iv AiJirp, post t\0fw mm. pauc. . . . om VO.KIV boh. aeth. 150 . CORINTH come again to you with sorrow. For if I make you sorry, who is he then that maketh me glad, but he that is made sorry by me ? And I wrote this very thing unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice ; having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears ; not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you. But if any have caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part (that I may not press too hardly) you all. Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted by the majority. So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him. For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things. To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, what I forgave for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ ; that no advantage be gained over us by Satan : for we are not ignorant of his devices." Is it not plain that this passage implies a recent visit which had ended so unpleasantly that St. Paul had determined not to come back if he was likely to undergo similar experi- ences, and that he was, at the moment of writing, delighted to find that such action had been taken by the community that he was able to return without fear, since the leader of the opposition had been punished by a vote of the majority ? It was a party question of some sort which had rendered his previous visit unpleasant, and the removal of this question took away his fear for a repetition of this experience. The ST. PAUL'S UNSUCCESSFUL VISIT 151 natural corollary from these conclusions is that St. Paul's forebodings in I Cor. iv. 21, that the party divisions at Corinth would prevent him from having a pleasant visit, had been painfully well fulfilled during a visit between the times of writing I and 2 Corinthians. That this is the natural view is universally conceded ; but many interpreters of Corinthians have felt obliged to reject it, because they think that there is no room for a visit of St. Paul to Corinth between I and 2 Corinthians. Some of them, therefore, fall back on the very unnatural exegesis of 2 Cor. xii. 14 and xiii. I, which denies that St. Paul means that he has already been twice to Corinth, and regards him merely as saying that he has three times intended to come. Others admit the fact of a second visit, but place it before i Corinthians. The main reason for this view is that on the hypothesis (certainly the most probable) that i Corinthians was written in the early spring, and 2 Corinthians in the early winter of (according to our reckoning) the same year, we have to assume more rapid travelling backward and forwards on the part of Timothy, St. Paul, and Titus than is thought to be probable. The objection to it is that there is no trace in i Corinthians of this second unpleasant visit, nor is it easy to see that i Corinthians supplies one with any material for imagining the cause of this unpleasantness. It cannot have been the partizanship, or the case of incest, or tendency to litigation, or immorality, for on all these points St. Paul seems to be dependent for his knowledge on the recent information of "those of Chloe"; in short, it may be said that, while the topics dealt with in i Corinthians supply ample reason for thinking that St. Paul might have (as he says himself in i Cor. iv. 21) an unpleasant visit in the 152 CORINTH immediate future, they give no reason whatever for thinking that he had had one in the past. Under the influence of these facts Dr. Kennedy has urged that the usual dating of i Corinthians is wrong, and that it ought to be placed a year earlier ; the main argument for this view is the necessity for finding room for the visit of St. Paul, and, secondly, the belief that OTTO irepvai in 2 Cor. ix. 2 implies that I Corinthians was written twelve months previously. The reasons for not holding this latter opinion are given on p. 141 ff., and though I quite admit that the evidence seems to be irresistible in favour of a visit of St. Paul to Corinth between i and 2 Corinthians, I am not convinced that the time available on the ordinary view of the date of i Corinthians is really insufficient. From Corinth to Ephesus was one of the most frequented routes in the whole of the Mediterranean, and owing to the prevalence through- out the summer of north or north-westerly winds (usually more north than west) the journey could be made in either direction with the wind fairly well on the beam ; an average passage would scarcely last longer than a week. Thus, all that the supposed difficulty of finding room for St. Paul's visit to Corinth really amounts to, is that we must suppose that between the spring and autumn he was absent from Ephesus perhaps for four weeks, possibly only a fortnight. Timothy, we know, had already started for Corinth via Macedonia, before St. Paul wrote i Corinthians. Let us suppose that Timothy returned early in May (there is no special reason why it should not have been earlier), with depressing news from Corinth. St. Paul immediately decided to go himself, and returned without any success. He would be back in Ephesus in July, and, as he does not seem to have left there until the autumn, this gives at least two months for him ST. PAUL'S UNSUCCESSFUL VISIT 153 to write the "severe letter" and send it to Corinth with Titus. In some such reconstruction (which assumes for the moment the results of the discussion as to the mission of Titus, see pp. 164-173) there seems to be nothing impossible. It is surely clear that 2 Corinthians implies a severe crisis in Corinthian affairs of such a nature as to call for energetic action on the part of St. Paul, and it is really harder to imagine that it was long drawn out than that it actually all took place between the early spring and the late autumn of one year. The objection may of course be made that in I Corinthians St. Paul announces his intention of leaving Ephesus at Pentecost, and that the reconstruction given above implies that he stayed on until the summer was over. This objection has, however, little force, for in 2 Cor. i. 15-17 St. Paul shows plainly that he had to some extent changed his plans, even though it may not be easy to see exactly what they were, so that there is no longer any presumption in favour of the view that he left Ephesus at Pentecost in accordance with the intention expressed in I Cor. xvi. 8, to be set against the fact that, using the data given in Acts, he seems to have stayed on longer. Moreover, it is not quite accurate to say that St. Paul announced his intention of leaving Ephesus at Pentecost. What he says is, that he will not be able to leave sooner (" I shall stay at Ephesus until Pentecost ") ; his desire is to see the Corinthians, but until then it is impossible. It is common experience that that sort of plan, when made by a busy man, often has to be emended in the direction of postponement. If in the early spring St. Paul saw no chance of leaving Ephesus before Pentecost, it is not surprising that in the actual event he 154 CORINTH could not manage to do so before the autumn, especially if, as is suggested, he gave up three weeks or a month to a flying visit to Corinth. Thus the various events seem to fit into one another, and justify the view that after sending I Corinthians, and probably after the return of Timothy with unpleasant news, St. Paul paid a short and unsuccessful visit to Corinth. (3) THE SEVERE LETTER. Can the " severe letter " be identified either with the " previous letter" or with I Corinthians ? If not, is it to be found either in whole or in part in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. ? To the former of these two questions a negative answer must certainly be given. It is, in the first place, almost impossible that it should be the lost "previous letter,'* because St. Paul clearly speaks of himself in 2 Cor. vii. 5, as only learning from Titus what the effect of his letter had been. This excludes the " previous letter " unless we suppose (a) that it had been sent off before either " those of Chloe " or Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus arrived at Ephesus, but had not yet reached Corinth ; (ft) that the references to it in i Corinthians do not mean that St. Paul had heard that it had been misunderstood, but only that he was afraid that it might be ; and (y) that when St. Paul wrote i Corinthians it had not yet struck him that his former letter was so severe that he regretted it. This com- bination of improbabilities excludes the " previous letter " from serious consideration. Similarly, i Corinthians itself is excluded by the de- scription of the letter given in 2 Cor. ii. 4. Can any one THE SEVERE LETTER 155 believe that St. Paul wrote I Corinthians " out of much afflic- tion and anguish of heart, with many tears " ? It is therefore practically certain that the severe letter referred to in 2 Corinthians is really a Third Epistle, other than i Corinthians, or the " previous Epistle." But many critics urge that this hypothetical Third Epistle is not really lost, but may, either in whole or in part, be identified with 2 Cor. x.-xiii. This view depends on somewhat complicated arguments, and can best be stated in the form of two propositions. (1) There is not only no connection between 2 Cor. i.-ix. and 2 Cor. x.-xiii., but there is an absolute break between them. (2) Internal evidence shows that 2 Cor. x-xiii. was written before 2 Cor. i.-ix., and that it corresponds to the " severe letter " mentioned in 2 Cor. ii. and 2 Cor. viii. (i) The break between 2 Cor. i.-ix. and x.-xiii. The general tone of 2 Cor. i.-ix. is of joy and sudden relief from great anxiety. The typical passage is 2 Cor. vii. 4-7, which describes the whole in a few words. " Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying of you : I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation. For, when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side ; without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus ; and not by his coming only, but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you, when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me ; so that I rejoiced the more." And the same tone may be marked in the concluding words of 2 Cor. ix. 15, "Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift." Indeed, if 2 Cor. i.-ix. stood alone, we should have no 1 56 CORINTH difficulty in agreeing that the situation which it implies is that St. Paul had sent a letter to Corinth in order to bring the Church there to a better frame of mind, and that he had just heard, to his great relief, that this letter, combined with the presence of Titus, had been entirely successful. "In everything," he writes in 2 Cor. vii. n, "ye approved your- selves pure in the matter . . . therefore we have been com- forted : and in our comfort we joyed the more exceedingly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all. For if I have boasted anything to him of you, I was not put to shame ; but as we spake all things to you in truth, even so our boasting, which I made before Titus, was found a truth. And his inward affection is more abundant toward you, whilst he remembereth the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling ye received him." If we turn to 2 Cor. x.-xiii., we see a wholly different picture. The general tone is one of defending his own position, and threatening severe action against a dis- obedient Church. The opening words strike this note, which is never completely dropped until the final sentence. " Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you : yea, I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that con- fidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh " is the introduction which leads up to chap. xiii. 2, " I have said, and do say beforehand, as I did when present the second time, and now when I am at a distance, to those who have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again, I shall not be lenient." Thus there can be, and never has been, any dispute but 2 COR. I -IX. AND X.-XIIl. 157 that the whole tone of the Epistle changes suddenly at chap. x. i, and that, if 2 Cor. x.-xiii. had existed in a separate form, no one would ever have dreamt of suggest- ing that it was the continuation of 2 Cor. i.-ix. (2) The internal evidence showing that 2 Cor. x.-xiii. is earlier than 2 Cor. i.-ix., and that it is the severe letter mentioned in the latter portion} This evidence may be described as a series of cross- references from 2 Cor. i.-ix. to 2 Cor. x.-xiii. These re- ferences are of two kinds : the first consists of general descriptions in 2 Cor. i.-ix. of the " severe letter " to which 2 Cor. x.-xiii. is seen to answer; the second, of special allusions to the contents of the severe letter, all of which correspond to definite phrases in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. The general descriptions of the severe letter are the following : (a) In 2 Cor. ii. 4, St. Paul says that he had written the "severe letter" "out of much affliction and anguish of heart beset with many tears." (/3) In 2 Cor. vii. 8, he says, " Though I made you sorry with my letter I do not regret it, though I did regret it," that is to say, the letter was so severe that after sending it he was inclined to doubt whether it was not, after all, excessive. (y) In 2 Cor. Hi. I, he says, "Do we begin again to commend ourselves ?" implying that in the previous letter there had been a marked element of self-commenda- tion. (S) In 2 Cor. i. 23, he says, " I call God for a witness 1 This section is almost entirely based on the masterly statement of Dr. J. H. Kennedy in his The Second and Third Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, PP- 79-94- 158 CORINTH upon my soul, that to spare you I did not come again to Corinth," 1 and in 2 Cor. ii. i, "I determined this for my- self, that I would not come to you again with sorrow." That is to say, at the time of writing the severe Epistle, the possibility of paying a punitive visit was present to his mind, but was temporarily postponed in order to see what the effect of the letter would be. Now, if one turn to 2 Cor. x.-xiii., these four general characteristics are all easily discovered. It is impossible to read these chapters without recognizing the intensity of feeling which inspires them, or to fail to agree with Dr. Kennedy that there are "many passages which we can believe to have been blotted with tears." It is similarly obvious that there is (with the possible exception of Galatians) no other passage of the same length in the Pauline Epistles of which it is so easy to believe that its author may have been doubtful as to the propriety of such powerful invective. Still more strikingly is self-commenda- tion the subject of a large part of 2 Cor. x.-xiii. It may indeed be fairly called the central theme of 2 Cor. x. 7 xii. 10. Finally, that St. Paul when he wrote 2 Cor. x.-xiii. was hesitating whether he would come to Corinth, and that this hesitation was due to his fear that if he came he would not be able to spare the Corinthians, is clear from the whole passage, 2 Cor. xii. 20 xiii. 2. " For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not : lest there be 1 The Greek is OVKCTI ^\6ov eis Kopivdov. This can only mean, " I came not again " (or " not any more") to Corinth : though the A.V. and the R.V., apparently under the influence of the exegesis which refused to recognize a "second visit," translate it, " I came not as yet " (A.V.), which is an impossible mean- ing to get out of ovKfTt, or " I forebare to come " (R.V.), which is scarcely better. 2 COR. I -IX. AND X-XIII. 159 debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. This is the third time I am coming to you. At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. I have said, and do say beforehand as I did when I came the second time, and now when I am at a distance to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare." A more accurate description of the frame of mind revealed by this passage could scarcely be given than that which St. Paul gives in 2 Cor. i. 23, of his feelings at the time when he sent off the severe Epistle. Besides these general descriptions of the severe letter in 2 Cor. i.-ix., to which 2 Cor. x.-xiii. certainly answers in every respect, there are three pairs of passages which seem to amount to definite and verbal cross-references. These can best be shown in parallel columns. (a) " For this cause I write " And I wrote this same these things from a distance, thing that when I came I that I may not when I come might not have sorrow." deal sharply." 2 Cor. xiii. 2 Cor. ii. 3. 10. The obvious parallelism between these two passages is increased by the fact that the context shows that " might not have sorrow " in 2 Cor. ii. 3 is an euphemism for " deal sharply." " For if I make you sorry," he says in the preceding verse, "who then is he that maketh me glad, but he that is made sorry by me ? " 160 CORINTH (/3) "If I come again "To spare you I came 1 will not spare." 2 Cor. not again to Corinth." xiii. 2. 2 Cor. i. 23. (7) " Being in readiness to " For to this end also did avenge all disobedience when I write that I might know your obedience shall be ful- the proof of you, whether ye filled." 2 Cor. x. 6. are obedient in all things." 2 Cor. ii. 9. These three pairs of passages are very striking, and gain in force if each be read in its context ; it seems difficult to deny that St. Paul, in each case, is referring to the same thing, -in the passage from 2 Cor. x.-xiii. in the present tense, and in that from 2 Cor. i.-ix. in the past. Moreover, this argument is not only a very strong reason for seeing the " severe letter " or rather part of it in 2 Cor. x.-xiii., but it greatly strengthens the case for maintaining that in any case there is no unity between 2 Cor. i.-ix. and x.-xiii. Any theory which maintains that 2 Corinthians is a simple letter, all written at one time, must explain not only why there is a sudden change of tone in the middle (which is generally done by assuming that St. Paul is writing to his friends in one part and to his opponents in the other), but also why there is this remark- able appearance of cross-references from one part to the other, and always of such a nature that the chapters which come at the end of the Epistle, as it is now arranged, refer in the present sense to events which are alluded to in the past tense in the earlier chapters. This is the case for identifying 2 Cor. x.-xiii. with part of the " severe letter " : it can be supported by various subsidiary arguments. For instance, in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. a 2 COR. I -IX. AND X-XIII. 161 characteristic feature is the use of the word Kav%acrtiai (" boast " or " glory ") in connection with St. Paul's claims to consideration. " Though I should glory somewhat abun- dantly concerning our authority, I shall not be put to shame " (2 Cor. x. 8) ; " Let no man think me foolish ; but if ye do, yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little. That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of glorying, seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also " (2 Cor. xi. 16-18); "If I needs must glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness " (2 Cor. xi. 30) ; and the list of passages could be extended. Compare this with 2 Cor. i. 12 ff., "For our glorying is this, the testimony of your 1 conscience ... we are your glorying, even as ye are ours," or with 2 Cor. vii. 4, " Great is my glorying on your behalf." Do not these passages obtain a heightened significance if we regard them as delicate allusions to the forcible claim to authority in the previous letter, taking the sting out of the " glorying " by giving it a changed application ? Similarly, when St. Paul says (vii. 16), " I have confidence in you " (Qappti ev V/MV), is he not thinking of his earlier statement in 2 Cor. x. i, " I have confidence against you " * (QappG) et? vfidg) ? Or again, when he says, in i. 15, "And in this confidence (7T7roi0/;(T) I was minded to come to you," is he not deliberately using again, in a pleasant sense, the phrase which he had used 1 Exegetically the reading fytwi/ is surely preferable, and it seems to have been the reading of x*^* though it has been corrected in both MSS. by very early hands. The value of MSS. evidence is at its lowest in distinguishing between vpwv and IJ/JLUV. The pronunciation is, and probably was, quite identical. z This is the natural meaning of the words, though they are weakened in the R.V. into " I am of good courage toward you." M 1 62 CORINTH unpleasantly in x. 2, " I beseech you that I may not, when present, show courage (Qappr\aai) with the confidence (Treirot- Biiafi) wherewith I count to be bold against some " ? At the same time, it must be recognized that it is im- possible to maintain the older form * of this theory which suggested that these four chapters are the whole of the " severe letter." The sufficient proof of this is that it is plain, from 2 Cor. ii. 5-10, that the "severe letter" had been largely directed against some definite person at Corinth, and there is no trace of this in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. This fact was rightly used as a decisive argument against Hausrath, but it has no force against Kennedy's hypo- thesis that 2 Cor. x.-xiii. is not the whole, but only the concluding part of the " severe letter," and that the earlier chapters which are now lost dealt with the case of St. Paul's opponent. Thus the result of this complicated argument is to establish the great probability of the view that 2 Corinthians is not a single Epistle, but fragments of at least two Epistles, the last four chapters representing the end of the " severe letter " which was really St. Paul's Third Epistle to the Corinthians and the first nine being the letter which he wrote from Macedonia in joy at the success which had attended the " severe letter " and its bearer, Titus. But when one accepts this fact, and couples it with the hypo- thesis (see p. 122 ff.) that 2 Cor. vi. 14 vii. I belongs to neither of these two letters, but to the " previous letter " of St. Paul, it seems necessary to pause. To some extent, of course, the very strongly supported theory which divides 2 Cor. x.-xiii. from 2 Cor. i.-ix. lends strength to the much 1 Best known through Hausrath's Der Viercapitelbrief des~ Paulus an die Korintfur, 1870. EXPLANATION OF THE COMBINATION 163 more doubtful hypothesis that 2 Cor. vi. 14 vii. i is an interpolation ; but the question must be faced whether it be possible to suggest any theory to make plausible the view that 2 Corinthians is composite to a degree which is not probable in any other of the Pauline Epistles. This theory is presented by Dr. Kennedy. He suggests that whereas I Corinthians was from the beginning regarded by the Corinthians as a valuable document, which laid down the law on many important points, the letter written from Macedonia (2 Cor. i.-ix.) was not more than the expression of St. Paul's gratitude for the favourable turn which affairs had taken, and the "severe letter" (2 Cor. x.-xiii.) was of such a nature that they would not be likely to wish to remember it. It was only as St. Paul's letters began to be regarded as " Holy Scripture," and to be valued for their authorship rather than their contents, that either of the two last letters to Corinth became important. By this time they had probably fallen into a bad state of preservation ; it was not clear whether the fragments belonged to one or several letters ; and the scribes who copied the autographs put together, as best they could, the various pieces of papyrus into one connected whole. It must be remembered that we have no textual evidence at all for the first stage of the growth of the Corpus Paulinum. What we have is a collection of Epistles, from all Churches which had any, in the form in which it came to be generally recognized in the great Church. But there was an earlier period in which the individual Churches were busy in collecting Pauline material from their own archives, and in supplementing this from other com- munities. The combination of the " severe letter " and the "grateful letter" must have been made in the very 164 CORINTH beginning, as soon in fact as any copy of them existed at all. 1 Dr. Kennedy suggests that this may have been at the time when Clement wrote to the Corinthians, and drew their attention to their Pauline archives. This is, of course, merely a suggestion of what may have, not what must have happened, but it serves to show that imaginable circum- stances may well have arisen which called the attention of the Corinthians to fragments of Pauline letters, which had long lain unheeded in their archives so that no one remem- bered exactly what they were, and scribes, copying for the first time these new treasures, combined into the form of a single complete letter, what were really the fragments of at least two incomplete ones. 2 (4) THE VISITS OF TITUS TO CORINTH. The three passages in which the visits of Titus to Corinth are referred to in 2 Corinthians are the following : (a) " For even when we were come into Macedonia . . . God comforted us by the coming "of Titus, and not by his coming only, but also by the comfort wherewith he was comforted in you, while he told us your longing, your 1 Dr. A. C. Clark has pointed out to me that there is a somewhat similar instance of combination in Cicero's letters. It appears that there were two drafts of Ad Fam. v. 8, and that these have been joined together as a single letter, perhaps by Tiro (see Bardt, in Hermes, xxxii. (1897), pp. 267-70). - J. Weiss (see p. 123) goes further, and argues that if we admit the pro- bability that 2 Corinthians is composite, we ought also to recognize the same fact as valid for i Corinthians. He would argue that i and 2 Corinthians represent the Corinthian edition of St. Paul's correspondence, put together from more or less dilapidated papyri many years after they had been received. There is nothing intrinsically impossible or improbable in this theory ; but to my mind Dr. Kennedy's view is preferable. I can see clear evidence for a partition theory in 2 Corinthians, but I am not convinced of the necessity of such a view for I Corinthians. THE VISITS OF TITUS 165 mourning, your zeal for me ; so that I rejoiced yet more. . . . Therefore we have been comforted : and in our comfort we joyed the more exceedingly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit hath been refreshed by you all" (2 Cor.vii. 5-13). From this passage it is plain that Titus joined St. Paul in Macedonia, and brought a good report. Those who take the view advocated above as to the "severe letter" will probably also agree that the most natural interpretation of the facts is afforded by the supposition that Titus was the bearer of the " severe letter," and that the welcome change in the attitude of the Corinthians was effected by the combined influence of the letter and of its bearer. (/3) A further reference to this visit is sometimes found in 2 Cor. xii. 17 ff. : " Did I take advantage of you by any one of them whom I have sent unto you ? I asked Titus to go, 1 and I sent the brother with him. Did Titus take any advantage of you ? Walked we not by the same Spirit, in the same steps? " That this passage is in some way con- nected with the visit of Titus from which he returned to Macedonia is not disputed, but the nature of the connection differs according to the view taken of the relation of 2 Cor. x.-xiii. to 2 Cor. i.-ix. On the assumption that these two sections are both part of the same letter, written after Titus had joined St. Paul in Macedonia, the most probable and generally held hypo- thesis is that St. Paul is referring to Titus' conduct on the visit from which he had just returned, and perhaps that the chance of " taking advantage " of them, from which he refrained, is in some way connected with the " collection for 1 This is surely all that the Greek means. " I exhorted Titus " (R.V.) gives a wholly artificial sound to a simple phrase. 166 CORINTH the saints " which figured so largely in St. Paul's programme at this period. This latter part is, as will be seen, very doubtful, but for the rest this is the only possible theory for those who reject the partition theory. If the partition be accepted, and 2 Cor. x.-xiii. be iden- tified with the " severe letter," clearly the reference in this passage cannot be to Titus' conduct during the visit from which he returned to Macedonia, for ex hypothesi this visit had not yet been made. In this case, St. Paul is rather seeking to commend Titus as his representative, who will be the bearer of the " severe letter." The meaning, then, of the whole passage from xii. 15 is that he himself never was pecuniarily burdensome to the Corinthians, and that the same was true of his representative, Titus. He says in effect, "You know that from the beginning of my inter- course with the Corinthians, I have never had a penny's profit from them, and the same is true of my representatives. Titus, who is now coming to you, has never made any profit. Can you deny that he always behaved in this respect in exactly the same way as I did myself ? " (7) In viii. 6 ff. : " We asked Titus that as he had made a beginning before, so he would also complete in you this grace also. . . . But thanks be to God, which putteth the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus ; for indeed he granted our request, yea, being himself very earnest, he went forth unto you of his own accord." From the context it is clear that "this grace," which Titus was to complete, was the " collection for the saints," i.e. for the poor Christians in Jerusalem, for this is the subject of the whole of 2 Cor. viii.-ix. Thus it is in any case certain that the return of Titus from Macedonia to Corinth was con- nected with the " collection for the saints." The question is, THE VISITS OF TITUS 167 however, whether we ought to conclude from St. Paul's lan- guage that Titus had been busy with the same question on his previous visit. Purely linguistic exegesis does not give much help on this point. The expression, " this grace also " (KCU rrjv yapiv ravrrji;), seems to suggest that Titus is going to do something which has not been done previously, and the repetition of the phrase in the next verse points in the same direction. 1 On the other hand, it may be urged, when Titus was asked to " complete " (tTriTtXtaai) some- thing, it is implied that he had already made a beginning in the same direction. This is, however, not necessary, and the truth is that the sentence is ambiguous because " this grace also " may be regarded as explaining the addition which Titus had to make to that which he had begun (Trpoevi'ipZaTo) different in kind from his previous work, which needed this addition to complete it (tTnreAEo-ai) ; or it may be regarded merely as indicating the point at which his work fully begun already needed carrying out a little further in the same direction in order to be perfected. Thus the nicer lexical criticism gives no certain answer to the question, and we are driven back on general con- siderations, and our knowledge of the "collection for the saints" from other sources. We know from both the Epistles and the Acts that St. Paul was busy with a collection from all his Churches which he proposed to send or take up to 1 Dr. Kennedy is surely right in his contention that the construction of the Greek in viii. 6 ff. is continuous : tls ri> irapaKa\fffat ^/is Thais, Iva. KaBus vpotvriptaro ovrus Kal liriTt\fffT> (Is fytas Kal rrjf x^/"" TOUTTJJ', a\\' uxnrep 4i> iravrl iripurfffVfTt, irtffTfi Kal \6ytf Kal yvwffti Kal trdffT] ffirovSfj Kal rrj t TI/J.WV iv VIMV aydirri, "va KO\ $v TOUTJ? Ty x<^P irt fepKTirevijrf. The rendering of the R.V., which puts a stop after xdpw ravrriv, and treats 'Iva irtpifffftuiirf as the equivalent of an imperative, though it may be paralleled in later Greek, is harsh and quite unnecessary. 1 68 CORINTH Jerusalem. He had already arranged with the Corinthians to take their proper share in his work (i Cor. xvi. I ff.), and was therefore able to boast in 2 Cor. ix. 2 that Achaia had been ready the previous year. At the same time, it is clear that he felt by no means sure that this boast was based on strict fact, if Achaia had really been ready, there would have been no need to send Titus, or to exhort the Corinthians not to fail him. So far, then, there is no doubt but that the Corinthian collection had already been begun ; but it is exceedingly probable that the period of general disturbance in the Church at Corinth, to which 2 Corinthians testifies, reduced the work of collection to a standstill. Is it conceivable that St. Paul would have sent Titus at this crisis to reduce the Corinthians to subjection, armed with the " severe letter," and at the same time told him to collect subscriptions ? It is far more likely that St. Paul left the whole financial question in abeyance until he knew whether the combined effect of Titus' visit and his own severe letter would bring the Corinthians to a better frame of mind. If we accept the view that the "severe letter" which Titus took with him to Corinth is either lost, or to be identified with 2 Cor. x.-xiii., there is no difficulty in believ- ing that Titus returned to Corinth in connection with the collection, and that he had not previously taken any measures in its direction. Those, however, who hold the view that the "severe letter " was I Corinthians, are bound, in the light of I Cor. xvi. I, to assume that Titus dealt with the matter on his first visit, and they then naturally explain 2 Cor. xii. 18 (" Did Titus take any advantage of you ? ") as a reference to his conduct in this connection. For such an opinion THE REPORT OF TITUS 169 there is little valid argument ; but it is, of course, found in all commentaries or introductions which identify the "severe letter" with I Corinthians, as well as in some others which, though they have abandoned this identifica- tion, still think that Titus dealt with the matter of the collection on his first visit not seeing that this view is merely the result of an identification which they do not any longer accept, is in itself contrary to the probabilities of the case, and is not required by the verbal exegesis of the passages in 2 Corinthians germane to the question. (5) THE REPORT OF TITUS. The report of Titus, so far as it is known to us, may be represented thus : " There was a meeting of the com- munity, and under the influence of the ' severe letter ' the offender was condemned, and sentenced to a punishment which was approved of by the majority." The first question is, who was the offender, and what was his offence ? The one thing which is here certain is that no confident answer can ever be given. Various lines of probability can be marked out, but the choice between them is almost impossible. It is obviously possible that the partizanship mentioned in i Corinthians contains the germ of many of the factors in the situation described in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians especially chaps. x.-xiii. seems largely occupied with the defence of St. Paul's authority, and this may have been impugned by any of the parties mentioned in the First Epistle. If the existence of a "Christ party" be accepted, it is possible that a reference to it may be seen in 2 Cor. x. 7, "If any man 1 70 CORINTH trusteth that he is in Christ, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ's, so also are we." If so, we must suppose that the main cause of the dis- sensions was the development of the Christ party, and possibly that the leader of it was the offender who was punished. Another line which has often been suggested is that the offender was the man who had taken his father's wife, and the father is sometimes regarded as the offended party. This also is not impossible, but there is no evidence to prove it : it is merely a guess. Or it might be thought that the root of the evil is to be sought in the tendency to litigation mentioned in I Cor. vi. i ff., and that the meeting of the community mentioned in 2 Cor. ii. 6 represents the final submission of both parties to St. Paul's opinion that the community ought to judge matters of dispute, and not allow them to be brought before the heathen courts. Once more, the suggestion is not un- attractive, but unsupported by evidence. Still less is it possible to form any clear view as to the nature of the punishment inflicted on the offender : the only thing certain is that it was not exclusion from the com- munity, because St. Paul speaks of the desirability of receiv- ing him with kindliness. More light can perhaps be thrown on the question of the relationship of the majority who fixed the punishment of the offender to the minority who disapproved of their decision. According to the view, formerly so generally held, that 2 Cor. x.-xiii. was addressed to a rebellious minority, which had not been convinced by Titus, there is no alternative to the interpretation which regards the majority as St. Paul's friends, and the minority as his opponents. THE REPORT OF TITUS 171 But on the partition theory of 2 Corinthians this exegesis is unnecessary, and a closer consideration of the exact word- ing of the crucial passage points rather to the view that the minority was the party of St. Paul, or at all events wished for a severer treatment of the offender than the majority had voted. This passage is 2 Cor. ii. 5-7, "If any hath caused sorrow, he hath caused sorrow, not to me, but in part (that I press not too heavily) to you all. Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority, so that ye should contrariwise rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you to confirm your love toward him." The most natural exegesis, and that which gives the most force to the separate phrases of this passage, is that the offender had been unanimously condemned, he had caused sorrow to them all, that the majority had fixed an appropriate penalty, and that St. Paul is addressing the minority, he distinguishes " the majority " from " you," who still cherished angry feelings towards the offender, in order to persuade them to acquiesce in the sentence of the majority, and not to press for heavier punishment. It is also fairly plain that the reason why this minority was still unsatisfied was a feeling of loyalty to St. Paul, who therefore emphasizes his own satisfaction with the action of the majority, in other words, the "minority" of 2 Corinthians is most probably to be identified with the "party of Paul" of I Corinthians. This conclusion is supported by the fact that St. Paul says nothing at all about the justice of the sentence, but only defends its adequacy (IK a vov TM rotour^, jc.r.X.). No one, then, denied that it was just, but there were those who doubted that it was adequate. Finally, the 172 CORINTH (contrariwise) is only intelligible if we suppose that those of whom St. Paul is speaking did not propose to adopt a forgiving attitude. Thus the most straightforward exegesis of this passage is that the minority were the Pauline party, who thought that their master's position demanded a severer sentence than that which the majority had inflicted. On the sup- position that 2 Cor. x.-xiii. does not belong to 2 Cor. i.-ix., but is really part of the severe letter, which helped to bring about that state of feeling in the community which led up to the general condemnation of the offender and his punish- ment by the vote of the majority, there is no difficulty in accepting this exegesis. On the other hand, it is almost impossible of acceptance by those who reject the partition theory, and regard 2 Cor. x.-xiii. as addressed to a still rebellious minority. They are forced to adopt the view that the majority, not the minority, were the party of St. Paul, that the "you" spoken of directly after "the majority ' ( ... 77 iTnrtjuio 17 VTTO T&V ir\f tovaiv, wore v/uae, K.r.X., 2 Cor. ii. 6 f.) is to be identified with, not distinguished from the majority, and that when St. Paul said that the sentence was sufficient, he meant that the majority (thus identified with the "you") might now be content to forgive the offender, as the minority wished them to do. This exegesis seems in several points unnatural and forced : it is, however, perhaps not absolutely inadmissable, and is probably the only possible view if 2 Cor. x.-xiii. be regarded as directed against a rebellious minority. It is perhaps not unfair to point out that it is an indirect argument of considerable value in favour of the " partition theory " that it enables a natural and easy exegesis to be SUMMARY 173 given in so many places which are obscure and difficult on any other hypothesis. It is now possible to piece together the result's of this examination of single problems, and by using the results which seem most probable, either in themselves or in relation to other points, to give a connected description of the course of events from the sending of I Corinthians to the second mission of Titus with 2 Cor. i.-ix. Soon after i Corinthians had been sent, Timothy re- joined St. Paul, and reported the result of his mission and the general condition of the community at Corinth. It was not a pleasing story which he had to tell : the partizanship, which "those of Chloe" had mentioned, instead of dis- appearing had increased ; there was an open hostility to St. Paul's personal authority ; possibly the case of incestuous marriage continued to be a scandal, and the disagreements which had led to litigation continued. It was plain that energetic measures were called for, and St. Paul went over to Corinth as soon as he could find an opportunity that is to say, probably within two or three days. Even this failed : the Corinthians would not listen, and St. Paul, seeing that he was doing no good, and probably also knowing that he was needed in Ephesus, went back, declaring that if he came again he would not spare, but would adopt strong measures. At Ephesus he penned a severe letter, of which 2 Cor. x.-xiii. is the latter portion, and asked Titus to take it, and at the same time to try to bring the Corinthians to a better state of mind. Titus went, and the combination of his words with St. Paul's letter was successful. A general meeting of the community was held, and St. Paul's authority was recognized. It was agreed that the offending member, 174 CORINTH who was the cause of the trouble, was to be condemned, but there was a difference of opinion as to the punishment which should be meted out to him. In the end, however, the majority inclined to mildness, leaving a minority still demanding severer measures, or at all events not prepared to treat the offender with friendliness. This was no doubt lamentable, but there can be no doubt but that in the main the situation had been enormously improved, and that Titus' mission and the " severe letter " had been completely justified by their results. Titus, therefore, left Corinth to return to St. Paul. In the meantime St. Paul had left Asia possibly we ought to put, at this point, the uproar in connection with Demetrius and the worshippers of Artemis and made his way first to Troas, and afterwards to Macedonia. Here Titus found him, and relieved his fears by his favourable report. Immediately he wrote 2 Cor. i.-ix., and sent Titus once more back to Corinth with it, to urge his over-zealous friends to forgive the offender, and also to pick up the threads of the organization for the "collection for the saints," which the troubles in the Church had broken off. St. Paul himself was busy in the work for this collection in Macedonia, and he hoped that Titus would act as his representative in Achaia, to work up the methods which he had suggested in i Cor. xvi. i ff., so that when he reached Corinth himself there would be no further delay. To complete the story we must turn to Acts xx. 3. From this we learn that St. Paul reached Corinth in the winter, and that he stayed there three months. He intended to sail thence to Syria, but at the last moment a plot was laid against him by the Jews, and he returned through Mace- donia. What was this plot ? Was it entirely apart from THE PROBLEMS AT CORINTH 175 the previous troubles in the Church ? We are absolutely ignorant, and with this sinister episode the curtain falls on the Christian community at Corinth, not to rise again until forty years later, when fresh quarrels drew forth remon- strances from the Church at Rome in what we usually call the First Epistle of Clement. Here, then, we have the skeleton of the story of St. Paul and the Corinthians : to clothe it with flesh it is now neces- sary to consider the real nature of the problems raised by the Corinthians in I Corinthians, and the character of the opposition to St. Paul which is revealed in 2 Corinthians. IV. THE PROBLEMS OF THOUGHT AND PRACTICE REVEALED BY THE EPISTLES. These problems may in general be described as being concerned with the questions put before St Paul by the Corinthians. We have to ask in each case, why such questions were raised, and to deal with the much-disputed question of the nature of the opposition to St. Paul. The points at issue may conveniently be divided into the following classes : (1) Sexual questions. (2) Questions relating to Inspiration by the Holy Spirit. (3) The Resurrection of the Dead. (4) The opposition to St. Paul. The second of these headings covers three of the ques- tions put to St. Paul as to things offered to idols, as to 1 76 CORINTH spiritual gifts, and as to the arrangement of worship, includ- ing the Eucharist but they are all so closely connected by the idea of inspiration, that they are best treated together. (i) SEXUAL QUESTIONS. Nothing is more natural than that questions of sexual morality should be important in Corinth, 1 for it was famous both for the opportunities which it afforded for every sort of immorality, and for the manner in which these were brought into connection with cultus (especially in the worship of Aphrodite) of an originally Oriental and frequently obscene nature. Thus it is not strange that we find the Epistles revealing a series of practical problems connected with sex, and pointing to the existence of two divergent lines of thought, one ascetic and the other libertine. These practical problems may be divided into two classes, relating to fornication and to marriage ; and the latter subdivided into the questions of (a) Marriage in general. (/3) Divorce ; (7) Re-marriage ; (8) Virgins. Fornication. In three places in i Corinthians St. Paul deals with the question of fornication: i Cor. v. 1-13 ; vi. 12- 20 ; x. 8. In the first of these three he is dealing with a special case, which would apparently be more correctly described as incest. What exactly it was is a problem which belongs 1 It is perhaps scarcely necessary to point out that the Corinth of the first century is not the original Greek city. This was destroyed by Mummius in 146 B.C., and it remained for a long time in ruins and deserted. It was rebuilt about a century later by Julius Caesar, under the name of Laus Julia Corinthus, as a Roman colony, and in 27 B.C. became the capital of the pro- vince of Achaia under a Proconsul. See further, W. M. Ramsay on "Corinth " in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, and J. Weiss on Griechenland in des Apostolische Zeit in Herzog's Realencyclop&die, ed. 3, vol. vii., pp. 160-168. The latter gives a valuable series of references to other books and authorities. FORNICATION 177 rather to the exegesis of the Epistle ; it is not for our pur- pose very important. In the second and third, however, he speaks generally, and it is clear that fornication was really a serious evil in the Christian community. The problem for us is to understand how this can have been the case. It is obviously not simply an instance of human weakness ; but that the Corinthians really had a low standard of morality on the subject, and defended their practices as not incompatible with Christianity. The solution is to be found in I Cor. vi. 12 and x. 8. On the one hand, some of the Corinthians had argued that " all things were lawful," and that fornication is as much a purely physical, morally indifferent action as eating and drinking are. This is clearly the background of the argu- ment, " Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats," which is probably a reference to, if not a quotation from, the statements of the Corinthians. St. Paul combats this argument, and maintains the permanence of the " body," as against the impermanence of the "belly" (i Cor. vi. 13 ff.). The whole contention of St. Paul is only intelligible if we grasp the fact that he is reasoning with people who say, " The body does not matter : what we eat and drink does not affect the soul : and the same thing is true of all physical functions." 1 A slightly different, but cognate point of view is revealed by i Cor. x. 8. Here St. Paul is speaking primarily of things offered to idols, and chapter x. is explicable only if we see that it is a warning against the view that Christians 1 It is worth noting in this connection that this sort of argument, or rather the necessity for meeting it, was one of the reasons why early Christianity was so anxious to hold the doctrine of a resurrection of the flesh. The opposite view was frequently connected with a low standard of morality. A study of Athenagoras is instructive on this subject. N 1 78 CORINTH are safe because they have been initiated into the Christian mysteries. St. Paul combats this view by showing that safety was not obtained by the Israelites, who were the types of Christians, although they also had, typically, enjoyed the mysteries of Baptism and the Eucharist. Therefore, he argues, we must avoid the things which, as the history of the " types " shows, can be fatal to us as they were to them. The importance of these facts, simple and short though their description may be, is considerable. They are the proof that over against a scrupulous and ascetic party there was another which went to the other extreme, regarding the Christian as a " spiritual " person, who by initiation into the mysteries was raised above carnal considerations, and could not be affected by anything which he did with his body. To modern minds there is something extraordinary in the suggestion that the spiritual freedom of the Christian could be so extended. But it must be remembered that the Graeco-Roman point of view was quite different. Not only was fornication for men considered a matter of small or no importance, but it actually was regarded in some cases as possessing a religious value. The prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite at Corinth were not, in their own opinion, immoral ; nor were they influenced by immoral motives, but by a religious impulse. Corruptio optimi pessima ; and it is in the twentieth century, in the West of Europe, difficult to realize the possibility of a religious impulse expressing itself in immoral acts, but the fact is nevertheless indisputable that it has formerly done so. The point is that cultus the ritual expression of religious impulse is not a measure of religion only, but also of other elements in the nature of PRIMITIVE RELIGION 179 the person who is trying to express this impulse. Go back two thousand years and you will find that the nature of many men was such that they attempted to express, and to stimulate, 1 their religious life by sexual excesses : or, if you will travel in space instead of in time, the same thing can be found to-day in Africa, or even in some of the lower Indian cults. Go back still further in time, or penetrate to still lower depths of primitive human nature, as it still survives in Africa, and you will find men arousing and satisfying their religious instincts by human sacrifice ; and if you reach to the last depths, you will find that there is a religious basis even to the horrid rites of cannibalism. Primitive man is not only religious, but he is also obscene, cruel, and superstitious, and these evil characteristics always show themselves in combination with his religious rites. Nothing comes out more clearly in the history of re- ligions, than that religion, in the attempt to work out forms of worship, has had to deal with three enemies cruelty, obscenity, and superstition. The first of these had been practically conquered, for civilized nations, before our era ; the conquest of the second was the especial task of primitive Christianity. It was necessary for the Church, which inherited the high moral standard of Jewish cultus, to fight over again in the West the battle for a pure worship, which the prophets of Israel had won for the Jews six hundred years before. The struggle is so remote from our generation, that it is hard to realize that our forefathers had to fight hard to prevent Christian culture from becoming corrupted, but clear traces of the struggle can be found in the Apocalypse, 1 The two things always go together : cultus was defined above as "the ritual expression of religious impulse." It might equally well be called the " ritual stimulation of the religious impulse." i8o CORINTH in Jude, in 2 Peter, in Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alex- andria, Epiphanius, the Pistis Sophia, and minor authorities. In all of them we can see the struggle against various forms of obscene heresies, 1 and only when we realize how wide- spread these heresies were, can we understand how it is that Justin Martyr, while repudiating the charges of immoral feasts, admits that they may be based on the deeds of heretical Christians who bring discredit on a name which they have no right to use, just as false philosophers bring discredit on philosophy. 2 How well Christianity suc- ceeded 3 can be seen by the difficulty which we experience in realizing that the task ever existed, and part of the importance of I Corinthians is that it gives us a glimpse of the beginning of the struggle. Marriage. (a.) Marriage in General. As to marriage itself, it is not difficult to see the background from which the questions, which St. Paul answers, must have arisen. Some of the Corinthians were opposed altogether to mar- riage (cf. I Cor. vii. i, 2) ; and some were anxious to deprive it of any sexual significance (cf. I Cor. vii. 3-7). Yet there was no unanimity on the question, and therefore it was necessary to consult St. Paul, who adopted the inter- mediate position of recognizing the propriety of marriage, and that in the fullest sense, though he recommended the 1 Few people are aware of the horrible nature of the ritual practices of some of the Gnostics. The description, for instance, of the Carpocratians in Clement of Alexandria, or some of the allusions in the Pistis Sophia, would be wholly untranslatable. - Justin, I. Apol. 26. 3 It would of course be unfair to say that it was only the Church which made the attempt. Many of the Cynic-Stoic philosophers preached an ethical gospel of the highest kind, and no doubt their efforts did much good. Still, in the end, they ceased to exist, and the Church survived. In this sense the triumph of higher morality was the triumph of Christianity. MARRIAGE 181 ascetic life to those who could endure it, whether married or unmarried. To reconstruct with precision the arguments of the ascetic party is impossible, but we shall probably not be wrong in holding that two considerations played the main part. In the first place, there was the feeling that the " time was short," and that the Kingdom of God would belong to those who " neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels." x This view was very strong in early Christianity, and in some circles was carried so far as to exclude the permanence of sex in the kingdom. It is possible that some of St. Paul's own teaching may have been interpreted in this way. When, for instance, he said that in " Christ Jesus there was neither male nor female," 2 the conclusion might be drawn that he meant that sex would not exist in the Kingdom. 3 This is also the view which probably lies behind the apocryphal saying of Christ in II. Clement 12, "For the Lord Himself being asked by some one, when His kingdom should come, said. When the 1 Matt. xxii. 30 = Mark xii. 25 = Luke xx. 34 ff. It is true that this phrase is actually connected in St. Mark with the resurrection, not with the Kingdom, but only because the resurrection is, for the dead, the means of entry into the Kingdom. It is instructive to note how St. Luke's version of the section is really intended to bring out this fact : " The sons of this world (cuwvos) marry and arc given in marriage, but they who are permitted to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, for neither can they die any more, for they are as if angels (ibs iSuv d5eA.<>V olSfv jvw]j.r\v gins, I have no command- St St'Se iAcij/itvoe virb ment of the Lord, but I give Kvptov TTiaToq dvat. Nfyw my judgment as one that ovv TOVTO Ku\bv vTTupytiv Sta hath obtained mercy of the rr)v tvtaT&aav avajKujv, on Lord to be faithful. I think, KaXbv avOptoTTty TO ovTwg eivai. therefore, that this is good, <$&ttlXtt yiveaOat, o Ot (ifj.aftTa.viL ' $i 'iaTi\Ktv iv uf avrav t^patot;, /ni) e^ovatav <5t t\fi TOV iciov 8tXi)/j.aro, KU] TOVTO tv ry l$iq KapSia., TIJV savTov irapOtvov, Troii'iati. tuorc KOI 6 TTOIH, Ka O /ULT) not a wife. But even if thou married, thou didst not sin ; and if the virgin married, she did not sin. . . . But if any man think that he is un- seemly towards his virgin, if he be passionate, and ' it must be so,' let him do what he wishes : he doth not sin : let them marry. But he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath determined in his own heart to keep his virgin, shall do well. So that also he that giveth his virgin in marriage, doeth well, and he that giveth her not shall do better." 1 It will be noted that the translation here given departs in three important points from that of the usual English version, (i) The word "daughters" after "virgins," is omitted in vers. 36 ff. (2) viripaKpoQ is translated " passion- ate " instead,of " pass the flower of her age," and is made to apply to the man, not to the virgin. (3) In ver. 38 totrre KO! o yapiZajv is translated " so also he that giveth in marriage," instead of " so both he that giveth in marriage," and it is further suggested in the footnote that ya/xt^tov perhaps means " marries," not " gives in marriage." 1 Or, "so that both he that marrieth his virgin doeth well, and he that marrieth her not, shall do better." 1 86 CORINTH These differences may fairly be said to sum up the problem. The English version, following a tradition, which is at least as old as Chrysostom, conceives that the situation of which St. Paul is speaking is merely that of a father with unmarried daughters, whom he may or may not give in marriage. The suggestion is that the Corinthians were divided in opinion as to whether it was ever desirable to allow daughters to marry, and that St. Paul expressed the opinion that the matter was one for the individual conscience of the father in question, but that the better course, when no scruple was felt, was to prevent marriage. The difficulty of this interpretation is in ver. 36. Here yaudrwaav must mean " let them marry." Who ? The virgin is one of the parties to the marriage, and the natural view is that the man in question is the man who " thinks that he is unseemly x towards his virgin," and that it is he who is vTripa.Kfj.oG. In this case, virepaK/j.og means " over- passionate," taking CIK/J.TJ in the sense, which it has in Con- stitutiones Apostolicae, iii. 2, 2 of passion, not that of youth. Furthermore, the view that viripaKfjLOQ refers to the man is supported by the parallelism of the sentences. i St rig a\ " \ ^ i<^f KO.I ovT(t) otytiAti ytvtauai, t^ovaiav oe e^ti Trtpi TOV iciov OtXtlfjiaToz, etc. It is clear here that there is a correspondence between the two cases, and that the antithesis is between the man " who can " and the " man who cannot." St. Paul is not always is frequently used with a sexual reference. Cf. Rom. i. 27. 2 irf)odarei TOV ^ 5vva.o'6ai Kparfiv Tr\s a/cjuijs firl SfvTfpoya.fj.iav eAde?i/. It is remarkable that virfpaK/j.os is apparently an absolute unique word. VIRGINS 187 attentive to details of style, but the point is certainly not without importance. It is not, however, essential to the argument ; we do not really know what viripaKpos means, and its translation cannot be the real basis of the argument. The main point is that St. Paul says, that under certain circumstances the virgin and some one else may marry ; as the circumstance which he puts in the foreground is the frame of mind of the man whose virgin she is, presumably he is the " some one else." But if it be conceded that yaptiTwaav must mean " let the virgin and ' the man who cannot/ marry," it is plain that the man in question is not the father of the virgin, and that the translation " virgin daughter " must be abandoned. It will presently be shown what the relation between the man and the virgin probably was ; but it is first desirable to consider the question of yaptZit). The difficulty is that the word is not found outside the New Testament. Strictly speaking, it ought to mean, as the old grammarians 1 recognized, "give in marriage," according to the rule by which verbs in -i'o> are causative. But there are many exceptions ; yvwpiZw, for instance, means " I know," tATn'^w means " I hope," xp<> v i%<*>, " I tarry," u/3/ot'^w, " I insult," etc. Some of these words are, indeed, possibly not degenerated causatives, but doublets formed by a false analogy from aorists in -t' larlay ical irpoto-rdfjitvoi Saiftova alrbv KO.\ iffndropa. The fullest note on the subject will be found in Lietzmann's Commentary on I Corinthians, p. 124. 200 CORINTH to idols. 1 The strict school argued that to eat things offered to idols was a form of idolatry, and dangerous because of the daemons. 2 The " enlightened " school argued that idols had no real existence, that the food was not really affected by being consecrated to the non-existent, and therefore that it really did not matter if Christians bought it in the market, or took part in meals at which it was eaten. But besides this the " enligntened " school also argued that, even admitting the possible influence of con- secrated food on others, they were themselves safe because through the Christian Mysteries they had gained the pro- tection of a higher power. This argument is implied by i Cor. x., where St. Paul retorts that they are no more safe than were the Israelites, the type of the Christians. The Israelites had all received the types of Baptism and Eucharist, in the crossing of the Red Sea, in the feeding 1 This much is clear from i Corinthians on any hypothesis. The difficul- ties in the section I Cor. viii. i x. 33, are not in seeing what were the different points of view among the Corinthians, but in answering the questions (i) Did St. Paul deal with both of them at the same time ? or did he, as J. Weiss thinks (see p. 123), deal with one in the " previous letter," and the other later on in consequence of a misunderstanding of his advice ? (2) Can the point of view of St. Paul in viii. 1-13 be regarded as really consistent with that in x. 20 ? Personally, I doubt if it can ; but complete consistency is never reached by any one. The solution to the difficulty is psychological, not literary. 2 There is a constant confusion of thought in early Christian thought as to idols. On the one hand, there was the argument, derived from the Jewish prophets, that an idol was only an image made by man, and wholly powerless, and that the gods of the Greeks were not gods at all, and had no existence in fact. On the other hand, was the identification of the gods with daemons and fallen angels, and the belief that in some way these daemons were connected with the images of the gods and with the temples. A very instructive passage is Ps. Apuleius, Asclepius, xxxvii.: " Quoniam ergo proavi nostri multum errabant . . . invenerunt artem qua efficerent deos, cui inventae adjunxerunt virtutem de mundi natura convenientem eamque miscentes, quoniam animas facere non poterant, evocantes animas daemonum vel angelorum, eas indiderunt imagi- nibus sanctis divinisque mysteriis, per quas idola et benefaciendi et male vires habere potuissent." THINGS OFFERED TO IDOLS 201 on manna in the wilderness, and in drinking from the rock. Nevertheless, they fell, and the fall should be an example to Christians not to commit the same mistakes. The whole of this section in its context is only intelligible as directed against the argument that those who have been initiated into the Christian Mysteries may safely do anything they like, they have attained safety (o-(orj/('a) , which was the object of all the Mysteries. This difference of opinion between two parties in Corinth is clearly reflected in St. Paul's advice, and ex- plains its strange turns and apparent inconsistencies. This is especially marked in I Cor. x. 14 ff. Here St. Paul is conceding to the scrupulous party the correctness of their objection to idolatry ; but he is thinking all the time of the effect his words will have on the party of freedom, and therefore he turns to them and invites them to consider accurately the exact force of his admission. 1 He quite accepts the propositions of the party of freedom that an idol is nothing, and that food sacrificed to idols has no especial value, but he does admit, as a concession to the scrupulous, that the sacrificial meals do contain the possibility of " infection " from daemons. The position is not wholly logical, for the Christian word tiSwXoOurov, as compared with the true Greek phrase hpoBvrov or OtoOvrov, implies the view that the heathen gods are illusions with- out any real existence. But this sort of inconsistency is common to humanity. All of us must be aware that on many points our position is a wholly illogical combination 1 J. Weiss sees no difference between jjjul and \fyta. Surely this is inaccu- rate ; of course, fyr\ffl and cpcwl are neutral expressions, but I suggest that > atpt tpoiTwfj.fi'ov, f1 ; ua. The irvfvna.TtK6s, himself inspired, is here appealing to the Spirit to restore a corpse. The train of thought is not perfectly logical, but there is not much doubt as to what it was. ' Dial. c. Tryph., 82. 204 CORINTH Apology he explains that prophets are those " through whom the prophetic Spirit has foretold the future." x In the same way the prophetic speaker in the Odes of Solo- mon says, " As the hand plays on the harp, and the strings sound, so speaks the Spirit of the Lord in my members." z In the same way Epiphanius tells us that Montanus 3 claimed that he was used by the spirit as a man plays on the lyre, and the same image is found in Ps. Justin's Cohortatio ad Gentes, " The divine ' plectrum ' comes down from heaven, using righteous men as a harp or lyre in order to reveal to us the knowledge of divine and heavenly things." 4 But this belief that divine spirits spoke through men was not specifically Jewish or Christian : men like Apol- lonius of Tyana or Alexander of Abonoteichos were regarded not as exceptionally gifted men, but as men through whom the god spoke. The prophet was the instrument by which God revealed Himself. It was naturally only a step further to confuse the inspired person with the divine spirit, and so reach the Greek concept of the Btiog avBpwrrog. Thus the language of these inspired persons was not ordinary language. Sometimes it was intelligible, and sometimes it was unintelligible ; in the former case it was prophecy, in the latter glossolalia. The difference between glossolalia and prophecy was only that glossolalia was unintelligible ; it was a language which could only be understood by those to whom the Spirit gave the power of interpreting it. The picture of glossolalia given by St. 1 Apol. I. 31. 2 Odes of Solomon, 6. 3 Epiph., Haer. 48, 4 : 6 foBponros ixrel \vpa, Kayla e^i-nra/jtau affel irXriKTpov. 6 &vdptaitos Koifj.ontu, Kayw yprjyopu ' ISuv Kvptos fffriv 6 li