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 ^-f 10 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 Only a few words seem necessary by way of preface to the 
 i following translation. It was begun towtirds the close of 
 ^ 1840; but early in the present year the Translator having 
 requested Dr. Neander to favoui* him with any corrections 
 or additions which he might have made to the second edition 
 ^(published in 1838), was informed, in reply, that a third 
 p edition was passing through the press: at the same time, an 
 .^ offer was most kindly made of forwarding the proof-sheets, 
 -<by which means the translation will appear within a few 
 _ weeks after the original, in its most approved form. 
 ^ It may be proper to state, that there were circumstances 
 'which rendered it desirable that as little delay as possible 
 should occm* in the preparation of the English work. This 
 ^ demand for expedition may have perhaps occasioned more 
 /) inadvertencies than the modicum of negative reputation 
 ' allotted to literary workmanship of this kind can well afford. 
 . The Translator trusts, however, that he has, on the whole, 
 < succeeded in giving a tolerably correct representation of the 
 ■ original, though, had time been allowed for a more careful 
 ' revision, several minor blemishes might have been removed, 
 . and the meaning of some passages have been mox'e distinctly 
 1 brought out. 
 
 The Author's great and long-established reputation as an 
 - Ecclesiastical Historian, would render it unnecessary, even if 
 not somewhat unseemly, to usher in this work with a 
 lengthened descant on its merits. The impartial and earnest 
 hiquirer after truth will not fail to be delighted with the 
 marks it everywhere presents of unwearied research, extended 
 views, and profound piety. No one would regret more than 
 the excellent author, if the freedom of his inquiries should 
 give pain to any of his Chi'istian brethren ; still his motto 
 must be, "Amicus Socrates, magis arnica Veritas.'* He ia 
 completely at issue with the advocates of certain views which 
 
 ■^' ;"*•* '■ -"• -'••i. "^ ■ »
 
 IV TRAA'SLATORS PREFACE. 
 
 have lately been gaining a disastrous prevalence in this 
 country. The decided terms in which he asserts the noble 
 equality and brotherhood of Christian raen, in opposition to 
 the anti-christian tenet of a priesthood, in the sense not of 
 rehgious instructors, but of exclusive conveyers of super- 
 natural influence, ^ will be little rehshed by those who would 
 attempt to share the incommunicable prerogatives of the 
 " one Mediator." But, as Dr. N. justly remarks in one of 
 his earlier communications (for all of which the Translator is 
 glad of an opportunity to express his heartfelt gi'atitude,) 
 " the gospel itself rests on an immovable rock, while human 
 systems of theology are everywhere undergoing a piu-ifying 
 process, 1 Cor. iii. 12, 13. We live in the time of a great 
 
 CRISIS ! " 
 
 This translation has been prepared at a distance from those 
 helps which would have been within my reach at an earlier 
 pei'iod, and soon after a change of residence had separated me 
 from three friends especially, with whom most of the im- 
 portant topics in these volumes had been submitted to frequent 
 and earnest discussion. Without the formality of a dedica- 
 tion, my sense of the value of their friendship prompts me to 
 make this allusion, which is connected with some of my most 
 pleasing recollections. I wish also to express my obligations 
 to Dr. Edward Michelson, of the University of Leipzig, who 
 not only gave up his intention of publishing a translation of 
 this work, on being informed that I was engaged in a similar 
 undertaking, but most readily favoured me with his opinion 
 on various passages during the preparation of the manuscript. 
 I have received, too, from a friend of Dr. Neander, with 
 whose name I am not acquainted, the results of a very careful 
 examination of the first six proof-sheets, which I gratefully 
 acknowledge, and only regret that the whole work could not 
 be submitted to his review previous to publication. 
 
 (1) By no writers has this error heen more ably exposed than by Archbishop 
 Whately and Dr. Arnold ; by the former, in "The Errors of Romanism traced to their 
 origin in human nature;" and by the latter, in the introduction to a volume of dis- 
 courses, lately published on " the Christian Life." — " To revive Christ's church is to 
 expel the antichrist of priesthood, which, as it was foretold of him, ' as God, aitteth in 
 the temple of God, showhig himself that he is God;' and to restore its disfranchised 
 members, the laity, to the discharge of their proper duties In it, and to the conscious- 
 ness of their paramount importance," p. 52. 
 
 J. E. R 
 
 Northampton, November 2, 1S41.
 
 TO THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 DR. F. EHRENBERG, 
 
 ROYAL CHAPLAIN, MEMBER OP THE SUPREME CONSISTORY, 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 My deeply revered and tery dear Friend, 
 
 I trust you will receive this work with all its defects as the 
 offering of a sincere heart ; as a small token of my cordial vene- 
 ration and love, and of that sincere gratitude which I have long 
 felt impelled to express, for the edification 1 have derived from your 
 discourses. May a gracious God long allow you to labour and shine 
 among us for the welfare of his church, with that holy energy which ho 
 has bestowed upon you, with the spirit of Christian wisdom and freedom, 
 the spirit of true freedom exalted above all the strife of human parties, — 
 which the Son of God alone bestows, and which is especially requisite 
 for the guidance of the church in our times, agitated and distracted as 
 they are by so many conflicts ! This is the warmest wish of one who 
 with all his heart calls himself yours. 
 
 Thus I wrote on the 22d of May, 1832, and after six years I again 
 repeat with all my heart, the words expressive of dedication, of grati- 
 tude, and of devout wishes to the Giver of all perfect gifts. Since that 
 portion of time (not unimportant in our agitated age) has passed away, 
 1 have to thank you, dear and inmostly revered Man, for many im- 
 portant words of edification and instruction, which I have received from 
 your lips in public, as well as for the precious gift ' which has often ad- 
 ministered refreshment to myself and others. Yes, with all my heart 
 I agree with those beautiful sentiments which form the soul of your 
 discourses, and bind me witli such force to your person. God grant 
 that we may ever humbly and faithfully hold fast the truth which does 
 not seek for reconciliation amidst contrarieties, but is itself unsought 
 the right mean ! God grant (what is far above all theological disputa- 
 tions,) that the highest aim of our labours may be to produce the image 
 of Christ in the souls of men, — that to our latest breath we may keep 
 this object in view without wavering, fast bound to it in true love, each 
 one in his own sphere, unmoved by the vicissitudes of opinion and the 
 collisions of party ! 
 
 Let me add as a subordinate wish, that you would soon favour us 
 with a volume of discourses, to testify of this "one thing that is 
 needful." A. Neander. 
 
 Berlin, SOth May, 1838. 
 
 From the fulness of my heart I once more repeat the wishes and 
 thanks before expressed, and rejoice that it is in my power to dedicate 
 the third edition of this work to you, my inmostly dear and revered 
 friend. A. Neander. 
 
 Berlin, 2d August, 1841. 
 
 (1) Alluding probably to a volume uf S-rmons already published.— Ta.
 
 Vi PREFACE TO VOL. 1. 
 
 PREFACE TO VOLUME I. OF THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 It was certainly my intention to have allowed my representation o; 
 the Christian religion and church in the apostolic age to follow the 
 completion of the whole of my Church History, or at least of the greater 
 part of it ; but the wishes and entreaties of many persons, expressed 
 both in writing and by word of mouth, have prevailed upon me to alter 
 my plan. Those, too, who took an interest in my mode of conceiving 
 the development of Christianity, were justified in demanding an account 
 of the manner in which I conceived the origin of this process, on which 
 the opinions of men are so much divided through the conflicting 
 influences of the various theological tendencies in this critical period of 
 our German Evangelical church ; and perhaps, if it please God, a 
 thoroughly matured and candidly expressed conviction on the subjects 
 here discussed, may furnish many a one who is engaged in seeking, 
 with a connecting link for the comprehension of his own views, even if 
 this representation, though the result of protracted and earnest inquiry, 
 should contain no new disclosures. 
 
 As for my relation to all who hold the conviction, that faith in Jesus, 
 the Saviour of sinful humanity, as it has shown itself since the first 
 founding of the Christian church to be the fountain of divine life, will 
 prove itself the same to the end of time, and that from this faith a new 
 creation will arise in the Christian church and in our part of the world, 
 which has been preparing amidst the storms of spring — to all such 
 persons I hope to be bound by the bond of Christian fellowship, the 
 bond of " the true Catholic Spirit," as it is termed by an excellent 
 English theologian of the seventeenth century. ^ But I cannot agree with 
 the conviction of those among them who think that this new creation 
 will be only a repetition of what took place in the sixteenth or seven- 
 teenth century, and that the whole dogmatic system, and the entire 
 
 (1) We meet with a beautiful specimen of such a spirit in what has been admi- 
 rai)ly said by a respected theologian of the Society of Friends, Josepk John Gurney ; 
 " It can scarcely be denied, that in that variety of administration, through which the 
 saving principles of religion are fur the present permitted to pass, there is much of a 
 real adaptation to a cnrresponding variety of mental condition Well, therefore, may 
 we bow with thankfulness before that infinite and unsearchable Being, who in all our 
 weakness follows us with his love, and through the diversified mediums of religion to 
 which the several classes of true Christians are respectively accustomed, is still 
 pleased to reveal to tlieni all the same crucified Redf<;raer, and to direct their footsteps 
 into one path of obedience, holmess and peace." See Observations on the distin- 
 guishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends, by Joseph John Gurnej', ed. 
 vii. London, 1834. Words fit to shame theologians who are burning with zeal for the 
 letter and forms, as if on these depended the essence of religion, whose life and spirit 
 are rooted in facta.
 
 PREFACE TO VOL. I. VU 
 
 mode of contemplating dhine and human things/ must return as it 
 then existed. 
 
 On this point, I assent with my whole soul to what my deeply revered 
 and beloved friend, Steudel, lately expressed, so deserving of consi- 
 deration in our times, and especially to be commended to the attention 
 of our young theologians.* He admirably remarks, " But exactly this 
 and only this, is the preeminence of the one truth, that it maintains its 
 triumphant worth under all changes of form ;" and Niebuhr detected 
 in the eagerness to restore the old, an eagerness for novelty ; " When 
 the novelty of a thing is worn away by use, we are prone to return to 
 the old, which then becomes new again, and thus the ball is thrown 
 backwards and forwards."^ 
 
 In truth, whatever is connected with the peculiarities of the forms of 
 human cultivation, as these change, goes the way of all flesh ; but the 
 AVord of God, which is destined by a perpetual youthfulness of power to 
 make all things new — abides for ever. Thus the diflerence existing 
 between these persons and myself, will certainly show itself in our con- 
 ception of many important points in this department of history, but in 
 my judgment these diflerences are only scientific, and ought not to 
 disturb that fellowship which is above all science. But I can also 
 transport myself to the standing-point of those to whom these objects 
 must appear in a different light ; for the rise of such differences is in 
 this critical period unavoidable, and far better than the previous 
 indifference and lifeless uniformity. And even in zeal for a definite 
 form, I know how to esteem and to love a zeal for the essence which 
 lies at the bottom,* and I can never have anything in common with 
 those who will not do justice to such zeal, or, instead of treating it with 
 the respect that is always due to zeal and affection for what is holy, 
 with Jesuitical craft aim at rendering others suspected, by imputing to 
 them sinister motives and designs. 
 
 It was not my intention to give a complete history of the Apostolic 
 
 (1) Well might the noble words of Luther be applied to those who cling to the old 
 rotten posts of a scaffolding raised by human hands, as if they were needed for the 
 divine building. " When at a window I have gazed on the stars of heaven, and the 
 whole beautiful vault of heaven, and saw no pillars on which the builder had set such 
 a vault; j-et the heavens fell not in ; and that vault still stands firm. Now there are 
 simple folk who look about for such pillars, and would fain grasp and feel them. But 
 since they cannot do this, they quake and tremble, as if the heavens would certainly 
 fall in, and for no other reason than because they cannot grasp or see the pillars ; i( 
 they could but lay hold of them, then the heavens (they think) would stand firm 
 enough." 
 
 (2) In the Tubingen Zeitschrift fiir Theolofjie, 1832, part i. p. .33. Blessed be 
 the memory of this beloved man, who left this world a few months ago, and is no 
 longer to be seen in the holy band of combatants for that evangelical truth which was 
 the aim, the centre, and the soul of his whole life, and the firm anchor of his hope in 
 death, when he proved himself to be one of those faithful teachers of whom it may 
 be said — " whose faith folio ir, considering the end of their conversation." 
 
 (3) One of the many golden sentences of this great man in his letters, of which we 
 would recommend the second volume especially to all young theologians. 
 
 (4) Provided it be the true zeal of simplicity, which accompanies humility, and 
 where sagacity does notpredominate over simplicity ; but by no means that zeal which, 
 in coupling itself with the modern coxcombry of a super-refined education, endeavours 
 to season subjects with it to which it is least adapted, in order to render them 
 palatable to the vitiated taste that loathes a simple diet ; and thus proves its own un- 
 soundness. A caricature jumble of the most contradictory elements, at which every 
 sound feeling must revolt.
 
 VIU PREFACE TO VOL. II. 
 
 age, but only what the title, advisedly selected, indicates. I have pre- 
 fixed to it the Introduction from the first volume of my Church 
 History, reserving the f icasting of the whole work for a new edition, 
 ghould God permit. 
 
 In reference to the arrangement of the whole plan, and the mutual 
 relation of the parts of the representation, I must beg the reader 
 to suspend his judgment awhile, till the completion of the whole by the 
 publication of the second part. 
 
 It will be my constant aim to carry on to its conclusion the whole of 
 the work I have undertaken on the history of the Church, if God con- 
 tinue to grant me strength and resolution for the purpose. Meanwhile, 
 a brief compendium of Church History on the principles of my arrange- 
 ment, but enriched with literary notices, will be published. My dear 
 friend. Professor Rheinwald, of Bonn, having been prevented by his new 
 duties from executing this work, it has been undertaken at my request 
 by another of my friends, Mr. Licentiate Vogt,' already favourably 
 known to the theological public by his share in editing the Homilarium, 
 and still more commended to the public favour by his literary labours 
 on the Pseudo-Dionysius, and the Life and Times of Qerson, Chancellor 
 of Paris. May he receive from every quarter that public favour and 
 encouragement which his character, acquirements, and performances 
 deserve ! * 
 
 A. Neander. 
 
 Berlin, 29th May, 1832. 
 
 PREFACE TO VOLUME H. OF THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 I HAVE only a few words to say in addition to the Preface of the first 
 volume. The exposition of doctrines which occupies the principal part 
 of the second half of this work, I was obliged to regulate as to quantity 
 by the relation in which this work stands to the general history of the 
 Church, and the proportion which the history of doctrine in the latter 
 bears to the whole. Hence I have been obliged to leave untouched 
 many questions which would occur to the Christian theologian, who 
 develops and elaborates the contents of the sacred records for the use of 
 his own times ; my endeavours have been confined to representing 
 primitive Christianity according to its principal models of doctrine in 
 its historical development. In executing such a work, every man must 
 be influenced by his own religious and doctrinal standing-point, by his 
 views of the doctrines of Christianity, its origin, and its relation to the 
 general development of the human race. On this point no one can 
 
 (1) Now Dr. Vogt, ordinary professor of Theology, and pastor at Greifswald. 
 
 (2) Thii wish for so peculiarly dear a friend, whose personal intercourse, so bene- 
 ficial to iry heart, I no longer enjoy, has been fulfilled. But his multiplied labours 
 wi".l not permit him to accomplish the design mentioned above. Yet if it please God 
 another of my young friends will be found fitted for the task.
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IX 
 
 blame anofiicr for differing from himself; for a purely objective 
 historical work, stripped of all subjectivity in its representation, 
 untinctured by the individual notions of the writer, is an absurdity. 
 The only question is, what point of view in the contemplation of these 
 objects most nearly corresponds to the truth, and from this the clearest 
 conceptions will be formed of the images presented in history. Without 
 renouncing our subjectivity, without giving up our own way of thinking 
 (a thing utterly impossible) to those of others, or rendering it a slave to 
 the dogmas of any school which the petty arrogance of man would set 
 on the throne of the living God, (for this would be to forfeit the divine 
 freedom won for us by Christ,) our efforts must be directed to the 
 constant purification and elevation of our thinking (otherwise subject 
 to sin and error) by the spirit of truth. Free inquiry belongs to 
 the goods of humanity, but it presupposes the true freedom of the 
 whole man, which commences in the disposition, which has its seat in 
 the heart, and we know where this freedom is alone to be found. We 
 know whence that freedom came which by means of Luther and the 
 Reformation broke the fetters of the human mind. We know that 
 those who have this beautiful name most frequently on their lips, often 
 mean by it only another kind of slavery. 
 
 It will now be my most earnest care and greatest satisfaction, 
 to devote the time and strength not employed in my official labours, to 
 the continuation of my History of the Church, to its termination, for 
 which may God grant me the assistance of his Spirit ! , 
 
 A. Neandek. 
 
 Berlin, Oih August, 1S32. 
 
 (GENERAL) PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Having, as I believe, sufficiently explained in my former prefaces 
 the object of this work, and the theological position it takes in relation 
 to other standing-points, I have little more to add. What I have 
 here expressed will serve to rectify several errors which have since been 
 discovered, to pacify, as far as possible, various complaints. Many 
 things indeed find their rectification or settlement only in that 
 constant process of development and purification which is going on 
 in a critical age. There is a fire kindled, which must separate in 
 tlie building that is founded on a rock, the wood, hay and stubble, 
 from what is formed of the precious metals and jewels. There are 
 imaginary wants, which not only I cannot satisfy, but which I do not 
 wish to satisfy. The activity shown of late years, in Biblical inquiries 
 and the kindred branches of history, has enabled me to correct and 
 amplify many parts, and to vindicate others from objections. 
 
 A. Neahdkk. 
 Berlin, ZMh May, 1838.
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 As to what I have said respecting the position I have taken in reference 
 to the controversies which are every day waxing fiercer, and distract an 
 age that longs after a new creation, I can only reassert that, if it pleased 
 God, I hope to abide faithful to these principles to my latest breath ! 
 the ground beneath our feet may be shaken, but not the heavens above 
 ns. We will adhere to that theologia pectoris, which is likewise the 
 true theology of the spirit, the German theology, as Luther calls it. 
 
 The demand for this new edition was a call to improve the work 
 to the utmost of my ability, and to introduce whatever new views 
 appeared to me to be correct. 
 
 Sound criticism on particular points will always be welcome to me j 
 the cavils of self-important sciolists I shall always despise. 
 
 A. Nbanbeb. 
 
 Bermk, tdAugtut, 1341,
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE, PREVIOUS TO ITS SPREAD 
 AMONG HEATHEN NATIONS. 
 
 Chapteb I. — The Christian Church on its First Appearance as a Distinct Religious 
 Community. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preparation for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit 1 — 3 
 
 The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost 3 — 23 
 
 The gift of tongues 7—16 
 
 Peter's discourse and its effects — His call to repentance, faith, and baptism ... 18 — 20 
 
 Chaptek II. — The First Form of the Christian Community, and the First Germ of the 
 
 Constitution of the Christian Church. 
 The formation of a community — One article of faith — Baptism into Jesus as the 
 
 Messiah — Probably only one baptismal formula — Imperfect knowledge and 
 
 mixed character of the first converts 20, 21 
 
 The first form of the Christian community and worship — The Agapee 22 
 
 Community of goods — Influence of Christianity on social relations — Orders of 
 
 monkhood— the St. Simonians 24 — 2r 
 
 The case of Ananias and Sapphira 27, 23 
 
 Adherence to the Temple-worship 28, 29 
 
 The institution of Deacons 30 — 35 
 
 The institution of Presbyters — Originally for the purpose of government rather 
 
 than of instruction 35, 36 
 
 Means of instruction — Teachers; di&aa-KaXia, Trpoi^nTeia, irapaxXnt"? 37, 38 
 
 Gradual transition from Judaism to Christianity 39, 40 
 
 Chapteb III. — The outward Condition of the Primitive Church; Persecutions and 
 their consequences. 
 
 The cure of the impotent man — Peter and John brought before the Sanhedrim — 
 The increase of believers — Peter's address — Gamaliel 41 — 17 
 
 Christianity in direct conflict with Pharisaism — Stephen the forerunner of Paul — 
 His views of Christianity in opposition to the permanence of the Mosaic ritual — 
 His discourse before the Sanhedrim — Martyrdom, and its effects m. 48 — 56 
 
 BOOK n. 
 
 THE FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE CHURCH AT 
 JERUSALEM TO OTHER PARTS, AND ESPECIALLY AMONG 
 HEATHEN NATIONS. 
 
 Samaria — Its religious state — The Goetffi— Simon — Philip's preaching and mira- 
 cles — Simon's baptism — Peter and John sent to Samaria— Pbilip's labours in 
 Ethiopia, &c ^^ ~ ^....^ 57—64
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 Formation of Gentile Churches— Enlarged views of the Apostles produced by in- 
 ternal revelation and outward events 55 gs 
 
 Peter's labours at Lydda and Joppa — Cornelius tne Centurion — A prosejyte of the ' 
 Gate — His prayers and fasting — Vision of an Angel — Peter's vision — His 
 address to Cornelius— The gift of the Holy Spirit bestowed on the Gentile 
 converts _ 66—76 
 
 BOOK m. 
 
 THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY, AND FOUNDING OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 CHURCH AMONG THE GENTILES BY THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF 
 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 
 
 Chapter I. — Paul's Preparation and Call to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. 
 
 Paul's peculiar position in the development of the kingdom ofGod — His parentage 
 and education — His strict legal piety — Compared with Luther 77 — 82 
 
 Paul a zealous persecutor of the Christians — His miraculous conversion — Un- 
 satisfactory explanation on natural principles — Or considered as merely in- 
 ternal — A real appearance of the risen Saviour — Its effects 82 — 90 
 
 Paul preaches the Gospel at Damascus — Goes into Arabia — Return to Damascus 
 — and flight — Visit to Jerusalem — The peculiar development of his religious 
 views — Return to Tarsus 90 — 98 
 
 Chapter II. — The Church at Antioch the Gentile Mother-Church, and its Relation to 
 the Jewish Mother-Church. 
 
 Barnabas at Antioch— The name Christians first given to believers — Contributions 
 from the Church at Antioch to the Church at Jerusalem — Persecution by Herod 
 Agrippa — Paul's visit to Jerusalem — Whethe^• the same as that mentioned in 
 Gal. ii. 1. — Barnabas and Paul sent from Antioch tonreach among the Gentiles 
 
 99—105 
 
 Chapter III. — The Propagation of Christianity from Antioch by Paid and Barnabas. 
 
 Their visit to Cyprus — Conversion of the Proconsul Sergius Paulus — The Goes 
 Barjesus — Antioch in Pisidia — Iconium — Lystra — Cure of the lame man — The 
 Apostles supposed to be Zeus and Hermes — The popular tumult — Their return 
 to Antioch 105—114 
 
 Chapter IV. — The Division between the Jewish and Gentile Christians, and its settle' 
 ment — The independent Development of the Gentile Church. 
 
 Dispute between the Jewish and Gentile Christians respecting Circumcision — 
 Mission of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem — Paul's private conferences with 
 the Apostles — His Apostleship acknowledged — His controversy with the Jewish 
 believers, and oppc-iition to the circumcision of Titus 114 — U6 
 
 The Apostolic Cunoention. — Peter's address — Barnabas and Paul give an account 
 of their success among the Gentiles — Proposal of James — The moderation and 
 conciliatory spirit of Paul and James — Epistle to the Gentile Christians in 
 Syria and Cilicia — Return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch — The important 
 results of this Convention 116 — 128 
 
 Chapter V. — The Constitution of the Church, and the Ecclesiastical Usages of tht 
 Gentile Christians. 
 
 The peculiar nature of the Christian community — all Christians Priests — equally 
 related to Christ— and in a relation of fraternal equality to one another... 128 — 130 
 
 The influence of the Holy Spirit on the varieties of mentjl character and natural 
 endowments — The ideaof Charisms — The giftsof dvud)xt ir, o-ti^eTa, xepara 130 — 132 
 
 I. Charisms or gifts for the miuistry of the ^Vord 132—140
 
 CONTENTS, xiw 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Charisms relatinj; to the government of the Church, nptaPinecoi, iTriaKoitot — 
 Elders or Presbyters, anil Overseers or Bishops, originally :he same— Exclu- 
 sion of females tnim the office of public teaching 140 — 147 
 
 Originally three orders of teachers — Apostles, Evangelists, Teachers— Relation 
 of the last to Elders and Overseers 148—153 
 
 The office of Deaconesses 153, 154 
 
 Ordination — Election to offices 154, 155 
 
 The Christian Worship — Independence of the Mosaic Ritual— Hence no distinc- 
 tion of days — No Christian feasts mentioned by Paul 156 — 158 
 
 Tlie Christian Sabbath — Its special reference to the Resurrection of Christ — No 
 yearly commemoration of the Resurrection 158 — 160 
 
 Baptism — The Formula — Symbolical meaning of the act of submersion and emer- 
 sion — Infant Baptism probably not of apostolic origin — Substitutionary Baptism 
 (note) — The influence of the parental relation on the offspring of Chris- 
 tians lei— ifio 
 
 The Lord's Supper 166 
 
 Advantages and disadvantages of the Gentile Converts^Preparation of mankind 
 for a reception of the Gospel — by a sense of guilt and unliappiness — Its direct • 
 contrariety to Heathenism — Dangers from the corruption of Morals — and from 
 philosophical speculations 166 — 168 
 
 Chapter VI. — Second Missionary Journeij of the Apostle Paul. 
 
 The separation of Paul and Barnabas on account of Mark — Paul and Silas visit 
 Isauria and Pisidia — Meet with Timothy — Phrygia — Galatia — Troas — Philippi 
 — Baptism of Lydia — Persecution — Conversion of the Philippian Gaoler... 168—179 
 
 Paul at Thessalonica — Addresses both Jews and Gentiles — Gains a livelihood by 
 tent-making — His expectations of the near approach of the second coming </€ 
 Christ— Fanatical opposition of the Jews — Proceeds to Bercea 179 — 185 
 
 Paul at Athens — The religious character of the Athenians— Paul disputes with 
 the Philosophers — The relation of the Stoics and Epicureans to Chris- 
 tianity 186—188 
 
 Paul's discourse — His appeal to the religious principle implanted in human 
 nature — The Altar to an unknown God — Polytheism — The one living God — 
 Announcement of a Redeemer — The effect of his discourse — Dionysius the 
 Areopagite — Timothy sent to Thessalonica 188— 19J 
 
 Paul at Corinth — Two chief obstacles to the reception of the Gospel — Fondness 
 for speculation — and for sensual indulgences — Meets with Aquila and Priscilla 
 — The Church formed principally of Gentile converts — The Proconsul Gallic — 
 Paul's labours in Achaia 196 — 201 
 
 Thessalonica — Information of the state of the Church brought by Timothy — The 
 First Epistle to the Thessalonians — Enthusiastic tendencies — A forged epistle 
 — The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians — The signs preceding ;he second 
 coming of Christ — Marks of a genuine epistle 2C2 — 207 
 
 Chapter VII. — The Apostle Paul's Journey to Antioch, and his renewed Missionary 
 Labours among the Heathen. 
 
 Paul's journey to Jerusalem — His vow and ofTeriugin the Temple 207. 208 
 
 Paul at Antioch — His meeting with Barnabas and Peter— His reprimand of 
 Peter — Revival, of the controversy between the Jewish and Gentile 
 Christians 209—21 
 
 Paul visits Phrygia and Galatia 213, 21< 
 
 Paul at Ephesus — His labours first in the synagogue — Then among the G>ntiles 
 — the Jewish Goetae — the disciples of John the Baptist rebaptized 215 — 213 
 
 State of the Galatian Churches — Paul's Epistle to the Galatians written by his 
 own hand — Asserts his independent apostleshiiJ — States the relation of 
 Chrinianity to Judaism and Heathenism — Warns them against seeking for 
 justification by the law — Date of this epistle 219 — 228 
 
 State of the Church at Corinth— Causes uf its disorders ; superficial conversion, 
 general immorality, divisions occasioned by false teachers 227, 226 
 
 Parties in the Corinthian Church— The Petrine— The Pauline— That of Apollo.^ 
 
 —That of Christ < ■J2;.— 24J 
 
 VOL. I. b
 
 jiy CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Disputes in the Corinthian Church — Meat offered in sacrifice to idols — Marriage 
 and celibacy — Litigation in heathen courts of justice — Irregularities at the 
 celebration of the Agapae — Overvaluation of extraordinary gifts— Opposition to 
 the doctrine of the resurrection 241 — 253 
 
 Paul's second visit to Corinth — His last Epistle to the Corinthians 253 — 256 
 
 The First Epistle to the Corinthians — Occasioned by certain questions proposed 
 by the Cliurch. relative to the epistle not now extant — Its contents — On parties 
 — On meat offered to idols — On marriage and celibacy — On slavery — Its 
 date 257—264 
 
 Paul's plans for his future labours — Mission of Timothy to Macedonia and 
 Achaia — Return of Timothy — Titus sent to Corinth — Popular Commotion at 
 Ephesus against Paul — Demetrius — Alexander — The Asiarchs — Paul leaves 
 Ephesus 265—274 
 
 Paul in Macedonia — Titus brings information respecting the Church at Corinth — 
 The Second Epistle to the Corinthians 274 — 278 
 
 Paul in IDyria — In Achaia — His intention of visiting Rome — His Epistle to the 
 Romans — Sent by the deaconess Phoebe — State of the Church at Rome — con- 
 tents of the epistle 278—295 
 
 Chapter VIII. — The fifth and last Journey of Paul to Jerusalem — Its immediate 
 Consequences — His Imprisonment in Palestine. 
 
 Paul at Philippi— Meets the overseers of the Ephesian Church at Miletus — His 
 farewell address 295—300 
 
 Paul's journey to Jerusalem — Ilis conference with James and the elders of the 
 Churcli — His Nazarite's vow — The rage of the Jews — His rescue by the Roman 
 tribune — Ilis appearance before the Sanhedrim 301 — 308 
 
 Paul's imprisonment at Cjesarea — His appearance before Felix — Appeals to 
 Caesar — Address to King Agrippa — Sent to Rome — Duration ol his con- 
 finement SOS- 313 
 
 Chapter IX. — Paul during his first Confinement at Home, and the Development 
 during that period of the Churches fount'.td by him. 
 
 Paul's relation to the Roman State — To the Church at Rome — And to other 
 Churches — His care of the Asiatic Churches — Date of the Epistles to the 
 Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon — Epaphras his fellow-prisoner 314 — 319 
 
 False teaihers at Colossae — Peculiarities of the party — The germ of Judaizing 
 Gnosticism — Allied to the sect ofCerinihus — Paul's Epistle to the Colossians 319 — 328 
 
 Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians — Sent by Tychicus — A general Epistle to the 
 Churches in Lesser Asia 329 
 
 Paul's Epistle to the Philippians 330, .331 
 
 Chapter X. — Paul's Labour! after his Tieleaxc,froiii his first Confinement at Rome, to 
 his Martyrdom. 
 
 Evidence of Paul's release from his first confinement at Rome — Testimony of 
 Clemens of Rome — The Second Epistle to Timothy — Causes of the Neronian 
 persecution 331—337 
 
 Paul's labours after his relea^e — In Ephesus — In Macedonia — The First Epistle 
 to Timotliy — Paul in Crete — The Epistle to Titus — Paul in Nicopolis — In 
 Spain — His Sei'ond imprisonment— The Second Epistle to Timothy — The date 
 of h'S martyrdom — The Epistle to the Hebrews written by an apostolic man of 
 •-tio Pauline Bchool 338—343
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 A REVIEW OF THE LABOURS OF JAMES AND PETER DURlNtt 
 THIS PERIOD. 
 
 Chapter I. — The Character of James — Remarks on his Epistle. 
 
 PAGI 
 
 Wljether he was a brother or only a near relation of the Lord, and identical 
 with the Apostle? Dr. Schneckeiiburger's h)pothesis that there was only one 
 James, examined 349 — 354 
 
 James distinguished by the strictness of his life ; hence called The Just — The 
 testimony of Hegesippus 354 — 356 
 
 His epistle important for illustrating the state of the Jewish Christian churches 
 
 356, 357 
 
 Reasons for believing that it was not written with a reference to Paul's doctrinal 
 views 357—361 
 
 The epistle addressed to churches consisting entirely or chiefly of Jewish 
 believers, mostly poor 362 — 364 
 
 The Christian doctrines imperfectly developed in it — Its importance in connexion 
 with the other writings in the New Testament 365, 368 
 
 The Martyrdom of James 366, 367 
 
 Chapter II. — The Apostle Peter. 
 
 His parentage — Natural character — Call to the apostleship 36S — 372 
 
 His labours in propagating the Gospel 372, 373 
 
 His First Epistle 374, 375 
 
 Probable spuriousness of the Second Epistle 376 
 
 Traditions respecting Peter's martyrdom at Rome 377 — 38J 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 THE APOSTLE JOHN AND HIS MINISTRY AS THE CLOSING POINT 
 OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE. 
 
 His education — Maternal influence— Early piety — General character — Contem- 
 plative yet ardent — His piety moulded by personal intercourse with the 
 
 Saviour 384 — 3B8 
 
 His labours among the churches in Lesser Asia 388, 389 
 
 Errors prevalent in these churches, practical and theoretical — Especially the 
 
 Judaizing — The Antinomian, the anti-Judaizing Gnostic, and the Cerinthian .190 — 394 
 Tradition of John's banishment to Patmos — Authorship of the Apocalypse ...395 — 399 
 
 John's writings — Their general character — His Gospel 399 — 403 
 
 His First Epistle 403—408 
 
 His Second Epistle — Injunctions respecting intercourse with false teachers. ..408, 40!) 
 
 His Third Epistle— Diotrephes 409, 410 
 
 Traditions respecting John's labours preserved by Clemens AJexandrinus and 
 Jerome — The close of the Apostolic Age 411 — 413 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE. 
 
 The living unity of the doctrine of Christ combined with a variety in the forma 
 of its representation — Three leading varieties — The Pauline, the Jacobean 
 (with the intermediate Fetrine), and the Johannean 414
 
 ivi rONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I. — The Pauline Doctrine. 
 
 1. The connexion and contrast of Paul's earlier and later standing-point are con- 
 tained in the ideas of biKatuaiwrt and t/ofxot, which form the central point of 
 his doctrine 41fc 
 
 The (iiKuioffi'.^n of his earlier standing-point depended on the observance of the 
 Mosaic law (vofuKri) — The Christian biKaiaavvt] and ^m)] correlative ideas 417 
 
 'I'he fundamental principle of his late standing-point — No righteousness by the 
 works of the law available before God — No essential distinction between the 
 ritual and moral 4'p7a vof^Lov — The idea of the law as a unity ; an outward rule 
 of action, requiring not effecting obedience — Applicable to the universal law of 
 I onscience 418 
 
 Works the marks of the state of the disposition; but the law can effect nochnnge 
 m the disposition — Hence ep^a. i^o/iou are set in contrast to epya dyaO(i (Eph. 
 ii. lOl 419 
 
 The law not deficient as a. standard of duty 419 
 
 2. The central-point of the Pauline anthropology — Human nature in opposition 
 CD the lais> 
 a. The nature of sin. 
 
 CT(ipf — o-apKiKor — The disunion in human nature not necessary — but 
 
 voluntary and blameworthy 420 
 
 irapKiKor does not import merely the predominance of the senses, or sensual 
 appetite — Sometimes equivalent to i/.ux""'fi i" opposition to the 0iXov izvcvixa ; 
 but sometimes the body as the organ of sinful tendencies 421, 422 
 
 h. Origin of sin and death. 
 
 The consciousness of sin and of the need of redemption presupposed as a 
 universal fact; hence the origin of sin seldom adverted to, but the idea of 
 an original state of perfection, and the voluntary fall of the first man, lies 
 at the basis of Paul's doctrine 422, 423 
 
 The first man not the representative of human nature generally — The 
 origin of sinful desire from apparent guiltlessness (Rom. vii. 9) not referable 
 to Adam 424 
 
 According to Rom. v. 12, the sinful direction of the will was produced by 
 Adam's voluntary act, from original smlessness, and continues itself in the 
 whole development of the race 425, 426 
 
 Through sin death comes upon all men, not by an essential change in the 
 physical organization of man, but in man's view of death — Death appears 
 not as a step in the development of life, but as a consequence of the with- 
 drawraent of the divine lite through sin 427, 428 
 
 c. Suppression by sin of the natural revelation of God. 
 
 The original affinity to God not destroyed but suppressed —The use of the 
 works of creation in awakening the religious sentiment — Religious suscep- 
 tibility injured by sin — the origin of idolatry — Deterioration of man's moral 
 nature, yet the power of convenience not destroyed 428 — 430 
 
 d. The state of disunion. 
 
 Two contending principles in human nature — Spirit and flesh — States of 
 bondage — Either uncunscious, living without law, or conscious, living under 
 the law — Rom. vii. a delineation of both these states, taken from Paul's own 
 experience, but applicable to all mankind 430 — 433 
 
 I, Preparatives for Redemption — Judaism and Heathenism. 
 
 a. Judaism — Preparative in two ways — By awakening an anxiety for redemp- 
 tion, and by pointing to the means by which it would be effected — Only one 
 universal ))urpose of God, who reveals his redeeming grace in its promi.se 
 and its fulfilment — F.iith, one univer.sal condition — The fundamental relation 
 between God and man not altered by the law, which served partly to repress 
 the outhreakings of sin — partly to excite the consciousness of sin 434 435 
 
 b. Heathenism. 
 
 Juil.ii.tm a progressive revelation, but heathenism only a development of 
 nature— Though idolatry suppresyed the original revelation ol God in the
 
 CONTENTS. . xvil 
 
 PAGB 
 
 works of Nature, stil! the law of conscience remained (of which the Mosaic 
 law was a representative), and with that a sense of the need of redemption — 
 Partial fulfilment of the law by heathens 437—439 
 
 e. Hindrances and conditions of salvation in both Jews and Heathens. 
 
 The gross security of heathenism — The legal righteousness of Judaism — 
 The sign-seeking of the Jews, and the wisdom-seeking of the Gentiles — Re- 
 demption the object of the whole history of mankind — Attestations to the 
 imiversal need of redemption in Christ's discourses as recorded in the three 
 first Gospels ~. 439—144 
 
 I. The Work of Redemption. 
 
 A. Its accomplishment by Christ, both actively and passively 444 — 446 
 
 o. The life of Christ exhibits the destruction of sin, and the realization of the 
 law in human nature 446 
 
 6. The sufferings of Christ (constantly to be viewed in connexion with his own 
 life) 446—449 
 
 B. The results of the work of Christ. 
 a. Reconciliation with God. 
 
 The life and sufferings of Christ a revelation of the eternal love of God — 
 Men, once the enemies of God, become through Christ objects of divine 
 love 449, 450 
 
 Possibility of reconciliation as merely subjective — A change in the dispo- 
 sition of man towards God effected by the work of Christ — But even on this 
 supposition the amendment in man is the effect, not the cause of God's love; 
 2 Cor. V. 20 431 
 
 But this view inadequate and untenable— The sense of the wrath of God 
 has an objective basis — A revelation of the divine holiness 452 
 
 The distinction between napea-n and a0eo-ir 453, 454 
 
 The divine holiness revealed in Christ in a twofold manner 454, 455 
 
 6. oVo\i5Tpa)(T(r and <T(</Ttjpt'a, freedom from guilt and punishment; in a wider 
 sense as effected objectively by Christ, and resilized in individuals in a more 
 limited sense 45d 
 
 The Pauline iixaiaxm, like the Jewish, inseparable from a participation in 
 all the privileges of the kingdom of God— but only to be obtained through 
 fellowship with Christ, the only perfect SiKaiov : 
 
 Hence diKcu'oxn? the induction of a believer in Christ into the relation of 
 a dUaiof, SiKaiotTuuTi the appropriation of Christ's righteousness as the 
 objective ground of faith, as well as the subjective principle of life ; hence 
 its necessarily supposed departure from a life of sin, and entrance into the 
 holy life of Christ 456, 457 
 
 I The Appropriation of Salvation by Faith. 
 
 a. The nature of Faith. 
 
 The reception of divine revelation by an internal determination of the 
 will — In this respect, and not in reference to the object, Abraham was a pat- 
 tern of the righteousness that is by faith; Rom. iv. 19 458 
 
 Christian faith modified by its object — A twofold reference to Christ as 
 crucified and risen 459 
 
 ft. niarii the peculiarity of the Christian standing-point, in distincuou from the 
 
 Jewish legal. 
 
 The law requires everything which faith already contains; Rom. x. 5.. 460,461 
 The law is in itself a deadly letter — Tl'.e gospel a life-giving spirit — In the 
 
 believer, the law is not an object merely of knowledge, but of efficient love... 461 
 The law is so far abrogated for believers, that their diKaioavi^t] and fcji; are 
 
 independent of it through faith, from which ^pya dya9a spontaneously 
 
 proceed 462, 463
 
 ^vih CONTENTS. 
 
 p vGir 
 Paul s appeals to the va^or are only to the outward Mosaic law as an 
 
 expression of the eternal law of God 463 
 
 Hence the term vofiot denotes in a more general sense what is common to 
 ooth Judaism and Christianity ; in the one to an outward, in the other to an 
 
 inward law 464, 465 
 
 Under the Jewish ihencracy the service was external, l-v waXaioTiiri 
 "vpfi/Li/uaTot— Under the Gospel internal, ev Kaivornrt vi/evfiaTot — Its dovX^ia 
 identical with vto0€<ria ; the worship of the former aapxiKj;, of the latter 
 TrvivnaTiKt] i in the one was Kara aa-paa, iu the other ev Kupiy 465, 466 
 
 8. The New Life proceeding from Faith. 
 a. The transformation of the sinful nature by the Divine; accomplished gra- 
 dunlly ; the u 'ipf opposed not merely by tlie higher nature of man but by 
 
 the S'piritof Christ (Tri'tDM" ayiov) 467 
 
 All the m"ntal and bodily powers become organs of grace— The Spirit of 
 Christ pervades all the peculiar talents of individuals; hence charisms.. 468,469 
 
 Objective justification as an unchangeable ground of confidence, distin- 
 guished from subjective sanctilication, which is often an uncertain ground... 470 
 
 6. The principles of the new life — Faith, Love, Hope. 
 
 iriVrif sometimes denotes the whole extent of Christian ability — SiVarot 
 rrj ttiarei relates particularly to the judgment formed by the Christian of 
 outward things — Hence proceeds Christian freedom, which is shown even in 
 submitting to outward restraints 471 — 475 
 
 Love the natural effect of faith — By the revelation of the love of God in 
 redemption, love to him is continually kindled 475 
 
 Faith and love partly relate to the kingdom of God as present, but they 
 have also a marked relation to the future, for the new life is in a state of 
 constant progression, it longs after the perfect revelation of the children 
 of God 476—478 
 
 Hence hope necessarily belongs to faith and love — Perseverance in the 
 work of faith is the practical side of hope 479 
 
 The knowledge of divine things proceeds from faith — Proceeds from the 
 spiritual life — Depends on the increase of love — Being necessarily defective 
 in the present state, is connected with the hope of perfect intuition 479, 4S0 
 
 Love the greatest of the three, because it alone abides forever; 1 Cor. 
 xiii. 13 481.482 
 
 c. Special Christian virtues proceeding from Faith, Love, and Hope. 
 
 a. Tnjreiiio(^po<TiJi'n distinguishes the Christian from the Heathen view of 
 the world; only partial even on the Jewish standing-point ; though its direct 
 relation is to God alone, yet its effects are, opposition to all self-exaltation, 
 and moderation towards others 483— 43S 
 
 /3. iTuj^poffPtn, sober-mindedness in conflict with the world, 2 Tim. i. 7; 
 and in self-estimation, Rom. xii. 3 4o 
 
 7. ao<piti — The understanding undei the inlluenre of faith — Wisdom and 
 ppjdence 486, 4-i7 
 
 Analogy 10 the cardinal virtues of heathen philosophers — Love occupies 
 the plate ol iiKatoavvn 487, 488 
 
 T. The Church and Sacraments. 
 
 The immediate relation of each individual to Christ of primary import- 
 ance — Hence the idea of a community founded on the unity of the Holy 
 Spirit in believers, which counterbalances all other differences. Gal. iii. 26. .489, 4B0 
 
 The i«KAn<Tia is the body of Christ— Faith in Christ its foundation— Marks 
 of it* unity, Kph. iv. 4 490 
 
 The Old Tentament terms applied to Christians, a7ioi denotes their objec- 
 tive consecrsti'>M joined with subjective sanctilication — K\.iToi the outward 
 and inwanl call ron»i<lered as one— The idea and the appearance in general 
 not separated by Paul 49I 
 
 But in particular instances, the spurious members are distinguished from 
 the iienuinc — Where the difference is perceptible the former arc to be 
 excluded, in other cases the separation must he left to God ^ 492
 
 CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The care of the general good committed toal! according to theii respective 
 abilities and charisms 493 
 
 8. The Sacraments — Baptism, and the Supper. 
 
 a. Baptism — "Putting on Christ" — Its twofold reference to the death and 
 resurrection of Chri.st; includes a reference to the Fatlier and the Holy Spirit 
 — The outward and the inward are supposed to be combined 4y4, 4y5 
 
 4. The Supper. 
 
 A feast of commemoration, 1 Cor. xi. 24, the celebration of Christ's suffer- 
 ings and a plcd^'C of constant communion with him; etniv = it represents, 
 involves a reference to the mutual communion of believers 496 — 498 
 
 9. The Kingdom of God 499 
 
 A. Its idea and extent. 
 
 a. Its extent at successive periods. 
 
 Preparation by means of the Jewish theocracy — And completed by 
 Christianity; the former sensible and national, tlie latter spiritual and 
 universal 500 
 
 By faith in Clirist, the Messianic kingdom, the alwv fUrWwv as opposed 
 to the aiuii- ouTof or %ovnp6t becomes already present — Hence the kingdom 
 of God coincides with the idea of the invisible church on earth 500,501 
 
 But the idea is still imperfectly realized 502 
 
 A threefold application of the term. 1. The present internal kingdom 
 of God, 1 Cor. iv. 20; Rom. xiv. 17. 2. Tlie future completion of it, 
 
 1 Cor. vi. 10. 3. The present as one with the future, 1 Thess. ii. 12; 
 
 2 Thess. i. 5 503 
 
 b. The heavenly community co-existing with the invisible church. 
 
 The kingdom of God embraces a higher spiritual worla, in which the 
 archetype of the church is realized — Mankind are united to tliis higher 
 world by tlie knowledge of God, Kph. iii. 15, Col. i. 20, compared with 
 Eph. ii. 14 504 
 
 Christ is the head of this universal church, as uniting the divine and 
 
 human natures — The idea of the Logos — Not accidentally connected with 
 
 ' the person of Christ — Enters into the essence of Christianity 5u4 — 509 
 
 B. The opposition of the kingdom of God to the kingdom of evil. 
 
 The prevalence of sin among mankind connected with the prevalence of 
 evil in the higher world — All ungodliness the power of a spirit whose king- 
 dom is it'iutv oi/Tor— False gods not evil spirits 509 — 511 
 
 Christ the destroyer of this kingdom — Hii'. death apparently a defeat, but 
 \r reality a victory — Charisms the tokens of his triumph 512 
 
 The conflict with the kingdom of evil carried on by Christians 513 
 
 C. The development of ihe kingdom of God till its final completion. 
 
 The accomplishment of the scheme of redemption a work of free grace 514 
 
 a. As opposed to preeminence of natural descent 514 
 
 6. As opposed to legal merits 514, 515 
 
 Apparent denial of free self-determination in Rom. ix., hut not the 
 apostle's intention to give a complete theory — But an antithetical reference 
 to the arrogance ol the Jews 516—519 
 
 Confidence in tlieir own righteousness the cause of the rejection of the 
 Jews — The Gentiles warned against presumptuous reliances on divine 
 grace 520 
 
 To excite Christian confidence, the apostle refers to the unalterable counsel 
 of divine love — Allusions to the consummation of the kingdom of God 520 — 522 
 
 10. The doctrine of the Resurrection and the State of the Soul after ri'Mtli. 
 a. The doctrine of the Resurrection. 
 
 The spiritual awakening liy faith a preparation for the future — The Palin- 
 gen.'sia of nature, Rom. viii. 19.. 522, 52S
 
 :X CONTENTS. 
 
 rKCt 
 
 5. State of the Soul after death till the Rpsurrection. 
 
 Whether Paul considered the state of the soul after death till the lesuirec- 
 tion to be one of suspended consciousness like sleep? — Apparent ground for 
 it in 1 Thess 524 
 
 But his expectation of continued communion with Christ, as signified in 
 Cor. iv. IG, opposed to this supposition; also Phil, i.21,23; 2 Tim. iv. 18..525, 526 
 
 Possibtlity of an alteration in his views by progressive illumination — But 
 a comparison of 1 Cor. xv. with 2 Cor. v.l, is against this 527,528 
 
 Therefore he held the unbroken consciousness of the soul after death, even 
 at an earlier period of his ministry, though not then brought forward „. 52S 
 
 The end of the Mediatorial kingdom and the consummation of all 
 toinK? ^ ~....„~ ~ ^ S23 — S3i
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 rHE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE, PREVIOUS TO ITB 
 SPREAD AMONG HEATHEN NATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ON ITS FIRST APPEARANCE AS A 
 DISTIKOT RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. 
 
 The historical developmeut of the Christian Church as a body 
 IS similar to that of the Christian life in each of its members. 
 In the latter case, the transition from an unchristian to a 
 christian state is not an event altogether sudden, and witliout 
 any preparatory steps. Many separate rays of divine light, 
 at different times, enter the soul ; various influences of awak- 
 ening preparative grace are felt, before the birth of that new 
 divine life by which the w^hole character of mau is destined to 
 be taken possession of, pervaded, and transformed. The 
 appearance of a new personality sanctified by tlie divine 
 pi'inciple of life, necessarily forms a great era in life, but the 
 commencement of this era is not marked with perfect preci- 
 sion and distinctness ; the new creation manifests itself more 
 or less gradually by its effects. " The wind bloweth where it 
 listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but knowest not 
 whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth." The same may be 
 affirmed of the ciuirch collectively, with this difference, how- 
 evei', that here the point of commencement is more A-isibly 
 and decidedly marked. 
 
 It is true, tliat Christ, during his ministry on earth, laid the 
 foundation of the outward structure of the church ; he then 
 formed that community, that spiritual theocracy, whose 
 members were held together by faith iu him, and a jjrofession 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 C /
 
 3 Tire CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 of allegiance to him as their King ; and which was the 
 chosen vessel for receiving and conveying to all the tribes of 
 the earth that divine indwelhng hfe, which he came to impart 
 to the whole human race. The fountain of divine life was 
 still shut up in him, and had not diffused itself abroad with 
 that energy and peculiarity of direction, which were essential 
 to the formation of the Christian church. The apostles them- 
 selves were as yet confined to tlie bodily presence and out- 
 ward guidance of the Redeemer : though, by the operation of 
 L'hrist, the seminal principle of a divine life had been depo- 
 sited in their hearts, and given signs of germination, still it 
 had not attained its full expansion and peculiar character ; 
 hence it might be affirmed, that what constituted the ani- 
 mating spirit and the essential nature of the Christian church, 
 as an association gi'adually enlarging itself — (the unity of a 
 divine life manifesting itself in a variety of individual pecu- 
 liarities) had not yet appeared ; this event, indeed, Christ had 
 intimated would not take place till preparation had been made 
 for it by his sufferings and return to his heavenly Father. 
 
 At his last interview with the disciples, just before his final 
 .scpm'ation from them, in answer to their inquiry respecting 
 the coining of his kingdom, he referred them to the power of 
 tlie Holy Spirit, who would enable them rightly to understand 
 the doctrine of his kingdom, and furnish them with fit instru- 
 ments for spreading it through the world. All the promises 
 of the Saviour relate, it is true, not merely to one single 
 event, but to the whole of tlie influence of the Holy Spirit on 
 the Apostles, and, in a certain sense, on the Universal Church 
 foinided by their means ; yet the display of that influence for 
 the fii-st time, forms so distinguished an epoch in the lives of 
 the Apostles, that it may properly be considered as an espe- 
 .'ial fuliilment of these promises. Christ pointed out to the 
 Apostles such a palpable epoch, which would be attended with 
 a firm conviction of a great internal operation on their minds, 
 nn unwavering consciousness of the illumination imparted by 
 the Divine Spirit ; for, before his final departure, he enjoined 
 upon them, not to leave Jerusalem till that promise was ful- 
 filled, and they had received that baptism of the Spirit which 
 would shortly take place. 
 
 On account of this event, the Pentecost which the disciples 
 oelcbratcd soon after the Savioui-'s departure, is of such great
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 3 
 
 iiupoitaiice, as marking the commeucement of the Apostolic 
 Church, for here it first publicly displayed its essential cha- 
 racter. Next to the appearance of the Son of God him&elf 
 on earth, this' was the greatest event, as the commencing 
 point of the new divine life, proceeding from him to the 
 human race, which has since spread and operated tln-ough 
 successive ages, and will continue to operate until its final 
 object is attained, and all mankind are transformed into the 
 image of Christ. If we contemplate this great transaction 
 from this, its only proper point of view, we shall not be 
 tempted to explain the greater bj' the less ; we shall not con- 
 sider it strange that the most wonderful event in the inner 
 life of mankind should be accompanied by extraordinary out- 
 ward appearances, as sensible indications of its existence. 
 Still Ic^-s shall we be induced to look upon this great trans- 
 action— in which we recognise the necessary beginning of a 
 new epoch, an essential intermediate step in the religion? 
 development of the Apostles, and in the formation of the 
 Church — as something piu-ely mythical. 
 
 The disciples must have looked forward with intense ex- 
 pectation to the fulfilment of that promise, which the Saviour 
 
 ' Whoever looks upon Christ only as the highest being developed 
 from the germs originally implanted in human nature (although an 
 absolutely highest being cannot logically be inferred in the develop- 
 ment of human nature from this standing-point), must take an essenti- 
 ally different view from ourselves of the transaction of which we are 
 speaking, though he may approximate to us in the mode of viewing 
 particular points. "When Hase, in his Essay on the Fir4 Christian 
 Pentecost, in the Second Part of Wmar'?, Zeitschrift filr wissf-nschaft- 
 llche Theologie (Journal for Scientific Theology), says, " that a time 
 may arrive when what is the result of freedom in man shall be 
 considered as divine, and the Holy Spirit ;" v.'e readily grant that such 
 a time is coming, or rather is already come ; it has already reached its 
 highest jioint, from which must ensue a revolution in the mode of 
 thinking. We cannot, however, hold this view to be the Christian 
 one, but entirely opposite to real Christianity. How irreconcilable it 
 is with the apostolic belief, an unprejudiced thinker, Bouterweck, 
 acknowledges in his Religion der Vei-ni/njt (Religion of Reason), p. 137. 
 The Holy Spirit, in the Christian sense, is never the divine in the 
 nature of man, but a communication from God to the nature of man 
 (incapable of itself of reaching its moral destination), which becomes 
 thereby rai-sed to a higher order of life. But this supernatural com- 
 munication from God, by no means contradicts an acknowledgment of 
 the divine and of freedom it the nature of man, but rather pre- 
 Bupposes both.
 
 4 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTIWB. 
 
 had 80 emphatically repeated.' Ten days had passed since 
 :heir final separation from their Divine Master, when that 
 
 ' Professor Hitzig, in his Sendschreiben uher Ostem und Pfingsten 
 (Letters on Easter and Pentecost), Heidelberg, 1837, maintaias, that 
 this event occurred not at the Jewish Pentecost, but some days earlier, 
 and that the day of the giving of the Law from Sinai is also to be fixed 
 some days earlier ; that Acts ii. 1, is to be understood, " when the day 
 of Pentecost drew near," and therefore denotes a time before the actual 
 jccurrence of this feast. As evidence for this as.sertion, it is remarked 
 that, in verse 5, only the Jews settled in Jerusalem, those who out of all 
 the countries in which they were scattered, had settled in Jerusalem 
 from a strong religious feeling, are mentioned, when, if the reference 
 had been to one of the principal feasts, the multitude o^ foreign Jews, 
 who came from all parts, would hav-e been especially noticed. Against 
 this view we have to urge the following considerations. The words 
 Acts ii. 1, "When the day of Peniecost was fully come," would be 
 most naturally understood of the actual arri%'al of that day, as irXripuna 
 rov xpofov, or tuv Kaipwu, Eph. i. 10, and Gal. iv. 4, denote the actual 
 arrival of the appointed time ; though we allow that, in certain con- 
 nexions, they may denote the near approach of some precise point of 
 time, as in Luke ix. 51, where yet it is to be noticed fhat it is not 
 said "the day," but "the days;" and thus the time of the departure 
 of Christ from the ea^th, which was now actually approaching, is 
 marked in general te^^ * But as to the connexion of this passage in 
 the Acts, if we are inclined to understand these words only of the near 
 approach of Pentecost, we do not see why such a specification of the 
 time should have been given. Had Luke thought that the day of 
 giving the Law on Sinai was different from that of the Pentecost, it 
 might be expected that he would have marked more precisely the main 
 subject. Besides, there are no traces to be found, that a day in com- 
 memoration of the giving of the Law was observed by the Jews. But if 
 we understand the words as referring to the actual arrival of Pentecost, 
 the importance of fixing the tame, in relation to the words immediately 
 following, and the whole sequel of the narrative, is verj' apparent. This 
 feast would occasion the assembling of believers at an early hour. The 
 words in verse 5, we must certainly understand merely of such Jews as 
 were resident in Jerusalem, not of such who came there fir>'t at fhis time. 
 But from a comparison with the 9th verse, it is evident that KaToiKun 
 is not to be understood altogether in the same sense in botli verses ; that 
 in the latter, those are spoken of who haii their residence elsewhere, 
 and were only sojourning for a short time in Jerusalem. And if we 
 grant that the persons spoken of belonged to the number of the Jews 
 who formerly dwelt in other lands, but for a long time past had settled 
 in Jerusalem, as the capital of the Theocracy, then it is clear that, by 
 the inSriixovvTfs 'Paifiaiot, we must understand such as for some special 
 cau.se were just come to Jerusalem. Further, there were also those 
 called Proselytes, who were found in great numbers at Jerusalem, for 
 some special occasion, and this could be no other than the feast of Pen- 
 tecost. Doubtless, by "all the dwellers at Jerusalem," v. 14, who are
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 5 
 
 feast was celebrated, -whose object so nearly touched that 
 which especially occupied their minds at the time, and must 
 therefore have raised their anxious expectations still higher — 
 the Jew^ish Pentecost, the feast which was held seven weeks 
 after the Passover. This feast, according to the original 
 Mosaic institution, related only to the first fruits of Hai-vest ; 
 nor is any other reason for its celebration adduced by Jose- 
 phus and Philo — in this respect, only a distant resemblance 
 couid be traced between the first fruits of the natural Crea- 
 tion, and those of the new Spiritual Creation ; this analogy, 
 it is true, is often adverted to by the ancient Fathers of the 
 Church, but before the fulfilment of the Saviour's promise, 
 must have hee.i very far from the thoughts of the disciples. 
 But if we venture to credit the Jewish Traditions, ' this feast 
 had also a reference to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai f 
 hence, by way of distinction, it has been called the feast of the 
 joy of the Law.^ If this be admitted, then the words of 
 Christ respecting the new revelation of God by him, the new 
 relation established by him between God and Man, which he 
 himself under the designation of the New Covenant* placed in 
 opposition to the Old, — must have been vividly recalled to 
 the minds of the disciples b}' the celebration of this feast, and, 
 at the same time, their anxious longing would be more strongly 
 excited for that event, which, according to his promise, would 
 confirm and glorify the New Dispensation. As all who pro- 
 fessed to be the Lord's disciples (their number then amounted 
 
 distinguished from the Jews, are meant all who were then living at 
 Jerusalem, without determining whether they had resided there always, 
 or only for a short time. The whole narrative, too, gives the impression 
 that a greater multitude of persons than usual were then assembled at 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 ' \Vhich may be found collected in a Dissertation by J. M. Danz, in 
 Meuschen's Novum Testamentum e Talmude illustratum, p. 740. 
 
 ' That they are justified in making such a referencCj may be concluded 
 Vom comparing Exodus xii. 1, and xix. 1. 
 
 » rninn f^noir. 
 
 * The word Siad7}Kr}, n'"!?, which has been used to denote both the Old 
 and the New Dispensation, is taken from human relations, as signify- 
 ing a covenant or agreement; but in its application to the relation 
 between God and man, the fundamental idea must never be lost sight 
 of, namely, that of a relation in which there is something reciprocal and 
 conditional, as, in this case, a communication from God to man is con- 
 ditiouated by the obedience of faith on the part of the latter.
 
 6 THE CHUISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 to one hundred and twenty)^ were wont to meet daily for 
 mutual edification, so on this solemn day, they were assembled 
 in a chamber,- which according to Oriental customs was 
 specially assigned to devotional exercises. It was the first 
 stated hour of prayer, about nine in the morning, and, ac- 
 cording to what we must suppose was then the tone of the 
 disciples' feelings, we may presume that their prayers turned 
 to the object wiiich filled their souls — that on the day when 
 the Old Law had been promulgated with such glory, the New 
 also might be glorified by the communication of the promised 
 Spirit. And what their ardent desires and prayers sought for, 
 what their Lord had promised, was granted. They felt 
 elevated to a new state of mind, pervaded by a spirit of joy- 
 I'ulness and power, to which they had hitherto been strangers. 
 and seized by an inspiring impulse, to testify the grac^ oi 
 
 ' Without doubt, tho-^e expositors adopt the right view who suppose, 
 that not merely the apostles but all the believers were at that time 
 assembled; for though, in Acts i 26, the apostles are primarily in- 
 tended, yet the nadr^Tai collectively form the chief subject (i. 15), to 
 which the anavrfs at the beginning oi the second chapter necessarily 
 refers. It by no means follows, that because, in ch. ii. 14, the apostlea 
 alone are represented as speakers, the assembly was confined to these 
 alone ; but here, as elsewhere, they appear the leaders and representa- 
 tives of the whole church, and distinguish themselves from the rest of 
 the persons met together; Acts ii. 15. The great importance of the 
 fact which Peter brings forward in his discourse, that the gifts of the 
 Spirit, which, under the Hid Covenant, were imparted only to a select 
 class of persons, such as the prophets, — under the New Covenant, which 
 removes every wall of separation in reference to the higher life, are com- 
 municated without distinction to all believers— this great fact would be 
 altogether lost sight of, if we confined every thing here mentioned to 
 the apostles. Tiiroughout the Acts, wherever the agency of the Spirit 
 is manifested by similar characteristics in those who were converted to 
 a living faith, we perceive an evident homogeneity with this first great 
 event. 
 
 * Such a chamber was built in the eastern style, with a flat roof, and 
 a staircase leading to the court yard, vwtp^oy, n'^r. According to the 
 narrative in the Acts, we must suppose it to have been a chamber in a 
 private house. Hut, in itself. tliLre is nothing to forbid our supposing 
 that the disciples met together in the Temple at the first hour of prayer 
 during the feast; their proceedings would thus have gained much in 
 not.iricty, though not in real importance, as Olshausen maintains; for 
 it perfecily accorded with the genius of the Christian Dispensation, not 
 being restricted to particular limes and places, and obliterating the 
 distinction of profane and sacred, that the first effusion of the Holy 
 Spirit .should take place, not in a temple, but in an ordinarj dwelling.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 7 
 
 redemption, of which now for the first time they had right 
 perceptions. Extraordinary appearance.s of nature (a con- 
 junction similar to what h;is happened in other important 
 epochs of the history of mankind) accompanied the great 
 process then going on in the spiritual world, and were synr 
 boUc of that which filled their inmost souls. An earthqutiko 
 attended by a whirlwind suddenly shook the building ii\ 
 which they were assembled, a symbol to them of that Spirit 
 which moved their inner man. Flaming lights in the form of 
 tongues streamed through the chambei", and floating down- 
 wards settled on their heads, a symbol of the new tongues of 
 the fire of inspired emotion, which streamed forth from the 
 holy flame that glowed within them.' 
 
 The account of what took place on tliis occasion, leads us 
 back at last to the depositions of those who were present, tlie 
 only persons who could give direct testimony concerning it. 
 And it might happen, that the glory of the inner life then 
 imparted to them, might so reflect its splendour on surround- 
 ing objects, that by virtue of the internal miracle (the eleva- 
 tion of their inward life and consciousness, through the power 
 of the Divine Spirit), the objects of outward perception 
 appeared quite changed. And thus it is not impossible, that 
 all which presented itself to them as a perception of the out- 
 ward senses, might be, in fact, only a perception of the pre- 
 dominant inward mental state, a sensuous objectiveness of 
 what was operating inwai'dly with divine power, similar to tlie 
 ecstatic visions which are elsewhere mentioned in Holy Writ. 
 Whatever may be thought of this explanation, what was divine 
 in the event remains the same, for this was an inward process 
 in the souls of the disciples, in relation to which everything 
 Dutward was only of subordinate significance. Still, there is 
 nothing in the n&rrative which renders such a supposition 
 necessary. And if we admit, that there was really an earth- 
 quake which frightened the inhabitants out of their houses, it 
 is easily explained how, though it happened early in tha 
 morning of the feast, a great multitude would be found in the 
 streets, and the attention of one and another being attracted 
 to the extraordinary meeting of the disciples, by degrees, a 
 
 ' Gregory the Great beautifully remarks : " Ilinc est quod super 
 pastores primos in linguarum specie Spiritus Sanctus insedit, quia 
 nimirum quos replsverit de se protinus loquentes facit." Lib. i. Ep. -11.
 
 8 THE CHUTSTTAj; CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 p-eat crowd of persons, curious to know what was going on, 
 would collect ai-ound the house.' The question may be asked, 
 By what was the astonishment of the bystanders especially 
 excited'? At first sight, the words in Acts ii. 7—11 appear 
 susceptible of but one interpretation, that the passers-by were 
 astonished at hearing Galileans who knew no language but 
 their own, speak in a number of foreign languages, which 
 they could not have learnt in a natural way' — that, therefore, 
 we must conclude that the faculty was impai-ted to believers 
 by an extraordinary operation of Divine power, of speaking in 
 foreign languages not acquired by the use of their natural 
 Aiculties. Accordingly, since the third century » it has been 
 
 ' The question is, How are we to explain the difficult words t^s $a»T)s 
 ravTt}s, in Acts ii. 6 1 The pronoun rairifs leads us to refer the words to 
 what immediately preceded, the loud speaking of the persons assembled. 
 Hill tlien the use of the singular is remarkable. And since verse 2 is 
 the principal subject, we may refer the pronoun Tuinris to that; the 
 ytvofxefi^s of verse 6 seems also to correspond to the iytyero of verse 2. Not 
 only is it more easy to refer the pronoun ravrris to what immediately 
 precedes in verse 4, but also verses 3 and 4 rather than verse 2, contain 
 the most striking facts in the narrative ; it also entirely favours this 
 construction, that cpaiy^ must be understood of the noise made by the dis- 
 ciples in giving vent to their feelings, and must be taken as a collective 
 noun, signifying a confused din, in which the distinction of individual 
 roices would be lost. 
 
 ^ The words give us no reason to suppose that the by-standers took 
 offence at hearing the disciples speak of divine things in a different 
 language from the sacred one. 
 
 ' By man^ of the ancients it has been supposed— what a literal inter- 
 pretation of the words ii. 8 will allow, and even favours — that the 
 miracle consisted in this, that, though all spoke in one and the same 
 language, each of the hearers believed that he heard them speak in his 
 own , n'iav fiiv «{7jx«'cr0ai (paiv^v, iroWas Se aKovfjOai. Gregory Naz. oral. 
 44, f. T15, who yet does not propound this view as peculiarly his 
 own. It has lately been brought forward in a peculiar manner by 
 Schneckenburgcr, in his Beitriigen zur Einleitung ins Neue Testament 
 (Contributions towards an Introduction to the New Testament), p. 84. 
 Tlic speakers, by the power of inspiration, operated so power- 
 fully on the feelings of their susceptible hearers, that they involun- 
 trjily translated what went to their hearts into their mother-tongue, 
 ;ind understood it a.^ if it hail been spoken in that. By the element of 
 inspiration, the inward communion of feeling was so strongly brought 
 r>rth, that the lingual wall of separation was entirely taken away. But 
 in order to determine the correctness of this mode of explanation, it 
 may be of u<c to in'|uirc, — if the language in which the hearers were 
 addressed was quite foreign to them, the natural medium of human in- 
 tercourse would be wholly wanting, and would thus be compensated by
 
 THF. CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 9 
 
 generally admitted, that a supernatural gift of tongues was 
 impai'ted on this occasion, by which the more rai)id promul- 
 gation of the gospel among the heathen was facilitated and 
 promoted. It has been urged that as in the apostolic age, 
 many things were effected immediately by the predominating 
 creative agency of (iod's Spirit, which, in later times, have 
 been effected through human means appropriated and sancti- 
 fied by it ; so, in this instance, immediate inspiration stood in 
 the place of those natm-al Ungual acquirements, which in 
 later times have served for the propagation of the gospel. 
 
 a miracle which produced an internal understanding 1 Or was the 
 Aramaic language of the speakers not altogether foreign to the hearers, 
 only not so familiar as their mother-tongue ] But it was an effect of the 
 inward communion produced by the power of spiritual influence, that 
 they more easily understood those who spoke in a language not familiar 
 to them; the want of familiarity was not felt. What was addressed to 
 them was as intelligible as if spoken in their mother-tongue. In this 
 way, although on the supposition of a powerful spiritual influence, by 
 which the essence of the Pentecostal miracle is not denied but presup- 
 posed, it would be an explicable psychological fact. Men speaking with 
 the ardour of inspiration, made an impression on those who were not 
 capable of understanding a language foreign to them, similar to what we 
 are told of Bernard's Sermons on the Cru.-ades in Germany : " Quod 
 Qermanicis etiam populis loquens miro audiebatur affectu ; et de sermone 
 ejus, quem intelligere, utpote alterius linguae homines, non valebant, 
 magis quam ex peritissimi cujuslibet post eum loquentis interpretis in- 
 tellecta locutione, Kdificari illorum devotio videbatur, cujus rei certa 
 probatio tunsio pectorum erat et effusio lacrimarum." Mabillon. ed. 
 0pp. Bernard, tom. ii. p. 1119. And this would for the most part agree 
 with the interpretation of my honoured friend Dr. Steudel. But as to 
 the first mode of explanation, we do not see what can allow or justify our 
 substituting for the common interpretation of the miracle in question 
 another, which does not come nearer the pyschological analogy, but, on 
 the contrarj', is further from it, and does not so naturally connect itself 
 with the narrative as a whole. We cannot allow an appeal to the 
 analogy with the phenomena of animal magnetism, although, in 
 referring to such an analogy, we find noth ng objectionable, any more 
 than in general to the analogy between the supernatural and the natural, 
 pros'ided the difference of psychical circumstances, and of the causes pro- 
 ducing them, is not lost sight of. But still, in matters of science, where 
 every thing must be well grounded, we cannot attach a value to such a 
 document until it is ascertained what is really trustworthy in the ac- 
 counts of such phenomena. As to the second mode of interpretation, it 
 can only be maintained by our adopting the supposition, that we have 
 here not a tradition from the first source, but only a representation, 
 which ultimately depends on the report of eye-witnesses, and if we hence 
 allow ourselves to distinguish what the author professes to say, from the 
 facts lying at the basis of his narrative.
 
 10 TUE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 But, iudeed, the utility of sucn a gift of tongues for the 
 spread of divine truth in the apostohc times, will appear not 
 80 great, if we consider that the gospel had its first and chief 
 sphere of action among the nations belonging to the Reman 
 Empire, where the knowledge of the Greek and Latin lan- 
 guages sufficed for this purpose, and that the one or the other 
 of these languages, as it was employed in the intercourse of 
 daily life, could not be altogether strange to the Jews. As to 
 the Greek language, the mode in which the apostles expressed 
 themselves in it, the traces of their mother-tongue which ap- 
 pear in their use of it, prove that they had obtained a know- 
 ledge of it, according to the natural laws of lingual acquirement. 
 In the history of the first propagation of Christianity, traces ai'e 
 never to be found of a supernatui-al gift of tongues for this 
 object. Ancient tradition, which names certain persons as 
 interpreters of the apostles, implies the contrary.' Also, 
 Acts xiv. 1 1 shows that Paid possessed no supernatural gift of 
 tongues. Yet all this does not authorize us to deny the 
 reference to such an endowment in the former passage of the 
 Acts, if the explanation of the whole passage, both in single 
 words and in its connexion, is most favom-able to this inter- 
 pretation. Nor do we venture to decide what operations not 
 to be calculated according to natural laws could be eftected by 
 the power with which the new divine life moved the very 
 depths of human natm-e ; what especially could be effected 
 
 ' TluLs Hark i.s called the epixrivevs, or epfxr]vevTTis of Peter, (see Papias of 
 Hierapolis in Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. iii. 39, compared with Irenteus, iii. 1). 
 The Basilidians say the .same of one Glaucias, Clement's Stromata, vii. 
 765. On comparing every thing, 1 must decide against the possible in- 
 terpretation of those words favoured by several eminent modern critics 
 —that they mean simply an expositor, one who repeated the instruc- 
 tions of Peter in his (iospel, with explanatory remarks ;— for this dis- 
 tinction of Mark is always prefixed to accounts of his Gcspel.and at the 
 Bame time from the fact of his acting in this capacity with Peter, his 
 capability is inferred to note down the report made by him of' the 
 Evangelical history. Thus certainly the passage in Papias must be 
 understojxl ; Mapwor fiiv ipfirivdnijs rifTpov y€i/6fi(vos, oca i^vr)ix6v(Vfffv 
 &Kpi0ui (ypayi/fv The second fact is founded on the first, that he ac- 
 cdiiipanied Peter as an interpreter. Some truth may lie at the basis of 
 this tradition ; it might he, that although Peter was not ignorant of the 
 (Srcck language, and could express himself m it, he yet took with him a 
 disciple who wa,s thoroughly master of it, that he might be assi.«ted by 
 hini in publishing the Gospel among those who spoke that language.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 11 
 
 through the connexion between the internal life of the S[)irit 
 (on which the new creation operated with a power before un- 
 known) and the faculty of speech. A phenomenon of this 
 kind might have taken place once, with a symbolic prophetic 
 meaning, indicating that the new divine life would reveal 
 itself in all the lang-uages of mankind, as Clu'istianity is 
 destined to bring under its sway all the various national 
 peculiarities ! A worthy symbol of this great event ! 
 
 But we meet in the New Testament with other intimations-- 
 of such a gift of the Spirit, which are very similar to the 
 passage in the Acts ; and the explanation of these passages is 
 attended with fewer difficulties than that of the latter. If, 
 tlierefore, we do not, contrary to the natural laws of exegesis, 
 attempt to explain the clearer passages by the more obscure, 
 we cannot fail to pe^'ceive that, in the section on spiritual 
 gifts in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, something alto- 
 gether difterent fi-om such a supernatural gift of tongues is 
 spoken of. Evidently, the apostle is there treating of such 
 discourse as would not be generally intelligible, proceeding 
 from an ecstatic state of mind which rose to an elevation far 
 above the language of ordinary communication. We may 
 here adduce two passages in the Acts, which cannot possibly 
 be understood of speaking in a foreign language ; x. 46, and 
 xix. 6. How can we imagine that men, in the first glow of 
 conversion, when first seized by the inspiring influence of 
 Christian faith, instead of pouring fortli the feelings of 
 which their hearts were full, tlu-ough a medium so dear and 
 easy to tliem as tiieir mother-tongue, could find pleasure 
 in what at such a time would be a mere epideiktic miracle, 
 unless the effect of being filled with the Spirit was to hurry 
 them along, as blind instruments of a magical power, against 
 their wiUs, and to constrain them to make use of a different 
 language from that which at such a time must have been best 
 Sited for the expression of their feelings 1 ^ 
 
 * I cannot comprehend what Professor Baumlein maintains in hid 
 R^isay on this subject, in the Studien der evangelischen Geistlichkeit 
 W ilrtembergs (Studies of the Evangelical Clergy of iirtemberg), 
 vi. 2. p. 119, " that in certain religious mental states, the speaking in 
 foreign languages is by no means unnatural." It is plain that a man 
 Clay easily feel himself impelled, when actuated by new feelings and 
 ileas, to form new words ; as from a new spiritual life, a new religious 
 dialect forms itself. But how, under such circumstances, it can bo
 
 12 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 Both these suppositions are at variance with the spirit of 
 the gospel, nor does any thing similar appear in the first 
 history of Christianity. Such exhibitions would be pecu- 
 liarly suited to draw away the mind from that which is the 
 essence of conversion, and only to furnish aliment for an 
 unchristian vanity. On the other hand, there seems a pro- 
 priety in referring these passages to the utterance of the new 
 things with which the mind would be filled, in the new lan- 
 guage of a heart glowing with Christian sentiment.' Thus it 
 may be explained how, in the first passage (Acts x. 46), the 
 yXwaaaicXaXtly is connected with " praising God," "praising 
 God with the whole heart," when conscious of having through 
 his grace received salvation ; and in the second passage. 
 Acts xix. 6, with Trpofi^rfveiy. But as, in both these passages, 
 it is plainly shown that the communication of the Divine 
 Spirit was indicated by characteristics similar to those of its 
 original effusion at Pentecost, we are furnished with a 
 valuable clue to the right understanding of that event. 
 
 If, then, we examine more closely the description of what 
 transpired on the day of Pentecost, we shall find several 
 things which favoui* a different interpretation from the ancient 
 one. How could a number of canially-minded men be led to 
 explain the speaking of the disciples in foreign languages, as 
 the effect of intoxication? Acts ii. 13.- How did it happen, 
 
 natural to speak a language altogether foreign, I cannot perceive, nor 
 can I find any analogy for it in other psychical phenomena. Still less 
 can I admit the comparison with the manifestations among the followers 
 of Mr. Irving in London, since, as far as my knowledge extends. I can 
 see nothing in these manifestations but the workings of an enthusiastic 
 spirit, which sought to copy the apostolic gift of tongues according 
 to the common interpretation, and therefore assumed the reality of that 
 gift. 
 
 ' See the Dissertation ot Dr. David Schulz on the Spiritual Gifts of 
 the first C'liri.stians. Breslau, 1836. 
 
 ' Although tills may not be considered as absolutely necessary, for it 
 would certainly be possible, that frivolous, carnally-minded men who 
 were disposed to ridicule what they did not understand, might not 
 observe the phcnomeuou (not explicable from common causes) of 
 speaking in a forois^n language; it is possible that Peter, after he 
 iiad shown the contrariety of the inspiration of the apostles to a 
 Rtate of intoxication, which could hardly have taken place at that 
 hour of the day, instead of adducing other marks which testified 
 against it, passed on to compare the phenomena wiih the prophetic pro- 
 mise whii'h \v;is here fulfilled. Yet it is not at all probable that Peter,
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 13 
 
 that Peter in his apologetic discovirse did not appeal to the 
 undeniably miraculous nature of an event by which the 
 objections of men unsusceptible of what was divine might 
 most easily be refuted? Why did he satisfy himself with 
 referring to the pro])hetic declarations respecting an extra- 
 ordinary revival, and an eftusion of the Spirit, which was to 
 take place in the times of the Messiah, without even advert- 
 ing to this peculiar manifestation 1 In the constmction of 
 the whole narrative, we find nothing that obliges us to adopt 
 the notion of a supernatural gift of tongues in the usual sense. 
 The flames that settled on their heads appear as the natural 
 symbols of the new tongues, or new language of that holy 
 fire which was kindled in the hearts of the disciples, by the 
 power of the Holy Spirit, and accordingly it is said, " They 
 were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with 
 other tongues ' as the Spirit gave them utterance ; " therefore 
 the tongues of the Spirit w^ere the new form for the new 
 spirit which animated them. 
 
 It appears, indeed, to militate against this interpretation, 
 and to establish the common one, that the spectators are 
 described as expressing their astonishment at hearing, each 
 one in his own tongue, these Galileans who knew no foreign 
 language, speaking the wonderful works of God (Acts ii. 8) ; 
 and more than this, we have the various nations distinctly 
 named in whose langiiages the apostles spoke. But we cannot 
 possibly think that all these nations spoke different languages, 
 for it is certain that, in the cities of Cappadocia, Pontus, 
 Lesser Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Cyi'ene, and in the parts 
 of Libya and Egypt inhabited by Grecian and Jewish 
 Colonies, the Greek would at that time be in general better 
 understood than the ancient language of the country, and as 
 this must have been known to the writer of the Acts, he 
 could not have intended to specify so many different lan- 
 guages. There will remain out of the whole catalogue of 
 languages, only the Persian, Syriac, Arabic, Greek and Latin. 
 
 since he refers to the hour of the day, in order to refute the charge of 
 intoxication, should not also refer to that other fact (supposing it 
 to exist), which would have completed his proof. 
 
 ' The word yKufftra, like the German Zunge [and the Englisli 
 tongue], is used both for the bodily organ of speech, and for a language 
 or dialect.
 
 14 THE CHRISTIAN CBimCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 It also deserves notice, that the inhabitants of Judea are men- 
 tioned, who spoke the same language as the Galileans, oul_y 
 with a slight difFerence of pronunciation. Since, then, to 
 retain the ancient view of the gift of tong-ues creates diffi- 
 culties in this passage, which is the only one that can serve to 
 support it ; while several pails of the narrative oppose it, and 
 every thing that is said elsewhere of this gift {-yupiana) leads 
 to a very different interpretation, the more ancient view 
 becomes very uncertain, though we cannot arrive at a perfectly 
 clear and certain conclusion respecting the facts which form 
 the groundwork of the narrative. Perhaps the difficult}- in 
 the passage may be obviated in this way. It was not unusual 
 to designate all the disciples of the Lord, Galileans, and it 
 might be inferred from this common appellation that they 
 were all Galileans by birth ; but it by no means follows that 
 this was actually the case. Among the so-called Galileans, 
 some might be found whose mother-tongue was not the 
 Galilean dialect, and who now felt themselves impelled to 
 express the fulness of their hearts in their own provincial 
 dialect, wliich through Christianity had become a sacred 
 language to them, though hitherto they had been accustomed 
 to consider the Hebrew only in that light;' and it might 
 also happen that some who lived on the confines of Galilee, 
 had leai-ned tiie language of the adjacent tribes, wdiich they 
 now made iise of, in order to be better understood by 
 foreigner.s. Thus the speaking in foreign lang-uages would be 
 only something accidental, and not the essential of the new 
 language of tlie Spir^\- This new language of the Spirit is 
 tliat which Christ pnomised to his disciples as one of the 
 cs.scntial marks of the operation of the Holy Spirit on their 
 hearts. Indeed, the promise that they should speak with 
 new tongues^ appears only in the critically suspected addition 
 
 ' Sec Acts xxii. 2: AVctstcin on Acts vi. 1. On this point the views 
 of the Palestinian theologians would differ, according as their general 
 mode of thinlcing was more or less contracted. 
 
 * Whatever interpretation be adopted of this passage, it will be no 
 more than a conjecture for the solution of that difficulty, nor can any be 
 f,'iven with the degree of certainty equal to what may be attained 
 r 'specting the gift of tongues in a general point of view. 
 
 ^ This evidently denoted .such tongues or languages as were not yet in 
 the world. Had the pcr.son who committed this tradition to writing 
 iiiieuded foreign languages not acquired by study, he woidd certainly 
 h:»vc m.iiie use of a difl'LTcnt c.vprossion.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 15 
 
 to the Gospel of Mark, but it does not follow that a true 
 tradition does not lie at the basis of it ; and if Christ in the 
 other Gospels has not literally made use of this expression, 
 still we find what is allied to it in meaning, where he speaks 
 of the new powers of utterance which would be impaited by 
 the Holy Spirit to the disciples, " I will give you a mouth and 
 wisdom," Lukexxi. 15. Thus this expression, " to speak with 
 new tongues," would mean, to speak with such ' ongues as tlie 
 Spirit gave them ; other tongues than those hitherto used, 
 originally intended to mark the great revolution effected by 
 Cluistianity in the dispositions of men wherever it found 
 entrance, among the rude as well as the civilized.' Yet we do 
 not venture to assume that the meaning of the expression 
 remained invariably the same, for this would be inconsistent 
 with its use in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, of which 
 we shall speak hereafter. As the original form of the expres- 
 sion in the Christian phraseology gradually was shortened in 
 many ways,- so likewise there was a gradual alteration in the 
 
 ' Gregory the Great beautifully remarks, in his Homil. in Evaiig. 
 1. ii. H. 29 : "Fideles quique, qui jam vitae veteris secularia verba 
 derelinquunt, sancta autem mysteria insonant, conditoris sui laudes 
 et potentiam quantum praivalent, narrant, quid aliud faciunt, nisi 
 uovis Unguis loquuntur I" The view I have here taken is nearly the 
 same as that of Herder in his Treatise on the Pentecostal Gift of 
 Tongues,— of Hase, and particularly of Bauer, in his valuable essay on 
 the subject in the Tuhingcr Zeitschrift filr Theolorjie, 1S30, part ii., 
 to which I am indebted for some modifications of my own view. My 
 honoured friend Steudel, in the same periodical, adopts a view essentially 
 the same. It has also found an advocate in Dr. Schulz. With Bleek 
 (see his learned and acute Dissertations in the StiLdien vnd Kritiken) 
 I agree in the general \iew of the subject, but not in the explanation of 
 the word -yXwaffa. Other grounds apart, adduced by Bauer, it appears 
 (o me far more natural to deduce the designation for the new form of 
 Christian inspiration, in reference to the Hebrew piclj as well as the 
 Greek yAHaa-a, from the language of common life, rather than from the 
 schools of grammarians. But the question, whether, in this connexion, 
 the word must originally be understood of the organ of language 
 (according to Bauer), or of the kind of language, does not appear to me 
 to be so very important, for in this instance both meanings of the word 
 are closely allied. 
 
 * Winer justly remarks, in the last edition of Ids Grammar, p. 534, 
 {Grammatik des Neutentamentlichen Sj^rachidioms, 4th Ed , Leipzig, 
 1836), that, in the phrase yXwaaais \a\uv, a word like Kaivah cannot 
 legitimately be supplied; but it may bo assumed that, from the original 
 complete phrase, after it had once acquired a fixed meaning, a shorter 
 jlliptical phrase was formed, as there was occasion to employ it I'requcntly.
 
 16 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE, 
 
 meaning ; that alteration, namely, of which many examples 
 are elsewhere found in the history of language, that a word 
 which at first was altogether the general sign of a certain idea, 
 became in later times, as various shades of meaning were 
 attached to this idea, hmited to one particular application of 
 it. Thus it came to pass, that an expression which originally 
 denoted the new language of Christians under the influence of 
 the Spirit generally, afterwards, when various modifications 
 of such language had been formed, became limited to that 
 kind in which the immediate influences of the Spirit predomi- 
 nated, and presented itself in the higher self-consciousness as 
 the specially ecstatic form,' while the discursive acti\dty of the 
 
 ' This continued to be the general use of the term for the first two 
 centuries, until, the historical connexion with the youthful age of the 
 church being broken, the notion of a supernatural gift of tongues was 
 formed. On this point it is worth while to compare some passages of 
 Irenseus and Tertullian. Irenaeus (lib. v. c. 9) cites what Paul says of 
 the wisdom of the perfect, and then adds, Paul calls those perfect, " Qui 
 perceptrunt Spiritum Dei, et omnibus Unguis loquuntur per Spiritum 
 Dei, quemadniodum et ipse loquebatur, KaOws koI ttoWwp aKouofiev 
 a.Se\<pa>v in rrj eKifKriala. trpocprjTLKa xopiV/iara ex<i'''r^o)v Kol iravToSairais 
 \aKovvTcov Sia rou izvfv^aros "yhdiffcrais Kal rh. Kpvcpia tcHv avdpdtnrwv sis 
 <pavephu aySvTciiv inl rip avfj.<i>4povTt Kal ra fivar-qpia rod 6€ov iKSirtyov- 
 fievaiv, quos et sjiiritales apostolus vocat." Though some persons think 
 the term TracToSoTrorj undoubtedly refers to the languages of various 
 nations, I do not see how that can be, according to its use at that time, 
 though the original meaning of the word might be so understood. It 
 is particularly worthy of notice, that h-enaaus represents this gift as one 
 of the essential marks of Christian perfection, as a characteristic of the 
 spiritales. We cannot well comprehend how he could suppose any thing 
 80 detached and accidental as speaking in many foreign languages, to 
 stand in so close and necessary a connexion with the essence of Chris- 
 tian inspiration. Besides, he speaks of it as one of those gifts of the 
 Spirit, which continued to exist in the church even in his own times. 
 He evidently considers the yXwa-aats \a\f7v as something allied to 
 irpo(pr}T(v(iy. To the latter, he attributes the faculty of bringing to 
 liijht the hidden thoughts of men, and to the former that of publishing 
 divine mysteries. He .sees nothing but this in the gift of tongues at 
 the effusion of the Holy Spirit, and, in reference to that event, places 
 together " prophetari et loqui Unguis,' 1. iii. c. 12. Tertullian 
 demands of Man-ion to point out among his followers proofs of ecstatic 
 inspiration : " Edat aliquem psalmum, aliquam visionem, aliquam 
 orationcm dunfaxat spiritualera in ecstasi, i. e. amentia, si qna Ungate 
 inicrpretatio aeccsscrit." Evidently in this connexion, the term 
 liuijun, expressing speaking in an ecstasy, which, since what is spoken 
 in this stale cannot be generally intelligible, an interpretation must 
 aecompany. Tertullian also, in the same passage {adv. Marcion,
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 17 
 
 understanding with the lower self-consciousness for the time 
 lay dormant. 
 
 After having attempted to clear np these different points, 
 we shall be better able to give a sketcli of the wiiole scene on 
 that memorable day. 
 
 The shock of the earthquake occasions the concourse of 
 many persons in the streets from various quarters, as the 
 festival had brought Jews and proselytes from all parts of the 
 world to Jerusalem. The assembling of the disciples attracts 
 their notice ; by degi'ees a crowd of curious inquirers is col- 
 lected, many of whom probably enter the assembly in order 
 to inform themselves accurately of the affiiir. The disciples 
 now turn to these strangers, and, constrained by the impulse 
 of the Spirit, announce to them what filled their hearts. The 
 impression made by their words varies with the dispositions 
 of their hearers. Some feel themselves affected by the energy 
 of inspiration with which the disciples spoke, but can give no 
 clear account of the impressions made by the whole affair. 
 Instead of asking themselves, " Whence proceeds that power 
 with which we hear these men speak who were not educated in 
 the schools of the scribes'?" their wonder is directed only to what 
 was most external. How comes it to pass that these Galileans 
 speak in foreig-n tongues 1 Others, who have been impressed 
 
 1. V. c. 8). applying the words in Ii^alah xi. 2 to the Christian church, 
 joins prophetari with Unguis loqui, and attributes both to the Spiritus 
 agnitionis, the Trpev/jia yvdo-fois. It further appears from what has been 
 Baid, that the gift of tongues was considered as still existing in the 
 church ; and it is strange that the Fathers never refer to it apolo- 
 getically, as an undeniable evidence to the lieathen of the divine power 
 operating among Christians, in the same manner as they appeal to the 
 gift of healing the sick, or of casting out demons, although the ability 
 to speak in a variety of languages which could not be acquired in 
 a natural way, must have been very astonishing to the heathen. In 
 Origen, in whose times the Charismata of the apostolic church began 
 to be considered as something belonging to the past, we find the first 
 trace of the opinion that has since been prevalent, yet even in him the 
 two views are mingled, as might be done by the distinction of the two- 
 fold mode of interpretation, the literal and the spiritual. Compare 
 Ep. ad Eoman. ed. De la Eue, t. iv. f. 470. 1. vii. f. 602, de Oratione, 
 § 2, tom. i. f. 199. The opposition to Montanism, which had subjected 
 the y\(i(Tcraii \a\f7v to abuse, as in the Corinthian Church, might con- 
 tribute to sink into oblivion the mote ancient interpretation. The 
 ^evoiptave'iv, the \a\e7i/ 4K<pp6v<tis koX aWoTptoTpSirws came to be considere ' 
 as a mark of the spurious ilontanist Inspiration, Euseb. Hist. Ec{l. v.f 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 TUB CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 witliout any precise consciousness, give vent to their astonish- 
 ment in general expressions, What can all this mean 1 But 
 those who were utterly unsusceptible and light-minded, ridi- 
 cule and reject what they are unable to comprehend. 
 
 The apostles held it to be their duty to defend the Christian 
 community against the reproaches cast iipon it by superficial 
 judges, and to avail themselves of the impression which this 
 spectacle had made on so many, to lead them to faith in Him 
 whose divine power was here manifested. Peter came forward 
 with the rest of the eleven, and as the apostles spoke in the 
 name of the whole church, so Peter spoke in the name of the 
 apostles. The promptitude and energy which made him take 
 the lead in expressing the sentiments with which all were 
 animated, were special endowments, founded on his natural 
 character ; hence the distinguished place which he had already 
 taken among the disciples, and which he long after held in the 
 first church at Jerusalem. "Think not," said Peter,' "that 
 in these unwonted appearances you see the effects of inebriety. 
 These are the signs of the Messianic era, predicted by the 
 prophet Joel ; the manifestations of an extraordinary effusion 
 of the Spirit, which is not limited to an individual here and 
 there, the chosen organs of the Most High, but in which all 
 share who have entered into a new relation to God by faith 
 in the Messiah. This Messianic era will be distinguished, as 
 the prophet foretold, by various extraordinary appearances, as 
 precursors of the last decisive epoch of the general judgment. 
 But whoever beheves in the Messiah has no cause to fear that 
 judgment, but may be certain of salvation. That Jesus of 
 Nazareth, whose divine mission was verified to you by the 
 miracles that attended his earthly course, is the very Messiah 
 promised in the Old Testament. Let not his ignominious 
 death be ui-gcd as invalidating his claims. It was necessary 
 <br the fulfilment of his work as the Messiah, and determined 
 f'ly the counsel of God. The events that followed his death 
 we a proof of this, for he vo&e from the dead, of which we are 
 
 ^ • Blcek has correctly perceived traces of a Hebrew original in Acts 
 ii. 24, where the connexion of the metaphor makes Seo-juous toO eavdroi 
 '=nj'0 '!?2n or ViNi^. IValm xviii. 5 and 6, which the Alexandrian renders 
 r>y iiSivts, accordini,' to the meaning of the word 'Jjn. See Bleak's 
 review of Mayeriiotrs Hist. Kritischer Einleitang in die hehraischm 
 Schriflen, in the Studicn und Kritiken. 1836, iv. 1021.
 
 THE CHKiSTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTIJTE. J 9 
 
 all witnesses, and has been exalted to heaven by tlie divine 
 power. From the extraordinary appearances which have filled 
 you with astonishment, you perceive, that in his glorified 
 state he is now operating with divine energy among tiiose 
 who believe on him. The heavenly Father has promised that 
 the Messiah shall fill all who believe on him with the power 
 of the divine Spirit, and this promise is now being fulfilled. 
 Learn, then, from these events, in which you behold the 
 prophecies of the Old Testament fulfilled, the nothingness of 
 all that you have attempted against him. and know that God 
 has exalted him whom you crucified to be Messiah, the ruler 
 of God's kingdom, and that, through divine power, he will 
 overcome all his enemies." 
 
 The words of Peter deeply impressed many, who anxiously 
 asked, What must we do 1 Peter called upon them to repent 
 of their sins, to believe in Jesus as the Messiali who could 
 impart to them forgiveness of sins and freedom from sin, — in 
 this faith to be baptized, and thus outwardly to join the com- 
 munion of the Messiah ; then would the divine power of faith 
 be manifested in them, as it had already been in the commu- 
 nity of believers ; they would receive the same gifts of the 
 Holy Spirit, the bestowment of which was simultaneous with 
 the forgiveness of sins, and freedom from sin ; for the promise 
 related to all believers without distinction, even to all in 
 distant parts of the world, whom God by his grace should lead 
 to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. 
 
 A question may be raised, Whether by these last words 
 Peter intended only the Jews scattered among distant nations, 
 or whether lie included those among the heathen themselves 
 who might be brought to the faith 1 As Peter at a siibsequent 
 period, opposed the propagation of the gospel among the 
 heathen, thei^e would be an appai'ent inconsistency in his now 
 making such a reference. But there is really no such con- 
 tradiction, for the scruple which clung so closely to Peter's 
 mind was founded only on his belief that heathens could not 
 be received into the community of believers, without first 
 becoming Jewish Proselytes, by the exact obseiwance of the 
 Mosaic law. Now, according to the declarations of the pro- 
 j)hets, he might expect that in the Messianic times the 
 heathen would be brought to join in the worship of Jehov;ili, 
 so that this sentunent might occur to him consistently with
 
 20 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 the views he then held, and he might express it without 
 giving offence to the Jews. Yet this explanation is not 
 absolutely necessary, for all the ihvee clauses (Acts ii. 39) 
 might be used only to denote the aggregate of the Jewish 
 nation in its full extent ; and we might rather expect that 
 Peter, who had been speaking of the Jews present and their 
 children, if he had thought of the heathen also, would have 
 carefully distinguished tiicm from the Jews. On the other 
 hand, the description, " AU. that are afar off, even as many as 
 the Lord our God shall call," appears too comprehensive 
 to justify us in confining it to persons originally belonging to 
 the Jewish nation. Hence, it is most probable, that in Peter's 
 mind, when he used this expression, there floated an indistinct 
 allusion to believers from other nations, though it did not 
 appear of sufficient importance for liim to give it a greater 
 prominence in his addi'ess, as it was his conviction, that 
 the converts to Christianity from heathenism must first 
 become Jews. 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 THE FIRST FORM OP THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, AND THE FIRST GERM 
 OF THE CONSTITUTION OP THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 The existence and first development of the Christian church 
 rests on an historical foundation — on the acknowledgment ot 
 the f;ict that Jesus was tlie Messiah — not on a certain system 
 of ideas. Hence, at first, all those who acknowledged Jesus 
 sis the Messiah, separated from the mass of the Jewish people, 
 Rnd formed themselves into a distinct community. In the 
 coui-se of time, it became apparent who were genuine, and 
 who were fiilse disciples ; but all who acknowledged Jesus as 
 the Messiah were baptized without fuller or longer instruction, 
 such as in later times has preceded baptism. There was only 
 one article of faith which formed the peculiar mark of 
 the Christian profession, and from this ])oint believers were 
 led to a clearer and perfect knowledge of the whole contents 
 of the Christian faith, by the continual enlighteuing of the
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 21 
 
 Holy Spirit. Believing that Jesus was the Messiah, they 
 ascribed to him tlie whole idea of what the Messiah was to be, 
 according to the meaning and spirit of the Old Testament 
 promises, rightly understood ; they acknowledged him as 
 the Redeemer from sin, the Ruler of the kingdom of God, to 
 whora their whole lives were to be devoted, whose laws were 
 to be followed in all things ; while he would manifest himself 
 as the Ruler of God's kingdom, by the communication of a 
 new divine principle of life, which to those who az'e redeemed 
 and governed by him imparts the certainty of the forgiveness 
 of sins. This divine principle of life must (they believed) 
 motdd their whole lives to a conformity with the laws of the 
 Messiali and his kingdom, and would be the pledge of all the 
 blessings to be imparted to them in the kingdom of God until 
 its consummation. Whoever acknowledged Jesus as the 
 Messiah, received him consequently as the infallible divine 
 prophet, and implicitly submitted to his instructions as com- 
 municated by his personal ministry, and aftei'wards by his 
 inspired organs, the apostles. Hence baptism at this period, 
 in its peculiar Christian meaning, referred to this one article 
 of faith, which constituted the essence of Christianity, as 
 baptism into Jesus, into the name of Jesus ; it was the holy 
 rite which sealed the connexion with Jesus as the Messiah. 
 From this signification of baptism we cannot indeed con- 
 clude with certainty that there was only oue form of baptism. 
 StiU, it is probable that in the original apostolic formula 
 no reference was made except to this one article. This shorter 
 baptismal formula contains in itself every thing which is 
 further developed in the words used by Cluist at the institu- 
 tion of baptism, but which he did not intend to establish 
 as an exact formula ; the reference to God, who has revealed 
 and showTi himself in and by the Sou, as a Father ; and 
 to the Spirit of the Father, whom Christ imparts to believers 
 as the new spirit of life ; the Spirit of holiness, who by 
 virtue of this iutervention is distinguished as the spirit of 
 Christ. That one article of faith included, therefore, the 
 whole of Christian doctrine. But the distinct knowledge of 
 its contents was by no means developed in the minds of the 
 first converts, or freed from foreign admixtures resulting from 
 Jewish modes of thinking, which required that religious ideas 
 should be stripped of that national and carnal veil with
 
 22 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 which they were covered. As the popular Jewish notion 
 of the Messiah excluded many things which were charac- 
 teristic of this idea, as foiTaed and understood in a Christian 
 sense, and as it included many elements not in accordance 
 with Christian views, one result was, that in the first Chris- 
 tian communities which were formed among the Jews, various 
 discordant n jtions of religion were mingled ; there were 
 many eiTors ai'ising from the prevailing Jewish mode of 
 thinking, some of which were by degi'ees corrected, in the 
 case of those who sun-endered themselves to the expansive 
 and pmifying influence of the Christian spirit ; but in those 
 over whom that spirit could not exert such power, these 
 errors formed the germ of the later Jewish-Christian (the so- 
 called Ebiouitish) doctrine, which set itself in direct hostility 
 to the pm'e gospel. 
 
 Thus we ai'c not justified in assuming that the Thi'ee 
 Thousand who were converted on one day, became trans- 
 formed at once into genuine Christians. The Holy Spmt 
 operated then, as in all succeeding ages, by the publication of 
 divine tnith, not with a sudden ti'ansforming magical power, 
 ~) but according to the measure of the free self-detemiination of 
 tlie human will. Hence, also, in these first Christian societies^ 
 as in all later ones, although originating in so mighty an 
 operation of tlie Holy Spirit, the foreign and spm'ious 'nere 
 mingled with the genuine. In fact, in proportion to the 
 might and energy of the operation, many persons were more 
 easily canied away by the fii-st impressions of divine truth, 
 whose hearts were not a soil suited for the divine seed to take 
 deep root and develop itself ; and in outwai'd appearance, 
 there were no infalhble marks of distinction between genuine 
 and merely apparent conversions. The example of Ananias 
 and Sapphira, and the disputes of the Palestinian and Hel- 
 lenistic Christians, evince even at that early period, that the 
 agency of the S])iri.t did not presen'e the church entirely pure 
 from foreign admixtures. It happened then, as in the gi-eat 
 religious revivals of other times, that many were bonie along 
 by the force of excited feelings, without having (as their sub- 
 sequent conduct proved) their disposition effectually pene- 
 trated by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The form of the Christian community and of the public 
 Christian worsliip, the archetype of all the later Christian
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHOBCH IN PALESTINE. 23 
 
 Cultus. arose at first, without any preconceived plan, from 
 the pecuhar nature of the higher hfe that belonged to 
 all true Christians. There was, however, this difference, that 
 the first Christian community formed as it were one family ; 
 the power of the newly awakened feeling of Christian fellow- 
 ship, the feeling of the common grace of redemption, out- 
 weighed all other personal and public feelings, and all other 
 relations were subordinated to this one great relation. But, 
 in later times, the distinction between the church and the 
 family became more marked, and many things which were at 
 first accomplished in the church as a family community, 
 could latterly be duly attended to only in the naiTower 
 communion of Christian family life. 
 
 The first Christians assembled daily either in the Temple, 
 or in private houses ; in the latter case they met in small 
 companies, since their numbers were already too great for one 
 chamber to hold them all. Discourses on the doctrine of 
 salvation were addressed to believers and to those who were just 
 won over to the faith, and prayers were offered up. As the 
 predominant consciousness of the enjoyment of redemption 
 brought under its influence and sanctified the whole of 
 earthly life, nothing earthly could remain untransformed by 
 this relation to a higher state. The daily meal of which 
 believers partook as members of one family was sanctified by 
 it.^ They commemorated the last supper of the disciples 
 with Chi'ist, and their brotherly union with one another. At 
 the close of the meal, the president distributed bread and wine 
 to the persons present, as a memorial of Christ's similar dis- 
 tribution to the disciples. Thus eveiy meal was consecrated 
 to the Lord, and, at the same time, was a meal of brotherly 
 love. Hence the designations afterwards chosen were, h'nrroi' 
 Kvplou and dyd-rn].^ 
 
 ' The bypothesi.s lately revived, that such institutions were borrowed 
 from the Essenes, is so entirely gratuitous as to require no refutation. 
 
 * li\ Acts ii. 42, we find the first general account of what passed in 
 the assemblies of the first Christians. Mosheim thinks, since every 
 thing else is mentioned that is found in later meetings of the church, 
 that the Koiuutv'ia refers to the collections made on these occasions. But 
 the context does not favour the use of the word Koivwvia in so restricted a 
 signification, which, therefore, if it were the meaning intended, would 
 require a more definite term. See Meyer's Commentary. We may 
 most naturally consider it as referring to the whole of the social Chris- 
 tian intercour.^e, two principal pans of which were, the common meal
 
 24 THE CHRISTIAZT CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 From ancient times an opinion has prevailed, which is ap- 
 parently favoured by many passages in the Acts, that the 
 spirit of brotherly love impelled the first Christians to 
 renounce all their earthly possessions, and to establish a 
 perfect intercommunity of goods. When, in later times, it 
 was perceived how very much the Christian life had receded 
 from the model of this fellowship of brotherly love, an earnest 
 longing to regain it was awakened, to which we must attribute 
 some attempts to effect what had been realized by the first 
 glow of love in the apostolic times — such were the orders of 
 Monkhood, the Mendicant Friars, the Apostolici, and the 
 Waldenses in the 12th and 13th centiuies. At all events, 
 supposing this opinion to be well founded, this practice of the 
 apostolic chm'ch ought not to be considered as in a literal 
 sense the ideal for imitation in all succeeding ages ; it must 
 have been a deviation from the natural course of social 
 development, such as could agree only with the extraordinary 
 manifestation of the divine life in the human race at that 
 particular period. Only the spirit and disposition here 
 manifested in thus amalgamating the earthly possessions of 
 numbers into one common fund, are the models for the 
 church in its development through all ages. For as Cliris- 
 tianity never subverts the existing natural com-se of develop- 
 ment in the human race, but sanctifies it by a new spirit, it 
 necessarily recognises the division of wealth (based on that 
 development), and the inequalities arising from it in the 
 
 and prayer. Luke mentions prayer last of all, probably because the 
 connexion between the common meal and prayer, which made an 
 essential part of the love-feast, was floating in his mind. Olshansen 
 maintains (see his Commentary, 2d ed. p. 629), that this interpre- 
 tation is inadmissible, because in this enumeration, every thing 
 relates to divine worship, as may be inferred from the preceding 
 expression SiSaxr)- But this supposition is wanting in proof. Ac- 
 cording to what we have before remarked, the communion of the 
 church, and of the family, were not at that time separated from one 
 another; no strict line of demarcation was drawn between what 
 belonged to the Christian Cultus in a narrower sense, and what related 
 to the Christian life and communion generally. Nor can the reason 
 alleged by Olshauseu be valid, that if my interpretation were correct, 
 the word Kowmuia must have been placed first, for it is altogether in order 
 that that should be placed first, which alone refers to the directive func- 
 tions of the apostles, that then the mention should follow of the 
 reciprocal Christian communion of all the members with one another, 
 aud that of this communion two particulars should be especially noticed.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 25 
 
 social relations , while it draws from these inequalities 
 materials for the formation and exercise of Christian virtue, 
 and strives to lessen them by the only true and never-failing 
 means,' the power, namely, of love. This, we find, agrees 
 with the practice of the churches subsequently founded by 
 the apostles, and with the directions given by Paul for the 
 exercise of Christian liberality, 2 Cor. viii. 13. Still, if we are 
 disposed to consider this community of goods as only the 
 effect of a peculiar and temporary manifestation of Christian 
 zeal, and foreign to the later development of the church, we 
 shall find many difficulties even in this mode of viewing it. 
 The first Christians formed themselves into no monkish fra- 
 ternities, nor lived as hermits secluded from the rest of the 
 world, but, as history shows us, continued in the same civil 
 relations as before their conversion ; nor have we any proofe 
 that a commujaity of goods was universal for a time, and was 
 then followed by a return to the usual arrangements of 
 society. On the contrarj^, several circumstances mentioned in 
 the Acts of the Apostles, are at variance with the notion of 
 such a relinquishment of private property. Peter said ex- 
 pressly to Ananias that it depended on himself to sell or to 
 keep his land, and that even after the sale, the sum received 
 for it was entirely at his own disposal. Acts v. 4. In the 6th 
 chapter of the Acts, there is an account of a distribution of 
 alms to the widows, but not a word is said of a common stock 
 
 • As the influence which Christianity exercises over mankind is not 
 always accompanied with a clear discernment of its principles, there 
 have been many erroneous tendencies, which, though tiostile to Chris- 
 tianity, have derived their nourishment from it, — half-truths torn from 
 their connexion with the whole body of revealed truth, and hence mis- 
 understood and misapplied ; of this, the St. Simonians furnish an 
 example. They had before them an indistinct conception of the Chris- 
 tian idea of equality ; but as it was not understood in the Christian 
 sense, they have attempted to realize it in a different manner. Tliey 
 have striven to accomplish by outward arrangements, what Christianity 
 aims at developing gradually through the mind and disposition, and 
 have thus fallen into absurdities. Christianity tends by the spirit of love 
 to reduce the opposition between the individual and the community, 
 and to produce an harmonious amalgamation of both. St. Simonianism, 
 on the contrary, practically represents the pantheistic tendency, of which 
 the theory is so prevalent in Germany in the present day ; it sacrifices 
 the individual to the community, and thus deprives the latter of its tnia 
 vital importance.
 
 2G THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 for the support of the whole body of believers. We find in 
 Acts xii. 1 2, that Mary possessed a house at Jerusalem, which 
 we cannot suppose to have been purchased at the general cost. 
 These facts plainly show, that we are not to imagine, even in 
 this first Christian society, a renunciation of all private pro- 
 perty.^ Therefore, when we are told, "The whole multitude 
 of believers were of one heart and of one soul, and had all 
 things common," &c., it is not to be understood literally, but 
 as a description of that brotherly love which repressed all 
 selfish feehngs, and caused the wealthier believers to regard 
 their property as belonging to their needy brethren, so ready 
 were they to share it with them. And when it is added, " that 
 they sold their possessions, and distribution was made to eveiy 
 man according as he had need," it is to be understood accord- 
 ing to what has just been said. A common chest was estab- 
 lished, from which the necessities of the poorer members of the 
 church were supplied, and perhaps certain expenses incurred 
 by the whole church, such as the celebration of the Agapse, 
 were defrayed ; and in order to increase their contributions, 
 many persons paited with their estates. Probably, a imion of 
 this kind existed among the persons who attended the Savioui*, 
 and ministered to his necessities, Luke viii. 3 ; and a fund for 
 
 ' Or we must assume, that as the power of the newly awakened feeling 
 of Christian fellowship overcame everj' other consideration, and wholly 
 repressed the other sacral relations that are based on the constitution 
 of human nature, which after a while resumed their rights, and became 
 appropriated as special forms of Christian fellowship, and that as the 
 church and family life were melted into one, it would well agree with 
 the development of a state so natural to the infancy of the church, that 
 by the overpowering feeling of Christian fellowship, all distinction of 
 property should cease, which would be accomplished from an inward im- 
 pulse without formal consultation or legal prescription. But after expe- 
 rience had shown how untenable such an arrangement was, this original 
 community of goods would gradually lead to the formation of a common 
 fund or chest, which would not interfere with the limits of p^'ivate pro 
 perty. But in the Acts these two gradations in the social arrangements 
 of the church might not be distinctly marked, nor would it be in oul 
 power to trace step by step the process of development. Still, we want 
 sufficient grounds for this assumption. The poverty of the church at 
 Jerusalem has indeed been adduced as an ill consequence of that original 
 community of goods. But this cannot be taken as a sure proof of the 
 fact ; for sinci- Christianity at first found acceptance among the poorer 
 classes, and the distress of the people at Jci-usalem in those times must 
 have been extreme, it can be explained without having recourse to such 
 K supposition.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 27 
 
 Similar purposes was afterwards formed by public collections in 
 the apostolic chm'ches.' 
 
 This practice of the first Christians, as we have remarked, 
 has been rendered memorable by the fate of Ananias and 
 Sapphira. Their example shows, how far the apostles were 
 from wishing to extort by outward requirements what ought 
 to proceed spontaneously fi'om the power of the Spirit ; they 
 looked only for the free actings of a pure disposition. A 
 man named Ananias, and his wife Sapphira, were anxious not 
 to be considered by the apostles and the church as inferior to 
 others in the liberality of their contributions. Probably, 
 a superstitious belief in the merit of good works was mingled 
 with other motives, so that they wished to be at the same 
 time meritorious in God's sight. They could not, however, 
 prevail on themselves to surrender the whole of their pro- 
 perty, but brought a part, and pretended that it was the 
 whole. Peter detected the dissimulation and hypocrisy of 
 Ananias, whether by a glance into the secret recesses of his 
 heart, imparted by the immediate influence of God's Spirit, 
 or by a natural sagacity derived from the same source, 
 we cannot decide with certainty fi'om the nai'rative. Nor is 
 it a question of importance, for who can so exactly draw the 
 hne between the divine and the human, in organs animated 
 by the Holy Spirit? The criminality of Ananias did not 
 consist in his not deciding to part with the whole amount of 
 his property ; for the words of Peter addressed to him show 
 that no exact measm-e of giving was prescribed ; each one 
 was left to contribute according to his peculiar circumstances, 
 and the degi-ee of love that animated him. But the hypocrisy 
 with which he attempted to make a show of gi'eater love than 
 he actually felt — the falsehood by which, when it took pos- 
 session of his soul, the Christian life must have been utterly 
 polluted and adulterated — this it was which Peter denounced, 
 as a work of the spirit of Satan, for falsehood is the fountain 
 of all evil. Peter charged him with lying to the Holy 
 Spirit ; with lying not to men but to God ; since he must 
 have beheld in the apostles the organs of the Holy Spirit 
 speaking and acting in God's name — (that God who was him- 
 self present in the assembly of believers, as a witness of his 
 
 1 This is confessedly no new view, but one adopted by Heumann, 
 Mosheim, and others before them.
 
 28 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 intentions) — and yet thought that he could obtain credit 
 before God for his good works. Peter uttered his solemn 
 rebuke with a divine confidence, springing from a regard 
 to that holy cause which was to be preserved from all foreign 
 mixtiu-es, and from the consciousness of being in an office 
 enti-usted to him by God, and in which he was supported by 
 divine power. When we reflect what Peter was in the eyes of 
 Ananias, how the superstitious hypocrite must have been con- 
 founded and thunderstruck to see his falsehood detected, how 
 the holy denunciations of a man speaking to his conscience 
 with such divine confidence must have acted on his terrified 
 feelings, we shall find it not very difficult to conceive that the 
 words of the apostle would produce so great an effect. The 
 divine and the natural seem here to have been closely 
 connected. ^Vhat Paul so confidently asserts in his Epistles 
 to the Corinthians, of his ability of inflicting punishment, 
 testifies of the conscious possession by the apostles of such 
 divine power. And when Sapphira, without suspecting what 
 had taken place, three hours after, entered the assembly, 
 Peter at first endeavoured to rouse her conscience by his 
 interrogations : but since, instead of being aroused to con- 
 sideration and repentance, she was hardened in her hypocrisy, 
 Peter accused her of having concerted with her husband, 
 to put, as it were, the Spirit of God to the proof, whether he 
 might not be deceived by their hypocrisy. He then menaced 
 her with the judgment of God, which had just been inflicted 
 on her husband. The words of the apostle were in this 
 instance aided by the impression of her husband's fate, and 
 striking the conscience of the hypocrite, produced the same 
 effect as on her husband. So terrible was this judgment, in 
 order to guard the first operations of the Holy Spirit, before the 
 admixture of that poison which is always most prejudicial to 
 the operations of divine power on mankind ; and to secure a 
 reverence for the apostolic authority, which was so important 
 as an external governing power for the development of the 
 primitive church, until it liad advanced to an independent 
 steadfi^stness and maturity in the fiiith. 
 
 The disciples had not yet attained a clear understanding of 
 that call, which Christ liad already given them by so many 
 intimations, to form a Church entirely separated from the 
 existing Jewish economy ; to that economy they adhered
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 29 
 
 as much as possible ; all the foniis of the national theocracy 
 were sacred in their esteem, it seemed the uatui-al elcmenc of 
 their religious consciousness, though a higher principle of life 
 had been imparted, by which that consciousness was to be 
 progressively inspired and transformed. They remained out- 
 wardly Jews, although, in proportion as their faith in Jesus as 
 the Redeemer became clearer and stronger, they would 
 inwardly cease to be Jews, and all external rites would assume 
 a different relation to their internal life. It was their belief, 
 that the existing religious forms would continue till the 
 second coming of Christ, when a new and higher order of 
 things would be established, and l^iis great change they 
 expected would shortly take place. Hence the establishment 
 of a distinct mode of worship was far from entering their 
 thoughts. Although new ideas respecting the essence of true 
 worship arose in their minds from the light of faith in 
 the Redeemer, they felt as great an interest in the Temple 
 worship as any devout Jews. They believed, however, that a 
 sifting would take place among the members of the theocracy 
 and that the better part wovdd, by the acknowledgment 
 of Jesus as the Messiah, be incorporated with the Christian 
 community. As the believers, in opposition to the mass of the 
 Jewish nation who remained hardened in their unbelief, now 
 formed a community internally bound together by the one 
 faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and by the consciousness of the 
 higher life received from him, it was necessary that this 
 internal union should assiime a certain external form. And 
 a model for such a smaller community within the great 
 national theocracy already existed among the Jews, along 
 with the Temple worship, namely, the Synagogues. The 
 means of religious edification which they supplied, took 
 account of the religious welfare of all, and consisted of 
 united prayers and the addresses of individuals who applied 
 themselves to the study of the Old Testament. These means 
 of edification closely corresponded to the nature of the new 
 Christian worship. This form of social worship, as it was 
 copied in all the religious communities founded on Judaism, 
 (such as the Essenes,) was also adopted to a certain extent at 
 the first formation of the Christian church. But it may be 
 disputed, whether the apostles, to whom Christ committed 
 the chief direction of a%irs, designed from the first thai
 
 30 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 believers should form a society exactly on the model of 
 the synagog-ue, and, in pui-suance of this plan, instituted 
 pai-ticular offices for the government of the church cor- 
 responding to that model — or whether, without such a 
 preconceived plan, distinct offices were appointed, as cir- 
 cumstances required, in doing which they w^ould avail them- 
 selves of the model of the synagogue, with which they were 
 familial". 
 
 The advocates of the first scheme (particxdarly Mosheim) 
 proceed on the undeniably correct assumption, that the 
 existence of certain presidents at the head of the Christian 
 societies, under the name of Elders {-rrpea^ivTepoi), must be pre- 
 supposed, though their appointment is not expressly men- 
 tioned, as appears from Acts si. 30. The question arises, 
 Whether even, earlier traces cannot be found of the existence 
 of such Presbyters 1 The appointment of deacons is indeed 
 first mentioned as designed to meet a special emergency, but 
 it seems probable that their office was already in existence. 
 It may be presumed, that the apostles, in order not to be 
 called off from the more weighty duties of their office, 
 appointed ft-om the beginning such almoners ; but as these 
 officers liitherto had been chosen only from the native Jewish 
 Christians of Palestine, the Christians of Jewish descent, who 
 came from other parts of the Roman Empire, and to whom 
 the Greek was almost as much their mother tongue as the 
 Aramaic, — the Hellenists as they were termed, — beheved that 
 they were unjustly treated. On their remonstrance, deacons 
 of Hellenistic descent were especially appointed for them, 
 as appears by their Greek names. As the apostles declared 
 that they were averse from being distracted in their purely 
 spiritual employment of prayer and preaching the word by 
 the distribution of money, we may reasonably infer that even 
 before this time, they had not engaged in such business, but 
 had transferred it to other persons appointed for the purpose. 
 Still earlier, in Acts v., we find mention made of persons 
 under the title of rtwrtpoi, veavi(TKou who considered such an 
 employment as caiTying a corpse out of the Christian assem- 
 bhes for burial as belonging to their office, so that they seem 
 to have been no other than deacons. And as the title of 
 younger stands in contrast with that of elders in the church, 
 the existence of servants of the church {liaKovoi), and
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCn IX PALESTINE. 31 
 
 of nikag eldei's (irpefffjuTepoi), seems here to be equally 
 pointed out. 
 
 But though this supposition has so much plausibility, yet 
 the evidence for it, on closer examination, appears by no 
 means conclusive. It is far from clear that in the last quoted 
 passage of the Acts, the narrative alludes to persons holding 
 a distinct office in the cliurch ;' it may very natui'ally be 
 understood of the younger members who were fitted for such 
 manual employment, without any other eligibility than the 
 fact of their age and bodily strength. And, therefore, we are 
 not to suppose that a contrast is intended between the 
 sei-vants and iniling Elders of the chiu-ch, but simply between 
 the younger and older members. As to the Grecian names 
 of the seven deacons, it cannot be inferred with certainty 
 from this circumstance that they all belonged to the Hellenists 
 for it is well known that the Jews often bore double names, 
 one Hebrew or Ai-amaic, and the other Hellenistic. Still it is 
 possible, since the complaints of the partial distribution of 
 alms came from the Hellenistic part of the church, that, 
 in order to infuse confidence and satisfaction, pure Hellenists 
 were chosen on this occasion. But if these deacons were 
 appointed only for the Hellenists, it would have been most 
 natm'al to entrust their election to the Hellenistic pai't alone, 
 and not to the whole church. 
 
 ^ Even after what has been urged by Meyer and Olshausen, in iheu- 
 Commentaries on the Acts, against this view, I cannot give it up. In 
 accordance with the relation in which, anciently, and especially among 
 the Jews, the young stood to their elders, it would follow as a matter of 
 course, that the young men in an assembly would be ready to perform 
 any service which might be required. I do not see why (as Olshausen 
 maintains,) on that supposition, any other term than vedmpoi should 
 have been used — for, if Luke had wished to designate appointed ser- 
 vants of the church, he would not have used this indefinite appella- 
 tion; — nor can I feel the force of Olshausen's objection, that in that 
 passage of the Acts, the article would not have been used, but the pro- 
 noun rives. Luke intended to mark, no doubt, a particular class 
 of persons, the younger contradistinguished from the elder, without 
 determining whether all or only some lent their assistance. But Ols- 
 hausen is so far right, that if these are assumed to be regularly appointed 
 servants of the church, they cannot be considered as the forerunners of 
 the deacons chosen at a later period, for manifestly these vionepoi held 
 a far lower place. I am glad to find an acute advocate of the view 
 I have taken in Rothe ; see his work on the Commencement of the 
 Christian Church, p. 162.
 
 32 THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 Hence we are disposed to believe, that the church was at 
 first composed entirely of members standing on an equality 
 with one another, and that the apostles alone held a higher 
 rank, and exercised a directing influence over the whole,, 
 which ai'ose from the original position in which Christ had 
 placed them in relation to other believers ; so that the whole 
 an'angement and administration of the affairs of the church 
 proceeded from them, and they were first induced by par- 
 ticular circumstances to appoint other church officers, as in 
 .he instance of deacons. 
 
 As in the government of the chixrch in general the apostles 
 at first were the sole directors, all the contributions towards 
 the common fund were deposited with them (Acts v. 2), and 
 its distribution, according to the wants of individuals, wa-s 
 altogether in their hands. From Acts vi. 2, it cannot be 
 positively inferred, that the apostles had nc; hitherto been 
 occupied with this secular concern. That passage may be 
 understood to intimate that they had hitherto attended to 
 this business without being distracted in their calling as 
 preachers of the Word, as long as the confidence universally 
 reposed in them, and the unity pei-vading the church, lightened 
 this labour ; but it assumed a very different aspect when 
 a conflict of distinct interests arose between the members. 
 Meanwhile, tlie number of the believers increased so gi'eatly, 
 that it is probable, had there been no other reason, that the 
 apostles could not manage the distribution alone ; but con* 
 signed a part of the business sometimes to one, sometimes to 
 another, who either offered themselves for the purpose, or 
 had shown themselves to be woi*thy of such confidence. Still 
 this department of labour had not yet received any regular 
 form. 
 
 But as the visible church received into its bosom various 
 elements, the opposition existing in these elements gradually 
 became apparent, and threatened to destroy the Christian 
 unity, until by the might of the Chi'istian spirit this oppo- 
 sition could be counterbalanced, and a higher unity developed. 
 The strongest opposition existing in the primitive church, 
 was that between the Palestinian or purely Jewish, and the 
 Hellenistic converts. And though the power of Christian 
 love at first so fused together the dispositions of these two 
 parties, that the contrariety seemed lost, yet the original
 
 THE CHRISl'IAN CHURCH IN PALEST1N1G. 33 
 
 difference soon made its appearance. It showed itself in this 
 respect, that the Hellenists, dissatisfied with the mode of 
 distributing the alms, were mistrustful of the others, and 
 believed that they had cause to complain that their own poor 
 widows were not taken such good care of in the daily 
 distribution,' as the widows of the Palestinian Jews ; whether 
 the fact was, tliat the apostles had hitherto committed this 
 business to Palestinian Jews, and these had either justly or 
 unj ustly incurred the suspicion of paitiality, or whether the 
 want of a regular plan for this business had occasioned much 
 irregularity and neglect of individuals, or whether the com- 
 plaint was grounded more in the natural misti'ust of the 
 Hellenists than in a real grievance, must be left undetermined, 
 from the want of more exact information. These complaints, 
 however, induced the apostles to establish a regular plan for 
 conducting this business, and since they could not themselves 
 combine the strict oversight of individuals, and the satisfaction 
 of each one's wants,^ witli a proper attention to the principal 
 object of their calling, they thought it best to institute a par- 
 ticular office for the purpose, the first regular one for adminis- 
 tering the concerns of the church. Accordingly, they re- 
 quired the church to entrust this business to persons who 
 enjoyed the general confidence, and were fitted for the office, 
 animated by Christian zeal, and armed with Christian pru- 
 dence.^ Seven such individuals wei'e chosen ; the number 
 being accidentally fixed upon as a common one, or being 
 adapted to seven sections of the church. Thus this office 
 originated in the immediate wants of the primitive church, 
 
 ' Neither from the expression SiaKovla, vi. 1, nor from the phrase 
 SiaKoveiv rpavi^ais, can it be inferred Avith certainty that the apostles 
 alluded only to the distribution of food among the poor widows. We 
 may be allowed to suppose that this was only one of the Tables of the 
 service they performed, and that it is mentioned to mark mora 
 pointedly the distinction between the oversight of spiritual, and that of 
 secular concerns. 
 
 2 That they were required to undertake the business alone, instead 
 of entrusting it to deputies, cannot be proved from the language in the 
 Acts. 
 
 ■' Acts vi. 3. The word -nvevixa (which is the true reading, for dyloi} 
 and Kvp'iov appear to be only glosses) denotes that inspiration for the 
 cause of the gospel which is requisite for every kind of exertion for the 
 kingdom of God ; aocpia signifies, that quality which is essential for 
 this ofBce in r-articular. and imports in the New Testament, wi.sdom or 
 prudence 
 
 VOL. I. I>
 
 34 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 and its special mode of operation was marked out by the 
 peculiar situation of this first union of believers, which was 
 in some points dissimilar to that of the Jewish S3magogue, or 
 of later churches. As it was called for by the pressure of 
 circumstances, it certainly was not intended to be perfectly 
 correspondent to an office in the Jewish synagogue, and 
 can by no means be considered parallel to that of a 
 common servant of the synagogue (Luke iv. 20), termed 
 jirt, \i5i3^, -naa rv)z\^ It was of higher importance, for 
 at first it was the only one in the church besides the 
 apostolic, and required a special capability in the manage- 
 ment of men's dispositions, which might be employed in ser- 
 vices of a higher kind, and was such as without doubt 
 belonged to the general idea of uocpia. Neither was this 
 office altogether identical with that which at a later period 
 bore the same name," but was subordinate to the office of 
 presb^'ters. And yet it would be wrong to deny that the 
 later church office of this name developed itself fi.-om the 
 fii-st, and might be traced back to it.^ Although, as is usual 
 in such affairs, when the ecclesiastical system became more 
 complex, many changes took place in the office of deacons ; 
 for example, the original sole appointment of deacons for the 
 distribution of alms, became afterwai'ds subordinate to the 
 influence of the presb}i;ers, who assumed the whole manage- 
 ment of church affairs,* and though many other secular 
 employments were added to the original one, yet the funda- 
 mental principle as well as the name of the office remained. ^^ 
 
 ' Sec Rothe s admirable Remarks, p. 166. 
 
 ^ As Chrysostom observes in his fourteenth Homily on the Acts, § 3. 
 
 ■• As the Second TruUanian Council, c. 16, which was occasioned by 
 a special object, that tlie number of deacons for large towns might not 
 be limited to seven. 
 
 * From Acta xi. 30, nothing more is to be inferred, than that when 
 presbyters were appointed for the general superintendence of the church, 
 the contributions intended for the church were handed over to them, as 
 formerly to the apostles, when they held the exclusive management of 
 affairs. It may be fairly supposed that the presbyters entrusted each of 
 the deacons with a sum out of the common fund for distribution in his 
 own department. 
 
 ' I find no reason (with Rothe, p. 166) to doubt this ; for the name 
 was well ailapted to denote their particular employment, and to dis- 
 liuguish them from persons acting in a more sul)ordinate capacity, as 
 vTriiptrai. Nor is it any objection to this, that in Acts xxi. 8 they are 
 merely called The Seven, for as the name of deacon was then the usual
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. oO 
 
 In later times, we still find traces of the distribution of alms 
 being considered as the peculiar employment of deacons.' 
 Here, as in many other instances in the history of the church, 
 human weakness and imperfection subsei-ved the divine 
 wisdom, and promoted the interests of the kingdom of God ; 
 for by this appointment of deacons for the Hellenistic part of 
 the chm-ch, distinguished men of Hellenistic descent and 
 education were brought into the pubhc service of the church, 
 and the Hellenists, by their freer mental culture, were in 
 many respects better qualified rightly to understand and to 
 publish the gospel as the foundation of a method of salvation 
 independent of Judaism, and intended for all men equally 
 without distinction. The important consequences residting 
 from this event will appear in the course of the history. 
 
 The institution of the ofiice of presbyters was similar in its 
 origin to that of deacons. As the chm-ch was continually in- 
 creasing in size, the details of its management also multiplied ; 
 the g-uidauce of all its affairs by the apostles could no longer 
 be conveniently combined with the exei'cise of theii- peculiar 
 apostolic functions ; they also wished, in accordance with the 
 spirit of Christiauitj^, not to govern alone, but preferred that 
 the body of behevers should govern themselves under their 
 gTudance ; thus they divided the government of the chm-ch, 
 which hitherto they had exercised alone, with tried men, who 
 formed a presiding council of elders, similar to that which 
 was known in the Jewish synagog-ues under the title of c':pi, 
 vpeafivrepoi.^ Possibly, as the formal appointment of deacons 
 
 appellation of a certain class of officers in the church, Luke uses this 
 expression to distinguish them from others of the same name, just as 
 TJte Ticclve denoted the apostles. 
 
 ' Hence, at the appointment of deacons, it was required, that they 
 should " not be greedy of hltliy lucre," 1 Tim. iii. 8. Origen, in 
 Matt. t. xvi. § 22, ot SidKoyoi Stomovvns to t-^s sKKXTjcrias xp'^A"»''"a; and 
 Cyprian sa.\s of the deacon Felicissimus, peciinice commissce sibi J'rau- 
 dator. Even in the apostolic age, the deacon's otiice appears to have 
 extended to many other outward employments, and most probably the 
 word avTiKj]^eis, ' Helps,' denotes the serviceableness of their offica 
 1 Cor. xii. 28. 
 
 * Bauer has lately maintained, that the general government of the 
 affairs of the church did not enter originally and essentially into the 
 idea of 7rpe<r)3uTepoi, but that originally every irpeo-jSirrtpos presided over 
 a small distinct Christian society. From this, one consequence would 
 follow which Bauer also deduces from it. that not a republican, but a
 
 36 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 aa-ose from a specific outward occasion, a similar, though to 
 us unknown, event occasioned that of presbyters. They were 
 originally chosen as in the Synagogue, not so much for the. 
 instruction and edification of the church, as for taking the 
 lead in its general government. 
 
 But as to the provision made in the primitive church for 
 reUgious instruction and edification, we have no precise in- 
 
 monarchical element entered originally into the constitution of the 
 church, a position from which most important consequences would 
 follow. But against this assertion, we have many things to urge. 
 Since the appointment of presbyters in the Christian church entirely 
 corresponded with that of presbyters in the Jewish synagogue, at least in 
 their original constitution, so we may conclude, that if a plurality of 
 elders stood at the head of the synagogue, the same was the case with 
 the first Christian church. But as the synagogue according to the an- 
 cient Jewish constitution, was organized on the plan of the great Sanhe- 
 drim at Jerusalem, we might expect that a whole college of elders would 
 have the direction of the synagogues, as such ^ college of elders was 
 really at the head of the Jews in a city. Luke vii. 3. The passages in 
 which one is distinguished by the title of 6 aQx^o-vi/dyooyos, Luke viii. 
 41, 49 ; xiii. 14, may signify, that the individual mentioned stood at 
 the head of the Jewish congregation as hDjD:! ttxi, and that the form of 
 government was rather monarchical. But admitting this, still the sup- 
 position of a college of presbyters, presiding over the synagogue, would 
 not be invalidated, since we meet with a phirality of dgx^awdyccyoi = 
 irgffffivregoi, Acts xiii. 15; xviii. 8 — 18. Yet we must make the limita- 
 tion, that in smaller places an individual, as in larger towns a plurality, 
 stood at the head of the synagogue. It is most probable, that although 
 all presbyters were called dgx^cvvdyuyoi, yet one who acted as president 
 was distinguished by the title of agx^crvvdyuiyos, as x'l'iinus inter pares. 
 In evidence of this, compare the first passage quoted from Luke with 
 Mark v. 22. This is important in reference to the .atcr relation of 
 bishops to presbyters. The analogy to the Jewish synagogue allows us 
 to conclude, that at the head of the first church at Jerusalem, a general 
 deliberative college was placed from the beginning; a notion which 
 is favoured by a comparison with the college of apostles ; and in the 
 Acts, a plurality of preshyters always appears next in rank to the apo- 
 stles, as representatives of the church at Jerusalem. If any one is dis- 
 posed to maintain, that each of these presbyters presided over a smaller 
 part of the church at its special meetings, still it must be thereby 
 established, that notwithstanding these divided meetings, the church 
 formed a whole, over which this deliberative college of presbyters pre- 
 sided, and therefore, the form of government was still republican. But 
 if it ia proliablc that the whole church, which could not meet in one 
 place, divided itself into several companies, still the assumption, that 
 from the beginning the number of presl>yters was equal to the number 
 of places of assembling, and to these subdivisions of the collective body 
 of believers, is entirely groundless, and in the highest degreo improbable.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 37 
 
 formation. If we are justified in assuming that the mode 
 adopted in the assembUes of Gentile Christians — which, in ac- 
 cordance with the enhghtened spirit and nature of Chris- 
 tianity, was not confined to one station of hfe, or to one form 
 of mental cultivation — was also the original one, we might 
 from that conclude, that from the first, any one who had the 
 ability and an inward call to utter his thoughts on Christian 
 topics in a public assembly, was permitted to speak for the 
 general improvement and edification.' But the first church 
 differed from the churches subsequently formed among the 
 Gentiles in one important respect, that in the latter there 
 were no teachei-s of that degree of illumination, and claiming 
 that respect to which the apostles had a right, from the posi- 
 tion in which Christ himself had placed them. Meanwhile, 
 though the apostles principally attended to the advancement 
 of Christian knowledge, and as teachers possessed a prepon- 
 derating and distinguished influence, it by no means follows, 
 that they monopolized the right of instructing the churcli- In 
 proportion as they were influenced by the spirit of the Gospel, 
 it must have been their aim to lead believers by their teach- 
 ing to that spiritual maturity, which would enable them to 
 contribute (by virtue of the divine life communicated to aU 
 by the Holy Spirit) to their mutual awakening, instruction, 
 and improvement. Viewing the occurrences of the day of 
 Pentecost as an illustration of the agency of the Di-vane Spirit 
 in the new dispensation, we might conclude that, on subse- 
 quent occasions, that spiritual excitement which impelled 
 believers to testify of the di\ane life, could not be confined to 
 the apostles. Accordingly, we find tliat individuals came for- 
 ward, who had already devoted themselves to the study and 
 interpretation of the Old Testament, and to meditation on 
 divine things ; and when, l)y the illumination of the Holy 
 Spirit, they had become familiar with the natiue of the gospel, 
 they could with comparative ease develop and apply its truths 
 in public addresses. They received the gift for which there 
 
 ' That in the Jewish Christian churches, public speaking in their as- 
 gemhlies was not confined to certain authorized persons, is evident from 
 the fact, that James, in addressing believers of that class who were too 
 apt to substitute talking for practising, censured them, because so many 
 without an inward call, prompted by self-conceit, put themselves for- 
 ward in their assemblies as teachers. 
 
 281.235
 
 38 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINR. 
 
 was an adaptation in their minds — the xapiTfia hdaak-aXlac, 
 and, in conseqvience of it, were inferior only to the apostles in 
 aptitude for giving pul)lic instruction. Besides that connected 
 intellectual development of truth, there were also addresses, 
 which proceeded not so much from an aptness of the under- 
 standing improved by exercise, and acting with a certain uni- 
 I'ormity of operation, as from an instantaneous, immediate, 
 inward awakening by the power of the Holy Spirit, in which 
 a divine afflatus was felt both by the speaker and hearers : to 
 this class belonged the Trpuiuri-tiai, the j^optc/un Trpofrjrelac. To 
 the ])ro])hets also were ascribed the exhortations (napauXiiaeic), 
 which struck with the force of instantaneous impression on 
 the minds of the hearers.' The cudaKaXoi might also possess 
 the gift of 7rpo(j)T)Ttt'i. but not all who uttered particular in- 
 stantaneous exhortations as prophets in the church, were 
 capable of holding the office of ^ilaatc^iXoi.- We have no pre- 
 cise information concerning the relatibn of the ^uaerKaXoi to 
 the presbyters in the primitive church, whether in the ap- 
 pointment of presbyters, care was taken that only those who 
 were fnrnished with the gift of teaching should be admitted 
 into the college of presbyters. Yet, in all cases, the oversight 
 of tlie propagation of the Christian faith — of the administra- 
 tion of teaching and of devotional exercises in the social 
 meetings of believers, belonged to that general superintendence 
 of the church which was entrusted to them, as in the Jewish 
 Bynagogues ; although it was not the special and exclusive 
 office of the elders to give public exhortations, yet whoever 
 might speak in their assemblies, they exercised an inspection 
 over them. Acts xiii. 15. In an u})istle written towards the 
 end of tlie apostolic era to an early chm-ch composed of Chris- 
 tians of Jewish descent in Palestine (the Epistle to the Hebrews), 
 it is presupposed that the rulers of the church had from the 
 fn-st i)rovided for the delivery of divine truth, and watched 
 over tlie spiritual welfare of the church, and therefore had the 
 care of soiils. 
 
 ' Tlie Lcvite Josc>, who distinguished himself by his powerful ad- 
 dresses in the church, was reckoned among the prophets, and hence was 
 called by the apostles n.j^2? i3, BaQva.0as,and this is translated in the 
 Acts (iv. 36) vlbs iTayaK\i\(rews = vlos i:oo(p-r\Telas. 
 
 ' In Acts xi.\. C, as a manifestation of the spiritual gifts that followed 
 eoHversioii, ^oo<pyjTtvtiv is jjut next to yXwcaais \a\ui.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 3'j 
 
 Relative to the spread of Christianity among the Jews, the 
 most remarkable feature is the gi'adual transition from Judaism 
 to Christianity as a new independent creation, Chi-istianity 
 presenting itself as the crowning-point of Judaism in its con- 
 summation accomplished by the Messiah ; the transfigm-ation 
 and spiritualization of Judaism, the new, perfect law given by 
 the Messiah as the fulfilling of the old ; the new spirit of the 
 higher life communicated by the Messiah, gi-adually developing 
 itself in the old religious forms, to which it gave a real vitality. 
 Such is that representation of Christianity which is given in 
 the Sermon on the Blount. Fii-st of all, Peter appeare before us, 
 and then after he had passed over the limits of the old national 
 theocracy to publish the gospel among the heathen, James 
 presents himself as the representative of this firet step in the 
 development of Christianity in its most perfect form. 
 
 The transition from Judaism to Chiistianity in general 
 gradually developed itself, beginning with the acknowledg- 
 ment of Jesiis as the ISIessiah promised in the Old Testament ; 
 and hence many erroneous mixtures of the religious spirit 
 prevalent among the Jews were formed with Christianity, in 
 which the Jewish element predominated, and the Christian 
 principle was depressed and hindered from distinctly imfolding 
 itself There were many to whom faith in the jMessiahship of 
 Jesus was added to their former religious views, only as an 
 insulated outward fact, without developing a new principle in 
 their inward life and disposition — baptized Jews w^ho acknow- 
 ledged Jesus as the Messiah, and expected his speedy return 
 for the establishment of the Messianic kingdom in a temporal 
 form, as they were wont to repi'esent it to themselves fi-om 
 their carnal Jewish standing-point ; they received some new 
 precepts from Him as so many positive commands, without 
 rightly understanding their sense and spirit, and were httle 
 disting-uished in their lives from the common Jews. That 
 Jesus faithfully observed the fonu of the Je^\'ish law, was 
 assumed by them as a proof that that form would always 
 retain its value. They clung to the letter, the spirit was always 
 •u mystery: they could not understand in what sense he declared 
 that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. They 
 adhered to not destroying it according to the letter, without 
 understanding what tliis meant accoi-ding to the spirit, since 
 what was meavthj fuljilling it was equally unknown to them.
 
 40 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTI-NE. 
 
 Such persons would easily fall away from the faith wnich laad 
 never been in them a trvily living one, when they found 
 that their carnal expectations were not fulfilled, as is implied 
 in the langaiage of the Epistle to the Hebrews. As the com- 
 mon Jewish spirit manifested itself to be a one-sided attach- 
 ment to externals in religion, a cleaving to the letter and 
 outward forms, without any development and appropriation 
 of the spirit, a preference for the shell without the kernel : so 
 it appeared in the Jews as an opponent to the reception of the 
 gospel, and to the renovation of the heart by it, as an over- 
 valuation of the outward obsen-ance of the law, whether in 
 ceremonies or in a certain outward propriety, and an undue 
 estimation of a merely historical faith, something external to 
 the soul, consisting only in outward profession, either of faith 
 in one God as creator and governoi-, or in Jesus as the Messiah, 
 as if the essence of religion were placed in either one or the 
 other, or as if a righteousness before God could be thereby 
 obtained. The genius of the gospel presented itself in oppo- 
 sition to both kinds of ojms operatum and dependence on 
 works, as we shall see in the sequel. At first it was the ele- 
 ment of Pharisaic Jvidaism, which mingled itself with, and 
 disturbed the pure Christian truth ; at a later period Chris- 
 tianity aroused the attention of those mystical or theosophic 
 tendencies which had developed themselves in opposition to 
 the Pharisaism cleaving rigidly to the letter, and a carnal 
 Judaism, partly and more immediately as a reaction from the 
 inward religious element and spirit of Judaism, partly under 
 the influence of Oriental and Grecian mental tendencies, by 
 wiiich the unbending and rugged Judaism was weakened and 
 modified ; and from this quarter other erroneous mixtures 
 with Christianity proceeded, which cramped and depressed 
 the pui'e development of the Word and Spirit. 
 
 We shall now pass on from the first internal development 
 of the Clmstiau Chm'ch among the Jews to its outwRi'd con- 
 dition.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTIVTi!. 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE OUTWARD CONDITION OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH : ITS PERSECUTIONS 
 AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 It does not appear that the Pharisees, though they had taken 
 the lead in the condemnation of Christ, were eager, after that 
 event, to persecute his followers. They looked on the illite- 
 rate Galileans as worthy of no further attention, especially 
 since they strictly observed the ceremonial law, and at first 
 abstained from controverting the peculiai* tenets of their 
 party ; they allowed them to remain undisturbed, like some 
 other sects by whom their own interests were not affected. 
 Meanwhile, the chm-ch was enabled continually to enlarge 
 itself An increasing number were attracted and won by the 
 overpowering energy of sjjiritual influence which was mani- 
 fested in the primitive church ; the apostles also, by the 
 miracles they wi-ought in the confidence and power of faith, 
 first aroused the attention of carnal men, and then made use of 
 this impression to bring them to an acknowledgment of the 
 divine power of Him in whose name such wonders were per- 
 formed, and to hold him forth to them as the deliverer from 
 evil. Peter, especially, possessed in an extraordinary degi'ee 
 that gift of faith which enabled him to perform cures, of which 
 a remarkable example is recorded in the third chapter of 
 the Acts. 
 
 When Peter and John, at one of the usual hours of prayer, 
 about tln-ee in the afternoon, were going into the temple, they 
 found at one of the gates of the temple (whose precincts, as 
 afterwards those of Christian churches, were a common resort 
 of beggars) a man who had been lame from his birth. While 
 he was looking for alms from them, Peter uttered the memor- 
 aole words, which plainly testified the conscious possession of 
 a divine power that could go far beyond the common powers 
 of man and of nature ; and which, pronounced with such con- 
 fidence, can-ied the pledge of their fulfilment : " Silver and 
 gold have I none ; but such as I have, give I thee ; In the 
 name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk." When the 
 man, who had been universally known as a lame beggai', was 
 seen standing with joy by the side of his two benefactors, to
 
 42 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 whom lie clung with overflowing gratitude, a crowd full of 
 curiosity and astonishment collected around the apostles as 
 they were leaving tlie temple, and were ready to pay them 
 homage as persons of pecuhar sanctity. But Peter said to 
 them, " Why do you look full of wonder on us, as if we had 
 done this by our own power and holiness 1 It is not our 
 work, but the work of the Holy One whom ye rejected and 
 delivered up to the Gentiles, whose death ye demanded, though 
 a heathen judge wished to let him go, and felt compelled to 
 acknowledge his innocence." We here meet with the charge 
 which ever since the day of Pentecost, Peter had been used to 
 bring forward, in order to lead the Jews to a consciousness of 
 their guilt, to repentance, and to faith. " God himself has by 
 subsequent events justified Him whom ye condemned, and 
 proved your guilt. That God who was with our fathers, and 
 revealed his presence by miraculous events, has now revealed 
 himself by the glorification of Him whom je condemned. Ye 
 have put him to death, whom God destined thereto, to bestow 
 on us a divine life of everlasting blessedness ; but God raised 
 him from the dead, and we are the eye-witnesses of his resur- 
 rection. Tlie believing confidence implanted in our hearts 
 by him, has effected this miracle before your eyes." Peter 
 would have spoken in a different strain to obstinate unbe- 
 lievers. But . here he hoped to meet with minds open to 
 conviction. He therefore avoided saying what would only 
 exasperate and repel their feelings. After he had said what 
 tended to convince them of their guilt, he adopted a milder 
 tone, to infuse confidence and to revive the contrite. He 
 brought forward what might be said in extenuation of those 
 who had united in tlie condemnation of Christ, '■' that in 
 ignorance they had denied the Messiah," ' and that as fixr as 
 they and their rulers had acted in ignorance, it was in con- 
 .sequenoe of a higher necessity. It was the eternal counsel of 
 God, that the Messiah should suffer for the salvation of men, as 
 had been predicted by the prophets. But now is the time for 
 you to prove, that you have erred only through ignorance, if 
 
 ' Peter by no means acq.uits them of all criminality, as the con- 
 nexion of his words with what he had before said plainly shows; for 
 he had broui;lit forward the example of Pilate to point out how great 
 was the criminality of those who, even in their blindness, condemned 
 Jesus ; but ignorance may be more or less culpable, according to the 
 diflercnce of the persons.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 43 
 
 yoLi now allow youi-selves to be brought to a sense of your 
 unrighteousness by the fact of which you are witnesses ; if 
 you now repent and believe in Jesus as the Messiah, and seek 
 through liim that forgiveness of your sins which he is ready 
 to bestow. Thus only 3'ou can expect deliverance from all 
 evil, and full salvation ; for he is now hidden from your bodily 
 eyes, and, exalted to heaven, reveals himself as invisibly effi- 
 cient by miracles, such as those you have wdtnessed ; but 
 when the time arrives for the completion of all things, that 
 great period to which all the prophecies of the Old Testament 
 point from the beginning, then will he appear again on earth 
 to effect that completion ; for Moses' and the prophets have 
 spoken beforehand of what is to be performed by the Messiah, 
 as the consummation of all things. And you are the persons 
 to whom these promises of the prophets will be fulfilled ; to 
 3'ou belong the promises which God gave to yom* fathers, the 
 promise given to Abraham, that through his posterity all the 
 families of the earth should be blessed.- As one day a blessing 
 ft-om this promised seed of Abraham shall extend to all the 
 nations of the earth, ^ so shall it first be fulfilled to you, if you 
 turn from your sins to him. 
 
 The commotion produced among the people w^ho gathered 
 round the apostles in the precincts of the temple, at last 
 aroused the attention and suspicion of the priests, whose 
 office it was to perform the service in the temple, and to 
 preserve order there. The two apostles, with the cured 
 cripple who kept close to them, were apprehended, and as it 
 
 ' Peter here appeals to the passage in Deuteronomy xviii. 15, 18, 
 where certainly, according to the connexion, only the prophets in 
 general, by whom God continually enlightened and guided his people, 
 are contrasted with the lalse soothsayers and magicians of idolatrous 
 nations. But yet, as tiie Messiah was tlie last of these promised 
 prophets, to be followed by no other, in whom the whole prophetic 
 system found its centre and consummation, so far this pas.sage in its 
 spirit may justly be applied to the Messiah ; though we cannot affirm 
 that Peter himself was distinctly aware of the difference between the 
 right interpretation of tlie letter, according to grammatical and logical 
 rules, and its application in spirit, not arbitrary indeed, but grounded 
 on an historical necessity. 
 
 2 This promise, Gen. xii. 3 ; xviii. 18 ; xxii. 18, according to its highest 
 relation, which must be found in the organic development of the king- 
 dom of God, is fulfilled by the Messiah. 
 
 ^ On the sense in which, at that time, Peter understood this, sea 
 above.
 
 44 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 was now evening, too late for any judicial proceedings were 
 put in confinement till the next day. ' When brought before 
 the Sanhedrim, Peter, fidl of holy inspiration, and raised by 
 it above the fear of man, testified to the rulers of the Jewish 
 nation that only by the might of Him whom they had cruci- 
 fied, but whom God had raised from the dead, it had come to 
 pass, that they beheld this man standing in perfect soundness 
 before them. He was the stone despised by the builders, 
 
 1 Gfrbrer imagines that he can show that this narrative was only a 
 legendary echo of the accounts in the Gospels, a transference of the 
 miracles of Christ to the apostles, and often applies this mode of inter- 
 Dretation to the first part of the Acts. Thus he maintains, that the 
 words in Acts iv. 7, " By what power and by what name have ye done 
 tliis ']■' are copied from the question addressed to Christ, Luke xx. 2 : 
 " Tell us by what authority thou doest these things ]" and that this is 
 proved to be a false transference, because the question stands in its 
 right place in the Gospel history, but not in the narrative of the Acts ; 
 " for, according to the Jewish notions, every one might cure diseases." 
 But though the cure of a disease need not occasion any further in- 
 quiries, yet a cure, which appeared to be accomplished by supernatural 
 power, might properly call forth the inquiry, AVhence did he who per- 
 formed it profess to receive the power 1 As it was understood by Peter, 
 the question involved an accusation that he professed to have received 
 power for performing such things, through his connexion with an indi- 
 vidual who had been condemned by the Sanhedrim. This question was 
 intended to call forth a confession of guilt. Equally groundless is 
 Gfrorer's supposition, that the quotation in Acts iv. 11, "This is the 
 stone which was set at nought of you builders," refers to Matt. xxi. 42, 
 and can only be understood by such a reference. The connexion of the 
 passaue is sufficiently explicit, and is as follows : " If ye call us to 
 account for the testimony we bear to Jesus as the Messiah, ye will 
 verify what was predicted in that passage of the Psalms. The Jesus of 
 Nazareth condemned by the heads of the Jewish polity, is honoured liy 
 God to be made the foundation on which the whole kingdom of God 
 rests. He has received from God the power by which we effect such 
 miracles." 
 
 Gfrorcr further remarks, that the plainest proof that this narrative is 
 defective in historical truth lies inverse 16, "What shall we do to these 
 men ? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is 
 manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it;" 
 he asserts that these persons could not have so expressed themselves. 
 But if the author of this account has put in the mouth of the Sanhe- 
 drim what he believed might be presumed to be the thoughts that 
 influenced their conduct, can it on that account be reasonably inferred, 
 that the narrative is in the main unhistorical 1 On the same plan by 
 which Gfrorcr thinks h-e can show that sueh narratives in the Acts are 
 only imitations of those in the Gospels, we might easily nullify much 
 in later history, as merely legendary copies of earlier history.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINK 45 
 
 those who wished to be the leaders of God's people, who 
 would become the foundation on which the whole building of 
 God's kingdom would rest. Psalm cxviii. 22. There was no 
 other means of obtaining salvation, but faith in him alone. 
 The members of the Sanhedrim were astonished to hear men, 
 who had not been educated in the Jewish schools, and whom 
 they despised as illiterate, speak with such confidence and 
 power, and they knew not what to make of the undeniable 
 fact, the cure of the lame man ; but their prejudices and 
 spiritual pride would not allow them to investigate more 
 closely the cause of the fact which had taken place before 
 their eyes. They only wished to suppress the excitement 
 which the event had occasioned, for they could not charge any 
 false doctrine on the apostles, who taught a strict observance 
 of the law. Perhaps also the secret though not altogether 
 decided friends, whom the cause of Christ had from the first 
 among tlie members of the Sanhedrim, exerted an influence 
 in favour of the accused. The schism hkewise between the 
 Pharisaic and the Sadducean pai'ties in the Sauhedi'im, might 
 have a favourable influence on the conduct of that assembly 
 towards the Christian!*. The Sadducees, who were exasperated 
 with the apostles for so zealously advocating the doctrine of 
 the resun'ection, and who were the chief authors of the machi- 
 nations against them at this time, were yet so far obliged to 
 yield to the prevalent popular belief, as not to venture to 
 allege that against the disciples which most excited their 
 enmity. Hence, without making any specific charge against 
 the apostles, they satisfied themselves with imposing silence 
 upon them by a peremptory mandate ; which, according to 
 tiie existing ecclesiastical constitution of the Jews, the Sanhe- 
 chim was competent to issue, being the highest tribunal in 
 matters of faith, without whose sanction no one could be 
 acknowledged as having a divine commission. The apostles 
 protested that they could not comply with a hvunan injunc- 
 tion, if it was at variance with the laws of God, and that 
 they could not be silent respecting what they had seen and 
 heard ; the Sanhedrim, however, repeated the prohibition, 
 and added tlu'cats of punishment in case of disobedience. 
 
 Meanwhile this miracle, so piiblicly wrought — the force of 
 Peter's address — and the vain attempt to silence him by 
 threats, had the efiect of increasing the number of Chi'istian
 
 4fi THE CHRISTIAlf CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 professors to about two thousand. As the apostles, without 
 giving themselves any concern about llie injunction of the 
 Sanhedi'im, laboured according to the intention they had 
 publicly avowed, both by word and deed, for the spread of the 
 gospel, it is not siu'prising that they were soon brought again 
 before the Sanhedi-im as contumacious. When the president 
 reproached them for their disobedience, Peter renewed his 
 former protestation. " We must obey God rather than man. 
 And the God of our fathers," he proceeded to say, " is he who 
 has called us to testify of what ye have forbidden us to speak. 
 By his omnipotence, he has raised that Jesus whom ye cruci- 
 fied, and has exalted him to be the leader and redeemer of his 
 people, and through him all may be called to repentance, and 
 receive fi-om him the forgiveness of their sins. This we testify, 
 and this the Holy Spirit testifies in the hearts of those who 
 believe on him." ' These words of Peter at once aroused the 
 wi-ath of the Sudducees and Fanatics, and many of them were 
 clamorous for putting the apostles to death ; but amidst the 
 throng of infuriated zealots, one voice of temperate wisdom 
 might be heai'd. Gamaliel, one of the seven most distinguished 
 teachers of the Law (the Rabbanim), thus addressed the 
 members of the Sanhedrim : '■ Consider well what ye do to 
 these men. Many founders of sects and party-leaders have 
 appeai'ed in our day ; they have at first acquired gi'eat noto- 
 riety, but in a short time they and their cause have come to 
 nothing." He proved his assertion by several examples of 
 
 ' These words (Acts v. 32) are by many understood, as if by the term 
 ■xiiBaqxowns the apostles were intended, and as if the sense of the pas- 
 sage were this : We testify of these things, as the eye-witnesses chosen by 
 Him ; and the Holy Spirit, in whose power we have performed this cure^ 
 testifies by the works which we accomplish in his name. Such an inter- 
 pretation is certainly possible. But it is more natural, as we apply the 
 first clause to the apostles, to apply tiie second to those who received 
 their message in faith, and to whom the truth of this message was veri- 
 fied, independently of their human testimonj', by the divine witness of 
 the Holy Spirit in their hearts ; to whom the Holy Spirit himself gave 
 a pledge, that, by faith in Jesus, they had received forgiveness of sins 
 and a divine life. This interpretation is also to be preferred, because 
 Peter, after the day of Tcntecost, was always wont to appeal to that ob- 
 jecliye testimony which the Holy Spirit produced in all believers. If 
 the first interpretation were correct, tlie emphasis would lie on ^/xets — 
 tpc^ and^ the Holy Spirit by us ; indeed, the last clause should have been 
 i)lj.7v To's iriL6ao\ov<jiv.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 47 
 
 commotions aud insmrections which happened about that 
 period among the Jews.' They might safely leave this afiaii* 
 also to itself. If of human origin, it would speedily come to 
 an end ; but if it should be something divine, vain would be 
 the attempt to put it down by human power, and let them 
 see to it, that they were not guilty of rebellion against God. 
 
 Too much has been attributed to these words of Gamaliel, 
 when it has been inferred from them, that he was a secret 
 adherent of the gospel;^ the connexion he kept up with the 
 Jewish schools of theology precludes such a supposition. By 
 the traditions of the Gemara we are justified in considering 
 him as one of the freethinkiug Je'wish theologians, which we 
 also learn from his being in favour of the cultivation of 
 Grecian litcratm-e ; ^ and from his peculiar mental constitution 
 we might Hkewise infer, that he coiild be more easily moved 
 by an impression of the divine, even in appearances which did 
 not bear the stamp of his party. But many of his expressions 
 which are preserved in the Mishna, mark him plainly enough 
 to have been a strict Pharisee, such as he is described by his 
 pupil Paul ; the great respect, too, in which he has ever been 
 held by the Jews is a sufiicient proof that they never doubted 
 the soundness of his creed, that he could not be accused of any 
 suspicious connexion with the heretical sect. On the one 
 hand, he had a clear perception of the fact, that all fanatical 
 movements are generally rendered more violent by opposition, 
 
 1 The mention of Theudas in Gamaliel's speech, occasions, as is well 
 known, a great difficulty, since his insurrection seems as if it could be 
 no other than that mentioned by Josephus, Antiq. xx. 5, 1 ; but to admit 
 this would involve an anachronism. It is very possible that, at different 
 times, two persons named Theudas raised a sedition among the Jews, as 
 the name was by no means uncommon. Origen (against Celsus, i. 57) 
 mentions a Theudas before the birth of Christ, but his testimony is not 
 of great weight, for perhaps he fixed the time by the account in the Acts. 
 It is also possible that Luke, in the relation of the event which he had 
 before him, found the example of Theudas adduced as something analo- 
 gous, or that one name has happened to be substituted for another, hi 
 either case it is of little importance. 
 
 * In the Clementines, i. 65, on the principle oi fraiis pia, it is sup- 
 posed that, by the advice of the apostles, he remained a member of the 
 Sanhedrim, and concealed his real faith in order to act for the advantage 
 of the Christians, and to give them secret informations of all the designs 
 formad against them. 
 
 ' See Jost's History of the Israelites, vol. iii. p. 170.
 
 48 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 and that what in itself is insignificant, is often raised into im- 
 portance by forcible attempts to siippress it. On the other 
 hand, the manner in which the apostles spoke and acted made 
 some impression on a man not wholly prejudiced ; while their 
 exact observance of the law, and hostile attitude towards 
 Sadduceeism, must have disposed him more strongly in their 
 favour, and hence the thought might arise in his mind, that 
 after all there was something divine in the cause they 
 advocated. His counsel prevailed ; no heavier punishment 
 than scourging was inflicted on the apostles for their dis- 
 obedience, and they were dismissed after the former prohibi- 
 tion had been repeated. 
 
 Up to this time, the members of the new sect, being strict 
 observers of the law, and agreeing with the Phai'isees in their 
 opposition to the Sadducees, appeared in a favourable light 
 to at least the moderate of the former. ' But this amicable 
 relation was at an end as soon as they came, or threatened to 
 come, into open conflict with the principles of Pharisaism 
 itself ; when the spirit of the new doctrine was more distinctly 
 felt in that quarter, an effect produced by an individual 
 memorable on this account in the early annals of Christianity, 
 the proto-'martyr Stephen. 
 
 The deacons, as we have already remarked, were primarily 
 appointed for a secular object, but in the discharge of theu' 
 special duty frequently came in contact with home and foreign 
 Jews; and since men had been chosen for this office who 
 were full of Christian zeal, full of Christian faith, and full of 
 Christian wisdom and prudence, they possessed both the 
 inward call, and the ability to make use of these numerous 
 oppoi-tunities for the spread of the gospel among the Jews. 
 In these attempts, Stephen particularly distinguished himsel£ 
 As a m;in of Hellenistic descent and education, he was better 
 fitted than a native of Palestine for entering into the views of 
 those foreign Jews who had synagogues for their exclusive use 
 at Jei-usalem, and thus leading them to receive the gospel. 
 The Holy Spirit, who hitherto had employed as instniments 
 for the spread of the gospel only Palestinian Jews, now fitted 
 for his service an individual of very different mental training, 
 
 ' See Schneckenburger's E.ssay ia his Beitragen zur Einleitunq in's 
 yeue Testainent, p. 87.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CIIUKCH IN PALESTINE. 49 
 
 the Hellenistic Stephen ; and the result of this choice was 
 very important. Although the Holy Spirit alone, according 
 to the Saviour's promise, could lead the apostles to a clear 
 jjerceptiou of the contents of the whole truth' announced by 
 himself; yet the quicker or slower development of this percep- 
 tion yvAS in many respects dependent on the mental peculiarity, 
 and the special standing-point of general and religious culture, 
 of the individuals who were thus to be enlightened by the 
 Holy Spirit. In one individual, the development of Christian 
 knowledge was prepared for by his previous standing-point ; 
 and hence, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, a knowledge 
 {yrwcric) of Cluustian truth rapicDy developed itself from 
 faith (jriffTic) ; whereas, for another to attain the same insight, 
 the bounds which confined his previous standing-point must 
 be first broken down by the power of the Holy Spu'it operating 
 in a more immediate manner, by a new additional revelation 
 (dTroKdXvxpir.) When Christ spoke to his apostles of certain 
 tilings which they could not yet comprehend, but which must 
 be first revealed to them by the Holy Spirit, he, no doubt, 
 referred to the essence of religion, to that worshipping of God 
 in spirit and in truth, which is not necessarily confined to 
 place or time, or to any kind whatever of outward obser- 
 vances ; and with which the abolition of the Mosaic cere- 
 monial law (that wall of separation between the chosen people 
 of God and other nations, Eph. ii. 14), and the union of 
 all nations in one spiritual worship and one faith — were closely 
 connected. The apostles had by this time understood, through 
 the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the nature of the spiritual 
 worship founded on faith, but the consequences flowing from 
 it in relation to outward Judaism they had not yet clearly 
 apprehended. In this respect, their standing-point resembled 
 Luther s- — after he had attained a living faith in justification, 
 in reference to outward CathoUcism, ere he had, by the further 
 matiu-ing of his Christian knowledge, abjm-ed that also — and 
 that of many who before and since the Reformation have 
 attained to vital Christianity, though still to a degree en- 
 thralled in the fetters of Catholicism. Thus the apostles first 
 
 ' Christ did not promise the apostles indefinitely that the Holy 
 Spirit should guide them into all things, but into the whole of the 
 truth, which he came to announce for the salvation of mankind ; 
 /ohn xvi. 13. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE, 
 
 attained to a full development of their Christian knowledge, 
 to a clear perception of the truth on this side, when by the 
 power of the Holy Spirit they were freed from the fetters of 
 their strictly Jewish training, which obscured this perception. 
 On the other hand, the Hellenistic Stephen needed not to 
 attain this mental freedom by a new immediate operation of 
 the Holy Spirit, for he was already, by his early development 
 in Hellenistic culture, more free from these fetters, he was not 
 so much entangled in Jewish nationality, and hence his Chris- 
 tian knowledge could on this side more easily and quickly 
 attain to clearness of perception. In short, Stephen was the 
 forerunner of the great Paul, in his perception of Christian 
 truth and the testimony he bore to it, as well as in his conflict 
 for it with the carnal Jews, who obstinately adhered to their 
 ancient standing-point. It is highly probable, that he was 
 first induced by his disputations with the Hellenists, to 
 present the gospel on the side of its opposition to the Mosaic 
 law ; to combat the belief in the necessity of that law for the 
 justification and sanctification of men, and, what was con- 
 nected therewith, its pei-petual obligation, and then to show 
 that the new spirit of the gospel freed it altogether from the 
 outwai'd forms of Judaism ; that the new spirit of rehgion 
 required an entirely new form. As, agreeably to the prophecy 
 of Christ, the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, with 
 which the Jews had hitherto considered the worship of God as 
 necessarily and essentially connected, was now about to take 
 place by means of the divine judgments on the degenerate 
 earthly kingdom of God, through the victorious divine power 
 of tlie Messiah, exalted to the right hand of his heavenly 
 Father — so would the whole outward system of Judaism fall 
 with this its only earthly sanctuary, and the theocracy arise 
 glorified and spiritiialized from its earthly trammels. We 
 cannot determine with confidence, to what extent Stephen, in 
 his disputations with the Jews, developed all this, but we may 
 infer with certainty from the consequences, that it would 
 be more or less explicitly stated by this enlightened man. 
 Hence it came to pass, that the rage of the Pharisees was now 
 excited, as it had never yet been against the promulgators of 
 the new doctrine ; hence an accusation such as had never yet 
 been brought against them — that Stephen had uttered blas- 
 phemous words against Jehovah and against Moses. We ax-e
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 51 
 
 told, indeed, that false witnesses deposed against him that he 
 ceased not to speak against the Holy City (the Temple) and 
 the Law — that he had declared tliat Jesus of Nazareth would 
 destroy the Temple, and abrogate the usages handed down 
 from Moses. But although these accusations are represented 
 as the depositions of false witnesses, it does not follow, that 
 all that they said was a fabrication, but only that they had, 
 on many points, distorted the assertions of Stephen, with an 
 evil intention. They accused him of attacking the divine 
 origin and holiness of the law, and of blaspheming Moses ; all 
 which was very far from his design. Yet he must, by what 
 he said, have given them some gi'ound for their misrepresen- 
 tations, for before this time, nothing similar had been brought 
 against the publishers of the gospel ; hence we may make use 
 of their allegations to find out what Stephen really said. 
 And his defence plainly indicates that he by no means 
 intended to repel the accusation as altogether a falsity, but 
 rather to acknowledge that there was truth mixed up with it ; 
 that what he had really spoken, and what was already so 
 obnoxious to the Jews, he had no wish to deny, but only 
 to develop and establish it in its right connexion. And thus 
 we gain the true point of view for understanding this 
 memorable and often misunderstood speech. 
 
 Stephen was seized by his embittered enemies, brought 
 before the Sanhedrim, and accused of blasphemy. But though 
 the minds of his judges were so deeply prejudiced by tlae 
 reports spread against him, and they waited with inteiise 
 eagerness to see tlie man who had uttered such unheard-of 
 things — when he actiuiUy came before them, and began to 
 speak, they were struck with the commanding expression 
 of his whole figure, with the inspired confidence — the 
 heavenly repose and serenity which beamed in all his features. 
 In the Acts we are told, that he stood before them with a 
 glorified countenance, " as it were the face of an angel ;" and 
 it is very probable, that many members of the Sanhedrim had 
 thus described the impression which his appearance made 
 upon them. The topics and arrangement of his discoiu-se 
 were suited to confirm this impression, and to turn it to 
 good account, to fix the attention of his judges, and to put 
 their minds in a more favourable position towards the 
 speaker, thus gK'udually preparing them for that which he
 
 52 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 wished to make the main subject of his discourse. That dis- 
 course perfectly corresponds witli the leading qualities ascribed 
 to his character in the Acts. In his frank manner of ex- 
 pressing what he had learnt by the light of the Divine Spirit, 
 we recognise the man full of the power of faith, without the 
 fear of man, or deference to human opinion ; in his manner of 
 constantly keeping one end in view, and yet, instead of 
 abruptly urging it, gradually preparing his hearers for it, wc 
 recognise the man full of Christian prudence. 
 
 The object of Stephen's discom-se was not simple but com- 
 plex ; yet it was so constructed, that the different topics were 
 linked together in the closest manner. Its primary object 
 was certainly apologetical, but as he forgot himself in the 
 subject with which he was inspired, his apologetic efforts 
 relate to the truths maintained by him, and impugned by his 
 advei-stu'ies, rather than to himself ; hence, not satisfied with 
 defending, he developed and enforced the truths he had pro- 
 claimed ; and at the same time, condemned the carnal 
 ungodly temper of the Jews, which was little disposed to 
 receive the truth. Thus with the apologetic element, the 
 didactic and polemic were combined. Stephen fix-st refutes 
 the charges made against him of enmity against the people of 
 God, of contempt of their sacred institutions, and of blas- 
 pheming Moses. He traces the procedure of the divine pro- 
 vidence, in guiding the people of God from the times of their 
 progenitors ; he notices the promises and their progressive ful- 
 filment, to the end of all the promises, the end of the whole 
 development of the theocracy — the advent of the Messiah, and 
 the work to be accomplished by him. But with this narrative, 
 he blends his charges against the Jewish nation. He shows 
 that their ingratitude and unbelief, proceeding from a carnal 
 mind, oecame more flagrant in proportion as the promises were 
 fulfilled, or given with gi-eater fulness ; and their conduct in 
 the various preceding periods of the development of God's 
 kingdom, was a specimen of the disposition they now evinced 
 towards the publication of the gospel.' The first promise 
 
 * In this species of polemieal discussion, Stephen was a forerunner of 
 Paul. De Welte justly notices, as a peculiarity of the Hebrew nation, 
 that conscience was more alive among them than any other people : often, 
 indeed, an evil conscience, the feeling of guilt, the feeling of the high 
 ofTicc assigned to it which it cannot and will not relinquish, the feeling of 
 a schism between knowledge (the law) and the wi2!, so that sin accumu-
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. Oo 
 
 •whicli God made to the patriarchs, was that respecting tlie 
 laud which he would give to their posterity for a possesaion, 
 where they were to woi'ship him. lu faith, the patriarchs 
 went forth uuder the constant guidance of God himself, which, 
 however, did not bring them to the fulfilment of the promise. 
 This promise was brought to the eve of its accomplishment by 
 Moses. His divine call, the miracles God wrought for him 
 and by him, are especially brought forward, and likewise the 
 conduct of the Jews while under his guidance, as unbelieving, 
 imgrateful and rebellious towards this highly accredited 
 servant of God, through whom they had received such great 
 benefits : and yet Moses was not the end of the divine revela- 
 tion. His caUiug was to point to that prophet whom God 
 would raise up after him, whom they were to obey like him- 
 self The conduct of the Jews towards Moses is therefore a 
 type of their conduct towards that last gi'eat prophet whom he 
 announced and prefigm-ed. The Jews gave themselves up to 
 idolatry, when God first established among them by Closes a 
 symbolical sanctuaiy for his worship. This sanctuary was in 
 the strictest sense of divine origin. Moses superintended its 
 erection according to the pattern shown to liim by God, in a 
 symbohc higher manifestation. ^ The sanctuaiy was a move- 
 able one, till at last Solomon was permitted to erect an abiding 
 edifice for divine worship on a similar plan. With this his- 
 torical sui-vey, Stephen concludes his argument against the 
 superstitious reverence for the temple felt by the carnally- 
 minded Jews, their nari'ow-hearted sensuous tendency to con- 
 fine the essence of religion to the temple-worship. Having 
 expressed this in the words of the prophet Isaiah, it was a 
 natural transition to speak of the essential natm'e of true 
 spiritual worship, and of the prophets who in opposition to the 
 stiff-necked, carnal dispositions of the Jews had testified con- 
 cerning it, and the Messiah by whom it was to be established 
 
 lates and comes distinctly into view; Rom. v. 20. See " Stmlien und 
 Kritiken," 1837, p. 1003. On tliis account, the liistory of tlie Hebrew- 
 nation is the type of the history of mankind, and of men in general. 
 
 * Stephen probably wished to intimate that, in order to guard against 
 idolatry, to which the Jews were so prone, it was necessary to confine 
 the worship of God to a fixed visible sanctuarj', and, on the other hand, 
 whicli is an idea that pervades the Epistle to the Hebrews, that thia 
 aauctuary could not communicate the divine, but could only represent it 
 in a figure.
 
 54 THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 am ong the whole human race. A vast prospect now openea 
 before him ; biit he could not complete the delineation of the 
 august vision of the divine dispensations which was present to 
 his imagination ; while gazing at it, the emotions it excited 
 earned him away ; his holy indignation gushed forth in a 
 torrent of rebuke against the ungodly, imbelieving, hypocritical 
 disposition of the Jews, whose conduct in reference to the 
 divine communications had been the same from the time of 
 Moses up to that very moment. " Ye stiff-necked, although 
 boasting of your circumcision, yet who have never received 
 the true circumcision. Ye uncircumcised in heart and ear (who 
 want the disposition to feel and to understand what is divine), 
 ye always withstand the workings of the Holy Ghost. Ye do 
 as your fathers did. As your fathers murdered the prophets 
 who predicted the appearance of the Holy One, so have ye 
 yoiu^elves given Him up to the Gentiles, and thus are become 
 his murderers. Ye who boast of a law given by God through 
 the ministry of angels, ' (as organs of making known the divine 
 will,) and yet are so little observant of this law !" 
 
 Till this rebuke was uttered, Stephen had been quietly 
 heard. But as soon as they perceived the drift of his dis- 
 course, their blind zeal and spiritual pride were roused. He 
 observed the symptoms of their rage, but instead of being terri- 
 fied thereby, he looked up to heaven, full of believing confidence 
 in the power of Him of whom he testified, and saw with a 
 prophetic glance, in opposition to the machinations of men 
 against the cause of God, the glorified Messiah, denied by 
 these men, but exalted to heaven, armed with divine power, 
 and about to conquer all who dared to oppose his kingdom. 
 This prophetic view was presented to him in the form of a 
 symbolic vision. As he looked up to heaven it appeared xo 
 open before his eyes. In more than earthly splendour, there 
 appeared to him a form of divine majesty ; he beheld Christ 
 (whose glorious image was probably present to him from 
 actual early recollection) glorified and enthroned at the right 
 
 * This was confessedly a frequent mode among the Jews of marking 
 the superhuman orisjin of the law ; so that, according to Josephus, Herod, 
 in a speech to the Jewish army, made use of this universally acknow- 
 ledged fact, that the Jews had received their law from God (5i' ayytXtop 
 ira^a rod deov fia^6uTa>v), in order to show how holy the ambassadors seat 
 to them must be, who filled the same ofHee as that of the angels between 
 God and mec; iLy)i\oi.= ■n^iafias, kt]^vk€s. Joseph. Antiq. xv. 5, 3.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 55 
 
 hand of God. Already iu spirit raised to heaven, he testified 
 with full confidence of what he beheld. In all periods of the 
 chui'ch, a blind zeal for adherence to the letter and ceremonial 
 services has been wont to interpret a highly sj^iritual state, 
 which will not follow the rules of the reigning theological 
 school, nor suffer it to be confined by ancient maxims, as mere 
 fanaticism or blasphemy;' and so it was on this occasion. 
 The members of the Sanhech'im stopped their ears, that they 
 might not be defiled by his supposed blasphemies. They 
 threw themselves on Stephen, and dragged him out of the 
 city in order to stone him as a blasphemer. It was sentence 
 and execution all at once ; an act of violence without regular 
 judicial examination ; besides, that according to the existing 
 laws, the Sanliedi'im could decide only on disciplinary punish- 
 ment, but was not allowed to execute a capital sentence with- 
 out the concm'rence of the Roman governor. With the same 
 confidence with which Stephen, amidst the rage and fury of 
 his enemies, saw the Saviom* of whom he testified, ruhng vic- 
 torious — with the same confidence he directed his eyes towards 
 him in the prospect of death, and said, " Lord Jesus, receive 
 my spirit • " And as he had only Him before his eyes, it was 
 his Spirit wdiich led him to adopt the Saviour's last words, 
 thus making him a pattern in death, as he had been in life. 
 He who, when carried away with holy zeal for the cause of 
 God, had so emphatically censured the baseness of the Jews, 
 now that their fury attacked his own person, prayed only for 
 this, that their sins might be forgiven. 
 
 Thus we see in the death of Stephen the new development 
 of Christian truth appai'ently stopped ; he died a martyr, not 
 only for the truth of the gospel in general, but in particular 
 for this free and wider application of it, which began with 
 him and seemed to expire with him. Yet from the beginning, 
 it has been tlie law of the development of the Christian life, 
 and will continue to be the same down to the last glorious 
 result, which will consummate the whole with the final 
 triumph over death — that out of death a new life comes forth, 
 and martyrdom for the divine truth, both in its general and 
 particular forms, prepares its victory. Such was the issue 
 here. This first new development of evangelical truth waa 
 
 ' Thus, at the Couucil of Constance, it was condemned as a violation 
 of ecclesiastical subordination, that Huss had dared to appeal to Christ.
 
 56 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 checked in the genu in order to shoot forth with greater 
 vigour, and to a wider extent, in the person of Paiil, and the 
 martjrdom of Stephen was one step in the process. If this 
 new development had been fully exhibited at this time, the 
 other publishers of the gospel would have been found unpre- 
 pared for it, and not yet capable of receiving it. But in the 
 meantime, these persons, by a variety of circumstances con- 
 cuiTing in a natm-al way under the constant guidance of the 
 Holy Spirit, were prepared for this deeper insight into the 
 ti'uth. 
 
 The martyrdom of Stephen was important in its direct 
 effects for the spreading of the faith, since it might be ex- 
 pected that, imder the immediate impression made by the 
 sight of such a witness, and of such a death, many minds not 
 altogether unsusceptible, nor altogether deluded by the power 
 of eiTor, woidd be led to the faith ; but yet the indirect con- 
 sequences were still more important, by which the third 
 violent persecution was raised against the new church at Jeru- 
 salem. This persecution must have been more severe and 
 extensive than the former ; for by the manner in which 
 Stephen entered into conflict with Pharisaism, he had roused 
 to hostilities against the teachers of the new doctrine the sect 
 of the Pharisees, who had the most credit with the common 
 I)eople, and were powerful and active, and ready to leave no 
 means imtried to attain their object whatever it might be. 
 The persecution proceeding from this quarter would natui-ally 
 mark as its special victims those who were colleagues in ofl&ce 
 with Stephen, as deacons, and who resembled him in their 
 Hellenistic origin and education. It was, however, the occa- 
 sion of spreading the gospel beyond the bounds of Jerusalem 
 and Judea, and even among the Gentiles. With this progres- 
 sive outward development of the gospel was also connected 
 'ts progressive inward development, the consciousness of the 
 independence and intrinsic capability of Christianity as a doc- 
 trine destined without foreign aid to impart divine life and 
 salvation to all men, among all nations without distinction. 
 Here, then, we stand on the boimdary-line of a new era, both 
 of the outward and inward development of Chiistianity,
 
 07 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE CHURCH AT 
 JERUSALEM TO OTHER PARTS, AND ESPECIALLY AMONG HEATHFJI 
 NATIONS. 
 
 Samaria, which had been a scene of Christ's personal 
 ministry, was the first place out of Juclea where the gospel 
 was preached by his apostles. Though the people of this 
 country received no part of the Old Testament as sacred ex- ^ 
 cepting the Pentateuch, yet from this portion of the Scriptm'es 
 they formed themselves to faith iu a Messiah who was to 
 come ; on him they placed their hopes, as the personage who 
 was to bring back all things to their right relations, and thus 
 to be the universal Restorer. Political considerations did not 
 here, as among the Jews, obstract the right apprehension of 
 the idea of the Messiah ; an idea which was specially awakened 
 among this people by feelings of mental and bodily miseiy, 
 though they were deficient in that right understanding of it 
 which could only be obtained from its progressive development 
 in the Old Testament ; nor could the deep feeling of the need 
 of redemption and restoration be clearly developed among 
 them. A lively but indefinite obscure excitement of the 
 religious feeling, always exposes men to a vai'iety of dangerous 
 delusions. This was the case with the Samaritans. As at that 
 time, in other pai*ts of the East, a similar indefinite longing 
 after a new communication ffom Heaven, — an ominous rest- 
 lessness in the minds of men, such as generally precedes great 
 changes in the history of mankind, was diffused abroad ; so 
 this indistinct anxiety did not fail to lead astray and to deceive 
 ..many, who were not rightly prepared for it, while they adopted 
 a false method of allaying it. A mixture of unconscious self- 
 deception and intentional falsehood moved certain Goeta), who, 
 with mystical ideas, proceeding from an amalgamation of 
 Jewish, Oriental, and Grecian elements, boasted of a special
 
 58 THE CHRISTIAN CHT7SCH IN PALESTINE. 
 
 connexion with the invisible world ; and by taking advantage 
 of the unknown powers of nature, and by various arts of con- 
 juration, excited the astonishment of credulous people, and 
 obtained credit for their boastful pretensions. Such persons 
 found at that tirae an easy access to the Samaritans in their 
 state of mental excitement. To this class of men belonged a 
 Jewish or Samaritan Goes, named Simon, who, by his extraor- 
 dinary magical powers, so fascinated the people, that they said 
 he must be more than man, that he was the great power which 
 emanated from the invisible God, by which he brought forth 
 the universe, now appearing on earth in a bodily form. ' 
 
 The idea of such an Intelligence emanating from God, as 
 proceeding fi-om the first act of the divine self-revelation, the 
 first link in the chain of developed life was spread, abroad in 
 various oriental- Alexandrian and Alexandiian-oriental forms. 
 The idea also of the incarnation of higher intelligences gene- 
 rally, and of this intelligence in particular, was by no means 
 foreign to the notions prevalent in those parts. We can 
 hardly consider eveiything of this kind as a mere copy of the 
 Chi'istian idea of the incarnation, or recognise in it a symptom 
 of the transfoi'ming power which the new Christian spirit 
 exercised over the intellectual w^orld ; for we find earlier 
 traces of such ideas. ^ But the prevalence of such ideas 
 proves nothing against the originality of Christianity, or of 
 any of its particular doctrines. On the one hand, we dare 
 
 ' Possibly the words of which this Goes made use, are contained in 
 the apocryphal writings of the Simonians ; see Jerome's Commentary 
 on Matt. xxiv. " Ego sum sermo Dei (6 xSyos), ego sum speciosus, 
 ego paracletus," — (according to Philo, the Logos Advocate, ■KagaKXiyros, 
 lKfTt\s, through the divine reason revealing itself in the phenomenal 
 world (the vo-qrhv nagaSeiy^a tov k6(tjxov), forms the connexion between 
 God and the phenomena, what is defective in the latter is supplied. De 
 VitaMosis, i. iii. 673 ; De Migratione Abrahami, 406,) — ego omnipotens, 
 ego omnia Dei (according to Philo the Logos is the jurjrgo'7roA.ts iraauv tvv 
 SvvdfjLfwv TOV &eoD). Still this is uncertain, for the sect of the Simonians 
 might easily borrow these expressions, as they had borrowed other 
 things, from Christianity, and attribute them to Simon. 
 
 ^ In a Jewish apocryphal writing, the Trpoa-evxv 'I&)<r7;<f), the patriarch 
 Jacob is represented as an incarnation of the highest spirit living in 
 the presence of the divine Original Being, whose true divine name was 
 'lapa^K, avT]p bpwv Behv, the npcarSyovos ndvros ^aiov ^aiovjxevov virh Beov, 
 (similar expressions to those used by Philo respecting the Logos), who 
 was begotten before all angels, 6 iv -npocrunrtf 6eov Keirovpyhs trpwros. 
 See Origen, t. ii. Joh. § 25.
 
 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 
 
 not refuse to acknowledge what could already form itself 
 from the germs already given in the Old Testament, which 
 was the preparative covering of the New, or from its spirit 
 and leading ideas, which were directed to Christ as the end of 
 all the divine revelations. On the other hand, we must 
 recollect, that as from the new creation effected by Christi- 
 anity, a powerful excitement was caused both of kindred and 
 hostile minds, so also a great excitement of tliese minds pre- 
 ceded the gi'eat crisis, unconsciously anticipating and yearning 
 after it ; a presentiment that there would be such a revelation 
 of the spiritual world as had not yet been made relating to 
 the destinies of the human race. And from a teleological 
 point of view, we recognise Christianity as the final aim of 
 Divine Wisdom in conducting the course of human develop- 
 ment, when at this period we find the spiritual atmosphere 
 pregnant with ideas, which served to prepare a more suscep- 
 tible soil for Christianity and its leading doctrines, and to 
 form a back-ground for giving relief to the exliibition of the 
 divine transactions which it annovmced. 
 
 Philip the Deacon, being compelled to leave Jerusalem by 
 the persecution which ensued on Stephen's death, was induced 
 to take refuge in Samaria. He came to a city of that 
 couiitiy, ' where Simon was universally esteemed, and looked 
 upon with wonder and reverence as a supernatural being. 
 When he saw the people so devoted to a destructive delusion. 
 he felt impelled by his zeal for the cause of God and the 
 salvation of men, to impart that to them which alone could 
 give substantial relief to their spiritual necessities. But men 
 in this situation were not yet susceptible of the spiritual 
 power of truth ; it was needful to pave a way to their hearts 
 by preparatory impressions on the senses. As Philip, by the 
 divine aid, performed things which Simon with all his magical 
 arts could not effect, especially healing the sick (which he 
 ac(^omplished by prayer and calling on the name of Christ), 
 he thus attracted the attention of men to Him in whose name 
 
 • It is not quite clear that the city of Samaria is intended ; for there 
 is no reason, with some expositors of Acts viii. 5, to consider the geni- 
 tive as the sign of apposition. As in the whole chapter, Samaria is the 
 designation of the country, it is most natural to understand it so in 
 this passage. In the 14th verse, by Samaria is certainly meant the 
 country, and yet it does not follow that absolutely the whole land iad 
 received the gospel.
 
 50 FIEST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and power he had effected such things for them, and in their 
 sight ; he then took occasion to discourse more fully of Him, 
 his works, and the kingdom that he had established among 
 men, and by degrees the divine power of truth laid hold of 
 their hearts. When Simon saw his followers deserting him, 
 and was himself astounded at the works performed by Philip, 
 he thought it best to acknowledge a power so superior to his 
 own. He therefore professed himself a disciple of Philip, and 
 was baptized by him like the rest ; but as the sequel proves, 
 we cannot infer from this, that the publication of the gospel 
 had made an impression on his heart ; it seems most probable 
 that he secretly interpreted what had occurred according to 
 his own views. ' The miracles performed by Philip had led 
 him to the conviction, that he was in league with some super- 
 human spirit ; he looked on baptism as an initiation into the 
 compact, and hoped that, by forming such a compact, he 
 might obtain an interest in such higher power, and use it for 
 his own ends ; he wished, in short, to combine the new magic 
 or theurgy with his own. As we have already remarked, it 
 was a standing regulation in primitive times, that all those 
 who professed to beheve the announcement of Jesus as the 
 Messiah should be baptized. And when Simon renounced 
 his magical arts, which w^ere now quite out of repute, there 
 was no ground for rejecting him. 
 
 The information that despised Samaria was the fii^st pro- 
 vince out of Judea where the gospel found acceptance, caused 
 great surj^rise among the Christians at Jerusalem. As the 
 ancient prejudice against the Samaritans had not quite worn 
 away, and no account had been received that, among the 
 baptized believers, those wonderful works were manifested 
 which, since the day of Pentecost, were considered as neces- 
 sary concomitants of a reception into the Christian commu- 
 nion, the apostles Peter and John were sent thither to 
 investigate what had transpired, and, by virtue of their 
 apostolic calling, to complete whatever might be wanting for 
 the establishment of a Christian community. We find, in 
 the narrative of the Acts, no reason to impute the want of 
 these operations of the Divine Spirit among the Samaiitans 
 in any degree to Philip's being only a deacon, as if he could 
 not found a Christian society, and by preaching the gospel, 
 and by prayer in the name of Christ, produce effects similar
 
 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. G^ 
 
 to those wi'ought by the apostles. But as in the reverse case, 
 namely, the conversiou of Cornelius, when the effects that 
 commonly followed baptism then followed the preaching of 
 the word, and preceded baptism, there was an internal reason 
 for the order obsei'vcd ; a longer prepared susceptibility of 
 disposition promoted the more rapid operations of living 
 faith ; so we natmully seek an internal reason for a different 
 procedure among the Samaritans. The effects to which we 
 refer proceeded from the power of a living consciousness of- 
 redemption obtiiined, and at the commencement of the new 
 spiritual creation were a mark of vital Christianity. If all 
 were not influenced in an equal degree, yet all were to a 
 certain extent moved by the power of the Divine, and suscep- 
 tible enough to be vitally aroused and borne along by the 
 impression of that Christian inspiration which they saw 
 before them, for the germ with which these manifestations of 
 the Spirit connected themselves already existed in their 
 bosoms. It was, in a spiritual respect, as when a flame once 
 broken forth detects and kindles all the inflammable mate- 
 rials in its neighbourhood. But among these Samaritans, 
 the feeling of their religious and moral necessities, which 
 living foith in the Redeemer presupposes and unites with, 
 was not yet awakened, in consequence of their being drawn 
 aside and distiu'bed by the influence of Simon. At first, 
 they beheved the declarations of Philip as they had believed 
 in the magical illusions of Simon, since these gross sensible 
 miracles demanded their belief Those who had thus attained 
 to faith, were still entirely dependent on the person of Philip 
 as a worker of miracles. They had not yet attained the con- 
 sciousness of a vital communion with the Christ whom Philip 
 preached, nor yet to the consciousness of a personal divine 
 life. The indwelling of the Spirit was as yet something 
 foreign to them, known only by the wonderful operations 
 which they saw taking place around them. We have not a 
 full account in the Acts of what was done by Peter and John, 
 but simply the general results. No doubt these apostles 
 cai'ried on the work of Pliilip by preaching and prayer. 
 After such a preparation, tlie believers were assembled, and 
 the apostles prayed that Clu'ist might glorify himself in them, 
 as in all believers, by marks of the communication of divine 
 life, employing the usual sign of Christian consecration, tho
 
 62 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 laying on of hands. Manifestations now followed similar to 
 those on the day of Pentecost, and the believers were thus 
 recognised and attested to be a Christian chui-ch, standing in 
 an equal rank with the first church at Jerusalem. But 
 Simon was naturally incapable of understanding the spiritual 
 connexion of these manifestations ; he saw in all of them 
 merely the workings of magical forms and charms, a magic 
 differing not in natm-e but only in degree from what he 
 practised himself Hence he imagined, that the apostles 
 might communicate these magical powers to him also, by 
 virtue of which all those on whom he laid hands would 
 become filled with divine power, and with this view he offered 
 them money. Peter spurned this proposal with detestation, 
 and now first saw in its true light the real character of 
 Simon, who, in joining himself to believers, had pretended to 
 be what he was not. Peter's terrible rebuke presents him to 
 us as a faithful preacher of the gospel, insisting most impres- 
 sively on the siipreme importance of disposition in everything 
 which is imparted by Clu-istianity, in direct opposition to the 
 art of magic, which disregards the necessary connexion of 
 the divine and supernatm'al with the disposition of the heart, 
 di-ags them down into the circle of the natm-al, and attempts 
 to appropriate to itself divine power by means of something else 
 than that which is allied to it in human nature, and the only 
 possible point of connexion for it.' These were Peter's 
 words : " Thy gold, with which thou attemptest to traffic in 
 impiety, perish with thee. Do not deceive thyself, as if with 
 this disposition thou couldst have any part in what is pro- 
 mised to believers. Thou hast no share in this matter,'^ for 
 God, who sees what is within, is not deceived by thy hypo- 
 
 ' The poetical fancies of Christian antiquity, which make Peter the 
 representative of the principle of simple faith in revelation, and Simon 
 the representative of the magical and theosophic tendency in the human 
 mind, have important truths for their basis. 
 
 * I cannot agree with those who understand xSyos (Acts viii. 21) in 
 the sense of the Hebrew i3T = pr\ixa, and suppose that Peter only 
 told Simon that he could have no share in that thing, in that higher 
 power which he hankered after. In this general sense, p^/ia is indeed 
 used in the New Testament, but not the more definite term hSyos. 
 And according to this interpretation, Peter would say less than the 
 context requires ; for looking at the connexion of v. 21 with 20 and 
 22, it is plain, he did not merely say, that Simon with such a disposi 
 tion was excluded froo. participating in this higher power, but als
 
 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY, 63 
 
 critical professions. Before his eyes thy inteutions are mani- 
 fest. With sincere repentance for such wickedness, pray to 
 God that he would be pleased to forgive thee tliis wicked 
 design." This rebuke .made a great impression at the time 
 on Simon's conscience, inchned more to superstition than to 
 faith, and awakened a feeling not of repentance for the sinful- 
 ness of his disposition, but of apprehension of the divine 
 vengeance. He entreated the apostles that they would pray 
 to the Lord for him, that what they had threatened him with 
 might not come to pass. 
 
 As is usual with such sudden impressions on the senses, the 
 effect on Simon was only transient, for all the fui-ther notices 
 we have of him show that he soon returned to his former 
 courses. About ten or twenty years later, we meet with 
 a Simon in the company of Felix the Roman Procm-ator of 
 Palestine, so strikingly resembling this man, that we are 
 tempted to consider them as identical. The latter Simon ' 
 appeal's as a heartless magician,- to whom all persons, what- 
 ever their character, were welcome, provided they gave credit 
 
 from the kingdom of God, and thereby bring condemnation on himself. 
 Hence we understand the word Koyos in the common New Testament 
 meaning of the divine doctrine — " the doctrine or truth announced by 
 us" — at the same time including ffwexSoxi^KSis, all that a person would 
 be authorized to receive by the appropriation of this doctrine. I am 
 not convinced by what Meyer in his commentary urges against this 
 interpretation, that it is at variance with the connexion, in which there 
 is no mention made of the doctrine. For in the mind of the speaker, 
 the power of working miracles could not be separated from the publi- 
 cation of the gospel and faith in it ; and as Simon in the disposition of 
 his mind was far from the gospel, and could stand in no sort of fellow- 
 ship with it, it followed as a matter of course, that he could have no 
 share in the ability to work such miracles. 
 
 ^ On the other hand, there is the difference of country, for the Simon 
 to whom we refer, and whom Josephus mentions (Antiq. book xx. ch. 
 vii. § 2), was a Jew from Cyprus; but Simon Magus, according to 
 Justin Martyr, himself a native of Samaria, was born at a place called 
 Gittim, in Samaria. Yet this evidence is not decisive, for a tradition so 
 long after the time, though prevalent in the country where Simon made 
 his appearance, might be erroneous. What has been said since I wrote 
 the above, against the identity of the two Simons, is not demonstrative, 
 though I willingly allow, that since the name of Simon was a very 
 common one among the Jews, and such itinerant y^jtoi were not 
 seldom to be met with, tlie time also not perfectly agreeing, the 
 identity must be left rather doubtful. 
 
 * Ij-dyov iivai (TKtim6)j.ivov, says Josephus.
 
 64 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIAJflTT. 
 
 to his enchautmeuts. With equal aiTogance, he disclaimed 
 all respect for the ancient forms of religion, and for the laws 
 of morality. He was a confidant of the Roman Procurator 
 Felix, and therefore could never have opposed his vicious 
 inchnations, but on the contrary made his magic subservient 
 to their gratification ; he thus bound him more closely to 
 himself, as a single example will show. The immoral Felix 
 had indulged a ji^^ssion for Drusilla, sister of King Herod 
 Agi-ippa, and wife of King Azizus of Emesa. Simon allow^ed 
 himself to be the tool of Felix, for gratifying his unlawful 
 desires. He persuaded Drusilla that by his superhuman 
 power he could ensure great happiness for her, provided she 
 married Felix, and managed to overcome her scruples of con- 
 science against marrying a heathen. The character of this 
 Simon is stamped on the later theosophic goetic sect of the 
 Simonians, whose tenets were a mixture of the Oriental, 
 Jewish, Samaritan, and Grecian religions elements. The germ 
 of their principles may be plainly traced back to this Simon, 
 though we cannot attribute to him the complete system of 
 this sect as it existed in the second century. 
 
 The two apostles returned again to Jerusalem, and as what 
 they had witnessed convinced them of the susceptibility of 
 the Samaritans for receiving the gospel, they availed them- 
 selves of the opportunity of publishing it in all the parts of 
 the country through which they passed. But Philip extended 
 his missionary jom'ney fui'ther, and became the instrument 
 of bringing the first seeds of the gospel into Ethiopia, (the 
 kingdom of Candace at Meroe,) though, as far as our know- 
 ledge of history goes,' without any important consequences. 
 But, wliat is more deserving of notice, he published the 
 gospel in the cities of Palestine, on the southern and northern 
 coasts of the Mediterranean, till at last, probably after a con- 
 siderable time, he settled at Csesarea Stratonis, where on his 
 
 ' It is still a question whether the introduction of Christianity was 
 not partially made before the mission of Frumentius on another side, 
 and in a different part of Ethiopia; whether many things in the 
 doctrine and usages of the present Al^yssiniun church, with which 
 we have been belter acquainted by means of Gobat's Journal, do not 
 indicate a Jewish-Christian origin. If I am not mistaken, the late 
 Eettig has brought forward these questions in the " Sfudioi utid Kri- 
 tikeii." Perhaps intercourse with that ancient church will open to 
 us some sources of information for answering them.
 
 FIRST SrilEAJ) OF OHRISTIANITT. 65 
 
 arrival he found a Christian society ah*eady formed, which he 
 built up in the faith. 
 
 Though the Christians of Jewish descent, who were driven 
 by persecution from Jerusalem, were by that event induced to 
 spread the gospel in Syria and the neighbom-ing districts, yet 
 their laboui^s were confined to Jews. On the other hand, the 
 Hellenists, such as Philip and others, who originally came 
 from Cyprus and Cyrene, made their way among the Gentiles ' 
 also, to whom they were allied in language and education, 
 which was not the case with the Jews. They presented them 
 with the gospel independent of the Mosaic law, without 
 attempting to make them Jews before they became Christians. 
 Thus the pi'inciples held by the enlightened Stephen, the 
 ti'uths for which, in part, he had suffered martyrdom, were by 
 them first brought into practice and realized. And if in this 
 way, independently of tlae exertions of the apostles in Judea, 
 and the development of Christianity in a Jewish form, chui'ches 
 had been raised of purely Hellenistic materials among the 
 heathen, free altogether from Judaism, and if Paul had then 
 appeared to confirm and extend this mode of operation, one 
 consequence might have been, that the older apostles would 
 have maintained with greater stiffness their former standing- 
 point, in of)position to this freer dii'ection of Christianity, and 
 thus, by the overweight of human peculiarities in the first 
 publishers of the gospel, a violent and irreconcileable oppo- 
 sition might have divided the church into two hostile parties. 
 It could not have happened otherwise if the germinating dif- 
 ferences, left altogether to themselves, as in later times, had 
 been so developed as to exclude all hopes of a reconciliation ; 
 and the idea of an universal church, overcoming by its higher 
 unity all human differences, could never have been realized. 
 But this disturbing influence, with which the self-seeking and 
 one-sided bias of human nature threatened from the beginning 
 to destroy the unity of the divine work, was counteracted by 
 the still mightier influence of the Holy Spirit, who never 
 allows human differences to develop themselves to such an 
 extreme, but is able to maintain unity in manifoldness. We 
 may distinctly recognise the attractive divine power which 
 
 ' In Acts xi. 20, the common reading lAArjj'terTciis is evulently to be 
 rejected, as formed from a false gloss, and the reading which refers to 
 tho Gentiles (tWrivas) must be substituted as undoubtedly correct. 
 
 VOL. I. W
 
 66 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 gives scope to the free agency of man, but knows esactl;^ 
 when it is needful, for the success of the divine work, to 
 impart its immediate illumination, if we observe that at the 
 precise moment when the apostles needed a wider develop- 
 ment of their Christian knowledge for the exercise of their 
 calling, and their former contracted views would have been 
 highly injurious, what had been hitherto wanting was imparted 
 to them, by a memorable coincidence of an internal revelation 
 with a train of outward circumstances. The apostle Peter 
 was the chosen instrument on this occasion. 
 
 Peter made a visitation from Jenisalem to the churches 
 founded in Judea, Samaria, and towards the west near the 
 Mediterranean. The cures effected by him in Christ's name 
 in the large town of Lydda,' and in the city of Joppa (Jaffa), 
 a few miles distant, di-ew upon him the universal attention of 
 that very populous and extensive district on the coast of the 
 MediteiTanean, (the plain of Saron.) Many were converted 
 by him to Christianity, and the city of Joppa became the 
 central point of his labours. As the publication of his new 
 doctrine made such an impression in these parts, information 
 respecting it would easily spread to Csesarea Stratonis, a town 
 on the sea-coast about eight miles distant. In the Roman 
 cohort which formed the garrison of this place, was a cen- 
 turion, Cornelius ^ by name, a Gentile who, dissatisfied with 
 
 ' According to Josephus (Antiq. xx. 6, § 2), a town aa large as a city. 
 in later times a considerable city under the name of Diospolis. 
 
 ^ We must here take notice of what Gfrijrer alleges against the 
 historical ti-uth of this narrative. He maintains, " that the principle, 
 that the heathens were to be incorporated with the Christian church by 
 baptism, witliout the observance of the Mosaic law, was first expressed 
 by Paul, and that Peter was brought to acknowledge it by his influence. 
 The conduct of Peter at Antioch, as it is described in the 2d chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Galatians, is inexplicable, if he attained his know- 
 ledge on this subject, in an independent manner, by a divine revelation. 
 If, on the contrary, it was only impressed upon him from without, by 
 the preponderating influence of Paul, it is then easy to account for his 
 again wavering under the opposite influences of the adherents of 
 James." But whoever understands the relation of the divine and the 
 human to one another, in the development of the religious life, cannot 
 be surprised, if in the soul of a man, who in general held a truth with 
 divine confidence and clearness, the apprehension of it should, in an 
 anfavourable niouicnt, undergo a transient obscuration, by the influence 
 of foreign elements, which v/ould afterwards be removed by the return 
 •f divine light. But it is by no means evident, that Peter at that time
 
 FinST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 67 
 
 the old popular religion, and seeking after one that would 
 tranquillize his mind, was led by acquaintance with Ju^daism 
 to the foundation of a living faith in the one God. Having 
 with his whole family professed the worship of Jehovah, he 
 testified by his benefactions the sympathy he felt with his 
 fellow-worshippers of the Jewish nation, and obseiwed tlie 
 hours of prayer customary to the Jews ; so that there is 
 scarcely any room to doubt that he belonged to the class of 
 Proselytes of the Gate. Nor can we infer the contrary from 
 
 held an erroneous conviction. It was only the violence of a sudden 
 impression, which, through the peculiarity of his natural temperament, 
 had too much power over Peter, and made him practically faithless 
 to those principles which he had by no means abandoned from 
 deliberate reflection. Paul even reproached him with thus acting in 
 contradiction to his principles, that he who was living as a Gentile 
 {fOfiKcis fps), now practically laid an injunction on the Gentile Chris- 
 tians, that they must submit to the Mosaic law. Certainly, a great 
 change must have passed on Peter, if he had been brought so to act, 
 that Paul could say to him that he himself had been living as a Gentile. 
 But if this was not connected with some previous preparation in the 
 peculiar religious development of Peter, it would be difBcult to attribute 
 it solely to Paul's influence. Paul nowhere asserts that Peter was first 
 led by him to adopt these views : on the contrary, he speaks of a reve- 
 lation made by the Divine Spirit on this point to the apostles and pro- 
 phets. £ph. iii. 5. If we look at the question in a purely psychological 
 point of view, we may indeed presume, that Peter could not have 
 arrived at a conviction of Christian truth on this point, without a severe 
 mental struggle ; and in this struggle of the divine and the human in his 
 Boul, that ecstatic vision would tind its natural point of connexion, and 
 occur at a critical juncture, to accomplish the victory of Christian truth, 
 over the reaction of his Jewish mode of thinking. Nor can I with 
 Gfrorer perceive in Acts xi. 3 the traces of a more correct account bear- 
 ing evidence against the narrative. That Peter made no scruple of 
 incorporating Gentiles by baptism with the Christian church, might 
 unquestionably be inferred, if he shunned not to eat and drink with 
 them. Still, we might with equal confidence infer, that a Jewish 
 teacher, who had no scruple to administer baptism to Gentiles, might 
 not come to the conclusion to consider them of equal rank in the 
 Christian theocracy, and admit them to every kind of intercourse. But 
 though Peter afterwards reckoned the publication of the gospel among 
 the heathen as the special calling of Paul, and the publication of it 
 among native Jews as his own, it is by no means contradictor}', that he, 
 when a special demand was made upon him, should exercise his ministry 
 among the Gentiles; just as Paul, although the apostle of the Gentiles, 
 gladly embraced the opportunity, when he could find an entrance 
 among the Jews. But in Acts xi. 9 a different spirit speaks from that 
 of the Petrine party, from whom, according to Gfrorer, this narrative, 
 and in general the first part of the Acts, was derived.
 
 68 PIBST SPREAD OF CHiilSTIANITY. 
 
 the circumstance that Peter and the stricter Jewish Christians 
 looked on Cornehus as an unclean person, and in niany 
 respects the same as a heathen. The Proselytes of the Gate 
 were certainly permitted to attend the synagogue worship, 
 which was a means of gradually bringing them to a full 
 reception of Judaism. Yet the Jews who adopted the stricter 
 maxims of the Pharisees, placed all the uncircumcised in 
 the class of the unclean, and avoided living and eating with 
 such persons as defiling. Unless we suppose this to have 
 been the case, what afterwards occurred in reference to the 
 stricter pharisaical-minded Jewish Christians, and the Gentile 
 Christians who had been partly Proselytes of the Gate, would 
 appear altogether enigmatical. 
 
 As to the remarkable manner in which this devout truth- 
 seeking man (in whose heart God's Spirit had awakened so 
 lively a sense of his spiritual necessities) was led to mental 
 peace, in order to have a clear conception of the whole pro- 
 ceeding, we must bear in mmd that the Acts of the Apostles 
 is not intended to develop all the circumstances which belong 
 to the representation of the exact historical connexion of 
 events ; and that in reference to the manner in which Corne- 
 lius was prompted to seek out Peter, his own narrative is the 
 only immediate soiu-ce of information. But we are not justi- 
 fied to assume that Cornelius, who certainly could best testify 
 of the facts relating to his own state of mind, of what he had 
 himself experienced, was equally capable of clearly distinguish- 
 ing the objective, the external matter-of-fact from the subjec- 
 tive of his own niental state, in what presented itself to him 
 as an object of his own experience and perception. It was 
 natural also for him not to think of tracing out the con- 
 nexion of the higher revelations made to him, with the pre- 
 parative natural circumstances ; but that tlie divine in the 
 affair which wholly occupied his thoughts should remain alone 
 in his remembrance, and be brought forward in his naiTative, 
 while the preparatives in the natural connexion of causes and 
 effects retired into the back-ground. We are also permitted 
 and justified to supply many circumstances, which, though not 
 expressly mentioned, are yet to be supposed ; not in order to 
 obscure what was divine in the event, but to glorify the mani- 
 fold wisdom of God as shown in the way men are led to a 
 participation of redemption, in the connexion of the divine
 
 FIRST SPREAD OF CHKISTIAXITY. 69 
 
 and the natural, and in the harmony that subsists between 
 nature and grace, Eph. iii. 10. 
 
 Cornelius had devoted himself for some days to fasting and 
 prayer, which were frequently used conjointly by the Jews and 
 first Christians — the former as the means of making the soul 
 more capable (by detaching it from sense) for undistui'bed con- 
 verse with divine thiugs. This they were wont to do when, 
 in an emergency from inward or outward distress, they sought 
 relief and illumination from God. We may, therefore, presume 
 that something similar was the case with Cornelius ; and na- 
 turally ask. What it was that so troubled him 1 From the 
 whole narrative we see that his ardent longing was for religious 
 truth that would bring peace and repose to his heart. Hence 
 it is most probable, that on that account he sought illumina- 
 tion from God by fervent prayer. And what occasioned his 
 seeking it precisely at tliis time 1 From the words of the 
 angel to ComeUus, it is by no means certain that the apostle 
 Peter was wholly unknown to him. Peter himself, in his dis- 
 course before the family of Cornelius, Acts x. 37, appears to 
 have presumed that he had already heard of the doctrine of 
 Christ. It is also probable, that a matter which had already 
 excited such great attention in this district, and which was so 
 closely related to his religious wants, had not escaped his notice. 
 He had probably heard very various opinions respecting 
 Christianity ; from many zealous Jews judgments altogether 
 condemnatory ; from others, sentiments which led him to 
 expect that in the new doctrine he would at last find what he 
 had been so long seeking : thus a conflict would naturally arise 
 in his mind which would impel him to seek illumination from 
 God on a question that so anxiously occupied his thoughts. 
 It was the fourth day' since Cornelius had been in this state 
 
 * It will be proper here to give the right interpretation of Acts x. 30. 
 Many have interpreted the words as equivalent to — " Four days ago I 
 fasted to this time," — namely, the ninth hour when he was speaking, and 
 then only one fast-day was kept by Cornelius, in the ninth hour of which 
 this happened. This agrees perfectly with the reckoning of the time. 
 But the meaning of arh favours our rendering the passage, " I fasted to 
 the ninth hour of the fourth day," in which this happened. Kuinoel's 
 objection to this interpretation is not pertinent ; for, from the manner in 
 which Cornelius expressed himself, it must be evident that the vision 
 happened on the ninth hour of the fourth fast-day. Now, this passage 
 can be understood to mean, either that Cornelius was wont to fast font 
 days throughout to three o'clock, or that for four days he fasted entireli
 
 70 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of mind, when, about three in the afternoon, one of the 
 customaiy Jewish hours of prayer, while he was calling on God 
 with eai'nest supplication, he received by a voice from heaven 
 an answer to his prayers. The appearance of the angel may be 
 considered as an objective event. The soul belongs in its 
 essence to a higher than the sensible and temporal order of 
 things, and none but a contracted and arrogant reason can 
 deny the possibility of a communication between the higher 
 world and the soul which is allied to it by its very nature. 
 The Holy Scriptures teach us, that such commimications from 
 a higher spiritual world to individuals used to occinr in the 
 history of mankind, until the central point of all communica- 
 tions from heaven to earth, the Divine Fountain of life itself, 
 appeared among us, and thereby established for ever the com- 
 munion between heaven and earth ; John i. 52. We need not 
 suppose any sensible appearance, for we know not whether a 
 higher spirit cannot communicate itself to men living in 
 a world of sense, by an operation on the inward sense, so that 
 this communication should appear under the form of a 
 sensuous perception. Meanwhile, Cornelius himself is the 
 ^only witness for the objective reality of the angelic appear- 
 ance, and he can only be taken as a credible witness of what 
 he believed that he had perceived. By the influence of the 
 Divine Spirit, an elevation of mind might be naturally 
 connected with his devotion, in which the internal com- 
 munication from heaven might be represented to the higher 
 self-consciousness under the form of a vision, i Although, in 
 the words of the angel, " Thy prayers and alms are come Tip 
 before God," &c., the expression is anthropopathic, and adapted 
 to the then Jewish mode of expression, this relates only to the 
 form of tlie expression. It is the divine in human form. It 
 is marked throughout by the thought so worthy of God, that 
 tlie striving of the devout anxiety of Cornelius, which was 
 shown to the extent of his ability by prayer and works of love 
 
 to the ninth hour of the fourth day, when this happened. But fasts, ac- 
 cording to the Jewish Christian mode of speaking, did not imply an 
 entire abstinence from all nourishment. I cannot agree with Meyer's in- 
 terpretation, as 1 understand it, that Peter meant that he had fasted four 
 days, and on the fourth day, reckoning backwards, that is, the day on 
 which the fast began, about three o'clock, this event happened. 
 
 ' The word ^gafxa (Acts x. 3) cannot here be decisive, since it may ba 
 used in speaking of an esstatic vision or of a vision as an objective fact.
 
 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIAXITY. 71 
 
 towai'ds the worshippers of Jehovah, — of this germ of good, 
 ness, the fostering fatlierly love of God had not been unmind- 
 ful, — that God had heard the prayer of his longing after 
 heavenly truth, and had sent him, in the person of Peter, a 
 teacher of this truth. From the whole form of this narrative, it 
 may be inferred that Cornelius considered the pointing out of 
 Peter's place of residence, not as something that came to his 
 knowledge in a natural way, but by a supernatural communi- 
 cation. It is indeed possible tliat lie had heard it mentioned 
 by others casually in conversation, but, as he had not thought 
 further about it, it had completely escaped his recollection, 
 and now in this elevated state of mind what had been for- 
 gotten was brought back again to his consciousness, without 
 his thinking of the natural connexion. After all, this is only 
 possible, and we are by no means justified in considering it 
 necessary. The possibility therefore remains, that this infor- 
 mation wus communicated in a supernatural way. 
 
 No sooner had Cornelius obtained this important and joyful 
 certainty, than he sent two of his slaves, and a soldier that 
 waited on him, who also was a Proselyte of the Gate, to fetch 
 the lonsred-for teacher of divine truth. But this divine leadin2 
 would not have attained its end. Peter would not have com- 
 plied with the request of Cornelius, if he had not been pre- 
 pared exactly at tlie same time, by the inward enlightening of 
 the Divine Spirit, to acknowledge and rightly interpret this 
 outward call of God. In the conjunction of remarkable cir- 
 cumstances which it was necessary should meet so critically, 
 in order to bring about this important result for the historical 
 development of Christianity, the guiding wisdom of eternal 
 Love undoubtedly manifests itself. 
 
 It was about noon, on the next day, when Peter withdrew 
 to the roof of the house (built flat, in the oriental style) 
 where he lodged at Joppa, in order to offer up his mid-day 
 devotions. We can easily suppose, that the prayer of the 
 man who had been so zealously occupied in publishing the 
 gospel in that region, would especially relate to this great 
 object, the extension of tlie kingdom of Clirist. He might 
 have heard frequent reports that here and there heathens had 
 shown themselves susceptible of the gospel, when proclaimed 
 to them by the scattered Christian Hellenists; he might have 
 called to mind many intimations in the discourses of Christ ;
 
 72 FIRST SPREAD OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 new views respecting the spread of the gospel might have 
 opened to his mind ; but he ventured not to surrender him- 
 self to these impressions, he was as yet too much fettered by 
 the power of Jewish prejudices, and hence, probably, a conflict 
 was raised in his mind. While thus occupied in prayer, the 
 demands of animal nature pressed upon him. He arose for 
 the noon-tide meal, which must have been just ready. In the 
 mean time, the meditations which had occupied him in 
 prayer, abstracted him from sensible objects. Two tendencies 
 of his nature came into collision. The higher, the power of 
 the divine, had the mastery over his spirit, and the power of 
 sensuous wants over his lower nature. Thus, it came to pass, 
 that the divine and the natural were mingled together, ' not 
 so as to obscure the divine ; but the divine availed itself of 
 the reflection of the natural as an image, a symbolic vehicle 
 for the truth about to be revealed to Peter. The divine light 
 that was breaking through the atmosphere of traditionary 
 representations, and making its way to his spirit, revealed 
 itself in the min*or of sensible images which proceeded from 
 the existing state of his bodily frame. Absorbed in divine 
 meditations, and forgetting himself in the Divine, Peter saw 
 heaven open, and from thence a vessel, " as it had been a 
 great sheet knit at four corners,^ corresponding to the four 
 quai'ters of the heavens, was let down to the eai'th. In this 
 vessel he saw birds, foiu*-footed beasts, and edible creeping 
 things of various kinds, and a voice from heaven called upon 
 
 ^ What Plutarch says of such an appearance of the higher life is re- 
 markable : ws 01 S7voi rwu fiuo ki'kXo) Karacpepojxfuwv awfidruv oi/K siri- 
 Kparovffi jSe^ai'ojs, aWa KvnKtf fiev vtt' avdyicTjs (pepofifvuiv, kA-too Se (piati 
 (>(Tr6vrcDu, 7iV€Toi ris e| a.fi<p(nv rapax^^V^ '^''' ■jrapi(l>opos f\iy^hs, ovtcos d 
 Ka\ovfj.fvus iudovffiafTfxhs ioiKt p-l^is dvai Kivrjfffcov Svo7v, ttJc flip ws TreTTOvOe 
 TTJs i^i'X'is c'm'* ''■■'V 5e iis irf(pvK€ Ktvovfxevr)s. — De Pyth. Orac. c. 21. 
 
 * If the words SeSffitvov Koi (Acts x. 11) are genuine, yet, on com- 
 paring them with .\i. 5, we must, with Meyer, interpret tliem, not, 
 " Ijound together at the four corners," but, " bound to four corners." 
 But it is a question, whether these words, which are wanting in the 
 Cod. Alex. p. €. and in the Vulgate, are not to be considered as a gloss, 
 and left out, as in Lachnian's edition, and then the clause will be 
 equivalent to "letting itself down at four corners from heaven," as the 
 Vulgpte translates it, "quatuor initiis submitti de coelo." At all events, 
 these four corners are not nnimportant. As they corresponded to the 
 four (juarters of the heavens, they convey an intimation that men from 
 the north and south, the cast and the west, would appear as clean before 
 God, and be called to a participation of the kingdom of God.
 
 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITT. 73 
 
 him to slay one or other of these creatures, and to prepare 
 them for food. But against this requirement his Jewish 
 notions revolted, accustomed as he was to distinguish between 
 clean and unclean meats. He now heard a voice from heaven 
 which refuted his scruples with these very significant words 
 " What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." It 
 is clear, that in the explanation of these pregnant words 
 many circmnstances conspired. First, in their application to 
 the objects here sensibly represented. " Thou must not by 
 human perversity make a distinction of clean and unclean 
 between creatures, aU of %vhich God has declared to be clean, 
 by letting them down to thee from heaven." This letting 
 down from heaven is partly a symbol, that all are alike clean 
 as being the creatures of God, — partly, that by the new reve- 
 lation, the new creation fi-om heaven presents all as piu-e. 
 Then the higher application of these words intended by the 
 Spirit of God, is in reference to the relation of man to God, 
 intimating that every distinction of clean and unclean would 
 be taken away from among men ; that all men as the crea- 
 tures of God would be considered as alike clean, and again 
 become so as at their original creation, by the redemption 
 that related to aU. 
 
 After Peter had again expressed his scraples, this voice was 
 repeated a third time, and he saw the vessel taken up again 
 to heaven. He now retm-ued from the state of ecstatic vision, 
 to that of ordinaiy consciousness. While he was endeavom-ing 
 to trace the connexion between the vision and the subject of 
 his late meditations, the event that now occurred taught him 
 what the Spirit of God intended by that vision. Voices of 
 strangers in the court of the house, by whom his own name 
 was repeated, excited his attention. They were the thi'ee 
 messengera of Cornelius who were inquiring for him. They 
 had left Ctesafea the day before at thi-ee o'clock, and an-ived 
 at Joppa that very day about noon. While Peter was 
 observing the men, who by their appearance were evidently 
 not Jews, the Spirit of God imparted to him a knowledge of 
 the connexion between the symbolic vision and the en-and of 
 these persons. A voice within said, God has sent these men 
 to seek thee out, that thou mayest preach the gospel to the 
 heathen. Go confidently with them ; without di'eading inter- 
 course with the Gentiles as unclean, for thou hast been taught
 
 74 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 by a voice from heaven, that thou must not dare to consider 
 those unclean whom God himself has pronounced clean, and 
 whom he now sends to thee. On the next day, he departed 
 with the messengers from Joppa, accompanied by six other 
 Christians of Jewisli descent, to whom he had told what had 
 happened, and who awaited the result with eager expectation. 
 As the distance for one day's journey was too gi'eat, they 
 made two short days' journeys of it. On the day after their 
 departm-e, (the fourth after the messengers had been de- 
 spatched by Cornelius,) about three in the afternoon, they 
 arrived at Csesarea. They found Cornelius assembled with 
 his family and friends, whom he had informed of the expected 
 arrival of the teacher sent to him from heaven ; for he 
 doubted not that he wdiom the voice of the angel had notified 
 as the appointed divine teacher, would obey the divine call. 
 After what had passed, Peter appeared to Cornelius as a 
 super-earthly being. He fell reverentially before him as he 
 entered the chamber ; but Peter bade him stand up, and 
 said, " Stand up, I myself also am a man." He narrated to 
 the persons assembled, by what means he had been induced 
 not to regard the common scruples of the Jews respecting 
 intercourse with heathens, and expressed his desire to hear 
 from Cornelius what had determined them to call him thither. 
 Cornelius explained this, and ended with saying, " Now there- 
 fore are we all here present before God, to hear all things 
 that are commanded thee of God." Peter was astonished at 
 tlie pure disposition so susceptible of divine truth, wliich 
 appeared in the words of Cornelias, and formed so striking a 
 conti'ast to the obstinate unsusceptibility of many Jews ; and 
 perceived the hand of God in tlie way Cornelius had been led, 
 since he had sought the truths of salvation with upright 
 desire ; he therefore said, " Now I perceive of a truth that 
 <jod is no respecter of persons ; but in every fiation, he that 
 feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him." 
 As to these memorable words of Peter, the sense cannot be, 
 that in every nation, every one who only rightly employs his 
 own moral power, will obtain salvation ; for had Peter meant 
 this, he would, in what he added, announcing Jesus as him 
 by whom alone men could obtain forgiveness of sin and salva- 
 tion, have contradicted himself. On that supposition, lie 
 ought rather to have told Cornelius, that he hud only to
 
 FIRST SPUEAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 
 
 remain in liis present disposition, that was enough, and he 
 needed no new doctrine of salvation. But, on the other hand, 
 it is impossible, according to the connexion, to understand by 
 "every one that feareth God and worketh righteousness,'' 
 those who had attained true piety through Christianity, and 
 to make the words mean no more than this — that Christians 
 of all nations are acceptable to God : for the words plainly 
 import that Cornelius, on account of his upright pious striving, 
 was deemed worthy of having his prayers heai'd, and being 
 led to faith in the Redeemer. Nor can these words relate 
 only to such who already believed in the revelation of God in 
 the Old Testament, and according to its guidance, honoured 
 God, and expected the Messiah. But evidently Peter spoke 
 in opposition to the Jewish nationalism — God judgeth men 
 not according to their descent or non-descent from the theo- 
 cratic nation, but according to their disposition. All who, 
 like Cornelius, honom* God uprightly according to the measure 
 of the gift entrusted to them, are acceptable to him, and he 
 prepares by his grace a way for them, by which they are led 
 to faith in Him, who alone can bestow salvation. This is 
 what Peter meant to announce to them. ' 
 
 It was natural that, since the minds of these persons were 
 so much more prepared than others for the appropriation of 
 saving truth, and for living faith by their inward want and 
 earnest longing, that the word would make a much quicker 
 and more powerful impression on them. "While Peter was 
 speaking to them, they wei'e impelled to express their feelings 
 in inspu'ed praises of that God, who in so wonderful a manner 
 
 * Cornelius belonged to that class of persons who are pointed out in 
 John iii. 21. We are by no means authorized to maintain that Peter, from 
 the general position laid down by him, intended to draw the inference, 
 that God would certainly lead to salvation those among all nations, to 
 whom the marks belonged which he here specified, even if they did not 
 during their earthly life obtain a participation in redemption. He ex- 
 pressed that truth, which at the moment manifested itself to him in a 
 consciousness enlightened by the Holy Spirit, without reflecting on all 
 the consequences deducible from it. We must ever carefully distinguish 
 between what enlightened men consciously intend to say, according to 
 historical conditions, and in relation to interests immediately affected 
 by existing circumstances, — and what forms the contents of eternal 
 truth, to be developed with all the consequences involved. To develop 
 the first is the province of exegesis and historical apprehension ; the 
 second, that of Christian doctrine and morals.
 
 76 FIRST SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 had led them to salvation. One inspiration seized all, and 
 with amazement the Jewish Christians present beheld their 
 prejudices against the Gentiles contradicted by the fact. 
 What an impression must it have made upon them, when 
 they heard the Gentile who had been considered by them as 
 unclean, testify with such inspiration of Jehovah and the 
 Messiah ! And now Peter could appeal to this transaction, 
 in order to nullify all the scruples of the Jews, respecting the 
 baptism of such uncircumcised persons, and ask, " Who can 
 forbid water that these should be baptized, who have already 
 received the baptism of the Spirit like ourselves ?" And when 
 he returned to Jerusalem, and the manner in which he had held 
 intercourse with the Gentiles had raised a stumbling-block 
 among the strict pharisaical believers, he was able to silence 
 them by a similar appeal. " Forasmuch then," said he, " as 
 God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who beUeved 
 on the Lord Jesus Christ ; what was I, that I could withstand 
 Godr Actsxi. 17.
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE SPREAD OF CHBISTIANITY AND FOUNDING OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 CUURCH AMONG THE GENTILES BY THE INSTRUMENTALITY OP 
 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PADL'f preparation AND CALL TO BE THE APOSTLE OP 
 THE QENTILES. 
 
 In this manner, Christianity, independently of Judaism, began 
 to be propagated among the Gentiles ; the appointment of 
 the gospel as a distinct means of forming all nations for the 
 kingdom of God, was now acknowledged by the apostles ; and 
 consequently, on their part, no opposition could be made to 
 employing it for this purpose. While, by the arrangements 
 of the Divine wisdom, the principal obstacle to the conversion 
 of the heathen was taken out of the way, and the first impulse 
 was given to that work ; by the same wisdom, that gi-eat 
 champion of the faith who was to cai'ry it on, and lay the 
 foundation for the salvation of the heathen through all ages, 
 was called forth, to take the position assigiied him in the 
 development of the kingdom of God. This was no other than 
 the apostle Paul ; a man distinguished, not only for the wide 
 extent of his apostolic labours, but for his development of 
 the fundamental truths of the gospel in their living organic 
 connexion, and their formation into a compact system. The 
 essence of the gospel in relation to human nature, on one 
 side especially, the relation namely to its need of redemption, 
 was aet by him in the clearest light ; so that when the sense 
 of that need has been long repressed or perverted, and a 
 revival of Christian consciousness has followed a state of
 
 78 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 spiritual death, the uewly awakened Christiau life, whethei* in 
 the church at large, or in individuals, has always drawn its 
 nourishment from his writings. As he has presented Christi- 
 anity under this aspect especially, and has so impressively 
 shown the immediate relation of religious knowledge and 
 experience to the Lord Jesus, in opposition to all dependence 
 on any human mediation whatever, thus drawing the line of 
 demarcation most clearly between the Christian and Jewish 
 standing-point ; — he may be considered as the representative 
 among the apostles of the Protestant principle. And history, 
 though it furnishes only a few hints respecting the early life 
 of Paul before his call to the apostleship, has recorded enough 
 to make it evident, that by the whole course of his previous 
 development, he was formed for what he was to become, and 
 for what he was to effect. 
 
 Saul, or Paul (the former the original Hebrew, the latter 
 the HeUenistio form of his name),' was a native of the city 
 of Tarsus in Cilicia. This we learn from his own expressions 
 
 ' The latter was his usual appellation, from the time of his being 
 devoted entirely to the conversion of the heathen ; Acts xiii. 9. 
 Although the ancient supposition, that he changed his own name for 
 tliat of his convert Sergius Paulus, has been recently advocated by 
 Meyer and Olshausen, I cannot approve of it. I cannot imagine that 
 the conversion of a proconsul would be thought so much more of by 
 him than the conversion of any other man (and he was far from being 
 his first convert), as to induce him to assume his name. It is more 
 agreeable to the usage of ancient times, for the scholar to be named 
 after his teacher, (as Cyprian after Csecilius, Eusebius after Pamphilus,) 
 rather than for the teacher to be named after the scholar ; for no one 
 could think of finding a parallel in the instance of Scipio Africanus. 
 And had this really been the reason why Paul assumed the name, we 
 might have expected, as it was closely connected with the whole nar- 
 rative, that Luke would have expressly assigned it. And Fritzsche is 
 correct in saying (see his Commentary on the Romans, Prolcg. p. 11), 
 that, in this case, not Acts xiii. 9, but xiii. 13, would have been a 
 natural place for mentioning it. Still I cannot, with Fritzsche, think it 
 probable, that Luke was accidentally led, by the mention of Sergius 
 Paulus, to remark that Paul also bore the same name. The most 
 natural way of viewing the matter seems to be this; Luke had hitherta 
 designated him by the name which he found in the memoirs lying before 
 him on the early history of Christianity. But he was now induced to 
 distinguish him by the name which he found in the memoirs of his 
 labours among the heathen, and by which he had personally known him 
 during that later period ; and, therefore, took the o]iportunity of re- 
 marking, that this Paul was no other than the individual whom he h&O 
 hitherto called Saul.
 
 BY THE APOSTLE PAUL. TO 
 
 in Acts xxi. 39, xxii. 3, and the contradictory tradition 
 reported by Jerome, that he was born in the small town of 
 Gischala, in Galilee, cannot appear credible, though it is not 
 improbable that his parents once resided there,' which may 
 have given rise to the report. As we do not know how long 
 he remained under the paternal roof, it is impossible to deter- 
 mine what influence his education in the metropolis of Cilicia 
 (which as a seat of literature vied with Athens and Alex- 
 andria) - had on the formation of his character. Certainly, 
 his early acquaintance with the language and national pecu- 
 liarities of the Greeks was of some advantage in preparing 
 liim to be a teacher of Christianity among nations of Grecian 
 origin. Yet the few passages from the Greek poets which we 
 meet with in his discourse at Athens, and in his Epistles, do 
 not prove that his education had made him familiar with 
 Grecian literature : nor is it probable that such would be the 
 
 ' If we were justified in understanding with Paiilus (in his work on 
 the Apostle Paul's Epistles to the Galatians and Romans, p. 323) the 
 word kfipalos, Phil. iii. 5, 2 Cor. xi. 22, as used in contradistinction to 
 l\\iji/i(TTT)j, it would serve to confirm this tradition, since it would 
 imply that Paul could boast of a descent from a Palestinian-Jewish and 
 not Hellenistic family. But since Paul calls himself ilBpalos, though 
 he was certainly by birth a Hellenist, it is evident that the word cannot 
 be used in so restricted a sense ; and in the second passage quoted 
 above, where it is equivalent to an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, 
 it plainly has a wider meaning ; see Block's admirable Introduction to 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 32. This tradition too, reported by 
 Jerome, is, as Fritzsche justly remarks, very suspicious, not only on 
 account of the gross anachronism, which makes the taking of Gischala 
 by the Romans the cause of Paul's removal thence with his parents, — 
 since this event happened much later in the Jewish war, hut also 
 because Jerome, in his Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon 
 (verse 23), makes use of this tradition to explain why Paul, though a 
 citizen of Tarsus, calls himself, 2 Cor. xi. 22, Philip, iii. 5, " Hebrceus 
 ex Hehrceis, et csetera qua? ilium Judaeum magis indicant quam Tar- 
 sensem," which yet, as we have remarked above, proceeds only from a 
 misunderstanding of the epithet which Paui applies to himself. Jerome 
 must have, therefore, taken up this false account (" talem fabulam 
 accepimus," are his own words), without proof, in a very thoughtless 
 manner. 
 
 ^ Strabo, who wrote in the time of Augustus, places Tarsus in this 
 respect above these two cities : rorrainri toTs ifddSe avdpccTrnis cnrovS^ 
 irpSs Tf <pi\.o(ro(piav koI rrjV &\\riv iyKvK\wv airaaav TraiSeiav yc) ovtv, IbcrQ' 
 VTrfp0f0\vvTaL Kal 'Adrjuas Kal 'A\e^ai'Speiav Kol f1 riva &\Kov t6t:ov 
 ^vvarrhv (Xinlv iv ^ (rxoA.al Kal Oiorpi^ai tuv (ptKoij6(p(iiv 'y(:'y6)ixcru 
 Geogr i. 14, c. 5.
 
 80 SPREAD OF CnRlSTIAXITT 
 
 case. As his parents designed him to be a teacher of the law, 
 or Jewish theologian, his studies must have been confined in 
 his early years to the Old Testament, and about the age of twelve 
 or thirteen, he must have entered the school of Gamaliel.' It 
 is possible, though, considering Paul's pharisaic zeal, not pro- 
 bable, that the more liberal views of his tolerant-minded 
 teacher Gamaliel might induce him to turn his attention to 
 Grecian literatm-e. A man of his mental energy, whose zeal 
 overcame all difficulties in his career, and whose love prompted 
 him to make himself familiar with all the mental habitudes 
 of the men among whom he laboured, that he might sym- 
 pathise more completely with their wants and infirmities, 
 might be induced, while among people of (jrecian cxilture, to 
 acquire some knowledge of their principal writers. But in 
 the style of his representations, the Jewish element evidently 
 predominates. His peculiar mode of argumentation was not 
 formed in the Grecian, but in the Jewish school. The name 
 Saul, '7wir,^ the desired one, the one prayed for, perhaps 
 indicates, that he was the first-born of his parents,^ granted 
 in answer to their earnest prayers : and hence it may be 
 inferred, that he was devoted by his father, a Pharisee, to the 
 service of religion, and sent in early youth to Jerusalem, that 
 he might be trained to become a learned expounder of the law 
 and of tradition ; not to add, that it was usual for the youth of 
 Tarsus'* to complete their education at some foreign school. 
 Most advantageously for him, he acquired in the pharisaic 
 schools at Jerusalem that systematic form of intellect, which 
 afterwards rendered him such good service in developing the 
 contents of the Christian doctrine ; so that, like Luther, he 
 became thoroughly conversant with the theological system, 
 which afterwards, by the power of the gospel, he uprooted and 
 destroyed. A youth so ardent and energetic as Paul, would 
 throw his whole soul into whatever he undertook ; his natural 
 temperament would dispose him to an overflowing impetuous 
 zeal, and for such a propensity Pharisaism suppHed abundant 
 
 ' See Tlioluck'8 admirable remarks in the Studien und Kritiken, 
 1835, 2d part, p. 366. 
 
 ^ We cannot attach much importance to so uncertain an inference. 
 
 ' Like the names Theodorus, Thecdorct, common among Christians in 
 the first century. 
 
 * See Strabo.
 
 BT THE APOSTLE PAUL. 81 
 
 aliment. We may also infer from his peculiar disposition, as 
 well as from various hints he gives of himself, that in legal 
 piety, according to the notions of the strictest Pharisaism, he 
 strove to go beyond all his companions. But in proportion to 
 the eai-nestness of his striving after hohness — the more he 
 combated the refractory impulses of an ardent and powerful 
 nature, which refused to be held in by the reins of the law — 
 so much more ample were his opportunities for understanding 
 from his own experience the woful discord in human uatiu-e 
 which arises when the moral consciousness asserts its claims as 
 a controlUng law, while the man feels himself constantly 
 carried away, in defiance of his better longing and willing, by 
 the force of ungodly inclination. Paul could not have depicted 
 this condition so strikingly and to the life, in the seventh 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, if he had not gained the 
 knowledge of it from personal experience. It was advan- 
 tageous for him that he passed over to Christianity from a 
 position where, by various artificial restraints and prohibitions, 
 he had attempted to guard against the incursions of unlawful 
 desires and passions, and to compel himself to goodness ; ' for 
 thus he was enabled to testify from his own experience, (in 
 which he appears as the representative of all men of deep 
 moral feehng,) how deeply the sense of the need of redemption 
 is gi-ounded in the moral constitution of man ; and thus hke- 
 wdse from personal experience, he cordd describe the relation 
 of that inward freedom w^hich residts from faith in redemption, 
 to the servitude of the legal standing-point. In his conflict 
 with himself while a Pharisee, Paul's expeiiences resemble 
 Luther's in the cloisters of Ei'furt : though in the Pharisaic 
 dialectics and exposition of the law, he was a zealous and faith- 
 ful disciple of Gamaliel, we cannot from this conclude that he 
 imbibed that spirit of moderation for which his master was so 
 distinguished, and which he showed in his judgment of the 
 new sect at the first, before it came into direct conflict with the 
 theology of his party. For the scholar, especially a scholar of so 
 energetic and marked a character, would imbibe the mental in- 
 
 ' As, for example, from the standing-point of Pharisaism, it has been 
 said, " Instead of leaving every thing to the free movements of the dis- 
 position, a man should force himself to do this or that good by a direct 
 V0.V. Vows are the enclosures of holiness." nicnc^ 3".p cm:. Svc I'irke 
 Avoth. § 13. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 82 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 fluences of his teacher, only so far as they accorded with his own 
 pecuharities. His unyielding disposition, the fire of his nature, 
 and the fire of his youth, made him a vehement persecuting 
 zealot against all who opposed the system that was sacred in hia 
 eyes. Accordingly, no sooner did the new doctrine in the hands 
 of Stephen assume a hostile aspect ' against the Pharisaic theo- 
 
 ' The question has been raised, whether Paul saw and heard Jesus 
 during his earthly lifel We have not the data for answering the ques- 
 tion. In his Epistles, we find nothing conclusive either one way or the 
 other. Olshausen thinks that it may be inferred from 2 Cor. v. 16, that 
 Paul really knew Jesus during his earthly life, Kara adgKa. Paul, in that 
 passage, he understands as saying, " But if I knew Christ, as indeed I 
 did know him, according to the flesh, in his bodily earthly appearance, 
 yet now I know him so no more." Against this interpretation I will not 
 object with Baur, in his Essay " On the Party of Christ in the Corinthian 
 Church," in the Tubingen Zeitschrift fur Theologie, 1831, part iv. p. 95, 
 that he could not mean this, because it would have been undervaluing 
 Christ in his state of humiliation, which would be in contradiction to 
 those passages in which he attributes to that state the highest abiding 
 importance, and says he is determined to know nothing save Christ and 
 him crucified. For though the remembrance of Christ in the form of a 
 servant could never vanish from his mind, though he never could forget 
 what he owed to Christ the Crucified, yet now he knew him no longer 
 as living in human weakness, and subject to death, but as having risen 
 victoriously from death, the glorified one, now living in divine power 
 and majesty ; 2 Cor. xiii. 4. The relation in which it would have been 
 possible to stand to Christ while he lived in the form of a servant on earth, 
 could no longer exist. No one could now stand nearer to him, simply for 
 being a Jew; no one could hold converse with him in an outward manner, 
 as a being present to the senses : henceforth it was only possible to enter 
 into union with Christ as the glorified one, as he presented himself to 
 the religious consciousness in a spiritual, internal manner, by believing 
 on him as crucified for the salvation of mankind. In this respect, Paul 
 might well say that now there could no longer be for him such " a know- 
 ledge of Christ after the flesh." And we grant that he might have said 
 hypothetically. If I had known Christ heretofore after the flesh, had I 
 stood in any such outward communion with him as manifest in the flesh, 
 yet now such a communion would have lost all its importance for me 
 (such a value as those Judaizers attribute to it who make it the sign of 
 genuine apostleship) ; but now I know Christ after the spirit, like all 
 those who enjoy spiritual communion with him. But Paul could only 
 say this in a purely hypothetical form, supposing something to be which 
 really was not ; for allowing that he had seen and heard Jesus with his 
 bodily senses, his opponents would have been far from atiacning any im- 
 portance to such seeing and hearing, as it could have been affirmed with 
 equal truth of many Jews, who stood in an indifferent or even hostile 
 position towards Chri<t. The reference in this passage can be only to 
 iuch a " knowing of Christ after the flesh," as belonged to the other apo
 
 BY THE APOSTLE PAUL. 83 
 
 logy, than he became its most vehement persecutor. After the 
 martyrdom of Stephen, when many adherents of the gospel 
 sought for safety by flight, Paul felt himself called to counter- 
 work them in the famed city of Damascus, where the new sect 
 was gaining ground. And he hastened thither, after receiving 
 full powers for committing all the Christians to prison from the 
 Sanliedrim, who, as the highest ecclesiastical authority among 
 the Jews, were allowed by the Romans to inflict all disci- 
 plinary punishment against the violators of the law.* 
 
 As for the great mental change which Paul experienced in 
 the com-se of this jom-ney, undertaken for the extinction of 
 the Christian faith, it is quite possible that this event may 
 strike us as sudden and marvellous, only because the history 
 records the mere fact, without the various preparatory and 
 connecting circumstances which led to it ; but, by making 
 use of tlie hints which the narrative furnishes to hll up Ihe 
 outline, we may attempt to gain the explanation of the whole, 
 on purely natural principles. 
 
 Pavd — (it would be said by a person adopting this view of 
 the event) — had received many impressions which disturl ed 
 the repose of his truth-loving soul ; he had heard the tempe- 
 rate counsels of his revered instructor Gamaliel ; he htd 
 listened to the address of Stephen, to whom he was allied m 
 natural temperament, and had witnessed his martyrdom. 
 But he was still too deeply imbued with the spirit of Phai'i- 
 
 etles, since only to this could any religious value be attached against 
 which Paul might feel himsel&called to protest. For this reason I must 
 agree with Baar, who understands xe'o"''^s here, not of the person of 
 Jesus, but of tlie Messiah, a Messiah known after the flesh, as from the 
 early Jewish standing-point. I also believe with Baur, that if Paul had 
 intended a personal reference, he would have said 'Iriaovv x^kttJ)^, and I 
 cannot admit the force of the objection which Olshausen makes to this 
 interpretation, that it would require the article before xg"CTJ>«', for it 
 means not the Messiah definitively, but generally a Messiah. 
 
 ' If Damascus at that time still belonged to a Roman province, the 
 Sanhedrim could exercise its authority there, in virtue of the right 
 secured every where to the Jews to practise their worship in their own 
 manner. If the city was brouglit under the government of the Arabian 
 King Aretas, the Sanhedrim could still reckon on his support, in conse- 
 quence of the connexion he had formed with the Jews; periiaps he him- 
 self had gone over to Judaism. The Jews in Damascus might also 
 possess groat influence by means of the women, who were almost all 
 couverts to Judaism, Josephus, De Bell. Jud. ii. 20, 2.
 
 84 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 saism, to siirrender himself to these impressions, so contrary 
 to the prevailing bent of his mind. He forcibly repressed 
 them ; he rejected the thoughts that involuntarily rose in his 
 mind in favour of the new doctrine, as the suggestions of 
 Satan, whom he regarded as the sole contriver of this rebel- 
 lion against the authority of the ancient traditions, and 
 accordingly set himself with so much the greater ardour 
 against the new sect. Yet he could not succeed altogether in 
 suppressing these rising thoughts, and in silencing the voice 
 of conscience, which rebuked his fanaticism. A conflict arose 
 in his soul. While in this state, an outward impression was 
 added, which brought the internal process to maturity. Not 
 far from Damascus he and his followers were overtaken by a 
 .violent storm ; the lightning struck Paul, and he fell sense- 
 less to the ground. He attributed this catastrophe to the 
 avenging power of the Messiah, whom in the person of his 
 disciples he was persecuting, and, confounding the objective 
 and subjective, converted this internal impression into an 
 outward appearance of Christ -to him : blinded by the light- 
 ning, and stunned by the fall, he came to Damascus. — But 
 admitting this explanation as correct, how are we to explain 
 by natural causes the meeting of Paul with Ananias 1 Even 
 here we may supply many particulai'S which are not expressly 
 mentioned in the nan-ative. Since Ananias ■ was noted even 
 among the Jews as a man of strict legal piety, it is not impro- 
 bable that he and Paul were previously acquainted with one 
 another at Jerusalem. At all events, Paul had heai'd of the 
 extraordiuai'y spiritual gifts said to be possessed by Ananias, 
 and the thought natm-ally arose in his mind, that a man held 
 in so much repute among the Christians, might be able to 
 heal him and recover him from his present unfortunate con- 
 dition ; and while occupied with this thought, his imagination 
 formed it into a vision. On the other hand, we may sup- 
 pose, that Ananias had heard something of the great change 
 that had taken place in Paul ; and yet might not give full 
 credence to the report, till a vision corresponding to Paul's, 
 and explicable on similar psychological principles, had over- 
 come his mistrust. 
 
 In reference to this explanation, we must certainly allow 
 tlie possibility that a change like that wliich took place in 
 Paul might have been prepared by irriprossions of the kind
 
 BY THE APOSTLE PAUL. 85 
 
 mentioned ; but the narrative will not countenance either the 
 necessity or probability of such a supposition. History fur- 
 nishes us with numerous examples of the power of religious 
 fanaticism over minds that in other respects have been suscep- 
 tible of the true and the good, and yet, while under its 
 influence, have used those very things to confirm them in 
 their delusion which might seem fitted to rescue them from 
 it. It is, therefore, quite consistent with the powerful cha- 
 racter of Paul to believe that, in the martyrdom of Stephen, 
 he saw only the power of the evil spirit over the mind of one 
 who had been seduced fi-om the pui-e faith of his fathers ; and 
 that hence he felt a stronger impulse to counterwork the pro- 
 pagation of a doctrine which could involve in such ruin men 
 distinguished by their disposition and their talents. Besides, 
 if only the impression which a storm with its attendant cir- 
 cumstances made upon him, was the fact that formed the 
 groundwork of that vision of Christ, it would ill agree with 
 this, that Paul's followers believed that they perceived some- 
 thing similar to what befell him ; for this is only admissible, 
 if we suppose them to have been like-minded with Paid, 
 which could not be unless they were already Christians, or on 
 the way to Christianity. But such persons would hardly 
 attach themselves to a persecutor of Christians. ' 
 
 Such attempts at explaining the nan-ative are suspicious, 
 because unusual natui-al appearances are made use of to bring 
 
 ' The variations in the narrative of these events contained in Acts 
 ix. xxii. and xxvi. prove nothing against the re;ility of the fact. Such 
 unimportant dififerenees might easily arise in the repetition of the nar- 
 rative of an event so far removed from the circle of ordinary occur- 
 rences ; and these differences need not be attributed to alterations in 
 the narrative by Paul himself, but may be supposed to originate in the 
 incorrectness of others in repeating it. As for the rest, if we assume 
 that his attendants received only a general impression of the pheno- 
 menon, not 80 definite as Paul's, for whom it was mainly intended ; that 
 they saw a light, but no precise shape or figure ; that they heard a 
 voice^ without distinguishing or understanding the words ; — it is easy 
 to perceive, that various representations would naturally be given of 
 the event. As this phenomenon, from its very nature, cannot be 
 judged of according to the laws of ordinary earthly communications and 
 perceptions, the diflference in the perceptions of Paul and his attendants 
 argues nothing against its objective reality. We are too ignorant of 
 the laws which regulate the communications between a higher .spiritual 
 world and men living in a world of the senses, to determine anything 
 precisely on thece points.
 
 86 SPREAD OP CHRISTI-tiNITT 
 
 down what is extraordinary into the circle of common events. 
 Instead, therefore, of following this explanation, which is 
 attended with gi-eat difficulties — we might rather conceive the 
 whole, independently of all outward phenomena, as an inward 
 transaction in Paul's mind, a spiritual revelation of Chr-ist to 
 his higher self-consciousness ; and, in this light, we may view 
 the experiences which he had in his conflicts with himself 
 while a Pharisee, and the impression of the discourse and 
 martyi'dom of Stephen, as forming a preparation by which 
 his heart was rendered capable of receiving these internal 
 revelations of the Redeemer. The divine origin and the 
 reality of the fact will not be in the slightest degree affected 
 by this explanation ; for though we may conceive of outward 
 supernatural appearances — still there would be nothing more 
 than the means by which Paid would be prepared for that 
 internal revelation of Christ, which formed the basis of his 
 apostleship. The perceptions of the senses cannot have gi-eater 
 certainty and reality than the facts of a higher self-conscious- 
 ness, whereby a man receives revelations of an order of things 
 in which his true life has its root, far above the sensible world, 
 which he experiences and apprehends spiritually. And that 
 this was no self-illusion, capable of being psvchologically ex- 
 plained,^ that extraordinary change would testify which, waa 
 
 * Dr. Strauss says, in his " Leben Jesu," vol. ii. p. 656, " Ifeander 
 merely ventures to maintain an internal operation of Christ on the 
 mind of Paul, and only adds the supposition of an outward appearance. 
 as if it were a favour for his readers to grant it ; and even the internal 
 operation he makes superfluous, by particularising various influences 
 which in a natural way might bring about such a revolution in such an 
 individual's miud." But as to what concerns the latter, the conclusion 
 from a possibility under certain presupposed circumstances, to that which 
 actually took place, in the absence of any historical proof of its taking 
 place, is by no means justifiable, unless a person argues on an assump- 
 tion which I do not admit, namely, that every thing must proceed 
 according to the laws of natural psychological development, and that a 
 supernatural operation cannot take place. But according to a mode of 
 viewing this subject, which is as difi'erent from the caricature of super- 
 naturalism, drawn by Dr. Strauss and others, (let my readers compare 
 the words of truth in Twesten's Preface to tlie second volume of his 
 " Dogmatik,") as from the views of Dr. Strauss himself on the relation 
 of God to the world — a supernatural operation by no means excludes 
 a preparation in the natural development of man, nor does the latter 
 make the former superfluous. With respect to the other point, the out- 
 ward appearance of Christ, I do not indeed hold this as absolutely
 
 BY THE APOSTLE PAUIj. 87 
 
 the result in Paul of this internal transaction — this the whola 
 course of liis apostolic ministry testifies, which may be traced 
 to his inward experience, as the effect to its cause. But yet 
 the manner in which his attendants were affected by what hap- 
 pened on this occasion contradicts the supposition of a merely 
 internal transaction, even if we could resolve on ascribing the 
 state in which Paul came to Damascus to the power of an 
 internal impression.' 
 
 It will be of great service to compare with the narrative in 
 the Acts the expressions used by Paul in his Epistles in 
 I'eference to this event, so important to him as the commence- 
 ment of a new era in his life. As he often refers to it in 
 opposition to his Jewish adversaries, who were unwilling to 
 acknowledge him as an apostle ; so he had a confident per- 
 suasion that the apostohc commission was given him by 
 Christ in the same manner as to the other apostles ; this is 
 expressed most fully and strongly in Gal. i. 1. Yet here we 
 need not suppose an outward event to be meant, but may 
 rather understand it of an internal transaction such as we 
 have described. In the sixteenth verse, Paul evidently speaks 
 of an internal communication of Christ, of an inward reve- 
 lation of him to his self-consciousness," whereby, independently 
 
 requisite for explaining the great revolution in the spiritual life of Paul, 
 but the circumstances mentioned in the text, compared witli the expres- 
 sions of Paul himself, compel me to admit its reality, and I recognise 
 the importance of it for Paul, in order that, like the other apostles, he 
 might he able to testify of Christ as risen from the dead. 
 
 * The notion, that the vision which immediately preceded Paul's 
 conversion is the one described by himself in 2 Cor. xii. 2, which iu 
 modem times has been revived by several distinguished theologians, 
 has every thing against it : iu the latter, Paul describes his elevation in 
 spirit to a higher region of the spiritual world ; in the vision which 
 occasioned his conversion, there was a revelation of Christ coming down 
 to him while consciously living on the earth. The immediate impres- 
 Bion of the first was depressing and humiliating ; the second was con- 
 nected with an extraordinary mental elevation, a tendency to pride and 
 vain-glory. With the first his Christian consciousness bei;an ; the second 
 marked one of the most exalted moments of his inward life, after he had 
 long lived in communion with Christ ; and by such a foretaste of 
 heavenly existence, he was refreshed under his manifold conflicts, and 
 animated to renew his earthly labours. The date of fourteen years 
 mentioned here, is of no chronological use, further than to satisfy us, 
 that the date of Paul's conversion must be false, according to which he 
 must have written this exactly fourteen years later. 
 
 2 It is most natural to understand the phrase iv ifj.ol as denoting 
 eomethiuy; internal.
 
 88 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of all Imman instruction, he was qualified to preach Christ. 
 But sometliing in addition to this is intended where Paul, in 
 1 Cor. ix. 1, appeals to his having seen Christ as a mark of 
 his apostleship. ' But this might refer to an ecstatic vision, 
 similai- to what Paul himself desciibes in 2 Cor. xii. 2. On 
 the contrary, something different from this must be intended 
 in the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, where he places the 
 appearance of Christ to himself on an equality with all the 
 other appeai'ances of the risen Saviour. And this declaration 
 
 * It must be evident to every unprejudiced person, that this cannot 
 refer to Paul's havinij seen Jesus during his earthly life, (though a pos- 
 sible occurrence,) for it would have added nothing to his apostolic 
 authority ; nor yet to the mere knowledge of the doctrine of Christ. 
 Riickert, in his Com. on this passage, maintains that it refers rather to 
 one of the appearances of Christ, which were granted to him in a state 
 of ecstatic vision, Acts xviii. 9, xxii. 17, than to that which occasioned 
 his conversion, especially since an appearance of Christ of this kind is 
 not mentioned either in Acts ix. xxii. xxvi. nor in Gal. i. 12 — 26. On 
 the other hand, the following considerations deserve attention. Since, 
 as Riickert himself acknowledges, the reading in that passage is to be 
 preferred, in which the words, " Am I not an apostle?" are immediately 
 followed by, " Have I not seen Christ 1" we may infer that Paul adduced 
 his having seen Christ as a confirmation of his apostleship ; as after- 
 wards, for the same purpose, he adduces the success of his eiforts in 
 founding the Corinthian church. Without doubt, he urged this against 
 liis Judaizing opponents, who disputed his call to the apostleship on the 
 ground, that he had not been appointed by Christ himself like the other 
 apostles. In this connexion it is most natural to expect, that Paul 
 would speak of that appearance of Christ which marked the commence- 
 ment of his apostolic career, that real appearance of Christ which he 
 clasi^es with the other appearances of the risen Saviour, 1 Cor xv. 8, and 
 not a mere vision, lliickert indeed maintains, that Paul made no dis- 
 tinction between the two kinds of appearances, for " otherwise he would 
 have attributed no value to visions, as mere figments of the imagination." 
 But this conclusion is not correct ; for we may suppose something be- 
 tween a real objective appearance, and a natural creation of the imagina- 
 tion formed in the usual psychological manner, — such an operation of the 
 Divine Spirit on the higher self-consciousness, in virtue of which what 
 is inwardly apprelicnded presents itself to the person so influenced 
 under a sensible image, whereby the imagination is turned into an organ, 
 for what is inwardly apprehended by the operation of the Divine Spirit. 
 That such a communication of the Divine Spirit may be distinguished 
 ooth from a real appearance to the senses, and from a mere result of the 
 imagination, is evident from many passages of Holy Writ, as for example, 
 Peter's vision. Acts x. 12. The passage Gal. i. IG, does not exclude an 
 appearance of Ciirist, but it was foreign to the apostle's object to specify 
 it. But the word firjStua not nrjSev, Acts ix. 7, certainly implies, that 
 Paul, in distinction from his attendants, had seen a person.
 
 BY THE APOSTLE PAUL. 89 
 
 of Paul has additional weight, because, as is apparent from 
 the passages before quoted in the Second Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, he could so accurately distinguish an ecstatic 
 st-ate from a state of ordinary self-consciousness. Hence we 
 also see how important it was for him, as well as the other 
 apostles, to be enabled to testify, on the evidence of then' own 
 senses, of that gi'eat fact, the foundation of Christian feith 
 and Christian hope — the real resurrection of Clurist and his 
 glorified personal existence. 
 
 Lastly, we by no means suppose a magical influence on 
 Paul, by which he was carried away, and converted against 
 his will. According to the view we have taken of this event, 
 we suppose an internal point of connexion, without which, no 
 outward revelation or appearance could have become an 
 inward one ; without which, any outward impression that 
 could have been made, however powerful, would have been 
 transient in its results. But in his case, the love for the 
 true and the good discernible even through his errors, though 
 repressed by the power of his passions and prejudices, was to 
 be set free from its thraldom only by a mighty impression. 
 Yet no external miracle whatever could have converted a 
 Caiaphas into a preacher of the gospel. 
 
 It might be expected, that Paul could not at once, after 
 such an impression, enter on a new com'se of action. Every 
 thing which hitherto had been the motive and aim of hia 
 conduct, now seemed as nothing. Sorrow must have been 
 the predominant feeling of his crushed spirit. He could not 
 instantaneously recover from so overwhelming an impression, 
 which gave a new direction to his whole being. He was 
 reduced to a state of mental and bodily weakness, from which 
 he could not restore himself He passed three days without 
 food. This was for him the point of transition from death to 
 a new life ; and nothing can so vividly express his feelings at 
 this awful crisis, as the exclamation which he himself, revert- 
 ing to his earlier state, puts in the lips of the man who, with 
 the deepest conscioiisness of inward slavery under the violated 
 law, and with earnest aspirations after freedom, pours forth 
 his whole heart in the words, " wretched man that I am ! 
 who shall deliver me 1 " — Nor is it at all probable that, in this 
 state, he would seek for sociixl intercourse. Nothing covdd 
 less agree with his feelings than intercourse with the Jews ;
 
 90 SPREAD OP CHRISTIANITY 
 
 nior could he easily prevail on himself to seek out the Chria* 
 tians, whom he had hitherto persecuted. To a man in thia 
 state of mind, nothing could be so welcome as solitude. 
 Hence it is by no means probable, that information of the 
 gi'eat change that had passed upon him would be conveyed 
 by other persons to Ananias. It is worthy of notice, that, in 
 order to attain a full consciousness of his new life, and to 
 make the transition from this intermediate state of contrition, 
 to a new life of active exertion in communion with Christ, he 
 was brought into connexion with the existing Christian 
 church, by the instrumentality of one of its members. In 
 communion with other believers, he first obtained what he 
 could not find in his solitude. When he prayed to Christ 
 who had appeared to him, that he would help him in his 
 distress, that he would enlighten both his bodily and mental 
 eyes ; it was promised to him in a vision, that a well-known 
 enlightened man, belonging to the church at Damascus, 
 whom he probably knew by name and sight, should be the 
 instrument of his spiritual and bodily restoration. When 
 Ananias, in obedience to a divine call, visited him, Paul recog- 
 nised the person to whom the vision had referred him, and 
 hence felt the fullest assurance, that in communion with him 
 he should be made partaker of a new and higher principle 
 of life. Ananias introduced Paul to the other Christians in 
 the city ; after he had been strengthened by spending several 
 days in their society, he felt himself impelled to enter the 
 synagogues, and testify in behalf of that cause, which hereto- 
 fore he had fiercely persecuted.' Whether he considered it 
 best, after bearing this first testimony among the Jews, to 
 
 ' It is difficult to consider Tjfiepai rtves in Acts ix. 19, and ^/ispou 
 iKuvals in tlie 23d verse, as equivalent terms. Yet it cannot be proved 
 from these words, that Luke by the latter meant to make a break in 
 Paul's residence at Damascus, occasioned by a journey into Arabia, but 
 the succession of events as narrated in the Acts leads to consider this 
 as most natural. The rifxipou rces merely expresses the few days which 
 Paul, just after his baptism, spent in the fellowship of the Christians at 
 Damascus. The following phrase, koX evOeois, intimates, that immedi- 
 ately after he had spent some days with the disciples he entered into the 
 8ynag0i,^uefi ; and the yufpai tKuval denote the whole period of Paul's 
 stay at Damascus. Witliin this whole period of jjfifpai iKaval, of which 
 nothing more is told in the Acts, we must place Paul's journey into 
 Arabia, of which we should not have known but for the menticu of it iu 
 tlie Epistle to the Galatians.
 
 BY THE APOSTLE PAUL. 91 
 
 allow its impression to work silently on their minds, •uithout 
 personally attempting to enforce it ; or whether the plots of 
 the Jews induced him to quit the place, we are not certain ;' 
 be this as it may, he visited the neighbouring parts of Arabia, 
 where he found opportunities for publishing the gospel among 
 the Jews, who were spread over the country. He then 
 retm'ued again to Damascus. Whether the Jews, whose 
 anger he had already excited by his former preaching, 
 as soon as they heard of his coming, endeavoured to 
 lay hold of a person who was so capable of injuring Judaism ; 
 or whether they were exasperated by his renewed addresses in 
 their synagogues, he was obliged to consult his safety by 
 flight, as his life was threatened by their machinations. — So 
 far was this man, who shunned no danger in his subsequent 
 career, though now in the first glow of conversion, a season 
 when the mind is generally most prone to extravagance — so 
 far was he from indulging in that enthusiastic ardour which 
 seeks and ci'aves for martyrdom!^ He was let down by his 
 friends in a basket, through the window of a house, built 
 
 * Sclirader, in his Chronological Remarks on the Life of Paul, has 
 lately maintained that the words of Paul in Gal. i. 16, must be thus 
 explained by means of the antithesis ; he had not been instructed by 
 men for his apostolic calling, but had retired to the neighbouring district 
 of Arabia, in order to prepare himself in an independent manner, and 
 in solitude. But had he meant to say this, he would scarcely have 
 chosen the general designation 'ApajSta, but rather have substituted for 
 it ipy}fxov 'ApaPias, or simply ipT\fj.oy, by which he would have marked 
 more distinctly the object of this aTrepxecrBat. It is psychologically most 
 probable that Paul, after Ananias had visited him in his solitude, and 
 revived his spirit, would not go again into retirement, but ratlier would 
 seek the communion of other believers, and, after he had been edified 
 and sti-engthened by them, would feel himself impelled forthwith to 
 bear his testimony before those who held his former faith. This view is 
 also strongly confirmed by the passage in the Epistle to the Galatians, 
 for the connected sense seems to be as follows : As soon as God revealed 
 his Son to me, that I might publish him among the Gentiles, I published 
 the gospel in an independent manner, according to this revelation. 
 Paul expresses this sentiment both in a positive and negative form. 
 I was not intrusted for my calling, by any human authority whatever, 
 by none of the apostles at Jerusalem, but immediately travelled into 
 Arabia, there to proclaim the gospel. Compare Auger's profound and 
 acute inquiry, " De Temporum in Actis Apostolorum Ratione," Lipsise, 
 1833, p. 23. 
 
 ^ " The glorying in infirmities," (among which he reckons this flight,) 
 ro Tr)s aaOfve'ias Kauxuffdai, is one feature in his character which dis- 
 tinguished him from enthusiasts : 2 Cor. xi. 30.
 
 92 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 against the wall of the city, that he might escape unnoticed 
 by the Jews, who were lying in wait for him at the gates. 
 After three years had thus expired from the time of his con- 
 version,^ he resolved, about the year 39,- once more to return 
 to Jerusalem, that he might become personally acquainted 
 
 ^ Three years after his conversion, namely, on the supposition that the 
 terminus a quo the years are reckoned in the passage of the Epistle to 
 the Galatians, is the date of his conversion. 
 
 * This circumstance in Paul's life furnishes one of the few chrono- 
 logical marks for its history. When Paul fled from Damascus three 
 years after his conversion, that city was under the government of King 
 Aretas of Arabia Petrsea, 2 Cor. xi. 32. But since Damascus belonged 
 to a Roman Province, Aretas must have been in possession of this city 
 under very peculiar circumstances. SUsskind in his essay in Bengel's 
 Archin. 1. 2. p. 314; Wurm in his essay on the Chronology of Paul's 
 life, in the Tubinger Zeitschrift fur Theologie, 1833, 1st part, p. 27; 
 and Auger, p. 161, agree in thinking, that we are not quite justified in 
 admitting that Aretas was at that time in possession of Damascus, as it 
 is a conclusion nowise favoured by other historical accounts ; for if Da- 
 mascus was then under the Roman government, the Ethnarch of Aretas 
 might have ventured to place a watch before the gates of the city, or, 
 through his influence with the Roman authorities, have obtained permis- 
 Bion for the Jews to do this. Yet it is difficult to believe, that if 
 Damascus belonged to a Roman province, the Arabian Ethnarch would 
 venture to surround the city with a watch, in order to get the Roman 
 citizen into his power ; or that the Roman authorities would allow of 
 his doing so, or at his request expose a Roman citizen to the wrath of 
 the Jews. Although the history, in which there are besides so many 
 breaks, does not inform us of such an occupancy of Damascus, yet the 
 consideration of this passage favours this supposition. Now the circum- 
 stances by which Aretas might have gained possession of the city were 
 probably these. The Emperor Tiberius, as the ally of King Herod 
 Agrippa, whose army had been defeated by Aretas, commanded Vitel- 
 lius, the governor of Syria, to get possession of him either dead or alive. 
 But while Vitellius was preparing to execute these orders, and various 
 circumstances delaying his entering on the campaign, news arrived of 
 the Emperor's death, which took place in March of the year 37, and 
 Vitellius was thus stopped in his military movements. Aretas might 
 take advantage of this interval to gain possession of the city. But we 
 must not suppose that the city thus snatched from the Romans remained 
 long in his hands, and it is probable that, as in the second year of the 
 reign of the Emperor Caligula, a.d. 38-39, the affairs of Arabia were 
 settled, Damascus also was not left unnoticed. If we place the flight of 
 Paul from Damascus in 39, then his conversion must have been in a.d. 
 36, since it must have occurred three years before, and we also fix the 
 same date for Stephen's martyrdom. From the absence of chronological 
 information respecting the events of those times, we cannot fix with cer- 
 tainty the date of Paul's conversion ; yet the computation which placea 
 it in A.D. 36 has this in its favour, that it allows neither too long nor
 
 BY THE APOSTLE PAUL. 93 
 
 with Peter, as the individual who at that time maintained 
 the highest reputation in the new chm-ch, and exercised the 
 greatest influence in all its concerns. But as he was known 
 at Jerusalem only as the persecutor, every one avoided him, 
 till Barnabas, a distinguished teacher of the church, who, as a 
 Hellenist, felt less a stranger to him, and might formerly have 
 had some connexion with him, introduced him to the rest. 
 His Hellenistic origin occasioned his holding many conversa- 
 tions and disputations on Judaism and the Christian doctrine 
 with the Hellenistic Jews. 
 
 It may be asked, whether Paul took the same ground in 
 his controversies with his countrymen at this early period, as 
 in later times ; and this is connected \vith the mode of the de- 
 velopment of his Christian convictions and doctrinal views. 
 When he first came to the knowledge of the gospel, did he 
 recognise at the same time its independence of the Mosaic 
 law 1 To do this, must have been most difficult for one who 
 had so lately renounced the principles of Pharisaism : for we 
 generally find that others of this sect who embraced Christ- 
 ianity, attempted to combine their former tenets with those 
 of the gospel. Ananias, the first instructor of the apostle, 
 was miiversally reverenced on accoxmt of his legal piety , 
 such un individual, therefore, must have been veiy far from 
 wishing to effect a disruption of Christianity fi"om the Mosaic 
 ceremonial law. At the time of Paul's conversion, this was 
 the tone of sentiment universally prevalent among Christians ; 
 for, as we have remarked, it was only after the martp-dom of 
 Stephen, and owing to the results of that event, that new 
 light on this subject from various quarters gradually broke in 
 upon them. But we are not justified in assuming, that the 
 same causes led Paul to the views he adopted. We cannot 
 attribute much efficacy to influences from without, by the 
 communication of doctrines and views, in the case of a man 
 so distinguished for his great independent peculiarity of 
 character. We are compelled to believe him, when he testifies 
 so undoubtingly, that he received the gospel, in the mannei 
 he was wont to publish it, not by human instruction, but only 
 by a communication of the Spirit of Christ. Some exception, 
 
 short, a time for the events which took place in the Christian church, 
 from the period of Christ's A.sceusion, to the martyrdom of Stephen and 
 the conver.sion of PuiiJ.
 
 94 SPREAD OP CHRISTIANITY 
 
 howpver, must be made in reference to the historical records, 
 containing the discourses and precepts of Christ ; with these 
 he became acquainted through the ordinary channel of 
 human tradition, and we find him accordingly appeahng on 
 certain occasions to such traditions, or to words uttered by 
 the Lord.' 
 
 As Paul felt himself compelled to examine, independently 
 of others, the depths of the truth made known by Christ, he 
 must have thought it a matter of importance to obtain a 
 collection of the sayings of Christ, on which all further deve- 
 lopments of the new doctrine must depend, and from which 
 they must proceed. We cannot suppose that he would satisfy 
 himself with single expressions casually obtained from oral 
 intercourse with the apostles, whom he met so seldom, and 
 for so short a time. Besides, he says expressly in his Epistle 
 to the Galatians, that these interviews with the other apostles 
 were of no service towards his acquiring a deeper insight into 
 Christian doctrines. We are led to the supposition, that he 
 obtained written memoirs of the life of Christ, or at least, a 
 written collection of the sayings of Christ, if such existed, or 
 that he compiled one himself But it is very probable that 
 such a collection, or several such collections, and written 
 memoirs of Christ's ministry, were in existence ; for, however 
 highly we may estimate the power of the living word iij this 
 youthful period of the chiurch, we cannot allow ourselves to 
 forget that we are not speaking of the age of rhapsodies, but 
 of one in which — especially wherever Grecian cultivation had 
 found its way — historical composition was much practised. 
 Might we not expect, then, that some memorials would be 
 speedily committed to writing of what moved their hearts, and 
 occupied their thoughts so intensely ; although a longer time 
 
 ' 1 Cor, xi. 23. On this passage, Schulz justly remarks, that Paul uaea 
 anh not TTaga to sii!;iiity that wliat lie " received" was not immediately but 
 mcdiatelij from the jjonl. What lias been said by Olshausen and Meyer 
 (on different grounds) against tlils interpretation, has not induced me to 
 give it up. The expression -raQ^Ka^ov aivo rov Kvgiov is also by no means 
 unimportant. It was not so much the apostle's design to mark the 
 manner in which this tradition came to him, but only for what purpose 
 it was given, to represent as certain that this was the form in which the 
 Lord had instituted the Last Supper; hence also the repetition of the 
 term Kdoioi is not improper. Had Paul been speaking of a special reve- 
 lation, by vvhich this information was imparted, he would scarcely have 
 siguified it by Tra^iKafiov, but rather by a,ireKa\v(pd7).
 
 BY TUE APOSTLE PAUL. 95 
 
 might elapse before any one resolved to attempt a delineation 
 of the whole life of Christ 1 ' Many allusions to expressions of 
 Christ in the Pauline Epistles, besides his direct quotations of 
 Christ's words, point to such a collection of his discourses, of 
 which the apostle availed himself,^ and probably Marcion, who 
 
 ' Eusebius narrates (v. 10), probably in consequence of information 
 derived from Pantfenus, that the apostle Bartholomew had communi- 
 cated to the so-called Indians to whom he published the gospel, a Hebrew 
 original document of the Evangelical History drawn up by Matthew, 
 which account we are plainly not justified to call in question. This 
 original document may indeed be the same which Papias entitles 
 (Eusebius, iii. 39) crvvTa^is ran' \oyiaiv rov Kvgiov. And I should by no 
 means object to understanding this to be a collection of the discourse's of 
 the Lord — for it is in itself very probable that such a compilation would 
 be early made, as a store of materials for the development of Christian 
 doctrine — if what he had before said of JIark's writings did not intimate 
 that he meant both the discourses and actions of Christ ; for I cannot, 
 with Schneckenburger, trace the distinction, that Mark had compiled a 
 report of the discourses and actions of Christ, but Matthew only of his 
 discourses. In this case, Papias w-oukl have laid the emphasis on \6yia, 
 and have said twv \oylaiv rov kvoIov ffxiyra^iv ; but now the emphasis 
 rests on the word (rvvTa^iv, an orderly collection, not mere insulated 
 fragments; {7iote to '2d edition). To this 3d edition, I must add, in 
 limitation of what I have here said, and of what Dr. Lucke has said 
 before me in the Studien und Kritiken, 1833, p. 501, certainly the 
 emphasis rests upon the word (rvyra^i?. as contrasted with a rhapsodical 
 description ; it may be intended that Papias wished to contrast the work 
 of Mark as a rhapsodical collection of the actions and discourses of 
 Christ, with the work of Matthew as an arranged collection of the say- 
 ings of the Lord alone. Lastly, he says this only in a secondary sense of 
 Mark. The words peculiarly apply to Peter, from whose discourses 
 Mark must have borrowed the materials and the form of his work. Of 
 Peter, he says, "6s Trghs tos Xi'f 'ct^ iiron'iTo ras SiSaffKaKias, aW' oiix iiffireg 
 avvra^ii/ rwv KvptaKoiv iroiovfisvos Koyiuiv. Peter had composed his 
 addresses according to the wants of his hearers at the time, and not with 
 the intention of giving an orderly account of the discourses or sayings 
 of Christ. For this reason, Mark, who drew all his information from 
 these addresses, could compile nothing of that kind. The words of 
 Papias are therefore rather favourable than unfavourable to the suppo- 
 sition, that the original work of Matthew was only a collection of the 
 eaijings of Christ, as Sehleiermacher maintained. As to Bartholomew's 
 taking such a document with him for his mission, something similar 
 may have occurred with other preachers of the gospel, whether Paul 
 obtained the same document or another. The Judai/.ing tendency of 
 the document derived from ]\latthew, alleged by many, by no means 
 prevents me from admitting this; it contains expressions which, by 
 Ebionites cleaving to the letter, might be interpretL-d according to their 
 mind ; but in which Paul, who penetrated deeper into the spirit, would 
 find an entirely ditfereut idea. — See Das Leben Jesu, pp. 9, 131, 140. 
 
 2 Das Leben Jesu, pp. 167, 238, 241, 474,
 
 96 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 owBed no inspired authority besides Paul, had heard of such 
 a compilation of the memoirs of Christ, made use of by his 
 favoiirite apostle, and attempted by his criticisms on Luke's 
 ■writings, which were not altogether to his mind, to find out 
 what he considered as Pauhne.' Thus the words of Christ 
 given by tradition, were the foxmdation for the continued 
 development of Christian doctrine, to which, independently 
 of all other instructions, the illumination of the Holy Spirit 
 led the apostles. And we can easily make it apparent, that 
 many of the deep tmths expressed by him, for example, in 
 reference to the relation of the law to the gospel, unfolded 
 themselves to his view, from hints pregnant with meaning,^ 
 given by Christ himself. ^ Nor can we form any other judg- 
 ment respecting him as a Christian teacher, than that he, by 
 the Spirit of Chi'ist, understood the words of Christ made 
 known to him by tradition, in all their depth of meaning, and 
 thus learnt to develop the hidden fulness of divine truth 
 which they contained. 
 
 Certainly for those who gradually passed over to Christianity 
 from Pharisaic Judaism, a considerable time might elapse 
 before the spirit of Christianity could divest itself of the 
 Pharisaic form. But it was otherwise with Paul, in whom 
 Phaiisaism had exhibited the most unsparing opposition to 
 the gospel, and who, without any such gradual transition, had 
 been seized at a critical moment by the power of the gospel, 
 and from being its most violent enemy, had become its most 
 
 ^ " It is certain tliat he (Marcion) acknowledged only the EpLstles of 
 Paul, and an original gospel which, by a mistake, he believed that he 
 had found quoted by Paul, as the genuine sources of Christian knowledge. 
 But as he proceeded on the fixed idea, that these ancient records no 
 longer existed in their original state, but had been falsified by the 
 Judaizcrs whose image often haunted him like a spectre, he attempted 
 by means of an arbitary criticism to restore them to their original form. 
 His supposed original gospel made use of by Paul, was a mutilation of 
 the Gospel of Luke. Ilis criticism was so far from logical, that several 
 things were allowed to remain, which could only be brought into agree- 
 ment with Marcion'a system by a forced interpretation and a violation 
 of genuine Hermeneutics." Dr. Neander, in his AUgemeine Geschichte 
 der Ckristlichen Religion unci Kirche, vol. i. p. 802. — [Tr.] 
 
 * It will be evident that I do not mean say, what Christ himself 
 possessed as the fulness of meaning; but what presented itself to him 
 who received it with a susceptible disposition, as a germ of a new 
 spiritual creation. 
 
 * VJ(w Lcben Jesu, pp. 133, 305, 431, 465.
 
 BY THE APOSTLE PAUL. 97 
 
 zec^Jous confessor; that Paid who, a^ he describes it in the 
 
 of slavei J had been excited to the utmost intensity in his 
 bosom, was at once transported into a state of freedom, by 
 beh vmg m the Redeemer. The bonds of Pharisaism ;ere 
 aJZv^ —'"i instantaneous] J ; in his mind opposition 
 
 a!an t ''''"1 '^\^"^''^ *'°^ '^' ^^^'^ «f ^position 
 a,gamst the gospel, as he says of himself (Philip iii 8 that for 
 Chnst's sake he had suffered the loss of k thL hfni .d id 
 
 he counted but as dung," that he might win Christ 
 
 Thus froni the beginning, by the illumination of the S 
 
 alone and according to the g^udance of Christ's words he 
 
 ad been taught in aU its freedom and depth, the genii's of 
 
 the gospel m relation to Judaism, without havino- his views 
 
 SHellP I ''/ "^^"^^f "^ ""''''' -^^^ those °(^^s"an 
 of Hellenistic descent, who had already preached the gospel 
 among the Gentiles. It was in conseqience of this tHt 
 Paul (since, ike Ins precursor Stephen, he more free^V'dev 
 loped evangehcal truth under this aspect in disputations w[th 
 
 the mission of Barnalm to irocb/i^s li^S? f=f'-I'P»";-» .<;■■«■» 
 manifested on that occaXn if tl ''^ A*^ the disposition they 
 
 convince themselves by the investigation^ ^f In I r ^ '* "''"'' ^"^ 
 
 founded am™- ihcGeaUl^r.f " »"»« "-fiden-^e ,n a cburch 
 
 possible thaUhe; ,e„?s„ab eA "acr/rJSE'n'/r'- ''''r^!' " " 
 
 already ,„„ted, p. 183, have oceasioned'In^Ucmt' in m rfo^r 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 98 BPIIEAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the Hellenists) excited so strongly the indignation of the 
 Jews. On the other hand, the prospect opened to him of a 
 wider sphere of action among heathen nations. As he was 
 one day in the temple, and by prayer lifting up his soul to 
 the Lord, he was borne aloft from earthly things. In a vision 
 he received an assurance from the Lord, that though he would 
 be able to effect nothing at Jerusalem, on account of the 
 animosity of the Jews, he was destined to carry the doctrine 
 of salvation to other nations, even in remote regions ; 
 Acts xxii. 21. Accordingly, after staying in Jerusalem not 
 more than fourteen days, he was obliged to leave it, through 
 the machinations of the Jews. He now returned to his 
 native place. Tarsus, where he spent several years, certainly 
 not in inactivity ; for by his labours the gospel was spread 
 among both Jews and Gentiles in Tarsus and throughout 
 Cilicia ; there is good reason for believing, that to him 
 the Gentile churches, which in a short time we find in Cilicia, 
 owed their origin.' 
 
 ' The silence of the Acts respecting the labours of Paul in Cilicia, 
 cannot be brought as evidence against the fact, for the account it gives 
 of this period has naany lacunae From the manner in which Paul is 
 mentioned as secondary to Barnabas, till the time of their first mis- 
 sionary journey, an argument might be drawn for his not having pre- 
 viously entered on any independent sphere of labour. But the case 
 may be, that though Paul, as the younger and less known, was at first 
 spoken of as subordinate to Barnabas, the elder and approved publisher 
 of the gospel ; yet, by degrees, Paul's extraordinary exertions gave 
 a different aspect to their relative position. In Jerusalem they con- 
 tinued for a longer time to assign the priority to Barnabas, as appears 
 from the apostolic Epistle in Acts xv. 25, a circumstance which 
 Bleek very justly adduces as a mark of the unaltered originality of 
 this document; v. Studien unci Kritiken, 1836, part iv. p. 1037. At 
 all events, one would rather assign a date some years later to the 
 conversion of Paul, (on which, too, we can never come to a decisive 
 conclusion,) than suppose that he could spend several years in his 
 native place without exerting himself for the propagation of Chris- 
 tianity, — he who solemnly declares, that, from the time of his con- 
 version, he felt so strongly the impulse of an inward call to preach th« 
 (fospei.
 
 CHURCH AT ANTIOOH. \i\) 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE CHURCH AT ANTIOCH THE GEKTILE MOTHER-CHURCH, AND 1T3 EBLA- 
 TION TO THE JEWISH MOTHER-CnURCH. 
 
 In the meau time, as we have ah-eady remarked, Christianity 
 was propagated among the Gentiles by Hellenist teachers in 
 Antioch, the metropolis of Eastern Roman Asia. The news 
 of this event excited gi-eat interest among the Christians at 
 Jernsalem. It is true, the information was not received in 
 exactly the same manner as it would have been, if the 
 account of the operation of Christianity among the Gentiles 
 in the conversion of Cornelius had not materially contributed 
 to allay their prejudices. But still a measure of mistrust 
 was prevalent against the Gentile believers who were non- 
 observant of the ]\Iosaic law, a feeling which, after many 
 repeated exhibitions of the divine power of the gospel among 
 Gentile Christians, lingered foi a long time in the majority of 
 Jewish believers. On this account, Barnabas, a teacher who 
 stood high in the general confidence, and who as a Hellenist 
 was better fitted to deal ^^^th Christians of the same class, was 
 commissioned to visit the new Gentile converts. On his 
 aiTival he rejoiced in witnessing the genuine effects of the 
 gospel, and used his utmost endeavours to advance the work. 
 The extensive prospect which opened here for the advance- 
 ment of the kingdom of God, occasioned his inviting Paul, 
 who had been active among the Gentiles in Cilicia, to become 
 his fellow-labourer. One evidence of the power with which 
 Christianity in an independent manner spread itself among 
 the Gentiles, was the new name of Christians which was here 
 given to believers. Among themselves they were called, the 
 Disciples of the Lord, the Disciples of Jesus, the Brethren, 
 the Believers. By the Jews names wei'e imposed upon them 
 which implied undervaluation or contempt, such as the 
 Galileans, the Nazarenes, the Paupers ; and Jews would of 
 coui'se not give them a name meaning the adherents of the 
 Messiah. The Gentiles had hitherto, on account of their 
 obsei'vance of the ceremonial law, not known how to dis- 
 tinguish them from Jews. But now, when Christianity was
 
 100 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 spread among the Gentiles apart from the obsei'vance of the 
 ceremonial law, its professors appeared as an entirely new 
 religio:is sect (a genus tertium, as they were sometimes termed, 
 being neither Jews nor Gentiles) ; and as the term Christ was 
 held to be a proper name, the adherents of the new religious 
 teacher were distinguished by a word formed from it, as the 
 adherents of any school of philosophy were wont to be named 
 after its founder. 
 
 Antioch from this time occupied a most important place in 
 the propagation of Chiistianity, for which there were now two 
 central points ; what Jerusalem had hitherto been for this 
 purpose among the Jews, that Antioch now became among 
 the Gentiles. Here first the two representations of Christi- 
 anity, distinguished from one another by the predominance of 
 the Jewish or Gentile element, came into collision. As at 
 Alexandria, at a later period, the development of Christianity 
 had to experience the effect of various mixtures of the ancient 
 oriental modes of thinking with the mental cultivation of the 
 Grecian schools, so in this Roman metropolis of Eastern Asia, 
 it met with various mixtm-es of the oriental forms of religious 
 belief. From Antioch, at the beginning of the second century, 
 proceeded the system of an oriental-anti-Jewish Gnosis, which 
 opposed Christianity to Judaism. 
 
 As there was considerable intercourse between the two 
 churches at Jerusalem and Antioch, Christian teachers fre- 
 quently came from the former to the latter ; among these 
 was a prophet named Agabus, who prophesied of an approach- 
 ing famine, which would be felt severely by a great number 
 of poor Christians in Jerusalem, and he called upon the 
 believers in Antioch to assist their poorer brethren. This 
 famine actually occurred in Palestine about a.d. 44.' 
 
 The faculty of foretelling a future event, did not necessarily 
 enter into the New Testament idea of a prophet, if we assiime 
 
 ' We cannot fix the exact time when this famine began. It is men- 
 tioned by Josephus in his Antiq. book xx. ch. 2, § 5. It was so great 
 that numbers died in it from want. Queen Helena of Adiabene in 
 Syria, a convert to Judaism, sent a vessel laden with corn, which she 
 had purchased at Alexandria, and with figs procured in the island of 
 Cyprus, to Jerusalem, and caused these provisions to be distributed 
 among the poor. Luke, indeed, speaks of a famine that spread itself 
 over the whole olKovnivri, which was not the case with this. To under- 
 sUnd by ov-coufifun) in this passage, Palestine only, is not justified by the
 
 nCRCH AT ANTIOCH. 101 
 
 that Luke wrote from his own standi ug-poiut. An adtlresa 
 fitted to produce a powerful effect on au audience, one by 
 which Christians would be excited to deeds of beneficence, 
 would agree with the marks of a prophetic address in the 
 New Testament sense ; but as in the Acts it is expressly added 
 that the famine foretold by the prophet actually came to pass ; 
 we must doulitless admit, in this instance, that there was a 
 prediction of an impending famine, although it is possible that 
 the prophecy was founded on the observation of natm-al 
 prognostics. 
 
 The Christians at Antioch felt themselves bound to assist, 
 in its temporal distress, that church from which they had 
 received the highest spiritual benefits, and probably sent their 
 contributions before the beginning of the famine, by the 
 hands of Paul and Barnabas, to the presiding elders of the 
 chm'ch at Jerusalem. This church, after enjoying about 
 eight years' peace, since the persecution that ensued on 
 Stephen's martyrdom, was once more assailed by a violent 
 but transient tempest. King Herod Agrippa, to whom the 
 Emperor Claudius had granted the government of Judea, 
 affected great zeal for the strict observance of the ancient 
 ritual, ' although on many occasions he acted contrary to it, 
 on purpose to ingratiate himself with the Gentiles, just as by 
 his zeal for Judaism he tried to attach the Jewish people to 
 himself Actuated by such motives, he thought it expedient 
 to manifest hostility to the teachers of the new doctrine, of 
 whom he had received unfavourable repoi*ts. He caused 
 James the son of Zebedee, and a brother of the apostle John, 
 who probably, by some particular act or discom-se, had excited 
 the anger of the Jewish zealots, to be put to death ; and 
 during the Passover in the year 44,^ he cast Peter into 
 
 New Testament phraseology ; but it is possible that the famine ex- 
 tended to other parts, and we must then suppose the word to be used 
 somewhat rhetorically, and not with literal exactness, especially if we 
 consider ilt as spoken by a prophet come from Jerusalem. 
 
 ' Josephus, Antiq. book xix. ch. 6 and 7-. 
 
 * For it was the laet year of Herod Agrippa's reign, who held for at 
 least three whole years the sovereignty of Judea, (Joseph, xix. 8, 2;) 
 and, therefore, certainly reigned from the end of January 41, to the 
 beginning of the reign of Claudius, the end of January 44 ; so that only 
 the Passover of this last year could be iulended, that which took place 
 after Herod had reigned three whole years.
 
 102 SPREAD OF CHRISTIAXITT. 
 
 prison, intending that he should meet with the same fate after 
 the feast. But by the special providence of God, Peter was 
 delivered from prison, and the death of the king, which shortlj- 
 followed, once more gave peace to the church. 
 
 If Paul and Barnabas ai-rived at Jerusalem during this dis- 
 tiu-bed state of things, their stay was necessarily shortened by 
 it, and they could accomplish nothing of consequence. ' But 
 if we compare the account in the Acts, with the narrative of 
 the apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, and if we 
 assume that the journey to Jerusalem, which he there 
 mentions as the second, was really the second, this journey 
 would acquire gi'eat importance.^ We must then assume, 
 
 * As the words kot' iKtlvov t'iv Kaiphv, in Acts xii. 1, cannot serve for 
 fixing the exact date, the coincidence of this journey of Paul's with the 
 events at Jerusalem, and the whole chronology founded upon it of the 
 apostle's history, is not ahsolutely certain. Yet there is no valid argu- 
 ment against this arrangement. 
 
 - Irenseus adv. Hajres. lib. iii. c. 13, seems to consider it as settled 
 that this was Paul's third journey. But what Tertullian says (contra 
 Marcion, i. 20), goes on the supposition that it was his second journey. 
 He alleges the same reason for thinking so, as Keil, in his essay on the 
 subject lately published in his Opuscula; that Paul, in the first glow of 
 his conversion, was more violent against Judaism, but latterly his 
 feelings towards it were mollified. Thus he explains the dispute with 
 Peter at Antioch. " Paulus adhuc in gratia rudis, fcrventer ut adhuc 
 neophytus adversus Judaismum." (It is contradictory to this suppo- 
 sition that he allows Paul to have given way to the Judaizers at Jeru- 
 salem, in reference to the circumcision of Titus, cont. Marcion, v. 3 ;) 
 and it would entirely correspond with the character of Paul and the 
 mode of his conversion, that, at fii-st, he should engage in fiercer oppo- 
 sition to the observance of the law, than that his mind should gradually 
 be developed in that freer direction. Yet this supposition, as we shall 
 afterwards show, is by no means supported by historical evidence. 
 What is advanced by Wurm, in his essay already quoted, in the 
 Tubingen Zeitschriftfar Theologie, against my application of the first 
 passage from Tertullian, is not correct. I have here remarked on the 
 contradiction between the two passages, and in a writer of TertuUian'a 
 cast of mind — highly as we esteem the depth, fire, and vigour of his 
 genius— such a contradiction is not very surprising. — But from Tertull. 
 c. Marcion, lib. v. 2, 3, it is by no means clear, that he considered the 
 second journey mentioned in the Epistle to the Galatians, as the same 
 with that which was followed by the resolutions of the apostolic 
 assembly at Jerusalem. Tei'-"ian only says, that the Acts of the 
 Apostles — whose credibility vix^ not acknowledged by Marcion — repre- 
 sented the principles on which Paul acted, not differently from what 
 Paul states them to be in an Epistle admitted as genuine by Marcion; 
 consequently, the account of Luke, in this respect, must be credible.
 
 CHURCH AT ANTIOCH. 103 
 
 that although the conveyance of the collection to Jerusalem 
 was the avowed object and motive of this journey, yet Paul 
 himself had another and more important end in view, which 
 probably induced him to be the bearer of the contributions. 
 As the strictly Pharisaical Jews held it absolutely necessary 
 for the Gentiles to submit to the whole ceremonial law, and 
 particularly to circumcision,' in order to enjoy the blessing? 
 of theocracy ; as the mistrust of the Jewish Christians had 
 already, as we have before remarked, manifested itself against 
 the Gentile converts ; and as the consequences of this state of 
 feeling might have already appeared in the church at Antioch, 
 which stood in so close a connexion with the parent ch\irch 
 at Jerusalem ; it is not at all improbable, that Paul and Bar- 
 nabas felt it to be their imperative duty, in order to guard 
 against a dangerous disagreement, to come to an under- 
 standing with the apostles at Jerusalem on this subject, and 
 to unite with them in establishing fixed principles respecting 
 it. Yet in itself it is more probable, that such a mutual 
 explanation took place earlier, than that it occun-ed at so late 
 a period. ^ Such a conference of Paul and Barnabas with the 
 thi-ee most eminent of the apostles, could not well be held at 
 that time, since one of them was cast into prison ; but too 
 great an uncertainty is attached to the dates of these events, 
 to render this objection of much weight. And it agi-ees with 
 
 So then, Tertullian, i. 9, by 7-udi.s fides means the same as in the passage 
 first quoted. The rudis fides in thai passage, is a faith still young and 
 not fully tried, which hence could not possess so independent an autho- 
 rity; "hoc enim (the temporary concession in reference to the circum- 
 cision of Titus) rudifidei et adhuc de legis observatione suspcnsce (in 
 reference to which it was still disputed whether they were not bound to 
 the observance of the law) competehat," namely, until Paul had suc- 
 ceeded in having his independent call to the apostleship and its peculiar 
 grounds, acknowledged by the other apostles. 
 
 ' A Jewish merchant, named Ananias, who had converted King 
 Izates of Adiabene, the son of Queen Helena, to Judaism, assured him 
 that he might worship Jehovah without being circumcised, and even 
 sought to dissuade him from it, that it might not cause an insurrection 
 of his people. But when another stricter Jew, Eleazar, came thither, 
 he declared to the king that since he acknowledged the divine authority 
 of the Mosaic law, he would sin by neglecting anv of its commands, 
 and therefore no consideration ought to prevent his compliance. 
 Joseph. Archa3ol. lib. xx. c. 2, § 4. And such was the opinion of the 
 converts to Christianity from among the Jews, who, to use the words of 
 Joseph ns, were aKpij8e?s irepl to Trarp.a. 
 
 ' As Dr. Paulus remarks in his Kxegetical Jlanual, i. 1, p. 238.
 
 104 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the existing circumstances of the ch\;rch, that this conference 
 is represented as a private transaction of Paul's with the most 
 eminent of the apostles ; ' partly because the matter did not 
 appear sufficiently rij^e for a public discussion ; partly because, 
 by the persecution set on foot by King Agi-ippa, the intended 
 public conference might be prevented. By this supposition, 
 we therefore gain a connecting link in the history of the 
 transactions between the Jewish and Gentile converts, and 
 thus the two historical documents, the Acts of the Apostles 
 and the Epistle to the Galatians, serve to siipply what is 
 necessary for the completion of each. But, in the first place, 
 the chronology of the common reading, supported by the 
 authority of all the manuscripts, ^ is iiTcconcileable with this 
 hj-pothesis, for we must reckon Paul's conversion to have 
 taken place fourteen years earlier, wdiich would be a compu- 
 tation wholly untenable. And, secondly, the relation in 
 which Paul, according to the description in the Acts, stood at 
 any given time to Barnabas, the elder preacher of the gospel, 
 will not agree with this view. For at an earlier period, 
 according to the slight notices furnished us by the Acts, Paul 
 appears in a subordinate relation, both of age and disciple- 
 ship, to the elder preacher of the gospel. It was not till he 
 undertook the missiouaiy journey with Barnabas from An- 
 
 ^ The Kar' iSiav 5e, Gal. ii. 2, which contains an antithesis to Srifioaici. 
 Yet public conferences are by no means excluded ; for it is not clear 
 that the words kot' I5iav follow what was before said merely as a limit- 
 ing explanatory clause. Paul, perhaps, might not except some special 
 topic of importance from the wfOenev avrols (which must principally 
 relate to his Christian brethren in Jerusalem), — his private conferences 
 with James, Peter, and John ; or he might design to notice only the 
 public, and afterwards the important private conferences, altogether 
 passing over the former. Compare Wurm, p. 51 ; Auger, p. 149. 
 
 ' The ^hronicon Paschale A lexandrinum, ed. Niebuhr, p. 436, cer- 
 tainly forms an exception, according to which Paul took this second 
 journey /oMJ' years after his conversion; and this computation supposes 
 the reading to be naffaumv iTwv, instead of 5e/coTf(rcr. Such a reading 
 being a.s8umed, we may easily understand how lA was formed from A. 
 And according to this reading, if we refer it to the second journey of 
 Paul mentioned in tiie Acts, everything will readily agree with such a 
 computation ; only, if we reckon these four years from the conversion 
 of St. Paul, that event must be placed about the year 40. But still it 
 remains uncertain, whether the computation in the Chronicon Paschale 
 is founded on a critical conjecture, or on the authority of a manuscript; 
 and, at all events, the opposing evidence of all manuscripts and quot*" 
 tions from the Fathers is too important.
 
 BY PAUL AND BARNABAS. 105 
 
 tiocb, in -which he was the most prominent agent, that that 
 apostohc snperiority developed itself, which was afterwards 
 exhibited in the transactions at Jerusalem. Still we cannot 
 consider this remark as decisive of the question ; for we may 
 feel confident that such a man as Paul, especially if we gi'ant 
 his independent labours in Cilicia, nmst have come forward, 
 even before the period of his apostolic superiority, with extra- 
 ordinary efficiency when the occasion demanded it. 
 
 Since thei'e was no deficiency of teachers in the church at 
 Antioch, we may presume that, after the conversion of the 
 Gentiles had once beg-un, the publication of the gospel would 
 be extended from Syria to other heathen nations. Barnabas 
 and Paul had proliably at an eai'ly period expressed their 
 desire to be employed in a wider sphere for the conversion of 
 the Gentiles, as Paul had been assured by the Lord of his 
 appointment to cany the gospel to distant nations. And as 
 Barnabas had brought his nephew Mark ■with him from Jeru- 
 salem to Antioch, it is not unlikely that he was prompted to 
 this step by the prospect of a more extensive field in which 
 he might employ his relation as a fellow-labourer. The 
 teachers who were assembled at Antioch appointed a day of 
 fasting and prayer, to lay this matter before the Lord, and to 
 pray for his illumination to direct them what to do. A firm 
 pereuasion was imparted to them all by the Spirit of God, 
 that they ought to set apart and send forth Barnabas and 
 Paul to the work to which they were called by the Lord. 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM ANTIOCH BY PAUL AND 
 BARNABAS. 
 
 Accompanied by Mark, they fiist visited the island of Cyprus, 
 the native country of Barnabas, whose ancient connexion with 
 it facilitated the introduction of the gospel. They traversed 
 the island from east to west, from Salamis to Paphos. In their 
 teaching they followed the track which history had marked 
 out for them, tliat method by which the gospel must spread
 
 106 SPREAD OP CHRISTIANITY 
 
 itself among the heathen. As the Jews, in virtue of their con- 
 nexion with the theocratic development, and of the promises 
 intrusted to them, had the first claim to the announcement of 
 the Messiah ;^ as they were in a state of the greatest prepara- 
 
 ' TTpwToj' 'Iou5a/a>, Rom. i. 16, compared with John iv. 22. The credi- 
 bility of what is narrated in the Acts on this and other occasions, 
 respecting the manner in which Paul turned to the Gentiles, imme- 
 diately' after the ill reception which he met with from the Jews assem- 
 bled in the synagogue, would be shaken, if Dr. Bauer were correct in his 
 assertion, (see his Essay on the Object and Occasion of the Epistle to 
 the Romans, in the Tubingen Zeitschrift fur Theologie, 1836, part iii. 
 p. 101,) that the author of the Acts did not give a faithful relation of 
 objective facts, but modified them according to his peculiar views and 
 design ; that this is to be explained from the apologetic design with 
 which he maintains the position, that the gospel reached the Gentiles only 
 through the criminality and unbelief of the Jews. This is connected 
 with Bauer's idea of an anti-Pauline party, consisting of persons who 
 took offence at the Pauline universalism, (his preaching the gospel both 
 to Jews and Gentiles,) and which had its seat at Rome. For this party, 
 such an apologetic representation of Paul's ministry must be designed. 
 We might be allowed to cast such a suspicion on the representations in 
 the Acts, if any thing artificial was to be found in them, any thing not 
 corresponding to what might be expected from the circumstances of the 
 times. But if the line of conduct ascribed to the apostle, and its con- 
 sequences, appear altogether natural under the circumstances, it does 
 not appear how we can be justified in deducing the repetition (of Paul's 
 mode of acting) grounded in the nature of the thing, not from that but 
 from the subjective manner of the narrator. Now, in all the cities 
 where synagogues existed, they formed the most convenient places for 
 making known the gospel, when Paul was not disposed to appear in the 
 public market-places as a preacher. Here he found the proselytes 
 asscxnbled, who formed a channel of communication Avith the Gentiles; 
 and in the passage quoted from the Epistle to the Romans, the principle 
 is stated according to which the Jews had the first claim to the publica- 
 tion of the gospel. Love to his own people produced the earnest desire 
 to eil'oct as much as possible for their salvatipn, along with his calling 
 as an iipostle of the Gentiles, Rom. xi. 13. That I have brought forward 
 this from the Epistle to the Romans, which Bauer has made use of as a 
 prouf of the existence of such an apologetic interest, is not on my part a 
 mere peliiio principii, for I cannot in any way reconcile it with the 
 characicr of the apostle, that he could express such principles and such 
 desires merely from motives of expediency. But it was natural that he 
 should turn away from the grtat ma-;s of the carnall^'-minded Jews, if he 
 fiiund only here and there individuals among them of susceptible dis- 
 positions, and devote himself to the Gentiles alone. It does not follow 
 from this that his call to the apostleship among the heathen was deter- 
 mined merely by accidental circumstances : for if he found a greater 
 nunihcr of Jews in a city disposed to believe, yet his other calling would 
 aot thereby have been frustrated ; but among the converted Hellenistic
 
 BY PAUL AND BARNABAS. 107 
 
 tioD; and places already existed among them for the purposes 
 of religicas instruction ; it was on these accounts natural that 
 the apos*,les should first enter the synagogues, and the prose- 
 lytes of the gate, whom they here met with, aiforded them the 
 most Convenient point of transition from the Jews to the 
 Gentiles. In Paphos, they found in the proconsul, Sergius 
 Paulus, a man dissatisfied with all that philosophy and the 
 popular religion could offer for his I'eligious wants, and anxious 
 to receive every thing which presented itself as a new com- 
 munication from heaven ; hence, he was eager to hear wliat 
 Paul and Bai-nabas announced as a new divine doctrine. But, 
 owing to that sense of religious need, unsatisfied by any clear 
 knowledge, he had given ear to the deceptive axts of an 
 itinerant Jewish Goes, Baijesus. These Goetae were in suc- 
 ceeding times' the most virulent opposers of Christianity, 
 because it threatened to deprive them of their domination 
 over the minds of men ;^ and for the same reason, this man 
 
 Jews, who were more closely related to those who were Greeks by birth 
 or education, he would have found assistance for establishing the Chris- 
 tian church among the Gentiles ; and when after so many painful ex- 
 periences, he had little hopes of success among the Jews, still he could 
 not give up the attempt to do something for his countrymen, if by any 
 means he might save some ; especially since he could so well unite this 
 with the interests of his calling, and could find no more convenient and 
 unostentatious method of paving Jiis way to the Gentiles. And does 
 not the peculiar mi.xture in the churches of Gentile-Christians, the 
 influence of Judaizers upon them, give evidence of their origination ] 
 Rom. xi. 12 will also establish this point. And that the author of the 
 Acts has given a narrative consistent with f;icts and the actual state ot 
 things, is shown bj- this, that when describing the entrance of Paul at 
 Athens, he does not repeat the same method of proceeding, but repre- 
 sents him as acting in a different manner, adapted to the local pecu- 
 liarities. Throughout the Acts, I can perceive no traces of any thing 
 but an historical object, which the author has pursued according to the 
 means of information within his reach. 
 
 ' On this account, it was not at all uncommon for such sorcerers to 
 find access to men of the highest rank. Thus Lucian narrates, that the 
 most distinguished men in Rome most eagerly inquired after the pro- 
 phecies of a sorcerer, Alexander of Abonateichos, in Pontus, who 
 acquired great notoriety in the reign of the Emperor Marcus Aureliu.s ; 
 among the zealous adherents of Alexander, he mentions especially au 
 eminent Roman statesman, Rutilianus, of whom he says — av^p rh /xtv 
 &KKa Ka\hs «al ayaShs koI iv iroWals irpd^effi ^(ajxaiKOis i^rjrafffifuaSf tA 
 5c Trep] rohs Beovs irdi'v vocrSiv. Lucian. Alexaud. § 30. 
 
 • (>f which the Alexander mentioned in the preceding note is an 
 example.
 
 108 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 took the utmost pains to hinder the spread of the gospel, and 
 to prejudice tlie proconsul against it. But Paul, full of holy 
 indignation, declared with divine confidence, that the Lord 
 would punish him with the loss of that eye-sight which he 
 only abused, by attempting with his arts of deception to stop 
 the progress of divine truth. The threatening was immediately 
 fulfilled ; and by this sensible evidence of the operation of a 
 higher power, the proconsul was withdrawn from the influence 
 of the Goes, and rendered more susceptible of divine in- 
 struction. 
 
 Thence they directed their course farther northward ; passed 
 over to Pamphylia, and along the borders of Phrygia, Isauria, 
 and Pisidia, and made a longer stay at the considerable city 
 of Antioch,' (which, as a border-city, was at difterent periods 
 reckoned as belonging to different provinces,) in order to 
 allow time for making known the gospel. Paul's discourse in 
 the synagogue is a specimen of the peculiar wisdom and skill 
 of the great apostle in the management of men's dispositions, 
 and of his peculiar antithetical mode of developing Christian 
 truth. He sought first to win the attention and confidence of 
 his hearers, by reminding them how God had chosen their 
 fathers to be his people, and then gave an outline of God's 
 dealings with them, to the times of David, the individual 
 from whose posterity, according to the promises, the Messiah 
 was to spring. After the introduction he came to the main 
 object of his address, to the appearance of the Messiah, and to 
 what he had effected for the salvation of mankind. Then 
 turning to the Jews and proselytes present, he proceeded to 
 say, that for them this announcement of salvation was de- 
 signed, since those to whom it was first proposed, the Jews at 
 Jerusalem, and their rulers, had been unwilling to receive it ; 
 they had not acknowledged the Messiah, nor understood the 
 prophecies, which they heard read every Sabbath-day in their 
 synagogues.^ Yet, while in their blindness they condemned 
 the Messiah to death, they could not retard the fiUfilment of 
 the prophecies, but against tlieir design and will, contributed 
 
 * To distinguish it from the Asiatic metropolis, it is called 'AvTioxeia 
 iTf>hs riLffiSia. 
 
 ^ Only using milder expressions, Paul here says the same things of 
 the blindness of the Jews, whicii he often says in stronger and mor6 
 severe language in his Epistles, accusing their of obduracy.
 
 BY PAUL AND BARNABAS. 109 
 
 to it ; for after he had suffered all things which according tc 
 the predictions of the prophets he was to sufier, he rose from 
 the dead. By foith in liini they could obtain forgiveness of 
 sins and justification, which tliey could never have obtained 
 by the law. ' And after announcing this pi'omise to them, 
 Paul closed with a threatening warning to unbelievers. This 
 discourse, uttered with all the impressiveness of firm faith, and 
 yet evincing so much tenderness towards the Jews, made at 
 first a favourable impression upon them, and, in the name of 
 the whole assembly, they requested him to expound his doo- 
 trine more fully on the next Sabbath.^ Such was the 
 
 ' To justify my views of this passage, I must make a few remarks on 
 the right interpretation of Acts xiii. 39. I cannot so understand it as 
 if the apostle meant to say — Through Christ men obtain forgiveness of 
 all sins, even of those of which forgiveness could not be obtained 
 through the law. The apostle certainly knew only one forgiveness of 
 sins and one justification ; and he used the term ttuvtoov only to mark 
 the completeness of the removal of guilt, as the idea of SiKaioavvr] pre- 
 supposes this ; but the preceding iravToiv, to refer the relative pronoun 
 by a kind of logical attraction to this term of universality', rather than 
 to the whole idea of SiKiaaidrivat, which he had especially in view. What 
 Meyer says in his commentary in defence of the common interpretation, 
 does not convince me. " Paul," he remarks, " specifies one part of the 
 universal &<p€ffts afiagrmv as particularly worthy of notice, but this does 
 not at all injure the unity of the forgiveness of sins and justification." I 
 do not perceive how Paul, from his point of view, could render one 
 special part more prominent than another ; I know indeed of no sin 
 from which a man could be justified on the standing-point of the law; 
 in Paul's mind, there could be here no difference whatever. The pecu- 
 liarly Pauline style of carrying out the opposition between faith and the 
 law here appears in the germ. 
 
 ' If, in Acts xiii. 42, we take /xeTa^b in its usual acceptation, we must 
 understand the passage thus : Paul and Barnabas were requested to ex- 
 plain the Christian doctrine to them during the week between this and 
 the next Sabbath, therefore before the next celebration of the Sabbath. 
 Such a request would be very suitable, if we understand it as that of in- 
 dividuals who wished to hear discourses on the doctrine in their private 
 circles during the week. But it does not appear so proper as a wish 
 expressed by the whole congregation at the synagogue. We should most 
 naturally refer it to the Gentiles, and on that account must consider the 
 reading t^ i$vrt in the 42d verse as correct, though it has the appearance 
 of a gloss. Also the word (ra.S0aTov in the Acts is never used in the 
 sense of a week; for the phrase /j-ta (raP^draiv cannot be brought as a 
 voucher for this meaning. But if we understand rh fxera^v ffd^fiarov, of 
 the next Sabbath, all will be clear; and a comparison with verse 44 
 favours this interpretation, which is also sanctioned by the ancient 
 glosses and scholia in Griesbach and Matthai. From the earlier Greek
 
 110 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 impression made by his words on the assembly in general. 
 But tliere were many among the Jews present, and especially 
 the proselytes, who were more deeply affected than the rest by 
 the power of truth, and who longed after the redemption 
 announced by Paiil. They could not wait till the next Sab- 
 bath, but hastened after Paul, who had left the synagogue 
 with Barnabas ; they informed them of the impressions they 
 had received, and earnestly requested more ample instruction. 
 Paid and Barnabas consequently availed themselves of many 
 opportunities to explain the divine doctrine in private houses 
 during the course of the week, and likewise to make it knowu 
 among the Gentiles. Hence, by the next Sabbath, the new 
 doctrine of salvation had obtained notoriety through the 
 whole city, and a multitude of the Gentile inhabitants flocked 
 to the synagogue in order to hear Paul's discourse. This was 
 a spectacle sufficient to stir up the wi-ath of the Jews, who 
 were filled with spiritual pride, and a delusive notion of their 
 superiority as members of the ancient theocracy, and hence 
 this discourse of Paid's was not heard with the same fevour- 
 able disposition and calmness as the first. He was inten'upted 
 by violent contradictions and reproaches. He then declared 
 to them, that since they were not disposed to receive the salva- 
 tion announced to them, and excluded themselves from it to 
 their own condemnation, the preachers of the gospel had dis- 
 charged their obligations, and would now tmni to the Gentiles, 
 who had shown themselves disposed to receive their instmc- 
 
 writers it is certainly difficult to find an authority for this meaning of 
 fxeTaiu, but not from tbie later. In Plutarcii's Instituta Laconica, c. 42, 
 ^6Ta|i> occurs twice in tliis sense, and especiallj' in the second passage, 
 To?s fiiTa^u MaKeSoyiKo7s Paa-iKeoiv, {" the Macedonian Icings after Philip 
 and Alexander,") for it cannot be otherwise understood ; and so likewise 
 in Joseph us, De Bello Jud. lib. v. c. 4, § 2, where, after speaking of 
 David and Solomon, he says, tuv fxeTa^ii tovtccv fiaa-lKicov, which can 
 only mean, " the kings after these." — I consider the words e« rrjs 
 cruvayuy7\s tuv 'lov^aimv and the words to. 60r»j as glosses, founded on a 
 misunderstanding; but I cannot, with Kuinoel, take the whole of the 
 verse, so strongly accredited as genuine, to be only a gloss. What is 
 said in this vCrse, may be considered as marking the vivid representa- 
 tion of an event by an eye-witness. As Paul and Barnabas were going 
 away before the whole of the congregation had separated, they were re- 
 quested by the elders of the synagogue to repeat their addresses on the 
 next Sabbath. But after the whole congregation had separated, many in 
 dividuals ran after them to open their hearts to them more unreseryedly
 
 BT PAUL AND BARNABAS. Ill 
 
 tions, and that the gospel was designed to be a fountain of 
 light and salvation to nations in the uttermost parts of the 
 earth. Thus Paul and Barnabas left the synagogue with the 
 believing Gentiles, and a suitable chamber in the dwelling of 
 one of their number, probably,, was the first place of assembling 
 for the church that was now formed. Christianity spread itself 
 through the whole circumjacent district; but the Jews con- 
 trived, by means of the female proselytes belonging to the most 
 respectable famihes in the city,i and their influence on their 
 husbands, to raise a persecution against Paid and Barnabas, so 
 that they were obliged to leave the place. They proceeded to 
 the city of Iconium, about ten miles to the east, in Lycaonia,* 
 whei'e they had access to both Jews and Gentiles. But by the 
 influence of the hostilely disposed among the former, who also 
 here had gained over to their side a part of the people and the 
 magistrates, they were driven from this c"*y also. They now 
 betook themselves to other cities in the same province, and 
 first taiTied in the neighbouring town of Lystra. As in this 
 place there was no synagogue, and scarcely any Jews dwelt in 
 it, they could make known the gospel only by entering into 
 conversation^ in places of public resort, and thus leading per- 
 sons to religious subjects; gradually small groups were formed, 
 which were increased by many, who were attracted by curiosity 
 or interest in the subject of conversation. Paul was one day 
 thus instructing in divine truth a company who had gathered 
 round him, when a man who had been lame from his birth, and 
 probably was used to sit for alms in a thoroughfare of the city, 
 listened to him with gi-eat attention. The divine in the ap- 
 pearance and discom-se of Paul deeply impressed him, and 
 caused him to look up with confidence as if he expected a cure 
 fi-om him. When Paul noticed this, he said to him with a 
 loud voice, " Stand uptight on thy feet ;" and he stood up 
 and walked.* 
 
 * Here, as at Damascus, (and other instances might be mentioned,) 
 Judaism found most acceptance with females, as Christianity did after- 
 wards. 
 
 * In other times it was considered as belonging to Phrj'gia or Pisidia. 
 
 * A frequent practice of modern missionaries in Asia. 
 
 * Only he will feel compelled to believe this who acknowledges the new 
 divine powers of life, which through Christ have been introduced to the 
 human race. But whoever is not entangled in a mechanical view ol
 
 112 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Thi? sight attracted a still larger crowd, and the credulous 
 people now esteemed the two apostles to be more than men, — 
 gods, who had come down in human form to confer benefits on 
 men. A belief of this kind, deeply seated in the human breast, 
 and proceeding from the undeniable feeling of the connexion 
 of the human race with God, was spread from ancient times 
 among the heathen, ' and at that period was much increased 
 by the existing religious ferment. Now in this city Zeus was 
 worshipped as the founder of cities, as the originator, guide, 
 and protector of civilization,- as the founder and protector of 
 this city in particular (Zevq ttoXievc, ttoXuwxoi:), and a temple 
 at the entrance of the city was dedicated to him.^ Accord- 
 ingly the people imagined that their tutelar deity, Zeus him- 
 self, had come down to them ; and as Paul was foremost in 
 speaking, and possessed — as we may conclude from his 
 Epistles, and his speech at Athens — a peculiarly powerful 
 address, and a high degree of popular eloquence, he was taken 
 for Hermes, while Barnabas his senior, who perhaps had some- 
 thing imposing in his appearance, was believed to be Zeus. 
 The people made their remarks to one another on these 
 strangers in the old Lycaonian dialect, so that Paul and Bar- 
 nabas were not aware of their drift, and were therefore quite 
 unprepared for the result. The news of the appearance of 
 these supposed divinities quickly reached the temple, and a 
 priest came with oxen, which were generally sacrificed to 
 
 nature, whoever acknowledges the power of Spirit over nature, and a 
 hidden dynamic connexion between soul and body — to such a person it 
 cannot appear wholly incredible that the immediate impression of a 
 divine power operating on the whole internal being of man, should pro- 
 duce results of altogether a different kind from remedies taken out of 
 the stores of the ordinary powers of nature. 
 
 ' The Homeric 6eo\ ^elvotaiv (oiKSres aKKoSairotcn, navTo7ot reXedouTss 
 diriffTgoKpooffi iroKrias. Od. g. 485. 
 
 ^ As Aristides in his discourse els Ala says, that as Zeus is the 
 Creator and Giver of all good things, he is to be worshipped under 
 manifold titles according to these various relations. Uivd'Hcra avros evpe 
 ueyaAa koI kavTcp irpe-KovTa ovS/xaTa. 
 
 ^ Libanius {nrip rS>v UpSiv, ed. Beiske, vol. ii. p. ] 58, remarks that cities 
 were built in the immediate vicinity of temples, hence frequently the 
 buildings nearest the walls were ancient temples ; as in the middle ages, 
 the site of towns was often determined by that of the churches and reli- 
 gious houses, and as in our own times, in the South Sea Islands, settle^ 
 ments are formed near the residence of the missionaries, which gradually 
 become villages and towns.
 
 BY PAUL AND BARNABAS. 113 
 
 Zeus, and with garlands to adorn them, to the gates of the 
 city ;' whether he wished to sacrifice to Zeus before the gate 
 for the welfare of the city ; or intended to bring tlie animals 
 to Paul's residence, and there to perform the sacrifice ; but 
 before he had entered the gates, Paul and Barnabas hastened 
 thitlier, full of consternation, as soon as they discovered the 
 object of these preparations. They rent tlieir garments — a 
 customary sign among tlie Jews of abhorrence for whatever 
 outraged the religious fechngs — and ruslied among the crowd. 
 Paul exclaimed, " What do ye ! We are men like yourselves ; 
 we are come hither for this very purpose, that you may tui-n 
 from these who are no gods, to the living God, the Almighty 
 Creator of the universe, who hitherto has allowed the nations 
 of the earth to try by their own experience how far they can 
 attain in the knowledge of religion by the powers of their own 
 reason, but who yet has not left himself without witnesses 
 among them, by granting them all good things from heaven, 
 and supplying them with those gifts of nature which contri- 
 bute to the preservation of life and to their general well- 
 being." - 
 
 Even by such an appeal it w^as difficult to turn the people 
 from their purpose. Yet this impression on the senses, so 
 powerful for a short time, soon passed away from men who 
 were not affected internally by the power of truth. The 
 Jews from Iconium succeeded in instigating the greater part 
 of the people against Paul. He was stoned in a popular 
 tumult, and dragged out of the city for dead. But while the 
 belicvei-s from the city were standing round him and using 
 means for his restoration, he ai'ose, strengthened by the power 
 of God ; and after spending only the remainder of that day at 
 Lystra, departed with Barnabas to the neighbouring town of 
 
 ' The word irv\a>ues, Acts xiv. 13, as no other term is added, may be 
 most naturally understood of the city gates, not of the door of the house 
 in wliich Paul and Barnabas were staying ; in the latter case, the plural 
 would hardly have been used. The ^|€7rTJ5i7(rai/ in verse 14 can prove 
 nothing ; for it might easily be omitted to state whether they heard of 
 what had happened while in their lodging, and now hastened to the gates, 
 or that they were at that time near the gates. Perhaps Luke himself had 
 no exact information on these points. 
 
 * The sense of benefits received should have been the means of leading 
 men to the Giver. From a perversion of this sense arose systems of 
 natural religion, to which the immediate revelation of God opposed itself 
 — appealing to that original but misunderstood and misdirected sense. 
 
 VOL. I, I
 
 114: SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITT. 
 
 Derbe. When they had proclaimed the gospel there and in 
 the neighbourhood,' they again visited those towns in which 
 they had propagated the faith on this journey, and which 
 through persecutions they had been obliged to leave sooner 
 than they wished ; they endeavoured to establish the faith of 
 the new converts, and regularly organized the churches. 
 They then retui-ned by their former route to Antioch. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DIVISION BETWEEN THE JEWISH AND GENTILE CHRISTIANS AND ITS 
 SETTLEMENT. THE INDEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENTILE CHURCH. 
 
 While in this manner Christianity spread itself from Antioch, 
 the parent-church of the Gentile world, and that gi'eat revo- 
 lution began, which has continued ever since to work its way 
 among the nations, a division threatened to break out between 
 the two parent-churches, tliose two central points from which 
 the kingdom of God began to extend itself. It was a great 
 crisis in the history of the chm'ch and of mankind. The 
 hidden conti'arieties were destined to come forth in order to 
 be overcome by the power of Chi'istianity and reconciled with 
 one another. The question was, in fact, whether the gospel 
 ■would succeed not only then, but through all future ages. 
 
 There came to Antioch many strictly pharisaical-minded 
 Christians from Jerusalem, who, like tlie Eleazar we have 
 already mentioned, assm-ed the Gentiles that they could not 
 obtain any share in the kingdom of God and its blessedness 
 without circumcision, and entered into a controversy with 
 Paul and Barnabas on the views they held on this subject. 
 The church at Antioch resolved to send a deputation to Jeru- 
 salem for the settlement of tliis dispute, and their choice 
 naturally fell on Paul and Barnabas, as the persons who had 
 
 ' The irfplxopos evidently means only the places lying in the imme 
 •iiate vicinity of these two towns, certainly not a whole province, and 
 least of all, from its geographical position, the province of Galatia. 
 Hence the supposition that Paul in this first missionary journey preachcl 
 the gospel to the Qalatians is proved to be untenable.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENTILE CHURCH. 115 
 
 been most active in the propagation of the gospel among the 
 Gentiles. Paul had, besides, a special reason which woidd 
 have determined him to undertake the journey without any 
 public commission. It appeared now the fittest time for ex- 
 plaining himself to the apostles respecting the manner in which 
 he published the gospel amung the heathen, in order to bring 
 into distinct recognition their unity of spirit amidst their 
 diversity of method — (as the latter was necessary through the 
 diversity of their spheres of action) — and to obviate all those 
 contrarieties b}' which the consciousness of that essential unity 
 could be disturbed. He felt assured by divine illumination, 
 that an explanation on this subject was essential for the well- 
 being of the chm-ch. The proposal to send such a dej iitatiou 
 to Jerusalem probably originated with himself He went up 
 to Jerusalem' in the year 50, in order (as he himself tells us 
 in the Epistle to the Galatians), partly for private interview 
 with the most eminent of the apostles ; partly to render an 
 account in public before the assembled church of his conduct 
 in publishing the gospel, that no one might suppose that all 
 his labours had been in vain, but might learn that he preached 
 the same gosj^el as themselves, and that it had been effective 
 with divine power among the Gentiles. He took wath him a 
 converted youth of Gentile descent, Titus, (who afterwards 
 became his chief associate in preaching,) -in order to exhibit in 
 his person a living example of the power of tlie gospel among 
 the heathen. 
 
 Before a public consultation was held at Jerusalem, there 
 were many private conferences. ^ The most important result 
 was, that after Paul had given a full account to the apostles,^ 
 
 ' On the supposition that Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians,. 
 reckons fourteen years from his conversion, and that this took place in 
 •he year 36. About six years would have passed since his return from 
 Jerusalem to Antioch. 
 
 ' We have already remarked, that though Paul, in his Epistle to the 
 Galatians, particularly mentions his private conferences with the most 
 eminent apostles, yet in doing so, he by no means excludes other public 
 discussions. Indeed, it is self-evident, that Paul, before this subject 
 was discussed in so large an assembly, had agreed with the apostles on 
 the principles that were to be adopted. Nor would he in an assembly 
 composed of such a variety of characters, bring forward everything 
 which might have passed in more private commuuications. 
 
 ' The order in which the three apostles are mentioned is not unim- 
 portant. The reading accordinir to which James stands first, is without
 
 116 SPREAD OB CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 James, Peter, and John, of his method of publishing the 
 gospel to the Gentiles and of the fruit of his labours, they 
 acknowledged the divine origin of his apostleship, instead of 
 presuming to dictate to him as his superiors. They agreed 
 that he should continue to labour independently among the 
 heathen, making only one stipulation, that, as heretofore, the 
 Gentile chm-ches should continue to relieve the temporal 
 wants of the poor Christians at Jerusalem. In the private 
 circles also, in which Paul and Barnabas recounted what God 
 had effected by their preaching among the Gentiles, their 
 accounts were received with joyful interest. But some who 
 had passed over to Christianity from the Pharisaic school, 
 now came forward and declared that it was necessary that the 
 Gentiles should receive circumcision along with the gospel, 
 and that they could acknowledge them as Christian brethren 
 only on this condition, and therefore insisted that Titus 
 shoiild be circumcised. But Paul strenuously maintained 
 against them the equal privileges of the Gentiles in the 
 kingdom of God, and that hy faith in the Eedeemer they had 
 entered into the same relation towards God as the believing 
 Jews : for this reason, he would not give way to them in 
 reference to Titus, for this would have been intei-preted by 
 the Phai-isaic Jewish Christians as a concession of the prin- 
 ciple for which they contended. ' 
 
 As these objections gave rise to much altercation, it was 
 
 doubt the true one ; the other must have been derived from the custom 
 of giving Peter the primacy among the apostles. But the priority is 
 given to James, because he was most esteemed by the Jewish Christians, 
 who were strict observers of .the Mosaic Law, and stood at the head of 
 the church at Jerusalem, while Peter, by his intercourse with the Gen- 
 tiles and Gentile Christians, was in some degree estranged from that 
 party. 
 
 ' The reading which omits oh ovSe in Gal. ii. 5, would suppose, or 
 the contrary, a concession of Paul in this case, but which, under the 
 existing circumstances, would be wholly inconsistent with the character 
 of the apostle. This peculiar reading of the old Latin church, evidently 
 proceeded in part from the difficulty of the construction for the Latin 
 translation, and partly from the perception of a supposed contradiction 
 between the conduct of Paul with Titus, and his conduct with Timothy, 
 and likewise from opposition to Marcion. That in the Greek church, 
 which, in consequence of the principle of the oIkovouIu predominating 
 in it, must have been much disposed to such a reading, no trace of it 
 can be found, proves how very much the authorit;- of the manuscr'pts is 
 against it.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENTILE CHUBCH. 1 1 7 
 
 thought necessary that the subject should be discussed in a 
 convention of the whole church ; but this was afterwards 
 changed into a meeting of chosen dekgates. ' At this meeting, 
 after much discussion, Peter rose up, to appeal to the testi- 
 mony of his own experience. They well knew, he said, that 
 God had long before- chosen him, to bring the Gentiles to 
 faith in the gospel ; and since God who seeth the heart had 
 communicated to them the Holy Spirit, in the same manner 
 as to the believers from among the Jews, he had by this act 
 testified that in his eyes they were no longer impure, after he 
 had pm-ified their hearts by faith in the Redeemer ; they were 
 now as pure as the believing Jews, and hence, in the commu- 
 nication of spiritual gifts, God had made no difference between 
 them. How then could they venture to question the power 
 and grace of God, as if he could not without the law admit 
 the Gentiles to a participation of salvation in the kingdom of 
 God 1 Why would they lay a yoke on believers, which neither 
 they nor their fathers had been able to bear 1 By " a yoke " 
 Peter certainly did not mean the outward observance of 
 ceremonies simply as such, for he himself still observed them, 
 and did not wish to persuade the Jewish Christians to re- 
 nounce them. But he meant the outward obsei*vance of the 
 law, as far as it proceeded from its internal dominion over 
 the conscience, so as to make justification and salvation 
 dependent upon it ; whence arose the dread of putting their 
 salvation in jeopardy by the slightest deviation from it, and 
 that tormenting scrupulosity which invented a number of 
 limitations, in order, by such self-imposed restraint, to guard 
 against every possible transgi'ession of the law. As Peter 
 understood the tei-m in this sense, he could add, " But we also 
 by faith m Jesus as our Redeemer have been freed from the 
 
 * The whole church was far too numerous, to allow of all its members 
 meeting for consultation; but that they took a part in the deliberations, 
 appears inferrible from the words <tvv SAtj T17 iKK\riaicf. Acts xv. 22. 
 The epistle to the Gentile Christians was written in the name not 
 merely of the elders of the church, but of all the Christian brethren. 
 Also the words irav rh-TrKriBos, Acts xv. 12, favour this interpretation. 
 
 - Peter's words, cKp' -fifieowv agxaiaiv, are of some value for a chronolo- 
 gical purpose, since they evidently show, that between the holding of 
 this assembly and the conversion of Cornelius, to say the least, a tole- 
 rable length of time must have elipsed.
 
 118 SPREAD OF CHRISTIxVNITY. 
 
 yoke of the law, since we are no longer bound to it as a 
 means of justification ; for we, as well as the Gentiles, believe 
 that we shall obtain salvation through the grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 These words of Peter made a deep impression on many, and 
 a general silence followed. After a while, Barnabas, who had 
 for years been highly esteemed by this church, rose, and thei 
 Paul. In addition to the facts reported by Peter which testi 
 fied the operation of the Divine Spirit among the Gentiles, 
 they mentioned others from their own experience, and re- 
 counted the miracles by which God had aided their labours. 
 When the minds of the assembly were thus prepared, James' 
 came forward, who, on account of his strict observance of the 
 law, was held in the greatest reverence by the Jews, and in 
 whose words, therefore, the greatest confidence would be 
 placed. He brought their deliberations to a close, by a pro- 
 posal which corresponded to his own peculiar moderation and 
 mildness, and was adapted to compose the existing differences. 
 Referring to Peter's address, he said that this apostle had 
 shown how God had already received the Gentiles, in order to 
 !brm a people dedicated to his service. And this agreed with 
 !he predictions of the prophets, who had foretold that in the 
 vimes when the decayed theocracy was to be gloriously re- 
 vived, the worship of Jehovah would be extended also among 
 the Gentiles. Accordingly, what had recently occurred among 
 the Gentiles need not excite their astonishment. God who 
 effected all this, was now fulfilling his eternal counsel, as he 
 had jjromised by his prophets. Since, theref(.»re, by this 
 eternal counsel of God, the Gentiles were to be incorporated 
 into his kingdom by the Messiah, let them not dai-e to do 
 anything which might obstruct or retard the progress of this 
 work. They ought not to lay any unnecessary burdens on 
 the converted Gentiles. They should enjoin nothing more 
 upon them than abstinence fi-om meat offered to idols ^ or of 
 
 ^ The question whether this was the son of Alphaeus, or another 
 person, must be left for future examination. 
 
 * What remained of the flesh of animals used in sacrifice, was partly 
 used by those who presented the sacrifice at their own meals, (especially 
 if they were festive in honour of the gods,) and partly disposed of in the 
 market. The eating of what were called D'np 'nai was regarded by the 
 Jews with the greatest deteatation. Pirke Avoth. ch. iii. § 3.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OP THE OENTILE CHURCH. 119 
 
 animals strangled, from blood and from unchastity. ' But as 
 to believers from among tlie Jews, no such special injunctions 
 were needed for them. They ah-eady knew wliat they were 
 to practise as Jews ; for in every city where Jews resided, the 
 law of !Moses Avas read on the Sabbath-days in the syna- 
 gogues, Acts XV. 21.2 The concluding words were adapted 
 to pacify the Jews on accoimt of freedom from the Mosaic 
 law allowed to the Gentile Christians. 
 
 The resolutions passed on this occasion had for their object, 
 to reduce by mutual approximation the opposition existing 
 between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. The observance 
 of these ordinances by the latter, would tend to lessen, and by 
 degrees to destroy, the aversion with which native Jews were 
 wont to regard as impure, men who had been brought up as 
 idolaters ; it might assist us in forming correct notions of 
 
 ^ Most of these points belonged to the seven precepts, to the obsei- 
 vance of which men were bound before the giving of the Mosaic law, 
 which God gave to the sons of Noah, and to the observance of which 
 the Proselytes of the Gate bound themselves. Vid. Bivxtorf, Lexicon 
 Talmudicum et Rahhinicum, sub voce "la 
 
 2 It appears to me entirely impossible, so to understand the words in 
 Acts XV. 21 (as they have been understood by the latest expositors, 
 Meyer and Olshausen), as containing a reason for what had been said 
 before. This assembly required no reason why they should impose so 
 much, but only why they should impose no more on the Gentile Chris- 
 tians. Also from the form of the clauses in v. 19 and 20, if such a 
 reference existed, we should expect to find a reason of this kind, namely 
 for the ^7) Tragsj'oxA.e'"''- These words, too, taken in their obvious sense, 
 cannot contain the positive reason for the issuing of these injunctions , 
 for that Moses was read in the synagogue every Sabbath-day, should 
 rather serve as a foundation of a requirement for the observance of the 
 whole law. But in verse 21, the emphasis is on the word Maxr^y, and in 
 that is concealed an antithesis to that which is given as the standing- 
 point for the converts from heathenism. But as to what concerns the 
 Jews, those who ivish to obsen'c the law, we need to say nothing new to 
 tliem, for they can hear every Sabbath in the synagogue what Moses 
 requires of them. It cannot be our intention, while we prescribe no 
 more than this to the converts from heathenism, to diminish the reve- 
 rence of the Jews for the Mosaic law. Chrysostom adopts very nearly 
 this interpretation, by following the natural connexion of the passage. 
 Horn. 33, § 2 : Koi 'Iva /ut) tis avdweufyKT], Slari n^ 'louSaiois to aura 
 (TTiff'TiWoixev ; iir-qyaye xiyoiv : and he explains the words v. 21, tovt' 
 (iTTi Mojo-fjs avTois StaKfjfrai crufex'i's. It gives me pleasure to agree 
 with Dr. Schneckenburgur in my view of this passage; see his excellent 
 remarks, in h's work before quoted, on the Acts, p. 23.
 
 120 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITV. 
 
 their feelings to compare (though the cases are not exactly 
 parallel) the relation of the offspring of a nation where Chris- 
 tianity has long been established to the newly converted 
 Christians from modem heathenism. But if the believing 
 Jews could not bring themselves to overcome their prejudices 
 against the believing Gentiles as xmcircumcised, it would be so 
 much more difficidt to bring such persons closer to them, if 
 they did not at all observe what was required of the usual 
 Proselytes, and renounce what from the Je\^nsh standing-point 
 appeared closely connected with idolatry, and the impure life 
 of idolatei's. And as these ordinances would serve on the 
 one hand to biing Gentile Christians nearer to Jewish Chris- 
 tians ; so on the other hand, they might contribute to with- 
 draw the former more from the usual heathenish mode ol 
 living, and guard them against the pollution of heathenish 
 intercourse and indulgences. The experience of the next 
 century teaches us, how even the misunderstanding, which 
 made out of these ordinances a positive law applicable to all 
 ages of the Church,' might in this direction work for good. 
 Viewing the transaction in this light, it is indeed surprising 
 that to ordinances merely disciplinary, and intended for only 
 one particular period, and for persons under certain peculiar 
 relations, the command against unchastity binding in all ages, 
 
 ' In the first ages, Christians were distinguished by not venturing to 
 eat any of the things forbidden in this injunction. But when the early 
 undiscriminating opposition against heathenism had ceased, a more 
 correct view was taken, which Augustine has beautifully developed. 
 "(Apostoli) eligisse mihi videntur pro tempore rem facilem et nequa- 
 quam observantibus onerosam, in qua cum Israelitis etiam gentis prop- 
 ter angularem ilium lapidem duos in se condentem aliquid communiter 
 observarent. Transacto vero illo tempore, quo illi duo parietes, unus de 
 circumcisione, alter de praeputio venientes, quamvis in angulari lapide 
 concordarent, tamen suis quibusdam proprietatibus distinctius emine- 
 bant, ac ubi ecolesia gentium talis efFecta est, ut in ea nullus Israelita 
 aarnalis appareat, quis jam hoc Cliristianus obseiTat, ut turdas vel 
 minutiores aviculaa non adtingat, nisi quarum sanguis efT'usus est, aut 
 leporem non edat, si manu a cervice percussus nullo cruento vulnere 
 occisus est 1 El qui forte pauci tangere ista formidant a cseteris irri- 
 dentur, ita omnium animos in hac re tenuit sententia veritatis." Matt. 
 XV. 11. Aiujustin. c. FausUnn Manich. lib. xxxii. c. 13. The op- 
 posite view, it is true, was maintained in the Greek Church, in which 
 the injunction of abstinence from blood and from animals strangled wa. 
 confirmed by the Second Trullanian Council, in the year 692.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENTILE CHUllCH. 121 
 
 and relating to an objectively moral point, should be annexed. 
 But the connexion in which this prohibition appears, furnishes 
 the best explanation of the cause and design of its introduc- 
 tion. Uopieia is mentioned in connexion witli the other points, 
 on account of'tlie close connexion in which it appeared to the 
 Jews to stand with idolatry ; for in the writings of the Old 
 Testament they were accustomed to see idolatry and un- 
 chastity everywhere placed together ; excesses of this class 
 were really connected with many parts of idolatry ; and the 
 strict idea of chastity in a comprehensive sense formed the 
 standing-point of natural religion. It is introduced here 
 not as a special moral precept of Christianity ; in that case, it 
 would not have been so insulated as a positive command, but 
 would rather have been deduced from its connexion witli the 
 whole of the Christian faith and life as we find it in the 
 Apostolic Epistles. Here it is introduced as a pare of the 
 ancient Jewish opposition to every thing which appeared con- 
 nected with idolatry, and this opposition was now to be trans- 
 ferred to the new Christian Church. 
 
 Although these injunctions had a precise object, and 
 doubtless attained it in some measure, yet we cannot conclude 
 with certainty, that James had a clear perception of it in all 
 its extent, when he proposed this middle way. As the persons 
 who composed this assembly acted not merely according to 
 the suggestions of human prudence, but chiefly as the organs 
 of a higlier spirit that animated them, of a higher wisdom that 
 guided tliem, it would follow, that their injunctions served for 
 certain ends in the guidance of the church, which were not 
 perfectly clear to their own apprehension. Even James him- 
 self does not develop the motives which determined him to 
 propose such a measure. In this assembly there was no oc- 
 casion, as we have before remarked, to mention the principles, 
 but merely to develop the reason, why no more than this, and 
 not the whole law. should be imposed on Christians ; and this 
 re;ison accordingly, he deduced from what he and the other 
 apostles recognised as the central point of the Christian faith. 
 Possibly James, without any distinct views and aims, only 
 believed that something must be done for the Gentile Chris- 
 tituis, (who were to be acknowledged as members of God's 
 kingdom, with equal privileges, in virtue of their faith in 
 Jehovah and the Messiah,) to bring them neai'er, as it regarded
 
 122 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITT. 
 
 their outward mode of life, like the Proselytes of the Gate, 
 to Judaism and the Jews. ^ 
 
 But although it was not necessary in this public assembly, to 
 develop in a positive manner the motives for fi-aming these 
 injunctions, we are certainly not to assume, that the apostles 
 left the decision of the principles on which they meant to act 
 ^,owards Gentile Christians, to the deliberations of this meet- 
 ing ; but as we have before remarked, most probably brought 
 forward only what seemed to them in their private conference 
 best adapted for their object ; in that consiiltation it was 
 necessary to discuss the motives for these injunctions, and the 
 objects which it was proposed to attain by them ; for in relar 
 tion to what Paul desired — that to those among the Gentiles, 
 who acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, nothing fiu-ther should 
 be prescribed — a concdiatory measure of this kind must have 
 been accompanied by a statement of the principles on which 
 it was founded. And as we must acknowledge in James the 
 power of the Christian spirit, that he subordinated to the in- 
 terests of Christianity his attachment to Judaism and the 
 forms of the ancient theocracy ; so in Paul, who was so zealous 
 for the independence of Christianity and of the Gentile 
 churches, we must recognise a zeal tempered by Christian 
 
 ' I mean only analogous regulations ; for had there been simply a 
 transference of such as were enjoined to the Proselytes of the Gate, it 
 would have been sufficient to require of the Gentile Christians, among 
 whom many Proselytes of the Gate might be found, that they should 
 submit to all the regulations which had hitherto been observed by per- 
 sons of that class. 
 
 * Luther, who was far from the restricted, unnatural notion of inspira- 
 tion, and the slavish adherence to the letter, maintained by the theolo- 
 gians of the 17th century, says, in reference to this proposal of James 
 (vol. iii. p. 1042 of Walch's edition), "that the Holy Spirit allowed St. 
 James to make a false step." But even if James had not before him the 
 higher object for the guidance of the church, this ought not to be called 
 a false step, in relation to the peculiar standing-point which he took in 
 the historical development of primitive Christianity ; for he was ap- 
 pointed by the Lord of the church to occupy the intermediate standing- 
 point which was to connect the Old Testament with the independent 
 development of the New, and from which he presented the new spirit of 
 the gospel in the form of tiie Old Testament. It becomes us, when we 
 are considering the joint labours of the apostles, to observe attentively 
 the whole scheme of organic historical development, in which each 
 member takes his ajipropriate station, and all are designed to be com- 
 plements to one another.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENTILE CHURCH. 123 
 
 wisdom, which yielded to a measure of accommodation deter- 
 mined by circumstances. ' 
 
 The resolutions adopted on this occasion were now com- 
 municated to the Gentile churches in Syria and Cilicia/ in 
 an epistle drawn up in the name of the assembly ; and two 
 persons of good repute in the church, perhaps members of 
 the Presbytery at Jerusalem, Barsabas and Silas (Silvanus), 
 were chosen as bearers of it, who were to accompany Paul 
 and Barnabas, and counterwork the intrigues of their Judaizing 
 opponents. We will here insert this short epistle, probably 
 dictated by James himself, and the earliest public document 
 of the Christian church knowoi to us.^ It is as follows : " The 
 Apostles and Elders, and Brethren,* send greeting to the 
 brethren which are of the GentUes in Antioch, and Syiia, and 
 
 ^ Luther beautifully remarks, in the passage above quoted, " There- 
 fore they agree that James should prescribe, and siuce their consciences 
 are left free and unfettered, that they think is enough for them ; they 
 were not so envious as to wish to quarrel about a little thing, provided 
 it could be done without damage." 
 
 ^ The injunctions were designed, it is true, for all Gentile Christians, 
 but the Epistle was addressed only to the churches specified in it, because 
 in these the dispute had first of all arisen, and because they must have 
 been respected, as parent churches among the Gentiles, with which the 
 later formed Asiatic churches would conikect themselves. Hence also 
 Paul, in Gal. i. 21, as a general description of the sphere of his labours, 
 mentions only the KKl/j-ara ttjs Supi'as koI ttjs KiAiKi'as. 
 
 ^ The style of this document (marked by simplicity and extreme 
 brevity) testifies its originality. Had the author of the Acts set him- 
 self to compose such an epistle, and attempted to assume the situation 
 of the writer, it would have been a very different composition. And 
 hence we may draw a conclusion relative to the discourses given in the 
 Aets. 
 
 * According to the reading adopted by Lachmann, it would be, 
 " The Apostles and Presbyters, Christian brethren,'' they wrote as bre- 
 thren to brethren. This reading is strongly supported. We can 
 hardly deduce its origin from hierarchical influences, which would have 
 excluded the church from such consultations and decisions ; its anti- 
 quity is too great, for we find it in Irenajus, iii. 12, 14. It is also equally 
 against the hierarchical spirit for the apostles and presbyters to write 
 to the brethren as brethren. And it may be easily explained, how 
 it happened that since, from the introductory words of Luke, they 
 expected an epistle from the whole church, it seemed necessary to dis- 
 tinguish the brethren from the apostles and presbyters, and hence pro- 
 bably the words Kal oi were inserted. Yet since, in Acts xv. 22, 
 the whole church is mentioned in connexion with the apostles and 
 presbyters, we might expect in the epistle itself a distinct reference to 
 the church ; the €| fjuuv also of verse 24 (for these anonymous com-
 
 124 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Cilicia.' Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which 
 went out from us, have troubled you with words, saying ye 
 must be circumcised, and keep tiie law, to whom we gave no 
 such commandment : it seemed good unto us being assembled 
 together,^ to send chosen men unto you, with our beloved Bar- 
 nabas and Paul, — men that have hazai'ded their lives for the 
 name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas 
 and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth.'' 
 For it seemed good to us, under the guidance of the Holy 
 Spirit,* to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary 
 things — that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from 
 blood, and from things strangled, and from unchastity ; from 
 
 plainers could hardly belong to the presbyters of the church) appears to 
 assume this. The first koI ot, verse 24, must have occasioned the 
 omission of the second. 
 
 ' The xo^P*'" tere wants the ^v Kvplca, which is so common in the 
 Pauline Epistles ; but it deserves notice that, as a salutation only, this 
 Xaiptiv is found in the Epistle of James. 
 
 2 The words yefofifvots ofxodvfxaShy, I do not understand with Meyer, 
 " being unanimous," but, " when we were met together;" as dfxoBvixa- 
 Shy often denotes in the Acts, not, '' of one mind," but, " together," as 
 in V. 46. We may see from the Alexandrian version, and Josephus 
 (Antiq. xix. 9, § 1), how the change of meaning has been formed. 
 
 * The explanation of this passage, Acts xv. 27, is in every way dif- 
 ficult. If we refer ra avra to what goes before, the sense will be, — they 
 will announce to you the same things that Barnabas and Paul have 
 announced to you. So I understood the words in the first edition of this 
 work. The words Sia \6yov are not exactly against this interpretation : 
 for though these words contained the reference to what followed in 
 writing, they might be thus connected with them ; namely, as we now 
 in writing also express the same principles. But since mention is not 
 made before of the preaching of Barnabas and Paul, and we mast there- 
 fore supply something not before indicated, and since the words Std. 
 K6yov contain a reference to what follows, and therefore not KarayyeWeiv, 
 but awayytWeiv is here used, I now prefer the other interpretation, al- 
 though in this case likewise, it is difficult to supply what is necessarj'. 
 In Irenaeus we find a reading which presents the sense required by the 
 connexion in a way that removes all difficulties, but must be considered 
 as an exposition ; tV yvwfiTiv ^tSr, instead of ra avTu, annuntiantes 
 nostram sententiam. Iren. iii. 12, 14. 
 
 * In the explanation also of Acts xv. 28, I depart, and with greater 
 confidence, from my former view. Agreeably to the manner in which 
 SoKe7y is every where placed with the dative of the person as the subject, I 
 cannot help so understanding it with the words t^ ayltfi irvtv^ian, espe- 
 cially since if it meant, by the Holy Spirit, according to the New Testa- 
 ment idiom, we should expect ^v to be prefixed. It is therefore stated first, 
 it has so pleased the Holy Spirit — then, we as his organs have resolved. 
 Although the aiFair was determined accordine to both, it was important
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENTILE CHURCH. 125 
 
 \rhicli if ye keep yourselves,' ye shall do well. Fare ye 
 well." 
 
 We may conclude from this epistle, that those who had 
 raised the controversy in the Antiochian church, had appealed 
 to the authority of the apostles and presbytery. Perhaps 
 they represented themselves as delegates of the church at 
 Jenisalem, — as this was afterwards made of impoi-tance by 
 the adversaries of Paul — biit tliey were not acknowledged as 
 Buch. We see how important it was for the apostles to 
 accredit Paul and Barnabas as faithful preachers of the gospel 
 and to give a public testimony to their agi-eement in spirit 
 with them. Yet we cannot help remarking the brevity of the 
 epistle — the want of a pouring forth of the heart towards the 
 new Christians of an entirely different race — the absence of 
 the development of the views on which the resolutions passed 
 wei*e founded. The epistle was without doubt dictated in 
 haste, and must be taken only for an official document, as the 
 credentials of an oral communication. But they depended 
 more on the living word, than on written characters. Hence, 
 while the written communication was so brief, they sent living 
 organs to Antioch, who would explain every thing more fully 
 according to the sense of this meeting. 
 
 Thus Paul and Barnabas, having happily attained their 
 object at Jerasalem, retm-ned to the Gentile Christians at 
 Antioch with these pledges of Christian fellowship, and 
 accompanied by the two delegates. Barnabas took also his 
 nephew Mark with him from Jerusalem, to be an assistant in 
 the common work. He had formerly accompanied them on 
 their first missionary travels iii Asia, but had not remained 
 faithful to lis vocation ; giving way to his feelings of attach- 
 ment for his native country, he had left them when they 
 entered Pamphyha. At Jerusalem, Barnabas met with him 
 again, and perhaps by his remonstrances, brought him to 
 a sense of his foi-mer misconduct, so that he once more joined 
 them. 
 
 This decision of the Apostolic Assembly at Jerusalem, 
 
 to mention first, that this resolution was not formed according to human 
 caprice, l)ut that the Holy Spirit so willed it. I translate in the text, 
 not verbally, but according to the sense. 
 
 ' The expression in Acts xv. 29, e^ wv SiaJijpovvTes iavrovs, is remark- 
 ably similar to that in James i. 27, AcnnKov eavrhu Trjp^ly airb toC
 
 126 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 forms an important era in the history of the apostolic church 
 The first controversy wliich appeared in the history of Chris- 
 tianity was thus pubhcly expressed and presented without 
 disguise ; but it was at the same time manifested, that, by 
 this controversy, the unity of the chiu-ch was not to be 
 destroyed. Although so great and striking a difference of an 
 outward kind existed in the development of the church among 
 the Jews and of that among the Gentiles, still the essential 
 unity of the chm-ch, as grounded on real commimion of in- 
 ternal faith and life, continued undisturbed thereby, and thus 
 it was manifest that the unity was independent of such out- 
 ward differences : it became henceforth a settled point, that 
 though one party observed and the other party neglected cer- 
 tftin outward usages, yet both, in virtue of their common faith 
 in Jesus as the Redeemer, had received the Holy Spirit as the 
 certain mark of their participating in the kingdom of God. 
 The controversy was not confined to these outward differences ; 
 but, as we might conclude from the peculiar nature of the 
 modes of thinking among the Jews, which mingled itself with 
 their conceptions of Christianity, it involved several doctrinal 
 differences. The latter, however, were not brought under dis- 
 cussion ; those j^oints only were touched which were most 
 palpable, and appeared the most important from the Jewish 
 standing-point of legal observances. While they firmly held 
 )ne ground of faith, — faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and a 
 consciousness of fellowship in the one spirit proceeding from 
 him, — they either lost sight altogether of these differences, or 
 viewed them as very subordinate, in relation to the points of 
 agreement, the foundation of the all-comprehending kingdom 
 of God. At a later period these differences broke out with 
 greater violence, when they were not overpowered by the 
 energy of a Christian spirit progressively developed, and in- 
 sinuating itself more deeply into the prevalent modes of 
 thinking. Even by this wise settlement of the question, so 
 serious a breach could not be repaired, where the operation of 
 that Spirit was wanting from whom this settlement proceeded. 
 As those who were addicted to Pharisaism were, from the first, 
 accustomed to esteem a Cliristianity amalgamated with com- 
 plete Judaism, as alone genuine and perfect, and rendering 
 men capable of enjoying all the privileges of the kingdom of 
 God, it was hardly possible that these decisions could produce
 
 DEVKLOrMEXT OF THE GENTILE CHURCH. 127 
 
 an entire revolution in their mode of thinking ; whether it 
 was that they looked upon the decisions of the assembly at 
 Jerusalem as not permanent, or that they explained them 
 according to their own views and interests, as if indeed, though 
 they had not commanded the observance of the law to Gentile 
 Christians, they were designed to intimate that it would be to 
 their advantage, if voluntarily, and out of love to Jehovah, 
 they observed the whole law. And as they had not hesitated, 
 before that assembly was called at Jerusalem, to appeal to the 
 authority of the apostles, although they were by no means 
 authorized to do so, they again attempted to make use of this 
 expedient, of which they could more readily avail themselves 
 on account of the great distance of most of the Gentile 
 churches from Jerusalem.' 
 
 Thus we have here the first example of an accommodation 
 of differences which arose in the development of the church, 
 an attempt to effect a union of two contending parties ; and 
 we here see what has been often repeated, that union can only 
 be attained where it proceeds from an internal unity of Chris- 
 tian consciousness ; but where the reconciliation is only 
 external, the deeply-seated differences, though for a brief 
 period repressed, will soon break out afresh. But what is of 
 the greatest importance, we here behold the seal of true Catho- 
 licism publicly exhibited by the apostles, and the genuine 
 apostolic church. The existence of the genuine catholic 
 chm'ch, which so deeply-seated a division threatened to 
 destroy, was thereby secured. 
 
 We are now arrived at a point of time in which the Gentile 
 church assumed a peculiar and independent form ; but before 
 
 ' The Acts of the Apostles might lead us to suppose, if we could not 
 compare its statements with the Pauline Epistles, that the division 
 between the Jewish and Gentile Christians had been completely healed 
 by the decision of the apostolic assembly ; but we know that the reac 
 tion of the Judaizing party against the freedom of the Gentile Christian 
 church, very soon broke out afresh, and that Paul had constantly to 
 combat with it. In this silence of the Acts, I cannot find the slightes 
 trace of an apologetical tendency for Paul against the Judaizers ; in that 
 case, I should rather have expected the Author would have mentioned 
 these subsequent disturbances, and have opposed to them these decisions. 
 Nor can I think an intentional silence probable in relation to the events 
 of a period so deeply agitated by religious concerns. The Acts generally 
 says nothing of the inward development of the Christian church ; hence 
 it is silent on so many other things which we would gladly know.
 
 128 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 we trace its farther spread and development in connexion with 
 the labours of Paul, let us first glance at the constitution of 
 the church in this new form of Christian fellowship. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH, AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL USAGES OP 
 THE GENTILE CHEISTIANS. 
 
 The forms under which the constitution of the Christian 
 community at first developed itself, were, as we have before 
 remai'ked, most nearly resembling those which already existed 
 in the Jewish church. But these forms, after their adoption 
 by Jewish Christians, would not have been ti-ansferred to 
 the Gentile churches, if they had not so closely corresponded 
 to the natm-e of the Christian community as to furnish it 
 with a model for its organization. This peculiar nature of 
 the Christian community distinguished the Christian church 
 from all other religious associations, and after Christianity had 
 burst the fetters of Judaism, showed itself among the free and 
 self-subsistent churches of the Gentile Christians. Since 
 Clirist satisfied once for all that religious want, from the sense 
 of which a priesthood has every where originated, — since he 
 satisfied the sense of the need of mediation and reconciliation, 
 so deeply seated in the consciousness of the separation from 
 God by sin, there was no longer room or necessity for any 
 other mediation. If, in the apostolic epistles, the Old Testa- 
 ment ideas of a priesthood, a priestly cultus and sacrifices are 
 applied to the new economy, it is only with the design of 
 showing, that, since Christ has for ever accomplished that 
 which the priesthood and sacrifices in the Old Testament pre- 
 figured, — all who now appropriate by faith what he effected 
 for mankind, stand in the same relation with one another to 
 God, without needing any other mediation, — that they are all 
 by communion with Christ dedicated and consecrated to God, 
 and are called to present their whole lives to God as an 
 acceptable, spiritual thank-offering, and thus their whole con-
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 129 
 
 iecrated activity is a true spiritual, priestly ciiltus, Christiana 
 forming a divine kingdom of priests. Rom. xii. 1 ; 1 Pet. ii. 9. 
 This idea of the general priesthood of all Christians, proceed- 
 ing from the consciousness of redemption, and grounded alone 
 in that, is partly stated and developed in express terms, and 
 partly presupposed in the epithets, images, and comparisons, 
 applied to the Christian life. 
 
 As all believers were conscious of an equal relation to 
 Christ as their Redeemer, and of a common participation of 
 communion with God obtained through him ; so on this con- 
 sciousness, an equal I'elation of believers to one another was 
 grounded, which utterly precluded any relation like that found 
 ill other forms of religion, subsisting between a priestly caste 
 and a peoj)le of whom they were the mediators and spiritual 
 guides. The apostles themselves were very far from placing 
 themselves in a relation to believers which bore any resemblance 
 to a mediating priesthood ; in this respect they always placed 
 themselves on a footing of equality. If Paul assured the 
 church of his intercessory prayers for them, he in return 
 requesteil their prayei's for himself. There were accordingly 
 no such persons in the Christian church, who, like the priests 
 of antiquity, claimed the possession of an esoteric doctrine, 
 while they kept the people in a state of spiritual pupillage and 
 dependence on themselves, as their sole guides and instructors 
 in religious matters. Such a relation would have been incon- 
 sistent with the consciousness of an equal dependence on Christ, 
 and an equal relation to him as participating in the same 
 spiritual life. The first Pentecost had given evidence that a 
 consciousness of the higher life proceeding from communion 
 with Christ filled all believei's, and similar effects were pro- 
 duced at every season of Christian awakening which preceded 
 the formation of a cluirch. Tiie apostle Paul, in the 4th 
 chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians, points out as a common 
 feature of Judaism and Heathenism in this respect, the con- 
 dition of pupillage, of bondage to outward ordinances. He 
 represents this bondage and pupilljige as taken away by the 
 consciousness of redemption, and that the same spirit ought 
 to be in all Christians. He contrasts the heathen, who blindly 
 followed their jiriests, and gave themselves up to all their arts 
 of deception, with true Christians, who, by fliith in the 
 Redeemer, became the organs of the Divine Spirit, and could 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 hear the voice of the living God within them ; 1 Cor. xii. 1. 
 He thought that he should assume too much to himself, if, in 
 relation to a church already grounded in spiritual things, he 
 represented himself only as giving ; for in this respect there 
 was only one general giver, the Saviour himself, as the source 
 of all life in the church, while all others, as members of the 
 spiritual body animated by him the Head, stood to each other 
 m the mutual relation of givers and receivers. Hence it was, that 
 after lie had written to the Romans that he longed to come to 
 them in order to impart some spiritual gift for their establish- 
 ment, he added, lest he should seem to arrogate too much to 
 himself, " that is, that I may he comforted, together with you, 
 by the mutual faith both of you and me;" Rom. i. 12. 
 
 Christianity, on the one hand, by the Holy Spirit as the 
 common higher principle of life, gave to the chxirch a unity, 
 more sublime than any other principle of union among men, 
 destined to subordinate to itself, and in this subordination to 
 level, all the varieties founded in the development of human 
 nature. But, on the other hand, mental peculiarities were 
 not annihilated by this divine life ; since, in all cases, it fol- 
 lowed the laws of the natural development of man, but only 
 purified, sanctified, and transformed them, and promoted their 
 freer and more complete expansion. The higher unity of life 
 exhibited itself in a multiplicity of individualities, animated 
 by the same spirit, and forming reciprocal complements to 
 each other as parts of one vast whole in the kingdom of God. 
 Consequently, the manner in which this divine life manifested 
 its efficiency in each, was determined by the previous mental 
 individuality of each. The apostle Paul says, indeed, "But 
 all these worketh that one and self-same Spirit, dividing to 
 every man severally as he will,''' 1 Cor. xii. 1 1 ; but it by no 
 means follows, that he supposes an operation of the Divine 
 Spirit totally unconditional. In this passage, he is simply 
 opposing an arbitrary human valuation, which would attri- 
 bute a worth to only certain gifts of grace, and refused to 
 acknowledge the manifoldness in their distribution. The 
 analogy to the members of the human body, of which the 
 apostle avails himself, betokens the not arbitrary but regu- 
 lated development of the new creation in a sanctified natural 
 order ; for it is evident from this analogy, that as, among the 
 members of the human body, each has its determinate place
 
 USAGES OP THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS, 131 
 
 assigned by nature, and its appropriate function, so also the 
 divine life, in its development, follows a similar law, grounded 
 on the natural relations of the individualities animated by it. 
 From what has just been said, we are prepared for rightly 
 understanding the idea of charisma, so very important for the 
 history of the development of the Christian life, and of the 
 constitution of the Christian church in the first ages. In the 
 apostolic age, it denoted nothing else than the predominant 
 capability of an individual in which the power and operation 
 of the Holy Spirit that animated him was revealed ;' whether 
 this capability appeared as something communicated in an 
 immediate manner by the Holy Spirit, or whether it was 
 already existing in the individnal before his conversion, which, 
 animated, sanctified, and raised by the new principle of life, 
 would contribute to one common and supreme object, the 
 inward and outward development of the kingdom of God, or 
 the church of Christ. ^ That which is the soul of the whole 
 Christian's life, and forms its inward unity, the faith working 
 by love, can never appear as a particular charism ; for as this 
 it is which forms the essence of the whole Christian dispo- 
 sition, so it is this which must govern all the particular 
 Christian capabilities ; and it is because they are all regulated 
 by this common principle of the Christian disposition, that 
 the particular capabilities become charisms ; 1 Cor. xiii. 
 
 That by which the developed natural endowment becomes 
 a charism, and which is common to all, is always something 
 elevated above the common com-se of nature, something 
 divine. But the forms of manifestation in which this higher 
 principle exhibited itself, were marked by a diversity, 
 according as it was the result of an original creative operation 
 of the Holy Spirit, making use of the course of nature, and 
 
 ' The tpavfgcDffts rod irufifiaTos peculiar to each person. 
 
 " The word most generally used, whereby (since Paul has used it in 
 this sense) is signified, all tliat concerns the internal advancement of 
 the kingdom of God — whether in reference to the church in general, or 
 to individuals — is oiKo5oiJ.e7p. This use of the word arises from the 
 practice of comparing the Christian life of the whou church, and its 
 individual members, to a building, a temple of God which is built on 
 the foundation on which this building necessarily rests, 1 Cor. iii. t', 
 10, and is in a state of continual progress towards completion. On 
 this progressive building of the temple of God, both in general and 
 individually, see the admirable remarks in Nitzch's Observationes ad 
 Theo{ogiainpractica77iJeliciwsex:oleiulain. Bonn, 1831, p 21.
 
 132 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 evincing its presence by some immediate effect, (though even 
 here a hidden connexion might exist between the natural 
 jDeculiai'ities of the individual and such a special acting of the 
 Holy Spirit) ; these are charisms which, in the New Testa- 
 ment, are called dviajdeig, arijxtla, repara ; or the manifesta- 
 tions might be deduced from the development of natural 
 talents under the animating influence of the Holy Spirit. 
 The first kind of charisms belong more to the peculiar opera-' 
 tion of the Holy Spirit in the apostolic age, that peculiai'ly 
 creative epoch of Christianity on its first appearance in the 
 ;v^orld ; the second kind belonged to the operation of the 
 Holy Spii-it through all succeeding ages of the church, by 
 which human nature, in its essential quahties and its whole 
 course of development, will be progressively penetrated and 
 transformed. These two forms of charism admit therefore of 
 being cleai'ly distinguished, as they were manifested in the 
 apostolic church. The gifts by which such effects were pro- 
 duced in the visible world, which could not proceed from the 
 existing powers and laws of natm'e, the gift of 2via/jftc, and 
 one still more definite, that of curing diseases, the yupur^a 
 la/jKiTwr, are mentioned as special gifts ; 1 Cor. xii. 9, 10. 
 Yet these gifts are only ranked with others ; we find no divi- 
 sion of gifts into two classes, extraordinary and ordinary, 
 supernatural and natm'al ; for we contemplate the apostolic 
 church from the right point of view, only when we consider 
 the essential in all these gifts to be the supernatural principle, 
 the divine element of life itself. 
 
 The charisms which appeared in the apostolic church, may 
 be most natm-ally divided into such as relate to the further- 
 ance of the kingdom of God or the edification of the church 
 by the word, and such as relate to the furtherance of the 
 kingdom of God by other kinds of outward' agency. As to 
 the first class, a distinction may be made, founded on the 
 relation in which the mental self-activity developed in the 
 vai'ious powers of the soul and their performances beai's to 
 the inworking of the Holy Spirit : in proportion as the imme- 
 diate force of inspiration predominated in the higher self- 
 consciousness (the vovQ or Tryevfia), and the lower self-con- 
 sciousness (the \pvxi]), the medium of the soul's intercourse 
 with the outward world, retired ; or as the communications 
 
 > Compare 1 Pet. iv. 11.
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIAXS. 133 
 
 of the Divine Spirit were received during the harmonioua 
 co-operation of all tlie powers of the soul, and developed and 
 applied by the sober exercise of the understanding. ' Hence 
 the gradations in the charisms of which we have already 
 spoken, the charism of yXuitraaic \n\eiv, of irpofqTEviiv, 
 and of hcaTKaXia. Men who were prepared by the early 
 cultivation of the intellect, and the aptitude for mental com- 
 munication by means of it, hence knew how to develop and 
 communicate in logical consecutiveness wliat the illumination 
 of the Divine Spirit revealed to their higher self-consciousness. 
 The ^iSaVcaXot are therefore teachers possessed of Christian 
 knowledge (yrwrnc), who had gained it by means of self-activity 
 animated by the Holy Spirit, through tlie development and 
 elaboration of truth known in the divine light. The prophet, 
 on the contrary, spoke, as lie was carried away by the power 
 of inspiration suddenly seizing him, an instantaneous elevation 
 of his higher self-consciousness, according to a light that then 
 gleamed upon him, (an d-iToicd.\vxpiQ.) The prophet might be 
 distinguished fi'om the ^i^uaKaXoc in reference to his mental 
 peculiarity and formation, by the predominance, in general, 
 of the feelings and intuitive perceptions over the activity of 
 the understanding. Yet the two charisms were not always 
 found separate in different persons. The cicd/jKuXog in many 
 a moment of inspiration might become a 7rpo(j){]Trfc. The pro- 
 phet might pronounce, under the influence of inspiration, some 
 impressive address, to awaken, to admonish, to warn, or to 
 console the assembled believers ; or make appeals to those 
 who were not yet decided in the faith, by wliich he alarmed 
 tlieir consciences, and thus opened their hearts for the instruc- 
 tions of the hiMiTKaXoQ. It is evident what influence the power 
 of inspired discourse operating on the heart must have had 
 for the spread of the gospel during this period. Persons who 
 wished for once to inform themselves respecting what occurred 
 in Christian assemblies, or to become acquainted with the 
 Christian doctrine, of whose divine origin they were not yet 
 convinced, sometimes came into the assembhes of the Church, a 
 
 ^ We can here make use of what Synesius in nis Dion says of the rela- 
 tion of the fiaKxe7a, of the aA.yna uiavtKhv, of the deopogriTov, to the forma- 
 tion of the fiecrr) koI eVurTaTiKr; Svvaais. 
 
 * The &Tn(TTos, 1 Cor. xiv. 24, means a per.son not yet a believer, but 
 yet not unsusceptible of faith, the Iiifidelis negative. Such a one might
 
 134 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 On these occasious, Cliristiuu men came forward who testified 
 of the corruption of human natiu'e, and of the universal need 
 
 be awakened to beheve by the irgo^njxefa. The &iriaTos, 1 Cor. xiv. 22, is an 
 obstinate unbeliever, wholly unsusceptible of faith, and hence utterly un- 
 susceptible of the influence of the Trgo<pr]reia, an infidelis privative. For 
 Buch persons there could be no awakening, hut only condemnatory a-nfida. 
 I am not induced by what Meyer has said, in his Commentary on the 
 First Epistle to the Corinthians, to give up this interpretation. The con- 
 nexion makes it absolutely necessary, to give a different meaning to 
 i-irta-ros in 1 Cor. xiv. 23 and 24, from what it bears in v. 22, and the 
 collocation of ISiHirai andSirjo-Toi confirms this explanation. The iSiaJrat 
 were those who knew only a little of Christianity, the iTrio-Tot tho.se who 
 had not yet attained to faith, and as not believing, were akin to the class 
 mentioned in v. 22, but distinguished from them by the direction of 
 their disposition, and its relation to believing, inasmuch as they were 
 not in the position of decided enmity to Christianity. The fact of their 
 attending Christian assemblies, bore evidence of their seeking after 
 truth, tliat there was at least the germ of susceptibility. A person of 
 this class came to the Christian assemblies, in order to learn, whether it 
 was really a matter worth attending to, " accensus inquirere quid sit in 
 causa," as TertuUian says. The train of thought is as follows : v. 21, 
 God speaks by people using a strange language (the revelation of his 
 judgment) to the Jews, who would not listen to the prophets speaking 
 to them in their own language ; v. 22, Thus the unintelligible tongues 
 are for signs (signs of merited divine judgments, condemnatory signs) 
 not for believers, (which idea is amplified in verses 23, 24, in order to be 
 applied to those who are su.~ceptible of faith, whose minds are somewhat 
 moved to believe,) but for unbelievers (by which is here indicated what 
 is absolutely contrary to believing — the standing-point of those who have 
 obstinately rejected the opportunities of attaining faith). But prophecy 
 is not for the unbelieving (in consequence of the contrariety of their dis- 
 position), but for believers. This general position, that not the gift of 
 unintelligible tongues, but prophecy speaking intelligibly to them, was 
 designed for such, the apostle lays down in v. 23, as an inference from 
 what he had said before. But instead of taking an example from those 
 who already belonged to the church as decided believers, he takes the 
 example of such who were in their progress towards believing ; since in 
 these the truth of what they had asserted was more strikingly evident, 
 and show how many such persons might be won by prophecy, while on 
 the contrary, the sight of an assembly in which they heard nothing but 
 ecstatic unintelligible discourses must operate injuriously upon them; 
 in the latter case, they would feel themselves compelled to suppose that 
 there was nothing in Christianity but delusion and enthusiasm. But if 
 the same unbelievers were intended in verse 23 as in verse 22, then for 
 such even the discourses of the prophets would be nothing that could 
 profit them, since there was no point of connexion in their dispositions. 
 To them even what they heard spoken by the prophets would appear 
 nothing but enthusiasm. It would be a punishment merited by them, 
 to be addressed in unintelligible language, since they would not under- 
 stand — they should not understand.
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 135 
 
 of redemption, with overpowering energy ; and, from their 
 own religious and moral consciousness, appealed to that of 
 others, as if they could read it. The heathen felt his con- 
 science struck, his heart was laid open, and he was forced to 
 acknowledge, what hitherto he had not been willing to believe, 
 that the power of God was with this doctrine and dwelt among 
 these men ; 1 Cor. xiv. 25. If the connected addresses of the 
 hildaKctKoQ tended to lead those fm'ther into a knowledge of 
 the gospel who had already attained to faith, or to develop in 
 their minds the clear understanding of what they had received 
 by faith ; the ■K-uo<pr]reta served rather to awaken those to faith 
 who were not yet believers, or to animate and strengthen 
 those who had attained to feith, to quicken afresh the life of 
 faith. On the contrary, in the yXujaacue XaAtti', the elevated 
 consciousness of God predominated, while the consciousness of 
 the external world vanished. To a person who expressed 
 himself in this manner, the medium of communication between 
 the external world and his deeply moved intei-ior, was alto- 
 arether wanting. What he uttered in this state when carried 
 away by his feelings and intuitions, was not a connected 
 address like that of a SicarTi;a\oc, nor was it an exhortation 
 suited to the cii'cumstances of other persons (TrapaK-Xz/o-tc), like 
 that of the prophets ; but without being capable in this situa- 
 tion of taking notice of the mental state and neces.sities of 
 others, he was occupied solely with the relation of his own 
 heart to God. His soul was absorbed in devotion and adora- 
 tion. Hence prayer, singing the praises of God, testifying of 
 the mighty acts of God, were suited to this state. ' Such a 
 person prayed in the Spirit ; the higher life of the mind and 
 disposition predominated, but the intelligent development was 
 wanting.^ Since he formed a peculiar language for himself, 
 
 ^ Af5 various kinds of religious acts might proceed from this state of 
 mind, (as for instance ir^oaivx^ffOai and \\iii\\eiv,) the plural yXwffo-ai and 
 the phrase yevr] tKoscawv are used. 
 
 ^ At all events it is certain that in 1 Cor. xiv. 14, Trveu/xart ■KQOffivxfc^o-h 
 ;J(aA\«n', is equally with yKuxrcrri Aa\(7v, opposed to r^ vot or dia toD vooi 
 \a\(7y, and it is certain that the latter means — to deliver something 
 through the medium of thinking, in a form proceeding from a sound 
 consciousness. But it may be disputed — which yet decides nothing 
 respecting the subject as a whole — whether irytD^ua in this whole section 
 is a designation of the ecstatic state, as one in which the excitation pro- 
 duced by the Divine Spirit, the immediate action of inspiration predomi-
 
 13G CONRTITDTIOX OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 from his own individual feelings and intuitions, he was defi- 
 cient in the ability to express himself so as to be understood 
 by the majority. Had the apostle Paul held the yXwacrai^ 
 \a\e~ti' to be something quite enthusiastic and morbid, neither 
 advantageous for the Christian life of the individual nor for 
 the furtherance of the Christian life in others, he certainly (so 
 liberally as he always acknowledged what was good in the 
 churches to whom he wrote before he l)lamed what was evil) 
 would never have allowed himself to designate by the name of 
 a cliarism, an imperfection in the Christian life, and never 
 could he, in this case, have said of himself that he thanked God 
 that he spake in more tongues than all of them. On the con- 
 trary, from the view here developed of this charism, it is 
 
 '•ates, and the human self-activity is repressed ; or whether hy this name 
 denotes a peculiar internal power of human nature, the power of higher 
 intuition, which in such states alone is developed and active. Verses 
 15 and It! wouUl favour and justify no other interpretation than the 
 former. But according to verse 14, though this interpretation is not 
 impossible, there are some difficulties; for here by the irj/eDfia must be 
 denoted the inspiration effected by the Spirit, as something dwelling in 
 the soul, and blended with the subjective. Instead of saying, I pray in 
 inspiration, Paul would say, My spirit {that in me which is one with 
 the Spirit acting within me) prays. It cannot be denied that this in- 
 terpretation has something harsh, which is not found in the second, if 
 by rrvevfxa we understand that highest power of the soul, which in those 
 highest moments of the inner life, is active as the organ for the in- 
 fluences of the Divine Spirit. It cannot at least be decisive against this 
 interpretation, that Paul in his Epistle to the Romans generally desig- 
 nates the higher spiritual nature of man by the term vovs; for this need 
 not prevent his applying the same name to a more limited idea in ano- 
 ther connexion; the vovs = to voouv, the discursive faculty of thought, 
 in distinction from the higher faculty of intuition, which is more recep- 
 tive, by surrendering itself to the Divine Spirit. It is worthy of remark, 
 and assists in forming a right judgment of the various charisms in rela- 
 tion to Christianity, that in the sense assigned to the yKwcrcrais \aKeiv, 
 we may find something analogous in the fxavia, the ivBovataa/xh? of the 
 heathen fxavris ; on the contrary, in the SiSaaKaKia is presented a cha- 
 racteristic of Christianity, the religion of sober-mindedness; as Chris- 
 tianity is the religion of freedom of mental self-activity, (in opposition 
 to mere passivity,) and of harmonious mental development. Hence also 
 the danger that — when a one-sided over-valuation of the yKda-ffais Aa\u» 
 gained ground, and there was a defect in Christian watchfulness and 
 sobriety, as in heathenism, the excitement of mere natural feeling 
 might injuriously mingle itself with the movements of the divine life — 
 as was the case in Montanism, in which ve may observe appearancea 
 akin to somnambulism.
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 137 
 
 evident that, in this extraordinary elevation of mind, he recog- 
 nised an operation of the Divine Spirit, a special gift of grace ; 
 and there is also an internal probability that that apostle, who 
 rose to the highest point of the interior Christian life, who 
 could depose to having received so many oTrraaiai and 
 dwuK-aXv-ileiQ Kvptov, who had heard things unutterable in any 
 tongue of men — had often been in circumstances correspond- 
 ing to the y/\w(7ffotc XaXelp. But it was consonant with that 
 wisdom which always took account of the interests of all 
 classes in the church, that he — although he recogiiised the 
 value of these temporary elevations for the whole of the Chris- 
 tian life, by which it was enabled to take a wider range — left 
 the manifestations of such moments to the private devotions 
 of each individual, and banished them from meetings for 
 general edification ; that he valued more highly those spiritual 
 gifts, which gave scope for the harmonious cooperation of all 
 the powers of the soul, and contributed in the spirit of love to 
 the general edification ; and that he di'eaded the danger of 
 self-deception and enthusiasm, where the extraordinary mani- 
 festations of the Christian life were overvalued, and where that 
 — which only was of worth when it arose unsought from the 
 interior development of life, — became an object of anxious 
 pursuit to many who were thus brouglit into a state of morbid 
 excitement. Hence he wished, tliat in those highest moments 
 of inspiration which attended the yXwTo-atc XaKe'ii', every one 
 would pour out his heart alone before God ; but that in the 
 assemblies of the church these manifestations of devotion, un- 
 intelligible to the majority, might be repressed ; or only be 
 exhibited, when what was thus spoken could be translated into 
 a language intelligible to all. 
 
 In these charisms we may also distinguish the gift of a pro- 
 ductiveness of religious intuition excited and animated by 
 the Divine Spirit ; and the gift which enabled a person to 
 explain or to pa.ss judgment upon what others communicated 
 by means of their charism in tlie state of higher inspiration, 
 the faculty of interpreting or of judging, animated by the 
 Divine Spirit, the eofii^vfla yXioaaaic and the ciaKpirno irvev- 
 fidru)!'. The Christian life was permitted fi'eely to develop 
 and express itself in the church. Whoever felt an inward 
 impulse, might venture to speak in the Christian assemblies ; 
 but sound discretion ought to accompany inspiration, and
 
 138 CONSTITUTION OP THE CHURCH. 
 
 might be considered as a mark of its being genuine. No 
 one was to wish to be the V)le speaker ; or to interrupt others 
 in speaking; 1 Cor. xiv. b \ 31. If Paul considered such 
 injunctions to be necessaiy, it is apparent that lie by uo 
 moans recognised in the prophets of the church, pure organs 
 of the Divine Spirit, in whom the divine and the human 
 might not easily be confounded. On the contrary, the 
 churches were to be guarded against the excesses of such 
 a mixture and the delusions which prevailed, when human 
 impurity was looked upon as a suggestion of the Divine 
 Spirit,— by exercising a trial of spirits, for which a special 
 gift was granted to individuals. As for the ciC(t(Tica\o£, in 
 whom the reflective activity of the understanding pre- 
 dommated, the gift of trying spirits was not required so 
 much to accompany his addresses ; for since in him the 
 critical power was developed and active, and he was habituated 
 to discuss Christian truths with a sober judgment, he was 
 able to judge himself. But the less a prophet in the moments 
 of inspiration was able to observe, to examine, and to judge 
 himself, the greater was the danger of confounding the divine 
 and the human, and so much the more necessary was it, in 
 order to prevent this, for others to apply a scrutiny. On 
 this account, it was ordered that the operations of the pro- 
 phetical gift were attended by an extraordinary endowment 
 in certain persons of trying the spirits, a critical power 
 animated by the Holy Spirit. The design of this gift was 
 certainly not merely to decide who was a prophet and who 
 was not ; but chiefly for the purpose of distinguishing in 
 the addresses of those who stood up as inspired speakers in 
 the Christian assemblies, between what proceeded from 
 the Divine Spirit, and what did not proceed from that 
 source ; so Paul, on this point, recommended the church 
 to try every thing communicated by the prophets, and 
 required them to separate the good from the bad ; 
 1 Thess. V. 21. And as the prophets did not pretend to be 
 infallible, but were conscious of their liability to error, they 
 submitted themselves to the judgment of the church, or of 
 their organs appointed fur the purpose, and thus were pre- 
 served from the self-delusion of pride, that fruitful source of 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 In the charism of ^ilaaKaXia, there appears again to have
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 139 
 
 beeu a difference, according as any one had an ability for 
 developing the truth in its tlieoretic elements, or in its appli- 
 cation to the various relations of life ; the one was Xvyog 
 yyiaJTEioc, the other Aoyoc aoipL'Q? 
 
 But though the terms yvwtnq and trocpia are thus dis- 
 tinguished ; it by no means follows, that, in every passago 
 where erocpla is mentioned in reference to Christianity, it is 
 used in the same restricted sense, and always with a refer- 
 ence to this distinction. We find both used as synonymous, 
 certainly without any implied reference to such a distinction 
 of practical and theoretical ; Coloss. ii. 3. Thus Paul in the 
 first Epistle to the Corinthians, under the name of a Xoyog 
 (Tocpiac, describes the more ample development of Christian 
 truth, in relation to the first elements of Christian know- 
 ledge, the common foundation of Christian consciousness in 
 all believers, and in contrast with the philosophy of the 
 Grecian schools. He knew nothing higher than the doctrine 
 of Jesus Christ the Crucified as the foundation of salvation, 
 and whatever pretended to be superior to this, appeared to 
 him a mere deception. He says, that in the publication of 
 the divine counsels respecting the salvation brought by 
 Christ to mankind, all the treasures of wisdom and know- 
 ledge were hidden ; Coloss. ii. 3 ; but still the agency of 
 reason enlightened by the Holy Spirit, was necessary to 
 bring these hidden treasures to light, to educe and develop 
 this divine philosophy. Consequently, there would be various 
 degrees of knowledge to be developed, and various cor- 
 
 ^ ^o(j)ia principally denoted a practical power of the judgment, cor- 
 responding to the idea of wisdom or prudence; while yvaxrts, in the 
 New Testament and contemporary writings, was used for the theore- 
 tical, the more profound knowledge of religion ; compare 1 Cor. xiii. 2. 
 When Meyer says that the distinction between theoretical and practical 
 does not correspond to the nature of inspired discourse, it appears to 
 me that this objection is not valid : for inspiration in that universal 
 sense which is here treated of, the animating by the Divine Spirit, 
 from whom all charisms proceed, could not be wanting to any kind of 
 discourse in the church. But yet a dififerent gift resulting from anima*- 
 tion by the common higher principle of life, would be required, when a 
 person delivered a discourse on the peculiar doctrines of the faith, and 
 when he spoke of objects that called for the exercise of Christiaa 
 prudence, on the collisions between Christianity and the existing social 
 relations, and matters relating to the outward guidance of the church. 
 The difference is here necessarily grounded in the nature of the object, 
 and of the human mind.
 
 140 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 responding kinds of instruction. Paid indeed speaks of a 
 wisdom which he could deUvcr only among " them that are 
 perfect ;" 1 Cor. ii. 6 ;' but by that wisdom, he did not 
 mean giving new explanations respecting the divine wisdom 
 to be added from without, something distinct from the gospel 
 as universally announced, a tradition tluit was to be divulged 
 in a smaller circle of disciples. But he meant the unfolding 
 those treasures of knowledge contained in the saving doctrine 
 which was announced to all, and which would be bi-ought to 
 light by the exercise of the mental faculties, in proportion as 
 they received and developed the objects of Christian know- 
 ledge. " The perfect," in the language of Paul, are not 
 those who possessed a higher intellectual culture, independent 
 of the Christian faith ; but those whose whole inner life 
 having been purified and transformed in a high degree by 
 the vital principle of Christianity, are rendered capable 
 of deeper Christian intelligence, by a disposition more refined 
 fi'om all selfish and sensual elements. In proportion as the 
 Jewish or heathenish spirit (and to the latter belonged the 
 one-sided specidative tendency, the (rocpiay iirjrtlv, the arrogant 
 wisdom of the philosophical schools,) still predominated 
 among Christians, they were unsusceptible of such knowledge, 
 and of such a kind of instruction. In like manner, in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, " the strong meat " of the perfect 
 (of riper Christians) is distinguished from the first elements 
 of Christian knowledge, which were presupposed as the 
 general foundation. 
 
 Let us now proceed from those gifts which relate to the 
 ministry of the word, to that class which relates to other kinds 
 of outward activity, for the advancement of the kingdom of 
 God. Here again we must distingiush between those in 
 which, as in ^icatrKaXia, a peculiar capability founded in 
 human nature, and developed and applied according to its 
 usual laws, was rendered effective, under the influence of a 
 new divine principle of liie ; and those in which the natural 
 
 ' I cannot help considering that interpretation of these words as the 
 simplest and most agreeable to the connexion, according to which, not 
 merely a difference grounded on the various relations of one divine 
 doctrine to the various peculiar states of the men who receive it, (inas- 
 much as the divine doctrine is indeed wisdom, but appears to be what 
 it is — wisdom — only to genuine believers, to the perfect,) is signified; 
 but also an objective difference of instruction.
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. l4l 
 
 human development was put in the background, and what 
 was moi'e pui-ely divine became prominent, similarly to the 
 yXu)arTuig XaXuv and the irpofriTiviu. To the former belong 
 the gifts of church government, the x^p'^'^F^ Kvjjipt'i'iartwc or 
 roil TTpoEardvat, and the gifts for various services, which were 
 required in administering the concerns of the church, as dis- 
 tributing alms, tending the sick, &c., the ■xapirrp.a ZiaKoviag 
 or (ji'Ti\ii\pewc ; 1 Cor. xii. 28 ; Rom. xii. 7. To the second 
 division belongs especially the gift of working miracles, and 
 performing cures. The charism from which these two modes 
 of miraculous operation proceed, considered in its essential 
 nature, appeal's to be n-tVrtc ; 1 Cor. xii. 9 ; xiii. 2 ; Matt, 
 xvii. 20. For the term TriariQ in this connexion cannot 
 denote Christian faith in general, the disposition common to 
 all Christians ; but must necessarily relate to something 
 peculiai". Indeed, as seems to foUow from the relation of 
 irlaTiQ to these two modes of operation, in which a peculiar 
 power of the will over nature manifests itself, and as is con- 
 firmed by what is predicated of TrtVric in 1 Cor. xiii. 2. " If 
 I had faith so that I could move mountains," i. e. could 
 render what appeai-ed impossible, possible by the power of 
 religious conviction working on the Will, — the term tt/otjc 
 evidently denotes the practical power of the will animated 
 and elevated by faith. But with this variety in the mani- 
 festations of the charisms, still he who laboured in the power 
 of the church, agreed with the worker of miracles, in the 
 conscioiisness that all that he eifected was only by the power 
 of God gi-anted to him ; 1 Pet. iv. 11. 
 
 Although, as we have shown, in virtue of these spiritual 
 gifts imparted to individuals, according to their various 
 peculiarities, no one could exercise a decidedly one-sided 
 influence on the chm-ch, but aU with reciprocal activity 
 cooperated for the same object, under the influence of one 
 head, animating the whole in all its manifold members, 
 Eph. iv. 1 6 j yet it by no means followed that aU guidance ' 
 
 ^ We cannot, in this place, allow the view brought forward by Bauer 
 to pass unnoticed, that, in the genuine Paxiline Epistles, no trace can 
 be found of distinct employments and offices for the guidance and 
 government of the church. The passage in Rom. xii., in which the 
 distinctions in the various charisms are pointed out, certainly shows 
 how fluctuating everything was at tliat time, and how little those 
 charisms will assist us as to the meaning of the later church-offices
 
 142 CONSTITUTION OP THE CUURCH. 
 
 of the churcli by human instrumentality was excluded ; but 
 only that these specially guiding instruments exercised no 
 
 corresponding to them. In that passage, it is striking to notice how 
 Paul, in the 8th and 9th verses, passes from the charisms which seem 
 to relate tc particular otiices, to the mention of Christian virtues wliich 
 concerned every heliever ; at tlie end of verse 8, tlie i\(uiv forms th« 
 point of transition, and even before that, ^eraSiSoi/s does not nece>sarily 
 relate to any official duty. Thus the view we are led to form of the 
 original constitution of the churches among Gentile Clirislian.s, as they 
 existed in the apostolic age, — that it was entirely democratic, is also 
 one of the distinguishing marks between the churches of Gentile and 
 those of Jewish origin The case appears to be tlius. All the affairs 
 of the churches were still transacted in an entirely public manner, so 
 that every deliberative meeting of the churcli resembled a strictly 
 popular assembly. Hut it happened of course, that although no definite 
 offices were instituted, to which certain employments were exclusively 
 attached, yet each one occupied himself with those matters for which he 
 possessed a peculiar charism ; those who liad the gift of teaching, gene- 
 rally attended to teaching, — tliose who possessed the gift of church 
 government, occupied themselves with the duties pertaining to it. 
 Thus, in every meeting of the church, there was a division among its 
 members of the various business, in proportion to the peculiar charisms 
 of individuals, yet without the institution of any definite church-offices. 
 In favour of this view, it might further be alleged, that, when Paul 
 (1 Cor. vi.) speaks of a matter belonging to church government, the 
 settling of litigations, he does not recommend their committing this 
 business to persons who held a distinct office of governing, whose 
 concern in that case it would have been ; but speaks of the church as 
 a body, before whose tribunal such disputes ought to be brought to a 
 decision. " Is there not one wise man among you," he asked, " who can 
 Bettle such matters ]" Therefore, such wise persons must be taken from 
 the midst of the church, (or, in otiier words, those who had the gift of 
 church government,) to undertake the settlement of these disputes by 
 means of th^'ir peculiar charism, instead of its being referred to any 
 particular office, which perfectly agrees with the views we have slated. 
 But this view, which indeed may be formed from such passages, though 
 not necessarily founded upon them, is decidedly opposed by others. 
 Paul, in 1 Cor. xvi., says, that the family of Stephanas, as the first 
 Christian family in Achaia, devoted themselves to the service of the 
 Christian church, i.e. its members declared themselves ready to under- 
 take church offices ; consequently, we may suppose that, at the founding 
 of the church, such offices were instituted. That this is his meaning, 
 is confirmed by the 16th verse, where Paul exhorts the church to obey 
 such (therefore rulers of the church), and all their fellow-labourers. 
 
 Further, in 1 Thess. v. 12, he speaks of such who laboured for the 
 church, presided over them, and admonished them. Love to them as 
 overseers on account of their laborious calling is particularly enjoined ; 
 and thus the exhortation to peace with one another concludes, since the 
 division in the church wouM especially injure their proper relation to 
 these overseers of the chuich, and the want of be-ioming lore and reve-
 
 USAGES OP THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 143 
 
 exclusive authority, did not separate themselves from con- 
 nexion with the whole living organization, formed by a free 
 reciprocal action of the individual members, nor dared to 
 violate their relation to the other members, as equally sers-- 
 ing the same head, and the same body. There was indeed 
 for this guidance a peculiar talent inspired by the Holy 
 Spirit, ^dpifTfia Kvfiipi'riaetjg. It was this that fitted a person 
 for the office of presiding over the church. The name of 
 presbyter, by which, as we have before remarked, this office 
 was first distinguished, was transferred from the Jewish 
 synagogue to the Christian church. But when the church 
 extended itself further among Hellenic Gentiles, with this 
 name borrowed from the civil and religious constitution of 
 the Jews another was joined, which was more allied to the 
 designations of social relations among the Greeks, and adapted 
 to point out the official duties connected with the dignity of 
 presbyters.' The name iTviaKoiroi denoted overseers over the 
 whole of the chm-ch and its collective concerns ; as in Attica 
 
 rence towards them would also injuriously operate against the unity of 
 the church. When Paul, in Rom. xvi. 1, mentions a deaconess, it 
 is certainly presupposed that there were also deacons and presbyters in 
 such a church. When, in Eph. iv. 11, he names pastors and teachers 
 next to apostles and prophets, and indeed after the mention of charisms 
 as the heavenly gifts bestowed by Christ, we must infer that, among 
 these pastors and teachers, there were those who exercised distinct 
 offices, and that, in general, certain offices corresponded to certain 
 charisms. We intentionally pass over Philip, i. 1, a passage which 
 can be decisive only for those who, like myself, are convinced of 
 the genuineness of the epistle. Also, when Luke, Acts xiv. 23, nar- 
 rates that Paul, on his first missionary journey, appointed presbyters in 
 the new churches, this is, in my opinion, certain historical evidence, 
 since I must consider the suspicion that, in this work, a later ecclesias- 
 tical point of view has been transferred to earlier and differently formed 
 church-relations, as absolutely without foundation. But from the existing 
 relations of the churches, among which there was not in the same sense 
 as in later times a clergy distinguished from the laity, it is evident, how, 
 in Rom. xii. 7, along with the charisms connected with specific offices, 
 those might be named which were not so connected ; and how Paul 
 could pass on from particular charisms to general Christian virtues. 
 Attention to the poor and sick, which belonged to the special business of 
 deacons, was yet something in which others could be employed, besides 
 those on whom it officially devolved. See Rothe, in the work before 
 quoted, p. 189. 
 
 1 The apostle Peter, in his first Epistle (v. 1, 2), certainly distinguishes 
 this dignity by the name irpeafiinepot, but the duties connected with it, 
 by the term Titian ymlv z= Trmixa.ivuv.
 
 144 CONSTITUTION OP THE CHURCH. 
 
 those who were commissioned to organize the states dependent 
 on Athens, received the title of eVt'o-coTrot,' and as in general it 
 appears to have been a frequent one, for denoting a guiding 
 oversight in the pubUc administration.^ Since, then, the 
 name iiricrKoiroQ was no other than a transference of an 
 original Je^\ash and Hellenistic designation of office, adapted 
 to the social relations of the Gentiles ; it follows that originally 
 both names related entirely to the same office, and hence 
 both names are frequently interchanged as perfectly synony- 
 mous. Thus Paul addresses the assembled presbyters of the 
 Ephesian church, whom he had sent for as i-maKonovc,^ so 
 hkewise in 1 Tim. iii. 1, the office of the presbyters is called 
 liriaKo-Kr], and immediately after (verse 8) the office of deacons 
 is mentioned as the only existing church-office besides ; as in 
 Philip, i. 1. And thus Paid enjoins Titus to appoint presbyters, 
 and immediately after calls them bishops. It is, therefore, 
 certain that every church was governed by a union of the 
 elders or overseers* chosen from among tlaemselves, and we 
 
 ' Otherwi>e called apfioarai. Schol. Aristoph. Av. (102.3) ol iraf} 
 ' Mrfvaiuv (Is ras vivr)K6ous Tr6\eis (TTiaKe]/a<jQai rh. irap^ iKciaTOts Tre/j.ir6fi(uot, 
 'ETTiV/coTTOt Kol <()v\aKfs tKuKovvTo, ods 01 AaKuivts 'Apjxoaras tKtyov. 
 
 2 Cic. ad Atticum, vii. ep 11. Vult me Pompeius esse quern tota, 
 baec Campana et maritima ora habeat eiriffKoirov, ad quam delectus et 
 eumma necrotii referatur. In a fragment of a work bj' Arcadius 
 Charisiiis de Muneribus civilibu.^, Episcopi qui prresunt pani et caeteris 
 venalibus rebus, quae civitatum populis ad quotidianum victnm UBui 
 sunt. Digest, lib. iv. tit. iv. leg 18, § 7. 
 
 * Acts XX. 17, 28. If we believed ourselves justified in supposing 
 that among them, there were not merely the overseers of the Ephesian 
 church, but also those of other churches in Lesser Asia, it might be 
 said, that by these iTnuKSirovs only the presidents of the presbyteries are 
 intended. But the other passages in Paul's epistles are against such a 
 distinction, and Luke, who applies this address only to the overseers of 
 the Ephesian church, in so doing, shows that he considered the terms 
 firiffKOTTos and irpe<rfivTepos as perfectly synonymous. 
 
 * I must here again e.xplain myself in reference to the first organiza- 
 tion of the churches among the Gentile Cliristians, contrary to the view 
 maintained by Kist and Bauer, that originally very few churches had formed 
 themselves under individual overseers, and that their fonn of government 
 from the beginning was monarchical. According to Bauer, the overseers aa 
 tiuch in reference to their peculiar office, were i-n-lcKOTroi, and only when 
 spoken of as united and forming a college, they were called npfCT^vrfpot. 
 In .\cts xiv. 23, we are told, that Paul appointed presbyters for the 
 churches, formed in the different cities, that is, in each church a college 
 of presbyters. If, with Bauer, we understand, that the plurality of pres- 
 byters is to be taken collectively, and for each church only one presbyter
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHKISnANS. 145 
 
 Snd among them no individual distinguished above the rest 
 who presided as a primus inter pai'es, though probably, in the 
 age immediately succeeding the apostolic, of which we have 
 imfortunately so few authentic memorials, the practice was 
 introduced of applying to such an one the name of i-KiaKo-rroQ 
 by way of distinction.^ We have no information how the 
 office of president in the deliberations of presbyters was held 
 in the apostohc age. Possibly this office was held in rotation 
 — or the order of seniority might be followed — or, by degrees, 
 one individual by his personal qualifications gain such a 
 distinction ; all this, in the absence of information, must be left 
 undetermined ; one thing is certain, that the person who acted 
 as president was not yet distinguished by any particulai' name. 
 The government of the church was the pecuhar office of 
 such overseers ; it was their business to watch over the general 
 order, — to maintain the piu-ity of the Christian doctrine and 
 of Christian practice, — to guard against abuses, — to admonish 
 the faulty — and to guide the public deliberations ; as appears 
 from the passages in the New Testament where their functions 
 are described. But their government by no means excluded 
 the participation of the whole chm-ch in the management of 
 their common concerns, as may be inferred from what we have 
 
 was appointed, this would be inconsistent with Acts xx. 17, where it is 
 said that Paul sent for the presbyters of the church at Ephesus, which 
 implies that a plurality of presbyters presided over one church ; or the 
 word iKKX-qcria which in the passage first quoted is understood of a single 
 church, must be here arbitrarily taken to signify several churches col- 
 lectively — certainly quite contrary to the phraseology of the apostolic 
 age, according to which the word iKK\7i<ria signifies, either the whole 
 Christian church, the total number of believers, forming one body under 
 onj head, or a single church or Christian society. In that case, the 
 plural ra>y eKK\T)<n5>v must necessarily have been used. Acts xx. 28, 
 also implies, that over each church a plurality of presbyters presided. 
 And thus, we must also explain Titus i. 5, which explanation (of the 
 appointment of several presbyters in each city) is also most favoured by 
 the language there used. I can discover no other difference between the 
 ■Kpetr&vnpoi and iiriaKo-Koi in the apostolic age, than that the first signi- 
 fies the rank, the second the duties of the office, whether the reference 
 is to one or more. 
 
 ' Perhaps an analogy may be found, in the fact (if it were so), that 
 one among the Jewish presbyters was distinguished by the name of 
 Archisynagogos ; or the names irpfafiinepoi and apx'C'^'^V'^TO' may bear 
 the same relation to each other as irpecrfivrepoi and i-n-icTKo-iroi, the first 
 name denoting the rank, the second tlie nature of the office, ipxayra tt) j 
 awayuyrjs. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 14:G CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 already remarked respecting the nature of Christian commu- 
 nion, and is also evident from many individual examples in 
 the Apostohc chiirch. The whole chui'ch at Jerusalem took 
 part in the deliberations respecting the relation of the Jewish 
 and Gentile ChristiRns to each other, and the epistle drawa 
 up after these deliberations was likewise in the name of the 
 whole church. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul, which treat 
 of various controverted ecclesiastical matters, are addressed to 
 whole churches, and he assumes that the decision belonged to 
 the whole body. Had it been otherwise, he wovdd have ad- 
 di'essed his instructions and advice principally, at least, to the 
 overseers of the church. When a licentious person belonging 
 to the church at Corinth was to be excommunicated, the 
 apostle considered it a measure that ought to proceed from the 
 whole society ; and placed himself therefore in spirit among 
 them, to unite with them in passing judgment; 1 Cor. v. 3 — 5. 
 Also, when discoursing of the settlement of litigations, the 
 apostle does not aifirm that it properly belonged to the over- 
 Beers of the church ; for if this had been the prevalent custom, 
 he would no doubt have referred to it; but what he says 
 seems to imply that it was usual in particular instances to 
 select ai'bitrators from among the members of the church; 
 1 Cor. vi. 5. 
 
 As to what relates to the edification of the church by the 
 Word, it follows from what we have before remarked, that 
 this was not the exclusive concern of the overseer of the 
 church : for each one had a right to express what affected his 
 mind in the assembly of the brethren ; hence many did not 
 sufficiently distinguish between what was fit only for their 
 own chamber, where every man might freely pour forth his 
 heart before God, and what was suitable for communicating 
 publicly, — an error censured by Paul, as we noticed in speaking 
 of the gift of tongues.^ 
 
 1 It has been maintained, indeed, that this licence in the apostolic 
 church was extended only to those who appear as prophets in the 
 Christian assemblies. But from su?h special cases a general licence la 
 not to be inferred, for these men as teachers, armed with divine autho- 
 rity, and speaking in God's name, might on that account be naturally 
 excepted from common rules. See Mosheim's Jnstitut. Hist. Ecclet, 
 major, see. i. § 10 et 18. But this objection is invalidated by what we 
 have remarked respecting the prophetic charism and its relation to 
 other charisms.
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. ]47 
 
 Only the female members of the church were excepted from 
 this general permission. The fellowship of a higher life com- 
 municated by Christianity, extended itself to the relation 
 between husband and wife ; and the unity to which human 
 nature aspires according to its original destination was 
 realized in this quarter, as in every other respect, by Christ- 
 ianity. But since whatever is founded on the laws of nature 
 is not injured by Christianity, but only animated afresh, 
 sanctified, and refined ; so also in this higher fellowship of 
 life, which ought to unite husband and wife, the latter retains 
 her becoming place according to the natural destination of 
 her sex. Mental receptivity and activity in family life were 
 recognised in Christianity as corresponding to the destiny of 
 woman, and hence the female sex are excluded from delivering 
 public addresses on religious subjects in the meetings of the 
 church ;' 1 Cor. xiv. 34 ; 1 Tim. ii. 12. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xi. 5 appears to contradict this injunction, and in ancient 
 times the Montanists thought — with whom several modern writers have 
 agreed — that here an exception is to be found; as if the apostles 
 intended to bind by no rule those cases in which the immediate opera- 
 tion of the Divine Spirit raised up prophets from the female sex; or as 
 if he wished to debar females only from addresses that were peculiarly 
 didactic, but not from the public expression of their feelings. But aa 
 to the first interpretation, it supposes too great a difference between the 
 SiSda-Keiu — which must also proceed from an operation of the Holy 
 Spirit — and the -irgocpTiTeveiu in reference to the divine in both. It 
 must be certainly erroneous to suppose that any operation whatever of 
 the Holy Spirit in the Christian church could be lawless. When the 
 apostle Paul points out to the female that place in\he church which is 
 assigned her by the spirit of the gospel, which sanctifies nature — the 
 Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of Christianity, follows everywhere this 
 law in his operations, and we cannot suppose that by an exception he 
 would remove woman from her natural position. Every deviation of 
 this kind would appear as something morbid, and contrary to the spirit 
 of the gospel. 
 
 Besides, when Paul gave that prohibition in reference to females, he 
 was treating of addresses that were 7iot didactic. This could therefore 
 make no exception, which would apply to both interpretations. We 
 must account for this apparent contradiction, by supposing that Paul, 
 in the second passage, merely cited an instance of what occurred in the 
 Corinthian church, and reserved his censures for another place. One 
 of the reasons which Paul adduces in the passage quoted from the first 
 Epistle to Timothy against the public speaking of females, is the 
 greater danger of self-deception in the weaker sex, and the spread of 
 errors arising from it — a reason which would apply with the greatest 
 force to a class of addresses, in which sober reflectiveness was least of 
 all in exercise. But this kind of religious a'-.terance would be most
 
 148 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Yet as, by the participation of all in the conduct of church 
 affairs, a regular government by appointed organs was not 
 excluded, but both cooperated for the general good ; so also 
 together with that which the members of the church, by 
 virtue of the common Christian inspiration, could contribute 
 to their mutual edification, there existed a regular adminis- 
 tration of instruction in the chTU"ch, and an oversight of the 
 transmission and development of doctrine, which in this time 
 of restlessness and ferment was exposed to so many adultera- 
 tions, and for this purpose the ■xupiajj.u of IdacTKuXia was 
 designed. There were three orders of teachers in the apostolic 
 age. The first place is occupied by those who were personally 
 chosen and set apart by Christ, and formed by intercourse 
 with him to be instruments for publishing the gospel among 
 all mankind — the witnesses of his discourses, his works, his 
 sufferings, and his resurrection — the Apostles,^ among whom 
 Paul was justly included, on account of Christ's personal 
 appearance to him and the illumination of his mind inde- 
 pendently of the instructions of the other apostles ; next to 
 these, were the Missionaries or Evangelists, fuctyyeXtorat ;» 
 and lastly, the Teachers appointed for separate churches, and 
 
 suited to the female sex, where no danger of the sort alluded to, arising 
 from publicity, would be connected with it — only it must be coniined 
 to the domestic circle. Hence the daughters of Philip, Acts xxi. 9, 
 notwithstanding that rule, could act as prophetesses, unless we assume 
 that this was an instance which Paul would have censured. 
 
 ' This name in a general sense wa? applied to others who published 
 divine truth in an extensive sphere of labour. 
 
 ^ This name does not imply that they occupied themselves with 
 collecting and compiling narratives of the life of Christ ; for the name 
 fiiayyeKLOv originally denoted nothing else than the whole announce- 
 ment of the salvation granted through Christ to men, and this an- 
 nouncement embraced the whole of Christianity. As this announcement 
 rests on a historical basis, Christ as the Redeemer is the object of it j 
 and thus the later-derived meaning is formed in which this word is 
 specially applied to the histories of the Life of Christ. According to 
 the original Christian phraseology, the term could only denote one 
 whose calling it was to publish the doctrine of salvation to men, and 
 thereby to lay a foundation for the Christian church ; on the contrary, 
 tne SiSdiTKaXos presupposed faith in the doctrine of salvation, and a 
 church already founded, and employed himself in the further training 
 in Christian knowledge. The use of the word evayyfKun^s in 2 Tim. 
 iv. 5, favours this interpretation, and this original Christian phraseology 
 was continued in later ages, although a more modern meaning of the 
 word evcxyyiXiov was connected with it. — Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii. c. 37-
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 149 
 
 tiiken out of their body, the cihdtrKaXoi. If sometimes the 
 vpocpFiTai are named next to the apostles and set before the 
 evangelists and the cilaaKuXoig, such teachers must be meant 
 in whom that inward condition of life, from which wpocprirevtiv 
 proceeded, was more constant, who were distinguished from 
 other teachers by the extraordinary liveliness and steadiness 
 of the Christian inspiration, and a peculiar originality of their 
 Christian conceptions which were imparted to them by special 
 diroKaXv\htLQ of the Holy Spirit ; and indeed these prophets, 
 as is evident from their position between the apostles and 
 evangehsts, belonged to the class of teachers who held no 
 office in any one church, but travelled about, to publish the 
 gospel in a wider circle. 
 
 As it regards the relation of the ciMfTKaXoi to the TrpeajSv- 
 repoi or kiviaKOTroi, we dare not proceed on the supposition, 
 that they always remained the same from the first establishment 
 of Christian chvirches among the Gentiles, and therefore 
 during the whole of Paul's ministry, a period so important 
 for the development of the church ; and hence we are not 
 justified to conclude, from the characteristics we find in the 
 later Pauline Epistles, that the relation of these orders was 
 the same as existed from the beginning in the Gentile 
 churches. If we find several things in earlier documents 
 which are at variance with these characteristics, the supposi- 
 tion must at least appear possible, that changes in the con- 
 dition of the churches, and the experiences of the first period, 
 had occasioned an alteration in this respect ; and it is an 
 utterly unfounded conclusion, if, because traces of such an 
 altered relation are found in an epistle ascribed to Paul, any 
 one should infer that such an epistle could not have been 
 written in the Pauline period. The first question then is. 
 What was the original relation 1 If we proceed on the sup- 
 position, which is founded on the Pastoral Letters, that the 
 lihdaKaXoi belonged to the overseers of the churches, two 
 cases may be imagined ; either that all the presbyters or 
 bishops held also the office of teachers ; or, that some among 
 them, according to their peculiar talent {-^npiajjia), were 
 specially employed in the management of the outward guid- 
 ance of the church (the icvfiipvrjcnc), and others with the 
 internal guidance of the word (the ci^a(TKaXia). we shall thus 
 hsive Trp£ff3vTeooi Kvfiepyuivreg^TToiuivEg Silid irpecjjjvTeoot hi^ua-
 
 150 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 i^oi'rec = ^(.^dffKaXoi. The first case certainly cannot be ad- 
 mitted, for the ■)(api(Tfia of Kvfiepvrjaic is SO decidedly distinct 
 from the -^^cipiaixa of lilaaKaXia, as in common life the talent 
 for governing and the talent for teaching are perfectly 
 distinct from one another. And according to the original 
 institution the pecvdiar office corresponded to the peculiar 
 charism. But since in the latter part of the Pauline period, 
 those presbyters who were equally capable of the office of 
 teachers as well as governors, were especially commended, it 
 is evident that this was not originally the case with all. But 
 neither have we sufficient reason for considering the second 
 case, as the original relation of these several offices. Since 
 the -^^apiafia of TrpocrTfjiai or Kvfiepvq.v (in the First Epistle to 
 the Corinthians xii. 28, and in the Epistle to the Romans 
 xii. 8), is so accurately distinguished from the talent of 
 teaching, — and since these two characteristics, the Trpocrriivai 
 and the Kvftepv^v, evidently exhaust what belonged from the 
 beginning to the office of presbyter or bishop, and for which 
 it was originally instituted, we are not obliged to conclude 
 that the ciodaKokoL belonged to the class of overseers of the 
 church. 
 
 In the Epistle written at a late period to the Ephesiaua 
 (iv. 11), the TToinivEQ and ^iMerKaXoi are so far placed toge- 
 ther, that they are both distinguished from those who pre- 
 sided over a general sphere of labour, but yet only in that 
 respect. Now the term ttoz/ze'vec denotes exactly the office 
 of rvilers of the church, the presbyters or bishops ; it there- 
 fore does not appear evident that we should class the 
 ci^dtTKuXoi with them. On the other hand, the term 
 TTOLfxivEQ might be applied not improperly to BiMaKaXoi, 
 since in itself, and from the manner in which the image 
 of a shepherd is used in the Old Testament and by Christ 
 himself, it is fitted to denote the guidance of souls by the 
 office of teaching. Paul also classes hEayi) with those 
 addresses which are not connected with holding a particular 
 office (1 Cor. xiv. 26), but what every one in the church 
 who had an inward call, and an ability for it, was justified 
 in exercising. 
 
 It might also happen, that in a church after its presbytery 
 had already been established, persons belonging to it might 
 come forwai'd, or new members might be added, who, in con
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 151 
 
 sequence of theii* previous education, distinguislied themselves 
 in the office of teaching, even more than the existing presbyters, 
 which would soon be evident fi-om the addi-esses thej' delivered 
 when the church assembled. At this season of the first free 
 development of the Christian life, would the charism granted 
 to such persons be neglected or repressed, merely because they 
 did not belong to the class of presbyters 1 There were, as it 
 appears, some members of the church in whose dwellings a 
 portion of them used to assemble, and this depended probably 
 not always on the convenient locality of their residence, but 
 on their talent for teaching, which w\as thus rendered availa- 
 ble ; as Aquila, who though he resided sometimes at Rome, 
 sometimes at Corinth, or at Ephesus, always wherever he took 
 up his abode had a small congregation or church in his own 
 house. ()) ei^kXtjctui if Tu o'iica) avTov.)^ Thus originally the 
 office of overseer of the church might have nothing in common 
 
 * The occurrence of such private churches is- made use of by Kist and 
 Bauer as an argument for their opinion, that originally in the larger 
 cities there were only insulated particular churches, under their own guid- 
 ing presbyters, which were formed in various parts, and at a subsequent 
 period were united into one whole. But the Epistles of the apostle 
 Paul give the clearest evidence that all the Christians of one city 
 originally formed one whole church. Yet we may easily suppose that 
 some parts of the church, without separating themselves from the whole 
 body and its guidance, held particular meetings in the house of some 
 person whose locality was very suitable, and who acted as the SiSda-KaXos 
 for the edification of such small assemblies. Thus it may be explained 
 how Aquila and Priscilla, while they sojourned at Rome, or Corinth, or 
 Ephesus, might have such a small Christian society in their own house. 
 'Yet it does not seem right to consider these as absolutely separate and 
 distinct churches; for we could not suppose that such a company of 
 believers would be waiting for the arrival of a person like Aquila, who 
 so often changed his residence; they must have had a fixed place of 
 assembling, and their appointed overseers, (a presbyter or bishop, ac- 
 cording to that supposition.) In 1 Cor. xvi. 20, the church, forming 
 one whole (all the brethren), is expressly distinguished from any such 
 partial assembly. In Rom. xvi. 23, a brother is mentioned, in whose 
 house the whole church held their meetings. In Coloss. iv. 15, after a 
 salutation to the whole church, an individual is specified and included 
 in the salutation, at whose house such private meetings were held. But 
 it may be questioned whether in such places as Rom. xvi. 14, 15 
 
 ("Salute Asyncritus and the brethren that are ivilh them.'' 
 
 " Salute Philologus and all the saints that are with them,") meet- 
 ings of this kind are intended, or only those persons who, on account of 
 their family ties or connexions in business, lived in intimacy with ona 
 another.
 
 152 • CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 with the communication of instruction. Although the over- 
 seers of the chiurch took cognisance not only of the good 
 conduct of its members, but also of that which would be con- 
 sidered as forming its basis, the maintenance of pure doctrine, 
 and the exclusion of error; and though from the beginning 
 care would be taken to appoint persons to this ofl&ce who had 
 attained to maturity and steadiness in their Christian princi- 
 ples, it did not follow that they must possess the gift of teach- 
 ing, and in addition to their other labours occupy themselves 
 in public addresses. It might be, that at first the diSaaKuXia 
 was generally not connected with a distinct office, but that 
 those who were fitted for it came forward' in the public as- 
 sembhes as diddcTKaXoi ; until it came to pass that those who 
 were specially furnished with the ycip'-'^h-"- ^^ ^thuffKaXia, of 
 whom there woidd naturally be only a few in most churches, 
 were considered as those on whom the stated delivery oi 
 instruction devolved. In the Epistle to the Galatians (vi. 6), 
 Paul may be thought to intimate' that there were already 
 teachers appointed by the chm'ch, who ought to receive their 
 maintenance fi.'om them. But the question arises, whether 
 these words relate to the ciMcricaXoi, or to the itinerant 
 £vayyeXi(Trai ; also, whether the passage speaks, not of any 
 regular- salary, but of the contributions of free love, by which 
 the immediate wants of these missionaries were relieved. At 
 aU events, — which would also be confirmed by this latter 
 
 1 Even after the reasons alleged by Schott against this interpretation, 
 in his commentary on this Epistle, I cannot help considering it as the 
 only natural one. And I cannot agree with the other, according to 
 which the Tracriv ayaOoh is understood in a spiritual sense, (following 
 the example of their teachers in all that is good.) I cannot suppose 
 tliat Paul, if he wished to admonish the Galatians to follow the example 
 of their teachers in the Christian life, would have expressed himself in 
 so obscure and spiritless a manner. As to the objection against the first 
 interpretation, that it does not suit the connexion, I cannot admit its 
 correctness. The exhortations to gentleness and humility in social in- 
 tercourse, introduce the series of special exhortations, v. 26. vi. 6, 
 where the Se marks the continued development, a new exhortation 
 follows, namely, that they should be ready to communicate of their 
 earthly goods to their teachers ; then ver. 7, that they must not think of 
 reaping the fruits of the gospel, if their conduct was not formed agree- 
 ably to it ; if they, with all their care directed only to earthly things, 
 neglected such a duty towards those who laboured for the salvation of 
 their souls.
 
 USAGES OP THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS, 153 
 
 passage., in case it is understood of dicdaicaXoi, these were and 
 continued to be distinct from the overseers of the church in 
 general, although in particular cases the talents of teaching 
 and governing were connected, and the presbyter was equally 
 able as a teacher. 
 
 At a later period, when the piu'e gospel had to combat with 
 manifold en-ors, which tlu-eatened to corrapt it — as was 
 especially the case during the latter period of Paul's ministry, 
 — at this critical period it was thought necessary to unite 
 more closely the offices of teachers and overseers, and with 
 that view to take care that overseers should be appointed, 
 who would be able by their public instructions to protect the 
 church from the infection of false doctrine, to establish others 
 in purity of faith, and to convince the gainsayers ; Tit. i. 9 ; 
 and hence he esteemed those presbyters who laboured hkewise 
 in the office of teaching, as deserving of special honour. 
 
 We have already remai'ked, that only females were ex- 
 cluded from the right of speaking in the public meetings of 
 the church. But yet the gifts peculiar to their sex might be 
 made available for the outward sei-vice of the church, in 
 rendering assistance of vaiious kinds, for which women are 
 peculiarly fitted ; and according to existing social habits, a 
 deacon in many of his official employments might excite sus- 
 picion in reference to his conduct towards the female members 
 of the church ; but it was desii'able by all means to guard 
 against such an imputation on the new rehgious sect, of which 
 men were easily inclined to believe evil, because it was new 
 and opposed to the popular faith. Hence the office of 
 deaconess was instituted in addition to that of deacon, proba- 
 bly first in the chm-ches of Gentile Christians. Of its institu- 
 tion and natm-e in the apostolic age we have no precise 
 information, since we find it explicitly mentioned in only one 
 passage of the New Testament ; Rom. xvi. 1. In modern 
 times, indeed, what Paul says in 1 Tim. v. 3 — 16, of the 
 widows who received their maintenance from the church, has 
 been apphed to these deaconesses. And many quahfications 
 which he requires of those who were to be admitted into the 
 number of the widows (v. 10), and which appear to contain 
 a reference to their special employments, as attention to 
 strangers and the care of the poor, are in favour of the sup- 
 position. But since Paul only distinguished them as persona
 
 154 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 supported by the cliurch,' without mentioning any active 
 sen^ice as devolving upon them ; since he represents them aa 
 persons who, as suited their age and condition, were removed 
 from all occupation with earthly concerns, and dedicated their 
 few remaining days to devotion and prayer ; and since, on the 
 contrary, the office of deaconess certainly involved much active 
 employment ; we have no ground whatever for finding in this 
 passage deaconesses, or females out of whose number deacon- 
 esses were chosen. ^ What Paul says in the passage quoted 
 above of the deaconess of the church at Cenchrea, appears by 
 no means to agree with what is said in the First Epistle to 
 Timothy, concerning the age and destitute condition of 
 widows. "We must rather imagine such females to be among 
 those widows who, after presenting a model in discharging 
 their duties as Christian wives and mothers, would now 
 obtain repose and a place of honour in the bosom of the 
 church, where alone they could find a refuge in their loneli- 
 ness; and by their devotional spiritual life, set an edifying 
 example to other females; perhaps also they might be able to 
 communicate to such of their sex as sought their advice, the 
 results of their Christian experience collected in the course of 
 a long Ufe, and make a favourable impression even on the 
 Gentiles. Hence it would natm-ally be an occasion of scandal, 
 if such persons quitted a life of retirement and devotion, and 
 showed a fondness for habits that were inconsistent with 
 their matronly chai-acter. At all events, we find here an ec- 
 clesiastical arrangement of later date, which is also indicated 
 by other parts of the Epistle. 
 
 The consecration to offices in the chvirch was conducted in 
 the following manner. After those persons to whom its per- 
 
 • I do not perceive how Bauer can trace in the 5th chapter of the First 
 Epistle to Timothy, that at that time the name x^?"' "^^^ applied to 
 young unmarried females, in reference to their station in the church, 
 which would be among the marks of a writing composed at a later 
 period. The ovtccs x'ig*' JQ v. 5, are the truly destitute, who could find 
 relief only in the church for their loneliness, contrasted with the widows 
 mentioned in verse 4, who were supported by their own relations, in- 
 stead of being a burden to the church. The xngo^^ H'^H-ovwfj.ei'ii, verse 5, 
 where the Kal is to be understood explicative. 
 
 * The supposition, that in v. 9 mention is made of a different class of 
 iridows than those in v. 3, appears to me utterly untenable. A com- 
 parison of V. 16 with V. 4 and 8, plainly shows that this whole section 
 relates to the same subject.
 
 rSAGES OP THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 155 
 
 formance belonged, had laid their hands on the head of the 
 candidate, — a symbolic action borrowed from the Jewish 
 nrnCj — they besought the Lord that he would grant, what 
 this symbol denoted, the impartation of the gifts of his Spirit 
 for carrying on the office thus undertaken in his name. If, 
 as was presumed, the whole ceremony corresponded to its 
 intent, and the requisite disposition existed in those for whom 
 it was performed, there was reason for considering the com- 
 munication of the spiritual gifts necessary for the office, 
 as connected with this consecration performed in the name of 
 Christ. And since Paul from this point of \'iew desig-nated 
 the whole of the solemn proceechng, (without sepai'ating 
 it into its various elements,) by that which was its external 
 symbol (as in scriptural phraseology, a single act of a trans- 
 action, consisting of several parts, and sometimes that which 
 was most striking to the senses, is often mentioned for the 
 whole) ; he required of Timothy that he should seek to revive 
 afresh the spiritual gifts that he had received by the laying on 
 of hands. 
 
 Respecting the election to ofi&ces in the church, it is evident 
 that the first deacons, and the delegates who were authorized 
 by the church to accompany the apostles, were chosen from 
 the general body ; 2 Cor. viii. 19. From these examples, we 
 may conclude that a similar mode of proceeding was adopted 
 at the appointment of presbytei*s. But fi*om the fact that 
 Paul committed to his disciples Timothy and Titus (to whom 
 he assigned the organization of new churches, or of such as 
 had been injm-ed by many corruptions), the appointment 
 likewise of presbyters and deacons, and called their attention 
 to the quahfications for such offices, we are by no means 
 iustified in concluding that they performed all this alone 
 without the cooperation of the chm-ches. The manner in 
 which Paul was wont to address himself to the whole church, 
 and to take into account the cooperation of the whole com- 
 munity, which must be apparent to every one in reading his 
 Epistles, — leads us to expect, that where a church was akeady 
 estabUshed, he would admit it as a party in their common 
 concerns. It is possible, that the apostle himself in many 
 cases, as on the founding of a new chm-ch, might think it 
 advisable to nominate the persons best fitted for such offices, 
 and a proposal fi'om such a quarter would naturally carry the
 
 156 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 greatest weight with it. In the example of the family cf 
 Stephanas at Corinth, we see that those who first undertook 
 office in the church, were members of the family first con- 
 verted, in that city. 
 
 It was also among the churches of the Gentile Chiistians 
 that the peculiar nature of the Christian worship was fully 
 expressed in the character of their cultus. For among the 
 Jewish Chi-istians the ancient forms of the Jewish cultus 
 were still retained, though persons of this class who were 
 deeply imbued with the spirit of the gospel, and hence had 
 acquired the essence of inward spiritual worship, which is 
 limited to no place or time, — were made free as it regai'ded 
 their inward life from the thraldom of these forms, and had 
 learned to refine these forms by viewing them in the light of 
 the gospel. Such persons thought that the powers of the 
 future world which they were conscious of having received, 
 would still continue to operate in these forms belonging to the 
 ancient economy, until that future world and the whole of its 
 new heavenly economy would amve, by means of the return 
 of Christ to complete his kingdom, — a decisive era which 
 appeared to them not far distant. On the contrary,- among 
 the Gentiles the free spiritual worship of God developed 
 itself in direct opposition to Judaism and the attempts to 
 mingle Judaism and Christianity. According to the doc- 
 trine of the apostle Paul, the Mosaic law in its whole extent 
 had lost its value as such to Christians ; nothing could be a 
 rule binding on Christians on account of its being contained 
 in the Mosaic law ; but, whatever was binding as a law for 
 the Christian life, must as such derive its authority from 
 another quarter. Hence a transference of the Old Testament 
 command of the sanctity of the Sabbath to the New Tes- 
 tament standing-point was not admissible. Whoever con- 
 sidered himself subject to one such command, in Paul's 
 judgment again placed himself under the yoke of the whole 
 law ; his inwa)'d life was thereby brought into servitude to 
 outward earthly things, and sinking into Jewish nationalism, 
 denied the universalism of the gospel ; for on the standing- 
 point of the gospel, the whole life became in an equal manner 
 related to God, and served to glorify him, and thenceforth no 
 opix>sition existed between what belonged to the world and 
 Avhat belonged to God. Thus all the days of the Christian
 
 USAGES OP THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 157 
 
 life must be equally holy to the Lord; hence Paul says 
 to the Galatian Christians, who had allowed themselves to be 
 80 far led astray as to acknowledge the Mosaic law as binding, 
 and to observe the Jewish feasts, " After that ye have known 
 God, or rather (by his pitying love), have been led to the 
 knowledge of God, how turn ye again' to the weak and 
 beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bond- 
 age ]"^ Gal. iv. 9. He fears that his labours among them to 
 make them Christians had been in vain, and for this very 
 reason, because they reckoned the observance of certain days 
 as holy to be an essential part of religion. The apostle does 
 not here oppose the Christian feasts to the Jewish, but ht 
 considers the whole reference of religion to certain days as 
 something foreign to the exalted standing-point of Christian 
 freedom, and belonging to that of Judaism and Heathenism. 
 With a similar polemical view (in Ooloss. ii. 16) he declares 
 his opposition to those who considered the observation of cer- 
 tain days as essential to religion, and condemned those who 
 did not observe them. Although, in the Epistle to the 
 Romans, xiv. 1 — 6, he enjoins forbearance towards such in 
 whom the Christian spirit was not yet developed with true 
 
 ^ Thus he spoke to those who had formerly been heathens ; for 
 although in other points Judaism might be considered as opposed to 
 heathenism, yet he viewed as an element common to both, the cleaving 
 to outward forms. 
 
 ^ I have translated this passage according to the sense ; more lite- 
 rally it would be, — " or rather are known by God," — Living in estrange- 
 ment from him, they lived in spiritual darkness, in ignorance of God 
 and of divine things ; but now by the mercy of God revealing itself f 
 them, they obtained living communion with him, and the true know- 
 ledge of him. After Paul had contrasted their present standing-point 
 of divine knowledge with that of their former ignorance, he corrects 
 himself, in order not to let it be imagined that they were indebted 
 simply to the exercise of their own reason for this knowledge of God, 
 and represents in strong terms, that they were indebted for every thing 
 to divine grace, the grace of redemption. Therefore, they were guilty 
 of ingratitude, in not making use of the knowledge vouchsafed to them 
 by the grace of God. Had it been possible for Paul, according to the 
 idiom of the Greek, to mark by a passive form of the same word 
 yivdlxTKeiv, the contrast between a received knowledge imparted by God, 
 and a knowledge gained by the exercise of the mental powers alone, he 
 would for that purpose have used the passive form. This, indeed, the 
 laws of the Greek language did not permit ; but yet the passive form, 
 according to his customary Hellenistic idiom, gave him an opportunity 
 to mark the contrast which he had in his mind still more strongly
 
 158 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 freedom, yet he certainly considers it as the most genuine 
 Christianity, to think every day aUke, to hold none as 
 peculiarly sacred to the Lord; the KpivEiv irdaav rjfxepay — fit) 
 (ppovtlf KvpiiD rrjr rifiepav. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that Paul in such passages entirely 
 rejects even festive obsei-vances, as they were considered 
 among Gentiles and Jews as something absolutely essential to 
 religion, and does not even mention any days which might 
 be expressly sacred in a freer method, and suited to Chris- 
 tianity, Christian feasts properly so called. So far was he 
 from thinking that on the Christian standing-point there 
 could be days which could in any manner bear a resemblance 
 to what in the Jewish sense was a feast, or that it was neces- 
 sary to set apart any day whatever as specially to be observed 
 by the church ! From such passages we may conclude, that, 
 in the Gentile churches, all days of the week were considered 
 alike suitable for the service of the church ; and that all pre- 
 ference of one day to another was regarded as quite foreign 
 to the genius of the gospel. 
 
 A perfectly unquestionable and decided mention of the 
 ecclesiastical observance of Sunday among the Gentile Chris- 
 tians, we cannot find in the times of the Apostle Paul, but 
 there are two passages which make its existence probable. 
 If what Paul says, 1 Cor. xii. 2, relates to collections which 
 were made at the meetings of the church, it would be 
 evident from this passage that at that time the Sunday was 
 specially devoted to such meetings. But Paul, if we examine 
 his language closely, says no more than this : that every one 
 should lay by in his own house on the first day of the week, 
 whatever he was able to save. This certainly might mean, 
 that every one shovdd bring with him the sum he had saved 
 to the meeting of the chm-ch, that thus the individual con- 
 tributions might be collected together, and be ready for Paul 
 as soon as he came. But this would be making a gratuitous 
 supposition, not at all required by the connexion of the 
 passage.' We may fairly understand the whole passage 
 to mean, that every one on the first day of the week should 
 lay aside what he could spare, so that when Paul came, every 
 one might be prepared with the total of the sum thus laid 
 
 * The word e-na-avpi^wv, 1 Cor. xvi. 2, applied to setting aside the 
 Bmall sums weekly, is against the notion of a public collection.
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 159 
 
 by, aud then, by putting the sums together, the collection of 
 the whole church would be at once made. If we adopt this 
 interpretation, we could not infer that special meetings of the 
 church were held and collections made on Sundays. And if 
 we assume that, independently of the influence of Christianity, 
 the Jewish reckoning by weeks had been adopted among the 
 heathen in the Roman Empire ; stiU in this passage we can 
 find no evidence for the existence of a religious distinction of 
 Sunday. But since we are not authorized to make this 
 assumption unless a church consisted for the most part 
 of those who had been Jewish Proselytes,' we shall be led to 
 infer that the religious observances of Sunday occasioned its 
 being considered the first day of the week. It is also 
 mentioned in Acts xx. 7, that the church at Troas assembled 
 on a Sunday and celebrated the Lord's Supper. Here the 
 question arises, whether Paul put off his departure fi'om 
 Troas to the next day, because he wished to celebrate the 
 Sunday with this church — or whether the church met on 
 the Sunday (though they might have met on any other 
 day), because Paul had fixed to leave Troas on the follow- 
 ing day. 
 
 At all events, we must deduce the origin of the religious 
 observance of Sunday, not from the Jewish-Christian churches, 
 but from the peculiar cu'cumstances of the Gentile Christians, 
 and may account for the practice in the following manner. 
 Where the circumstances of the chiu-ches did not allow of 
 daily meetings for devotion and agapse — although in the 
 natm-e of Christianity no necessity could exist for such a dis- 
 tinction — although on the Chiistian standing-point aU days 
 were to be considered as 'equally holy, in an equal manner 
 devoted to the Lord — yet on account of pecuhar outward 
 relations, such a distinction of a particular day was adopted 
 for religious communion. They did not choose the Sabbath 
 which the Jewish Christians celebrated, in order to avoid the 
 risk of mingling Judaism and Christianity, and because 
 another event was more closely associated with Christian 
 sentiments. The sufFeringsand resurrection of Christ appeared 
 as the central point of Christian knowledge and practice ; 
 gince his resurrection was viewed as the foundation of all 
 Christian joy and hope, it was natural that the day which 
 1 See Ideler's Chronologie, i. 180.
 
 160 CONSTITUTION OP THE CHURCH. 
 
 was connected with the remembrance of this event, should be 
 specially devoted to Christian communion. 
 
 But if a weekly day was thus distinguished in the churches 
 of Gentile Christians, still it is very doubtful that any yearly 
 commemoration of the resurrection was observed among them. 
 Some have endeavoured to find in 1 Cor. v. 7, a reference to 
 a Clu'istian passover to be celebrated in a Christian sense 
 with a decided reference to Christian truth : but we can find a 
 reference only to a Jewish passover, which was still celebrated 
 by the Jewish Christians. When Paid was writing those 
 words, the Jews and Jewish Christians were present to his 
 imagination, as on the fourteenth of Nisan, they carefidly 
 searched every comer of their houses, lest any morsel of 
 leaven should have escaped their notice. This practice of 
 outward Judaism he applies in a spiritualized sense to 
 Chi'istians. " Purify yourselves from the old leaven (the 
 leaven of your old nature, which still cleaves to you from 
 your old corruption), that you may become a new mass 
 (meaning renewed and justified human natui-e), and as it 
 were unleavened ; that is, purified by Christ from the leaven 
 of sin, as elsewhere Paul represents purification from sin, the 
 being dead to sin as connected with the death of Christ,' for 
 Christ has been offered as our paschal lamb : they ought ever 
 to remember that true paschal lamb, by whose offering they 
 were truly freed from sin ; the Jewish passover was hence- 
 forth wholly useless. Therefore, as men purified from sin by 
 Christ our paschal lamb, let us celebrate the feast, not after 
 the manner of the Jews, who swept the leaven out of their 
 houses, but retained the leaven of old corruption in their 
 hearts — but let us so celebrate it that we may be a mass 
 purified in heart from the leaven of sin." In all this, there 
 is evidently no reference to the celebration of a Christian 
 passover among Gentile Christians, but only the contrast of 
 
 ' This is no doubt the simplest interpretation of the words KaOdis 
 tare &^vfjioi, " as ye are unleavened," purified as redeemed persons, for 
 ever from the '^vim ttjs afxafnias. But, if with Grotius, we understand 
 the words according to the analogy of the Greek &iriTos, &oivos, " as ye 
 eat no leaven," and thus are equivalent to, " as ye celebrate the feast of 
 unleavened bread, or the Passover," still this may be understood only of a 
 spiritual passover; for otherwise it would not agree with that which is 
 afterwards adduced as a reason, and it would also be implied, that the 
 Gentile Christians had refrained from leavened bread at Easter, which 
 Paul, on his principles, could not have allowed.
 
 USAGES OF THE GBNTILB CHRISTIANS. 161 
 
 the spiritual passover, comprehending the whole life of the 
 redeemed, with the merely outward Jewish feast. ' 
 
 The celebration of the two symbols of Chi-istian commu- 
 nion, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, belonged to the un- 
 changeable plan of the Christian church, as framed by its 
 Divine Founder ; these rites were to be recognised equally 
 by Jews and Gentiles, and no alteration would be made in 
 reference to them by the peculiar formation of ecclesiastical 
 life among the Gentiles ; we need therefore to add little to 
 what we have before remarked. In Baptism, entrance into 
 communion with Christ appears to have been the essential 
 point ; thus persons were united to the spiritual body of 
 Christ and received into the communion of the redeemed, 
 the church of Christ; Gal. iii. 27; 1 Cor, xii. 13. Hence 
 baptism, according to its characteristic marks, was designated 
 a baptism into Christ, into the name of Christ, as the acknow- 
 ledgment of Jesus as the Messiah was the original article of 
 faith in the apostolic church, and this was probably the most 
 ancient^ formula of baptism, which was still made use of 
 even in the third century (see my Church History, vol. i. 
 p. 546). The usual form of submersion at baptism, practised 
 by the Jews, was transferred to the Gentile Christians. 
 Indeed, this form was the most suitable to signify that whinh 
 Christ intended to render an object of contemplation by such 
 a symbol ; the immersion of the whole man in the sjiirit of a 
 new life. But Paul availed himself of what was accidental to 
 the form of this symbol, the twofold act of submersion and 
 of emersion, to which Christ certainly made no reference at 
 the institution of the symbol. As he found therein a reference 
 to Chi'ist Dead, and Christ Risen, the negative and positive 
 aspect of the Christian life — in the imitation of Christ to die 
 to all ungodliness, and in communion with him to rise to a 
 new divine life, — so in the given form of baptism, he made 
 use of what was accessory in order to renresent, by a sensible 
 
 ' If we supposed that these words related to an Easter-feast, cele- 
 brated among the Gentile Christians, it would follow that they cele- 
 brated this feast at the same time as the Jews, and then it would hardly 
 be possible to explain the rise of the disputes relative to the time of 
 observing Easter. 
 
 ' In the Shepherd of Hermas (visio iii. c. 7), in Fabriccii Cod. apocr 
 Nov. Test. p. 804, it is said, baptizavi in nomine Domini. 
 
 VOL, I. H
 
 162 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 mage, the idea and design of the rite in its connexion with 
 the whole essence of Christianity. 
 
 Since baptism marked the entrance into communion with 
 Cnrist, it resulted from the nature of the rite, that a confes- 
 sion of faith in Jesus as the Redeemer would be made by the 
 person to be baptized ; and in the latter part of the apostolic 
 age, we may find indications of the existence of such a prac- 
 tice. ' As baptism was closely united with a conscious 
 entrance on Christian communion, faith and baptism were 
 always connected with one another ; and thus it is in the 
 highest degi-ee probable that baptism was performed only in 
 instances where both cordd meet together, and that the 
 practice of infant baptism was unknown at this period. We 
 
 ' These indications are such as will not amount to incontrovertible 
 ce^taintJ^ We find the least doubtful reference in 1 Pet. iii. 21, but 
 the interpretation even of this passage has been much disputed. If the 
 words are understood in this sense, " a question according to a good 
 conscience in relation to God, by means of the resurrection of Christ," 
 a question proposed at baptism might be inferred from it, of which the 
 purport would be, whether a person believed in the resurrection of 
 Christ, as the pledge of the forgiveness of sins granted to him, and 
 hence would think of God in this faith with a good conscience. Bu', 
 Winer against such an interpretation of the passage justly objects, that 
 in this case, the answer given by the candidate as an expression of his 
 confession of his faith, of what peculiarly related to salvation, and not 
 the question, must have been mentioned. Yet Winer's explanation (in 
 his Grammar) in reference to the word i-rreponjjixa, — the seeking of a 
 good conscience after God, — although inipwriu eis in the Hellenistic 
 idiom, as the passage adduced by Winer shows, may have this meaning 
 — does not appear the most natural. If Paul had wished to say this, 
 would he not have preferred using the form firepdrricris 1 And might 
 it not be said against this interpretation, that the apostle would have 
 represented that which saved at baptism, not the seeking after God, 
 but the finding God through Christ, the longing for communion with 
 him, according to the analogy of scriptural representations on this 
 8ul)ject] 
 
 But what Peter wished particularly to point out, was the spiritual 
 character of the whole baptismal rite, in opposition to a mere outward 
 sensible purification. This spiritual character might be pointed out by 
 the question proposed at baptism, which referred to the spiritual reli- 
 gious object of the rite, and the question is alluded to instead of the 
 answer, because it precedes and is that which gives occasion to the 
 answer, and thus the first interpretation may be justified. 
 
 The second trace of such a baptismal confession is found in 1 Tim. 
 vi. 12, but it is not quite evident, that a confession of this kind is 
 intended ; it might be only one which Timothy had given from the free 
 impulse of feeling, when he was set apart to be the associate of Paul in 
 publishing the gospeL
 
 USAGES OF THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 163 
 
 cannot infer the existence of infant baptism from the instance 
 of the baptism of whole famihes, for the passage in 1 Cor. 
 xvi. 15, shows the fallacy of such a conclusion, as from that it 
 appeai-s that the whole family of Stephanas, who were bap- 
 tized by Paul, consisted of adults. That not till so late a 
 period as (at least certainly not earlier than) Irenseus, a trace 
 of infant baptism appeai-s, and that it first became recognised 
 as an apostolic tradition in the course of the third centmy, is 
 evidence rather against than/o?' the admission of its apostolic 
 origin ; especially since, in the spirit of the age when Christ- 
 ianity appeared, there were many elements which must have 
 been favom-able to the introduction of infant baptism, — the 
 same elements from which proceeded the notion of the magical 
 effects of outward baptism, the notion of its absolute neces- 
 sity for salvation, the notion which gave rise to the mythus 
 that the apostles baptized the Old Testament saints in Hades. 
 How very much must infant baptism have corresponded with 
 such a tendency, if it had been favoured by tradition ! It 
 might indeed be alleged, on the other hand, that after infant 
 baptism had long been recognised as an apostolic tradition, 
 many other causes hindered its universal introduction, and the 
 same causes might still earlier stand in the way of its spread, 
 although a practice sanctioned by the apostles. But these 
 causes could not have acted in this manner, in the post- 
 apostolic age. In later times, we see the opposition between 
 theory and practice, in this respect, actually coming forth. 
 Besides, it is a different thing, that a practice which could not 
 altogether deny the marks of its later institution, although at 
 last recognised as of apostolic founding, could not for a length 
 of time pervade the life of the church ; and that a practice 
 really proceeding from apostolic institution and tradition, 
 notwithstanding the authority that introduced it, and the 
 circumstances in its fixvour arising from the spirit of the times, 
 should yet not have been generally adopted. And if we wish 
 to ascertain from whom such an institution was originated, we 
 should say, certainly not immediately from Christ himself. 
 Was it from the primitive church in Palestine, from an 
 injunction given by the earlier apostles? But among the 
 Jewish Christians, circumcision was held as a seal of the 
 covenant, and hence, they had so much less occasion to make 
 use of another dedication for their children. Could it then
 
 1G4 CONSTITUTION OP THE CHURCH. 
 
 have been Paul, who first among heatlien Christians intro- 
 duced this alteration by the use of baptism. But this would 
 agree least of all with the pecvdiar Christian characteristics of 
 this apostle. He who says of himself that Christ sent him not 
 to baptize, but to preach the gospel ; he who always kept his 
 eye fixed on one thing, justification by faith, and so carefully 
 avoided every thing which could give a handle or support to 
 the notion of a justification by outward things (the (rapKiKo.) — 
 how could he have set up infant baptism against the circum- 
 cision that continued to be practised by the Jewish Chris- 
 tians] In this case, the dispute can-icd on with the Judaizing 
 party, on the necessity of circumcision, would easily have 
 given an opportunity of introducing this substitute into the 
 controversy, if it had really existed. The evidence arising 
 from silence on this topic, has therefore the greater weight. ' 
 
 ' If it could be shown, that at this time there was a practice of ad- 
 ministering to living persons a substitutionary baptism for the dead, an 
 interpretation of 1 Cor. xv. 19, which has been lately advocated by 
 Kiickert — this would stand in striking contradiction with the absence 
 of infant-baptism. If so unconditional a necessity was ascribed to out- 
 ward baptism, and such a magical power for the salvation of men, as to 
 have occasioned the introduction of such a practice, from such a stand- 
 ing-point men must have been brought much sooner to the practice of 
 infant-baptism. But although the explanation here proposed arises 
 from the most natural interpretation of the words, I cannot assent to it, 
 since it does not satisfy other conditions of a correct exegesis. What 
 idea can we form of such a practice of substitutionary baptism"! Was it 
 that persons hoped by means of it to save their deceased friends and 
 relatives, and those who had remained far from the faith 1 But since at 
 that time such stress was laid on the necessity of repentance and faith, 
 we are at a loss to conceive how such an error and abuse could gain ac- 
 ceptance. The supposition of this necessity lies at the foundation of the 
 mythus of the baptism administered in Hades to the saints of the Old 
 "•Testament. We might rather suppose that if persons who had become 
 oelievers died before they could fulfil their resolution of being baptized, 
 a substitutionary baptism would be made use of for them. But 
 in such cases, it would have been more consonant to a superstitious 
 adherence to an outward rite, that they should have hastened to impart 
 baptism to the dying, or even to the dead, and we find traces of both 
 these practices in later times. Of a substitutionary baptism, on the 
 contrary, no trace can be found, with the exception of the single passage 
 in Paul's writings. An improper appeal has been made on this point 
 to TertuUian. He says, de Iti^urrectione Carnis, c. 48, only what he 
 believed was to be found in these words of Paul, without referring to 
 any other quarter. In his work against Marcion, v. 10, he also refers to 
 thir> passage, and such a substitutionary baptism appeared to him a» 
 somewhat analogous to the heatlienish purgations for the dead on th#
 
 USAGES OP THE GENTILE CHRISTIANS. 165 
 
 We find, indeed, in one passage of Paul, 1 Cor. vii. 14, a trace, 
 that already the children of Christians where distinguished 
 from the children of heathens, and might be considered in a 
 certain sense as belonging to the church, but this is not 
 deduced from their having partaken of baptism, and this 
 mode of connexion with the church is rather evidence against 
 the existence of infant baptism. The apostle is here treating 
 of the sanctifying influence of the communion between parents 
 and children, by which the children of Christian parents would 
 be distinguished from the children of those who were not 
 Christian, and in virtue of which they might in a certain sense 
 be termed d'yia, in contrast with the a\a0apra. ' But if infant 
 baptism had been then in existence, the epithet tlyici, applied 
 to Christian children, would have been deduced only from this 
 sacred rite by which they had become incoqjorated with the 
 Christian church. But in the point of view here chosen by 
 Paul, we find (although it testifies against the existence of 
 infant baptism) the fundamental idea from which infant 
 baptism was afterwards necessarily developed, and by which it 
 
 1st of February, the Fehruationes. He thought it important to remark, 
 that Paul could not have approved of such a practice. " Viderit insti- 
 tutio ista. Kalendae si forte Februariae respondebunt illi : pro mortuis 
 petere. Noli ergo apostolum novum statim auctorem aut confirma- 
 torem ejus denotare, ul tanto magis sisteret carnis resurrectionem, 
 quanto illi qui vane pro mortuis baptizarentur, fide resurrectionis hoc 
 facerent." And he himself afterwards proposes another interpretation 
 of the passage, according to which there is no allusion to a substitu- 
 tionary baptism. Later uneducated Marcionites in Syria had, most 
 probably from this passage of St. Paul's, adopted a practice altogether 
 at variance with the spirit of Marcion. Besides, we might suppose that 
 Paul employed an argumentum ad hominem, and adduced a supersti- 
 tious custom as evidence of a truth lying at the foundation of Christian 
 knowledge. But still it is difficult to suppose that Paul, who so zealously 
 opposed all dependence on outward things, and treated it as the worst 
 adulteration of the gospel, should not from the first have expressed 
 himself in the strongest terms against such a delusion. 
 
 * The immediate impressions — which proceed from the whole of the 
 intercourse of life, and by means of the natural feeling of dependence of 
 children on their parents, pass from the latter to the former— have a far 
 stronger hold than the effects of instruction, and such impressions may 
 begin before the ability for receiving instruction in a direct manner 
 exists. These impressions attach themselves to the first germs of con- 
 sciousness, and on that account, the commencement of this sanctifying 
 influence cannot be precisely determined. See De Wette's excellent re- 
 marks in the Studicn und Kritiken, 1839. Part iii. p. 671.
 
 166 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 must be justified to agree with Paul's sentiments ; an indica- 
 tion of the preeminence belonging to childi'en born in a 
 Christian community ; the consecration for the kingdom of 
 God which is thereby granted to them, an immediate sanc- 
 tifying influence which would communicate itself to their 
 earliest development. ' 
 
 As to the celebration of the Holy Supper, it continued to 
 be connected with the common meal, in which all as members 
 of one family joined, as in the primitive Jewish church, and 
 agreeably to its first institution. In giving a history of the 
 Corinthian church, we shall have occasion to speak of the 
 abuses which arose from the mixture of ancient Grecian cus- 
 toms with the Christian festival. 
 
 The publication of the gospel among the heathen, was desti- 
 tute of those facilities for its reception, which the long-con- 
 tinued expectation of a Redeemer as the promised Messiah 
 gave it among the Jews. Here was no continuous succession 
 of witnesses forming a revelation of the hving God, with which 
 the gospel, as already indicated and foretold by the law and 
 prophets among the Jews, might connect itself. Still the 
 annunciation of a Redeemer found its point of connexion in 
 the universal feeling adhering to the very essence of human 
 nature — the feeling of disunion and guilt, and as a conse- 
 quence of this, though not brought out with distinctness, a 
 longing after redemption firom such a condition ; and by the 
 mental development of these nations, and their political con- 
 dition at that period, sentiments of this class were more 
 
 * The words in 1 Cor. vii. 14, maybe taken in a twofold manner. If 
 we understand with De Wette the vnuy as applied to all Christians — 
 (which the connexion and the use of the plural render probable) — then 
 the apostle infers that the children of Christians, although not incorpo- 
 rated with the church, nor yet baptized, might be called a-yto (which is 
 De Wette's opinion), and thus what we have remarked in the text 
 follows as a necessary consequence. But if we admit that Paul is 
 speaking of the case of married persons, in which one party was 
 a Christian, and the other a heathen, and that from the sanctification of 
 the children of such a marriage, he infers the sanctification of the whole 
 marriage relation — which thought perfectly suits the connexion — then 
 it would appear that Paul deduces a sanctification of the children 
 by their connexion with the parents, but not from their baptism, for the 
 baptism of children, in these circumstances, could, in many instances, 
 be hardly performed. If an infant baptism then existed, he could not 
 call the children of such a mixed marriage S.yta, in the same sense aa 
 the children of parents who were both Christians.
 
 USAGES OF THE GEXTILE CHRISTIANS, 167 
 
 vividly felt, while the feeling of disunion (in man's own 
 powers, and between man and God) was manifested in the pre- 
 vailing tendency towards dualistic views. The youthful con- 
 fidence of the old world was constantly giving way to a feeling 
 of disunion and sadness excited by the more powerful sense of 
 the law wTitten on the heart, which, like the external iaw 
 given to the Jews, was destined to giiide the Gentiles to the 
 Saviour. The gospel could not be presented in the relation 
 it bore to Judaism, as the completion of what ah-eady existed 
 in the popular religion; it must come forth as the antagonist 
 of the heathenish deification of nature, and could only attach 
 itself to the truth lying at the foundation of this enormity, 
 the sense, namely, in the human breast of a hidden, unknown 
 deity ; it was necessary to announce Christianity as the reve- 
 lation of that God in whom, by virtue of their divine original, 
 men " lived and moved and had their being," but of whom, in 
 consequence of their estrangement from him by sin, they had 
 only a mysterious sense as an unknown and distant divinity. 
 Under this aspect it might also be represented as a completion 
 of that which was implanted by God in the original constitu- 
 tion of man, as the final aim of this indistinct longing. Also, 
 in relation to all that was tnily natural, belonging to the ori- 
 ginal nature of man, and not founded in sin, it might be truly 
 asserted, that Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfil. And 
 here certainly the Gentiles were placed in a more advantageous 
 position than the Jews ; they were not exposed to the tempta- 
 tion of contemplating Cliristianity only as the completion of 
 a rehgious system already in existence, and of disowning its 
 purpose of producing an entire transformation of the life ; for 
 to a convert from heathenism, Christianity presenting itself it. 
 direct opposition to the whole of his former religious standing 
 point, must necessarily appear as something altogether new 
 and designed to effect an entire revolution. Meanwhile, al- 
 though Cln'istianity must have at first presented itself as 
 opposed to the existing elements of Hfe in heathenism ; ye* 
 Christians who continued to live in intercourse ■with heathen 
 among their old connexions, were so raiich the more exposBi^ 
 in a practical view to the infection of a corrupt state of morals, 
 till their Christian life became firmly established. And 
 although the peculiar position of the Gentiles did not expose 
 them so much as the Jews to pervert the gospel into an opus
 
 168 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 operatum, and thus to misuse it as a cloak for immorality, still 
 such an error might arise, not from the influence of Judaizing 
 teachers, but fi'om the depraved condition of human nature. 
 It is evident that Paul deemed it necessary emphatically to 
 guard and warn them against it. ^ 
 
 Another danger of a different kind threatened Christianity 
 when it found its way among the educated classes in tlie seats 
 of Grecian learning. Since in these places the love of know- 
 ledge predominated, and sui-passed in force all the other fun- 
 damental tendencies of human nature ; since men were disposed 
 to cultivate intellectual eminence to the neglect of morals, and 
 Cln-istianity gave a far wider scope than heathenism to the 
 exercise of the mental powers ; since in many respects it 
 agreed with those among the Grecian philosophers, who rested 
 their opposition to the popular religions on an ethical basis ; 
 the consequence was, that they made Christianity, contrary to 
 its nature and design, chiefly an exercise of the understand- 
 ing, and aimed to convert it into a philosophy, thus subordi- 
 nating the practical interest to the theoretical, and obscuring 
 the real genius of the gospel. The history of the further 
 spread of Christianity among the heathen, and of individual 
 churches founded among them, will give us an opportunity of 
 developing this fact, and setting it in a clearer light. We 
 now proceed to the second missionary jom'uey of the apostle 
 Paul. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL. 
 
 After Paul a;id Barnabas had spent some time with the 
 church at Antioch, they resolved to revisit the churches 
 founded in the course of their former missionary journey, and 
 then to extend their labours still further. Barnabas wished 
 to take his nephew Mark again with them as a companion, 
 but Paul refused his assent to this proposal, for he could not 
 
 • The Kevol \6yoi, against which Paul warns the Ephesians, (v. 6.)
 
 Paul's second misi^ionary journey. 169 
 
 excuse his having allowed attachment to home to render him 
 unfaithful to the Lord's service, and deemed one who was not 
 ready to sacrifice every thing to this cause as unfitted for 
 such a vocation. We see on this occasion the severe earnest- 
 ness of Paul's character, which gave up, and wished others to 
 give up, all personal considerations and feelings where the 
 cause of God was concerned ; he never allowed himself to be 
 tempted or seduced in this respect by his natural attachment 
 to the nation to whom he belonged.' The indulgence shown 
 by Barnabas to Mark might proceed either from the peculiar 
 mildness of his Christian character, or from a regard to the 
 ties of relationship not yet suflnciently controlled by the power 
 of the Christian spirit. That such human attachments had 
 too much influence on Barnabas, is shown by his conduct 
 at Antioch on the occasion of the conference between Peter 
 and Paul. Thus a sudden difference arose between two men 
 who had hitherto laboured together in the work of the Lord, 
 which ended in their separation from one another, and 
 thus it was shown, that these men of God were not free 
 from human weakness ; but the event proved that even this 
 circumstance contributed to the extension of the kingdom 
 of God, for, in consequence of it, the circle of their labours 
 was very greatly enlarged. Barnabas now formed a sphere 
 of action for himself, and first of all visited with Mark 
 his native country Cyprus, and then most probably devoted 
 himself to preach the gospel in other regions. For that 
 he remained in his native country unemployed in missionary 
 sei'vice, not only his laboiu-s up to this time forbid our 
 supposing, but also the terms in which Paul speaks of him at 
 a later period (1 Cor. ix. 6) as a well-known and indefatigable 
 preacher of the gospel. Paul's severity towards his nephew 
 was probably of service to Mark in leading him to a sense of 
 his misconduct, for he afterwards continued faithful to his 
 vocation. This separation was in the issue only temporary, 
 for we afterwards find Barnabas, Paul, and Mark, in close 
 connexion with one another, although Barnabas appears 
 
 ^ In the TrpuTov of Rom. i. 16, we cannot, with RUckert, find marks 
 of this national attachment not entirely overcome. This irpSnov cor- 
 responds with the necessary historical development of the theocracy. 
 The supposition is also excluded by the application of irpwTou in 
 Rom. ii. 9.
 
 170 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 always to have retained a separate independent sphere of 
 action. In his stead Paul took Silas as his fellow-labourer. 
 
 From the beginning of his ministry, it was a fixed principle 
 with Paul, as he himself tells us in Rom. xv. 20, and 
 2 Cor. X. 16, to form his own field of labour for the pro- 
 pagation of the gospel, and not to trespass on that of any 
 other person ; instead, therefore, of betaliing himself first to 
 Cyprus, as on former occasions, he travelled throiigh the 
 neighbouring parts of Syria to Cilicia, Pisidia, and the towns 
 in which he had laboured on his first journey. In the town 
 of Lystra,' he found a young man named Timothy, who, by 
 the instructions of his mother, a pious Jewess, but married to 
 a heathen, had received religious impressions, which had an 
 abiding effect. His mother was converted when Paul first 
 visited that town, and young Timothy also became a zealous 
 confessor of the gospel. The report of his Cliristian zeal had 
 spread to the neighbouring town of Iconium. In the church 
 to which he belonged, the voices of prophets announced that 
 he was destined to be a distinguished agent in spreading the 
 
 ' I must here differ from the opinion I expressed in the first edition. 
 In Acts xvi. 1, the iKel, if there are no reasons for the contrary, is most 
 naturally understood of the place last mentioned, Lystra ; and since 
 the favourahle testimony to his character given liy the brethren at 
 Lystra and Iconium is mentioned, we may presume, with some con- 
 fidence, that one of these towns was his native place : for it is not pro- 
 bable that wh?,t those who knew him best said of him should be passed 
 over, though it is barely possible that the testimony of persons living in 
 the nearest towns to his own might be adduced. In Acts xx. 4, tlie 
 approved reading is rather for than against this supposition ; for 
 if Timothy had been a native of Derbe, the predicate Atpfiaios would 
 not have been applied to rd'ios alone, but Luke would have written 
 AepjSaTos Se rd'ios koI TkfioOfhs or Taios koI TifjLoBehs Aepfia7oi. But it is 
 surprising that, in this passage, Timotiiy stands alone without the men- 
 tion of his native place, and that in Acts xix. 29, Aristarchus and Gains 
 are named together as Macedonians and companions of Paul. Hence it 
 might be presumed, that the predicate AepPa7os had been misplaced, 
 and ought to stand after Timothy's name. Aristarchus, Secundus, and 
 Gaius, would then be named as natives of Thessalonica, and Timothy of 
 Derbe. But if we adopt this view, then Acts xvi. 1, 2, must be 
 differently explained. But still it is not probable that the more easy 
 reading could be altogether removed to make way for one more diflScult. 
 So common a name as Gaius might easily belong to a Christian 
 at Derbe and to another from Macedonia, as we find it borne also by 
 an approved Christian residing at Corinth. Rom. xvi. 23, 1 Cor. i. 14; 
 and Timothy's native place might be omitted because he was the best 
 known of all Paul's associates.
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 171 
 
 gospel. It gratified Paul to have a zealous youth with him, 
 who could assist him on his missionary journeys, and be 
 trained for a preacher under his direction. He seconded the 
 voices that thus called on Timothy, and the young man him- 
 self was prepared by his love to their common Lord, to 
 accompany his faithful servant every where. As by his 
 descent and education he belonged on one side to the Jews, 
 and on the other to the Gentiles, he was so much the more 
 fitted to be the companion of the apostles among both. And 
 in order to bring him nearer the former, Paul caused him to 
 be cu'cumcised, by which he forfeited none of the publicly 
 acknowledged rights of the GentUe Christians ; for being the 
 son of a Jewess, and educated in Judaism, he could with 
 more propriety be claimed by the Jews. 
 
 After Paul had visited the churches already founded in this 
 district, he proceeded to Phrygia. Of course he could not, either 
 on this or on a later joiimey, publish the gospel in all the 
 threescore and two ^ towns of the populous province of Phiygia. 
 He must have left much to be accomplished by his pupils, 
 such, for instance, as Epaphras at Colossse, who afterwards 
 founded a church there, and in the towns of Hiei-apolis and 
 Laodicea.^ Thence he directed his com-se northward to 
 
 ' This is the number stated in the sixth century by Hierocles, author 
 of the ^vvfKS-qixos, or a " Traveller's Companion," which gives an 
 account of the provinces and towns of the Eastern Empire. 
 
 2 I cannot agree with the opinion of Dr. Schulz, brought forward in 
 the Studien und Kritihen, vol. ii. part 3, which is also advocated by 
 Dr. Schott in his Isagoge, that Paul himself was the founder of these 
 churches. I cannot persuade myself that, if the Colossians and Laodi- 
 ceans had received the gospel from the lips of the apostle, he would 
 have placed them so closely in connexion with those who were not per- 
 sonally known to him, without any distinction, as we find in Coloss. ii. 1 ; 
 since, in reference to the anxiety of the apostle for the churches, it 
 always made an important difference whether he himself had founded 
 them or not. The ocrot would have been used too indefinitely, if its 
 meaning had not been fixed by what preceded ; from which it appears, 
 that those churches of Phrygia are referred to, which, like the churches 
 at Colossae and Laodicea, had not been founded by Paul himself. And 
 how can it be supposed that, in an epistle to a church founded by him- 
 self, he would never appeal to what they had heard from his own lips, 
 but only to the announcement of the gospel, which they had heard from 
 others] and that he should speak not of what he himself had seen and 
 heard among them, but only of what had been reported to him by 
 others respecting their state ] The acute remarks of Wiggers, in the 
 Studien und Kritiken, 1838, part i. p. 171, have not induced me to
 
 172 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 Galatia. As many Jews resided in this province, he addressed 
 himself probably first to these, and to the proselytes who 
 worshipped with them in the synagogues. But the ill-treat- 
 ment he met with among the Jews prepared an opening for 
 him to the Gentiles, by whom he was received with great 
 affection. 
 
 Paul had to maintain a severe conflict with bodily suffering, 
 as appears from many allusions in his epistles, where he speaks 
 of his being given up to a sense of human weakness. Nor is 
 this surprising, for as a Pharisee, striving after the righteous- 
 ness of the law, he had certainly not spared his own body. 
 After he had found salvation by faith in the Redeemer, and 
 had attained the freedom of the evangelical spirit, he was, it 
 is true, very far from a tormenting castigation of his body, 
 and from legal dependence on works ; he expresses the most 
 
 alter my opinion on this point. The explanation he gives of the words 
 in Coloss. ii. 1, " also for those (among the Christians in Colossae and 
 Laodicea) who have not known me personally," appears to me not so 
 natural as the common one, which I follow. Jf Paul had intended to 
 eay this, he would hardly have failed to limit Scot by adding tifiwu. If 
 the Kol in verse 7 is also to be retained, yet I do not find any intimation 
 conveyed by it that they had received instruction from another teaicher, 
 but only a reference to what preceded, that they had received from 
 Epaphras the same gospel of the divine grace which had been published 
 throughout the world. But, from external evidence, I cannot help con- 
 sidering the KOI as suspicious ; — the frequent repetition of it in the pre- 
 ceding part, and the observable reference to v. 6, might easily occasion 
 the insertion of such a koI. But if the koI is spurious, it appears much 
 more clearly that Epaphras, not Paul, was the teacher of this church. 
 He is called (virhp rj/u-wv Siolkovos) a servant of Christ in Paul's stead, 
 because Paul had given over to him the office of proclaiming the gospel 
 in the three cities of Phrygia which he himself could not visit. It is 
 not clear to me that Paul, in ii. 5, may not have used the word direiixi 
 to denote his bodily absence in opposition to his spiritual presence 
 among them, although he did not mean that he had been once among 
 them, and was now removed to a distance from them. It still appears 
 to me remarkable, that — if he wrote some years after his presence 
 among them — there should be no allusion to his personal intercourse 
 with them, especially in an epistle to a church which was in so critical 
 a state ; to whom it was so important to evince his love and care for 
 them, and to exhort faithfully to keep the instructions they had received 
 from him ; and especially, if he had the opportunity of commending 
 Epaphras to them, as the person who had carried on the work which he 
 had begun, he would so much the more have stated explicitly, that 
 Epaphras taught no other doctrine than what they had at fir.st received 
 from himself, that he would only raise the superstructure on the 
 foundation laid by himself.
 
 I'aul's second missionary journey. 173 
 
 decided opposition to everything of tlie kind, in langnage 
 which exhibits him to us as independent of all outward 
 circumstances, with a spirit that freely subordinated and 
 appropriated all that was extei-nal to an infinitely higher 
 object. Such are those memorable words which testify such 
 consciousness of true freedom • " I know both how to be 
 abased, and I know how to abound : everywhere and in all 
 things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, 
 both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things 
 through Christ that strengtheneth me." Philip, iv. 12, 13. 
 But his new vocation allowed him still less to spare himself, 
 since he laboured hard with his own hands for a livelihood, 
 while he exerted his powers both of mind and body to the 
 utmost in his apostolic ministry ; he had so many dangers to 
 undergo, so many hardships and sufferings to endm'e, under 
 which a weak body might soon sink. Yet with the sense of 
 human weakness, the conscioasness waxed stronger of a might 
 surpassing everything that human power could effect, a divine 
 all-conquering energy which proved its efficiency in the 
 preaching of the gospel and in him as its instrument ; and he 
 could perfectly distinguish this divine power from all merely 
 human endowments. Under a sense of human weakness, he 
 became raised above himself, by that inward glory which 
 beamed upon him in those communications of a higher world 
 with which he was honoured. He considered a peculiarly 
 oppressive pain which constantly attended him, and checked 
 the soaring of his exalted spirit, as an admonition to humility 
 given him by God, as a counterpoise to those moments of 
 inward glorification which were vouchsafed him. And he 
 informs us, that after he had prayed thrice to the Lord, to 
 free him from this oppressive pain, an answer by a divine 
 voice — either in vision or in pure inward consciousness — was 
 granted him — that he must not desire to be freed from that 
 which deepened the sense of his human weakness, but must 
 be satisfied with the consciousness of the divine grace im- 
 parted to him ; for the power of God proved itself to be truly 
 8uch, even in the midst of human weakness.' 
 
 ' I cannot agree with those who think that Paul, in 2 Cor. xii. 7, 
 where he alludes to something that constantly tormented him like a 
 piercing thorn which a person carries about in his body, only intended 
 to signify his numerous opponents. Certainly we cannot be justified
 
 174 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 He experienced the truth of this especially during his 
 ministry in Galatia. His body was bowed down through 
 debility, but the divine power of his words and works, so 
 strikingly contrasted with the feebleness of the material 
 organ, made a powerful impression on susceptible disposi- 
 tions. Under these circumstances, the glowing zeal of self- 
 sacrificing love which amidst his own sutferings enabled him 
 to bear everything so joyfully for the salvation of others, 
 must have attracted the hearts of his hearers with so much 
 gi'eater force, and excited that ardent attachment to his person 
 which he so vividly describes in Gal. iv. 14. " Ye received 
 me as an angel of God, even as Jesus Christ." 
 
 The Galatian churches were formed of a stock of native 
 Jews, and partly of a great number of Proselytes, for whom 
 Judaism had become the transition-point to Christianity, and 
 of persons who passed immediately from heathenism to 
 Christianity ; and with the Gentile portion of the church, 
 some Jews connected themselves who were distinguished from 
 the great mass of their unbelieving countrymen by their 
 susceptibility for the gospel. But by means of those who 
 were formerly proselytes and the Jewish Christians in the 
 churches, an intercourse with the Jews was kept up, and 
 hence arose those disturbances in these churches of which we 
 shall presently speak. 
 
 On leaving Galatia, Paul was at first uncertain in what 
 direction to turn, since new fields of labour opened to him on 
 different sides. At one time, he thought of going in a south- 
 westerly direction, to Proconsular Asia, and afterwards of 
 passing in a northerly direction to Mysia and Bithynia ; but 
 either by an inward voice or a vision he received a monition 
 
 in saying, that Paul meant nothing else than what he mentions in the 
 10th verse ; for in this latter passage, he only applies the general truth 
 — which the divine voice had assured him of in reference to the parti- 
 cular object before mentioned — to everything which might contribute 
 to render him sensible of his human weakness. This application of the 
 principle, and the peculiar phraseology of Paul; lead us to suppose that 
 he meant to indicate something quite peculiar in the first passage. We 
 cannot indeed suppose that he would pray to be delivered from such suf- 
 ferings as were essentially and indissolubly connected with his vocation. 
 But we must conclude that his prayers referred to something altogether 
 personal, which affected him not as an apostle, but as Paul ; though it 
 would be absurd, in the total absence of all distinguishing marks, to 
 attempt to determine exactly what it wts.
 
 PAULS SECOND MISSIONARY JOURXET. 175 
 
 from the Divine Spirit, which caused him to abandon both 
 these plans. Having formed an intention of passing over to 
 Europe, but waiting to see whether he should be withheld or 
 encouraged by a higher guidance, he betook himself to Troas ; 
 and a nocturnal vision, in which a Macedonian appeared 
 calling in behalf of his nation for his aid, confirmed his reso- 
 lution to visit Macedonia. At Troas, he met with Luke the 
 physician, perhaps one of the Proselytes, who had been con- 
 verted by him at Antioch, and who joined his band of com- 
 panions in missionary labour. His medical skill would be 
 serviceable on many occasions for promoting the publication 
 of the gospel among the heathen. ' The first Macedonian city 
 in which they stayed was Philippi, a place of some import- 
 ance. The number of Jews here was not sufiicient to enable 
 them to establish a synagogue. Probably there were only 
 Proselytes, who had a place for assembling surrounded with 
 trees, on the outside of the city, near the banks of the 
 Strymon, where they performed their devotions and the 
 necessary lustrations, a so-called irpocrevxiiJ If addresses 
 founded on passages in the Old Testament were not delivered 
 here as in the Jewish synagogue, and if Paul could not avail 
 himself of such a custom for publishing the gospel ; still the 
 Proselytes (especially females) assembled here on the Sabbath 
 for prayer, and he would here meet those persons who were 
 in a state of the greatest preparation and susceptibility for 
 what he wished to communicate. Accordingly, eai'ly in the 
 morning on the Sabbath, he resorted thither with his com- "^ 
 panions, in order to hold a conversation on rehgious topics 
 with the women of the city who were here assembled for 
 prayer. His words made an impression on the heart of 
 Lydia, a dealer in purple fi*om the town of Thyatira in Lydia. 
 At the conclusion of the seiwice, she and her whole family 
 
 ' We infer that Luke joined Paul at Troas, from his beginning, in 
 Acts xvi. 10, to write his narrative in the first person — " We endeavou-red 
 to go." &c. 
 
 * The expression in Acts xvi. 13, oZ evofii^ero, makes it probable that 
 this TTgoaevx^ was not a building, but only an enclosed place in the open 
 air, which was usually applied to this purpose : compare TertuUian, ad 
 Nationes, i. 13, " The Orationes Literales of the Jews," and DeJejuniis, 
 c. 16, where he speaks of the widely-spread interest taken by the heathen 
 in the Jewish feasts; "Judaicum certe jejunium ubique celebratur; 
 quum omissis templis per omnes libros quocunque in aperto aliquando 
 jam preces ad coelum mittunt."
 
 176 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 were baptized by him, and compelled him by her importunity 
 to take up his abode with his companions in her house.' As 
 in this town there were few or no Jews, the adherents of 
 Judaism consisted only of proselytes ; thus Christianity met 
 in this quarter with no obstinate resistance , and it would 
 have probably gained a still greater number of adherents, 
 without incun-ing the risk of persecution, if opposition had 
 not been excited, owing to the injury done to the pecuniary 
 interests of certain individuals among the Gentiles, by the 
 operation of the divine doctrine. 
 
 There was a female slave who, in a state resembUng the 
 phenomena of somnambulism, was accustomed to answer un- 
 consciously questions proposed to her, and was esteemed to 
 be a prophetess inspired by Apollo ;- as in aU the forms of 
 heathenish idolatry, the hidden powers of natm-e were taken 
 into the sendee of religion.^ This slave had probably fi-equent 
 opportunities of hearing Paul, and his words had left an im- 
 pression on her heart. In her convulsive fits, these impressions 
 were revived, and mingling what she had heard from Paul 
 with her own heathenish notions, she frequently followed the 
 preachers when on their way to the Proseuche, exclaiming, 
 "These men are the servants of the Most High God, who 
 show unto us the way of salvation." This testimony of a 
 prophetess so admired by the people might have availed 
 much to draw their attention to the new doctrine ; but it 
 
 V ' I can by no means admit, with some expositors of the Acts, that all 
 this took place before the beginning of the public exercises of devotion, 
 and that ou the same day, as they were returning from the place where 
 Paul baptized Lydia, the meeting with this prophetess occurred on their 
 way to the Proseuche. Luke's narrative in Acts xvi. 16, does not indi- 
 cate that all these events took place on one day. The assertions of the 
 prophetess make it probable that she had often heard Paul speak. 
 
 ^ On the common notion of the people, that the Pythian Apollo took 
 possession of such fyyaaTgi/nvSovs or irvOuvas, and spoke through their 
 mouth, see Plutarch, De Def. Oraculor. c. 9. Tertullian describes such 
 persons, Apologet. c 23, " qui de Deo pati existimantur, qui anhelando" 
 (in a state of convulsive agony, in which the person felt himself power- 
 fully impelled as by a strange spirit with a hollow voice) "praefantur." 
 
 ^ Thus the oracles of the ancients, the incubations, and similar pheno- 
 jnena in the heathenism of the Society Isles in the South Sea. The 
 Priest of Oro, the God of War, uttered oracles in an ecstatic state of 
 ^^olent convulsions, and, after his conversion to Christianity, could not 
 again put himself in such a state. See, on this subject, the late interest- 
 ing accounts of this mission by Ellis, Bennet, &c.
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 177 
 
 was very foreign from Paul's dispositiou to employ or endure 
 Bueh a mixture of trutli and falsehood. At first, he did not 
 concern himself about the exclamations of the slave. But as 
 she persisted, he at last turned to her, and commanded the 
 spirit which held her rational and moral powers in bondage, 
 to come out of her. If this was not a personal evil spirit, 
 still it was the predominance of an ungodlike spirit. That 
 which constitutes man a free agent, and which ought to rule 
 over the tendencies and powers of his natm-e, was here held in 
 subjection to them. ' And by the divine power of that Saviour 
 who had restored peace and harmony to the distracted souls of 
 demoniacs, this woman was also rescued from the power of such 
 an ungodhke spirit, and coidd never again be brought into that 
 state. When, therefore, the slave could no longer practise her 
 arts of soothsaying, her masters saw themselves deprived of 
 
 * We have no certain marks which will enable us to determine in 
 what light Paul viewed the phenomenon. It might be (though we 
 cannot decide with certainty) that he gave to the heathen notion, that 
 the spirit of Apollo animated this person, a Jewish form, that an evil 
 spirit or demon possessed her. In this case, he followed the universally 
 received notion, without reflecting at the moment any further upon it, 
 for this subject belonging to the higher philosophy of nature, was 
 far from his thoughts. He directed his attention only to the moral 
 grounds of the phenomenon. I am convinced, that the Spirit of truth 
 who was promised to him as an apostle, guided him in this instance to 
 the knowledge of all the truth which Christ appeared on earth to 
 announce, to a knowledge of every thing essential to the doctrine of 
 salvation. By this Spirit he discerned the predominance of the reign 
 of evil in this phenomenon ; and if an invisible power is here thought 
 to be operating, yet what is natural in the causes and symptoms is 
 not thereby excluded, even as the natural does not exclude the super- 
 natural. Compare the admirable remarks of my friend Twesten in the 
 second volume of his Dogmatik, p. 355, and what is said on demoniacs 
 in my Lehen Jesu. This spirit gave Paul the confident belief, that 
 as Christ had conquered and rendered powerless the kingdom of evil — 
 therefore by his divine power every thing which belonged to this king- 
 dom would henceforth be overcome. In this faith, he spoke full of 
 divine confidence, and his word took effect in proportion to his faith. 
 But in the words of Christ, and the declarations of the apostle 
 respecting himself, I find no ground for admitting, that with this light 
 of his Christian consciousness, an error could by no possibility exist, 
 which did not aflfect the truths of the gospel, but belonged to a diflferent 
 and lower department of knowledge ; such as the question, whether we 
 are to consider this as a phenomenon explicable from the nature of the 
 human soul, its natural powers and connexion with a bodily organiza- 
 tion, or an effect of a poisession by a personal evil spirit. 
 
 VOL. I. V
 
 178 Paul's second missionary journey. ' 
 
 the gains "which they had hitherto obtained from this source. 
 Eni'aged, they seized Paul and Silas, and accused them before 
 the civil authorities, the Duumvirs, ' as turbulent Jews, who 
 were attempting to introduce Jewish religious practices into 
 the Roman colony, which was contrary to the Roman laws, 
 though the right was guaranteed to the Jews of practising 
 their national cultus for themselves without molestation. 
 After they had been publicly scourged without further exami- 
 nation, they were cast into prison. The feeling of public 
 ignominy and of bodily pain, confinement in a gloomy prison, 
 where their feet were stretched in a painful manner, and 
 fastened in the stocks [nervus),^ and the expectation of the 
 ill-treatment which might yet await them — all this could not 
 depress their souls ; on the contrary, they were I'ather elevated 
 by the consciousness that they were enduring reproach and 
 pain for the cause of Christ. About midnight they united in 
 offering prayer and praise to God, when an earthquake shook 
 the walls of their prison. The doors flew open, and the fetters 
 of the prisoners were loosened. The keeper of the prison was 
 seized with the greatest alarm, believing that the prisoners 
 had escaped, but Paul and Silas calmed his fears. This earth- 
 quake which gave the prisoners an opportunity of recovering 
 their liberty — their refusing to avail themselves of this oppor- 
 tunity — their serenity and confidence under so many suffer- 
 ings — all combined to make them appear in the eyes of the 
 astonished jailor as beings of a higher order. He fell at their 
 feet, and calling to mind what he had heard from the lips of 
 Paul and Silas respecting the way of salvation announced by 
 them, addressed them in similar language, and inquired what 
 he must do to be saved. His whole family assembled to hear 
 the answer, and it was a joyful morning for all. Whether the 
 Duumvirs had become more favoui-ably disposed by what they 
 had learnt in the mean time respecting the prisoners, or that 
 the jailor's report had made an impression upon them, they 
 authorized him to say that Paul and Silas might depart. 
 
 * The name a-TpuTriyol which is used in the Acts to designate these 
 magistrates, was anciently employed in the smaller Greek cities to 
 designate the supreme authorities. See Aristoteles Politic, vii. 8, ed. 
 Bekker. vol. ii. p. 1322, ev rais fj.iKpaii ■n-oXeiri fiia irepl wdyrwv {apxo)' 
 KaAovat 5e ffTparriyous nal woKefx.dpxovs. 
 
 2 TertuUian ad Martyres, c. 2. " .ifihil crus sentit in nervo, qauin 
 animus in coelo est."
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 179 
 
 Had any thing enthusiastic mingled with that blessed inspirar 
 tion which enabled Paul to endure all shame and all suffering 
 for the cause of the Lord, — he certainly would have done 
 nothing in order to escape disgi'ace, though it might have 
 been without injury and to the advantage of his calling, — or 
 to obtain an apology to which his civil privileges entitled him, 
 for the unmerited treatment he had received. How far were 
 his sentiments from what in later times the morals of monkery 
 have called humility ! Appealing to his civil rights, ' he 
 obliged the Duumvirs, who were not justified in treating a 
 Roman citizen = so ignominiously, to come to the prison, and, 
 as an attestation of his innocence, "nith their own lips to re- 
 lease^ him and his companion. They now betook them- 
 selves to the house of Lydia, where tlae other Christians of 
 the city were assembled, and spoke the last words of encourage- 
 ment and exhortation. They then quitted the place, but Luke 
 and Timothy, who had not been included in the persecution, 
 stayed behind in peace. * Paul left in Philippi a church full 
 of faith and zeal — who shortly after gave a proof of their 
 affectionate concern for him by sending contributions for his 
 maintenance, though he never sought for such gifts, but sup- 
 ported himself by the labour of^his own hands. 
 
 Paid and Silas now directed their course to Thessalonica, 
 about twenty miles distant, the largest city of Macedonia, and 
 a place of considerable traffic, where many Jews resided. 
 Here they found a synagogue, which for three weeks Paul 
 visited on the Sabbath ; the hearts of many proselytes were 
 
 ' See the well-known words of Cicero, Act. II. in Verrem, v. 57. 
 " Jam ilia vox et imploratio civis Romanus sum, quae saspe multis in 
 ultimis terris opem inter barbaros et salutem attulit." 
 
 2 How Paul's father obtained the Roman citizenship we know not. 
 We have no ground for assuming, that Paul was indebted for it to his 
 being born at Tarsus ; for though Dio Chrysostom, in his second \6yos 
 TapatKhs, vol. ii. ed. Reiske, p. 36, mentions several privileges which 
 the Emperor Augustus had granted to the city of Tarsus as a reward 
 for its fidelity in the civil wars, yet it does not appear that Roman 
 citizenship was one of them, and allowing it to have been so, it may be 
 doubted whether it would have been conferred on a foreign Jewish 
 family, to which Paul belonged. 
 
 ' Silas also must have obtained by some means the right of a Roman 
 citizen. 
 
 ■* Timothy rejoined Paul at Thessalonica or Beroea; and Luke at 
 a later period.
 
 180 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 won by his preaching ; and through them a way was opened 
 for pubhshing the gospel among the heathen in the city. 
 From what Paul says in 1 Thess. (i. 9, 10; ii. 10, 11),' we 
 find that he was not satisfied with addressing the proselytes 
 only once a-week at the meetings of the synagogue ; his 
 preaching would then have been confined to the small number 
 of Gentiles who belonged to the proselytes. At the meetings 
 of the synagogue, he could adopt only such a method and form 
 of address, as suited the standing-point of the Jews ; he must 
 have presupposed many things, and many topics he could not 
 develop, which required to be fully investigated, in order to 
 meet the peculiar exigencies of the heathen. But he knew, as 
 we see from several examples, how to distinguish the different 
 standing-points and wants of the Jews and Gentiles ; and hence, 
 we may presume, that he "carefully availed himself of oppor- 
 tunities to make use of these difl^erences. The Gentiles, 
 whose attention was awakened by the proselytes, soon assem- 
 bled in various places to hear him, and from them chiefly a 
 church was formed, professing faith in the one living God, as 
 well as faith in the Redeemer. 
 
 Agreeably to the declarations of Christ (Matt, x, 10, com- 
 pared with 1 Cor. ix. 14), Paul recognised the justice of the 
 requirement, that the maintenance of the preachers of the 
 gospel should be fui'nished by those for whom they expended 
 their whole strength and activity, in order to confer upon 
 them the highest benefit. But since he was conscious that in 
 one point he was inferior to the other apostles, not having at 
 first joined himself voluntarily to the Redeemer, but having 
 been by the divine grace, as it were against his will, trans- 
 formed from a violent persecutor of the church into an apostle, 
 he thought it his duty to sacrifice a right belonging to the 
 apostolic office, in order to evince his readiness and delight in 
 the calhng which was laid upon him by a higher necessity; 
 (1 Cor. X. 16 — 18.) Thus also he found the means of pro- 
 
 ' Schrader in his Chronological Remarks, p. 95, thinks that these 
 passages cannot possibly refer to Paul's first visit to Thessalonica, which 
 must have been a very short one. But there seems nothing improbable 
 in the supposition, that a man of such zeal and indefatigable activity in 
 his calling, would in the space of three or four weeks, effect so much, 
 and leave behind him so vivid an impression of his character and 
 conduct, as is implied in these passages.
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. ' 181 
 
 moting his apostolic laboui-s among the heathen ; for a 
 ministry so manifestly disinterested, sacrificing every thing for 
 the good of others, and undergoing all toils and deprivations, 
 must have won tiie confidence of many, even of those who 
 otherwise wei-e disposed to suspect selfish motives in a zeal for 
 the best interests of others, which they could not appreciate. 
 He must have been more anxious to remove every pretext for 
 such a suspicion, because the conduct of many Jews who were 
 active in making proselytes, was calculated to cast such an 
 imputation on the Jewish teachers in general. The other 
 apostles in their youth, had earned their livelihood by a 
 regular employment, but yet one which they could not follow 
 in every place ; Paul, on the other hand, though destined to 
 be a Jewish theologian, yet according to the maxims prevalent 
 in the Jewish schools,' along with the study of the law, had 
 learned the art of tent-making ; and easily gained a main- 
 tenance by this handicraft, wherever he went, on account of 
 the mode of travelling in the East, and the manifold occasions 
 on which tents' were used. While anxiety for the spiritual 
 wants of the heathen and the new converts to Clii'istianity 
 wholly occupied his mind, he was forced to employ the night 
 in earning the necessaries of hfe for himself and his com- 
 panions (1 Thess. ii. 9 ; Acts xx. 34), excepting as far as he 
 obtained some relief by the affectionate voluntary offerings of 
 the church at Philippi. But to him it was happiness to give 
 to others without receiving any tiling in return from them ; 
 from his own experience, he knew the tinith of the Lord's 
 words, " It is more blessed to give than to receive." Acts xx. 35. 
 The apostle not only publicly addressed the chvirch, but 
 visited individuals in their families, and impressed on their 
 
 * In the Pirke Avoth, c. 2, § 2, ^^n rpi cs rnin Tmbrj rro;, " Beautiful is 
 the study of the law with an earthly employment, by which a man gains 
 his livelihood ;" and the reason alleged is, that both together are pre- 
 ventives of sin, but in their absence, the_'soul is easily ruined, and sin 
 finds entrance. And thus in monasteries, occupation with manual labour 
 had for its object, not simply to make provision for the support of the 
 body, but also to prevent sensuality from mingling with higher spiritual 
 employments. 
 
 2 Philo de Victimis, 836, ed Francof. alywi' 5e airptxis, al Sopal crvvv- 
 (paivSfxevai re koI cv^^airr6ixevai, (poprjral yeySvacriv dSoLirSpois oi/ciot Kol 
 fttiXjcTTo ro7s eVcTTpoTeiais. This tends to show, though it does not prove, 
 that Paul chose this occupation from its being one for which his native 
 country was celebrated ; hence, too, we read of tento7 la Cilicina.
 
 182 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 hearts the fundamental truths of the gospel in private con- 
 versations, or warned them of the dangers that threatened 
 the Christian life.^ He endeavoured to cherish the hopes of 
 believers under the sufferings of their earthly life, by pointing 
 them to the period when Christ would come again to bring his 
 kingdom among mankind to a victorious consummation. This 
 period, for those who were conscious of having obtained re- 
 demption, was fitted to be not an object of dread, but of 
 joyful longing hope. And during the first part of his apostolic 
 course, this decisive event appeared to Paul nearer than it 
 really was. For, in this respect, the times and seasons must 
 remain hidden till the epoch of their fulfilment, as Christ 
 himself declared. Matthew xxiv. 36.^ The first publishers of 
 the gospel were far from thinking, that the kingdom of 
 Christ would gradually, after a tedious process, by its own 
 inward energy, and the guidance of the Lord in the natural 
 developments of events, overcome the opposing powers of the 
 earth, and make them subserve its interests. Although 
 Christ, by the parables in which he represented the progress 
 of his kingdom on earth, had indicated the slowness of its 
 development, as in the parables of the grain of corn, of leaven, 
 of the wheat and the tares ; yet the meaning of these repre- 
 sentations, as far as they were prophetical, and related to the 
 scale of temporal development, could only be rightly under- 
 stood, when explained by the course of events. And herein 
 we recognise the divine intuition of Christ, which could pierce 
 through the longest succession of generations and ages. But 
 the apostles, to whom such an intuition was not granted, 
 thought indeed that, as their Lord had promised, the gospel 
 would spread among all the nations of the earth, by its divine 
 energy pervading and overcoming the world ; but they also 
 believed, that the persecutions of the ruling powers among 
 the Gentiles, would continually become more intense, till the 
 
 * We do not see why the exhortations and warnings given to the 
 Christians at Thessalonica, to which Paul appeals in both his EpistleSj 
 might not have been commimicated during his first residence among 
 tliem ; for would not Paul's wisdom and knowledge of human nature, 
 foresee the dangers likely to arise, and endeavour to fortify his disciplea 
 against them,] Schrader's argument deduced from this circumstance, 
 against the dates commonly oflfered to these two Epistles, does not 
 appear very weighty. 
 
 ^ See Leben Jeeu, pp. 557, 612, 3d ed.
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 183 
 
 Saviour by his divine power should achieve the triumph of 
 the church over all opposing forces. Aad their enthusiasm 
 for the cause of the gospel, the knowledge of its divine 
 all-subduing power, and its rapid propagation in the first 
 age of the chirrch, all contributed to conceal from their 
 human vision, the obstacles which withstood the verification 
 of their Lord's promise ; nor could they even estimate cor- 
 rectly the population of the globe at that period.' Hence it 
 may be explained, how Paul, — notwithstanding his apostolic 
 character and his call to be an instrument for publishing 
 divine truth in unsullied purity — could embrace the issue of 
 all his hopes, the personal indissoluble union with that 
 Saviour whom he once persecuted, and now so ardently loved, 
 with an enthusiastic longing that outstripped the tedious 
 development of history. In this state of mind, he was im- 
 pelled to exert all his powers, in order to hasten the dissemi- 
 nation of the gospel among all nations. It was natural, that 
 the expectation of the speedy return of Christ should operate 
 most vigorously in the first period of his ministiy, while he 
 was yet glowing with youthful inspiration. And thus under 
 the sufferings and shame which he endured at Philij^pi, the 
 anticipation of this divine triumph inspii'ed him so much the 
 more ; for it resulted from the very natiu-e of the divine 
 power of faith, that the confidence and liveliness of his hope 
 increased with the conflicts he was called to endxu-e. Filled 
 with these sentiments, he came to Thessalonica, and with an 
 elevation of feeling, which naturally communicated itself to 
 other minds, he testified of the hope that animated him, and 
 raised him above all earthly sufferings. But as his inspiration 
 was far removed from every mixture of that fanaticism, which 
 cannot separate the subjective feeling and mental views, from 
 what belongs to faith, and the confidence of faith, — he by no 
 means spoke of the nearness of that great event as absolutely 
 determined ; he adhered with modest sobriety to the saying 
 of the Lord, that " it was not for men to know the times and 
 seasons." And with apostohc discretion, he endeavoured to 
 warn the new converts lest, by filling their imaginations with 
 visions of the felicity of the approaching reign of Christ, and 
 
 ' These considerations must be taken into account, when we find 
 Paul declaring in the latter period of his ministry, that the gospel waa 
 published among all the nations of the earth. Co-^ ■ c.
 
 184 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 wrapping themselves in pleasing dreams, they should forget 
 the necessary preparations for the futiire, and for the impend- 
 ing conflict. He foretold them that they had still many 
 sufferings and many struggles to endure, before they could 
 attain the undisturbed enjoyment of blessedness in the king- 
 dom of Christ. 
 
 Though the apostle, in opposition to the pretensions of 
 meritorious works and moral self-sufficiency advanced by 
 Judaizing teachers, earaestly set forth the doctrine of justifi- 
 cation, not by human works which are ever defective, but by 
 appropriating the grace of redemption through faith alone ; 
 yet he also deemed it of importance to warn the new converts 
 against another misapprehension to which a supei-ficial con- 
 version, or a confusion of the common Jewish notions of faith 
 with the Pauline might expose tbem ; namely, the false repre- 
 sentation of those who held that a renunciation of idolatry, 
 and the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah, without the 
 life-transforming influence of such a conviction, was sufficient 
 to place them on a better footing than the heathen, and to 
 secure them from the divine judgments that threatened the 
 heathen world.* He often chai'ged them most impressively, 
 to manifest in the habitual tenor of their lives the change 
 effected in their hearts by the gospel ; and that their crimi- 
 nality would be aggi'avated, if, after they had been devoted to 
 God by redemption and baptism to serve him with a holy 
 life, they returned to their former vices, and thus defiled their 
 bodies and souls which had been made the temples of the 
 Holy Spirit. 1 Thess. iv. 6 ; ii. 12. 
 
 But the speedy and cordial reception which the gospel met 
 with among the Gentiles, roused the fanatical fiuy and 
 zealotry of many Jews, who had already been exasperated by 
 the apostle's discourse in the synagogue. They stinted up 
 some of the common people who forced their way into the 
 house of Jason a Chi-istian, where Paul was staying. But as 
 they did not find the apostle, they dragged Jason and some 
 
 ' These are the vain words, the Kevol \6yot, Eph. v. 6, of which Paul 
 thought it necessary so solemnly to warn the Gentile Christians. Hence, 
 warning them against such a superiicial Christianity, he reminds them 
 that every vicious person resembles an idolater, and would be equally 
 excluded from the kingdom of God — that not merely for idolatry, but 
 for every unsubdued vice, unbelievers would be exposed to the divine 
 condemnation.
 
 Paul's second missicnart journey. 185 
 
 other Christians before the judgment-seat. As on this occa- 
 sion the persecution originated with the Jews, who merely 
 employed the Gentiles as their tools, the accusation brought 
 against the publishers of the new doctrine was not the same 
 as those made at Philippi ; they were not charged, as in other 
 cases, with having disturbed the Jews in the peaceful exercise 
 of their own mode of worship as guaranteed to them by the 
 laws. As Paul had laboured here for the most part among 
 the Gentiles, the grounds were too slight for supporting such 
 an accusation, especially as the civil authorities were not pre- 
 disposed to receive it. At this time, a political accusation, 
 the crimen majestatis, was likely to be more successful, a 
 device that was often employed in a similar way, at a later 
 period, by the enemies of the Christian faith. Paul had 
 spoken much at Thessalonica of the approaching kingdom of 
 Christ, to which believers already belonged ; and by dis- 
 torting his expressions, the accusation was rendered plausible. 
 He instigated people (it was averred) to acknowledge one 
 Jesus as supreme ruler instead of Csesar, But the a.utho- 
 rities, when they saw the persons before them who were 
 charged with being implicated in the conspiracy, could not 
 credit such an accusation ; and after Jason and his friends 
 had given security that there should be no violation of the 
 public peace, and that those persons who had been the alleged 
 causes of this disturbance should soon leave the city, they 
 were dismissed. 
 
 On the evening of the same day, Paul and Silas left the 
 city, after a residence of tliree or four weeks. As Paiil could 
 not remain there as long as the necessities of the newly 
 formed church required, his anxiety was awakened on its 
 behalf, since he foresaw that it would have to endure much 
 persecution from the Gentiles at the instigation of the Jews. 
 He had formed, therefore, the intention of returning thither 
 as soon as the first storm of the popular fuiy had subsided ; 
 1 Thess. ii. 18. Possibly he left Timothy behind, who had 
 not been an object of persecution, unless he met him first at 
 Beroea, after leaving Philippi. Paul and Silas now proceeded 
 to Beroea, a town about ten miles distant, where they met 
 with a better reception from the Jews ; the gospel here found 
 acceptance also with the Gentiles ; but a tumult raised by 
 Jews from Thessalonica forced Paul to leave the place almost
 
 186 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 immediately. Accompanied by some believers from Beroea, 
 he then directed his course to Athens. ' 
 
 Though the consequences which resulted from the apostle's 
 labours at Athens were at first inconsiderable, yet his 
 appearance in this city (which in a different sense fr'om Rome 
 might be called the metropolis of the world), was in real 
 importance unquestionably one of the most memorable signs 
 of the new spiritual creation. A hei'ald of that divine doctrine 
 "R'hich, fraught with divine power, was destined to change the 
 principles and practices ci the ancient world, Paul came to 
 Athens, the parent of Grecian culture and philosophy ; the 
 city to which, as the Grecian element had imbued the culture 
 of the West, the whole Roman world w-as indebted for its 
 mental advancement, which also was the central point of the 
 Grecian rehgion, where an enthusiastic attachment to all that 
 belonged to ancient Hellas, not excepting its idolatry, retained 
 a firm hold till the fourth centm-y. Zeal for the honour of 
 the gods, each one of wdiom had here his temple and his 
 altars, and was celebrated by the master-pieces of art, ren- 
 dered Athens famous throughout the civilized world. - It was 
 at first Para's intention to wait for the arrival of Silas and 
 Timothy before he entered on the publication of the gospel, 
 as by his companions who had returned to Beroea, he had 
 sent word for them to follow him as soon as possible. But 
 when he saw himself suiTounded by the statues, and altars, 
 
 ' It is doubtful whether Paul went by land or by sea to Athens, the 
 ws in Acts xvii. 14, may be understood simplj' as marking the direction 
 of his route. See Winer's G^rammatik, 3d ed. p. 498. (4th ed. p. 559.) 
 Beroea lay near the sea, and this was the shortest. But the i>s may also 
 signify, that they took at first their course towards the sea, in order to 
 mislead the Jews (who expected them to come that way, and were lying 
 in wait for Paul in the neighbourhood of the port), and afterwards 
 pursued their journey by land. So we find on another occasion, when 
 Paul was about to sail from Corinth to Ahia Minor, he found himself in 
 danger from the plots of the Jews, and preferred going by land ; Acts 
 XX. 3. The first interpretation appears to be the simplest and most 
 favoured by the phraseology. The ews adopted by Lachmann [and 
 Tischendorff, Lips. 1841] appears to have arisen from a gloss. 
 
 ^ ApoUonius of Tyana (in Philostratus) calls the Athenians <j>t\odvral. 
 Pausanias ascribes to them {Attic, i. 17), rh els 6fovs eva-ffiuv &Wuv 
 nKeov ; and (c. 24), rh iregKrcrSTfgovTris els rh de7a (tttouStjs. In the reli- 
 gious system of the Athenians, there was a peculiar refinement of moral 
 sentiment, for they alone among the Greeks erected au altar to Pity, 
 t\eos, as a divinity.
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 187 
 
 and temples of the gods, and works of art, by which the 
 honour due to the living God alone was transfeiTed to crea- 
 tures of the imagination — he could not withstand the impulse 
 of holy zeal, to testify of Him who called emng men to 
 repentance and offered them salvation. He spoke in the 
 synagogue to the Jews • and Proselytes, but did not wait as in 
 other cities till a way was opened by their means for pub- 
 lishing the gospel to the heathen. From ancient times it 
 was customary at Athens for people to meet together under 
 covered porticoes in public places, to converse with one 
 another on matters of all kinds, trifling or important ; and 
 then, as in the time of Demosthenes, groups of persons might 
 be met with in the market, collected together merely to hear 
 of something new. ' Accordingly, Paul made it his business 
 to enter into conversation with the passers-by, in hopes of 
 tui'ning their attention to the most important concern of 
 man. The sentiments with which he was inspired had notliing 
 in common with the enthusiasm of the fanatic, who is unable 
 to transport himself fi-om his own peculiar state of feeling 
 to the standing-point of others, in order to make himself 
 acquainted with the obstacles that oppose their reception of 
 what he holds as truth with absolute certainty. Paul knew, 
 indeed, as he himself says, that the preaching of the cracified 
 Saviour must appear to the wise men of the world as foolish- 
 ness, until they became fools, that is, until they were con- 
 vinced of the insufficiency of their wisdom in reference to the 
 knowledge of divine things, and for the satisfaction of their 
 religious wants ; 1 Cor. i. 23 ; iii. 18. But he was not ashamed, 
 as he also affirms, to testify to the wise and to the unwise, to 
 the Greeks and to the barbarians, of what he knew fi'om his 
 own experience to be the power of' God to save those that 
 believe ; Rom. i. 1 6. The market to which he resorted was 
 near a portico of the philosophers. Here he met with philo- 
 sophers of the Epicurean and Stoic schools. If we reflect 
 upon the relative position of the Stoics to the Epicureans^ 
 that the former acknowledged something divine as the 
 animating principle in the universe and in human nature, 
 that they were inspired with an ideal model founded in the 
 
 * As Demosthenes reproaches them in his oration against the epistle 
 of Philip ; Tjixils 5e ouSer -Koiovims ivddSf Kofl^jueOa Kol irvt'davouei'Oi Kara 
 TT]v a'-i^au, iiTi Aeyerai vidiTt^oi' ; Acts xvii. 21.
 
 188 PAULS SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNKY. 
 
 moral nature of man, and that they recognised man's religious 
 wants and the traditions that bore testimony to it ; — while on 
 the other hand, the latter, though they did not absolutely do 
 away with the belief in the gods, reduced it to something 
 inert, non-essential, and superfluous ; that they represented 
 pleasure as the highest aim of human pursuit, and that they 
 were accustomed to ridicule the existing religions as the off- 
 spring of human weakness and the spectral creations of fear ; — 
 we might from such a contrast infer that the Stoics made a much 
 nearer approach to Christianity than the Epicureans. But it 
 does not follow that the former would give a more favom-able 
 reception to the gospel than the latter, for their vain notion of 
 moral self-sufficiency was diametrically opposed to a doctrine 
 which incvdcated repentance, forgiveness of sins, grace, and jus- 
 tification by faith. This supreme God — the impersonal eternal 
 reason pervading the universe — was something very different 
 from the living God, the heavenly Father full of love whom 
 the gospel reveals, and who must have appeared to the Stoics 
 as far too human a being ; and both parties agreed in the 
 Grecian pride of philosophy, which would look down on a 
 doctrine appearing in a Jewish garb, and not developed in 
 a philosophic form, as a mere outlandish superstition. Yet 
 many among those who gathered around the apostle during 
 his conversations, were at least pleased to hear something 
 new ; and their curiosity was excited to hear of the strange 
 divinity whom he wished to introduce, and to be informed 
 respecting his new doctrine. They took him to the hill, 
 where the first tribunal at Athens, the Areopagus, was 
 accustomed to hold its sittings, and where he could easily 
 find a spot suited to a large audience.' The discourse of 
 r*aul on this occasion is an admirable specimen of his apo- 
 stolic wisdom and eloquence : we here perceive how the 
 apostle (to use his own language) to the heathens became a 
 heathen, that he might gain the heathens to Clrristianity. 
 
 Inspired by feelings that were implanted from his youth in 
 the mind of a pious Jew, and glowing with zeal for the honour 
 of his God, Paul must have been horror-struck at the spectacle 
 
 1 The whole course of the proceedings and the apostle's discourse 
 prove that he did not appear as an accused person before his judges, in 
 order to defend himself against the charge of introducing religiones 
 peregrincB et illicitos. The Athenians did not view the subject in v> 
 serious a light.
 
 Paul's secont missionary journey. 189 
 
 of the idolatry that met him wherever he turned his eyes. 
 He might easily liave been betrayed by his feelings into in- 
 temperate language. And it evinced no ordinary self-denial 
 and self-command, that instead of beginning with expressions 
 of detestation, instead of representing the whole religious 
 system of the Greeks as a Satanic delusion, he appealed to the 
 truth which lay at its basis, while he sought to awaken in his 
 hearers the consciousness of God which was oppressed by the 
 power of sin, and thus aimed at leading them to the knowledge 
 of that Saviour whom he came to announce. As among the 
 Jews, in whom the knowledge of God formed by divine revela- 
 tion led to a clear and pure development of the idea of the 
 Messiah, he could appeal to the national history, the law and 
 the prophets, as witnesses of Christ ; so here he appealed to 
 the undeniable anxiety of natural religion after an unknown 
 God. He began with acknowledging in the religious zeal of 
 the Athenians a true reUgious feeling, though erroneously 
 directed, an undeniable tending of the mind towards some- 
 thing divine. ' He begins with acknowledging in a laudatory 
 
 ' Much depends on the meaning attached to the ambignous word 
 SeKTiSaifioov, Acts xvii. 22. The original signification of this word, in 
 popular usage, certainly denoted something good — as is the case in all 
 language with words which denote the fear of God or of the gods — the 
 feeling of dependence on a higher power, which, if we analyse the reli- 
 gious sentiment, appears to be its prime element ; although not exhaust- 
 ing every thing which belongs to the essential nature of theism, and 
 although this first germ, without the addition of another element, may 
 give rise to superstition as well as faith. Now since, where the feeling 
 of fear (5ei\fa ir^hs r6 Saifxoviov, Theophrast.) is the ruling principle in 
 the conscience, superstition alone can be the result, it has happened that 
 this word has been, by an abuse of the term, applied to that perversion 
 of religious sentiment. This phraseology was then prevalent. Thus 
 Plutarch uses the word in his admirable treatise iregl SeKriSaifiovias koI 
 a6e6rTiTos, in which he proceeds on the supposition, that the source of 
 superstition is that mode of thinking which contemplates the gods only 
 as objects of fear ; but he errs in this point, that he traces the origin ot 
 this morbid tendency to a wrong direction of the intellectual faculties. 
 Compare the profound remarks of Nitzsch, in his treatise on the reli- 
 gious ideas of the ancients. The word Seto-tSatjuovt'a occurs in the New 
 Testament only in one other passage, Acts xxv. 19, where the Roman 
 procurator Festus, speaking to the Jewish King Agrippa of Judaism, 
 could not intend to brand it as superstition, but rather used the word as 
 a general designation for a foreign religion. He might, however, choose 
 this word, although not with a special design, yet not quite accidentally, 
 as one which was suited to express the subjective view takSn by the 
 Romans of Judaism. But Paul certainly used the word in a good sense,
 
 190 Paul's second misjjionary journey. 
 
 manner the strength of the rehgious sentiment among the 
 Athenians, ' and adducing as a proof of it, that while walking 
 amongst their sacred edifices, he lighted on an altar dedicated 
 to an unknown God. - 
 
 The inscription certainly as understood by those who framed 
 it, by no means proved that they were animated with the con- 
 ception of an unknown God exalted above all other gods ; but 
 only that according to their belief they had received good or 
 
 for he deduced the seeking after the unknown God, which he doubtless 
 considered aa something good, from this StiatSai/xovia, so prevalent 
 among the Athenians. He announced himself as one who would guide 
 their 5ei(n5atiJ.ovia, not rightly conscious of its object and aim, to a 
 state of clear self-consciousness by a revelation of the object to which it 
 thus ignorantly tended. Still it may be asked, whether Paul had not 
 still stronger reasons (though without perhaps reflecting deeply upon 
 them) for using the word SeiaiSainoyla, instead of another which he was 
 accustomed to use as the designation of pure piety. He uses the term 
 fvaffiuv immediately afterwards, where it plainly indicates the exercise 
 of the religious sentiment towards the true God. 
 
 ' In the comparative SeKTiSatfiovea-rfgovs, a reference is made to the 
 quality which, as we have before remarked, used to be attributed to the 
 Athenians in a higher degree than to all the other Greeks, — a fact which 
 the apostle would easily have learned. 
 
 2 ]f we examine with care all the sccounts of antiquity, and compare 
 the various phases of polytheism, we shall find no sufficient ground to 
 deny the existence of such an altar as is here mentioned by Paul. The 
 inscription, as he cites it, and which proves his fidelity in the citation, 
 by no means asserts that it was an altar to the Unknown God, but only 
 an altar dedicated to an unknown God. Jerome, it is true, in the first 
 chapter of his Commentary on the Epistle of Paul to Titus, and in his 
 Epistola ad Magnum, %\i\x?, cites the inscription of the altar — "Diis 
 Asiae et Europse et Libyee, Diis ignotis et peregrinis ;" and he thinks 
 that Paul modified the form of the inscription to suit his application of 
 it. But Jerome, perhaps here as in other instances, judged too super- 
 ficially. Several ancient writers mention the altars of the unknown 
 gods at Athens, but in a manner that does not determine the form of 
 the inscription. For example ; Pausanias, Attic, i. 4, and Eliac. v. 14, 
 $a)fjLo\ Oewv ovo/xa^op-ivoiv ayudoffrwi/ ; Apollonius of Tyana, in Philostratus, 
 vi. 3, where, like Paul, he finds, in the style of the inscription, an evi- 
 dence of the pious disposition of the Athenians in reference to divine 
 things, that they had erected altars even to unknown gods ; <Tw<j)gove<TTs§op 
 rh -iregl itdvToou 6€uv ev Keyeiv, Kol ravra 'A6i]VTiaiv, ov Koi aypclicrTccv 
 SaifiSuaiv fiojiiol WgwTai. Isodorus of Pelusium, vi. 69, cannot be adduced 
 as an authority, since he merely speaks of conjectures. Diogenes Laertius, 
 in the life of Epimenides HI., that, in the time of a plague, when they 
 knew not i^hat God to propitiate in order to avert it, he caused 
 black and white sheep to be let loose from the Areopagus, and wherevei 
 they laid down to be offered to the respective divinities {r^ wqoaiiKovT
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 191 
 
 evil from some unknown God, and this uncertainty in refer- 
 ence to the completeness of their worship, enters into the 
 very essence of Polytheism, since, according to its nature, it 
 includes an infinity of objects. But Paul cited this inscrip- 
 tion, in order to attach a deeper meaning to it, and to make 
 it a point of connexion, for the purpose of pointing out 
 a higher but indistinct sentiment, lying at the root of Poly- 
 theism. Polytheism proceeds from the feeling of dependence 
 — (whether founded on a sense of benefits conferred or of 
 evils inflicted) — on a higher unknown power, to which it is 
 needful that man should place himself in the right relation ; 
 but instead of following tliis feeling, in order by means of 
 that in human nature which is supernatm-al and bears 
 an affinity to God, to rise to a consciousness of a God exalted 
 above nature, he refers it only to the powers of nature 
 operating upon him through the senses. That by which his 
 religious feeling is immediately attracted, and to which it 
 refers itself, without the reflective consciousness of man 
 making it a distinct object, is one thing : but that which the 
 mind enthralled in the circle of nature — doing homage to 
 the power over which it ought to rule — converts with re- 
 flective consciousness into an object of worship, is another 
 thing. Hence Paul views the whole rehgion of the Athenians 
 as the worship of a God unknown to themselves, and presents 
 himself as a person who is ready to lead them to a clear self- 
 consciousness respecting the object of their deeply felt re- 
 ligious sentiment. 
 
 " I announce to you Him," said he, " whom ye worship, 
 without knowing it.^ He is the God who created the world 
 
 Oea). Hence, says Diogenes, there are still many altars in Athens 
 without any determinate names. Although the precise inscriptions is 
 not here given, yet altars might be erected on this or a similar occasion 
 which were dedicated to an unknown god, since they knew not what 
 god was offended and required to be propitiated, as Chrysostom has also 
 remarked in his 38th homily on the Acts. 
 
 * We see from this how Paul psychologically explains the origin of 
 polytheism, or the deification of Nature ; how far he was from adopting 
 the Jewish notion of a supernatural magical origination of idolatry by 
 means of evil spirits, who sought to become the objects of religious 
 homage. The idea contained in these words of Paul forms also the 
 groundwork of his discourse at Lystra. We may also find a reference 
 to it in what he says, Kom. i. 19, of an original knowledge of God, 
 suppressed by the predominance of immoral propensities ; and Rom,
 
 192 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 and all that is therein. He, the Lord of heaven and earth, 
 dwelleth not in temples made by human hands, he requires 
 no human service on his own account — he, the all-sufficient 
 One, has given to all, life, and breath, and all things. He also 
 is the originator of the whole human race, and conducts its 
 development to one great end. He has caused all the nations 
 of the eaith to descend from one man,' and has not allowed 
 them to spread by chance over the globe ; for, in this respect, 
 every thing is under his control, ho has appointed to each 
 people its dwelling-place, and has ordained the various eras 
 in the history of nations — their development in space and 
 time is fixed by his all-governing wisdum.^ Thus God has 
 revealed himself in the vicissitudes of nations, in order that 
 men may be induced to seek after him — to try whether they 
 could know and find him ; and they might easily know him, 
 since he is not far from any one of us, for in him our whole 
 existence has its root."^ As an evidence of the consciousness 
 
 i. 21, 25, that idolatry begins when religious sentiment cleaves to the 
 creature, instead of rising above nature to the Creator. On the firsi 
 passage, see Tholuck's, and on the second Rlickert's, excellent remarks. 
 
 * This also is probably connected with what he says in opposition to 
 polytheistic views. On the polytheistic standing-point, a knowledge of 
 the unity of human nature is wanting, because it is closely connected with 
 a knowledge of the unity of God. Polytheism prefers the idea of distinct 
 races over whom their respective gods preside, to the idea of one race pro- 
 ceeding from one origin. As the idea of one God is divided into a mul- 
 tiplicity of gods, so the idea of one human race is divided into the mul- 
 tiplicity of national character, over each of which a god is supposed to pre- 
 side corresponding to the particular nation. On the other hand, the idea 
 of one human race, and their descent from one man, is connected with 
 the idea of one God. Thus Paul sets the unity of the theistic con- 
 ceptions in contrast with the multiplicity existing in the deification of 
 nature. The Emperor Julian observed this contrast between the poly- 
 theistic and monotheistic anthropology and anthropogony. See Jtdian, 
 Frayinentum ed. Spanheim, t. i. 295. travraxov a.6p6<jov vtvaavraiv 6eu>v, 
 ol TTKilovs •irpofi\6ov &v6pa>iroi, ro7s yeveipxois fitojs aTroK\r)pcc6fVTfs. 
 
 ^ A peculiar relation of the parts of the earth inhabited by the 
 several nations to their peculiar character, as this is formed by native 
 tendencies and moral freedom ; the secret connexion between nature 
 and mankind ordained by God, and grounded in a higher law of 
 spiritual development. 
 
 ' The apostle's words are — *V avr^ ^aifieu koI Ktvovfj.eOa Kal 4criJ.4v. 
 Many expositors have so explained these words, as if they were intended 
 to denote the continual dependence of existence on God. as the pr& 
 server of all things ; and excepting that «V is taken in an Hebraistic 
 sense = through, we might so understand the words in the pure Greek
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 193 
 
 of this original relationsliip to God, he quotes the words of a 
 heathen, one of themselves, the poet Aratus, who came from 
 the native country of the apostlo. " For we are the oftspring 
 of God." ' After this appeal to the universal higher self-con- 
 sciousuess, he goes on to say ; Since we are the offspring 
 of God, we ought not to believe that the divinity is like any 
 earthly material, or any image of human art. This negative 
 assertion manifestly includes a positive one ; we must strive 
 to rise to the divinity by means of that within us which 
 is related to him. Instead of caiTying on the argument 
 against idolatry, the apostle leaves his hearers to decide for 
 themselves ; and presupposing the consciousness of sin — 
 without attempting to develop it — he proceeds ■with the 
 annunciation of the gospel. After God had with gi'eat long- 
 suffering endured the times of ignorance,^ he now revealed 
 
 idiom, for elvai iv tivl may signify to depend wholly on some one, 
 as iv aol yh.p ea-fifv, in tlie (Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, v. 314. 
 But this explanation does not suit the connexion of the passage ; 
 for Paul evidently is speaking here, not of what men have in common with 
 other creatures, but of what distinguishes men from other creatures, that 
 by which they are especially related to God ; for as an evidence of this, " in 
 him we live, and move, and are," he quotes the words of Aratus, which 
 refer precisely to this relation of man to God. Hence, in order to find the 
 connexion according to this explanation, we must amplify the tliought too 
 artificially ; thus, " We are distinguished above all other creatures in our 
 capacity for knowing this dependence on God." On the other hand, every 
 thing is connected in the most natural manner, if we consider these words, 
 " in him we live, move, and are," as pointing out the secret connexion of 
 men with God as "the Father of Spirits," in virtue of their spiritual 
 and moral nature. As Paul says nothing here which is peculiar to the 
 Christian system, but expresses a fact grounded on the general prin- 
 ciples of theism, we may with great propriety compare it with a per- 
 fectly analogous expression of Dio Chrysostom, which serves to confirm 
 this explanation. He says of men — Sre oh fxaKpav ov5' e|co tov deiou 
 
 SicaKiff/jLtvoi, aW' iv auTi^ fj.4crcj> TrerpvKSres eKeivw iravTaxoOit 
 
 ifj,wnr\d/xfyoi ttjs dtias (pvcreais. — De Dei Cognitione, vol. i. ed. Reiske, 
 p. 384. 
 
 ' These words are quoted from the <paivofi4vois of Aratus, v. 5, but 
 they are also to be found in the beautiful hymn of the stoic Cleanthus, 
 where they are used as an expression of Eeason, as a mark of this 
 divine relationship : e/c aov yap yivos icrjxiu Iris (lifxTifia AaxovTts 
 fiovvoL. A similar sentiment occurs in the golden verses : 6elov yh^ 
 yivos fCTTl fipoTolaiv. 
 
 * Paul here gives us to understand, that not merely negative unbelief 
 
 in reference to truth not known, but only criminal unbelief of the 
 
 gospel ofifered to men, would be an object of the divine judsrment. This 
 
 agrees with what he says in th^ first chapter of the Epistle to the 
 
 VOL, I. O
 
 194 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 the tinith to all men, and required all to acknowledge it and 
 repent. With this was connected the annunciation of the 
 Eedeemer, of the forgiveness of sins to be obtained through 
 him, of his resurrection as the confirmation of his doctrine, 
 and a pledge of the resurrection of believers to a blessed life, 
 as well as of the judgment to be passed by him on mankind.' 
 As long as the apostle confined himself to the general doctrine 
 of Theism, he was heard with attention by those who had 
 been used to the lessons of Grecian philosophy. But when 
 he touched upon that doctrine which most decidedly marked 
 the opposition of the Chi'istian view of the world to that 
 entertained by the heathens,^ when he spoke of a general 
 resmTection, he was inten-upted with ridicule on the part of 
 some of his hearers. Others said, We would hear thee speak 
 at another time on this matter j whether they only intended 
 to hint in a courteous manner to the apostle that they 
 wished him to close his address, or really exj)ressed a serines 
 intention of hearing him again.^ There were only a few 
 individuals who joined themselves to the apostle, listened to 
 his further instructions, and became believers. Among these 
 was a member of the Areopagite council, Dionysius ; who 
 became the subject of so many legends. The only authentic 
 tradition respecting him appears to be, that he was the prin- 
 cipal instrument of forming a chm'ch at Athens, and became 
 its overseer.* 
 
 While Paul was at Athens, Timothy returned from Mace- 
 Romans, that Heathens as well as Jews would be judged according 
 to the measure of the law known to them ; and with what he says 
 iu Rom. iii. 25, of the ndpeais twv irpoyeyovSTuu afxapTrjixaroov. 
 
 ' It is very evident from the form of the expressions in Acts xvii. 31, 
 as well as from verse 32, where the mention of the general resurrection 
 in Paul's speech is implied, that, ia the Acts, we have only the sub- 
 stance given of what he said. 
 
 * This is expressed in the words of the heathen Octavius, in Mimicios 
 Felix, c. xi. : " Ccelo et astris, quas sic relinquimus ut invenimus, interi- 
 tum denuntiare, sibi mortuis, exstinctis, qui sicut nascimur et interimua, 
 aeternitatem repromittere." The doctrine of the Stoics, of an avaarof 
 Xf'tc^a-is, the regeneration of the universe in a new form after its 
 destruction, has no affinity to the doctrine of the resurrection, but 
 is strictly in accordance with the pantheistical views of the Stoics. 
 
 * From the silence of the Acts, we are not to infer with certainty that 
 Paul never addressed these persons again. 
 
 * See the account of the Bishop Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius, in 
 his Eccles. Hist. iv. 23.
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 195 
 
 donia, ' but the anxiety of Paul for the new chui'ch at Thessa- 
 lonica, induced him to send his young fellow-labourer '.hither, 
 
 ' On this point there is much uncertainty. According to the Actf?, 
 Silas and Timothy first rejoined Paul at Corinth. But 1 Thess. iii. 1 
 seems to imply the contrary. This passage may indeed be thus under- 
 stood, — that Paul sent Timothy, before his departure for Athens, to the 
 church in Thessalonica, although he knew that he should now be left in 
 Athens without any companions, for he wished to leave Silas in Beroea. 
 If he came from I3eroea alone, he would rather have said, egx^i^dai els 
 'AdTJvas ix6vot. But this he could not say, since he did not depart to 
 Athens alone, but with other companions. Still the most natural in- 
 terpretation of the passage is, that Paul, in order to obtain information 
 respecting the Thessalonians, preferred being left alone in Athens, and 
 sent Timothy from that city. Also, in the Acts, xvii. 16, it is implied 
 that he waited at Athens for the return of Silas and Timothy; for 
 though the words iv rais 'Adrivais may be referred, not to e/cSexo^fVoy, 
 but to the whole clause, still we cannot understand the passage other- 
 wise. If we had merely the account in the Acts, we should be led to 
 the conclusion, by a comparison of the xvii. 16, and xviii. 5, that Silas 
 and Timothy were prevented from meeting with Paul at Athens, and 
 they first found him again in Corinth, as he had given them notice that 
 be intended to go thither from Athens. But by comparing it with 
 what Paul himself says, 1 Thess. iii. 1, we must either rectify or fill up 
 the account in the Acts. We learn from it that Timothy at least met 
 with Paul at Athens, but that he thought it necessary to send him from 
 thence to Thessalonica, and that he did not wait for his return from that 
 city to Athens, which may be easily explained. But Luke, perhaps, 
 had not so accurate a knowledge of all the particulars in this period of 
 Paul's history ; he had perhaps learned only that Paul met again at Corin th 
 with Timothy and Silas, and hence he inferred, as he knew nothing of 
 the sending away of Timothy in the mean time fi-om Athens to Thessa- 
 lonica, that Paul, after he had parted from his two companions at 
 Beroea, rejoined them first at Corinth. As to Silas, it is possible that, 
 on account of the information he brought with him, he was sent back 
 by Paul with a special commission from Athens to Beroea, or, what is 
 more probable, that he had occasion to stay longer than Timothy at 
 Beroea, and hence could not meet him at Athens. It might also be the 
 case that Luke erroneously concluded, since Silas and Timothy both 
 first met Paul again at Corinth, that he left both at Beroea, — it would 
 be possible that he left only Silas behind and brought Timothy with 
 himself to Athens. It favours, though it does not establish this opinion,' 
 that Paul, in 1 Thess. iii. 1, alleges as the reason for sending away 
 Timothy, not the unpleasant news brought by Timothy from Macedonia, 
 but the hindrances intervening, which rendered it impossible for him to 
 visit the church in Thessalonica according to his intention. Schnecken- 
 burger, in his learned essay on the date of the Epistles to the Thessa- 
 lonians (in the Studien der Evangclischen Geistlichkeit Wilrteinburgs. 
 vol. vii. part 1, 1834, p. 139,) (with which in many points 1 am happy 
 to agree,) maintains that Paul might have charged his two companions
 
 196 PAULS SECOND MliSSIOXARY JOURNEY. 
 
 that he might contribute to the establishment of their faith 
 and their consolation under their manifold sufferings ; for 
 Timothy had communicated to him many distressing accounts 
 of the persecutions which had befallen this church. 
 
 He travelled alone from Athens, and now visited a place 
 most important for the propagation of the gospel, the city of 
 Corinth, the metropohs of the province of Achaia. This city, 
 wathin a century and a half after its destruction by Julius 
 Caesar, once more became the centre of intercourse and traffic 
 to the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire, for 
 which it w;is fitted by its natural advantages, namely, by ita 
 two noted ports, that of Kcyxpf^at towards Lesser Asia, and 
 that of L\f)(^(~i(y towards Italy. Being thus situated, Corinth 
 became an important position for spreading the gospel in a 
 great i)art of the Roman Empire, and hence Paul chose this 
 city, as he had chosen others similarly situated, to be the 
 place where he made a long sojourn. But Christianity had 
 here also, at its first promulgation, peculiar difficulties to 
 combat, and the same causes which counteracted its recqjtion 
 at first, threatened at a later period, when it had found en- 
 trance, to corrupt its purity, both in doctrine and practice. 
 The two opposite mental tendencies, which at that time 
 especially opposed the spread of Christianity, were, on the one 
 side, an intense devoteduess to speculation and the exercise of 
 
 to follow him quickly from Bera?a, because he intended soon to leave 
 Athens, where he expected no suitable soil for his missionary labours. 
 But we have no sufficient reason for supposing this. Paul found at 
 Athens a synagogue for the first scene of his ministry as in other cities ; 
 he felt himself compelled, as he says, to publish the gospel to Greeks 
 and to Barbarians; he knew it was the power of God, which would con- 
 quer the philosophical blindness of the Greeks as well as the ceremonial 
 blindness of the Jews, though he well knew that on both sides the obsta- 
 cles were great At all events, by some not improbable combinations, 
 the narrative in the Acts and the expressions of Paul may easily be 
 recohciled, and we are not therefore justified with Schrader in referring 
 the passage in 1 Thess. iii. 1, to a later residence of Paul at Athens. 
 All the circumstances mentioned seem best to agree with the period of 
 his first visit. Paul having been obliged, contrary to his intention, to 
 leave Thessalonica early, wished on several occasions to have revisited 
 it ; his anxiety for the new church there was so great, and in his tender 
 concern for it, he showed the great sacrifice he was ready to make for it, 
 by saying that he was willing to remain alone at Athens. In later 
 times, when there was a small Christian church at Athens, this would 
 not have been so great a sacrifice.
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 197 
 
 the intellect, to the neglect of all objects of practical interest, 
 which threatened to stifle altogether the religious nature of 
 men, that tendency which Paul designates by the phrase, 
 '^seeking after wisdom ;' — and, on the other side, the sensuous 
 tendency mingling itself with the actings of the religious sen- 
 timent ; the carnal mind which would degi'ade the divine into 
 an object of sensuous experience ; that tendency to which 
 Paul applies the phrase, " seeking after a sign.'' The first of 
 these tendencies predominated among the greater number ut 
 those persons in Corinth who made pretensions to mental 
 cultivation, for new Corinth was distinguished from the old 
 city, chiefly by becoming, in addition to its commercial 
 celebrity, a seat of literatm-e and philosophy, so that a certain 
 tincture of high mental culture pervaded the city, i The 
 second of these tendencies was found among the numerous 
 Jews, who were spread through this place of commerce, and 
 entertained the common sensuous conceptions respecting the 
 Messiah. And finally, the spread and efficiency of Christianity 
 was opposed by that gross corruption of morals, which then 
 prevailed in all the great cities of the Roman Empire, but 
 especially in Corinth was promoted by the worship of Aphro- 
 dite, to which a far-famed temple was here erected, and thus 
 consecrated the indulgence of sensuality, favoured as it was by 
 the incitements constantly presented in a place of immense 
 wealth and commerce. 2 
 
 The efiiciency of Paul's ministry at Corinth was doubtless 
 much promoted by his meeting with a friend and zealous 
 advocate of the gospel, at whose house he lodged, and with 
 whom he obtained employment for his livelihood, the Jew 
 Aquila from Pontus, who probably had a large manufactory 
 in the same trade by which Paul supported himself Aquila 
 does not appear to have had a fixed residence at Rome, but to 
 have taken up his abode, at difierent times, as his business 
 
 * In the 2(i century, the rhetorician Aristides says of this city : o-o^oi/ 
 Se S'Jj KoX Ka6' 6S6v iKdwv iw evgots koI iraoa rcHv onJ/ux<«"' fiddois hv /cat 
 aKovcreias toctovtoi drjcravgol •ypajxixaTuiv i:(q\ irucrav avr^v, Sttoi Kai fiovov 
 diroPK(4'tie tis, koI Kara rcks oSovs avrks Kal ras crTods" en to yvfiyacria, 
 TO 5(5o(rKaXe?a, koI ixadiifxara re koI iffrog'fiiJi.a.Ta. Aristid. in Neptunum, 
 ed. Dindorf, vol. i. p. 40. 
 
 2 The rhetorician Dio Chrysostom says to the Corinthians : v6\iv 
 o'lKelrt rail' ovcrwv t€ koI yeyevrifxfvwv fTrcupgoSiTOTaTrtv. Orat. 37, vol. ii. 
 p. 119, ed, Keiske.
 
 198 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 might require, in various large cities situated in the centre of 
 commerce, where he found himself equally at home. But at 
 this time, he was forced to leave Rome against his will, by a 
 mandate of the Emperor Claudius, who found in the restless, 
 turbulent spirit of a number of Jews resident at Rome (the 
 greater part freed-men), ' a reason or a pretext for banishing 
 all Jews from that city. 2 
 
 If Aquila was at that time a Christian, which will easily 
 account for his speedy connexion with Paul, this decree of 
 banishment certainly did not affect him as a Christian, but as 
 
 ' There was a particular quarter on the other side the Tiber inhabited 
 by Jews. See Philo-legat. ad Caiurn, § 23. t^v TtiQav tov Ti^fgtws 
 jroTo/ioD ixeyd\7)v rris 'Pw/j-t^s a.iroT6yii)v Karexo/^*'*^*' f*^ oiKOVfaevriv irghs 
 'lovSaiwv. 
 
 * The account of Suetonius in the Life of Claudius, c. 25, " Judaeos 
 impulsore Chresto as,sidue tumultuantes Roma expulit," is of little 
 service in historical investigations. If Suetonius, about fifty years after 
 the event itself, mixed up what he had heard in a confused manner of 
 Christ, as a promoter of sedition among the Jews, with the accounts of 
 the frequent tumults excited among them, by expectations of the 
 Me,=6iah, — we are not justified in concluding, that this banishment of 
 the Jews had any real connexion with Christianity. Dr. Baur, in bis 
 essay on the object and occasion of the Epistle to the Romans, in the 
 Tubinger Zeitschrift filr Theologie, 1836, part iii. p. 110, thinks, that 
 tiie disputes between the Jews and Christians in Rome, occasioned the 
 disturbances which at last brought on the expulsion of both parties, 
 and that this is the fact which forms the basis of the account. But 
 disputes among the Jews themselves, whether Jesus was to be acknow- 
 ledged as the Messiah, would certainly be treated with contempt by the 
 Roman authorities, as mere Jewish religious controversies. See Acts 
 xviii. 15. And if Christians of Gentile descent, who did not observe 
 the Mosaic law, were then living at Rome, these, as a genus tertmm, 
 would not be confounded with the Jews, and a decree of banishment 
 directed against the Jews would not aflFect them. They only became 
 subject to punishment by the laws against the religiones 'peregrinas et 
 novas. We can only suppose a reference to political disturbances 
 among the Jews, or to occurrences which might excite suspicions ot 
 this kind. And this account is of little service in fixing the chronology 
 of the apostolic history, for Suetonius gives no chronological mark. 
 Such a mark would be given, if we connect the banishment of the Jews 
 with the senatus conBu\ium, de mathematicis Italia pellendis, for here 
 Tacitus {Annal. xii. 52), gives the date Fausto Sulla, Salvio Othone 
 Coss. = A. D. 52. But the chronological connexion of these two events 
 is very uncertain, as they proceeded from different causes. The banish- 
 ment of the astrologers proceeded from suspicions of conspiracies 
 against the life of the Emperor, ■with which the banishment of the Jews 
 stood in no sort of connexion, although it might have its foundation ia 
 the dread of political commotions.
 
 Paul's slcond missionary journey. 199 
 
 classed with the other Jews, in virtue of his Jewish descent, 
 and his participation in all the Jewish religious observances. 
 But if the gospel had already been propagated among the 
 Gentiles at Rome, (which is not probable, for this took place 
 at a later period, by means of Paul's disciples, after his sphere 
 of action had been much extended,) the Gentile Cln-istians, 
 who received the gospel free from Jewish observances, and 
 had not yet attracted notice as a particular sect, would not 
 have been affected by a persecution, which was directed 
 against the Jews, as Jews, on purely poUtical grounds. 
 
 We cannot answer with certainty the questions, whether 
 Aquila, on his arrival at Corinth, was already a Christian ; 
 for it cannot be determined merely from the silence of the 
 Acts, that he was not converted by Paul. In any case, his 
 intercourse with the apostle had great influence in tlie forma- 
 tion of his Christian views. Aquila appears from this time as 
 a zealous preacher of' the gospel, and his various journeys and 
 changes of residence furnished him with many opportunities 
 for acting in this capacity. His wife Priscilla also distin- 
 guished herself by her active zeal for the cause of the gospel, 
 so that Paul calls them both, in Rom. xvi. 3, his " helpers in 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 We must suppose that the reception given m general at 
 Athens to the publication of the gospel, must have left a 
 depressing effect on the mind of the apostle, as far as he was 
 not raised above all depressing considerations by a conviction 
 of the victorious divine power of the gospel. Hence, he him ■ 
 self says, that on his arrival at Corinth, he was at the utmost 
 remove from attaching any importance to anything that 
 human means, human eloquence, and human wisdom, could 
 furnish towards procuring an entrance for the publication of 
 the diviue word : that he came and taught among them with 
 a deep sense of his human weakness — with fear and trembling 
 as far as his own power was concerned ; but at the same time, 
 mth so much greater confidence in the power of God working 
 tiirough his instrumentality. He had experienced at Athens, 
 that it availed him nothing to become a Greek to the Greeks, 
 m his mode of exhibiting divine truths, where the heart was 
 not open to his preaching, by a sense of spiritual wants. At 
 Corinth, he was satisfied with the simple annunciation of the 
 Redeemer, who died for the salvation of sinful men, without
 
 200 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 adapting himself, as at Athens, to the taste of the educated 
 classes in his style of address. The greater part indeed of 
 the persons with whom he came in contact at Corinth, were 
 not, as at Athens, people of cultivated minds, but belonging 
 tc> the lower class, who were destitute of all refinement ; for 
 even when Christianity had spread more widely among the 
 higher classes, he could still say, that not many distinguished 
 by human culture or rank were to be found among the 
 Christians, but God had chosen such as were despised by the 
 world, in order to exemplify in them the power of the gospel ; 
 1 Cor. i. 26. Among these people of the lower class, were 
 those who hitherto had been given up to the lusts that pre- 
 vailed in this sink of moral corruption, but who, by the 
 preaching of the apostle, were awakened to repentance, and 
 experienced in their hearts the power of the announcement of 
 the divine forgiveness of sins; 1 Cor. vi. 11. Paid could 
 indeed appeal to the miracles by which his apostleship had 
 been attested among the Corinthians, 2 Cor. xii. 12 ; but yet 
 these appeals to the senses were not the means by which the 
 gospel chiefly effected its triumphs at Corinth, As the gospel 
 necessarily appeared as foolishness to the wisdom-seeking 
 Greeks, as long as they persisted in their conceit of wisdom, 
 so also to the sign-seeking Jews, as long as they persisted in 
 their carnal mind, unsusceptible of the spiritual operations of 
 what was divine, and required miracles cognizable by the 
 senses, the gospel which announced no Messiah performing 
 wonders in the manner their carnal conceptions had antici- 
 pated, would always be a stumbhng-block. That demon- 
 stration which Paul made use of at Corinth, was the same 
 which in all ages has been its firmest support, and without 
 which all other evidences and means of promoting it will be 
 in vain, the " demonstration of the Spirit and of power," 1 Cor. 
 ii. 4 ; the mode in which the gospel operates, by its indwelling 
 divine power, on minds rendered susceptible of it, in con- 
 sequence of the feeling of their moral necessities ; the demon- 
 stration arising from the power with which the gospel operates 
 on the principle in human uatiu-e, which is allied to God, but 
 depressed by the principle of sin. Thus the sign-seeking Jews 
 who attained to faith, found in the gospel a " power of God " 
 superior to all external miracles, and the believers among the 
 wisdom-seeking Greeks found a divine T^'isdom, compared
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 201 
 
 ^dtll which all the wisdom of their philosophers appeared aa 
 nothing. 
 
 As was usual, Paul was obliged by the hostile disposition 
 with which the greater part of the Jews received his preaching 
 m the synagogue, to direct his labours to the Gentiles through 
 the medium of the Proselytes, and the new church was mostly 
 formed of Grentiles, to whom a small number of Jews joined 
 themselves. That he might devote all his time and strength 
 without distraction to preaching, he soon organized the small 
 company of believers into a regular church, and left the 
 baptism of those who were brought to the faith by his 
 preaching, to be administered by those who were chosen to 
 fill the offices in the church ; 1 Cor. i. 16 ; xvi. 15. 
 
 In the mean time, the acceptance which the gospel here 
 found among the heathen, powerfully excited the rage of the 
 Jews, and they availed themselves of the arrival of the new 
 Proconsul Anna^us Gallio, a brother of Seneca the philosopher, 
 to arraign Paul before his tribunal. Since, by the laws of the 
 empire, the right was secured to them of practising their own 
 religious institutions without molestation, they inferred, that 
 whoever caused division among them by the propagation of 
 doctrines opposed to their own principles, encroached on the 
 enjoyment of their privileges, and was amenable to punish- 
 ment. But the Proconsul, a man of mild disposition, ' showed 
 no desire to involve himself in the internal I'eligious con- 
 troversies of the Jews, which must have appeared to a Roman 
 statesman as idle disputes about words ; and the Gentiles 
 themselves, on this occasion, testified their disapprobation of 
 the accusers. The frustration of this attempt against the 
 apostle enabled him to continue his labours with less an- 
 noyance in this region, so that their influence was felt 
 throTigh the whole province of Achaia, (1 Thess. i. 8 ; 2 Cor. 
 i. 1,) whether he made use of his disciples as instruments, or 
 suspended his residence at Corinth, by a journey into other 
 l^arts of the province, and then returned again to the principal 
 scene of his ministry. ^ 
 
 ' Known by the name of the dulcis Gallio. Seneca, Prsefat. Natural, 
 quest, iv. " Nemo mortalium uni tam dulcis est, quam hie omnibus." 
 
 * See 2 Thess. i. 4, where Paul, in an epistle written during the latter 
 part of his residence at Corinth, says, that in several churches, and there- 
 fore not merely in the Corinthian, he had spoken with praise of the faith 
 uid zeal of the Thessalonian church.
 
 202 PAULS SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY 
 
 When he had been labouring for some time in these parts. 
 Timothy returned from Thessalouica, by whom he received 
 accounts of the state of the church there, which were far from 
 pleasing in every respect. The faith of the church had indeed 
 been steadfast under its persecutions, and their example and 
 zeal had promoted the further spread of the gospel in Mace- 
 donia, even to Achaia, but many had not been preserved pure 
 from the corruption of heathen immorality. The expectation 
 of Christ's reappearance had taken in the minds of many an 
 enthusiastic direction, so that they neglected their stated em- 
 ployments, and expected to be maintained at the expense of 
 their more opulent brethren. Prophets rose up in their 
 assemblies, whose addresses contained much that was enthu- 
 siastic ; while others, who were on their guard against these 
 enthusiastic exhibitions, went so far in an opposite direction 
 as to put in the same class the manifestations of a genuine 
 inspiration. Probably from a dread of enthusiasm, they could 
 not endure that any person who felt himself inwardly called, 
 should give free utterance to his sentiments in the meetings 
 of the church, for to this Paul's exhortation appears to refer, 
 in 1 Thess. v. 19, " Quench not the Spirit." On all these 
 accounts, he considered it necessary to address an epistle of 
 encouragement and exhortation to this church. ' 
 
 • In this epistle, he evidently assumes, that the manner of his coming 
 from Philippi to Thessalonica was still fresh in the remembrance of the 
 church, so that he alludes to only one residence among them, after his 
 arrival from Philippi. What Paul says in 1 Thess. i. 9, he could only 
 say at a period which was shortly subsequent to his departure from 
 Thessalonica. Hence, it is certain, that the epistle was written at that 
 Juncture, and that it is the first among the Pauline epistles which have 
 reached us, an opinion, with which its whole complexion well agrees. 
 The reasons against this view, maintained by Schrader, some of which 
 we have mentioned and endeavoured to refute, are not convincing. The 
 anxiety of many persons in reference to their deceased friends (iv. 13,) 
 proves indeed, that some of the first Christians at Thessalonica were 
 already dead, but certainly does not justify the conclusion, that this 
 church must have already existed a long time ; for within a compara- 
 tively short time, many, especially those who were in years or in 
 declining health at their conversion, might have died. Also the argu- 
 ment, that Paul, in this epistle, supposes the existence of a church 
 organized in the usual manner with Presbyters, will prove nothing 
 against the early composition of this epistle. For why should not 
 Paul have accomplished all this during his short stay at Thessalonica, 
 or put matters in a train for its being done soon after his departure 1 
 It is evident, from Acts xiv. 23, how important he deemed it to give
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 203 
 
 In his epistle, he reminds the church of the manner in 
 which he conducted himself among them, the example of 
 manual industry which he set, and the exhortations which he 
 imparted to them. He calmed their anxiety respecting the 
 fate of those who had died during this period. He warned 
 against making attempts to determine the second coming of 
 Christ. That critical moment would come unexpectedly; the 
 exact time could be ascertained by no one ; but it was the 
 duty of Christians to be always prepared for it. They were 
 not to walk in darkness, lest that day should overtfike them 
 as a thief in the night ; as children of the light, they ought to 
 walk continually in the light and the day ; and to watch over 
 themselves, that they might meet the appearance of the Lord 
 with confidence. 
 
 After a time, Paul learned that the epistle had not attained 
 its end ; that the enthusiastic tendency in the Thessalonian 
 church had continued to increase. In his former epistle, he had 
 considered it necessary to guard them against both extremes ; 
 to warn them against the entire suppression of free prophetic 
 addresses, as well as against receiving every thing as divine 
 which pretended to be so, without examination. The higher life 
 was to be developed and expressed freely without harassing 
 restrictions ; but all claims to inspiration ought to be sub- 
 mitted to sober examination. ' He must, therefore, have had 
 
 the usual constitution to the churches as soon as they were formed ; and 
 this must have been more especially the case with a church which he left 
 in such critical circumstances, even apart from persecutors. Indeed, if 
 the rule laid down in the First Epistle to Timothy, that no novice in 
 Christianity should be chosen to the office of presbyter, had been from 
 tho beginninjcan invariable principle, we might conclude, that so new a 
 church, which must consist entirely of novices, could have no presbytery. 
 But there is nothing to support this conclusion, and the circumstances 
 of the primitive apostolic age are against it. The rules given in that 
 epistle, as well as many other points, tend to prove that it was written 
 in the latter part of Paul's life, and in reference to a church not newly 
 organized. And what we find in Philip, iv. 6, by no means obliges us 
 to assume a second visit of Paul to Thessalonica, after which both 
 epistles were written. He there says, that during the time of the first 
 publication of the gospel among the heathen, (which cannot be referred 
 to a later period,) when he left Macedonia, no church excepting that 
 at Philippi had sent him a contribution — first at Thessalonica before he 
 left Macedonia, and then once or twice at Corinth, during his longer 
 sojourn there. 2 Cor. xi. 9. 
 
 ' It appears to me that 1 Thess. v. 21, altogether relates to what m- 
 mediately precedes — " prove all things in the communications of fhe
 
 204 Paul's second missionary journey. 
 
 cause to suspect danger from this quarter, even had he not 
 received more exact information. But he was subsequently 
 informed, that persons liad come forward in the chm-ch who 
 professed to have received revelations to the effect that the ap- 
 pearance of the Lord was close at hand. They also endeavoured 
 to strengthen their assertions by distorting certain expressions 
 of the apostle, which he had used during his residence at Thes- 
 salonica. But now since the epistle of Paul was so plainly 
 opposed to the enthusiastic tendency which aimed at fixing the 
 exact time of Christ's second coming, one of the promoters 
 of this error ventured so far as to forge another epistle in 
 Paul's name, which might serve to confirm this expectation, 
 in which probably he took advantage of the circumstance, 
 that the apostle in his first epistle had satisfied himself 
 with urging wdiat was of practical importance without 
 giving a decided opinion on the nearness or remoteness 
 of that great event. ' Such forgeries were not at all 
 uncommon in this century after the beginning of the 
 Alexandrian period of literature, and their authors were 
 very adroit in justifying such deceptions for the purpose of 
 giving currency to cei'tain principles and opinions.- This 
 enthusiastic tendency also operated injuriously in producing 
 idleness, and a neglect of a person's own affairs, united with a 
 prying, intermeddling cm'iosity respecting the concerns of 
 others. Paul, therefore, thought it necessary to write a 
 second epistle to Thessalonica.^ In this epistle, for the pui-- 
 
 prophets, and retain whatever is good ; " but in verse 22, he makes a 
 transition to a general remark, " that they should keep themselves at 
 a distance from every ki'nd of evil," with which his prayer for the eancti- 
 fication of the whole man naturally connects itself 
 
 • The passage in 2 Thess. ii. 2, might be so understood, as if only the 
 statements in the First Epistle had been misrepresented ; and it is cer- 
 tainly possible to imagine, that they had so misapplied Paul's comparison 
 of a thief in the night, as if he expected the appearance of Christ to be 
 an event close at hand, and only meant to say that the point of time 
 could not be given more distinctly. But these words of Paul would 
 naturally be understood of the forgery of a letter in his name, and the 
 manner in which he guards against similar forgeries, by a postcript in 
 his own hand, favours this opinion. 
 
 2 The Bishop Dionysius very much lamented the falsification of 
 letters which he had written to various churches. Paiseb. iv. 23. 
 
 * He had at that time probably travelled from Corinth into Achaia, 
 and founded other churches. Already he had sustained many conflict-s 
 with the enemies of the gospel ; he had occasion to request the inter-
 
 Paul's second missionary journey. 205 
 
 pose of guardiug them against the hasty expectation of that 
 last de^jisive period, he directed their attention to the signs of 
 the times which would precede it. The revelation of the evil 
 that opposed itself to the kingdom of God — a self-idolatry 
 excluding the worship of the living God — would first rise to 
 the highest pitch. The power of the delusion, by a hypocri- 
 tical show of godliness, and by extraordinary power, appa- 
 rently miraculous, would deceive those who were not disposed 
 to follow the simple, unadulterated truth. The rejection of 
 the True and the Divine would be punished by the power of 
 falsehood. Those persons would be ensnai'ed by the arts 
 of deception, who, because they had suppressed the sense 
 of trutli in their hearts, desei^ved to be deceived, and by their 
 own criminality had prepared themselves for all the deceptions 
 of fal.sehood. Then would Christ appear, in order by his 
 victorious divine power to destroy the kingdom of evil, after 
 it had attained its widest extension, and to consummate the 
 kingdom of God. As signs similar to those which prognos- 
 ticate the last decisive and most triumphant epoch, are 
 repeated in all the great epochs of the kingdom of God, as it 
 advances victoriously in conflict with the kingdom of evil, 
 Paul might believe that he recognised in many signs of his 
 own time, the commencement of the final epoch. By the 
 light of the divine Spirit, and according to the intimations of 
 Christ' himself, he discerned the general law of the develop- 
 ment of the kingdom of Christ, which is applicable to all the 
 great epochs down to the veiy last ; but he was not aware 
 that similar phenomena must often recur until the arrival of 
 the final crisis. - 
 
 cessorj' prayers of the churches, that he might be delivered from the 
 machinations of evil-minded men ; for such were not wanting, who 
 were unsusceptible of receiving the gospel ; 2 Thess. iii. 2. This 
 reminds us of the accusations made by the Jews against Paul. 
 
 ' See Lehen Jesu, pp. 558, 612. 
 
 * When persons have attempted to determine with exactness the 
 signs of the times given by Paul, they have failed in many points. In 
 the first place, they have sought for the appearances to which the 
 apostle refers in later ages, while Paul refers to appearances in his own 
 age, or to those which they seemed to forebode. In other important 
 periods, which preceded remarkable epochs for the development of the 
 kingdom of Christ, signs might be found similar to those which Paul 
 has here described. Still we should not be justified in saying that 
 these signs in this particular form were consciously present to Paul's
 
 206 Paul's seconb missionaey jouenet. 
 
 As Paul was unexercised in writiog Greek, and, amidst hia 
 numerous cares and labours, instead of writing his epistles 
 with his own hand, dictated them, as was a usual practice 
 among the ancients, to an amanuensis, letters could be more 
 easily forged in his name. Perhaps he had already adopted 
 the plan of adding a few words of salutation with his own 
 hand, in order to give the churches a special proof of his 
 affectionate sympathy. Such an autogi-aph addition would 
 now be so much the more necessary for the purpose of pre- 
 venting falsifications of his epistles ; accordingly, in this 
 epistle to the Thessalonians he expressly notices this cu'cum- 
 stance, that they might in future know all the epistles- that 
 really were his own production. ' 
 
 mind. And thus we should fall into error, if we expected to find what 
 is anti-Christian only in certain particular appearances of the Ecclesias- 
 tical History, instead of recognising in these appearances a Christian 
 truth lying at their basis, and the same anti-Christian spirit (by which 
 the Christian principle is here disturbed, and at last wholly obscured) 
 likewise in other appearances. When too, these signs have been looked 
 for in the actual situation of the apostle, the defectiveness of our know- 
 ledge of his situation, and of the appearances peculiar to his times, has 
 been forgotten. Or, instead of estimating the great views respecting 
 the development of the kingdom of God, which the apostle here unfolds, 
 according to the ideas contained, the kernel has been thrown away, and 
 the shell retained, and they have been compared with the Jewish fables 
 respecting Antichrist. 
 
 ' From these words of Paul, 2 Thess. iii. 17, we cannot infer with 
 Schrader, that Paul must have already written many epistles (to the 
 Thessalonians), and, therefore, that this could not be the second ; for if 
 Paul had determined now for the first time to employ this precaution 
 against the falsification of his epistle, he might certainly thus express 
 himself; it was not necessary to use the future earrai, and yet Paul 
 might have written many epistles before this. For, might he not 
 already have written epistles to the churches in Cilicia, and Syria, and 
 others lately founded by him, as well as to individuals] We cannot 
 certainly maintain, that the whole correspondence of the great apostle, 
 who was so active and careful in every respect, has come down to us. 
 Lastly, the forgery of a letter under his name was still easier when only 
 a few, than when many of his epistles were extant. Therefore the 
 proofs fail which are employed partly for the later origin, partly for the 
 spuriousness of the epistle. And as to the salutation added by Paul as 
 a mark of his handwriting, it only follows that, under the existing 
 circumstances, he determined to add such a mark of his handwriting to 
 all his epistles, but by no means that, under altered circumstances, he 
 adhered to this resolution ; nor could we conclude with certainty, that 
 in all those epistles in which Paul has not expressly remarked that the 
 lalutation was penned by him, the benediction at the close was really
 
 PAUL'S JOURNEY TO ANTIOCH. 207 
 
 Thus Paul laboxired during another half-year for the spread 
 of Christianity in these parts, and then concluded the second 
 period of his ministry among the heathen, which began with 
 the second missionary joiu-ney. We are now anived at a 
 resting-place, from which we shall proceed to a new period in 
 his ministry, and in the history of the propagation of the 
 gospel among the Gentiles. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THK APOSTLK PAUL'S JO0RNEY TO ANTIOCH, AND HIS RENEWED MISSIOKABT 
 LABOURS AMONa THE HEATHEN. 
 
 After Paul had laboured during another half-year for the 
 establishment of the Christian church in Corinth and Achaia, 
 he resolved, before attempting to form new churches among 
 the heathen, to visit once more that city which had been 
 hitherto tlie metropolis of the Christian-Gentile world, An- 
 tioch, where possibly he had arranged a meeting with other 
 publishers of the gospel. This was no doubt the principal, 
 but probably not the only, object of his journey. He felt it 
 to be very important to prevent the outbreak of a division 
 between the Jewish and the Gentile Cluistians, and to take 
 away from the Jews and Jewish Christians the only plausible 
 ground for their accusation, that he was an enemy of their 
 nation and the religion of their fathers. On this account, he 
 resolved to revisit at the same time the metropolis of Judaism, 
 in order publicly to express his gratitude to the God of his 
 fathers in the temple at Jerusalem, according to a form much 
 approved by the Jews, and thus practicidly to refute these 
 imputations. There was at that ti'ne among the Jews a reli- 
 gious custom, arising most probably from a modification of 
 the Nazarite vow, that those who had been visited with sick- 
 ness or any other great calamity vowed, if they were restored, 
 
 not in his handwriting. When once that peculiar practice and his 
 handwriting had become generally knovv^n among the churches, he 
 might make such an addition, without expressly mentioning that it waa 
 wr.tten by himself.
 
 208 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 to bring a thank-offering to Jehovah in the temple, to abstain 
 from wine for thirty days, and to shave their heads.' Paul 
 had probably resolved, on the occasion of his deliverance from 
 some danger during his last residence at Corinth, or on his 
 journey from that city, 2 pubhcly to express his grateful 
 acknowledgments in the temple at Jerusalem. The form of' 
 his doing this was in itself a matter of indifference, and in the 
 vpirit of Christian wisdom, he felt no scruple to become in 
 respect of form, to the Jews a Jew, or to the Gentiles a Gen- 
 tile. When he was on the point of sailing with Aquila to 
 Lesser Asia, from Cenchreea, he began the fulfilment of his 
 vow.' He left his companion with his wife behind at 
 Ephesus, whither he promised to return, and hastened to 
 Jerusalem, where he visited the ch\xrch, and presented his 
 
 ' Josephus, de Bello Jud. ii. 15, tous yap ^ i'6(rcii Karairovovfj.(i/ovs ^ Tiaiv 
 &Wais aco^Kais edos (vx^c^Oat irph \' rjfifpiiv, ijs airoSwcniv fj.e\\oi€V dvcias, 
 oivov T6 a(fie'|€(T6at Kol ^vpriaaadai ras Kj'/^as. It appears to me quite 
 necessary to change the aorist in the last clause into the future 
 ^vpriffeffdat ; and I would translate the passage thus — " they were 
 accustomed to vow that they would refrain from wine and shave their 
 hair thirty days before the presentation of the oiFering." From com- 
 paring this with the Nazarite vow, we might indeed conclude that the 
 shaving of the hair took place at the end of thirty days, as Meyer 
 thinks in his commentary ; but the words of Josephus do not agree 
 with this supposition, for we cannot be allowed to interpolate another 
 period before the ^vp^a-effOat, " pnd at the end of these thirty days." 
 Also what follows in Josephus is opposed to it, and Paul's shaving his 
 hair several weeks before his arrival at Jerusalem, will not harmonize 
 with such a supposition. 
 
 2 From how many dangers he was rescued, and how much would be 
 required to complete the narrative given in the Acts, we learn from 
 2 Cor. xi, 26, 27. 
 
 ' Unnecessary difficulties have been raised respecting Acts xviii. 18. 
 Paul in the 18th, and the verse immediately following, is the only sub- 
 ject to which every thing is referred ; and the words relating to Aquila 
 and Priscilla form only a parenthesis. All that is here expressed must 
 therefore be referred to Paul and not to Aquila, who is mentioned only 
 incidentally. Schneckenburger, in his work on the Acts, p. 66, finds a 
 reason for mentioning such an unimportant circumstance respecting 
 a subordinate person in this, that a short notice of a man, who for half 
 a year lived in the same house as Paul, would serve as an indirect justi- 
 fication of the apostle against the accusations of his Judaizing oppo- 
 nents : but this is connected with the whole hypothesis, of which, for 
 reasons already given, I cannot approve. 
 
 * Besides, Aquila could not have taken such a vow, because he did 
 not travel to Jerusalem, where the offering ought to be presented. 
 We must therefore suppose that he had made a vow of another kind.
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 200 
 
 offering in the temple.' He then travelled to Antioch, where 
 •he stayed a long time, and met with Barnabas, and other 
 friends and former associates in publishing the gospeL The 
 
 that he would not allow his hair to be cut till he had left Corinth in 
 safety, like the Jews who bound themselves by a vow to do or not 
 to do something till they had accomplished what they wished, as, for 
 example, not to take food ; compare Acts xsiii. 14, and the legends 
 from the evayytXiov Kad' 'Efipaiovs, in Jerome do v. i. c. ii. But such 
 unmeaning folly no one can attribute to Aquila. And Luke would 
 hardly have related any thing so insignificant of Aquila, who was not 
 the hero of his narrative. But Meyer thinks he has found a special 
 proof that this relates not to Paul but to Aquila ; because, in Acts 
 xviii. 18, the name of Priscilla is mentioned not as it is in v. 2 and 26, 
 anfi contrary to the u.-age of antiquity, with a design to make the 
 reference here designed to Aquila more pointed. We might allow some 
 weight to this consideration, if we did not find the same arrangement 
 of the names in Rom. xvi. 3, and 2 Tim. iv. 19. Hence we shall find a 
 common ground of explanation for what appears a striking deviation 
 from the customs of antiquity, that although Priscilla was not a public 
 instructress, which would have been contrary to the laws of the church, 
 yet she was distinguished even more than her husband for her Christian 
 knowledge, and her zeal for the promotion of the kingdom of God ; 
 that in this respect Paul stood in a more intimate relation, a closer 
 alliance of spirit to her, as Bleek has suggested in his Introduction to 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 422. And thus we find in this 
 undesigned departure from the prevailing usage, on a point so un- 
 important in itself, an indication of the higher dignity conferred se . 
 directly by Christianity on the female sex. 
 
 1 The words in Acts xviii. 21 cannot prove that Paul travelled to 
 Jerusalem, for the original expression only makes it highly probable. 
 " I will return to you again, God willing ; " and all the rest is only 
 a gloss. If, therefore, we do not find the journey to Jerusalem indicated 
 in the avafias and Kare^n of V. 22, we must assume that Paul on this 
 journey came only as far as Antioch, and not to Jerusalem, and then 
 the interpretation of Acts xviii. 18, given in the text, must be 
 abandoned. It is also remarkable that Luke, in referring to Paul's 
 sojourn at Jerasalem, should mention only his saluting the church, and 
 say nothing of the presentation of his ofiering ; and that James, who, 
 on Paul's former visit to Jerusalem, had advised him to such a line 
 of conduct, should not have appealed to the example given by himself 
 of such an accommodation to the feelings of the Jews. But Luke 
 is never to be regarded as the author of a history complete in all 
 its parts, but simply as a writer who, without historical art, put 
 together what he heard and saw, or what became known to him by the 
 reports of others. Hence he narrates several less important cir- 
 cumstances, and passes over those which would be more important for 
 maintaining the connexion of the history. Also, to a reader familiar 
 with Jewish customs, it might be sufiiciently clear that Paul, according 
 to what is mentioned in xviii. 18, must have brought an ofiering 
 to Jerusalem. At all events, if we wish to refer v. 22 only to Csesarea! 
 
 VOL, I. P
 
 210 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 apostle Peter also joined the company of preachers of the 
 gospel here assembled, who beheld the apostles of the Jews 
 and the apostle of the Gentiles united in true Christian 
 fellowship with one another, in accordance with the spirit of 
 the resolutions adopted by the Council at Jerusalem. 
 
 But this beautiftil unanimity was disturbed by some Ju- 
 daizing zealots, who came from Jerusalem probably with an 
 evil design, since what they had heard of the free publication 
 of the gospel among the heathen was offensive to their con- 
 tracted feelings. For a considerable time the pharisaically- 
 minded Jewish Christians appeared to have been silenced by 
 the apostolic decisinos, but they could not be induced to give 
 up an opposition so closely allied with a mode of thinking 
 exclusively Jewish, against a completely free and independent 
 gospel. The constant enlargement of Paul's sphere of labour 
 among the heathen, of which they became more fully aware 
 by his journeys to Jerusalem and Antioch, excited afresh 
 their suspicion and jealousy. Though they professed to be 
 delegates sent by James from Jerusalem,' it by no means 
 follows that they were justified in so doing ; for before this 
 time such Judaizers had falsely assumed a similar character. 
 These persons were disposed not to acknowledge the un- 
 circumcised Gentile Christians, who observed no part of the 
 Mosaic ceremonial law, as genuine Christian brethren, as 
 brethren in the faith, endowed with privileges equal to their 
 own in the kingdom of the Messiah. As they looked upon 
 them as still unclean, they refused to eat with them. The 
 same Peter who had at first asserted so emphatically the 
 equal rights of the Gentile Christians, and afterwards at the 
 last apostolic convention had so strenuously defended them, 
 now allowed himself to be carried away by a regard to 
 his countrymen, and for the moment was faithless to his 
 principles. We here recognise the old nature of Peter, 
 which, though conquered by the spirit of the gospel, was 
 still active, and on some occasions regained the ascendency. 
 The same Peter who, after he had borne the most impressive 
 
 the ava$hs must be superfluous, and the KarePTi would not suit the 
 geographical relation of Csesarea to Antioch. 
 
 ' This is not necessarily contained in the words nvis airh 'laKwfiot,, 
 ■which may s.mply mean that these persons belonged to the church 
 at Jsrusalem, over which James presided.
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 211 
 
 testimony to the Redeemer, at the sight of danger for an 
 instant denied him. The example of an apostle whose cha- 
 racter stood so high, influenced other Christians of Jewish 
 descent, so that even Barnabas withdrew from holding inter- 
 course with Gentile Christians. Paul, who condemned what 
 was evil without respect of persons, called it an act of 
 hypocrisy. He alone remained faithful to his principles, and 
 in the presence of all administered a severe reprimand to 
 Peter, and laid open the inconsistency of his conduct. 
 " Why, if thou thyself," he said, " although thou art a Jew, 
 hast no scruple to live as a Gentile with the Gentiles, why 
 wilt thou force the Gentiles to become Jews 1 We are bom 
 Jews — we, if the Jews are right in their pretensions, were not 
 sinners hke the Gentiles, but clean and holy as born citizens 
 of the theocratic nation. But by our own course of conduct, 
 we express our contrary conviction. With all our observance 
 of the law, we have acknowledged ourselves to be sinners who 
 are in need of justification as well as others, well knowing 
 that by works, such as the law is able to produce,^ no man 
 can be justified before God ; but this can only be attained by 
 faith in Christ, and having been convinced of this, we have 
 sought justification by him alone. But this conviction we 
 contradict, if we seek again for justification by the works of 
 the law. We therefore present ourselves again as sinners^ 
 
 * We may here notice briefly what will be more fully developed when 
 we come to treat of the apostolic doctrine, that Paul by tgyois v6/j.ov 
 understands works which a compulsory, threatening law may force a 
 man to perform, in the absence of a holy disposition. The idea com- 
 prehends the mere outward fulfilling of the law, in reference to what 
 is moral as well as what is rituaL Both, which are so closely connected 
 in Judaism, maintain their real importance only as an expression of 
 the truly pious disposition of SiKaiocrvvr}. The idea of the moral or the 
 ritual predominates only according to the varied antithetical relation 
 of the phrase. In this passage, a special reference is made to the ritual. 
 
 • The words, Gal. ii. 18, " If what I have destroyed (the Mosaic law) 
 I build up again, (like Peter, who had practically testified again to the 
 universal obligation of the Mosaic law), I must look upon myself as a 
 transgressor of the law, as a sinner." (Paul here supposes Peter to 
 express the conviction, that he had done wrong in departing from the 
 law, that he was guilty of transgressing a law that was still bindiug.) I 
 cannot perfectly agree with RUckert's exposition, who supposes these 
 words to be used by Paul in reference to himself. For this general 
 proposition would not be correct, " Whoever builds up again what he 
 has pulled down pursues a wrong course." If he had done wrong in 
 pulling down, he would do right in building up what had been pulled
 
 212 Paul's journey to antioch, 
 
 needing justification, and Christ, instead of justifying us fiom 
 sin, has deprived us of the only means of justification and led 
 us into sin, if it be sin to consider ourselves freed from the 
 law. Far be this from us." * 
 
 If we fix this controversy of Paul and Peter, ^ which as the 
 
 down ; and even the opponents of Paul maintained the first ; they could 
 not therefore be affected by that proposition, and the logical Paul 
 ■would have taken good care not to express it. 
 
 1 Paul's reprimand of Peter (Gal. ii.) appears to reach only as far as 
 the 18th verse, excl. What follows, by the transition from the plural 
 to the singular, and by the yag, is shown to be a commentary by Paul 
 on some expressions which, uttered in the warmth of feeling, might be 
 somewhat obscure, and evidently not a continuation of his address. As 
 to the date of this interview with Peter, we readily allow that we 
 cannot attain to absolute certainty. Paul himself narrates the occur- 
 rence immediately after speaking of that journey to Jerusalem which 
 we find reasons for considering as his third. And, accordingly, we 
 suppose that this event followed the apostolic convention at Jerusalem. 
 'And probably many persons would be induced, by the report of what 
 had taken place among the Gentile Christians, (which to Jewish 
 Christians must have appeared so very extraordinary), to resort to the 
 assembly of the Gentile Christians at Antioch, partly in order to be 
 witnesses of the novel transactions, and partly out of suspicion. Ac- 
 cording to what we have before remarked, it is not impossible that these 
 Judaizers, soon after the resolutions for acknowledging the equal rights 
 of Gentile Christians were passed, became unfaithful to them, because 
 they explained them differently from their original intention. But 
 there is greater probability, that these events did not immediately 
 succeed the issuing of those resolutions. It is by no means evident 
 that Paul, in this passage of the Epistle to the Galatians, intended to 
 observe chronological exactness. He rather appears to be speaking of 
 an event which was quite fresh in his memory, and had happened only 
 a short time before. Besides the two suppositions here mentioned, a 
 third is possible, which has been advocated by Hug and Sneckenburgh ; 
 namely, that this event took place before the apostolic convention. But 
 though Paul here follows no strict chronological order, yet it is difficult 
 to believe that he would not place the narrative of an event, so closely 
 connected with the controversies which gave occasion to his conferences 
 with the apostles at Jerusalem, at the beginning, instead of letting it 
 follow as supplementary. 
 
 ^ Confessedly a mistaken reverence for the apostle led many persons 
 in the ancient (especially the eastern) church to a very unnatural view 
 of this controversy. They adopted the notion that Peter and Paul had 
 an understanding with one another, that both, the one for the advan- 
 tage of the Jews, the other for the advantage of the Gentile Christians, 
 committed an officiosum mendacium, in order that no stain might rest 
 on Peter's conduct. Augustin, in his Epistle to Jerome, and in his 
 book De Mendacio, has admirably combated this prejudice, and the 
 ^Ise interpretation founded upon it.
 
 Paul's journey to axtioch. 213 
 
 following history shows, produced no permanent separation 
 between them — exactly at this period, it will throw much 
 light on the connexion of events. Till now the pacification 
 concluded at Jerusalem between the Jewish and Gentile 
 Christians had been maintained inviolate. TiU now Paul 
 had to contend only with Je-ftdsh opponents, not with 
 Judaizers in the churches of Gentile Christians ; — but now 
 the opposition between the Jewish and Gentile Christians, 
 which the apostolic resolutions had repressed, again made its 
 appearance. As in this capital of Gentile Chi-istiauity, which 
 formed the central point of Cliristian missions, this contro- 
 versy first arose, so exactly in the same spot it broke forth 
 afresh, notwithstanding the measures taken by the apostles to 
 settle it ; and having once been renewed, it spread itself 
 through aU the churches where there was a mixture of Jews 
 and Gentiles. Here Paul had first to combat that party 
 whose agents afterwards persecuted him in eveiy scene of his 
 laboui'S. It might at first appear strange, that this division 
 should break out exactly at that time ; at the very time 
 when the manner in which Paul had just appeared at Jeru- 
 salem, having become to the Jews a Jew, might have served 
 to make a favourable impression on the minds of those 
 Christians who were still attached to Judaism. But although 
 it might thus operate on the most moderate among thern, 
 yet the event showed, that on the fanatical zealots, whose 
 principles were too contrary to admit of their being recon- 
 ciled to him, it produced quite an opposite efiect, when they 
 saw the man who had spoken so freely of the law — who had 
 always so strenuously maintained the equal rank of the uncii'- 
 cumcised Gentile Christian with the Jewish Christians, and 
 whom they had condemned as a despiser of the law, when 
 they saw this man representing himself as one of the believing 
 Jewish people. They well knew how to make use of what 
 he had done at Jerusalem to his disadvantage ; and by repre- 
 senting his actions in a false light, they accused him of incon- 
 sistency, and of artfully attempting to flatter the Gentile 
 Christians. 
 
 The influence of this party soon extended itself through the 
 churches in Galatia and Achaia. It is true that Paul, when, 
 after leaving his friends at Antioch, he visited once more the 
 churches in Phrygia and Galatia, on his way to Ephssus,
 
 214 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 whither he had promised to come on his return, observed no 
 striking change among them. ' But still, he remarked, that 
 
 * He expresses to the Galatian churches his astonishment, that they 
 had deserted, so soon after his departure, the evangelical doctrine for 
 which they had before shown so much zeal ; Gal. i. 6. As several 
 modern writers (particularly Riickert) have maintained it as an ascertained 
 fact, that Paul, during his second residence among the Galatian churches, 
 had to oppose their tendency to Judaism, we must examine more 
 closely the grounds of this assertion. As to Gal. i. 9, I cannot acknow- 
 ledge as decisive the reasons alleged by Riickert, Usteri, and Schott, 
 against these words being an impassioned asseveration of the sentiment 
 in the preceding verse, and in favour of their being a reference to what 
 he had said, when last with them. Might it not be a reference to what 
 was written before, as Eph. iii. 3; 2 Cor. vii. 21 For that what he 
 refers to, in both these passages, is rather more distant, makes no 
 difference in the foi-m of the expression. But if these words must refer 
 to something said by Paul at an earlier period, yet the consequence 
 which Riickert believes may be drawn from them, does not follow ; for 
 though Paul had no cause to be dissatisfied with the church itself, yet 
 after what he had experienced at Antioch, addid to the earlier leaning 
 of a part of the church to Judaism, he might consider it necessary to 
 charge it upon them most impressively, that under whatever name, 
 however revered, another doctrine might be announced to them, than 
 what he had preached, such doctrine would deserve no credit, but must 
 be Anti-Christian. Although Gal. v. 21 certainly refers to something 
 said by the apostle at an earlier period, yet nothing further can be con- 
 cluded from it : for in eveiy church, he must have held it very necessary 
 to make it apparent, that men would only grossly flatter themselves if 
 they imagined that they could enter the kingdom of heaven without a 
 complete change of heart and conduct ; 1 Thess. iv. 6 ; Eph. v. 5. 6. The 
 words in Qal. v. 2, 3, must be thus understood, "As I said, that whoever 
 allows himself to be circumcised renounces his fellowship with Christ, 
 so I testify to such an one again, that he is bound to fulfil the whole 
 law." Evidently, the second and third verses relate to one another; the 
 thoughts are correlative. If Paul intended to remind the Galatians of 
 warnings he had given them by word of mouth, why did he not insert 
 the ira\ii/ in verse 2 ] since what is there expressed forms the leading 
 thought, and requires the strongest emphasis to be laid upon it. Also 
 in the fact, that without any preparation, as in his other epistles, he 
 opens this with such vehement rebuke, I cannot with Riickert find a 
 proof that during his former residence among these churches he had 
 detected the Judaizing tendency among them, and was forced to involve 
 all in blame, in order to bring them back to the right path. This very 
 peculiarity in the tone with which the epistle begins may be easily ex- 
 plained, if we suppose that since, during his presence among them, he 
 had perceived no departure from the doctrine announced to them — and 
 had warned them beforehand of the artifices of the Judaizers — the' 
 sudden information of the effect produced among them by this class of 
 persons had more painfully surprised, more violently affected him ; and 
 the whole epistle bears the marks of such an impression on his mind.
 
 Paul's journet to antioch. 21a 
 
 these Judaizing teachers sought to gain an entrance into the 
 churches, that they made a show of great zeal for their salva- 
 tion, and that the Gentiles might- attain to the full enjoyment 
 of the privileges and benefits of the Messiah's kingdom — and 
 that they strove to imbue them with the false notion, that 
 unless they allowed themselves to be circumcised, they could 
 not stand on a level with the Jewish Christians. Still he had 
 cause to be satisfied with the manner in which they main- 
 tained their Christian freedom against these persons ; Gal. 
 iv. 18. And he sought only to confirm them still more in 
 this Christian mode of thinking and acting, while he en- 
 deavoinred to impress on their hearts afresh the lesson, that 
 independently of any legal observance, salvation could be 
 obtained only by faith in Christ, and earnestly put them on 
 their guard against everything which opposed or injured this 
 truth. This was interpreted by his Judaizing opponents, who 
 were wont to misrepresent all his actions and words, and in 
 every way to infuse distrust of him, as if he had grudged the 
 Galatians those higher privileges which they might have 
 obtained by the reception of Judaism ; Gal. iv. 16. 
 
 Paul now chose as the scene of his labours for the spread of 
 the gospel, the centime of intercourse and traffic for a large part 
 of Asia, the city of Ephesus, the most considerable place of 
 commerce on this side of the Taurus. But here also was a 
 central point of mental intercom'se ; so that no sooner was 
 Christianity introduced, than it was exposed to new conflicts 
 with foreign tendencies of the religious spirit, which either 
 directly counteracted the new divine element, or threatened 
 to adulterate it. Here was the seat of heathen magic, which 
 originally proceeded fi-om the mystic worship of Artemis,^ and 
 
 Whichever among the conflicting interpretations of the words in 
 chap. iv. 18 may be taken, this much is evident, that Paul wiahed that 
 they would act during his absence as they had done during his presence. 
 And this he surely could not have said, if already during his former 
 residence they had given him such cause for dissatisfaction. It is 
 arbitrary to refer this only to his first residence among them. Had he 
 during that residence noticed such thingsj among them, he would also 
 have felt that aTtogla in reference to them, he would have perceived the 
 necessity of d\A.o|at ttji/ <pwvT)v, and have already made use of this new 
 mode of treatment, v. 20. 
 
 * In the mysterious words on her statue, higher mysteries were 
 sought, and a special magical power ascribed to them. See Clem. 
 Strom. V. 668, and after these, forms of incantation were constructeu,
 
 216 Paul's journey to antioch, 
 
 here also the Jewish magic, connecting itself with the 
 heathenish, sought to find entrance. The spirit of the times, 
 dissatisfied with all the existing religions, and eager after 
 something new, was fovourable to all such attempts. 
 
 After Paul had preached the gospel for tlu-ee months in the 
 synagogue, he was induced, by the unfriendly disposition 
 manifested by a part of the Jews, to turn his attention to the 
 Gentiles, and met his hearers daily in a school belonging to 
 one of their number, a rhetorician, named Tyrannus. It was 
 most important that the divine power which accompanied the 
 promulgation of the gospel should manifest itself in some 
 striking manner, in opposition to the magic so prevalent here, 
 — which by its apparently gi'eat effects deceived and captivated 
 many, — in order to rescue men from these arts of deception, 
 and prepare their heai-ts to receive the ti-uth. And though a 
 cai'nal "seeking after signs" might have tempted men (like 
 the Goes Simon) to cleave solely to the sensible phenomenon 
 in wliich the power of the divine was manifested, and to 
 regard Chi-istianity itself as a new and higher kind of magic, 
 a most powerful counteraction against such a temptation pro- 
 ceeded from the genius of Christianity, when it really found 
 an entrance into the heart. One remarkable occurrence which 
 took place at this time greatly contributed to set in the 
 cleai'est light the opposition which Christianity presented to 
 all such arts of jugglery. A number of Jewish Goetse fre- 
 quented these parts, who pretended that they could expel evil 
 spirits from possessed persons by means of incantations, fumi- 
 gations, the use of certain herbs, and other arts, which they 
 had derived from King Solomon;^ and these people could at 
 times, whether by great dexterity in deceiving the senses, or 
 by availing themselves of certain powers of natxure unknown 
 to others, or by the influence of an excited imagination, 
 produce apparently great effects, though none which reaUy 
 promoted tlae welfare of mankind.^ When these Jewish 
 Goetae beheld the effects which Paul produced by calling on 
 
 which were supposed to possess great efficacy, the so-called 'EcfieVta 
 •ypdfifMaTa, 
 
 ' See Justin. Dial. c. Tryph. Jud. f. 311, ed. Colon. 
 
 * The cures they performed were sometimes followed by still greater 
 evils, as Christ himself intimates would be the case ; Luke xi. 23. Sea 
 also Leben Jesu, p. 291.
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 217 
 
 tlie name of Jesus, they also attempted to make use of it as 
 a magical formula for the exorcism of evil spirits. The 
 unhappy consequences of this attempt made a powerful 
 impression on many, who, as it appeared, had certainly been 
 moved by the miraculous operations of the apostle, so as to 
 acknowledge Jesus as the author of divine powers in men, 
 but imagined that these powers could be employed in the 
 services of their sinfid practices, and in connexion with their 
 vain magical ixvts. But teiTified by the disaster to which we 
 have refeiTed, they now came to the apostle, and professed 
 repentance for their sinful coxurse, and declared their resolu- 
 tion to forsake it. Books full of magical formulae, which 
 amounted in value to more than "fifty pieces of silver," were 
 brought together and publicly bvirnt. This triumph of the 
 gospel over all kinds of. enthusiasm and arts of deception was 
 often repeated. 
 
 Ephesus-was a noted rendezvous for men of various kinds 
 of religiousabelief, who flocked hither from various parts of 
 the east, and thus were brought under the influence of Cln-is- 
 tianity; amongst others, Paul here met with twelve disciples 
 of John the Baptist, the individual who was commissioned by 
 God to prepare for the appearance of the Redeemer among 
 his nation and contemporaries ; but, as was usxial with the 
 preparatory manifestations of the kingdom of God, different 
 effects were produced according to the different s^sceptibihty 
 of his hearers. There were those of his disciples who, follow- 
 ing his directions, attained to a living faith in the Redeemer, 
 and some of whom became apostles ; others only attained a 
 very defective knowledge of the person and doctrine of 
 Christ ; others again, not imbibing the spu'it of their master, 
 held fast their former prejudices, and assumed a hostile 
 attitude towards Christianity ; probably the first germ of 
 such an opposition appeared at this time fi-om which the sect 
 of the disciples of John was formed, which continued to exist 
 in a later age. Those disciples of John with whom Eaul met 
 at Ephesus, belonged to the second of these classes. Whether 
 they had become the disciples of John himself in Palestine 
 and received baptism from him, or whether they had been 
 won over to his doctrine by means of liis disciples in other 
 parts, — (which woidd serve to prove that John's disciples 
 aimed at forming a separate community, which necessarily
 
 218 Paul's jodrney to A^'TIOCH. 
 
 would soon assume a jealous and hostile position against 
 Christianity on its first rapid spread) — at aU events, they 
 had received the httle they had heard of the person and doc- 
 trine of Jesus as the Messiah, to whom John pointed his 
 followers, and considered themselves justified in professing to 
 be Christians' like others. Paul believed that he should find 
 them such ; but, on further conversation with them, it 
 appeared that they imderstood nothing of the power of the 
 glorified Saviour, and of the communication of divine hfe 
 through him, — that they knew nothing of a Holy Spirit. Paul 
 then imparted to them more accm'ate instniction on the 
 relation between the ministry of John and that of Christ, 
 between the baptism of John and the baptism which would 
 initiate them into communion with Christ, and into a partici- 
 pation of the divine life that proceeded from him. After 
 that, he baptized them in the name of Chi'ist, with the usual 
 consecration by the sign of the laying-on of hands and the 
 accompanying prayer ; and their reception into Christian 
 fellowship was sealed by the usual manifestations of Christian 
 inspiration. 
 
 Paul's residence at Ephesus was not only of considerable 
 importance for the spread of Christianity throughout Asia 
 Minor, for wliich object he incessantly laboured either by 
 undertaking journeys himself, or by means of disciples whom 
 he sent out Tis missionaries ; but it was also a gi'eat advantage 
 for the churches that were already formed in this region, as 
 from this central point of intercourse he could most easily 
 receive intelhgence from all quarters, and, by means of letters 
 or messengers, could attend to their religious and moral con- 
 dition, as the necessities of the churches might require. His 
 anxiety for these his spiritual children always accompanied 
 him ; he often reminded them that he remembered them 
 daily in his prayers with thanksgiving and intercession ; thus 
 he assured the Corinthians, in the ovei-flowing of his love, that 
 ne bore them continually in his heart ; and vividly depicted 
 nis daily care for all the chiu-ches he had founded by his 
 touching interrogations, " Who is weak in faith and I am not 
 
 1 The name ^o^TjTai, Acts xix. 1, without any other designation, can 
 certainly be understood only of the disciples of Jesus ; and the manner 
 in which Paul addressed them implies, that they were considered to be 
 Christians.
 
 Paul's journey to antioch, 219 
 
 weak 1 Who meets with a stumbling-block and I am not dis- 
 turbed even more than himself?" 2 Cor. xi. 29. 
 
 Cases of the latter kind must often have excited the grief 
 of the apostle ; for as the Christian faith gradually gained 
 the ascendency and affected the general tone of thinking in 
 society, new views of life in general, and a new mode of feel- 
 ing, were formed in the Gentile world ; and in opposition to 
 the immoral hcentiousness of heathenism, which men were 
 led to renounce by the new principles of the Christian life, an 
 anxiously legal and Jewish mode of thinking, which burdened 
 the conduct with numberless restraints, was likely to find an 
 entrance, and must have distm-bed the minds of many who 
 had not attained settled Chiistian convictions. 
 
 Probably it was soon after his arrival at Ephesus that 
 Paul received information respecting the state of the Galatian 
 churches which awakened his fears. During his last 
 residence among them, he had perceived the machinations 
 of a Judaizing party, which were likely to injure the purity 
 of the Christian faith and the freedom of the Christian spirit. 
 He was aware of the danger which threatened from this 
 quarter, and had taken measures to counterwork it ; he was 
 not successful, however, in averting the approaching storm, 
 as he now experienced to his great soitow. 
 
 The adversaries whom he had here to contend with were 
 unwilling to acknowledge his apostolic authority, because he 
 had not been instructed and called to the apostleship imme- 
 diately by Christ himself ; they maintained that aU preach- 
 ing of the gospel must rest on the authority of the apostles 
 who were appointed by Christ himself ; they endeavoured 
 to detect a contrariety between the doctrine of Paul and the 
 doctrine of the apostles, who had allowed the observance of 
 the law in their churches, and accused him in consequence 
 of a departm-e from the piu-e doctrine of Christ. They 
 could also appeal to the fact, that he represented himself 
 when among the Jews as a Jew observing the law, and there- 
 fore, when he taught otherwise among the Gentiles, he could 
 only do it in order to flatter them, to the injury of their true 
 interest. 
 
 Although the anti-Paidine tendency in the Galatian 
 chiirches was connected with that party which had its prin- 
 cipal seat in Palestine, yet persons who proceeded from the
 
 220 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 midst of the Gentile Christians,' and had submitted to cir- 
 ciuncision, acted here principally as the organs of this party, 
 and exercised the greatest influence. To such the words of 
 Paid in Gal. vi. 1 3 must relate ; that even those who were 
 circumcised, or wished to be so, did not themselves observe 
 the law. These must have been originally Gentiles, and, on 
 this supposition, it is less difficult to understand, how he could 
 say of them that they themselves did not observe the law, — 
 for to persons who had grown up in heathenism, it could not 
 be so easy a matter to practise the complete round of Jewish 
 observances. But, as is most generally the case with prose- 
 lytes, they were peculiarly zealous for the party to which, 
 notwithstanding their Grecian descent, they had devoted 
 themselves, and their influence with their countiymen was 
 far more dangeroiis than that of the Jewish false teachers. 
 
 Such a mixture of Judaism and Chi-istianity threatened 
 to destroy the whole essence of Chi-istianity, and to substitute 
 a Jewish ceremonial service in the place of a genuine Chris- 
 tian conversion proceeding from a living faith, and the danger 
 
 * This entirely depends upon whether we adopt the lectio recepta in 
 Gal. vi. 13, ■KegiTffjLvSfifvoi, or the reading of the codex Faticanus approved 
 by Lachmann [and TischendorfF] Tr€onfrfnifj.fvoi. I cannot help con- 
 sidering the first (which has the greatest number of original authorities 
 in its favour) as the correct reading, partly on this account, that we 
 cannot' imagine any reason why any one should be induced to explain 
 the latter, a word requiring no explanation, by the former, a more 
 difficult one, and on the contrary, it may be easily accounted for, how a 
 person might think of explaining the former by the latter. If the 
 lectio recepta be the correct one, still the expression cannot refer to cir- 
 cumcised Jews, but only to Gentiles who suffered themselves to be cir- 
 cumcised. That the most influential seducers of the Galatian churches 
 were such, appears to me to be intimated by the word arroKSipovrai, v. 12. 
 Hence may be better explained the impassioned terms, proceeding from 
 a truly holy zeal, with which Paul speaks against these persons. If 
 circumcision be not enough for them, let them have excision also; 
 if, falling away from the religion of the spirit, they seek their salvation in 
 these outward worthless things and would make themselves dependent 
 upon them. The pathos with which he here speaks, testifies his zeal 
 for the salvation of souls, and for the elevated spiritual character of 
 Christianity, and against all ceremonial services, by which Christianity 
 and human nature would be degraded. And there is no occasion 
 for the apology made by Jerome, although what he says is correct, that 
 we must still look on the apostle as a man subject to human affections : 
 " Nee mirum esse si Apostolus, ut homo et adhue vasculo clausua 
 infirmo semel fuerit hoc loquutus, in quod frequenter sanctos viro8 
 cadere perspicimus."
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 221 
 
 which thus threatened the divine work made a deep impres- 
 sion on the apostles. In order to give the Galatian Chris- 
 tians an evidence of his love, of which the Judaizers wished 
 to excite a mistrust, and to make it evident what importance 
 he attached to the subject, he undertook to write an epistle 
 to them with his own hand, contrary to his usual custom, and 
 a difficult task for one who, amidst his manifold engagements, 
 had Httle practice in writing Greek.' 
 
 He begins his epistle with declaring that his apostolic call 
 was given him immediately by Christ himself, as to the other 
 apostles ; he assures the Galatian Christians in a most solemn 
 manner that there could be no other gospel than that which 
 he had announced to them, and that it was far from his 
 thoughts to be influenced by the desire of his pleasing men 
 in his mode of publishing the gospel;^ though when en- 
 thralled in Pharisaism, he was actuated only by a regard to 
 human authority. But since he had devoted himself to the 
 service of Christ, he had renounced all such considerations, 
 and taught and acted in obedience to the divine call, as re- 
 
 1 Although the proper meaning of the Greek i7t\\Ikois, Gal. vi. 11, 
 would lead us to understand it as referring to the large unshapely letters 
 of an unpractised writer, yet I could never find in the words so under- 
 stood, an expression corresponding to the earnestness of the apostle, 
 and the tone of the whole epistle. Why should he not have expressed, 
 in a more natural manner, how toilsome he had found the task of 
 merely writing in this language ? See Schott's Commentary. We are 
 inclined to believe, that he uses the word in the less proper sense 
 for TTocrojs, as in the later Latin authors we often find quanti for quot. 
 And we may refer it most naturally to the whole epistle, as written with 
 his own hand. It will also agree with the use of the word ypdfifiaTa, 
 when applied to an epistle. But, on the other hand, the use of the 
 dative in this case is unusual, and not agreeable to the Pauline phrase- 
 ology, and to the frequent use cf the word itria-roA^, for an epistle. 
 The reason of his writing the whole epistle with his own hand, was cer- 
 tainly not to guard against a falsification of it, or the forgery of anothei 
 in his name ; for his opponents, in this instance, were under no tempta- 
 tion to do this, since they were not desirous of ascribing to him any 
 other doctrine than that of his own, but were at issue with him respect- 
 ing the truth of that doctrine, and actually impugned his apostolic 
 authority. The connexion of the passage plainly shows us for what 
 purpose he so expressly stated that he had written the whole with his 
 own hand, — namely, to testify that his love for them induced him to 
 undergo any labour on their account, in contrast with the false teachers 
 whom he bad described in the following verses as seeking their own 
 glory. 
 
 * The Judaizers accused him of this in reference to the Gentiles.
 
 222 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 sponsible to God alone.* He proved to them by a lucid 
 statement of facts, that from the first he pubhshed the gospel 
 in consequence of immediate divine illumination, and indepen- 
 dently of all human authority ; and that the other apostles 
 had acknowledged his independent apostolic character. 2 
 With the firmest conviction that salvation and all the fulness 
 of the divine life were to be found only by faith in the cruci- 
 fied, he txmis to the Galatian Christians with the exclamation, 
 " Ye fools, who hath so bewitched you ! to forget Jesus the 
 Crucified, whom we have set forth before yom- eyes as the 
 only gi'ound of our salvation, and to seek in outward things, 
 in the works of the law, that salvation for which ye must be 
 indebted to him alone ! Are ye so void of xmderstanding, 
 that after ye have begun yom: Christianity in the spirit, in 
 the divine life which proceeds from faith, ye can seek after 
 something higher still (the perfecting of your Christianity,) 
 in the low, the sensuous, and the earthly, in that which can 
 have no elevating influence on the inner life of the spirit, in 
 the observance of outward ceremonies !" He appeals to the 
 evidence of their own experience, that though from the first 
 the gospel had been published to them independently of the 
 law, yet by virtue of faith in the Redeemer alone, the divine 
 
 ' Schrader misunderstands Gal. i. 10, when he applies it only to 
 Jews and Judaizing Christians. If we apply the assertion here made 
 in the most general terms, according to the sense intended by Paul, we 
 shall understand it of Gentiles and Gentile Christians. Paul wished to 
 defend himself against the accusation of the Jews, that he wilfully falsi- 
 fied the doctrine of Christ, in order to make it acceptable to the 
 heathen. The &gTi marks the opposition of his conduct as the Sov\os 
 XptffTou to his former Pharisaism, of which he afterwards speaks more 
 at large. This view of the passage does away with an inference which 
 Schrader attempts to draw from it, that Paul wrote this epistle during 
 the time of his imprisonment at Rome. 
 
 * The chief points which it was important for the apostle to establish 
 were these ; — that before he made his first journey to Jerusalem, after 
 his conversion, he had appeared as an independent preacher of the 
 gospel — that his first journey to Jerusalem had altogether a different 
 object from being taught by the apostles the right method of preaching 
 the gospel — and that it was not till after he had preached the gospel 
 alone for some years, that he conversed with the most distinguished of 
 the apostles, to whom the Judaizers themselves were wont to appeal, 
 respecting their diiFerent method, and notwithstanding that difi^rence, 
 they still acknowledged him as a genuine apostle. Paul's object by no 
 means required a recital of all his journeys to Jerusalem. See the 
 remarks of Bauer in the Tubinger Zeitschrijl, 1831, Part 4, p. 112.
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 223 
 
 power of the gospel had revealed itself among them by mani- 
 fold operations, among which he reckoned the miracles to 
 which he alludes in chap. iii. 5. 
 
 As his opponents supported themselves on the authority of 
 the Old Testament, Paul shows, on the other hand, that the 
 final aim of its contents was to prepare for the appeai'ance of 
 the Redeemer, by whom the wall of separation that had 
 hitherto existed among men was to be taken away, and all 
 men by virtue of faith in him were to receive a divine life ; 
 that the promises given to Abraham were annexed to the 
 condition of faith, and would be fulfilled in all who were fol- 
 lowers of Abraham in faith, as his genuine sphitual children; 
 that the manifestation of the law formed only a preparatory 
 intervening period between the giving of the promise and its 
 fulfilment by the appeai'ance of the Redeemer. He placed 
 Judaism and heathenism — though, in other respects, he 
 viewed these reUgions as essentially different — in one class in 
 relation to Christianity ; the standing-point of pupillage in 
 religion, in relation to the standing-point of maturity which 
 the children of God attained for the full enjoyment of their 
 rights ; the standing-point of the dependence of religion on 
 outward, sensible things, an outward cultus, consisting in 
 various ceremonies in relation to the standing-point of a 
 religion of freedom (which proceeded from faith) of the 
 spirit, and of the inward hfe. 
 
 As his opponents charged him with a want of uprightness, 
 and with releasing the Gentiles from the burdensome obser- 
 vance of the law, merely from a wish to ingratiate himself 
 with them, he could adopt no more suitable method of vindi- 
 cating himself, and of infusing confidence into the Galatian 
 Christians, than by proposing the example of his own life for 
 imitation. He lived among the Gentiles as a Gentile, with- 
 out submitting to the restrictions of the Mosaic Law, which 
 certainly he would not have done if he had beUeved that it 
 was impossible to attain the full possession of the blessings of 
 the Messiah's kingdom mthout the observance of the law. 
 Hence he made this demand on the Galatians (iv. 12,)' "Be- 
 come as I am (in reference to the non-observance of the law), 
 
 ' I agree with Usteri in the explanation of these words. That the 
 Galatians had at that time adopted the practice of Jewish ceremonies, 
 and therefore Paul could not in this respect say, " I am become like 
 you," — can form no valid objection to this interpretation ; for the Gala-
 
 224 Paul's journey tj antioch. 
 
 for I am become as you are, like you as Gentiles in the non- 
 observance of the law, although a native Jew." Now, if his 
 method of becoming to the Jews a Jew, by observing the 
 ceremonies of the law when amongst them in Palestine, had 
 been at all inconsistent with what he here said of himself, he 
 would not have appealed with such confidence to his own 
 example. But, according to his own principles, such a con- 
 tradiction could not exist ; for, if he did not constantly 
 observe the ceremonies of the law, but only under certain 
 relations and circumstances, this sufiiciently showed that he 
 no longer ascribed to them an objective importance, that 
 according to his conviction they could contribute nothing to 
 the justification and sanctifi cation of men ; and as this was 
 his principle in reference to all outward, and in themselves 
 indifferent things, he only submitted to them for the benefit 
 of others, according to the dictates of wisdom and love. 
 
 Paid called upon the Galatians to stand firm in the liberty 
 gained for them by Chi-ist, and not to biing themselves again 
 under the yoke of bondage. He assured them, that if they 
 were circumcised, Christ would profit them nothing ; that 
 eveiy man who submitted to ch'cumcision was botmd to 
 observe the whole law ; that since they sought to be justified 
 by the law, they had renounced their connexion with Christ, 
 they were fallen from the possession of grace. What he here 
 says, is by no means inconsistent with his allowing Timothy 
 to be circumcised, and accommodating himself in outward 
 usages to the Jewish Christians. ' For he means not outward 
 circumcision considered in itself, but in its connexion with 
 the religious principle involved in it, as far as the Gentile 
 who submitted to circumcision did so in the conviction that 
 by it, and therefore by the law (to whose observance a man 
 was bound by cu'cumcision) justification was to be obtained. 
 And this conviction stood in direct opposition to that dispo- 
 sition which felt indebted to the Saviour alone for salvation. 
 
 tian Christians, all of whom certainly had not devoted themselves to 
 the observance of the law, still belonged to the stock of the Gentiles, 
 and with this view, the term vue7s is used. 
 
 ' Keil believes that he has detected an inconsistency in principle, 
 and hence concluded, that this epistle belonged to an earlier period in 
 the apostle's life, preceding the apostolic convocation, since in his first 
 zeal after his conversion he indulged in a rude vehemence against 
 Judaism, which afterwards was softened.
 
 Paul's journ^ey to antioch. 225 
 
 The apostle, in coutrastiug his true upright love to the Gala- 
 tian Christians, with the pretended zeal of the J udaizers for 
 their salvation, said to them, " They have a zeal on your ac- 
 count, but not in the right way ; but they wish to exclude you 
 from the kingdom of God in order that you may be zealous 
 about them, that is, they wish to persuade you, that you 
 cannot as uncircumcised Gentiles enter the kingdom of God, 
 in order that you may emulate them, that you may be cir- 
 cumcised as they are, as if thus only you can become members 
 of the kingdom of God. Those who are disposed of their out- 
 ward preeminence (of outward Judaism), compel you to be 
 circumcised only that they may not be persecuted with the 
 cross of Christ, that is, with the doctrine of Christ the Cruci- 
 fied, as the only ground of salvation, that they may not be 
 obhged to owe theii- salvation to Him alone, and to renounce 
 all their merits, all in which they think themselves dis- 
 tinguished above others. ' They wish you to be circumcised 
 
 ' I here adopt an interpretation of the •vrords in Gal. vi. 12, different 
 from that which from ancient times has been received by most expo- 
 sitors, and which, without being closely examined, has been mentioned 
 by Usteri only with unqualified disapprobation. I will therefore state 
 a few things in its favour. The common explanation of the passage is, 
 " These persons compel you to be circumcised, only because they are 
 not willing to be persecuted for the cross of Christ ; that is, in order to 
 avoid the persecutions which the publication of the doctrine of justifi- 
 cation through faith alone, in Jesus the Crucified, will bring upon them 
 from the Jews." The use of the dative suits this interpretation, 
 although I believe that Paul, if he had wished to give utterance to this 
 simple thought, would have expressed himself more plainly. Gal. v. 11 
 is in favour of this interpretation, where Paul says of himself, that if t e 
 still preached the necessity of circumcision, then the offence which the 
 Jews took at Christianity, on account of the doctrine that a man by 
 faith in the Crucified, might become an heir of the kingdom of heaven, 
 without the observance of the law — would at once be taken away, and 
 that no reason would be left for persecuting him as a preacher of 
 the gospel. But in order to avoid such persecutions on the part of the 
 Jews, these persons need only observe the law strictly themselves, and 
 beware of publishing the doctrine, that a man could be justified with- 
 out the works of the law ; by no means would they thereby be obliged 
 to press circumcision so urgently on the Gentiles already converted, 
 nor does Paul ever ascribe to his Judaizing opponents the design of 
 avoiding the persecution that threatened them by such conduct. And 
 if, according to the indications that have been pointed out, the most 
 influential opponents of Paul in the Galatian churches were of Gentile 
 descent, this interpretation would still less hold good, for Gentiles 
 might bring persecutions on themselves sooner by the observance of 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 22t ^AUt,•S JOURNEY TO ANTIOCH. 
 
 only that they may glory in your flesh, that is. in the change 
 which they have outwardly effected in you, by bringing you. 
 over altogether to the Jewish Christian pai'ty." The apostle, 
 lastly, adjured the Galatians that they woiild not give him 
 any further trouble, since he boi'e in his body the mark of the 
 sufferings he had endured for the cause of Chiist.' 
 
 Jewish ceremonies, than by the observance of the Christian religion, 
 which was not conspicuous in outward rites. And how would this 
 interpretation suit the connexion? Paul says (Gal. vi. 12), "Those who 
 wish to have some preeminence in outward things (some outward dis- 
 tinction before otliers) oblige you to be circumcised." After this, 
 we expect something related to it, in the clause beginning with iVa fx^, 
 something that may serve as an exegesis, or to fix the meaning. But, 
 according to that interpretation, something quite foreign would follow 
 — that thereby they wish to avoid persecution. If this thought fol- 
 lowed, Paul; would have said at first — " Those who long after ease for 
 the flesh, or who are afraid to bear the cross of Christ (or something of 
 the kind), force circumcision upon you," &;c. Verse 14 also shows, 
 that all the emphasis is laid on glorying alone in the cross of Christ, 
 which is opposed to setting a high value on any other glorying. The 
 thought arising from that interpretation appears quite foreign to the 
 context, both before and after. On the other hand, the interpretation 1 
 have adopted suits it entirely. That evtrpoauTre7v iv aapKt, that Kav- 
 XVl^o. Kara crapKa is taken away, if men can glory only in the cross 
 of Christ. Hence they consider the cro.ss of Christ, that is, the 
 doctrine of faith in the Crucified, the only sufficient means of salvation, 
 as something wearing a hostile aspect towards them, by which they 
 are persecuted, since it obliges them to renounce their fancied 
 superiority. With the positive clause in v. 12, " those who wish to 
 have some preeminence according to the flesh," the negative clause 
 agrees very well, " that they may not be persecuted with or by the cross 
 of Christ," (the cross of Christ is something subjective to them, by which 
 they are persecuted). The mention of the cross first, according to the 
 best accredited reading adopted by Lachmann, suits this view of the 
 passage. According to the other view, all the emphasis is to be placed 
 on the not being persecuted. On the whole, the leading idea of the 
 whole passage appears to be, Glorying in the cross of Christ, in opposi- 
 tion to glorying in the flesh. 
 
 ' If we only consider what is narrated in the Acts of his sufferings 
 hitherto, though it is evident from a comparison with 2 Cor. xi. that all 
 is not mentioned, we shall be as little disposed as by what the apostle 
 says of the persecutions of the Jews, to apply these words (with 
 Schrader) to his imprisonment at Rome. What Paul says in chap. ii. 10, 
 respecting the fulfilment of obligations to the poor at Jerusalem, might 
 favour the later composition of this epistle, but proves nothing ; for the 
 words by no means lead us to think of that last large collection, of 
 which he undertook to be the bearer to Jerusalem. He might very 
 often have sent separate contributions from the churches of Gentile 
 Christians to Jerusalem, although, owing to the imperfections of church
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 227 
 
 During his residence at Epliesus, the affairs of the 
 Corinthian church demanded his special attention. The 
 history of this community presents us with an image of those 
 appearances and disturbances which have been often repeated 
 in later periods of tlie church on a larger scale. A variety of 
 influences mingled their action on this church, and it is im- 
 possible to deduce everything from one common ground of 
 explanation, such as the relation' between the different 
 parties ; although one common cause may be found which 
 will explain many of these influences, in the particular situa- 
 tion of the Christian Church, which the new Christian spirit 
 had but partially penetrated, opposed as it was by former 
 habits of life and the general state of society. Many of the 
 easily excited and mobile Greeks had been caiTied away by 
 the powerful impression of Paul's ministry made at Corinth, 
 and at first showed great zeal for Christianity ; but the 
 essence of Christianity had taken no deep root in their 
 unsettled dispositions. In a city like Corinth, where so great 
 a corruption of morals prevailed, and so many incentives to 
 the indulgence of the passions were presented on every side, 
 such a superficial conversion was exposed to the greatest 
 danger. In addition to this, after Paul had laid the founda- 
 tion of the church, other preachers followed him who pub- 
 lished the gospel partly in another form, and partly on other 
 principles, and who, since their various constitutional pecu- 
 liarities were not properly suborchnated to the essential 
 principles of the gospel, gave occasion to many divisions 
 among the Greeks, a people naturally inclined to parties and 
 party disputes.- There ^ were at first persons of the same 
 
 history, we have no certain information respecting them. On his last 
 journey preceding his last visit to the Galatians, he might have brought 
 with him one of these smaller collections. 
 
 ' By attempting to deduce too much from this single cause, Storr has 
 indulged in many forced interpretations and suppositions. 
 
 * Owing to this national characteristic, the efficiency of the gospel 
 among them was much disturbed and weakened in after ages. 
 
 ^ Eiickert thinks that the order in which the parties are mentioned 
 in 1 Cor. i. 12, corresponds to the period of their formation ; that first 
 the preaching of ApoUos occasioned the formation of such a division in 
 the church, who felt a greater partiality to Apollos than to Paul, and 
 were no longer satisfied with the latter, though they had not yet 
 formed themselves into a particular party ; then the Judaizers would 
 take advantage oJ such a state of feeling, and join the favourers ol
 
 228 Paul's jourxey to antioch. 
 
 spirit as those false teachers of the Galatian churches, who 
 wished to introduce a Christianity more mingled with Juda- 
 ism — who could not endure the independence and freedom 
 with which the gospel published by Paul was developed 
 among the Gentiles, although they were not so violent as the 
 Galatian false teachers, and accordingly named themselves, 
 not after James, whom the most decided Judaizers made 
 their chief authority, but after Peter. Moreover, we must 
 carefully notice the difference of circumstances. The Gala- 
 tian chm'ches could be more easily opei'ated upon by organs 
 of the Judaizing pai'ty who came forwai'd from among them- 
 selves ; it was altogether different at Corinth, where the 
 Judaizers had to operate upon men of a decidedly Grecian 
 character, who were not so susceptible of the influence of 
 Judaism. Hence they could not ventm-e to come forward at 
 once, and disclose their intentions : it was necessary first to 
 prepare the soil, before they scattered the seed ; — to act 
 warily and gently ; to accomphsh then- work gradually ; to 
 employ a vai'iety of artifices in order to undermine the princi- 
 ples on which Paul preached the gospel ; to infuse a mistrust 
 of his apostolic character, and thus to aUenate the affections 
 of his converts from him. ' They began with casting doubts 
 on Paul's apostohc dignity, for the reasons which have been 
 before mentioned ; they set in opposition to him, as the only 
 genuine apostles, those who were instructed and ordained by 
 Clu'ist himself They understood besides how to instil into 
 anxious minds a number of sciTiples, to which a life spent in 
 intercoui'se with heathens would easily give rise, and which 
 
 Apollos in opposition to Paul; thus two parties would be formed. But, 
 in course of time, the original partisans of Apollos would discover that 
 they could not agree with the Judaizers, who had at first, in order to 
 find an entrance, concealed their peculiarities, and thus at last there 
 would be three distinct parties. But this passage (i. 12) cannot avail 
 for determining the chronological relation of these parties to one 
 another. Paul here follows the logical relation, without adverting to 
 the chronological order. He places the partisans of ApoUos next to 
 those of Paul, because they only formed a particular section of the 
 Pauline party ; he then mentions those who were their most strenuous 
 opponents ; and lastly, those through whose existence the other parties 
 would be presupposed. We have throughout no data by which to deter- 
 mine the chronological connexion of the three first parties. 
 
 ' See the remarks of Bauer, in his essay on the Christ-party in the 
 Corinthian church (in the Tvhinger ZtiUchrift fur Theologie, 1831, 
 part iv. p. 83).
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 229 
 
 persous who had been previously proselytes to Judaism must 
 have been predisposed to entertain. 
 
 Persons whose minds took this direction, placed Peter, as 
 an apostle chosen by the Lord himself, and especially distin- 
 guished by him, in opposition to Paul, who had assumed the 
 office at a later period. When the strongly marked pecu- 
 Uarities of any of the apostles were blended with their views 
 of Christianity, and it presented them in a varied form, it 
 was in accordance with the different spheres of activity 
 assigned them by God, and served not to injiu-e the unity of the 
 Christian spirit, but rather in this very manifoldness to illus- 
 trate its excellence ; but now among those who attached 
 themselves to this or the other apostles, one-sided tendencies 
 became prominent, and that variety which might have con- 
 sisted with unity, was formed by them into an exclusive con- 
 trariety. As a one-sided Petrine party was formed in the 
 Corinthian chiu"ch, so a one-sided Pauline party sprung up in 
 opposition to it, which recognised the Paidine as the only 
 genuine form of Clu'istianity, ridiculed the nice distinctions 
 of scrupulous consciences, and set themselves in stern oppo- 
 sition to everything Jewish. In one of their tendencies we 
 find the germ of the later Judaizing sects, and in the other 
 that of the later Marcionite en'or. 
 
 But in the Pauline party itself, a two-fold direction Avas 
 manifested, on the following grounds. Among the disciples 
 of John who came to Ephesus, and considered themselves as 
 Christians, though their knowledge was very defective, was 
 Apollos, a Jew of Alexandi-ia, who had received the Jewish- 
 Grecian education, peculiar to the learned among the Alex- 
 andrian Jews, and a gTeat facility in the use of the Greek 
 language.' Aquila and his wife instructed him more accu- 
 
 ^ The epithet auijQ \6yios given to him in Acts xviii. 24, probably 
 denotes, not an eloquent but a learned man, which would best suit an 
 Alexandrian, since a learned literary education, and not eloquence, was 
 the precise distinction of the Alexandrians ; and his disputation with 
 the Jews at Corinth suits this meaning of \6yws, taken from the Jewish 
 standing-point. In this sense the word is found both in Josephus and 
 Philo ; in the first, \6ytoi is opposed to iSiciTats, De Bell. Jud. vi. 5, § 3 ; 
 and by Philo, De Vita Mosis, i. § 5, PdyvTTTioiy ol \6ytoL. But another 
 meaning of the word as it was used at that time is also possible, and 
 since it appears from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, that Apollos 
 was also a man eloquent in the Greek language ; so that we are left in 
 some uncertainty how to understand this epithet. According to the
 
 230 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 rately in Christianity, and when he was about to sail to Achaia, 
 commended him to the Corinthian chm'ch as a man who, by 
 his zeal and peculiar gifts, would be able to do much for the 
 furthei'ance of the divine cause, especially at Corinth, where 
 his Alexandi'ian education would procm'e him a more ready 
 access to a part of the Jews and Gentiles. His Alexandrian 
 mode of developing and representing Christian tniths, as it 
 approached to the Grecian taste, was peculiarly adapted to 
 the educated classes at Corinth ; but fascinated by it, they 
 attached too great importance to this peculiar form, and de- 
 spised, in contrast with it, the simple preaching of Paul, who, 
 when he taught among them, determined to know nothing 
 save Jesus the Crucified. We here see the germ of that 
 Gnosis which sprung up in the soil of Alexandria, and aimed 
 at exalting itself above the simple faith (Pistis) of the 
 gospel. 
 
 But it has been lately maintained,' that the difference be- 
 tween the Pauline party and that of Apollos, related not to 
 any difference in the form of doctrine, but only to the posi- 
 tion in which Paul and Apollos stood to the founding of the 
 Corinthian chiu"ch, as the apostle himself, in 1 Cor. iii. 6, 7, 
 indicates, that it was made a question, whether he who laid 
 the foundation, or he who raised the superstructure, deserved 
 the preeminence. But if we follow this hint, it will conduct 
 us much further. We cannot stop short at these merely out- 
 ward relations, but must seek in the characteristic qualities 
 of these two men, who stood in such different relations to 
 the chm-ch, for the reason, that some were more attached to 
 tlie one, and some to the other. We may presume that the 
 manner in which one laid the foundation, and the other raised 
 the superstructure, depended on the difference of their 
 characteristic qualities. To this difference Paul himself ad- 
 verts, when, after speaking of the merely outward relations 
 
 first interpretation, dvvuTos i>v 4v tois ypacpals, would only more 
 precisely express what is contained in Adyios ; according to the second, 
 it would be a perfectly new and distinct characteristic. This exe- 
 getical question is of no importance historically, for certainly both 
 epithets are applicable to Apollos. 
 
 ' By a distinguished young theologian, the licentiate Daniel 
 Schenkel, in his Inquisitio Gritico-Mstorica de Ecclesia Corinthiaca, 
 primceva, Basilece, 1838, with which DeWette, in his late Commentary 
 on the Epistles to the Corinthians, has expressed his concurrence.
 
 Paul's jourt^ry to antioch. 231 
 
 between himself and Apollos, he represents in figurative 
 language how every genuine teacher of Christianity ought to 
 proceed in building on the foundation that has been once 
 laid; 1 Cor. iii. 12. The connexion evidently shows, that 
 Paul had primarily in view his relation to the party of 
 Apollos; every other explanation is forced.^ If we compare 
 the qualities possessed by the apostle and his fellow-laboiu'er, 
 as far as oiu' information extends, we may easily infer the 
 difference in their mode of teaching, and in their respective 
 partisans. That Paul possessed great force and command of 
 language, we may conclude with certainty from his epistles, 
 as is also evinced by his discourse at Athens. In that elo- 
 quence which is adapted to seize powerfully on men's minds, 
 he was inferior to no preacher of the gospel, not even to 
 Apollos himself It was his peculiar natural gift, sanctified 
 and elevated by spiritual influence for the cause of the gospel, 
 in which he was probably superior to Apollos ; and if the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews is to be attributed to the latter, and 
 we compare it with those of Paul, it would serve to confirm 
 the opinion. In dialectic power also, which was founded 
 on the peculiar character of his intellect, and developed and 
 improved by his youthful training in the schools of the 
 Pharisees, as well as in the skilful intei'pretation and vise of 
 the Old Testament, he was surpassed by none. But still 
 between himself and Apollos a difierence not unimportant 
 existed, which affected their pecidiar style of teaching ; the 
 latter, as an Alexandi-ian, had received an education more 
 adapted to the Grecian mind and taste, and possessed a greater 
 familiarity with the pure Gi-eciau phraseology, in which Paul 
 was defective, as we may gather from his epistles, and as he 
 expressly asserts ; 2 Cor. xi. 6. Now, in making tlie gospel 
 known at Corinth, he had special reasons for rejecting all the 
 aids that otherwise were at his command for recommending 
 
 ' We must carefully distinguish those who, by assailing the un- 
 changeable foundation of Christianity, destroyed the temple of God in 
 the church, 1 Cor. iii. 16 and 17, from those of whom Paul judged far 
 more leniently, because they preserved inviolate the foundation that 
 was laid, though they added to it what was more or less human. Of 
 the latter, he affirms that, since they held fast the foundation of salva- 
 tion, they would finally be partakers of salvation, though after a painful 
 and repeated process of purification; of the others, that they would 
 come to ruin, because they had destroyed the work of God.
 
 232 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 evangelical truth, and for using only the " demonstration of 
 the spirit and of power," which accompanied its simple 
 annunciation. The Alexandrian refinement of Apollos must 
 have formed a striking contrast to the simplicity of Paul's 
 preaching ; and, if we take into account the circumstances 
 and social relations of the Corinthians, we cannot wonder that 
 a preference for such a style of address led to the formation 
 of a distinct party in the Corinthian church. It was not the 
 pecuhar style of Apollos in itself which Paul condemned ; — 
 it became every teacher to work with the gifts entrusted to 
 him, according to the standing-point on which the Lord had 
 placed him ;— but he combated the one-sided and arrogant 
 over-valuation of this talent, the excessive estimation in which 
 this form of mental culture was held. It by no means follows, 
 that he attributed a false wisdom to Apollos himself ; ' but 
 the one-sided direction of his partisans, in which the aotpiav 
 l^r]Tiiv predominated, would easily produce a false wisdom, 
 by which evangelical truth would be obscm-ed or pushed into 
 the background. Paul perceived this threatening danger, and 
 hence felt himself impelled strenuously to combat the principle 
 on which such a tendency was founded. 
 
 Besides the parties already mentioned, we find a fourth in 
 the Corinthian church, whose peculiarities it is mox'e difficult 
 to ascertain, since, judging from its name, we cannot readily 
 suppose that it belonged to a sect blamed by the apostle, and 
 in no other part of the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians 
 do we find any distinct references to it from which we might 
 infer its specific character ; it was composed of persons who 
 said that they were " o/' Christ ;" 1 Cor. i. 12. If we con- 
 sider this party as involved in the censure expressed by the 
 apostle," which the grammatical construction of the passage 
 
 ' This charge against Apollos, in the opinion of Schenkel and De 
 Wette, is well founded, but by no means follows from the view taken by 
 ourselves and others of the peculiarities of the party of Apollos. 
 
 2 The interpretation which has been proposed by Pott and Schott, 
 and according to which, all conjectures respecting the peculiar character 
 of a Christ-party at Corinth would be superfluous, is grammatically 
 possible. It assumes that Paul, in this passage, only enumerated histo- 
 rically the various parties in the Corinthian church, without concluding 
 that all who are specified came under the censure of the apostle. Those 
 indeed who firmly adhered to the doctrine taught by Paul, and esteemed 
 him, as he wished, only as an organ of Christ, — those who wished to 
 keep aloof from all party contentions, and called themselves only after
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 233 
 
 Beems to require, we must believe that these persons did not 
 wish to be " of Christ," in the sense in which Paul desired 
 that all the Corinthians should be, but that they appropriated 
 Christ to themselves in an erroneous sense, and wished to 
 make him, as it were, the head of their party. And we must 
 then suppose that the apostle, though with an allusion in the 
 first instance to their party designation, yet including a refer- 
 ence to all the Corinthian parties, said, " Is the one Chiist 
 become divided 1 has each party their portion of Christ, as 
 their own Christ 1 No ! there is only one Christ for all, who 
 was crucified for you, to whom ye were devoted and pledged 
 by baptism." 
 
 We have now to inquire what can be determined respecting 
 the character and origin of this Christ-party. If we pay anj' 
 regard to its being mentioned next to the party of Peter, and 
 compare it with the collocation of the parties of ApoUos and 
 Paul, we might think it most probable that the relation 
 between the two former was similar to that which existed 
 between the two latter ; and that, therefore, a subdivision of 
 the general party of Jewish Christians was intended. And 
 as part of these attached themselves to Peter, and part to 
 James, we might be induced to imagine a party belonging to 
 James along with the Petrine ; the former more tenacious 
 and violent in their Judaism; the latter more liberal and mo- 
 derate. But this supposition is not at all favoured by the 
 
 Christ their common head, must be represented as a particular party in 
 relation to the other Corinthian parties, and hence Paul distinguished 
 them by the name which they assumed in opposition to all party 
 feelings. If these words in this connexion only contained an historical 
 enumeration of the various parties, such an interpretation might be 
 valid. But this is not the case. Paul evidently mentions these parties 
 in terms of censure. The censure applies to all equally as parties who 
 substituted something in the place of that single relation to Christ 
 which alone was of real worth. " Has then Christ become divided]" he 
 proceeds to ask. " No — he will not allow himself to be divided. Ye 
 ought all t-o call yourselves after that one Christ who redeemed you by 
 his death on the cross, and to whom ye were devoted by baptism." 
 These words are directed equally against all parties, and perhaps exactly 
 in this form, owing to the preceding designation of those who arro- 
 gantly named themselves ol rov Xpiffrov. But if these persons had 
 assumed this title in the sense which Paul approved, he would not have 
 classed them with those who incurred his censure ; these words could 
 not have applied to them, but he must have expressed his approbation 
 of their spirit, which must have appeared to him as the only right one.
 
 234 PAULS JOURNEY TO ANTIOCH. 
 
 designation, ol rov Xpiffrov, for it seems very unuatural that 
 the adherents of James should so name themselves, as some 
 have imagined,' because the epithet dhX(pdc rov Xpiarov was 
 given to that apostle as a title of honour. There can be no 
 doubt that if such a painty had existed in Corinth, they woidd 
 have called themselves ol tov 'Iukiojoov. 
 
 If we believe that the Christ-party was composed of Jewish 
 Christians, such a view must be stated and developed very 
 differently in order to bring it nearer to probability." The 
 name ul tov XoiaTov — it may be said — was one which the parti- 
 sans of Peter assumed in opposition to Paul and his disciples, 
 in order to mark themselves as those who adhered to the 
 genuine apostles of Christ, from whom they had received the 
 pure doctrine of Christ, and thus by their teachers were con- 
 nected with Christ himself : and, on the other hand, by ap- 
 plying this title exclusively to their own party, they intended 
 to brand the other Christians at Corinth as those who did 
 not deserv^e the name of Christians, who were not the dis- 
 ciples of Christ, nor the scholars of a genuine apostle of 
 Christ, but of a man who had adulterated the pure Christian 
 doctrine, and had promulgated a doctrine of his own arbitrary 
 invention as the doctrine of Christ. This view would appear 
 perfectly to correspond with the phrase o'l tov XpicTTov, and 
 might be confirmed by many antithetical references in both 
 the epistles in which Paul vindicates his genuine apostolic 
 character, and asserts, that he could say with the same right 
 as any one else, that he was " of Christ ; " 2 Cor. x. 7 . But 
 while such passages certainly are directed against those who^ 
 on the grounds already mentioned, disputed Paul's apostolic 
 authority, they by no means prove the existence of such a 
 party-name among the Jews. And one difficidty still remains, 
 namely, that by the position of the phrase ol tov Xpiarov we 
 are led to expect the designation of a party in some way 
 differing from the Petrine, though belonging to the same 
 general division ; but, according to this view, the Christ-party 
 
 ' Attributed by Storr, or as by Berthold, to several aSeXcpovs rod 
 Kvpiou among the first preachers of the gospel. 
 
 ^ As it has lately been developed with much acuteness, in the e.ssay 
 already referred to, by Bauer, in the Tvbinger Zeitschrift fur Theologie, 
 1831, which no persons can read without instruction, even if they do 
 Bot agree with the views of the writer on this point.
 
 Paul's jourxet to antioch, 235 
 
 would diflfer from the Petrine only in name, which would be 
 quite contradictoiy to the relation of this party-name to those 
 that preceded it.' Accordingly, this view can only be tenable, 
 if not a merely formal, but a material difference can be found 
 between the two last parties. And it might be said that not 
 all the members of the Petrine party, but only the most 
 rigid and violent in their Judaism, who would not acknowledge 
 the Pauline Gentile Christians as standing in communion with 
 the Messiah, had applied to their Judaizing party the exclu- 
 sive epithet of ol rov Xpia-ov. 
 
 But it has always appeared to us to be contrary to his- 
 torical analogy, that those persons who adhered to another 
 apostle, and considered him alone as genuine in opposition to 
 Paul, should not name themselves after one whom they looked 
 iipon as the necessary link of their connexion with Christ. 
 In the epistle itself, we cannot find allusions that would 
 establish this, since the passages which contain these refer- 
 ences can be very well understood without it. 
 
 We cannot hope in this inquiiy to attain to conclusions 
 altogether certain and sure, for the marks and historical data 
 are not sufficient for the pm'pose. But we shall best guard 
 against arbitrai-y conjectures, and arrive at the truth most 
 confidently, if we first attend to what may be gathered from 
 the name itself and its position, in relation to the other party- 
 names, and then compare this with the whole state of the 
 Corinthian church. In the results which may thus be 
 obtained, we must then endeavour to separate the doubtful 
 and disputable fi'om the certain and probable. 
 
 We shall by no means be justified in concluding that, 
 by virtue of the logical connexion of the two members of 
 the sentence to one another, the persons who named them- 
 selves after Christ must have borne the same relation to the 
 Petrine party as the adherents of A polios to those of Paul. 
 This conclusion, if correct, woidd be favourable to the view 
 which we last considered. But the relation of the two 
 
 ^ Bauer says indeed, p. 77, " The apostle's object in accumulating so 
 many names, might be to depict the party spirit prevalent in the 
 Corinthian church, which showed itself in their delighting in the mul- 
 tiplication of sectarian names, which denoted various tints and shades, 
 but not absolutely distinct partie'i." But if this were the case, that 
 explanation only of one of these party-names can be correct, by which a 
 different shade of party is pointed out.
 
 236 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 members is not logical only, but subject to certain Iiistorical 
 conditions. Paul does not, as in other cases, form the 
 members of the antithesis merely from the thoughts ; but 
 the manner in which he selected his terms was determined by 
 matters of fact. As tlie Judaizers formed in reality only one 
 party, Paul could designate them only by one name, and 
 since he was obliged to choose his tenns according to the 
 facts, he could not make the two members exactly correspond 
 to one another. 
 
 From the name of this party viewed in relation to other 
 party-names, we shall arrive at the following conclusion with 
 tolerable certainty. There were those who, while they 
 renounced the apostles, professed to adliere to Christ alone, to 
 acknowledge him only as their teacher, and to receive what 
 he announced as truth from himself without the intervention 
 of any other person. This was such a manifestation of self- 
 will, such an arrogant departure from the historical process 
 of development ordained by God in the appropriation of 
 divine revelation, as would in the issue lead to arbitrary con- 
 duct respecting the contents of Christian doctrine ; for the 
 apostles were the organs ordained and formed by God, by 
 whom the doctrine of Christ was to be propagated, and its 
 meaning communicated to all men. But it might easily 
 happen, while some were disposed to adhere to Paul alone, 
 others to ApoUos, and a third party to Peter, at last some 
 persons appeared who were averse to acknowledge any of 
 these party-names, and professed to adhere to Christ alone, 
 yet with an arrogant self-will which set aside all human 
 instrumentality ordained by God. If we now view this 
 as the result which presents itself to us with tolerable 
 certainty, that there was at Corinth such a party desiroiis of 
 attaching themselves to Christ alone, independently of the 
 apostles, who constructed in their own way a Christianity 
 different from that announced by the apostles, we may 
 imagine thi'ee different ways in which they proceeded. For 
 this object they might make use of a collection of the 
 sayings of Christ, which had fallen into their hands, and 
 set what they found there in opposition to the apostolic 
 character ; or they might pretend to derive their Chris- 
 tianity from an inwai'd soiu'ce of knowledge, either a super- 
 natviral inward light or the light of natural reason, either
 
 Paul's journey to axtioch. 237 
 
 a more mystical or a more rational direction. If we 
 assented to the first supposition, still we could not satisfy our- 
 selves, without imagining a certain subjective element in the 
 manner of explaining those discom-ses of Christ ; for without 
 the infusion of such an element, the tendency to this sepa- 
 ration from the apostohc instrumentality could not have 
 originated, and thus the principal question would stiU remain 
 to be answered, whether we are to consider the subjective 
 element as mystical or rational. 
 
 According to a hypothesis' lately developed with gi-eat 
 acuteness, but resting on a number of arbitrary suppositions, 
 the tendency we are speaking of must have been mystical. 
 As Paul had considered the immediate revelation of Christ to 
 himself as equivalent to the outward election of the other 
 apostles ; so there were other persons who thought that they 
 could appeal to such an inward revelation or vision, who 
 from this standing-point assailed the apostolic authority o; 
 Paul, while they sought to establish their own, and threatened 
 to substitute an inward ideal Christ for the historical Christ. 
 These representatives of the one-sided mystical tendency, 
 must have been the principal opponents with whom Paul had 
 to contend. But in the Epistle to the Corinthians we can 
 find no trace of such a tendency combated by him ; and in 
 all the passages to which the advocates of this hypothesis 
 appeal, a reference to it seems to be arbitrai'ily imposed. 
 
 When Paul, at the beginning of the first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, so impressively bring-s foi-ward the doctrine 
 of Christ the Crucified, and says that he had published this 
 in all its simplicity without attempting to support it by the 
 Grecian philosophy, there is not the slightest intimation that 
 such a tendency (as we have alluded to) existed in the 
 Corinthian church, which aimed at substituting another 
 Christ in the room of Christ the Crucified. In a place where, 
 by the over-valuation of any kind of philosophy, the simple 
 gospel was liable to be set in the background, such lang-uage 
 might very properly be used, even tliough no ideal or mystical 
 Christ were substituted instead of the historical ; and, it is 
 evident to what false conclusions we should be led, if we 
 inferred from such a declaration the existence of a tendency 
 
 ' By Schenkel in the essay before mentioned, and advocated by De 
 Wette in his Commentary on the two Epistles to the Corinthians.
 
 238 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 that denied Christ the Crucified. Paul opposed the preach- 
 ing of Jesus the Crucified to two tendencies, — the Jewish 
 fondness for signs, and the arrogant philosophy of the Greeks, 
 but never to a mystical tendency which wotdd depreciate the 
 historical facts of Christianity. Against a tendency of this 
 kind, he would certainly have argued in a very different 
 manner. 
 
 The sensuous tendency of the Jewish spirit we should expect 
 to meet with in the Jewish part of the Corinthian church, 
 —the pride of philosophy in those who attached themselves to 
 ApoUos, since from what has been said we must suppose that 
 there was a distinct party composed of such persons. As 
 Paul when he spoke against the Grecian pride of philosophy, 
 had this party of Apollos specially in his mind, by a natural 
 transition he spoke in the next place of his relation to 
 Apollos. 
 
 The passage in 2 Cor. xi. 4 has been adduced to prove that 
 Paul's oppoLents preached another Christ and another gospel. 
 Paul reproached the Corinthians with having given themselves 
 up to such eiToneous teachers. But in that whole section 
 he occupies himself, not with combating a false doctrine, as 
 he must have done if the representatives of a mysticism that 
 undermined the foundations of the Cliristian faith had been 
 his opponents ; but he had only to combat the pretensions of 
 persons who wished to make their own authority supreme 
 in the Corinthian church, and not to acknowledge him as 
 an apostle. These people themselves — he says in the con- 
 text — could not deny, th.at he had performed ever3rthing 
 which could be required of an apostle as founder of a Church, 
 for he had preached to them the gospel of Jesus the Crucified 
 and the Risen, and had communicated to them the powers of 
 the Holy Spirit by his ministry. With justice these persons, 
 he said, might appear against him, and assume the manage- 
 ment of the church, if they could really show that there was 
 another Jesus than the one announced by Paul, another gospel 
 than that which he proclaimed, or another Holy Spirit than 
 that whose powers were efficient among them.' 
 
 * I account for the irregularity In the af^ixecrde, 2 Cor. xi. 4, in this 
 way, — that Paul was penetrated witli the conviction, that the case, 
 which in form he had assumed to be possible, was in fact impossible. 
 This fourth verse is thus conue'Jted with the preceding ; I fear that you
 
 PAULS J0UE]!;EY to ANTIOCfl. 239 
 
 The opponents of these views of this passage believe, like 
 many others, that those who call themselves ol rov Xpurrov are 
 mentioned by Paul himself in 2 Cor. x. 7. But here only 
 such can be understood who boasted of a special internal con- 
 nexion with Christ. But I do not perceive why the epithet 
 should not be appHed to every person who thought that in 
 any sense they particularly belonged to Christ, or could boast 
 of any special connexion with him. From the expression Kara 
 ■n-poaioTToy ' it is clear that these persons boasted of an outward 
 connexion with Christ, which certainly would not suit the 
 representatives of a mystical tendency. Indeed, tliroughout 
 the whole section he distinguishes the opponents of whom he 
 is speaking, as those who wished to establish a purely outward 
 preeminence (2 Cor. xi. 8), founded on theii- Jewish descent, 
 and their connexion with the apostles chosen by Christ him- 
 self, and with the original church in Palestine. Would Paul, 
 if he had to do with such idealizing mystics, have only con- 
 ceded to them that they stood in connexion with Chi-ist, that 
 they could call themselves his servants 1 Would he not from 
 the first have made it a question whether it was the true 
 Christ after whom tliey called themselves 1 And how can it 
 be imagined that Paul, if his opponents were of this class, 
 would have used expressions which are directed rather against 
 
 have departed from Christian simplicity; for if it were not so, you 
 could not have allowed yourselves to be governed by persons who could 
 impart to you nothing but what you have received from me ; for I con- 
 sider (v. 5) myself to stand behind the chief apostles in no respect. By 
 this analysis, the objections of De ^yette against this interpretation are 
 at once obviated. Against the other mode of explanation, I have to 
 object that it does not suit the connexion with v. 5; that the words 
 would then be unnecessarily multiplied ; that Paul would then hardly 
 have used the words rryevfia erepov Aa.ujSaj/ere, which refer only.to receiv- 
 ing the Holy Spirit. I also think that he would then have said, not 
 'Irjffodv, but XgiffTov, for these mystics would rather have preached 
 another Christ than this historical person Jesus ; or as, at a later period, 
 the Gnostics, who held similar notions, taught that there was not a 
 twofold Jesus, but a twofold Christ, or distinguished between a heavenly 
 Christ and a human Jesus. On the contrary, according to the inter- 
 pretation which I have followed, Paul would of course say, " another 
 Jesus than the one I preach," referring to an historical personage, and 
 the events of his life. 
 
 ' A comparison of the passage in 2 Cor. v. 12, (where the eV irgoaunra! 
 is opposed to Ka§5'ia), appears to me to prove that the words must be so 
 understood ; the antithesis of the outward and the inward is quite in 
 Paul's style.
 
 240 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 the sensuous perversion of the rehgious sentiment, and might 
 easily be misiutei-preted in favour of that false spiritualism ? 
 Would he have said, " Yea, though we have known Christ 
 after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more ; 
 but only a spiritual Christ who is exalted above all limited 
 earthly relations, with whom we can now enter into commu- 
 nion in a spiritual manner, since we have a share in the new 
 spiritual creation proceeding from him ; " 2 Cor. v. 16, 17.' 
 
 When Paul appealed to the revelations impart.ed to him, 
 it was not for the confutation of those who supported them- 
 selves only by such inward experiences ; but of those princi- 
 pally who would not acknowledge him as a genuine apostle, 
 equal to those who were chosen by Christ during his earthly 
 life, — the same persons, against whom he maintained his in- 
 dependent apostolic commission, as delivered to him by Christ 
 on his personal appeai'ance to him ; 1 Cor. ix. 1, 2. 
 
 Had he been called to oppose the tendency of a false 
 mysticism and spiritualism, he, who understood so well how 
 to strike at the root of error and delusion, would have cer- 
 tainly entered more fully into conflict with an erroneous 
 direction of the religious sentiment, so dangerous to genuine 
 Christianity, for which he woidd have had the best opportunity 
 in treating of the gifts of the Spirit. 
 
 We must then consider this view of the Christ-party ab 
 entirely unsupported by this epistle of Paul, and only deduced 
 from it by a number of arbitrary interpretations.^ While 
 those whose views we are opposing, trace the origin of such a 
 party to a certain tendency of Judaism, we, on the contrary, 
 are obliged to refer it to a Grecian element. 
 
 From the peculiar qualities of the Grecian mind, which 
 was not disposed to submit itself to an objective authority, 
 but readily moulded everything in a manner conformable to 
 its own subjectivity, such a tendency as that we have been 
 
 ' These words contain a contrast to his former Jewish standing- 
 point, and his earlier conception of the character of the Messiah ; also 
 to all that was antecedent to Christianity, and independent of it ; for 
 from this standing-point all things must in some measure become new. 
 
 ^ I find no ground for a comparison with Montanism, Marcion, and 
 the Clementines, and I must consider as arbitrary the explanations that 
 have been given of the first epistle of Clemens Eomanus (to which, too, 
 I cannot ascribe so high an antiquity), in order to elucidate the aflfaira 
 af the Corinthian church in the times of the apostle Paul.
 
 Paul's jourxey to antioch. 241 
 
 speaking of, might easily proceed. ' At that time, there were 
 many educated and half-educated individuals, who were dis- 
 satisfied with the popular Polytheism. These persons listened 
 to the words of Christ, which impressed them by their sub- 
 limity and spirituality, and believed that in him they had 
 met with a reformer of the religious condition of mankind, 
 such as they had been longing for. We have already re- 
 marked, that a collection of the memorable actions and dis- 
 courses of Christ, had most probably been in circulation fifom 
 a very early period. Might they not have procured such a 
 document, and then constructed by means of it, a peculiar 
 form of Christian doctrine, modelled according to their 
 Grecian subjectivity? These persons probably belonged to 
 the class of the wisdom-seeking Greeks, at which we need not 
 be surprised, although the Christian church made little pro- 
 gress among the higher classes, since in this city a superior 
 degree of refinement was universally prevalent, and from the 
 words which tell us, that in the Corinthian church, not many 
 of the philosophically trained, not many of the highest class 
 were to be found, we may infei', that some such persons must 
 have belonged to it ; one individual is mentioned in Romans 
 xvi. 23, who filled aia important civil ofiice in Corinth.^ 
 
 But against this supposition, the same objections may be 
 urged, which we made against another view of the Christ- 
 party, that Paul has not specially directed his argumentation 
 against the principles of such a party, though they threatened 
 even more than those of other parties to injure apostolic 
 Christianity. Still what he says on other occasions, re- 
 specting the only source of the knowledge of truths that rest 
 on divine Revelation ; — and against the presumption of unen- 
 lightened reason, setting herself up as an arbitress of divine 
 things ; and on the nothingness of a proud philosophy, (1 
 Cor. ii. 1 1,) forms the most powerful argiunentation against 
 
 * The reasons alleged by Bauer, in his late essay on this subject, why 
 such a form of error could not exist at this time, do not convince me. 
 _ 2 Bauer says (p. 11), " Religion, not philosophy, would lead to Chris- 
 tianity." But it is not altogether improbable, that a person might be 
 led by a religious interest, which could find no satisfaction in the 
 popular religion, to philosophy, and by the same interest be carried 
 onwards to Christianity, vithout adopting it in its unalloyed simplicity. 
 Why should not such phenomena, which certainly occurred in th« 
 Becond century, hare arisen from the same causes at this period] 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 the fundamental error of this party, though he might not 
 have it specially in view ; and it is a never-failing cliaracter- 
 istic of the apostle's mode of controversy, that he seizes hold 
 of the main roots of error, instead of busying himself too 
 much (as was the practice of later ecclesiastical polemics) with 
 its branches and offsets. Nor is it altogether improbable, 
 that the adherents of this party were not numerous, and ex- 
 ercised only a slight influence in the church. They occupied 
 too remote a standing-point to receive much benefit from 
 the warnings and arg-uments of Paid, and he had only to set 
 the church on its guard against an injurious intercourse with 
 such persons. " Be not deceived," said he, " evil communica- 
 tions coiTupt good manners." 1 Cor. xv. 33. 
 
 The opposition between the Pauline and Petrine parties, or 
 the Jewish and Gentile Christians, was in reference to the 
 relations of life, the most influential of all these party differ- 
 ences, and gave rise to many separate controversies. The 
 Jews and Jewish Clxristians when they hved in intercourse 
 with heathens, suffered much disquietude, if unawares they 
 partook of any food which had been rendered unclean by its 
 connexion with idolatrous rites. Various rules were laid 
 down by the Jewish theologians to determine what was, and 
 what was not defiling, and various methods were devised for 
 guarding against such defilement, on which much may be 
 found in the Talmud. Now, as peraons might easily run a 
 risk of buying in the market portions of the flesh of animals 
 which had been offered in sacrifice, or might have such set 
 before them in houses where they were guests, their daily life 
 was harassed with constant perplexities. Scruples on this 
 point were probably found, not merely in those who were 
 avowedly among the Judaizing opponents of Paul, but also 
 seized hold of many Christians of weaker minds. As faith 
 in their false gods had previously exercised great influence 
 over them, so they could not altogether divest themselves of 
 an impression, that beings whom they had so lately reverenced 
 as deities, were something more than creatures of the imagina- 
 tion. But from their new standing-point, this reflection of 
 their ancient faith assumed a pecuhar form. As the whole 
 system of heathenism was in their eyes the kingdom of dark- 
 ness, their deities were now transformed into evil spirits, and 
 they feared lest, by partaking of the flesh consecrated to
 
 Paul's journey to antioch. 242 
 
 them,^ they should come into fellowship with evil spirits. 
 That those scruples affected not merely Judaizers, but other 
 Christians also, is evident from a case in reference to which 
 Paul gives specific directions. He supposes, namely, the case, 
 that such weak believers were guests at the table of a heathen.' 
 Now we may be ceitain, that none who belonged to the 
 Judaizers would make up their minds to eat with a heathen.* 
 
 ' Thus Peter, in the Clementines, says to the heathens, Tpo^ao-fi 
 rSiv \eyofi4vo)v lipodvTui' x^Xeirwv Saijj.6i't)iv ifxirinTrXatrOe. Horn. xi. 
 §15. 
 
 * The passage in 1 Cor. viii. 7, may be understood of persons who 
 though they had passed over to Christian monotheism, were still in 
 some measure entangled in polytheism, and could not entirely free 
 themselves from the belief that the gods whom they had formerly 
 served were divinities of a subordinate class ; so that now such persons 
 — since by partaking of the flesh of the victims they supposed that they 
 entered again into connexion with these divine beings — would be led 
 io imagine, that their former idolatry was not wholly incompatible with 
 Christianity, and thus might easily fonn an amalgamation of heathenism 
 and Christianity. In later times, something of this kind we allow took 
 place, in the transition from polytheism to monotheism ; but in this 
 primitive age, Christianity came at once into such direct conflici- on 
 these particulars with heathenism, that an amalgamation of this kma 
 cannot be thought natural. Whoever had not wholly renounced 
 idolatry would certainly not be received into the Christian church, nor 
 would have so mildly passed judgment on such a weakness of_faith. 
 From such passages as Gal. v. 20, 1 Cor. vi. 9, we cannot conclude with 
 certainty that, among those who had professed Christianity, there would 
 be such who, after they had been led to Christianity by an impression 
 which was not deep enough, allowed themselves again to join in the 
 worship of idols; for Paul might here designedly class the vices he 
 named with idolatry, in order to indicate that whoever indulged in the 
 vices connected with idolatry, deserved to be ranked with idolaters. If 
 we compare these passages with 1 Cor. v. 11, it will appear that some 
 such instances occurred of a relapse into idolatry, but those who were 
 thus guilty of participating in idolatry must have been excluded from 
 all Christian communion. 
 
 ^ The scrupulosity of the Jews in this respect appears in the Jewish- 
 Christian work of the Clementines (though on other points sufficiently 
 liberal), where the following words are ascribed to the apostle Peter: 
 TpaTrf{T]s idvoiv ovK airoAavofiev, are St? ov5e (rweariaixdat avTois Svvd' 
 ^(voi Siarb aKadaprws avTovs fitovv. No exception could be made in favour 
 of parents, children, brothers, or sisters. 
 
 * By the rh, 1 Cor. x. 28, on account of the relation of the first tIs, 
 V. 27, we understand it to mean the same person, the heathen host, — 
 and it would be a very unlikely thing that such a person would remind 
 his Christian guest, that he had set before him meat that had been 
 offered to idols; but we must rather refer it to the weak Christian, 
 who considered it to be his duty to warn his unscrupulous brothes
 
 24:4 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 Those who in their own estimation were Pauhne Christians, 
 ridiculed a scrupulosity that thus made daily Ufe uneasy, and 
 fell into an opposite error. They had indeed formed right 
 conceptions of the Pauline principles in reference to theory, 
 V)ut erred in the application, because the spirit of love and o* 
 wisdom was wanting. They said : " Idols are in themselves 
 nothing, mere creatures of the imagination; hence, also the 
 eating of the flesh that has been devoted to them, is a thing 
 in itself indifferent. The Christian is bound by no law in 
 such outward or indifferent things ; all things are free to him ; 
 Travra ektariv was their motto. They appealed to their know- 
 ledge, to the power which they possessed as Christians; yvdJtriQ, 
 i^ovaia, were their watchwords. They had no consideration 
 for the necessities of their weaker brethren ; they easily 
 seduced many among them to follow their example from false 
 shame, that they might not be ridiculed as narrow-minded 
 and scrupulous ; such an one, who allowed himself to be in- 
 duced by outward considerations to act contrary to his con- 
 victions, would afterwards be disturbed in his conscience. 
 " Thus," said Paul, " through thy knowledge shall the weak 
 brother perish for whom Christ died."' Many went such 
 lengths in this pride of knowledge and this abuse of Christian 
 freedom, that they scrupled not to take part in the festive 
 entertainments, consisting of the flesh that was left after the 
 sacrifices had been presented, which the heathens were wont 
 to give their friends ; and thus they were easily carried on to 
 indulge in those immoral excesses, which by the decrees of 
 the apostolic convention at Jerusalem, were forbidden in con- 
 nexion with the eating of flesh sacrificed to idols. In fact, 
 we here find the germ of a one-sided over-valuation of the- 
 oretic illumination, a misunderstanding of Christian freedom, 
 a false adiaphorism in morals, which a later pseudo-pauline 
 gnostic^ tendency carried so far as to justify the grossest im- 
 
 against partaking of such food, the same weak Christian whose con- 
 science is spoken of in v. 29. 
 
 ' We might here make use of the words attributed to Christ taken 
 from an apocryphal gospel, and quoted in Luke vi. 4, by the Codex 
 Cantab. : t^ avrfj fififpa OiaadiJievSs riva ipya^6ixivov rep cra^fiaTot elirep 
 avTw' av6pwTT€, e{ ^tv oi^a"; tJ TToieli, fxaKapios el" ef Se^^ oi^as, eTviKardpa- 
 ros Kol irapaPdrtis el rod uo/xov. — See Das Leben Jesii, p. 140, 
 
 2 As was the case with those whom Porphyry mentions in his book 
 De Abstincntia Carnia, i. § 43, who agree in their mode of erxpression
 
 PAULS JOURNEY TO ANTIOOH. 245 
 
 moralities. But such wickedness certainly cannot be laid to 
 the charge of the perverters of Christian freedom at Corinth. 
 Though the heathen corruption of morals had infected many- 
 members of the Corinthian church, yet they were far from 
 wishing to justify this immorality on such grounds, and had 
 this been the case, Paul would have spoken with far greater 
 severity against such a palhation of sin.' 
 
 very remarkably with the unscrupulous persons described by Paul : oi) 
 yap rifias ixoKvyet to fipciifxara (said they), uxnrfp ovSe t}]v QaKanav to 
 pvnapa. rwv pevfidruv Kvpievofiiv (like the Corinthian i^ovcrtd^ofifv) yap 
 Twv airavTwv, Kadainu t) daKaacra roiv vypaiv Trdurwy. 'Eaif €vKa^7]Q(iip.tv 
 fipSicnv, i5ov\c!)driixfv r^ tov <p60ov ^poui]naTt, Set Se iravd' tjjuv intoTeraxOai. 
 They appeal to their ^vQhs i^ovaias. 
 
 * The departure from Christian truth in theory to so great an extent 
 in the church at Corinth, has been received by many, owing to a mis- 
 understanding of the apostle's language. They have been led to enter- 
 tain this opinion, from believing that there is a strict objective con- 
 nexion between what Paul says in 1 Cor. vi. 12, and the beginning of 
 v. 13, and what he says of the words rh 8e o-u/ta, and from supposing 
 that from v. 12, he had the same thought in view. But a comparison 
 of vi. 12, with X. 23, will show, that Paul at first meant only to speak 
 of the partaking of the meat offered to idols, and to explain the subject 
 more fully. With this reference, he had said in v. 13, the food and the 
 stomach, whose wants it satisfies, are both transitory, designed only for 
 this earthly existence. On these things the essence of the Christian 
 calling cannot depend, which relates to the eternal and the heavenly. 
 Compare 1 Cor. viii. 8, Rom. xiv. 17, Matt. xv. 17 ; and thus he was led 
 to the contrast, " but the form alone of the body is transitory." Ac- 
 cording to its nature, the body is designed to be an imperishable organ 
 devoted to the Lord, which will be awakened again in a nobler glorified 
 form for a higher existence. It must, therefore, be even now withdrawn 
 from the service of lust, and be formed into a sanctified organ belonging 
 to the Lord. It might be, that there was floating in the apostle's mind 
 a possible misunderstanding of his words, against which he wished to 
 guard, or his controversy with the deniers of the doctrine of the resur- 
 rection at Corinth. In either case he would be led by these recol- 
 lections to leave the topic with which he began, and to speak against 
 those exces.se8 in the Corinthian church of which he had not thought at 
 first. And this again led him to answer the questions proposed to him 
 respecting the relation of the sexes. After that he returns again, at 
 the beginning of the 8th chapter, to the subject of " things off"ered to 
 idols," but from another point ; and after several digressions to other 
 gubjects, which may easily be explained from the association of ideas, he 
 begun again in ch. x. 23, the exposition of his sentiments in the 
 same form as in ch. vi. 12. What Billroth has said in his commen- 
 tary, p. 83, against this interpretation, that thus we lose the evident 
 contrast and parallelism between the words ra ftpiifiaTa -rrj Koi\ia, Kal 
 ^ KOtXia TOiS Ppitifj-acri, and rh Se (Ta>fJ.a ov tjj iropveiai, oAAo Tcjj Kvoiaj, Koi 6 
 Kvpios T^ ffiifiari, appears without foundation. It is only a.ssumed that
 
 246 Paul's journey to antioch. 
 
 The oppositiou between the Petrine and Pauline parties, had 
 probably an influence on the different views of the married 
 and single life. It was indeed the peculiar effect of Chris- 
 tianity, that it elevated all the moral relations based in 
 human nattu'e, in their pure human form, to a higher sigiiifi- 
 cance, so that after the original fountain of divine life had 
 assumed humanity, in order, by revealing himself in it, to 
 sanctify and glorify it — the striving after the godlike, was no 
 more to show itself in an uneartlily direction, overstepping the 
 bounds of human natiu-e, but everywhere, the Divine human- 
 ized itself, the divine life revealed itself in the forms of human 
 development. Yet, as at first, before the elevating and all- 
 penetrating influence of Christianity had manifested itself in 
 all the relations of life, the earnest moral spirit of the gospel 
 came into conflict with a world under the domination of 
 sinful lusts ; so, for a short time, an ascetic tendency averse 
 from the marriage union (which though not in accordance 
 with the spirit of the gospel, might be excited by the opposi- 
 tion it made to the corruption of the world) — would easily 
 make its appearance, especially since there was an expectation 
 of the speedy passing away of all earthly things, antecedently 
 to the perfect development of the kingdom of God. The con- 
 viction, that ere the kingdom of God would attain its per- 
 fection, the earthly life of mankind must in all its forms be 
 penetrated by the life of the kingdom of God, and that all 
 these forms would be made vehicles of its manifestation — this 
 conviction could be formed only by degrees from the historical 
 com'se of development. And as to what concerns marriage 
 especially, Christ had certainly by presenting the idea of it as 
 a moral union, requisite for the complete development of the 
 type of humanity as transformed by the divine principle of 
 life, and thus for the reahzation of the kingdom of God in a 
 moral union of the sexes, designed for their mutual complete- 
 ment — by all this, he had at once disowned the ascetic con- 
 tempt of marriage, which views it only on its sensuous side, 
 and rejects its true idea as realized in the divine life. Yet till 
 
 Paul formed this contrast from a more general view of the subjc t, and 
 without limiting it to a perversion of the doctrine of Christian liberty, 
 actually existing in the church. What De Wette has lately advanced 
 in his commentary against this interpretation, has not altered my views, 
 though I have examined with pleasure the reason.s advanced by thia 
 distinguished critic.
 
 THE CHUKCH AT CORINTH. 247 
 
 Christianity had penetrated more into the life of humanity, 
 and thereby had realized this idea of marriage as a peculiar 
 form of manifestation belonging to the kingdom of God, zeal 
 for the kingdom of God might view marriage as a relation 
 tending to distract the mind, and to withdraw it from that one 
 fundamental direction. And besides, though the Christian 
 view in all its pm-ity and completeness, was in dii'ect opposi- 
 tion to tlie ascetic over- valuation of celibacy ; yet Chi-istianity 
 was equally repugnant to the ancient Jewish notion, according 
 to which celibacy was considered as a disgrace and a cui'se. 
 As Christianity made everything depend on the disposition, 
 as it presented the means of salvation and improvement for 
 all conditions of human kind, and a higher life which would 
 find its way into all states of suffering humanity, and open a 
 source of happiness under suffering ; — so it also taught, that 
 a single life, where circumstances rendered it necessary, might 
 be sanctified and ennobled by its relation to the kingdom of 
 God, and become a peculiar means for the furtherance of that 
 object. ' 
 
 Thus Christianity had to maintain a conflict in the 
 Corinthian church with two opposing one-sided tendencies of 
 the moral sentiments, — the ascetic over-valuation of celibacy, 
 and the tendency which would enforce marriage as an uncon- 
 ditional, universal law, without admitting that variety of the 
 social relations, under which the kingdom of God was capable 
 of exhibiting itself. 
 
 The first tendency certainly did not proceed fi-om the 
 Judaizing section of the church, for those apostles to whose 
 authority the Petrine party specially appealed, were married ; 
 and took their wives with them on their missionary journeys ; 
 1 Cor. ix. 5 ; besides, that such ascetism was totally foreign 
 to their national manners. From the Hebrew standing-point 
 
 * Compare Matt. xix. 11, 12; Leben Jesu, p. 567. If we think of the 
 desolations that took place at the fall of the Roman Empire, and the 
 national migrations, — how important was it for such times, that Chris- 
 tianity should allow a point of view from which a single life ntight be 
 esteemed as a charism, though this point of view might be chosen 
 owing to an ascetic bias. How important that that which Mas occa- 
 sioned by the pressure of circumstances, should be made a means of 
 blessing, (by the education of the rude nations effected by the monkish 
 orders).— See the valuable remarks of F. v. Meyer, in his j.«Tiew of 
 Olflhausen's Commentary.
 
 248 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 a fniitfLil marriage appeared as a peculiar blessing and 
 honour ; M'hile unman-ied life, or a childless marriage, was 
 esteemed a disgi-ace. Though by the feeling of sadness at the 
 passing away of the gloiy of the ancient theocracy, and of 
 dissatisfaction with the existing religion, and by the infusion 
 of foreign oriental elements, ascetic tendencies were produced 
 in the later Judaizers; still the spirit of the original Hebrew' 
 system made itself felt, and counteracted to a certain extent 
 the ascetic tendencies, both in Judaism and Christianity.^ 
 But among the Pauline party, an over-valuation of the single 
 life more or less prevailed, and in this respect they thought 
 themselves countenanced by the example of their apostle. The 
 Judaizei-s, on the other hand, remained on the ancient Hebrew 
 standing-point, as uncompromising opponents of cehbacy.^ 
 
 The opposition against the rigidness of Judaism, and that 
 false liberalism which actuated many, disposed them to break 
 thi-ough several wholesome moral restraints. It was main- 
 tained, and with justice, that Christianity had broken down 
 the wall of separation between the sexes, in reference to the 
 concerns of the higher life, and had freed woman from her 
 state of servitude. But, seduced by the spiiit of false freedom, 
 individuals had been led to overstep the limits prescribed by 
 nature and sound morals, and rendeivd sacred by Christianity^ 
 Women, contrary to the customs prevalent among the Greeks,* 
 
 ' Hence also the ascetic tendency of the Essenes was corrected by a 
 party who introduced marriage into thii sect. 
 
 ^ This opposition appeared among the later descendants of the 
 Judaizers of this age. Thus in the Clementines, it is given as the 
 characteristic of a true prophet, ya^-ov vo/xiTevd, iyKparetav (rvyxwpeZ, 
 Hom. iii. § 16. It is enjoined on the overseers of the church, § 68, yeW 
 U7J fi.6vov KareireiyfTwaav rovs yd/xo-js, aWh Kal twv irpofiePr^Kdrwy, 
 Epiphanius says of that class of Ebioaites whom he describes, that they 
 reject wapBtvia; " avayKa^ovtri 5e Kal trap' T]\iKiav tKyaui^ovcn roiis veovs 
 6| eTTiTpoirris SrjOev ruiv vap avrols SiSaaKaKoiV." Similar things are found 
 in the religious books of the Zabians against monkery. 
 
 2 When Paul in 1 Cor. vii. 40, recommends celibacy in certain cases, 
 he appears to have in view the Judaizei^, who set themselves against an 
 apostolic authority ; for in the words 5o/ci Se Kayca Trvivjxa 6eov fx^*"' 
 he appears to contradict those who believed and asserted that they alono 
 had the Spirit of God. 
 
 * This appears to me the most simple and natural interpretation. 
 What has been said by some respecting the diiference of the Roman and 
 Qreek customs of aperto or operto capita sacra faccre, seems hardlj 
 applicable here.
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 249 
 
 appeared in the Christian assemblies unveiled, and, putting 
 themselves on an equality with the men, assumed the office of 
 public teachers. 
 
 The want of Christian love was also evinced by the dis- 
 putes that arose respecting property, which the parties were 
 not willing to decide, as had been hitherto customary in the 
 Jewish and Christian churches, by arbitrators chosen from 
 among themselves ; these Gentile Chiistians, boastful of their 
 freedom, set aside the scruples which restrained Jewish 
 Christians, and appealed without hesitation to a heathen 
 tribunal. 
 
 By this defect in the spirit of Christian love, those rehgious 
 feasts which were particularly fitted to represent the loving 
 communion of Christians and to maintain its vigour, lost their 
 true significance, those Christian Agapae, which composed one 
 whole with the celebration of the Last Supper. At these love- 
 feasts, the power of Christian fellowship was shown in over- 
 coming all the differences of rank and education ; rich and 
 poor, masters and slaves, partook with one another of the 
 same simple meal. But in the Corinthian church, where 
 these differences were so strongly marked, this could not be 
 attained. There existed among the Greeks an ancient custom 
 of holding entertainments at which each one brought his food 
 with him, and consumed it alone.' The Agapse in the 
 Corinthian church were conducted on the plan of this ancient 
 custom, although the peculiar object of the institution was so 
 different ; consequently, the distinction of rich and poor was 
 rendered peculiarly prominent, and the rich sometimes in- 
 dulged in excesses which desecrated the character of these 
 meetings. 
 
 The predominant Grecian character and constitution of the 
 Corinthian church, appeared in zeal for mutual communica- 
 tion by speaking in their public assemblies, and for the cul- 
 tivation of those charisms which related to oral rehgious 
 instruction ; but it took a one-sided direction, which showed 
 its baneful influence at a later period in the Greek Church, an 
 
 ^ See Xenoph. Memorabil. iii. 14. The crvfiTrSa-ia tpiXiKh bore a greater 
 resemblance to the Agapae ; at these feasts, all that each brought waa 
 made a part of a common meal, which the chronicler Johannes Malala 
 mentions as continuing to be practised even in his time. See viL Chro- 
 nograph, e collect. Niebuhr. p. 180.
 
 260 THE CHURCH i.T CORINTH. 
 
 aspiring rather after extraordinary powers of discourse, than 
 after a life of eminent practical godliness. ' This unpractical 
 tendency, and the want of an all-animating and guiding love, 
 were also shown in their mode of valuing and applying the 
 various kinds of charisms which related to public speaking ; 
 in their one-sided over-valuation of gifts they sought for the 
 more striking and dazzling, such as speaking in new tongues, 
 in preference to those that were more adapted to general 
 edification. 
 
 To which of the parties in the Corinthian church the 
 opponents of the doctrine of the resvuTectiou belonged, can- 
 not be determined with certainty, since we have no precise 
 account of their peculiar tenets. No other source of informa- 
 tion is left open to us, than what we may infer from the 
 objections against the doctrine of the resm-rection which Paul 
 seems to presuppose, and from the reasons alleged b}' him in 
 its favour, and adapted to the standing-point from which they 
 assailed it. As to the former, Paul might construct these 
 objections, (an he had often done on other occasions when 
 developing an important subject,) without our being autho- 
 rized to infer that they were exactly the objections which had 
 been urged by the impugners of the doctrine. And as to the 
 latter, in his mode of establishing the doctrine, he might 
 follow the connexion with other Christian truths in which 
 this article of faith presented itself to his own mind, without 
 being influenced by the peculiar mode of the opposition made 
 to it. 
 
 When Paul, for example, adduced the evidence for the 
 truth of the resurrection of Christ, this will not justify the 
 inference, that his Corinthian opponents denied the resur- 
 rection of Christ ; for, without legarding their opposition, he 
 might adopt this line of argument, because to his own mind, 
 faith in the resiurection of Christ was the foundation of 
 faith in the resurrection of the redeemed. He generally 
 joins together the doctrines of the resurrection and of im- 
 mortality, and hence some may infer that his opponents gene- 
 rally denied personal immortality. But still it remains 
 a question, whether Paul possessed exact information respect- 
 
 ^ Paul reminds them in 1 Cor. iv. 20, that a participation in the 
 kingdom of God is shown not in high-sounding words, but in the power 
 of the Ufe.
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 251 
 
 ing the sentiments of these persons, or whether he did not 
 follow the connexion in which the truths of the Christian 
 faith were presented to his own mind, and his habit of seeing 
 in the opponents of the doctrines of the resurrection those 
 also of the doctrine of immortality, since both stood or fell 
 together in the Jewish polemical theology. 
 
 This controversy on the resun^ection has been deduced 
 from, the ordinaiy opponents of that doctrine among the 
 Jews, the Sadducees, and it has hence been concluded that it 
 originated with the Judaiziug party in the Corinthian church. 
 This supposition appears to be confirmed by the circumstance 
 that Paiil particularly mentions, as witnesses for the truth of 
 Christ's resuiTection, Peter and James, who were the most 
 distingTiished authorities of the Judaizing party ; but this 
 cannot be esteemed a proof, for he must on any supposition 
 have laid special weight on the testimony of the apostles col- 
 lectively, and of these in particular, for the appeai'ance of 
 Christ repeated to them after his resurrection. Had he 
 thought of the Sadducees, he would have joined issue with 
 them on their peculiar mode of reasoning from the alleged 
 silence of the Pentateuch, just as Clirist opposed the Sad- 
 ducees from this standing-point. But we nowhere find an 
 example of the mingling of Sadduceeism and Christianity, and 
 as they present no points of connexion with one another, such 
 an amalgamation is in the highest degree improbable. 
 
 A similar reply must be made to those who imagine that 
 the controversy on the doctrine of the resun-ection, and the 
 denial of that of immortality, may be explained from a 
 mingling of the Epicurean notions with Christianity. Yet 
 the passages in 1 Cor. xv. 32 — 35, may appear to be in 
 favom* of this view, if we consider the practical consequence 
 deduced by Paul ft-om that denial of the resmTection as 
 a position laid down in the sense of the Epicvu-eans, if we 
 find in that passage a warning against their God-forgetting 
 levity, and against the infectious example of the lax morals 
 which were the offspring of their unbelief Yet the objec- 
 tions would not apply with equal force to this intei'pretation 
 as to the first.' From the delicacy and mobility of the 
 Grecian character, so susceptible of all kinds of impressions, 
 we can more easily imagine suoh a mixtiu-e of contradictory 
 
 • As Bauer correctly remarks in his Essay on the Christ-party, p. 81.
 
 -•J- THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 mental elements and such inconsistency, than from the stiff- 
 ness of Jewish nationality, and the strict, dogmatic, decided 
 nature of Saduceeism. To this may be added, that the spirit 
 of the times, so very much disposed to Eclecticism and 
 S}'ncretism, tended to bring nearer one another and to 
 amalgamate modes of thinking that, at a dift'erent period, 
 woul<l have stood in most direct and violent opposition. Yet 
 it would be ditficult to find in Christianity, whether viewed 
 on the doctrinal or ethiciil side, anything which could attract 
 a person who was devoted to tlie Epicurean pliilosophy, and 
 induce him to include something Christian in his Syncretism, 
 unless we think of something entirely without reference to 
 all the remaining peculiarities of Christianity, relating only 
 to the idea of a monotheistic universal religion, in opposition 
 to the popular sujKjrstitious, and some moral ideas detached 
 from their connexion with the whole system ; but this would 
 be a^ least not very probable, and might more easily happen 
 in an age when Christianity had long been fermenting in the 
 general mind, rather than on its first aj)pearance in the 
 heathen world. All history, too, testifies against this sup- 
 j)o3ition ; for we always see the Epicurean })hiIosophy in 
 hostility to Christianity, and never in the first ages do we 
 find any aj)proximation of the two standing-points. As 
 to the only pass;ige which may appear to favour this view, 
 1 Cor. XV. 3l' — 35, it is not clear that the opponents of the 
 doctrine of the resurrection had really brought forward the 
 maxims here stated. It might be, that Paul here intended 
 only to characterise that course of living which it appeared to 
 him must proceed from the consistent carrying out of a 
 philosophy that denied the distinction of man to eternal life ; 
 for the idea of eternal life and of the reality of a stiiving 
 directed to eternal things were to him correlative ideas. And 
 when persons who had made a profession of Christianity could 
 fall into a denial of eternal life, it appeared to him as an 
 infatuation of mind proceeding from d/japria, and hunying a 
 man away to sinful practice ; a forgetfulncss of God, or the 
 mark of a state of estrangement from God, in which a man 
 knows nothing of God. It is much more probable, that 
 philosophically educated Gentile Christians were prejudiced 
 against the doctrine of the resm-rection from another stand- 
 ing-point, as in later times ; the common rude conception
 
 THE CHURCH AT ConlNTH. 253 
 
 of this doctriae which Paul particulai'ly combated probably 
 gave rise to many such prejudices. The objections, how 
 can such a body as the present be united to the soul ir. 
 a higher condition, and ho^ is it possible that a body which 
 has sunk into corruption should be restored again ; these 
 objections would perfectly suit the standing-point of a 
 Grentile Christian, who had received a certain philosophical 
 training, although it cannot be affirmed with certainty, that 
 precisely these objections were brought forward in the pre- 
 sent instance. And if we are justified in supposing, that 
 by the Christ-party is meant one that, from certain expressions 
 of Christ which they explained according to their subjective 
 standing-point, constructed a peculiar philosophical Chris- 
 tianity, it woiild be most probable that such persons formed 
 an idea of a resurrection only in a spiritual sense, and ex- 
 plained in this manner the expressions of Christ himself 
 relating to the resurrection, as we must in any case assume 
 that those who wished to be Christians and yet denied the 
 future resmrection, were far removed from the true standard 
 of Christian doctrine in other respects, and had indidged 
 in arbitrary explanations of such of the discourses of Christ 
 as they were acquainted with. 
 
 It may be asked, where, and in what manner did Paul 
 receive the first accounts of these disturbances in the 
 Corinthian church 1 Frona several expressions of Paul in 
 his Second Epistle to the Corinthians,' it appears, that 
 when he wrote his admonitory epistle, he had been there 
 again, but only for a very short time, and that he must 
 have had many painful experiences of the disorders among 
 them, though they might not all have appeared during his 
 visit.- 
 
 ' Between which and the First Epistle, Paul could have taken no 
 journey to Corinth, and yet in the First Epistle, as we shall presently 
 see, there is a passage which must m most naturally referred to a pre- 
 ceding second journey to that city. 
 
 ' I must now declare myself, after repeated examinations, more 
 decidedly than in the first edition, in favour of the view maintained by 
 Bleek in his valuable essay in the Theologischen Studien und Kritiken, 
 1830, part iii., which has since been approved by KUckert, — by Schott, 
 in his discussion of some important chronological points in the history 
 of the apostle Paul, Jena, 1832, — and by Credner, in his Introduction to 
 the New Testament, — and by others. Though some of the passages 
 adduced as evidence for this opinion admit of another interpretation.
 
 254 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 Owing to the breaks in the narrative of the Acts, it is 
 di&cuit to decide when this second visit to Corirth took 
 
 yet, taken altogether, they establish the second visit of Paul to this 
 church as an undeniable fact. The passage in 2 Cor. xii. 14, compared 
 with V. 13, we must naturally understand to mean, that, as he bad 
 already stayed twice at Corinth without rcceivins the means of support 
 from the church, he was resolved so to act on his third visit, as to be 
 no more a burden to them than on the two former occasions. If verse 
 14 be imderstood to mean (a sen.se of which the words will admit), that 
 he wa.s planning to come to them a third time, we must supply what is 
 not expressly said, that he would certainly execute this resolution, and 
 yet the words so understood do not quite suit the connexion. According 
 to the most approved reading of 2 Cor. ii. 1, the itiXiv must be referred 
 to the whole clause iv \inrri 4k6('ii', and then it follows, that Paul had 
 already once received a painful impression from the Corinthians in a 
 visit made to them, which cannot refer to his first residence among 
 them, and therefore obliges us to sujtpose a second already past. In 
 the passage 2 Cor. xii. 21, which cannot here be brought in proof, it is 
 indeed possible, and, according to the position of the words, is most 
 natural, to connect the waKiv with i\66vTa -, but we may be allowed to 
 suppose that the iraXiv belongs to Tair(ivw<rri, but is placed first for 
 emphasis. In this ca.se, the introduction of the niXii/, which yet is not 
 added to iKBui/ in v. 20, as well as the position of the whole clause 
 irdKiv i\66vTa, is made good, and the connexion with what follows 
 favours this interpretation. Paul, in v. 21, expresses his anxiety lest 
 God should huml)le him a second time among them when he came. 
 Accordingly, we should thus understand xiii. 1, following the simplest 
 interpretation, though this passage may be otherwise understood, (if it 
 be supposed to mean, that as he had already twice announced his 
 intended coming to Corinth, having now a third time repeated his 
 threatening, he would certainly execute it). " I am now intending for 
 a third time to come to you, and as what is supported by two or three 
 witnes.ses must be valid, so now what I have threatened a second and a 
 third time will certainly be fulfilled. I have (when I was with you a 
 second time) told beforehand, those who had sinned, and all the rest, 
 and I now say it to them a second time, as if I were with you — though 
 I now (this 710W is opposed to formerly, since when present among 
 them, he had expressed the same sentiments,) that if I come to you 
 again, I will not act towards you with forbearance," (as Paul, when he 
 came to them a second time, still behaved with forbearance, though he 
 had already sufficient cause for dissatisfaction with them.) De Wette, 
 indeed, objects against this interpretation, that the mention of the first 
 visit of Paul to Corinth would be in this case quite superfluous ; but if, 
 during his second visit, he had not acted with severity towards the 
 Corinthians, but intended to do so on this third occasion, because they 
 had not listened to his admonitions, he would have reason to mention 
 his two first visits together, in order to mark more distinctly in what 
 respect the third would be distinguished from the other two. And 
 though, during his first residence among them, his experience was on 
 the whole pleasing, yet in this long period many things must have
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 255 
 
 place. If the Second Epistle to the Corinthians had not been 
 addressed at the same time to the churches in Achaia, we 
 might suppose that Paul, during his long residence at Corinth, 
 had taken missionary or visitation journeys throughout other 
 parts of Achaia, and that he then once more returned to 
 Corinth, only for a short time, in order to fetch Aquila for 
 the journeys he had in prospect. It appears that on this 
 journey he was exposed to many dangere, and that on his 
 deliverance from them he made the vow mentioned above. 
 But since the second epistle was also directed to the churches 
 in Achaia, this supposition, in order to be maintained, must 
 be so modified, that Paul could have made in the meantime 
 another longer journey, and returned back again to Achaia — 
 which it is not easy to admit. Or we must suppose, that 
 during his longer residence at Ephesus, of which we are now 
 speaking, he undertook another missionaryjoumey, and called 
 in passing at Corinth ; or that, by the anxiety which the 
 news brought from Corinth excited in his mind, he was 
 induced to go thither from Ephesus, but on account of cir- 
 cumstances which called him back to Ephesus, he could stay 
 only a short time with the Corinthian church, and therefore 
 gave them notice of a longer residence among them. But it 
 does not well agree with this last supposition, that Pavil dis- 
 tinguishes this visit as one that took place " by the way." And 
 especially if it took place not long before the first epistle, we 
 might the more expect allusions to it in that. The communi- 
 cations between Paal and the Corinthian church scem also to 
 presuppose, that he had not been with them for a considerable 
 time. There remains only a thu'd supposition, that the visita- 
 tion which he made after his departure from Antioch to the 
 churches earlier founded by him (Acts xviii. 23) before he 
 entered on a fresh field of labour, was of greater extent than 
 is distinctly stated in that passage, and that it extended as 
 far as Achaia. Perhaps he then travelled first from Phrygia 
 
 happened with which he could not be satisfied, but which he treated 
 gently, trusting to the future progress of their Christian life. We may 
 find in the first epistle, a trace of this his second residence at Corinth. 
 When in 1 Cor. xvi. 7, Paul says, that he intended not now to see them 
 by the way, &pTt and its position allows us to assume a reference to an 
 earlier visit, which he made only " by the way," eV irapSitf, and as this 
 was so very transient, we may account for his making no further allusiooa 
 bo it in the first epistle.
 
 256 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 towards the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and then sailed 
 to Hellas. Possibly he then found at Corintli ApoUos who 
 had proceeded thither, when Paul coming from Autioch, 
 passed through the upper parts of Asia (Acts xix. 1),' and 
 perhaps joined him ou his return, and went with him to 
 Ephesus. 
 
 We must therefore at all events sapposc, that Paul had 
 obtained his first knowledge of the alteration for the worse in 
 the Corinthian church by his own oljservation. He could not 
 indeed have witnessed the strife of the various parties, for, as 
 appears from 1 Cor. xi. 12, he heard of this first at Ephesus 
 from the report of strangers. But already he must have had 
 the painful experience, that in a church which once was 
 mspired with so much Christian zeal, their old vices and 
 enormities again appeared under a Chri.stian guise. He 
 admonished them for their improvement, and threatened to 
 use severer measures, if, when he returned from Ephesus, he 
 should find that no improvement had taken place. At Ephe- 
 sus, he coidd obtain information respecting the effect of his 
 last admonitions on the church. 
 
 But he received worse news than he expected of the cor- 
 ruption of morals in the Corinthian church, and especially 
 of the vicious conduct of an individual who had maintained 
 unlawful intercourse with his step-mother. Hence, in an 
 epistle ^ he addressed to the Corinthian church, he rc})roached 
 them with allowing such a man still to remain among them, 
 
 ' We must in thi.s instance interpolate Paul's journey to Corinth, 
 Acts xix. 1, and suppose that since the author of the Acts knew nothing 
 3f the wider extent of Taul's visitation at that time, he represented 
 that he immediately betook himself from Upper Asia to Ephesus. 
 
 ' The epistle in which Paul wrote this could not at any rate be that 
 still retained by the Armenian church, which treats of subjects entirely 
 ditTereut, and must be an answer to an earlier Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians. This pretended Epistle to the Corinthians by Paul, and their 
 answer, bear on them, as is now universally acknowledged, the most 
 undeniable marks of spuriousness. The account of the opponents of the 
 doctrine of the resurrection at Corinth, who were thoui^ht similar to 
 later deniers of it among the Gentiles, connected with the tales of Simon 
 Magus, and the account of the Jewish founders of sects, by Hege- 
 sippus, gave an idle monk the inducement to put together these frag- 
 ments of Pauline phrases. If they were quoted in a genuine homily of 
 Gregory ^wtktt^s, they were perhaps in existence in the 3d century, 
 but this address of Gregory to the newly baptized may itself be sup- 
 posititious.
 
 THE CnURCH AT CORINTH. 20i 
 
 and required them to renounce all connexion with so aoan- 
 doncd a character.' 
 
 Tt was indeed sufficiently evident what Paul here intended, 
 that the Corinthians should not only exclude from the 
 meetings of the church those who called themselves Cln-istiauB, 
 but denied Christianity by their vicious lives ; but also abstain 
 from all kind of intercourse with them, in order to testify em- 
 phatically that such a merely outward profession was of no 
 value, to bring these persons to a sense of their guilt, and to 
 declare practically to the heathen world, that whoever did not 
 exemplify the Christian doctrine in the conduct of his life, 
 must not flatter himself that he was a Christian. But since 
 Paul had not thought it necessary to add, that he spoke only 
 of the vicious in the chm-ch, and not of all persons in general 
 who lived in such vices, the Corinthians did not think of the 
 limitation which the thing itself might easily have suggested, 
 and thus they were thrown into pei-jjlexity, how to comply 
 with such an injvmction ; for how could they, while living in 
 the midst of an evil world, renounce all intercourse with the 
 vicious 1 They addressed a letter to the apostle, in which 
 they stated their perplexity, and proposed several other 
 questions on doubtful cases in the concerns of the chm-ch. 
 
 By means of this letter, and the messengers who brought 
 it, he obtained a more complete knowledge of the concerns 
 and state of the church. In the communication which con- 
 tained his reply to the questions proposed, he poured forth 
 his whole heart full of paternal love to the church, and 
 entered minutely into all the necessities of their situation. 
 This epistle, a master-piece of apostolic wisdom in chm-ch 
 
 ' It may be asked, whether Paul in the last epistle treated merely of 
 the case which was immediately under consideration in the Corinthian 
 church, only of abstaining from intercourse with nopvois, or whether he 
 expressly spoke of such who had fallen into other notorious vices ; — the 
 covetous, who had no regard for the property of others ; the slanderous, 
 those addicted to drinking, those who took any part whatever in the 
 worship of idols. The manner in which he expresses himself in 
 1 Cor. v. 9 — 11, might signify, though not decisively, that since he was 
 obliged to guard his words against misapprehension, he took advantage 
 of this opportunity, to give a wider application to the principles they 
 expressed, which he certainly had from the beginning in his mind, yet 
 had not occasion to mention in his first epistle, which bore no one par- 
 ticular point. At all events, it is important to know how far Paul 
 extended the strictness of church discipline. 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 258 THE cnuRcn at corixth. 
 
 government, contains much that was impm-taiit in lefercnce 
 to the change produced by Chi'istianity on the various rek- 
 tions of life. It was probably conveyed by the messongera on 
 their return to Corinth. 
 
 Paul condemned in an equal degree all party feeling in the 
 Corinthian church ; his salutation in vei"sc 2, was opposed to 
 it, and suited to remind all tliat thoy equally belonged to one 
 church, which composed idl the faithful and redeemed. He 
 tauglit them that Christ was their sule head, to whom they 
 nmst all adhere — that all human lal)ourei-s were to be con- 
 sidered only as instruments, by each of whom God worked 
 according to the ])eculiar standing-pniut on which God had 
 ]>laced him, in order to promote in tlie hearts of their fellow- 
 men a work which they were all destined to servo. They 
 ought to be far from venturing to boast that they had this or 
 that man for their teacher — for such boasting, by which they 
 owned themselves dependent on man, was rather a denial of 
 their being Christians ; for if they only, as became Christians, 
 I'cferred everything to Clirist, to whom they were indebted for 
 conuuunion with God, they might \io-w all things as designed 
 to serve them, and as belonging to them ; those sublime ex- 
 pressions in 1 Cor. iii. 21, show how the tnicst spiritual 
 freedom and the highest elevation of soul arc the offspring of 
 Christian humility. This general truth in reference to the 
 manner in which all Christian teachci-s (each according to his 
 jjeculiar qualifications) were to be estimated and made use of, 
 he applies particuhu-ly to his relation in Apollos ; of whom he 
 could speak most rcsei^vedly and unsuspcctedly, since he was a 
 man with whom ho stood in the closest connexion, and who 
 had adopted his own peculiar form of doctrine. To those 
 persons who could not find in his simple preaching the wisdom 
 which they sought after, and preferred Apollos as a teacher 
 more according to their Grecian taste, ' he said, that it was 
 wrong on their part to regi'ct the absence of such wisdom in 
 his preaching, for the fountain of all genuine wisdom, the 
 wisdom of God, was not to be foimd in any scheme of philo- 
 
 ' We have already spoken of the reference of this whole section, 
 1 Cor. i. 1 — 18. We need not enter more at large into the dispute re- 
 specting the meaning proposed by Eichom and others — that Paul here 
 directed his argumentation against Grecian Sophists, who had made an 
 entrance into the church, and threatened to seduce many into unbelief.
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 259 
 
 ?ophy, but only in the doctrine of the crucified Jesiis, the 
 S'aviour of the world, -which he had made the central-point of 
 his preaching ; but this divine wisdom coiild only be found and 
 understood by a disposition that was susceptible of what was 
 divine. For this reason, he had never yet been able to lead 
 them by his discourses to perceive in the simple doctrine of 
 the gospel, (which in the eyes of the world was foolishness,) 
 the depths of divine wisdom, because an ungodlike disposition 
 predominated in their minds, of which these party strifes were 
 an evident sign. He gave the Corinthians a rule by which 
 they might pass a judgment on aU teachers of Christianity. 
 Whoever acknowledged the immovable foundation of the 
 Christian life, which had been laid by himself, that Jesus was 
 the Saviour, that men were indebted for salvation to him 
 alone, and on this foundation proceeded to erect the Christian 
 doctrine, would thereby prove liimself to be a Christian 
 teacher, and by his faith in Him who alone coidd impart 
 salvation, would attain it himself, and lead others to it. But 
 in the structure of doctrine which was raised on this founda- 
 tion, the divine might more or less be mixed with the human, 
 and so far be deteriorated. The complete purifying process, 
 the separation of the divine and the human, would be left to 
 the last judgment. Many a one who had attached too great 
 value to the human, would see the work destroyed which he 
 had constructed, though the foundation on which it rested 
 would remain for himself and others : such a one would be 
 saved after many severe trials, which he must undergo for 
 purification fi-om the alloy of self; 1 Cor. iii. 11 — 15.' But 
 from the teachei-s who adhered to the unchangeable founda- 
 tion of God s kingdom, and built upon it, either with better 
 or worse materials, Paul distinguishes those of whom he says, 
 that they destroy the Temple of God itself in believers, and 
 1 Since the whole passage which speaks of fire, of the building con- 
 structed of various materials, some fire-proof and others destructible by 
 fire, and of being saved as from the midst of the fi-e, is composed of 
 images, and is figurative throughout, — it is very illogical, as Origen has 
 justly remarked, arbitrarily to detach from the rest, and take in a 
 literal sense, a single trait in the picture as that of fire. Nor let any 
 one say that the idea of such a judgment in the historical development 
 is somewhat unpauline. The idea of such a judgment connected with 
 the publication of the gospel, and accompanying its operations, per- 
 vades the whole New Testament, — by which indeed, a final judgment 
 of the world, to which this is only preparative, is not excluded.
 
 2G0 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 are guilty of peculiar sacrilege ; against such he denounced 
 the most awful punishment, " If any man defile the temple of 
 God, him shall God destroy;" 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that where Paul treats of eating meat 
 offered to idols, he does not, in order to impress the Gentile 
 Christians with their obligations to abstain from all such food, 
 appeal to the decision of the apostohc convention at Jeru- 
 salem, any more than he opposed the authority of that 
 decision to the Jewish Christians, who wished to compel the 
 Gentiles to be circumcised. It is one of the characteristics of 
 his method, that he here rests his argument, not on outward 
 positive command, a v6iJio<s, but on the inward law in the 
 hearts of believers, on what the spirit of the gospel requires. 
 As in the instance of those who wished to impose the law of 
 circumcision on Gentile Christians, instead of appealing to an 
 outward authority, he pointed out the internal contrariety 
 of their conduct to the peculiar and fundamental princi- 
 ples of the gospel ; so on this point he opposed to the 
 abuse of Christian freedom, the law of love which was 
 inseparable from the gospel. In short, it appears that, 
 though the authority of that decision was held sacred in 
 Palestine, Acts xxi. 25, yet beyond these limits it seems to 
 have been little regarded. Since that decision rested on 
 mutual concessions, it followed that if one of the parties of 
 the Jewish Christians failed to fulfil the condition — if they 
 would not acknowledge the uncircumcised as their heathen 
 brethren, — then, on the other side, the obligation ceased to 
 operate on the Gentile Christians, who by the observance of 
 that decision, would have made an approach to the Jewish 
 Christians. At a later period, after the settlement of the 
 opposition between these two hostile tendencies could no 
 longer be accomplished, but a Jewish element gained entrance 
 into the church itself in an altered form, this decision might 
 again acquire the strict power of law. 
 
 Paul did not dispute the position which the free-thinking 
 Christians at Corinth were always contending for, that no law 
 could be laid down about outward things that were in them- 
 selves indifferent; he did not even exact their deference 
 to the apostolic decision, by which such food was absolutely 
 forbidden; but he shows them from the standing-point of the 
 gospel, that what is in itself lawful, may, under special cir-
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 261 
 
 ciunstances, cease to be so, as far as it contradicts the law of 
 love, — ^the obligation of Christians to act on all occasions so 
 that the salvation of others may be most promoted, and 
 the glory of God be subserved. He points out that they 
 even denied their own Chi-istian freedom, since in another 
 way they brought themselves into subjection to outward 
 things, which they ought to have used with freedom in the 
 spirit of love, according as circumstances might vary. ' 
 
 In reference to the question proposed to him respecting a 
 single life, he took a middle coiirse between the two contend- 
 ing parties, those who entirely condemned a single life, and 
 those who wished to prescribe it for all persons as something 
 essential to Christian perfection. Though by his o^vn peculiar 
 character he might be disposed to attach a higher value to a 
 single Hfe, (which for his own method of labouring was cer- 
 tainly an important assistance,) than could be ascribed to 
 it from the Christian standing-point, when viewed only objec- 
 tively ; yet the power of a higher spirit was here more clearly 
 manifested, by which, though his own subjective inclination 
 was not denied, in the regulation of his own conduct, yet it 
 was not allowed to interfere injuriously with his views of 
 Christian morals, and with his wisdom in the guidance of the 
 church ; but how could it be otherwise with a man who, 
 although as a man he retained a strongly marked indi- 
 viduality, was influenced in so extraordinary a degree by the 
 Spirit of Christ, of that Saviour for whom he had suffered 
 the loss of all things 1 He discerned how injm-ious a forced 
 cehbacy would be in a church like the Corinthian, and hence 
 sought to guard against this evil. He represented a single 
 life for those who were fitted for it by their natural con- 
 stitution, as a means of attending with less distraction to the 
 concerns of the kingdom of God, without being diverted from 
 them by earthly cares, especially under the great impending 
 tribulations, until the second coming of Christ ; from which 
 we must infer what an influence the near approach of that 
 event had on his own course of conduct. He placed the 
 essence of Christian perfection not in cehbacy, nor in the out- 
 
 ' 1 Cor. vi. 12. Trivra ixoi e^effriv a\\' ovk iyw i^ovcriaaO-fiffonai irir6 
 TWOS. If everything is lawful for me, yet I must not allow myself to be 
 governed by external things, as if, because I can use them, I must 
 neceaaarily use them.
 
 2G2 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 ward denial of earthly things ; but in that renunciation of the 
 world which has its seat in the disposition, which would make 
 the married and the rich, as well as the unmaiTied and the 
 poor, ready to sacrifice everything which the exigencies of 
 the times might demand ; to suffer the loss of all things, 
 however dear to their heaiis, for the sake of the gospel ; 
 1 Cor. vii. 30. 
 
 In speaking of the various relations of life in which men 
 might be placed at the time of their conversion, Paul lays 
 down as a rule, that that event should produce no change 
 in this respect. Christianity did not violently dissolve the 
 relation in which a man found himself placed by birth, 
 education, and the leading of divine Providence, but taught 
 him to act in them from a new point of view, and with a new 
 disposition. It effected no abioipt revolutions, but gi'aduaUy, 
 by the power of the Spirit working from w'ithin, made all 
 things new. The apostle applies this especially to the case of 
 slaves, which it was more needful to consider, because from 
 the beginning that gospel which was preached to the poor 
 found much acceptance among this class, and the knowledge 
 imparted to them by Christianity of the common dignity 
 and rights of all men, might easily have excited them to 
 throw off theii' earthly yoke. Likewise in tliis view, Chris- 
 tianity, in order not to mingle worldly and spiritual things 
 together, and not to miss its main object, the salvation of the 
 soul, did not presume to effect by force a sudden revolution 
 in their condition, but operated only on the miud and dis- 
 position. To slaves the gospel presented a higher life, which 
 exalted them above the i*estraints of their earthly relation ; 
 and though masters were not required by the apostles to give 
 their slaves freedom, since it was foreign to their ministry to 
 interfere ^vith the aiTangement of civil relations, yet Chris- 
 tianity imparted to masters such a knowledge of their duties to 
 their slaves, and such dispositions towards them, and taught 
 them to recognise as brethren the Christians among their 
 slaves, in such a manner as to make their relation to them 
 quite a different thing. 
 
 Paul, therefore, when he touches on this relation, tells the 
 slave, that though by the an'angement of Providence he was 
 deban-ed from the enjoyment of outward freedom, he should 
 not be troubled, but rejoice that the Lord had bestowed upon
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 263 
 
 him true inward freedom. But while he considers the latter 
 as the only true freedom, in the possession of which man may 
 be free under all outward restraints, and apart from which no 
 true freedom can exist, he is very far from overlooking the 
 subordinate worth of civil freedom, for he says to the slave, 
 to whom he had announced the true, the spiritual freedom, 
 " but if thou mayst be free, use it rather," 1 Cor. vii. 21;' 
 which implies that the apostle viewed the state of freedom as 
 more corresponding to the Christian calling, and that Chris- 
 tianity, when it so far gained the ascendency as to form 
 anew the social relations of mankind, would bring about this 
 change of state, which he declares to be an object of preference.^ 
 
 ' The later ascetic spirit forms a striking contrast on this point to the 
 spirit of primitive Christianity. Although, in a grammatical view, it is 
 most natural to supply the e\ev6epos yeveadai which immediately pre- 
 cedes, or iXevdepia, yet the later Fathers have not thus understood it, 
 because the worth of civil freedom appeared to them not so great, 
 but they took the apostle's meaning to be exactly opposite, fxaWov xpijcat 
 T^ SovKeia. What De Wette has lately urged against this interpretation, 
 does not appear to me convincing. The d koI {he thinks) is against it ; 
 but it suits very well. The apostle says. If called, being a slave, to 
 Christianity, thou shouldst be content. Christian freedom will not be 
 injured by slavery — but yet, if thou canst be free (as a still additional 
 good, which if thou dost not attain, be satisfied without it ; but which, 
 if offered to thee, is not to be despised) therefore make use of this 
 opportunity of becoming free, rather than by neglecting it to remain a 
 slave. The connexion with v. 22, is not against it, if we recollect, that 
 the clause beginning with aWii is only a secondary or qualifying asser- 
 tion, which certainly does not belong to the leading thought, a mode of 
 construction similar to what we find elsewhere in Paul's writings. 
 
 2 To this also the words in v. 23 may relate. " Ye are bought with 
 a price (ye are made free from the dominion of Satan and sin), become 
 not the slaves of men." Thus it would be understood by many. 
 Christians ought not voluntarily, merely to escape from some earthly 
 trouble, to put themselves in a condition which is not suited to their 
 Christian calling. But since the apostle previously, when speaking of 
 such relations as could only concern individuals in the church, used the 
 singular, but now changed his style to the plural, it is hence probable, 
 that he is speaking of a relation of a general kind, that is, giving an 
 exhortation, which would apply to all the Corinthians, — an exhor- 
 tation, indeed, which is not so closely connected with what is said 
 in V. 22, but which he might easily have been 'led to make from the 
 idea of a SovXos Xpia-rov, so familiar and interesting to his mind, 
 an idea that would equally apply to both bond and free ; " Eefuse not 
 this true freedom which belongs to you as the bondsmen of Christ, do 
 not become by a spiritual dependence the slaves of men, from being 
 the bondsmen of Christ; " — an exhortation which was adapted in many
 
 264 THE ciiuncH at corinte 
 
 The Corinthiau church had probably requested that 
 Apollos might visit them again, and Paul acknowledged him 
 as a faithful teacher, who had built on the foundation of the 
 faith which he had laid, who had watered the field that he 
 had planted. He was far from opposing this request ; he 
 even requested Apollos to comply with it, but Apollos was 
 resolved not to visit Corinth immediately. The importance 
 attached to his pereon, and the efforts that had been made to 
 place him at the head of a piu-ty, perhaps led him to this 
 determination. 
 
 Paul wTote om' first Epistle to the Corinthians about the 
 time of the Jewish Passover, as appears from the allusion in 
 v. 7, He had then the intention of staying at Ephesus till 
 Pentecost ; he informed them that many opportunities 
 oflFered for publishing the gospel, but that he had also many 
 enemies to contend with. He spoke of his being in daily 
 peril of losing his life ; 1 Cor. xv. 30. ' 
 
 respects to the condition of the Corinthian church ; and this warning 
 against a servitude totally incompatible with being a servant (or bonds- 
 man) of Christ, (which could not be asserted of a state of outward ser- 
 vitude, or slavery, simply as such,) this warning would be a very suitable 
 conclusion to the whole train of thought on inward and outward free- 
 dom. It was needless for him to notice the case of a person selling 
 himself for a slave, since it was one that could hardly occur among 
 Christians. Verse 24 is rather for than against this interpretation ; for 
 since v. 23 docs not refer to outward relations, he once more repeats the 
 injunction respecting them. 
 
 ' Schrader infers from the words in 1 Cor. xvi. 8, that Paul could 
 not have written this epistle at the close of his long residence at 
 Ephesus, but at the beginning of another short stay there ; for other- 
 wise he must have said, iirintvu 5e iv 'T.<piffco en, and could not have 
 hoped to effect that in a few weeks for the spread of the gospel, and the 
 counteraction of false teachers, which he could not accomplish even 
 after several years. But we do not see why Paul, merely having the 
 future in his eye, and not reflecting on the past, might not leave out 
 the €Ti, as similar omissions frequently occur in an epistolary writing ; 
 and even if Paul in the course of a long time had effected much for the 
 spread of the gospel, still he could say, since the sphere of his labours 
 in Lesser Asia was continually extending, that " a great and eflectual 
 door " was opened for publishing the gospel. But the avriKeiixtvoi in 
 this passage, which relates to the publication of the gospel, are certainly 
 not false teachers, but open adversaries of Christianity. As the oppor- 
 tunities for making known the gospel were manifold, so also its enemies 
 were many. This, therefore, does not contradict the preceding longer 
 evidence of the apostle, but rather confirms it ; for the most violent 
 attacks on the preachers of the gospel, if they did not proceed from the
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 265 
 
 At the time of his writing this Epistle to Corinth, he had 
 formed an extensive plan for his future labours. As during 
 his stay of several years in Achaia and at Ephesus, he had 
 laid a sufficient foundation for the extension of the Christian 
 church among the nations who used the Greek language, he 
 now wished to transfer his ministry to the West ; and as it 
 was his fundamental principle to make those regions the 
 scene of his activity where no one had laboured before him — 
 he wished on that account to visit Rome, the metropohs of the 
 world, where a church had long since been established, in his 
 way to Spain,^ and then to commence the publication of the 
 gospel at the extremity of Western Europe. But before 
 putting this plan into execution, he wislied to obtain a 
 munificent collection in the churches of the Gentile Christians 
 for their poor believing brethren at Jerusalem, and to bring 
 the amount himself to Jerusalem accompanied by some 
 members of the churches. Already some time before he de- 
 spatched this Epistle to the Corinthians, he had sent Timothy 
 and some others to Macedonia and Achaia to forward this 
 collection, and to counterwork the disturbing influences in 
 the Corinthian church.^ He hoped to receive thi-ough him 
 
 Jews, would first arise, after by their long-continued labours they had 
 produced effects which threatened to injure the interests of many whose 
 gains were derived from idolatrous practices. 
 
 ' Rom. XV. 24, 28. Dr. Bauer, in his Eksay on the Object and Occa- 
 sion of the Epistle to the Eomans, in the Tubinger Zeitschrift fur 
 Theologie, 1836, part iii. p. 156, has attempted to show that Paul could 
 not have written these words. He thinks that he discovers in them 
 the marks of another hand, of which, in my opinion, no trace whatever 
 can be found, — all appears wholly Pauline. It might indeed seem 
 strange, that the apostle of the Gentiles had not yet visited the metro- 
 polis of the Gentile world. Accordingly, he gives an account of the 
 causes which had hitherto prevented him, and expresses his earnest 
 desire to become personally acquainted with the church of the metro- 
 polis. Since it was most important, first of all, to lay a foundation 
 everywhere for the publication of the gospel, on which the super- 
 structure might afterwards be easily raised, so it was his maxim — the 
 same which he expresses in 2 Cor. x. 16, and which we see him always 
 acting upon — to labour only in those regions where no one before had 
 published the gospel. But among the Gentiles at Rome a church had 
 been long founded, and hence he could not be justified on his own prin- 
 ciples in leaving a field of labour in which there was still so much to be 
 done, in order to visit a church that had been long established, and waa 
 in a state of progressive development. The difiiculties which Bauer 
 finds in this passage are only created by a false interpretation. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. iv. 17. The manner in which Paul mentions Timothy both
 
 266 THE CUURCU AT CORINTH. 
 
 an account of the impression which his epistle had made. 
 But he found himself deceived in his expectations, for 
 Timothy was probably prevented from travelling as ftir as 
 Corinth, and came back to Ephesus without bringing the 
 information wliich the apostle expected.' The apostle, ani- 
 mated by a tender paternal anxiety for the church, became 
 uneasy respecting the effect produced by his epistle ; he, 
 therefore, sent Titus to Corinth for the purpose of obtaining 
 information, and that he might personally operate on the 
 church in accordance with the impression made by the epistle. 
 As Paul had resolved, on sending away Titus, to leave 
 Ephesus soon, he agreed with him to meet at Troas, where he 
 designed to make a longer stay in order to found a chiurch, 
 2 Cor. ii. 12, and perhaps intended to shape his future course 
 by the information which he would there receive from Titus. 
 But here the question arises. Could Paul have sent Titus to 
 Corinth without an epistle 1 And if we find in his second 
 Epistle to the Corinthians numerovis allusions to an epistle 
 w^hich he simply designates as the epistle, shall we not most 
 naturally conclude that it means an epistle sent by Titus 1 
 And so much the more, if these allusions contain many things 
 that do not tally with the First Epistle to the Corinthians.' 
 
 here and in xvi. 10, plainly shows that he was not the bearer of this 
 epistle, and the latter passage makes it not improbable that Paul 
 expected he would arrive at Corinth after his epistle, which would 
 naturally happen though Timothy departed first, because he was 
 detained a considerable time in Macedonia. Perhaps the messengers 
 from the Corinthian church were already come to Ephesus when 
 Timothy was going away, and as Paul wished to give them a copious 
 reply, on that account he sent no epistle by Timothy. 
 
 ' It favours the supposition that Timothy did not come as far as 
 Corinth, that, in Acts xix. 22, only Macedonia is mentioned as the 
 object of his mission. And if he came to Corinth as Paul's delegate, he 
 would have mentioned him, as Kiickert justly remarks, in connexion 
 with others who were sent by him ; for though we are not justified that 
 Paul here mentioned by name all who were sent by him to Corinth, yet 
 the object for which he named them, in order to appeal to the fact that 
 they had acted with the same disposition as himself, and were as little 
 burdensome to the Corinthian church, required the mention of a man 
 like Timothy so closely connected with him, if he had stayed at Corinth 
 as his delegate. This therefore is opposed to Bleek's view, which we 
 shall afterwards mention, according to which Timothy really came to 
 Corinth, and must have been the bearer of bad news from thence. 
 
 * Bleek has endeavoured to prove all this in his valuable essay 
 already mentioned, in the Studien und Kritiken, 1830, part iiL But
 
 THE CHDRCH AT CORINTH. 267 
 
 We ask then, in this second epistle are such things really 
 found which lead us to suppose another docixment composed 
 in a different tone from the first epistle now extant ? Let us 
 examine this more closely. Paul says at the beginning 
 of the second chapter that he had altered his fonner plan of 
 travelling immediately from Ephesus to Corinth, and had 
 resolved to go first to Macedonia, in order that he might not 
 be obhged to produce a painful impression among them, if he 
 came to them while the evils which he censured in his firet 
 epistle were still in existence. On this account, he wished, 
 instead of coming immediately from Ephesus to Corinth, 
 rather to communicate by letter what was painful to them^ 
 (which may very well refer to the reprehensions contained in 
 the first epistle,) and to await its operation in producing 
 repentance, before he came to them in person. He saya 
 of the epistle in question, that he had written it in great 
 anguish of heart and with many tears, for his object had been 
 not to give them pain, but to evince his love for them. Does 
 not that suit such passages as 1 Cor. iv. 8 — 19 ; vi. 7 ; x. ? 
 Does not that which he here says of his disposition correctly 
 describe that state of mind, in which the news respecting the 
 dajigerous condition of the Corinthian church must have 
 placed him 1 It can well be referred to that individual who 
 lived in unlawful intercourse with his step-mother, against 
 whose continuance in church-fellowship he had so strongly 
 expressed himself, when he says of such a one that he troubled 
 not only himself as the founder of the church, but in a certain 
 degree the whole church. That epistle was indeed suited to 
 call forth in the Corinthians the consciousness of their corrupt 
 state, that sorrow which leads to salvation, as Paul says 
 of that epistle, 2 Cor. vii. 9, &c. But chiefly we might 
 be induced, by verse 12 of the same chapter, to suppose 
 a reference to what was said by Paul in an epistle now lost : 
 " He had written such a letter to them, not on his account 
 
 this is connected with the assumption that Timothy really came to 
 Corinth, and the bad news which he brought influenced Paul to send 
 Titus thither. If we only assume that Paul was informed that a part 
 of the church had shown themselves more haughty after the receipt of 
 that first epistle, it can be explained how he was induced to send a 
 severer epistle by Titus. But we have noticed above, what opposes the 
 supposition that Timothy at that time really extended his journey as 
 far as Corinth
 
 268 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 who had done the WTong, nor on his account against whom it 
 was done, but from a regard to all, tliat his sincere zea, 
 for their best welfare might be manifest."' If we refer tha 
 words to our first epistle, it is difficult to detemiine who the 
 person can be against whom the WTong was committed. All 
 will be clear, if we refer it to Paul himself, that he intended 
 dehcately to point out himself as the injured paily ; and that 
 he had been induced thus to write, not from a selfish interest, 
 but from a sincere zeal for their best welfare. It also appears 
 to be implied that the epistle in question related principally if 
 not entirely to this one case. But the affair of the incestuous 
 person occupies only a very small space in the first epistle. 
 All this rather favours the supposition that there wiis another 
 epistle of Paul, not now extant, which related exclusively 
 or principally to the conduct of one individual who had con- 
 ducted himself towards the apostle with great insolence, 
 either the same immoral person on whom Paul passes his 
 judgment in the firet epistle, or another. Yet this conjecture 
 does not seem to rest on a very solid foundation, for in these 
 words we find no further mark which can lead us to suppose 
 
 ' It will be proper here to determine the correct reading. If we 
 adopt the reading received by Lachmann, ttjc airovVijv v/xwv tV virep 
 Tlfiuv irphs vfj.as, it will favour that interpretation, according to which 
 there must be a reference to a personal wrong directed against the 
 apostle. The connexion may be traced in this manner : If I have 
 written to you in this manner (using such strong language), it is not on 
 account of him who has committed the wrong, nor on his account who 
 has .'^uftercd the wrong (Paul himself who had been personally injured 
 by the insolence of that man), but that your zeal ibr me might be 
 made known by you before God (i. e. in an upright manner, so that the 
 disposition in which you act, may prove itself in the sight of God, 
 as that of true love). This would be the contrast ; I did it not, 
 to avenge my apostolic authority, and to punish the person who 
 impugned it; but on this account, to give you an opportunity to 
 manifest your zeal for me, ixs it has now been actually shown. But still 
 we must agree with Kiickert that the nphs vfias according to this read- 
 ing seems rather superfluous. This irphs ii/xas certainly intimates, that 
 it was Paul's wish to speak of his zeal for the welfare of the church, 
 which would be shown in his conduct towards it; also in the words 
 evdiTTiov Tov deov, we find such an indication that Paul was speaking of 
 his o^vn disposition as showing itself to be upright before God. The 
 correctness of the common reading is also established by comparing it 
 with 2 Cor. ii. 4, for the words T^jf ffirovSijy ri^uiv r^v inrip vfxuv, cor- 
 respond to the words ttjv aydinjv, kc. But it may be easily explained 
 how looking back to vii. 11 and 7, would give rise to a various 
 reading.
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 269 
 
 personal reference to the apostle. He who ^as fond of con- 
 trasts and accustomed to mark them strongly, would on this 
 occasion have marked very strongly the contrast between his 
 personal interest, and the interest of the church, if he had 
 wished to express anything of the kind. On the other hand, 
 we may fairly understand by the person against whom the 
 wrong was committed, the father, whom his son by his 
 incestuous conduct had so grievously injured; whether the 
 father was already dead, or still living, which on this supposi- 
 tion would be more probable. ' Perhaps the complaints of 
 the father had been the occasion of making known the whole 
 affair to the apostle. ^ The meaning of the passage would 
 then be, that they ought not to believe that a reference to any 
 individual whatever, that resentment against any person, or 
 attachment to any one, had moved him thus to write, but 
 that he had been actuated chiefly by a concern for the welfare 
 of the church. Nor is it necessary to assume, that the whole 
 of the epistle to which he here alludes, was occupied witii this 
 one affair, if only his readers can infer from the connexion 
 that he here wishes to speak of this one object (among several 
 others) of the epistle. 
 
 The manner also in which Paul speaks of the sending 
 away of Titus, contains no such marks which justify the sup- 
 position that this step was occasioned by the unfavourable 
 account brought by Timothy of the state of the Corinthian 
 church; for he declares in 2 Cor. vii. 14, that on his leaving 
 he said many things to him in the praise of that Chiirch, and 
 hence had raised good expectations respecting it in his mind. ^ 
 
 * It is sin^lar, that in the first epistle, no mention is made of the 
 father of the offender. 
 
 ^ All difficulties would vanish, if with Daniel Heinsius, we under- 
 stand the words toC aSiKijdeuTOi as neuter = toD afxapTj^Qimos, which 
 the New Testament use of a^iKeiv would allow. The transition from 
 the masculine to the neuter may surprise ua less, since the neuter 
 follows immediately after. The kZiK7\Q(v would then correspond to the 
 TTpayna before mentioned. And though it may appear objectionable 
 that Paul should so express himself as if such a sin was a thing of 
 minor importance, yet this is not an idea conveyed by the words ; but 
 he i\dshes only to express very strongly in an antithetical form, that his 
 anxiety for the welfare of the whole church, for the preservation of its 
 purity, had induced him so to write. But it suits the contrast still 
 better, if all personal references were kept out of sight. 
 
 ' The words in 2 Cor. vii. 14, I cannot understand, according to the 
 mutual relation of iho clauses, otherwise than thus : By what I hare
 
 270 THE CHURCH AT CCHINTU. 
 
 Still the objection may be xirgcd, Titus must at all events, as 
 a messenger from Paul, have brought with him an epistle to 
 Corinth; and if Paul quotes a letter without marking it 
 more precisely, we can understand by it no other than the 
 last, and therefore the one brought by Titus. But if he sent 
 Titus after Timothy's return, and soon after he had despatched 
 his first Epistle to the Corinthian church, we may more 
 readily presume tliat he woukl not think it necessary to send 
 a long epistle at the same time, but j)erhaps give him only a 
 few lines in which he intimated that Titus was to supply the 
 place of Timothy, who wi\s not able to come to them himself. ' 
 
 said to Titus in your praise, I have not been put to shame ; but as I 
 have spoken to you all according to truth, so also this has been proved 
 to be true. 
 
 ' A difficulty is here presented, from the manner in which Paul 
 mentions the sending Titus in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. 
 2 Cor. viii. 6, compared with v. 16, and ix. 3; xii. 18. Billroth and 
 Ruckert (who docs not however as^sent to all the reasons alleged by the 
 former) have hence concluded, that the sending of Titus was by no 
 means after the despatch of that first epistle, but took place long before, 
 and that the arrangement of the collection was the object of his visit. 
 But Titus would be still at Corinth when that letter arrived, and hence 
 could communicate to Paul respecting the eflect it produced. Perhaps 
 Titus was the bearer of the first lost epistle to the Corinthian church. 
 Hence it may be explained, why Paul could consider his second epistle 
 (the first now extant) as his last written epistle, and quote it without 
 any further designation. But if this had been the case, we must neces- 
 sarily look for an express mention of Titus in our first epistle ; and 
 since none such occurs, we must either assume that the sending of 
 Titus mentioned in the second epistle, is the same as that which we 
 have spoken of in the text, or if we consider it as different, it occurred 
 much earlier, so that Titus, when Paul wrote his first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, must have been a long while returned to them. And for 
 this latter assumption, it may be urged, that at that first sending a 
 companion of Titus is mentioned ; and, on the other hand, when Paul 
 mentions his meeting with Titus in Macedonia, no one else appears; 
 not that this is a decisive proof, because Titus alone might be mentioned 
 as being the principal person. But, on the contrary, when Paul states 
 that he boasted of the Corinthian church to Titus, it seems implied (if 
 not absolutely necessary) that this church was not personally known to 
 him. If we are disposed to assume, that this mission of Titus was the 
 same as that mentioned in the first epistle, the chronological order of 
 events would not oppose this supposition. But first, there is the 
 question, whether Paul reckoned the year according to the Pioman, 
 Greek, or Jewish Calendar ; in the last case, he might mention the 
 sending of Titus as having taken place in the preceding year, if it was 
 before Easter ; in the second, if it was after Easter, and if he wrote this 
 epistle in autumn. But it is not at all necessary to assume that the
 
 THE TUMULT AT EPHE8US. 271 
 
 But after the sending of Titus, a violent popular tumult 
 arose at Ephesiis against the apostle, which was nsvertheless 
 an evidence of the gi'eat success of his ministry in Lesser 
 Asia. Small models in gold and silver of the famed temple 
 of Artemis were used to be made,' which being sent to distant 
 parts as an object of devotion, brought gi'eat gain to the city. 
 A man named Demetrius, who had a large manufactory of 
 such models, and a gieat number of workmen, began to fear, 
 since the gospel had spread with such success in Lesser Asia, 
 and faith in Artemis had so far declined ^ as to lessen the sale 
 of his wares in this region, that the gains of his trade would 
 soon be lost. He assembled his numerous workmen, and 
 easily inflamed their anger against the enemies of their gods, 
 who threatened to deprive the great Artemis of her honour, 
 and them of their gain. A gi-eat tumult arose, they all 
 hastened to the public place where they were wont to assem- 
 ble, and many cried out, some one thing, some another, 
 without knowing why they were come together. As the 
 Jews here lived in the midst of a numerous Greek population 
 who viewed them with constant aversion, any special occasion 
 easily roused their slumbering prejudices into open violence, 
 and they had then much to suffer : they feared therefore, that 
 the anger of the people against the enemies of their gods — 
 especially as many did not know who these enemies were 
 exactly — would be tiurned upon themselves; and one of their 
 number, Alexander by name, came forward, in order to shift 
 the blame from themselves upon the Chi-istians ; but the 
 
 sending away of Titus was in the preceding year ; for it might be the 
 case that the Corinthian church had begun the collection, before Titus 
 had proposed it to them. Nor ought it to excite our surprise, that 
 Paul mentions only one object for which he sent Titus, the arrangement 
 of the collection ; for he might be sent for this purpose, and at the same 
 time, to obtain information for Paul respecting the state of the Corin- 
 thian church, and the effect produced by his epistle. But as he was 
 writing respecting the collection, he had no occasion to advert to 
 another topic. 
 
 • The words of Paul, Acts xx. 19, perhaps intimate that this popular 
 disturbance proceeded from the machinations of the Jews, though it 
 afterwards threatened to be dangerous to the Jews themselves. 
 
 2 It is possible, that the successful ministry of Paul already threatened 
 the destruction of idolatry, though after the first successful propagation 
 of the gospel, a pause in its progress intervened, similar to what has 
 often occurred. Compare Pliny's account of the decline of heathenism, 
 in my Church History, vol. i. p. 140.
 
 272 THE TUMULT AT EPHEKUS. 
 
 appearance of such a person whom they ranked among these 
 enemies, aronsed the lieathon to still greater fur\', and the 
 clamour became more violent But on this occasion only 
 the populace appear to liavc been hostile to the teachers of 
 Christianity ; the manner in which Paul had lived and acted 
 diu'ing his long residence in the city must have operated 
 advantageously on the public authorities of the city. Some 
 even of the magistrates who were placed this year at the head 
 of regulating all the sacra in Lesser Asia,' and presided over 
 the public games, showed their sympathy for him, for when 
 he was on the point of exposing himself to the excited crowd, 
 they besought him not to incur this danger. And the 
 chamberlain of the city at last succeeded in calming the minds 
 of the people by his representations — by calling on them to 
 give an account of the object of their meeting — of which the 
 majority were totally ignorant — and by reminding them of 
 the serious responsibility they incurred for their turbulent 
 and illegal behaviour. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether Paul was determined by this 
 disturbance, which seems to have been quite transitory, to 
 leave Ephesus earlier than he had intended according to his 
 original i)lan. When he WTote his first letter to the Corin- 
 thians, he spoke to them of the dangers which daily threatened 
 him, and yet these had no influence in determining the length 
 of his sojourn in this city. Perhaps we may find several 
 allusions to this new disturbance.^ A comparison of the 
 
 ' 'A(riopxo' '■ each of the cities which formed the Koivov rrjs 'Aaias chose 
 a delegate 3'carly for this college of 'Aaiapxat- See Aristul. Oral. Sacr. 
 iv. ed. Dindorf. vol. i. p. 531 ; and probably the president of this 
 college would be called opx'tpeus, aaiapxn^ ; his name was employed in 
 marking the date of public events ; see the Letter of the Church 
 at Smyrna, on the martyrdom of Polycarp ; and Ezechicl Spanheim, de 
 Prcestantia et Usu Xumismatum, ed. secunda, p. 691. 
 
 * He says, 1 Cor. xv. 31, that he was daily exposed to death, which 
 may lead us to conclude, that when Paul had reached the end of this 
 epistle, (which was probably not written all at once,) this disturbance 
 had taken place. Thus we may take the words in v. 32, Kara avBpi- 
 TTivov \oyi(Tfihv 6r)gl(i}V fyev6fj.T]V fiopa — aWa, irapaSo^ws i(TcLQ-i]v, with 
 Tlieodoret, in a literal sense, namely, that it was demanded by the raging 
 populace, as afterwards was often the case in the persecutions of the 
 Christians, that the enemy of the gods should be condemned ad hestias. 
 ad leonem. But though such a cry might be raised by the infuriated 
 multitude, it is very difficult to suppose, considering the existing cir- 
 c'unstances, that their desire would be granted, and Paul therefore
 
 THE TUMULT AT EPHESUS. 273 
 
 First and Second Epistles to ttie Corinthians with one another, 
 may indeed favour the belief, that Paul wrote the latter after 
 this event, since he here writes as one who had been rescued 
 from impending death.' But it may indeed be supposed, 
 
 could never say, that, as far as he could expect according to human 
 judgment, he would have been a prey to the wild beasts without the 
 wonderful help of God. Also this interpretation of the words Karh 
 &vdp<ttirov, is not the easiest and most favoured by the connexion. I 
 rather find in these words, according to the connexion, the contrast 
 to the Christian hope, the designation of the standing-point of men in 
 general who are destitute of this hope. By the wild beasts must there- 
 fore be understood, savage infuriated men with whom Paul had to con- 
 tend. From Rom. xvi. 4, where it is said that Priscilla and Aquila 
 had ventured their lives for him, as well as from what Paul says in 
 Acts XX. 19, we may gather that he was exposed to many dangers 
 at Ephesus, which are not mentioned in the Acts. 
 
 ' According to the interpretation proposed by Riickert, these ex- 
 pressions do not refer to persecutions endured by Paul, but to a dan- 
 gerous illness, the effects of which accompanied him to Macedonia, and 
 were felt by him when he wrote this second Epistle to the Corinthians. 
 But on comparing all that relates to it, I cannot assent to this view. 
 As to the passage in 2 Cor. i. 8, it appears to me that these words must 
 be explained according to v. 5. I grant, indeed, that natural diseases 
 may be called in a certain sense iraBiifJiara tov Xqkttov ; but, in accord- 
 ance with the Pauline phraseology, we should certainly apply them pri- 
 marily to suffering for the cause of the kingdom of God, in which the 
 believer follows Christ. Riickert thinks that if Paul had intended to 
 signify the persecution that had been excited at Ephesus, he would have 
 named the city itself, as in the first epistle. But I do not see why he 
 should not choose the general designation of the region of which 
 Ephesus was the metropolis ; and, it is possible, that the exasperation 
 of the heathens against him spread from Ephesus to other parts of 
 Lesser Asia which he visited. Why then might he not say, that the 
 persecutions exceeded the measure of his human strength, that he was 
 almost overcome, and despaired of his life] In 2 Cor. iv. 9 and 11, he 
 distinctly notices persecutions by which he was in continual danger of 
 death, with which 1 Cor. xv. 30 — 31 agrees ; from these passages we 
 may conclude that he was exposed to more dangers than are recorded in 
 the Acts. And in this way other passages must be explained. The 
 mention of the earthen vessels is not against this view, for the conflicts 
 which Paul had to sustain always served to awaken in his mind a more 
 vivid consciousness, that he carried about the divine treasure in an 
 earthen broken vessel, that this shattered receptacle would soon be 
 entirely destroyed by such assaults unless strengthened and rescued 
 by Almighty power. He might well say in v. 10, that he always bore 
 about in his body the vfKpaxns rov'lTiaov, because he was always exposed 
 to death for the cause of Christ (v. 11), and bearing the marks of these 
 sufferings in his body, he thus carried with him an imige of the suffer- 
 ing Saviour in his own person. What he says in v. 9, and in the 
 Vol. I. T
 
 274 PAULS JOURNEY TO MACKDONIA, 
 
 that when he found himself in the midst of those danger?, 
 the higher concerns of which he treated in the First Epistle 
 to the Corinthians, so occupied him, that he forgot everything 
 personal — but that when he had left Ephesus, the recollec- 
 tions of the special leadings of Providence, which had rescued 
 him from such dangers, filled him with overflowing gratitude 
 which he could not suppress. 
 
 After Paul had laboured at Troas in preaching the gospel, 
 and had waited in vain for Titus, whom he expected on his 
 return from Corinth, he left that place with troubled feelings 
 and went to meet him in Macedonia. Among the Macedonian 
 churches he met with gratifying proofs of the advance of the 
 Christian life, to which their conflicts with the world had 
 contributed. No persecutions of Christianity as a religio 
 illicita had as yet been commenced by the authorities of the 
 state. But at all events, the Christians, by their withdrawing 
 from the heathen worship and all that was connected with it, 
 must have unfavourably impressed the heathen among whom 
 they lived, and excited the hatred of the fanatical populace who 
 were instigated by the Jews. Even if no legal charge could 
 be brought against the believers as apostates from the religion 
 of the state, still without this instrument, zealous heathens, 
 who formed so large a majority, possessed sufficient means to 
 oppress or injure in their worldly prospects a class of persons so 
 far below themselves, in numbers, respectability, and pohtical 
 influence. It may illustrate this, if we only think of what 
 converts to Christianity in the East Indies have had to endure 
 (though under a Christian government), from their heathen 
 
 Vhole context, marks the disposition of one who had reason to consider 
 the duration of his life as very uncertain, whether he met with a natural or 
 violent death. 2 Cor. vi. 9 is to be explained according to iv. 9 and 11. 
 2 Cor. vii. 6 shows that even in Macedonia he had no respite from his 
 sufferings, but was overwhelmed with fresh trials. Here we find 
 no trace of illness. The word aap^ by no means justifies us in under- 
 standing the passage of illness ; it denotes everything which could 
 affect the outer man, while within the highest peace might be enjoyed. 
 The passage in 2 Cor. xii. 7 is too obscure to draw any conclusion from 
 it with certainty ; and even if here a chronic disorder were intended, it 
 would not be clear that what was said before had any reference to it. 
 We do not deny that Paul had to combat with much bodily weakness ; 
 — we do not deny that the tribulation he endured must have impaired 
 his bodily strength ; but it does not follow that the passages above 
 quoted have such a reference
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORIXTH. 275 
 
 relatives and connexions ! But the Macedonian Christiana 
 cheerfully endui'ed everything for the cause of the gospel, and, 
 however much their means of subsistence had been injured, 
 they were ready to take an active part in the collection made 
 by Paul in the church at Jerusalem, even " beyond their 
 power ;" 2 Cor. viii. In Macedonia, the apostle had also the 
 satisfaction of meeting with Titus, and of learning from him 
 that his epistle had produced a salutary effect, if not on the 
 whole, yet on the greater part of the Corinthian church. The 
 disapprobation of the larger and better part had been ex- 
 pressed against the incestuous person, and the voice of this 
 majority, which as such must have been decisive in the 
 assemblies of the church, had either actually expelled him 
 from church-communion, according to the judgment ex- 
 pressed by Paul, or the actual execution of the sentence had 
 been put off in the event of his not receiving forgiveness from 
 the apostle. When the resolution of the majority was an- 
 nounced to the offender with expressions of severe reprehen- 
 sion, he expressed the greatest sorrow and penitence. On 
 this account, the majority, who always a;cknowledged the 
 apostohc authority of Paul, interceded on his behalf that a 
 milder coui'se might be adopted, and Paxil assented, in order 
 that the penitent might not be plvmged in despair, and thus 
 a greater calamity ensue.' The majority showed the greatest 
 
 ' In the words 2 Cor. ii. 5 — 10, 1 cannot find anything different 
 from what I have stated in the text. Nor do they support Rlickert's 
 assertion, that the majority of the church, though they expressed their 
 disapprobation of the offender, were not disposed to proceed against 
 him as severely as Paul desired, and that the apostle only yielded to 
 their wishes from prudential motives, in order to maintain his autho- 
 rity, and to preserve the appearance of directing their decisions. Paul 
 says, 2 Cor. ii. 6, " Sufficient to such a man is this punishment which 
 was inflicted of many." From this we cannot infer that it differed from 
 the sentence passed by the apostle himself. This, said he — only re- 
 ferring to what had taken place, and in connexion with what followed 
 — is indeed not unanimous, but yet the punishment awarded to him by 
 the voice of the majority. It is sufficient — may mean, enough has been 
 done that this sentence of the majority has been expressed, and that he 
 has been brought to contrition, so that now a milder course may be 
 adopted, and he may be received again into church-communion. Or, it 
 is sufficient that the majority have adopted this resolution. But, since 
 he is now penitent, it need not be carried into effijct. The pain which 
 he has already suffered is enough. Hence, instead of continuing to act 
 with that strictness, and carrying into effect that resolution of the
 
 276 THE CHUKCH AT CORINTH. 
 
 regard for the apostle's authority ; they lamented having 
 occasioned him so much trouble, and assured him how earnestly 
 they longed to see him soon among them. But Paul's op- 
 ponents among the Judaizers were not humbled, but, on the 
 contrary, were only embittered against him by his reprimand 
 and the submission paid to him by the rest of the church, 
 and used every means in their power to make tho chmch sus- 
 picious of him. They said, that he was powerful only in his 
 letters, but that " his bodily presence was weak, and his speech 
 contemptible;" 2 Cor. x. 10. He threatened more than he 
 could perform, and hence was very far from formidable. He 
 was conscious of his weakness, and, therefore, was always 
 threatening to come, but never came. In his first epistle, 
 which has not come down to us, he probably threatened the 
 contumacious, that he would soon come to Corinth, and if 
 what was amiss were not rectified, he would exert the utmost 
 prerogative of his ofiice. In that last epistle, or by verbal 
 communications, he had announced to them that as soon as 
 he had left Ephesus, he would come immediately to them, as 
 he wished, after a transient sojourn at Corinth, to travel into 
 Macedonia, and return again to them in order to remain with 
 them till his intended departure to Jerusalem. But as he 
 now remained longer in Ephesus, as he had altered the plan 
 of his journey, and had announced to the Corinthians that he 
 would first go into Macedonia and then come to them ; ' so 
 he took advantage of this arrangement to excuse a sense of 
 hia weakness, of vacillation, and of ambiguity in his ex- 
 pressions. And thus tmcertain and vacillating — they con- 
 cluded, he wovdd be as a teacher. Hence his self-contradic- 
 tory conduct in reference to the observance of the Mosaic 
 Law by the Jews and Gentiles. They endeavoured to set in 
 a false light that Christian prudence which always distinguished 
 
 church, they might announce forgiveness to him, for (v. 9) Paul had 
 attained his object; they had, by virtuf^ of that resolution of the majo- 
 rity, given him the proof he required of their obedience. He required 
 nothing more (v. 10), as they had assented to his severe sentence ; bo 
 now he was ready to excuse them, 3s he had attained the object he had 
 at heart, the welfare of the church. Paul also expressly commends 
 (vii. 11) the indignation they had manifested in this affair, the e/cSticTjo-u 
 they had felt, thus acquitting themselves of all participation in the 
 wickedness. 
 
 1 We therefore need not assume a lost epistle containing this altered 
 plan of the journey.
 
 THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. 277 
 
 Paul, but which was united in him with perfect simphcity of 
 intention, as if he had employed a variety of artifices to de- 
 ceive men. Also all that was amiss which he had denounced 
 in his letters, had not yet been put away by that part of the 
 church which adhered to the apostle. Such being the state 
 of the Corinthian church, Paul thought it best— in order 
 that his own visit to Corinth might be disturbed by no un- 
 pleasant occurrences, and that his intercourse with the Corin- 
 thians might be one of joy and love — to write once more to 
 them, in order to prepare the way for his personal ministry 
 among them. He sent Titus with two other able persons 
 in the service of the church, as bearers of this epistle to 
 Corinth.^ 
 
 In reference to that marked suspicion of his conduct and 
 character, Paul appeals in this epistle to the testimony of his 
 own conscience, that in his intercourse with men in general, 
 and especially with the Corinthians, he had been guided not 
 by worldly prudence, but by the Spirit of God ; he contrasts 
 one with the other, since he considered simplicity and upright- 
 ness of intention as the essential mai"k of the agency of the 
 Divine Spirit. His epistle also testifies this ; as he wrote, so 
 he thought ; ^ he had nothing in his mind different from his 
 avowed intentions. He states the reasons of the alteration in 
 the plan of his journey, and draws the conclusion, that no 
 
 ^ One of these (2 Cor. viii. 18) was chosen from the Macedonian 
 churches, that he might in their name convey the collection to Jeru- 
 salem, and he is distinguished as one, whose "praise was in all the 
 churches," for his activity in publishing the gospel. We may indeed 
 suppose, that Luke is the person intended, and must then assume, that 
 Paul was left behind at Philippi, where Luke afterwards joined him ; 
 but that the latter, after his return from Corinth, again stayed at 
 Philippi, and on the departure of Paul to Jerusalem, intended to join 
 him there. It is indeed remarkable that Luke, who generally gives a 
 fuller narrative when he was an eye-witness, touches so slightly on this 
 in the Acts. But his brevity may be explained from the fact of his 
 being more copious only in relating the personal ministry of Paul. 
 
 * 2 Cor. i. 12, 13. The grounds on which De Wette objects to this 
 interpretation, are not obvious to me. " But what suspicion of dupli- 
 city might the confident assertions in v. 12 awaken." This verse could 
 indeed awaken no such suspicion, but rather contradicts that suspicion 
 which Paul's enemies sought to excite ; v. 13 serves to corroborate what 
 he had said in v. 12. Paul makes the appeal, that in his epistle, as 
 well as in his whole ministry, nothing could be found of a crocpia (rapKiit^ 
 which his adversaries wished to find in those words ; he maintains, that 
 all his wards, not less than his actions, bore the impress of oirAdxTji.
 
 278 Paul's journey to achaia. 
 
 inconsistency can be found in what he had said on this matter. 
 And he could call God to witness, that no inconsistency could 
 be found in his manner of publishing the gospel, that he had 
 always preached one unchangeable doctrine of Christ, and the 
 promises which they received would be certainly fulfilled 
 through Christ.' God himself had given them as well as him 
 the certain pledge of this, by the common witness of the 
 Holy Spirit in their hearts ; (2 Cor. i. 16 — 22.) 
 
 The duty of vindicating his apostolic character against the 
 accusations of his opponents, forced him to speak much of 
 himself. The palpably evident object of his doing this, and 
 the distinction which he was always careful to make between 
 the divine power connected with his apostolic functions, and 
 the person of a feeble mortal, between the " man in Christ " 
 and the weak Paul,'^ sufficiently acquitted him of the charge of 
 self-conceit and vain-glory. To common men, who would 
 measure everytliing by the same measure, many things might 
 seem strange in Paul's manner of speaking of himself and his 
 ministry, so that they were ready to accuse him of extrava- 
 gance, of a self-exaltation bordering on insanity. But what 
 impelled him to speak in such strong terms, was not personal 
 feeling, but the inspired consciousness of the divine power 
 attached to the gospel and to his apostolic calling, which 
 would triumpli over all opposition. Thus the fact of his " not 
 being able to do anything of himself" redounded in his view 
 to the glory of God. 
 
 Paul spent the rest of the summer and autiimn in Mace- 
 donia ; he probably extended his labours to the neighbouring 
 country of lUyi-ia,' and then removed to Achaia, where he 
 spent the winter. 
 
 ' Therefore independently of the law of irhich his adversaries pre* 
 scribed the observance. 
 
 2 To this the passage in 2 Cor. t. 13 refers. "For -whether we be 
 beside ourselves, (the inspiration with which the apostle spake of the 
 divine objects of his calling, of what the power of God effected through 
 his apostolic office — but which his adversaries treated as empty boasting, 
 and ascribed to an cuppocrwr} or fiavla) it is to the glory of God ; or 
 whether we be sober (when the apostle speaks of himself as a weak 
 mortal, puts himself on a level with the Corinthians, and makes no use 
 of its apostolic power and its privileges) it is for your welfare." 
 
 ^ In 2 Cor. x. 14 — 16, Paul seems to mark Achaia as the extreme 
 limit of his labours in preaching the gospel; (this indeed does not 
 follow from the &xs^ '^"■^ vfj-uv, since SxP' i^ itself dots not denote
 
 THE CHURCH AT ROME. ' 279 
 
 Since he was now resolved, after his return from the journey 
 to Jerusalem, which he proposed undertaking at the beginning 
 of the spring, to change the scene of his labours to the West, 
 and to visit the metropolis of the Roman empire for the first 
 time, he must have been gratified to form a connexion pre- 
 viously with the church in that city. The journey of Phoebe, 
 the deaconness of the church at Cenchrsea, who had been in- 
 duced by various circumstances to visit Rome, gave him the 
 best opportunity for this purpose, while, at the same time, he 
 recommended her to the care of the Roman church.' 
 
 a fixed or exclusive limit, see Kom. v. 13, though Paul sometimes usea 
 the word in this latter meaning, Gal. iii. 19 ; iv. 2 ; yet it appears to 
 proceed from the comparison of the three verses in connexion) ; on the 
 other in Rom. xv. 19, Illyria is thus marked. But it does not follow 
 from this last passage, that Paul himself had preached the gospel in 
 Illyria ; possibly he only mentioned this as the extreme limit as far aa 
 whiclfhe had reached in preaching the gospel. 
 
 • It is here taken for granted, that the 16th chapter belongs with the 
 whole of the Epistle to the Romans, which in modern times has been 
 disputed by Schulz in the Studien und Kritiken, vol. ii. p. 609 ; but, 
 as it appears to me, on insufficient grounds. It may excite surprise that 
 Paul should salute so many individuals in a church to which he was 
 personally a stranger, and that we find among them relations and old 
 friends of the apostle from Palestine, and other parts of the East. But 
 we must recollect, that Rome was always the rendezvous of persons from 
 all parts of the Roman empire, a fact stated by Athenaeus in the 
 strongest terms, Deipnosoph. i. 20, t^v 'Pwfiai(ov ■ic6mv tTriTOfi^p t^i 
 alKovfj,evT]s, eV y ffvuiSfiv iariv irdcras ray irSKeis ISpvfifvas, (such as Alex- 
 andria, Antioch, Nicomedia, and Athens) — koI yap '6\a to, idv-q aOpSus 
 avToBi avvefiKt(TTcu. Paul might easily become personally acquainted at 
 Ephesus and Corinth with many Christians from Rome, or learn par- 
 ticulars respecting them. Among those whom he salutes were persons 
 of the family of Narcissus, who was well known to be a freed-man of the 
 Emperor Claudius. That Aquila and Priscilla were again in Rome, that 
 a part of the church assembled in their house, and that a number of 
 years afterwards, as may be inferred from the 2d Epistle to Timothy, 
 they are to be found at Ephesus, — all this, from what we have before 
 remarked, is not so surprising. The warning against the Judaizing 
 teachers, xvi. 17, who published another doctrine than what they had 
 received (from the disciples of the apostle), agrees perfectly with what 
 is said in the 14th chapter, and with what we may infer from the epistle 
 itself, in reference to the state of the Roman church. The passage in 
 xvi. 19 agrees also with i. 8, and the comparison confirms the belief that 
 they both belong to the same epistle. Bauer, in his essay before quoted, 
 has endeavoured to prove the spuriousness of the two last chapters. He 
 believes that, in the 15th chapter especially, he can trace a later writer 
 attached to Pauline principles, who thought that, in order to justify 
 Paul, and to bring about a union between the Jewish and Qentile
 
 280 THE CHURCH AT ROME. 
 
 It is not improbable that, at an early period, the seed of 
 the gospel was brought by Jewish Christians to the Jews- at 
 Rome, as at that time, if we may judge from the salutations 
 at the end of the epistle, persons who were among the oldest 
 Christians lived at Rome ; but these certainly did not form 
 the main body of the church, for the greater part evidently 
 consisted of Christians of Gentile descent, to whom the gospel 
 had been published by men of the Pauline school, inde- 
 pendently of the Mosaic Law, to whom Paul, as the apostle of 
 the Gentles, felt himself called to write, and whom, in conse- 
 quence of the relation, he could address with greater freedom. 
 
 Christians, it was necessary to make some additions to the epistle ; but 
 I cannot perceive the validity of the evidence adduced by this acute 
 critic. Paul wco probably prevented when he had finished the 14th 
 chapter, from continuing the epistle to the close. And when he took 
 it up again where he left off, and looked back on what he had last 
 written, he felt himself impelled to add something on the thane of 
 which he had last treated, the harmony between the Gentile and Jewish 
 Christians in the Roman church. His object was, on the one hand, to 
 check the free-thinking Gentile Christian from self-exaltation in relation 
 to their weaker Jewish brethren in the faith ; and on the other hand, to 
 remind the Jewish Christians that the admission of the Gentiles into 
 the kingdom of God was no infringement of the rights of the Jewish • 
 people, and that it was in unison with the predictions of the Old Testa- 
 ment. He exhorts them, xv. 7, to receive one another mutually as 
 members of the same kingdom of God, though with a special reference 
 to the Gentile christians, to whom Paul at the beginning of the chapter 
 particularly addressed himself, if we follow the best accredited reading, 
 vnas. He then states the reasons why the Gentiles had especial cause 
 to praise God, to be thankful and humble, since God had in so unex- 
 pected a manner brought them to a participation of his kingdom, who 
 previously knew nothing of it, and who had no hopes of this kind, (a 
 train of thought which he introduces elsewhere, Ephes. ii. 12, and in 
 several other passages). He shows that God, by the sending of Christ 
 to the Jews, manifested his faithfulness, since thus he had fulfilled the 
 promises made to the fathers ; but had manifested his mercy to the 
 Gentiles, since he had called to a participation in the kingdom of God, 
 those among whom the foundation of this kingdom had not been laid, 
 and to whom no promises had been given. Such a theoretical contrast 
 is of course not perfectly strict, but partial, and of a kind frequently 
 employed by Paul. For he says, and the Old Testament intimatf.s, that 
 the Messiah would extend his saving efliciency to the Gentiles ; henee, 
 it is evident, that God while he shows mercy to them, at the same time 
 verifies his faithfulness. In all this, we find nothing unpauline, nothing 
 foreign to the object of this epistle. It is impossible that Paul could 
 intend to close with the lith chapter, but according to the usual style 
 of the Pauline epistles, a conclusion must necessarily follow which 
 these two last chapters furnish.
 
 THE CHURCH AT ROME, 281 
 
 How could Paul, from his call to publish the gospel to all the 
 nations of the world, infer his call to announce the doctrine 
 of salvation to the Romans, if he had not believed that those 
 to whom his epistle was especially addressed were Gentiles 1 
 For the Jews, whether living among the Romans or Greeks, 
 always considered themselves as belonging not to the D:i:, 
 edyrj, but to the one uv., the Xaoc in the liaairopd. In reference 
 tosthem, Paul could only have spoken of being sent to one 
 nation. How could he say (Rom. i. 13) that he wished to 
 come to Rome in order " to have some fruit " there, " even as 
 among other Gentiles," by the publication of the gospel, if he 
 was not writing principally to persons belonging to the Gen- 
 tiles, among whom alone he had hitherto been wont to gain 
 fruit ? Verse 14 shows that he was not thinking of Jews in 
 distant parts. How otherwise could he be induced to assert, 
 that as elsewhere, so also in the metropolis of the civilized 
 world, he was not ashamed to pubhsh the gospel ] For in 
 reference to the Jews, it could make no great difference 
 whether he met with them at Jerusalem or at Rome ; the 
 same obstacles to their beheving the gospel existed in both 
 places, owing to which Jesus the Crucified was an offence to 
 them. It cannot be concluded from his addressing the 
 Gentile Christians so pointedly in xi. 13, that the epistle in 
 general was not intended for them ; for at all events — since 
 there were Jews in the Church, though they formed the 
 minority — when he expressed anything which was applicable 
 only to the Gentile members, it was needful that he should 
 thus distinguish it. If we suppose those Jewish Christians 
 who taught the continued obligation of the IVLosaic Law to 
 have formed the original body of the Church, it will not be 
 easy to explain how Gentile Christians who adopted the 
 PauHne principles (and who must evidently have been a 
 minority), could join themselves to such. But it is very 
 different, if we suppose this church to have been constituted 
 like others of the Gentile Christians of whom we have before 
 spoken. Moreover, in the Neronian persecution, the Christian 
 church appears as a new sect hated by the people, a genus 
 tertium, of whom the people were disposed to credit the worst 
 reports, because they were opposed to all the forms of rehgion 
 hitherto in existence. But this could not have been the case 
 if Judaism had been the predominant element in the Roman
 
 282 THE CHURCH AT ROME, 
 
 church. The Christians would then have been scarcely dis- 
 tinguished from the Jews, and it was not usual to pay much 
 attention to the internal religious disputes of the Jews. lo 
 the controversy with the churches in Lesser Asia, the bishops 
 of Rome were the opponents of the Jewish Christian Easter ; 
 this was closely connected with the formation of the Christian 
 cultus on Pauline prinr'^/ies, and an appeal could here be 
 made to an ancient tradition. To the marks of an anti-Jewish 
 tendency belongs also the custom of fasting on the Sabbath. 
 The opinion that this anti-Jewish tendency arose as a reaction 
 against an earlier Judaizing tendency, is at variance with wliat 
 has been said, and is also inconsistent with historical truth ; 
 for since at a later period we see the hierarchical element 
 (which is decidedly Jewish, and favoiirable rather than other- 
 wise to Judaism), pecidiarly prominent in the Romau church, 
 Bo it is difficult to suppose that exactly at this time a reaction 
 should be produced against Judaism,' arising from primitive 
 Christian knowledge and the Pauline spirit. In the work of 
 Hennas, we recognise indeed a conception of Christianity 
 more according to James than according to Paul, (and yet not 
 throughout and entirely Judaizing,) but we know too little of 
 the relation in which the author of this book stood to the 
 whole Roman church, to determine anything respecting the 
 leading tendency of the latter. This remark applies more 
 strongly to the Clementines of which the origin is so uncer- 
 tain, and which by the leading sentiments is essentially dis- 
 tinguished from the Shepherd of Hermas, although some 
 points of affinity exist in the two works. In Rome, the 
 capital of the world, where the various kinds of religion were 
 assembled from all countries, the diffijrent Christian sects 
 wovdd soon seek a settlement, and establish themselves. We, 
 therefore, are not justified in saying of every sect which we 
 see arising out of the bosom of the Roman church, that it 
 proceeded from the rehgious tendency that originally pre- 
 dominated in it, and was a reaction against tendencies subse- 
 quently formed. This applies particularly to the Monarchians, 
 
 * Dr. Bauer, whose views I am here opposing, in his essay against 
 Rothe, on the origin of episcopacy in the Christian church, (Tubinger 
 Zeitschrijl fur Theologie, 1838, part iii. p. 141), endeavours to prove 
 that this reaction against Judaism, supposing that to have originally 
 predominated, took place at a later period in the Roman churcL
 
 PAULS EPISTLE TO THE KOMANS. 283 
 
 who yet could not all be referred to a Judaizing element ; for 
 a Praxeas, of whom we certainly know, that he foimd a point 
 of connexion in the whole Roman church, — which cannot be 
 asserted of other kinds of Monarchians — formed by his 
 peculiar conceptions of the doctrine of Christ as a God re- 
 vealing and revealed, the most direct opposition to the 
 Judaizing standing-point, in many respects still more, than 
 was at that time the case with the common church doctrine 
 of Subordination. But when the Artemonites appealed to 
 their agreement with the earlier Roman bishops, we cannot 
 accept this as historical evidence. All sects have always an 
 interest to claim a high antiquity for their doctrine, and the 
 Artemonites could easily make use for their purpose of many 
 indefinite expressions of earlier doctrinal statements. They 
 appealed generally to the antiquity of their doctrine in the 
 church, and yet we know that the ancient hymns and the 
 apologies could with justice be adduced against them as 
 witnesses for the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. We 
 consider, therefore, the opinion is well grounded, that the 
 Roman chm*ch was formed principally from the stock of 
 Gentile Christians, and that the Pauline form of doctrine 
 originally prevailed among them, i 
 
 In this church, the state of affairs was similar to that which 
 for the most part existed in churches where the GentUe 
 Christian element predominated, though mingled with the 
 Jewish Christian. The Jewish Christians could not bring 
 themselves to acknowledge the Gentiles, who neglected the 
 ceremonial law, as altogether their equals in relation to the 
 kingdom of God; the Gentile Christians also still retained 
 those feelings of contempt with which they were wont to 
 contemplate the Jews, and the manner in which the greater 
 part of the Jews opposed the publication of the gospel, con- 
 firmed them in this temper of mind; Rom. xi. 17, 18. 
 
 Paul in this epistle lays before the church, which he had 
 not yet taught personally, the fundamental principles of the 
 
 I The testimony of Hilarius (the so-called Ambrosian), to which Bauer 
 appeals as historical evidence, we certainly dare not estimate too highly ; 
 for this writer of the second half of the fourth century could hardly make 
 use of historical sources on the constitution of the Roman church to 
 which Paul wrote. He had scarcely any other sources of informatio* 
 than we have ; his testimony appears to be only as deduced from this 
 epistle according to his own interpretation of it.
 
 284 PAULS EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 
 
 gospel; lie wished, as he himself says, Rom. xv 15, to recall 
 to their remembrance' what had been announced to them as 
 the doctrine of Christianity, and to testify that this was the 
 genuine Christian truth, which alone could satisfy the reli- 
 gious wants of human nature, and exhorted them not to allow 
 themselves to be led astray by any strange doctrine. This 
 epistle may therefore serve to inform us, what was in Paul's 
 estimation the essence of the gospel. He begins with assuring 
 them that shame could not have kept him back from pub- 
 lishing the gospel in the capital of the civilized world; for 
 he never had occasion to be ashamed of the doctrine of 
 the gospel, since everywhere, among Gentiles as well as Jews, 
 it had shown itself capable of working with divine power for 
 the salvation of men, if they only believed it ; by this doctrine 
 they all obtained what all alike needed, — that which was 
 essential to the salvation of men, — the means by which they 
 might be brought from a state of estrangement from God in 
 sin, to become holy before God. In order to establish this, 
 it was necessary for the apostle to show that all, both Jews 
 and Gentiles, were in need of this means. He endeavoured to 
 
 ' It is generally supposed that the anh fiepovs in this verse relates to 
 some particular passages of the epistle, which might seem to be written 
 in too bold a tone. We might admit this, if any severe censure were to 
 be met with in this epistle on the faults of his church, as in the first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians. In this case, we might suppose that Paul 
 •would think proper to apologise for such harsh expressions, as pro- 
 ceeding from one who was not personally known to the church. But 
 Buch animadversions on the church we do not find in this epistle ; and 
 all that he says respecting the state of the Gentile world, to which they 
 belonged before their conversion, as well as in all that he says to warn 
 them against self-exaltation, I can find nothing which would occasion 
 an apology on the part of such a man as Paul. Hence, I cannot help 
 considering the ccttS ixepovs only as qualifying the ToX/xrigoTepov, or that it 
 relates to what follows. Paul places the boldness in this, that he, though 
 personally unknown to the church as a teacher, ventured to write to 
 them such an epistle in which he might appear to announce the doctrine 
 of salvation, as if it were entirely new to them. But he explains his 
 design, that it was only to " put them in mind " of what they had 
 already heard, and he believed that, in virtue of the ministry committed 
 to him by divine grace, that he was justified in making known the 
 gospel to the Gentiles. He even qualifies the "putting them in mind " 
 by the addition of iirl, thus representing it as something accessory, and 
 not absolutely required. In these words, in the interpretation of which 
 I cannot agree with Bauer, I can detect nothing unpauline. On the 
 contrary, I find here the same Pauline mode of address as in Kom. i. 12,
 
 Paul's epistle to the ROiiAKS. 285 
 
 lead them both, to a consciousness of their sinfulness and 
 guilt, and to take notice of that which might prevent either 
 party, according to their respective standing-points, from 
 attaining this consciousness, the self-deceptions and sophisms, 
 which obstructed the discernment of the truths which he 
 announced. He had then to point out to the Gentiles that 
 their consciences testified against them, that they could not 
 excuse themselves in their sins by pleading ignorance of God 
 and his law ; he objected to the Jews, that tha-t law, in the 
 possession of which they were so proud, could only utter a 
 sentence of condemnation against them as its violaters; he 
 exposed their self-delusion in thinking, that by the works 
 of the law such as they could perform, or in vu-tue of their 
 descent from the theocratic nation, they could appear as holy 
 before God. After pointing out that both parties were 
 equally in need of the means of salvation, the object he 
 had in view led him to develop the manner in which man, by 
 faith in the Redeemer, might become holy before God, and to 
 exhibit the blessed consequences that followed from this new 
 relation to God; and in this development, he takes pains, as 
 is evident in various passages, so to influence the two parts of 
 which the chm-ch at Rome consisted, the Gentile and the 
 Jewish Christians, that uniting in an equally humble 
 acknowledgment of the grace to which they were indebted for 
 their salvation, neither might exalt themselves above the 
 other; he closes the whole development with extolHng that 
 grace, to which aU stood in the same relation, being equally 
 in need of deliverance, and which aU must at last unite in 
 glorifying. 
 
 In the practical exhortations which form the last part 
 of "this epistle, the wisdom is apparent with which Paul treats 
 of the relations in which the new converts to Christianity 
 were placed; he anticipates the errors into which they were 
 likely to be seduced, and endeavours to suggest the best pre- 
 servatives against their influence. The seditious spirit of the 
 Jews, which refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of any 
 Gentile government (see my Church History, vol. i. p. 50,'^ 
 could not find ready entrance into the Church at Rome, 
 since the majority of its members, being Gentile Christians, 
 were not exposed to infection on this side. But similar 
 errors, from a misimderstanding of Christian truth, might
 
 286 Paul's bpistle to the romans. 
 
 easily arise among them, as actxially happened at a later 
 period. Accustomed to consider themselves as members of 
 the kingdom of God, in opposition to the heathen world, they 
 were in danger of giving an outward form to this opposition, 
 which properly belonged to the internal disposition, and thus 
 a hostile tendency would be called forth against all existing 
 civil institutions, since they would be looked upon as all 
 belonging to the kingdom of the evil spirit. With the con- 
 sciousness of belonging to the kingdom of God, a misap- 
 prehension arising from carnal views might be connected, 
 that those who were destined to rule hereafter in the kingdom 
 of the Messiah, need not in the present hfe submit to worldly 
 governments. Such a carnal misapprehension might easily 
 be combined with the doctrine of Christian freedom, and the 
 apostle on other occasions had thought it needful to caution 
 against it; Gal. v. 13. He wished to be beforehand in op- 
 posing such practical errors, which his knowledge of human 
 nature led lum to anticipate, even if they were not already 
 visible; accordingly, he strictly enjoined on the Eoman 
 Christians, that they ought to consider the institution of civil 
 government generally as a divine ordinance, for a definite 
 object in the plan of Providence ;' that, under this aspect, 
 they must view the government actually existing, and demean 
 themselves conformably to it. 
 
 At the close, he notices a special practical difference in the 
 church. But it may be disputed, in what Mght we are to view 
 it. As in the fom-teenth chapter he places in opposition those 
 who eat, and those who eat not, and by the latter apparently 
 intends those who scrupled to eat flesh and drink wine, and 
 confine themselves to a vegetable diet, (compare v. 2, and 
 v. 21,) some have been led to conclude,^ that in this chm-ch a 
 strong ascetic tendency, entirely forbidding animal food and 
 
 ' It was not the apostle's design it that passage to develop the whole 
 doctrine of the reciprocal duties of rulers and subjects ; but he 
 pursues only one marked antithetical reference, in order to warn 
 Christians of that misapprehension, and hence he leaves all other topics 
 untouched, which otherwise would naturally fall under discussion. 
 
 * This view, with various modifications, has been brought forward by 
 Eichom, in his introduction to the New Testament, and by Bauer in his 
 essay on this epistle ; by the latter in connexion with his view of 
 a predominant Jewish Christian tendency in the Roman church, allied 
 to the later Ebionitism, and containing its germ.
 
 Paul's ephstle to the eomans. 2S7 
 
 Btrong drink, had found an entrance, similar to the doctrine 
 of the later Encratitse, Such a tendency, however foreign tc 
 the Hebrew and Grecian religious systems, had in that age 
 insinuated itself in various forms, both among the Jews and 
 Grentiles, owing to the change produced by the breaking up of 
 the ancient mental habitudes of the world, and effected a 
 jimction with Christianity, by a mistaken view of the con- 
 trariety between the spirit and the flesh, and of the opposition 
 between the world and Christianity. But how can what Paul 
 says on individual cases, be referred to persons under the 
 influence of this tendency 1 " Let not him that eateth" (he 
 says in v. 3), " despise him that eateth not ; and let not him 
 who eateth not judge him that eateth;" that is, not condemn, 
 not disallow his participation in the kingdom of God ; yet 
 persons of this ascetic tendency did not altogether condemn 
 those who would not consent to such abstinence, but they 
 beUeved that they were inferior to themselves, and not so 
 far advanced in the perfection of the spiritual life. Paul 
 therefore ought rather to have said. Let such a one despise 
 him that eateth. Or we must assume that these persons had 
 gone so far as to consider the eating of flesh to be absolutely 
 sinful. But this they could have said only on the principles 
 of a certain dualistic theosophy, which viewed God not as the 
 origin of all creatures ; and if Paul had met with such a 
 scheme, he would certainly not have treated it with so much 
 tolerance, but have felt it his duty to combat it strenuously, 
 as utterly opposed to the standing-point of Christian piety. 
 Nor would the exhortation addressed to the other side not to 
 despise such a one, have been suitable in this case ; for persons 
 of this tendency had nothing which exposed them to con- 
 tempt, but it was rather to be feared that, by such a stricter 
 mode of living, they would be held in greater respect than 
 was their due. Besides, how could Paul say of such a one 
 in v. 6, " He that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not and 
 giveth God thanks'?" Such persons wovild want the disposi- 
 tion to thank God for all the gifts which he had granted for 
 human subsistence. How could he, in reference to such a 
 case, say in v. 21, " It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink 
 wine, in order to give no offence to a brother?" It could 
 give no offence to one who was zealous in practising such 
 asceticism, if he saw another brother living with less strict-
 
 288 Paul's epistle to the Romans. 
 
 uess. But if other Christians believed that they ought to 
 follow his example, he might to his injury be confirmed 
 in his delusion, that such a mode of living had something in 
 it excellent or meritorious. Least of all coidd we suppose 
 that Paul woidd treat persons of this sort simply as weak, 
 and show them so much indulgence, without discussing more 
 fully the principle that formed the basis of their standing- 
 point. And if we do not assume that this principle was 
 an avowed dualism which he must have combated, yet, on any 
 supposition, he could not have acted with so much mildness 
 and forbearance towards an ascetic arrogance of this kind, 
 which was equally in diametric opposition to his doctrine 
 of justification and to the essence of Christian humihty. Of 
 such a perversion of religious sentiment, it could not be ex- 
 pected that it would gradually be overcome by the progressive 
 development of faith as the root of the whole Christian life ; 
 but it was rather to be feared, that a principle so alien to the 
 Christian hfe, and so much favoured by certain tendencies of 
 the times, would gather increasing strength, and injure more 
 and more the healthy development of Christianity: several 
 appearances of tliis kind in the following age justify us in this 
 conclusion. How very differently does Paul speak against 
 such a tendency in the Epistle to the Colossians ! Evidently 
 the persons towai-ds whom Paul enjoins forbearance, were 
 such who distinguished certain days as in a special sense dedi- 
 cated to God, and who could not yet bring themselves to the 
 Christian standing-point, that all days ought in an equal 
 manner to be dedicated to God, We must here recognise the 
 reaction of the Jewish standing-point, (which, since it had its 
 indisputable right in the development of religious truth, and 
 could not be altogether set aside by a single effort, Paul, 
 unless its claims were arrogantly set forth, always treated 
 with indulgence), and we shall find sufficient reason for refer- 
 ring another topic which concerns the question of abstinence 
 to the same tendency. We shall be led to think of the Jewish 
 Christians, who were still strict observers of the Mosaic law, 
 not only in keeping certain days, but also in refraining from 
 certain kinds of food. We shall be less siirprised at this, 
 if we recollect that generally the Christians of Jewish descent, 
 particularly those of Palestine, when they hved at Rome, 
 adhered to their former Jewish mode of life. But in the Mosaic
 
 Paul's epistle to the romaxs. 289 
 
 laws relative to food, there was nothing that could occasion 
 scruples about eating flesh or drinking wine. Or we must 
 assume that Paul spoke here only hypothetically and hyper- 
 bolically, without thinking of a case, which might really occur 
 under existing circumstances, althoiigh this is by no means 
 probable, judging from his mode of expressing himself. 
 
 Further, if we think of those Jewish Christians who believed 
 that the Mosaic laws respecting food were still obligatory, it 
 is indeed evident, that Paul must admonish the Gentile 
 Chiistians who were entangled in no such perplexities, that 
 they ought not to despise their weaker Jewdsh brethren on 
 account of their scnipulosity, nor lead them to act against 
 their consciences, by working on their feelings of shame. But 
 would he have expressed himself so mildly, if these Jewish 
 Christians had ventured to condemn others who partook 
 of food which they held to be prohibited'? In this case, we 
 must suppose it to be the opinion of these Jewish Christians, 
 that the Mosaic law was binding on Gentile Christians, and 
 that Avithout its observance they could not be partakers of 
 the kingdom of God. But we know how emphatically Paid 
 always expressed himself against those who maintained such a 
 sentiment, and in doing so, invahdated his doctrine of justifi- 
 cation by faith alone. In addition — and on this point we 
 must lay still greater weight — Paul exhorts the strong in 
 faith and the unscrupulous to take into consideration the 
 necessities of the weak, and rather to refrain from food, which 
 from the standing-point of thefr own conviction they could 
 partake of without scruple, than give offence to their weaker 
 brethren. But how would it agi'ee with the principles of this 
 apostle, that he should advise the Gentile Christians to make 
 such a concession, by which they would practically have 
 recognised for their own standing-point the obhgatory force of 
 the Mosaic law — since he was more wont to vn-ge on the 
 Gentile Christians not to give place to the Judaizers, who 
 wished to compel them to the observance of the law, but to 
 maintain their Christian freedom against them. In fact, 
 there was no ground for such an exhortation. The Jewish 
 Christians had no cause to be uneasy, because the Gentile 
 Christians did not trouble themselves about the Mosaic laws 
 respecting food. By the stipulation concluded by the apo- 
 stolic convention at Jerusalem, they were set at libei-ty from 
 
 VOL. L U
 
 290 Paul's epistle to the Romans. 
 
 every such restriction. If this gave offence to the Jewish 
 Christians, the offence was unavoidably founded in the evan- 
 gelical truth itself 
 
 We must therefore think of something connected indeed 
 mth the religious standing-point of the Judaizers, but yet 
 something separable fi-om the observance of the Mosaic law, — 
 something that with more appearance of justice the Jewish 
 Christians might require of their Gentile brethren, — some- 
 thing, in which a concession to the weakness of others might 
 be demanded of Gentile Christians, without encroaching on 
 then- Christian freedom. This could be nothing else than 
 abstaining from the flesh of animals offered to idols. Every- 
 thing in this section would agree with this alone. The 
 passage would have a meaning applicable to the circum- 
 stances of the times, if we suppose those pei'sons to be spoken 
 of who, in certain cases, would rather abstain altogether from 
 animal food, and eat only herbs, that they might unknowingly 
 be in danger of eating something unclean and defiling, the 
 flesh of idolatrous sacrifices. In v. 2, Paul presents the con- 
 trast in the extreme point ; on the one side, a strength of 
 faith which proceeds so far as to banish all sci-uples respecting 
 the enjoyment of food, and on the other side, the extreme of 
 scrupiilosity, arising from weakness of faith, which would 
 rather eat no meat whatever, in order to avoid the danger of 
 eating the flesh of animals offered to idols. Now, it is evident, 
 how Paul could say, that if needs be, it would be better not to 
 eat flesh, nor to drink wine, rather than disturb the con- 
 science of a weak brother. We need only recollect that the 
 heathens accompanied then' sacrifices with libations ; ' that the 
 same scruples which existed relative to the meat of the sacri- 
 fices, would also arise in reference to the wine of the libations. 
 But that the apostle has not expressly mentioned the sacri- 
 fices, can in our opinion occasion no perplexity. He had in 
 view only such readers as would at once understand from his 
 words what he meant ; so in ordinary letters, many things are 
 not stated in detail, because it is presumed that the persons 
 to whom they are addi-essed perfectly undei'stand the allusions. 
 
 We must therefore conceive the state of affairs in this 
 church to have been similar to that in the Corinthian, which 
 
 * See the Mishnah in the treati -e rni niii3 on idolatrous woi-sbip 
 c. ii. § 3, ed. Surenhus. P. iv. 369, 3H.
 
 Paul's epistle to the Romans. 291 
 
 we liave already noticed. Some gave themselves no cor. cern 
 about the injunction against meat offered to idols, like the 
 iree-thinking Corinthians, and ridiculed the scrupulosity of 
 the Jewish Christians; others, on the contrary, considered 
 the eating of such food as absolutely sinful, and hence passed 
 sentence of condemnation on those who ventured to eat every- 
 thing without distinction. Thus also some were still too 
 much accustomed to consider certain days as peculiarly 
 sacred, according to the Jewish standing-point; those who 
 thought more freely, and viewed the subject from the pure 
 Clxristian standing-point, were disposed to make no religious 
 difference between one day and another. Such a state of 
 things as this could only exist in a community which was 
 formed similarly to the Corinthian church, which consisted 
 of a majority of Christians of Gentile descent, but with an 
 addition to the original materials of a subordinate Jewish 
 element. ' Paul begins his exhortation, without pafticidarly 
 designating the persons he addi-essed, yet having chiefly in 
 view the more free-thinking Gentile Christians, which also 
 confirms the notion, that these formed the main body of the 
 church. He declares the standing-point of these persons to 
 be coiTect in theory; but as in the first epistle to the 
 Corinthians, he censvu'es the want of Christian love in them, ■ 
 who so little regarded what affected the welfai'e of their 
 weaker brethren, and with that defect, the misapprehension 
 of Christian freedom, which was shown in their laying such 
 great stress on what was outward and in itself indifferent, as 
 if the true good of Christians consisted in such things, instead 
 of being something grounded in their inner life, which would 
 remain secure whether they could use or not use these out- 
 ward things. The participation of the kingdom of God 
 consisted not in meat and drink, (the true possessions and 
 privileges, the true freedom of the members of God's kingdom 
 consisted not in eating or di'inking this or that, outward 
 things in general being signified by this expression,) but in 
 the participation of those heavenly possessions of the inner 
 man — righteousness (in the Pauline sense, the designation of 
 
 1 It agrees wifh this view, that in Eom. xv. 7 (a passage closely con- 
 nected with what goes before), the subject is the agreement between 
 Gentile and Jewish Christians; and that Paul in Rom. yi. 17, warns 
 them of the common Judaizers, who by the spread of their principles 
 endeavoured to excite divisions in such mixed churches.
 
 292 Paul's last journey to jerus^vlem. 
 
 the whole relation in which the] ck irlartwQ llKaioq stands to 
 God,) the heavenly peace flowing from it, the happiness of 
 the divine life, Rom. xv. 17. He recommends mutual for- 
 bearance and love to both parties, that no one should judge 
 another, but each one should seek to be well grounded in his 
 own convictions, and act accordingly; but that the more 
 mature in Christian conviction should condescend to the 
 stanchng-poiut of those who were not so far advanced, since 
 more is required from the strong than from the weak. 
 
 After Paul had spent three months in Achaia, he wished to 
 depart with the sums collected for the poor Christians at 
 Jerusalem, and thus to close his apostolic ministry in the 
 East.' This plan was wisely formed by him, and this his last 
 
 ' Though I agree for the most part with Dr. Schneckenburger in 
 what he pays (in his work on the Acts) on the intention of this last 
 iourncy to Jerusalem ; yet I cannot entirely assent to what he thinks 
 may be deduced from the silence of the Acts on this collection, and the 
 object of this journey, in favour of the hypothesis which he has 
 advanced. I must also avow myself opposed to Dr. Bauer's views, who 
 in his Essay on the Romans, and his Dissertation on Episcopacy, 
 endeavours to .show that the author of the Acts misrepresented the 
 facts, and set them in a false light from a one-sided, apologetic inten- 
 tion ; see his review of Dr. Schneckenburger in the Jahrbuchfur wis- 
 senschaftliche Kritih. March 1841. These two critics are struck with 
 the omission of a transaction of so much importance in the historical 
 connexion of event*, and hence believe, that they must find out a 
 special reason for it in the olject. which the author of the Acts pro- 
 posed to himself in writing his work. As he was disposed to assume 
 ignorance of the continued division between the Jews and Gentile 
 Christians, and always represents only the Jews, and not the Jewish 
 Christians, as adversaries of the apostle, so he could not adduce any- 
 thing which might testify against his assumption, or that even might 
 eerve to lessen the opposition which he kept out of sight ; and hence he 
 could not represent this last journey of Paul in its true light. Had we 
 reason to expect in this age of the church, a comprehensive historical 
 representation explaining the causes and connexion of events, if the 
 Acts wore the appearance of such a work, had ita author been a Chris- 
 tian Thucydides or Polybius — we might then have admitted the infer- 
 ence, that either he was at too great a distance from the events to know 
 anything of this collection, or of the real object of this journey, or that 
 owing to 'a one-sided bias, he had consciously or unconsciously falsified 
 the history. But such a statesmanlike point of view, which could be 
 formed only where the development of events could be surveyed with a 
 certain calmness of mind and a philosophic interest, was totally foreign 
 to the standing-point of Christian history at this time, and especially 
 to that of the Acts. It consists of memoirs, as the author gave them 
 from the sources of information within bis reach, or from his own
 
 Paul's last journey to Jerusalem. 293 
 
 journey to Jerusalem with the collection is to be viewed as 
 marking an epoch in the development of the church, whose 
 importance we must consider more closely. A year had 
 passed since he had with great zeal set this collection on foot 
 among the churches of Gentile Christians in Asia and 
 Eui'ope, and it was of importance to him that it should be 
 very productive. He had already written to the Corinthian 
 church, 1 Cor. xvi. 4, that if this collection equalled his 
 wishes, he would convey it himself to Jenisalem. It was 
 certainly not merely his intention to assist the poor of the 
 church at Jerusalem in their temporal necessities ; he had an 
 object still more important for the development of the chiu'ch, 
 to effect a radical cure of the breach between the Jewish and 
 the Gentile Chiistians, and to seal for pei^petuity the unity of 
 the chm-ch. As the immediate power of love can effect more 
 to heal the schism of souls, than all formal conferences in 
 favour of union, so the manner in which the Gentile churches 
 evinced their love and gratitude to the IMother church, would 
 accomplish what had not yet been attained by all attempts at 
 union. Paul wished, since he was accompanied to Jerusalem 
 by the messengers of these churches, who practically contm- 
 dicted the charges disseminated against him by his Jewish 
 
 recollection, without following any definite plan. He mentions the 
 last journey of Paul to Jerusalem, on account of the serious con- 
 sequences to the apostle himself, without reflecting further on his object 
 in undertaking it, and probably passed over the collection as being in 
 that view unimportant ; his interest would be engaged by other objects ; 
 and reflections which would only present themselves from a comprehen- 
 sive sun'ey of history, would be totally absent from his thoughts. Yet 
 this bountiful collection might be included among the practical proofs 
 which Paul gave (Acts xxi. 19), of the success of his ministry among 
 the Gentiles ; why should he have been intentionally silent respecting 
 it? If he could say what is mentioned in that passage, without injury 
 to the design imputed to him, could he not also say. The presbyters of 
 the church at Jerusalem praised God for kindling such active brotherly 
 love in the hearts of the believing Gentiles. Yet the author of the 
 Acts, by his account in ch. xx. v. 21, implies the continued enmity of 
 the Jewish Christians against Paul. I do not see, therefore, what 
 could have induced him designedly to have suppressed earlier facts 
 relating to it. In Paul's defence in Acts xxiv. 17, there is actually an 
 allusion to the collection, which therefore the author could not have 
 intended to conceal. But if the Acts had been a connected history, or 
 s narrative from one source, this collection, that is only mentioned 
 accidentally, must have been recorded earlier in its place in tha regul"\i 
 Beries of events.
 
 29-4 Paul's last journey to Jerusalem. 
 
 and Judaizing adversaries, — that the proofs of the sympa- 
 thising and self-sacrificing love of the Gentile Christians 
 should serve as evidence to the Jewish Christians, who had 
 imbibed prejudices against them, of what could be effected by 
 the preaching of the gospel independently of the law of 
 Moses ; so that they would be obliged to acknowledge the 
 operation of God's Spirit among these, whom they had always 
 been indisposed to receive as brethren in the faith. Paul 
 himself plainly indicates this to have been his chief object in 
 tliis collection and journey, (2 Cor. ix. 12 — 15 ;) that not only 
 this service of love might relieve the wants of the Christians 
 at Jenisalem, but that many hearts might be excited to gra- 
 titude to God ; when they saw how the faith of Gentile 
 Christians had verified itself by this act of kindness, they 
 would feel compelled to praise God for this practical testimony 
 to the gospel, and through the manner in which the grace of 
 God had shown its efiicacy among them, being filled with 
 love to them, they would make them objects of their inter- 
 cessions. A reciprocal communion of prayer in thanksgiving 
 and intercession, was always considered as the mark and seal 
 of genuine Christian brotherhood ; he therefore wished to 
 bring about such a xmion of heart between the Jewish and 
 Gentile Chiistians. Before he extended his labom-s for the 
 spread of the church in other lands, he was anxious for the 
 secm'ity and stabiUty of the work of which the foundation 
 had been already laid ; but which was exposed to the gi-eatest 
 danger on the side of that eai-hest controversy, which was 
 always threatening to break forth again. 
 
 Yet it aU depended on this, whether the apostle of the 
 Gentiles could succeed in caiTying his wisely formed plan into 
 effect ; he was well awai'e, what hindrances and dangers 
 obstructed his progi-ess. It was questionable whether the 
 power of love would succeed in overcoming the naiTow-heart- 
 edness of the Jewish spirit, and induce the Jewish Chi-istiana 
 to receive as brethren, the Gentile brethren who accompanied 
 him. And what had he to expect from the Jews, when he, 
 after they had heard so much of his labom-s among the 
 Gentiles, which had excited their fanatical hatred, — personally 
 appeared among them ; if he who in his youth had been 
 Imown as a zealous champion of Phaiisaism, was now seen 
 accompanied by uncircumcised Gentiles as messengers from
 
 Paul's last journey to Jerusalem. 295 
 
 Gentile churches, whose equal birthright for the kingdom of 
 the Messiah he zealously advocated"? Fully alive to the 
 difl&culties and dangers which he must overcome in order to 
 attain his great object, he entreated the Roman Christians for 
 theu' intercessory prayers, that he might be delivered from 
 the unbelievers among the Jews, and that this sei-vice might 
 be well received by the Christians at Jerusalem, that he might 
 come to them from thence with joy and be refreshed by them ; 
 Rom. XV. 31, 32. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FIFTH AND LAST JOtJKNET OF PAUL TO JERUSALEM — ITS IMMEDIATE 
 CONSEQUENCES — HIS IMPRISONMENT IN PALESTINE. 
 
 After staying three months in Achaia, Paul departed from 
 Corinth in tiie spring of the year 58 or 59, about the time of 
 the Jewish Passover. His companions went before him to 
 Troas, and he first visited Philippi, where he joined Luke, who 
 had been left there some time before. As he earnestly wished 
 to be in Jerusalem at the Pentecost, it was necessary to 
 hasten his joiu-ney ; on that account he did not venture to go 
 to Ephesus, but sent from Miletus for the overseers of the 
 Ephesian church, and probably those of other neighbouring 
 Asiatic churches,' to come to him, that in the anticipation of 
 
 ^ We cannot conclude with certainty from Paul's farewell address to 
 the overseers of the church, which is given in the 20th chapter of the 
 Act^>, that the overseers of other churches in Lesser Asia, besides those 
 of Ephesus, were present on that occasion. The words in Acts xx. 25, 
 iv oh SirjXBov, may favour this supposition, since they denote rather 
 travelling through a certain district, than a continued residence in one 
 place ; but these words may also be fairly understood of the apostle's 
 labours in different parts of Ephesus, and the visits he paid to the 
 houses of the presbyters. The singular rh iroifivwv, v. 28, 29, leads us 
 to think most naturally of only one church, though it may be here used 
 collectively, and include many churches. It is worthy of notice, that 
 Irenseus applies it to the overseers of distinct churches, and speaks of it 
 in very decided lansuage. " In Mileto convocatis episeopis et presby- 
 teris, qui erant ab Epheso, et reliquis proximis civitatihus," iii. c. 14, 
 § 2. Judging from the character of Irenaeus and his times, it is not 
 probable that he would be induced simply by thai expression in Paul'.^
 
 296 Paul's farewell address to the 
 
 the great dangers that awaited him, he might pour forth hi8 
 heart to them perhaps for the last time, and utter the pailing 
 words of fatherly love.' We recognise in this farewell ad- 
 address, to deviate from the letter of the narrative in the Acts. Hence 
 we might rather suppose, that Irenseus was decided in giving a diflerent 
 representation by historical traditions or documents with which he had 
 become acquainted in Lesser Asia. Yet the bias of the episcopal 
 system (which was then germinating) migiit perhaps occasion a dilTerent 
 construction of the passage, than tlie literal narrative would warrant, 
 independently of any tradition. Paul applies to the presbyters the 
 epithet iiriffKoiroi ; now it could not then be surprising to find the 
 tTriV/fOTTOi designated presbyters, for this latter name was still the 
 generic term by which both might be denoted, but the name (iricTKonoi 
 was already exclusively applied to the first church governors, the pre- 
 sidents of the college of presbyters. Since, then, we proceed on the 
 supposition that this institution of church government was the same 
 from the beginning, we must hence conclude from the name (iriffKoiroi 
 that the bishops of other churches were present at this meeting, and 
 hence Irenseus says expressly " (piscopis et presbyteris." But if we 
 admit that this meeting consisted of the overseers of the various 
 churches in Lesser Asia, the discrepancy between the three years. Acta 
 XX. 31, and the two years and three months, of the duration of Paul's 
 stay at Ephesus, according to Luke's narrative, would cease ; for we 
 might then suppose, that Paul, before he went to Ephesus, spent nine 
 months in other places of Leaser Asia, where he founded churches. 
 
 1 Dr. Bauer and Dr. Schneckenburger think that it can be shown, that 
 this address in the 20th ch. of the Acts was not delivered by Paul in ita 
 present form, but that it was framed by the author of the Acts, on the 
 same plan as the whole of his history, according to the conciliatory apo- 
 logetic tendency already noticed. We would not indeed pledge our- 
 selves that the address was taken down as Paul delivered it, with official 
 accuracy — but that it has been faithfully reported in its essential con- 
 tents, and that an outline of it was in existence earlier than the whole 
 of the Acts. Not only do we find nothing in it which does not cor- 
 respond to the situation and feelings of the apostle, but it also containa 
 several marks of not being cast in the same mould as the whole of the 
 Acts. Among these marks we reckon the mention of the three years, 
 which does not agree with the reckoning in the Acts, the mention of 
 teaching " from house to house," v. 20, and of the warning voices of the 
 prophets, v. 23. (Schneckenburger, indeed, considers this to be a pro- 
 lepsis, and finds in it a mark of non-originality ; but it is not at all 
 improbable, that already in the churches with whom Paul had stayed, 
 he had received warnings of the dangers that threatened him from the 
 fanatical rage of the Jews, though Luke, who did not accompany Paul 
 everywhere, has not mentioned this in his brief narrative). Besides, as 
 Paul, speaking of a higher necessity, by which he felt compelled to go 
 to Jerusalem, " bound in spirit," we may infer that this journey, under- 
 taken for what he considered the work committed to him by the Lord, 
 had a greater significance and importance, as appears from the expla- 
 nation we have already given, but which is not so represented in the
 
 OVERSEERS OP THE EPHESIAN CHURCH. 297 
 
 dress, in -wliicli Paul's heart, thoroughly imbued with the love 
 of Christ, expresses itself in so affecting a manner, his 
 fatherly anxiety for the chiurches, whose overseers heard his 
 warning voice for the last time, and whom he was about to 
 leave at a time full of sad and dark foreboding, when many 
 dangers threatened pure Chi-istianity. 
 
 He could not foresee with certainty what consequences 
 would result from his journey to Jerusalem, for these de- 
 pended on a combination of circumstances, too intricate for 
 any human sagacity to unravel. But yet he could not be 
 iinaware of what the fanatical rage of the Jewish zealots 
 threatened, and what it might perpetrate, under the malad- 
 ministration of the worthless Procurator Felix,^ who com- 
 bined the meanness of a slave with the caprice of a tyrant ; 
 at Jerusalem, too, where Might prevailed against Eight, and 
 assassins (the notorious Sicarii) acted as the tools of any party 
 who were base enough to employ them. In the churches 
 which he had visited on his joiirney hither, many individuals 
 had warned him in inspired language of the danger that 
 threatened him at Jerusalem, and thereby confirmed what 
 his own presentiments, as well as his sagacity, led him to ex- 
 pect, similar to those sad anticipations which he expected 
 when he was last at Corinth ; Rom. xv. 31. 
 
 There are especially two warnings and exhortations relative 
 
 Acts. If this address indicates that it was delivered before delegates 
 from various Asiatic cliurches, we may also number this among the 
 marks, not that we would attach equal weight to all these marks ; but 
 taken collectively, their testimony appears to prove something. And ii 
 Luke had before him an earlier written draft of Paul's address, con- 
 taining the presentiment he expressed of his impending death, I do not 
 see how any one is justified in maintaining that Paul could not have 
 uttered it, in case this anticipation had not been fulfilled. According 
 to truth, he must have allowed him to speak as he»actually spoke. But 
 it could not be any difiiculty to Luke or to the persons for whom this 
 memoir was in the first place designed, if a presentiment of Paul's 
 respecting his impending fate was not fulfilled in its full extent. In- 
 fallible foreknowledge of future events was certainly, according to the 
 Christian idea of that age, not among the marks of a genuine apostle, 
 and the contrary is rather implied in Paul's own words, v. 22. He 
 speaks in a somewhat dubious tone of the fate that awaited him. Who- 
 ever might have forged after the event an address of Paul's, would have 
 made him speak in a very difierent and more decided tone. 
 
 • Of whom Tacitus says ; " Per omnem ssevitiam ac libidinem jus 
 regium servili ingenio exercuit." Hist. v. 9.
 
 298 Paul's faeewell adbress to the 
 
 to the futui-e whicli he addressed to the overseers of the 
 chui'ch, and enforced by the example of his own labours 
 dui'ing three years' residence among them. He foresaw, that 
 false teachers from other paints would insinuate themselves 
 into these chm'ches, and that even among themselves such 
 would ai"ise and gain many adherents. He exhorts them, 
 therefore, to watch that the doctrine of salvation which he 
 had faithfully published to them for so long a period might be 
 preserved in its purity. The false teachers whom he here 
 pointed out were most probably distinct from the class of 
 common Judaizera ; for in churches in which the Gentile 
 Christian, that is, the Hellenic element,^ so predominated as 
 in those of Lesser Asia, such persons could not be so dangerous; 
 and particularly Avhen such false teachers were described as 
 proceeding fi-om the bosom of the church itself, it must be 
 presumed that these heretical tendencies must have developed 
 themselves from a mixture with Christianity of the mental 
 elements already existing in the church. Might not Paul's 
 experience during his long stay in Lesser Asia, have given 
 him occasion to feel these anxieties for the future ? As im- 
 mediately after annoimcing the danger that threatened the 
 chm'ch, he reminded them that for three years he had not 
 ceased, day or night, to wai'n each one among them with 
 tears, we may infer that he had at that time cause thus to 
 address the consciences of their overseers, and to warn them 
 so impressively against the adulteration of Chi'istian trath. 
 We here see the first omens indicated by the apostle of a 
 new conflict which awaited pure Christianity.' At the close 
 
 * Schneckenburger, p. 136, objects against this remark, that in the 
 Gentile-Christian Galatian churches, Judalzing false teachers could pro- 
 duce the greatest confusion ; but the degree of Grecian cultivation in 
 Galatia and at Ephesus makes a difference here. 
 
 2 As from what is said in the text it is easily shown, that Paul must 
 have held such a warning of the propagation of new pervei'sions of 
 Christian truth to be called for ; so I can find no ground for Bauer's and 
 Schneckenburger's assumption, that something is here attributed to 
 Paul which he could not say from his own standing-point; v/lietherwith 
 Bauer, it is assumed that such a prophesying is formed according to the 
 appearances of a later period, or with Schneckenburger, that what was 
 present, what had actually fallen under Paul's own notice, is here trans- 
 ferred to the future. Schneckenburger finds something intentional in 
 Paul's mentioning notliing of the conflicts which he had sustained with 
 the false teachers, the Judaizers; and in speaking only of such conflicts 
 which would follow his departure. But there certainly lies in Paul's
 
 OVERSEERS OF THE EPHESIAN CHURCH. 299 
 
 of his address, Paul refers them to the example of disinte- 
 lested and self-denying love, which he had given them : — he 
 xiad required of them neither gold, nor silver, nor raiment, 
 but as they well knew, had proAaded for his own temporal 
 wants and those of his followers by the labour of his own 
 hands. These words are admirably suited to the close of the 
 address. By reminding the presbyters of the proofs of his 
 disinterested love, and of his zeal which shunned no toil and 
 no piivation for the salvation of souls, he gave still greater 
 weight to his exhortations. The 33d verse is closely con- 
 nected with the 31st, where he reminds them of his labours 
 among them for their souls, and in both verses he holds out 
 his own example for their imitation. He expresses this still 
 more clearly in the words, " I have showed you all things (or 
 in eveiy way), how that so labouring ye ought to support the 
 weak,' and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, ' It is more 
 blessed to give than to receive.' " It conveyed the exhorta- 
 tion, that in the discharge of their office they should avoid 
 all appearance of selfishness, that they should rather earn their 
 own livehhood, and give up tlieir claim to what they had a 
 right to expect from the chxu'ch to which they had consecrated 
 their powers. He impressed this upon them in the most 
 
 words a reference to that which he had already said by way of warning 
 to the presbyterfs. But he could speak of these adulterations of 
 Christianity as future, since he had detected them in the germ, and 
 their further development was at first checked by the power of his per- 
 sonal influence. 
 
 ' Certainly the da-devets in Acts xx. 35, are not those who needed help 
 in respect of their bodily wants ; in that case, why should not a more 
 definite word be used 1 Neither does the connexion suit such an inter- 
 pretation, for Paul does not say that he laboured that he might be able 
 to give to the poor, or that he might support his poor associates ; but 
 that the church might not be obliged to contribute neither to them nor 
 to him any thing for their support. And this manifestly in order that 
 every occasion might be taken from the weak, who were not sufficiently 
 established in Christian principles, who would be easily disposed to 
 entertain the suspicion of private advantage. The use of the word 
 aa9fPTis in 2 Cor. xi. 29 also favours this interpretation, and what he 
 assigns in both the Epistles to the Corinthians as the reasons of such 
 conduct. Thus also this exhortation stands in closer connexion with 
 what goes before ; for if the presbyters avoided all appearance of selfish- 
 ness, they would have a firmer hold on the general confidence, and thus, 
 like Paul himself in reference to the Judaizers, could more successfully 
 oppose the false teachers, who endeavoured for their own ends to excite 
 mistrust of the existing teachers and guides of the church.
 
 800 Paul's last journey to Jerusalem. 
 
 delicate manner, since he does not use the express form of 
 exhortation, but presents his example for imitation under 
 similar circumstances. Paul indeed declares elsewhere, that 
 the preachers of tlie gospel, as Christ liiinself had expressed 
 it, were entitled to receive their maintenance frum the 
 churches for whoso spiritual welfare tliey laboured. And it 
 may appear strange that he hero dei)arts from this nde, and 
 that ho should hero prescribe to all the presbyters what else- 
 where he has represented as an exception arising out of very 
 peculiar circumstances, and as something suited only to his 
 individual standing-point.' But there is a ditferencc between 
 the circumstances of itinerant missionaries and tlioso of the 
 Dverseei-s of churches wh.ose activity at first is not so claimed 
 by their pastoral duties as o prevent their carr}-ing on at the 
 same time their former secular employment ; and if they 
 thus laboiu'cd with self-sacriticiiig love without any appearance 
 of selfishness, their authority and influence, which would be 
 required to coiuitcract the false teachers, would be much in- 
 creased. 
 
 In this whole address, as suited the feelings and aim of one 
 who was probably taking a last farewell of his spiritual chil- 
 di'cn, the hortatory element is throughout predominant ; if 
 we suppose an apologetic clement, which is very doubtful, 
 it is at all events t|uite subordinate to the former. It is very 
 improbable, that when he spoke of his own disinterestedness, 
 ho intended to repel the accus;xtions of his Judaizing adver- 
 saries ; for though he was obliged to answer such charges in 
 writing to the Corinthians, we ai"e not to infer that a similar 
 exculpation of himself was required in all the churches. 
 With greater reason we may finil in what he says of the com- 
 pleteness of his teaching in the doctrines of salvation, a refer- 
 ence to the accusations of his Judaizing opponents, of which 
 ■we have so often spoken. But even this is very doubtful ; 
 for in any case, without an apologetic design, and simply to 
 excite the presb}-tcrs to fidelity in holding fast the piu-e doc- 
 trine which they had received, he would of necessity remind 
 them how important he had felt it to keep back nothing from 
 them that was necessary for salvation, and that he was free 
 from blame if, after all, they should be guilty of unfaithfulness. 
 
 ' For which reason Schneckenburger thinks it improbable that Paul 
 ■0 expresaed himseit
 
 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 301 
 
 Such an address could not but make a deep impression on 
 their hearts, of which we have a simple and striking descrip- 
 tion in the Acts xx. 37, 38. 
 
 When Paul arrived at Ctesarea Stratonis, within two days' 
 journey of Jerusalem, he was warned of fresh dangers that 
 threatened him. The members of the church and his com- 
 panions united their entreaties that he would be careful 
 of his life, and not proceed any further. But though he was 
 far from the enthusiastic zeal that panted for martyrdom, 
 though he never neglected any methods of Christian pru- 
 dence, in order to presei've his life for the service of his 
 Lord and of the Church, yet as he himself declared, he 
 counted his life as nothing, if required to sacrifice it in the 
 ministry entrusted to him. However much a heart so ten- 
 derly susceptible, so open to all pure human emotions as his, 
 must have been moved by the tears of his friends, who loved 
 him as their spiritual father, yet he suffered not his resolution 
 to be shaken, but resisted all these impressions, in order to 
 follow the call of duty; he left all events to the will of 
 the Lord, in which at hist his Christian brethren concurred. 
 
 The next day after his aiTival at Jerusalem, Paul with his 
 companions visited James the brother of the Lord, at whose 
 house the presbyters of the church were assembled. They 
 listened with great interest to his account of the effects of the 
 gospel among the Gentiles. But James called his attention 
 to the fact, that a great number of Jews who believed on 
 Jesus as the Messiah, and were yet zealous and strict 
 observers of the Mosaic law, were prejudiced against him ; ' for 
 
 * Dr. Bauer has attempted to show, that the words in Acta xxi. 20, 
 Til/ TTfTcicnevKOTuv, arc a gloss, and that the Jews here spoken of are 
 those who had not received the gospel. It appears to him incredible, 
 that the nuuiher of Christians among the Jews, who in later times were 
 confined to the small sects of the Ebionites and Nazarcnes, could have 
 been so very great. He thinks, that what James said would perfectly 
 apply to Jews who had not yet embraced the gospel, of whose plots it 
 behoved Paul to be careful, and who afterwards actually raised a 
 tumult against him. Origen indeed says, Tom. I. in Jolt. § 2, that the 
 number of believing Jews in the whole world would not amount to one 
 hundred and forty-four thousand ; but from the times of Origen we 
 cannot draw an inference respecting an earlier period. Since Chris- 
 tianity had for a long time spread so successfully among the Jews, their 
 numbers in the course of twenty years might have increased to several 
 myriads, as Hegesippus likewise testifies in Eusebius ii. 23; and we
 
 302 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 those Judaizers, who everywhere sought to injure Paxil's 
 ministry, had circulated in Jerusalem the charge against liim, 
 that, not content witJi releasing the believing Gentiles from 
 the observance of the Mosaic law, he had required of the 
 Jews who hved among them not to circumcise their children, 
 and not to observe the law. This charge, so brought forward, 
 was certainly false ; for Paul combated the outwiU'd observ- 
 ance of Judaism only so far as the justification and sanctifica- 
 tion of men were made to depend upon it. It was his 
 
 need not confine the expression to Jews resident in Jerusalem, since at 
 the Pentecost many would be brought together from other parts. But 
 many of these believing Jews miglit not, distinguish themselves from 
 others, excepting by the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Jlessiah, and 
 hence we may account for many of them relapsing into Judaism, when 
 their own Messianic expectations were not fulfilled. We also find no 
 intimation that James had warned Paul of danger threatening him 
 from this class of Jews ; but he only required that he would seek to 
 regain the confidence of these brethren in the faith, who were filled 
 with mistrust and suspicion towards him. Tlie connexion of verse 20, 
 absolutely requires the addition of twv ■rrtTrtffTfvKoTwi', for how could 
 James be supposed to tell Paul a fact he well knew beforehand, that at 
 Jerusalem there were bo many myriads of Jews, who were all zealous 
 observers of the law] Bauer in his review of Schncckenburger's work 
 has acknowledged that this alteration of the text formerly proposed by 
 him, is untenable; but attempts to solve the difficulty which he here 
 believes to exist, by another method in conncxiou with the views held 
 by himself and Schncckenburger respecting the peculiar standing-point 
 and object of the Acts. Historical truth must here make her way 
 through the subjective point of view, into which the author of the Acts 
 forces everything, and assert her right even against his will. He 
 wished, forsooth, so to represent matters, as if, by the arrangement 
 agreed upon by the apostolic convention at Jerusalem, the diflferenees 
 between the Jewish and Gentile Christians had been settled, and Paul 
 henceforward had to combat, not with Jewish Christians, but solely 
 with Jews. Yet against his will he was obliged to grant to historical 
 truth, that in the machinations against Paul on his last visit to Jeru- 
 salem, the Jewish Christians had the principal share. But as this is 
 opposed to the point of view on which he proceeds everywhere else, the 
 subjective and the objective are so mingled by him, that the Jewish 
 Christians become Jews again, and hence he is led into the error of 
 overrating the numbers of the former. But after what has been eaid, 
 we cannot accede to the correctness of this too artificial hypothesis. 
 And if the author had once allowed himself to distort history according 
 Co his subjective point of view, he would surely have remained faithful 
 to this view, and on this last occasion would have named only Jews as 
 the calumniators of Paul, against whose false accusations he would have 
 to justify himself. He was under no necessity by such inconsistency to 
 testify against himself.
 
 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 303 
 
 principle, that no one should relinquish the national and civil 
 relations in which he stood at his conversion, unless for 
 important reasons ; and on this principle he allowed the Jews 
 to retain their peculiarities, among which was the obsei-vance 
 of the Mosaic law; 1 Cor. vii. 18. But it could not fail to 
 happen, that those who entered into the Pauline ideas of the 
 relation of the law to the gospel, and were thereby freed from 
 scrupulosity in the observance of the former, were led into a 
 freer line of conduct in this respect, and some might go 
 fm-ther than Paul wislied in the indulgence of their inclina- 
 tions. Such instances as these might have given occasion to 
 the charge' that he had seduced the Jewish Clnistians to 
 release themselves from the law.^ As by this accusation, the 
 
 ' Dr. Sclineckenburger and Bauer think that the manner in which 
 
 this transaction is mentioned in the Acts, is an important confirmation 
 of their views of the whole history. The mode of acting here ascribed 
 to Paul, appears to them totally irreconcilable with the principles he 
 lays down in his epistles. According to Schneckenburger, the Acts 
 would be a confused, partial representation of a real transaction, sketched 
 according to a subjective point of view lying at its basis ; according to 
 Bauer, it would be an entirely false narration. Either (in the opinion 
 of the latter) the historical credibility of the Acts must be given up, or 
 the character of Paul must stand in an unfavourable light. I will here 
 cite Bauer's words: "If it were really so, as the author of the Acts 
 represents the fact, that the apostle, as (pu\a.a<Tw> rhu vofxav, became the 
 object of an intensely vehement persecution, with what right can we 
 oppose the language of the apostle to all who think thej' can defend the 
 perfect historic credibility of the Acts in Gal. v. 11, iyw 5e, d5eA(J)oi, il 
 ■KepiTOjx)]v in Kripvaaw, -rri tri SictiKOfj.at ; &pa KarripyTfuai rb (rKa.v5a\ov rod 
 (TTavpou, and the same apostle, who in Gal. v. 3 declares in so solemn 
 a tone, iJ.apTvpofj,at Se iraKiv irauTi avOpuTw ir^pniixvofiivw, on ocpuKerjis 
 fcTTlv oKov rov i'6fj.ov iroiria-ai, (therefore must place his whole trust in the 
 law, and expect salvation from it alone,) must according to the Acta 
 (xxi. 23) have consentad to an act which represented him as a (pvXaa- 
 aoav Tov v6fj.ov, and bore public testimony that, so far from abrogating 
 the law, he was rather a teacher of it, who taught as much as others 
 this universal obligation of the Mosaic law with all its ordinances, 
 and especially that of circumcision (xxi. 23). That in Acts xxi. 21, 
 only the 'lovSaloi Kara, to eflr?; are spoken of makes not the least 
 difference. Had the apostle also wished to give up nothing respect- 
 ing the continual validity of the law, only among the Jews whom 
 he sought to convert to Christianity, as he practically declared in 
 Acts xxi. 26, compared with 23, with what untruth would he have 
 expressed himself to the Galatians ! '* But I cannot perceive the 
 alleged contradiction between this mode of acting and the principles 
 expressed by Paul. Such a contradiction appears only when they are 
 separated, and not viewed in connexion with his whole style of thinking
 
 304 PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 conduct of Paul would be presented in a fidse light, and since 
 he was far from being such an enemy to Judiiism as hia 
 
 In all those passages in which he so cmphaVically speaks against circum- 
 cision and the observance of the ceremonial law, everything is referred 
 to the standing-point of those who were Gentiles by birth, among whom 
 nothing of the kind was founded in their historical development, or in 
 their national institutions. It was not circumcision in it«elf, it was 
 not the observance of the Mosaic ritual in itself, which he so strenuously 
 opposed. He never attached bo much importance to outward things 
 either negatively or positively; these he always declared were in them- 
 selves indifferent, and impressively said that neither circumcision 
 availed anything, nor uncircumcision, but that all depended on the 
 new creation, which must be eUected equally in the circumcised and 
 uncircumcised by the Spirit of Clirist; Gal. vi. 15. It was the same 
 thing whether a man lived as a Jew or a Gentile, provided, under these 
 different forms of national culture, he was actuated by the same spirit 
 of faith in Jesus as the Saviour working by love; Gal. v. G. As that 
 which he considered of most importance in life as the principle of the 
 new Christian creation was only this one thing, so that which he bo 
 strenuously combated was only that one thing which stood in oppo- 
 sition to this principle, and exactly as far as it was thus in opposition. 
 But among Gentile Christians, the outward act or rite, and the prin- 
 ciple on which it rested, the reason for practising it, were alike nuga- 
 tory; it was something contradictor)' to their national character, — it 
 was the introduction of a foreign clement into the course of their reli- 
 gious development, — and they could be brought to submit to such a 
 burdensome ceremonial, only on the supposition that it had a favourable 
 influence on their relation to God. It is therefore evident, that the 
 principles which Paul expressed on the outward observance of the 
 Mosaic law in reference to Gentile Christians, were totally inapplicable 
 to Jewish Christians. The sense of the words in Gal. v. 11, is, if Paul 
 now, as an apostle (as formerly from his Pharisaic standing-point), 
 taught that no one could obtain salvation without circumcision, — that 
 the Gentiles, in order to be admitted to the privileges of the Messianic 
 kingdom, mu.st submit to circumcision, — then the Jews would have no 
 reason for persecuting him ; his object would be the same as that of the 
 Jewish proselyte-makers, to convert all men to Judaism. The doctrine 
 of Jesus the Crucified was so obnoxious to the Jews, because they were 
 compelled by it to renounce all their self-righteousness, everything in 
 which they seemed to take precedence of the Gentiles. If it were 
 admitted that the Gentiles must first become Jews, in order to be on an 
 equality with the Jews as citizens of the kingdom of God, this stone ot 
 offence would be taken away. But if Paul allowed the Jews to continue 
 in their outward manner of life as Jews, and in this respect acted him- 
 self like a Jew, this was something very different from •n-epiTo^V laipiff- 
 aeiv in the former sense. According to the Pauline doctrine, the 
 position that, equally for Jews and Gentiles, men are freed by Christ 
 from the yoke of the law, is constantly valid. This refers to the internal 
 relation to the law, and the position of the religious consciousness to it.
 
 Paul's vow at Jerusalem. 305 
 
 adversaries wished him to appear, he declared himself to be 
 ready, as James proposed, to refute that charge by an overt 
 act, by taking part in the Jewish cultus in a mode which was 
 highly esteemed by pious Jews. ' He joined himself to four 
 members of the chm*ch, who had undertaken a Nazarite's vow 
 for seven days. He submitted to tlie same i-estr;dnts, and 
 intimated to the priests that he would be answerable for the 
 expense of the offerings that were to be presented on the 
 accomplishment of the purification. ^ But though he might 
 
 But notwithstanding this truth, the Jewish Christians miglit retain the 
 outward observance of the law. Has not Paul himself, in 1 Cor. vii. 
 18 — 20, plainly expressed the principle] the Jews after their conversion 
 are to continue Jews ; Christianity requires no one to make a change 
 in these outward things, on which the essence of religion does not de- 
 pend. When he says in 1 Cor. ix. 20, that to the Jews he became a 
 Jew, that he appeared as one subject to the law, can this have any other 
 sense than that among the Jews he lived as a Jew, so that if any one 
 looked only at what wan external, he must have supposed lliat Paul was 
 still subject to the yoke of the law, still held it to be binding? Must 
 we not, from what he here asserts of himself, conclude with certainty, 
 though we had no historical data, that he acted in several instances 
 exactly as we find described in the Acts? But it may be s;iid, If Paul 
 took a part in the observance of such a Naz;irite's vow, he thereby prac- 
 tically santioned the notion, that it was something acceptable in itself 
 to God, and conducive to salvation. If this had been the case, such 
 practices must have been recommended to the Gentile Christians in 
 general as well-pleasing to God. But as Paul, under all circumstances, 
 expressed the same principle, that by the works of the law no one can 
 be justified before God, — as he always insisted that the Gentile Chris- 
 tians, though they observed none of these things, ought to be acknow- 
 ledged as members of the kingdom of God on an equality with the 
 Jews, — as those who desired him to practise such an outward observance 
 of Jewish rites, agreed with him in his leading principle, — he sufficiently 
 guarded himself against the false conclusion which might have been 
 deduced from a misapprehension of his conduct. Those who merely ob- 
 served externally the different conduct of the apostles among the Jews 
 and Gentiles, must indeed believe that they had detected an incon- 
 sistency ; and we have already noticed what imputations were cast upon 
 him by his adversaries on this account Indeed, when James says oi 
 Paul " that he walked orderly and kept the law," Acts xxi. 24, we must 
 understand it with the necessary limitation, that the same Paul had no 
 scruple to live among the Gentiles as a Gentile. But the author of the 
 A.cts reports only single facts ; we find not an assumption of consecutive- 
 ness and comprehensiveness in his history, but a want of these qualities 
 altogether in his apostolic memoirs. 
 
 • Josephus, Archaeol. xix. 6, § 1. 
 
 ' The common supposition that Paul joined himself to these Naza 
 reu's. xvhcu they had yet seven days. Acts xxi. 27, to continue their 
 VOL. I. X
 
 30G Paul's arrest at Jerusalem. 
 
 have satisfied by this means the minds of the better disposed 
 among the Jewish Christians, the inveterate zealots among 
 the Jews were not at all conciliated. ' On the coutrar)-, they 
 were only more incensed, that the man who, as they sjiid, had 
 everj^where taught the Gentiles to blaspheme the people of 
 God, the law and the temple, had ventured to take a part in 
 the Jewish cultus. They had seen a Gentile Christian, 
 Trophimus, in company with him, and l»euce the fanatics 
 concluded that he had taken a Gentile with him into ttie 
 temple and defiled it. A violent tumult instantly arose, and 
 Paul was rescued from the em-aged nmltitude only by means 
 of the Roman tribune, who hastened to the spot with a band 
 of soldiers from the Arx Antonia situated over against the 
 temple, the quixrtei-s of the Roman garrison. 
 
 Paul was on the point of being scourged, (a common mode 
 of torture among the Romans,) for the j)urpose of extorting 
 a confession respecting the cause of this tumult, but by 
 declaring himself a Roman citizen he was saved from this 
 ignominy. The tribime now endeavoured to ascertain the 
 facts of the case, that he might send Paul to appear before 
 the Sanhedrim. The manner in which the apostle conducted 
 himself on this occasion^ shows him to have been a man who 
 knew hcrw to control the agitation of his feelings by a sober 
 
 abstinence for the discharge of their vow, anil that during tliis time he 
 kept the vow with them, is at variance with the mention of twelve days. 
 Acts xxiv. 11, for in that case there must have been .seventeen days. It 
 i3 indeed in itself f)Ossible, that Paul did not reckon the tive days which 
 he spent in confinement at Caisarea, since they signified nothing for his 
 object ; but it does not appear so from his own words. There remains, 
 therefore, nothing else but to assume, that the .seven days denote a definite 
 number of days, to which at that time the Nazarites' vow used to ex- 
 tend, and that Paul had joined the Nazarites on one of the last of these 
 days. But, on the other hand, in the .section of the Mishnah on the 
 Nazarites' vow, the number of thirty days is mentioned as the fixed 
 term for this oath. As to the seven days mentioned in Numbers vi., 
 they are not applicable to the present case ; for they refer to the case of 
 a person who, during the time of his vow, has defiled himself, aiid who, 
 after the interval of seven days' purification, begins his vow afresh. 
 
 ' I find no reason for assuming with Bauer, that the machinations 
 against Paul proceeded chiefly from the Jewish Christians, and to charge 
 the author of the Acts with falsifying a matter of fact. But I consider 
 it possible that, among the great multitude of Jewish Christians, some 
 might be found to whom their Judaism was more important than the 
 little Christianity they possessed, and that such persona would make 
 common cause with the Jewish zealots against PauL
 
 PAULS AKREST AT JERUSALEM. 307 
 
 judgment, ana to avail himself of circumstances with Chris- 
 tian prudence, without any compromise of tmth. When he 
 was suddenly caiTied away by the impulse of righteous indig- 
 nation to speak with greater warmth than he intended, he 
 was able to recover the mastery of his feelings, and to act in a 
 manner becoming his vocation. In a moment of excitement 
 at the arbitrary conduct of the high priest Ananias, while 
 thinking only of the person and losing sight of the office 
 whose duties had been violated, he had used intemperate 
 expressions though containing truth ; but on being infoi-med 
 that it was the high priest whom he had so addressed, he at 
 once corrected himself and said, he had not considered the 
 dignity of the person he had thus addi-essed, to whom 
 reverence was due according to the law. ' In order to 
 secure the voice of the majority among his judges, he availed 
 himself of that means for the victory of truth, which has 
 often been used against it — the divide et impera in a good 
 sense ; he enlisted on his side the bias for that truth by the 
 acknowledgment of which the gi-eater number of his judges 
 really approached nearer to him, than the few who denied it, 
 in order to produce a division in the assembly. He could 
 say with truth, that he was brought to trial because he had 
 testified of the hope of Israel, and of the resurrection of the 
 dead, for he had preached Jesus as the personage by whom 
 this hope was fulfilled. These words had the effect of uniting 
 the Pharisees present in his favour, and of involving them in 
 a warm debate with the Sadducees, to whom the high priest 
 himself belonged. The former could find no fault in him. 
 If he had said that the spirit of a deceased person or that an 
 angel had appeared to him— (the appearance of the risen 
 Jesus) — whatever he might mean by this, and whether what 
 he averred were true or nut, they did not pretend to deter- 
 mine, nor trouble themselves about it; — at all events, they 
 could not criminate him on this account.^ The tribune of 
 the Roman cohort at last saw himself obliged, by the plots of 
 
 ' If we are not disposed to think of the meaning of pSeif, Acts 
 2xiii. 5, in the language which probably Paul used on this occasion, the 
 Aramaic, the meaning which "SJ^ may well have ; yet it is plain from the 
 circumstances under which he said this, that he could not, in the strict 
 sense of the word, afiirm that he did not know him. 
 
 * The words ^^ etoixaxi^H-fv, Acts xxiii. 9, are certainly a gloss, and 
 a gloss at variance with thy general tenor of the passage, for this waa
 
 508 PAUL SENT TO C.KSAREA. 
 
 Paul's enemies against his life, to send him under an escort to 
 the metropolis of the province Cicsai-ea, and to transfer the 
 affair to the Procurator FelLx, who resided there. 
 
 The accusation which the Sanhedrim by their counsel were 
 allowed to bring against him, was the only one which, accord- 
 ing to the privileges secured to the Jews by tlie Roman laws, 
 could with any show of reason be made, namely, that he 
 everywhere dist\irbed the Jews in tlie enjoyment of these 
 privileges, the peaceful exercise of their cultus, — that he 
 excited disturbances and divisions among them, and that at 
 last he had dared to desecrate the temple. The tribune was 
 accused of preventing the Jews from judging Paul according 
 to the privileges secured to them by law, Felix, who was 
 not disposed to meddle with the internal disputes of the Jews, 
 perceived no fault in the accused, and hence would at once 
 have set him at liberty, if he had not hoped, as it was his 
 pi-actice to make justice venal, to obtain money from him ; 
 but as Paul was not willing to purchase his freedom V)y such 
 an unlawful method, which would civst suspicion both on 
 himself and his cause, Felix, in order to gain favour with the 
 Jews on leaving them, to whom he had been sufficiently 
 obnoxious, left him in confinement, and thus he remained 
 for two years till the arrival of the new Procurator, M. 
 Porcius Festus.' 
 
 certainly more than the Pharisees could be willing to say from their 
 standing-point. 
 
 1 If the precise time at which Felix was recalled, and Festus received 
 the government of the province, could be e-xactly determined, we should 
 have an important chronological mark ; but this period cannot be so 
 exactly determined. The chronological data on which we here proceed, 
 are the following. When Felix laiil down the procuratorship, he was 
 accused at Rome, as Josephus (Archceol. xx. 8, § 9) relates, by the Jews, 
 on account of the oppressions he had practised, and would have been 
 jiunished if he had not been delivered by the intercession of his brother 
 Pallas, who at that time had much influence with the emperor. But 
 Pallas was poisoned by Nero in the year 62, see Tacit. Annal. xiv. 65. 
 This enables us to fix the extreme terminus a quo of the recal of Felix. 
 But according to the narrative of Tacitus, Pallas had long before lost his 
 influence, {Annal. xiii. 14.) At the beginning of his reign, Nero had 
 removed Pallas from the office he held under Claudius, and treated him 
 with displeasure. And since Josephus says that when Paiias interceded 
 for his brother Felix he stood in favour with the emperor, it follows, 
 that the recal of Felix must have taken place in the beginning of Nero's 
 reign, which can by no means l)e admitted. What Josephus says in the
 
 PAUL SENT TO C^SAEEA. 309 
 
 Paul had for a long time previous to this event enter- 
 tained the thought of preaching the gospel in the metropolis 
 of the world. But it was now uncertain whether he would 
 ever attain the fulfilment of this inwai'd call ; but on the 
 night after he had borne testimony to his faith before the 
 assembled Sanhedi-im, the Lord imparted the assm'ance to 
 him by a vision, that as he had been his witness in the capital 
 of the Jewish world, he should also be the same in that of the 
 Gentile world. It was this which confirmed him in his reso- 
 lution, when the procurator was about to sacrifice him to the 
 wishes of the Jewish Sanhedrim, of seeking deliverance by an 
 appeal to the emperor. The an-ival at Csesarea of the young 
 King Agi-ippa II., as a person acquainted with the Jews and 
 their religion, was acceptable to Festus, since he hoped that 
 by admitting Paul to an examination in his presence, he 
 could learn something more decisive in this affair, which 
 might be communicated in his report to Rome. Paul ap- 
 peared before so numerous and august an assembly, before 
 the Roman procurator and the Jewish king, with exultation 
 at the thouglit of being able to testify of what filled his heart 
 before such an audience. He addressed himself especially to 
 King Agrippa, in whom, as a professor of the Jewish faith, he 
 
 history of his life, of his own journey to Rome in his six-and-twentieth 
 year, gives no sure foundation for determining the time when Felix laid 
 down his office. Schrader thinks indeed, that he can find a certain 
 chronological mark in this, that something which Josephus puts in 
 connexion with the entrance of Festus into office, was decided by the 
 influence of Poppoea, already married to Nero, {Joseph. Archaeol. xx. 8, 
 § 1) ; for it would follow that since Nero, according to Tacitus, married 
 Poppoea in 62, Festus mu>t have entered on his government about this 
 time. But the words of Josephus, xiv. 60, kotoi rhy Kaipou tovtov, cannot 
 avail for exactly determining the time ; Poppoea, long before her 
 marriage to Nero, had great influence over him, a.s appears from the 
 words of Tacitus, Annal. xiv. 60, " Ea diri pcllex et adulteri Neronis, 
 mox mariti potens," and had already accomplished much In' interceding 
 with the emperor. We need not attach much weight to the circum- 
 stance that Josephus calls her at that time the wife of Nero. But in all 
 this much uncertainty attaches to the chronology of events, and the 
 supposition that Felix laid down his office in the year 62, and therefore 
 that Paul's confinement took place in 60, is by no means sufficiently 
 proved. We may therefore safely place it some years earlier. If Paul 
 was set at liberty from his confinement at Rome, we must necessarily 
 admit the earlier date ; for if his confinement at Rome had been con- 
 temporaneous with the great conflagration, he would certainly have 
 fallen a sacrifice to the fury then excited against the Christians.
 
 310 PAULS DEFENCE AT C/ESAREA. * 
 
 hoped to find more points of connexion than in a heathen 
 magistrate. He narrated how he had been educated in 
 zealous attachment to Pharisaic principles, and from a violent 
 persecutor had, by a call from the Lord himself, liecomo 
 a devoted jjreacher of the gospel, — that in obeying this call 
 up to that time he had testified before Jews and Gentiles, 
 great and small, but had published notliing else than what 
 Moses and the Prophets had foretold, that the Messiah should 
 suffer, that he should rise fnjm the dead, and by the 
 assurance of an everlasting divine life ditfuse light among 
 Jews and Gentiles. This he might presume was admitted by 
 the king as an acknowledged article of faith, but it must 
 appear utterly strange to the Piomans ; strange also must the 
 religious inspiration with which Paul uttered all this appear 
 to the cold-hearted Roman statesman. He could see nothing 
 in it but enthusiastic delusion. " Too much Jewish learn- 
 ing," he exclaimed, " hath made thee mad." But with calm 
 confidence Paul replied, " I am not mad, but speak the words 
 of truth and soberness!" and, turning to Agrippa, he called 
 upon liim as a witness, since he well knew that these things 
 were not done in a corner of the earth, in secret, but pub- 
 licly at Jerusalem. And with a firm con\action, that in 
 all he had testified the promises of the prophets were fulfilled, 
 he said to the king, " Believest thou the prophets 1 1 know 
 that thou believest !" Agrippa, offended by Paul's confidence, 
 answered, " Tioily in a short time' thou wilt make me a 
 Christian." Paul, with his fetters on his arm, was conscious 
 of possessing more than all the glory of the world, uttered the 
 noble words, " Yes, I pray God that in a longer or a shorter 
 time, he would make not only thee, king, but all who hear 
 me to-day, what I now am, except these bonds ! " 
 
 ^ I understand the words (v 6\.lya> (Acts xxvi. 28) in the only sense 
 which they can have according to the iisus loquendi and Paul's answe" 
 The interpretation adopted by Meyer and some others is indeed pos- 
 sible, but appears to me not so natural. If the reading of the Cod, 
 Alex, and of the Vulgate, which Lachmann approves, be adopted, 
 iv fj.eyd\(a, in Paul's answer, the words of Agrippa must be thus 
 explained, "With a little, or with few reasons (which will not cost you 
 much trouble) you think of making me a Christian " — and the answer 
 of Paul will be. Whether with great or with little — for many oi 
 few reasons, I pray God, &c. But I cannot make up my mind to 
 receive as correct this reading, which may be explained as a gloss, and 
 Is not supported by very preponderating authorities.
 
 PAUL AKD THE JEWS AT ROME, 311 
 
 As the king and the procurator after this examination 
 could not find Paul guilty of any offence punishable by the 
 laws, the procurator would probably have set him at liberty, 
 if after his appeal to Caesar it had not been necessary for the 
 matter to take its legal course ; yet the report {elogium) v.'ith 
 which he would be sent to Rome, could not be otherwise than 
 in his favour. The centurion to whom he was committed 
 with other prisoners in order to be taken to Rome, certainly 
 corroborated the impression of this favourable report by the 
 account he gave of Paul's conduct during his long and dan- 
 gerous voyage. Hence he met at Rome with more indidgent 
 treatment than the other prisoners : he was allowed to hire a 
 private dwelling in which only one soldier attended him as 
 a guard, to whom he was fastened by a chain on the arm (the 
 usual mode of the custodia militaris), and could receive all 
 who were disposed to visit him, and write letters. 
 
 As he had cause to fear tliat the Jews dwelling at Rome 
 had received ffom Jerusalem a report inimical to his cha- 
 racter, and regarded him as an accuser of his people, he 
 endeavoured speedily to remove this unfavourable impression. 
 Accordingly, three days after his arrival, he invited the 
 principal persons among them to visit him. It proved that 
 no repoi't to Paul's prejudice had yet reached them, if it be 
 allowed that they spoke tlie truth. It also appeared from 
 the statements of these respectable Jews, that tliey had heard 
 little or nothing of the Christian church which existed in the 
 same city with themselves. Nor is this inconceivable, if we 
 only consider the immense size of the metropohs, and the 
 vast confluence of human beings it contained, and if to this 
 we add, that the main body of that church consisted of 
 Gentiles, and that these wealthy Jews busied themselves 
 far more about other objects than about the concerns of 
 religion. Yet it by no means appears from the statements of 
 the Jews that they had scarcely heard of a Clu-istian church 
 existing at Rome, but only that they had not taken any 
 pains to acquire an accurate knowledge of it. They knew 
 indeed that this new sect met everywhere with opponents, 
 and hence it might be inferred that they had heard of the 
 controversies which had been carried on at Rome about 
 it, for the "everywhere" {irnvTaxov), in Acts xxviii. 22, 
 includes (certainly does not exclude) a reference to what w;\a
 
 312 PAUL AND THE JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 goiug on at Rome itself, and we must not forget that only the 
 substance of what the Jews said is handed down to us.' As 
 they heard much of the opposition excited against this 
 new sect, but nothing precise respecting their doctrines, 
 they were well pleased that Paul projiosed to give them an 
 address on the subject. But here, as ever\'where else, Paul's 
 preaching found more acceptance with the Gentiles than with 
 the Jews.' 
 
 ' I cannot find any foundation for the contradiction which Dr. 
 Bauer, in his treatises so often quoted, tliinks he has detected Itctwcen 
 this narration in the Acts, ami the existence of such a church at Home, 
 which we must suppose according to Paul's Epi>tle to the Kouians. 
 
 * The position (lcvch)pcd and advocated with equal acuicnesfl and 
 learning by II. Hotti^er in the second part of his Btilra/je zur hiMo 
 risch-kritisrhen Einleitunn in die pnuUnischen Brieje, Gottingen, 1837, 
 — that I'aui was a prisoner only for the first three or five days after his 
 arrival in Rome, that he then obtained his freedom, and lived for two 
 years in a hired house, quite at liberty ; — this position, if it were true, 
 would cast a new light on Paul's history during this period ; for it would 
 then appear that all those Epistles, which evidently were written during 
 some one imprisonment, could not have been written at Kome or during 
 his first confinement there. But the narrative in the Acts is directly 
 opposed to this supposition. I cannot understand Acts x.wiii. 16, 
 otherwise than that permission was then granted to Paul to reside in a 
 private house, the same which is designated in v. 23, his lodging, 
 \ivia, and in v. 30, as iv iSio} tiiaOwnari, " his own hired house." It 
 cannot be imagined, that if, after three days, so important an alteration 
 had taken place in Paul's circumstances, Luke would not have men- 
 tioned it, for the assertion that his readers mu.st have supposed this of 
 themselves, from the knomi forms of Roman justice, cannot satisfy us. 
 Even if this could have been supposed, he would hardly have omitted 
 to point out in a few words so important a change in Paul's lot. But it 
 is not easily proved that such an inference could be drawn, from what 
 is known respecting the course of Roman justice at that time. The 
 manner also in which Luke expresses himself (Acts xxviii. 30, 31) 
 respecting Paul's residence for two years at Rome, certainly implies that 
 he had not then obtained his freedom, for we are merely told that he 
 preached the gospel in his own dwelling ; but it is not narrated that he 
 visited the synagogue or any place where the church met, for which 
 omission no other reason can be given, than that, although he 
 could receive any visit in his own residence, under the inspection 
 of his guard, he was not at liberty to go to whatever place he 
 chose ; and least of all, would a prisoner, whose cause was not 
 yet decided, have been permitted to attend these meetings of the 
 church, even if accompanied by his guard. Here, therefore, we have a 
 fact which cannot be explained, unless we admit the continued confine- 
 ment of Paul. How likewise can it be imagined, that Paul, who wished 
 to visit the church at Rome only on his way, would have stayed 
 there for two years, where suitable measures had already been taken for
 
 PAUL AT ROME. 313 
 
 With the confinement of Paul, a new and important era 
 oommenced not only in his life and ministry, but also in the 
 development of the chm-ches founded by him, for in pro- 
 portion as Chi-istianity spread more widely, a number of 
 heterogeneous mental elements were brought into action, 
 many important phenomena became conspicuous, \\liile the 
 divine word operated among them in an independent manner, 
 and they were deprived of the apostle's personal oversiglit 
 aind guidance. 
 
 the continued propagation of Christianity, instead of travelling to 
 those regions of the West, where nothing had yet been done for making 
 known the gospel ? This is explicable only on tlie supposition, that he 
 remained so long a time at Rome under constraint. 
 
 According to the account in the Acts, we may receive it as an esta- 
 blished fact, that I'aii! lived two years in Rome as a prisoner, — a fact which 
 can be overturned by nothing that we know of the course of Roman 
 justice in the case of such appeals; even without waiting to examine 
 how both could be rLConciled to one another. 
 
 Meanwhile, from what is known of the legal processes in the time of 
 the first CfEsars, it can by no means be proved, what is in the highest 
 degree improbable, that all the causes which, in consequence of an appeal, 
 were brouglit to Rome for decision, were decided in the course of five or 
 ten days. It was one thing to decide on the admissibility of the appeal, 
 and another thing to decide on the point of law respecting which the 
 appeal was made. My respected colleague, Professor Rudorff, who has 
 had the goodness to make me a written communication on this subject, 
 concludes with the statement, that the term of five or ten days related 
 not to the duration of the judicial proceedings, but to the lodging of the 
 appeal, and to the aposloli (= literce dimvisorice), that it gave no pre- 
 scription relative to the term of the transaction itself, and that the 
 accused remained under arrest till the decision of the emperor. Thus, 
 in the Sent^.ntice Recept<B of Julius i^aulus, lib. v. tit. 34.. it is said ex- 
 pressly of the apostoli, " Quorum postulatio et acceptio intra quintum 
 diem ex officio facienda est." In a law enacted by the Emperor Con- 
 stantine in 314, according to which we are not justified in determining 
 the legal process in the times of the first Caesars, is the express provision 
 that the appellator should be free from arrest only in cauace civiles, but 
 of criminah's causce it is said, " In quibus, etiamsi possunt provocare, 
 eum tamen stalum debent obtincre, ut post provocationem in custodia 
 perseverent." Cod. Theodos. lib. xi. tit. 30, c. 2.
 
 314 Paul's pibst coNPiNEiiENT at romb. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PACL DUKINO HIS FIRST CONFINEMENT AT ROME, AND THE BEVELOPMBNl 
 DtT.ING TOE SAME PERIOD OF TUE CUURCIILS PREVIOUSLT FOUNDED BY 
 HIM. 
 
 Ix examining this portion of Paul's histor}', we must fix 
 oiu" attention on three princij)al points ; his relation to the 
 lloman state, — to the Church at Rome, — and to the Churches 
 in other parts. 
 
 With respect to the first, the main thing to be considered 
 is, fi'om what point of view the charge under which he was 
 detained as a prisoner is to be viewed 1 Chri.stianity was not 
 yet denounced as a relvjio illicita, therefore Paul could not, 
 like the later teachers of Christianity, be accused of violating 
 the laws of the state, on account of his exertions in pro- 
 pagating this religion. Christians api)eared only as a sect 
 proceeding from Judaism, who were accused by Paul's Jewish 
 adversaries of adulterating tlie original doctrines of their 
 rehgion ; so that at Rome no attention was paid to dis- 
 putes that merely concerned the religious institutions of the 
 Jews. This charge against Paul might therefore be con- 
 sidered as altogether foreign to Roman judicature, and he 
 would soon regain his liberty ; in tliis manner, the affair 
 would soon be brouglit to a close ; but it cannot be shown, 
 that it would be viewed under this aspect, the most favour- 
 able for the apostle. The Jews might accuse him as being 
 a disturber of the public peace, who interfered with the 
 privileges guaranteed to them by the Roman government, aa 
 their advocate Tertullus had already attempted to prove. 
 Hence an additional allegation might be made, which from 
 the standing-point of the Roman law would tend much more 
 to Paul's injury — that he had caused among other Roman 
 subjects and citizens in the provinces, and in Rome itself, 
 movements which were detrimental to the good order of the 
 state ; that he had tempted them to apostatize from the state 
 rehgion, by propagating a religion at variance with the 
 ancient Roman institutions, in which religion and politics were
 
 PAUL AT ROME. 315 
 
 intimately blended.' If the church at Rome, consisting mainly 
 of Gentile Cliristians, gave the impression in its whole appear- 
 ance of being unjewish, in short, a genus tertium ; this view 
 of Paul's conduct would be formed so much the more easily. 
 The existence of this new religious sect in the capital, would 
 be made an object of public attention by the proceedings 
 against Paul. We may suppose, that his fanatical and artful 
 adversaries among the Jews would leave no artifice untried to 
 set his conduct in the worst possible light to the Roman 
 authorities. Thus the investigation of his cause, with the 
 accusation and defence, might be protracted, and his prospects 
 might by turns become favourable or unfavourable. During 
 the first period of his residence at Rome he underwent no 
 public examination.' His situation justified the most favour- 
 able expectations, and he proposed when set at liberty, before 
 he extended his sphei'C of labour towards the West, according 
 to the plan he had previously formed, to visit Lesser Asia, 
 where his personal exertions seemed to be very necessary %o 
 counteract many influences that were operating injuriously 
 on the churches. He intimated to the overseer of the church 
 at Colossse, Philemon, that he intended to take up his abode 
 with him. 
 
 At a later period' of his imprisonment, when he had 
 ah'eady undergone a public examination, he had no such 
 favourable prospect before him ; the thought of martjTdom 
 became familial' to his mind, yet the expectation of being 
 released from confinement was predominant, so that he wrote 
 to the chiu-ch at Philippi that he hoped to come to them 
 soon. But if the view we have taken of the origin and 
 
 J The point of view as a Koman statesman from which Cicero formed 
 his model of law. "Separatim nemo habessit Deos neve novos sive 
 advenas, nisi publice ailscitos privatim colunto. liitus /amilice 
 patrumque servanto." Cicero de Legibus ; and in the Commentaries, 
 c. X., against the con/u»io religionum, which arose from the introduc- 
 tion of foreign new religions. This was the point of view from which 
 a Tacitus and the Younger Pliny formed their judgment of Christi- 
 anity. 
 
 ^ Whether this term embraced the whole of the first two years of his 
 confinement we cannot with certainty determine, for the silence of Luke 
 in the Acts is not a sufficient proof that, during the whole of this 
 period, there was nothing memorable to be narrated respecting the 
 situation of the apostle. 
 
 * As appears from his Epistle to the Philippians.
 
 316 PAUL AT ROMK. 
 
 origiua. constitution of the church at Rome be correct, a 
 close connexion and intimate communion may be i>resumcd 
 to have existed between its membei-s and the individual whum 
 they might regard mediately as their spiritual fatlier, and 
 whose pcculiai- form of doctrme prevailed among them. Now 
 if the epistles which Paul wrote during his fii-st confinement 
 at Rome bore evidence against such a supposition, they might 
 also be adduced against our views. If these epistles miikc ua 
 acquainted with any diftercnce existing between the Roman 
 church and Paul, this fact would be very decisive, and we 
 should bo forced to conclude that a strongly marked .Tudaizing 
 element predominated in that church. But the Romixn 
 Christians had already, even before he arrived at Rome, 
 evinced their sympathy, since several of their nund)er tra- 
 velled a day's journey, as for as the small town of Fonim 
 Appii, and some a shorter distance to the place called l^res 
 Tabernce, in order to meet him. In the Epistle to the Phi- 
 lippians he sends salutation from the whole church {TtavriQ 
 ol ayioi) which is a proof of the close connexion in which he 
 stood with them. As to his giving special salutations from 
 the Christians in the service of the imperial palace (the 
 Ccesariani), we are not to infer that these persons were more 
 in unison with him than the rest of the church, but i"ather 
 that they were better acquainted, and on more intimate 
 terms with the church at Pliilippi. At all events, it is an 
 arbitnxry supposition that these Gentile Christians were those 
 who, in distinction from the rest of the church, consisting of 
 Jewish Christians, were in closer connexion with Paid. ' It 
 might indeed be expected, that if these Ccesariani were more 
 aUied by their Gentile origin to the church at Pliilippi, ha 
 would have m-entioned this circumstance as the reason for 
 presenting their special salutations. It is not at all incon- 
 sistent with this view, if these epistles contain undeniable 
 marks, that in the Roman chvu-ch Judaizers were found 
 hostile to Paid, and who occasioned him much vexation ; for 
 we ourselves have pointed out a Judaiziug tendency in a 
 smaller part of this church sufficient to account for such an 
 appearance. As the Gentile Christians who advocated the 
 Pauline principles, now found so important a support in hii 
 
 ' See Schneckenburger, p. 123.
 
 PAUL AT EOME. 317 
 
 personal presence, and cooperated with him in publishing the 
 gospel among the Gentiles, the opposition of the Judaizing anti- 
 pauiine party must have been excited by it and rendez'ed still 
 more violent. The whole tone of the Epistle to the Phihp- 
 pians testifies of the conflicts he sustained in his intercourse 
 with the Judaizers. His excited feehngs cannot be mistaken ; 
 his displeasure was called forth by anxiety for the pxirity of 
 the gospel against those who, where the soul appeared in a 
 fit state for receiving the gospel, sought to take advantage of 
 it for gaining adherents for their Jewish cei'emonies and doc- 
 trine of meritorious works. And Paul himself distinguishes 
 those among the Roman Christians who, with fi-iendly feel- 
 ings towards himself, were active in cooperating with him. 
 for the spread of the gospel, from those who, animated with 
 jealousy at his success, endeavoured to form a party against 
 him, and to " add afiliction to his bonds," PhiUp. i. 15 — 18 ; 
 and among the Jewish Christians he coidd only point out 
 two who laboiu'cd with him for the kingdom of God, and con- 
 tributed to his comfort ; Col. iv. 11. 
 
 During his confinement, anxiety for the extension of the 
 kingdom of God, and for the prosperity of the churches he 
 had founded, occupied him far more than the c;ire of his 
 personal welfiu'e. As aU persons had free access to him, he 
 thus enjoyed opportunities for prcacliing the gospel. By the 
 soldiers who relieved one another in standing guard over 
 him, it became known among their comi-ades, (among the 
 cohortes praetorianoe, in the castra prcetoria, in the prceto- 
 rium;) and hence to a wider extent in the city, that he was 
 put in confinement, not on account of any civil offence, but 
 for his zeal on behalf of the new religion ; and this tended to 
 promote it, since a cause for which its advocate sacrificed 
 everything was certain of attracting attention. By his 
 example also many of the Roman Christians were roused to 
 publish the truth zealously and boldly. But while some co- 
 operated with Paul in a oneness of heart and mind, others 
 came forward who belonged to the antipauline Judaizing 
 pai"ty, in opposition to his method of publishing the gospeL 
 The manner in which he expresses himself respecting these 
 his opponents is worthy of notice on cwo accounts. We here 
 see a man who could entirely forget his own person when the 
 jause of his Lord was concerned, — who could even rejoice in
 
 318 PAUL AT ROME. 
 
 what bore an unfriendly aspect towards himself, if it con- 
 tributed to promote the cause of Christ. We perceive how 
 far his zeal for the ti-uth and against en-or was from all 
 selfish contractedness ; with what freedom of spirit he was 
 able to pass a judgment on all doctrinal differences. Even in 
 the eiToneous views of these Judaizcrs he acknowledged the 
 truth that lay at their basis; and wlien he compai-ed the 
 errors propagated by them, with the fundamental tinith which 
 they announced at the same time, it was still a cause of joy 
 to him that this fundamental truth was becoming more 
 generally known, that in every way, whether in pretence (by 
 those who in their hearts prefeiTcd Judaism to Christianity,) 
 or with an upright intention, Christ was preached, Phil. i. 18. 
 For even by these pei*sons the knowledge of the facts on 
 which the gospel rested was spread to a greater extent ; and 
 where faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Founder and King of 
 the kingdom of God, w-as once produced, on this foundation a 
 superstructiu'e could be raised of more correct and extended 
 instruction. But from this we learn what is of service for 
 explaining later appearances in the history of the Roman 
 church, that in connexion with the lessons of the Pauline 
 theology the germ of a Judaizing tendency was implanted in 
 this church. 
 
 The concerns of the churches in Lesser Asia first occupied 
 Paul's attention in his imprisonment. ' ,He had received an 
 
 ^ The supposition on which we here proceed, that Paul wrote the 
 Epistles to the Colossians, the Ephesians, and Philemon, during this 
 confinement at Eome, has found in later tines strcuuous opponcuts in 
 Schulz and Schott, to whom must be added Bijttger; but the arguments 
 advanced by them against it do not appear to me adapted to overthrow 
 the opinion hitherto most generally held, though no demonstrative 
 proof can be given in its favour, since Paul does not exactly state the 
 circumstances under which he MTote. What he says of the opportu- 
 nities presented for announcing the gospel, agrees very well with what 
 we know of his confinement at Rome, from the hints given in the Acts 
 and in the Epistle to the Philippians. (The latter indeed cannot be 
 urged against Biittger. for he supposes that epistle to be written while 
 Paul was confined at Csesarca.) It does not appear to me surprising, 
 that a runaway slave from Colossae should betake himself at once to 
 Rome ; for the constant intercourse with the capital of the empire 
 would easily furnish him with an opportunity, and he might hope for 
 greater security from the distance and the immense population of the 
 metropolis. Nor is it at all strange, that a teacher of the church at Co- 
 k)8.saB should be induced, by the dangers that threatened pure Christi*
 
 THE FALSE TEACHERS AT COLOSSiE. 319 
 
 exact account of their situations from an eminent individual 
 belonging to the church of Colossee, Epaphras, the founder of 
 that and of the neighbom-ing Christian communities. He 
 visited Paul at Rome, and gave practical proofs of his sym- 
 pathy, ' and through him the apostle learnt how many things 
 which had happened in their church during his absence 
 required to be promptly counteracted. 
 
 During the preceding year, a new influence emanating from 
 Judaism had been developed in those regions; — an influence 
 \vith which Christianity had hitherto not come in contact, 
 but which now threatened to mingle with it, and to endanger 
 its purity and simplicity. It might be expected that Chris- 
 tianity on its first spread among the Jews, would chiefly come 
 in contact with the Pharisaic mode of thinking which was 
 then predominant. Hence the first false teachers, with whom 
 
 anity there, to travel as far as Rome in order to consult the apostle and 
 to solicit his assistance ; though we cannot determine with certainty 
 whether other personal concerns also brought Epaphras to Rome. 
 Neither can the fact that Paul, when at Rome, desired a lodging to be 
 in readiness for him at Colosste, determine anything ; for though he 
 had at an earlier period formed the intention to travel first into Spain, 
 yet, as we have already remarked, he might be induced, by the infor- 
 mation respecting the changes in the churches of Lesser Asia, to alter 
 his plan. Nor is it otherwise than natural, that, during his confinement 
 at Rome, he should collect around him younger men, who at other times 
 had been used to serve as companions and fellow-labourers in his mi- 
 nistry, and that he should now make use of them in order to maintain 
 with the distant churches, of whose situation he could receive informa- 
 tion through various channels at Rome, a living connexion adapted to 
 their necessities. 
 
 ' It is remarkable that Paul, in the Epistle to Philemon, calls this 
 Epaphras his " fellow-pri.ioner in Christ Jesus." As he thus dis- 
 tinguishes him from his other fellow-labourers, we may conclude that it 
 could be affirmed only of Epaphras. Since the judicial inquiry instituted 
 against Paul would have attracted the attention of the Roman magis- 
 trates to the new religious party that were opposed to the religion of 
 the state, it may be assumed that this led to the apprehension of Epa- 
 phras, who had laboured so zealously on behalf of this cause in Lesser 
 Asia. But it is against this opinion, that he is not mentioned with this 
 epithet in the Epistle to the Colossians, unless we suppose that the 
 apprehension of Epaphras did not occur till after that epistle was 
 written. Still it is fair to suppose, that he was distinguished by this 
 epithet to Philemon only as a faithful companion of the apostle in his 
 confinement ; as on the other hand he is distinguished by another 
 epithet in the epistle to the whole church at Colossae ; and this title of 
 honour {6 (rvvaixna\c»r6s /j-ov) is applied in the same epistle to Aristar 
 thus, who had accompanied the apostle in his confinement.
 
 320 THE FALSE TEACHERS AT COLOSS^E. 
 
 Paul had hitherto been so often in conflict, had attempted a 
 mixture of Pharisaic Judaism with Christianity. But now, 
 after Christianity had spread further among the Jews, and 
 had attracted the attention of those who hved in greater 
 retirement, and troubled themselves httle about the novelties 
 of the day, its influence affected sects that had long existed 
 among the Jews of a theosophic-ascetic chai'acter, such as that 
 of the Essenes. ' Persons of such a tendency must have felt 
 themselves attracted, still more than Jews of the common 
 Pharisaical bias, by what Christianity presented that was 
 suited to the internal religious sentiment ; only they were 
 too much entangled in their mystical-ascetic bias, so opposite 
 to the free practical spirit of the gospel, and in their spiritual 
 pride, to be able to appropriate the gospel simply and purely 
 with a renunciation of the preeminence of a higher religious 
 philosophy, which they fancied themselves to possess, and of 
 a higher practical perfection in their modes of abstinence. 
 
 * Storr's opinion that tlie Jewisli Cliristian sect at Colossse was 
 derived immediately from the Essenes, who yet can be regarded only as 
 one manifestation of this general mental tendency, is not supported by 
 sufficieni evidence. Yet it is not a decisive oljection against it, that 
 the Essenes had not spread themselves beyond Palestine, and showed 
 no inclination for proselytism ; for by the influence of Christianity, 
 it is very possible that the original character of such a sect might 
 be somewhat modified. And I would by no means adduce against it, 
 what is said in the Epistle to the Colossians, not merely of the practi- 
 cally ascetic, but also of the theosophic tendency of this sect (their 
 (pi\o(TO(pia), since we cannot trust what Philo says of the Essenes as the 
 ideal of practical philosophers. See my Church History, vol. i. p. 58. 
 But although in this epistle some marks may be found which suit the 
 Essenes, as, for instance, what is said of abstinence, of chastising 
 the body, of the observance of the ceremonial law, of the reverence 
 paid to angels, &c. ; yet all this is too general, not to suit many other 
 similar manifestations, arising from the same mental tendency, and 
 on the other hand, we find nothing which marks the whole peculiar 
 character of the Essenes. As a proof how much a propensity to bring 
 themselves with angelology was spread among the Jews, we may notice 
 the words in the K-fipvyfia Uerpov, in which it is said, /xriSi Kara lov- 
 Saiovs ffi^eade, koI yap eKeiroi olijxivoi tov Qiov yivtacKftv ovk iiriaravTaiy 
 KarpiiovTis ayyeAots Kal apxcyyiAois. See Clement. Stromata, \\. 635. 
 Grabe, Spicileg. i. 64. If also an intention was contained in these 
 words to indicate a subordinate place to Judaism as a religious system 
 communicated by angels (the idea which at a later period was formed by 
 the gnostics), the doctrine in vogue among the Jews concerning angels, 
 and their connexion with '.hem, might serve as a point of connexion for 
 thLs censure.
 
 THE false" TEACHEKS AT COLOSSiE. 321 
 
 They miist have been rather tempted to remodel Christianity 
 according to their former ideas and tendencies, and to cast it 
 into a theosophic form of their own. We here see a tendency, 
 first germinating in the circle of Judaism, from which, in the 
 folloAving century, manifold branches proceeded of a gnosti- 
 cism that corrupted the simple gospel. Paul had probably 
 cause, from his experience diu'lng his long sojourn in Lesser 
 Asia, to apprehend the springing vip of a tendency so injm-ious 
 to the gospel, and hence we may account for his warnings 
 addressed to the presbyters of the Ephesian church. His ap- 
 prehensions vrere now verified. Jewish false teachers of this 
 tendency had made their way into the church at Colossaj. 
 What distinguished them from the common pharisaically- 
 minded Jewish Christians was this. — that they did not begin 
 with i-ecommending to the Gentiles the observance of Jewish 
 ceremonies, as indispensable for justification and sanctifica- 
 tion, and for obtaining eternal happiness. Had they pro- 
 ceeded in this manner, they would in all probability not have 
 found an entrance so easily into churches consisting purely of 
 Gentile Christians. But they boasted of the knowledge of a 
 higher wisdom transmitted by tradition among the initiated ;' 
 they pretended to a higher knowledge of the spiritual world, 
 to stand in a closer connexion with it, and that they could 
 communicate it to those who were disposed to be initiated 
 into their mysteries. With this theoretical tendency they 
 joined a strict ascetism in practice, which was probably in 
 close connexion with their theosophic principles, and had its 
 foundation in their notions of matter, as the som*ce and 
 principle of evil; and thus also many particidars in their 
 rules for abstaining from certain things, which it would be 
 injurious to touch or taste, may be referred not simply to the 
 Jewish laws respecting food, but to their peculiar theoretic 
 doctrines. 
 
 The histoiy of religion acquaints us with a twofold ten- 
 dency of mysticism; one that adheres to the prevailing 
 cultus, and professes to disclose its higher meaning : another 
 
 ' Perhaps they used the term ^i\oa-o<pta, since this appellation, 
 in consequence of the mixture of Oriental and Grecian ideas at this 
 time, might be used as well as the word yvuxris, afterwards employed 
 among the Jewish theosophic sects to designate their pretended 
 mysteries 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 THE TWOFOLD TENDENCY OF MYSTICISM. 
 
 that wears a hostile aspect towards it, and entirely despises 
 what is external and historical in religion. This contrariety 
 had already made its appearance in the Jewish philosophical 
 religion at Alexandi-ia. Among the Jews in that place, a 
 class of religious Idealists had been formed, who, viewing the 
 historical and the literal in religion only as the covering or 
 vehicle of general ideas, di-ew the inference that the attain- 
 ment of perfection depended on holding fast those ideas, 
 while all besides was abandoned to the childish multitude 
 who were incapable of higher conceptions, and satisfied with 
 the outward husk of sensible objects. ' Philo, in whom we 
 have an example of the first tendency, combats, although 
 agreeing with them in the principles of allegorical interpreta- 
 tion, those dcspisers of the letter ; while he taught that it 
 was possible only by spiritual intuition to penetrate into the 
 true internal meaning of religion, and to know those mysteries 
 of which outward Judaism presented the symbols. But he 
 also taught, that in proportion to the conscientious reverence 
 with which the external was contemplated, would be the 
 progress through divine illumination in the examination of 
 the internal. This last tendency we must sujDpose to exist in 
 the sect of which we ai'e now speaking. 
 
 In however slight a degree a party of common Judaizers 
 would have been dangerous to the churoh at Colossse, yet 
 Judaism under this modification would be far more dangerous 
 for many. For the people of that age who were filled with 
 anxiety for a communication with heaven, and for the inves- 
 tigation of the invisible, stretching beyond the limits of 
 earthly existence, the promise of a higher knowledge that to 
 a certain extent would release them from the thraldom of the 
 senses, was very seducing. Such anxious inquiries had led 
 many an individual to Christianity, which, while it brought 
 them to a consciousness of the real wants of their religious 
 and moral natm-e, for which it guaranteed the relief, commu- 
 nicated on this side another tendency to their minds ; but 
 before it had thoroiighly penetrated their life and thoughts, it 
 might easily happen that such illusions, falling in with a 
 previous and only partially conquered tendency, would deceive 
 
 * Thus characterised by Philo : of tou? p-nrovs vS/xovs (rvjx^oXa voTjruf 
 irpayi^aTcoi' viroXanlidvovTes, to /xer ^yav 7]Kpi^wffav , toiv 5e padvfjwv u\ty<i' 
 p-qcrav. See his work, De Miyrutione Ahruhami, p. 16.
 
 THE FALSE TEACHERS AT COLOSSI. 32S 
 
 them by the dazzling appearance of something higher than 
 what was offered them in the simple and ever practical 
 doctrine of the apostles. Moreover, in a country like Phrygia, 
 where a propensity for the mystical and magical was always 
 rife, as was evident from the forms of religion peculiar to the 
 country, the worship of Cybele, and afterwards Montanism,^ 
 such a tendency would be peculiarly dangerous to Cln-is- 
 tianity. 
 
 Paul describes the higher philosophy of religion of which 
 these people boasted, as the following of human traditions, ^ 
 as a cleaving to the elements^ of the world, and not pro- 
 ceeding from Christ. He objects to the preachers of this 
 doctrine, that they did not adhere to Christ as the head. 
 From this it has been incorrectly inferred by many, that 
 these persons were in no sense Christians. But the main 
 point in Paid's disapproval of them is this, that tlieir doctrine, 
 although connected with Christianity, was in contradiction to 
 its spirit and nature, — that although they acknowledged 
 Jesus as the Christ, and therefore as their Lord and Head, 
 yet the spirit and tendency of their doctrine were at variance 
 with this acknowledgment, since they did not, in accordance 
 with it, set out from their relation to him in their striving 
 after a knowledge of divine things, and make him their 
 central point. In fact, it is only on the supposition that they 
 professed to attach themselves to the Christian faith, that this 
 disapproval retains its full significance. 
 
 It would indeed be possible so to explain the relation of 
 these persons to Christianity,' that they did not come forward 
 in direct hostility against it, but yet ascribed it only a subor- 
 dinate importance m their religious development — that they 
 
 ' Compare Blihmer's Isagoge in Epistolam ad Coloss., p. 9. 
 
 '^ Not proceeding from what the Spirit of God had revealed. 
 
 ^ The ffToix^Ta Tov kSo-jj-ov, in Col. ii. 8, and other passages, are not to 
 be under.stoud, it appears to me, as is commonly explained, of the rudi- 
 menta religionis, both in Judaism and Heathenism ; but a comparison 
 of all the Pauline passages, and the Pauline association of ideas, seems 
 to favour our understanding the phrase of the elements of the world in 
 a peculiar sense, as denoting the earthly, elsewhere termed to. crapKiKa. 
 Hence ii. 20, aTotx^la tov k6(tij.ov and nSafios may be considered as 
 synonymous. 
 
 * This view has been recently developed with much skill and acute- 
 ness by Dr. Schneckenburger, in his work on the Baptism of Proselytes. 
 See also h.s Beitrage zur Einleitung ins Ntue Testament, p. 146.
 
 324 THE FALSE TEACHERS AT COLOSSI. 
 
 acknowledged Christ only as the prophet of the heathen world, 
 which hitherto had known nothing of the true God, and uttri- 
 buted to the religion revealed by him only a subordinate 
 value for the religious cultm-e of the heathen.' They perhaps 
 taught that by their connexion with the liidden supremo 
 God which was effected through Judaism, they were raised 
 above the revelations of the Mediator, the Logos, and thus 
 above Christianity, and thereby obtained the power to employ 
 higher spirits themselves in their service.'- According to this 
 
 ^ Amon?^ the Jewish theologian:", there were those who had borrowed 
 from the Platonic philosophy the doctrine of the constellationa, as 0fol 
 aiadrjTol; and accordingly explained the passage in Dcut. iv. 19, as 
 meaning that God had left the adoration of the heavenly bodies as a 
 subordinate religious standing-point to other nations, but had revealed 
 himself only to the Jews. This view might afterwards be further 
 modified, that God had given the Logos or Jesus to the heathen 
 as their toacher and governor, but that the knowledge and worship of 
 the Supreme God was only to be found among the Jews. Since Justin 
 Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, in what he represents these 
 Jewish theologians as saying, has put into Trypho's mouth what 
 they were at that time in the habit of saying, we may consider him as 
 expressing their views, when he brings in Trypho as saying ; (ffrw v^iuiiv 
 l| tdvoov Kvptos Ka\ dfui yv(Dpi^6ix(voi,ws alypacpal trTj^aiVoucrtj', oirivts Kal 
 oirb Tov oi'6naros aiirov XpiffTiavol Ka\f7(T6ai Tracres ^(TX^kot« rjnus 5f Toii 
 Ceov Kal ainhv Toinov iroii]a'avTos KarpfvTol 6vTts, ou Se6iuLt6a rris duoKoyias 
 aiiTov, oiiSf T^s TrpoffKvffiafws. The doctrine of the Clementines also may 
 be here compared. According to this work, Christianity contained in 
 a form of revelation designed for heathens, the .same as original 
 Judaism purified from foreign admixtures, so that he who adhered to 
 Jesus alone, as well as he who adhered to Moses alone, could attain to a 
 participation of the kingdom of God, provided the latter did not trans- 
 gress by blaspheming Christ, and the former by blaspheming Moses. 
 If a Jew, with a greater partiality for Judaism, contemplated Chris- 
 tianity, yet the same fundamental principle could easily be so modified, 
 that genuine Judaism would appear more valuable than that form 
 of revelation which was specially intended for the Gentiles. 
 
 " This idsa was always to be found among the gnostics of the second 
 century, and meets us in the Indian religious systems, and in Buddhism, 
 that men, by communion with the Supreme original being, obtained 
 power to make use of inferior spirits for their own ends, and that 
 in this manner wonderful things could be accomplished by their aid- 
 Here the contrast which Philo makes between the viols tov \6yov and the 
 vlo7s Tou uvTos may be applied, only modified, otherwise than in Philo 
 for the Alexandrian theologians of Philo's school attached no import- 
 ance to the connexion with angels, since they comprised everything in 
 the contact of the spirit with God himself, and the contemplation 
 of ideas. In the sect here spoken of, the oriental-theosophic rather 
 than the Grecian-philosophic element of PMlo's theology is prominent.
 
 THE FALSE TEACHERS AT COLOSSI. 325 
 
 view, we may suppose that these pei'sons, from the standing- 
 point of a pretended spiritual conception of Judaism, had 
 formed the same judgment respecting the subordinate standing- 
 point of Christianity, as many of the later gnostics from the 
 standing-point of a spiritualised Christianity were accustomed 
 to pass on Judaism as the religion of the Demiurgos. 
 
 But although such a conception of the peculiarities of this 
 sect is possible, yet it is by no means sufficiently supported by 
 the marks which are deducible from Paul's argumentation. 
 Had they sought actually to seduce from Christianity those 
 among whom they found entrance, Paul would have marked 
 this much more strongly. His reasoning-s indeed, as they ai'e 
 carried on in this epistle, would apply to those pei-sons who, 
 though engaged in no immediate and open opposition to 
 Christianity, yet assigned to it a subordinate place ; ' but the 
 peculiar manner in which he argues by no means justifies us 
 in concluding that they are the direct object of his censm-e. 
 Since he reproves these persons for their reverence of angels^ 
 it follows that they placed themselves in a subordinate rela- 
 tion to angels, and hence certainly to the Logos, a being 
 exalted above all angels (the dpy^dyyeXoc). Had they main- 
 tained that by an immediate connexion with the hidden God, 
 they could exalt themselves above the Logos and his revela- 
 tion, Paul would without doubt have expressed, in direct 
 opposition to this doctrine, the fundamental principle, that 
 men can enter into connexion with the Father only through 
 the Logos. He makes use, it is true, of this principle, but in 
 reference to a different object of debate. 
 
 In that Judaizing sect which here came into conflict with 
 the simple apostolic doctrine, we see the gei'm of the Judaizing 
 gnosticism. Though the account given by Epiphanius of the 
 conflict between Cerinthus and the apostle Paul is not worthy 
 of credit, yet at least between the tendency which Paul here 
 combats and the tendency of Cerinthus the greatest agi-eement 
 is foimd to exist, and, judging by internal marks, we may con- 
 sider the sect here spoken of to be allied to the Cerinthian. 
 It is remarkable that, to a late period, traces of suchi a 
 Judaizing angelological tendency were to be found in those 
 parts, for at the council of Laodicea canons were framed 
 
 ' Schneekenburger has developed this view in his late essay on this 
 subject.
 
 326 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 a<:rainst a Judaizing observ^ance of the Sabbath, and a species 
 of angelolatry,' and even in the nintli century Ave find a 
 kindred sect, the Athinganiaus.'- 
 
 In the example of Paul we recognise the peculiar character 
 of the apostolic mode of i"cfuting error, and how it differs from 
 that of later times. While this busies itself Avith the con- 
 futation of particular errors, Paul, on the contrary, seized the 
 root of the doctrine in its peculiar religious fundamental 
 tendency from which all the particular errors proceeded, and 
 opposed to it the spirit of the gospel. This method was rather 
 positive than negative. Thus he repressed the boasting of a 
 pretended superior wisdom and of a delusive acquaintance 
 with spirits, without setting himself to oppose each separate 
 particular, by exhibiting a truth that marks the central point 
 of Christianity ; that by communion with Christ alone, we 
 receive all the fulness of the divine life ; by him alone we are 
 introduced into the kingdom of God, and we belong to that 
 same kingdom to which all higher spirits belong, by union 
 with him as the common head of the whole ; in him we have 
 all things which are needed for the development of the in- 
 ternal life, and hence we need no other Mediator. For the 
 purpose of combating a painful superstition, which represented 
 this and the other object as polluting and offensive, and 
 recommended various charms or amulets for warding off the 
 influence of evil spirits,' he appealed to the facts of Christian 
 consciousness ; that Christians wei'e redeemed from the power 
 
 * Can. XX. oTi ov Ssi Xpiffnavois lovdai^eiv nal eV t^S tra^^arcf cxu^'iff'*'. 
 Can. xvi. ordains iv cra^iddTbi ehayytKia /xera kripoiv 'ypa<poiv (the Old 
 Testament) avaywuifrKHrQai. Can xxxv. '6ri ov Se7 Xptartavovs iyKara\e'nrtiv 
 T771/ iKKXtjcriav Tov 6eov koI dyye\ovs ovoud^etv Kal avud^eis (meetings for 
 paying reverence to angels). The following canon is also worthy of notice, 
 as indicating the predominant and peculiar mental tendency, Srt ov Sel 
 UpctTiKohs ^ KXripiKovs jj-dyovs ^ i-rraoiSovs uvai f) ixa67)H.aT ikovs ^ a(TrpoK6yovi 
 ^ TvoLuv 70. \ey6ixeva (pv\aKji]pia. Theodoret says, in his commentary on 
 this epistle (ii. 18), that this superstition for a long time maintained 
 itself in I'hrygia and Pisidia, and that in his day, oratories were to be 
 found in this and the neighbouring districts dedicated to the Archangel 
 Michael. 
 
 2 See my Church History. Part vii. p. 545 ; part viii. p. 660. 
 
 ' With the doctrine of various orders of angels, this sect combined 
 the doctrine of various orders of evil spirits. These evil spirits were 
 considered especially connected with matter {irvivfiara v\iicd). By 
 sensuality, and especially by the enjoyment of certain kinds of 
 food, men were especially exposed to their influence ; and by chasten-
 
 THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN3. 327 
 
 of evil, and, in communion with Christ, wei'e certain of their 
 triumph over all the powers of darkness — that as their inner 
 life was exalted above the reach of earthly things, to which 
 they were dead with Christ as it already belonged to heaven, 
 with whom they were incorporated through Christ, so it ouglit 
 to be altogether carried out of the reach of a religion cleaving 
 to the senses; nor ought Christians to allow this their lile 
 thus exalted to heaven and rooted in communion with God, 
 to be dragged down to the elements of the world, to sensible 
 earthly things. — " See to it," said the apostle, " that no one 
 robs you of your Christian freedom, that no one trepans you 
 as his prey by the wortldess deceitful appearance of a pre- 
 tended higher wisdom which follows himian traditions, cleaves 
 to the elements of the world, and proceeds not from Christ. 
 Everything which does not proceed from him is delusion ; for 
 the whole church of God, which belongs to him as his body, 
 exists in dependence on him ; and through him, who is the 
 common head of all the powers of the spiritual world, are ye 
 also incorporated with that church, ye who before were as 
 Gentiles excluded from the development of God's kingdom. 
 He has obtained for you the forgiveness of sins, and thus has 
 also freed you from the law which testified against you as an 
 indictment, having blotted it out. By his sufferings, he has 
 triumphed over the whole kingdom of evil ; let none of you 
 therefore hazard becoming slaves again, and condemn your- 
 selves on account of those outward things, all of which are 
 only shadows of what was to come ; but in Christ we behold 
 the reality itself May no one succeed in begaiiling you in 
 reference to your highest interests (merely because it so pleases 
 him — for his own arbitraiy pleasure), by the appearance of a 
 humility put on for show, by the worship of angels, since he 
 is disposed to pry into what is hidden from man ' — for such a 
 
 ing the body, and abstaining from the indulgence of the senses, 
 men were withdrawn from these influences. 
 
 ^ In the passage, Col. ii. 18, that reading which omits the firj has 
 much in its favour, the authority of the most important manuscripts, 
 and the comparison with the other reading ovk which maybe considered 
 as a similar gloss. It is also more easy to explain how the connexion 
 of the whole verse might occasion the interpolation of the negative, 
 than how it should occasion its rejection, by which it is only made 
 more difficult. If this reading be adopted, we must understand the 
 passage thus: "He pries into which (a? he imagines) he has seen.
 
 328 THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN8. 
 
 one, with all his appearaucc of laimility and a spiritual life, is 
 pufied up with an ungudly mind, which iilaces its coutidouce 
 in a nullity ; he can neither exalt hiniselt' above the world nor 
 to Christ, for he does not hold fast the head from which alone 
 the body, animated by it and held together by its influence in 
 all its members, can develop itself for the end designed by 
 God. How is it, if ye ai'e dead with Christ to the things of 
 the world, that ye can adopt as if ye belonged to the world, 
 such maxims as. Touch not this, taste not that ; since all this, 
 according to the doctrine of these persons, will only by the 
 use tend to destruction ! Which doctrines certainly have an 
 appearance of wisdom in the arbitrarily invented woiTship of 
 God, the show of humility, and the chastening of the body ; 
 but yet things which have no real value, and only serve tt» 
 gratify an ungodly mind. If, therefore, ye are risen with 
 Christ, seek after that which is above : let your thoughts be 
 directed thither where Christ is, who is exalted Co the right 
 hand of God : let your wishes be fixed on heaven." This 
 tendency towards heaven, this life rooted in God, was always 
 set in opposition by Paul to the superstition that would drag 
 down divine knowledge to the olijects of sense. 
 
 This epistle was conveyed to the church at Colossse by Ty- 
 chicus, one of the missionary assistants of PavJ, who was 
 returning to Lesser Asia, his native country. But since 
 Paul could not furnish him with epistles for all the Asiatic 
 churches, and yet wmdd gladly have testified his lively in- 
 terest in all, and wished, as the apostle of the Gentiles, to 
 address a word to all collectively, he prepared a circular 
 letter designed for all the churches in that region. In this 
 
 the appearances of angels — puffed up by the delusive images, which 
 are only a reflection of the sensuality that prevails over him, of 
 his sensual earthly tendency to which he drags down the objects of 
 religion, the Invisible." And in this case the contrast would be very 
 suitable ; he adheres not in faith to the invisible Head. But yet this 
 reading appears to me to have the connexion and the meaning of single 
 words too much against it for me to admit it. The infiaTtvftv appears 
 to me too plainly to designate an impertinent eagerness to pry into 
 what is hidden from human sight, and to presuppose the negative /xi) ; 
 and if the apostle had wished to mark supposed appearances of angels, 
 he would certainly not have used ewpaKtv without some further limita- 
 tion, some additional phrase, with which the following ei'/cTj might be 
 connected ; as, for example, by a (wpaKtyat Soku, this vision would have 
 been marked ae deceptive and presumptuous.
 
 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 329 
 
 epistle, in which the apostle of the Gentiles addi'essed him- 
 'Belf to all Gentile Christians as such, he treats only of one 
 great subject of general interest, the actual efficiency of the 
 gospel among the Gentiles, without entering upon other 
 topics.' The similarity of the two epistles (the Epistle to the 
 Colossians and the so-called Epistle to the Ephesiaiis) is of 
 such a kind, that we see in it the work of the same author, 
 and not an imitation by another hand. Let us remember 
 that Paul, when he wrote this epistle, was still full of those 
 thoughts and contemplations which occupied his mind when 
 he WTote the Epistle to the Colossians; thus we can account 
 for those points of resemblance in the second, which was 
 wi-itten immediately after the first. And hence it also is 
 evident, that of these two, the Epistle to the Colossians was 
 written first, for the apostle's thoughts there exhibit them- 
 selves in their original formation and connexion, as they 
 were called forth by his opposition to that sect whose senti- 
 ments and practices he combats in that epistle.''* 
 
 Though this epistle has come down to us in the manu- 
 scripts, now extant, as addressed to the church at Ephesus, 
 yet the genei'al character of the contents, suited to the wants 
 of the Asiatic Christians of Gentile descent, testifies, by the 
 absence of all special references to the peculiar cii-cumstunces 
 of the Ephesian church, against such an exclusive or pre- 
 dominant appropriation of it. If this epistle had been designed 
 principally for the Ephesian chm-ch, Paul woidd certainly 
 have been impelled to say to those among whom he had 
 spent so long a time, many things relating solely to their 
 peculiar circumstances. This conclusion, which we draw 
 with certainty from the contents of the epistle, is confirmed 
 by the information that has come down to iis from antiquity, 
 that the designation of the place in the introductory saluta- 
 tion is wanting in ancient manuscripta But since the Ephe- 
 
 1 It was so far a happy thought of Schulz to describe this Epistle as 
 a companion to the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 * For the confirmation of this relation of the two epistles to one 
 another, the kuI in Eph. vi. 21 certainly serves, which can only be ex- 
 plained by supposing that Paul had in his thoughts what he had been 
 writing to the Colossians, iv. 8, according to the correct reading "vayywre. 
 Harless has noticed this mark in the introduction to his Commentary 
 on the Epistle to the Epliesians, and after him Wiggers jun. in the 
 Studien und Kritiken; 1841, 2d part, p. 453.
 
 330 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 
 
 Bian church consisted for the most part of Gentile Christiana 
 we have no reason to doubt that tliis epistle was equally 
 designed for them, though being a circular letter, the apostle 
 touched only on those circumstances and wants which were 
 common to them with the other churches of this district. It 
 might also be thought most proper, that the epistle should be 
 sent from Ephesus, as the metropolis and the seat of the 
 mother-church, to the other churches. This would best 
 agi-ee with the designation which it generally obtained at an 
 early period, as specially addressed to the ICphesian chinx'h. 
 Yet from this remark we do not venture to infer too much, 
 since the gi-eat preponderance of the Ei)hesian chin-ch, as one 
 of the seJes apostolicce, idthough the ejiistlc at first might 
 have had no precise designation, must Imve ])iucured a j ire- 
 dominant value to its name, as if of one directed to the 
 Ephesian church.' 
 
 In the second period of his confinement, Paul received 
 a contribution from the church at I'hilippi (who had already 
 given practical proof of their love for him) through EpajJiro- 
 ditus, their messenger, from whom also he received an account 
 of their state. In consequence of this information, he had 
 occasion to put the Christians at Philippi on their giiard 
 against the influence of Judaizing teachers, to exhort them to 
 union amongst themselves, and to recommend to those who 
 had more liberal and enlarged views, forbearance towards their 
 weaker brethren. On this la.st topic, he gives them, in the 
 words of the exhortation which he added at the close of the 
 epistle, the important rule, that all should seek to em])lay 
 faithfully the measure of knowledge which they had already 
 attained (iii. 15), that then God would reveal to them what 
 they still wanted, and thus all would by degrees arrive at 
 a state of Christian matm-ity.^ He exhorted them, under the 
 persecutions to which the Christians in Macedonia were still 
 
 1 The well-founded reaction against the negative assertions of an ar- 
 bitrary scepticism, must not seduce us into a superstitious overvalua- 
 tion of tradition, which in its turn may lead to mere arbitrary assertions, 
 instead of that result which oilers itself from the comprehensive survey 
 of Christian antiquity. 
 
 2 The gloss of the common reading {kuvSvi, rh ariro (ppovuv), which 
 injures the meaning, arose from mistaking the sense of the passage, 
 ?ind supposing that it referred to Christian unity, and not to the agree- 
 ment of practice with knowledge.
 
 Paul's skcoxd epistle to timotiit. 331 
 
 exposed, to bear joyfully their suflferings for Christ's sake, and 
 to view them as \ gift of grace, which was vouchsafea U 
 them. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAUL'S LABOURS AFTER HIS RELEASE FROM HIS FIRST CONFINEMENT AT 
 ROME, TO HIS MARTYRDOM. 
 
 Hitherto we have possessed certain information respecti^ng 
 the circnmstances and labours of the apostle Paul dm-mg his 
 confinement at Rome. But in reference to the .sequel, we 
 meet on all sides with great obscurity and uncertainty ihe 
 question arises, whether he ended this confinement with 
 martyrdom, or whether he was released from it, and entered 
 afresh on his apostolic labours. The decision of this question 
 depends partly on the depositions of historical witnesses 
 partly on the result of an examination of Pauls Second 
 Epistle to Timothy, whether this epistle, which was evidently 
 written during a confinement at Rome must be classed 
 among the epistles wi-itten in the time of his first confine- 
 ment, or whether we must assume the existence of a second 
 The nan-atives of t^e fourth century, according to which Paul 
 was set at liberty and published the gospel m Spam cannot 
 be taken into account, for all these might very easily arise 
 from what he says in his Epistle to the Romans, of his inten- 
 tions of visiting Spain. But more attention is due to an 
 account which is given by a man who was in part a contem- 
 porarj^ and probably a disciple of Paul Clement, he 
 bishop of Rome, says expressly in his First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, (§ 5,)' that Paul suffered martyi'dom, after he 
 
 1 What we learn from the only natural interpretation of this passage 
 coum noUrvetccurred, if -hafschenkel ha, remarked m h- disser^ 
 taXion against a second confinement of l^^^^Mm the ^l^f^l^^f, 
 Kritihel 1841, part 1), respectmg dement sEpstle be correct 
 namely, that it ^vas written only a few years ,=^ft«/.\\^^, ^P^'^^'^'Xt^^^^ 
 to the Corinthian, between the y-r^ .^^^^ ^^^/f,;^^ H'^Zl Z
 
 332 Paul's second epistle to timothy. 
 
 had travelled to the boundaries of the West.' By tliis ex- 
 pression, we most naturally understand Spain ; and though 
 Clement miglit have underetood by it some other place or 
 country than exactly this, yet we cannot in any case suppose, 
 that a person writing at Rome would intend by it that very 
 city.' From this account of Clement, if we must infer that 
 
 salcm were still in exi.'^tcncc, cannot countervnil those passas^cs of this 
 epistle which contain the most undeniable marks of a later period ; as 
 § 44, on the election to church-offices ; § 47, where it i.s presuppo.sed 
 that Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians at the beginning of 
 the publication (or of fii.i publication) of the gospel (iv apxfj rov 
 fvayyt\iov). And it appears that the author knew nothing of any 
 epistle written to the Corintiiians by Paul before owr _/(>«< epit^tle lo 
 them. I also think that Clement would have expressed himself other- 
 wise in § 5, if he had written only a few years after Paul's martyrdom. 
 The allusions to the Epistle to the Hebrews also indicate a much later 
 date. 
 
 ' The napTvpuv is in this connexion, nuprvp^cras M rHv rjyovfttvuv, 
 to be understood probably, not in the later meaning of martyrdom, but 
 in the original sense of bearing testimony to the faith, although with a 
 reference to the death of Paul, which was brought on by this confession. 
 "He bore testimony of his faith before the heathen magistrates." At 
 all events, the words M ruv r^yovfiffuiv must be understood as a 
 general designation of the heathen magistrates ; and we cannot suppose 
 that Clement intended to give a precise chronological mark, or to refer 
 to the persons to wiiom at that time the management of public affairs 
 was committed in Kome. 
 
 ' Schradcr, indeed, adopts Emesti's opinion, that by Ttp/iar^s Suereoij 
 may he meant the boundaries of the west towards the east, and thus 
 nothing else be intended than that Paul had just reached as far as the 
 boundaries of the west. iJut though we are willing to allow that the 
 words might in themselves be so understood, yet it is impossible so to 
 imderstand them in this connexion. For Clement had just said that 
 Paul proclaimed the gospel in the east and in the west (/c^py| yfvSfifvoi 
 iv TV avaroX-^ koI if ttj Svafi), tiiat lie had taught righteousness to the 
 whole world {5iKai<>ffiivT)v SiSd^as '6\ov tov k6<thov), and then follow the 
 words 4it\ rh Ttpfxa ttjj Svaeoos iXBwv. In this connexion, Clement must 
 surely have intended to say that Paul advanced far into the west. It 
 may here be remarked, that Clement must have known more of the 
 events in general of Paul's life, for he says that Paul was seven times 
 put in fetters. After what has been said since the publication of this 
 work against this interpretation and application of the passage in 
 Clement, I cannot prevail on myself to give it up ; and I am pleased to 
 find critics like Credner, who hold the same views. How can it be ima- 
 gined that Clement, if he thought only of Paul's first confinement at 
 Rome, could say that he had published the gospel not merely in the east 
 but also in the west, and had come even to the boundaries of the west 1 
 Even if we allow much for the rhetorical form of the expression, we
 
 Paul's second kpistle to timothy. 333 
 
 Paul earned into effect his intention of travelling into Spain, 
 or that, at least, he went beyond Italy, we are also obliged to 
 admit, that he was released from his confinement at Rome. 
 And we must abide by this opinion, if we have no further 
 information of the circumstances of Paul dm-ing his second 
 confinement, if we also place his Second Epistle to Timothy 
 in the time of his first imprisonment. 
 
 If we depart from this last supposition, we can put two 
 cases ; either that Paul wrote this epistle at the beginning or 
 at the end of his confinement. As to the first case, we know, 
 that Paul came to Rome without Timothy, but that he was 
 afterwards in his society. It may be therefore supposed, that 
 he was called by this epistle fi'om Lesser Asia to Rome, and 
 that from that time he remained constantly with him. But 
 the information furnished by this epistle, of Paul's situation 
 at that time, is entirely opposed to such a supposition. When 
 he wrote it, he had already obtained a public audience, and 
 had been heard in his defence. On the contrary, in the first 
 period of his confinement, this had certainly not happened, 
 since it is first mentioned in the Epistle to the Philippians. 
 He then had his martyrdom in prospect, while his First 
 Epistle during his confinement held out the most cheering 
 nopes of his release. 
 
 If we take the second case, and consider this epistle as the 
 last he wTote in that confinement at Rome, it will connect 
 itself with the Epistle to the Philippians, with respect to the 
 darker prospects of the apostle's situation, of which it con- 
 tains several indications. But several other things do not 
 agree with this supposition, and rather direct us to another 
 date. And although not every particular which we could 
 mention on this point has equal weight, yet all taken toge- 
 ther are in favour of that view, according to which all the 
 particulars can be most naturally and simply understood, in 
 the manner which would first occur to an unprejudiced reader 
 of the epistle. Paul desires Timothy to come to him, without 
 any allusions to his having been already with him during his 
 confinement. Wlien we begin to read the epistle, everything 
 gives the impression, that he had taken leave of Timothy in 
 
 cannot consider this as a proper designation of such a fact ; and why 
 should a writer who had at hand so many rhetorical designations for the 
 metropolis of the world, have chosen one so unnatural as this^
 
 334 Paul's second epistle to timothy. 
 
 the place where the latter was now residing, and since lliat 
 time had been put in confinement. He cautions him against 
 the false teachers in his neighbourhood (in Lesser Asia, pro- 
 bably at Ephesus), ii. 17, and speaks of them as if he had 
 himself the opportunity of knowing them from personal obser- 
 vation. This coidd not have been during his earlier residence 
 in Lesser Asia, for at that time these hei-etical tendencies had 
 not yet shown themselves, as appears from what we have 
 before remarked ; but everything is easily explained if Paul, 
 being released from confinement, travelled into Lesser Asia, 
 as he intended, and entered into conflict with these false 
 teachers, who had gained a footing there during his absence. 
 He informed Timotliy of the result of his first public examina- 
 tion, iv. 1 6, and in a manner which implies that Timothy knew 
 nothing before of it, and that it had taken place during his 
 absence from Rome. But when Paul made his defence dur- 
 ing his first confinement Timothy was with him; (compare 
 Philip, i. 7.) We are therefore led to think of something 
 that happened during Paul's second confinement. There are, 
 besides, many marks wliich indicate that he had come to the 
 West by his usual route from Lesser Asia through Achaia, 
 but which we know was not his route when he last came from 
 Csesarea to Jerusalem. He charges Timothy to bring with 
 him the cloak, the books, and especially the parchments, 
 which he had left behind at the house of a person whose name 
 he mentions. Now it is far more probable that he left these 
 things behind after a visit to Troas some months before, than 
 at a distance of four- or six yeai-s, which we must suppose 
 to have been the case, if the epistle was wi-itten dui-ing his 
 first confinement, and that they should not be brought to him 
 till after so long an interval.' In order to depict his state of 
 desertion, he informs him that Erastus, one of his usual com- 
 panions, who probably was with him the last time in Lesser 
 Asia,- stayed behind in his native place Corinth ; and that he 
 had left another of his companipns, Trophimus, sick at Mile- 
 
 ' It is an arbitrary assumption that these parchments contained 
 documents relative to his defence, and that for that reason he wished to 
 have them. 
 
 ^ See Acts xix. 22. This could hardly be the same as the oIkov6ij.ox 
 of Corinth, mentioned in Rom. xvi. 23, for his office would Bcarcely 
 allow of his beinp; so often with Paul on his missionary journeys.
 
 Paul's second epistle to TnioxHT. 335 
 
 turn.' Although -we find several persons in Paul's society, 
 who were also with him dui'iug his first confinement (though 
 this circumstance will not sei*ve to fix the date, since the same 
 causes as at that time might bring him again into his 
 society) ; yet among these is a Titus, who was not with him 
 before, for we have not met with them together since the 
 apostle's last sojourn in Macedonia and Achaia, and a Crescens, 
 who is not named before as one of his companions. 
 
 Against the opinion that this epistle, according to the 
 marks we have indicated, was ^Titten in Paul's second con- 
 finement, it may indeed be objected, that we find in it no 
 reference to an earlier confinement at Rome. But this will 
 appear less strange, if we attend to tlie following considera- 
 tions. By this epistle to Timothy, the apostle by no means 
 intended to give the first information of his new confinement ; 
 he rather assumes, that this, and in part the pecvdiarities of 
 his condition in it, were already known to him, as appears 
 from i. 15,^ and by means of the constant intercourse between 
 
 ' On the supposition that the epistle might have been written during 
 Paul's first confinement, it is the most natural supposition that such 
 persons are here spoken of who had resolved to come to Rome (as 
 Tunothy knew), to the apostle's assistance on his trial, according to the 
 usages of Roman law. One of them, Erastus, had not left Corinth as he 
 intended, but remained there. Trophimus (who as a witness might 
 have been of great service) they (the delegates of the churches in Lesser 
 Asia who had agreed to travel together to Rome) had left behind sick 
 at Miletum (aTre'AiTroi', the third person plural). But certainly the other 
 interpretation, in which nothing needs to be supplied, is the simplest, 
 and that which would first occur to an unprejudiced reader of the epistle. 
 Besides, if Paul had reminded Timothy of something which must have 
 been known to him, in order to stir him up still more to set oflf without 
 delay to Rome, (as Timothy, who was probably staying at Ephesus, 
 must have known that the delegates from the churches had left Tro- 
 phimus sick in his neighbourhood,) he would have added some such 
 word as olSas, to signify that he was merelj' reminding him of some- 
 thing he knew already. We may also doubt whether the testimony of 
 Trophimus was of so much consequence to Paul. The charge of raising 
 a tumult at Jerusalem would probably not be so dangerous to him ; on 
 the contrary, he was most probably justified sufliciently on his arrival at 
 Rome by the statements that were sent at the same time from the 
 Roman authorities, whose inquiries had hitherto led to a favourable 
 result. But that charge of having prompted among Roman citizens to 
 apostatize from the state religion, and propagated a religio nova et 
 Ulicita, must have been really dangerous, and in this case Trophimus 
 eould be of no assistance to him. 
 
 * This passage may be most naturally understood of a n imber jf
 
 336 Paul's release. 
 
 the chief cities of tlie Roman Empire, and tlio lively interest 
 taken by the churches in raid's atlixii-s, information respecting 
 him must soon have reached Ephcsus. Moreover, during 
 this period after his release, so many things occurred in hia 
 renewed apostolic laboiu^, wliich fully occupied the mind of 
 one who was more affected by events relating to the kingdom 
 of God than by any personal considerations, and pushed into 
 the background the recollection of his former confinement ; 
 and in the prospect of martyrdom, he would fix his thoughts 
 more on the future than on the past, especially in reference 
 to events that were likely to att'ect tiie progress of the king- 
 dom of God on eaith. 
 
 Now if we admit that Paul was released from that confine- 
 ment, we must assume that he regnined his fi-eedorn before 
 the persecution against the Christians occasioned by the con- 
 flagration at Rome in the year 64 ; for had he been a prisoner 
 at this time, he would certainly have not been spared. And 
 it agrees with the chronological data which we have before 
 discovered, that after more than a two years' imprisonment, he 
 regained his freedom between the years 02 and 63, a result of 
 the proceedings against him which in itself, and in connexion 
 with existing circumstances, is l)y no means improbable. The 
 accusation of raising a tuumlt at Jerusalem had been proved 
 to be unfouiuled ; but the opposition of Christianity to the 
 State-religion had not then attracted public attention, and 
 though this fact could not have passed altogether unnoticed, 
 yet no definite law existed on the subject, and under the 
 Emperor Nero, who ridiculed the established religion, and 
 gave himself little concern about the ancient Roman enact- 
 ments, such a point might more easily be waved. The friends 
 whom Paid had gained by his behaviour during his confine- 
 ment, and by the manner of conducting his defence, would 
 probably exert their influence in his favour. Thus he might 
 regain his fi-eedom ; and the ancient tradition that he was 
 beheaded, ' and not crucified like Peter, if true, favoui's his not 
 having sufiered death in the persecution of 64: ; for had he 
 
 Christians from Lesser Asia, who, on coming to Kome, were afraid to 
 visit Paul in his confinement, and whom he met with in Lesser Asia 
 wlaen he wrote this epistle. Paul marks the persons to whom he alluded 
 by specifying two of their number 
 ' See Eusebius, ii. 25.
 
 Paul's beleask 337 
 
 been pxit to death in that persecution, so mucli regard would 
 not have been paid to his Roman citizenship as to spai-o the 
 hated leader of a detested sect from the more painful and 
 ignominious mode of execution. 
 
 From the epistles written by Paul during his-^ first confine- 
 ment, we learn that he laboiu-ed much at Rome in publishing 
 the gospel ; his firm advocacy of the cause of God, and his 
 happy release, must have had a beneficial influence in this 
 respect. Hence it came to pass, that Clu'istianity from this 
 time spread with still greater power among the Gentiles in 
 Rome. But owing to the same cause, the new sect, while 
 gaining ground among the heathen to the injury of idolatry, 
 drew on itself the attention of the fanatical people who could 
 not feel otherwise than hostile to the enemies of their gods ; 
 and the hatred thus excited soon occasioned the report to be 
 spread of unnatm-al crimes committed in the assemblies of 
 these impious persons. Perhaps also the Jews, who were 
 more embittered against the Christians when their designs 
 against Paid proved abortive, contributed their part to excite 
 the popular hatred against them. But a persecution on the 
 part of the state would hardly have been threatened so soon, 
 if the Emperor Nero had not availed himself of the popidar 
 feeling, which easily credited everything bad of the Christians, 
 in order to cast an odium on the Christians which he wished 
 to throw off" from himself' Yet it by no means appears that 
 this outbreak against the Christians in Rome was followed by 
 a general persecution against them throughout the provinces, 
 and hence Paul might meanwhile continue his apostolic 
 labom's without molestation in distant parts. 
 
 As for the history of his labours in this new field, we have 
 no information respecting it ; nor can the total want of sources 
 for this part of church history be at all surprising. But this 
 defect of information cannot be made use of to render doubtful 
 the fact of Paul's second confinement. Nothing, therefoi^e, 
 is left for us, but to compare the short account (already 
 mentioned) in the Epistle of Clemens Romanus, with what 
 Paul himself tells us respecting his intentions in case he 
 regained his freedom, in the epistles written during his first 
 confinement, and with what may be gathered from his other 
 
 * On this persecution in Eome, see mj Church History, vol. i. part » 
 p. 136 ; and part 3, p. 239. 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 338 Paul's labours after ins release. 
 
 letters, which it seems probable that he wrote after his 
 release. 
 
 Before his confinement, Paul had expressed the intention of 
 going into Spain, and the testimony of the Roman Clement 
 favoui"s the belief that he fulfilled this intention. But during 
 his confinemeiK at Rome he had altered his views, and was 
 determined, by reasons which we have already noticed, to visit 
 once more the scene of his early labours in Lesser Asia. The 
 Second Epistle to Timothy contains hints of his returning by 
 his usual route through Achaia. But it would be possible 
 that after his release he travelled first into Spain ; that he there 
 exerted himself in the establishment of Christian churches, 
 and then revisited the former sphere of his ministry ; that ho 
 was on his return to the West, in order to close there his 
 apostolic commission, but before he covdd reach his destination 
 was detained and executed at Rome. — However, the want of 
 any memorial of his laboiu-s in Spain, the want of any record 
 of an ecclesia apostolica, does not favour the supposition that 
 Paul spent any length of time in that countiy ; and hence the 
 other explanation, that he firet renewed his labours in the 
 East, then betook himself to Spain, and soon after his arrival 
 was beheaded, seems to desei've the preference. 
 
 We, therefore, are of opinion that Paul fii-st fulfilled his 
 intention of returning to Lesser Asia. Now the First Epistle 
 of Paul to Timotliy and the Epistle to Titus, by the peculiar- 
 ities of their mode of expression, and the pecxiliar references to 
 ecclesiastical relations, connect themselves so closely with the 
 Second Epistle to Timothy, and exhibit so many marks of the 
 later apostolic age (one of which we have already noticed), that 
 it appeal's reasonable to assign both these epistles to this 
 period. 
 
 In the earlier history of the apostle, we can find no point of 
 time in which he could have written such a letter to Timothy 
 at Ephesus, in reference to the concerns of that church, as his 
 first epistle ; ' for this epistle presupposes a chui'ch akeady for 
 
 ^ The genuinenefis of the First Epistle to Timothy being presupposed, 
 the view I have here taken of the relations and circumstances under 
 which it was written, appears to be the only tenable one. But I confess 
 that I am not convinced of the genuineness of the First Epistle to 
 Timothy, with the same certainty as of the Pauline origin of all the 
 other Pauline Epistles, and of the two other Pastoral Letters, and the
 
 Paul's epistles to timothy and titus. 339 
 
 some time in existence, which in many respects required a 
 uew organization of chui'ch relations, the di&placing several of 
 the leading officers of the church, and the appointment of 
 others. The new class of false teachers who had sprung up in 
 Lesser Asia during Paul's imprisonment, had acquired great 
 mfluence in the Ephesian church. As Paul (according to an 
 interpretation not absolutely necessary of his fai'ewell address 
 at Miletus) had anticipated, several overseers of the churches 
 had allov'ed themselves to be seduced by the spirit of false 
 doctrine. The false teachers to whom we refer bore the same 
 marks which we find in those who appeared in the chiu'ch at 
 Colossae during Paul's confinement. They belonged to the 
 class of Judaizers, who maintained the perpetual obligation of 
 
 Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians. What is said in this 
 epistle of the false teachers excites no suspicion in my mind ; and I can 
 find nowhere the allusions to the later gnostic doctrines, which Bauer 
 would find in this as well as in the Pastoral Letters. The germ of such 
 Judaizing gnosticism, or of a Judaizing theosophic ascetic tendency, as 
 it shows itself in the two Epistles to Timothy, I would presuppose a 
 priori to he existing at this time, since the appearances of the second 
 century point back to such a tendency gradually evolving itself out of 
 Judaism. In this respect, the absence of the marks of a later date in the 
 controversial part of this epistle, is to me a proof of its high antiquity. 
 To the declaration of Hegesippus, in Eusebius, iii. 32, that the falsifica- 
 tions of doctrine first began after the death of the apostle, or rather then 
 ventured to make their public appearance, I can attach no such weight 
 as historical evidence, as to cast a doubt on these undeniable facts. As 
 there is an unhistorical tendency produced by a dogmatic bias, which 
 transposes the originators of all heresies to the apostolic age, and 
 makes the apostles to be the first impugners of them ; so also there is a 
 more unhistorical tendency, and equally proceeding from a dogmatic 
 bias (as is the case with all the depositions of Hegesippus), which would 
 maintain that, up to a certain date, the church was wholly pure, and 
 that all heresies broke out first after the decease of the apostles. A 
 common but one-sided truth lies at the bottom of both opinions. I can 
 find nothing surprising in the fact, that, in the two Epistles to Timothy, 
 such an aspect of the present as an omen and germ of what would be 
 developed in the future, is to be seen. The attentive observer, capable 
 of deeper insight, must here behold the future in the present. But I 
 cannot deny that, when I come from reading other Pauline epistles, 
 and especially the two other Pastoral Letters, to this epistle, I feel my- 
 self struck by the impression of something not Pauline. More particu- 
 larly, the mode of transition appears to me not in the Pauline style, — 
 as in ii. 7; iii. 1 ; iii. ]o ; v. 17, 18; and the relation of this epistle to 
 the two other Pastoral Letters is also suspicious. I can indeed find 
 reasons for allaying these doubts, but none which, taken all together, 
 can satisfy the imprejudiced lover of truth.
 
 340 Paul's first epistle to timothy. 
 
 the Mosaic law.' But they distinguished themselves from 
 the common Judaizers by a theosophic ascetic tendency. They 
 taught abstinence fi-om certain kinds of food, and prescribed 
 celibacy as essential to Christian perfection.^ But they united 
 with this practical tendency a theoretical peculiarity. They 
 prided themselves on possessing a higher yvdjatc (the ^iXoo-o^/a 
 of the Epistle to the Colossians), and by this they were 
 seduced from the simplicity of the faith. They taught legen- 
 dary tales respecting the origin and propagation of spirits, like 
 the false teachers at Colossse.^ They brought forward subjects 
 which gave rise to subtle disputations, instead of leading men 
 to accept in faith the divine means of their salvation ; 1 Tim. 
 i. 4. The conflict with this false Gnosis now springing up, 
 must have occupied the churches in these parts. As the 
 prophets in '.he assembhes of believers frequently warned them 
 of the dangers which from the signs of the times they perceived 
 were threatening the church ; so these warning voices spoke 
 also of the conflict that awaited the church with this hostile 
 tendency, which in following ages was one of the severest 
 which the simple gospel had to encounter. These are the 
 express warnings of the Divine Spirit by the inspired ad- 
 dresses in the churches, to which Paul appeals.'' To this 
 
 1 As appears from the Pauline antithesis, 1 Tim. i. 9. 
 
 ^ Among the coifxariK)] yvuvaaia, 1 Tim. iv. 8, must without doubt 
 be included a devotion that consisted in outward gestures, abstinencies, 
 and ceremonies, the opposite of which is true piety, fvaefieia, having its 
 seat in the disposition. 
 
 ^ The genealogical investigations common among the Jews, by which 
 they sought to trace their descent from persons of note in former times 
 up to the Patriarchs, cannot certainly be intended in 1 Tim. i. 4, for 
 inquiries of this sort could never be introduced among Gentiles, nor 
 could their minds be so much occupied with them, that an attention to 
 them should be set down among the marks of character. Nor can we 
 suppose a reference to inquiries respecting the genealogy of Jesus ; what 
 has just been said would in part apply to this supposition, and in this 
 case Paul would have marked his meaning more precisely, and according 
 to his usual antithetical style, contrasted the Xptarhs Karh. -nvevfix with 
 the XpKxrhs Kara adpKa. On the contrary, it will be quite suitable to 
 apply it to the ytveaKoylas taiv ayyeKcov, similar to the later gnostic 
 pneumatologies ; on the supposition, indeed, that he wrote of them as 
 already well known to Timothy. Any other person who bad forged 
 this epistle, partly for the purpose of employing the authority of Paul 
 against the rising gnosis, would have more exactly marked the object 
 of controversy. 
 
 * 1 Tim. iv. 1. A similar expression respecting prophetic intima 
 Mons occurs in Acts xx. 23.
 
 PAUL IN CRETE. 341 
 
 peculiar state of the church several of the instructions are 
 applicable, which Paul gives in this epistle, relative to the 
 appointment of their overseers.' 
 
 Paiil, therefore, executed his intention of going into Lesser 
 Asia, and found such distiu-bances in the churches there, 
 arising from the influence of the unevangelical tendency we 
 have noticed, that he held it to be absolutely necessary to 
 remain longer in those pai*ts. He left Ephesus for reasons 
 unknown to us, to visit the chm-ches of Macedonia, but soon 
 returned thither, and in the meanwhile left Timothy behind 
 for the special purpose of counterworking these false teachers, 
 which he considered an object of the first importance ; to 
 this he added a subordinate concern, the new organization 
 of the church at Ephesus, and perhaps also the superin- 
 tendence of some others in the neighbourhood, which had 
 since been formed. ^ 
 
 If we regard the geogi-aphical position of the places, it 
 agrees very well with Paul's residence in Lesser Asia, and his 
 travelling thence to Macedonia, that at this time he visited 
 the Island of Crete, and there left behind his disciple Titus, 
 to whom he adch'essed an epistle. It is indeed easy to ima- 
 
 ^ From the difference in circumstances would arise the difference of 
 manner in which he expresses himself here and in the First Epistle to 
 the Corinthians respecting a single life. When he wrote to the Corin- 
 thians, he opposed those who objected to a single life from the common 
 Jewish standing-point ; here he speaks against those who went so far in 
 depreciating marriage as to condemn it altogether as unchristian. In 
 opposition to these persons, who led females to forget altogether the 
 proper destiny of their sex, and to thrust themselves forward as public 
 teachers, Paul says, 1 Tim. ii. 15, that the woman would always be 
 saved in family life (the Sm is to be understood in the sense of — by means 
 of, in — as it is often used by Paul), if she lead a holy life in faith and love. 
 
 ^ That Paul does not mention in this epistle his deliverance from 
 confinement at Home, proves nothing against this statement, for 
 a number of events had intervened to occupy his mind, especially when 
 he wrote this epistle. It is indeed surprising that he should charge 
 Timothy to " let no man despise his youth," since Timothy could be 
 no longer a youth. But we must recollect how indefinitely such terms 
 are often used, and that Paul, when he wrote this, might have special 
 reasons for such an injunction ; among the leaders of the unevangelical 
 party, there might be persons whose great age had secured for them 
 deference and respect. The passages in Titus ii. 15, and also 2 Tim. ii. 
 22, (which in that connexion has nothing strange,) present no fit 
 parallel ; and if, in the First Epistle to Timothy, traces can be found of 
 an imitation of the two others, these words may be reckoned among the 
 number.
 
 342 Paul's epistle ro TiTua. 
 
 gine, tliat, as Paul had often sojourned for a longer time in 
 those parts, he had ah-eady foiinded several chiu'chcs in Crete. 
 But besides that, for reasons before mentioned, we are led to 
 fix the date of this epistle nearer that of the two Pastoral 
 Letters, it is also striking that, while Luke in the Acts reports 
 so fully and circumstantially the occui-rences of the apostle's 
 last voyage to Rome, and mentions his stay at Crete, he says 
 uot a word (contraiy to his usual practice in such cases) of 
 ^he friendly reception given to him by the Christians there, 
 or even of his meeting with them at all. Hence we may 
 conclude that no Christian churches yet existed in the island, 
 though that transient visit would naturally give rise to the 
 intention of planting the gospel there ; which he probably 
 ftdfilled soon after he was set at liberty, when he came into 
 those parts. As in the last period before his journey to 
 Jerusalem we do not find Titus in his company, and on the 
 other hand we find, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, that 
 he was with the apostle, this agrees very well with the sup- 
 position that Paul after his release once more met with him 
 in Lesser Asia, and again took him as his associate in preach- 
 mg the gospel. 
 
 After Paul had laid the foundation of the Christian church 
 in Crete, he left Titus behind to complete the organization of 
 the churches, to confirm the new converts in purity of doc- 
 trine, and to counterwork the influence of the false teachers. 
 If we compare the marks of the false teachers in the two other 
 Pastoral Epistles with those in the Epistle to Titus, we shall 
 find a similarity. But if these do not induce us to admit — 
 (as we are not authorized to suppose the same appearances of 
 the religious spirit in Crete and in Ephesus) — so neither shall 
 we be led by what can be inferred simply from the epistle 
 itself, to imagine any other object of Paul's opposition and 
 warning than the common Judaizing tendency, and an ua- 
 spiritual pharisaic study of the Old Testament, disputatious, 
 cleaving to the letter and losing itself in iiseless hair-splittings 
 and rabbinical fe,bles.' Paul required of Titus to turn the 
 
 ' As to the genealogies in Titus iii. 9, if we compare this passage 
 with the endless genealogies in 1 Tim. i. 4, we shall be led to under- 
 stand a reference to a theosophic element, an emanation doctrine ; but 
 this expression in the Epistle to Titus, without anything more definite, 
 and simply in its own connexion, favours no such supposition; but w-*
 
 Paul's epistle to titus. 343 
 
 attention of men to objects altogether different and of prac- 
 tical advantage, deeply to impress on their minds the doctrine 
 which formed the basis of salvation, and to lead them to 
 apply this fundamental truth to real life, and to be zealous to 
 verify their faith by good works. ' 
 
 shall be induced to think of the common Jewish genealogies, although 
 we cannot determine precisely for what object these would be employed, 
 and the comparison of 1 Tim. i. 4 with Titus iii. 9, might excite a 
 suspicion of a misunderstood copying in the former. 
 
 ' All that is said in opposition to this tendency bears the impress of 
 being truly apostolic and Pauline. If the passage in Titus iii. 10 were 
 to be understood in the sense of the later unchristian hatred of heretics, 
 the passage in iii. 2 would be in direct contradiction to it, for in this an 
 exactly opposite disposition is expressed ; Christians are here warned of 
 spiritual pride, which might mislead them to exalt themselves as 
 believers and children of God against the heathen, to treat them as 
 enemies, to insult them on account of their superstition and the vices 
 prevalent amongst them. On the contrary, it was their duty to cherish 
 gentleness and kindness towards them, from the consciousness that thej', 
 like the heathen, were once the slaves of delusion and of sin, and owed 
 their deliverance from this state, not to their own merits, but to divine 
 grace alone. But the sentiment here expressed, if rightly understood, 
 by no means contradicts the injunction which Paul gives to Titus in 
 iii. 10. In this latter passage, by those who bring in alpiaeis (Gal. 
 V. 20), a class of persons are referred to difterent from those in the 
 former, such at least who went to greater lengths, separated from 
 Christian fellowship on account of their peculiar opinions, and founded 
 open schisms. Now, Paul advised Titus to enter into no disputations 
 with persons who wished to make these schisms, respecting the pecu- 
 liarities to which they attached so much importance ; but if they were 
 not disposed to listen to repeated admonitions, to avoid all further 
 intercourse with them, since such disputations could be of no advantage, 
 and tended only to injure the hearers, and throw their minds into a 
 state of perplexity. Such persons, whose errors were interwoven with 
 their whole character, were not to be convinced by argument. And as 
 he reprobated their whole mental tendency in reference to religion as 
 unpractical, it followed, of course, that he admonished his disciples not 
 to engage with his adversaries on this standing-point, but if they would 
 not listen to repeated exhortations to return to evangelical simplicity, 
 they should be left to themselves. In perfect accordance with this 
 injunction, is that which Paul gives Timothy in 2 Tim. ii. 23, to avoid 
 " foolish and unlearned questions," since they only engendered strife, 
 but "with meekness to instruct those that oppose themselves," to try 
 whether they might not be led to repent of their errors, and be brought 
 to an acknowledgment of the truth. Here also, as in the Epistle to 
 Titus, he forbids arguing with these false teachers on their erroneous 
 opinions. It was quite a different thing to point out the right way to 
 those opponents of whose recovery some hopes might be entertained, 
 and i.i this class the first passage refers.
 
 344 Paul's second confinement at noiiE. 
 
 Wlien Paul wrote this letter to Titus he had the prospect 
 of spending the winter at Nicopolis, where he wished Titus to 
 join him. As there were so many eities in ditlbrcnt parts, 
 which, having been built on the occasion of some victory, 
 were called Nicopolis, and we have no exact information 
 respecting the travels of the apostle in this last period of his 
 ministry, and the exact dates are wanting, we cannot deter- 
 mine what city is here intended, whether we are to look for 
 it in Cilicia, Macedonia, Thrace, or P^pinis. We might sup- 
 pose that the city built in the last-n;uned countiy by Augustus 
 to commemorate the sea-fight at Actium wiis intended ; but 
 at all events, it appcai-s from the plan of his journey indicated 
 in the Second Epistle to Timotliy, that Paul was come from 
 Lesser Asia into the AVest, and that he had probably taken 
 farewell of his beloved Timothy at E])hesus. 
 
 As soon as he had returned to the West, he fulfilled his 
 purpose of publishing the gospel in Spain. But there he was 
 soon seized and sent as a prisoner to Rome. ' After he had 
 been in confinement a long time, and had been subjected to 
 one judicial examination, he wrote his last Epistle to Timothy, 
 whom (as we have just said) he prol)ably had left behind at 
 Ephesus. His situation at this time was evidently very 
 different from that in which he found himself during his first 
 confinement after his examination. It was then universally 
 allowed that he was a prisoner not on account of any moral 
 or political offence, but only for publishing the gospel, and 
 his example gave many courage boldly to confess their faith. 
 But now he appeared in his fetters, as an "evil-doer," ii. 9, for 
 all Christians in Rome were considered as malefici. Only a 
 few had the courage openly to show themselves as his friends 
 and companions in the faith. Then he was in a state of 
 uncertainty between the expectation of martyrdom and of 
 release, though the latter was more probable. Now, on the 
 
 ^ It may indeed appear remarkalile that Paul, during the last part of 
 Nero's reign, at a time when arbitrary cruelty so predominated, when 
 Christians were so much the object of public hatred, still enjoyed 
 60 favourable a situation as a prisoner, so that he could see his friends 
 and write epistles. But the exact situation of prisoners depended 
 so much on accidental circumstances, that we cannot draw certain con- 
 clusions respecting it merely from the general state of things. Some 
 Christians might, for aught we can tell, enjoy these privileges eveo 
 amidst the most violent persecutions.
 
 PAUL'S SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHl. 345 
 
 contraiy, he looked forward to martyrdom as the more pro- 
 bable event. He informed Timothy, indeed, that the Lord 
 had gi'anted him power to testify confidently of the faith, and 
 that he would be delivered fi-om the jaws of the lion, from the 
 death that was then threatening him;' still he was far from 
 indulging the hope of being freed absolutely from the danger 
 of death. But this confidence he did enjoy, that the Lord 
 would deliver him from all moral evil,^ and preserve him to 
 his heavenly kingdom. As " Paul did not ascribe the power 
 of persisting steadfastly in the confession of the faith even 
 unto death, to himself, but to the power of God, who 
 strengthened him for this purpose ; — he therefore thus 
 expressed himself, that the Lord wovild uphold him stead- 
 fast imder all conflicts even until death, preserve him from 
 all unfaithfulness, and thus lead him to blessedness in his 
 kingdom. The apostle's feehngs in the prospect of mai'tyrdom 
 are inimitably expressed in his last epistle ; his elevated com- 
 posure, his self-forgetfulness, his tender fatherly care for his 
 disciple Timothy, his concern for the cause of the gospel 
 which he was about to leave exposed to so many attempts to 
 adulterate it, and yet his confidence in the divinity of that 
 cause, and in the almightiness of God watching over it, and 
 conducting its development, a confidence that rose victorious 
 over every doubt. 
 
 When he wrote the Epistle to the Philippians, and the end 
 of his eailhly course was not yet in sight, he said, referring 
 to the defects and infirmities of which he was conscious as a 
 man, that he was far from believing that he had afready 
 attained his aim — perfection; but that he was continually 
 striving after that aim, if he might attain that for which he 
 was called by Christ. Philip, iii. 12. But since he now saw 
 himself actually at the end of his course — since he now looked 
 
 ' The words 2 Tim. iv. 17, maj' be taken as a figurative expression, 
 to denote generally deliverance from apparently impending death. But 
 it would be also possible to understand them literally, for at that time 
 it would be always possible that Paul, notwithstanding his Roman 
 citizenship, might have reason to apprehend so shameful a death, 
 though he was actually exempted from it. 
 
 2 After Paul had said, 2 Tim. iii. 17, that the Lord had delivered 
 him from impending death, he expressed the hope that he would 
 still further deliver him. But this it was needful for him more dis- 
 tinctly to define and limit, for he would have said more than, under the 
 circumstances, he was warranted to exncct, if he had not added a limit-
 
 34G Paul's second ehstle to timotiit. 
 
 back on that course with the prospt-tt of approach inj; mar- 
 tyrdura, and by the ])o\vor of the Lord h:iii rfmaiiR'<l faithful 
 under all his conflicts hitherto — and since he van animated by 
 the confident porsuasion that, by tlio same j)<)WL'r, ho would 
 be brought forth victorious from the contlicta tliat still 
 awaited him, '^at this critical moment, restiii;; alone on the 
 divine jtrumise, all uncertainty vaniMhed from his wiul, and 
 he could with assurance say of himself, '* I have fought tho 
 good fight, I have finished my couj-se, I have kept the faith. 
 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteouancaa." 
 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.' 
 
 He w;us fiU" less occuj)ied with thoughts about himself, than 
 with fuixiety for the church whicli he was on the [Miint of 
 Icjiving in a vehement conflict, both inttnial and external, 
 but the diuigers of the internal conflict were thowe which gave 
 him tho greatest uneasiness. In Lesser Asia, he had lx>cn 
 brought into frequent collision with a false Jewish Christian 
 Gnosis, which was spreading in opposition to the simplo 
 gosiK-l. He saw in spirit that this false tendency was con- 
 tinually gjiining ground, and tluit, by its arts of deception, 
 it wiis setlucing nuinbrrH, Still, he was confident, that ita 
 deceptions would at la.st he exposed, and that the Lord would 
 maintain that gos|H.l which he had entnisted to his niinistr}', 
 and without him, preserve it pure until the day of his second 
 coming.' Since ho might assume, that these false teachers 
 
 ing clause, — namely, that God would deliver him from all moral evil, 
 such as want of fidelity to the po<>jH.>l, and thus bring him victorious 
 out of ail conflicts into hiH heavenly kingdom; whuiher he ha<i in his 
 thoughts that {larlicipation of the kingdom of heaven, which he hoped 
 to attain by martyrdom, in a fuller communion with Chri^it and (Jod, or 
 his deliverance to a participation in the perfected kingdom of Christ 
 after his second coming ; a.'* he felt certain, if he were preserved from all 
 evil, of partaking in this kingdom of Christ, whether he lived to that 
 time or died before it came. I will not now attempt to decide between 
 these two modes of interpretation. But one of them must necew«arily 
 be taken in connexion with what goes l>efore. I cannot allow that 
 these words are a contradiction to 2 Tim. iv. 6 — 8, nor a.-'scnt to what 
 Credner, in his Einlcitung, i. p. 478, founds upon iL 
 ' This confidence he also cxpre-scd in Philip, i. 20. 
 
 * Hence there is no contradiction between the judgment Paul ex- 
 presses of himself in this epistle and in that to the Philippians. 
 
 * If we picture to ourselves how Paul wa.s then occupied with the 
 thoughts of death, how uncertain his condition, and under what per- 
 pleiing relations Timothy found himself in the field of labour where
 
 Paul's martyrdom. 347 
 
 were known to Timothy, and had no doubt often confen-ed 
 with him on the means of counteracting them, he satisfied 
 himself with a general delineation of their character. He 
 mentioned amongst othei-s, those who taught that the resiir- 
 rection was already past (like the later Gnostics), and who 
 probably explained everything which Christ had said respecting 
 the resurrection, of the spiritual awakening by the cUvine 
 power of the gospel. From this single mark we may conclude, 
 that in general they indulged in a very arbitraiy treatment 
 of the historical facts of religion, as far as these did not har- 
 monize with their preconceived opinions. ' 
 
 We cannot determine with certainty the year in which 
 Paul's martyrdom occurred. We can only place it in one of 
 the last of Nero's reign. And with this supposition another 
 circumstance agrees. At this time most probably the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews was written by an apostolic man of the 
 Pauline school. ' At its conclusion, xiii. 23, we find mention 
 made of the lately obtained release of Timothy, whom we 
 cannot suppose to be any other than the disciple of and 
 
 Paul had left him, we cannot deem it very surpriBing that he should 
 communicate to him these fuller instructions, although he still hoped to 
 6ec him again in Rome. 
 
 ' It may be doubted whether Alexander the coppersmith, mentioned 
 in 2 Tim. iv. 14, belonged to the number of these false teachers. In 
 this case, he would be the same as the person mentioned in 1 Tim. i. 20. 
 It would indeed be possible that this false teacher from Lesser Asia, ex- 
 asperated at being excluded by Paul from church communion, when he 
 came to Rome, sought to take revenge on the apostle. And the rjudrtpoi 
 \6yoi might tiien be understood, not of the Christian doctrine generally, 
 but of the pure exposition of the evangelical doctrine as it was given by 
 Paul. But a Gentile or Jew from Lesser Asia might be intended, who 
 violently persecuted Christianity. In this case, he would be distinct 
 from the person mentioned in the First Epistle to Timothy; and it 
 would be on that account by no means clear, that the author of the First 
 Epistle to Timothy was some one else than Paul, who, from a mistake, 
 had made Alexander a false teacher, and had cla.ssed him with 
 Hymenffius; for why should not so common a name as Alexander 
 belong to two different persons in Lesser Asia ' There is no ground 
 whatever to suppose that this Alexander was the same who is mentioned 
 in Acts xix. 33, for it is far from being evident that he was so violent 
 an enemy of Christiiinity ; the Jews put him forward, not to make com- 
 plaints against the Christians or Paul, but rather to prevent the rage of 
 the heathens against the enemies of their gods from being turned 
 %giiinst themselves. 
 
 * See Bleak's Introduction to this epistle, p. 434.
 
 348 Paul's MAinviiDOM. 
 
 companion of Paul. It wa-s Paul's tlcsire tliat ho hliuuld 
 couio to him, ami tlio zciiiuus Bympalliy wLicli ho eviuccJ 
 had the etluct ot" causing liim tu be apiirelienileii au one ot" the 
 most active memlK.rs ut' the hated sect. If tliis happened at 
 the time of the Meiuuian pei-seeutiuu, Tmiuthy would pro- 
 bably have tiliared the fate of idl the L'hnstians at lluuio 
 who could then be discovereii. But if it luipjiened some 
 years later, it is not improbable that, by tlie mllueuce of 
 p;u"licular circumstances, Timothy ubtuiued his ircedum alter 
 the Uia.:l) rdom of Paul.
 
 BOCK IV. 
 
 A 3KVIEW OF THE LABOURS OF JAMES AND PETER DURfNQ 
 THIS PERIOD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF JAMES — REMARKS ON HIS EPISTLE. 
 
 As along with that unity of the spirit which proceeded from 
 Christ, we have obsei-ved an important difference existing in 
 the forms of its representation among the apostles, so the 
 apostle Paul, and that James wlio was known as a brother 
 of the Lord, present the most striking contrast to each other, 
 whether we regard their natural peculiarities, their Christian 
 conformation, or the sphere of their labours. In Paul, Chris- 
 tianity is exhibited in its most decided self-subsistence, freed 
 from the preparatory garb of Judaism; while James repre- 
 sents the new spirit under the ancient form, and we may 
 obsers-e in him the gradual transition from the old to the new. 
 Hence Paul and James mark the two extreme limits in the 
 development of Christianity from Judaism ; as Paul was the 
 chief instrument for presenting Christianity to mankind as 
 the new creation, so was James for exhibiting the organic 
 connexion of Christianity with the preparatory and preligur- 
 iug system of Judaism. After the martyrdom of the elder 
 James, who was a son of Zebedee and brother of John, only 
 one very influential person of this name appears in the Chris- 
 tian history, who stood at the head of the church at Jerusalem, 
 and under the titles of the Brother of the Lord, and the Just, 
 was held in the highest esteem by Christians of Je^vnsh descent. 
 But from ancient times it has been doubted, whether this 
 James was, strictly speaking, a brother of the Lord, that
 
 350 THE APOSTLE JAMES. 
 
 is, citlicr a son of Joseph by a former marriage, or \nore 
 probably a later son of Maiy,' and therefore a diflerent person 
 from the apostle the sou of Alphcus, or whether ho was in 
 a general sense a relation of Jesus, a sister's son of Mary, 
 a son of Cleopas or Alpheus, and accordingly idcntictd with 
 the apostle of this name.'' 
 
 • Sec Lchcn Jesu, p. 40. 
 
 * This qucsliou is one of the most difficult in the apostoUc historj'. 
 Pr. Sclineckeiiburgcr in his acute and profound invesiigation (in his 
 Anuolatio ad Epistolam Jacobi. Sliutf,'urt, 1832, p. 144,) has brought 
 tlie hypothcwis of only one James to ii higher degree of probability than 
 it had before attained, and has said many things de.-^erving considera- 
 tion, which tend to remove the difticullies attached to it ; but after all 
 his remarks, many reasons for doubling remain. Later investigations, 
 especially those of Credner, in his Eiidtitumj, p. 573, have thrown 
 additional weight into the opposite scale. We wir<h to present in ou 
 impartial manner the argumeutd for and against this hypothesis. Since, 
 after the death of James the son of Zobedee, only one James is men- 
 tioned as one of the must influential men in the first apostolic church, 
 and ranking with thi>sc apostles who were most esteemed, there is tho 
 hiubest probability that this James was no other than the only apostle 
 still living of this name. If the term aZtK<p6i is understood only in a 
 laxer sense, the title of " Brother of the Lord" proves nothing against 
 tlie identity of the person ; for, from comparing Matt, xxvii. jO ; xxviiL 
 1, Mark xv. 40, with John xix. *25, it is evident that James the apostle, 
 son of Alpheus or Cleopas (both names derived from the Hebrew 'Cn), 
 was really a sirtcr's son of MaiT the mother of Jesus. As so near a rela- 
 tion of Jesus, he might accordingly be distinguished from the other 
 apostles by the title of a brother of the Lord. Ikit then it is asked, 
 \Vhy was he not rather distinguished by the strictly appropriate name 
 of dj/eif/ii'i 1 And if at that time there were persons in existence who 
 might with strict propriety be called " lirothtra of the Lord," is it not 
 80 much the less probable, that this name in an improper sense would 
 lie applied to him! Nevertheless, wc may suppo.se, that in common 
 discourse — since it was not a point of consequence to mark definitely the 
 degree of kin between Jesus and this Jame«, but only to represent him 
 in general terms as enjoying the honour of near relationship to the 
 JiOrd, — it had become customarj' to designate him simply a brother of 
 the Lord, especially among the Juduizing Christians, by whom such 
 distinctions of earthly affinity would be most highly prized ; and thia 
 might be still more easily explained, if we admit withSchncckenburger, 
 that after the death of Joseph (which took place at an early period), 
 !Mar>' removed to the house of her sister, the wife of Alpheus; hence, it 
 would be usual to designate her sons who lived from their childhood 
 with Jesus, who had no other brothers, simply as the brethren of Jesui 
 Thus, then, this James would be one of the brethren of Jesus who are 
 named in Matt. xiii. 55, Mark vi. 3. Among these we find a Joscs, 
 who, in Matt, xxvii. 56, is distinguished as the brother of James, and a 
 Judas; and if we explain the surname 'laKv&ou given to the apostle
 
 THE APCMlIit, uAMES 351 
 
 If we put together all that is handed down to us in the 
 New Testament, and in other historical records, the most pro- 
 Judas, on comparing it with the Epistle of Jude, v. 1, by supplying the 
 word dSe\(pds (which cannot be assumed as absolutely certain), we shall 
 also again find in him a brother of the apostle James. And the one named 
 Simon among these brethren, we may perhaps find again in the list of 
 the apostles, as all three are named together in Acts i. 13. According 
 to that supposition, it would be no longer surprising that the brethren 
 of Christ are often mentioned in connexion with his mother; and yet 
 from that circumstance no evidence can be deduced that would prove 
 *hem to be in a strict sense his brethren. We must then assume with 
 Schneckenburger, that when Matthew (xiii. 55), after the mention of the 
 twelve apostles, distinguishes the brethren of Jesus from them, it 
 proceeded from the want of chronological exactness in his mode of 
 narration. 
 
 But if several of the so-called brethren of Jesus were among the 
 apostles, still the manner in which the former are distinguished from 
 the latter in Acts 1. 14, is remarkable. Besides, according to the account 
 in ilark iii. 31, a state of mind towards Jesus is supposed to exist in 
 these brethren, which could not be attributed to the apostles, and yet it 
 appears from comparing this account with the parallel passages in 
 Matt. xii. and Luke viii., that this incident must be placed after the 
 choice of the twelve apostles. This view is confirmed by the disposition 
 manifested by these brethren of Christ, even in the last half-year before 
 his Bufferings. All this taken together, must decide us in favour of the 
 lupposition, that the brethren of Jesus, commonly mentioned in con- 
 nexion with Mary the mother of Jesus, are to be altogether distin- 
 guished from the apostles, and therefore they must be considered as the 
 brethren of Jesus in a stricter sense, either as the sons of Joseph by a 
 former marriage, or the later bom sons of Joseph and Mar)', which from 
 Matt. i. 25, is most probable. That Christ when dying said to John, 
 that from that time he should treat Mary as his mother, can at all events 
 oppose only the supposition, that these brethren were the offspring of 
 Joseph and Mary, and not the supposition that they were the step-sons 
 of Mary. But even against the first supposition, this objection is not 
 decisive ; for if these brethren of Jesus still continued estranged from 
 Mm in their disposition, we can at once perceive why at his death he 
 commended his mother to his beloved disciple John. It may indeed 
 appear surprising, that these brethren of Christ, according to Matthew 
 xiii. 55, bore the same names as their cousins, but this can be affirmed 
 with certainty only of two, and as the two sisters had one name, it 
 might happen, owing to particular circumstances, that one son of each 
 was named alike. 
 
 But from what has been said, it by no means follows, that the Jamea 
 who is distinguished in the New Testament as a brother of the Lord, 
 was one of these brethren of Christ in a stricter sense. It might still 
 be consistent with that fact, that this James was to be distinguished 
 from the James who was the actual brother of the Lord, and, as a cousin 
 of Christ who was honoured with this name, was to be held as identical 
 with the apostle, although in this case it is less probable that wlien an
 
 352 TOE APOSTLE JAMES. 
 
 bablo result of the whole is, tliat this James was one of the 
 brethren of Clirist, of whuru wu have spoken in^ our " Life of 
 Jesus," p. -to. Thus it apjx;anj how vct)' mueh tlie course of 
 
 actual brother of Jc'^tn Iwro the uuno of JainO'*, tli . -hould bo 
 
 honoureti with the same title, imteaJ of \)c'\i\t; «! 1 by the 
 
 epithet dyt\l/tdt from thut other Janu)*, to whom the mi. u...... ui lirotbcr 
 
 of the liOnl WDiilJ in mrictcst propriety In; given. 
 
 If wc uro disponed to ox&inine the pa44a:^'e-i in the Pauline cpiBilefl 
 which contain a particular reference to thin point, there are two cnp©. 
 cially deserving of notice. As to the p!iA.-agu in 1 Cor. ix. 6, ital ol 
 \oiirot inuiTToKot (tal ol iS^Ktpol roO Kvylov, it cannot l»e proved from 
 these words that the brethren of the l^ord were dintinct from (he 
 apostles, for they may bo nupposod to mean, that Paul, by th> ot/ur 
 apoJitlf.1, understood those who coubl not ilaiui nuch a relationship 
 to the Lord, and that he particularly ilistinjijiiiHhes those who were 
 brethren of the Lord from the other apostlen, Itccause, in virtue of that 
 relationsliip, they stood high in the opinion of the party with whom be 
 had here to do. That he names Peter immediately after, rather favours 
 the notion that the brethren of the Lonl, a.-* well a* Peter, l)elonged to 
 the number of the apostles. Yet this is not a decisive proof, for it 
 would surely be possible that, although the brethren of the Lord did 
 not belong to the apostles, Paul might mention them in this connexion, 
 because they, or some of them, were held in e<iual estimation by the 
 Jewish Christians of I'alestine ; and as, along with them, Peter waa 
 most highly respected, he is particularly mentioned at the same time. 
 It ia indeed po-ssible, that Paul here uses the term apostle, not in the 
 strictest .sense, but in a wider meaning, a.s in Uoui. xvi. 7 ; and ho 
 much the more, since ho afterwards mentions lianiabas, to whom the 
 name of an apostle could Ik; applied only in that more general acccpta- 
 tion of the term. The second important pa.s-<age is (ial. i. 19, where 
 Paul, after s|)eaking of his conference with the apostle Peter at 
 Jerusalem, adds, that he had scon no other of the apostles, " save James 
 the Lord's brother." Yet, from this pa.s.s3ge, it cannot be so certainly 
 inferred as Dr. Schneckenburger thinks, that the James here named 
 was one of the apostles. The state of the ca.se may be conceived to 
 have been thus : Paul had originally, in his thoughts, only a negative 
 position, ho had seen no other apostle but Peter at Jerusalem, liui an 
 it afterwards occurred to him, that he had seen at Jcru.salem James the 
 brother of the Lord, who, though no apostle, waa held in apostolic 
 estimation by the Judaizcrs, on this account he added, by way of 
 limitation, a reference to James. We must therefore add to the «i niij, 
 a complementarj- idea allied to that of air6(TTn\oi ; on a construction of 
 this kind, see Winer, p. 517. It may be a.skcd whether Paul would 
 have exprcs-sed himself in this manner, if he had reckoned James in the 
 stricter sense among the apostles ? Would he have expressed the nega- 
 tion so universally, and, after he had so expressed it, have here first 
 introduced the limitation, if from the first he had thought of saying 
 that he saw none of the apostles excepting two \ When Scbnecken- 
 buTger, ftoBi the words in Acta ix. 27, infers that Paul must at that
 
 THE APOSTLE JAMES. 353 
 
 Lis religious development was distinguished from that of the 
 apostle Paul. The latter, during the life of Christ on earth, 
 
 time have conferred with at least two apostles at Jerusalem, he attaches 
 ^eater weight than can be allowed with certainty to single expressions 
 in this short narrative. 
 
 Yet, if we compare on this point the oldest ecclesiastical traditions, 
 the comparison of the account in the gospel of the Hebrews (see Hie- 
 ronym. de V. 1. c. ii.) with 1 Cor. xv. 7 appears to favour the identity of 
 the one James, for in that gospel it is said that Christ, after his resur- 
 reation, appeared to James the Just, the brother of the Lord. But in 
 the passage in the Epistle to the Corinthians, the same James seems to 
 be mentioned a.^ one of the twelve apostles. Still we find here nothing 
 absolutely certain, for it cannot be shown that the reference in that 
 gospel is to the smne appearance of Christ as in the epistle. And if it 
 be assumed that James the brother of the Lord was then held in such 
 great esteem, that when this name was mentioned only one individual 
 would be generally thought of, it is not perfectly clear, from his being 
 brought forward in this connexion, that he was reckoned by Paul among 
 the apostles. Now, in reference to the tradition of Hegesippus, in 
 Euseb. ii. 23, when he says that James the brother of the Lord under- 
 took with (he apogtles, fxtrd twv diroaroKuv, the guidance of the church 
 at Jerusalem, it is most natural to suppose that he means to distinguish 
 James from the apostles, otherwise he would have .said /xfrd rwv XonrHv, 
 although we would not consider the other interpretation as impossible, 
 especially in writers of this class, in whom we do not look for great 
 precision in their mode of expression. Also, the whole narrative of 
 Hegesippus leads us to believe, that he considered James as distinct 
 from the apostles ; for, although this representation bears upon it, at 
 all events, marks of internal improbability, yet it would not appear 
 altogether irrational, on the supposition that this James was an apostle 
 appointed by Christ himself. But we must compare with this passage 
 the words of Hegesippus in Euseb. iv. 22. utrA rh fiapTvpTJaai 'laKu^ov 
 rhv SIkcuov, i>s Ka\ 6 Kvptos tVl t^ avrif \ijyii>, irdXiv 6 (k Otiov aCroC 
 'Zvfieuv 6 Tov KAojTro KaO'iaraTai eiricKOiros, tv irpofOfuro irdvrfs uura dvfxl/tiv 
 Tov Kvpiov Sein-fpov. If we understand by these words, that this .Simeon 
 was called the second nephew in relation to the afore-mentioned James 
 the Just, as the first nephew of the Lord, it would follow that that 
 James, as a nephew of the Lord, is called his brother. Yet, if another 
 interpretation is possible, according to which Hegesippus agrees with 
 himself, in reference to the words before quoted, such an interpretation 
 must be readily preferred. And this interpretation is that which agrees 
 best with the words in their existing position. For, since James is the 
 principal subject in the first half of the sentence, the avrov must refer 
 to him. Cleopa.s, accordingly, is called the uncle of James, and his son 
 Simeon cannot therefore be the brother of James, but is his cousin ; aa 
 Cleopas (= Alpheus) is the uncle of Jesus, (and, according to Hegesip- 
 pus in Euseb. iii. 11, both on the side of Joseph as well as of Mary,) 
 Simeon the cousin of Jesus and the cousin of James, which again 
 favours the opinion that they were brothers. But Hegesippus might 
 call this Simeon a second nephew, since he looked upon the apostl* 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 36'4 THE APOSTLE JAMES. 
 
 was at a distance fi'om all personal outward communication 
 with him, and leanit to know him tii-st hy spiritual communi- 
 cation. James, on the contrary, stood in the closest family 
 relation to the Redeemer, and from the first was jtresent with 
 him during the whole of his eiu-thly development ; but it waa 
 exactly this circumstance which contributed to his being more 
 slow to recognise in the son of man, the Son of God ; and 
 while he clave oidy to the earthly appearance, he was pre- 
 vented from jHjnctrating throu;ih the shell to tlie substjiuce. 
 Paul, by a violent crisis, made the transition from the most 
 vehement and unsj)aring oppomtion to the gosj)el, to the most 
 zealous advocacy <if it. James pivlually advamrd from a 
 Judaism of great earnestness and dtpth, which blended with 
 a foith that constantly became more decisive in Jesus as the 
 Messiah, to Christianity as the glorification and fulfilling of 
 the law. 
 
 There is probably some truth in what is narrated by the 
 Christian historian Hcgesippus, that this James led from 
 childhood the life of a Nazarene. If we consider what an im- 
 pression the appeai*ances at and after the birth of Christ, and 
 the conviction that the first-bom son of Marj' was destined to 
 be the Messiah — mu.st have left on the minds of his psirents, 
 it may be easily explained how they felt themselves compelled 
 to dedicate their first-born son James,' to the service of 
 Jehovah in strict abstinence for the whole of his life. To this 
 also it might Ih) owing, that the freer mode of living which 
 Christ practised witii his discijiles w;us less congenial to him; 
 and from his strict, legal, Jewish standing-point he could not 
 comprehend the new spirit which revealed itself in Christ's 
 words ; many of these must have appeared to him as " hard 
 
 James, the son of Alpheus, who was no longer living, as the first 
 nephew. We might also insert a stop after Kvplov, and connect htintpov 
 with TrpofdfVTo ; by this con.struction, mention would be made of only 
 one cousin of tlie Lord, as the successor of his brother, as the second 
 overseer of the church. But the position of the words is very much 
 against this constniction. Certainly, the testimony of Hcgesippus must 
 have great weight, on account of his high antiquity, his descent, and 
 his connexion with the Jews of Palestine. But it is undeniable, if we 
 compare the two passages from the Hypotyposeis ol Clement, quoted by 
 Eusebius, ii. 1, that he distinguishes James, who bore the surname of 
 the Just, a.s an apostle in the stricter sense of the word. 
 
 * His being described by the appellation of the son, indicates thit ho 
 was the eldest.
 
 THE APOSTIiE JAMES. 355 
 
 sayings." Proceeding from the common Jewish standing- 
 point, he expected that Jesus, if he were the Messiah, would 
 verify himself to be such in the presence of the people by 
 signs that would compel the imiversal recognition of his 
 claims, by the establishment of a visible kingdom in earthly 
 gloiy. By the impression of Christ's ministry he became 
 indeed excited to beUeve, but the power of eai*ly habit and 
 prejudice always counteracted that impression, and he found 
 himself in a state of indecision from which he could not 
 at once free himself. Only half a year before the last suffer- 
 ings of Christ we find him in this vacillating condition, for 
 John does not in this respect distinguish him from the other 
 brethren of Jesus, with whom this was certainly the case ; 
 John vii. 5. But after the ascension of Christ, he appears a.s 
 a decided and zealous member of the company of disciples 
 Acts i. 13. We see how important the Saviour deemed it 
 to produce such a faith in him by his honouring him with a 
 special appearance after the resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 7), whe- 
 ther this was occasioned or not, by his ha\nng expressed 
 doubts like Thomas.' This James obtained constantly in- 
 creasing respect in the church at Jenisalem 
 
 Every feature of his character which we can gather from the 
 Acts, from Josephus,- and from the traditions of Hegesippus 
 in Eusebius,* well agi'ees with the image of him presented in 
 the epistle that bears his name. By his strict pious life, which 
 agreed with the Jewish notions of legal piety, he won the 
 universal veneration, not only of the believers among the Jews, 
 
 ' The narrative in the Gospel of the Hebrews (see Leben Jesu, p. 720,) 
 is not an authority of sufficient credit to allow of our following it here. 
 It tells us that James, after partaking of the La.st Supper with Christ, 
 made a vow that ho would not again taste food till he had seen him 
 risen from the dead ; that Christ appeared to him as the Risen One, 
 and said, " Now eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from the 
 dead." We must certainly consider how important it was for the 
 wavering-minded James, who, in his epistle, has eo vividly described 
 the unhappiness of such a state (i. 5), to attain to the certainty on this 
 subject, which such an occurrence would give him, and which such a 
 vow led him to expect. But not only is the work of the Jewish Chris- 
 tian, who bestowed so much pains in embellishing the history of James, 
 not a credible source of information in itself, but there is also a palpable 
 contradiction in the chronology of the history of the resurrection between 
 this narrative and Paul's account. 
 
 ' Joseph. Archseol. ix. 9. 
 
 » Hist. Eccles. ii. 23.
 
 356 THE APOSTLE JAMES. 
 
 but also of the better disposed among his countrymen gene- 
 rally : on this account, he was distinguished by the surname 
 of the Just, P'l?, ciKuiog ; and, if we may credit the account 
 of Hegesippus, he was viewed as one of those men of dis- 
 tinguished and commanding excellence who set themselves 
 against the con-uptions of their age, and hence was termed 
 the bulwark of the people.' According to the representations 
 of this writer, he must have led a life after the manner of the 
 strictest ascetics among the Jews. The conseci-ation of his 
 childhood had already introduced him to such a mode of life, 
 and we might suppose, that he had already won by it pecidiar 
 respect among the Jews, if it were not surprising that no trace 
 can be found of it in the gospels, no mai'ks of special dis- 
 tinction awarded to him by his brethren. At all events, he 
 might afterwards avail himself of this ascetic strictness as a 
 means of attracting the attention of the multitude to his 
 pei-son, and thereby to the doctrine he published. This mode 
 of life considered in itself, provided its value was not rated 
 too high, was by no means unchristian. What Hegesippus 
 narrates of him perfectly suits his chai'acter, that he fre- 
 quently prostrated himself on his knees in the temple, calling 
 upon God to forgive the sins of his people, (probably having 
 a special reference to the forgiveness of their sins against the 
 Messiali,) — that the divine judgments on the unbelievers might 
 be averted, — and that they might be led to repentance and 
 faith, and thus to a participation of the kingdom of the 
 glorified Messiah. 
 
 But some important doubts may be raised against the 
 credibility of this account of Hegesippus, taken in its full 
 extent. That Ebionite party among whom an ascetic, theoso- 
 I hie tendency prevailed, and who circulated apocryphal wii- 
 tings under the name of James, had probably formed an ideal 
 conception of his character in harmony with their o\ati peculi- 
 arities, and Hegesippus might mistake the image delineated 
 in their traditions for an historical reality. The Epistle of 
 James by no means bears decided mai'ks of such a tendency, 
 for everything which has been supposed to be of this kind 
 may very properly be refeiTcd to the simple Christian renuu- 
 
 ' Perhaps DV ^tp or cr? ys, which comes nearer the phraseology of 
 Hegesippus ; unless, which is indeed less probable, we read, with Fuller, 
 D3?7 W, which Hegesippus translates irepioxr) toC \aov.
 
 THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 357 
 
 ciation of the world, such as has its seat in the disposition. If 
 the Jewish love of gain is here spoken against, if the earthly- 
 mindedness of the rich, the homage paid to this class and 
 the contempt of the poor, is condemned, and it is declared 
 that the gospel has found the most ready access to the latter, 
 and exalted them to the highest dignity, yet it by no means 
 follows, that the author of this epistle entirely condemned, 
 like the Ebionites, all possession whatever of earthly goods. 
 
 This epistle is especially important, not only for illustrating 
 the character of James, but also for giving us an insight into 
 the state of the Christian churches which were formed from 
 Judaism, and unmixed with Christians of Gentile descent. 
 According to an opinion very generally prevalent from ancient 
 times, we should be led to believe tliat the peculiar doctrinal 
 system of the apostle Paul had already been formed and 
 disseminated when this epistle was TVTitten, and that those 
 churches particularly to whom it was addressed, had been 
 affected by the influence of this Pauline system. The opinion 
 we refer to is, that James in this epistle either combated the 
 Pavdine doctrine of justificatiou by faith in and for itself, or a 
 misunderstanding, and an erroneous application of it. And 
 it would not be difficult to support this opinion by many 
 isolated passages in the epistle taken alone, without a reference 
 to their connexion with the whole : ' for it seems as if the 
 express reference to the Pauline formula of the justification to 
 be obtained by faith alone, and to which works can contribute 
 nothing, could not be mistaken ; especially as the same 
 examples of faith as those mentioned by Paul, namely those 
 of Abraham and Sarah, are adduced. But this opinion, though 
 plausible at first sight, if we examine more closely the relation 
 of particular passages to the whole tenor of the epistle, will 
 soon appear untenable. The error in reference to faith which 
 
 ' We wish to remark, in passing, that among those who have thought 
 that they have detected a contradiction between .James and Paul in the 
 doctrine of justification, is the celebrated patriarch Cyrillus Lucaris, of 
 Constantinople, who was led to the opinion by reading the epistle. 
 It also struck him that the name of Christ is scarcely mentioned above 
 once or twice, and then coldly {anzi del nomo di Jesu Christo a pena 
 fa mentione una o due twite e freddamente) ; that the mysteries of the 
 incarnation of the Son of God and of redemption are not treated of, but 
 only morality {solo a la moraUta attende) ; see Letter vii. in Lettres 
 Anecdotes de Cyrille Lucar. Amsterdam, 1718, p. 85.
 
 358 THE EPISTLE OP JAMES. 
 
 James combats in this epistle, is certainly not one altogether 
 isolated : but it appears as an offset proceeding with many 
 others from the root of one false principle : and this principle 
 is quite distinct from that which would admit of an application, 
 whether correct or incorrect, of the Pauline doctrine. 1+ was 
 the tendency of the Jewish spirit, refusing to acknowledge the 
 life of religion as seated in the disposition, everywhere taking 
 up the mere dead form, the appearance instead of the reality, 
 in religion ; this tendency, which substituted a lifeless arrogant 
 acquaintance with the letter for the genuine wisdom insepa- 
 rable from the divine life — which prided itself in an inopera- 
 tive knowledge of the law, without paying any attention to 
 the practice of the law — w^hich placed devotion in outward 
 ceremonies, and neglected that devotion which shows itself in 
 works of love — which contented itself with the verbal expres- 
 sion of love, instead of proving it by works ; it was the same 
 tendency of the Jewish mind estranged from the spirit and 
 life of religion, which, as it laid an undue value on the opiis 
 operatum of outwai'd religious acts, so also on the opus 
 operatum of a faith in the one Jehovah and in the Messiah, 
 which left the disposition unchanged ; and which presumed 
 that by such a faith, the Jew was sufficiently distinguished 
 from the sinful race of the Gentiles, and was justified before 
 God even though the conduct of the hfe was in contradiction 
 to the requirements of faith. Thus we find here one branch 
 of that practical fundamental error which chiefly prevailed 
 among these Jewish Christians, whom James combats in the 
 whole of the epistle, even where faith is not the immediate 
 subject of discourse. It was the erroneous tendency, which 
 belonged to those that commonly prevailed among the great 
 mass of the Jews, and which had found its way also among 
 those Christians in whose minds the gospel had not effected a 
 complete transformation, but whose Jewish spirit had only 
 connected itself with faith in Jesus as the Messiah.' (See 
 above, p. 21, and my Chiirch History, vol. i. p. 47.) 
 
 * That Jewish mode of thinking which Justin Martyr describes in 
 Dial. c. Tryph. Jud. fol. 370, ed. Colon. — <es v^itis a-KaraTe eavTohs koI 
 oAAo« Tivis vfiTf 0/xoiot KOTO TouTu (in this respect Jewish-minded Chris- 
 tians), 01 Xiyovaiv, on Kav d/xapTwAoi Sicri, dibv Se yivoSxTKOvaiv, ov fiij 
 \oyi<rT]Tat avTo7s Kvpiof dfnapTiav. That mode of thinking which is 
 found in the Clementine homilies, according to which, faith in one God 
 {to t^s ii.ovapxMs KaKov) has such great magical power, that the i|wxii
 
 THE EFISTLK OF JAMES. 359 
 
 But as to the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, 
 whether correctly or incoirectly understood and applied, ws 
 cannot suppose its influence to be possible in churches of this 
 class, and hence argumentation against it from the standing- 
 point of James is utterly inconceivable.' As the siiperscrip- 
 tion and contents of his epistle inform us, it was manifestly 
 addressed only to churches that were composed entirely of 
 Jewish Christians. But such persons were least of all disposed 
 to attach themselves particulai'ly to Paul, and least of all dis- 
 posed and fitted to agi'ee to the Pauline doctrine, which 
 presented the most direct opposition to their customary mode 
 of thinking. It was precisely from persons of this stamp that 
 the intemperate fanatical outcry was raised against this form 
 of Christian doctrine, as if by depending on grace, men were 
 made secure in sin, or that they were authorized in doing 
 evil that good might come, Rom. iii. 8. In an entirely 
 different quarter, fi-om an Hellenic (gnostic) Antinomianism, 
 which was also Antijudaism, ai'ose at a later period an erro- 
 neous, practically destructive appropriation and application 
 of the Pauline doctrine of justification, such as Paul himself 
 thought it needful to guard against by anticipation ; Rom. 
 vi. 1; Gal. v. 13. And this later eiToneous apphcation of 
 
 uovapxncrj, even while living in vice, had this advantage before idolaters, 
 that it could not perish, but through purifying punishments would at 
 last attain to salvation. See Horn. iii. c. 6. The idea of faith, which, 
 from an entirely different source than from a misunderstanding of Paul, 
 found entrance afterwards among Christians themselves, and to which 
 a Marcion directly opposed the Pauline idea of faith. Against such 
 perversions Paul warned the churches, both by word of month and in 
 writing, when he so impressively charged it upon them that their 
 renunciation of heathenism was nugatory, and could not contribute to 
 their participation of the kingdom of God, if they did not renounce 
 their former sinful habits. See Gal. v. 21, The k€voI Adyoi, against 
 which he warns the Ephesians, v. 6. 
 
 ^ Dr. Kem, in his essay on the Origin of the Epistle of James, in the 
 Tubingen Zeitschrift fur Theologie, 1835, p. 25, on account of what is 
 here asserted, charges me with a petitio princ'qni ; but I cannot 
 perceive with any justice. This charge might be brought home to me 
 if I had assumed, without evidence, that this epistle was addressed to an 
 unmixed church ; or if 1 had passed altogether unnoticed the possible 
 case which Kern considers as the actual (though he has abandoned 
 it lately in the Introduction to his Commentary on this Epistle), that it 
 was forged by a Jewish Christian in James's name, in order to con- 
 trovert the Pauline doctrinal views which prevailed among the Oentila 
 churches.
 
 360 THE EPISTI.E OF JAMES. 
 
 the idea of faith, which tended likewise to the iiij iiry of prac- 
 tical Christianity, proceeded from an entirely different expo- 
 sition of this idea than that presented by the one-sided 
 direction of the Jewish spirit. It manifested itself rather as 
 an Oriental Hellenic than as a Jewish spirit ; it was not the 
 abstract idea of faith, but a one-sided contemplative or ideal- 
 ising tendency, which deviated from the conception of faith as 
 an animating principle of the will and a practical determina- 
 tion of the life. 
 
 From wliat has been said, therefore, it is impossible to 
 suppose, in an epistle addressed to such churches as these, 
 any reference whatever to the Pauline formula of faith. And 
 even admitting such a reference to exist, yet the notion that 
 it consisted only in combating a misunderstanding of the 
 Pauline doctrine, would be wholly untenable. For how can 
 we suppose that James, if he did not intend to contradict 
 Paul, but to maintain apostohc fellowship with him, and 
 the knowledge of it in the churches, — would not, while com- 
 bating an ei'roneous interpretation of the Pauline doctrine, at 
 the same time expressly state the connect interpretation, and 
 guard himself against the appearance of opposition to Paul, 
 especially when an opposition might otherwise be so easily 
 imagined by the Jewish Christians. But if we assumed that 
 the intention of James was really to combat Paul's doctrine, 
 this view would be at variance with what we know from 
 history of the good understanding between the two apostles, 
 and which cannot be set aside by the fact that some of Paul's 
 opponents were those who appealed to the authority of James. 
 See above, p. 115. 
 
 Another supposition still remains, that some one , forged 
 the Epistle under James's name,' in order to give currency 
 
 1 The assertion made by Kern, p. 72 of the essay before quoted, that, 
 according to the principles of that early Christian age, such a literary 
 imposture would be irreproachable, I cannot acknowledge as well- 
 founded, if expressed without limitation. There was indeed a certain 
 standing-point, on which such a fraus pia, as we must always call it 
 (when a palpable falsehood was made use of to put certain sentiments in 
 circulation,) would be allowed ; but that this was a generally approved 
 practice, appears to me an arbitrary assumption. We ought care- 
 fully to guard against supposing that to be an universally received 
 principle, which was only the peculiarity of individual mental ten- 
 dencies. There was a one-sided theoretic, speculative, standing-point, 
 from which lax principles respecting veracity proceeded, as we hare
 
 THE EPISTLE OP JAMES 361 
 
 in the chm-ch to a belief in an opposition between the two 
 apostles, and this design would well suit the oue-sided ten- 
 dency of a Jewish Christian. But such a pereon would not 
 only have expressed himself in a more decided manner than 
 that James, of whose reputation he wnshed to avail himself; 
 but he w'ould have pointed out by name the individual (Paul) 
 against whom he directed his attack, and would have ex- 
 pressed in stronger terms the censure of his doctrine. The 
 subordinate place which in this case the confutation of the 
 Pauline doctrine occupies in relation to the whole of the' 
 epistle, certainly does not agree with this hypothesis. Or, if 
 it be said that the author of this epistle, who presented him- 
 self under the mask of James, did not belong to the violent 
 Judaizing opponents of Paul, but to a milder, more accom- 
 modating party, who only aimed at smoothing down the 
 peculiarities of the Pauline scheme of doctrine, and so modi- 
 fying it as to bring it nearer the Jewish Christian stancUng- 
 point, and for that reason adopted a gentler method, and 
 avoided the mention of Paiil's name ; in this case, there would 
 stUl have been a necessity of naming him, and exphcitly 
 stating that the wi-iter of the epistle impugned not his 
 doctrine in itself, but only a harsh and overstrained con- 
 struction of it. And after all, the singular fact would remain 
 unaccounted for, that the main object and design of the 
 writer occupies only a subordinate place in relation to the 
 whole of the epistle. 
 
 What has given occasion to all these vai'ious suppositions, 
 is the apparent allusion to expressions and illustrations made 
 
 remarked iu Plato. It was connected with that aristocraticism of 
 antiquity, first overturned by the power of the gospel, which treated the 
 mass of the people as unsusceptible of pure truth in religion, and hence 
 justified the use of falsehood to serve as leading-strings for the iroWoi. 
 As the reaction of such an earlier standing-point, we find this view 
 in parties of kindred tendencies, such as the Alexandrian Jews, 
 the Gnostics, the Platonising Alexandrian fathers. But from the first, 
 ' a sounder practical Christian spirit combated this error, as we see 
 in the instances of Justin Martyr, Irenteus, and TertuUian. The anti- 
 gnostic tendency was also zealous for strict veracity. Now a similar 
 practical tendency distinguishes this epistle, in which I cannot find an 
 Ebionitish anti-pauline standing-point. This spirit of strict veracity is 
 shown in what is said respecting swearing. This epistle, indeed, weara 
 altogether a different character from the Clementines, wh.ich show a 
 decided party tendency and party bias.
 
 362 THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 use of by Paul. But is this allusion really so very evident? 
 Let us recollect that the Pauline phraseology formed itself 
 from Judaism, from the Jewish-Greek diction — that it by no 
 means created new modes of expression/ but often only 
 appropriated the ancient Jewish terms, employed them in 
 new combinations, applied them to new contrasts, and ani- 
 mated them with a new spirit. Thus neither the term 
 ^iKaiovfrOai in reference to God, nor the term Tviariq was 
 entirely new ; but both these terms and the ideas indicated 
 * by them (and indeed, in reference to the first, the same idea 
 the existence of which among the Jews Paul must have 
 assumed in arguing with his Jewish opponents) had been long 
 familiar to the Jews. The example likewise of Abraham as 
 a hero in faith must have been obvious to every Jew, and 
 the example of Rahab (which is adduced only in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews — an epistle neither composed by Paul nor 
 containing the peculiarly Pauline doctrinal statement of 
 justifying faith), since it proved the benefit of the mono- 
 theistic faith to a Gentile of impxu'e life, must have espe- 
 cially commended itself to the Jews who were disposed to 
 extol the importance of faith in Jehovah.^ 
 
 Since it appears that a reference to the Pauline doctrinal 
 scheme is not indicated in this epistle, that mark is with- 
 drawn by which it has been thought that the late period of 
 its composition could be proved ; in order, therefore, to 
 determine this point, we must seek for other marks in the 
 epistle itself. It is remarkable that, according to its super- 
 scription, it is addressed only to the Jews of the twelve 
 tribes who lived in the dispersion, ^and yet it is manifestly 
 addressed to Christians. Yet this may be very well ex- 
 plained if we consider the standing-point of James, such as 
 it is shown to be by the whole of the epistle. He considers 
 
 * On the manner in which Paul employed phrases which were already 
 in use among Jewish theologians, compare Dr. Roeth's work, De Epislola 
 ad Hehrceos, p. 121, &c., though I cannot agree with the author in . 
 what he attempts to prove; for in the use which Paul makes of 
 an existing form of dogmatic expression, he forms the most decided 
 contrast to the Jewish meaning. But it appears from this, how James, 
 proceeding from the Jewish standing-point, without any reference to 
 the Pauline doctrine, would be led to the choice of such expressions. 
 
 * Thus it appears to me that what Dr. De Wette says in the Studien 
 und Kritiken, 1830, p. 349, in order to point out an intentiona. 
 opposition of James to Paul, is nullified.
 
 rHE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 363 
 
 the acknowledgment of the Messiahship of Jesus as essen- 
 tially belonging to genuine Judaism, believers in Jesus aa 
 the only genuine Jews, Christianity as perfected Judaism, by 
 which the ro^og had attained its completion. And it is not 
 impossible that, althoiigh he addressed himself especially to 
 Chi'istians, he also had in his thoughts the Jewish readers 
 into whose hands the epistle might fall, as Christians lived 
 among the Jews without any marked separation. From the 
 mention of their descent from the twelve tribes, we may infer 
 that these churches consisted pui'ely of Jewish Christians, ot 
 that James, who considei'ed himself peculiarly the apostle of 
 the Jews, addressed only the Jewish part of the church. Yet 
 as no notice is taken of the relation of Jewish to Gentile 
 Christians, it is by far the most probable opinion that these 
 chm'ches consisted entirely of the former. Partly from the 
 peculiar standing-point of James, and partly from the pecu- 
 liar situation of these chm'ches which had retained all the 
 Jewish forms, we may account for the use of the ancient 
 Jewish name (rvyayuj-yrj, instead of the peculiar Christian term 
 £K(cA.j;<j-£'a as the designation of the meeting of the community 
 of believei-s. ' Such churches might exist during the later 
 apostolic age in the inland parts of Asia, perhaps in Syria. 
 But if the epistle was addressed to churches in these parts, 
 it appears strange that James, to whom the Aramaic must 
 have been much more familiar than the Greek, (although it 
 was not impossible that he had so far learnt the Greek as to 
 be able to wi'ite an epistle in it,) should have made use of the 
 latter language. We must therefore conclude, that this point 
 was determined by a regard to the wants of his readers, and 
 that part of them at least belonged to the Hellenists. This 
 being assumed, we must fix the date of the epistle at a time 
 preceding the separate formation of Gentile Christian churches, 
 before the relation of Gentiles and Jews to one another in the 
 Christian church had been brought under discussion,^ the 
 
 ' Our knowledge of the spread of Christianity at this period, 
 is indeed far too defective to give a decisive opinion with Kern ou 
 this point. 
 
 * The view which Dr. Schneckenburger has acutely developed, and 
 defended in his valuable Bcitrd;je zur Einleitiinrj ins Neue Testament, 
 Stuttgart, 18-32, and in his Annotatio ad Epistolam Jacobi. He has 
 expressed his agreement respecting iiie object of the argumentative 
 portion of this epLstle, with the views I have developed in this work,
 
 364 THE EPISTLE OP JAMES. 
 
 period of the first spread of Christiauity in Syria, Cilicia, and 
 the adjacent regions. ' 
 
 These chm-ches consisted for the most part of the pcor,^ 
 (though some individuals among them were rich,)'' and they 
 were in various ways oppressed by the wealthy and influential 
 Jews.* Certainly these churches were so constituted, that, 
 in many cases, their Christianity consisted only in the acknow- 
 
 »nd in my earlier occasional writings. See his essays on this subject in 
 Steudel's Tuhinger Zeitschrift filr Theologie, 1829, and in the Tubinger 
 Zeitschrift/ur Theologie, 1830, part ii. 
 
 ' An allusion to the use of the name xP'o'^'afol has been erroneously 
 supposed in James ii. 7, and hence an attempt to fix the date of the 
 epistle. By KaAuv vi/o/xa we may most properly understand the name of 
 Jesus, and this is the simplest explanation, since the words wi-U be 
 most naturally applied to the invocation of the name of Jesus as the 
 Messiah, to whom believers were consecrated at baptism, the baptism 
 6«s rh ovofxa rod 'Irjffov. See Schneckenburger's Commentary on the 
 passage. 
 
 2 According to the views broaght forward by Kern, the author of this 
 epistle, in an Ebionitish manner, marked the genuine Christians, that 
 is in his opinion the Jewish Christians, as the poor, and the Gentile 
 Christians as the rich, whom he would not acknowledge to be genuine 
 Christians. But the condition of the Christian churches among the 
 Gentiles generally in this iirst age, certainly will not allow us to sup- 
 pose, that it would occur to any one to impose this name upon them, 
 and in every point of view this supposition appears to be entirely 
 unsound. 
 
 * James i. 10. 
 
 * The passage in James ii. 7, is referred most naturally to the blas- 
 pheming of Jesus by the enemies of Christianity, although the preceding 
 context relates not to religious persecutions, but to oppressions and 
 extortions of a different kind. Compare v. 4. It is by no means 
 evident, that by the rich in this epistle we are always to understand 
 members of the Christian community. The author may refer partly to 
 the rich among the Jews, who were averse from Christianity, partly to 
 the rich among the Christians, who formed a very small minority. 
 From the contrast in i. 9, 10, it by no means follows that by the rich in 
 the latter verse only Christians are intended. By those of low degree 
 who were to rejoice in being exalted, he could indeed mean only 
 Christians; but among the rich, he might include those wealthy Jews, 
 who by their entire devotedness to earthly objects were prevented from 
 becoming Christians. It was the duty of these persons to learn the 
 nothingness of earthly possessions, which they had hitherto made their 
 highest good, to humble themselves, and in this self-humiliation to find 
 their true glory ; for with the nothingness of earthly things they would 
 learn the truly highest good, — the true dignity or elevation which waa 
 imparted by the Messiah. In this manner they were required to 
 become Christians.
 
 fHR EPISTLE OF JAMES. 365 
 
 ledgmeut of Jesus as the Messiah, and of liis pecvihar moral 
 precepts, which they considered as the perfecting of the law. 
 Since they were far from recognising and appropriating the 
 real essence of Christianity, they resembled the gi-eat mass of 
 the Jewish nation, in the predominance of a carnal mind, and 
 the prevalence of worldly lusts, contention, and slander. 
 Accordingly, we must either assume that Christianity among 
 them was still novel, and had not yet penetrated the life, as 
 from the beginning (see above, p. 21), there were many among 
 the Jews, who, carried away by the impression which the 
 extraordinary operations of the apostles had made upon them, 
 and attracted by the hope that Jesus would soon return, and 
 establish his kingdom on earth, the happiness of which they 
 depicted agreeably to their own inclinations, in such a state of 
 mind and with such expectations, made a profession of Chris- 
 tianity, without having experienced any essential change of 
 chai-acter — or we must suppose, that these churches had sunk 
 into a state of degeneracy from a higher standing-point of the 
 Chi'istian life. In the constitution of these churches there 
 was this peculiarity, that as the direction of the office of 
 teaching had not been committed to the presbyters, but only 
 the outward management of church affairs, many members of 
 the community came forward as teachers, while no one acted 
 officially in that capacity ; (see above, pp 35 — 141.) Hence 
 James deemed it needfui to admonish them, tkat too many 
 ought not to obtrude themselves as teachers; that none 
 ought inconsiderately to speak in their public meetings, but 
 that each should recollect the responsibility he incurred by 
 such a procedure; James i. 19; iii. 1, 2. 
 
 As to the doctrine of James and the mode of its exhibition 
 in this epistle, we find nothing whatever which stands in 
 contradiction to the more fully developed doctrine of the 
 New Testament, as we shall show when we come to treat of 
 docti'ine ; and the Christian ideas actually presented in this 
 epistle are evidently in unison with the whole extent of 
 Christian truth. But the contents of the Christian system 
 are not exhibited separately in all their details; what If 
 purely Christian is more insulated; the references to Christ 
 are not so predominant and all-pcnctrating as in the other 
 epistles. Eeferences to the Old Testament, though placed iu 
 connexion with the Christian standing-point, are most frequent. 
 For the explanation of this phenomenon, to allege the pecu-
 
 366 THE EPISTLE OP JAMES. 
 
 liar standing-point of the persons addressed is not sufficientj 
 for a Paul, a John, or a Peter would certainly have written 
 to them in a very different strain ; we must rather seek the 
 explanation in the peculiar character of the writer himself. 
 We might hence infer (with Schneckenburger) that James 
 wrote this epistle at a time when Christianity had not 
 thoroughly penetrated his spiritual hfe, during the earliest 
 period of his Christian development; but it may be ques- 
 tioned whether we are justified in drawing such a conclusion, 
 for no proof can be given that he enlarged his doctrinal views 
 at a later period. It is possible that he remained confined in 
 this form of imperfect doctrinal development, although his 
 heart was penetrated by love to God and Jesus. He stiU 
 maintained the character which belonged to him on his 
 original standing-point as a teacher of the Jews, as the guide 
 of his countrymen in passing over from the Old to the New 
 Testament. True it is, that much would have been wanting 
 to the church for the completeness of Christian knowledge, if 
 the statement of Christian doctrine by James had not found 
 its complement in the representations of the other apostles ; 
 but in this connexion it forms an important contribution to 
 the entire conception and development of Christian truth, and 
 famishes all that can be expected from such a standing-point. 
 It was exactly this form of doctrine that secured for James 
 a long and ujidisturbed ministration among the Jews, and 
 many were led by his influence to faith in Christ ; but this 
 excited so much the more the hatred of the basest among the 
 party-leaders of the Jewish people, who sought for an oppor- 
 tunity to sacrifice him to their rage. One of the most 
 impetuous among them, the high priest Ananus, who was 
 disposed to all the violent acts of party hatred, availed 
 himself for this purpose of the interval between the departure 
 of the Roman procurator Felix, and the arrival of his suc- 
 cessor Albinus, about the year 62. He caused James with 
 some other Christians to be condemned to death by the 
 Sanhedrim as a violator of the law ; and in conformity with 
 that sentence he was stoned.' But the better disposed among 
 
 * We here follow the account of Josephus, Anliq. xx. 9, which 
 certainly is more credible than the legendary narrative of Hegesippus 
 in Eusebius ii. 23. How can it be supposed that the heads of the 
 Pharisaic party would have been foolish enough to demand of James, 
 and to suppose it possible that he would bear a public testimony against 
 Christianity 1 Nor can I be induced by what Credner has said in his
 
 THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 367 
 
 the Jews were gi'eatly dissatisfied with this proceeding, and 
 Ananus, on account of it, was af;r.used to the new governor, 
 for which there was sufficient reason, as he had manifestly ex- 
 ceeded the hmits of the power guaranteed to the Jewish 
 Sanhedrim by the Roman law. See above, p. 55. 
 Einleitvng, &c. p. 581, in which Kothe and Kern (see his Commentary 
 on the Epistle of James, published in 1838, p. 341) agree with him, to 
 give up the opinion I have here expressed. It would place the questioa 
 on a difl'ercnt footing, if the interpretation of the passage in Josephus 
 could be really proved, hi that case, we must admit, that although the 
 history of the martyrdom of James was garnished after an Ebionitish 
 legend, yet the historical truth is to be discerned lying at its basis. But 
 this interpretation does not appear to me proved. The words of 
 Josephus, XX. c. 9, § 1, in which we include in brackets what is con- 
 sidered suspicious by Credner and others, are as follows ; (he is here 
 speaking of the high priest Ananus) : — KaQi^ei <rvveSpiov Kparwv kuI 
 irapa-yayiiv ets avrh [rov aS(\<pdi' 'Irjcrou rod Xiyajxtvov XptffTov, 'laKw^oi 
 oyo/jLU avrif, KaQ -rivas [eTe'pous] lis Trapavo(ir)<j6.vToiv KaTriyopiav iroiTjo-a- 
 uevos trapfSuKe KivaQ-qaofj-ivovs' ocroi 5h eSoKouv (TneiKfcrTaToi rwv Kara 
 r^v it6\lv eluat, koI to trepl tovs vofxous anpi^eis, fiapfuis ^veyKav 
 eV! TovT^. Credner considers the clauses I have marked as the in- 
 terpretation of a Christian, because Josephus as a Jew would not 
 have so emphatically prefixed the epithet aSe\(p6v, &c., but rather have 
 placed first the proper name, and because he must rather have called 
 Jesus rov SiKaiov, and not left his readers in .^lmost total darkness as to 
 the meaning of that very general epithet. But since James was best 
 known by that appellation, which gave him the greatest importance 
 whether in a good or bad sense, according to the standing-points of those 
 who employed it, since Jesus who was considered to be the Christ might 
 be presumed to be known under that title, both among Gentile and 
 Jewish readers, we have reason for thinking, that the person of the 
 brother of Jesus first presented itself to Josephus, and he mentioned 
 this before adding the designation of the proper name. When those 
 persons are mentioned who had been accused as violators of the law, 
 and whose condemnation had been blamed by the most devout of the 
 Jewish nation, this would certainly lead us to think of the Christians 
 who strictly observed the Mosaic law, and above all. we should refer 
 this to James. When Christians were persecuted as Christians, or as 
 opponents of the prevalent corruptions, the persecution would especially 
 alFect James, who had the greatest influence among the Jews, and was 
 the firmest pillar of the Christian community. It is therefore in itself 
 probable, that the persecution excited by the high priest would fall par- 
 ticularly on James. And if a Christian had interpolated this passage, 
 he would hardly have satisfied himself with only foisting in these words, 
 as a comparison with the interpolation of other passages, which relate 
 to Jesus himself, will convince us still more. In reference to the in- 
 credibility of such traditions as those of Hegesippus respecting the 
 martyrdom of James, a comparison with the tales reported by Papias 
 about the death of Judas Iscariot will serve for a proof. Perhaps the 
 image of the martyrdom of Stephen suggested to the Ebionites theii 
 method of forming the account of the martyrdom of James.
 
 368 THE APOSTLE PETEE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE APOSTLE PETEK. 
 
 From James we now proceed to the apostle Peter, who, ae 
 appears from the course of historical development already 
 traced, forms a connecting link between the two most widely- 
 differing spheres of action and tendencies of Paul and James. 
 We must here take a brief sui-vey of his situation and cha- 
 racter in early life. 
 
 Simon was the son of Jonas, a fisherman in the town of 
 Bethsaida, on the western shore of the Sea of Gennesareth 
 in Galilee. The interest universally excited in this region 
 respecting the appearance of the Messiah, which seized with 
 peculiar force the ardent minds of the young, led him, among 
 others, to that divinely enlightened man John the Baptist, 
 who was called to prepare the way for that event. His bro- 
 ther Andrew, who had first recognised the Messiah in Jesus, 
 imparted to him the glorious chscovery. When the Lord saw 
 him, he perceived, with his divinely-human look, what was in 
 him, and gave him the surname of Cephas, Peter, the Rock. 
 These surnames, like others which Christ gave his disciples, 
 may be taken in a twofold point of view. The principal point 
 of view which, without doubt, the Redeemer had in the 
 imposition of this name, related to what Simon would become 
 in and for the service of the gospel. But as the influences of 
 transforming grace, always attaching themselves to the con- 
 stitutional character of an individual, purify and ennoble it, so 
 in this instance, what Peter became by the power of the divine 
 life, was in a measure determined by his natural peculiarities. 
 A capacity for action, rapid in its movements, seizing with a 
 firm grasp on its object, and carrying on his designs with 
 ardoui", was his leading characteristic, by which he effected so 
 much in the service of the gospel. But the fire of his power- 
 ful nature needed first to be transformed by the flame of 
 divine love, and to be refined from the impurity of selfish- 
 ness, to render him undaunted in the publication of the 
 gospel. By the natural constitution of his mind, he was 
 indeed disposed to surrender himself at the moment entirely
 
 THE APOSTLE PE'l-ER. 369 
 
 tc the impression which seized him, witliout being tnnieri 
 aside by those considerations which would hokl back more 
 timorous spirits, and to express witli energy what would move 
 many minds ; but he was easily misled by a rash self-con- 
 fidence to say more, and to venture more, thmi he could 
 accomplish ; and though he quickly and ardently seized on 
 an object, he allowed himself too easily to relinquish it, by 
 yielding to the force of another impression. 
 
 It was desirable that the first impression made on Peter's 
 mind should continue to act upon him in quiet, — on which 
 account Christ at first left him to himself; and wlien, by 
 repeated operations, everything in his disposition was sufti- 
 ciently prepai-ed, he received him into the number of his 
 disciples, wlio afterwards accompanied him everywhere. Peter 
 must often have heard him teach in the synagogue, and seen 
 him heal the sick. But all this would be only a preparation 
 for the last decisive impression, which was exactly adapted to 
 Peter's former mode of life, and his peculiar character. After 
 Christ had finished one of his discourses in Peter's vessel, he 
 desired him to let down his net for a draught. Although he 
 had toiled in vain during the whole of the preceding night, 
 yet he was quite ready to obey the command of the Redeemer, 
 a proof of the confidence he already placed in him ; and since, 
 after the various preceding impressions which he received of the 
 Divine in Christ, he was so astonished by the successfid result, 
 — the sense of the dignity and holiness of the personage who 
 stood before him, as well as of his own unworthiness, so over- 
 powered him, that he deemed himself not fit to be so near the 
 Holy One, — Christ took advantage of the state of mind thus 
 produced to draw him altogether to himself, and made this 
 instance of success in his worldly occu})ation, by which Peter 
 had been so wonder-struck, a symbol of the spiritual success 
 which would attend his future labours in his service. 
 
 We find many indications of Peter's constitutional dis- 
 position in the intercourse of Christ with himself and the 
 other disciples. When many of those persons who had been 
 induced to join themselves to Chi'ist for a length of time by 
 the impression of his miracles, at last, from tlie want of a 
 deeper susceptibility for divine truth, forsook him, Christ said 
 to the twelve disciples who still faithfully followed him, " W.'U 
 ye also go away 1 " Peter testified of what they all felt, at d 
 
 VOL. I. B B
 
 370 THE APOSTLK PETEH. 
 
 how deeply he felt the divine impressiou which the words of 
 Christ had made on his inmost soul, more than he could yet 
 distinctly apprehend, — that a divine life proceeded from his 
 words, and that those who received his sayings were made par- 
 takers of a dirine and blessed life enduring for ever. " To 
 whom shall we go 1 Thou hast the words of eternal life. We 
 believe, we know that thou art t!ie Messiah of God." The 
 con\dction that Jesus was the Messiah, which Peter here 
 expresses, was without doubt of a different kind than that 
 which only was produced by beholding the miracles he 
 wrought. It was a conviction deeply seated in his religious 
 and moral nature, which originated in his inward experience 
 of the divine intercoiu-se with the Redeemer. Thus Christ 
 declaimed, when Peter said to him, " Thou art the Messiah, the 
 Son of the living God," Matt. xvi. 1 6, that this conviction was 
 produced on his heart by the Spirit of God, — that he spoke 
 not according to human opinion, but from the confidence of 
 divine excitement, — that not flesh and blood, but his Father 
 in heaven had revealed this to him. And since the conviction, 
 thus grounded in the depths of his disposition, that Jesus was 
 the Messiah, was the foundation on which the kingdom of 
 God rested, in allusion to this fact Christ called him the 
 Rock, the Rock on which he would build his Church, which 
 was to exist for ever. There is, indeed, a personal reference 
 to Peter, but only on account of the faith he had confessed, 
 which forms the foundation of the kingdom of God. On 
 another occasion, when Christ announced to his disciples his 
 approaching sufierings, Peter felt impelled instantaneously as 
 it arose in his heart, to express the sentiment which all felt, but 
 hesitated to express, " That be far from thee, Lord ! " But here 
 the feeling of love to Him who was most fitted to kindle the 
 fire of love in the heart, expressed itself in a nattu'al human 
 form so strongly, that Peter, with this state of disposition to- 
 ft'ards the cause of God, which requires the sacrifice of self, and 
 of whatever is dearest to the heart, could not be an instrument 
 in its service ; and hence the Lord addressed him with words 
 of severe rebuke, and assured him that, with such a disposi- 
 tion, valuing the person of man higher than the cause of God, 
 he could not remain in his fellowship ; that by this disposi- 
 tion he became a tempter ; Matt. xvi. We recognise the 
 same tendency to be carried away by the sudden impulse of
 
 TaS APOSTLE PETER. 37 i 
 
 feeling, aud to surrender himself to the vivid impression of 
 the moment, ■when the Lord assiu-ed him that, on the night of 
 his Passion, all ^\-ould forsake him ; the too confident Peter at 
 once exclaimed, " Though all men should forsake thee, yet 
 will not I ; I will lay down my life for thy sake." This over- 
 hasty self-confidence soon turned, as the Lord foretold, to his 
 disgi'ace, and gave occasion for bitter repentance. Yet this 
 false step, no doubt, served to advance him in that self-know- 
 ledge which is the indispensable condition of true faith in the 
 Redeemer, and true knowledge of him, aud thus to the whole 
 development of the Christian life. And the Lord forgave him 
 his sin ; he reminded him of it in a manner the most tender, 
 and yet piercing tlie very depths of his soid, by the question 
 thrice repeated, " Lovest thou me ? " ' and required from him, 
 as the proof of his love, the faithful discharge of his apostohc 
 calling, the care of his sheep.' 
 
 But it is this peculiar character of Peter, when transformed 
 by the divine life, with which we see him afterwards operating 
 as an organ of the Holy Spirit in the service of the kingdom 
 of God. We have ah-eady pointed out, in a former chapter, 
 what an important position he occupied in this respect at the 
 commencement of the Christian dispensation, until the ap- 
 pearance of the apostle Paul, and subsequently as an inter- 
 mediate point between liis sphere of action among the Gentiles 
 and that of the older apostles among the Jews. Though his 
 
 * We proceed here on the conviction, that the 21st chapter of John's 
 gospel, although not composed by him, contains a credible tradition. 
 
 - It is indeed possible that these words referred personally to Peter, 
 in the sense that he was to take the lead in the guidance of the church, 
 as he it certainly wa* who spoke in the name of all, and who guided the 
 deliberations on their common affairs ; — and if the words are so inter- 
 preted, a peculiar apostolic primacy is by no means committed to Peter, 
 but the position entrusted to him was only in relation to existing cir- 
 cumstances, which he was peculiarly fitted to occupy by the x^P^^'t^" 
 Kvffepinjcrecas. which harmonised with his natural talents. But these 
 words may very probably be considered as a general description of the 
 vocation of preaching the gospel — which, from a comparison with the 
 parable in the 10th chapter of John, is very probable — and in this case, 
 they contain nothing personal in relation to Peter as distinguished from 
 the other apostles. Peter always appears as peculiarly fitted by bis 
 natural character to be the representative of the fellowship of the dis- 
 ciples, and hence he expressed what all deeply felt, and Christ particu- 
 larly addressed to him those sayings which in their full extent related 
 generally to all genuine disciples.
 
 372 ' THE APOS'ILE PETEH. 
 
 nature, not yet thoroughly penetrated by the Divine, might 
 still at times disturb and mar his exertions by its peculiar 
 faiUngs, yet the power of the divine principle of life within 
 him, his love and fidelity to the Lord, were too great to be 
 repressed by those corrupt tendencies, when the essential 
 interests of the kingdom of God were at stake. The effect 
 sudden impressions is shown in his conduct at Antioch {ante, 
 p. 210), but the subsequent history proves that, although Peter 
 might be hurried by the power of a sudden impression to act 
 in a way which involved a practical denial of principles which 
 he had formerly avowed, yet he could not be seduced to be 
 permanently unfaithful to these principles in his capacit}'^ of 
 Christian teacher, and so to lay the foundation of a lasting 
 opposition to Paul. On the contrary, he willingly allowed 
 himself to be set right by Paul, and, for the future, continued 
 firmly united to him in the bond of apostolic fellowship.* 
 
 From Peter's ardent zeal, and from what we know of his 
 Buccessful efforts for spreading the kingdom of God till the 
 conversion of Cornelius, we may infer that, during that period 
 
 ' We can by no means agree in the opinion expressed by a 
 distinguished young theologian, Professor Elevert of Zurich, in his 
 Essay on Inspiration in the Studicn der evangelischen Geistlichkeit 
 Wilrtembergs, vol. iii. p. 72, that the old distinction for securing the 
 idea of inspiration between vitium conversationis and error doctrince is 
 wholly untenable, and therefore, the possibility of a mixture of error in 
 the teaching of the apostles must be allowed. When Peter, in conse- 
 quence of a sudden over-hastiness or weakness, suffered himself to be 
 misled in reference to his Jewish fellow-believers, and to act in a 
 manner which corresponded rather to the prejudices of others, than to 
 his own better views, such a sudden practical error by no means justifies 
 us in the conclusion, that his own knowledge of Christian truth had 
 been eclipsed, and that his sounder views had entirely vanished. The 
 most we could infer would be, that at this instant, when overpowered by 
 impressions from without, he had no clear perception of the principles 
 on which he was acting. Had he indeed not repented of this sudden 
 false step arising from the fear of man, — had he hardened himself in 
 this moral delinquency, a permanent obscuration of Christian con- 
 sciousness must have been the consequence, and, as the history of many 
 similar instances of backsliding exemplifies, a practical denial of the 
 truth would have been followed by a theoretical one ; but this could 
 never come to pass in an individual in whom the spirit of Christ had 
 attained such a preponderance over the selfish principle. And thus we 
 are not at liberty to suppose, that Peter allowed the act into which he 
 had been hurried by the power of a sudden temptation, to establish 
 itself in his teaching, and so far to prevent or obscure his perception c' 
 Christian truth.
 
 TRADITIONS UESl'EOTING PETER. 373 
 
 of his life respecting wliich we have no information, he 
 extend 3d still further the circle of his operations for the pro- 
 pagati )n of the gospel. As he is not mentioned in the Acts 
 later than the account of the deliberations at JerustUem ' 
 recorded in the 15th chapter, it seems probable that the scene 
 of his subsequent labours lay at a distance from that city. 
 According to an ancient tradition, ^ Peter published the gospel 
 to the Jews scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, 
 Asia, and Bithynia. But this account has most probably 
 been derived only from a misunderstanding of the snperscrip- 
 tion of his first epistle.* This epistle of Peter leads us rather 
 to suppose, that the scene of hii? labours was in the Parthian 
 empire, for as he sends salutations from his wife in Babylon,* 
 this naturally supports the conclusion, that he himself was in 
 that neighbourhood. And in itself, it is by no means impi'o- 
 bable that Peter, whose ministrations related particularly to 
 tlie descendants of the Jews, betook himself to a region where 
 so many Jews were scattered; and what we know of the early 
 spread of Christianity in those parts, serves to confirm the 
 opinion. Yet the fact that Peter exercised his ministry at a 
 late period in the countries composing the Parthian empire, 
 by no means renders it impossible that he laboured earlier in 
 Lesser Asia. Still it contradicts this supposition that, in the 
 Pauline epistles, in which a fair opportunity was given to 
 touch upon such a relation, we find no trace of Peter's residing 
 in the circle of Paul's labours ; this, however, we do not 
 adduce as pei'fectly decisive evidence. But we must attach 
 gi'eater weight to the fnct, that, in this epistle of Peter, there 
 is no reference to his own earlier presence among the churches 
 to wliom it is addressed, though the object of this epistle must 
 have especially required him to remind them of what they 
 had heard from his own lips. 
 
 ^ What Paul .says in 1 Cor. ix. 5, of the travels of the apostles, and of 
 Peter's taking his wife with him, agrees with 1 Peter v. 13. 
 
 ^ See Origen, t. iii. in Genes. Eusebiu.s, iii. 
 
 ^ Origen's expression is very doubtful ; KiKTjpvxevai ioiKev. 
 
 * By a most unnatural interpretation, this has been supposed to mean 
 an inconsiderable town in Egypt, a <Pqovqiov tqv^vhv at that time, 
 S(rabo, xvii. 1, although this small town existed as late as the fifth 
 century ; see Hist. Laii-siac. c. 25. The opinion of the pneients ia 
 perfectly arbitrary, that, under this name, Rome was meant ; and there 
 is nothing against our supposing that an inhabited portion of the im* 
 mease Babylon was still left.
 
 374 THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER. 
 
 It appears then, that, after Peter had found a suitable field 
 of exertion in the Parthian empire, he wrote to the chvu'chea 
 founded by Paul and his assistants in Asia, an epistle, which 
 is the only memorial preserved to us of his later labours. All 
 the mai'ks of its date unite in placing it in the last part of the 
 apostolic age, in the period subsequent to Paul's first confine- 
 ment. We find Silvanus, one of Paul's early fellow-labourers, 
 in direct communication with Peter, which agrees very well 
 with our never meeting with the former as Paul's companion 
 after his last jom-ney to Jerusalem. The Christian churches 
 to whom the epistle is directed, appear to us exposed to such 
 persecutions as first arose about this period. The Christians 
 were now persecuted as Christians, and according to those 
 popular opinions of which Nero took advantage, were looked 
 upon and treated as " evil-doers," (kokottoio), malefici). By the 
 seriousness and strictness of their daily conduct, and their 
 withdrawal from the public shows and other licentious 
 amusements, they rendered themselves obnoxious to the 
 hatred of the heathen populace ; 1 Peter iv. 4, 5 ; and if we 
 reflect on the circumstances in which these churches were 
 placed during Paul's first confinement, the design of the epistle 
 will at once be apparent. As these churches had to combat 
 with persecutions from without, so they were internally dis- 
 tui'bed by those heretical tendencies of which we have spoken 
 in a former chapter. Since the propagators of these errors 
 accused Paul of falsifying the original Christian doctrine, and 
 had appealed to the authority of the elder apostles in behalf 
 of the continued obligation of the Mosaic law, Peter availed 
 himself of the opportunity for addressing these chm'ches, in 
 order to establish them in the conviction, that the doctrine 
 announced to them by Paul and his disciples and companions, 
 of whom Silvanus was one, was genuine Christianity. These 
 churches consisted for the most part of those who had been 
 previously heathens, for such, in several passages, he supposes 
 his readers to be ; ii. 10 ; iv. 3. The superscription of the 
 epistle is not inconsistent with this fact ; for as Peter, by his 
 ti'aining and peculiar sphere of labour, was apt to develop 
 Christian truths in Old Testament images and comparisons, 
 he transferred the name of oiaanopix to the true chm-ch of God 
 scattei'ed among the heathen. 
 
 In reference t( the internal and external circumstances of
 
 THE FraST iJPISTLE OF PETER. 375 
 
 the churches, the object of this hortatory composition is two- 
 fold; partly to ground them more firmly in the conscious- 
 ness, that the source of happiness and the foundation of the 
 everlasting kingdom of God was contained in that faith in the 
 Redeemer which had been announced to them and received 
 by them into their hearts, — that the doctrine announced to 
 them was indeed the everlasting, unchangeable word of God, 
 and hence they were to aim at appropriating, with child-like 
 simplicity, the pure simple doctrine of the gospel delivered tu 
 them fi-om the beginning, and thus continually advance to 
 Christian matiu-ity ; and partly it was the apostle's design to 
 exhort them to maintain their steadfastness in the faith under 
 all persecutions, and a coiTcsponding course of conduct by 
 which they would shine forth in the midst of the coniipt 
 heathen world, and refute the false accusations against Chris- 
 tianity and its professors. 
 
 Both these objects ai'e pointed out by the apostle at the 
 close of the epistle, when he says, " The foithfid brother 
 Silvanus is the bearer to you of this a short epistle consi- 
 dering what I would gladly say to you, and which I have 
 written for your encouragement, and to testify that it is the 
 true grace' of God, in the firm possession of which you stand 
 by faith." ^ The unassuming manner in which the wiiter of 
 
 ' Grace, the grace of redemption, a description of the whole contents 
 of the gospel. 
 
 ' The words may be certainly taken to mean, that Silvanus was the 
 writer of the epistle, dictated by Peter, either in Aramaic or Greek ; 
 but in this case, a salutation from Silvanus would probably have been 
 added, especially since he must have been well known to these churches. 
 The possibility of the interpretation which I have adopted, is evident 
 from the phraseology which is adopted in the subscriptions of the 
 Pauline epistles ; and the use of the aorist, eyga\\/a allowing for the 
 epistolary style of the ancients, can prove nothing against it. It also 
 shows at once the design of the commendatory epithet, '• a faithful 
 brother." The words ais \oyi^o}iai, may indeed relate to what goes 
 before, for this verb is used by Paul in liom. viii. 18 ; Rom. iii. 28 ; 
 2 Cor. xi. 5, to denote a subjective conviction, without the accessory 
 idea of any uncertainty in holding it. Peter might also wish to mark 
 the subjective of his own judgment, for it was precisely the peculiar 
 authority of Peter, to which many cpposers of the Pauline school ap- 
 pealed. But if Xoyi^ofxat is referred to what follows, it is equally a 
 mark of subjective judgment or feeling. That which he wrote was to 
 Peter, in relation to what he had in his heart to say to the churches, 
 only a little. Yet had he intended to express that sentiment, he wo".ild 
 rather have said S»' oKiyaiv its v»7ifo/ioi.
 
 376 THE SKCOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 
 
 this epistle calls himself simply an eye-witness of the suffer- 
 ings of Christ, and represents himself to the presbyters of the 
 churches to whom it is addressed, as one of their number, 
 one of the number of Christian overseers, bears with it the 
 impress of the apostolic spirit. 
 
 But such marks of geniiine apostolic origin and character 
 are by no means visible in the second epistle extant under 
 Petez''s name ; many traces of a contrary kind are to be found 
 in it, many marks of its apocryphal origin ; and as it is slightly 
 supported by external evidence, we have made no use of it as 
 a source of information for the biography of the apostle.' 
 
 * The principal marks of the spuriousness of this epistle, are the 
 difference of the whole character and style compared with the first, and 
 the use here made of the epistle ot Jutle, wliich is partly copied and 
 partly imitated. The author assumes, that he is writing to the same 
 churches as those to whom the First Epistle of Peter is addressed, and 
 yet what he says of his relation to his readers, is at variance with that 
 assumption, for, according to the Second Epistle, they must have been 
 persons who had been personally instructed by the apostle Peter, and 
 with whom he stood in a close personal connexion, yet this was a rela- 
 tion in which the churches to whom the First Epistle was addressed 
 could not stand. The solicitude with which he endeavours to make 
 himself known as the apostle Peter, betrays an apocryphal writer. The 
 allusion to the words of Christ, John xxi. 18, in i. 14, is brought 
 forward in an unsuitable manner. In order to distinguish himself 
 as a credible witness of the life of Christ, he appeals to the phenomena 
 at the transfiguration. But it certainly is not natural to suppose that 
 one of the apostles should select and bring forward from the whole life 
 of Christ, of which they had been eye-witnesses, this insulated fact, 
 which was less essentially connected with that which was the central 
 point and object of his appearance; the apostles were rather accustomed 
 to claim credit as witnesses of the sufferings and resurrection of Christ. 
 Also the designation of the mountain on which the transfiguration 
 occurred as " the holy mount," betrays a later origin, since we cannot 
 suppose that the mountain usually so denominated, Mount Zion, was 
 intended. Among the circumstances that excite suspicion, is the 
 manner in which the same false teachers, who, in the Epistle of Jude, 
 are described as actually existing, are here represented with prophetic 
 warning, as about to appear. The doubts respecting the second coming 
 of Christ, occasioned by the expectation of the occurrence of that event, 
 in the first age of the church, and the disappointment of that expecta- 
 tion, leads us to recognise a later period. What is said of the origin of 
 the world from water, and its destruction by fire, does not correspond to 
 the simplicity and practical spirit of the apostolic doctrine, but rather 
 indicates the spirit of a later age, mingling much that was foreign with 
 the religious interest. The mode of citing the Pauline epistles, con- 
 firms also the suspicion against the genuineness of this epistle. A 
 passage from Kom. ii. 4, ia cited in iii. 15, as if this epistle were
 
 THE MAUTYllDOM OF PETKR. 37V 
 
 Since the second luilf of the second ceutnry, a report wiia 
 generally circulated that Peter died a martyr under the 
 Emperor Nero at Home.' According to a later tradition, 
 when I'eter was condemned to crucifixion, he scrupled, from 
 a feehng of humility, to be put to death exactly in the same 
 mamier as the Saviour, and therefore requested that he might 
 be crucified with his head downwards, and his feet upwards. 
 Such a story bears on its front the impress of a later morbid 
 piety rather than simple apostolic humility. The apostles 
 exulted and rejoiced in all things to imitate their Lord, and 
 the tradition thus formed does not appear to have been 
 known to Tertullian, for though his peculiar turn of mind 
 would have disposed him to receive such an account, he Siiys 
 expressly that Peter suffered in the same manner as Christ. - 
 
 With respect to the tradition according to which Peter at 
 last visited Rome, and there suffered martyrdom, — it does 
 not well agree with what we have mentioned above respect- 
 ing his residence in the Parthian Empire, for since this 
 is supposed to have been after the Neronian persecution, and 
 since the martyrdom of Peter, according to ancient accounts, 
 must have happened at the same time as Paul's, Peter must 
 within a short period have changed the scene of his labours 
 from one very distant region of the globe to another. And 
 it appears strange that he should have relinquished his 
 labom-s in a region where so much was to be done for 
 the spread of the gospel, and betake himself to one at 
 so gi'eat a distance, where Paul and his associates had already 
 laid a good fo\indation, and were continuing to build on the 
 foimdation akeady laid. But so many cu-cumstances un- 
 known to us might conspire to bring about such an event, 
 that with our defective knowledge of the church history 
 
 addressed to the same cliurch. A collection of all the Pauline epistles 
 is referred to, and it is assumed, that Paul in all of them referred to 
 one subject which yet by no means appears in all. Paul's epistles are 
 quoted as yga(pa\, as one apostle would certainly not have expressed 
 himself respecting the epistles of another apostle, for this term in the 
 apostolic epistles is always used only to designate the writings of the 
 Old Testament. This epistle was probably forged by those who wished 
 to combat the gnostic errors, and the opinion broached by the Gnostics 
 of a contrariety between the apostles Peter and Paul, by the borrowed 
 authority of the former. 
 
 ' The first trace of this is to be found in Origen, Euseb. iii. 1. The 
 complete narrative in Jerome, de Viris Illustrih. i. 
 
 ' De Prsescript. 36. Ubi Petrus passioni dominicse adequatur.
 
 378 TRADITION OF 
 
 of these times, what we have stated cannot be considered 
 a decisive evidence against the truth of the tradition, if 
 it can be suificiently supported on other grounds. We can 
 also easily imagine a particular interest which would induce 
 Peter to change his scene of labour to Rome, the same 
 interest which was the occasion of his writing his first epistle, 
 that of healing the division which in many parts existed 
 between his own adherents and those of Paul. This division 
 would find a rallying point in the opposition between the 
 Gentile Christians and Judaizing elements in the church 
 at Rome, and the movements in the metropolitan church 
 would exert an influence over the whole church ; and this 
 might be a consideration of sufiicient weight with Peter to 
 induce him to undertake a journey to Rome. We are called 
 upon therefore to investigate whether this tradition is ade- 
 quately supported by credible witnesses. 
 
 The Roman Bishop Clemens appears as the first witness of 
 the martyrdom of Peter. If he expressly stated that Peter 
 was martyred at Rome, we should have incontrovertible 
 evidence and require no further examination. But such 
 an exact determination of the place is wanting. Yet it 
 cannot be concluded that Clemens did not know the name of 
 the place where Peter suffered martyrdom, for there was no 
 need of such particularity for his readers when he was 
 writing of an event which he might assume to be generally 
 known. It cannot be maintained, that when he was writing at 
 the place where Peter shed his blood as a witness of the faith, 
 and simply enumerating examples of steadfastness in per- 
 secuted champions of the faith, he should feel himself bound 
 expressly to mention the scene of his last sufferings. Even 
 in commemorating Paul's martyrdom, we find no such phrase 
 as " here before our eyes," " in the city from which I am now 
 writing to you." It may appear strange that Clemens speaks 
 in such general terms of Peter as a person of whom he possessed 
 no precise information, ' and on the other hand speaks in such 
 definite terms of Paul. This might justify the conclusion that 
 he had really no exact information respecting Peter's end, and 
 hence we might be allowed to infer that the scene of Peter's 
 labours was to the very tim.e of his martyrdom at a distance 
 from Rome. ^ Yet on the other hand it may be said, that 
 
 * Ovx iva, ovSi 5vo, dWA TrKeiovas virilyeyKe irovous ual ovroo fiaprvpT^ffas. 
 
 * 1 cannot consider as historically accredited what is narrated of tha
 
 PETERS VISIT TO HOME. 379 
 
 Clemens, as one of Paul's disciples, was indviced to speak 
 of him in more definite terms, and though Peter met 
 with the close of his laboitrs at Rome, that Clemens could 
 not say much of his earlier conflicts. ' The first person who 
 distinctly states the martyrdom of Peter at Rome is Diony- 
 sius, bishop of Corinth, who wi-ote in the latter half of the 
 second century. In his epistle to the church at Rome,^ 
 he calls that and the Corinthian the common planting 
 of Peter and Paul. Both had planted the clnirch at Corinth, 
 and had equally taught there. In the same manner they 
 had both taught in Italy and suffered martyrdom at the 
 same time. Here we find a definite statement of the martyr- 
 dom of Peter at Rome, though blended indeed with many 
 inaccm'aoies. Dionysius does not absolutely say that Peter 
 and Paul taught at Corinth at the same time, which, in refer- 
 ence to the time before the first confinement of Paul at 
 Rome, certainly cannot be admitted, and, in reference to 
 the time after that event, can hardly be credited. But at 
 all events, he is not correct in terming the Corinthian church 
 the common planting of the two apostles. For, supposing 
 that the tradition of Peter's journey to Rome is credible, it 
 might happen that, after the first confinement of Paul, he 
 visited Corinth, but he could do nothing towards founding 
 a chm'ch which already had been established there. Pei'haps 
 this whole account proceeded from misunderstanding the 
 references to the apostle Peter in the First Epistle to 
 the Corinthians, partly from tracing the origin of this 
 ecclesia apostolica from the two most distinguished apostles. 
 The same remark will apply to the church at Rome. And 
 according to what we have stated above, Paul came from 
 Spain as a prisoner to Rome, and could not have appeared 
 there as a teacher in conjunction with Peter. ^ But this 
 
 connexion between Clemens and Peter, in legends such as the Clemen- 
 tines, which bear the impress of being framed to answer a certain purpose. 
 
 ' Frederick Spanheim, and lately Bauer, have endeavoured to prove 
 too much from the manner in which Clemens here expresses himself. 
 
 2 Eusebius, ii. 25. 
 
 * The passage in Dionysius has been explained by Dr. Schott in his 
 "Examination of some chronological Points in the History of Paul," 
 Jena, 1832, p. 131, so <iS to remove this difficulty. In the sentence 
 6/j.olws 5e Koi r.'j ttJi- 'iraKlav ofJ-ooe SiSa^avres, vfxapTvpyiaav Kara rbv avrov 
 icaipiv, — 6/x6a-t may be so understood, that only the equal extension of
 
 380 TRADITION OK 
 
 inaccuracy in the representation of events long past, in 
 •which Dionysius allowed himseif to be guided more by 
 uncertain inferences than by historical traditions, cannot be 
 employed to weaken the weight of his deposition respecting 
 a fact not strictly connected with the other points, and 
 on which he could easily obtain certain information from hie 
 contempoi'aries. We have no sufficient gi-ound to deny that 
 Dionysius, in what he says of Peter's martp-dom at Rome, 
 followed an ancient credible tradition, although he falsified 
 his report to a certain extent by the circumstances with 
 which he arbitrarily connected it. From his times, this 
 account appears the unanimous tradition of ecclesiastical 
 antiquity. The graves of the two apostles were pointed out 
 at Rome, as the Roman presbyter Caivis, at the end of 
 the second century, appeals to them ; but yet these graves 
 do not furnish incontestable evidence. When the report was 
 once set afloat, the designation of the locality where the 
 apostles were bui-ied would easily be added. Even by Cains 
 the misstatement is made, that both the apostles were the 
 founders of that chm-ch. 
 
 This tradition would be more deserving of credit, notwith- 
 stancHng a defect of positive historical evidence, if its origin 
 could not in any way be easily accounted for. We cannot 
 account for it from the attempt to place on a sure basis, the 
 authority of the Cathedra Petri in Rome, for this tradition is 
 more ancient than the attempt to secure to the Cathedra Petri 
 at Rome a decisive authority in matters of doctrine ; such an 
 attempt, which it is difficult to deduce only from the transfer- 
 ence of the homage paid to the urhs to the ecclesia urhis, 
 would rather presuppose the existence of the tradition. Since 
 the pretensions of the Roman church were not universally 
 acknowledged, but in many quarters met with opposition, 
 they will not serve to explain how it came to pass, that such 
 a tradition designedly propagated by Rome, was everywhere 
 so favourably received. But in truth, many other circum- 
 stances combined to give rise to this report and to promote 
 its circulation. As Peter concluded his labom-s in a resion 
 
 their labours in Italy may be intended by it ; hut does not the repeti- 
 tion of ;^|UOl&)s, the distinguishing of this word from o/xiJo-e, and the com- 
 parison with the Hard, rbv airov Kaipou, of the martyrdom of both, favour 
 another interpretation %
 
 Peter's visit to ROnrE. 381 
 
 so separated from connexion with the Roman empire, there 
 would be the gi-euter temptation to fill up the gaps of authen- 
 tic history by hearsays and legends. The practice of repre- 
 senting Peter as the victor over Simon Magus, in the contest 
 for the simple faith of Revelation, gave rise to manifold 
 legendary tales about his travels, such as the story of his 
 earlier residence in Rome under the emperor Claudius, and 
 the disputation he there held with Simon. And besides, it 
 seemed suitable that the church of the metropolis of the 
 world should be founded by the two most distinguished 
 apostles, who had also founded the Corinthian church, and be 
 signalized by their death ; it was also thought desirable to be 
 able to present the cooperation of these two apostles in the 
 chiu'ch, to wliich, as the church of the metropolis, all eyes 
 were turned, in contrast with the attempts of the Judaizers, 
 as well as of the abettors of Gnosticism, to establish the ex- 
 istence of a decided opposition between the two apostles. 
 When after the Apocalypse came into circulation, it was 
 usual to designate the imperial city by the name of Babylon, 
 as the stronghold of the heathenism which opposed the king- 
 dom of God, this name as it occurred in the First Epistle of 
 Peter, was naturally applied to Rome, and thus, too, an argu- 
 ment was found for the belief of that apostle's visit to Rome. 
 The confounding of Marcus, who is mentioned in that epistle 
 as a son of Peter,' with the other Marcus, known as the com- 
 panion of Paul and Barnabas, and the author of one of the 
 gospels, was the occasion of placing him in the same relation 
 to the apostle Peter as that in which Luke stood to Paul. 
 
 Although the origin of the story of the journey of the 
 apostle Peter to Rome, and of his martyi'dom there, may in 
 this way be in some measure explained, yet the high anti- 
 quity of the tradition, which can be traced back to the very 
 boundaries of the apostolic age, presents an objection of gi-eat 
 weight to this hypothesis. Papias, the bishop of Hierapohs,* 
 
 • As we can find no reason for taking the word vl&s in a spiritual 
 sense, and as we more naturally understaud the word avvfK\eKTT) of 
 Peter's wife, than of a personified church, especially as we know that he 
 was married and was accompanied by his wife on his travels, we may 
 refer this to an actual son of Peter. Tradition says expressly that Peter 
 had children. Tlerpos koI ^iXf-iros tTraiSoiroti^crat'To, Clemens, Stromat 
 iii. 4JS. 
 
 » Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iii. 39
 
 382 TRADITION OF 
 
 who appeals to an oral tradition of an individual belonging to 
 the apostolic age, the presbyter John, reports, that the Gospel 
 of Mark ' was composed by the same person who accompanied 
 Peter as an interpreter, for the purpose of presei-ving in 
 writing what he had heard Peter narrate in his public ad- 
 dresses, ^ and what had been impressed on his own memory. 
 Now, it is evident that this account (whether it relates to 
 that Gospel of Mark which is still extant, or to a lost original 
 document of the evangelical history, which served for its 
 basis) cannot be true in its full extent; for how can we 
 suppose, that Mark the nephew of Barnabas, who at all 
 events must have come when young to Jerusalem, and lived 
 there in company with the apostles, could have first planned 
 his evangelical naiTative according to what he heard at a 
 much later period, incidentally from the preaching of Peter? 
 This account therefore is suspicious; but may it not be so 
 far true, that Mark accompanied the apostle Peter to Rome, 
 and acted there as his interpreter, for those pereons who were 
 familiar only with the Latin language 1 Yet after all, it is 
 difl&cult to explain how such cotdd have existed so early, 
 unless there had been a tradition that Peter had left the 
 scene of his labours in the Parthian empire at a later period, 
 and visited Rome, — especially since what Papias says rests 
 on the report of a man in the apostolic age. As Silvanus, 
 the early companion of Paul, joined Peter in the Parthian 
 empire, so Mark might likewise remove thither from Lesser 
 Asia, Coloss. iv. 10, and travel with him to Rome, although 
 he was not the Mark whom Peter mentions in his first 
 epistle. There is an ancient tradition preserved for us by 
 Clemens of Alexaudi-ia, that when Peter saw his wife led to 
 martyrdom, he called out to her, mentioning her name,^ "0 
 
 ' Although the marks attributed by Papias to the Gospel of Mark, 
 do not agree with the form in which it has come down to us, it does not 
 follow that Papias referred to another document ; for in such a descrip- 
 tion of the qualities of a book lying before him, much depends on the 
 subjective judgment, and we certainly cannot give Papias credit for the 
 talen-t of acute and accurate observation. 
 
 2 See above, p. 95. 
 
 ' 'Pairl y' ovv rov jxaKapiov Uirpov eiaadfitvov rr^u avTov yvvatKa ayofxivDV 
 T-fiv fTTj edvarov, rjaQrivai. nkv rrjS K\r)(jeu!Sxdptv\^Ka\Tfis els oIkoi duaKoatBrjsy 
 eirifwi'TJcai. 5e ei/ fjia\a TrfjoarpeiTTiKais re Ka\ irapa/cXTjTi/ccSs e| oVo'/iaros 
 npoa-e'nrovTa' fie/iv/iffdu aurfj tov Kvpiov. Clem. Alex. Strom, vii. [vol. iii. 
 p. 253, ed. Klotz. Lipsise,'l832.] The words I have enclosed in brackets
 
 PETERS VISIT TO ROME. 363 
 
 remember the Lord!" We have no reason for castiuir a 
 doubt on the truth of such a simple tradition. But that 
 chai"acteristic traits of this kind were in circulation, agrees 
 best with the supposition that his last years were not spent 
 in the Parthian empire, between which and the Roman there 
 was little intercoiu'se. In the existing chcumstances of the 
 Pai'thian empire in reference to the mixture of native and 
 foreign religions, it would be difficult to account for the 
 martyrdom of a Christian woman. Hence, we are led to 
 refer it most natm*ally to the eftects of the Neronian perse- 
 cution at Rome. 
 
 are difficult, whether we understand by them that his wife, before she 
 was led to death, came home once more, and then was thus addressed 
 by Peter, or, more naturally, that she would be restored to him again, 
 being redeemed from death. Yet, in the connexion there are great 
 difficulties in either interpretation, and we must rather understand the 
 T7orJs of a return to her heavenly home, if the reading be correct, and 
 we ought not (which yet I do not venture to maintain) to read oIku 
 •tvpAfioy.
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 THE APOSTLE JOHN AND HIS MINISTRY AS THE CLOSING POIUS 
 OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE. 
 
 The ministry of the apostle John readies to the hmits of the 
 apostohc age. He was the son of Zebedee, a fislierman (pro- 
 bably wealthy), ' in the small town of Bethsaida or Caper- 
 naum, on the western side of the Sea of Gennesareth in 
 Gahlee. Many eminent men in all ages who have been great 
 blessings to the church, have been indebted to their pious 
 mothers for the first excitement of their dispositions to piety 
 and the first scattering of the seeds of religion in their hearts, 
 and this appeai-s to have been the case with John. ^ The 
 
 * As we may conclude from Mark i. 20. 
 
 * Compare Mark xv. 40, xvi. 1, and Matt xxvii. 56. If an opinion, 
 advocated with great acuteness and learning by Wieseler in the Studien 
 und Kritiken, 1840, iii. p. 648, could be established, it would show that 
 Salome and John were closely connected with Christ by the bonds of 
 relationship. According to this view, not tJa-ee women (as has hitherto 
 been supposed), but four, are named in John xix. 25 ; the Mary the 
 wife of Cleopas must be identified with the sister of the mother of Jesus, 
 but is quite a different person. Hence it follows, that we have to search 
 for the name of the remaining sister of the mother of Jesus. Now, 
 since in Matt xxvii. 56, Mark xv. 40, besides Mary of Magdala, and 
 Mary the mother of James and Joses = the wife of Cleopas, Salome 
 also, or the mother of the sons of Zebedee, is named as present at the 
 crucifixion, it would appear that the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus, 
 whose name is not given by John, can be no other than Salome, his own 
 mother. Thus the difficulty of the same name belonging to both sisters 
 is entirely obviated. It would also follow that, in fact, James the son 
 of Alpheus, or Cleopas, was not the sister's son of Mary the mother of 
 Jesus, (consequently, not his cousin ;) and this would furnish fresh 
 proof for our suppo.sition, that James the brother of the Lord was not 
 identical with the apostle. But the manner in which (John xix. 25) 
 Mary the wife of Cleopas is mentioned without any connective particle, 
 appears to me to imply that these words are only in apposition to dis- 
 tinguish the (otherwise) unnamed sister of the mother of Jesus. If the 
 sister of the mother of Jesus, according to one of her names, was then a 
 universally known person in the circle in which John wrote his gospel, 
 I could then more easily conceivo that, by that collocation of the words,
 
 THE ArOSTLE JOHN. 335 
 
 manner in which his mother Salome united iiei*self to tlie 
 company which was formed round the Saviour leads us to 
 attribute to her the predominance of a pious disposition, and 
 from the petition which she made to the Redeemer, we may 
 conclude, that her mind was filled with the expectation of 
 the approaching manifestation of the Messiah's kingdom, an 
 expectation which had been so vividly excited in the devout 
 part of the Jewish nation, by the predictions of the prophets 
 and the exigencies of the age : we may therefore imagine how 
 strenuously she endeavoured to inflame her son's heart with the 
 same earnes-t desire. The direction thus given to the mind of 
 the youth impelled him to join John the Baptist, by whose 
 guidance he w-as first led to the Saviour ; John i. 37. In his 
 company he spent several hours,' but Christ wished not to 
 bind him to himself at once. He allowed him to return for 
 the present to his usual occupation. He di-ew him, like Peter, 
 gradually into closer communion with liimself, and his opera- 
 tions on his mind were intended to call forth an anxiety for a 
 
 such an ambiguity might be occasioned ; but I do not believe that such 
 a supposition is justifiable : and was it not to be expected from John 
 that though he had not mentioned the sister of the mother of Jesus bj 
 name, he yet would have pointed her out more definitely as the mother 
 of the disciple whom Jesus loved 1 Also, it does not seem probable to 
 me, since the relationship of John to Jesus would be so important for 
 explaining the early and peculiar connexion in which he entered with 
 Christ, that no trace of it should make its appearance in the narrative 
 of our gospels, where there was so often an opportunity of mentioning 
 it. The origin of later accounts of such a relationship between the 
 apostle John and Christ, may be easily explained without the suppo- 
 sition of an historical foundation. 
 
 ' In order to know the length of time spent by John in this first 
 interview with the Redeemer, we must determine the mode of com- 
 puting the hours adopted in John's Gospel. According to the commonly 
 received mode of reckoning, it could not have been more than three 
 hours ; and then it is remarkable that John should say, " they abode 
 with him that day," of which only so few hours were left. On the con- 
 trary, if, like some of the older writers, (see Woljii Cures on John xix. 
 14,) and more recently Retteg (in the Sludien vnd Kritiken, 1830, 
 part i. p. 106), we suppose that John adopted the Roman mode of count- 
 ing the hours from midnight, the length of time would be from ten in 
 the morning to sunset. Yet the words of John, as a more negligent 
 mode of expression, may be understood according to the common inter- 
 pretation; and the passage in John iv. 6, favours our thinking that he 
 reckoned time in the usual manner. And, in itself, it is more pro- 
 bal>le that the first impression which the Redeemer m-ide m John's 
 oaind resulted only from a short int£,rview. 
 
 VOL. I. C U
 
 386 THE APOSTLE JOHX. 
 
 more intimate connexion. And when he had for some time been 
 wishful after an abiding nearness to Him who had wrought 
 with such power on his inmost soul, when the call at last was 
 issued, ]\Iatt. iv. 22, he was read}^ at once to forsake aU and 
 follow Him. What distinguished John was the union of the 
 most opposite qualities, as we have often observed in great 
 instruments for the advancement of the kingdom of God,— 
 the union of a disposition inclined to silent and deep medi- 
 tation, with an ardent zeal, though not impelling to great and 
 diversified activity in the outward world ; not a passionate 
 zeal, such as we may suppose filled the breast of Paul before 
 his conversion. But there was also a love, not soft and 
 yielding, but one seizing with all its might, and firmly re- 
 taining the object to which it was directed, vigorously repelling 
 whatever would disgrace this object, or attempt to wrest it 
 fi'om its possession, and this was his leading characteristic. 
 Yet this love had a selfish and intemperate tincture, of which 
 we have several instances, as when he wished to call down 
 divine judgments on the Samaritans, who had not sho\vn di:e 
 honour to the Savioiu* ; and when he expressed his displeasure 
 that some persons who had not united themselves to the dis- 
 ciples of the Lord, had performed similar miracles to their 
 own by calling on his name ; and when his mother, in 
 concert with her two sons, presented a petition to Christ for 
 stations of eminence in his kingdom. Probably the title 
 " Son of Thunder," which the Redeemer bestowed upon him, 
 related not less to his natural temperament than to what he 
 became by its purification and transformation in the service 
 of the gospel. But this ardent love with which he devoted 
 himself wholly to the service of the Redeemer, became now 
 the purif}ang principle of his whole being, while he sought to 
 form himself on the model of that holy personality. And 
 hence he could receive the image of it on the side which, 
 corresponded with his peculiarly contemplative mental ten- 
 dency, and reproduce it in a living form. 
 
 John was certainly distingmshed fi-om James the brother of 
 the Lord, in this respect, that from the first his communion 
 with Christ was independently developed on the peculiar basis 
 of Christian consciousness ; the fountain of divine life which 
 had appeared among mankind, became at once the centi^al 
 point of his spiritual existence : yet he did wholly agree witi
 
 THE APOSTLG JOHN. 387 
 
 Paul, for his Christian consciousness was not formed in direct 
 opposition to an earher and tenaciously held Judaism. His 
 whole character and mental formation disposed him to a 
 diflFerent development. The mystical contemplative element 
 which finds its archetype in John, is more prone to adopt 
 outward forms (attributing to them a spirituaUzed, elevated 
 meaning) than to disown them, and John, whom Judaism had 
 led to the Savioiu' as its ultimate ol)ject, found no difficulty in 
 employing the foiTQS of the Jewish cultus as the prefigm-ing 
 symbols of his Christian views. It was not expected, therefore, 
 from him that he should, like a Paul, abolish those forms 
 with which the Christian spirit was yet enveloped.' Though 
 John (Gal. ii. 9) appears as one of the three pillai'S of the 
 church among the Jewish Christians, yet it never happened 
 that they appealed to him as to Peter and James ; but it may 
 be explained from the peculiar standing-point and character 
 of this apostle, and serves to set in a clear light his relation to 
 the contending pai*ties. Kcsce also we gather, that though 
 
 " Irenreus, after taking a sound survey of the process of development 
 of the Christian church, says : " Hi autem qui circa Jacobum Apostoli 
 (among whom he also ranks John) gcntibus quidem libera agere per- 
 mittebant, concedentes nos Spiritui Dei. Ipsi vero perseverabant in 
 pristinis observationibus." And a little afterwards, " Religiose agebant 
 circa dispositionem legis," iii. 12. But what Polycrates, Bishop of 
 Ephesus, says of John, in his letter to Victor, Bishop of Rome, in 
 Euseb. V. 24, os tyev-qOri iepeiis t^ itiraXov irecpopriKais, is untrue if taken 
 literally, as it insinuates something far beyond the presumption that 
 John was a faithful observer of the Jewish law so long as he remained 
 at Jerusalem. It would follow that he had held the office of High Priest 
 among the Jews, for this iriraKov = nnin yr, the golden front-plate, 
 which was one of the distinctive insignia of this office. Such a pre- 
 sumption would, however, be in contradiction to history and all his- 
 torical analogy. Nor can Polycrates himself, however credulous we may 
 think him to have been, have meant it. It is moreover clear from the 
 context, that he affirms of John only such things as would be consistent 
 with his Christian standing-point. Or, are we to assume that John, as 
 the President of all the Chri-stian communities in Lesser Asia, adopted, 
 as a symbolical token of his position in the guidance of the Church, the 
 insignia of the Jewish High Priest ? This would be in direct contra- 
 diction to tue apostolic, and especially the Johannean views, for these 
 included the acknowledgment of the sole high-priesthood of Christ, and 
 the universal priesthood, founded upon it, of all believers. Polycrates, 
 therefore, could have said this of John only with a symbolical reference, 
 whether he intended to denote by it what he had suffered for the con- 
 fession of the Christian faith, or the place which he occupied at the head 
 of the guidance of the church.
 
 388 THE APOSTLE JOHN. 
 
 John had formed a scheme of doctrine so decidedly marked, 
 and though in relation to the other great publishers of the 
 gospel, he might have formed a party who would have attached 
 themselves particularly to him, and principally or exclusively 
 have valued his idea of Christianity, yet in the Pauline age, 
 we see no Johannean party come forward by the side of the 
 Jacobean, the Petrine, and the Pauline. The peculiar doc- 
 trinal type of John was also of a kind little suited to find ac- 
 ceptance with the peculiai' tendencies of the Jewish Christians 
 in Palestine, and its influence would be more powerfully felt, 
 where a Christian element had already combined itself with 
 the form of the Grecian mind. 
 
 Thus John disappears from public history, till he was led 
 by the divine call to other regions, where the minds of the 
 people were already prepared for his peculiar influence, and 
 where the deep traces of his oi^erations, undeniable to every 
 one capable of historical investigations, were still visible far in 
 the second century. After the martyrdom of Paul, the be- 
 reaved scene of his labours, so important for the development 
 and spread of the kingdom of God, and exposed to so many 
 polluting and destructive influences, required above all things 
 the guiding, protecting, and healing hand of apostolic wisdom. 
 The Epistle of Peter to the churches in that region, and the 
 journey of Silvanus thither, show how much this necessity 
 was felt. It is probable, that John was called upon by the 
 better part of the churches, to transfer the seat of his activity 
 to this quarter. All the ancient ti'aditions, which may be 
 traced back to his immediate disciples, agree in stating that 
 Lesser Asia was the scene of his labours to the end of the first 
 ceiatury, and Ej^hesus its central point. 
 
 The constitution of the churches of Lesser Asia, as it 
 appeared soon after the age of John in the time of Poly carp, 
 Bishop of Smp-na, was altogether different from that which 
 originated in the Pauline age, in which these churches were 
 founded, and we are obliged to presuppose some intervening 
 influences by which this alteration was produced. Originally 
 these churches formed, as we have seen above, a pure opposition 
 against the Jewish-Christian form of cultus. They had no 
 day excepting Sunday devoted to religious celebration, no kind 
 of yearly feast ; btit afterwards we find among them a paschal 
 feast transferred from the Jews, and receiving a Christian
 
 THE APOSrLE JOHIS. 389 
 
 meaning, though imitating the Jewish reckoning, as to the 
 time of its celebration, to which nrobably a feast of Pente- 
 cost was annexed, and in their disputes with the Roman 
 church they appealed particularly to a tradition originating 
 with this apostle. Now we can readily imagine that the 
 fourteenth day of the month Nisan,' on which he was an eye- 
 witness of the sufferings of Christ, would excite a deep interest 
 in his Christian feelings. It is self-evident how those Jewish 
 feasts, which had gained a new importance for him by their 
 association with those great facts of the Christian faith of 
 which he had been an eye-witness, and which he had been 
 wont to celebrate with Christian devotion, might be intro- 
 duced by him into these churches founded on Pauline prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 From the state of the chin-ch at that time in these parts, 
 it may be concluded that John must have had to endure many 
 conflicts, both from within ai:id without, in his new field of 
 labour. After licence had once been granted under Nero to 
 public attacks on the Christians, persecutions were carried on 
 in various parts. In lesser Asia, many circumstances com- 
 bined, then as in later times, to excite a more vehement 
 persecution : fanatical zeal for the ancient idolatry — the dan- 
 ger which threatened the pecuniary interests of those who 
 were gainers by the popular worship, from the rapid progress 
 of Christianity — the hatred of the Jews widely scattered 
 through Lesser Asia, who blasphemed Christianity, and stirred 
 up the heathen populace against it. Hence in the Apocalypse 
 the rebukes uttered against the synagogues of Satan, against 
 those who '•' say they are Jews, but are not and do lie ;" 
 Rev. iii. 9. The civil wars and the universal misery that 
 followed, contributed still more to excite the popular fury 
 against the enemies of the gods, to whom they readily ascribed 
 the origin of all their misfortunes. Thus, indeed, the Apoca- 
 lypse testifies (which was probably written in the first period 
 after John's amval in Lesser Asia) throughout of the flowing 
 blood of the mai-tyrs, and of the tribulation which threatened 
 Christians in prison, as well as of the fresh recollections of 
 Nero's cruelties. In the churches themselves, those conflicts 
 continued which we noticed at the close of the Pauline age, 
 
 * The gospel to which Polycrate.s appeals in Euscbius, v. 24, may 
 certainly be that of John ; see my Leben Jesu, p 712.
 
 390 THE JUDAIZING GNOSTICS. 
 
 and the seeds of discord and heresy then germinating had now 
 sprung np and advanced towards maturity. Falsifiers of the 
 original truth, -who gave themselves out for apostles, had come 
 foi-th ; Rev. ii. 2. Various kinds of enthusiasm had mingled 
 with the genuine Christian inspiration, against which Paul 
 had already raised a warning voice. Pretended prophets and 
 prophetesses, who, under the appearance of divine illumi- 
 nation, threatened to plunge the chiirches into errors both 
 theoretical and practical ; 1 John iv. 1 ; Rev. ii. 20. 
 
 In Lesser Asia, the most opposite deviations from the 
 genuine evangelical spirit sprang up together. On the one 
 side, the Judaizhig tendency, as we have noticed it in the 
 Pauline age ; on another side, in opposition to it, the tendency 
 of an an-ogant licentiousness of opinion, such as we have 
 noticed in the freethinkers of the Corinthian church, only 
 earned to greater lengths, and mingled probably with many 
 theoretical eiTors ; persons who taught that whoever pene- 
 trated into the depths of knowledge,' need no longer submit 
 to the apostolic ordinances, as he would be free from all the 
 slavery of the law, which freedom they understood in a carnal 
 sense, and misinterpreted to an immoral purpose. Such a one 
 need no longer fear the contact with heathenism or with the 
 kingdom of Satan; in the consciousness of his own mental 
 strength he could despise all temptations, partake of the meat 
 offered to idols, and indulge in sensual pleasures without 
 being injiu'ed thereby. In the Apocalypse these people ai'e 
 called Nicolaitanes, whether because they were really the ad- 
 herents of a certain Nicolaus,^ and that this name as a trans- 
 
 ' Eev. ii. 24, they are described as such, o'Itiv^s iyvwaav ra ySaflea rou 
 earcwa, ccs xiyovaiv. But a doubt here arises, whether these persons 
 made it their peculiar boast that they knew the depths of the Deity ; 
 but the autlior of the Apocalypse, as if in mockery of their pretensions, 
 substitutes for the depths of the Deity the depths of Satan (as Ewald 
 thinks), — (for which interpretation the analogy may be adduced where 
 the synagogue of God is converted into the synagogue of Satan) ; — or 
 whether they really boasted that they knew the depths of Satan, and 
 hence could tell how to combat Satan aright, — that they could conquer 
 him by pride and contempt. — that they could indulge in sensual p.ea- 
 Bures, and maintain the composure of their spirit unaltered, — that the 
 inner man might attain such strength that it was no longer moved by 
 what weaker souls, who were still under the servitude of the law, 
 anxiously shunned, — and thus could put Satan to scorn even in his 
 own domains. 
 
 * We are by no means justified in confounding this Nicolaus with the
 
 THE JUDAIZING GNOSTIC& 391 
 
 lation of the Hebrew cr'^a^ occasioned an allusion to the mean- 
 ing of the name, and a comparison with Balaam, or that the 
 name was altogether invented by the author with a symbolical 
 design, a seducer of the people like Balaam. 
 
 With these practical errors were connected various theoretic 
 tendencies of a false gnosis, which since the close of the 
 Pauline age had extended more widely in opposition to one 
 another. We have noticed in the church at Colossse the adhe- 
 rents of a Judaizing gnosis, who probably considered Judaism 
 to be a revelation from God communicated by angels, attached 
 a perpetual value to it as well as to Christianity, and pretended 
 that they possessed peculiar information respecting the various 
 classes of angels. To this Jewish angel-worship, Paul opposes 
 the doctrine of Jesus as the Son of God, the one head of the 
 chm'ch of God, on whom angels also are dependent, the 
 common head of that universal church to which men and 
 angels belong. He extols him as the being who has triumphed 
 over all the powers which would make men dependent on 
 themselves, over all the powers that set themselves in oppo- 
 sition to the kingdom of God, so that men need no longer 
 fear them. He then infers the doctrine grounded on this, of 
 the high degree and fi'eedom of the redeemed through Christ, 
 the children of God, who are become companions of angels in 
 the kingdom of God. But this elevated doctrine of the 
 dignity and freedom of Chiistians was pei'verted by those who 
 confronted the limited Jewish standing-poiut by a bold anti- 
 nomian gnosis, and affirmed that Judaism was to be despised 
 as the work of limited spirits ; that the sous of God were more 
 than these spirits and exalted above their maxims. They 
 thought themselves sufficiently exalted to insult these higher 
 powers, and to ridicule all law as a work of these limited and 
 limiting powers. With this was connected that reckless im- 
 moral tendency which we have before noticed, and which 
 presented itself in opposition to the legal asceticism, which we 
 find comiected with the Judaizing gnosis in the church at 
 Colossre. This is the tendency which is combated on the side 
 of its blended theoretical and practical eiTors, in the warning 
 Epistle of Jude addressed probably to the Christians in these 
 
 well-known deacon of this name. But in this case, it is more probable 
 that the Nicolaitanes of the second centurv oris'ii'ated from this sect.
 
 392 THE JUDAIZING GNOSTICS. 
 
 pavts.' We see here bow, from the Pauhne ideas earned out 
 with one-sided extravagance and thus distorted into error, the 
 gnostic doctrine was educed of the opposition between Chris- 
 tianity as the revelation of the Son, and Judaism as the 
 revelation of the Demiurgos and bis angels. These two 
 opposite tendencies of gnosis developed themselves in this age 
 in various combinations. 
 
 The Judaizing gnosis found its representative in Cerinthus, 
 who forms the transition both from the common stiff carnal 
 Judaism to Gnosticism, and from the common limited Jewish 
 mode of thinking, which retained only the human in Christ, 
 to the gnostic which acknowledged only the divine in him, 
 only the ideal Chiist.^ He agreed also with the common 
 
 ^ This is, for the most part, the view developed by Schneckenburger 
 in his work before mentioned. As to the author of this epistle, he 
 evidently distinguishes himself from the apostles, when he speaks of the 
 prophetic warnings of the apostles (v. 17), such as we certainly find in 
 Paul's writings ; we cannot explain the passage otherwise without doing 
 violence to it. The description of the state of the church is also such as 
 suits only the end of the apostolic age. It is therefore evident, that, 
 if the epistle be genuine, it cannot have been written by an apostle Jude, 
 who was a brother of James. It would like'sv'ise have been more natural 
 in this case, to have designated himself an apostle, instead of calling 
 himself a brother of James. Hence we should rather suppose him to 
 have been Jude, one of the brethren of the Lord. But why should he 
 not call himself a brother of the Lord, instead of " brother of James," 
 since thus his personal authority would have added weight to his warn- 
 ings'! It may be said that he omitted this title through humility. But 
 is this answer satisfactory ? By the addition of various epithets, as a.SeA<p6s 
 Kard adpKa and hovKos 'ItjctoD XpiffroO Kara Trvevfia, he might have pre- 
 vented all misunderstanding, and removed all appearance of arrogance. 
 A similar objection may indeed be made in reference to James, who, in 
 his epistle, does not designate himself a brother of the Lord. But here 
 the case is altogether different. He does not distinguish himself by 
 any epithet expressive of consanguinity, — not out of humility, but be- 
 cause he deemed it to be the highest honour to be a servant of God 
 and Christ. We may suppose another Jude as well as another Jamee, 
 since the name Jude v/as so frequent among the Jews, and since, 
 according to Hegesippus, there were many distinguished men of this 
 name in the church. But as the epithet " brother of James" is used 
 here as a distinction, it is most natural to refer it to that James who was 
 held in such high esteem. It might be said that he described himself 
 only as the brother of James, because he was so preeminent, and was 
 accustomed to be described bj' the name, a brother of the Lord. But 
 the manner in which elsewhere in the New Testament the brethren of 
 Christ are named together, does not favour this view of the matter. 
 
 ^ See my Church History, vol. i. part 2, p. 675.
 
 DOCETISM. 393 
 
 Jewish view of the Messiah in this respect, that he considered 
 Jesus as a mere man, that he denied the original indwelling 
 of the divine Being in him, and treated the entrance of the 
 Divine into his life as something sudden, by which, at his 
 solemn inaugm-ation, he was made capable of discharging his 
 calling as the Messiah. But Cerinthus differed from the 
 common Jewish notions, that, in place of a peculiar inworking 
 of the divine power, by which the man Jesus was fitted for 
 his Messianic office, he supposed a new animation by the 
 highest spirit emanating from God, and forming the con- 
 nexion between God and the Creation, the divine Logos. 
 This Spirit, representing itself to sensible appearance under 
 the form of a Dove, as a usual aymbol of the Divine Spirit, 
 had settled upon him at his baptism ; he had revealed 
 thi-ough him the liidden Supreme God, the knowledge of 
 whom among the Jews had been the privilege of only a small 
 number of enlightened pei-sons,' through him lie had per- 
 formed miracles, but before the last sutterings of Jesus had 
 Avithdi-awn from him, and left him to himself As Cerinthus 
 in this manner held no original and indissoluble unity 
 between the Logos (the Messiah and Redeemer in a special 
 sense) and the Humanity of Jesus, but only a transient rela- 
 tion, a connexion suddenly formed and as suddenly dissolved, 
 he thus granted only a very subordinate place to the 
 purely human in Cluist. According to this view, the man 
 Jesus was only an accidental vehicle, of which the redeeming 
 Spirit the Logos made use, in order to be able to reveal him- 
 self in humanity ; could the Logos without this medium have 
 made him cognizable and perceptible to men, he would not 
 have made use of such an oi'gau as the man Jesus. From 
 the same tendency, but more coarsely conceived, proceeded 
 another view, according to which it was believed, that a reve- 
 lation of the Logos might be made in humanity -uithout any 
 such mediation through a human being, which it was wished 
 to supersede. In place of the real human appearance of 
 Christ, only a semblance, a phantom was substituted in which 
 the Logos was enshrined. Everything that came under the 
 notice of the senses was explained as only a phantom, an 
 optical illusion, of which the higher etherial Being, who from 
 his natui'e could not be perceptible to the senses, made use. 
 
 ' The genuine depawevTal.
 
 394 CERTNTHUb. 
 
 that he might manifest himself to serjsuous mortals. A 
 theoiy which already had been used for the explanation of 
 Theophanies and Angelophanies of the Old Testament,' was 
 applied by those who held these views to the appearance and 
 life of Christ. At his transfiguration, said they, Christ mani- 
 fested himself without that sensible appearance to his disciples, 
 who were rendered for the time capable of beholding him in 
 his true etherial form.^ 
 
 Against such persons John was now called to defend the 
 announcement of 'IriiroiJg Xpiarog ev aapd. We have no reason 
 for calling in question the traditions respecting his conflicts 
 with Cerinthus. Irenseus, amongst others, mentions as an 
 account given by the aged Polycai'p, that on one occasion 
 when John was about to bathe, and heard that Cerinthus was 
 in the bathing-house ; he retired with abhorrence, and ex- 
 claimed, " Surely the house will Ml in ruins since the enemy 
 of the truth is there !" We can perfectly reconcile it with 
 his character, and find in it nothing unapostolic, if, in a 
 momentary ebullition of feelings natm-ally lively and ardent, 
 proceeding from holy zeal,^ he expressed in such strong terms 
 (in which, nevertheless, everything is not to be taken quite 
 literally) his displeasure against a man who threatened to rob 
 the churches, over whose salvation he watched with fatherly 
 care, of what was dearest and holiest to him, the foundation 
 on which his whole Christianity rested, and to destroy the 
 
 ' As, for example, Philo on Exod. xxiv., where the subject is the ap- 
 pearance of the divine 5o|a, which may be understood partly of the 
 appearance of the angels by whom God revealed himself, partly of the 
 symbolical appearances under which God represented himself to the per- 
 ceptions of men ; t^ SoKriaei avrou fx6vov koX ii7roAT)i|/ei 5(j|>)s Qelas ais 
 fveipydadai tu7s ruiv irapovrusv Siavoiais (pavraaiav dc^i'^ecus deov, us ^kovtos 
 fls &€^aiord.Tr]v iriaTiv twv fxiWovraiv vojxodeTeicrGai (in order that men 
 might have the firm conviction that what was revealed to them pro- 
 ceeded from God, he therefore thus operated on their consciousness, that 
 they believed that they saw himself). Tov Beov SetKvvuTos '6irep i^ovKero 
 SoKflv eluui, TTphs T-^v Twv BeoifidvcDv KaTdTr\7]^LV, ur) &>v tovto, Strip iipaivfTO. 
 — Philonis Opera, ed. Lij^s. 1829, vol. vi. p. 245. 
 
 - A pure spiritual intuition was something wholly foreign to such 
 persons. Light and spirit were one and the same thing to them ! 
 
 * We must not allow ourselves to imagine, that the apostle, by the 
 sanctifying influence of the Divine Spirit, was at once dissevered from 
 all connexion with his former native character, as well as from the pecu 
 liar phraseology of his countrymen ; we must, with Jerome, recognise in 
 the apostle lioino adhuc vasculo clausus infirmo.
 
 John's banishment. 395 
 
 root of the Clii'istian life ; still the pledge for the credibility 
 of this anecdote is very slight, and it may easily be attributed 
 to an extravagant hatred of heretics.' 
 
 According to a -widely spread, ancient tradition, the apostle 
 John was banished to the Island of Patmos, in the ^gean Sea, 
 by one of the emperors who was hostile to the Christians, but 
 by which of them is not ascertained." Only Irenseus leads 
 us to suppose that Domitian was the emperor, for he says' 
 that John, at the end of Domitian's reign, received Revela- 
 tions, which he committed to writing ; and since, according 
 to the Apocalypse, this must have happened in the Isle 
 of Patmos whither he was banished, it follows that he was 
 sentenced by that emperor. But owing to the xmcertainty of 
 the trachtions of that age, we cannot acknowledge this account 
 as sufficiently accredited ; it is indeed possible, that it pro- 
 
 ^ Irenseus did not receive this account in his youth from the lips of 
 Polycarp, but could onlj' appeal for the truth of it to what others had 
 heard from Polycarp, iii. 3, elalv ol aKriKoons avTov. The question then 
 is, whether the persons who reported it to Irenaeus are credible. We 
 know, indeed, that much of what Irenaeus reports as tradition, leaves on 
 it the impress of falsehood. Thus he himself, ii. 24, appeals to the tes- 
 timony of all the presbyters in Lesser Asia, who had been in the society 
 of the apostle John, that Jesus was about fifty years old. The difficulty 
 involved in this does not appear to me so easily removed as Credner 
 maintains in his Einleitung, p. 225. The tradition of the presbyters, 
 according to the report of Irenaeus, certainly appears not to have been 
 that Jesus first entered on his office as teacher at the commencement of 
 that riper mature age, which was required by the Jewish customs for 
 assuming such an office, but he received from their own lips the deposi- 
 tion that Christ had taught in an age which was beyond the cetas juve- 
 nilis, and approached to the senilis. If the passage is genuine in all its 
 extent, he expressly distinguished this age from the cetas perfecta 
 Tnaijistri, which was well known to him, in which Christ first appeared 
 in Jerusalem as a teacher. From his words, therefore, we must deduce 
 6uch a tradition as he supposed was understood by the presbyters. But 
 Te can hardly suppress the suspicion of interpolation ; for however little 
 we are justified in depending on the critical judgment of Irenieus, we 
 cannot reconcile it to a man of his powerful mind, that he who had shortly 
 before said that Christ had spent three years, from the beginning of his 
 thirtieth year to his death, in his office of teaching, could afterwards 
 attribute twenty years more to him. 
 
 * See Tertull. Praescript. c. 36. Clemens, Qui dives salv. c. 42, speaks 
 of the return of John from exile, rov rvpdvvov Tt^evrria-auTos, without 
 specifying any name. Origen, t. xvi. in Matt. § 6, iho uses the inde- 
 finite expression, d 'Poi/j-aiuv QaaiKfus. 
 
 3 V. 30.
 
 396 JiUTHORSHIP OF THE APOO.VLTTSE. 
 
 oeiided only from a peculiar interpretation of this obscure 
 book, and not from any historical testimony. And if the 
 Apocalypse contains cei'tain marks of having been written 
 before this time, this opinion would at once cease to be tena- 
 ble. As this is really the case, then certainly the Apocal}^se, 
 which we cannot acknowledge as a work of the apostle,' 
 
 ^ We refer on this subject to the celebrated work of Dr. Liicke, 
 Versuch einer vollstundijen Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johaiuits. 
 Bonn. 1832. (An Attempt at a complete Introduction to the Kevelation 
 of John.) Much may be said in favour of the opinion of Dionysius of 
 Alexandria, that not the apostle John, but another Ephesian presbyter 
 of the same name, was the author of this book. I cannot deem perti- 
 nent what Guericke has said against the existenoe of an Ephesian 
 presbyter named John, contemporaneous with the apostle, and must 
 agree with Dr. Liicke, that in the passage of Papias of Hierapolis, in 
 Eusebius, iii. 39, such a presbyter John is undeniably to be found ; for 
 since he classes the presbyter John with Aristion, who was not an 
 apostle, and distinguishes him from the apostles before named, among 
 whom John is also mentioned, no other person can be reasonably sup- 
 posed to be referred to than a presbyter who was not an apostle. If we 
 assume that such a presbyter named John proceeded from the apostle's 
 school, or, with a peculiar characucr already foi-med, had become his 
 adherent and laid himself open to his influence, it will be easily under- 
 stood, how such a person might compose a work, which, with much 
 that bore the impress of John's mmd, would combine much that was 
 dissimilar, and would stand in the same relation to the genuine pro- 
 ductions of that apostle as the Epistle to the Hebrews, written by an 
 educated Alexandrian of the Pauline theological school, stood to the 
 epistles of Paul. Thus it may be explained, how the book at so early 
 a period was held to be the apostle's composition, since a presbyter 
 little known was confounded with the apostle ; especially at a period 
 when certain widely spread religious views, those ot the Millennarians, 
 gave a bias for such a change of authorship. Yet we cannot admit this 
 supposition, if we find in the work several indications that the author 
 professed to be no other than the apostle John. Such an allusion 
 appears to be made in i. 2. Yet it is possible either so to explain the 
 words that they may refer to the testimony contained in the book itself 
 concerning the revelations and visions imparted to the author in the 
 Isle of Patmos, or the words may be applied universally to the whole 
 publication of the gospel ; so the presbyter John, if, according to 
 Papias, he was an immediate disciple of Jesus, could also, in reference 
 to this, say that he testified of what he had seen. And if it should 
 appear strange, that any other person than the apostle John should 
 designate himself simply a servant of Christ, and write with such con- 
 fidence and earnestness to the churches, we may account for it, by his 
 believing that in the visions imparted to him he had received a com- 
 mission to write in such a tone, although his personal standing-point 
 did not give him this importance in the Christian church. But if 
 another person had written this work under John's name, it does not
 
 AUTHORSHIP OF THE APOCALYPSE. 397 
 
 must have been wTitten soou after the death of Nero." The 
 whole account of the banishment of the apostle John to the 
 
 appear that such a one, in order to deceiTC, has borrowed a reputation 
 not his own, for in this case he would have designated himself more 
 pointedly and decidedly as the person for whom he wished to be taken. 
 It is, then, more probable that the author, a disciple of John, by some 
 circumstance unknown to us, having devoted himself to write on a 
 subject which he had received mediately or immediately from the 
 apostle (as Schott and Lucke suppose), thought himself justified in 
 introducing John as the speaker. But in reference to the origination 
 and circulation of the work, if we place it in so early a period many 
 difficulties will remain. The most probable supposition is, that the 
 author, since he did not see his prophecies fulfilled in individual in- 
 stances, although the ideas lying at the basis of his prophetic visions 
 contained truth, put a stop to the circulation of the book, — that after 
 his death, and the death of the apostle John, it was again made public, 
 and passed more easily as the work of the latter. This book appears 
 to assume the existence of such a scheme of doctrine as we find in 
 John's Gospel, and this seems to be at variance with the opinion of the 
 earlier origin of the Apocalypse. Yet the main outlines of John's 
 peculiar doctrinal scheme mig'nt have been formed very early, from the 
 mode in which he had received the life of Christ, according to his own 
 mental conformation, before he appeared in Lesser Asia as a teacher in 
 the Greek language ; he also might have already adopted the use of 
 such an expression as the term \6yos, to designate the indwelling 
 divine life of the Redeemer, according to the Aramaic word from which 
 it was taken, (as this term in the Alexandrian theosophic phraseology, 
 certainly arose originally from a translation.) 
 
 ' We remark in this book, the vivid impression which Nero's perse- 
 cution of the Christians, his setting on fire part of the city of Rome, 
 and especially his cruelties, had made on the minds of men. The story 
 that Nero was not really dead, but had retired to the Euphrates, and 
 would return again from thence (see my Church History, i. 137.) appears 
 here more fully delineated by a Christian imagination. He is the 
 monster to whom Satan gave all his power, who returns as anti-christ 
 and the destroyer of Home, who will force all to worship his image. 
 The Roman empire at that time is set forth as the representative of 
 heathenism, and of ungodly power personified, and in this connexion, 
 under the image of the beast with seven heads (the seven Roman 
 emperors which would succeed one another till the app'iarance of anti- 
 christ), Nero is signified as one of these heads (xiii. 3), which appeared 
 dead, but whose deadly wound was healed, so that to universal astonish- 
 ment he appeared alive again. Nero reappearing after it had been 
 believed that he was dead, is the beast " which was, and is not. and 
 shall ascend out of the bottomless pit — and yet is," Rev. xvii. 8. Of the 
 seven emperors who were to reign until the appearance of anti-christ, it 
 is said that five have fiillen — one (Nero's successor) is now reigning, and 
 the other is not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain only a 
 short time, and the beast which was and is not. is itself the eighth and 
 one of the seven; (Neio as one of the seven emperors is the fifth, but
 
 595 AUTHOaSHIP OF THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 Isle of Patmos may have been taken chiefly from the Apoca* 
 lypse, and if this book can be snown not to belong to John, 
 the credibility of this account at once falls to the ground. Yet 
 here two cases ai'e possible. If the Apocalypse proceeded from 
 another John than the apostle, if it was the composition of 
 the Presbyter John who was his contemporary at Ephesus, 
 the banishment to the Isle of Patmos would relate to him, 
 and not to the apostle of this name. And this change, by 
 which the Apocalypse was attributed to the apostle, would 
 have occasioned also the report of his banishment to this 
 island, although it is possible that the same outward causes 
 might have led to the banishment of both these distinguished 
 
 inasmuch as he comes again as anti-christ, and founds the last universal 
 monarchy following the succession of the seven emperors, he is the 
 eighth.) Nero comes from the East, supported by his tributaries — the 
 ten kings (his Satraps, the ten horns of the beast) leagued with him to 
 destroy Rome, and to make war on Christianity. The waters of the 
 Euphrates are dried up, to make a way for Nero with his ten Satraps, 
 xvi. 12, who, in his service, would burn and destroy Rome, xvii. 16. 
 All this marks the time in which the Apocalypse must have been 
 written, the change of the emperor after Nero, while the image of thia 
 monster was yet in vivid recollection, and men were disposed to depict 
 the future in magnified images of the past ; it also agrees with this date, 
 that the temple at Jerusalem is described as still in existence, i. 1, there- 
 fore it must be before the year 70. But in this book, I am struck with 
 one contradiction, of which I have never met with h satisfactory solu- 
 tion. I shall rejoice to find that it has been explained by Dr. Liicke in 
 his Commentary, which I am anxiously looking for. In vii. 4, the whole 
 number of believing Jews is given as one hundred and forty-four 
 thousand ; and though this number may seem to be merely an assumed 
 round number, yet the number of Christians then existing among the 
 Jews might not differ very greatly from it. See Acts xxi. 20. Besides 
 these, an innumerable company of believers from all nations and tongues 
 appear before the throne of God, from which the former as Jews are 
 expressly distinguished. On the other hand, in xiv. 4, the hundred 
 forty and four thousand appear as the company of the elect from the 
 great body of Christians in the whole world, who present the model of 
 a holy life, as belonging to which a life of celibacy seems to be reckoned, 
 a view which would not accord with John's sentiments. Origen has 
 indeed noticed this contradiction, t. i. Joh. § 1, 2; but he avails him- 
 self of the allegorical interpretation ; he thinks that in the first passage, 
 the Jews in a spiritual sense, the flower of Christians out of all nations 
 are to be understood ; this opinion, which others also have adopted, 
 cannot be correct, for it is evident from the other passage, that here only 
 believers of Jewish descent ar.e intended. As in the last quoted passage 
 I can find nothing predicable of Jewish Christians, I cannot satisiy 
 myself with the solution proposed by Credner in his Einleitung, p. 711.
 
 JOHN'S \niITINGS. 399 
 
 teachers of the religio illicita. But if we admit that another 
 person Avished to represent these revelations as those which 
 the apostle John had received, and if we hence infer, that in 
 order to personate John, he made use of certain passages in 
 his life, then the words in i. 9, in case they are to be un- 
 derstood of a banishment to the Isle of Patmos,' yet always 
 presuppose the fact of such an exile of the apostle, and we 
 must in this case place his banishment in the first period 
 after his aiTival in Lesser Asia. But it is possible that, inde- 
 pendently of the Apocalypse, such a tradition might be 
 spread that the apostle John was banished by the Emperor 
 Domitian (in whose reign such banishments to the islands on 
 account of passing over to Judaism or Christianity were not 
 uncommon) to the Isle of Patmos or some other island ; and 
 it is possible that, from this tradition, the supposition was 
 formed that the Apocalypse ascribed to the apostle was 
 wTitten dm-ing this period. Certainly we cannot refuse 
 to believe the unanimous tradition of the Asiatic chiu'chea 
 in the second century, that the apostle John, as a teacher 
 of those chiu-ches, had to suffer on account of the faith, 
 for which reason he is distinguished as a martyi- in the 
 epistle quoted above of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus.' 
 
 As in those regions where the general superintendence of 
 the church devolved on John, manifold attempts wcx'e made 
 to adulterate the Christian faith, as well as to distui'b and 
 suppress the spirit of Christian love, it was the main object 
 of his protracted labours to maintain and propagate the 
 essence of the Christian faith and of Christian love, in oppo- 
 sition to these injurious influences. Of this fact his -^Titings 
 bear witness, which as they were produced under such cir- 
 
 ' Here everything depends on the interpretation of the words in 
 Rev. i. 9. There is no necessary reference to sufferings on account of 
 the gospel. The words may be understood thus : " I was in the Isle of 
 Patmos for the purpose of publishing the word of God, and testifying 
 of Christ;" which would be only" saying that John had visited that 
 island for the sake of publishing the gospel. But a comparison with 
 vi. 9, Tuv ecrtpayiLiei'wv 5ia rhv Xoyov tov 6fOv, /col Sid rrjy jxaprvpiav %v 
 (Ixov — xW. 11, K6yos TTJs jxapTJpias — XX. 4, TreireKeKifffj.ei'os 5id r-^u fxap- 
 Tvpiav, would rather lead us to understand the words of sufferings for the 
 profession of the faith, and the phrase avyKoivwvhs ev ttj 8Ki\pfi. favour* 
 this reference. 
 
 * The words of the epistle in Enseb. v. 24, quoted above, koI ^dprvs 
 Kal SiSrfawaAos' oZroi fv 'E(pt(TCf> H€Kol/ir]Tcu.
 
 400 .IOHN*S GOSFjEL. 
 
 cumstances, give indications of their tendency even where 
 they are not professedly and intentionally polemical. But aa 
 his natural character was rather contemplative than argu- 
 mentative, the controversial element in his writings is not so 
 decidedly indicated, nor developed with so definite and com- 
 plete an outline as in the dialectic Paul. His controversial 
 style is more that of simple affirmation : from the "fulness of 
 his heart he testifies his inmost convictions of the basis of 
 salvation, and he only marks occasionally, and points out with 
 abhoiTence, the opposite of these convictions, instead of 
 entering into a full confutation. This especially applies to Ids 
 gospel. Since he wrote it among such churches and for such, 
 among whom a multitude of traditions respecting the history 
 of Christ, oral and wi-itten, must long have been in circu- 
 lation, as Paul had assumed the existence of the memorials in 
 the exercise of his ministry, it might be expected that in his 
 historical representations he would take these circumstances 
 into account, and hence designed to give only a selection from 
 the evangelical history, such a one appeared to him best fit- 
 ted to represent Jesus as the Son of God, from whom alone 
 men could receive eternal life, — to transfer to others the im- 
 pression which the exhibition of his life had made upon him- 
 self, as he declares at the close of his gospel, where he says, 
 " And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his 
 disciples, which are not written in this book. But these ai'e 
 written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son 
 of God, and that believing (by the virtue of this faith) ye 
 might have life (true, divine, eternal life) through his name " 
 (through him as the Son of' God); xx. 30, 31. John accord- 
 ingly made exactly this selection from the evangelical history, 
 in order to lead men to this faith, to aid, strengthen, and 
 uphold them in maintaining it. As in the application of the 
 idea of faith in John there were various shades of meaning, 
 all these varieties may be included in the words "that ye 
 may believe;" and as they are all embraced in the apostle's 
 design, those polemic references must be understood which 
 belong to the maintenance and confiiination of that faith. 
 And the delineation of the life of Christ in its unity, as it 
 proceeded from the heart and mind of John, must of itself 
 have been adapted to fi)rm a barrier against all those ten- 
 dencies which disturbed the purity of Christianity. But aa
 
 JOUX'S GOSPEL. 401 
 
 this ajdaptation did not assume a direct polemical form, owing 
 to the peculiai-ity of John's mind, and the nature of the work 
 (that of simple narrative), it cannot be proved that he had 
 in his eye any special controversies. Even those which, from 
 his peculiar scene of laboiu", we might consider as most pro- 
 bably aimed at, cannot be ascertained from the gospel itself 
 by any foir deduction ; as, for example, the declaration 
 o Xoyoc ffap^ iyivE-o, which occm's in the introduction, and 
 marks the spirit of the whole historical development, as 
 describing the revelation of the divine life in human form, 
 is peculiarly suited to form a refutation of the Cerinthian 
 gnosis. But there is no indication that John made this refu- 
 tation a leading object of his gospel. In liis narrative of 
 Christ's baptism, he might have had a strong inducement to 
 bring forward tliis controversy, as Cerinthus had affixed a 
 pecuhai' intei-pretation on this event, in accordance with his 
 general scheme. But in order to combat Cerinthus, he must 
 have commenced the history of Christ at an earlier period, 
 and have adduced those mai'ks of the Divine, which accom- 
 panied the birth of Chiist. So also, though the manner in 
 which the pm-ely human in Christ is developed thi'oughout 
 the gospel is most decidedly opposed to Docetism, yet we can 
 find in it no trace of a designed and continuous refutation of 
 that heresy. The 6 Xoyog ad^i iyersTo is not in the least 
 suited for this purpose, for, taken by itself, it may be fairly 
 understood in the docetic sense, that the \6yoc itself became 
 crdpE, since Docetism considered adpE only as the apparent sen- 
 suous guise in which the Xoyoc presented itself to eyes of 
 flesh. From this standing-point it might with propriety be 
 affirmed that the Xoyng became crdp^, or presented itself in the 
 form of adpE- And in what John says of the flowing of water 
 and blood from Christ's side, it has been very erroneously 
 attempted to find a reputation of Docetism. This argumen- 
 tation cannot afiect the Docetse, for they would be as ready 
 to allow that the Roman soldier and John saw the blood and 
 water flowing, as to grant that Jesus presented himself to the 
 senses of men in his life and passion, as is narrated in the 
 evangehcal history. They only denied the objective reality 
 of the sensuous perceptions, and this denial would apply to 
 one fact as well as to another. But John mentions it in that 
 connexion simply as a sign of the reality of Christ's death, in 
 
 VOL. I. D D
 
 402 JOHN'S GOSPEL. 
 
 order thereby to establish, faith in the reality of his resurrec- 
 tion from the dead. 
 
 It is only in the introduction to his gospel that John 
 appears to design a special reference to men of any peculiar 
 mental tendency; a reference to those who busied themselves 
 with speculations respecting the Logos as the Mediator be- 
 tween the hidden God and the creation, — and to this class 
 those now belonged, who, after they had professed Christianity, 
 threatened to adulterate it by mingling with it their former 
 speculations. It cannot indeed be denied that John, inde- 
 pendently of any outward reference, might have been induced, 
 by his Christian consciousness and by what Christ had de- 
 clai'ed respecting himself, to name him simply as the Logos. 
 As Christ represents his word or words (his Xoyog, hisju/f/^ara, 
 his (pwvrj) as the word of God himself, that thereby alone God 
 reveals himself to men, the fountain of life, the word of life ; 
 so John might thereby be induced to distinguish him as the 
 Word which is God, (the self-revealing Divine Being simply,) 
 the Word, the Sotu'ce of life, and also the reference to a word of 
 God, by which God already in the Old Testament ' had revealed 
 himself, might here be added, to point to its preparation in 
 the Old Testament, for the revelation of the Divine Being in 
 Christ. Meanwhile, the manner in which John places this Word 
 without farther definition at the head of his whole representa- 
 tion, makes it probable that, although he was perhaps led to 
 the choice of this expression from within, since he sought for 
 a new designation for a new idea, yet he connected with it an 
 idea akeady existing, and the train of thought with which he 
 opens his gospel serves to establish this opinion. John wished 
 to lead those who busied themselves with speculations respect- 
 ing the Logos as the medium of all communicated life from 
 God and of every relation of God, the central point of aU the 
 Theophanies — from their religious idealism, to a religious 
 realism, to the acknowledgment of God revealed in Christ — 
 to the consciousness that the Logos, as the divine fountain of 
 life, had appropriated human natm-e, and through it commu- 
 nicated himself as the fountain of all true life and light to 
 
 * See the remarks of Dr. Lange of Jena in the Studien und Kritiken, 
 1830, part iii. And this interpretation does not necessarily depend on 
 the other forced explanations of John's introduction, occasioned by the 
 peculiar dogmatic system of the estimable and highly esteemed author.
 
 JOHNS PIKBT EPISTLE. 403 
 
 every one who only believed in this his human appearance. 
 Instead of wishins: to investigate the hidden which no human 
 mind can penetrate, he called on every one to contemplate 
 Him who had revealed himself in human nature — to believe 
 and experience, as he testified that he had seen and experienced. 
 In the circular pastoral letter, which is distinguished as the 
 first of his catholic epistles, the apostle presents himself to us 
 under a fatherly relation to the cluu'ches of Lesser Asia, whose 
 concerns, during his residence at Ephesus, he regulated with 
 wakeful anxiety. LUcke has justly remarked, that the hor- 
 tatoiy or paracletical element is by far the most conspicuous 
 in it, and tlie polemical holds a very subordinate place, which 
 agrees with John's peculiar style.' This epistle contains 
 an admonition to the churches, to preserve the original faith 
 steadfastly and truly under the manifold temptations which 
 threatened them both from Jews and Gentiles, as well as 
 from various classes of false teachers — and an exhortation 
 to a course of life coiTCsponding to their faith, — with a 
 warning against a formal Christianity, destitute of the true 
 Christian spirit, and a false confidence grounded upon it. 
 When we think of the churches in Lesser Asia, in the 
 transition from the Pauline age to that of John, as we have 
 described their state in the preceding pages, we probably 
 shall not be able (since they were exposed to manifold 
 diversified conflicts from within and without, and to dangers 
 of vai'ious kinds) to find a unity in the hortatory and con- 
 troversial references of the beginning, nor can we point out 
 sucli a unity in the contents of the epistle itself without 
 a forced or too subtle an interpretation. Many passages 
 may appear to be exhortations to steadfastness in the faith, 
 amidst the allurements to unfaithfulness or apostasy presented 
 by the outward enemies of the chm-ch, both Jews and Gen- 
 tiles. As to the latter, there were reasons for such exhorta- 
 tions, as the Christians were still closely connected by so many 
 ties to the Gentile world ; new members were added continually 
 to the Christian communities from the Gentiles, whose faith 
 required confirmation ; and since the first Neronian persecu- 
 tion,^ individual persecutions were constantly repeated, which 
 
 ' This epistle is in the apostolic sense a \6yos irapaKKijcrews. 
 ^ If we do not directly admit that this epistle was written in the last 
 part of the Johannean period, under the Emperor Nerva.
 
 404 John's first epistle. 
 
 were dangerous to the weak in feiith. Under the same head 
 may be classed the exhortation at the close of the epistle, 
 faithfully to preserve the knowledge of the true God revealed 
 through Clirist as the source of eternal life, and to keep them- 
 selves at a distance from idolatry. As it concerned the Jews, 
 the chiirches in Lesser Asia for the most part consisted of 
 persons of Gentile descent, but those who were formerly pro- 
 selytes, and individual Jews, who were mixed with them, 
 formed a point of connexion, by which the Jews could exert 
 an influence on the churches, as we have remarked in the 
 Christian communities of the Pauline and even of the 
 Ignatian period. It might also seem, that when John 
 combated persons who refused to acknowledge Jesus as the 
 Messiah, he intended Jewish adversaries; but a closer exa- 
 mination wUl suggest several objections to this view. As in 
 accordance with the prophetic expressions in the discourses of 
 Christ himself, it was expected that a special revelation of 
 the anti-christian spirit would precede the triumph of the 
 kingdom of God, which was to be effected by the second 
 coming of Christ, so John recognised as a mark of this 
 approaching crisis, that many organs of this anti-clu"istian 
 spirit had already made their appearance. Now this could 
 not refer to Jewish adversaries, for these from the very first 
 were never wanting. The apostle moreover says of them, 
 " They have gone out from our midst, but they belonged not 
 in disposition to us ; for had they belonged in disposition to 
 us, they would have remained with us ; but by their outward 
 separation from us, it became manifest that not all who 
 belonged outwardly to us belonged to us also inwardly." 
 This may indeed be understood of those who, while they still 
 made a profession of Christianity, were always in their dis- 
 position more inclined to Judaism, so that at last they 
 openly passed over to it, and became the opponents of 
 Christianity. But such frequent conversions or apostasies 
 to Judaism in the Asiatic churches of this period were by no 
 means probable. It is more natural to think of those 
 members of Ctu-istian communities, who had fostered in their 
 bosoms heretical tendencies foreign to Christianity, which 
 must have at last resulted in their open separation fi'om them. 
 With justice, John says of a time like this, in which churches 
 were formed out of various mental elements not all in an
 
 ouHN iS FIU;ST EPISTLE. 406 
 
 equal measure attracted and penetrated by Cliristianity, that 
 whatever portion was ti-uly animated by the Christian spirit, 
 must be separated by a refining process proceeding from the 
 life of the church itself, from what was only superficially 
 affected by Christianity, and wore the mere semblance of it. 
 Besides the manner in which the apostle exhorts believers to 
 hold fast the doctrine announced to them from the beginning 
 — his saying to them that they required no further instruc- 
 tion to put them on their g-uard against the spread of those 
 errors — that they need only to be refeiTed to the anointing of 
 the Holy Spirit already received, to their indwelling Christian 
 consciousness (ii. 22), all this rather imports an opposition to 
 false teachers, than to decided adversaries of the gospel, who 
 could not be so dangerous to believers. 
 
 Although John describes his opponents as those who did 
 not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, yet, according to the 
 remarks that we just made, this cannot be understood of 
 decided unbelieving opponents of the Messianic dignity of 
 Jesus. And we must explain this shorter description of his 
 opponents by the longer, according to which they are repre- 
 sented as those who would not acknowledge Jesus Christ as 
 having appeared in the flesh, or Jesus as the Messiah appearing 
 in the flesh. Therefore, from their Docetic standing-point 
 they would not receive the annunciation of a Messiah appearing 
 in the flesh ; the reality of the life, actions, and sufferings of 
 Christ in the form of earthly human nature.' And since 
 John could not separate the divine and the human in the 
 person and life of the Redeemer from one another, for both 
 had revealed themselves to him as inseparable in the unity of 
 the appearance of the Son of God, — it appeared to him, that 
 whoever did not acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God in the 
 whole unity and completeness of his divine and human life, 
 did not truly believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah ; 
 and since only thus the eternal divine source of life revealed 
 itself in human nature and imparted itself to men, and a way 
 to communion with God was opened for all, — it appeared to 
 
 ' If it be objected, as by Lange in his Beitrdge zur cilteste Kirchen- 
 geschichte, Leipzig, 1828, vol. i. p. 121, that if John designed the con- 
 fijt.ation of Docetisra, he would have expressed himself in some precise 
 terms, such as we find in the Epistles of Ignatius ; the answei* is, that 
 it is John's favourite method not to mark the object of controversy 
 more distinctly and fully.
 
 406 John's first epistle. 
 
 him tliat ■\?hoever denied the reahty of the revelation of the 
 divine Logos in the flesh, denied the Son of God himself and 
 the Father also. This was the real anti-christian spirit of 
 falsehood, which, though connecting itself in appearance with 
 the Christian profession, in fact threatened to destroy faith in 
 the Son, and in the Father as revealed in the Son. In a 
 passage which is rather practical than controversial, where 
 John, for the purpose of exhortation, lays down the position 
 that faith in Jesus as the Son of God arms with power for all 
 conflicts with the world, he adds, " Jesus is he who has revealed 
 himself as the Messiah by water ' and by blood, — by means 
 of the baptism received by him * and by means of his re- 
 
 ^ As the epxeffBai Si al/xaTos relates to Jesus subjectively, as the 
 person who had revealed himself by his ovm sufferings, so also the 
 second clause, ipx^o-dai. 5j' vSutos, is most naturally referred to some- 
 thing affecting Jesus personally, and, therefore, not to the baptism in- 
 stituted by him. This reason is not perfectly decisive, for, if the 
 sufferings of Christ are not contemplated in their subjective aspect, 
 (that is, simply in relation to Jesus as the sufferer,) but rather in their 
 objective aspect, as redeeming sufferings, as that by which Christ 
 effected the salvation of mankind, then the coming by water might be 
 taken to denote the institution of baptism, which is necessarily required 
 for completing the redeeming work of -Christ. But what LUcke in his 
 Commentary, 2d ed. p. 288, has urged against the view I have taken, 
 does not appear pertinent. The Messiah (he thinks) was to be inducted 
 to his office by a solemn inauguration. This was performed through 
 John as the appointed prophet by means of the Messianic baptism. 
 Hence the coming by water is placed first, by which Jesus at first revealed 
 himself as the Messiah, and from which his whole public Messianic 
 ministry dates its commencement. This must have been peculiarly 
 important in John's estimation, who was first led to Christ by the 
 testimony of the Baptist. On the contrary, I believe that if he had 
 meant the baptism instituted by Christ, he would place first the coming 
 by blood, for I cannot agree with what LUcke says in p. 291. " But 
 because though vSwp from the beginning denotes purification, yet the 
 full purification lies in the a'lfiu, John emphatically adds, ovk 4v t<j5 
 hSaTi fxovov (with which alone John the Baptist appeared, and therefore 
 was not the Messiah, Matt. iii. 14), oAA' eV rw vSart koX t^; j^inan." The 
 baptism of. Christ was in the apostle's view altogether different from 
 that of John. With it was connected perfect purification. Water- 
 baptism and Spirit-baptism cannot here be separated from one another 
 and this Christian baptism necessarily presupposes the redeeming suffer- 
 ings of Christ. See Ephes. v. 25, 26. As far as Cerinthus acknow 
 ledged the Messiah only as iAdo^v iv rep i/'Sart, not as fKdocv eV t^ a'lfiari 
 this would agree with a designed opposition to his doctrine. 
 
 2 On account of the importance which is attributed to it in the 
 Gospel of John, in reference to the unveiling of the Messiah's dignity 
 and the hidden glory of Jesus.
 
 John's first epistle. 407 
 
 deemina; sufferings and that which the Spirit of God, whose 
 witness is infallible, has effected, and still effects, by him. 
 testifies the same. The threefold witness of the water, the blood, 
 and the Spirit, thus unite to verify the same." 
 
 It is possible that John in this passage collected such marks 
 as appeared to him most striking, which distinguished Jesus 
 as the Son of God, without any special controversial reference. 
 But it is also possible that he connected a polemical with a 
 parsenetical design, and therefore was induced to select exactly 
 these marks ; and in this case it would be certainly natural 
 to suppose an intended contradiction of the Cerinthian \'iew 
 which separated the Clu'ist who appeared at the Baptism from 
 the crucified Jesus. 
 
 This epistle then contains an impressive appeal against the 
 practical adulterations of Christianity. The apostle declares 
 that only he who practised righteousness was born of God, — 
 that a life in communion with Christ and a life of sin were 
 in-econciiable, — that whoever lived in sin was far from knowing 
 him ; whoever committed sin transgressed also the law, and 
 sin was peculiftrly a transgression of the law. From this 
 contrast it might be inferred that the false Gnosis here com- 
 bated had produced and confirmed practical errors ; and we 
 may believe that we here find traces of the false liberalism 
 and antinomianism of the later Gnosis, such as we have 
 pointed out above, p. 390, in many appearances of this age. 
 In this case his opponents would be only those who opposed 
 the ethical imder the form of law, and said, What you call sin 
 appears so only to those who are still enthralled in legal 
 bondage ; we must give proof of our being free from the law 
 by not regarding such commands. But if John had been 
 called to oppose such a gi-oss antinomianism, he would have 
 had to maintain against it the dignity and holiness of the law, 
 and his line of argument would have been in a very different 
 direction, indeed quite the reverse. He mxist have said, 
 AVhoever transgi-esses the law, commits sin, and the trans- 
 gi'ession of the law is sin. Also from his saying, " WHboever 
 sinneth, knoweth not Christ," it by no means follows that 
 those against whom he is writing, taught a Gnosis of immoral 
 tendency. Nor is it evident that the practical errors which 
 he combated proceeded in general from eiToneous speculation j 
 nothing more was needed for their production than that
 
 408 John's second epistle. 
 
 uuchristian tendency which would naturally spring up in 
 Chi'istian communities, after they had been for some time 
 established, in which Chiistianity had passed from parents to 
 children, and become a matter of custom, and thus easily 
 gave birth to a reliance on the opus operatum of faith and of 
 outward profession, instead of viewing /a ?'</i as an animating 
 princijyle of the inward life. In opposition to such a tendency, 
 which disowned the claims of Christianity on the whole of 
 life, and palliated immorality, the apostle says, " Whoever 
 lives in sin, whatever be his pretensions, is far from knowing 
 Jesus Christ ; all sin is a transgression of the divine law, 
 wliich in its whole extent is sacred to the Christian." 
 
 The view of the false teachers to which we have been led, 
 by the First Epistle of John, ' is confirmed by the second, 
 addressed to a Christian female in those parts, named Cyria, 
 
 1 It is remarkable that the author of the two last epistles of John 
 styles himself a presbyter, a term which is not suited to designate an 
 apostle, and particularly since at that time, and in that region, a person 
 was living who was unusually distinguished by the name of the Pres- 
 byter John. Such was the presbyter John to whom Papias appeals, 
 Euseb. iii. 29, and we might be tempted to attribute this epistle to him. 
 He appears to have been commonly distinguished by the name of the 
 presbyter (which is here a title of office) John, from the apostle John, 
 and hence the word -rpeafivrepos was wont to be placed before the name 
 John. It is indeed improbable that, during the lifetime of the apostle, 
 another could have attained such high repute among the churches, as 
 this epistle leads us to suppose of its author ; but it might have been 
 written after the apostle's death ; for that the presbyter survived him 
 may be inferred, as Credner justly remarks, from the circumstance that 
 Papias, in speaking of what John and the other apostles had said, uses 
 the word flirtu, but when speaking of the two individuals who had not 
 heard Christ himself, Aristion and the presbyter John, he says \syov<Tti>. 
 On the other hand, we are obliged to acknowledge that the great 
 harmony of colouring, tone, and style, between the first epistle and the 
 two others, favours the opinion of their being written by the same 
 person ; nor can this be counterbalanced by the instances of single 
 expressions that do not occur elsewhere in John's writings. It is 
 difficult to imagine how that presbyter, especially if we are to consider 
 the Apocalypse as his work, could adopt a style so foreign to himself, in 
 so slavish a manner, during the latter years of his life. As to the name 
 of presbyter, which John here assumes, we can hai-dly think it of conse- 
 quence that Papias distinguishes the apostles by the term irpea^vrtpos, for 
 it is evident that he so calls them only in relation to their contemporaries 
 as belonging to a still earlier period, and it cannot hence be inferred that 
 John gave himself that title. But since there is no original document 
 extant, in which John marks his relation to the church, we cannot pro- 
 nounce an opinion that he was never known by such an epithet.
 
 John's third epistle, 409 
 
 and her children ; for in tliis we find similar warnings against 
 false teachers who would not acknowledge the appearance of 
 Jesus Christ in human nature. ' He speaks of their efforts as 
 forming a new feature of the times, and describes them not 
 as the adversaries of Christianity in general, but as persons 
 who had apostatized from the original doctrine of Christ. 
 He solemnly protests against all falsifiers of that doctrine, 
 enjoins on the faithful not to receive them into their houses, 
 nor to salute them as Christian brethren. ^ 
 
 The third Epistle of Jolm, which is addressed to an 
 infl.uential person, probably an overseer in one of the churches, 
 named Gaius, also contains several important hints respecting 
 the existing state of the church. This Gaius had distinguished 
 himself by the active love with which he had received the 
 messengei's of the faith, who had come from foreign parts and 
 visited his church. But in the same Christian community there 
 was a domineering individual, Diotrephes, who had shown a 
 very different disposition towards these missionaries. He not 
 only was not ready to give them a hospitable reception, but 
 wished to prevent others from doing so, and even threatened 
 to exclude them from church communion. He I'efused to 
 acknowledge the authority of the apostle, and even indulged 
 
 ' It appears to me most natural to explain the present in 2 John vii. 
 ipxonevov instead of eArjAvdSra, by supposing that John used this form 
 owing to the impression on his mind that these false teachers not only 
 refused to acknowledge the historical manifestation of Jesus Christ, 
 but also denied the possibility, in general, of a Messiah's appearing in 
 the flesh. 
 
 2 Although we may recognise in the form of this expression a natural 
 characteristic of John, a vehemence of affection as strong in its anti- 
 pathies as in its attachments, yet its harshness is much softened by a 
 reference to the circumstances under which he was writing. He cer- 
 tainly wished only to express, in the strongest terms, that every appear- 
 ance should be avoided of acknowledging those persons as Christian 
 brethren. Only on this account he says, that they are not to be saluted, 
 which, in the literal sense, he would not have said even in reference to 
 heathens. We must restrict it to the peculiar sense of Christian salu- 
 tation, which was not a mere formality, but a token of Christian brother- 
 hood. But to presei-ve the purity of Christianity and the welfare of the 
 Christian church, it was very important to exclude from the very 
 beginning the reception of these persons (who, by their arbitrary specu- 
 lations and fabrications, threatened to destroy the grounds of the 
 Christian faith) into the churches, which were not sufficiently armed 
 against their arts, and into whict they had various methods of insinu- 
 ating themselves.
 
 410 John's third epistle. 
 
 in malicious invectives against him= It is evident, that if a 
 member of a Christian community ventm-ed to conduct him- 
 self in snch a manner towards an apostle, he must have had 
 personal reasons for not treating him with that reverence 
 which was shown to an apostle by all believers ; just as those 
 who were hostile to Paul had special grounds for disputing 
 his apostolic authority. ' It is also very improbable, that this 
 unfriendly behaviour towards the missionaries could have 
 arisen at this period from an aversion to their calling simply 
 as such. We must rather attempt to discover a special 
 ground of disHke to these individual missionaries. Nor is it 
 unnatural to suppose that there was one common ground for 
 his hostility both to the apostle and the missionaries. Now, 
 let us suppose that the latter were of Jewish descent. It 
 is said to their praise, that they went out to publish the 
 gospel, without taking anything of the heathen for their 
 maintenance. If they were Jewish missionaries this would 
 serve as a praiseworthy distinction, for from what Paul 
 has said respecting this class of persons, we know that many 
 of them abxised the right of the publishers of the gospel to "be 
 maintained by those for whose salvation they laboured. Now, 
 as there existed in the Gentile churches an ultra-pauline 
 party, of a violent, one-sided, anti-Jewish tendency, and the 
 forerunner of Marcion, Diotrephes possibly stood at the head 
 of such a body, and his hostile conduct towards these mis- 
 sionaries, as well as towards the apostle John, who on his 
 arrival in Lesser Asia had sought to reconcile the differences 
 that were on the point of breaking out, by the harmonizing 
 influence of the Christian spirit — may be traced to the 
 
 1 It may appear strange that Paul, the most influential of the apcetles, 
 is not mentioned in the Apocalypse, and that in xxi. 14, only twelre 
 apostles are named as forming the foundation of the New Jerusalem. 
 Though the reference to the twelve tribes might induce the author, 
 whose imagery was borrowed from the Old Testament, to mention only 
 the original number of the apostles, still the apparent undervaluation of 
 the great apostle of the Gentiles which this seems to imply, must excite 
 our surprise. And we are ready to ask, whether the author did not 
 belong to those who did not place Paul exactly on a level with the older 
 apostles, and did not sufficiently acknowledge his fitness for the apostolic 
 work, though we must, at the same time, perceive how very free he was 
 from the Judaism that would easily ally itself with such a tendency, 
 and how deeply he was imbued with the Christian universalism of 
 John's school of theology.
 
 TRADITIONS RESPECTINO JOHN. 41 J 
 
 same source. Thus, at a later period, Marcion attached him- 
 self to Paul alone, aud paid iio deference to the authority 
 of John. 
 
 Various traditions respecting the labours of John in these 
 regions, which he continued to a very advanced age, perfectly 
 agree with that image of fatherly superintendence presented 
 to us in these epistles. In a narrative attested by Clemens 
 Alexandrinus,' we see how he visited the Christians in the 
 parts round about Ephesus, organized the churches, and pro- 
 vided for the appointment of the most competent persons to 
 fill the various church-offices. On one of these occasions, he 
 noticed a young man who promised to be of much sei-vice in 
 the cause of the gospel. He commended him to one of the 
 overseers as a valuable trust committed to him by the Lord. 
 The overseer carefully watched him till he received baptism. 
 But he placed too much reliance on baptismal grace. He left 
 him to himself, and the youth, deprived of his faithful pro- 
 tection, and seduced by evil associates, fell deeper into cor- 
 ruption, and at last became captain of a band of robbers. 
 Some years after, when John revisited that church, he was 
 informed to his great sorrow of the woful change that had 
 taken place in the youth of whom he had entertained such 
 hopes. Nothing could keep him back from hastening to the 
 retreat of the robbers. He suffered himself to be seized and 
 taken into their captain's presence ; but he could not sustain 
 the sight of the apostle; John's venerable appearance brought 
 back the recollection of what he had experienced in earlier 
 days, and awakened his conscience. He fled away in con- 
 sternation; but the venerable man, full of paternal love, and 
 exerting himself beyond his strength, ran after him. He 
 called upon him to take courage, and announced to him the 
 forgiveness of sins in the name of the Lord. By his fatherly 
 guidance he succeeded in rescuing his soul, and formed him 
 into a worthy member of the Christian community. ^ Another 
 
 ' Quis dives salv. c. 42. 
 
 ' Clemens gives this narrative, which breathes the spirit of John, as 
 a veritable historical tradition, and no legend, fjoidos = \6yos, not a 
 fivdosin. the sense of a fable, a legend ; aKovaou ixvdov, ov ^ivdov, awd uvra 
 
 K6'yov TTapaSeSofievov koI /u;'tj;u7j TTe((>v\aytifvvv. See Segaar on 
 
 the passage. Such late traditions are indeed not sufficient pledges to 
 authenticate a narrative as true in all its parts. It is possible that snch 
 6 narrative might be so constructed, partly to check the injurious con-
 
 412 INFLUENCE OP JOHN's LABOUBfl. 
 
 traditiou pi*eserved by Jerome ^ bears also the impress of 
 the apostle's spirit. When the venerable John could no 
 longer walk to the meetings of the church, but was borne 
 thither by his disciples, he always uttered the same address 
 to the church ; he reminded them of that one commandment 
 which he had received from Christ himself as comprising all 
 the rest, and forming the distinction of the New Covenant, 
 "My children, love one another." And when asked why he 
 always repeated the same thing, he replied, " That if this one 
 thing were attained, it would be enough." 
 
 Thus the aged apostle laboured to the close of the first 
 centmy ; and the spirit that diffused itself from the churches 
 of Lesser Asia during the fii-st half of the second century, 
 testifies of his protracted ministry in those regions. The 
 Lord made use of his instrumentality to prevent the founda- 
 tion of the faith here laid by the apostle Paul from being 
 buried under a heap of heterogeneous speculations — and to 
 preserve the unity of the Christian faith and life from being 
 distracted by various extravagances; that the glorious body 
 of the Christian church might not be divided into a multitude 
 of sects and schools, and especially that a schism might not 
 be produced by the increasing opposition of the Judaizing 
 and Hellenistic elements. His peculiar tendency, which 
 served to exhibit rather the fulness and depth of a heart 
 filled with the spirit of Christ, than the sharpness and dis- 
 tinctness of doctrinal ideas, was adapted, while it rejected 
 with ardent love whatever threatened to endanger the founda- 
 tion of faith in the Son of God, to concihate subordinate 
 differences, and to promote the formation of a universal 
 Christian communion out of heterogeneous elements. The 
 extent of his influence is marked by the simple practical 
 spirit, the spirit of zealous love to the Lord, and the spirit 
 of Christian fidelity in firmly adhering to the original 
 
 fidence in the magical effects of baptism, and to set in a clear light the 
 truth, that every one after obtaining baptism needed so much the greater 
 watchfulness over himself — and partly to counterwork the opinion of 
 the Rigorists on the nature of Kepentance, that whoever violated the 
 baptismal covenant by peccata mortalia, could not again receive forgive- 
 ness of sins. But at all events, this narrative, which is free from all 
 colouring of the miraculous, gives the impression of a matter of fact 
 lying at its basis. 
 
 ' Comment, in Ep. ad Galat. c. ri
 
 INFLUENCE OP JOHN's LABOURS. 413 
 
 apostolic traditions, even though not perfectly understood, 
 which distinguished the Christian teachers of Lesser Asia in 
 their conflict with the Gn.jsticism wliich was then beginning 
 to prevail. 
 
 With John the apostolic age of the church natui-ally closes. 
 The doctrine of the gospel which by him had been still exhi- 
 bited in its original purity was now exposed, without the 
 support of apostolic authority, to a conflict with a host of 
 opponents, some of whom had already made their appearance ; 
 the chiu'ch was henceforth left to form itself to matm'ity 
 without any visible human guidance, but under the invisible 
 protection of the Lord : and finally, after a full and clear 
 development of opposing influences, it was destined to attain 
 the higher and conscious unity which distinguished the spirit 
 of the apostle John. 
 
 We wish now to contemplate more closely the development 
 of the Chiristian doctrine in its original form, and to observe 
 how the unity of the Spirit exhibited itself in the manifoldness 
 of the natural varieties animated by that Spirit, and in the 
 vai'ious modes of conception which proceeded from those 
 -varieties.
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE. 
 
 The doctrine of Chi'ist was not given as a rigid dead letter, in 
 one determinate form of human character, but it was an- 
 nounced as the word of spirit and of hfe with a living flexi- 
 bility and variety, by men enlightened by the Divine Spirit, 
 who received and appropriated it in a living manner, in ac- 
 cordance with their various constitutional qualities, and the 
 difference of their course of life and education. This difference 
 served to manifest the living unity, the riches and the depth 
 of the Christian spirit in the manifoldness of the forms of 
 conception, which unintentionally illustrated each other and 
 supplied their mutual deficiencies. Christianity, indeed, was 
 designed and adapted to appropriate and elevate the various 
 tendencies of human character, to blend them by means of a 
 higher unity, and, agreeably to the design of the peculiar fun- 
 damental tendencies of human nature, to operate through 
 them for the realization of the ideal of Man, and the exhibi- 
 tion of the kingdom of God in the human race through all 
 ages. 
 
 In the development of the original Christian doctrine, we 
 can distinguish three leading tendencies, the Pauhne, the 
 Jacobean (between which the Petrine forms an intermediate 
 link), and the Johannean.* We wish first to review the Pauline 
 form of doctrine, since in this we find the ftiUest and most 
 complete development of Christian truth, which will best 
 serve as the basis of comparison in tracing the leading ten- 
 dencies of the other apostles. 
 
 ' Dr. Nitzsch, in reference to the various forms of apostolic doctrine, 
 admirably remarks, — " To disown them in favour of a one-sided dogma- 
 tism, is to abandon that completeness and solidity which these mode? 
 of contemplating the Christian faith impart, while they reciprocally 
 complete one another ; it is to slight that by which scripture truth 
 maintains its elevation above all conflicting systems." — See Die Theo 
 logische Zeitschrift, edited by Schleiermacher, De Wette, and Liicke 
 1822, part 3, part 68.
 
 THE PAULINE DOCTRI^^:. 415 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TUE PAULINE DOCTRINE. 
 
 In order to develop froix its first principles the peculicor 
 system of this apostle, -we must take into consideration the 
 peculiar qualities of his ardent and j rofound mind — his pecu- 
 liar education, how he was formed in the Pharisaic schools to 
 a dialectic and systematic development of his acqviirements — 
 the peculiiir manner in which he was led from the most 
 rigorous Judaism to faith in the gospel, by a powerful im- 
 pression on his soul which formed a grand crisis in his history. 
 We must recollect the peculiarity of his sphere of action as 
 an apostle, in wliich he had to oppose an adulteration of 
 Christianity arising from a mixture of those views which 
 he himself had held before his conversion. In reference 
 to the som'ces from which he derived his knowledge of 
 the Christian doctrine, we must also bear in mind what 
 he says respecting his independence and separate stand- 
 ing as a teacher of the gospel. There is no doubt, for 
 he occasionally alludes to it, that he had met with a tra- 
 ditionaiy record of the sayings, actions, and precepts of 
 Christ, and these foimed the materials for the development 
 of his Christian knowledge, {ante, p. 95) ; but the Spirit pro- 
 mised by Christ to his disciples, who was to disclose to them 
 the whole meaning and extent of the tiTith announced by 
 him, enlightened Paul in an independent manner, so as to 
 develop the truths of which the germ was contained in those 
 traditions, and form them into one whole with the earlier 
 divine revelations, and with the truths implanted in the ori- 
 ginal constitution of man as a rehgious being. Those who 
 blamed him for blending foreign Jewish elements with 
 Cliristianity, entirely misconceived the views of that apostle, 
 who most clearly apprehended and most fully developed the 
 points of opposition between Judaism and Christianity. Nor 
 does it in the least justify their censiu-es that he made use of 
 certain Jewish elements, which contained nothing at variance 
 with Christianity, but rather sei^ved as the gi*oundwork of 
 the new dispensation. A comparison of the Pauline leading
 
 416 THE PATTLINE DOCT.RINK. 
 
 ideas with the words of Christ as reported by Matthew and 
 Luke, proves that the germs of the former are contained in 
 the latter. 
 
 That which constituted the preparative standing-point foi 
 Paul's whole Chi'istian life, and determined his transition from 
 Judaism to Christianity, laid also the foundation for the pecxi- 
 liar form in which the latter was received and intellectually 
 apprehended by him. Here we find the natural central-point, 
 fi'om which we proceed in the development of his doctrine. 
 The ideas of vo/^oc and ciicaioavrr] form the connexion as well 
 as the opposition of his earlier and later standing-point. The 
 term ciKuioavvri in the Old Testament sense, designates the 
 theocratic way of thinking and life, and also that unrestricted 
 theocratic right of citizenship which entitled to a participa- 
 tion in the temporal goods of the community, and to eternal 
 felicity. According to his former views, Paul behoved that 
 he had acquii-ed a title to the epithet of Skaioc by the strict 
 observance of the law ; as, in truth, the Pharisees, to whom 
 he belonged, placed their confidence and indulged their pride 
 in that observance, while they g-uarded against the violation of 
 the law by a vai'iety of prohibitions. He was, as he himself 
 asserts (Philip, iii.), blameless as far as related to this legal 
 righteousness. And now from his Christian standing-point the 
 epithet of StKaioc,^ was in his esteem the highest that could 
 be given to a human being, and SiKaiotrvvrj expressed complete 
 fitness for participation in all the privileges and blessings of 
 the theocracy, and consequently of salvation, ^w?/. AiKawavt'tf 
 and ^MT] were always in his mind correlative ideas. But his 
 conceptions of the nature of this SiKaioffvyt] had undergone 
 a total revolution since he was convinced of the insufficiency 
 and nullity of that which he had before distinguished by 
 this name. That hKaio(7vi'i] rofjuKr] he now regai-ded as only 
 an apparent righteousness, which might satisfy human re- 
 quirements, but could not, however plausible, deceive a holy 
 God, and therefore was of no avail in reference to the king- 
 
 ^ Paul wa.s very far from employing the word SiKatocriivri merely to 
 designate a subordinate moral standing-point like the later anti-Jewish 
 Gnostics, for he always proceeded on the theocratical principles of the 
 Old Testament. I cannot therefore admit that, in Rom. v. 7, a higher 
 degree of morality is intended by the word ayadbs than by Sikoiox. The 
 opposite is evident, from the manner in which Paul places these words 
 together in Kom. vii. 12.
 
 THE PAULINE DOCTBINTI. 417 
 
 dom of God. It was hencefortli liis fundamental principle, 
 that no man by such works as he might be able to ac- 
 compHsh from the standing-point of the law, could attain 
 a righteousness that would avail before God.' This maxim, 
 wliich marks tlie opposition between his earlier and laici 
 views, it was his main object to develop in arguing with 
 his Judaizing opponents, f^ow he certainly in this cou- 
 trovei-sy first treated of the spy a %-6fjov as an observance 
 of the ritual prescriptions of the law ; for his adversa- 
 ries wished to impose even these on the believing Gentiles 
 as belonging to the true oiKaioavvr) and as essential to 
 fitness for the kingdom of God ; and this it was which 
 he would not allow. Yet from the standing-point of 
 Judaism such a distinction between the cei'emonial and 
 moral law was not possible, for everything was contemplated 
 as a divine command ; both equally involved obedience to 
 the divine revealed will, and both required a disposition of 
 sincere piety." Though Paul in different passages and refer- 
 ences had sometimes the ritual, and at other times the moral 
 portion of the ioixoq especially in his thoughts, yet the same 
 general idea lies always at the basis of his reasonings. ^Vhen 
 he had occasion, as in the Epistle to the Galatians, to impugn 
 the justifying power and continued obligation of the ceremo- 
 nial law, still his argumentation proceeds on the whole idea of 
 the rofiog. It is the idea of an externally prescribed rule of 
 action, the law as commanding, but which by its commands 
 can never produce an internal alteration in man. Satisfaction 
 can be given to the law — which indeed is true of every law as 
 such — only by perfect obedience. Now since no man is able 
 to effect the obedience thus required by the divine law, it of 
 coui'se pronounces condemnation on all as guilty of its vio- 
 lation; Gal. iii. 10. This is true of the imperative moral 
 law which is revealed in the conscience, not less than of 
 particular injunctions of this law exhibited in the Old 
 Testament theocratic form, as Paul himself applies it in the 
 
 ' The Pauline expression oii Si/caioDrai Ivdnnov toO deov ef tpywv v6/j.nv 
 or eV vo/j-ou iraa-a aap^, is a phrase which most probably Paul very soon 
 formed, from the peculiar development of his Christian convictions, 
 arising from the method of his conversion. 
 
 ' When Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, says tnat he came not 
 to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil, he certainly made no 
 euch distinction 
 
 YOL. I. £ E
 
 418 JU8TIPICATI0N AND WORKS OP THE LAW. 
 
 Epistle to the Romans to the law written on the hearts ol 
 men, the law of conscience, which, as he assei'ts, calls forth 
 the consciousness of guilt in those to whom the vofiog was not 
 given in the external theocratic form. 
 
 In reference to the whole idea of the I'Ofxog in the revelation 
 of the divine requirements to Man in the fonn of an imperative 
 law, the apostle says, Gal. iii. 21,*that if it could make men 
 inwardly alive, if it could impart a true internal life from 
 which all goodness would spontaneously proceed, then it would 
 be right to speak of a hiKatoaiivr) proceeding from the law. Yet 
 in that case, if Man were tnily in harmony with the requirements 
 of the law in the constitution of his internal life, it could not 
 be jiroperly said that he obtained a righteousness available 
 before God by the works of the law ; for the external supposes 
 the internal ; the disposition of true righteousness is manifest 
 of itself to the eye of Omniscience;' the internal cannot 
 proceed from the external, but the external must proceed 
 from the internal. Still in this case, works corresponding to 
 the requu'emeuts of the law would be the necessary marks of 
 the truly righteous and of the righteousness that avails before 
 God, of what is truly well-pleasing to God. But in the present 
 concUtion of Man, this is nowhere to be found. The dispo- 
 sition corresponding to the requirements of the law does not 
 exist in man, and an external law cannot produce a change 
 intei'nally, cannot communicate power for fulfilling its own 
 commands, nor overcome the opposition that exists in the 
 disposition. Even if a man be influenced by inferior motives, 
 
 1 This is acknowledged by Aristotle ; on Set to Si'/caia irgaTrovTus 
 SiKaiovs yiveadai. — to, Trpdy/jLara SiKoia A6'7€Ta(, Srav ^ ToiavTa oTa av 6 
 Slkuios Trpa^eiej'" SiKaios Se' iaTiy oux o ravra TrpdrTuv, aWa /cat 6 ovtw 
 irpaTTtav ws ol Si/caiot irgaTTovcrtv. — Eth. Nich. ii. 3. As Paul contrasts 
 the standing-point of the righteousness of the law and that of true 
 righteousness, so Aristotle contrasts the to virh rwv vSjxasv reTay/jifva 
 iroifTv, and the ttHos exovra Trgarreiv eKaara, ticrr' elvai ayadhv, \4ya) 
 5' oiov Sia TTpoalpecTiv (the cppovilv to tou irvevfiaTos, from which all right 
 action must proceed ; Rom. viii. 5.) But Christianity elevates the 
 reference of the mind above the reflection of the good in the TrpaTT6fieva 
 to the avrh ayaOhv, the original source and archetype of all good in 
 God, to communion with God, and the exhibition of this communion 
 in the actions of the life. It is tlie disposition of the truly righteous 
 which refers everything to the glory of God. Morality is a manifesta- 
 tion and exhibition of the divine life. And Christianity points out the 
 process of development through which a man, by means of regeneration, 
 «£ay attain to that aperii which produces the right irpoaipeais.
 
 JUSTIFICATION AN1» WORKS OP THE LAW. 419 
 
 by carnal fear or hope, by vanity which would recommend 
 itself to God or man, to accomplish what is commanded 
 according to appearance, still the disposition required by the 
 spirit of the law would be wanting. The works resulting 
 from such attempts, whether they related to the moral or 
 ritual part of the rofioQ, would want the disposition which is 
 the mark of the genuine EiKuioaurt], presenting itself before 
 a holy God. It results from this connexion of ideas, that 
 though epya vofxov may in themselves be works which really 
 exliibit the fulfilling of the law, they would be considered by 
 Paul as acts of a merely superficial external, and not internal 
 obedience, they would bear the impress of mere legality iu 
 opposition to true piety and morahty. The epya vo^ov are not 
 classed with epya dyadd but opposed to them ; Eph. ii. 10. Of 
 such a legal righteousness he speaks when he says, Phil. ii. G, 
 that in this respect he had been a Pharisee without blame, 
 though viewing it afterwards from the Christian standing- 
 point he esteemed it as perfectly nugatory. Thus, in a two- 
 fold sense, Paul covdd say that by works of the law no man 
 could be justified before God. Taking the expression works of 
 the law in an ideal sense, no man can perform such works as 
 are required by the law ; taking it in an empirical sense, there 
 are no works which are really performed on the standing- 
 point of the law, and coiTespond to its spirit and require- 
 ments. 
 
 If the assertion of the insufficiency of the righteousness of 
 the law be made without more exactly defining it, it may be 
 supposed to mean, that the moral commands of the law 
 exhibit only an inferior moral standing-point, and on that 
 account can lead no one to true righteousness. According to 
 this supposition, our judgment respecting the claims of Chi'is- 
 tianity would take a particular direction, and we should con- 
 sider the exhibition of a complete system of morals, as forming 
 its essential preeminence over the former dispensation. But 
 from the manner in which Paul makes this assertion, it is 
 evident that this is not his meaning. He never complains of 
 the law as defective in this respect, but on the contrary eulo- 
 gizes it as in itself holy and good; Rom. vii. 12. The single 
 commandment of love which stands at the head of the v6i.ioc, 
 contains in fact everything (Romans xiii. 9) essential to moral 
 perfection, and whoever fulfilled this would be truly righteous.
 
 4:20 MEANING OF THE TERM 2APE. 
 
 And in the two first chapters of the Epistle to the Romans 
 his aim is to prove that the Jews in relation to their vojjloc, as 
 well as the Gentiles in relation to the moral law inscribed on 
 their hearts, were not wanting in their knowledge of what was 
 good, but in the power of will to perform w^hat they knew to 
 be good. The reason why the law could not produce time 
 righteousness, consisted in the fact that it presented goodness 
 only in the form of an external command, and also in the 
 relation of the command to the moral condition of those to 
 whom the law was given. This leads us to the central point 
 of the Pauline Anthropology ; namely, human natxire as 
 estranged from the divine life and standing in opposition to 
 the requirements of the law ; whether the eternal moral law, 
 or the law in its outward theocratical form. This opposition 
 we must now examine more minutely. 
 
 That principle in human nature which strives against the 
 fulfilment of the law, the apostle generally distinguishes by 
 the name of the Flesh, and the man in whom this principle 
 predominates, or the man whose mind is not yet transformed 
 by Christianity, by the name of cnipKiKUQ or to. tjjq aapicdg 
 <ppovu)i: He represents this principle striving ag-ainst the law 
 as a law in the members, which opposes the law of reason ; he 
 speaks of " the motions of sin in the members" which ob- 
 structed the fiilfilment of the law acknowledged by the mind ; 
 Romans vii. 5. The body as the seat of sinful desires he 
 
 calls the nwfxa Ttjc dficipriac, Rom. vi. G, the acjfia rJ/C (rapKog^ 
 
 Col. ii. 11. Hence we might conclude, that the apostle de- 
 duced sin from the opposition between sense and spirit in 
 human nature, and that he considered evil as a necessary 
 transition-point in the development of human nature, till 
 spirit acquired the perfect ascendency. But this could not be 
 the apostle's meaning, for he considered this conflict between 
 reason and sense, not as founded in the original natm-e of 
 man, but as the consequence of a free depai'tirre from his 
 original destination, as something blameworthy ; and here we 
 see of what practical importance in the Pauline doctrine is the 
 supposition of an original perfection in man and a fall from it. 
 Hence we must consider in every instance, the preponderance 
 of sensual inclination over reason, according to Paul's view, 
 only as an essential consequence of the first moral disunion. 
 There are indeed many things to be urged against the supposi-
 
 5IEAXING OF THE TERM JSAPH. 421 
 
 tion thatwhen he specifiesthe o-apS as the soiu-ce of sin, he meaut 
 nothing but sensuality in opposition to the spiritual principle 
 m man. In Gal. v. 20, among the works of the o•ap^, he 
 mentions divisions (^ixoTrao-iat), which cannot be attributed 
 to sensual impulses. It is jjossible, indeed, to argiie in favoui' 
 of such an interpretation by saying, that Paul had in ^^ew 
 those divisions which he traced to sensual impulses, to a 
 sensual way of thinking, to a Judaism that adliered to sen- 
 sual objects, and opposed the more spiritual conceptions of 
 Christianity. But it appears still more surprising that he 
 traces everything in that eiToueous tendency which he op- 
 posed in the church at Colossee to the odpi. to a i-ouc aupKiKog ; 
 and here it would be difficult to attribute everything to a 
 sensual addictedness, for we meet on the contrary with a 
 morbid striving at freedom fi'om the senses, an ascetic ten- 
 dency which woiild defraud the bodily appetites of their just 
 claims. And even if in all these attempts we detected the 
 workings of a refined sensuality, that tendency which, while 
 clea-\ang to outward objects, could not rise to the pure inward 
 religion of the spirit ; still we find that in the Corinthian 
 chm-ch also, the apostle traced to the mlp^ everything which 
 either openly or secretly opposed Christianity, not excepting 
 even the speculative Grecian tendency, the uo^mv i^tj-e'iv, 
 which treated the simple gospel Avith contempt. From all 
 these considerations, we may infer with certainty that some- 
 thing more than sensuality was included in the Pauline idea 
 of adp^. And it confirms this conclusion, that Paul not only 
 uses the plu'ase Kara, at'dpunroy ■KtpnruTu.v as equivalent to 
 Kara adpKa irEpnraTtir, but also employs the designation 
 d>'dpii>Trng \bv)(^iKog as equivalent to drOpioTroc crapKiKoc, 1 Cor. 
 ii. 14. All this relates only to the opposition of the Human 
 to the Divine, whether the crcipt, or the xpy^v,^ against the 
 Ouou ny£ufia. Paul detected in the philosophic conceit of the 
 Greeks, which with all its striving could not pass beyond the 
 Dovmds of earthly existence, and satisfied itself without finding 
 
 ' Paul indeed might distini^uish the TrveOfia from the ^f/vxh as a power 
 inherent to human nature, whicli serves as an organ for the Divine, or 
 for the Holy Spirit, and under tliat influence acquires a predominant 
 activity. This may be inferred also from the trichotomy, (a threefold 
 division of man) in 1 Thess. v. 23. According to that trichotomj', the 
 ifivxtKos would be a person in whom, by the predominance of the lowet 
 powers of the soul, the higher, the subjective Tr/isu^ua was depressed.
 
 422 ON HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 
 
 the highest good which alone can give true satisfaction to the 
 mind, and in the aiTogance of the imaginaiy legal righteous- 
 ness of the Jews, the same principle of the adpl as in the 
 thirst for sensual pleasm^e. Thei-e was a ao(i>ia Kara adpKa, a 
 
 CiKaioavvT} Kara, acipicn. These ideas, crapE, KoafioQ, Tvvtv^a rov 
 Korr/j-ov, correspond to one another. Thus the term erdpt, denotes 
 human nature generally in its state of estrangement from the 
 divine life ; and from this designation we cannot determine 
 what Paul considered as the one fundamental tendency from 
 which all the forms of sin might be deduced, or whether he 
 admitted one such source. On this last point we find no 
 precise explanation in his writings. But as he represented 
 the OeaJ ^ijv, the Xpicrrw iC>;''j to be the principle of good iu 
 man, it is implied that the euvtm i,i]r, the selfish tendency 
 (the eyuj in relation to self, not subordinating itself to the 
 religious sentiment, Gal. ii. 30), was the fundamental tendency 
 of evil. Now, partly because the power of the sinful principle 
 iu the present condition of human natm-e makes itself known 
 by the conflict of sensual inclinations with the law acknow- 
 ledged by the Spirit — partly because Christianity first spread 
 itself among those classes in which it had to combat most of 
 all with the power of rude sensuality — partly because the 
 body serves as the organ of the sinful tendency which has the 
 mastery in the soul, and the power of sinful habit continues 
 in it with a sort of self-subsistence even after the soul has 
 been made partaker of a higher life ; — on all these accounts, 
 Paul often employs the term adp'E, to express the whole being 
 of sin. 
 
 Paul commonly refers to the consciousness of sin as an 
 universal fact in human natm-e, and appeals to what every 
 man may know from his own inward experience. By this 
 means, his preaching everywhere found acceptance, because it 
 was based on a fundamental truth, which was not received on 
 tradition, nor on the testimony of foreign authority, but 
 manifested itself in the consciousness of every individual. The 
 consciousness of this schism in human natiire, and the feeling 
 arising out of it, of the need of redemption, remains in its 
 unchangeable validity, independent of all historical tradition, 
 and though man must acknowledge this schism as a given 
 fact without being able to explain its origin. This internal 
 fact, to which Paiil appealed as a matter of immediate con-
 
 ON HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 423 
 
 scioxisness, we must distinguish fi-om all attempts to explain 
 it,' which may appeal' untenable; while this fact, and the 
 sense of a need of redemption springing out of it, and faith 
 in a Redeemer, retain their value undiminished. Hence it is 
 very natural, and a proof of the apostle's wisdom, that he 
 treats in so few passages of the original perfection of the first 
 man, and of the first sin, compared with the number which 
 relate to this universal fact. But it by no means follows, that 
 what he says on this subject has a merely accidental con- 
 nexion with his Clmstian convictions; that eveiythiug which 
 he says of the first man, only sei'ved as a foil borrowed fi-om 
 the notions in vogue among the Jews, to set the redeeming 
 work of Clii'ist in a more striking light by the contrast. We 
 may rather affirm that this fact is intimately and closely con- 
 necte I with the whole Christian consciousness of the apostle, 
 for it lies everywhere at the basis, where he represents this 
 schism not as something included in the plan of the divine 
 creation itself, and necess;uy in the development of human 
 nature, but as something blameworthy. To justify the 
 holiness and love of God, it must have been important for 
 him to be able to say, that man was not created in this con- 
 dition by God, but that it originated in an abuse of the 
 freedom bestowed upon him."- 
 
 ' This fact, the only one necessarj' to be presupposed in order to faith 
 in a Redeemer, is in itself independent of all investigations respecting 
 the derivation of the human race ; and as something known by imme- 
 diate inward experience, belongs to a province of life which lies out of 
 the range of all speculation, or of inquiries into natural science and 
 history. And the doctrine of a pre-existence of souls, though insufficient 
 to explain this fact, leaves it untouched, or even requires to be explained 
 by it. It is essential to Christianity that it rests on an historical basis, 
 which, in order to be acknowledged in its true meaning, only pre- 
 supposes experiences which every man can make for himself. 
 
 * Krabbe, in his excellent work, Die Lehre von der Sunde, p. 56, 
 remarks, that he does not clearly understand what are my views 
 respecting the origination of sin in the primitive state of man. But it 
 was foreign to my object — since I only wished to develop the doctrines 
 of the apostle Paul in the form in which they were conceived and repre- 
 sented by him, and their mutual connexion — to explain myself further 
 on this topic, and to state, as I must have done as a believer inEevealed 
 Religion, that, according to my conviction, the origin of evil can only 
 be understood as a fact, a fact possible by virtue of the freedom belong- 
 ing to a created being, but not to be otherwise deduced or explained. 
 It lies in the idea of evil, that it is an utterly inexplicable thing, and
 
 424 THE ORIGINAL STATP. OP MAN 
 
 But this visw of the subject is not admissible if, as many 
 have maintained, Paul exhibited the first man as a representa- 
 tive of human natm-e, and wished to show by his example 
 how, by virtue of the original constitution of human nature, 
 love of pleasure appeai-ed in opposition to the rational prin- 
 ciple or to the capability for religion — that this is constantly 
 repeated in the case of eveiy individual, in order that man, 
 from the consciousness of this opposition, may attain thi-ough 
 redemption to the efficient supremacy of religion in his 
 nature. This chain of ideas we should certainly find in Paul's 
 writings, if it could be shown that, in Rom. vii. 9, he alluded 
 to and intended to mark the condition of original innocence ; 
 and how by the commandment that state of childlike inge- 
 nuousness was removed, and the slumbering love of pleasure 
 was brought into consciousness and raised to activity. But 
 it cannot be proved that the apostle, where he speaks of an 
 apparent fi'eedom fi'om guilt, in which the principle of sinless- 
 ness though scarcely developed, lay at the bottom, had in his 
 thoughts that original freedom from guilt wdiich he rather 
 describes as sinfulness. Certainly he could not have said that 
 by one man sin came into the world, if, in Rom. vii. 9, he had 
 assumed the existence of sin already in the first man accord- 
 ing to his original constitution, as something grounded in the 
 essence of human nature. In order to reconcile this, some- 
 thing foreign must be introduced into Paul's train of thought, 
 which evidently does not belong to it. If we pi'oceed on the 
 supposition that a freedom, in the sense in which it must be 
 allowed according to this Pauline doctrine, and a transition 
 from sinlessness to sin, is sometliing inconceivable, still we are 
 not justified in explaining Patd according to a representation 
 
 whoever would explain it nullifies the very idea of it. It is not the 
 limits of our knowledge which make the origin of sin something inex- 
 plicable to us, but it follows from the essential nature of sin as an act ol 
 free will, that it must remain to all eternity an inexplicable fact. It 
 can only be understood empirieally by means of the moral self-conscious- 
 ness. To epwTri/xa, h navTav aXriov eVrj KaKwv, naXXov Se 7; Trepl roinov 
 ftiSJs, eV Tiy ifuxj? tyyiyvoyiiVTi, ^v el fiT] tls i^aipedriae'TaL, Trjs aArideias 
 uvTcus oh fxi] TTore ti'xoi. Ep. ii. Platon. Whoever in his arrogant 
 littleness can satisfy himself with mutilating human nature, and 
 reducing it to a minimum, with substituting thinking in a certain 
 form in place of the whole man, may adjust after his own fashion all the 
 phenomena in the moral world ; but the unconquerable voice of Natura 
 will know how to assert her rights against all such fine-spun theories.
 
 ON THE FALL. 425 
 
 of which no trace oau be found in his WTitings, not to add 
 that such a view is opposed to his moml and reUgious spirit, 
 as well as to that of Christianity in general ; for according to 
 it, the consciousness of freedom, and the sense of guilt con- 
 nected with it, could be nothing else than a necessary decep- 
 tion imposed by the Creator himself in the development of 
 human natm-e ; an unavoidable illusion in the consciousness 
 of each individual. 
 
 The sin of the first man occupies so important a position in 
 Paul's views, because it was a free act from which a coui'se of 
 life proceeded, contradicting the original moral nature of man 
 or the image of God in man. "VVTaen he says, Rom. v. 12, 
 " By one man sin entered into the world," we shall most 
 naturally understand it (as he adds no other limiting clause) 
 in this manner ; that the sinful tendency of the will, or the 
 opposition between the human and the divine will, now first 
 made its appearance in the hitherto sinless human nature, 
 and propagated itself with the development of the race from 
 this first point. This is according to a law which regulates 
 the propagation of human kind as a whole, and in particular 
 tribes, nations, and families, without which there could be no 
 history, no development of human kind as a race. And, in 
 fact, we see Paul applying the same law, when he contem- 
 plates evil in its combined and reciprocal effects on the great 
 mass of mankind, the collective body of Jews or Greeks. 
 
 All men have sinned, since they have followed the sinful 
 tendency that has passed upon them througli the develop- 
 ment of the race. In this sense, Paul says that by the 
 disobedience of one many became sinners.' He also connects 
 
 ■ It is now indeed generally acknowledged, that in the last clause of 
 Rom. V. 12, the relative pronoun cannot be referred to i^dam. It is not 
 evident to me (as Kothe, p. 32 of his acute essay on this passage, Wit- 
 tenberg, 1836, has maintained), that €^' ^ cannot be translated "for 
 that ;" the original meaning of this preposition with the dative, by means 
 of which it expresses something conditional, an accompaniment, easily 
 passes into the sign of a certain causal relation; and as eVi with a 
 dative signifies this, hence icp' f by an attraction may signify " for 
 that," " because that." This meaning is certainly to be adopted in 2 Cor. 
 V. 4. What Rothe, p. 25, has said against this construction in the last 
 passage is quite untenable. Nor does Philip, i. 21 — 24, contradict 
 this interpretation, for anxiety after eternal life by no means excludes 
 the repugnance necessarily founded in human nature against the conflict 
 with death. Man would always prefer passing to a higher state of
 
 i26 CONNEXION BETWEEN DEATH AND SIN. 
 
 sin and death together, and affirms that with sin death came 
 into the world, and had propagated itself among all men. 
 
 existence without so violent a process of transition, and tlie fiapela-dai is 
 certainly (what Rothe denies) quite as necessary and constant a mark of 
 the Christian life as the eirnroduv. I will readily allow that Paul has 
 made use of this expression in the Eomans to designate causality, since 
 it corresponds more than any other to the form under which he is here 
 thinking of causality. The first original causality is the sin of Adam — 
 the secondary cause, the connecting link for this continuation of death 
 from Adam, is the sinning of individuals, on which the connexion 
 between sin and death, subjectively considered, depends. But if the 
 icp' $ be not referred to Adam, still the passage might be so taken that 
 the imputation of Adam's sin would be maintained by it, if either the 
 ^jxapTov is referred to the participation of all in Adam's sin, (which yet 
 would be entirely arbitrary, since no more definite expression is added 
 to indicate that the apostle is speaking of the sinning of all in one,) or 
 the i(p' ^ is understood in Rothe's sense. The reasoning of the apostle 
 would then be this : Men sinned indeed from the time of Adam to the 
 appearance of the Mosaic law, but they did not sin like Adam by the 
 violation of a positive law, and without a law there can be no imputa- 
 tion of sin. Consequently, to that time, not men's own sins, but only 
 that sin of Adam was punished as the common guilt of humanity ; only 
 in this relation could death affect them as a punishment of sin. But 
 Paul could not say this without contradicting what he had asserted a 
 little before ; for he had distinctly shown, that the want of an outward 
 theocratic law by no means excused the Gentiles in their sins, since its 
 place was supplied by the divine law revealed in their consciences : and 
 always when he refers to the consciousness of guilt in men, he appeals 
 to this internal judgment on their own sins, without taking account of 
 Adam's sin as reckoned to the whole human race. And if, with Rothe, 
 we distinguish a positive juridical connexion formed by imputation 
 between sin and death, from an internal, real, natural, and therefore 
 immediate connexion, (which is a leading idea in his essay, and ex- 
 pressed fully in p. 54,) this self-contradiction in Paul would not be 
 obviated, for the divine imputation and the voice of conscience, the 
 internal sense of guilt, are correlative ideas The voice of con- 
 science, in the internal sense of guilt, is nothing else than the subjective 
 revelation of the divine imputation; and as Paul assumes the first 
 independently of a positive law, he must therefore assume the second as 
 something independent of positive law, as he himself develops it in 
 Rom. ii. 14 — 16, and also marks the connexion between sin and death 
 established by the divine justice, and manifested as such in the con- 
 sciences of men ; Rom. i. 32. If we allow Paul to be his own inter- 
 preter, we shall find the train of thought in Rom. v. 13, 14, to be the 
 following. He brings forward the objection that the sin of Adam had 
 reigned in the world till Moses, although no positive law was in exist- 
 ence, and without law there could be no imputation of sin. He rejieid 
 this objection by the fact, that death still reigned even over those who 
 had not sinned like Adam against a positive law. This fact is an 
 objective evidence of imputation, and, as is evident from the preceding
 
 CONNEXION BETWEEN DEATH AND SIN. 427 
 
 Now, according to Paul's views, this cannot be understood of 
 an essential change in the physical organization of man, and 
 that the body by that event first became mortal instead of 
 immortal, for he expressly asserts the opposite in 1 Cor. xv. 45, 
 since he attributes to the fii'st man a o-w^a j^oiVdv, ^//u^^tcov' 
 in contrast with the auifua TrvtviiariKov of the resmTection. 
 
 This change, therefore, can only relate partly to the manner 
 in which om- earthly existence would terminate, the forcible 
 disruption of the connexion between soul and body which 
 we designate by the name of death, partly to the manner in 
 which the necessity of such a death would appear to the 
 human mind. But both are closely connected with one 
 another. As life, life in communion with God, a divine, holy, 
 happy, and unchangeable life, are ideas indissolubly connected 
 
 remarks, this imputation approves itself to be just in the conscience, 
 which exhibits men as transgressors of an undeniable divine law. 
 
 1 AVhat Paul here says of the y^vx^xciv of man, certainly relates only 
 to the constitution of the body, which only has in it the principle of 
 earthly life ; he could not mean to designate by it the nature of man in 
 general, as if, since it had in itself nothing higher than an animal prin- 
 ciple, and was destitute of the divine principle of life which was first 
 imparted through Christ to human nature, it must necessarily succumb 
 to temptation. That supposition which we have already combated 
 would then follow, that sin was something already deposited in the 
 psychical constitution of human nature, and a necessary link in its 
 development, which would manifest its power when once aroused from 
 its slumbers, and ttiat sinlessness could only emanate from Christ. But 
 according to the doctrine of Paul, the indwelling ■KViVfj.a of the human 
 nature itself is to be distinguished from the supernatural Trvev/ia, as the 
 receptacle in the human soul for the operations of the Divine Spirit, 
 that which, in connexion with the supernatural influence, belongs to its 
 right activity ; see above, p. 130. Even in the spiritual nature of fallen 
 man, he recognises something higher as the 4'^xv- I cannot agree ^vith 
 Usteri, that, in the passage 1 Thess. v., by the term Tn/evixa, we are to 
 understand the operation of the Holy Spirit, or the divine principle of 
 life communicated by it, as some individualized in man. In reference 
 to this, Paul could not express the wish that it might be preserved 
 blameless, for in itself it could not be afiPected by any sin : wherever 
 anything sinful found entrance, it must retire. The passage in 1 Thess. 
 i. 19, " Repress not the operations of the Divine Spirit; let inspiration 
 have its free movement," cannot be considered parallel ; and as little 
 the exhortation in Eph. iv. 30, not to grieve by evil passions the Spirit 
 of God working in the souls of believers, which is very different from 
 keeping it blameless and spotless. In all these passages, Trviv/xa is not 
 spoken of as a property of man ; in the first, on the contrary, the irvev/jm 
 is represented as altogether homogeneous, as a component part of humaa 
 nature with the soul and body
 
 428 REVELATION OF GOD IN CREATION. 
 
 in the New Testament phraseology, particularly in the writings 
 of Paul and John, so, on the other hand, are equally connected 
 the ideas of sin, unhappiness, and death. As man in com- 
 munion with God becomes conscious of a divine life raised 
 . above all change and death, and the thought of the cessation 
 of life or annihilation is unknown ; so when by sin this con- 
 nexion is broken, and, in estrangement from God as the 
 eternal fountain of life, he becomes conscious of his contracted 
 existence, the thought of death first springs up. Without 
 this, the transition from an earthly existence to a higher — > 
 objective in itself, and sulijective to the mind' — would have 
 been only the form of a higher development of life. In this 
 sense, Paul calls sin, the sting of death, 1 Cor. xv. 56, by 
 which he marks the internal connexion between death and a 
 sense of guilt ; as the wounding power of death is founded in 
 sin, death as that terrific object to the mind of man exhibits 
 itself only in connexion with the consciousness of sin. 
 
 Paul certainly represents a corruption of human nature as 
 the consequence of the first sin, and admits a supremacy of 
 the sinful principle in the human race, but not in such a 
 manner that the original nature of man as the ofl'spring of 
 God, and created in his image, has been thereby destroyed. 
 Eather he admits the existence in man of two opposing prin- 
 ciples — the predominating sinful principle and the divine prin- 
 ciple, depressed and obscured by the former, yet still more or 
 less manifesting its heavenly origin. Hence he deduces an un- 
 deniable consciousness of God, and an equally undeniable moral 
 self-consciousness as a radiation from the former. And as he 
 recognises an original and universal revelation of God to the 
 human consciousness, so also he acknowledges in human 
 nature a constitution adapted to receive it ; as there is a self- 
 testimony of God, in whom the spirit of man lives, moves, and 
 exists, so also there is an original susceptibility in human 
 nature corresponding to that testimony. The whole creation 
 as a revelation of God, especially of his almightiness and 
 
 ^ Krabbe, in his work already quoted, although the premises deduced 
 by him from 1 Cor. xv. 45, ought to have led to the same view as mine, 
 yet he has opposed it, under the supposition that I have not admitted 
 an objective alteration of the form of death, but only a subjective 
 alteration in reference to the form in which it is represented to the mind 
 of man. To guard against this misunderstanding, I have added several 
 new observations to render my meaning more explicit.
 
 THE TWOFOLD PRINCIPLE IN MAN. 429 
 
 goodnes'3,' is designed to arouse the spirit of mau to a per- 
 ceptiou of this inward revelation of God. But since by the 
 predominant sinful tendency of man the susceptibility for this 
 revelation of God is impaired, he has lost the ability to raise 
 himself by means of the feelings awakened by outward im- 
 pressions to a development of the idea of God, to sei've as an 
 organ for which is the highest destiny of the human spu'it.''* 
 Since the consciousness in man of an interior being, by virtue 
 of which he is distinct from nature, and exalted above it, is 
 capable of appropriating the supernatural, has been depressed 
 by sin, — since he has enslaved himself to that natm-e over 
 which he was destined to rule,' he is no longer able to develop 
 
 * In Eom. i. 20, Paul first asserts in general, that the invisible being 
 of God is manifested to the thinking spirit by the creation ; he then 
 specifies the revelation of his power, and adds to it the general term 
 6ei6T7]s, (on the form of this word see Ruckert,) including everything 
 besides which belongs to the revelation of the idea of God, to our con- 
 ceptions of the divine attributes to the aSpara tov 8eou. We cannot de- 
 duce from the words (for it was not the apostle's intention to be more 
 definite) a special reference to any other divine attribute ; but it is not 
 without reason that he brings forward the idea of Almightiness, be- 
 cause this first strikes the religious consciousness on the contemplation 
 of Nature, and hence the consciousness of dependence on a higher 
 power is the predominant sentiment in Natural Religion. Still we may 
 infer, from the term fivxaptar-na-au in v. 21, that the goodness of God 
 was present to his thoughts, which is favoured by a reference to Acts 
 xiv. 17. In this result I agree with Schneckenburger in his Essay 
 on the Natural Theology of Paul and its sources, contained in hia 
 Beitrixge zur Einleitung, <t-c. But I cannot perceive the necessity 
 for deducing the manner in which Paul has expressed himself from any 
 other source than from the depths of his own spirit, enlightened by the 
 Spirit of Christ; and in Philo's far less original investigations, I can 
 find nothing which can serve to explain Paul's thoughts and language, 
 although I see nothing in the use Schneckenburger is disposed to make 
 of Philo for the illustration of the New Testament, which tends to de- 
 preciate the latter ; and I must entirely agree with his excellent remarks 
 on the relation of the Alexandrian-Jewish school to the appearance of 
 Christianity. He also justly remarks, that those who in their folly think 
 that they can illustrate the greatest revolution in the human race (the 
 moral creation eS"ected by Christianity) by excerpts from Philo (an at- 
 tempt as rational as to explain the living principle by a corpse), must 
 serve quite a different' object from that which they have proposed to 
 themselves. 
 
 * The connexion of the inward and outward revelation of God is 
 probably hinted at in the phrase iv amois. Romans i. 19. 
 
 ^ The dominion of man over nature presupposes in its true signifi- 
 tance the free development of the knowledge of God, on which the
 
 430 THE TWOFOLD PRINCIPLE IN MAN. 
 
 the feelings excited in his breast, of dependence on a higher 
 power, and of gratitude for the blessings bestowed upon him, 
 so as to believe in an Almighty God as Creator and Governor 
 of the world, but he allows these feelings to terminate in the 
 created beings, in the powers and phenomena of nature by 
 which they were first excited. Thus, as Paid describes in the 
 Epistle to the Romans, idolatry originated in the deification of 
 Nature, which yet implies a depressed consciousness of God, 
 and to this, as lying at its basis, Paul appealed in his discourse 
 at Athens. This depression of the consciousness of God by the 
 substitution of sensible objects, tended more and more to the 
 deterioration of man's moral nature ; Rom. i. 28. Yet this, 
 as it belonged to the essence of humanity, could not be 
 entirely obliterated. It manifested itself in the conscience 
 as the undeniable emanation from the consciousness of God. 
 According to Paul, this is the revelation of an internal law for 
 the life, and a judgment upon it, undeniable by man, even 
 should he not deduce from it the consciousness of that God 
 who here manifests himself as a hidden legislative and judging 
 power. Men, in passing judgment on one another, give 
 evidence of the power of that innate law of their nature, and 
 condemn themselves ; Rom. ii. 1.' 
 
 Thus Paul represents two general principles in the natural 
 man as striving against each other ; the principle peculiar to 
 the offspring of God, and allied to God, an implanted con- 
 sciousness of God, and (grounded on that) a moral self-con- 
 sciousness, the reaction of the religious and moral nature of 
 man ; and the principle of sin ; or, in other words. Spirit and 
 Flesh. And as the former, the original natm-e of man, is 
 
 elevation of the spirit over nature and its affinity to God is founded, as 
 a means of exercising that true dominion. 
 
 • I cannot agree with those who think that Paul, in this passage, 
 alluded to the Jews, who are expressly mentioned in v, 9. Had this 
 been the case, the transition from those of whom he had been speaking, 
 the Gentiles, to this new subject, the Jews, must have been in some way 
 marked. But the Sid only refers us to what immediately precedes, i. 32, 
 which relates to the Gentiles, though it does not follow that Paul con- 
 fined himself to the same class of Gentiles. Since whoever knows the 
 law of God (according to which they who do such things are worthy of 
 death) and yet does what it forbids, cannot excuse himself, — thou canst 
 allege no excuse for thyself; thou, whoever thou mayest be, thou who 
 testifiest of thy knowledge of God, when thou judgest another, thou 
 condemnest thyself.
 
 THE STATE OF BONDAGE, 431 
 
 checked in its development and efficiency by the latter, and 
 detained a prisoner as by a hostile force, he describes the state 
 of the natural man in general as one of bondage} Still a dis- 
 tinction is to be made between the different states of this 
 bondage, whether it is conscious or imconscious ; whether the 
 depresse 1 higher nature has become unconscious of its own 
 prerogative, and of the restraint imposed upon it, or whether 
 the sense of bondage in which man's higher self is held has 
 been excited, and hence a longing after freedom in the de- 
 veloped higher self-consciousness. The latter is the state to 
 which the apostle has affixed the name of bondage in the more 
 restricted sense of the word, the bondage under the law ; a 
 state in which the consciousness of the depressed higher 
 natm"e is combined with that of the law revealing itself in it. 
 Hence these two states of unconscious or conscious bondage 
 ai-e distinguished as living without the law, or living under 
 the law. These two states the apostle describes in the 7th 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans ; he here depicts, in his 
 own person, and fa-om his own experience, two general states. 
 
 The first state he represents as one in which a man hves in 
 delusive satisfaction, unconscious both of the requirements of 
 the holy law and of the power of the counteracting principle 
 of sinfulness. He awakes from this state of security when the 
 consciousness of the law and its requh-ements is excited. The 
 moral ideal, which is presented by the law to the self-con- 
 sciousness of man, exerts an attractive influence on his higher 
 nature. He feels that he can find satisfaction and happiness 
 only in the agi'eement of his hfe with this law. But then he 
 sees that he has been wofiilly deceived, for the law when it 
 brings forth into consciousness the sinful desires that had 
 hitherto been slumbering in his breast, irritates them to 
 greater activity by the opposition of its commands. The man 
 who is endm-ing this conflict is represented by Paul as saying, 
 " The commandment that should have tended to life brought 
 only death ; for sin which now took occasion to break forth, 
 deceived me by the commandment and by it slew me." — Rom. 
 vii. 10, 11. The deception which was practised by the power 
 of the hitherto slumbering but now rampant sinful desires, 
 consisted in this, that when the law in its glory, the moral 
 ai chetype, first revealed itself to the higher nature of man, 
 
 ' The SovXcia T7JS ajxafnias.
 
 432 THE STATE OF BONDAGE. 
 
 he was filled with earnest desire to seize the revealed ideal , 
 but this desire only made him more painfully sensible of the 
 chasm which separated him from the object after which he 
 aspired. Thus, what appeared at first a blissful ideal, by the 
 guilt of death-producing sin became changed into its opposite. 
 The higher natm-e of man aspiring after a freer self-con- 
 sciousness, is sensible of the harmony between itself and the 
 divine law, in which it delights ; but there is another power, 
 the power of the sinful principle striving against the higher 
 nature, which, when a man is disposed to follow the inward 
 divine leading, drags him away, so that he cannot accomplish 
 the good by which alone his heavenly nattu-e is attracted.* 
 In the consciousness of this wretched disimion, he exclaims, 
 " \Yh.o shall deliver me from this power of sin ? " ^ After 
 thus vividly calling to mind the state of disunion and unhappi- 
 ness from which Christianity has set him free, he is carried 
 away by emotions of thankfulness for redemption fi'om that 
 internal wretchedness ; and dropping the character he had 
 for the moment assumed, he interrupts himself by an excla- 
 mation occasioned by the consciousness of his present state, 
 and then, in conclusion, briefly adverts to the state of dis- 
 union before described. " I myself therefore am a man who 
 with the spirit serve the law of God, but with the flesh the 
 law of sin." If we understand the phrase, " serve the law of 
 God," in the full strictness of the idea, more seems to be 
 expressed by it than the standing-point of the natm-al man 
 allows : for taking the words in their highest sense, they 
 describe such a development of the whole life to God, 
 such an animating of it by a practical sense of God, as 
 must proceed from regeneration, and supposes its existence. 
 But we must first of all accurately fix the meaning of 
 
 ' By the opposition between the inner man and the law in the mem- 
 bers or the flesh, Paul certainly does not mean simply the opposition 
 between Spirit and Sense ; for if the spirit were really so animated by 
 the good which is represented in the law as it ought to be according to 
 its original nature and destination, its volitions would be powerful 
 enough to subordinate sense to itself. But the apostle represents the 
 spirit as powerless, because a selfish tendency predominates in the soul. 
 He therefore intends by these terms to express the opposition between 
 the depressed higher nature of man, and the sinful prirsiple which 
 controls the actions of men. 
 
 ' Paul terms it the body of death, inasmuch the power of evil desires 
 manifests itself particularly in the body as the slave of sinful habits.
 
 THE APOSTLES EXPERIENCE. 433 
 
 ^ovXevtw and of j'o/joq in this passage. Both terms are used 
 by Paul in a two-fold manner. The fundamental idea of 
 hovXevEiv is that of a life corresponding to God's law and to 
 the consciousness of dependence on him. But this conscious- 
 ness of dependence may be of two sorts ; either one with 
 which the tendency of the will hai'mouizes, one in which the 
 man consents with freedom ; or one which stands in con- 
 tradiction to the wiU. And so likewise in the application of 
 the term Law, of which the general idea is a rule of life and 
 action. This rule may be either, according to the second 
 meaning of ^ovXeia, a rule presenting itself to the spirit of 
 man from without, an outwardly commanding constraining 
 law, which contradicts the predominant internal tendency of 
 the Will, and whose supremacy is therefore only acknowledged 
 by compulsion j or it may be a rule proceeding from within, 
 founded on the internal development of the life, with which 
 the predominant tendency of the will is in perfect harmony, 
 according to the first meaning of lovXela. Now the apostle 
 here employs covXela in the second sense, and describes a 
 state in which the consciousness of God makes its power felt 
 in the opposition to the sinful tendency of the will, that 
 controls the life ; for if the other sense of the term were 
 intended, that unhappy disunion would immediately cease. 
 If the consciousness of God had become an internal law 
 of the life with which the determinations of the will were in 
 harmony, the crdpE would no longer exercise its power as 
 a determining principle of the life. 
 
 No doubt, the apostle took the materials of this description 
 from his own experience, which put it in his power to 
 delineate the condition in such lively colours. Though 
 educated by pious parents in Judaism, still there was for 
 him during childhood a period of ingenuous simplicity, 
 in which the consciousness of the law and of the contrariety 
 between its requirements and the indwelling principle of sin, 
 could not be developed with the same clearness as in maturer 
 life. And from this first epoch of childhood, he was led on 
 hj his Pharisaic education to the summit of servitude to the 
 law. But he represents in his own person the two general 
 standing-points of human development, by which the race, as 
 well as individuals, have been trained for the reception of 
 redemption. He her? describes in an individual example the 
 
 VOL. I. P P
 
 434 JUDAISM. 
 
 use of Judaism as the legal religion, viewed in its peculiar 
 nature to Christianity, in reference to the development of the 
 human race. Very diflferent was that part of Judaism which 
 constituted the point of union between it and the gospel, and 
 the aspect under which it might be viewed as the gospel 
 veiled, the prophetic element, by which it was connected with 
 the promises made before the giving of the law, and formed 
 a continuation of them till the Redeemer himself appeared. 
 As in order to prepare for the reception of the Redeemer, it 
 was needful, on the one hand, to excite a consciousness 
 of internal disunion and bondage, and the consequent sense 
 of a need of redemption ; and on the other hand, to point 
 out the relief about to be afforded for this misery, and the 
 personage by whom it would be effected ; so Judaism was in 
 both these respects a divine revelation and a religious economy 
 preparative to Christianity. 
 
 In confutation of the Jews and Judaizers, who would 
 not recognise in Judaism a preparative dispensation, but 
 maintained its perpetual validity, the apostle evinced that 
 all the leadings of the divine government from the begin- 
 ning of the world related to the fulfilment of a design 
 embracing the salvation of the whole fallen race of man, a 
 design of communicating among all men, by the Messiah, 
 redeeming grace, for the obtaining of which no other means 
 would be requisite than surrendering themselves to it and re- 
 ceiving it by means of faith. There was, therefore, only one 
 fundamental relation between God and man; on the part 
 of God, a revelation of his grace in its promise and fulfilment ; 
 on the part of man, an appropriation of this grace by faith. 
 The legal Judaism could make no alteration in this unchange- 
 able or fundamental relation between God and man, which 
 had been already established by the promises given to Abra- 
 ham ; it could not add a new condition, such as the observ- 
 ance of the law, for the fulfilment of the promises. Gal. iii. 15, 
 in which case the fulfilment of the promise would be attached 
 to something that could not be performed, since no man is 
 capable of observing the law. The law, therefore, formed 
 only a preparatory, intervening economy for the Jewish na- 
 tion,' partly designed to check in some measure the grosser 
 
 * To this Rom. v. 20 refers, fofxos irapeKrijAdtv.
 
 THE TJSE OF THE LAW. 435 
 
 indulgences of sin,' but more especially to call forth and 
 
 ' Tuv irapa^dixeaiv xapiv, Gal. iii. 19. The interpretation which I have 
 here followed of this passage requires to be supported against the 
 objections of Usteri in \\U Entwicklaiung des patdinischen Lihrbf^fjriffis 
 (Development of the Pauline Doctrines), 4th ed. pp. &&, 67, and in his 
 Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, p. 114. The reasons 
 alleged by him are, that the idea of transgression presupposes the 
 idea of law — that according to the I'auline association of ideas, sin waS 
 called forth by the law, the law could present no check to sin, but, on 
 the contrary, must tend to hasten the outbreak of sinfulness. Paul 
 would therefore contradict hims(!lf, if he said that the law was added 
 in order to check sin. But although Paul by describing d/dapTla as 
 ■napd^aais, conceived of it as a transgression of the law, yet sin without 
 reference to the Mosaic lawmiglit be so denominated in reference to the 
 law of God revealed in the conscience. When the internal law as a 
 revelation of God is outwardly presented in a literal form, it only serves 
 to bring this opposition into clearer consciousness, and to counterwork 
 the manifold influences by which this consciousness is obscured and 
 depressed. Indeed, the law, according to Paul, cannot conquer sin 
 internally, but only serves to manifest it in its full extent. It can 
 produce no true holiness in the disposition ; nevertheless, we can 
 readily conceive how a positive law, bringing into clearer consciousness 
 the opposition of good and evil, opposing the distinctly expressed 
 divine will to sinful inclinations, by threatening and alarming, would 
 check the outward indulgence of sinful desires, act as a check on grosser 
 immorality, and promote outward moral decorum. This, it is true, 
 can be attained only in a very imperfect degree by the law, since it has 
 not the power of operating on the internal ground, from which all the 
 outward manifestations of sin proceed. On the one hand, the law 
 checks the grosser outbreaks of sin ; on the other, it occasions that the 
 sinfulness called forth by opposition from its concealment, is displayed 
 in the form of particular transgression of the law, and a man thereby 
 becomes conscious of the hidden and deeply-seated root of all evil. 
 Both may be represented as the work of the law ; the check put on the 
 outbreaks of sinfulness, and the greater prominence given to it in the 
 form of particular transgressions of special commands. Both may be 
 considered as the objects of that divine wisdom which gave the law to 
 man, if we only keep the vai'ious references distinct from each other. 
 On the one hand, to prevent the total brutalization of human nature, 
 and, on the other, not to permit the self-deception that any other means 
 of training can avail short of that method which will effect a radical 
 cure. As to the first point, Paul marks it in Rom. iii. 23, where he says 
 that men were kept as prisoners by the law, which agrees with what 
 Christ says when, in the Sermon on the Mount, he opposes the holiness 
 of disposition attained through the gospel, to the theocratic political 
 law, which would only restrain from without the outbreaking force of 
 evil, and with what he says in Matt. xix. 8, on the relation of the law 
 to the (7K\r]poKapSla of men. With respect to the other interpretation of 
 the passage — " the law is added in order to make sin knowable as such, 
 to bring men to a clear consciousness of it :" the words do not so plainly
 
 436 THE USE OF THE LAW. 
 
 maintain a vivid consciousness of sin.' Since the law put an 
 outward clieck on the sinful propensity, which was constantly 
 giving fresh proofs of its refractoriness — as by this means the 
 consciousness Df the power of the sinful principle became 
 more vi'^d, and hence the sense of need both of the forgive- 
 ness of sin and freedom fi'om its bondage was awakened — the 
 law became a iraicaywyoc slg XpicTTov. The bondage of 
 Judaism partly consisted in the union of rehgion with a mul- 
 titude of sensible forms, which could only typify the divine 
 that was not yet distinctly apprehended ; the dependence of 
 the development of the internal religious life on outward and 
 sensible^ objects, might also contribute, like the moral part 
 of the law, to restrain rude sensuality, to awaken the internal 
 religious sentiment, to arouse it to a consciousness of the 
 bondage that oppressed it, and to a longing after freedom.^ 
 
 convey this meaning. According to that interpretation they would 
 iJaei»n — tlie law was given to favour transgressions, in order that trans- 
 gressions might take place ; the thought would, after all, be very ob- 
 Bcurely expressed, and if this were said without further limitation, it 
 would convey such a mean estimate of the law, which Paul from his 
 ^Utnding-point certainly could not allow. And as Eiickert justly 
 remarks, the use of the article with the word irapa^da-icou (on account of 
 certain existing sins in order to put a check to them) better suits the 
 method of interpretation we have followed and the connexion of the 
 passage, since it is the design of Paul to acknowledge the importance 
 of the law in its own though subordinate value. See Schneckenburgers 
 review of Usteri's work on the Pauline doctrines, which agrees in this 
 and several other points with our own views, in Rheinwald's Beper- 
 torium, No. vi., &c. 
 
 ' Eom. V. 20, 'Iva -nXfovdcrri r] dfiaprla, " so thai sin might abound," 
 that is, that the power of indwelling sin, the intuitive force of the sinful 
 principle as such, might be manifested so much more strongly. In 
 reference to the development of the Pauline sentiment,, Fritsche, in his 
 excellent commentary, to which I am much indebted, justly remarks 
 (p. 350), that this cannot be the literal sense of the passage, for here 
 aixaprla is spoken of as a single violation of God's law. The sense of the 
 passage is, in order that transgressions may increase. But this must 
 serve to make them more conscious of the intrinsic power of the evil 
 principle, by its coming forth more distinctly in outward manifestation, 
 as we detect in the symptoms of a positive disease the morbific matter 
 which has been for a long time lurking in the system. Thus, Rom. 
 vii. 13, in order that sin might show itself abundantly as sin ; sin in its 
 destructive power, so that the law, in itself salutary, must bring de- 
 struction 10 m.an on account of sin. 
 
 * The StSoi \uo6ai vnb rd crToix<<« =^ roi crapKtKd. Vide supra, p. 323, 
 note. 
 
 * Thus Peter calls the law in its waole extent, contrasted with the
 
 THE JEWS AXD GENTILES. 437 
 
 In this aspect, the unity of the Moral and the Ritual in the 
 Mosaic law is apparent ; both belonged to this standing-point 
 of religious and moral development, and subserved the same 
 object. 
 
 In the ages preceding Chi-istianity, mankind were divided 
 into Jews and Gentiles. The distinction between them con- 
 sisted in tiie opposition between natural development, and 
 revelation among the Jews. God had from the beginning 
 communicated and propagated the knowledge of himself by a 
 connected series of revelation ; by a positive law, the need of 
 a redemption was manifested, and promises were given with 
 gi'adually increasing clearness of Him who was to justify this 
 need ; Rom. ix. 4. The theocracy was here presented in the 
 form of a particidar nationality, until at last the Redeemer 
 arose fr'om the midst of this nation, and verified in his own 
 person the promises made to them. The Gentiles, on the con- 
 trary, were left to themselves, and shut out from the organized 
 historical preparation of the kingdom of God. Still the 
 apostle recogTiises, as we have here remarked, an original 
 revelation of God among the heathen, without which even 
 idolatry could not have arisen. He presents us with a two- 
 fold idea of divine revelation, distinguished by two names. 
 The universal revelation of God in the creation, and through 
 that in the reason and conscience, in which three factors are 
 combined — the self-revelation of God in creation acting from 
 without — the adaptation to the knowledge of God in the sj^irit 
 of man, (reason and conscience) — and the undeniable con- 
 nexion of created spirits, with the original Spirit whose 
 offspring they are, in whom they live and move and have 
 their being, the fountain from which proceed all the move- 
 ments of the higher life ; this universal revelation the apostle 
 disting-uishes by the name (pavipwaic. Revelation in a more 
 restricted sense (which proceeds not from an operation of the 
 Divine Spirit through the medium of creation like the 
 former,) by means of which man apprehends in a divine light 
 the truths relating to salvation, the knowledge of which he 
 could not attain by his own reason, — Paul terms aVo- 
 
 But that universal revelation, owing to the corruption 
 
 grace of redemption, " a yoke which neither they nor tlieir fathers werr 
 able to bear." Acts xv. 10.
 
 438 THE JEWS AND GENTILES. 
 
 which repressed the awakened consciousness of God/ could 
 not be manifested purely and clearly; the deification of 
 nature, which gained the ascendency over its partial illumi- 
 nation of mankind, fonned an opposition against the element 
 of divine revelation in Judaism which was implanted there in 
 its pm'ity, and presented by the providence of God. But in 
 considering the opposition of Heathenism to Judaism, we 
 must disting-uish from its injurious influences that internally 
 revealed law of conscience which corresponded to the positive 
 law in Judaism. ^ That law of conscience would lead to the 
 knowledge of the disunion in the inner man; and of the need 
 of redemption, without which Christianity could find no point 
 
 ^ Rom. i. 18, Tr)v d\T^9€iav iv aSiKia KaTexovre^. " They repressed the 
 truth that manifested itself to them, the consciousness of truth that was 
 springing up in their minds — through sin." In these words, Paul par- 
 ticularly referred to the Gentiles, though they might also be applied to 
 the Jews. It was not needful for him to point out to the Jews that they 
 could not allege as an excuse for their conduct, the want of a knowledge 
 of God and of his law, since they were only too much disposed to pride 
 themselves on the mere knowledge of what had been revealed to them. 
 
 2 Although Paul was accustomed to form his connexion of vofios, 
 from Judaism, and to apply it to the Mosaic law; yet his Christian 
 universalism, and his unfettered views of the process of human develop- 
 ment among heathen nations, led him to recognise everywhere a law of 
 undeniable, authority in the hearts of men, and to consider the law, 
 under the special Mosaic form, as the representative of the universal 
 law in force for all mankind ; this is evident from Rom. ii. Hence, we 
 cannot allow that Paul, wherever he speaks of vofios, had only in his 
 thoughts the Mosaic law ; but, on the contrary, we must maintain that 
 when he represents the law as one that condemns man, reveals his guilt, 
 it appears to him as the representative of the divine law as it reveals 
 itself, and is applicable to all mankind though less clearly. Although 
 Paul, when he speaks of the curse of the law, Gal. iii. 13, and describes 
 it as "the handwriting of ordinances," Col. ii. 14, must have the Jews 
 immediately in view, who were conscious of the obligation of the law, 
 yet certainly, according to his conceptions, it relates to all mankind. 
 As long as the law was in force, it denounced a curse on all who did not 
 obey it, as the observance of it was the only means for participating in 
 the kingdom of God, and obtaining eternal life. Hence the curse pro- 
 nounced by it must be first taken away, that "the blessing of Abraham" 
 which related to all mankind might come upon the Gentiles ; Gal. iii. 14. 
 Hence also among the heathen the revelation of the opyi] Bfov (to ac- 
 complish which is the work of the law), Rom. iv. 15, must precede, and 
 they must obtain the knowledge that through Christ they are freed from 
 this opyri iu order to be partakers of redemption. These remarks are 
 of force against the views of RUckert and Usteri. — See especially theil 
 Commentary on Gal. iii. 13.
 
 THE JEWS AND GENTILES. 439 
 
 of counexion or entrance in men's minds, and as such a point 
 of connexion Paul on all occasions employs it in arguing with 
 the Gentiles. 
 
 The apostle places in opposition to each other the Jews 
 incorporated in the kingdom of God, f,>.d the heathen who 
 were living without God; still he does not put all who were 
 living in heathenism on the same level. Certainly he coiUd 
 not say of every individual, what he says of the corrupt mass 
 in general, Eph. iv. 19, that they had given themselves up to 
 the indulgence of their lusts with a suppression of all moral 
 feeling; he no doubt recognised in the civil and domestic 
 virtues of the heathen some scattered rays of the repressed 
 knowledge of God. In this respect he says, comparing the 
 heathen with the Jews, that where the former fulfilled in 
 some cases the commands of the law, following the law 
 written on their hearts, they thereby passed sentence of con- 
 demnation on the Jews, to whom the positive law had been 
 given, of which they boasted, but neglected to obey it. Not 
 that we can suppose him to mean, that in any instance there 
 was anything like a perfect fulfilment of the law. To suppose 
 this would be in direct contradiction to what Paul aflirnis 
 respecting the consciousness of guilt universally awakened by 
 the law, that it could only call forth a sense of sin and 
 desei'ved pimishment ; we cannot separate a single act from 
 the whole life, if with Paul we refer everything to the anima- 
 ting disposition, and do not form our estimate according to 
 the outward value of good works. Where the whole of the- 
 internal life was not animated by that which must be the 
 principle of all true goodness, that principle could not perfectly 
 operate even for a single moment. Still the repressed higher 
 nature of man, the seat of the law of God, gave more or fewer 
 signs of its existence. 
 
 From the Jewish and from the Gentile standing-points there 
 was only one mode of transition to a state of salvation, the 
 consciousness of an inward disunion between the divine and 
 the undivine in human nature, and proceechng from that, 
 the consciousness of the need of redemption. And hence 
 there were two hindi'ances which obstructed the attainment of 
 ealvation by men; either the gross security of heathenism, 
 where the higher movements of life were entirely suppressed 
 by the dominion of sinful pleasm-e, or the Jewish merit of
 
 440 THE JEWS AND GENTILES. 
 
 works and self-righteousness, where men, pacifying their con- 
 sciences by tlie show of devotion and of fulfiUing the law, 
 deceived themselves, and supposed that, by the mechanism of 
 outward religious exercises, or b}^ the performance of certain 
 actions which wore the appearance of good works, they had 
 attained the essence of the holiness required by the divine 
 law. In reference to the latter, Paul says of the Jews, Rom. 
 X. 3, that since they knew not the essence of true holiness 
 which avails before God and can be imparted by God alone, 
 and since they esteemed their own works to be genuine holi- 
 ness — they could not perceive their insufficiency, and hence 
 they could not appropriate the holiness revealed and imparted 
 by God.' As the manner in which the Jews, insensible of 
 their need of divine aid, endeavoured to attain holiness by the 
 observance of the law, was the cause of their not attaining it ; 
 so on the other hand the heathen — those, namely, in whom 
 self-conceit of another kind had not been produced by a phi- 
 losophical training — since no such spiritual pride counteracted 
 the feeling of the need of redemption in their minds, when 
 once through particular circumstances, inward experiences, 
 or perhaps through the preaching of the gospel,2 the voice of 
 the la,w had been distinctly heard — were easily awakened to 
 this feeling of helplessness, and thus led to faith in the 
 Redeemer.^ 
 
 In another respect also, Paul compares the Jewish and the 
 heathen or Grecian standing-points with one another. Among 
 the Jews the predominance of the sensuous element in their 
 
 ' The SiKaioauvT] rov 6eov here denote a righteousness which avails 
 before God, and originates with him, in opposition to one which men 
 suppose may be attained by their own power and works, and which, 
 though men may deceive themselves by false appearances, cannot stand 
 in the sight of a holy omniscient God. It denotes accordingly the 
 manner in which men are justified through faith in Christ, in opposi- 
 tion to the righteousness of the law or of works. The apostle uses the 
 expression vireTdyriffav, since he considers the cause of their not receiv- 
 ing what God is willing to bestow, to be a spirit of insubordination, a 
 want of humility and acquiescence in the divine arrangements. 
 
 " Which in this connexion must present itself at first as a revelation 
 of the divine wrath against sin. Rom. i. 18. 
 
 * Hence, naturally, as among the Jews it was precisely their SioKfip 
 vo/xov SiKatoavvTis which was the cause of their not attaining true right- 
 eousness, so among the heathen their yu?) Si<dk(7i' was the cause of their 
 more easily attaining it.
 
 THE JEWS AND GEVTILE8, 441 
 
 religious life, which, being unsusceptible of the internal reve- 
 lation of divine power, sought for extraordinary events in the 
 world of the senses as marks of the divine, a tendency which 
 he distinguished by the name of sign-seeking, was opposed to 
 foith in a crucified Redeemer, who had appeared in " the form 
 of a servant." This revelation of the power of God, where the 
 sensual man could perceive only weakness and igiiomiuy, must 
 have been a stumbling-block to their sign-seeking minds, 
 which longed for a Messiah in visible earthly glory as the 
 founder of a visible kingdom. Among the educated portion 
 of the Greeks, on the contrary, that one-sided tendency, which 
 sought only for the satisfaction of a love of knowledge in a 
 new religion, the one-sided predominance of speculation, which 
 Paul designated ivisdom-seeking and philosophical conceit — 
 opposed faith in that preaching which did not begin with the 
 solution of intellectual difficulties, but with offering satisfac- 
 tion to hearts that longed for the forgiveness of sin and sanc- 
 tification ; hence to this class of persons the doctrine which did 
 not fulfil the expectations of their wisdom-seeking tendency, 
 and demanded the renunciation of their imaginai-y wisdom, 
 must have appeared as foolishness; 1 Cor. i. 22, 23. Thus Paul 
 said in reference to the Greeks, 1 Cor. iii. 18, He who thinks 
 himself wise, let him become a fool, that he may be able to 
 find true wisdom in the gospel. To the Jews the lang-uage 
 addi-essed on the Pauline principles would be, He who esteems 
 himself righteous must first become in his own eyes a sinner, 
 that he may find in the gospel true righteousness. Thus must 
 nations as well as individuals be brought to their own experi- 
 ence, to a sense of the insufficiency of their own wisdom and 
 righteousness, in order, by feeling their need of help, to be in 
 a suitable state for receiving that redemption which was pre- 
 pared for all mankind ; Rom. xi. 32. The whole history of 
 mankind has redemption for its object, and there are, accord- 
 ing to the measure of the diversified standing-points of human 
 development, diversified degrees of preparation ; but this is 
 the central point to which the whole history of man tends, 
 where all the lines in the development of individual genera- 
 tions and nations meet. According to this, we must under- 
 stand what Paul says, that God sent his Son into the world in 
 the fulness of time. Gal. ir 4 — when he speaks, Eph. iii. 9, of 
 the mystery of redemption it-a hidden from eternity in God- -
 
 442 NECESSITY OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 and which was to be fulfilled in the dispensation of the fulness 
 of time, Eph. i. 10. In the divine couxisels he could not sup- 
 pose there was a before and after; but by this mode of 
 expression he marks the internal relation of the divine counsels 
 and works to each other, the actual establishment of the king- 
 dom of God among men by redemption, the final aim of the 
 whole earthly creation by which its destiny will be completely 
 fulfilled. This globe is created and destined for the purpose of 
 being the seat of the kingdom of God, of being animated by 
 the kingdom of God, the body of which the kingdom of God 
 is the soul. The end of all created existence is that it may 
 contribute to the glory of God, or to reveal God in his glory. 
 But in order that this may be really accomplished, it must be 
 with consciousness and freedom, and these are qualities which 
 can be found only in an assemblage of rational beings. It 
 is such an assemblage therefore which is distinguished by the 
 name of the kingdom of God; and when the reason of the 
 creature has been brought by sin into a state of contrariety 
 with the end of its existence, Redemption is a necessary con- 
 dition of establishing the kingdom of God on this globe. 
 
 Paul could not indeed have represented human nature 
 under the aspect of its need of redemption in this manner, if 
 he had not been led to the depths of self-knowledge by his 
 own peculiar development. But so far was he from mingling 
 a foreign element with the doctrine of Christ, that from his 
 own experience he has drawn a picture which every man, who 
 like Paul has striven after holiness, must verify from his self- 
 knowledge ; it is a picture, too, the truth of which is presup- 
 posed by the personal instructions of Christ, as we shall find 
 by reading the three first gospels. We gather this not so 
 much from single expressions of Christ respecting the consti- 
 tution of human nature, as from the representations he gives 
 of the work he had to accomplish in its relation to mankind.^ 
 When he compares Christianity to leaven which was designed 
 to leaven the whole mass into which it was cast, he intimates 
 the necessity of transforming human nature by a new higher 
 element of life which would be infused into it by Christianity. 
 Christ calls himself the Physician of mankind ; he says that 
 
 * That the work of Christ presupposes a condition of corruption and 
 helplessness, is acknowledged by De Wette in his Biblischen Dogmatik, 
 246.
 
 NECESSITY OF REDEMPTION. 443 
 
 ne came only for the sick, for sinners ; Matt. ix. 13 ; Luke v. 
 32. It is impossible that by such language he could intend 
 to divide men into two classes — the sick, those who were 
 burdened with sin, and who needed his aid ; — and the righteouf, 
 those in health and who needed not his assistance or could 
 easily dispense with it ; for the persons in reference to whose 
 objections he uttered this declaration, he would certainly have 
 recognised least of all as righteous and healthy. Rather would 
 he have said, that as he came only as a Physician for the sick, 
 as a Redeemer for sinners, he could only fulfil his mission 
 in the case of those who, conscious of disease and sin, were 
 A^lling to receive him as Physician and Redeemer ; that he 
 was come in vain for those who were not disposed to acknow- 
 ledge their need of heaUng and redemption. Christ, when he 
 draws the lines of that moral ideal after which his disciples 
 are to aspire, never expresses his reliance on the moral capa- 
 bilities of human nature, on the powers of reason ; he appeals 
 rather to the consciousness of spiritual insufficiency, the sense 
 of the need of illumination by a higher divine light, of sancti- 
 fication by the power of a divine life ; wants like these he 
 promises to satisfy. Hence in his Sermon on the Mount, 
 he begins with pronouncing blessed such a tendency of the 
 disposition, since it will surely attain what it seeks ; compare 
 Matt. xi. 28. When Chi-ist, Matt. xix. Luke xvii. enjoined on 
 the rich man who asked him what he must do to inherit 
 eternal life — to " keep the commandments," it is by no means 
 inconsistent with what Paul asserts of the insufficiency of 
 the works of the law for the attainment of salvation, but is 
 identical with it, only under another form and aspect. Christ 
 wished to lead this individual, who according to the Jewish 
 notions was righteous, to a consciousness that outward con- 
 formity to the law by no means involved the disposition that 
 was required for participation in the kingdom of God. The 
 test of renouncing self and the world which he imposed upon 
 him, would lead one who was still entangled in the love of 
 earthly things, though ft'om his youth he had lived in out- 
 ward conformity to the law, to feel that he was destitute of 
 this disposition. Nor can we, from the expressions in which 
 children are represented as models of the state of mind with 
 which men must enter the kingdom of God, Matt. xix. 14, 
 Luke xviii. 15, infer the doctnne of the incorruption of
 
 444 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 human natm-e,' partly because the point of comparison is only 
 the simplicity and compliance of children, the consciousness 
 of immaturity,- the disclaiming of imaginary preeminence, the 
 ^^enunciation of prejudices ; and partly because childhood is 
 an age in which the tendency to sin is less developed,^ but by 
 no means implies the non-existence of such a tendency. Still 
 Christ could not have used these and similar expressions (as in 
 Matt. xvii. 10) in commendation of what existed in children 
 as an undeveloped bud, if he had not recognised in them 
 a divine impress, a glimmering knowledge of God, which when 
 brought from the first into communion with Christ, was carried 
 back to its original, and thereby preserved from the reaction 
 of the sinful principle.'' And the recognition of a something 
 in human natui-e allied to the divine, is implied in what Christ 
 says of the eye of the spirit, of that which is the light of the 
 inner man, by the relation of which to the source of light, the 
 whole direction and complexion of the life is determined ; so 
 that, either by keeping up a connexion with its divine source, 
 light is spread over the life of man, or if the eye be darkened 
 by the prevalence of a worldly tendency, the whole life ia 
 involved in darkness. But as we have seen, Paul presupposes 
 such an undeniable and partially illuminating knov/ledge of 
 God in human nature, and this assumption is supported by 
 what he says of the various degrees of moral development 
 among mankind. 
 
 The idea of the need of redemption leads us to the work of 
 redemption accomplished by Clu'ist. Paul distinguishes in 
 the work of Christ, his doing and his suffering. To sin, which 
 from the first transgression has reigned over all mankind, he 
 opposes the perfect holy life of Christ. To the evil whose 
 consummation is death, representuig itself as punishment in 
 connexion with sin by virtue of the feeling of guilt and con- 
 
 ' As Baumgarten Crusius appears to do in his Bihlischen Dogmatik, 
 p. 362. 
 
 ^ See my Leben Jesu, p. 547. 
 
 ^ On this account Paul in 1 Cor. xiv. 20, speaks of a V7)ina^eiv rfi KUKtff. 
 
 * The qualities which Christ attributes to children, are entirely op- 
 posed to a harsh Augustinian theology, and the gloomy view of life 
 founded upon it, although this must be recognised as relatively a 
 necessary step in the development of the Christian life, in reference to 
 certain circumstances, and as the root of important phenomena in the 
 history of the church.
 
 THE WORK OF REDEMmON. 446 
 
 demnation founded in the conscience, he opposes the suflfer- 
 ings of Christ as the Holy One ; which, as they have no 
 reference to sins of his ovra, can only relate to the sins of all 
 mankind, for whose redemption they were endured. In 
 refei'ence to the former, Paul says in Rom. viii. 3, that what 
 was impossible to the law, what it was unable to effect owing 
 to the predominant sinfulness in human nature, (namely to 
 destroy the reign of sin in human nature, which the law 
 aimed to effect by its holy commands,) was accomplished by 
 God, when he sent his Son into the world in that human 
 nature which hitherto had been under the dominion of sin, 
 and when he condemned sin, tliat is, despoiled it of its power 
 and supremacy, and manifested its powerlessness in that 
 human nature, over which it had before reigned, in order that 
 the requirements of the law might be fulfilled in believers, as 
 those whose lives were governed not by sinful desire but by 
 the Spirit, the divine vital principle of the Spirit that pro- 
 ceeded from Christ.' Paul does not here speak of any par- 
 ticular point in the life of Clirist, but contemplates it as a 
 whole, by which the perfect holiness required by the law was 
 realized. Thus the reign of holiness in himian nature suc- 
 ceeds to the reign of sin, the latter is now destroyed and the 
 former established objectively in human nature; and from this 
 objective foundation its continued development proceeds. 
 And in no other way can the human race be brought to fulfil 
 their destiny, the realization of the kingdom of God, which 
 cannot proceed from sin and estrangement from God, but 
 must take its commencement from a perfectly holy life, pre- 
 senting a pei'fect union of the divine and the human. The 
 Spirit of Christ, from which this realization of the ideal of 
 holiness proceeded in his own life, is also the same by which 
 the life of believers, who are received into his fellowship, is 
 continually formed according to this archetype. In Rom. v. 18, 
 
 ' The other interpretation of this passage, according to which it 
 means that Christ bore for men the punishment attached to sin by the 
 law, appears to me not to be favoured by the context, for it is most 
 natural to refer the dSwarov tov vuixov in the first class to the Kara- 
 xpiviiv Ti\v ajxaprlav in the last. But this will not suit if we take the 
 first in the sense of condemning and punishing, for it was precisely this 
 which the law could do ; but to condemn sin in the sense iu which the 
 word is used in John xvi. 11, and xii. 31, the law was prevented frou. 
 doing by the opposition of the adp^.
 
 446 THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 Pau_ opposes to the one sin of Adam the one holy work 
 (the ev ^((catwyua) of Christ. And if, induced by the contrast 
 to the one sin of Adam, he had in view one act especially of 
 Christ, the offering up of himself, as an act of love to God and 
 man, and of voluntaiy obedience to God, still this single act, 
 even according to Paul's statement, ought not to be considered 
 as something isolated, but as the closing scene in harmony 
 with the whole, by which he completed the realization of the 
 ideal of holiness in human natmre, and banished sin from it. 
 In this view indeed the whole hfe of Christ may be considered 
 as one holy work. As by one sin, the first by which a com- 
 mencement was made of a life of sin in the human race, sm, 
 an^ with sin condemnation and death, spread among all man- 
 kind ; so from this one holy life of Chi'ist, holiness and a life 
 of eternal happiness resulted for all mankind. This holy life 
 of Christ, God would consider as the act of the human race, 
 but it can only be reahzed in those who, by an act of free 
 self-determination, appropriate this work accomplished fOr all, 
 and by this surrender of themselves enter thi-ough Christ into 
 a new relation with God; those who through faith are 
 released from the connexion w^ith the life of sin propagated 
 from Adam, and enter into the fellowship of a holy life with 
 Christ. Since they are thus in union with Christ, in the 
 fellowship of his Spirit, for his sake they are presented as 
 ciKaioi before God, and partake of all that is indissolubly con- 
 nected with the holiness of Christ and of his eternally blessed 
 life. In this sense, Paul says that from the one ^iKaiuinu of 
 Christ, objective SiKalwaic and the consequent title to (wtj 
 comes upon all (Rom. v. 18) ; that by the obedience of one 
 many shall be made righteous (v. 19) ; in this latter passage, 
 he probably blends the objective and the subjective ; the ob- 
 jective imputation of the ideal of holiness realized by Christ, 
 founded in the divine counsels, or the manner in which the 
 human race appear in the divine sight ; and the consequent 
 subjective realization, gradually developed, which proceeds 
 from faith. 
 
 With respect to the second point, the sufferings of Christ 
 as such, we find this (not to mention other passages where 
 this idea forms the basis) distinctly stated in two places. In 
 Gal. iii. 13, after the apostle had said that tlie law only passed
 
 Christ's humiliation and glorification. 447 
 
 sentence of condemnation upon men' who had shown that 
 they were guilty of violating it, he adds, that Christ has freed 
 them from this condemnation since on their account and in 
 their stead' he had borne this condemnation, by suffering the 
 punishment of the cross as a person accused by the law. The 
 second place is 2 Cor. v. 21. Him who knew no sin, the 
 sinless one, God has made sin for our sakes (the abstract for 
 tlie concrete) ; he has made him a sinner, he has allowed him 
 to appear as a sufferer on account of sin, that we might become 
 through him the righteousness of God, that is, such as may 
 appear before God as righteous ; that therefore as Christ the 
 Holy One entered by his sufferings into the fellowship of our 
 guilt, so we sinners enter into the fellowship of his holiness. 
 
 In accordance with these views, Paul divided the life of 
 Christ into two parts. At first Christ presented himself as a 
 weak mortal, although conscious of possessing a divine nature 
 and dignity, submitting to all the wants and limitations of 
 earthly humanity, partaking of all those evils which affect 
 human natm-e in connexion with sin, and as the pimishment 
 
 ^ Although the u?e of v/xas (Gal. ill. 13) and the contrast with the 
 edvn, V. 14, make it probable that Paul had the Jews chiefly in his 
 thoughts, yet this by no means excludes a reference to mankind in 
 general ; (agreeably to what we have already said respecting the ideal 
 and universal relation of the law.) Paul indeed says particularly of the 
 Jews, that they could not attain righteousness by the law, as they ex- 
 pected, but, on the contrary, it denounced its curse against them, from 
 which they must first be freed. But since the v6ij.os corresponds to the 
 universal law written on the heart, so also this curse pronounced by the 
 law corresponds to the sentence of condemnation which that internal law 
 pronounces in the consciences of men. The curse is only first expressly 
 pronounced among the Jews, and presented more distinctly to their 
 consciousness; just as the express promises were first made to them. 
 See the excellent remarks in Bengel's Gnomon. On this supposition, 
 the natural connexion between v. 13 and 14, is apparent, which is 
 founded in the thought that the heathen must be first freed from the 
 curse which rests on them as sinners, in order that the blessing which 
 was to extend itself from Abraham to all mankind, and which could not 
 be fulfilled in those who were estranged from God by guilt, might be 
 fulfilled in them. The same sentiment, though expressed in another 
 form, occurs in all the passages where it is said that all need forgiveness 
 of sins. As in Paul's mind there was a common reference to Jews and 
 Gentiles, he joins them together in the Ka^wixtv. And afterwards he 
 says, that Christ when he appeared among that nation who typified the 
 theocracy for the whole human race, and satisfied the requirements of 
 the law, performed this for the whole human race, who therefore were 
 brought into a filial relation to God. 
 
 ' Both these idsas may be included in the uTrep riixwv.
 
 448 Christ's humiliation and (JLokification. 
 
 of sin, so that in his outward appearance and condition he 
 placed himself entirely on a level "with men suffering on 
 account of sin. The consummation of this state was the 
 crucifixion, as the consummation of the misery entailed by 
 sin is presented in death. The second part was the life of 
 Christ risen and glorified, in which his unchangeable divine 
 and blessed life reveals itself in perfection, corresponding to 
 that perfect holiness which he manifested on earth — for as sin 
 and death, so are sinlessness and a life of eternal blessedness 
 correlative ideas in Paul's wi'itings; and as in Christ's risen 
 and glorified humanity, that divine life is presented which 
 corresponds to perfect holiness, so it is a practical proof that 
 he in the earlier portion of his life fulfilled the law of holiness 
 in and for human nature, and, by enduring the sufiferings 
 incurred through sin, effected the release of mankind ft'om 
 the guilt and punishment, and has assured to them eternal 
 life, which will be communicated to all who enter into fellow- 
 ship with him by faith. Thus it is declared in 2 Cor. xiii. 4, 
 that though Christ was crucified owing to human weakness, 
 the crucifixion was the closing point of his life in the partici- 
 pation of human weakness — yet since his resurrection, he 
 enjoys a life of divine power without any mixtm-e of human 
 weakness. In Rom. vi. 1 6, the death of Christ is spoken of 
 as bearing a relation to sin — as an event which, but for sin, 
 would not have taken place, and had for its only object the 
 blotting out of sin ; and that having perfectly attained that 
 end, it was not to be repeated. The earthly life and sufferings 
 of Christ bear a relation to sin, as being the means of re- 
 deeming the human race from it. But now the risen and 
 glorified Saviour, having once completed the redemption of 
 human nature, is separated from all relation to sin and the 
 evils connected with it, and exalted above all conflicts and 
 earthly weakness, lives in divine power and blessedness, to 
 the glory of God. He no longer endures the sufferings to 
 which human natm'e became subject by sin, and he needs to 
 perform nothing more for the extinction of sin, having done 
 this once for all. There remains only his positive operation 
 for the gloiy of God, without the negative reference to the 
 extinction of sin. Conscious of his divinity, he did not 
 eagerly retain (Philip, ii. 6) equality with God for the mere 
 exhibition of it, but divested himself of the divine gloiy which 
 appertained to him, presented himself in the form of humau
 
 SUFFERINGS AXD RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 44'J 
 
 dependence, hiimbled himself and became obedient unto 
 death, even the ignominious death of the cross.' Wherefore — 
 on account of this perfect obedience rendered under all human 
 weakness and suffering— God has exalted him to the highest 
 dignity and rule in the kingdom of God. According to this 
 train of ideas, as the suft'erings of Christ are represented as 
 having a relation to sin, so his resurrection is adduced as a 
 practical evidence of the freedom from sin and the justifica- 
 tion bestowed by him, by virtue of the connexion existing, 
 not only between sin and death, but between righteousness 
 and eternal life. And in reference to the importance of the 
 resurrection of Christ, as an objective proof of the release of 
 human nature from the guilt of sin and the death that it 
 involved, the apostle says in 1 Cor. xv. 17, " If Christ be not 
 risen, ye are yet in your sins." From this connexion of ideas 
 it follows, that the sufierings of Christ must be always con- 
 sidered in union with his whole life and as the close and 
 consummation of it ; and with a twofold reference which, 
 according to the Pauline doctrine, they bear to the completion 
 of the work of redemption, namely, the appropriation of 
 human guilt, by entering into the suffering condition of man 
 — and the perfect realization of the moral law. And there- 
 fore, when Paul speaks of what Christ effected by his blood 
 and his cross, one single point which forms the consummation 
 and close of tlie whole stands for that whole, according to a 
 mode of expression common to the sacred wTiters, though in 
 its full significance it can be understood only in connexion 
 with all the rest. 
 
 As the result of this work of Christ for sinful mankind, 
 Paul specifies reconciliation with God, redemption, jiistification. 
 With respect to the idea of reconciliation, it cannot have been 
 conceived by Paid as if men had been objects of the divine 
 wrath and hatred, till Christ appeasing the divine justice by 
 his sufferings, by his timely intervention reconciled an of- 
 fended God to mankind, and made them again the objects of 
 
 ' An illustration of Paul's language may be found in an P]pi-itle of 
 Constantine, relating to some Christians who eagerly seized on an op- 
 portunity of returning From exile to their native country, otoy a^jirayi.ni 
 Tj Trjv iTrdvoSuv Tronjcra^ecui, Euseh. de Fita Constan. ii. 31, and the 
 words of Eiisebius himself, IliH. Ecclcs. viii. 12, respecting those who 
 preferred, rather than surrendering themselves to the heathen, rot 
 davaTOf apTTayfj.a 6efji.evoi rrjs twv hvaae^dv ixox^Tiplixs. 
 
 VOL. I. OG
 
 450 PAULINE IDEA OF RECONCILIATION 
 
 his love ; for the plan of redemption presupposes the love of 
 God towards the race that needed redemption, and Paul con- 
 siders the sending of Christ, and his living and suffering for 
 mankind, as the revelation of the superabounding love and 
 grace of Godj Eph. iii. 19; Titus iii. 4; Rom. v. 8; viii. 32. 
 And this couiisel of God's love he represents as eternal, so 
 that the notion of an influence on God produced in time falls 
 to the ground, since the ^Yhole life and sufferings of Christ 
 were only the completion of the eternal counsel of divine 
 love. Therefore Paul never says, that God being hostile to 
 men, became reconciled to them through Christ, but that 
 men who were the enemies of God became reconciled to him ; 
 Rom. V. 10; 2 Cor. v. 16.' Thus he calls on men to be re- 
 conciled to God; 2 Cor. V. 20. The obstacle exists on the 
 side of men, and owing to this they do not receive the reve- 
 lation of the love of God into their self-consciousness; and 
 since by the redeeming work of Christ this obstacle is taken 
 away, it is said of him that he has reconciled man to God, 
 and made him an object of divine love. 
 
 From what has been said, we may attach merely a subjec- 
 tive meaning to reconciliation ; and the ideas presupposed by 
 it of enmity with God and of God's wrath may appear to be 
 only indications of subjective relations, in which man finds 
 himself in a certain state of disposition towards God — indica- 
 tions of the manner in which God presents himself to the 
 conscience of a man esti*anged from him by sin, or the man- 
 ner in which the knowledge of God must develop itself in 
 connexion with the consciousness of guilt. Thus by the term 
 Reconciliation only such an influence on the disposition of 
 man may be denoted, by which it is delivered from its former 
 state, and placed in another relation towards God. Since 
 Christ by his whole life, by his words and works, and espe- 
 cially by his participation in the sufferings of humanity, and 
 by his sufferings for men, has revealed God's love towards 
 
 * If we only reflect upon the connexion of the objective and the sub- 
 jective in the doctrine of Paul respecting the reconciliation of men with 
 God, it will easily appear that this passage is not chargeable with that 
 want of logical connexion and clearness of conception, which one of the 
 most noted expositors of the Pauline Epistles — Riickert — fancied that 
 he found in it : the love of truth has, however, led \his estimable man 
 to a more correct view, and in the last edition of his able Commentary 
 on the Komans. he has improved his analysis.
 
 PAULINE IDEA OF RECONCILIATION. 451 
 
 those who must liave felt themselves estranged from him by 
 sin — and has exliibited his sufferings as a pledge of the for- 
 giving love of God, and his resmrection as a pledge of the 
 «ternal life destined for them, — thus he has kindled a recipro- 
 cal love and childlike confidence towards God in the souls of 
 those who were unable to fi-ee themselves from the state of 
 disquietude which was produced by the consciousness of guilt. 
 The reconciliation of man to God (according to this view) 
 consists in nothing else than the alteration of disposition aris- 
 ing from the revelation of God's love towards fallen humanity, 
 which this revelation produces in their self-consciousness. 
 Still it is supposed that the I'cconciliation of man to God is 
 not the result of any amendment on the part of the former, 
 but the amendment is the result of the reconciliation, since 
 through the new determination of the self-consciousness by 
 means of love and confidence towards God, an altogether new 
 direction of the life, the source of all real amendment turned 
 towards God and away from sin is produced. According to 
 this view also, it is presupposed that man, who felt liimself 
 estranged from God by sin, finds in himself no gTound of 
 confidence towards God, and requires an objective ground, a 
 practical revelation to which his own self-consciousness can 
 attach itself, in order to excite and support his confidence. 
 This latter is, without doubt, a leading point of the Pauline 
 system, as it is of the doctrine of the New Testament in gene- 
 ral. All the exhortations and encouragements of the apostle 
 proceed continually from a reference to the practical revela- 
 tion of God's redeeming love. Nor can it be a valid objection, 
 on the other liand, that Paul, in 2 Cor. v. 20, addressing those 
 who were already believers, and calling on them to be recon- 
 ciled to God, meant that by amendment they entered into a 
 new relation to God, and v/ere brought out of their foi-mer 
 state of enmity ; for it makes here no difference whether Paul 
 is speaking to those who had already professed Christianity, 
 or to those with whom this was not the case. In every case, 
 according to his conceptions, the believing appropriation of 
 the reconciliation of man with God effected tlu-ough Christ 
 was accompanied by a new direction of the life, and where 
 this did not ensue, it was a sign that the believing appropria- 
 tion had not taken place, and the man was still destitute of 
 that reconcihation with God from which amendment pro-
 
 452 PAULINE IDEA OF RECONCILIATION. 
 
 ceeds.' Tn that very passage Paul does not say, Amend your- 
 selves in order that you may be reconciled to God ; but 
 rather, Let not the grace of reconciliation appear to he in 
 vain for you, as if you had not appropriated it. By Christ's 
 offering up his life for man estranged from God, man is objec- 
 tively reconciled to God. God has removed that which made 
 the separation between himself and man. But what has been 
 objectively accomplished for all mankind, must now be ap- 
 propriated by each individual and thus become subjective. 
 Hence, according to these different points of view, Paul could 
 say — "Be ye reconciled (suhjectively) to God," and "We are 
 reconciled {objectively) to God by the death of his Son;" 
 Rom. V. 10. 
 
 But those views in conformity to which the life and suffer- 
 ings of Christ are considered merely as a manifestation of 
 GoTs love, and the reconcilia.tion effected by him as the sub- 
 jective influence of this manifestation on the human heart, 
 appear by no means adequate to the meaning of the Pauline 
 declarations already quoted respecting the redemj)tion of 
 Christ. And although the gi'oss antlxropopathical notion of 
 God's reconciliation with man, is evidently inconsistent with 
 Paul's train of ideas, it does not follow, that by the expression 
 reconciliation, only a subjective change in the disposition of 
 man is denoted, for we are by no means justified in explaining 
 the correlative ideas of an enmity with God, and a wrath of 
 God merely as subjective, and among the various designations 
 of the divine attributes connected with them, acknowledge a 
 reality merely in the idea of the love of God. On the con- 
 trary, the common fact of human consciousness, according to 
 which a man addicted to sin feels himself estranged from God, 
 and cannot get rid of the feeling of his guilt and ill-deserts, re- 
 veals to us a deeper objective ground in the moral constitution 
 of the universe and in the essence of God. In this universal 
 f:ict, we have a witness of tlie revelation of God's holiness in 
 the consciences of mankind, which is as undeniable as the 
 revelation of his love. By the " wrath of God" though in a,n 
 anthropopathical form, something objective and real is signi- 
 fied, which is not fully expressed by the idea of punishment, 
 but includes what is the ground of all punishment, (on which 
 account this phrase " the wrath of God" is sometimes used to 
 ' This is distinctly marked by liis exhortation /carrtAAa-yTjre.
 
 ON FORGIVENESS OF STNS. 453 
 
 express merely pimishracnt,) the ground of the neccfesary con- 
 nexion between sin and evil, tlie absohite contrariety existing 
 between God as the Holy One and sin/ God recognises evil 
 as evil, as that which stands in contrariety to his holiness, 
 rebels against him and his holy order, and would exist in- 
 dependent of him. The mode in which God recognises evil, 
 is also a sentence of condemnation upon it, and is a proof of 
 its powerlessness and wretchedness. Evil is denied, if not 
 contemplated as something occupying the place of God. 
 
 Thus in the mode by which man is freed by the love of 
 God from that vmhappy relation to God, in w^hich he stands 
 owing to the divine holiness, the love of God reveals itself 
 only in connexion with his holiness, or as holy love. This 
 connexion is pointed out by Paul in Rom. iii. 24. In this 
 passage, he contrasts the revelation of God's holiness at that 
 time by the publication of the gospel, and the non-punish- 
 ment of past sins before the appearance of the gospel. By the 
 ■jrafjETiQ Twy (ifxaprnfjLUTwv and the ctco^r) tov dtou he under- 
 stands the manner in which the conduct of God was manifested 
 in reference to sin before the publication of the gospel, especially 
 towards the heathen world, who knew nothing of the Old 
 Testament revelations of the holiness of God in opposition to 
 sin, and also towards the Jews, who, notwithstanding these 
 testimonies in the delay of the divine judgments for their 
 sins, instead of interpreting the longsufFering of God as a call 
 to repentance, were sunk in carnal security. We may com- 
 pai'e with this, Paul's language in Acts xvii. 30, speaking of 
 the times of ignorance that God had overlooked. Though 
 this is to be understood only relatively, in reference to the 
 different standing-points of historical development, for Paul 
 recognised, as we have already shown, in the moral natui'e of 
 the heathen, a revelation of the divine law, of the divine 
 holiness and punitive justice. But under their peculiar 
 circumstances, there was from a kind of necessity a general 
 obscuration of that religious and moral knowledge by which 
 their thinking and acting was regulated. This induced on 
 the pai-t of God a passing over, a non-imputation of offences; 
 though the reckoning taken of transgressions would never go 
 beyond the measure of the possible knowledge of the law; 
 Rom. v. 13. Thus there may be a chargeableness and a non- 
 Compare Twesten's Dogmatik, ii. p. 146.
 
 454 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 
 
 chargeableness under different aspects, by which the apparent 
 contradictions in Paul's language may be reconciled. 
 
 Paul in Rom. iii. 25, declares that for both the Jews and 
 heathens a revelation of the divine wi'ath must precede the 
 revelation of the grace that forgives sin. The Trc'tpeeng denotes 
 only what was negative and temporary, the non-punishment 
 of past sins on the part of God ; so that the sense of the guilt 
 of sin is not presupposed, and the removal of that sense is not 
 effected.' The cicptaig, on the other hand, denotes objectively 
 that act of God by which sin is really forgiven, that is, is 
 considered in relation to God and the moral constitution of 
 the universe as not existing ; and, subjectively, that operation 
 in the heart of man by which it is really freed ft-om the con- 
 sciousness of guilt ; this means far more than the non-punish- 
 ment of sin during a certain period. In those to whom this 
 act of God relates, the consciousness of guilt and of the divine 
 opyi), the subjective revelation of the divine punitive justice, is 
 presupposed ; and the operation that takes place in their 
 dispositions necessarily implies forsaking a life of sin, and the 
 renunciation of all fellowship with sin. According to the 
 connexion of ideas in Paxil's mind, we are led to take this 
 view of the subject. In contrast with the former apimrent 
 overlooking of sin on the part of God, the holiness of God at 
 this time is now manifested by his openly exhibiting Christ, 
 through his offering up of himself, as a reconciler or sin- 
 offering for the sins of mankind, so that he verifies himself as 
 the Holy One, and permits every one to appear before him as 
 lioly," who shows that he is in fellowship with Christ by faith. 
 The holiness of God manifests itself (according to the Pauline 
 connexion of ideas already noticed) in the life and death of 
 Christ in a twofold manner. First, inasmuch as he completely 
 realized (in opposition to sin which had hitherto been pre- 
 dominant in human nature) that holy law to which the life of 
 man was designed to correspond, — made satisfaction to the 
 moral order of the universe, and glorified God in that nature 
 which was originally designed to glorify him. God has verified 
 
 ' In scholastic language, irdp^crts may be referred to the voluntas 
 signi, and acpea-is to the voluntas beneplaciti. 
 
 2 That we ought not to tran.slate Unaios righteous, but holy, appears 
 from that meaning of this word which lies at the basis of hiKaiovv, to 
 declare a person 8//cojoy
 
 THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 455 
 
 Iiiniself as the Holy One, since he forgives sin only oii the 
 condition of the perfect fulfilment of the law ; ho h;is shown 
 that he remits nothing from the requirements of perfect holi- 
 ness, and we always bear in mind that this remission to those 
 who through it obtain justification, is not a mere outward act, 
 but becomes in all the cause and pledge of the fulfilment of 
 the law. Secondly, inasmuch as Christ, as perfectly holy, 
 underwent those sufferings which the divine holiness, con- 
 sidered as punitive justice ' in its opposition against sin, had 
 suspended over human natxu'e. We are not to conceive of 
 this, as if God arbitrarily imposed these sufferings, or Christ 
 had ai'bitrarily subjected himself to them ; but that it was 
 grounded on the assumption of human nat\;re in its present 
 condition and relation to God — as the divine punitive justice 
 revealed itself to them who were suffering the consequences 
 of sin — and thus it was accomplished through the historical 
 development of the life of Christ devoted to conflict with the 
 sin that reigned in the human race, and through his conde- 
 scending to their conch tion from the sympathy of love. - 
 
 ' That divine attribute which reveals itself in the necessary con- 
 nexion of sin and evil, is founded in the reaction of the holiness of God 
 against sin (= the wrath of God), exhibits itself in the reaction of the 
 moral order of the universe against evil, whence punishment proceeds. 
 If punishment is conceived of merely as a means of amendment, and 
 this is supposed to comprehend all that is intended by it, this is a 
 degradation of a rational being and of morality making it mechanical. 
 But if punishment is viewed at first as a revelation of the divine justice, 
 as an objective reaction of the moral order of the universe against evil, 
 another mode of viewing it also presents itself, according to which the 
 punishment necessary in itself is appointed by the love of God, in order, 
 since punishment and sin stand in this internal connexion with one 
 another, to lead thereby to a consciousness of sin and guilt, to make 
 rational creatures sensible of the relation thej' stand in to the moral 
 M'orld, and thus to call forth the feeling of the need of redemption. 
 The self-will which rebels in sin against the moral order of the universe 
 and God's holy law, must be humbled by suflering before the holy 
 omnipotence of God and the majesty of his law. Where submission is 
 not yielded freely, it will be compelled. Without the idea of punish- 
 ment, the reality of evil and the dignity of rational creatures cannot be 
 acknowledged. It belongs to the privilege of rational beings created in 
 the likeness of God, and distinguishes them from other natural objects, 
 that the idea of punishment finds its application in them. See the 
 excellent remarks of Twesten, in his Dofjmatik, i. p. 148. 
 
 - The Pauline view of the- work of redemption finds a point of con- 
 nexion in Christ's words in Matt. xx. 28, whether we consider Kinpov as 
 a sum paid for release from captivity or slavery, or for redemption from
 
 456 THE IDEAS OF AnOATTPr'SIS, Sni'HPIA, 
 
 With the idea of reconcihation, the ideas of aVoXprpwo-te, 
 tTu)Tr)pia, ciKaiwaiQ are closely connected. The two first terms 
 are used in a wider and a narrower sense ; they denote the 
 deliverance from the guilt and punishment of sin, the (ruTrjpia 
 and Tijc vpyfjc, Rom. V. 9, first objectively as what has been 
 gained by Christ for the human race ; and also subjectively, 
 what is effectiiated by progressive development in each indi- 
 vidual by personal appropriation, from his first entrance into 
 fellowship with the Redeemer, to the complete participation 
 of his glory and blessedness in the perfected kingdom of God ; 
 but more especially what belongs to the perfect realization of 
 the idea, the complete freedom fi-om sin and all its conse- 
 quences, from all evil, — natural and moral.' 
 
 With respect to the idea of oiKuiwcnc, in order to determine 
 it, we must refer to what v/e have afready remarked on the 
 Pauline opposition to the common Je^vish notion of righteous- 
 ness. He sets out from the same point as his adversaries, as 
 fhr as he considers the participation in all the privileges and 
 blessings of the kingdom of God indissolubly connected with 
 the liKaiorrvvij, the genuine theocratic disposition and condi- 
 tion of life. The correlative idea of righteousness in this 
 sense w^as blessedness, the participation of the blessings pro- 
 mised through Abraham to all his posterity, the fulfilment of 
 all the promises relating to the kingdom of God, all the 
 Drivileges of the childi-eu of God ; and an entrance into all 
 ..he relations in which they stand to God. But Paul main- 
 deserved punishment ; also in the institution of the Holy Supper, (in 
 which he evidently alluded to the connexion between the Passover and 
 the establishment of the Old Covenant,) which by the offering of him- 
 self to obtain and confirm the forgiveness of sins to mankind, marked 
 the establishment of the New Covenant. The Pauline views are also 
 supported by the manner in which Christ adopts the ideas of the wrath 
 of God and of punitive justice from the Old Testament, without casting 
 a doubt on their validity. The parable of the Lost Son, and other ex- 
 pressions which relate to forgiving love, offer no contradiction, but mark 
 precisely the side on which God reveals himself in the work of redemp- 
 tion, and what, humanly speaking, could be the only motive to such an 
 act of God towards a race estranged from him by sin ; they do not, how- 
 ever, determine the manner in which the result designed by divine love 
 is to be attained ; the form and order followed by the compassionate 
 love of God, for the love of God acts only as a holy and righteous 
 love. 
 
 ' a.TTo\{irp(ji(ns is found in the latter sense in Kom. viii. 23, Eph. i. 14 
 and (Turripla in the latter sense iu Kom. xiii. 1 1 ; 1 Pet. i. 5,
 
 THE IDEA OP AIKAin2I2. 457 
 
 raiued against the Jews and Judaizers, that by the law and 
 the working of the law, no one could attain this ciKcuoavy)!, 
 present himself a cIkcuoc before God, and enter into the 
 relation with God founded upon it ; but that every man 
 appeal's as a sinner in God's sight, till entering by faith into 
 fellowship with Christ (the only perfect diicaioc by whom 
 mankind are delivered, in the way that we have described 
 from the stixte of ufjap-iu), he presents himself in union with 
 Christ (if Xpiff-u) as a ttKmoc before God, and entei's into 
 the entire relation with God, implied in this predicate, is 
 viewed liy God as ^iKcuoc, and established in all the privileges 
 connected vnth. this idea (ciKaiovrai). Consequently Paul in- 
 cludes in the idea of citcalwcriQ that act of God, by which he 
 places the believer in Christ in the relation to himself of a 
 citcHioQ, notwithstanding the sin that still cleaves to him. 
 Aikaioavrt] denotes, then, the subjective appropriation of this 
 relation, the appearing righteous before God, by virtue of 
 faith in the Redeemer, and the wdiole new tendency and aim 
 of the life, as well as the whole new relation to God, now 
 received into the consciousness, which is necessarily connected 
 with it ; the righteoiJsness or perfect holiness of Christ 
 appropriated by faith, as the objective ground of confidence 
 for the believer, and also as a new subjective principle of life. 
 Thus the righteousness of faith in the Pauline sense includes 
 the essence of a new disposition ; and hence the idea of 
 cii^ruoaviT} may easily pass into the idea of sanctification, 
 though the two ideas ai-e originally distinct. Accordingly, 
 it is not any arbitrary act on the part of God, as if he regarded 
 and treated as sinless a man persisting in sin, simply because 
 he believes in Clii'ist ; but the Objective on the part of God 
 corresponds to the Subjective on the part of man, namely 
 faith, and this necessarily includes in itself a release fi'om the 
 state inherited from Adam, from the whole life of sin and 
 the entrance into spiritual fellowship with tlie Redeemer, the 
 appropriation of his divine life. The realization of the 
 ai'chetype of holiness through Christ contains the pledge that 
 this shall be realized in all those who are one with him by 
 faith, and are become the organs of his Spiiit ; its gei'm 
 and principle is already imparted to them in believing, 
 although the fruit of a life perfectly conformed to the Re- 
 deemer, can only be developed gradually in its temporal
 
 458 THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 mauifestation. The connexion of these ideas will be rendered 
 clearer by developing the Pauline idea of faith. 
 
 What Paul distinguished by the name of Faith has its root 
 in the depths of the human disposition. It presupposes a 
 revelation of God in a direct relation to man, and faith is the 
 reception and vital appropriation of this divine revelation by 
 virtue of a receptivity for the divine in the human disposi- 
 tion, of the tendency grounded in human nature and the need 
 implanted in it for believing in the supernatural and divine, 
 without which tendency and need, man, however his other 
 faculties might be cultivated, would be no more than an in- 
 telligent animaU Something must be presented as an object 
 of knowledge adapted to this part of the human constitution, 
 but this object must be of a kind that can be correctly recog- 
 nised and understood only by the disposition ; it presupposes 
 a certain tendency of the disposition, in order to be known 
 and understood, while it also tends to produce a decided and 
 enduring tendency of the disposition. An inward self-deter- 
 mination of the spirit grounded in the direction of the will 
 is claimed by this object, while a new and constant self-deter- 
 mination is produced by it. It is not in reference to the 
 object of faith, but to the inward subjective significance of 
 this act of the inner man, as that which forms the character- 
 istic of true piety in all ages, that Paul compares the faith of 
 Abraham with the faith of Christians, Kom. iv. 19, where he 
 exhibits Abraham as a pattern of the righteousness of faith. 
 When Abraham received a promise from God, of which the 
 fulfilment seemed to be incompatible with the natural order 
 of things, he raised himself by an act of faith above this im- 
 pediment, and the word of the Almighty which held forth 
 something invisible, had greater influence iipon him than that 
 order of nature which presented itself to his understanding 
 and bodily senses. Hence this faith, as a practical acknow- 
 ledgment of God in his almighty creative activity, and as a 
 reference of his whole life to the sense of his dependence on 
 God, a true honouring of God ;- and it was this faith which 
 gave its peculiar significance and character to the life of 
 
 * A state to which the intellectual fanaticism of a party in the pre- 
 sent age, zealous for the pretended autonomy of reason, seeks to degrade 
 man. 
 
 ' A SiSoVai Sf^lac rtf Qicf. Rom. iv. 20.
 
 ABRAHAM AN EXAMPLE OF FAITH. 459 
 
 Abraham. This faith, savs Paul, was counted to him by God 
 fur ciictiiaavti] ; that is, although Abraham was not sinless, 
 (as no man is,) yet through this tendency of his inward life 
 by virtue of his faith, he entered into the relation to God of 
 a fi'vatoc ; and this was no arbitrary nominal act on the parif 
 of God, but his faith was viewed by God, to whom the inward 
 soul of man is manifest, as an index of the disposition by 
 which Abraham became susceptible of all divine communica- 
 tions, and from which alone the sanctification of his whole 
 life could pj'oceed.' Now this is applied by Paul to faith 
 with a special refei'ence to Christianity. There is only added 
 a peculiar du-ection caused by the object on which this faith 
 is fixed, by which also the conception of it as subjective is 
 modified. Faith in this sense presupposes the consciousness 
 of sin, the renunciation of any merits of our own before 
 God, the longing after freedom from the dominion of sin, and 
 our not yielding to despair even under the most vivid sense 
 of sinfulness,'' but confiding in the grace of redemption ; thus 
 there is an entrance into communion with the Redeemer, and 
 a new principle of life is received which continually penetrates 
 and transforms the old natm-e. 
 
 As far as fixith includes entering into vital fellowship with 
 the Redeemer, and foi'saking the old life of sin, it bears 
 a special reference to the two chief points in which Christ 
 presents himself as Redeemer, as the one who died for the 
 salvation of men, and who also by his resm-rection gave them 
 the pledge of an eternal divine life : hence the two-fold refer- 
 ence of faith to Jesus the Ci-ucified and the Risen, the nega- 
 tive and positive side of faith in relation to the old life which 
 it renounces and to the new life which it lays hold of ; it is 
 the spiritual act by vii'tue of which, in sun-endering ourselves 
 to him who died for us, we die to a life of sin, to the world, 
 to ourselves, to all which we were before, — whether we are 
 Jews or Gentiles — and rise again in his fellowship, in the 
 power of his Spirit to a new life devoted to him and animated 
 by him. Hence it appeared to the apostle, as he develops 
 
 * The 5io in Eomans iv. 22, points to this connexion. Wherefore, aa 
 faith includes all this, as the apostle had before explained, it was im- 
 puted to Abraham as SiKatoavfrt, as if the SiKaioavvit had already been 
 completed by it. 
 
 * In this respect, a 7r(crT«i'fir irap^ eATTiSa in eKiriSi.
 
 460 FAITH IN A CRUCIFIED AXD RISEN SAVIOUR. 
 
 the sentiment in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Romans, an absolute contradiction for any one to say that he 
 believed in the Redeemer and yet to continue in his old life 
 of sin. How shall we — he asks — we who (by the act of faith) 
 ^re dead to sin, live any longer therein 1 And he demonstrates 
 fi'om the nature of faith in its reference to the death and 
 resurrection of Christ, that faith cannot exist without a 
 renunciation of the former sinful life and the beginning of 
 a new divine life. 
 
 From the nature of iriaTiq as the governing principle of the 
 Christian life, arises the peculiarity of the Christian standing- 
 point, in relation to the Jewish as the legal standing-point ; 
 and the various indications of this conti-ariety serve more 
 distinctly to characterise the nature of Trianc as the funda- 
 mental principle of the Christian life, on which account we 
 wish to consider the subject more in detail. 
 
 The law always presents itself as imperative, and makes the 
 salvation of men dependent on the perfect fulfilment of all its 
 commands. " Do all this, and thou shalt live." But since no 
 one can fulfil those conditions, the law can only produce 
 despair. But the gospel addresses the man who despairs of 
 himself, " Do not give thyself up to the feeling of despair.' 
 Ask not how thou canst make the impossible, possible. Thou 
 needest only receive the salvation prepared for thee ; only 
 believe, and thou hast with thy faith all that is needful for 
 thy inward life. Paul admirably illustrates this by applying 
 to it the passage in Deut. xsx. 12.^ Say not to thyself, Who 
 
 * That interpretation of this passage, which supposes it to express the 
 opposition between Belief and Doubt, appears to me not to be supported 
 by the connexion, which leads us to expect a contrast of the righteous- 
 ness by faith with the righteousness by works, the Qtov SiKatoavu-r] with 
 the ISia; and the tout' IVti, which, from comparing Rom. ix. 8, and 
 other similar Pauline expressions, must be thus understood — " this is 
 equivalent to saying ; " and besides the relation of the Pauline words 
 to the Old Testament quotation, since, according to the interpretation 
 we have adopted, the Pauline application a(lmiral)ly suits, in spirit and 
 idea, the meaning of the Mosaic words, which is not the case with the 
 other interpretation. 
 
 ^ This passage certainly refers to the Mosaic religious institutions, 
 and the words are fitted to distinguish them in their simple religious 
 and moral character from the other religions of the East. But as faras 
 the law, understood according to its own spirit, made certain require- 
 ments which it gave no power to fulfil, Paul might justly apply these 
 words to mark the peculiar Christian standing-point ; he found an idea
 
 THE GOSPEL CONTRASTED WITH THE LAW. 461 
 
 bIuiII ascend to heaven and prepare a path for me thither? 
 For Christ has descended from heaven and lias prepared such 
 a path. To ask such a question, is to desire that Clirist would 
 descend again from heaven for thy sake. But say not, Who 
 shall descend for me to the regions of the dead and deliver 
 me thence 1 Clirist has risen from the dead and has delivered 
 thee from the power of death. To ask this, is to desire that 
 Christ might now rise from the dead for thy sake, as if he 
 were not already risen. Instead of asking such questions, 
 only let the gospel be cherished with vital power in thy 
 heart ; — believe in Him who descended from heaven and rose 
 from death, and thus obtained salvation for thee. Whoever 
 has this faith is truly pious and may be assui'ed of salva- 
 tion." ' 
 
 Viewed in the light of legal Judaism, the commandments 
 appeared as merely an outward counteraction of the internal 
 coiTuption of man, which refused to be cured from without ; 
 it was only rendered more apparent by the law ; hence the 
 letter onl}- tended to death ; it called forth the consciousness 
 of spiritual death and of merited unhappiness, 2 Coz\ iii. G. 
 
 The law in reference to its operation on the conscience could 
 be described only as royuoc ypt/ju/^taroe, KaTUKplirtwr, duyurov, 
 d^apTtac.'^ But when from, faith in the Redeemer, a new 
 divine principle of life proceeds, when from faith in the 
 redeeming fatherly love of God, a child-like love develops 
 itself as the free impulse of a life devoted to God, when, in- 
 stead of the former opposition between the human and divine 
 will, a union is formed between them — then the law no longer 
 appears as a written code, outwardly opposing a will estranged 
 
 here expressed which is only realized by Christianity, and is thus pro- 
 jjhetic of what Christianity alone accomplishes. 
 
 1 Kom. X. 5. If Paul, in the second member of the contrast, has not 
 opposed Christ to Moses, and employed Christ's own words — and such, 
 no doubt, might have been found among the traditionary expressions of 
 Christ which would have been fit to mark this contrast — it does not 
 follow that lie was unacquainted with any collection of the discourses of 
 Christ, or that he could not suppose any such work to be known by the 
 Christians at Rome, for his object was answered by borrowing from the 
 Mosaic writings a motto for the righteousness of faith, which would first 
 find its proper fulfilment in the gospel. 
 
 ^ It was perfectly consonant with the Pauline views to distinguish the 
 law by these predicates, though it may be doubted whether, in Romans 
 viii. 2, the Mosaic law is intended by the word v6n.os.
 
 4G2 THE LAW ABROGATED BY FAITH. 
 
 from God, but the spirit of the law is transfused into the 
 internal life of the believer. The life-giving sjiirit, har- 
 monizing with the law, occupies the place of the dead and 
 death-producing letter. In the love developed from faith, 
 there is a voluntary fulfilment of the law proceeding from the 
 disposition, instead of actions the result of outward compulsion. 
 In a dilftrent sense from that in which Paul, from the stand- 
 ing-point of the natm-al man, says that he had the law -^Titten 
 on his heart, he says, from the standing-point of believers, that 
 he carried the law of God in his heart — for on the former 
 standing-point, the law, even though intei-nal, presents itself 
 as the command of a foreign higher voice, of a holy power 
 which man is forced to acknowledge in opposition to his cor- 
 rupted will ; hence, it remains a deadly letter, whether we 
 consider it as an external law or an internal revelation. On 
 the contrary, in believers the divine law, by vulue of the new 
 spirit of life imparted by Christ, the Holy Spirit, appears not 
 merely an object of knowledge and recognition, but of an 
 efficacious love practically influencing the life. In this sense, 
 Paul says to believers, " Ye need not that I write unto you, 
 for ye youi'selves are taught of God," 1 Thess. iv. 9 ; and this 
 teaching does not signify something addi'essed to the faculty 
 of acquiring knowledge, but a real internal effect on the 
 springs of action. From what has been said, we may learn 
 in what sense Pa\il said of the law in reference to its moral 
 not less than to its 7-itual contents, that it was abrogated for 
 believers, that they were dead to it, and placed beyond its 
 jui'isdiction ; ' and as we have before remarked, no such 
 distinction in reference to its perpetuity can be made in the 
 vo/joQ. The law is abrogated for the believer, and he is dead 
 to it, as far as it was a compulsory, imperative, accusing code, 
 as far as ciKULorrvrr} and <^w») were to be sought for by the fulfil- 
 ment of its commands. Justification and salvation by faith 
 
 ' The being dead to the law, Rom. vii. 4, and Gal. ii. 19, the removal 
 of the law in its whole extent, Colos. ii. 14, " for the handwriting of 
 ordinances," which Christ nailed to his cross is manifestly the law, and 
 there must be a special reference to its moral precepts, for in this con- 
 sisted the difficulty of fulfilling it. It would be altogether consonant 
 with the Pauline views, to understand the figurative expression in Rom. 
 vii. 2, of being dead to the law itself, (namely, this law in its outward 
 theocratic form,) though other exegetical reasons might oppose this in- 
 lerpretation in the former passages.
 
 THE JEWISH N0MO2. 463 
 
 iu the gi'ace of redemption/ are independent of every law to 
 the believer. The law can produce only outward works- by 
 its compulsoi-y enactments, but not those internal determi- 
 nations of the hfe, which form the essence of time piety — 
 these proceed in the believer from the new animation by the 
 Divine Spirit — the Christian virtues are the fiiiits of the 
 Spirit, and those in whom these qualities, unattainable fi"om 
 the standing-point of the law, are formed, are thereby exalted 
 above what can only be as a dead letter opposing the in- 
 dwelhng principle of coiTuption. But it by no means con- 
 tradicts this relation of the law to the hfe of the believer, 
 that Paul sometimes brings forward moral precepts as 
 quotations fi'om the yo/jioc, for he considers the Mosaic 
 rofioQ as an expression of the eternal law of God in a 
 particular, temporaiy form, adapted to a particulai", out 
 ward theocracy, in which the civil aiTangements were sub 
 ordinated to the religious, and hence both were intermixed. 
 The substance of the eternal law of God lay at the basis of 
 the yofioQ, though for a special purpose it was presented in the 
 form of a theocratic national law, which checked its fi'ee and 
 complete development. The obligatory force of the commands 
 borrowed from the vo/xoc by Paul, therefore, does not consist 
 in their belonging to that >'o7'°t'j but that they formed a part 
 of the eternal law, from which they were transfeiTed to the 
 peculiar form presented in the Old Testament; that portion 
 of the eternal law to which the moral consciousness of men 
 bears witness, is divested of its national gai'b^ by the spirit of 
 the gospel, and developed with greater clearness by the illu- 
 mination of the Holy Spirit. And when in Rom. xiii. 8, he 
 appeals to the one command of love belonging to the law, he 
 mai'ks exactly the cUfference of the Clu-istiau standing-point 
 fi-om the legal ; for if the spirit of love animates believers, and 
 with love is given the fulfilment of the whole law, it follows 
 that the law is no longer for them a compulsoiy, death- 
 
 ' The SiKaioavvri dfov, opposed to the SiKatoawT] a.vQp(t>irivri, i5ia, e^ 
 ipyuv, «! ipyojv vS/xov — X"^?'*' "of^ov ; Rom. iii. 21. 
 
 ^ The fpya v6fxov, which are not epya ay add. 
 
 ^ To this release of the spirit confined in this garb, to the inward as 
 contrasted with the outward theocratic law, we must refer the anti- 
 thetical expressions in the Sermon on the ilount, which certainly are 
 described not merely against the Pharisaic expositions, but also against 
 the letter of the law in its theocratic national form. See Leben Jenu, 
 130, 138.
 
 464 HOW FAR CHRISTIANITY IS A NOMOS. 
 
 producing letter ; and here is exemplified the truth of Christ' 
 assertion that he came not to destroy but to fulfil the law. 
 
 Thouoh the idea of the vofiog in that nan-ower sense, forms 
 the distinctive mark between Judaism and the gospel, 
 still thei'e is no inconsistency in applying the term' in 
 a wioer sense, to denote the coinmon relation in which 
 both religions stand to the life of man. Both religions aim 
 at a control over the life, and give a peculiar character to it. 
 Legal Judaism aims at producing this by literal commands 
 from without; Christianity aims at forming it from within 
 through faith, and the Spirit that proceeds from it. In the 
 former case, the law is outward; in the latter, it is inward, 
 one vv'hich is the germ of a new life ; for eveiy living being 
 develops itself according to a peculiar law.- In reference to 
 these various uses of the term rojjog, Paul endeavours to 
 guard against the misconception that because Christians no 
 longer live under the law, they are in a lawless state ; 1 Cor. 
 ix. 21. They have still a law, the law of God, the laAV of 
 Christ, not merely outward, but inward, entering into the 
 veiy essence of the Christian life; and this distinction is 
 marked by the phrases living xmder the law, and in the law. 
 Hence also Clnistianity contrasted -with Judaism is called a 
 law, and we find various modifications of the term so applied, 
 such as i'(i/Lioe JrlaTetoc, rof^ioQ i^wi]c, v6j.iOQ TrrevjAaTOc. 
 
 The different relations of the two theocratic standing- points, 
 are clearly connected with the different applications of the 
 idea of law ; the outward conception of the idea of the king- 
 dom of God with the outward conception of the idea of law, 
 and with the inward conception of that, the idea of the 
 theocracy, as not outwardly constituted, but developing 
 itself fi'om within; and thus throughout we meet with the 
 contrast of the inward and the outward. On the legal 
 Jewish standing-point, there was an outward submission to 
 
 ' I cannot agree with those expositors who think that, when Paul 
 describes Christianity as a vofios, the general idea of law must be alto- 
 gether given up. 
 
 ^ By Cliristianity or Regeneration, goodness again becomes a part of 
 human nature, and tlius the moral law becomes a higher law of nature 
 harmonizing with the freedom of the will. We may here apply what 
 Schleiermacher says in his academical essay, 1825, on the diflerence be- 
 tween the law of nature and the moral law, without adopting the views 
 of the author respecting the relation of the law to the deviations from 
 't. and especially the relation of the law to moral freedom.
 
 THE STATES OF BONDAGE AM) ADOPTION. 465 
 
 the will of God, the outward obser\'ance of the divine com- 
 mands, without the opposition between the human and divine 
 commands being taken away; the lovXeveiy 6eu) iv TraXawrtin 
 ypaiJifiaroQ, in the old state of a natm-e estranged fi-om God, 
 of which nothing can be altered by the literal, outwai-d com- 
 mand. On the standing-point of faith, the EovXeia is inward, 
 so that in the new state, by virtue of the inward renovation 
 which proceeds from the influence of the Divine Spmt, the 
 sanctified will detei'mines itself in dependence on God, it is a 
 seiTant of God (the covXeveiv iv catro-T/n irt'evfiaroc). Hence 
 hovXeia in the latter sense, is voluntaiy and one witli time 
 freedom ; 1 Cor. Ani. 22. AovXeia in the first sense, forms a 
 contrast to the freedom of the children of God; on the 
 contrary, ^ovXeia in the second sense, cannot exist without 
 vwOeaia, and is at once a consequence and a mark of it, for 
 what distinguishes the children from the servants of the 
 family, is this, that they do not obey their father's will, as 
 foreign to themselves, but make it their own; dependence 
 on him is, as it were, the natm-al element of theii* life. 
 That merely outward servitude of which the internal opposite 
 to this consists, proceeds from the spirit of fear, the special 
 characteristic of servitude ; this inward service proceeds fi'om 
 the consciousness of communion with God obtained through 
 Cla-ist the Son of God, and of participation of his Spirit, the 
 spirit of childlike relation to God, the spirit of adoption and 
 of love; Rom. viii. 15; Gal. iv. 6. 
 
 So likewise the worship of God on the legal standing-point,' 
 was an outward worship {aapKiKT], Kara aapKa, by means of 
 ipya aapKiKct) consisting in a number of outward acts,- con- 
 
 ' This is true of the legal moral, as well as of the legal ritual cultus. 
 
 ^ Connected with the SfSovKwaOai iik6 to. cToix^la tov kouixov. We 
 wish to ofl'er a few remarks in vindication and confirmation of the in- 
 terpretation of this expression given above, and against the common 
 one of (TToixeTa, as " the first principles of religious knowledge among 
 men." If the word aroixfia. meant first principles, we should naturally 
 expect to find in the genitive connected with it, the designation of the 
 object to which these first principles relate, as in Hebrews v. 12, rh 
 (TToixsia TTJs apxhs tuv Koyiwv tov dfov. But in the Pauline passage, 
 such a genitive of the object is altogether wanting, and we find instead 
 only a genitive of the subject. The omission of the express mention of 
 the leading idea can hardly be admitted. Paul, in Gal. iv. 8, plainly 
 addressing those who had formerly been heathens, supposes that, before 
 their conversion, they had been in bondage to these elements of the 
 world, if we do not have recourse to an arbitrary interpretation of raAij'. 
 
 VOL. I. an
 
 466 SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 
 
 fined to certain times and places. Worship on the standing- 
 point of faith, on the contrary, is Trvevp.aTiKfi, since it proceeds 
 from the inworking of the deiov Trvevfxa, and is an act of the 
 spiritual nature of man, Philip, iii. 3; hence it does not 
 relate to certain isolated acts, but embraces the whole life; 
 Rom. xii. 1. On the former standing-point, men placed 
 their confidence and pride in something human and earthly, 
 whatever it might be, whether descent from the theocratic 
 nation, or the righteousness of the law, or ascetic self-denial 
 and mortification of the flesh, the Kara aapKa Kavxo.adai, Iv 
 (TapKi TTETroideyai.^ But on the standing-point of TviariQ, after 
 acknowledging the nullity of all such distinctions, of all 
 human works of righteousness, men place their confidence 
 and glory only in the redemption obtained thi'ough Christ ; 
 they feel that they possess only what they all receive as 
 believers on equal terms from him, and in communion with 
 him; the tv Kvpiu Kavxa-irdai. Here all imaginary distinc- 
 
 According to the common interpretation, we must suppose that Paul, by 
 the first elements of religious knowledge, intended to mark a universal 
 idea, in a certain degree applicable both to Heathenism and Judaism. 
 But how could this agree with the views of Paul, who recognised 
 Judaism, as subordinate and preparative it is true, but yet a standing- 
 point in religion founded on divine revelation, and who, on the other 
 hand, saw in heathenism as such, that is, in idolatry, of which he here 
 speaks, not a subordinate standing-point of religion, but something en- 
 tirely foreign to the nature of religion, a suppression through sin of the 
 original knowledge of God ] Neither does the predicate a(x6evrj appear 
 suitable to the idea of the first principles of religion. On the contrary, 
 according to the interpretation I have proposed, all is consistent. The 
 confinement of religion to sensible forms, and therefore its eiithralment 
 in the elements of the world, is common to Judaism and Heathenism. 
 All idolatry may be considered as a bondage and submission to the ele- 
 ments of sense, and a kind of idolatry may be attributed to the Jews 
 and Judaizers, who sought for the Divine for justification and sanctifica- 
 tion in external rites. This will make it evident how Paul could say to 
 the Galatian Christians, once heathens, who were infected with this 
 Judaism (Gal. iv. 8), " How can ye, who by the divine mercy have been 
 led t<* the knowledge of God and communion with him, turn back again 
 to the weak and beggarly elements (a suitable description of them, in 
 reference to persons who sought to find in them what the power of God 
 alone could bestow), to which ye desire to bring yourselves again in 
 bondage 1 I fear that I have indeed laboured in vain to turn you from 
 idolatry to the worship of the living God." 
 
 1 According to Paul's views, this will apply to the overvaluation of 
 what is human in every form and relation ; as, for instance, the Greciau 
 culture and philosophy; see the First Epistle to the Corinthians
 
 PREDOMINANCE OF THE HNETMA. 467 
 
 tions, all differences vanish, which before separated men 
 from one another and checked their fellowship in the highest 
 relation of Ufe ; everything human is hencefoi'th subordinated 
 to the one spirit of Chiist, the common principle of life; 
 Gal. iii. 28. The only universal and constantly available 
 principle of Christian worship which embraces the whole life, 
 is faith in Christ working by love ; Gal. v. 6. 
 
 The principle of the whole transfonnation of the life which 
 proceeds from the Spirit of Christ is implanted at on<;e in 
 believing, by one act of the mind. Man by means of faith 
 is dead to the former standing-point of a sinful life, and rises 
 to a new hfe of communion with Christ. The old man is 
 slain once for all ; Rom. vi. 4 — 6 ; Coloss. iii. 3. Paul 
 assumes that in Christians, the act by virtue of which they 
 are dead to sin, and have crucified the flesh with its affections 
 and lust, is already accomphshed ideally in principle. Hence 
 he infers, how can they who are dead to sin, live any longer 
 therein? Rom. vi. 2; Gal. v. 24. But the practice must 
 con-espond to the principle ; the outward conformation of the 
 life must harmonize with the tendency given to the inward 
 life. Walking in the Spirit must necessarily proceed fi-om 
 living in the Spirit, Gal. v. 25 ; the former must be a mani- 
 festation of the latter. Hence Christians are always required 
 to renew the mortification of the flesh, to walk after the 
 Spirit, to let themselves be animated by the Spirit. The 
 transformation of the old natm-e in man which proceeds 
 from the divine principle of hfe received by faith, is not com- 
 pleted in an instant, but can only be attained gi-adually 
 by conflict with sin ; for the renewed as well as the old 
 natm-e consists of two principles, the Trvev^a and the aapl, 
 only with this difference, that no longer (as Paul represents 
 the state of the natm-al man in Rom. vii.) the human self 
 with its powerless desires after goodness opposes the principle 
 of sinfulness, the adpl, but instead of the human self, there is 
 the divine principle of life which has become the animating 
 one of human nature, the Trvevfj.a delay, ayiov, the Spirit 
 of Christ, Christ himself by his Spirit ; Gal. ii. 20. Hence 
 it is not said from this standing-point that the Spirit wishes 
 to do good but is hindered by the aapl, fr'om accomplishing its 
 wishes, so that the adpl is the vital principle of action ; but 
 it is enjoined on those who have received the divine principle
 
 468 PREDOMINANCE OF THE riNETMA. 
 
 of life, Gal. v. 16, " Walk in the Spirit,' so shall ye not fulfil 
 the desires of the flesh ; for the Spirit and the flesh conflict 
 with one another, so that you must distinguish what pro- 
 ceeds from the Spirit and what from the flesh, and you must 
 not fulfil what you desne according to the carnal self, but 
 what the Spirit within you desires."^ This marks the 
 contrast to the standing-point described in Rom. vii. 15. 
 
 ^ I cannot agree with Rlickert, in referring the irvivfia here spoken 
 of, not to the Spirit of God, but to the higher nature of man. Certainly 
 the word irveiifia in this whole chapter is to be understood only in one 
 sense, and taking everything into account, the idea of the Holy Spirit 
 is the only one which suits Paul's meaning; as, for example, in v. 18. 
 And generally in this epistle, the same idea of the Spirit is to be firmly 
 held. Verse 17 contains no proof to the contrary; for Paul here assumes, 
 that the Trvedfia has pervaded the characteristic faculties of man, that 
 the new principle of life has taken possession of human nature, and 
 given it a new and peculiar vitality. He wishes to mark the new higher 
 principle that is now the antagonist of the o-dp| in man. Men may 
 with the strictest propriety be called upon to surrender themselves to 
 this higher principle, to allow themselves to be led by it, according to 
 its impulses, for Paul considered the operation of the Divine Spirit in 
 man, not as something magical, but constantly assumes the working 
 together of the divine and the human. It is perfectly true that, 
 according to Paul's doctrine, the higher nature in man, the capability 
 of knowing God, which before was confined and depressed, is set at 
 liberty by the Holy Spirit, and now serves as the organ for the opera- 
 tions of the Divine Spirit in human nature, and hence, that as this 
 higher nature of man can now operate in its freedom as the organ of 
 the Divine Spirit, so the latter can now operate in man by means of 
 this organ, and hence the two are blended together in the Christian 
 life. But when Paul wishes to infuse courage and confidence for the 
 spiritual conflict, he directs the attention, not to what is subjectively 
 human, but to the almighty power of God. 
 
 * This passage, in my opinion, cannot be understood otherwise than 
 in this manner, though later expositors have given a different inter- 
 pretation. It has been supposed to mean, " So that ye cannot accom- 
 plish what you desire according to the spirit; ye are unable to follow 
 the dictates of the better will ; " — and referring these words to the state 
 of tne regenerate, this would form a special ground of exhortation for 
 following the leadings of the Spirit, and withstanding the actp^, if Paul 
 said to them that they were prevented from following the motions 
 which proceeded from the Spirit by the prevalence of the cr^p|. But if 
 it is understood of the condition of the natural man, and v. 18 is con- 
 sidered as a contrast, we do not see how Paul, who had before addressed 
 those whom he assumed to be Christians, could make such a sudden 
 transition to a different class of persons. The correspondence of the 
 last words of v. 17, with the last words of the foregoing sense, confinns 
 the opinion, that the 6eKr)Te relates to the imdvixiav aapKos.
 
 CONVERSION OP NATURAL TALENTS INTO CHARISMS. 469 
 
 Accordingly, the divine life in the inner man mast be 
 in continual conflict with the operations of the <7ap£, and 
 progressively converts the body hitherto under the control of 
 sinfid habits, into an organ for itself (Rom. vi. 11 — 13), so 
 that the fjekt] tov aiofxaroq become oTrXa hiKau)(jvvr\Q ; all the 
 powers and faculties which hitherto have been in the service 
 of sin, being appropriated and sanctified by the divine life, 
 are employed as organs of grace for the service of the king- 
 dom of God ; and here the doctrine of charisms finds its 
 point of connexion ; {ante, pp. 131 — 140). All the pecidiar 
 capabilities or talents founded in the nature of each indi- 
 vidual, are to be transformed into chai-isms and employed as 
 such. And it is the province of Christian morals to show in 
 what manner human natm-e must be pervaded in all its 
 powers by the higher principle of life, and appropriated as an 
 organ of its manifestation ; how all human relations are set at 
 liberty and referred to the kingdom of God ; and how what 
 is individual belonging to the representation of the image of 
 God in man is not suppressed and annihilated, but is to 
 be transformed and elevated to a peculiar form and mani- 
 festation of the higher principle of life. We here see the 
 difference between Christian principle as Paul represents 
 it, and a one-sided ascetic direction in morals. Paul brings 
 forward as one side in the process of the development of the 
 Chi-istian life, the negative operation ; to mortify the principle 
 of sin which has hitherto reigned in the body, Rom. v. 3, to 
 mortify the members as far as they serve sin, Coloss. iii. 5 ; ' 
 but this is only one side. The other is the positive opera- 
 tion, the positive appropriation, that as believers are now dead 
 with Christ to sin, tlie world, and themselves, so now they 
 lead a new divine life, increasingly devoted to him : the 
 Spirit of Christ that dwells in them constantly animates their 
 bodies afresh as his organ, Rom. viii. 11, so that the jue'Ajj 
 consecrated to God, are employed in his service according to 
 the station God has indicated to each individual, as oTrXa 
 BiKaiofTvvrjf;. As the tcvev^u uyiov is the common vital 
 principle of all believers, the animating Spirit of the Church 
 of God, so the diversity of the form in which he operates 
 in and through each individual, varied by their sanctified 
 
 ' The /usAt? M t7)s yfis, which belong to a carnal earthly course of life 
 are directly opposed to the heavenly mind in v. 2.
 
 470 JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIPICATION. 
 
 peculiarities and characteristics, is designated by the term. 
 
 But since this appropriation and pervasion of the old na- 
 ture is a continual conflict, and the further a man advances 
 in holiness the more capable he is rendered by the illumina- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit of distinguishing what proceeds fi-om 
 the Spirit and what from the flesh, and of discerning all the 
 disturbing influences of the latter; hence the distinction be- 
 tween the objective justification and subjective sanctification 
 is always necessary, in order that the confidence of man may 
 not be wavering as it must be, if he looks only to himself, 
 Philip, iii. 12, but may maintain its firm unchangeable ground, 
 by being fixed on the objective, the grace of redemption, the 
 love of Chi'ist, from which no power of hell can separate the 
 redeemed; Rom. viii. 31, 32. In the Pauline idea of the 
 justification and righteousness available before God, which is 
 gx-anted to man by the redeeming gi'ace of God, and appro- 
 priated by faith, the objective is always primary and predo- 
 minant. At the same time something subjective is imparted 
 with it, something new is deposited in the inner life which 
 must be progressively developed ; the righteousness of Christ 
 appropriated by faith, is transferred to the inner life of the 
 believer, and becomes a new principle, forming the life accord- 
 ing to the example of Christ.' And when this process of 
 development shall be completed, believers will attain the pos- 
 session of an eternal, divine, and blessed life, insepai'able from 
 perfect righteousness; then the objective idea of justification 
 will be wholly transfen-ed to the subjective, Rom. v. 19 — 21 ; 
 but till this is accomplished, in order to lay a firm foundation 
 for the confidence of the soul, it is always necessary, while 
 conceiving both ideas according to their essential and ulti- 
 mate connexion, still to keep in mind their distinction from 
 one another. 
 
 Since the whole Christian disposition is produced from faith, 
 and thereby the whole life is determined and formed, the term 
 irlariQ has been employed to designate the whole of the Chris- 
 tian disposition and of Christian ability.^ Thus the predicate 
 
 ' The scholastic expression, " Justitia Christi per fidem habet esse in 
 animo," perfectly corresponds to Paul's meaning. 
 
 ^ Hence the measure of faith as the measure of Christian ability, and 
 the measure of grace bestowed on each individual, are correlative ideas;
 
 THE STRONG IN FAITH. 471 
 
 cvvaroQ rrj Trtartt designates the standing-point, where faith in 
 the Redeemer, confidence in the justification obtained through 
 him, has become to such a degi-ee the animating principle of 
 the convictions, and has so pervaded the whole tone of think- 
 ing, that a man is enabled to judge and act in all the relations 
 of life according to it ; that he cannot be drawn aside, as be 
 otherwise would be, by any foreign element of other views 
 which formerly influenced him ; since otherwise it might hap- 
 pen that his earher religious standing-point would exercise a 
 kind of power over his conscience, from which he could not 
 altogether free himself, even when raised to the Christian 
 standing-point ; as in the case of one who had become a be- 
 liever from the Jewish standing-point; such a person would 
 only by degrees free himself from its influences on his judg- 
 ment of aU the relations of life ; as the new Christian prin- 
 ciple proceeding from faith in the Redeemer gradually im- 
 pregnated his whole mode of thinking. This power of faith 
 over the judgment is shown for example in this, that a man 
 certain of his salvation in fellowship with the Redeemer, will 
 no longer allow himself to be agitated by scruples in the use 
 of outward things, which he before indulged on the Jewish 
 standing-point, as if this or that thing could defile him. So 
 we are to understand what Paul says, Rom. xiv. 2, og jitv 
 ■Kiartvei (payely iravTU, I. e. cvvaroq eari tt) Tr/oret ware ipayuv 
 irdrra ; he can no longer be misled by a mixture of scruples 
 arising from his earlier legal standing-point. The do-flercTi' rij 
 ■n-icrrei forms the opposite to this strength of faith, in which, 
 along with faith, another element arising from the foi'mer 
 standing-point controlled the con\nctions, and hence the in- 
 ternal strife between the principle founded in Christian con- 
 viction or TTiariQ, and the doubts that rebelled against it; 
 Rom. xiv. 1. Though Paul took occasion from existing rela- 
 tions to develop his views on this subject with a special refer- 
 ence to the Jewish legal standing-point, yet they would apply 
 to the relation subsisting between any other standing-point 
 and the Christian, or that of the righteousness by faith. The 
 power of faith governing the life gives an independence and 
 
 Rom. xii. 3. Christians a-re only to aim at rightly applying the mea- 
 sure of ability they have received ; to do everything according to its 
 proportion ; Rom. xii. 6. They are not to indulge conceit, or to pass 
 beyond the limits of their own standing-point.
 
 472 THE STEONG IN FAITH. 
 
 stability to the Christian character, imparts strength and free- 
 dom to the mind. This it is that forms the basis of Christian 
 freedom, which consists in this, that the Christian since he 
 has devoted his whole life to Christ as his Redeemer, and 
 through him to God, since he is animated only by the con- 
 sciousness of this dependence and acknowledges no other, — 
 for this reason, feels independent of all created beings, of all 
 eartlily things ; hence, he acts in the consciousness of this in- 
 dependence, is master of aU things by the animating Spirit of 
 Christ, and is in bondage to no man, to no circumstances; 
 nothing can so operate upon him as to determine him to a 
 different course from that dictated by the Spirit of Christ, for 
 this is the great determining principle of his life ; 1 Cor. vii. 
 21 ; 1 Cor. vi. 12 ;' 1 Coi'. iii. 22. While the Christian as an 
 organ of the Spirit of Christ who has won the government of 
 the world, to whom at last all things must be subject, is fr'ee 
 from the world and eveiything belonging to it, from all 
 power of created beings, he likewise in spirit rules over all 
 things. Freedom and mastery over the world here meet. This 
 freedom and this mastery over the world proceeding from 
 faith (like everything Christian), and founded in the depths 
 of the soul, can hence manifest themselves under all outward 
 restrictions, and evince their power by the fact, that these out- 
 ward restrictions for the spirit which is exalted above them 
 and feels itself independent of everything, cease to be re- 
 strictive, and are included in his free self-determination and 
 mastery over the world. Paul proves his Christian freedom 
 precisely in this manner, that for the good of others, and in 
 order to make eveiything subsei'vient to the Spirit of Christ, 
 he so acted in all things as would best contribute to the ad- 
 vancement of the kingdom of Christ, and thus fr'eely sub- 
 mitted to all the forms of dependence. Free from all, he 
 made himself the servant of all; having the masteiy over all, 
 he submitted to aU the forms of dependence ordained by God, 
 and in doing so, exercised his mastery over the world ; 1 Cor. 
 ii. 1—19. 
 
 ' ovK iyd f^ovcriacrB-i'ia-o/j.M tiirS tivos, I will not suffer myself to be 
 mastered by any outward thinc:s, but in the spirit of Christian love 
 I will use all things freely. Instead of availing myself of my Christian 
 freedom, I should make myself really a slave, in eating the flesh of 
 Bacrifices, if I believed that I must do this in every case without a 
 reference to particular circumstances.
 
 NOTHING INDIFFERENT. 473 
 
 It is evident that nothing can be excepted from this refer- 
 ence of the whole hfe to the kingdom of God, for the Christian 
 disposition proceeding from faith, and referring everything to 
 God's glory, is the great arbitrator in all the events of hfe. 
 Accor(hngly, there can be no empty space for things in- 
 different of which Christian principle takes no cognisance, 
 nothing belonging to human nature which does not receive 
 a moral impi-ess from Christian principle, agreeably to Paul's 
 exhortation, " Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, 
 do all to the glory of God," 1 Cor. x. 31. It may appear to 
 contradict this principle, by which the whole of life becomes 
 one great duty, and no room is left for an dcid<popoi', that 
 Paid, in 1 Cor. vi. 12, x. 23, distinguishes from the province 
 of the lawful, that which is useful or serves for edifica- 
 tion ; but the contradiction is only in appearance, and will 
 vanish on a closer examination of the apostle's views. It 
 could only contradict the principle in question, if PavQ 
 had reckoned what did not contribute to edification as 
 still belonging to what was lawful on Christian grounds, or if 
 he had not considered what contributed to edifying as what 
 alone was matter of duty. But it was not so, for he declares 
 it to be the duti/ of Christians so to deny their selfish inclina- 
 tions as would be for the best, or for the edification of 
 the church, 1 Cor. x. 24 ; or, which is equivalent, as would 
 be for the glory of God, 1 Cor. x. 31. This is the com'se of 
 action prescribed by Christian love ; but very different would 
 be the course that proceeded from self-love, and for that 
 reason sinful. The subject will be clearer, if we examine 
 more closely the particular case under the apostle's considera- 
 tion. He is speaking of partaking of certain kinds of food, 
 more particulai'ly of meat offered to idols. All this belongs 
 to the province of things permitted, and in a religious and 
 moral point of view indifferent, on which Christianity (unlike 
 Judaism) laid no restrictions. " Meat commendeth us not to 
 God ; for neither if we eat are we the better ; neither if we eat 
 not are we the worse," 1 Cor. viii. 8. " The kingdom of God 
 is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy 
 in the Holy Ghost," Rom. xiv. 17. But though all this in 
 itself has no moral character, and without the addition of 
 other marks belongs to things indifferent, yet like eveiything 
 belonging to human nature, it is not excepted fi"om the
 
 474 EVERYTHING A DUTT- 
 
 impression of Christian principle, for it is included in the 
 Pauline maxim, " "Whatsoever ye do, whether ye eat or drink, 
 do all to the glory of God ;" and Paul himself adduces 
 instances in which what is in itself indifferent may be either 
 a matter of duty or criminal. An individual who, though 
 not sufficiently advanced in Christian knowledge to attain the 
 conviction that the eating of meat sacrificed to idols is in 
 itself indifferent, is yet seduced by worldly considerations to 
 partake of it, acts in a manner deserving of condemnation, 
 since he does not act according to his convictions (ovk k- 
 7rt'(T7-£wc), Pom. xiv. 23. And whoever eats of flesh offered to 
 idols, following his own inclination, and taking no account of 
 the scruples of his weak brother, and thus seduces him to 
 follow his example without a firm conviction of its rectitude, 
 troubles his brother's conscience, and acts himself contrary 
 to the law of love, and sins ; 1 Cor. viii. 12 ; Rom. xiv. 15. 
 From this exposition of the apostle's views, it appears that 
 since what every one has to do, under the given conditions 
 and relations of the individual standing-point on which the 
 Lord has placed him, is defined by Christian principles, no 
 one can accomplish more than the rfteasure of his individual 
 duty. Indeed, so much will sinfulness still adhere to all his 
 performances, that even the most advanced Christian will 
 come short of the requirements of duty ; as Paul refemng 
 to himself acknowledges, Philip, iii. 12. Yet -^vhat Paul says 
 in reference to his own conduct in one particular instance, 
 may seem to contradict what has just been remarked, 1 Cor. 
 ix. 14, 15, &c. The apostle was authorized in preaching the 
 gospel, to receive his maintenance from the Christian com- 
 munities for whom he laboured ; but he waved his claim to 
 it, and supported himself by the labour of his own hands. 
 He did, therefore, more than his duty demanded, since he 
 made no use of what was allowable. Certainly he would not 
 have hesitated for a moment to apply to himself the words of 
 Christ in Luke xvii. 16, in reference to his conduct in this 
 particular instance. But he held it to be his duty, under all 
 circumstances, so to act as would most contribute to the 
 advancement of the kingdom of God ; and a regard to that 
 object induced him in this instance to receive no maintenance 
 from the church, in order that he might avoid all appearance 
 of self-interest. Hence he felt an inward compulsion to
 
 LOVE THE FRUIT OF FAITH. 475 
 
 act thus ; and if he had not thus acted he would have 
 violated the spirit of his calling, and have been dissatisfied 
 with himself; for he went so far as to say, that he would 
 rather die than act otherwise. The peculiar circumstances of 
 his ministry, and the peculiar charism bestowed upon him, 
 occasioned a peculiar modification of the general duty of all 
 preachers of the gospel. What on his peculiar standing-point 
 was a duty, might be contraiy to duty on the standing-point 
 of others — those persons, for instance, to whom Providence 
 had committed the maintenance of a family. 
 
 The fundamental ideas of Christian morals are in general 
 to be deduced from the nature of faith as a practical prin- 
 ciple. From faith spontaneously proceeds the love that refers 
 the whole life to God, and consecrates it to his service, for 
 the advancement of his kingdom; for from a knowledge of 
 the love of God manifested in the work of redemption, love is 
 kindled to him who has shown such superabounding love. In 
 faith as Paul conceived it, love is already contained in the 
 germ ; for what distinguishes faith in his view from supersti- 
 tion, was that the latter as it arises only from the dread of 
 natural evil, only desires a Redeemer from such evil ; faith, 
 on the contrary, is developed from the feeling of unhappiness 
 in sin as sin, of estrangement from God, and of longing after 
 communion with him, which presupposes the love of God in 
 the heart, though checked and repressed. But when the 
 revelation of God's holy love in the work of redemption, 
 which faith receives, awakens the slumbering desire of man, 
 or meets it ah-eady awakened, the germ of love deposited in 
 the heart is set free fi-om its confinement, that it may expand 
 to communion with its original source. Entering into com- 
 munion with the Eedeemer, believers are penetrated by the 
 love of God to them, and hence they are able rightly to 
 understand the extent of God's love. ^ From this perception 
 
 ' Rom. V. 5. By the Holy Spirit, the love of God is shed abroad in 
 their hearts, and makes itself felt there. The voice of God himself in 
 their hearts declares that they are his children ; Eom. viii. 16. Thus, 
 in Eph. iii. 18, there is first the wish that Christ may dwell in their 
 hearts by faith, whereupon it follows, that their inner life may be deeply 
 rooted in the love of God — the love of God towards the redeemed is the 
 element in which their whole inward life and consciousness rests — and 
 having been first penetrated by the feeling of love, they can then rightly 
 understand its exteot.
 
 476 RELATION OP THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 
 
 of God's love, the childlike love of believers is continually 
 inflamed towards him, and this love operates incessantly for 
 the renovation of the whole life after the image of Cluist, and 
 for the advancement of the Kmgdom of God; it forms the 
 life according to the heavenly model presented to it by faith. 
 The whole Christian life appears as a work of faith, and thus 
 all individual good works ' appear as necessary immediate 
 expressions of faith, its fruits, the signs of the new creation 
 eflected by it.^ And as aU the actions of the believer may be 
 traced back to the " work of faith" so likewise to the " labour 
 of love." ^ Now faith and love have a relation on one side to 
 something which is apprehended as present in the inward 
 life : faith in communion with the Redeemer has already 
 received a divine blessed life ; believers are already incorporated 
 with the kingdom of God, and have obtained the right of 
 citizenship in it, and by partaking of the Holy Spirit operating 
 in them by faith, they anticipate the divine power and blessed- 
 ness of this kingdom ; they have the foretaste of eternal life ; * 
 they already possess the germs and first-fruits of the New 
 Creation, in which everything proceeds from a divine living 
 principle with which nothing heterogeneous is allowed to 
 mingle — when it attains its completion after the resurrection. 
 But it follows from this, that the Christian life cannot be 
 conceived of without a reference to the future ; as in the 
 divine life the Future becomes in a certain sense a Present, sc 
 the Present exists only in reference to the Future,^ for it 
 
 ' The ipya ayada are to be distinguished from the Ipya v6/j.ov. 
 
 ^ The craiTripia not e^ epywv, as if men could gain salvation by works 
 performed before conversion ; for the announcement of the salvation 
 obtained for men by redemption, belongs as a gift of unmerited grace to 
 those who are destitute of the divine life, and thus of the true inclina- 
 tion to goodness, whether they are still sunk in gross sensuality, or are 
 raised to an outward legal morality ; and the ipya dyaQoL which really 
 deserve the name, presuppose that divine life which proceeds from 
 faith ; indeed the new creation must manifest itself by corresponding 
 good works; is designed to produce such. Hence the contrast, that 
 believers are not aia<affp.4voi i^ epyaiv, but KnaQivres sttI ipyois dyadols, 
 Eph. ii. 9, 10. 
 
 ■' 1 Thess. i. 3. rh ipyov t^s Triffreus, 6 kottos ttjs dydiTrjs. 
 
 * The Holy Spirit as the a^^a/Siv in relation to the whole assemblage 
 of heavenly blessings, 2 Cor. i. 22, the earnest given as a pledge of the 
 payment of the whole sum. 
 
 ' This must be carefully considered, in order rightly to understand 
 the relation of the present to the future in a Christian sense, and to
 
 TO THE FUTURE. 477 
 
 contains an anticipation, the germ and preparation of that 
 wliich will attain to perfect development and completion only 
 in the Futui-e. With the present earthly system a higher 
 order of things is connected, which cannot be fully developed 
 in believers, and whose natm-e is not yet wholly manifest, but 
 in many respects veiled from their view. The development 
 of the divine life, which they have received through faith, is 
 now only giving signs of its existence, and feebly beginning 
 to expand. The consciousness of this divine hfe is accompa- 
 nied with a consciousness of the obstacles by which that life is 
 fettered, till human natm-e is thoroughly pei-vaded by it and 
 purified fi-om all that is alien ; while this consciousness at the 
 same time produces a longing after that perfect freedom which 
 is the destiny of the childi-en of God. Though it is always 
 presupposed that behevers have already attained the dignity 
 and privileges of the children of God, still their rights relate 
 to something future, for all that is involved in the idea of 
 adoption, all that belongs to the dignity, glory, and blessed- 
 ness of the childi'en of God, is very far from being realized on 
 earth. For this reason, it is said in Romans viii. 23, that 
 Chi'istians who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit, 
 groan after the perfect manifestation of the dignity of the 
 children of God,' after their redemption from all that checks 
 
 avoid the delusion of the pantheistic deification of self, which imposes 
 on the language of Paul and John a sense quite foreign to the truth. 
 
 * The vlodeala. though, in Gal. iv. 5, this is attributed to believing as 
 something present. If we compare this passage in the Epistle to the 
 Galatians with that quoted from the Romans, we shall discover a three- 
 fold gradation in the idea of adoption. Paul first considers it as the 
 predicate applied to the theocratic nation in the Old Testament to 
 whom promises were given of an inheritance (the KKt)povonla) in the 
 kingdom of God. Those persons to whom the law and the prophets 
 were given, are certainly children and heirs, but they have not yet 
 attained to the actual self-conscious appropriation of the filial relation, 
 and the exercise of the rights grounded upon it. Since they are in a 
 state of minority, are standing under the guardianship and discipline of 
 the law, and their father's will is not consciously and freely become 
 their own, their relation to him can be no other than that of outward 
 dependence and servitude. By faith in the Redeemer, and communion 
 with him as the Son, they become freed from this dependence and servi- 
 tude, and attain to a self-conscious, mature, and free filial relation. But 
 this relation in its full extent includes all that which is founded in the 
 idea of Christ as the Son of God, the perfect communion of his holiness, 
 blessedness, and glory; hence a progressive development of this re- 
 lationsliip takes place, until the appearance of the children of God will
 
 478 ' FAITH AND HOrE. 
 
 and depresses their inward life. This longing after the othei 
 world is as essential a feature of the Christian life as the 
 partial and fragmentary anticipation of the future in the 
 participation of the divine life through faith. Paul uses 
 expressions from this standing-point which would be most 
 offensive to that deification of the world and self, which 
 is diametrically and entirely opposed to Christianity. "We 
 should be more miserable than any men if we had hope in 
 Christ only in this life, with no higher futm-e existence in 
 which our hopes might be fulfilled; for the Christian life 
 would be then a life full of delusive wants that would never 
 be satisfied, a pursuit after unreal phantoms, the ofispring of 
 self-deceptive desires." Filled with divine assurance of his 
 convictions and experience, Paul would turn away with 
 abhorrence from views which would make all his conflicts 
 and efforts appear as if expended on a nonentity. 
 
 If the soul under a sense of the bm^den which weighs down 
 the higher life is absorbed in such longings not confined to 
 one single object, and words fail to express the deeply felt 
 necessities of the heart, these silent aspirations rising from 
 the depths of a heart yearning after true and complete 
 freedom, and yet resigned to the will of its heavenly Father, 
 constitute prayer acceptable to God, inspired by the Spirit of 
 God, the Spirit of adoption. The whole condition of such a 
 soul is prayer. The Spirit of God himself intercedes with 
 inexpressible and silent groans; Rom. viii. 26. Thus in 
 Coloss. iii. 3, it is said, that as the glory of Christ exalted to 
 the right hand of God is hid from the world, so also the glory 
 of the inner life of believers proceeding from communion with 
 him is stiU hidden with Christ in God, and its appearance 
 does not correspond at present to its nature. But when 
 Christ, the author and source of this life, shall manifest him- 
 self in his glory, then shaU. their hidden glory be manifest, 
 and correspond in appearance to its original ; Col. iii. 4. 
 
 From the relation of the Christian Ufe of faith and love to 
 a creation that is to be perfectly developed and completed 
 only in the fiiture state, it follows that Faith and Love 
 cannot subsist without H^pe} Faith itself becomes hope, 
 
 perfectly correspond to tlie idea of a child of God ; -which is the third 
 application of this idea. 
 
 * If we reflect how all the ideas relating to the dignity and blessed-
 
 FAITH AKD KNOWLEDGE 47 S 
 
 while it appiehends salvation as something to be realized in 
 the future ; Rom. viii. 24.' Faith is proved and strengthened 
 by conflicts and sufferings ; by the opposition which it has 
 to overcome, it develops the consciousness of its indwelling 
 divine power, and of those divine results which are not yet 
 apparent, but stretch into eternity ; and thus it expands into 
 hope for the future." The consciousness of the love of God 
 contains the pledge for the certain fulfilment of hope. The 
 faith that operates by love could not persist in the efforts, 
 which so many obstacles oppose, in conflict with the inward 
 and outward world, if the prospect were not granted of cer- 
 tainly attaining its end. Hence Perseverance^ in the work 
 and conflict of fkith is the practical side of hope. "EXnig and 
 vnofxijvr] appear as associated ideas,* and the latter term is 
 sometimes used instead of eXttlq} 
 
 We must here examine more closely the relation of know- 
 ledge in religion to these three fimdamental principles of the 
 Chi-istian life, as laid down in the Pauline theology. Faith 
 presupposes and includes knowledge, for it cannot exist with- 
 out a I'eference of the disposition to something objective; 
 tliere must be an object of knowledge to operate on the dis- 
 position. But the divine cannot be known from without in a 
 merely abstract logical manner, but only by what bears an 
 
 ness conferred by Christianity refer alike to something Present and 
 something Future, and accordingly admit of a variously manifold ap- 
 plication, it will be easy to explain why, in Gal. v. 5, SiKotoo-wT) is 
 represented in reference to its perfect realization in the life of believers 
 as an object of expectation and hope ; and it belongs also to the con- 
 trast between the Jewish-legal and the Christian standing-point, that on 
 the former it was supposed that ^iKaioavvr] might be possessed as some- 
 thing outwardly perceptible and apparent, while the distinction between 
 the idea and the appearance was not thought of. 
 
 ^ If ix-Kis be here understood subjectively, iXins would be placed 
 instead of ttiVtis as laying hold of a-aiTripia; for irlffTis itself can exist in 
 necessary relation to the future only as eXiris. But if tK-jris be under- 
 stood objectively, then it will signify that (xtcT-qpla is here presented as 
 the object of hope, which may be affirmed, on account of the various 
 meanings attached to the former. 
 
 2 Kom. V. 4. Perseverance under sufferings produces a confinnation 
 (of faith), and confirmation of faith produces hope. 
 
 ' On this idea and its relation to the Christian idea of Hope, see 
 Schleiermacher's academical treatise iiber die wissenschafUiche BeJuind- 
 rung des Tugendbegrifes, 1820. 
 
 * 1 Thess. i. 3. utto/xoj^ ttjs iKirlSos. 
 
 ' 2 These, i. 4.
 
 480 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 aflBnity to it in the soul, by the sense for the divine. As long 
 as man is opposed to the divine in the bias of his disposi- 
 tion, he cannot know it. Hence Paul says, 1 Cor. ii. 14, the 
 natural man who is estranged from the divine life, receives not 
 what proceeds from the Spirit of God, for it appears to him (on 
 account of this his subjective relation to the divine) as foolish- 
 ness, and he is unable to know it, because it can be rightly 
 understood and appreciated only in a spiritual manner, that is, 
 by means of the irvtvjjia ayiov, so that a participation in this 
 spirit of a higher life is presupposed. Hence, also, we are not 
 to conceive of faith as something proceeding from unassisted 
 human nature, from man in his natural state ; but the manner 
 in which faith arises in the di'sposition, presupposes the en- 
 trance of the divine into the conscience and inner life. But 
 as the knowledge of divine things depends upon a participa- 
 tion of the divine life, it follows that, in proportion as the 
 divine life received by faith progressively develops, as the 
 matter of faith is vitalized by inward experience, the know- 
 ledge of this matter enlarges in a higher degree, and hence this 
 wider expansion of knowledge is described as a fruit of faith.* 
 And since the divine hfe of faith is love, since faith in the 
 Pauline sense cannot be conceived of without love, it is 
 evident that the true knowledge of divine things can only 
 continue to be developed according to the measure of increas- 
 ing love. Hence Paul says in 1 Cor. viii. 2, that without love 
 there can be oidy the appearance of knowledge. But as the 
 divine life in believers is constautly subject to disturbing and 
 depressing influences, and exists only in a fragmentary and 
 alloyed state, it foUows that the knowledge arising from it will 
 never be otherwise than defective. This may also be inferred 
 from what we have remarked before respecting the relation of 
 faith to the higher order of things still veiled from human 
 sight, with which faith places us in vital communion, and to 
 the nature of that adoption which is at present so imperfectly 
 realized, owing to the opposition between the idea of it and its 
 actual manifestation. Hence Paul forms a contrast between 
 the inadequate knowledge of the matter of faith in the present 
 life, and its perfect immediate intuition in eternity. He illus- 
 trates the relation of the two, by a comparison of the know- 
 
 ' Coioss. i. 9; Ephes. i. 18. In the last passage, knowledge is reprc 
 seated as an eflFect of the illumination proceeding from faith.
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND HOPE. 481 
 
 ledge we possess of an object by seeing it reflected in a dim 
 mirroi, with the knowledge obtained by immediately behold- 
 ing it; by comparing the notions of children (which contain a 
 cei-tain portion of truth, though not developed with clearness 
 and certainty, so that there is a continuity of knowledge 
 carried on fi-om the child to the man) with the ideas of mature 
 manhood ;' by contrasting what is fragmentary and isolated 
 with what is perfect ; 1 Cor. siii. 9 — 12. Such is the know- 
 ledge of divine things as they are shadowed forth to us in oui 
 temporal consciousness compared wdth the intuition of the 
 things themselves. Hence, it is evident, that Paul was con- 
 scious that he could speak of these things only in a symbolical 
 form, which veiled and contained a higher reality. Therefore, 
 fi'om the sense of the defectiveness and limitation of our 
 present knowledge of God and div:ne tilings, a longing is 
 excited after that perfect knowledge which the mind of man 
 allied to its Maker and filled wath a divine life, requires. 
 This longing naturally merges into hope. 
 
 We are now led to inquire, why Paul, when he represents 
 faith, hope, and love as the abiding, unchangeable foundations 
 
 ^ We may here compare Plato's representation of a twofold standing- 
 point of knowledge at tlie beginning of the seventh book of his Re- 
 public. As if a person were confined in a cavern where the light only 
 feebly glimmered, and he saw merely the shadows of objects by that 
 faint light; and afterwards regaining his liberty, became acquainted 
 with the objects themselves as they appeared in broad daylight. In this 
 manner Plato contrasts two standing-points of the present life ; the 
 standing-point of the multitude, the slaves of sense, and the standing- 
 point of the higher intellectual life, as it is presented by Philosophy. 
 This higher standing-point of Philosophy might be allowed in the state 
 of the heathen world : but Christianity will not authorize any such 
 intellectual aristocraticism. This would become a beautiful image in a 
 Christian sense, if applied not to the contrast between the degrees of 
 knowledge in this life and those in the future, but to that between the 
 views of the world entertained by the natural man, and those which the 
 divine light of the gospel im.parts to all who receive it. We may here 
 compare with Paul's language, the beautiful remarks of Gregory "Na- 
 zianzen : &ehv '6, tI irore /ueV i(TTi ttjv <pv(nv koI Trjv ovcriav, ovre tis evpev 
 avOpwiraiv iranroTe, ovTe p.)]V evpr]. aA\' ei /xiv ivpriaei Trore, frjTfiVfico toOto. 
 evpricrei 8e u>s ifihs \6yos, ineiSav Th Qtoetdis tovto Kal 6(7oi', Xeyai 5e rhv 
 rifJ.eTfpov vow re Koi \6yov, Tcf o'lKeicti Trpoa/J-i^v, Kal tj Hkoiv aviKOri irp&s 
 TO apxiTvirov, ov vvv exfi tt)!' e<p(aiv, Kal tovto iivat fjLOi SoKel to irikvv 
 piXocTocpovfj.ivov iTnyvuxTtaOal irore rj/xas, offov eyviiafxtOa. Td Se vvv flvai 
 Bpax^^a TIS aiTopfiori irav to fls rjfMcis <p6dvov Kai oiov ixtyaKov (poiros /xiKpov 
 aTravya(rfj.a. — Orat. 34. 
 
 VOL. I. I 1
 
 482 LOVE GREATER THAN FAITH AND HOPE. 
 
 of the Christian life in its earthly de"velopment/ distingiiishes 
 love as the greatest of these three. What is asserted by the 
 Catholics is indeed true, that love alone can give faith its true 
 value, since it makes it living, and hence forms the criterion 
 between dead and living faith. ^ It is equally true, that love 
 forms the difference between genuine Christian and carnal 
 selfish hope.^ But in this connexion Paul could not, accord- 
 ing to his own association of ideas, intend to say that love was 
 the greatest, for love in its true Christian meaning presupposes 
 faith — (love in a general sense is a different thing ; that love 
 which proceeds from the universal sense of God implanted in 
 the human mind, and from the general manifestations of the 
 love of God in the creation and in the heart of a man who 
 follows the divine guidance j) — and faith again presupposes 
 love, and that which Paul distinguishes by the name of faith 
 stands in the closest connexion with love. What the Catholic 
 church understands by the term fides informis, Paul would 
 not esteem worthy of being called faith. He calls love the 
 gi-eatest rather for this reason, that it is the only eternal 
 abiding form of the connexion of the human spirit with 
 the divine ; love alone endures beyond this eartlily life ; 
 it will never give place to the development of a higher prin- 
 ciple, but will expand itseK in perpetuity.* 
 
 1 In reference to understanding this, it makes no difference whether 
 we consider the vvv\ in 1 Coi*. xiii. 11, as an illative particle or one of 
 time, for in either case, what Paul here saj'S can relate only to the pre- 
 sent earthly condition of the Christian life. According to Paul's views, 
 hope necessarily relates to something still future, not yet realized ; when 
 the realization takes place, hope ceases to exist; Rom. viii. 24. And 
 faith and the perfect knowledge of immediate intuition are ideas that 
 reciprocally exclude one another ; 2 Cor. v. 7. When Billroth in hia 
 late Commentary on this Epistle, supposes the yueVei to mean the objects 
 of these graces as eternal and abiding, this certainly cannot be Paul's 
 idea, for they are indeed unchangeable, and the same for all the three 
 operations of the Spirit; but these three terms refer to the subjective 
 relation in which man stands to divine things, and this relation under 
 the form of faith and hope, is suited only to the earthly staading-point, 
 and is itself transitory. Love only is in itself the fiivov. 
 
 ^ 'YhQ fides informis and ihe fides formata, 
 
 ^ The irvevixariK^ and the aapKiK^ as proceeding from a heathenish 
 and from a Jewish element. 
 
 * Augustin beautifully remarks : " Fides quare sit necessaria, quum 
 jam videat? Spes nihilominus, quia jam tenet? Caritati vero non 
 solum nihil detrahetur, sed addetur etiam plurimum, nam et illam 
 singularem veramque pulchritudinem quum viderit, plus amabit, et
 
 TRUE AND FALSE HUMILITY. 483 
 
 Thus these three fuudamental principles of the Christian 
 life, Faith, Hope, and Love, are intimately connected with 
 Due another; and since everything which directly or in- 
 directly belongs to man's moral natm-e is brought under their 
 control, and receives from them a pecuHar character, they 
 form a foundation on which to erect the whole structure of 
 Christian morals. 
 
 The idea of raTreirocppoavi'r] is inseparable from these prin- 
 ciples. This quality is closely connected with the whole 
 system of the theocratic views developed in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and marks the contrast of the Christian and Heathen 
 mode of contemplating human nature. The consciousness of 
 dependence on God as the animating principle of life in all 
 its relations, the innate weakness of all created beings, and 
 that they can be and do nothing excepting through God, was 
 in direct opposition to the prevailing sentiments of self-esteem 
 and self-confidence.' But on the legal standing-point, this 
 consciousness was either only partial as far as self-righteous- 
 ness (which implied a desire of independence in reference to 
 moral development and the attainment of salvation) counter- 
 acted the perfect acknowledgment of dependence on God ; or, 
 where the feeling of internal disunion had been developed to 
 its utmost extent, and the feeling of estrangement from a 
 holy Omnipotence became predominant, only the negative 
 element of humility remained, the consciousness of personal 
 worthlessness as something mortifying to pride, the con- 
 sciousness of an impassable chasm between the hmited sinful 
 creature and the Ahnighty Holy Creator. But when to this 
 feeling is added faith in the Redeemer, and the consciousness 
 of having obtained redemption, the positive is blended with 
 the negative element, the consciousness of the participation of 
 the divine life and of the high dignity of adoption bestowed 
 by God. If, on the contrary, the connexion between these 
 two points, which belong to the essence of Christian know- 
 ledge and of the Christian disposition, be dissolved, and the 
 negative element be unduly brought forward, a false self- 
 humiliation is produced, — a self-abhorrence with a denial of 
 
 nisi ingenti amore oculum infixerit, nee ab aspiciendo uspiam declina- 
 verit, manereinillabeatissimavisione non poterit." — Soliloquia,\. § 14. 
 ' See Knapp's excellent remarks on this opposition in his Scripta 
 varii Argumenti, ed. II. p. 367.
 
 484 TRUE AND FALSE HUMILITY. 
 
 the dignity founded on the consciousness of redemption, — a 
 sense of depression without that sense of exaltation which is 
 blended with it in the consciousness of redemption. Such a 
 false humility, which displays itself in outward gestures and 
 ceremonies, Paul combated in the false teachers of the Colos- 
 sian church ; but he classed this mock-humility with spiritual 
 pride, veiled as it was under the form of an ascetic self-de- 
 basement.' 
 
 With the consciousness of the nothingness of all that man 
 can be and eftect by his own power, Paul combined the 
 elevating consciousness of what man is and can perform 
 through the Lord ; to the kuto. adpKa, iv dvQpuiivM Kav)(acTdai 
 he opposes the eV Kvpio) Kavx,(i(TdaL. 
 
 As humility first acquires its true character through the 
 love that proceeds from faith, as through love man's whole life 
 is pervaded by a sense of his dependence on God, and the 
 human will becomes an organ of the divine, so also Christian 
 love cannot exist without an abiding consciousness of the dif- 
 ference between the creature and the Creator, the redeemed 
 and the Redeemer, and the sense of dependence which that 
 difference involves. It is the sentiment which Paul expresses 
 in the inteiTogation, " What hast thou, which thou hast not 
 received 1 " 1 Cor. iv. 7. In the exercise of his ministry, his 
 soul was pervaded by a consciousness of his weakness as a 
 man (ante, p. 173), which was deepened by his sufferings 
 and conflicts, though accompanied by the conviction that he 
 could do all things through the power of the Lord ; Acts 
 XX. 19. Thus that state of mind was produced which he 
 describes as fxerd (t>6j3ov icai rpojiov. This was far from being 
 
 ^ This is a caricature of humility, which has often reappeared in the 
 history of the church ; and thus the nature of genuine Christian humi- 
 lity has been frequently mistaken by those who were strangers to the 
 Christian standing-point, and knew not how to distinguish a morbid 
 from a healthy state of the spiritual life. An individual of this class, 
 Spinoza., justly says of that mock-humility, which alone can exist where 
 the natural feelings are not overpowered by the force of a divine prin- 
 ciple of life, and at the same time transformed into something higher, 
 and where man has not risen from the depths of self-abasement to a 
 sense of his true dignity : " Hi aflFectus, nempe humilitas et abjectio, 
 rarissimi sunt, if am natura humana, in se considerata, contra eosdem, 
 quantum potest, nititur, et ideo, qui maxime creduntur abjecti et hu- 
 miles esse, maxime plerumque ambitiosi et invidi sunt." — Ethices, parg 
 uu S 29.
 
 TRUE AND FALSE HUMILITY. 485 
 
 the mark of a slavish fear, but only of that state of mind 
 whieli resulted fi-om a sense of the insufficiency of mere 
 human power for the discharge of his apostolic vocation.' 
 
 Tcnreuvcppoinji'r] beai's an immediate relation to God alone, 
 and according to the Pauline views can be transferred to no 
 other being ; men and created beings in general are not its 
 objects ; for humility is the sense of dependence on the 
 Creator as such, and places the whole assemblage of created 
 beings on a level. It follows, that a man who is thoroughly 
 imbued with this sentiment does not make any fellow-creatiu'e 
 the object of it, but as far as his spiritual life is concerned, is 
 perfectly independent of men, while sensible of his continual 
 dependence on God. To act diftereutly would be to transfer 
 to a creature the honour due to the Creator. As it is opposed 
 to every slavish feeling, it inspires the soul with that true 
 Christian fi-eedom which Pard so admirably develops in the 
 First Epistle to the Corinthians as opposed to every species of 
 a slavish deference to men. But though Tu-Ki.ivo(ppofjvvq does 
 not du'ectly affect our behaviour to om- fellow-men, we may 
 deduce from it the right line of Christian conduct towards 
 others. He who is rightly penetrated with the feeling of 
 dependence on God in reference to his whole existence and 
 conduct, and with the nothingness of everything human while 
 living only for oneself, will not pride himself in his abilities, 
 but feel that they are bestowed upon him by God for a 
 definite object, and must be used in dependence on him ; in 
 his intercourse with others, he will bear in mind the defects, 
 the limits, and imperfection of liis own character and abilities, 
 and his dependence with that of all other men, on their 
 common Lord. From this raTreivocppocTv^'i] will natiu'ally arise 
 an aversion fr-om every kind of self-exaltation in a man's con- 
 duct towai'ds others, and that which is the foundation of 
 moderation in the Christian character, and hence is distin- 
 guished by no particular name in Paul's writings, but what 
 may be deduced from the idea of raTrEuo(ppoain'i], as in Phil. ii. 3. 
 And it is not without reason, that kindness, meekness, and 
 long-suffering are mentioned in connexion with raTreivo^pocriiiT]. 
 Eph. iv. 2 ; Col. iii. 12. 
 
 ' Thus in Philip, ii. 12, he deduces "working out salvation -with 
 fear and trembling," from the consciousness that all things depend on 
 the power of God, who works " to will and to do."
 
 486 CHRISTIAN WISDOM. 
 
 In order to preserve the purity of the divine life in its 
 conflict with the k6(tixoq and the (rhpl, from within and from 
 without, to prevent unhappy mixtxires of the human with the 
 divine, the aux^porrvvt], the truxppovfiv is requisite, the self-govern- 
 ment and conquest over the world that proceeds from love, or 
 Christian circumspection and sober-mindedness. The Holy 
 Spirit is represented as a spirit of aydirri and of (rwtppopiaijog, 
 2 Tim. i. 7.' The latter word, as its etymology imports, 
 signifies that quality by which the Christian life is presei'ved 
 in a healthy state, and kept free from all noxious influences. 
 Humility, which guards the boundary between the divine and 
 the human, is accompanied by the (ppoyt'cv elg to crwfpovelv, 
 which acts as an antidote to the intoxication of self-esteem, and 
 promotes a sober valuation of one's own worth, the conscious- 
 ness of the measure of abihty, and gifts granted to each one — 
 the position which a man may take without arrogating too 
 much to himself; Rom. xii. 3. With this is connected the 
 iyprjyopevai Kui vi)<pEU', by means of which the sensual and the 
 natural are prevented from interfering with the movements of 
 the divine life, and the mind is kept clear of all enthusiastic 
 tendencies. Moreover, since faith working by love ought to 
 govern the whole life, animate it with a new spirit, and form 
 it for the service of God, it will be requisite for this end, that 
 the reason enlightened by this spirit should acquire the capa- 
 biUty of so regulating the whole life, of so managing and 
 applying all the relations of social and civil hfe, as will be 
 suited to realize the design of the kingdom of God, according 
 to the place assigned to each individual by Providence. This 
 is expressed by the term o-o^m, which comprehends the ideas of 
 wisdom and prudence,^ of which the first relates to the chcdce 
 of proper objects of pursuit, and the second to the choice of 
 suitable means for their attainment ; and both are blended in 
 
 ' Titus ii. 6, 12. ffoxppovuv here means the exercise of a control over 
 youthful and worldly lusts. 
 
 2 To (70(pia is attributed the aKpi^ws irepmaTelv, careful examination 
 relative to one's conduct in social life, that a man may discern on every 
 occasion what is agreeable to the will of the Lord, and, under difficult 
 circumstances, may choose the right opportunity for accomplishing 
 what is good, the i^ayopd^effOat t6v Kaipov, Eph. v. 15. '2o<pla would be 
 shown in the intercourse of Christians with heathens, in avoiding what- 
 ever would give them offence, and so regulating the conduct according 
 to circumstances, as would be best fitted to overcome their prejudices 
 against Christianity, and recommend it to their regard.
 
 TIIE CARDINAL VIRTtJES. 487 
 
 one idea, when everything is employed as means for the all- 
 comprehensive object of hfe, the realization of the kingdom of 
 God,' and when Christian wisdom is conceived of as so shaping 
 and controlling the life, that it may contribute as a whole and 
 in all its subordinate relations for the advancement of the 
 divine kingdom, according to the position of each individual ; 
 and thus what is in itself an object, becomes a means to 
 a higher object. Christian prudence, which emanates from 
 the clear undisturbed survey of the whole life by wisdom, 
 is to be distinguished from what is not founded on such a 
 basis, but would proudly assimie a separate standing as 
 capable of regulating the conduct independently of Christian 
 wisdom : the prudence which subserves a selfish interest, 
 or employs means which a Christian mind cannot approve, 
 or one which places more confidence in human means 
 than in the power and guidance of the Divine Spirit, the 
 (ro(pia crapKifcrj, which, as such, is opposed to the simplicity and 
 purity of the disposition produced by the Spirit of God ; 
 2 Cor. i. 12. Paul requires the union of a matured under- 
 standing, and a childlike disposition, 1 Cor. xiv. 20. " In 
 mahce be ye children, in understanding be ye men," even as 
 Christ enjoined his disciples to unite the wisdom of the ser- 
 pent and the harmlessness of the dove. 
 
 Thus, in the renoTation of human natui'e by the divine 
 principle of life — in the inspiring of the whole life by the 
 principle of believing and hoping love, we find the three fun- 
 damental virtues, which were regarded by the ancients in the 
 development of morals as forming the grand outlines of 
 moral character; v-n-ofxavrj corresponds to dvlpda, and includes 
 courage in action, the di'^piCeffSui, kparaiovtrOai, 1 Cor. xvi. 13, 
 and patience, fxaKpodvfda, under sufferings for the kingdom of 
 God ; — (this latter idea, from its connexion with the Chris- 
 tian views of total dependence on God, and of the imitation of 
 the sufferings of Christ, who by his sufferings conquered the 
 kingdom of evil, stands out in more direct contrast to the 
 principles of ancient heathenism ;) cxocpia corresponds to (pp6- 
 vriaiQ and aw^poavvr]. Of the cardinal virtues only ciKaioavvr] 
 is wanting, for what is generally intended by Paul under this 
 name, does not naturally belong to this place, since it bears no 
 
 From this point of view, Christ represents all Cliristian virtues under 
 the form of prudence. See Leben Jesu, 206, 239.
 
 488 THE CARDINAL VIRTUES. 
 
 correspondence to the more confined sense of righteousness, 
 but, according to the Hellenist phraseology, is put for the 
 whole of moral perfection founded in piety. But the idea of 
 SiKaLoavpT) is closely connected with that which essentially dis- 
 tinguishes the moral development of the ancients from Chris- 
 tianity, namely, the practice of considering civil life as the 
 highest form of human development which includes all others 
 in it, and the state as the condition adapted for the complete 
 realization of the highest good.^ As now by realizing the 
 idea of a kingdom of God, morality was freed from this limita- 
 tion, was exalted and widened in its application to all man- 
 kind, became transformed into a divine life in human form ; 
 and as it is the Love of God which manifests itself as the holy 
 and redeeming characteristic of this kingdom — it follows that, 
 in the divine life of this kingdom, love occupies the place of 
 righteousness on the standing-point of antiquity, so that, as 
 Aristotle and Plato traced back all the cardinal virtues to the 
 idea of righteousness, and according to the Grecian proverb, 
 righteousness included in itself all other virtues f so according 
 to Paul, love is the fulfilling of the law, includes and originates 
 all other virtues, and is, in short, the sum and substance of 
 perfection.^ And in 1 Cor. xiii, 4, 5, he represents all the 
 pecuhar acts of the leading Christian virtues as so many 
 modes of love. Love is discreet, patiej^t, persevering, always 
 chooses what is becoming, is all things to all men, and thus 
 acts with true sagacity. The idea of righteousness is not 
 excluded, for all the acts of love may be conceived as deter- 
 mined by a regard to right ; for love is not capricious but 
 conformable to law ; it acknowledges and respects those 
 human relations which are agi-eeable to the will of God, and 
 gives to every one what his position in society demands. In 
 Rom. xiii. 7, Coloss. iv. 1, love is represented as the animating 
 principle in the performance of the ckaiof cat 1(tov, which may 
 therefore be considered as only one mode of the operation of love. 
 Since Paul considered faith as the fundamental principle of 
 
 ' The opinion of those who attribute to the State such an importance, 
 and would constitute it a perfect model for the realization of the king- 
 dom of God, is derived from unchristian premises, and leads to un» 
 christian conclusions. 
 
 ^ iv 5e dtKaiocrvfri rvWrj^Sriv irScr' aper)] evi. Aristot. Eth. Nicomach. 
 lib. V. c. 3. 
 
 * ffivSeffixos Tjjs T jA.etJTijTo$. Coloss. iii. 14,
 
 IDEA OF THE CHURCH. 489 
 
 tli4 Christian life, it follows, that the immediate relation of 
 ^ach individual to the Redeemer was in his view of primary 
 importance, and the idea of fellowship, the idea of the Chiu'ch, 
 •was deducible fi-om it. Through faith each one entered for 
 himself into fellowship with the Redeemer, partook of the 
 Holy Spii'it as the new principle of life, and became a child 
 of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit. The knowledge of God 
 has been rendered attainable to all through Christ, for in him 
 God has been manifested in the most complete and only con- 
 ceivable manner to the human mind, and communicated to 
 our race ; and as the founder of reconciliation, he has esta- 
 blished a new filial relation of man to God. Through his 
 mediation the whole Christian life becomes acceptable to God, 
 by a reference to him who is always the sole woii;hy object of 
 the divine good pleasure, and fi'om whom that good pleasure 
 is extended to all who enter into spiritual fellowship with him. 
 To this mediation, which forms the basis of Christianity, the 
 foundation of the whole Christian life through the knowledge 
 of the redemption received from Christ, the Pauline ex- 
 pressions relate, " God the Fatlier of our Lord Jesus Christ " — 
 " doing all in the name of Christ to the glory of God " — "giving 
 thanks to God through Christ " — " praying to God " — " in the 
 name of Christ" — "through Christ'' — in which connexion 
 these propositions can be deprived of their strict meaning- 
 only by an utter misconception of the Pauline sentiments. 
 Although the high priesthood of Christ and the universal 
 priesthood of aU behevers are expressions not found in Paul's 
 \\Titings, yet from what has been said, the ideas implied in 
 them enter largely into his religious conceptions. This 
 apostle is distinguished by an immediate reference of religious 
 knowledge and experience to Chi-ist as the fountain-head, 
 fi-om whom everything else is derived. Hence, he could 
 treat of the nature of Christian faith in the eleven first 
 chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, without introducing 
 the idea of the Chm-ch. But the consciousness of divine life 
 received from Chi'ist, is necessarily followed by the recognition 
 of a communion which embraces all mankind, and passes 
 beyond the boundaries of eai-thly existence, the consciousness 
 of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit producing and animating this 
 communion — the consciousness of the unity of the divine life 
 shared by all behevers, a unity which counterbalances aU the
 
 490 IDEA CF THE CHURCH. 
 
 other differences existing among mankind, as had been ah*eady 
 manifested at the first promulgation of Christianity, when 
 the most marked contrarieties arising either from religion, 
 national peculiarities, or mental culture, were reconciled, and 
 the persons whom they had kept at a distance from each 
 other became united in vital communion. To the extra- 
 ordinary influence of Christianity in relation to these con- 
 trarieties, Paul bears witness when he says, " For ye are aU 
 the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of 
 you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ." 
 There was in this respect no difference whether a member of 
 the Church was Jew or Greek, slave or freeman, male or 
 female, for all were in communion with Christ as one person, 
 there was in all the one life of Christ, Gal. iii. 26 — 28.' The 
 consciousness of communion with the Redeemer cannot exist 
 without the recognition of the existence of the community of 
 behevers animated by one Spirit, who belong as his body 
 to him the head, under whose continued influence alone 
 it can grow to maturity, and in which all believers are 
 members one of another. This body of Christ is the 
 Church, the iKKXrjiria deov or Xpifrrov.'^ This communion 
 ia formed and developed on the same foundation as the 
 Christian life or the temple of God in each individual, namely 
 faith in Jesus as the Redeemer, 1 Cor. iii. 11. Hence the 
 image so frequently used by Paul of representing the church 
 
 * In Coloss. iii. 1 1, Paul notices particularly the contrast between the 
 civilized and uncivilized, the Greek being the most striking example 
 of the former class, and the Scythian of the latter. His language 
 conveys a prophetic intimation that Christianity would reach the rudest 
 tribes, and impart a new divine principle of life, the mainspring of all 
 Bound mental culture. 
 
 * This is no abstract representation, but a truly living reality. If in 
 all the widely-spread Christian communities, amidst all the diversity of 
 human peculiarities animated bj' the same spirit, only the conscious- 
 ness of this higher unity and communion were retained, as Paul desired, 
 this would be the most glorious appearance of the one Christian church, 
 in which the kingdom of God represents itself on earth ; and no out- 
 ward constitution, no system of episcopacy, no council, still less any 
 organization by the State, which would substitute something foreign to 
 its nature, could render the idea of a Christian church more real or 
 concrete, (if any are disposed to make use of scholastic terms, which, so 
 applied, contain the germ of error, and rather obscure than illustrate 
 the subject.) See, on the other hand, Rothe's work before quoted, 
 pp. 290, 310.
 
 IDEA OF THE CHURCH. 491 
 
 as a building reared on this foundation, Ephes. ii. 20; and 
 his apphcation of the term oiV-o^oyucTr, to designate whatever 
 contributes to the foi-therance of Christian hfe. That principle, 
 from which the formation of this communion proceeded, 
 always continues to be the bond of its union. Paul, in treat- 
 ing of this unity, adduces as marks of its internal fonnation, 
 that one spirit which animated this one body, the one object 
 of heavenly blessedness to which they were called, the one 
 faith in one God, whom through Christ they acknowledged as 
 the Father of all, with whom through Chiist and the Spirit 
 imparted by him, they were connected most intimately, so 
 that he rules over them with his all-guiding, all-protecting 
 might, pervades them all with his efficacious power, and 
 dwells in all by his animating Spirit — and the one Redeemer, 
 whom they all acknowledge as their Lord, and to whom they 
 were dedicated by baptism.' The chosen people, under the 
 Old Testament form of the theocracy, constituted a contrast 
 to the heathen nations, which was now transferred with a 
 more spiritual and internal character to the community of 
 believers. They retained the predicate of aytoi and riyiacTfxei'ot 
 as the holy, devoted people, in reference to the objective 
 consecration founded on redemption, and their objective con- 
 trariety to the profane, the ko'ct/zoc ; but yet the subjective 
 consecration arising from the development of the divine 
 principle of life, was necessarily founded on the former, and 
 inseparable from it — even as justification and sanctification 
 are coimected with one another. They retained also the 
 predicate cXrjrot, as those who were called by the grace of God 
 to a participation of the kingdom of God and eternal happi- 
 ness; and this calhng is not to be considered merely as 
 outward, by virtue of the external publication of the gospel, 
 but agi'eeably to its design, and as the very ieloa imports, the 
 outward is united with the inward, the outward publication of 
 the gospel with the efficacious inward call of the Divine 
 Spirit, so that hence the idea of K\r]Toi coincides with that of 
 behevers who really belong in heart to Christ. In general, 
 Paul considers the outward and the inward, the idea and the 
 
 1 We cannot suppose that the ev fidirTiffna refers to unity in the out- 
 ward institution of baptism, which would be here quite irrelevant. All 
 the marks of unity manifestly relate to the same thing, to which the 
 unity of faith also relates.
 
 492 IDEA OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 appearance, in all these relations as intimately connected, the 
 confession as an expression of faith, 1 Cor. xii. 3, — the being 
 in Christ as a reality, the being a professed Christian as a sign 
 of inward communion with the Redeemer. 2 Cor. v. 1 7 ; and 
 thus also the Church as the outward exhibition of the body 
 of Christ, the fellowship truly- established by the Spirit of 
 God. The language in whicli he addresses individual churches 
 is conformable to these views. 
 
 But though in general the apostle sets out from this point 
 of view, yet it could not escape his observation that not 
 all who represented then selves as outwardly members of the 
 church, were really members of the body of Christ. This 
 distinction he does not make in the original idea of the 
 church, since it is not naturally deducible from it, but must 
 be considered as something incongruous and morbid, and not 
 to be known excepting by observation, unless we refer it 
 to the inevitable disorders in the development of the visible 
 church, owing to the reaction of sin. Certain experiences of 
 this kind forced the distinction upon him ; in 1 Cor. vi. 9, he 
 declares that those who professed Christianity outwardly, and 
 represented themselves as members of the church, but whose 
 conduct was at variance with the requirements of Chris- 
 tianity, could have no part in the kingdom of God. It 
 followed, therefore, that they were already excluded by their 
 disposition from that kingdom, from that communion of the 
 faithful and redeemed which, strictly speaking, constitutes the 
 church. In this passage, he treats of cases in which the 
 foreign elements which had mingled with the outward mani- 
 festation of the church, might be easily detected and ex- 
 pelled by the judgment of the Cln-istian community for the 
 preservation of its purity ; for such marks of an unchristian 
 course of life are here mentioned, as are notorious and 
 apparent to every one. But an unchristian disposition, 
 a deficiency of faith working by love, might exist, without 
 being manifested by outward signs which would be as easily 
 understood as 'in the former case ; and here the separation of 
 the elements corresponding to the idea of the ei^KX-qcTia from 
 those that were incougruous, could not be so accurately made. 
 We learn this from Paul himself, in 2 Tim. ii. 19, 20, where 
 he contrasts with the apostates from Christian truth, those 
 who constituted the firm foundation of God's house, and who
 
 IDEA OP THE CHURCH. 493 
 
 wore the impress of this seal, " The Lord knowcth them that 
 we his," and " Let every one that nameth the name of Christ 
 depart from iniquity." " In a great house there are not only 
 vessels of gold and vessels of silver, but also of wood and 
 of earth ; and some to honour, and some to dishonour." 
 The great house is here the visible chiirch ; in it there 
 are those who are members only in appearance by an external 
 superficial union, without really belonging to it by their dis- 
 position, and though reckoned by the Lord to be his, they 
 are " the vessels to dishonour," and are thus distinguished 
 from those who are united in heart to the chm'ch, " the 
 vessels to honom-," who, in order that they may be pre- 
 served as such, avoid all sin, and call on the name of the 
 Lord without hypocrisy. He here intimates that the line of 
 distinction between the genuine and spurious members of the 
 church can be di-awn only by God, who knows the state 
 of the heart. Accordingly, in the application of the idea of 
 the visible chiu-ch, the distinction arises between the collective 
 body of those in whom the appearance corresponds to what is 
 internal and invisible, and those who belong to the chm'ch in 
 appearance, without having internally any part in it. 
 
 Since the k-zcXr^o-ta as the body of Christ not merely lays 
 claim to a part of the life of its members, but must embrace 
 the whole as belonging to the Redeemer, and animated by the 
 Holy Spirit, the source of life to the church, it follows that 
 the care for the promotion of the good of the whole is com- 
 mitted not merely to certain officers and persons, but all the 
 members are bound together as organs of that Spirit by 
 whom Christ as the governing head animates each individual 
 member, and thus connected, are to cooperate for the same 
 object; Eph. iv. 16. Thus, accordingly, it is the duty of 
 each one to consider the standing-point on which God has 
 placed him by his natural character, his peculiar training, and 
 his social relations, as that which determines tlie mode in which 
 he may most effectually labour for this end. As all natural 
 abilities are to be consecrated as forms of manifestation for 
 the divine life, so the Holy Spirit, while animating the whole, 
 appropriates each individual character, and gives to each one 
 his special gifts by which he is ordained on his own standing- 
 point to promote the general good. Here we have the idea 
 of charism, which has been akeady explained. Without the 
 Holy Spirit and the "^haiisms as the necessary manifestations
 
 494 BAPTISM. 
 
 and signs of his continued efl&cacious presence in the collective 
 body of believers, the chui-ch (which is the continued revelation 
 of the divine life in human form proceeding from the glorified 
 Saviour^ cannot exist j 1 Cor. xii. By the spirit of love 
 animating the whole, the charisms of all the individual 
 members, forming reciprocal complements to each other, ai-e 
 conducted to the promotion of one object, the perfecting of 
 the body of Christ ; as Paul has so admnably represented in 
 1 Cor. xii. 
 
 Since the church is no other than the outward visible 
 representation of the inward communion of believers with the 
 Redeemer and one another, the institution of outward visible 
 rites or signs corresponds to these two elements of it, (both as 
 visible and invisible;) these rites, Baptism and the Supper, 
 are designed to represent the facts which form the basis of this 
 communion. Baptism denotes the confession of dependence 
 on Christ and the entrance into communion with him; and 
 hence, the appropriation of all which Cln-ist promises to those 
 who stand in such a relation to him ; it is the pM!!^my on 
 Christ, in whose name baptism is administered,' an expression 
 which includes in it all we have said ; Gal. iii. 27. As 
 commxmion with Christ and the whole Christian life has a 
 special reference to the appropriation of those two great events, 
 his redeeming sufferings and his resun'ection, Paul, alluding 
 to the form in which baptism was then administered, and by 
 this illustrating the idea of baptism, explains the outward act 
 by a reference to these two events. {Ante, p. 161.) The 
 twofold relation of man to the former standing-point of life 
 which he had renounced, and to that new one which he had 
 embraced, is here signified — entering into the communion 
 of the death of Christ, into a believing appropriation of 
 the work of redemption accomplished by his death, dying 
 with him in spirit, to the world in which man has hitherto 
 lived ; mortifying self, as it heretofore existed, and by faith in 
 his resurrection as a pledge of resinrection to an eternal divine 
 life in a transformed personality, rising to a new life devoted 
 
 ^ On the meaning of the formula, " to baptize in the name of any 
 one," see the remarks of Dr. Bindseil in the Studien und Kritiken, 
 1832, part ii. Paul in Gal. iii. 27, might have said, All of you who 
 have believed in Christ. But he said instead of this, " As many of you 
 as have been baptized into Christ," since he viewed baptism as the 
 objective sign and seal of the relation to Christ into which man entered 
 by faith.
 
 BAPTISM. 495 
 
 no loBger to the -world but to him alone ; Rom. vi. 4. In 
 accordance •with this train of thought, Paul terms baptism, 
 a baptism into the death of Christ. And for the same reason, 
 he could also call it a baptism into the resm-rection of Christ. 
 But this latter reference presupposes the former, in which it is 
 naturally joined. From commimion with Clnrist as the Son 
 of God, the new relation follows of sonship to God, of filial 
 communion with God, Gal. iii. 26; and the pai-ticipation of 
 the spirit of a new divine life communicated by Christ, the 
 Holy Spirit. It is Christ who impairs the true baptism of 
 the Spirit, of which water-baptism is only the symbol, and 
 tliis immersion in the Spirit makes the great difference between 
 Cln-istian baptism and that of John. Therefore, baptism in 
 the name of Christ is equally baptism in the name of the 
 Father and of the Holy Spirit. The single reference cannot 
 be thought of without the threefold. In virtue of the con- 
 nexion of ideas before noticed, entrance into communion with 
 Christ is indissolubly connected with entrance into commu- 
 nion with the body of which He is the head, the whole assem- 
 blage of believers. " By one Spu-it we ai'e aU baptized into one 
 body ;" 1 Cor. xii. 13. As entrance into communion with 
 the Redeemer at baptism implies a cessation from communion 
 with sin — the putting on of Christ imphes the putting off of 
 the old man — the rising with Christ implies the dying with 
 Chi'ist — the transformation by the new Spu'it of holiness 
 implies the forgiveness of sins — entrance into communion 
 with the body of Chi'ist implies a depai'ture fi'om communion 
 with a sinful world ; so the distinction arises of a positive and 
 negative aspect of baptism. Hence the washing away of sin, 
 sanctifi cation and justification, are classed together at baptism; 
 1 Cor. vi. 11.^ What we have remarked respecting Paul's 
 idea of eictcXrima, the relation of the inward to the outward, 
 the ideal to the visible, will also apply to baptism. As Paul, 
 in speaking of the church, presupposes that the outward 
 church is the visible community of the redeemed; so he 
 speaks of baptism on the supposition that it coiTesponded to 
 its idea, that all that was inward, whatever belonged to the 
 
 ^ As Paul here joins the iv r^ ciuSfian rod Kvpiov and eV t^ ■Trj'euyuaTt 
 •rod deov, it may be inferred that he is here speaking of subjective sanc- 
 tification, by the communication of a divine principle of life, as well aa 
 of objective justification.
 
 496 THE lord's supper. 
 
 holy rite and its complete obserrance, accompanied the 
 outwai'd ; hence he could assert of outward baptism whatever 
 was involved in 3, believing appropriation of the divine facts 
 which it symbolized ; whatever was realized when baptism 
 fully corresponded to its original design. Thus he says, that 
 all those who had been baptized into Christ, had entered into 
 vital communion with him, Gal. iii. 27; language which was 
 applicable only to those in whom the inward and the outward 
 coalesced. Hence also he calls baptism the bath of regenera- 
 tion and of renewal by the Holy Spirit ; Tit. iii. 5. And 
 hence he says, that Clirist by baptism has purified the whole 
 church as a preparation for that perfect purity which it will 
 exhibit, in that consummation to which the Saviour intends 
 to bring his redeemed ; Eph. v. 26. 
 
 Relative to the Holy Supper, it appears from Paul's 
 language in 1 Cor. xi. 24, that he considered it as a feast of 
 commemoration on account of Christ's oifering his hfe' for 
 the salvation of" men, and all the benefits accruing thereby to 
 mankind. According to his explanation of the words of the 
 institution, 1 Cor. xii. 26, believers, when they celebrate 
 together the Last Supper of Christ with his disciples, are 
 gi'atefuUy to acknowledge what they owe to the sufferings 
 of Christ till his second coming, till they are favoured with 
 the visible presence of the Saviom", and the perfect enjoyment 
 of all that his redeeming sufferings have gained for mankind ; 
 they are to consider it as a pledge of their constant com- 
 munion with him, till that communion is consummated in 
 his immediate presence. Christ further designed, as Paul 
 intimates, to remind his disciples of the new relation or 
 covenant established by his sacrifice between God and man, 
 which is naturally connected with what has been already 
 mentioned; for as the work of redemption accomphshed 
 by Christ's sufferings is the foundation of this new relation, 
 which supersedes the ancient legal economy, its connexion 
 with this ordinance is self-evident. And as in the institution 
 of the Supper there are several allusions to the usages 
 practised at the passover, a natural point of comparison is 
 
 ' That this was the leading reference, I agree with what LUcke has 
 stated in his essay, De duplicis in sacra Ccena Symholi A ctusque Sensu 
 ac Ratione, 1837. Yet other references appear to me not to be excluded, 
 but to be originally given with it, and to be naturally founded upon it.
 
 THE lord's SUrPER. 497 
 
 here presented between the establishment of the earthly 
 national theocracy, which was accomplished by the release 
 of the Jews from earthly bondage and their formation into 
 an independent people, — and the establishment of an uni- 
 vei-sal theocracy in a spiritual form, which consisted in 
 releasing its membera from the spiritual bondage of sin, and 
 tlieir formation into an internally independent community or 
 chui'ch of God. If this subject is viewed in the Pauline 
 spirit, it will be evident, that all this can be properly fulfilled 
 only in vital communion with the Redeemer, apart from 
 whicli nothing in the Christian life has its proper significance, 
 and that the commemoration of Christ's redeeming sufferings 
 can never be adequately performed except in vital communion 
 with him. The solemn remembrance of Christ's sufferings is 
 the leading idea in this holy ordinance, though the conscious- 
 ness of communion with him is necessarily connected with it. 
 And communion with Christ necessarily presupposes his re- 
 deeming sufferings, and their personal appropriation. Baptism 
 also introduces believers into his communion as baptism into 
 the death of Christ. 
 
 With respect to the manner in which Paul conceived the 
 relation to exist of the outward signs to the body and blood 
 of Christ, we must not forget that the latter are considered 
 merely as being given for the salvation of mankind. Under 
 this view the form in which he quotes Chi-ist's words is im- 
 portant. He says, "This cup is the Kawr] ciadt'ii^T], which was 
 established by the shedding of my blood." This can only 
 mean : The cup repi'esents to you in a sensible manner the 
 establishment of this new relation. And by analogy the first 
 TovTo ean must be interpreted " It represents my body."' 
 
 * Those who advocate the metaphorical interpretation of the ex- 
 pressions used in the institution of the Supper, are very unjustly 
 charged with doing violence to the words, by departing from the literal 
 meaning. If the literal interpretation of the circumstances and rela- 
 tions under which anything is said, be contrary to the connexion and 
 design of the discourse, this literal interpretation is unnatural and 
 forced. And this is certainly the case in the interpretation of these 
 words of our Lord, for since Christ was still sensibly present among his 
 disciples when he said that this bread was his body, this wine was his 
 blood, they could understand him as speaking only symbolically, if he 
 added no further explanation. Moreover, they were accustomed to 
 similar symbolical expressions in their intercourse with him ; and this 
 very symbol receives its natural interpretation from another of Christ's 
 
 VOL. I. K K
 
 498 THE lord's supper. 
 
 Though he afterwards says that whoever eats or drinks in an 
 unwortliy manner, that is, with a profane disposition, is not 
 one who is interested in or recollects the design of the holy 
 ordinance, so that, as Paul himself explains it in v. 29, he 
 dees not distinguish what is intended to represent the body 
 of Christ from common food — that such a one sins against 
 the body and blood of the Lord. But from these words we 
 cannot determine the relation in which the bread and -wine 
 were considered by Paul to stand to the body and blood 
 of Christ, for the sinning of which he speaks, as the connexion 
 shows, consists only in the relation of the commxuiicant's 
 disposition to the holy design of the ordinance. On the 
 supposition that only a symbolically religious meaning was 
 attached to the Supper, this language might be used respect- 
 ing those who partook of it merely as a common meal. And 
 what he afterwards says, that whoever partook of the Supper 
 unworthily, partook of it to his condemnation, is by no 
 means decisive, for this relates only to the religious state of 
 the individual. Whoever partook of the Lord's Supper with 
 a profane disposition, without being penetrated with a sense 
 of the holy significance of the rite, by such vain conduct 
 passed the sentence of his own condemnation, and exposed 
 himself to punishment. Accordingly, in the evils which 
 at that time aifected the chmrch, the apostle beheld the 
 marks of the divine displeasui-e. 
 
 In the 10th chapter of the same Epistle, the apostle speaks 
 of the Lord's Supper, and declares to the Corinthians that it 
 was unlawful to unite a participation in the heathen sacrifices 
 with Christian communion in the Holy Supper. He points 
 out that, by participating in the heathen sacrifices, they 
 would relapse into idolatry. These sacrifices bore the same 
 relation to the heathen worship as tlie Jewish sacrifices to the 
 Jewish cultus, and as the Lord's Supper to the social acts of 
 Christian worship. And in accordance witli this fact he says, 
 " The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion 
 of the blood of Christ 1 The bread which we break, is it not 
 the communion of the body of Christ T' — this can only mean 
 that it marks, it represents this communion, it is the means 
 of appropriating this communion ; for the rite is here viewed 
 
 discourses, {^ee the cliapier on John's doctrine; also Leben Jesu, p. 644, 
 and Liicke's Essay.)
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 499 
 
 in its totfilly con-esiDouding to the idea, in the cougniity of 
 the inward with the outward, in the same sense as when Paul 
 says that as many as liave been baptized into Christ Imve put 
 on Christ.' As to the two other points with which the 
 Lord's Supper is here compared in its relation to Christianity, 
 the essential is only tlie coumiunion marked by it for the 
 conscience ; respecting the kind of communion nothing more 
 can be ascertained from these words. 
 
 Since the Supper represents the communion with Christ, 
 a reference is at the same time involved to the communion 
 founded upon it of believers with one another as members of 
 tlie one body of Christ. With this view Paul says, 1 Cor. s. 
 17, " For we being many ai'e one loaf and one body, for we 
 are all partakers of that one loaf ; " that is, as we all partake 
 of one loaf, and this loaf represents to us the body of Christ, 
 so it also signifies that we are all related to one another as 
 members of the one body of Christ." 
 
 The idea of the chm-ch of Christ is closely connected in 
 the views of Paul with that of the kingdom of God. The 
 former is the particular idea, which may be referred to the 
 latter as the more general and comprehensive one. The idea 
 of the church is subordinate to that of the kingdom of God, 
 because by the latter is denoted either the whole of a series of 
 historical developments, or a great assemblage of co-existent 
 spiritual creations. The first meaning leads us to the original 
 form of the idea of the kingdom of God, by which the Chris- 
 tian dispensation was introduced and to which it was annexed. 
 The universal kingdom of God formed fi-om within, which is 
 to embrace the whole human race, or the union of all man- 
 kind in one community animated by one common principle 
 of religion, was prepared and typified by the establishment 
 and development of a nationality, distinguished by religion 
 as the foundation and centre of all its social institutions, the 
 pai-ticular theocracy of the Jews. The kingdom of God was 
 not first founded by Chinstianity as something entirely new 
 but the original kingdom of God, of which the groundwork 
 
 ' The older Fathers of the church not illogically inferred, that there 
 was a bodily participation of Christ at Baptism as well as at the Supper. 
 
 - In 1 Cor. xii. 13, there may be an allusion to the Supjier in the 
 words [eis] (u vyevfj.a iiroTiaBrifjiiv, and in this case to the participation 
 in the tu xveCkxa proceeding from spiritual communion with the lie- 
 deemer ; this may be also the case in 1 Cor. x. 34.
 
 500 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 already existed, was released from its limitation to a particulai 
 people and its symbolical garb ; it was transformed from being 
 a sensuous and external economy to one that was sj)iritnal 
 and internal ; and no longer national, it assumed a form that 
 was destined to embrace the whole of mankind; and thus it 
 came to pass, that faith in that Redeemer, whom to prefigure 
 and to prepare for was the highest office of Judaism, was the 
 medium for all men of participating in the kingdom of God. 
 Tiie apostle everywhere represents, that those who had hither- 
 to lived excluded from all historical connexion with the deve- 
 lopment of God's kingdom among mankind, had become, by 
 faith in the Redeemer, fellow-citizens of the saints, members of 
 God's household, built on the foundation laid by apostles and 
 prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ; 
 Eph. ii. 19, 20. Tlie same fact is repi'esented by another 
 image in Rom. xi. 18. Christianity allied itself to the expec- 
 tation of a restoration and glorification of the theocracy, which 
 was preceded by an increasing sense of its fallen state among 
 the Jews. Those who clung to a national and external theo- 
 cracy, looked forward to this glorification as something ex- 
 ternal, sensuous, and national. The Messiah, they imagined, 
 would exalt by a divine miraculous power, the depressed theo- 
 cracy of the Jews to a visible glory svich as it had never be- 
 fore possessed, and establish a new, and exalted, unchangeable 
 order of things, in place of the transitory earthly institutions 
 which had hitherto existed. Thus the kingdom of the Mes- 
 Biah would appear as the perfected form of the theocracy, as 
 the final stage in the terrestrial development of mankind, 
 exceeding in glory everything which a rude fancy could de- 
 pict under sensible images, a kingdom in which the Messiali 
 would reign sensibly present as God's vicegerent, and order 
 all circumstances according to his will. From this point of 
 view, therefore, the reign of the Messiah would appear as be- 
 longing entirely to the future ; the present condition of the 
 world (the alioy ovtoq, or altoi' Trovrjpoe), with all its evils and 
 defects, would be set in opposition to that future golden age 
 (the allov i^eXXwi'), from which all wicj^edness and evil would 
 be banished. But in accordance with a change in the idea of 
 the kingdom of God, a different construction was put on this 
 opposition by Christianity; it was transformed from the ex- 
 ternal to the internal, and withdrawn from the future to the
 
 THE KINODOM OP GOD. 501 
 
 present. By faith in the Redeemer, the kingdom of GcJ or 
 of the ^Messiah is already founded in the hearts of men, and 
 thence developing itself outwards, is destined to bring under 
 its control all that belongs to man. And so that higher order 
 of things, which from the Jewish standing-point was placed 
 in the future, has already commenced with the di^^ne life re- 
 ceived by faith, and is realized in principle. In spirit and 
 disposition they have already quitted the world in which evil 
 reigns ; redemption brings with it deliverance from this world 
 of evil,' and believers, who already participate in the spirit, 
 the laws, the powers, and the blessedness of that higher world, 
 constitute an opposition to the nloji' oItoc, the aluiv irovripog. 
 Such is the idea of the kingdom of God presented by the 
 apostle as realized according to the spirit on earth ; the king- 
 dom of Christ coincides with the idea of the church existing 
 in the hearts of men, the invisible church,- the totality of the 
 operations of Christianity on mankind ; — and the idea of the 
 aliijy ovTOQ is that of the ungodly spirit of the present woi-Id 
 maintaining an incessant conflict with Chiistianity. 
 
 ' Deliverance from the ivecrriis alwv novriphs, necessarily accompanies 
 redemption from sin. See Gal. i. 4. 
 
 ^ This is the t] &vo} 'lepov(Ta\T]iJ., the mother of believers ; Gal. iv. 26. 
 Rothe disputes this interpretation (see his work before quoted, p. 290), 
 but without reason. He is indeed so far right, that primarily something 
 future is designated by it, as appears from its being contrasted with 
 " the Jerusalem which now is ;" but this future heavenly Jerusalem, 
 which at a future time is to be revealed in its glory, is already, in a 
 sense, present to believers, for in faith and spirit and inward life they 
 belong to it; while the earthly Jerusalem is already passed away, they 
 are dead to it, and are separated from it. From this it follows that the 
 heavenly Jerusalem stands to them in the relation of a mother; the par- 
 ticipation of the divine life by which they are regenerated, constitutes 
 them the invisible church. The perfect development of this life 
 belongs to the future ; their life is now a hidden one ; the manifestation 
 of it does not fully correspond to its real nature. Though the idea of 
 the invisible church is not expressed in this distinct form by Paul, yet 
 in spirit and meaning it is conveyed in the above expression, as well 
 as in the distinction which he makes in 2 Tim. ii. 19, 20; and when 
 he forms his idea of the body of Christ according to this distinction, it 
 entirely coincides with that of the invisible church. Hence, also, this 
 idea was strikingly developed by the reformation which proceeded from 
 the Pauline scheme of doctrine. And it is important to maintain it 
 firmly against ecclesiastical sectarianism, against the secularization of 
 the church, w\iether under the form of Hierarchy, of Komanism, or, 
 ▼hat is still worse, the subordination of religion to political objects, the 
 supremacy of the State in matters of religion, Byzantinism.
 
 502 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IX ITS 
 
 But as we have already remarked iu reference to the 
 Christian Hfe generally, as founded on the necessary con- 
 nexion of the ideas of Triu-iQ and eXmr, the Pauline concep- 
 tion of the kingdom of God necessarily contains a reference 
 to the future ; for as the Christian life of the individual is 
 developed progi-essively by inward and oiitward conflicts, 
 ■while aiming at that perfection which is never attained in 
 this earthly existence, the same thing is also tru.e of the 
 manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth, which com- 
 prehends the totality of the Christian life diffused through 
 the human race. The knowledge of the manifestation of the 
 kingdom of God is necessarily accompanied by a recognition 
 of this manifestation as still very obscure and imperfect, and 
 by no means corresponding to its idea and real nature. 
 Hence the idea of the kingdom of God in its realization, can 
 only be understood if we view it as now presenting the 
 tendency and genu of what will receive its accomplishment 
 in futui-e, and this accomplishment Paul represents not as 
 something which will spontaneously arise from the natural 
 development of the church, but as produced, like the found- 
 ing of the kingdom of Christ, by an immediate intervention 
 of Clu'ist. Hence various applications of this term have been 
 made. Sometimes it denotes the present form assumed by 
 the kingdom of God among mankiai, the internal kingdom, 
 which is established in the heart by the gospel ; sometimes 
 the future consummation, the perfected form of the victorious 
 and all-transforming kingdom of God ; at other times, the 
 present in its union with the future and in reference to 
 it. The conception of the idea of the kingdom of God in 
 the first sense, is found in 1 Cor. iv. 20. The kingdom of 
 God does not consist, the participation of it is not shown, in 
 what we eat or di-iuk, but in the power of the life ; not 
 in ostentatious discourse, as in the Corinthian church, but in 
 the power of the disposition ; Rom. xiv. 7. The kingdom of 
 God is not meats and drinks — its blessings are not external 
 and sensible, but internal, by possessing which we prove our 
 participation of it, such as justification, peace in the inner 
 man, and a sense of the blessedness of the divine hfe.' The 
 
 ' The connexion of this passage, Romans xiv. 16, appears to me to be 
 this : Give no occasion for the good which you possess as citizens of the 
 kingdom of God (more particularly in the nresent instance Christian
 
 RELATION TO THE UNIVERSE. 50c 
 
 reference to the future is introduced, where he sjeaks of the 
 (TviJ-jSaaiXeveii' of behevers with Christ ; and where lie says, 
 that those who, although they have received outward baptism 
 and made an outward profession of Christianity, yet contrar- 
 dict it by the course of 4lieir hves, shall not inherit the king- 
 dom of God ; 1 Cor. vi. 10. The passage in 1 Thess. ii. 12, 
 where Christians are called upon to conduct themselves in 
 a manner worthy of that God who had called them to his 
 kingdom and glory, has certainly a reference to the futxu-e, 
 as far as the c6E,a of this kingdom has not yet appeared ; in 
 2 Thess i. 5, the apostle says that Christians, as they akeady 
 belong to this kingdom, fight and suffer on its behalf, and 
 therefore will enjoy a share in its consummation. 
 
 But it is not merely in reference to the series of events 
 which are advancing to their completion that the external 
 form of the kingdom of God is presented as part of a gi'eat 
 whole ; there is another consideration which is natiu-ally 
 connected with this view. As the chm-ch is a seminary for 
 the heavenly community in which its members are training 
 for their perfect development, it appears even here below as a 
 part of a divine kingdom not confined to the human race, 
 but comprehending also a higher spiritual world, where that 
 archetype to the realization of which mankind are now tend- 
 ing, is already realized. The knowledge of God, according to 
 the comprehensive views of Christianity, is represented not 
 merely as the common vitalizing principle of the human 
 race, but as a bond by which mankind are united with all the 
 orders of beings in a higher spiritual world, in one divine 
 community, according to that universal idea of the kingdom 
 of God which is presented in the Lord's Prayer. Thus Paul 
 represents " God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not 
 merely as the common Father of mfinkind, but also as Him 
 after whom the whole community in heaven and on earth ai'e 
 named " Eph. iii. 15, By sin men were estranged, not only 
 
 freedom) to be spoken ill of by others ; for it is not of such a kind that 
 you need be afraid of losing it : even if you do not avail yourselves of 
 your Christian freedom, if yo-.i neither eat nor drink what you are 
 ii}stified in partaking of as Chiistians, as free citizens of the kingdom 
 of God. Your good is one that is situated within you, not (iependent 
 on these outward things; for the goods of God's kingdom are not out- 
 ward, or ol)jects of sense, they are within you; they consist in what is 
 Tfodlike, as the apostle proceeds to specify.
 
 504 IDEA OP THE LOGOS. 
 
 from. God, but from that higher spiritual world in which the 
 kingdom of God is already realized. As Christ, when he 
 reconciled men to God, united them to one another in a 
 divine community, broke down the wall of partition (Eph. 
 ii. 14) which separated them, and joined Jews and Gentiles in 
 one body, which is animated by himself as their head ; so 
 also while men are brought back to communion with Godj 
 they are connected with all those who have already attained 
 that degree of perfection in the kingdom of God to which the 
 church on earth is aspu'lng. In this respect Paul says, that 
 Christ, in making peace, has united all things in heaven and 
 on earth in one divine kingdom; Coloss. i. 20.' 
 
 Accordingly, Clrrist is considered by the apostle as in a 
 twofold sense the head of the church of God. He distinguishes 
 the divine and the human in the Savioxu", and, according to 
 this twofold reference, exhibits him in a twofold though vitally 
 connected relation to the creation and to the universal church 
 of God. Paul and John, for the pm-pose of designating the 
 indwelling chvinity of the Piedeemer, employed the idea 
 ah'eady formed among the Jewish theologians of a mediating 
 divine principle of revelation, thi'ough which the whole 
 creation is connected with the hidden inconceivable essence 
 of God. A primeval self-revelation of the hidden God, ante- 
 cedent to all created life, the Word by w^hich that hidden 
 essence reveals itself, (as man reveals the secrets of his mind 
 by speech,) as hypostasized in a spirit in which the essence of 
 Deity is represented in the most perfect manner; this con- 
 stitutes a universal revelation of the divine essence in dis- 
 tinction from the partial, individualized revelations of God in 
 tlie variety of created beings. This is a designation of the 
 idea of a self-revelation of God, (coiTesponding to the oriental 
 cast of mind, which is more addicted to symbols and images 
 than to piu-ely intellectual notions,) which the whole creation 
 presupposes, in which it has its root, and without which no 
 sentiment respecting God could arise in the human soul. We 
 are by no means justified in deducing this idea from Alexan- 
 drian Platonism, though a certain mode of expressing it may 
 be traced to that source." On the contrary, this idea, which 
 
 ' The passage in Coloss. i. 20, has some peculiar difficulties. See 
 below. 
 
 - In Philo himself, those descriptions of the idea of the Logos, in
 
 IDEA OP THE LOGOS. 505 
 
 found a point of junction in the thcophanies of the Old 
 Tebtament, and in the theory of revelation lying at their base, 
 formed a natural transition from the legal Judaism, which 
 placed an infinite chasm between God and man, to the gospel 
 by which this chasm was taken away, since it revealed God 
 communicating himself to mankind, and establishing a vital 
 communion between himself and them. The ideas of a divine 
 utterance, which prescribed its mode of being to the creation 
 — of a word by which God operates and reveals himself in the 
 world — of an angel representing God and speaking iu his 
 name — of a di\'ine wisdom presupposed through the universe 
 — were so many connecting links for a contemplation which 
 ascended from a revelation of God in the world, to his most 
 absolute self-revelation. And it was a result of this mode of 
 contemplation, that the appearance of Him who was to effect 
 the realization of the idea of the theocracy and was its end, 
 to whom all its preceding development had pointed as the 
 most perfect self-revelation and communication of God in 
 human nature, was acknowledged as the human appearance of 
 the Word, from whom the wdiole creation and all the early 
 I'evelations of God, the whole development of the theocracy, 
 proceeded. When the idea of the Messiah was freed from its 
 populai" theocratic garb, it would assume that higher element 
 of the idea of a communication of the Divine Being in the 
 form of human natm-e. 
 
 Certainly it could be nothing merely accidental which 
 induced men so differently constituted and trained as Paul and 
 John, to connect such an idea with the doctrine of the person 
 of Christ, but tlie result of a higher necessity, which is founded 
 in the nature of Christianity, in the power of the impression 
 whicli the life of Christ had made on the minds of men, in 
 the reciprocal relation between the appearance of Christ and 
 the archetype, that presents itself as an inward revelation of 
 God in the depths of the higher self-consciousness. And all 
 this has found its point of connexion and its verification in 
 the manner in which Christ, the unen-ing witness, expressed 
 his consciousness of the indwellintr of the divine essence in 
 
 which the Platonic element which forms their basis may be easily per- 
 ceived, are to be distinguished from those which were manifestly deduced 
 from a different tradition, and afterwards clothed in a Platonic dress.
 
 506 THE DOCTRINE OP THE SON OF GOD 
 
 him.' Had this doctrine, when it was first promulgated by 
 Paul, been altogether new and peculiar to himself, it must 
 have excited much opposition, as contradicting the common 
 monotheistic belief of the Jews, even among the apostles, to 
 whom from their previous habits, such a speculative or theoso- 
 phic element must have remained unknown, unless it had found 
 a point of connexion in the lessons received from Christ and 
 in their Christian knowledge. What opposition had Paul to 
 encoimter — though Peter had already prepared his way — when 
 he asserted the validity of the gospel apart from the obsei ranee 
 of the ceremonial law! But this doctrine of Christ was 
 equally opposed to common Judaism,^ which, when it after- 
 wards appeared in a Christian form, directed its opposition 
 against Christianity (which appeared as a new independent 
 creation affecting both doctrine and practice) principally on 
 this point. Certainly this Judaism can appear to no impartial 
 observer of historical development, as a reaction of the original 
 
 1 Though in the three first evangelists, owing to their peculiar 
 character, in which the purely human predominates, such expressions of 
 Christ are less frequent, yet even here we find some which declare or 
 imply the idea of a Son of God in the sense of Paul and John ; Matt. 
 xi. 27 ; xxii. 44 ; xxviii. 18, 20. See the excellent remarks of Baum- 
 garten Crusius, in his Outlines of Biblical Theology, p. 378. The whole 
 character of the Christ of the first Gospels, and several single ex- 
 pressions of divine confidence, correspond only to the Son of God as he 
 is represented by Paul and John. And the predicates 6 vlos tov avOpdnov 
 (the Messiah appearing as man, who realized the archetype of humanity, 
 human nature exalted to the highest dignity;, and the vlhs rod Beou 
 (which, as used by Christ, denoted something diflerent from the common 
 Jewish idea of the Messiah^, applied by Christ to himself, have a re- 
 ciprocal relation to one anotner, and imply the distinction as well as the 
 conjunction and unity of the divine and human in him ; see Leben 
 Jesu, p. 143. 
 
 2 Paul himself, in opposition to the common Jewish idea of a 
 Messiah belonging, as a descendant of David, peculiarly to the Jewish 
 nation, who would never break through the forms of their theocracy, 
 in Rom. i. 3, 4, describes Jesus as the Son of God, who, by natural 
 descent, belonged to the posterity of David, but evinced himself to be 
 the Son of God in a powerful manner by his resurrection through the 
 Holy Spirit ; that is, after his resurrection, he divested himself of all 
 those peculiar, earthly, national relations, in which he appeared to 
 stand as a native Jew of the family of David. With respect to his in- 
 terior nature, though before veiled under a terrestrial form, he manifested 
 and declared himself, through the divine life that proceeded from him,, 
 to be the Son of God, belonging to all mankind, and exalted above all 
 Buch earthly relations. Compare 2 Cor. v. 16.
 
 ESSENTIA fi TO C'HRISTIA^'ITY. 507 
 
 elements of the doctrine of Christ against foreign adultera- 
 tions, but rather a reaction of the Jewish spirit against the 
 spirit of Christianity, which had broken through the Jewish 
 forms in which it was at first enveloped, and had developed 
 itself into the new creation designed by its divine Founder. 
 Thus, too, the doctrine of the Son of God, as the Son of Man 
 in the sense of John and Paul, was not a mere isolated 
 element accidentally mingled with Christianity, but it is closely 
 connected with the whole nature of its doctrines and morals. 
 God is no more a God at an infinite distance, but revealed in 
 man ; a divine life in human form. But this peculiar principle 
 of Clii"istian morals, the idea of the pure humanity trans- 
 formed by a divine life, obtains its true significance only in 
 connexion with the doctrine of the historical Chi-ist, as tho 
 God-man, the Redeemer of sinful humanity which from him 
 must first receive the divine life, and persevere in constant 
 unreserved dependence on him. The self-idolatry of pan- 
 theism, which denies equally the God and the Christ of the 
 gospel, rests upon an entirely different basis, and is essentially 
 opposed to it. On the Christian standing-point, the elements 
 of the inward life ai'e a consciousness of dependence on One 
 Being, of a state of pupillage in relation to him, a surrender 
 of the soul to him ; with a sense of want, in order to receive 
 from him what man cannot derive from himself, the key-tone 
 of humility ; on the anti-christian standing-point of pan- 
 theistic self-idolatiy, the consciousness of self-sufficiency arises 
 from the supposed union with God which it professes. Hence 
 we see how enormous a falsehood it is, when men make use 
 of Christian phrases for conveying sentiments utterly at 
 variance Avith their genuine meaning, as they have often been 
 of late years. 
 
 Since Paul contemplated the Ptedeemer equally on the side 
 of his divine preexistence and on that of his human ap- 
 pearance, he united under one point of view the reference to 
 the universe of created beings in general, and to the new 
 Bpii'itual creation in particular, which was introduced among 
 mankind by the gospel ; or in other words, the universal 
 kingdom of God, which embraces the whole spiritual world, 
 and that particular kingdom established in the form of a 
 church on earth. Paul was led to exhibit this twofold re-
 
 508 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 ference in its unity in hia Epistle to the Colossians, for the 
 purpose of combating the pi-etensions of certain notions then 
 in vogue respecting spirits. He who is the image of the 
 hidden incomprehensible God, he in whom that God revealed 
 himself before all created existence, he who can-ies in himself 
 the archetypes of all existences,' in whom all earthly and 
 heavenly beings, all invisible as well as visible powers, have 
 been created, by whom and ^ in reference to whom all things 
 are created, who is before all,^ and in whom (in connexion 
 with whom) all beings continue to exist, — the same being, 
 therefore, who is the head of all, of the whole all-compre- 
 hending kingdom of God, is also the Head of the Church 
 which belongs to him as his body (by virtue of his entering 
 into communion corporeally with human natm'e) ; since he, 
 as the first-born from the dead, has become the first-fruits of 
 the new creation among mankind, that he may be the first 
 of every order of beings ; as he is the TrpuiroroKog irdirr]^ 
 KTirTfux;, so also the tzpiototokoq rrJQ Kaipfjg KTi(Tsu)Q.* Ac- 
 cording to his divine being deduced from the original of 
 the divine essence before the whole creation, he forms the 
 medium for the origination of all created existence ; as the 
 Risen One before all others in glorified human nature, he 
 forms the medium for the new spiritual creation which pro- 
 ceeds from him among mankind. This combination of 
 reference to the twofold creation which finds its point of 
 union in Christ as the God-man Redeemer, is also made in 
 
 * Col. i. 16, the eV avr^ must be distinguished from the St'ai/Tou; the 
 former indicates that the Logos is the ideal ground of all existence ; the 
 latter that he is the instrument of revealing the divine idea. 
 
 2 Inasmuch as the revelation and glory of God in the creation can 
 be effected only through him, in whom alone God reveals himself, 
 through him everything refers itself to God. 
 
 * The eo-Tt denotes the divine existence, but also with a particular 
 reference to the eari in v. 18. 
 
 * It cannot be urged against this interpretation, that if Paul had in- 
 tended to mark the reference to the divine and human, he would have 
 pointedly marked the distinction of the Kara aapKa and Kara nvevfxa, 
 for when Paul uses such marks he wishes to render the antithesis 
 prominent ; but here it is his main design, along with the distinction, 
 to mark the unity of the subject, and therefore it would have been con- 
 trary to his intention to have marked the contrast more sharply. In 
 the former passage (Rom. i. 3, 4) the dialectic element predominates, 
 but here the soaring of inspiration.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF EVIL. 509 
 
 the expressions by -which Paul distinguishes the nature of 
 Christian faith from heathenism ; 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; — one God 
 the Father, from whom all existence proceeds, and to whose 
 glory we, as redeemed, are conscious that we exist ; and one 
 Lord Jesus Christ (the mediator in our knowledge of God as 
 Christians), tln-ough whom all things were created, and 
 through whom, by means of the new creation, our destiny 
 will be realized, so that our life and conduct will be refeired 
 to God, and be subservient to his gloiy.' 
 
 The idea of the kingdom of God has also in Paul's 
 writings an essential reference to a kingdom of evil. Although 
 evil carries with it only division and internal contradiction, 
 and forms no unity, and therefore we cannot speak of a king- 
 dom of evil that is constituted for one precise object, yet 
 the opposition against the kingdom of God imparts a 
 unity to all the diversified manifestations of evil. As the 
 kingdom of God, according to the Pauline views, in its most 
 extensive sense, passes beyond the boundaries of earthly 
 existence, and embraces the totality of the development of 
 the divine life in all those beings who are destined to exhibit 
 a conscious revelation of their Maker, so likewise the oppo- 
 sition against the kingdom of God is represented by the 
 apostle as of vast extent and diversified relations. He con- 
 siders the prevalence of sin in mankind to- stand in connexion 
 with the prevalence of evil in the higher spiritual world ; the 
 principle of sin is everywhere the same, — the selfishness 
 striving against the divine will in those rational beings who 
 were designed to subordinate their will to God's with con- 
 sciousness and fi-eedom. All other evil is traced by Paul 
 to the outbreak of this opposition in the rational creation as 
 
 * It is connected with the Pauline mode of conception here developed, 
 that while he ascribes a truly divine j'ct derived being to Christ, he is 
 wont to mark Him to whom he ascribes the divine original being, God 
 the Father, simply as 6 6e6i. Nor is it at variance with this, that, a3 
 he ascribes to him a vwdpxeiv iv fioppfj d(ov, an elvai Icra 0e^, Phil. ii. 6, 
 he could also designate him in that difficult passage, Rom. ix. 5, as Bths, 
 as elevated above all, according to his divine nature. But in the 
 passage Titus ii. 13, I cannot but consider the Great God and the 
 Saviour as two different subjects. "It is Christ our Saviour by whom 
 the glory of the Great God is revealed." The expression " the Great 
 God hath given himself for us," would be altogether unpauline. Com- 
 pare the remarks of that unprejudiced critic Winer, in hia Grammar^ 
 p. 115, 3d edit. [p. 122, 4lh edit.]
 
 510 THE KINGDOM OF EVIL, AISl) 
 
 its priiaary source. As all sin among mankind is deduced 
 from the original sin at the beginning of the race and is con- 
 sidered as its effect, so all evil generally is viewed in connexion 
 with that first evil, and as the operation of the same funda- 
 mental tendency. Tiiis is of importance in relation to the 
 whole doctrine of sin. Had Paul, according to the views 
 ascribed to him by some, considered evil as only something 
 necessarily grounded in human nature, and the first man as 
 in this respect a type of aU mankind, the ide-a of an evil 
 extraneous to mankind in a world of higher intelligences, 
 could have found in his mind no point of connexion. ■ But it 
 constitutes the importance of this doctrine in relation to 
 Christian Theism, that the reality and inexplicability of sin as 
 an act of the will is thereby firmly established, in opposition 
 to all attempts at explaining it, which go to deny the very 
 existence of a Will, and deduce evil from a necessity which 
 classes moral development with the chain of causes and effects 
 in nature.' Thus the apostle recognises in all the ungodliness 
 of men, whether it assumes a theoretical or practical form, 
 the power of a principle of darkness — a spirit which is active 
 in unbelievers.^ The alwi' ovtoq and the KoafxoQ ovtoq are the 
 terms used to express the totality of everything which op- 
 poses the kingdom of God, the collective assemblage of the 
 ungodly, the kingdom of this spirit which is the representative 
 of evil in general.* 
 
 * This has been recognised in the light of an ethico-religious idealism 
 by a Kant, whose earnest moral spirit (on this point at least) approaches 
 much nearer to biblical Christianity, than the modern pantheistic 
 idolatry of the understanding, and the logical monism of those who 
 fancy they can reconcile, by dint of logic, the contrarieties in human 
 nature which only admit of a practical settlement. See Kant's Religion 
 innerhalb der Grdnzen der hlossen Vernunft. 
 
 '^ Eph. ii. 2. rov wvevixaTos rov vvv iv€p'yodvTos iv to7s v1o7s rrjs 
 oLTreiBeias. 
 
 ^ Paul mast naturally have regarded heathenism in itself (as a sup- 
 pression by sin of the knowledge of God) as belonging to the kingdom 
 of the evil spirit. But though the opinion that the apostle adopted the 
 notion of the Jews, that the heathen gods were evil spirits who influenced 
 men to pay them religious homage, has met with several advocates in 
 modern times, much may be urged against it. When Paul speaks of 
 the origin of idolatry in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Komans, 
 it would have been a most natural opportunity for saying, that men 
 through sin were grown up to the influence of evil spirits, and were 
 Boduced by them to transfer to them the homage that was duo to tie
 
 Christ's victory over it. 511 
 
 Jesus appeared m humanity to aunihilate the empire of 
 sin and of Satan. All the powers of evil arrayed themselves 
 
 living God. It would have marked naore strongly the detestable quality 
 of idolatry, and the predominance of unnatural lusts, to which he there 
 refers, if he could have traced them to the influence of evil spirits, to 
 whom men had subjected themselves, esteeming them to be divinities. 
 But we hud nothing of all this ; Paul speaks merely of the transference 
 to earthly things of the homage due to God, and he deduces all the 
 enormities he specifies only from the moral and intellectual course of 
 development among men left to themselves. In Gal. iv. 8, when he says 
 of those who had before been heathens, that they had served what was 
 no god, as if it were God, it is noways implied that they considered 
 other real beings or evil spirits to be gods ; but only that they had 
 made themselves slaves of the ffToix^la tou koct/jlov, instead of serving 
 God alone, as became the dignity of human nature. The ffTotxe7a roZ 
 K6afxov are the objects to which they ascribed divine power. In re- 
 ference to the Corinthian church, I cannot retract the opinion I ex- 
 pressed above, ante, p. 243. I cannot so understand the passage in 1 Cor. 
 viii. 7, as if the persons indicated by Paul were Christians who could 
 not altogether free themselves from faith in the reality of the heathen 
 divinities as such ; for, according to the relation in which Christianity 
 at that time stood to heathenism, it is utterly inconceivable that, among 
 those who became Christians, such a mixture could be formed of their 
 earlier polytheistic views with Christian monotheism. Still, if they 
 could not free themselves from belief in the reality of beings Vrho had 
 formerly exercised so great an influence over their minds, those whom 
 they once held to be divinities must have appeared to them as evil 
 spirits, in consequence of the total revolution in their modes of think- 
 ing. But if this be assumed, Paul could not at the same time hold as 
 correct that view which he attributes to the weak as erroneous. He de- 
 clares, moreover, that the views of the liberal party in the Corinthian 
 church were correct in theory, bat they proceeded on the supposition 
 that the heathen divinities were only imaginary beings, and that for 
 this reason the eating of the meat ofl'ered to them was a matter of per- 
 fect indifl"erence. In 1 Cor. viii. 5, he contrasts only two subjective 
 standing-points in religion, without speaking of the relation to the ob- 
 jective. The passage in 1 Cor. x. 20, is tlie strongest in favour of the 
 view which we are liere opposing. But we must determine the meaning 
 of this verse by comparing it with verse 19. If we admitted that Paul 
 considered the heathen divinities to be evil spirits, we must agree with 
 Billroth (see his commentary on this passage), that he wished to guard 
 against that misunderstanding to which the preceding comparison 
 might have given rise, as if he really acknowledged their divinities to 
 be actually divine. But, as we have already remarked, no member of 
 the Corinthian church could be supposed to entertain such an opinion, 
 nor can it be supposed that any one could have so misunderstood the 
 language of Paul, who always maintained so strongly an exclusive 
 monotheism. On the other hand, his words might be so understood, 
 as if he considered these divinities to be real beings (though evil spirits), 
 and hence ascribed an objective importance to what was oQered to them.
 
 512 THE KINGDOM OF EVIL, AND 
 
 against the Holy One of Ood ; his death, in which was mani- 
 fested the mighty power of the kingdom of darkness am ting 
 mankind, seemed to be their most splendid triumph, for here 
 the mightiest opponent of this kingdom succumbed to their 
 machinations. But the relation was reversed, and since the 
 sufferings of Christ were the completion of his work of 
 redemption, since Christ by his resxurection and ascension to 
 heaven manifested the victorious power of the redemption he 
 had completed, since now as the Glorified One, with the power 
 of a divine life that overcame all opposition, he continued 
 to work in and by those whom he had redeemed from the 
 power of sin and Satan, — it was precisely by that event which 
 appeared as a victory of the kingdom of darkness that its 
 power was destroyed. In this connexion Paul says, in Coloss. 
 ii. 15, that Christ by his redeeming sufferings had gained 
 a triumph over the powers that opposed the kingdom of 
 God, and had put them openly to shame, just as the chiefs of 
 vanquished nations are led in a triumphal procession as signs 
 of the destruction of the hostile force, — thus the power of evil 
 now appeared annihilated. And a similar image in Eph. iv. 8, 
 represents Christ, after he had made prisoners of the powers 
 opposed to him, as ascending victoriously to heaven, and dis- 
 tributing gifts among men as the tokens of his triumph, just 
 as princes are wont to celebrate their victories by the distri- 
 bution of donatives. These gifts are the charisms. As the out- 
 pouring of the Holy Spirit, the impartation of divine life to 
 believers, and especially the founding of a church animated by 
 a divine principle of life, are proofs of the conquest over the 
 kingdom of evil, and of the liberation of the redeemed from 
 its power ; so likewise the manifold operations of this divine 
 life in redeemed human nature, are so many marks of Christ's 
 victory over the kingdom of evil, since those powei's belonging 
 to man, which formerly were employed in the sei^vice of sin, 
 are now become the organs of the divine life. Now, through 
 redemption the power of the kingdom of darkness is broken, 
 and a foundation is laid for the complete victory of the king- 
 
 And in opposition to this mistake, he now says that he speaks only of 
 what the heathens believed subjectively from their own standing-point, 
 which stood in opposition to the Christian, and with which Christians 
 could enter into no sort of communion, that those beings to wl ^m they 
 Bacrificed were Saifioi/ia in the Grecian sense of the term.
 
 Christ's victokt over it. 513 
 
 dom of God and its total separation from all evil. But till 
 this final consummation is efiected, the kingdom of Christ can 
 only develop itself in continued conflict with the kingdom of 
 evil, for the power of the latter is still shown in them who 
 have not been freed from it by redemption, and by them the 
 kingdom of God as it exists in the believer is opposed, though 
 all that opposes it must in the end contribute to its victoiy. 
 And even in the redeemed themselves, points of connexion 
 with the kingdom of evil exist, as far as their lives are not 
 pimfied from a mixture of ungodliness. Hence Christians are 
 called to act as soldiers for the kingdom of Christ, 2 Tim. ii. 3, 
 against all the power of evil, both that which meets them from 
 without in their efibrts for the extension and promotion of the 
 kingdom of Christ among mankind, as well as against all from 
 within, which threatens to chsturb the operations of the divine 
 life in themselves, and in so doing to retard the internal ad- 
 vancement of Christ's kingdom, Eph. vi. 11. It is the dictate 
 of practical Chi'istian morals, that as every talent is trans- 
 formed into charism, it becomes appropriated for this divine 
 equipment of the militia Christi. If CI ristians only I'ightlj 
 appropriate divine tinith, and make all the powers of their 
 natm-e subservient to it, they will find t lerein the most com 
 plete equipment (the iravoirXia tov deov) ir. order to carry on thia 
 warfare successfully. Whenever Paul mentions this invisible 
 kingdom of evil, it is always in connexion with the presup- 
 posed sinful du-ection of the will in human nature, for the 
 doctrine of Satan can only be rightly understood by means of 
 the idea of sin derived from om* moral experience. In the 
 copious discussion on the nature and origin of sin, and on the 
 reaction of the work of redemption against sin, which is given 
 in the Epistle to the Romans, Satan is not mentioned; and 
 when Paul first turned to the heathen and led them to 
 the faith, he certainly appealed at first only to the conscious- 
 ness of sin in their own breasts, as in his discourse at Athens. 
 Moreover, he always contemplated this doctrine in connexion 
 with the redemption accomplished by Christ. Believers have 
 reason to fear the invisible powers of dai-kness only when they 
 expose themselves to their influence by the sinful direction of 
 their wiU, and are not careful to make a right use of the 
 means granted them in communion with Christ, for conflict- 
 -jig with the kingdom of evil ; that kingdom which tho 
 
 VOL. I. L L
 
 514 THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
 
 Redeemer has overcome once for all. Paul employs this ioc- 
 trine to arouse believers to greater watchfulness, that, under 
 the consciousness of an opposing invisible power which avails 
 itself of every germ of evil as a point of connexion, they may 
 carefully watch and allow nothing of the kind to spring up ; 
 and that they may rightly appropriate and use the divine 
 weapons furnished by the gospel against all temptation ; 
 2Cor. ii. 10, 11; Eph. vi. 12. 
 
 We have now to speak of the gradual development of the 
 kingdom of Christ, as it advances in conflict with the king- 
 dom of evil, until the period of its completion. 
 
 With respect to the manner in which both nations and 
 individuals are led by the pubHcation of the gospel to a par- 
 ticipation in the kingdom of God, Paul deduces the counsel of 
 redemption and everything belonging to its completion, both 
 generally and particularly, from the free disposal of the grace 
 of God, irrespective of any merit on the part of man. The 
 pecuUar form of his doctrinal scheme is closely connected 
 with the manner in which he was changed from being an 
 eager persecutor of the gospel into its zealous professor and 
 publisher. And this free movement of grace, not measured 
 and determined according to human merit, he brings forward 
 in opposition to a theory equally arrogant and contracted, 
 according to which admission to the kingdom of God was 
 determined by the merits of a legal righteousness ; the Jewish 
 people, by virtue of the merits and election of their pro- 
 genitors, were supposed to have an unalienable right to form 
 the main-pillar and centre of the, theocracy. Accordingly, he 
 contemplates the free aiTangements of grace in a twofold con- 
 trast ; in contrast to claims founded on natural descent from 
 distinguished ancestors, and a peculiar theocratic nation — and 
 to claims founded on the meritoriousness of a legal righteous- 
 ness. In reference to the former, he makes the contrast on 
 the one hand of natural descent determined by law, and there- 
 fore founded in a law of natural development, and defined by 
 '"t ; on the other hand, a development not to be calculated 
 according to such a law of nature, but one which depends on 
 the free disposal of divine grace and of the divine Spirit ; the 
 arrangement according to which the promise is fulfilled as the 
 work of God's free grace. In the former case, the develop- 
 ment of the kingdom of God proceeds bv outward propaga-
 
 THE KINGDOM OP GOD. 515 
 
 tion and transmissiou — iu the latter, a development ensues in 
 virtue of the invisible and internal connexion of the operations 
 of the divine Spirit, and of the communication of divine life. 
 Paul illustrates this universal contrast,' this law for the theo- 
 cratical development through all ages by a paiiicular ex- 
 ample, the example of Abraham's posterity, from whom the 
 Jews deduced their theocratic privileges. He points out how, 
 among the immediate posterity of Abraham, not that son was 
 chosen who would have can-ied on the hne of his descendants 
 according to the common course of nature, but one who was 
 miraculously born ^ contrary to all human calculation ; that 
 this latter, and not the former, was destined to be the instru- 
 ment of fulfilling the divine promises, and of continuing the 
 theocracy ; such, he shows, was the law of its continued 
 development. Most unjustly has Paul been charged here 
 with an arbitrary allegorizing which could cany weight only 
 with the readers of that age. 
 
 We do not here perceive in him a theologian entangled in 
 Jewish prejudices, of which his education in the school of 
 Pharisaism could not divest him, but a great master in the 
 interpretation of histoiy, who in particular facts could discern 
 general laws and types, and knew how to reduce the most 
 complex phenomena to simple and constantly reciuring laws. 
 Thus he here infers, with perfect con'ectness from a particular 
 case, a universal law for the historical development of the 
 theocracy, which he illustrates by that fact. He applies the 
 same law to the Jews considered as the peculiar theocratic 
 people in relation to the theocratic people formed from the 
 mass of mankind by the gospel. Since those who, according 
 to the law of natural descent from the theocratic peoj)le, 
 imagined that they had a sure title to admission into the 
 kingdom of God, were yet excluded from it ; on the contraiy, 
 by a dispensation of the divine Spirit, which could not have 
 been calculated beforehand, towards the heathen nations, who 
 according to the order of nature, since they were entirely 
 
 • The same contrast, which has alwaj-s made its appearance among 
 the conflicting views in the Christian church, the contrast between 
 Judaism in a Christian form, as in Catholicism and other similar modes 
 of thinking, and the free evangelical point of view of the visible church 
 depending for its development on the invisible efficiency of the divine 
 word. 
 
 ^ Kori TTi/evfjLa, not Kara adpKa ; Gal. iv.
 
 61 G EXPOSITION OP ROMANS IX. 
 
 Qibtinct from the theocratic people, appeared to be altogether 
 excluded' fi-om the kingdom of God, a new theocratic race 
 was called into existence, in whom the promises made to 
 Abraham were to be fulfilled. 
 
 With respect to the second point, that of founding a claim 
 for admission into the kingdom of God on the merits of a 
 legal righteousness, Paul meets this arrogant assumption by 
 the fact that the Jews, who by their zeal in the righteousness 
 of the law, appeared to have the most valid title to such a 
 privilege, were excluded from it owing to their unbelief ; and 
 on the contrary, the heathen, among whom there had been no 
 such striving after a legal righteousness, were unexpectedly 
 called to partake of it. 
 
 As in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, he 
 contemplates only this one aspect of the dispensation of di- 
 ^'ine gi'ace in the pei-petuation of the kingdom of God, and 
 for a polemical pui-pose, it might seem as if he deemed the 
 dispensation of divine grace to be in no respect affected by 
 the determination of the human will — as if happiness and 
 unhappiness were distributed among men by a divine predes- 
 tination entirely unconditional; and as if he deduced the dif- 
 ferent conduct of men in reference to the divine revelations 
 and leadings — from a divine causation which airanged every- 
 thing according to an unchangeable necessity. This principle 
 if carried out, would lead to a denial of all moral free self- 
 determination in general, contradict the essence of geniune 
 theism, and would logically be consistent only with Pantheistic 
 views. But on such a supposition, the line of argument which 
 Paul here adopts would be entirely inconsistent with the ge- 
 neral design of this epistle. He wishes to prove both to Gen- 
 tiles and Jews, that, owing to their sins, they had no means of 
 exculpating themselves before the divine tribunal; that all 
 were alike exposed to punishment ; he particularly wished 
 to lead the Jews to a conviction that, by their unbehef, they 
 desei-ved exclusion from the kingdom of God. But on the 
 hypothesis to which we have just referred, he lArould have 
 
 ^ However improbable it appeared that Abraham would obtain off- 
 spring for the continuance of his race, in the manner which actually 
 occurred, there was as little probability that the true worship of 
 Jehovah would p roceed from nations who had been hitherto devoted to 
 idolatry.
 
 EXPOSITION OF BOMANS IX. 617 
 
 removed all imputation of guilt, and fumislied the best ground 
 of excuse for all, a necessity that guided all human actions 
 by a secret machinery. Or we must explain his scheme by 
 the distinction of a twofold standing-point, one theoretical, 
 the other practical, a hidden and a revealed will of God ; but 
 we can find nothing in his mode of thinking to authorize 
 such a distinction. It is,* in short, evident from the close of 
 his whole argument, which begins in the ninth chapter— even 
 if we do not view this single discussion in its relation to the 
 whole of his theology and anthropology — how very far he was 
 from thinking of God as a being who created the greater part 
 of the human race, in order to manifest his punitive justice 
 to them after involving them in sin and unbelief; and who 
 had created a smaller part in order to manifest his redeeming 
 gi'ace, by rescuing them from the sin into which they had been 
 involved by a divine destiny ; for he represents as the final 
 issue of all the dispensations with the generations of mankind, 
 not such a partial, but the most general revelation of the 
 divine gi-ace. God hath suffered all, Jews as well as Gentiles,' 
 to come to a knowledge of their sin, and by that of their need 
 of redemption, that he may manifest his redeeming grace to 
 all who ai-e in this way fitted to receive it, Rom. xi. 32. More- 
 over, the doxology with which he closes the whole exposition 
 of his views (xi. 33), contains a twofold reference, — to the 
 infinite wisdom of God, which manifests itself in the develop- 
 ment of the kingdom of God among the Gentiles by an un- 
 expected course of events, — and to the grace of God, to which 
 men are indebted for all those blessings which no merits of 
 their own could secure. Therefore, in the discussion which is 
 closed by this doxology, there is only a reference to a divine 
 wisdom, whose proceedings are not to be calculated before- 
 hand, according to any contracted human theory ; and to a 
 superabounding grace of God, which anticipates all human 
 merit, reigns over all, and serves to explain all. These two 
 
 * The great mass of mankind, as being either of the Jewish or 
 Gentile race, seems to be the subject of discourse, rather than indi- 
 viduals ; though what Paul here says is applicable to the plan and 
 course of the divine dealings with individuals ; the same preparation 
 for the appropriation of redemption, is needed for individuals as for 
 collective bodies consisting of individuals ; the consciousness of the 
 need of redemption is always the necessary intermediate step, though 
 this may ^e awakened in various ways.
 
 518 WISDOM OP GOD IN REDEMPTION. 
 
 relations are closely connected with one another ; for as the 
 Buperabounding gi'ace of God is shown by all, Jews as well as 
 Gentiles, and Gentiles as well as Jews, being brought to a 
 participation of redemption, so the wonderful wisdom of God 
 is manifested by the manner in which, by the dealings of hia 
 providence with the nations, the feeling of the need of re- 
 demption as the necessary preparation for obtaining it, is 
 developed in various ways among them, according to their 
 respective standing-points. 
 
 Thus, too, Paul says in Eph. iii.'lO, that by the manner in 
 which the church of God was formed among mankind, and 
 especially in which the heathen were led to a participation in 
 redemption, the TroXvirolKiXoc aotpia rov deoii was manifested ; 
 the epithet here given to the divine wisdom, seiwes to express 
 the variety of methods by which it conducted the develop- 
 ment of mankind to one end. But the praise of the divine 
 wisdom in this respect, is directly opposed to the hypothesis 
 of an arbitrary impartation of grace and of an unconditional 
 divine causation. For this veiy reason, divine wisdom was 
 requisite for the establishment of the chm'ch of God among 
 mankind, because God did not all at once give that direction 
 to men's minds which they required to attain a participation 
 in redemption, but trained them to it with free self-determi- 
 nation on their part according to their various standing- 
 points.' 
 
 In the discussion of this controversy, Paul dwells prin- 
 cipally on the free grace and independent will of God, because 
 it was only his object to humble the pride of the Jews, and to 
 awaken in their minds the consciousness that man, by all his 
 
 ' When Paul speaks of the incomprehensibility of the divine dealings 
 towards the generations of men, it is in this sense, that the limited 
 reason of man cannot determine d priori the proceedings of the divine 
 government, and that man cannot understand its single acts till he can 
 survey the connexion of the whole in its historical development. But 
 since he speaks of a revelation of the divine wisdom, it is evident that 
 he assumes that a knowledge of these proceedings is possible in such a 
 connexion. And, in fact, the divine wisdom must have already mani- 
 fested itself conspicuously in the transference of the kingdom of God 
 from the Jews to the Gentiles, and in the preparation of the latter for 
 that event, to those who only cast a glance at the events that were 
 passing under their eyes. The divine wisdom will also be discerned at 
 a future period, in the manner of bringing so large a portion of the 
 Jewish people to faith in the Redeemer.
 
 PHARAOH A WARNING TO THE JEWS. 519 
 
 efforts, cannot seize what he can only receive from the grace 
 of God under a sense of his own dependence and need of 
 help ; that God was under no obligation to choose the instru- 
 ments for perpetuating the theocracy only from the members 
 of the theocratic nation, but might make them the objects of 
 punishment. But from this we ai'e by no means to infer that 
 Paul considered that this grace operated as a magical, uncon- 
 ditional necessity, or that the divine punishment was an 
 arbitrary act, or, equally with sin and unbelief, a matter 
 of divine causation. It was far from his intention to give a 
 complete theory of the divine election of grace, and its rela- 
 tion to free-wiU, but only to exhibit it under one special 
 point of view. It was therefore natural that, if this anti- 
 thetical reference was not always kept in view, and everything 
 else in connexion with it, much would be misunderstood, 
 and a veiy one-sided theoiy of election would be formed from 
 this portion of Scripture. When Paul says God hardeneth 
 whom he will — the freedom of the divine will in reference to 
 the divine punishment is maintained against the delusion 
 of the Jews, that their nation could not be an object of the 
 divine displeasure. But that this punishment shoidd be 
 conditional, depending on the criminality of man as a free 
 agent, is by no means excluded, but rather imphed in the 
 idea of hardening. 
 
 By this expression that law of the moral world is indicated, 
 according to which the moral self-determination gives its 
 direction to the whole inwai'd man ; the sinfril direction of 
 the will brings on bhndness of mind, and the manner in which 
 eveiything from without operates on man, depends on this his 
 inward self-determination, and by his consequent susceptibility 
 or unsusceptibility for the revelation of the Divine which meets 
 him from without. And in this respect, Paul holds up the 
 example of Pharaoh as a warning to the Jewish nation. 
 As the miracles which, by another direction of his inward 
 man, might have led him to an acknowledgTuent of the divine 
 almightiness in the dealings of God with the Jewish people, 
 and to a subjection of his will to the divine will clearly 
 manifested to him — as these miracles, on the contrary, only 
 contributed to harden him in his self-will and delusion, so 
 there was nothing to prevent God from acting in a similar 
 way with the Jewish nation in reference to the reception they
 
 520 ' THE DIVINE DECREES. 
 
 gave to tiie revelation of himself through Christ. When he 
 says, that the Jews by all their efforts could attain nothing ; 
 but that the Gentiles, on the contraiy, without such efforts had 
 been admitted into the kingdom of God (Rom. ix. 30, 31); 
 such language by no means implies that the conduct of men 
 makes no difference in the impartation of grace, but exactly 
 the contrary ; for he thus expresses the hindrance to the 
 reception of the gospel by the Jews arising from the direction 
 of their minds, from the state of their hearts ; namely, that 
 a confidence in their own " willing and running," j^revented 
 the consciousness of their need of redemption, while those 
 classes of heathens among whom the gospel was first propa- 
 gated were more easily led to embrace it, because they in- 
 dulged in no such false confidence. And as he combated the 
 presumptuous dependence of the Jews on their own works 
 and exposed its nullity, so on the other hand, he warned the 
 Gentiles against a false dependence on divine grace, which 
 might mislead them to forget what was required on their 
 part, in order to its appropriation. He represents the opera- 
 tions of gi'ace as depending on their faithful retention on the 
 part of man — the remaining in grace on the right direction 
 of the vnll, Rom. xi. 20. " Because of unbelief they were 
 broken off, and thou standest by faith." In another passage, 
 Paul allows it to depend entirely on the direction of the will 
 whether a man should become a vessel of honour or of dis- 
 honour. " If a man purge himself from these, he shall be 
 a vessel unto honom*," 2 Tim. ii. 21. But in his own sphere 
 of action, the apostle was more frequently called to oppose a 
 false confidence in a vain righteousness of works, than a false 
 confidence in divine grace ; and his own mental traiioing led 
 him particularly to combat the former error. Both these 
 circumstances together had the effect of disposing him to 
 develop the Christian doctrine on this side especially, and to 
 present what belonged to it in the clearest light. 
 
 Besides, when it was his object to arouse and establish the 
 courage and confidence of believers, he could not direct them 
 to the weak and uncertain power of man, but pointed to the 
 immovable ground of confidence in the counsels of the 
 divine love in reference to their salvation, the foundation of 
 what God had effected through Christ. The divine counsel of 
 salvation must necessarily be fulfilled in them, nor could the
 
 THE DIVINE DECREES. 521 
 
 accomplisliment of this unchangeable divine decree be pre- 
 vented by anything which might hapj^en to them in Ufe ; on 
 the contrary, all things would serve to prepare for its accom- 
 plishment, everything which they might meet with in life 
 must contribute to their salvation. This is the practical con- 
 nexion of ideas in Rom. viii. 28, &c., those whom God in his 
 eternal intuition ' has recognised as belonging to him through 
 Christ, he has also predetermined that they should be con- 
 formed to the archetype of his Son, since he having risen from 
 the dead in his glorified humanity, must be the first-born 
 among many brethren. But those whom he had predestined 
 to this end, he has also called to it ; those whom he has called, 
 he has also justified ; those whom he has justified, he has also 
 glorified. The train of thought is therefore this : first, the 
 divine idea of Christ, and of mankind contemplated in him, 
 the divine counsel to realize this idea in believers ; to conform 
 them as redeemed to the archetype of Christ by the comple- 
 tion of the new creation. Then the gradual accomplishment 
 of this counsel ; first, the calling to believe (in the Pauline 
 sense, the outward and the inward call are taken in combina- 
 tion for the production of faith), as believers they become 
 justified, and with believing the realization of the dignity of 
 the children of God begins in their inward life. That God 
 gave up his Son in order to secure this blessing to them, is a 
 sure pledge of their obtaining it, and that nothing which 
 appears to stand in the way shall really obstruct, but on the 
 contrary must serve to advance it. Consequently, this doc- 
 trine of predestination and election, in the Pauline sense, is 
 nothing else but the application of the general counsel of God 
 for the redemption of mankind through Christ as the ground 
 of salvation to those in whom it is accomplished by virtue of 
 their believing. The greatness and certainty of the dignity 
 of Christians is thus evinced ; but nothing is determined 
 respecting the relation of the divine choice to the free deter- 
 mination of the human wills. When Paul, in Eph. i. 4, 
 represents Christians as objects of the divine love before the 
 foundation of the world, his object is to show that Chiistianity 
 
 1 I do not mean a knowledge simply resulting from the divine pre« 
 science, which is quite foreign to the connexion of the passage, but a 
 creative knowledge, [such as in the Arts a man of genius Lis of his 
 designs,] established in the divine idea.
 
 522 THE FINAL CONSUMMATION. 
 
 was not inferior to Judaism as a new dispensation, but was 
 in fact the most ancient and original, and presupposed by 
 Judaism itself, the election in Christ preceded the election of 
 the Jewish nation in their forefathers ; and redemption, the 
 verification of the archetype of humanity through Christ and 
 proceeding from him, is the end of the whole terrestrial crea- 
 tion, so that everything else appears as a preparation for this 
 highest object in the counsel of creation in reference to this 
 world. 
 
 Of the apostle Paul's views in reference to the last conflict 
 which the kingdom of God will have to sustain, and his ex- 
 pectations of the victory to be gained by the approaching 
 coming of the Lord, we have already spoken in our account 
 of his ministry ; ante, p. 205. The prospects of the con- 
 summation of the kingdom of God bear the same relation to 
 the development of the New Testament dispensation, as the 
 prophetic intimations of the glorification of the theocracy by 
 the work of the Redeemer bear to the development of the 
 Old Testament dispensation. Eveiything prophetical must 
 be fragmentary, and hence cannot furnish us with clear and 
 connected knowledge. We cannot, therefore, help considering 
 as a vain attempt, the endeavour to frame, by a comparison 
 of particular apostolical expressions, a connected complete 
 doctrine of the consummation of all things. From the 
 standing-point of the apostles this was not possible. It might 
 indeed happen, that in moments of higher inspiration and 
 of special illumination, many higher but still isolated views 
 might be imparted, which yet they could not combine into an 
 organic systematic unity with their other representations on 
 this subject. 
 
 With the doctrine of the consummation of the kingdom of 
 God, is closely connected, in the Pauline system, the doctrine 
 of the resurrection. This doctrine does not present itself here 
 as an accidental and isolated fact, but stands in intimate 
 relation to his general mode of contemplating the Christian 
 life. It is the fundamental view of Paul and of the New 
 Testament generally, that the Christian life which proceeds 
 from faith carries in it the germ of a higher futurity ; that 
 the development of the divine life begun by faith, through 
 which a man appropriates the redeeming work of Christ, and 
 enters into fellowship with him, will go on until it has pervaded
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE RESUBRECTION. ' 523 
 
 human nature in its full extent. Thus the appropriation of 
 the body as an organ for the sanctified soul, as a temple of the 
 Holy Spirit, must precede the higher state in which the body 
 will be furnislied as the glorified and corresponding organ of 
 the perfected holy soul, Rom. vi. 5 — 8, 11; 1 Cor. vi. 14. 
 Expositors, for want of entering sufficiently into the profound 
 views of the apostle, and of grasping the comprehensive 
 sm-vey that stretches from the present into the futm-e, have 
 often eiTcd by a mistaken reference of such passages either 
 solely to the spiritual resurrection of the present state, or 
 solely to the bodily resurrection of the future. 
 
 The difficulties which were raised, even in the apostle's time, 
 respecting the doctrine of the resurrection, were founded par- 
 ticularly on the gToss conceptions of it, and on the mode of 
 determining the identity of the body. Paul, on the contrary, 
 in the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 
 teaches that, by the same creative power of God which caused 
 a peculiar creation to proceed from a grain of corn, an organ 
 of the soul adapted to its higher condition would be formed 
 from an indestructible corporeal germ. It may be asked, 
 what is the essence of the body considered as an organ 
 belonging to a distinct personality 1 Only this is considered 
 by Paul as abiding, while the corporeal form is subject to 
 change and dissolution ; the former, as something belonging 
 to the representation of the whole personality, will be restored 
 in a form corresponding to its glorified state. And as the body 
 of man is the mediating organ between the soul and nature, the 
 idea is here associated of a Palingenesia of the latter, with the 
 resurrection to which Paiil alludes in Rom. viii. 19 — 23 ' 
 
 ^ The later distinguished commentators on this epistle have acknow- 
 ledged this to be the only tenable exposition ; and even Usteri, who 
 had before brought forward the strongest objections against it, has been 
 induced, for the same reasons which appear to me convincing, to accede 
 to it. Against that interpretation, according to which this passage 
 refers to the anxiety of the heathen world, the following reasons appear 
 to me decisive. 1. Paul would in that case have used, as he generally 
 does, the word k6(thos. 2. If we admit that he here pointed out the 
 deeply felt sense of universal misery, the feeling of dissatisfaction with 
 all existing things, the longing after something better, though without 
 a clear knowledge of the object, as felt by the heathen, yet he would 
 attribute such feelings to onlv a small and better part of the KotTfios ; it 
 is impossil)le that he coula assert this of the whole mass of the heathen 
 world sunk in sin. Yet we must grant that, in describing an age of
 
 524 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 This idea stands in close connexon with the whole of the 
 Pauline scheme of doctrine, and the Christian system 
 generally : the K\ripovofiia rov kocfjxov, which promised to 
 beUevers that they shall reign with Christ — that to them as 
 to Christ all things in the future world shall be subject — 
 that this globe is destined to be the scene of the triumphant 
 kingdom of God — that in its progressive development this 
 kingdom will subject all things to itself, until the consumma- 
 tion which Paul marks as the aim of this universal longing. 
 
 He usually connects the doctrine of the eternal Ufe of the 
 individual with the doctrine of the resturection, and says 
 nothing of the life of the soul in an intermediate state after 
 death till the end of all things. The designation of death 
 as a sleep in relation to the resurrection that is to follow, may 
 favour the opinion that he considered the state after death to 
 be one of suppressed consciousness like sleep, and admitted 
 that the soul would first be awakened at the resurrection of 
 the body, though in every other reference to death he could 
 describe it under the image of sleep as a transition to a higher 
 existence. When in the church at Thesstilonica the anxieties 
 of many were excited respecting the fate of the believers who 
 had already died, he only intimates to them that, at the time 
 of Christ's second coming, the believers then alive would not 
 anticipate those who were already dead. But it might bo 
 
 great excitement, and pervaded by a vague and obscure anxiety, it 
 might be said, that an anxiety of which they were unconscious was at 
 the bottom of their wrestling and striving,— that they were in a state of 
 unhappiness, which only he who had attained a higher knowledge could 
 explain to them ; and thus Paul might apply the expressions used by 
 him to describe the spiritual condition of the world around him. But 
 then, he must have described this state of men's minds as something 
 peculiar to that age, and not as having existed up to that moment from 
 the beginning, ever since the creation had been subject to this bondage. 
 3. According to his own ideas, he could not say that the KOffj^os against 
 its will was subjected, in a manner free from blame, by God himself to 
 the bondage of a vain existence. 4. According to this interpretation, 
 Paul must have taught, that as soon as the children of God had 
 attained their destined glory, it would spread itself over the heathen 
 ■world, which would then enter into the communion of the divine life. 
 But if it be assumed that Paul here so openly and clearly expressed the 
 doctrine of a universal restitution, he must first have mentioned the 
 appropriation of redemption by faith as a means of salvation equally 
 necessary for all ; he could not have admitted the possibility of such a 
 state of glorification not broujjht about through faith in the E,edeemer.
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 525 
 
 Rupposed, that had he admitted a continuance of cc^nsciousness 
 in more exalted and intimate communion with the Lord as 
 taking place immediately after death, he would have reminded 
 the persons whose minds were disturbed on the subject, that 
 those for whom they mourned had already been admitted to a 
 higher and blessed communion with their Lord, as the later 
 Fathers of the Church would not have failed to have done. 
 
 Yet since Paul was convinced that by faith men pass from 
 death unto life' — since he testified from his own experience 
 under manifold sufferings, that while the outward man 
 perished the inward was renewed day by day, 2 Cor. xiv. 16, 
 and this experience was to him a type of the future — since 
 also the outward man would only pass to a higher life from 
 the final dissolution of death — since he received a progressive 
 development of the divine life in communion with the Re- 
 deemer — since he taught that believers would follow the Saviour 
 in all things— from all these considerations it necessarily fol- 
 lowed, that the higher life of believers could not be inter- 
 rupted by death, and that by means of it they would attain 
 to a more complete participation in Christ's divine and blessed 
 life. This idea of a progressive development of the divine 
 life in communion with the Redeemer, is indeed not one 
 introduced from a foreign standing-point, into the doctrine of 
 the apostles, but proceeds from his own mode of contempla- 
 tion, as we learn from a comparison of his language in 
 numberless passages. Still we are not sufficiently justified to 
 conclude from that idea of such a process of development in 
 the earthly life, that Paul believed in its progression after the 
 close of our earthly life, in the period intervening till the 
 resiurection. We may imagine the possibility that the 
 consequences flowing from those premises would not be 
 
 * For although he has not expressed this in precisely the same terms 
 as John, yet the sentiment they contain follows of course from what he 
 has repeatedly asserted respecting deliverance from spiritual death, and 
 the life produced by faith. Between the two apostles there is only a 
 difference of form, not of the manner in which the idea of fco^ is em- 
 ployed by them, — for in this they agree, in considering it as something 
 that really enters the soul with believing; but John refers the idea of 
 fterj aldivios to the present, Paul only to the future, although both 
 substantially agree in the recognition of the divine life founded in 
 faith, which bears in it the germ of a future higher development, antici- 
 pates the future, and contains it in itself as in bud.
 
 526 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 
 
 consciously developed by him, since the thought of the resur- 
 rection and everlasting life "were in his mind so closely con- 
 nected, that he would be induced to leave the interval between 
 the death of behevers and their resurrection as an empty 
 space. But, in the Epistle to the Romans, Paul expressly 
 makes this distinction between the soul and the body, that 
 the latter will die, and be given up to death on account of 
 sin, the germ of which it caiTies in itself, but the former will 
 be alive, exalted above death, so that it will have no power 
 over them; accordingly, then* life will be exposed to no 
 repression or destmction, but be in a state of progi'essive 
 development, never again to be inten-upted by death. And 
 the conclusion which we may draw from this single passage, 
 is confinxied by those passages in the later Pauline epistles, 
 which intimate that higher degi'ees of communion with Christ 
 and of happiness ai-e immediately consequent on death. The 
 admission of this fact is by no means contradicted by his 
 representing that the last and greatest result in the consum- 
 mation of the kingdom of God, will proceed, not from its 
 natural spontaneous development, but from without by the 
 immediate event of Chi'ist's Trapovuia ; as, in the same 
 manner, the facts of the appearance of the Son of God in 
 humanity, redemption, and regeneration, though they are not 
 deduced from a preceding development, and constitute a per- 
 fectly new era in the spiritual life, are far from excluding, 
 but rather presuppose, an antecedent preparatory develop- 
 ment. Now, the later epistles of Paul contain such passages, 
 in which he expresses most decidedly the hope of a higher 
 development immediately consequent on death, of a divine 
 life of blessedness in more complete communion with Christ ; 
 Philip, i. 22, 23. We cannot in truth perceive how Paul, 
 if he supposed the second coming of Christ and the resurrec- 
 tion to be events so very near, could say, that he " desfred to 
 depai-t and to be with Christ which was far better," in case he 
 placed the salutary consequences of death only in something 
 negative — in freedom from the toils and conflicts of earthly 
 life, under which, as he so often declared, he experienced so 
 much more intensely the blessed effects of the gospel on his 
 own soul, — and had not contemplated a higher kind of com- 
 munion with Christ, a higher development of the life which 
 was rooted in that commimion as a consequence of death.
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 527 
 
 Must not a man of Paul's flaming zeal and devoted activity 
 have preferred such a hfe of conflict for the kingdom of 
 Christ, to a slumbering and dreaming existence or a Hfe of 
 shadows? In 2 Tim. iv. 18, he also describes an entrance 
 into the kingdom of Christ as immediately following death ; 
 though this last passage is not so decisive, as the interpreta- 
 tion in this point of view may be disputed.' 
 
 It may perhaps be thought^ that a progress on this subject 
 in the development of Christian knowledge took place in 
 Paul's mind. As long as he expected the second coming of 
 Christ and the final resurrection as near at hand, he had 
 little occasion to separate from one another the ideas of an 
 eternal Hfe after death and of a resurrection; and, in ac- 
 cordance with the Jewish habits of thinking, he blended 
 them together in a manner that led to the idea of a certain 
 sleep of the soxil after death. But wheri, by the course of 
 events and the signs of the times, he had learned to form 
 clearer notions of the future, and when he was induced 
 to think that the last decisive epoch was not so near (as 
 appears fi-om his later epistles), the idea of a higher condi- 
 tion of happiness beginning immediately after death must 
 have developed itself in his mind, under the illumination of 
 the divine Spirit, from the consciousness of the divine hfe as 
 exalted above death, and as destined to perpetual progression, 
 and from the consciousness of unbroken communion with the 
 Redeemer as the divine foimtain of life. The illumination of 
 the apostles' minds by the Holy Spirit was surely not com- 
 pleted at oncej but was the operation of a higher power 
 possessing a creative fertihty, under whose influences their 
 Christian knowledge and thinking progressively developed, 
 by means of higher revelations which were not violently 
 forced upon them, but coalesced in a natural manner with 
 their psychological development, as we have seen in the 
 example of Peter; ante, p. 72. This might be the case 
 with Paul; and it might happen that he was led to a more 
 perfect understanding of the truth exactly at that point 
 of time when it was required for his own religious necessities 
 
 1 The remarks by Weizel of Tubingen, in his essay on the original 
 Christian doctrine of Immortality, in the Studien und KritiTcen, 1834, 
 Part iv., have not occasioned any alteration in my views on this subject. 
 
 2 This seems to be the view taken by iJsteri.
 
 528 Paul's progressive knowledge. 
 
 and those of future generations. But it is against this sup- 
 position that, in the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle 
 to the Corinthians, he expresses himself on death and the 
 resurrection, in the same manner as in the First Epistle 
 to the Thessalonians, and yet we find in the Second Epistle 
 to the Corinthians wiitteu some months later, a confident 
 expectation expressed, that a life of a higher kind in com- 
 munion with Ciirist would immediately succeed the dissolu- 
 tion of earthly existence; for it is impossible to understand 
 2 Cor. V. 6 — 8 in a different sense; when Paul marks, as 
 correlative ideas on the one hand, the remaining in the 
 earthly body and being absent from the Lord (a want of that 
 higher immediate communion with him which would belong 
 to an existence in the other world), on the standing-point of 
 faith; and, on the other hand, the departm-e from earthly 
 life, and being admitted to the immediate presence of the 
 Lord, and to an intimate communion with him no longer 
 concealed under the veil of faith. How could he have 
 described what he longed for, as a departure from this 
 earthly life and being present with the Lord, if he intended 
 to describe that change which would aiise from the Trapovaia 
 of Chi'ist, from his coming to believers] We also find in the 
 Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the same views presented 
 as in the Epistle to the Philippians; yet it is not probable 
 that in the few months between the time of his writing the 
 First and the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, such a 
 revolution had taken place in his mode of thinking on this 
 subject. From a comparison of the First and Second Epistle 
 to the Corinthians, we may therefore conclude that Paul, 
 even when, in his earlier statements respecting the resurrec- 
 tion, he said nothing of the state of the souls of individual 
 believers in the interval between death and the resurrection. 
 still admitted the uninterrupted development of a higher hfe 
 after death, though he did not particularly bring it forward, 
 as he was accustomed to foTind all the hopes of believers on 
 the resiirrection of Clirist, and to connect them with the 
 doctrine of the resuiTection ; perhaps, also, he thought that 
 last great event so nigh, and was so constantly turning his 
 attention to it, that his mind was not directed towards the 
 other fact. But as he became aware that the period of the 
 consummation of the kino-dom of God was not so nierh as he
 
 E^^) OF THE MEDIATORIAL KINGDOM. 529 
 
 had formerly anticipated, he was induced to bring forward 
 more distinctly a subject which had hitherto been kept in the 
 background. 
 
 Paul represents as the ultimate object of his hopes, the 
 complete victory of the kingdom of God over all the e\'il 
 which had hitherto prevented its realization, over everything 
 which checked and obscured the development of the divine 
 life. Believers, in their complete personality transformed and 
 placed beyond the reach of death, will perfectly reflect the 
 image of Christ, and be introduced into the perfect com- 
 munion of his divine, holy, blessed, and unchangeable life. 
 The perfected kingdom of God will then blend itself har- 
 moniously with all the other forms of divine manifestation 
 throughout his unbounded dominions. Inspired by the pro- 
 spect of this last triumph of redemption, when sin with all 
 its consequences, death and all evil, shall be entirely over- 
 come, with the certain knowledge of the victory already won 
 by Christ, the pledge of all that will follow, Paul exclaims 
 (1 Cor. XV. 55 — 58), " Where, Death, is now thy sting 1 
 (Death has now lost its power to wound the redeemed from 
 sin, since they are already conscious of an eternal divine hfe.) 
 Where, Grave, is thy victory"? (the victory which the kingdom 
 of death gained through sin.) But the sting of death is sin ; 
 that which causes the power of sin to be felt is the law. 
 (What the law could not do, which made us first feel the 
 power of sin in its whole extent, that Christ has done by 
 redeeming us from sin and thus from death.) God be thanked 
 who hath given us the victory tlirough our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 Inasmuch as the kingdom of Chi-ist is a mediatorial dispen- 
 sation, which maintains a conflict with the kingdom of evil 
 for a precise object, which is founded on the redemption 
 accomphshed by him, and by which all that his redemption 
 involves in principle must be realized — the kingdom of 
 Chi'ist in its peculiar form will come to an end, when it has 
 attained this object, when through the efiiciency of the 
 glorified Christ, the kingdom of God has no more opposition 
 to encounter, and will need no longer a Ptedeemer and 
 Mediator. Then will God himself operate in an immediate 
 manner in those who through Chi'ist have attained to perfect 
 communion with him, who are freed from everything that 
 
 VOL. I. MM
 
 530 THE CONSUMMATION OF ALL THINGS. 
 
 opposed the divine operation in their souls, and transformed 
 into pure instruments of the divine gloiy. The mediatorial 
 kingdom of God will then merge into the immediatorial. 
 Such is the declaration of Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28. But if 
 we understand what is said in that passage of the universal 
 subjection and conquest of all the enemies of God's kingdom, 
 m the strictest sense of the words, it would follow, that 
 all subjective opposition to the will of God will then cease, 
 and that a perfect union of the will of the creature with that 
 of the Creator will universally prevail. This will necessai'ily 
 be the case, if we understand the words that " God may 
 be all in all," ' in absolute universality ; for then it woidd 
 follow, that the kingdom of God is to be realized subjectively 
 in all rational creatures, and that nothing ungodlike will any 
 longer exist. Then would be fulfilled, in the most complete 
 sense, what Pavd expresses in Rom. xi. 32. But though this 
 interpretation is in itself possible, and founded on the words, 
 still we are not justified by the connexion to understand the 
 expression in an unlimited sense. If that subjection were to 
 be understood as only objective and compulsory, it might be 
 affirmed that the enemies of God's kingdom will have no 
 more power to undertake anything against it, that they will 
 no longer be able to exert a distiu-bing influence on its 
 development. By the " all," irdcri, in whom God wiU be " all," 
 TCI TTcii'Ta, we may understand merely believers, as in v. 22 
 by TraVrec,^ those who enter by faith into communion with 
 Christ ; and it certainly appears fi'om the connexion to be 
 Paul's design only to represent what belongs to the perfect 
 realization of Christ's work for behevers. The words in 
 Philip, ii. 10, 11, may indeed be supposed to mean, that all 
 rational beings are to be subjected to the Redeemer as their 
 Lord, although this will not be accomplished with respect to 
 all in the same manner ; in some there may be a subjectively 
 internal free obedience, in others only what is outward and 
 compulsory, the obedience of impotence, which can effect 
 nothing against the kingdom of Christ. The question arises, 
 whether in the words " bow the knee in the name of Christ, 
 
 ' trTiffiv may be taken either as masculine or neuter. 
 * If the emphasis be laid not on the Trdvres, but on the eV raJ Xpic-r^, 
 that here everj-thing proceeds from Christ, as on the other side from Adam.
 
 THE C0>;SUM5IATI0N OF ALL THINGS. 531 
 
 and confess that he is Lord to the glory of God," something 
 more is meant than a description of such forced outward 
 obedience, if we understand these words according to the 
 Pauline phraseology.^ The passage in Coloss. i. 20, we shall 
 interpret in the simplest and most natural manner, if we can 
 admit such a reference to the reconciling and redeeming 
 work of Christ on the faUen spiritual world. And we can 
 then combine in one view the three passages, and interpret 
 them by a mutual comparison. A magnificent prospect is 
 thus presented of the final triumph of the work of redemp- 
 tion^ which was first opened to the mind of the gxeat apostle 
 in the last stage of his Christian development, by means of 
 that love which impelled him to sacrifice himself for the 
 salvation of mankind. At aU events, we find here only some 
 slight intimations, and we acknowledge the guidance of divine 
 wisdom, that in the records of revelation destined for such 
 various steps of religious development, no more hght has 
 been communicated on this subject. 
 
 ' The doctrine of such a universal restitution would not stand in 
 contradiction to the doctrine of eternal punishment, as it appears in the 
 gospels ; for although those who are hardened in wickedness, left to the 
 consequences of their conduct, their merited fate, have to expect endless 
 unhappiness, yet a secret decree of the divine compassion is not neces- 
 sarily excluded, by virtue of which, through the wisdom of God 
 revealing itself in the discipline of free agentc, they will be led to a 
 free appropriation of redemption. 
 
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