ST. PAUL THE TRAVELER AND THE ROMAN CITIZEN

BY

W.M. RAMSAY, D.C.L., LL.D.

My Dear Uncle,

In my undergraduate days, a residence in Göttingen during the Long Vacation of 1874 was a critical point in my life. Then for the first time, under the tuition of Professor Theodore Benfey, I came into close relations with a great scholar of the modern type, and gained some insight into modern methods of literary investigation; and my thoughts have ever since turned towards the border lands between European and Asiatic civilisation. That visit, like many other things, I owe to you; and now I send you the result, such as it is, the best that I can do, asking that you will allow it to go forth with your name attached to it.

I remain always, your affectionate nephew,

WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY.

King’s college, Aberdeen,

17th September, 1895

PREFACE

WHEN I was honoured by the invitation of Auburn Theological Seminary, I referred the matter to my friends, Dr. Fairbairn and Dr. Sanday, who knew what were my circumstances and other duties. On their advice the invitation was accepted; and it included the condition that the lectures must be published. In revising the printed sheets I have felt strongly the imperfections of the exposition; but I can feel no doubt about the facts themselves, which seem to stand out so clear and distance, that one has only to look and write. Hence I have not withdrawn from any of the positions maintained in my Church in the Roman Empire before 170 (apart from incidental imperfections). The present work is founded on the results for which evidence is there accumulated; but, in place of its neutral tone, a definite theory about the composition of Acts is here maintained (see p.383 f.). Many references were made, at first, to pages of that work, and of my Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (1895), where views here assumed were explained and defended; but they had an egotistic appearance, and, on the advice of a valued friend, have been cut out from the proof-sheets.

I use in Acts the canons of interpretation which I have learned from many teachers (beyond all others from Mommsen) to apply to history; and I have looked at Paul and Luke as men among men. My aim has been to state the facts of Paul’s life simply, avoiding argument and controversy so far as was possible in a subject where every point is controverted. I have sometimes thought of a supplementary volume of Elucidations of Early Christian History, in which reasons should be stated more fully.

It is impossible to find anything to say about Acts that has not been said before by somebody. Doubtless almost everything I have to say might be supported by some quotation. But if a history of opinion about Acts had been desired, I should not have been applied to. Where I was conscious of having learned any special point from any special scholar I have mentioned his name; but that, of course does not exhaust half my debt. The interpretation of one of the great ancient authors is a long slow growth; one is not conscious where he learned most of his ideas; and, if he were, their genesis is a matter of no interest or value to others. Not merely the writers quoted, but also Schürer, Meyer-Wendt, Zöckler, Holtzmann, Clemen, Spitta, Zeller, Everett, Paley, Page, and many others, have taught me; and I thankfully acknowledge my debt. But specially Lightfoot, Lewin’s Fatsi Sacri, and the two greatest editors of Acts, Wetstein and Blass, have been constant companions.

Discussions with my wife, and with my friends, Professor W. P. Paterson, Rev. A. F. Findlay, and above all, Prof. Rendel Harris, have cleared my ideas on many points, beyond what can be distinctly specified. The book has been greatly improved by criticisms from Prof. Rendel Harris, and by many notes and suggestions from Rev. A. C. Headlam, which were of great value to me. Mr. A. Souter, Caius College, Cambridge, has aided me in many ways, and especially by compiling Index I. But it would be vain to try to enumerate all my obligations to many friends.

I wish to mention two facts about the genesis of my studies in this subject: (1) Dr. Fairbairn proposed to me the subject of “St. Paul as a Citizen” long ago; and I long shrank from it as too great and too difficult; (2) Dr. Robertson Nicoll (mindful of early acquaintance in Aberdeen) urged me in 1884 to write, and gave me no peace, until I published a first article,Expositor, Oct., 1888.

An apology is due for the variations, often harsh, from the familiar translation of Acts; but a little insertion or change often saved a paragraph.

Lectures which I had the honour to give before the Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University (the Levering Lectures), and Union Seminary, New York, are worked up in this volume.

Aberdeen, 23rd September, 1895

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

There are many sentences and paragraphs which I should have liked to rewrite, had it been possible, not in order to alter the views expressed, but to improve the inadequate expression.

In the new edition, however, it was not possible to introduce any alterations affecting the arrangement of the printed lines; but some corrections and improvements have been made through the aid of valued correspondents and critics, especially Rev. F. Warburton Lewis, Rev. G. W. Whitaker, and the Athenaeum reviewer. Slight, but not insignificant verbal changes have been made in p. 18, 1. 8, 10, 11; 19, 1. 10; 27, 1. 14; 34, 1. 8; 62, 1. 15; 98, 1. 16; 1455, 1. 5; 146, 1. 6-7; 211, 1. 11; 224, 1. 6; 227, 1. 3; 242, 1. 31; 263, 1. 12; 276, 1. 27; 282, 1. 1 (footnote deleted); 307 n. 2 (Matt. XXVII 24, added); 330 1. 13-14; 363, 1. 5. The punctuation has been improved in p. 28, 1. 19, 21; and an obscure paragraph p. 160, 1. 10–17 has been rewritten.

Besides correcting p. 141, 1. 9, I must apologise for having there mentioned Dr. Chase incorrectly. I intended to cut out his name from the proof, but left it by accident, while hesitating between two corrections; and I did not know that it remained on that page, till he wrote me on the subject. On p. 27, 1. 14, I quoted his opinion about the solitary point on which we seem to agree; but, as he writes that my expression “makes him responsible for what he has never maintained,” I have deleted the offending words. He adds, “may I very earnestly ask, if your work reaches a second edition, that, if you refer to me, you will give in some conspicuous place a reference to my papers in the Expositor, that those interested in the subject may have the chance of seeing what I have really said.” See “The Galatia of the Acts,” Expositor, Dec., 1893, and May, 1894 the title shows deficient geographical accuracy on the part of my distinguished opponent, for Luke never mentions “Galatia,” but only “the Galatic Territory,” and there lies one of the fine points of the problem. After finishing the Church in the Roman Empire before 170, I had no thought of troubling the world with anything further on this subject; but Dr. Chase’s criticism roused me to renewed work, and then came the Auburn invitation. With the Galatian question the date and authorship of Acts are bound up: the more I study, the more clearly I see that it is impossible to reconcile the “North-Galatian theory” with the first-century origin and Lukan authorship of Acts: that theory involves so many incongruities and inconsistencies, as to force a cool intellect to the view that Acts is not a trustworthy contemporary authority. But, on the “South-Galatian theory,” the book opens to us a fresh chapter in the history and geography of Asia Minor during the first century.

The form of Index II was suggested, and the details were collected in great part by Rev. F. Warburton Lewis (formerly of Mansfield College), and Indices III and IV were compiled, amid the pressure of his own onerous duties, by Rev. F. Wilfrid Osborn, Vice-Principal of the Episcopal College, Edinburgh; and my warmest gratitude is due for their voluntary and valuable help.

I add notes on some contested points.

1. Reading the Agricola before a college class in 1893–4, I drew a parallel between its method and that of Luke in respect of careful attention to order of events, and inattention to the stating of the lapse of time; but in each case knowledge acquired from other sources, and attention to the author’s order and method, enable us to fix the chronology with great accuracy; on p. 18 my lecture on this topic is summarized in a sentence.

2. The chronology established in this book is confirmed by the statement in an oration falsely ascribed to Chrysostom (Vol. VIII, p. 621, Paris, 1836), that Paul served God thirty-five years and died at the age of sixty-eight. As there can be little doubt that his martyrdom took place about A. D. 67 this fourth century authority (which bears the stamp of truth in its matter of fact simplicity) proves that he was converted in 33 A. D., as wee have deduced from the statements of Luke and Paul (p. 376, and my article in Expositor, May, 1896). If Paul died in the year beginning 23rd Sept., 67, his birth was in 1 A.D. (before 23rd Sept.). Now he evidently began public life after the Crucifixion, but before the death of Stephen; and he would naturally come before the public in the course of his thirtieth year; therefore his birth falls later than Passover A.D. 1.

3. The punctuation of Gal. II 1-4, for which an argument was advanced in Expositor, July, 1895, p. 105 ff., is assumed in the free translation on p. 55. The view taken my me of Gal. II 1-14 is controverted by the high authority of Dr. Sanday in Expositor, Feb., 1896, and defended March, 1896. Mr. Vernon Bartlet informs me that Zhan dates Gal. II 11-14 between Acts XII 25 and XV 4 (as I do, p. 160), see Neue Kirchl. Zft., 1894, p. 435 f.

4. The phrase “the God” (p. 118, 1. 5) refers, of course to v. 15.

5. While grateful for the publication of such essays by Lightfoot as that quoted on p. 199, I cannot hold that great scholar (of whose spirit in investigation I should be satisfied if I dared hope to have caught a little) responsible for them in the same way as for works published by himself. (1) His lectures were not written out, but in great part spoken, and the notes taken by pupils are not a sufficient basis: a slight verbal change in the hurry of writing often seriously modifies the force of a lecturer’s statement: moreover a speaker trusts to tone for many effects, which it requires careful study to express in written words. (2) Even those parts which were written out by himself, belong to an early stage in his career, and were not revised by himself in his maturity. (3) A writer often materially improves his work n proof: I know that some changes were made on the proofs even of the Ignatius, his maturest work. Hence the reader finds pages in Lightfoot’s finest style side by side with some paragraphs, which it is difficult to believe that he expressed in this exact form, and impossible to believe that he would ever have allowed to go forth in print. The analogy with Acts I-V (see below, p. 370) is striking.

6. It seems to me one of the strangest things that almost all interpreters reject the interpretation which Erasmus’s clear sense perceived to be necessary in XVI 22 (p. 217). Some of the many difficulties involved in the interpretation that the praetors rent the clothes of Paul and Silas are exposed by Spitta, Apostelgesch., p. 218 f. To discuss the subject properly would need a chapter. It is not impossible that the title “praetors” may have been even technically accurate; but I have not ventured to go beyond the statement that it was at least employed in courtesy.

7. The short paragraph about the politarchs should be transferred from p. 227 to p. 229, 1. 6 ff.

8. The fact that Paul’s friends were permitted free access to him in Rome and Cæsareia (Acts XXVIII 30 and XXIV 23) cannot be taken as a proof of what would be the case in a convoy, which must have been governed with strict Roman discipline. The argument on P. 315 f. is consistent with the supposition that Julius learned that the two attendants of Paul were friends acting as slaves; but their presence in the convoy was legalized only under the guise of slavery.

9. My friend and former pupil, Mr. A. A. G. Wright, sends me a good note on p. 329, confirming the interpretation (adopted from Smith) of χαλάσαντες τὸ σκεῦος from the practice of the herring boats in the Moray Firth; these boats, fitted with a large lug-sail, are a good parallels to the ancient sailing ships. In Paul’s ship the sailors “slackened the sail-tackle,” and thus lowered the yard some way, leaving a low sail, which would exercise less leverage on the hull (p. 328).

Aberdeen, 25th March, 1896

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

I am partly glad, partly sorry, to have little change to make in this edition—glad, because the words printed, however inadequate I feel them to be, have on the whole, stood the test of further thought and growing knowledge—sorry, because so few of the faults which must exist have revealed themselves to me. On p. 275 a change is made in an important detail. The following notes are confirmatory of arguments in the text:—

1. The examination of the development of Christianity in Phrygia, contained in Chapters XII and XVII of my Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Part II, 1897), shows that Christianity spread with marvelous rapidity at the end of the first and in the second century after Christ in the parts of Phrygia that lay along the road from Pisidian Antioch to Ephesus, and in the neighborhood of Iconium, whereas it did not become powerful in those parts of Phrygia that adjoined North Galatia till the fourth century. Further, in a paper printed in Studia Biblica IV, I have pointed out that Christianity seems to have hardly begun to affect the district of North Galatia which lies on the side of Phrygia until the fourth century. The first parts of North Galatia to feel the influence was so strong as in some parts of Phrygia. These facts obviously are fatal to the theory that St. Paul’s Galatian Churches were founded in the part of North Galatia adjoining Phrygia.

2. On p. 43, 1. 1, it should be stated more clearly that Cornelius was a “God-fearing” proselyte.

3. On p. 46, 1. 12 ff., the limits are stated beyond which Paul’s work in the eight years (not ten), 35–43, was not carried; and the rather incautious words on p. 46, 1. 10, do not imply that he was engaged in continuous work of preaching during that time. It is probable that quiet meditation and self-preparation filled considerable part of these years. The words of XI 26 (compare Luke II 24) suggest that he was in an obscure position, and Gal. I 23 perhaps describes mere occasional rumors about a personage who was not at the time playing a prominent part as a preacher, as the Rev. C. E. C. Lefroy points out to me in an interesting letter (which prompts this note). But the facts, when looked at in this way, bring out even more strongly than my actual words do, that (as is urged on p. 46) Paul was not yet “fully conscious of his mission direct to the Nations, and that his work is rightly regarded in Acts as beginning in Antioch.

4. On p. 212, as an additional example of the use of the aorist participle, Rev. F. W. Lewis quotes Heb. IX 12, εἰσῆλθεν ἐφάπαξ εἰς τὰ ἅγια αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος, “entered and obtained.” I add from a Phrygian inscription quoted in my Cities and Bishroprics of Phrygia, Part II, 1897, p.790—

ἅστεσι δ᾽ ἐν πολλοῖσιν ἰθαγενέων λάχε τειμὰς, λέιφας καὶ κουνρους ούδὲν ἀφαυροτέρους,

“He was presented with the freedom of many cities, and left sons as good as himself.”

5. P. 264. The safe passage of the Jewish pilgrims from the west and north sides of the Aegean to Jerusalem was ensured by letters of many Roman officials, especially addressed to the cities of Cos and Ephesus. It is obvious that these cities lay on the line of the pilgrims’ voyage; and as the pilgrims were the subject of so much correspondence they must have been numerous, and pilgrim ships must have sailed regularly at the proper season.

6. P. 271. To illustrate the view that Paul used the School of Tyrannus in the forenoon and no later, Mr. A. Souter quotes Augustine Confess., VI, 11,18, antemeridianis horis discipuli occupant (of the School of Rhetoric at Milan), while the scholars were free in the afternoon, and Augustine considers that those free hours ought to be devoted to religion.

7. I have changed p. 275, 1. 2 ff. The words of 2 Cor. XII 14; XIII 1, would become, certainly, more luminous and more full of meaning if there had occurred an unrecorded visit of Paul to Corinth. The only time that is open for such a visit is (as Rev. F. W. Lewis suggests) after he left Ephesus and went to Troas; and the balance of probability is that such a visit was made, probably in March, 56 (as soon as the sailing season began), by ship from Philippi. The paragraph, XX, 1-4, is confessedly obscure and badly expressed; and it is probable that, if the book had been carried to its final stage by the author, both v. 4 would have been added between vv. 1 and 2.

8. P. 341. Mr. Emslie Smith, Aberdeen, sends me a valuable note, the result of personal inspection of St. Paul’s Bay, in which he completely clears up the difficulty which I had to leave. It will, I hope, form the subject of an early article in the Expositor.

9. P. 389, note 2. With the words of Eusebius compare the exactly parallel expression of Aristides, Σεβῆρος τῶν ἀπὸ της ἄνωθεν Φρυγίας (Vol. 1, p. 505, ed. Dind.), which means that this Roman officer belonged to a Jewish family connected with Upper Phrygia (and also, as we know from other sources, with Ancyra in Galatia), but certainly does not imply that he was Phrygian by birth or training. It is practically certain that a Roman consul, with a career like that of Severus, must, at the period when he flourished, have been educated nearer to Rome, and probably in the metropolis. The scion of a Phrygian family, growing up amid Phrygian surroundings in the early part of the second century, would not have been admitted to the Roman senatorial career, as Severus was in his youth. His family, while retaining its Phrygian connection, had settled amid strictly Roman surroundings; and its wealth and influence procured for the heir immediate entry into the highest career open to a Roman. The quotation from Aristides shows that the interpretation of Eusebius’s expression given on p. 389 is on the right lines. The history of Severus’s family in Asia Minor is sketched in Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Pt. II, p. 649 f.

CHAPTER I

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

1. TRUSTWORTHINESS.

The aim of our work is to treat its subject as a department of history and of literature. Christianity was not merely a religion, but also, a system of life and action; and its introduction by Paul amid the society of the Roman Empire produced changes of momentous consequence, which the historian must study. What does the student of Roman history find in the subject of our investigation? How would an observant, educated, and unprejudiced citizen of the Roman Empire have regarded that new social force, that new philosophical system, if he had studied it with the eyes and the temper of a nineteenth century investigator?

As a preliminary the historian of Rome must make up his mind about the trustworthiness of the authorities. Those which we shall use are:(1) a work of history commonly entitled the Acts of the Apostles (the title does not originate from the author), (2) certain Epistles purporting to be written by Paul. Of the latter we make only slight and incidental use; and probably even those who dispute their authenticity would admit that the facts we use are trustworthy, as being the settled belief of the Church at a very early period. It is, therefore, unnecessary to touch on the authenticity of the Epistles; but the question as to the date, the composition, and the author of the Acts must be discussed. If the main position of this book is admitted, it will furnish a secure basis for the Epistles to rest on.

Works that profess to be historical are of various kinds and trustworthy in varying degrees. (1) There is the historical romance, which in a framework of history interweaves an invented tale. Some of the Apocryphal tales of the Apostles are of this class, springing apparently from a desire to provide Christian substitutes for the popular romances of the period. (2) There is the legend, in which popular fancy, working for generations, has surrounded a real person and real events with such a mass of extraneous matter that the historical kernel is hardly discernible. Certain of the Apocryphal tales of the Apostles may belong to this class, and many of the Acta of martyrs and saints certainly do. (3) There is the history of the second or third rate, in which the writer, either using good authorities carelessly and without judgment, or not possessing sufficiently detailed and correct authorities, gives a narrative of past events which is to a certain degree trustworthy, but contains errors in facts and in the grouping and proportions, and tinges the narrative of the past with the colour of his own time. In using works of this class the modern student has to exercise his historical tact, comparing the narrative with any other evidence that can be obtained from any source, and judging whether the action attributed to individuals is compatible with the possibilities of human nature. (4) There is, finally, the historical work of the highest order, in which a writer commands excellent means of knowledge either through personal acquaintance or through access to original authorities. and brings to the treatment of his subject genius, literary skill, and sympathetic historical insight into human character and the movement of events. Such an author seizes the critical events, concentrates the reader’s attention on them by giving them fuller treatment, touches more lightly and briefly on the less important events, omits entirely a mass of unimportant details, and makes his work an artistic and idealised picture of the progressive tendency of the period.

Great historians are the rarest of writers. By general consent the typical example of the highest class of historians is Thucydides, and it is doubtful whether any other writer would be by general consent ranked along with him. But all historians, from Thucydides downwards, must be subjected to free criticism. The fire which consumes the second-rate historian only leaves the real master brighter and stronger and more evidently supreme. The keenest criticism will do him the best service in the long run. But the critic in his turn requires high qualities; he must be able to distinguish the true from the false; he must be candid and unbiased and open-minded. There are many critics who have at great length stated their preference of the false before the true; and it may safely be said that there is no class of literary productions in our century in which there is such an enormous preponderance of error and bad judgment as in that of historical criticism. To some of our critics Herodotus is the Father of History, to others he is an inaccurate reproducer of uneducated gossip: one writer at portentous length shows up the weakness of Thucydides, another can see no fault in him.

But, while recognising the risk, and the probable condemnation that awaits the rash attempt, I will venture to add one to the number of the critics, by stating in the following chapters reasons for placing the author of Acts among the historians of the first rank.

The first and the essential quality of the great historian is truth. What he says must be trustworthy. Now historical truth implies not merely truth in each detail, but also truth in the general effect, and that kind of truth cannot be attained without selection, grouping, and idealisation.

So far as one may judge from books, the opinion of scholars seems to have, on the whole, settled down to the conclusion that the author of Acts belongs either to the second- or the third-rate historians. Among those who assign him to the third rate we may rank all those who consider that the author clipped up older documents and patched together the fragments in a more or less intelligent way, making a certain number of errors in the process. Theories of this kind are quite compatible with assigning a high degree of trustworthiness to many statements in the book; but this trustworthiness belongs not to the author of the work, but to the older documents which he glued together. Such theories usually assign varying degrees of accuracy to the different older documents: all statements which suit the critic’s own views on early Church history are taken from an original document of the highest character; those which he likes less belong to a less trustworthy document; and those which are absolutely inconsistent with his views. are the work of the ignorant botcher who constructed the book. But this way of judging, common as it is, assumes the truth of the critic’s own theory, and decides on the authenticity of ancient documents according to their agreement with that theory; and the strangest part of this medley of uncritical method is that other writers, who dispute the first critic’s theory of early Church history, yet attach some value to his opinion upon the spuriousness of documents which he has condemned solely on the ground that they disagree with his theory.

The most important group among those who assign the author to the second rank of historians, consists of them that accept his facts as true, although his selection of what he should say and what he should omit seems to them strangely capricious. They recognise many of the signs of extraordinary accuracy in his statements; and these signs are so numerous that they feel bound to infer that the facts as a whole are stated with great accuracy by a personal friend of St. Paul. But when they compare the Acts with such documents as the Epistles of Paul, and when they study the history as a whole, they are strongly impressed with the inequalities of treatment, and the unexpected and puzzling gaps; events of great importance seem to be dismissed in a brief and unsatisfactory way; and, sometimes, when one of the actors (such as Paul) has left an account of an event described in Acts, they find difficulty in recognising the two accounts as descriptions of the same event. Bishop Lightfoot’s comparison of Gal. II 1-10 with Acts XV may be quoted as a single specimen out of many: the elaborate process whereby he explains away the seeming discrepancies would alone be sufficient, if it were right, to prove that Acts was a second-rate work of history. We never feel on firm historical ground, when discrepancies are cleverly explained away: we need agreements to stand upon. Witnesses in a law court may give discrepant accounts of the same event; but they are half-educated, confused, unable to rise to historical truth. But when a historian is compared with the reminiscences of an able and highly educated actor in the same scenes, and when the comparison consists chiefly in a laboured proof that the discrepancies do not amount to positive contradiction, the conclusion is very near, that, if the reminiscences are strictly honest, the historian’s picture is not of the highest rank.

But there is a further difficulty. How does it come that a writer, who shows himself distinctly second-rate in his historical perception of the comparative importance of events, is able to attain such remarkable accuracy in describing many of them? The power of accurate description implies in itself a power of reconstructing the past, which involves the most delicate selection and grouping of details according to their truth and reality, i.e., according to their comparative importance. Acts, as Lightfoot pictures it, is to me an inconceivable phenomenon; such a mixture of strength and weakness, of historical insight and historical incapacity, would be unique and incredible. If the choice for an intelligible theory of Acts lay between Lightfoot’s view and that which is presented in different forms by Clemen, Spitta, and other scholars, I could only adopt the same point of view as these critics. Lightfoot, with all his genius, has here led English scholarship into a cul de sac: we can make no progress, unless we retrace our steps and try a new path. But my belief is, that all the difficulties in which Lightfoot was involved spring from the attempt to identify the wrong events. In this attempt he naturally found discrepancies; but by a liberal allowance of gaps in the narrative of Acts, and the supposition of different points of view and of deficient information on Luke’s part, it was possible to show why the eye-witness saw one set of incidents, while Acts described quite a different set.

The historian who is to give a brief history of a great period need not reproduce on a reduced uniform scale all the facts which he would mention in a long history, like a picture reduced by a photographic process. If a brief history is to be a work of true art, it must omit a great deal, and concentrate the reader’s attention on a certain number of critical points in the development of events, elaborating these sufficiently to present them in life-like and clearly intelligible form. True historical genius lies in selecting the great crises, the great agents, and the great movements, in making these clear to the reader in their real nature, in passing over with the lightest and slightest touch numerous events and many persons, but always keeping clear before the reader the plan of composition.

The historian may dismiss years with a word, and devote considerable space to a single incident. In such a work, the omission of an event does not constitute a gap, but is merely a proof that the event had not sufficient importance to enter into the plan. A gap is some omission that offends our reason and our sense of harmony and propriety; and where something is omitted that bears on the author’s plan, or where the plan as conceived by the author does not correspond to the march of events, but only to some fanciful and subjective view, there the work fails short of the level of history.

I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without any prejudice in favour of the conclusion which I shall now attempt to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tübingen theory had at one time quite convinced me. It did not lie then in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found myself often brought in contact with the book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne in upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvellous truth. In fact, beginning with the fixed idea that the work was essentially a second-century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first-century conditions,. I gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult investigations. But there remained still one serious objection to accepting it as entirely a first-century work. According to the almost universally accepted view, this history led Paul along a path and through surroundings which seemed to me historically and topographically self-contradictory. It was not possible to bring Paul’s work in Asia Minor into accordance with the facts of history on the supposition that an important part of that work was devoted to a district in the northern part of the peninsula, called Galatia. It may appear at first sight a mere topographical subtlety whether Paul travelled through North Galatia or through Lycaonia; but, when you consider that any details given of his journeys must be false to the one side just in proportion as they are true to the other, you will perceive that, if you try to apply the narrative to the wrong side of the country, it will not suit the scene, and if it does not suit, then it must appear to be written by a person ignorant of what he pretends to know. The case might be illustrated from our own experience. Suppose that an unknown person came to Auburn from New York, and you wished to find out whether he was an impostor or not. In our country we are exposed to frequent attempts at imposition, which can often be detected by a few questions; and you would probably ask him about his experiences on his journey from New York to Auburn. Now suppose you had been informed that he had come not along the direct road, but by a long detour through Boston, Montreal, and Toronto, and had thus arrived at Auburn; and suppose that you by questioning elicited from him various facts which suited only a route through Schenectady and Utica, you would condemn the man as an impostor, because he did not know the road which he pretended to have travelled. But suppose further that it was pointed out by some third party that this stranger had really travelled along the direct road, and that you had been misinformed when you supposed him to have come by the round-about way, your opinion as to the stranger’s truthfulness would be instantly affected. Precisely similar is the case of Acts as a record of travel; generations and centuries have been attempting to apply it to the wrong countries. I must speak on this point confidently and uncompromisingly, for the facts stand out so clear and bold and simple that to affect to hesitate or to profess any doubt as to one’s judgment would be a betrayal of truth.

I know the difficulties of this attempt to understand rightly a book so difficult, so familiar, and so much misunderstood as Acts. It is probable that I have missed the right turn or not grasped the full meaning in some cases. I am well aware that I leave some difficulties unexplained, sometimes from inability, sometimes from mere omission. But I am sustained by the firm belief that I am on the right path, and by the hope that enough of difficulties have been cleared away to justify a dispassionate historical criticism in placing this great writer on the high pedestal that belongs to him.

2. DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN CRITICISM ON ACTS.

With regard to the trustworthiness of Acts as a record of events, a change is perceptible in the tendency of recent criticism. Setting aside various exceptional cases, and also leaving out of sight the strictly “orthodox” view, which accepts Acts as truth without seeking to compare or to criticise (a view which in its simplicity and completeness needs neither defence nor examination), we may say that for a time the general drift of criticism was to conceive the book as a work composed in the second century with the intention of so representing (or rather misrepresenting) the facts as to suit the writer’s opinion about the Church questions of his own time. All theories of this class imply that the atmosphere and surroundings of the work are of the second-century type; and such theories have to be rounded on a proof that the details are represented in an inaccurate way and coloured by second-century ideas. The efforts of that earlier school of critics were directed to give the required proof; and in the attempt they displayed a misapprehension of the real character of ancient life and Roman history which is often astonishing, and which has been decisively disproved in the progress of Roman historical investigation. All such theories belong to the pre-Mommsenian epoch of Roman history: they are now impossible for a rational and educated critic; and they hardly survive except in popular magazines and novels for the semi-religious order.

But while one is occasionally tempted to judge harshly the assumption of knowledge made by the older critics where knowledge was at the time difficult or impossible, it is only fair also to emphatically acknowledge the debt we owe them for practising in a fearless and independent spirit the right and much needed task of investigating the nature and origin of the book.

Warned by the failure of the older theories, many recent critics take the line that Acts consists of various first century scraps put together in the book as we have it by a second-century Redactor. The obvious signs of vivid accuracy in many of the details oblige these critics to assume that the Redactor incorporated the older scraps with no change except such as results from different surroundings and occasional wrong collocation. Some hold that the Redactor made considerable additions in order to make a proper setting for the older scraps. Others reduce the Redactor’s action to a minimum; Spitta is the most remarkable example of this class. In the latter form the Redaction-theory is the diametrical opposite of the old tendency theories; the latter supposed that the second century author coloured the whole narrative and put his own views into every paragraph, while, according to Spitta, the Redactor added nothing of consequence to his first century materials except some blunders of arrangement. The older theories were rounded on the proof of a uniformity of later style and purpose throughout the book; the later theories depend on the proof of differences of style between the different parts. The old critics were impressed by the literary skill of the author, while the later critics can see no literary power or activity in him. Any argument in favour of the one class of theories tells against the other; and, if we. admit (as I think we must admit), that each view is rounded on a correct but one-sided perception of certain qualities in this remarkable book, we may fairly say that each disproves the other.

Certain theorists, and especially Clemen in his extraordinarily ingenious and bold work Chronologie der Paulinischen Briefe, see clearly that such a bald scissors-and-paste theory as Spitta’s is quite inadequate to explain the many-sided character of this history. Dr. Clemen supposes that three older documents, a history of the Hellenistic Jews, a history of Peter, and a history of Paul, were worked into one work by a Judaist Redactor, who inserted many little touches and even passages of considerable length to give a tone favourable to the Judaising type of Christianity; and that this completed book was again worked over by an anti-Judaist Redactor II, who inserted other parts to give a tone unfavourable to the Judaising type of Christianity, but left the Judaistic insertions. Finally, a Redactor III of neutral tone incorporated anew document (VI 1-6), and gave the whole its present form by a number of small touches.

When a theory becomes so complicated as Clemen’s, the humble scholar who has been trained only in philological and historical method finds himself unable to keep pace, and toils in vain behind this daring flight. We shall not at present stop to argue from examples in ancient and modern literature, that a dissection of this elaborate kind cannot be carried out. Style is seen in the whole rather than in single sentences, still less in parts of sentences; and a partition between six authors, clause by clause, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, of a work that seemed even to bold and revolutionary critics like Zeller and Baur in Germany and Renan in France to be a model of unity and individuality in style, is simply impossible. Moreover, the plan of this study is not to argue against other theories, but to set forth a plain and simple interpretation of the text, and appeal to the recognised principle of criticism that, where a simple theory of origin can be shown to hold together properly, complicated theories must give way to it.

One feature in Dr. Clemen’s theory shows true insight. No simple theory of gluing together can exhaust the varied character of the Acts: a very complex system of junctures is needed to explain its many-sidedness. But Dr. Clemen has not gone far enough. There is only one kind of cause that is sufficiently complex to match the many-sided aspects of the book, and that cause is the many-sided character of a thoughtful and highly educated man.

Dr. Clemen seems to assume that every instance where Paul adopts an attitude of conciliation towards the Jews is added by a Judaistic Redactor, and every step in his growing estrangement from them is due to an anti-Judaistic Redactor. He does not, I venture to think, allow due scope to the possibility that an historian might record both classes of incidents in the interests of truth. It is admitted that a dislocation occurred in the early Church, and that the contention between the Judaising and the Universalising (to adopt a convenient designation) parties was keen for a time. It is natural that the estrangement should be gradual; and the historian sets before us a gradual process. He shows us Paul acting on the principle that the Jews had the first claim (XIII 46), and always attempting to conciliate them; but he also shows us that Paul did not struggle against the facts, but turned his back on the Jews when they rejected him (as their Whole history proves, even without the evidence of Acts, that they were sure to do}. It is hard to find a sufficient foundation for Dr. Clemen’s theory without the preliminary assumption that an early Christian must necessarily be incapable of taking a broad and unbiased view of history as: a whole. Grant that assumption, and his theory is built up with marvellous skill, patience and ingenuity.

3. WORKING HYPOTHESIS OF THE INVESTIGATION.

Our hypothesis is that Acts was written by a great historian, a writer who set himself to record the facts as they occurred, a strong partisan, indeed, but raised above partiality by his perfect confidence that he had only to describe the facts as they occurred, in order to make the truth of Christianity and the honour of Paul apparent. To a Gentile Christian, as the author of Acts was, the refusal of the Jews to listen to Paul, and their natural hatred of him as untrue to their pride of birth, must appear due to pure malignity; and the growing estrangement must seem to him the fault of the Jews alone. It is not my object to assume or to prove that there was no prejudice in the mind of Luke, no fault on the part of Paul; but only to examine whether the facts stated are trustworthy, and leave them to speak for themselves (as. the author does). I shall argue that the book was composed by a personal friend and disciple of Paul, and if this be once established there will be no hesitation in accepting the primitive tradition that Luke was the author..

We must face the facts boldly. If Luke wrote Acts, his narrative must agree in a striking and convincing way with Paul’s: they must confirm, explain and complete one another. This is not a case of two commonplace, imperfectly educated, and not very observant witnesses who give divergent accounts of certain incidents which they saw without paying much attention to them. We have here two men of high education, one writing a formal history, the other speaking under every obligation of honour and conscience to be careful in his words: the subjects they speak of were of the most overpowering interest to both: their points of view must be very similar, for they were personal friends, and one was the teacher of the other, and naturally had moulded to some extent his mind during long companionship. If ever there was a case in which striking agreement was demanded by historical criticism between two classes of documents, it is between the writings of Paul and of Luke.

There is one subject in particular in which criticism demands absolute agreement. The difference of position and object between the two writers, one composing a formal history, the other writing letters or making speeches, may justifiably be invoked to account for some difference in the selection of details. But in regard to the influence of the Divine will on human affairs they ought to agree. Both firmly believed that God often guided the conduct of His Church by clear and open revelation of His will; and we should be slow to believe that one of them attributed to human volition what the other believed to be ordered by direct manifestation of God (p. 140). We shall try to prove that there is a remarkable agreement between them in regard to the actions which they attribute to direct revelation..

Further, we cannot admit readily that peculiarities of Luke’s narrative are to be accounted for by want of information: in his case this explanation really amounts to an accusation of culpable neglect of a historian’s first duty, for full information was within Luke’s reach, if he had taken the trouble to seek it. We shall find no need of this supposition. Finally, it is hard to believe that Paul’s letters were unknown to Luke; he was in Paul’s company when some of them were written; he must have known about the rest, and could readily learn their contents in the intimate intercommunication that bound together the early Churches. We shall try to show that Luke had in mind the idea of explaining and elucidating the letters.

In maintaining our hypothesis it is not necessary either to show that the author made no mistake, or to solve every difficulty. From them that start with a different view more may be demanded; but here we are making a historical and literary investigation. The greatest historians of other periods are not above error; and we may admit the possibility that a first-century historian has made errors. We shall not make much use of this proviso; but still the conditions of the investigation must be clearly laid down.

Again, in almost every ancient writer of any value there remain unsolved problems by the score. Where would our philological scholars be, if every question were satisfactorily disposed of? The plan and the date of Horace’s longest work, the Art of Poetry, are unsolved and apparently insoluble; every theory involves serious difficulties; yes that does not make its authenticity doubtful. That there remain some difficulties not explained satisfactorily in Acts does not disprove its first-century origin.

Further, it is necessary to study every historian’s method, and not to judge him according to whether or not he uses our methods. For example, Thucydides makes a practice of putting into the mouths of his character speeches which they never delivered; no modern historian would do this: the speeches of Thucydides, however, are the greatest and most instructive part of his history. They might be truly called unhistorical; but the critic who summed up their character in that epithet would only show his incapacity for historical criticism. Similarly the critic must study Luke’s method, and not judge him according to whether he writes exactly as the critic considers a history ought to be written.

Luke’s style is compressed to the highest degree; and he expects a great deal from the reader. He does not, attempt to sketch the surroundings and set the whole scene like a picture before the reader; he states the bare facts that seem to him important, and leaves the reader to imagine the situation. But there are many cases in which, to catch his meaning properly, you must imagine yourself standing with Paul on the deck of the ship, or before the Roman official; and unless you reproduce the scene in imagination, you miss the sense. Hence, though his style is simple and clear, yet it. often becomes obscure from its brevity; and the meaning is lost, because the reader has an incomplete, or a positively false idea of the situation. It is always hard to recreate the remote past; knowledge, imagination, and, above all, sympathy and love are all needed. But Asia Minor, in which the scene is often laid, was not merely little known, but positively wrongly known.

I know of no person except Bishop Lightfoot who has seriously attempted to test or revise or improve the traditional statements (often, the traditional blunders) about Asian antiquities as bearing on Acts; but the materials were not at his disposal for doing this successfully. But it is bad method to found theories of its composition on wrong interpretations of its meaning: the stock misconceptions should first be cleared away, and the book studied in relation to the localities and the antiquities.

Luke was deficient in the sense for time; and hence his chronology is bad. It would be quite impossible from Acts alone to get a true idea of the lapse of time. That is the fault of his age; Tacitus, writing the biography of Agricola (about 98 A.D.), makes no chronological statement, until in the last paragraph he gives a series of statistics. Luke had studied the sequence of events carefully, and observes it in his arrangement minutely, but he often has to carry forward one thread of his narrative, and then goes back in time to take up another thread; and these transitions are sometimes rather harsh. Yet, in respect of chronology, he was, perhaps, less careless than would appear: see p. 23.

His plan leads him to concentrate attention on the critical steps. Hence he often passes lightly over a long period of gradual development marked by no striking incident; and from his bad chronological sense he gives no measure of the lapse of time implied in a sentence, a clause, or even a word. He dismisses ten years in a breathe and devotes a chapter to a single incident. His character as an historian, therefore, depends on his selection of topics. Does he show the true historian’s power of seizing the great facts, and marking dearly the stages in the development of his subject? Now, what impresses me is the sense of proportion in Acts, and the skill with which a complex and difficult subject is grouped to bring out the historical development from the primitive Church (ch. I-V) through the successive steps associated with four great names, Stephen, Philip, Peter, Paul. Where the author passes rapidly over a period or a journey, we shall find reason to believe that it was marked by no striking feature and no new foundation. The axiom from which we start must be that which is assumed in all literary investigations—preference is to be given to the interpretation which restores order, lucidity, and sanity to the work. All that we ask in this place is the admission of that axiom, and a patient hearing, and especially that the reader, before condemning our first steps as not in harmony with other incidents, will wait to see how we can interpret those incidents.

The dominant interpretation rests avowedly on the principle that Acts is full of gaps, and that “nothing is more striking than the want of proportion”. Those unfortunate words of Bishop Lightfoot are worked out by some of his successors with that “illogical consistency” which often leads the weaker disciples of a great teacher to choose his errors for loving imitation and emphasis. With such a theory no historical absurdity is too gross to be imputed to Luke. But our hypothesis is that Luke’s silence about an incident or person should always be investigated as a piece of evidence, on the principle that he had some reason for his silence; and in the course of this study we shall in several cases find that omission is a distinct element in the effect of his narrative.

There is a contrast between the early chapters of Acts and the later. In the later chapters there are few sentences that do not afford some test of their accuracy by mentioning external facts of life, history, and antiquities. But the earlier chapters contain comparatively few such details; the subject in them is handled in a vaguer way, with a less vigorous and nervous grasp; the facts are rarely given in their local and historical surroundings, and sometimes seem to float in air rather than to stand on solid ground..

This fundamental difference in handling must be acknowledged; but it can be fairly attributed to difference of information and of local knowledge. The writer shows himself in his later narrative to be a stranger to the Levant and familiar with the Aegean; he could not stand with the same confidence on the soil of Syria and Palestine, as on that of Asia Minor or Greece. Moreover, he was dealing with an earlier period; and he had not the advantage of formal historical narratives, such as he mentions for the period described in his First Book (the Gospel). Luke was dependent on various informants in the earlier chapters of Acts (among them Paul and Philip); and he put together their information, in many cases reproducing it almost verbatim. Sometimes the form of his record gives a clue to the circumstances in which he learned it. That line of investigation is liable to become subjective and fanciful; but modern historical investigation always tries to get behind the actual record and to investigate the ultimate sources of statements.

4. THE AUTHOR OF ACTS AND HIS HERO.

It is rare to find a narrative so simple and so little forced as that of Acts. It is a mere uncoloured recital of the important facts in the briefest possible terms. The narrator’s individuality and his personal feelings and preferences are almost wholly suppressed. He is entirely absorbed in his work; and he writes with the single aim to state the facts as he has learned them. It would be difficult in the whole range of literature to find a work where there is less attempt at pointing a moral or drawing a lesson from the facts. The narrator is persuaded that the facts themselves in their barest form are a perfect lesson and a complete instruction, and he feels that it would be an impertinence and even an impiety to intrude his individual views into the narrative.

It is, however, impossible for an author to hide himself completely. Even in the selection of details, his personality shows itself. So in Acts, the author shows the true Greek feeling for the sea. He hardly ever omits to name the harbors which Paul sailed from or arrived at, even though little or nothing in the way of incident occurred in them. But on land journeys he confines himself to missionary facts, and gives no purely geographical information; where any statements of a geographical character occur, they serve a distinct purpose in the narrative, and the reader who accepts them as mere geographical specifications has failed to catch the author’s purpose (see p. 205 f.).

Under the surface of the narrative, there moves a current of strong personal affection and enthusiastic admiration for Paul. Paul is the author’s hero; his general aim is to describe the development of the Church; but his affection and his interest turn to Paul; and after a time his narrative groups itself round Paul. He is keenly concerned to show that Paul was in perfect accord with the leaders among the older Apostles, but so also was Paul himself in his letters. That is the point of view of a personal friend and disciple, full of affection, and jealous of Paul’s honour and reputation.

The characterisation of Paul in Acts is so detailed and individualised as to prove the author’s personal acquaintance. Moreover, the Paul of Acts is the Paul that appears to us in his own letters, in his ways and his thoughts, in his educated tone of polished courtesy, in his quick and vehement temper, in the extraordinary versatility and adaptability which made him at home in every society, moving at ease in all surroundings, and everywhere the centre of interest, whether he is the Socratic dialectician in the agora of Athens, or the rhetorician in its University, or conversing with kings and proconsuls, or advising in the council on shipboard, or cheering a broken-spirited crew to make one more effort for life. Wherever Paul is, no one present has eyes for any but him.

Such a view could not have been taken by a second century author. The Church in the second century had passed into new circumstances and was interested in quite different questions. The catastrophe of the persecution of Domitian, and the effect produced for the time on the attitude of the Church by the deliberate attempt to suppress and destroy it on the part of the imperial government, made a great gulf between the first century and the second century of Christian history.Church in R. E. Ch. XIII Though the policy of the great emperors of the second century came back to somewhat milder measures, the Church could not recover the same feeling that Paul had, so long as Christianity continued to be a proscribed religion, and a Christian was in theory at least an outlaw and a rebel. Many questions that were evidently vital to the author of Acts were buried in oblivion during the persecution of Domitian, and could not have been present in the mind of a later author. Our view classes Acts with 1 Peter, intermediate between the Pauline letters and the literature of the last decade of the century (such as Revelation). Luke shows the same attitude as Paul, but he aims at proving what Paul feels.

The question must be fairly considered whether Luke had completed his history. There is one piece of evidence from his own hand that he had not completed it, but contemplated a third book at least. His work is divided into two books, the Gospel and the Acts, but in the opening line of the Acts he refers to the Gospel as the First discourse (πρῶτος Had he not contemplated a third book, we expect the term Former Discourse (πρότερος) In a marked position like the opening of a book, we must take the word first strictly.

τὸν πρῶτον λόγον. The commentators universally regard this as an example of the misuse of πρῶτος; but they give no sufficient proof that Luke elsewhere misused that word. In Stephen’s speech (VII 12) the adverb πρῶτον misused for πρότερον occurs, but a dispassionate consideration of the speeches in Acts must convince every reader that they are not composed by the author, but taken verbatim from other authorities (in this case from Philip at Cæsareia, XXI 8). Blass, p. 16, points out with his usual power, that the character and distinction of the comparative and superlative degrees was decaying in the Greek of the N.T., and that in many adjectives one of the two degrees played the part of both. But such changes do not affect all words simultaneously; and the distinction between πρότερος and πρῶτος might be expected to last longer than that between most other pairs. We observe that Paul uses both, and distinguishes them correctly (though he blurs the distinction in other words): τὸ πρότερον as the former of two visits Gal. IV 13, τὴν προτέραν ἀναστροθήν Eph. IV 22. Blass, with the grammarian’s love for making absolute rules, conjectures the last example away, in order to lay down the law that the adjective πρότερος is not employed in N.T.; but we follow the MSS., and find in them the proof that the distinction was only in process of decay, and that the pair πρότερος — πρῶτος still survived among the more educated writers in N.T. So long as Paul could distinguish πρότερος and πρῶτος, there is a probability that Luke would not utterly confuse them; and the fact that John uses πρῶτος in the most glaring way for πρότερος has no bearing on Luke, who was a far better master of Greek.

We find several instances where Luke uses πρῶτος correctly in Acts XII 10 there were obviously three gates and three wards to pass (Peter was allowed to pass the first and the second, being taken presumably as a servant; but no servant would be expected to pass beyond the outermost ward at night, and a different course was needed there): in Luke II 2 a series of census are contemplated as having occurred, p. 386: in Luke XI 26 the man is described as passing through several stages: cp. XIII 30, XIV 18, XVI 5, XIX 16, XX 29. And, if there survived in Luke the slightest idea of any difference between comparative and superlative, the opening of a book is the place where we should expect to find the difference expressed. We conclude, then, that the use of πρῶτος there is more easily reconcilable with the plan of three books, than of two; but certainty is not attainable, as πρότερος does not actually occur in his writings.

We shall argue that the plan of Acts has been obscured by the want of the proper climax and conclusion, which would have made it clear, and also that the author did not live to put the final touches to his second book. Perhaps we may thus account for the failure of chronological data. In Book I there are careful reckonings of dates (in one case by several different eras) at the great steps of the narrative. In Book II there are no such calculations (except the vague “under Claudius” in XI 28, in itself a striking contrast to “the fifteenth year of Tiberius,” Luke III 1). Tacitus, as we saw, appends the dates to his Agricola: Luke incorporates his dates, but they have all the appearance of being put into an already finished narrative. If other reasons prove that Acts wants the finishing touches, we may reckon among the touches that would have been added certain calculations of synchronism, which would have furnished a chronological skeleton for the narrative.

If the work was left incomplete, the reason, perhaps,. lay in the author’s martyrdom under Domitian.

5. THE TEXTS OF ACTS.

It was my wish to take no notice here of differences of reading, but simply to follow Westcott and Hort (except in two impossible cases, XI 20, XII 25). This, however, proved impracticable; for there are some cases in which over-estimate of the two great MSS. (the Sinaitic and the Vatican) has led to the adoption of a reading that obscures history. In several places I have been driven back on the Received Text and the Authorised Version, and in others the Bezan Text either contains or gives the clue to the original text; and wherever the Bezan Text is confirmed by old Versions and by certain Greek MSS., it seems to me to deserve very earnest consideration, as at least pointing in the direction of an original reading subjected to wide-spread corruption.

It is universally admitted that the text of Acts was exposed to very careless or free handling in the second century. This came about in various ways, for the most part unintentionally, but partly by deliberate action. At that time great interest was taken in gathering from trustworthy sources supplementary information, beyond what was contained in the Gospels and Acts. Eusebius, III 39, quotes a passage from Papias describing his eager inquiries after such information from those who had come into personal relations with the Apostles, and another, V 20, from Irenaeus, describing how Polycarp used to tell of his intercourse with John and the rest that had seen the Lord. Now there was a natural tendency to note on the margin of a MS. additional information obtained on good authority about incidents mentioned in the text; and there is always a danger that such notes may be inserted in the text by a copyist, who takes them for parts accidentally omitted. There is also a certain probability that deliberate additions might be made to the text (as deliberate excisions are said to have been made by Marcion). The balance of evidence is, on the whole, that Mark XVI 9-20 is a later composition, designed to complete a narrative that had all the appearance of being defective. Again, explanatory notes on the margin of a MS. are often added by a reader interested in the text; there is no doubt that in some books such glosses have crept into the text through the errors of the copyist; and there are on our view three such cases at least in the generally accepted text of Acts.

But, beyond this, when translations were made into Syriac and Latin (the former certainly, the later probably, as early as the middle of the second century), the attention of scholars was necessarily directed to the difficulties in interpretation of the text, with its occasional archaic expressions, obscure words, and harsh constructions; and the practical usefulness of a simplified and modernised text was thus suggested. Tatian’s Harmony of the Four Gospels, and Marcion’s doctored editions, show how attempts were made from different points of view and in different ways to adapt the sacred narrative for popular use: Tatian changed the order, Marcion altered the text by excision or worse. Thus the plan of a simplified text was quite in keeping with the custom of the second century; and the Bezan Text seems to be of that kind. As a whole it is not Lukan: it has a fatal smoothness, it loses the rather harsh but very individual style of Luke, and it neglects some of the literary forms that Luke observed. But it has a high value for several reasons: (1) it preserves with corruptions a second-century witness to the text, and often gives valuable, and sometimes conclusive, evidence of readings; (2) it shows what view was held as to the meaning of various passages in the second century; (3) it adds several pieces of information which probably rest on good evidence, though they were not written by Luke. Thus we can often gather from the Bezan comment what was the original reading commented on; and it vindicates the great MSS. in XVI 12 against Dr. Hort’s conjecture. It reveals to us the first beginnings of Pauline legend (p. 106); and in this respect it stands on much the same level as the original text of the Acta of Paul and Thekla, where also it is hard to distinguish where history ends and romance begins. With the help of these two authorities, combined with early Christian inscriptions (which begin only about 190, but give retrospective evidence), we can recover some faint idea of the intellectual life of the second-century Christians in Asia Minor and North Syria.

The Bezan Text will, indubitably, afford much study and some discoveries in the future. Its explanatory simplifications often show the influence of the translations which first suggested the idea of a simplified text. When the need for an explanation arose in connection with a rendering in Latin, or in Syriac, the simplification took a Latin or Syriac colour; but this was consciously adopted as a simplification, and not through mere blundering.

While the Bezan Text has gone furthest from the original Lukan Text, there is no MS. which has not suffered seriously from the various causes of depravation. Several of the errors that have affected the two great MSS. look like changes made intentionally in order to suit a mistaken idea of the meaning of other passages; but there is always a possibility that in these cases an editor was making a choice between varieties of reading that had been produced unintentionally. Only in the Bezan Text can we confidently say that deliberate alterations were made in the text. I believe that the Bezan Reviser made many skillful changes in passages relating to Asia Minor and some foolish changes in European passages. In some of these cases, the view remains open that the Bezan reading is the original; but evidence is as yet not sufficient to give certainty. The home of the Revision is along the line of intercourse between Syrian Antioch and Ephesus, for the life of the early Church lay in intercommunication, but the Reviser was connected with Antioch, for he inserts “we” in XI 28.

CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGIN OF ST. PAUL

1. PAUL’S NATIONALITY.

In the growth of Christianity we observe that all the threads of development which had been formed in the life of the great races of older history are gathered together into one complex whole. Hence we have just the same assurance of the truth of Christianity that we have of the trustworthiness of earlier history: the earlier works into the later, the later grows out of the earlier, in such a way that all must be taken together. The correspondence is in itself a guarantee of truth. Each exists for the other: each derives its full comprehensibility from the other. We must accept the general outline of early history as a whole, or we must reject it as a whole on the plea of insufficient evidence. There is not a fact of early history, whether Christian or pre-Christian, which is not susceptible of being disputed with a fair show of rational and logical argument: the evidence is nowhere such as would convince a man whose mind is made up against the trustworthiness of ancient history. Let any one test the evidence for any point in regard to the battles of Salamis or of Marathon; and he will find that everywhere he is reduced to a balance of evidence, and frequently to a balance so delicate that no one can feel any assured confidence on the point. Yet our confidence in the general facts regarding each battle and its results is not, as a rule, affected by our uncertainty as to the details. Doubtless there will always be some who argue that the trustworthiness of the whole must be proportionate to the trustworthiness of the parts, and conclude that, where all details are so uncertain, the whole is unworthy of study; and those who cannot see—or rather feel—for themselves the fallacy of the argument will not be convinced by any reasoning that can be adduced. But for those who do not adopt the extreme agnostic position, there is no other logical position except that of accepting the. general scheme of ancient history, in which Christianity is the crowning factor that gives unity and rational plan to the whole.

The life of Paul partakes of the uncertainty that envelopes all ancient history. As regards every detail we shall find ourselves in the position of balancing evidence; as to almost every detail we shall find ourselves amid a bewildering variety of opposite opinion and assertion among modern scholars of every school and shade; and, strangest of all, in regard to two or three points where there exists the nearest approach to a general agreement between all the various schools, we shall find ourselves unable to agree. Owing to the peculiar character of the evidence, we shall find it best to begin in the middle of Paul’s life and study the events of the years 44 to 61, and thereafter to sketch in outline the first half of his life.

At present, however, we must emphasise the complex influences amid which Paul grew up. According to the law of his country, he was first of all a Roman citizen. That character superseded all others before the law and in the general opinion of society; and placed him amid the aristocracy of any provincial town. In the first century, when the citizenship was still jealously guarded, the civitas may be taken as a proof that his family was one of distinction and at least moderate wealth. It also implies that there was in the surroundings amid which he grew up, a certain attitude of friendliness to the Imperial government (for the new citizens in general, and the Jewish citizens in particular, were warm partisans of their protector, the new Imperial regime), and also of pride in a possession that ensured distinction and rank and general respect in Tarsus. As a Roman, Paul had a nomen and prænomen, probably taken from the Roman officer who gave his family civitas; but Luke, a Greek, had no interest in Roman names. Paulus, his cognomen, was not determined by his nomen: there is no reason to think he was an Æmilius (as some suggest).

Paul was, in the second place, a “Tarsian, a citizen of a distinguished city” (XXI 39, IX 11). He was not merely a person born in Tarsus, owing to the accident of his family being there: he had a citizen’s rights in Tarsus. We may confidently assume that Paul was careful to keep within demonstrable law and custom, when he claimed to be a Tarsian citizen in describing himself to the Tribune. According to the strict interpretation of the Roman law, the civitas superseded all other citizenship, but this theoretical exclusiveness was opposed to the Imperial spirit; and it is clear that Roman cives in a provincial city commonly filled the position of high-class citizens, and even had magistracies pressed upon them by general consent. Now, if Paul’s family had merely emigrated to Tarsus from Judea some years before his birth, neither he nor his father would have been “Tarsians,” but merely “residents” (incolæ). It is probable, but not certain, that the family had been planted in Tarsus with full rights as part of a colony settled there by one of the Seleucid kings in order to strengthen their hold on the city. Such a re-foundation took place at Tarsus, for the name Antiocheia was given it under Antiochus IV (175–164 B.C.). The Seleucid kings seem to have had a preference for Jewish colonists in their foundations in Asia Minor. Citizenship in Tarsus might also have been presented to Paul’s father or grandfather for distinguished services to the State; but that is much less probable.

In the third place, Paul was “a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews “. The expression is a remarkable one. It is used not to a Jewish audience, but to a Greek Church (Phil. III 5), and it is similar to a familiar expression among the Greeks: “a priest sprung from priests” is a term commonly applied to members of the great sacerdotal families which play so important a part in the society of Asian cities. He was a Jew at least as much as he was a Tarsian and a Roman, as regards his early surroundings; and it is obvious that the Jewish side of his nature and education proved infinitely the most important, as his character developed. But it is a too common error to ignore the other sides. Many interpreters seem to think only of his words, XXII 3, “I am a Jew born in Tarsus,” and to forget that he said a few moments before, “I am a Jew, a Tarsian, a citizen of no mean city”. To the Hebrews he emphasises his Jewish character, and his birth in Tarsus is added as an accident: but to Claudius Lysias, a Greek-Roman, he emphasises his Tarsian citizenship (after having told of his Roman citizenship). Now, there is no inconsistency between these descriptions of himself. Most of us have no difficulty in understanding that a Jew at the present day may be a thoroughly patriotic English citizen, and yet equally proud of his ancient and honourable origin. In the extraordinarily mixed society of the Eastern provinces, it was the usual rule in educated society that each man had at least two nationalities and two sides to his character. If we would clearly understand the society in which Paul worked, and the mission of Rome to make the idea of cosmopolitanism and universal citizenship a practical reality—an idea that had been first conceived by the Stoic philosophy in its attempt to fuse Greek and oriental thought into a unified system—we must constantly bear in mind that double or even triple character, which was so common.

To the Hebrew of that period it was specially easy to preserve the Hebraic side of his life along with his Greek citizenship; for the Jewish colony in a Seleucid city preserved as a body its double character. It was not merely a part of the city, whose members were citizens, but it was also recognised by the Seleucid Empire and afterwards by the Roman Empire as “the Nation of the Jews in that city”. Thus arose a strange and often puzzling complication of rights, which caused much heart-burning and jealousy among the non-Jewish citizens of the city, and which was at last terminated by the action of Vespasian in A.D. 70, when he put an end to the legal existence of a “Jewish nation,” and resolved the Jews into the general population of the Empire.

From this wide and diversified training we may understand better Paul’s suitability to develop the primitive Judaic Church into the Church of the Roman World (for beyond that he never went in practice, though in theory he recognised no limit short of universal humanity), his extraordinary versatility and adaptability (which evidently impressed Luke so much, p. 22), and his quickness to turn the resources of civilisation to his use. The Jew in his own land was rigidly conservative; but the Jew abroad has always been the most facile and ingenious of men. There are no stronger influences in education and in administration than rapidity and ease of travelling and the postal service; Paul both by precept and example impressed the importance of both on his Churches; and the subsequent development of the Church was determined greatly by the constant intercommunication of its parts and the stimulating influence thereby produced on the whole.

2. PAUL’S FAMILY.

If Paul belonged to a family of wealth and position, how comes it that in great part of his career (but not in the whole, p. 312) he shows all the marks of poverty, maintaining himself by his own labour, and gratefully acknowledging his indebtedness to the contributions of his Philippian converts, in Rome, in Corinth, and twice in Thessalonica (Phil. IV 15, II Cor. XI 9; see p. 360)? It was not simply that he voluntarily worked with his hands in order to impress on his converts the dignity and duty of labour, for he conveys the impression, II Cor. XI 8 f., I Thess. II 9, that he had to choose between accepting help from his’ converts, and making his own living. But it often happens in our own experience that a member of a rich family is in a position of poverty. It would be enough simply to accept the fact; but, as Paul in his later career is found in a different position, and as the same conjecture about his poverty must arise in every one’s mind, we may glance for a moment at the relations in which Paul would stand to his own family after his conversion.

The relations between Paul and his family are never alluded to by himself, and only once by Luke, who tells how his sisters son saved his life in Jerusalem by giving private information of the secret conspiracy against him, XXIII 16. How could this young man get immediate information about a conspiracy, which was concocted by a band of zealots, and arranged in private with the high priests and elders? In absolute secrecy lay the sole hope of success; and the conspiracy must therefore have been imparted only to a few, and probably only the leaders of the extreme Jewish party were aware of it. We must, I think, infer that the nephew acquired his information in the house of some leading Jew (to which he had access as belonging to an influential family), and that he was himself not a Christian, for in the heated state of feeling it may be taken as practically certain that a Christian would not have had free and confidential entry to the house of one of the Jewish leaders. But, further, if Paul’s nephew were trusted with such a secret, it must have been assumed that he was hostile to Paul.

Now, as Paul himself says, he had been brought up in strict Judaic feeling, not as a Sadducee, accepting the non-Jewish spirit, but as a Pharisee; and we must infer that the spirit of his family was strongly Pharisaic. The whole history of the Jews shows what was likely to be the feeling among his parents and brothers and sisters, when he not merely became a Christian, but went to the Gentiles. Their pride was outraged; and we should naturally expect that such a family would regard Paul as an apostate, a foe to God and the chosen race, and a disgrace to the family; his own relatives might be expected. to be his most bitter enemies. Looking at these probabilities, we see a special force in Paul’s words to the Philippians, III 8, that he had given up all for Christ, “for whom I suffered the loss of all things and do count them but refuse”. These emphatic words suit the mouth of one who had been disowned by his family, and, reduced from a position of wealth and influence in his nation to poverty and, contempt.

Perhaps it is some terrible family scene that made Paul so keenly alive to the duty owed by a father to his children. Probably nothing in family life makes a more awful and lasting impression on a sensitive mind than a scene where a respected and beloved parent makes a demand beyond what love or duty permits, and tries to enforce that demand by authority and threats. If Paul had to face such a scene, we can appreciate the reason why he lays so much stress on the duty of parents to respect their children’s just feelings: “ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the education and admonition of the Lord” (VI 4): “fathers, provoke not your children, lest they lose heart” (Col. III 21). Not every person would think this one of the most important pieces of advice to give his young societies in Asia Minor. But, according to our conjecture, Paul had good cause to know the harm that parents may do by not reasonably considering their children’s desires and beliefs. At the same time he strongly emphasises in the same passages the duty of children to obey their parents, and sets this before the duty of parents to their children. That also is characteristic of one who had been blameless as touching all the commandments (Phil. III 6), and who therefore must have gone to the fullest extreme in compliance with his father’s orders before he announced that he could comply no further.

3. PERSONALITY.

While Luke is very sparing of personal details, he gives us some few hints about Paul’s physical characteristics as bearing on his moral influence. As an orator, he evidently used a good deal of gesture with his hands; for example, he enforced a point to the Ephesian Elders by showing them “these hands” (XX 34). When he addressed the audience at Pisidian Antioch, or the excited throng of Jews in Jerusalem, he beckoned with the hand; when he addressed Agrippa and the distinguished audience in the Roman governor’s hail, he “stretched forth his hand”. This was evidently a characteristic and hardly conscious feature of his more impassioned oratory; but, when more quiet and simple address was suitable (as in the opening of his speech to the Ephesian Elders, before the emotion was wrought up), or when a purely argumentative and restrained style was more likely to be effective (as in addressing the critical and cold Athenian audience, or the Roman procurator’s court), no gesture is mentioned. On the other hand, in the extreme excitement at Lystra he “rent his garments”; and in the jailor’s critical situation, XVI 28, Paul called out with a loud voice. Wherever any little fact is mentioned by Luke, we can always observe some special force in it, and such details must have had real importance, when an author so brief and so impersonal as Luke mentions them; and they are very rare in him. Alexander tried to obtain a hearing from the Ephesian mob by such a gesture; and the din, as they howled like a lot of dervishes, is set before us strongly by the fact that speaking was impossible and gesture alone could be perceived. Peter, when he appeared to his astonished friends in Mary’s house after his escape, beckoned to them to make no noise that might attract attention and betray his presence. Otherwise such gestures are mentioned only where the hand is stretched out to aid or to heal or to receive help.

Two of the most remarkable instances of Paul’s power over others are prefaced by the statement that Paul “fixed his eyes on” the man (XIII 9, XIV 9, cp. XXIII 1); and this suggests that his fixed, steady gaze was a marked feature in his personality, and one source of his influence over them that were brought into relations with him. Luke frequently notes this trait. Peter tells that he fixed his gaze on the heavenly vision, XI 6; and he fixed his eyes on the lame man, III 4. Stephen turned his fixed gaze towards heaven, and saw it open to disclose the vision of glory to him. In these cases the power of the eye is strongly brought out. The same trait is alluded to where intense astonishment or admiration is involved, as when the bystanders gazed at Peter and John after they had healed the lame man, or Stephen’s auditors stared on him as they saw his face suffused with glory, or the disciples gazed upwards as Jesus was taken away from them, or Cornelius stared at the Angel. In the third Gospel, IV 20, the stare of the congregation in Nazareth at Jesus, when He first spoke in the synagogue after His baptism, suggests that a new glory and a new consciousness of power in Him were perceived by them. The power which looks from the eyes of an inspired person attracts and compels a corresponding fixed gaze on the part of them that are brought under his influence; and this adds much probability to the Bezan reading in III 3, where the fixed gaze of the lame man on Peter seems to rouse the power that was latent in him. The Greek word is almost peculiar to Luke, and occurs chiefly in Acts. Elsewhere in N.T. it is used only by Paul in II Cor. III 7, 13; and it has often seemed to me as if there were more of Lukan feeling and character in II Cor. than in any other of Paul’s letters. A consideration of these passages must convince every one that the action implied by the word (ἀτενίζειν) is inconsistent with weakness of vision: in fact, Paul says that the Jews could not gaze fixedly on the glory of Moses’ face, implying that their eyes were not strong enough. The theory which makes Paul a permanent sufferer in his eyes, unable to see distinctly persons quite near him, and repulsive to strangers on account of their hideous state (Gal. IV 13 f.), is hopelessly at variance with the evidence of Luke. In that word, as he uses it, the soul looks through the eyes.

The word twice occurs in the Third Gospel, once in a passage peculiar to Luke, and once when the servant maid stared at Peter and recognised him, where her fixed gaze is not mentioned by Matthew or Mark.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHURCH IN ANTIOCH

1.THE GENTILES IN THE CHURCH.

(XI 19) THEY THEN THAT WERE SCATTERED THROUGH THE TRIBULATION THAT AROSE ON ACCOUNT OF STEPHEN TRAVELLED (i.e., made missionary journeys) AS FAR AS PHŒNICE AND CYPRUS AND ANTIOCH, SPEAKING THE WORD TO JEWS AND NONE SAVE JEWS. (20) BUT THERE WERE SOME OF THEM, MEN OF CYPRUS AND CYRENE, WHO WHEN THEY ARE COME TO ANTIOCH, USED TO SPEAK TO GREEKS ALSO, GIVING THE GOOD NEWS OF THE LORD JESUS. (21) AND THE HAND OF THE LORD WAS WITH THEM, AND A GREAT NUMBER THAT BELIEVED TURNED UNTO THE LORD.

When Acts was written, the Church of Antioch was only about fifty years old, but already its beginning seems to have been lost in obscurity. It had not been founded, it had grown by unrecorded and almost unobserved steps. In the dispersion of the primitive Church at Jerusalem, during the troubles ensuing on the bold action of Stephen, certain Cypriote and Cyrenaic Jews, who had been brought up in Greek lands and had wider outlook on the world than the Palestinian Jews, came to Antioch. There they made the innovation of addressing not merely Jews but also Greeks. We may understand here (1) that the words used imply successful preaching and the admission of Greeks to the Christian congregation, and (2) that such an innovation took place by slow degrees, and began in the synagogue, where Greek proselytes heard the word. The Cypriote and Cyrenaic Jews began pointedly to include these Greeks of the synagogue in their invitations, and thus a mixed body of Jews and Greeks constituted the primitive congregation of Antioch; but the Greeks had entered through the door of the synagogue (see pp. 62, 85, 156).

In verses 19-21 the narrative for the moment goes back to a time earlier than X and XI 1-18, and starts a new thread of history from the death of Stephen (VII 60). That event was a critical one in the history of the Church. The primitive Church had clung to Jerusalem, and lived there in a state of simplicity and almost community of goods, which was an interesting phase of society, but was quite opposed to the spirit in which Jesus had said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation”. For the time it seemed that the religion of Christ was stagnating into a sociological experiment. Stephen’s vigour provoked a persecution, which dispersed itinerant missionaries over Judea and Samaria (VIII 1-4), first among whom was Philip the colleague of Stephen. New congregations of Christians were formed in many towns (VIII 14, 25, 40, IX 31, 32, 35, 42, X 44); and it became necessary that, if these were to be kept in relation with the central body in Jerusalem, journeys of survey should be made by delegates from Jerusalem. The first of these journeys was made by Peter and John, who were sent to Samaria, when the news that a congregation had been formed there by Philip reached Jerusalem (VIII 14). This may be taken as a specimen of many similar journeys, one of which is recorded (IX 32 f.) on account of the important development that took place in its course. It appears from Acts that Peter was the leading spirit in these journeys of organisation, which knit together the scattered congregations in Judea and Samaria. Hence the first great question in the development of the Church was presented to him, viz., whether Hebrew birth was a necessary condition for entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah and membership of the Christian Church. That question must necessarily be soon forced on the growing Church; for proselytes were not rare, and the Christian doctrine, which was preached in the synagogues, reached them. It was difficult to find any justification for making the door of the Church narrower than the door of the synagogue, and there is no record that any one explicitly advocated the view that Christianity should be confined to the chosen people, though the condition and regulations on which non-Jews should be admitted formed the subject of keen controversy in the following years.

According to Acts, this great question was first presented definitely to Peter in the case of a Roman centurion named Cornelius; and a vision, which had appeared to him immediately before the question emerged, determined him to enter the house and the society of Cornelius, and set forth to him the good news, on the principle that “in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him” (X 35). Peter’s action was immediately confirmed by the communication of Divine grace to the audience in Cornelius’s house; and, though it was at first disputed in Jerusalem, yet Peter’s defence was approved of by general consent.

But this step, though an important one, was only the first stage in a long advance that was still to be made. Cornelius was a proselyte; and Peter in his speech to the assembly in his house laid it down as a condition of reception into the Church that the non-Jew must approach by way of the synagogue (X 35), and become “one that fears God”.

Without entering on the details of a matter which has been and still is under discussion, we must here allude to the regulations imposed on strangers who wished to enter into relations with the Jews. Besides the proselytes who came under the full Law and entered the community of Moses, there was another class of persons who wished only to enter into partial relations with the Jews. These two classes were at a later time distinguished as “Proselytes of the Sanctuary” and “of the Gate”; but in Acts the second class is always described as “they that fear God”φοβούμενοι or σεβόμενοι τόν θεόν The God-fearing proselytes were bound to observe certain ceremonial regulations of purity in order to be permitted to come into any relations with the Jews; and it is probable that these rules were the four prohibitions enumerated in XV 28, to abstain from the flesh of animals sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from animals strangled, and from marriage within the prohibited degrees (many of which were not prohibited by Greek or Roman law). These prohibitions stand in close relation to the principles laid down in Leviticus XVII, XVIII, for the conduct of strangers dwelling among the Israelites; and it would appear that they had become the recognised rule for admission to the synagogue and for the first stage of approximation to the Jewish communion. They stand on a different plane from the moral law of the Ten Commandments, being rules of purity.

While no one, probably, urged that the Church should be confined to born Hebrews, there was a party in the Church which maintained that those non-Jews who were admitted should be required to conform to the entire “Law of God ”: this was the party of “champions of the circumcision,”οἰ ἐκ περιτομη, XI 2, Gal. II 12: “some of the sect of the Pharisees that believed,” XV 5. which played so great a part in the drama of subsequent years. This party was silenced by Peter’s explanation in the case of Cornelius, for the preliminary vision and the subsequent gift of grace could not be gainsaid. But the main question was not yet definitely settled; only an exceptional case was condoned and accepted.

The Church Of Antioch then was in a somewhat anomalous condition. It contained a number of Greeks, who were in the position of “God-fearing proselytes,” but had not conformed to the entire law; and the question was still unsettled what was their status in the Church.

2. THE COMING OF BARNABAS AND THE SUMMONING OF SAUL.

(XI 22) AND THE REPORT CONCERNING THEM CAME TO THE EARS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM; AND THEY SENT FORTH BARNABAS AS FAR AS ANTIOCH: (23) WHO WHEN HE WAS COME, AND HAD SEEN THE GRACE OF GOD, WAS GLAD; AND HE EXHORTED THEM ALL THAT WITH PURPOSE OF HEART THEY SHOULD CLEAVE UNTO THE LORD (24) (FOR HE WAS A GOOD MAN, AND FULL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND OF FAITH); AND MUCH PEOPLE WAS ADDED UNTO THE LORD. (25) AND HE WENT FORTH TO TARSUS TO SEEK FOR SAUL; (26) AND WHEN HE HAD FOUND HIM, HE BROUGHT HIM UNTO ANTIOCH. AND IT CAME TO PASS THAT EVEN FOR A WHOLE YEAR THEY MET IN THE ASSEMBLY, AND TAUGHT MUCH PEOPLE; AND THAT THE DISCIPLES WERE CALLED “CHRISTIANS” FIRST IN ANTIOCH.

As in previous cases, an envoy was sent from the Church in Jerusalem to survey this new congregation, and judge of its worthiness; and Barnabas was selected for the purpose. The same test that had been convincing in the case of Cornelius satisfied Barnabas in Antioch: he saw the grace of God. Then he proceeded to exhort and encourage them, which he was qualified to do because the Divine Spirit was in him. Sparing as Luke is of words, he feels bound to state that Barnabas was qualified by grace for the work (see p. 174). The result of his course of ministrationπαρεκάλει, imperfect. was a great increase to the congregation.

Mindful of his former short experience of Saul, Barnabas bethought himself that he was well suited to the peculiar circumstances of the Antiochian congregation: and he accordingly went to Tarsus, and brought Saul back with him to Antioch. This journey must apparently have been made in the early months of A.D. 43; and the rest of that year was spent by the two friends in Antioch. The date shows that the early stages of Christian history in Antioch were slow. The congregation must have grown insensibly, and no marked event occurred, until the attention of the Church in Jerusalem was called to its existence. The one important fact about it was that it came into existence in this peculiar way. But with the advent of Barnabas and Saul, its history enters on a new phase. It became the centre of progress and of historical interest in the Church.

It lies in Luke’s style to give no reason why Barnabas summoned Saul to Antioch. This historian records the essential facts as they occurred; but he does not obtrude on the reader his own private conception as to causes or motives. But we cannot doubt that Barnabas, who became Saul’s sponsor at Jerusalem (IX 27), and related to the Apostles the circumstances of his conversion, knew that God had already called him “to preach Him among the Gentiles” (Gal. I 16), and recognised that this congregation of the Gentiles was the proper sphere for Saul’s work. We find in Barnabas’s action the proof of the correctness of Paul’s contention in Epist. Gal., that his aim as an Apostle had been directed from the first towards the Gentiles; his sphere was already recognised.

As we shall see later, Paul must have spent nearly eight years at Tarsus. Why are these eight years a blank? Why were they such a contrast to the crowded hours of the period that was just beginning? On our hypothesis as to the meaning of Luke’s silence, we conclude that Paul was still not fully conscious of the full meaning of his mission; he was still bound in the fetters of Judaic consistency, and acted as if the door of the synagogue was the portal through which the Nations must find their way into the Church. He had not yet learned, or at least he had not yet so fully shaken himself free from the prejudices of education and tradition as to act on the knowledge, that God “had opened a door of faith unto the nations” (XIV 27, p. 85).

A point in Luke’s style here deserves note. He has mentioned in IX 30 that Saul was sent away to Tarsus; and he now takes up the thread from that point, saying that Barnabas went to Tarsus to seek for Saul. He implies that the reader must understand Tarsus to have been Saul’s headquarters during the intervening period. Not merely. does XI 25 require one to look back, but also IX 30 requires one to look forward; each is the complement of the other, and the two together hit off a long period during which no critical event had to be recorded. The same period, together with the following year in Antioch, is described by Paul himself, Gal. I 21, 22: “Then I came into the climes of Syria and Cilicia: and I continued to be unknown by face to the churches of Judea, but they only heard say, ‘He that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith’”. Paul and Luke complete each other, and make up a picture of over ten years of quiet work within the range of the synagogue and its influence.

The words of v. 25 seem harsh until one takes them as a direct backward reference to IX 30, and as implying a statement about the intervening period. The Bezan Commentator, not catching the style of Luke, inserts an explanatory clause, “hearing that Saul is in Tarsus,” which rounds off the sense here by cutting away the necessity of finding in XI 25 the completion of a period of history whose beginning is recorded in IX 30.

The term “Christians” attests that the congregation became a familiar subject of talk, and probably of gossip and scandal, in the city; for obviously the name originated Outside the brotherhood. The Brethren, then, were talked of in popular society as “they that are connected with Christos”: such a title could not originate with the Jews, to whom “the Christ” was sacred. The name Christos therefore must have been the most prominent in the expressions by which the Greek Brethren described or defined their faith to their pagan neighbours. The latter, doubtless, got no clear idea of what this Christos was: some took Christos as one of the strange gods whom they worshipped (XVII 18); others took him as their leader (p. 254). In any case the name belongs to popular slang.

In accordance with the tendency of popular language to find some meaning for strange words, the strange term Christos was vulgarly modified to Chrêstos, the Greek adjective meaning “good, useful,” which seemed to popular fancy a more suitable and natural name for a leader or a deity. “Chrêstians” was the form in which the name was often used; and it occurs in inscriptions.

3. THE ANTIOCHIAN COLLECTION FOR THE POOR OF JERUSALEM.

(XI 27 A) AND AT THIS PERIOD THERE CAME DOWN FROM JERUSALEM PROPHETS TO ANTIOCH. (28A) AND THERE STOOD UP ONE OF THEM, AGABUS BY NAME, AND SIGNIFIED BY THE SPIRIT THAT THERE SHOULD BE GREAT FAMINE OVER ALL THE WORLD; WHICH CAME TO PASS IN THE DAYS OF CLAUDIUS. (29A) AND THE DISCIPLES ACCORDING TO THE MEANS OF THE INDIVIDUAL ARRANGED TO SEND CONTRIBUTIONS FOR RELIEF TO THE BRETHREN SETTLED IN JUDEA. (30A) AND THIS TOO THEY DID, AND DESPATCHED the relief TO THE ELDERS BY THE HAND OF BARNABAS AND SAUL. (XII 25A) AND BARNABAS AND SAUL FULFILLED THE MINISTRATION OF RELIEF, AND RETURNED FROM JERUSALEM BRINGING AS COMPANION JOHN SURNAMED MARK.

Luke’s brief statement about the famine is declared by Dr. Schürer to be unhistorical, improbable, and uncorroborated by other evidence.Eine ungeschichtliche Generalisirung, and again, ist, wie an sich unwahrscheinlich, so auch nirgends bezeugt (Jüd. Volk I p. 474. Opinions differ widely; for the famine seems to me to be singularly well attested, considering the scantiness of evidence for this period. Suetonius alludes to assiduæ sterilitates causing famine-prices under Claudius, while Dion Cassius and Tacitus speak of two famines in Rome, and famine in Rome implied dearth in the great corn-growing countries of the Mediterranean; Eusebius mentions famine in Greece, and an inscription perhaps refers to famine in Asia Minor.Le Bas-Waddington no. 1192, Studia Biblica IV p. 52 f. Thus widespread dearth over the Roman world is fully attested independently; beyond the Roman world our evidence does not extend. Dr. Schürer seems to require a distinct statement that a famine took place in the same year all over Europe, Asia, and Africa. But that is too hard on Luke, for he merely says that famine occurred over the whole (civilised) world in the time of Claudius: of course the year varied in different lands.

The great famine in Palestine occurred probably in A.D. 46. The commentators as a rule endeavour, by straining Josephus, or by quoting the authority of Orosius, to make out that the famine took place in 44, and even that it occasioned the persecution by Herod.

The eagerness to date the famine in 44 arises from a mistake as to the meaning and order of the narrative of Acts. Between XI 30 and XII 25 there is interposed an account of Herod’s persecution and his miserable death, events which belong to the year 44; and it has been supposed that Luke conceives these events as happening while Barnabas and Saul were in Jerusalem. But that is not the case. Luke describes the prophecy of Agabus, and the assessment imposed by common arrangement on the whole congregation in proportion to their individual resources. Then he adds that this arrangement was carried out and the whole sum sent to Jerusalem. The process thus described was not an instantaneous subscription. The money was probably collected by weekly contributions, for the congregation was not rich, and coin was not plentiful in Syrian cities. This collection would take a considerable time, as we gather both from the analogy of the later Pauline contribution (p. 288), and from the fact that the famine was still in the future, and no necessity for urgent haste existed. The arrangements were made beforehand in full reliance on the prophecy; but there is no reason to think that the money was used until the famine actually began, and relief was urgently needed. The manner of relief must, of course, have been by purchasing and distributing corn, for it would have shown criminal incapacity to send gold to a starving city; and the corn would not be given by any rational person, until the famine was at its height. When Sir Richard Wallace relieved the distress in Paris after the siege, he did not content himself with telegraphing money from London, nor yet with distributing gold to the starving people in Paris. He brought food and gave it. As he did, so we may be sure did the Antiochian delegates do; and no rational person will suppose that the corn was brought to Jerusalem until the famine was actually raging. But in a land where transport was difficult, preparations took time; and Luke states at the outset the general course of the preparations which the Divine revelation aroused.

Thereafter, before describing the actual distribution of relief in Jerusalem, the author’s method requires him to bring down the general narrative of events in Jerusalem and Judaea to the point when the famine began; and then at last he mentions the actual administering of the relief. He, therefore, tells about the persecution of Herod (which took place near the time when Agabus prophesied), and about Herod’s death; and then at last he mentions the execution of the Antiochian design and the return of the delegates to their own city.

As thus interpreted, Luke’s chronology harmonises admirably with Josephus. Agabus came to Antioch in the winter of 43–44; and in the early part of 44 Herod’s persecution occurred, followed by his death, probably in the autumn. In 45 the harvest was probably not good, and provisions grew scarce in the country; then, when the harvest of 46 failed, famine set in, and relief was urgently required, and was administered by Barnabas and Saul. It is an interesting coincidence that relief was given liberally in Jerusalem by Queen Helena (mother of Izates, King of Adiabene), who bought corn in Egypt and figs in Cyprus, and brought them to Jerusalem for distribution. She came to Jerusalem in 45, and her visit lasted through the season of famine; she had a palace in Jerusalem. The way in which she imparted relief to the starving people illustrates the work that Barnabas and Saul had to perform.

Date of the famine. Orosius VII 6 puts it in the fourth year of Claudius, which began January 25, A.D. 44. But Orosius’s dates at this point are put one year too early owing to a mistake in adapting to Claudius’s years a series of events arranged in his authority according to a different system of chronology; this kind of mistake is known to have been frequently made by ancient chroniclers, and is proved in Orosius’s case by the fact that he assigns to the tenth year of Claudius a famine at Rome which Tacitus Ann. II 43 places in A.D. 51 We therefore take Orosius as an authority for dating the commencement of the famine in 45. Josephus mentions the famine as having occurred while Tiberius Alexander was procurator of Judea; and there is general agreement that Alexander’s administration lasted from 46 to 48: though the time when it began was not absolutely certain, July 45 is the earliest admissible date, and 46 is far more probable: his predecessor Cuspius Fadus was sent by Claudius in 44, and a good deal occurred during his office. But Josephus also mentions the famine in connection with Queen Helena’s arrival in 45. Helena, however, seems to have remained a considerable time, and Josephus’s words are in perfect accord with our view that scarcity began with a bad harvest in 45.

In the preceding chapter, Lightfoot’s view is quoted according to his edition of Gal., where he says that Barnabas and Saul had come to Jerusalem and returned to Antioch before Herod’s death. Since the chapter was in type, I notice that in a posthumous essay “printed from lecture notes” he dates the famine 45; but that seems hardly consistent with his edition, and as he republished his edition without change throughout his life, it must represent his mature opinion. Perhaps he means that Paul and Barnabas brought the famine-money to Jerusalem a year or more before the famine began, which we cannot accept as a natural or a useful procedure.

The service in Jerusalem must have occupied Barnabas and Saul for. a considerable time. They acted as administrators (διάκονοι) of the relief; and it becomes evident how much is implied in the words of XI 29, XII 25 from the comparison of VI 1 “the daily ministration” of food to the poor. The same term (διακονία) that is used in these cases is applied (with λόγου understood) to the steady constant work of a missionary or an apostle, XX 24, XXI 19, I 17, 25, VI 4. The Antiochian delegates did not merely act as carriers of money; they stayed in Jerusalem through the famine and acted as providers and distributors, using all the opportunity of encouraging and comforting the distressed that was thus afforded. In this way Saul’s second visit to Jerusalem was an important moment in the development of the Church, and is related as such by Luke: it united far-distant parts of the Church at a great crisis; it gave to the poor in Jerusalem the sense of brotherhood with the Antiochian brethren, and to the Antiochian congregation that consciousness of native life and power which comes only from noble work nobly done. But for this end it was necessary that the work should be done from first to last by the Antiochian congregation, and that every starving disciple in Jerusalem should realise that he owed his relief to his brethren at Antioch. Great part of the effect would have been lost, if the delegates had merely handed a sum of money to the leaders in Jerusalem to distribute; and the author, who is so sparing of words, does not fail to assure us that the two delegates “completed the ministration” before they returned to Antioch.

It must be noticed that only the Elders at Jerusalem are here mentioned, whereas in XV Paul and Barnabas were sent to the Apostles and Elders. The marked difference may probably be connected with the author’s conception of the appropriate duties of each. In XV, when a matter of conduct and principle was in question, the Apostles were primarily concerned; but when it was a matter of the distribution of food, the Apostles were not concerned, for it was right that they should not “serve tables,” but “continue in the ministry of the word” (VI 2-4). It would have been quite natural to say that the contributions were sent to the congregation, or to the Brethren, in Jerusalem; and it is apparent that here the Elders represent the congregation of Jerusalem as directors of its practical working, while in XV the Apostles and Elders represent the Church in every aspect. The omission of the Apostles in XI 29 commonly explained on other grounds, not very honourable to them. Even Lightfoot says: “the storm of persecution had broken over the Church of Jerusalem.” One leading Apostle had been put to death; another, rescued by a miracle, had fled for his life. It is probable that every Christian of rank had retired from the city. No mention is made of the Twelve; the salutations of the Gentile Apostles are received by ‘the Elders’. They arrived charged with alms for the relief of the poor brethren of Jerusalem. Having deposited these in trustworthy hands, they would depart with all convenient speed. But Luke expressly says that the administration of the relief was performed in detail by the two Antiochian delegates (XII 25); and one can only marvel that Lightfoot ever stooped to the idea that they sneaked into the city and sneaked out hastily again, leaving the poor without a single “Christian of rank” to minister to them. Nor is there any good reason to think that the Apostles all fled from Jerusalem, and left the disciples to look after themselves. It was not men like that who carried Christianity over the empire within a few years. Such an act of cowardice should not be attributed to the Apostles without distinct evidence; and here the evidence tells in the opposite direction: (1) at the far more serious persecution following the death of Stephen, “all scattered abroad except the Apostles” (VIII 1): (2) it is implied that “James and the Brethren” were in Jerusalem, when Peter escaped from prison and retired (XII 17); and immediately after, Herod went away and the persecution was at an end. The author of Acts evidently had the impression that the guidance of affairs rested with the Apostles in Jerusalem; and they are conceived by him as being there permanently, except when absent on a special mission.

It is not mere accidental collocation, that immediately on the return of Barnabas and Saul comes the record of the flourishing state of the Church in Antioch, with its band of prophets and teachers (XIII 1): the result of their noble work in Jerusalem was apparent in the fuller and more perfect manifestation of Divine power and grace to the Church in Antioch.

Further, when Paul had founded a group of new churches in the four provinces, Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, he, as the crowning act of organisation, instituted a general collection among them for the poor at Jerusalem; and arranged that representatives should go up along with himself to Jerusalem bearing the money. His object was both to strengthen the separate congregations by good work, and to strengthen the whole Church by bringing its scattered parts into personal relations of service and help. We cannot doubt that it was his experience of the immense effect produced by the first Divinely ordered contribution which led Paul to attach such importance and devote so much trouble to the organisation of the second general contribution; and he uses the same word to indicate the management of the second fund that Luke uses of the first (διακονεῖν, II Cor. VIII 19).See Mr. Rendall’s admirable paper in Expositor, Nov., 1893.

The preceding notes have shown how much is contained in the brief record of Luke: all the main points in the execution of the scheme of relief are touched in the few words XI 29, 30, XII 25. But we are not reduced to this single account of the mission to Jerusalem. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, also mentions it; his reason for alluding to it lay in certain incidental and unessential facts that occurred at Jerusalem; but he tells enough to show what was the primary object of the visit. In describing his intercourse with the older Apostles, he mentions his second visit to Jerusalem in the following terms (I expand the concise language of Paul to bring out the close-packed meaning):—

(Gal. II 1) THEN IN THE FOURTEENTH YEAR after it pleased God to call me, I WENT UP AGAIN TO JERUSALEM WITH BARNABAS, AND TOOK TITUS ALSO AS A COMPANION. (2) NOW I may explain that I WENT UP ON AN ACCOUNT OF A REVELATION (which shows how completely my action was directly guided by the Divine will, and how independent it was of any orders or instructions from the Apostles). AND I COMMUNICATED TO THEM WITH A VIEW TO CONSULTATION THE GOSPEL WHICH I CONTINUE PREACHING AMONG THE GENTILES, BUT I did so PRIVATELY TO THOSE WHO WERE RECOGNISED AS THE LEADING SPIRITS, not publicly to the whole body of Apostles; since the latter course would have had the appearance of consulting the official governing body, as if I felt it a duty to seek advice from them; whereas private consultation was a purely voluntary act. MY PURPOSE IN THIS CONSULTATION WAS TO CARRY WITH ME THE LEADING SPIRITS OF THE CHURCH, SINCE MISUNDERSTANDING OR WANT OF COMPLETE APPROVAL ON THEIR PART MIGHT ENDANGER OR FRUSTRATE MY EVANGELISTIC WORK WHETHER IN THE FUTURE OR THE PAST, if doubt or dispute arose as to the rights of my converts to full membership in the Church without further ceremony. (3) NOW, as I have touched on this point, I may mention parenthetically that NOT EVEN WAS MY COMPANION TITUS, GREEK AS HE WAS, REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TO CIRCUMCISION, much less was the general principle laid down that the Jewish rite was a necessary preliminary to the full membership of the Church. (4) FURTHER, THE OCCASION of my consulting the leading Apostles WAS BECAUSE OF CERTAIN INSINUATING FALSE BRETHREN, WHO ALSO CREPT INTO OUR SOCIETY IN AN UNAVOWED WAY TO ACT THE SPY ON OUR FREEDOM (WHICH WE FREE CHRISTIANS CONTINUE ENJOYING THROUGHOUT MY MINISTRY), IN ORDER TO MAKE US SLAVES to the ritual which they count necessary. (5) BUT NOT FOR AN HOUR DID WE YIELD TO THESE FALSE BRETHREN BY COMPLYING WITH THEIR IDEAS, OR EXPRESSING AGREEMENT WITH THEM; AND OUR FIRMNESS THEN WAS INTENDED TO SECURE THAT THE GOSPEL IN ITS TRUE FORM SHOULD CONTINUE IN LASTING FREEDOM FOR YOU to enjoy. (6) BUT FROM THE RECOGNISED LEADERS—HOW DISTINGUISHED SOEVER WAS THEIR CHARACTER IS NOT NOW THE POINT; GOD ACCEPTETH NOT MAN’S PERSON—THE RECOGNISED LEADERS, I SAY, IMPARTED NO NEW INSTRUCTION TO ME; (7) BUT, ON THE CONTRARY, PERCEIVING THAT I THROUGHOUT MY MINISTRY AM CHARGED SPECIALLY WITH THE MISSION TO FOREIGN (NON-JEWISH) NATIONS AS PETER IS WITH THE JEWISH MISSION—(8) FOR HE THAT WORKED FOR PETER TO THE APOSTOLATE OF THE CIRCUMCISION WORKED ALSO FOR ME TO BE THE MISSIONARY TO THE GENTILES—(9) AND PERCEIVING from the actual facts THE GRACE THAT HAD BEEN GIVEN ME, THEY, JAMES AND CEPHAS AND JOHN, THE RECOGNISED PILLARS OF THE CHURCH, GAVE PLEDGES TO ME AND TO BARNABAS OF A JOINT SCHEME OF WORK, OURS TO BE DIRECTED TO THE GENTILES, WHILE THEIRS WAS TO THE JEWS. (10) ONE CHARGE ALONE THEY GAVE US, TO REMEMBER THE POOR brethren at Jerusalem. A DUTY WHICH AS A MATTER OF FACT I at that time MADE IT MY SPECIAL OBJECT TO PERFORM.

As is pointed out elsewhere in full detail, the concluding sentence defines the object which Paul carried out in Jerusalem: other events were incidental. This journey, therefore, is declared in Epist. Gal. to have been made according to revelation, and in Acts the exact circumstances of the revelation are narrated; the object of the visit is described in Acts as being to relieve the distress of the poor brethren in Jerusalem, and in Epist. Gal. Paul says he directed his attention specially to helping the poor brethren; another purpose is said in Epist. Gal. to have been achieved on this journey, v. 3, but Paul immediately adds that this other purpose was carried out as a mere private piece of business, and implies thereby that it was not the primary or official purpose of the journey.

How graceful and delicate is the compliment which the older Apostles paid to Paul! “the only advice and instruction which we have to give is that you continue to do what you have been zealously doing,” so they spoke at the conclusion of his visit. And in what a gentlemanly spirit does Paul refer to that visit! His object is to prove to the Galatians that, on his visits to Jerusalem, he received nothing in the way of instruction or commission from the older Apostles; and to do this he gives an account of his visits. When he comes to the second visit he might have said in the tone of downright and rather coarse candour, “So far from receiving on this occasion, I was sent by Divine revelation to be the giver”. But not even in this hot and hasty letter does he swerve from his tone of respect and admiration, or assume in the slightest degree a tone of superiority to Peter and James. The facts are all there to show the real situation; but they are put so quietly and allusively (the revelation in verse 2, the object in verse 10), as to avoid all appearance of boasting in what was really a very legitimate cause of satisfaction; and even of self-gratulation. It is precisely because on his second visit Paul was so obviously not the recipient, that he appeals to it with such perfect confidence as proving his independence.

Here as everywhere we find that Acts supplements and explains the incidents and arguments used by Paul in his letter. And we see that the influence which we have just ascribed to the visit in promoting the unity and solidarity of the whole Church is fully confirmed by Paul in verse 9; it resulted in a formal recognition by the older Apostles of the co-ordinate Apostolate of the two Antiochian delegates.

The same party in the Church which had criticised Peter’s conduct to Cornelius, was discontented with the conduct of Barnabas and Saul to their companion, Titus; but in the circumstances their discontent did not take public action, though it was so apparent as to put Saul on his guard, and once more they seem to have acquiesced in an exceptional case, as they did in that of Cornelius. But it was now becoming evident that two distinct and opposed opinions existed in the Church, and were likely to come to open conflict; and Saul privately satisfied himself that the leaders were in agreement with himself on the subject of difference.

But why is Acts silent about this? Simply because it never came to an open discussion, and therefore did not reach the proper level of importance. Luke confines himself to the great steps in development. Nor is it strange that Titus is not mentioned by Luke. In carrying the relief to Jerusalem, it is obvious that Barnabas and Saul must have had assistants. The work was one of considerable magnitude, and involved a good deal of organisation. We may gather from Luke that the two envoys were entrusted with the management; but the whole details of purchase, transport, and distribution lie outside of his conception and plan. The essential fact for his purpose was that relief was sent by the congregation in Antioch (XI 30), and its distribution personally carried out by Paul and Barnabas in Jerusalem (XII 25); and he tells us no more. In his letter Paul says that Titus was privately selected associate and not an official; and we may confidently add that he was one of the assistants who were needed to carry out the work described in Acts (see also the omission is made on p. 170.

The only strange fact in reference to Titus, is that he nowhere appears in Acts; and that is equally hard to explain on every theory. Clearly he played a considerable part in the early history of the Church (as Luke himself did); and, on our hypothesis of Luke’s historical insight and power of selecting and grouping details, the complete omission of Titus’s name must be intentional, just as the silence about Luke is intentional. A suggestion to explain the omission is made on p. 390.

The situation on this visit is strikingly different from that described in Acts XV as existing at the next visit (see Chap. VII). Paul has here private communications with the three leading Apostles in prudent preparation against future difficulties. In the later stage, public meetings to hear the recital of his and Barnabas’s experiences among the Gentiles are followed by a formal Council, in which “the leading Apostles stand forth as the champions of Gentile liberty”.

We find ourselves obliged to regard this visit as more important than is generally believed. Canon Farrar, who may be quoted as a clear and sensible exponent of the accepted view, calls it “so purely an episode in the work of St. Paul, that in the Epistle to the Galatians he passes it over without a single allusion ”. According to our view, if it had been a mere episode without influence on the development of the Church, Luke would have passed it unmentioned; but it was a step of great consequence in the development of the Antiochian congregation and of the Church as a whole; and therefore it required a place in this history.

The wonderful revelation described by Paul himself in his second letter to the Corinthians XII 2-4 took place in the fourteenth year before A.D. 56, when that letter was written; and therefore probably occurred in 43 or 44. This brings us near the period when Agabus came to Antioch; but all speculation is barred by the description: he “heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter”. Another revelation, however, can with certainty be ascribed to this visit, and, specially, to its concluding days.

4. THE RETURN FROM JERUSALEM TO ANTIOCH.

(XXII 17) WHEN I HAD RETURNED TO JERUSALEM, AND WHILE I PRAYED IN THE TEMPLE, I FELL INTO A TRANCE, (18) AND SAW HIM SAYING UNTO ME, “MAKE HASTE, AND GET THEE QUICKLY OUT OF JERUSALEM; BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT RECEIVE OF THEE TESTIMONY CONCERNING ME”. (19) AND I SAID, “LORD, THEY THEMSELVES KNOW THAT I IMPRISONED AND BEAT IN EVERY SYNAGOGUE THEM THAT BELIEVED ON THEE: (20) AND WHEN THE BLOOD OF STEPHEN THY WITNESS WAS SHED, I ALSO WAS STANDING BY, AND CONSENTING, AND KEEPING THE: GARMENTS OF THEM THAT SLEW HIM (and therefore they must see that some great thing has happened to convince me)”. (21) AND HE SAID UNTO ME, “DEPART: FOR I WILL SEND THEE FORTH FAR HENCE UNTO THE NATIONS “.

Let us clearly conceive the probable situation at that time. In the famine-stricken city it is not to be supposed that Barnabas and Saul confined their relief to professing Christians, and let all who were not Christians starve. Christian feeling, ordinary humanity, and policy (in the last respect Paul was as little likely to err as in the others), alike forbade an absolute distinction. The Antiochian delegates must have had many opportunities of siding their Jewish brethren, though they addressed their work specially to their Brethren in the Church; and the result must have been that they occupied a position of peculiar advantage for the time, not merely in the Church (where the respect and honour paid them shines through Gal. II 1-10), but also in the city as a whole. Now it was part of Paul’s missionary method not to insist where there was no opening, and not to draw back where the door was open. It might well seem that the remarkable circumstances of his mission to Jerusalem, the revelation by which it was ordered, and the advantage it secured to him in the city, were the opening of a door through which he might powerfully influence his own people. The thought could not fail to occur to Paul; and the remarkable incident described in XXII 17-21 shows that it was in his mind.

This incident is usually assigned to the first visit which Paul paid to Jerusalem after his conversion. But he does not say or even imply that it was his first visit; and we must be guided by the suitability of the circumstances mentioned to the facts recorded about the various visits. Now Luke gives a totally different reason for his departure from Jerusalem at the first visit: he attributes it to the prudence of the Brethren, who learned that a conspiracy was made to slay him, and wished both to save him and to avoid the general danger that would arise for all, if persecution broke out against one. The revelation of XXII 18, to which Paul attributes his departure, suits the first visit very badly; but such discrepancy does not count for much with the modern interpreters, orthodox and “critical” alike, who, having achieved the feat of identifying the second visit of Gal. II 1-10 with the third visit of Acts XV (pp. 59, 154 f.), have naturally ceased to expect agreement between Luke and Paul on such matters. Accordingly, Lightfoot actually quotes the discrepancy between XXII 18 f. and IX 29. to illustrate and defend the discrepancy between Gal. II 2 and Acts XV 4.

Again, the reasoning of XXII 20, 21, is not suitable to the first visit. Paul argues that circumstances make him a peculiarly telling witness to the Jews of the power of Jesus: and the reply is that Jesus will send him far hence to the Nations. Now, the first visit was followed, not by an appeal to the Nations, but by many years of quiet uneventful work in Cilicia and Antioch, within the circle of the synagogue and its influence. But this revelation points to the immediate “opening of a door of belief to the Nations”; and that did not take place until Paul went to Paphos and South Galatia (XIV 27, pp. 41, 85).

To place this revelation on the first visit leads to hopeless embarrassment, and to one of those discrepancies which the orthodox historians, like Lightfoot, labour to minimise, while the critical historians naturally and fairly argue that such discrepancies prove Acts to be not the work of Paul’s pupil and friend, but a work of later origin. On this point I can only refer to what is said on p. 15; on the principle there laid down, we cannot connect XXII 17 f. with IX 28 f.

On the other hand this revelation suits excellently the state of matters. which we have just described at the conclusion of the second visit. Paul was tempted by the favourable opportunity in Jerusalem; and his personal desire always turned strongly towards his Jewish brethren (Rom. IX 1-5). He prayed in the temple: he saw Jesus: he pleaded with Jesus, representing his fitness for this work: and he was ordered to depart at once, “for I will send thee forth far hence to the Nations”. Thereupon he returned to Antioch; and in a few days or weeks a new revelation to the Antiochian officials sent him on his mission to the West, and opened the door of belief to the Nations.

One objection to this view is likely to be made. Many infer from XXII 18 that the visit was short. But there is no implication as to the duration of the visit. The words merely show that Paul was thinking of a longer stay, when the vision bade him hasten away forthwith. The second visit, according to Lightfoot’s supposition, was even shorter than the first, but on our view it began when the failure of harvest in 46 turned scarcity into famine, and it probably lasted until the beginning of 47. Our reference of XXII 17 to the second visit is corroborated by the reading of the two great uncial MSS. in XII 25, “returned to Jerusalem”: this seems to be an alteration made deliberately by an editor, who, because these passages referred to the same visit, tampered with the text of XII 25 to bring it into verbal conformity with XXII 17.

5. THE MISSION OF BARNABAS AND SAUL.

(XIII 1) NOW THERE WAS AT ANTIOCH, CONNECTED WITH “THE CHURCH,”Prof. Armitage Robinson, quoted in Church in R. E. p. 52. A BODY OF PROPHETS AND TEACHERS, BARNABAS, SYMEON (SURNAMED NIGER), AND LUCIUS (HE OF CYRENE), WITH MANAËN (FOSTER-BROTHER OF HEROD THE TETRARCH) AND SAUL. (2) AS THESE WERE: LEADING A LIFE OF RELIGIOUS DUTIES AND FASTS, THE: HOLY SPIRIT SAID, “SEPARATE ME BARNABAS AND SAUL FOR THE WORK WHEREUNTO I HAVE CALLED THEM”. (3) THEN THEY (i.e., the Church) HELD A SPECIAL FAST, AND PRAYED, AND LAID THEIR HANDS UPON THEM, AND GAVE THEM LEAVE TO DEPART.

A new stage in the development of the Antiochian Church is here marked. It was no longer a mere “congregation”; it was now “the Church” in Antioch; and there was in it a group of prophets and teachers to whom the grace of God was given.

There is indubitably a certain feeling that a new start is made at this point; but it is only through blindness to the style of a great historian that some commentators take this as the beginning of a new document. The subject demanded here a fresh start, for a great step in the development of the early Church was about to be narrated, “the opening of a door to the Gentiles” (XIV 27). The author emphasised this step beyond all others, because he was himself a Gentile; and the development of the Church through the extension of Christian influence was the guiding idea of his historical work.

Probably the variation between the connecting particles (καί and τε) marks a distinction between three prophets, Barnabas, Symeon and Lucius, and two teachers, Manaen and Saul. In Acts VI 5, the list of seven deacons is given without any such variation; and it seems a fair inference that the variation here is intentional.Compare Mr. Page’s note on the grouping of the list in I 13. The distinction between the qualifications required in prophets and in teachers is emphasised by Paul in I Cor. XII 28. As regards Barnabas and Saul their difference in gifts and qualifications appears clearly in other places. Everywhere Saul is the preacher and teacher, Barnabas is the senior and for a time the leader on that account.

There is a marked distinction between the general rule of life in v. 2, and the single special ceremony in v. 3. An appreciable lapse of time is implied in 2: after the two envoys returned from Jerusalem, the regular course of Church life went on for a time and, so long as everything was normal, the historian finds nothing to relate. The prophets and teachers had regular duties to which their energies were devoted; and they practised in their life a certain regular rule of fasting. They were not like the Elders, who were chosen as representative members of the congregation; they were marked out by the Divine grace as fitted for religious duties in the congregation. The “work” in v. 2 is defined in the subsequent narrative (XIII 41, XIV 26, XV 3, 38, etc.) as preaching the Gospel in new regions outside of the province Syria and Cilicia, in which there already existed Christian communities.

What is the subject in v. 3? It cannot be the five officials just mentioned, because they cannot be said to lay their hands on two of themselves. Evidently some awkward change of subject takes place; and the simplest interpretation is that the Church as a whole held a special service for this solemn purpose. Codex Bezæ makes all clear by inserting the nominative “all” (πάντες); and on our view this well-chosen addition gives the interpretation that was placed in the second century on a harsh and obscure passage. Similarly in XV 2 it is meant that the congregation appointed the delegates to Jerusalem; and the reader is expected to supply the nominative, though it has not occurred in, the immediately preceding sentence. It seemed to the author so obvious that such action was performed by universal consent, that he did not feel any need to express the nominative. Such a way of thinking was possible only at a very early time. During the second century (if not even earlier) the action of officials began to supersede that of the whole congregation in such matters; and, when even a beginning had been made, it could no longer be assumed as self-evident that such actions as XIII 3, XV 2, were performed by the congregation; and the writer would necessarily express the nominative. The Bezan Reviser belonged to the period when the change had begun and the need of expressing the nominative was felt; but he lived before the time when official action had regularly superseded that of the congregation, for in that case he would have taken the officials in this case to be the agents (as many modern commentators understand the passage).

What was the effect of the public ceremony described in v. 3? The high authority of Lightfoot answers that it constituted Barnabus and Saul as Apostles. He acknowledges that Saul’s “conversion may indeed be said in some sense to have been his call to the Apostleship. But the actual investiture, the completion of his call, took place some years later at Antioch (Acts XIII 2). “He considers that Barnabas and Saul were only prophets before this, and did not become Apostles until they were elevated to that rank by their “consecration to the office” at Antioch (Ed. Galat. p. 96).

Our view, on the contrary, is that Barnabas and Saul were Apostles before this. The Apostle was always appointed by God and not by the Church. The proof of Apostleship lay in the possession of apostolic message and powers, conversion of others and performance of signs. It is an historical anachronism to attribute to this period such belief in the efficacy of a Church-ceremony. Moreover, in XXII 17, 21, and XXVI 17, Paul claims to have been an Apostle from his conversion, and represents his work in Cilicia and Syria as an Apostolate. In Gal. I he declares that his message came direct from God at his conversion. Further, there is no sign in XIII 2, 3, that this “consecration” by the Church was more efficacious than the original Divine call: the ceremony merely blessed Barnabas and Saul for a special work, which was definitely completed in the next three years. In XIV 26 the work for which they had been committed to the grace of God in XIII 2 is declared to be fulfilled; and they returned to their ordinary circle of duties in the Church at Antioch.

The last word in verse 3 should not be “sent them away” (as in the Authorised and Revised Versions). The Spirit sent them away (verse 4); and the Church released them from their regular duties and bade them “God-speed”. The Greek verb (ἀπέλυσαν, like the Latin dimittere) is used of the superior giving his visitor leave to depart (for a visitor in the East is considered to be paying his respects, and does not presume to depart without formal permission to go), or of a host allowing his guests to depart, or of a commanding officer giving soldiers honourable dismissal after their term of service. The correct rendering of this term will prove important at a later stage (p. 155).

CHAPTER IV.

THE MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF BARNABAS AND SAUL

1 CYPRUS AND SALAMIS.

(XIII 4) THEY ACCORDINGLY, BEING SENT FORTH BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, CAME DOWN TO the harbour SELEUCEIA, AND THENCE SAILED AWAY TO CYPRUS; (5) AND WHEN THEY REACHED SALAMIS THEY BEGAN TO PROCLAIM THE WORD OF GOD IN THE SYNAGOGUES OF THE JEWS; AND THEY HAD JOHN ALSO AS A SUBORDINATE. (6) AND THEY MADE A missionary PROGRESS THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND UNTIL they reached PAPHOS.

The harbour is mentioned, according to Luke’s common custom (XIV 25, XVIII 18, XVI 11). When he has once mentioned the harbour of any city, he omits it on a subsequent occasion (cp. XX 6 with XVI 11). The failure to name the harbour of Berea is remarkable (XVII 14); doubtless there is some reason for it.

As they were able to make the harbour of Salamis, on the south coast, they were not impeded by westerly winds, which commonly blew throughout the summer (see p. 298). With such winds, they would have run for the Cilician coast, and worked along it westward with the aid of land breezes and the current (p. 299), till they could run across to the north coast of Cyprus, as Barnabas had to do on his next journey (if the Periodoi Barnabæ can be trusted). But they probably started on the opening of the sailing season (March 5).

John Mark is brought before the reader’s notice here in a curiously incidental way. He came with Barnabas and Saul from Antioch (see XII 25); why should he not be mentioned at the outset? A superficial view might see want of method in this apparently haphazard reference to the third traveller. But surely the object is to emphasise the secondary character of John Mark, in view of what was to happen in Pamphylia: he was not essential to the expedition; he had not been selected by the Spirit; he had not been formally delegated by the Church of Antioch; he was an extra hand, taken by Barnabas and Saul on their own responsibility. This obviated the criticism that the delegation consisted of three persons, and that Mark’s retirement from Pamphylia was fatal to the official and representative character of the rest of the mission—a criticism which may probably have been actually used in the subsequent rather bitter controversy described in XV. This might have been formally and. expressly set forth at an earlier stage; but the historian briefly expresses it by saying nothing about John Mark until he appears incidentally as a supernumerary and subordinate. The silence is singularly expressive, and therefore carefully calculated.

There must have been a large Jewish colony in Salamis, with more synagogues than one. Cypriote Jews are often mentioned in Acts IV 36, XI 20, XXI 16); and Barnabas himself was a Cypriote. The practice of Saul always had been to go first to the synagogues; and up to the present time there is no reason to think that he had directly addressed the Gentiles except as hearers in the synagogue.

His procedure here is exactly as at Damascus, where he proceeded to preach in the synagogues immediately after his conversion (IX 20). It was right that the first offer should be addressed to the Jews (XIII 46). Moreover he was always sure of a good opening for his Gentile mission among the “God-fearing,” who formed part of his audience in every synagogue.

In v. 6 how briefly the work of a considerable period is summed up! Four Greek words (διελθόντες ὅλην τὴν νῆσον) contain all that is said about a missionary journey throughout the island. We understand from this brevity that there was no important fact for the historian’s purpose. The passage is a typical one: the same formula occurs with slight variations in many later parts of the narrative; and in this first case its meaning is specially clear, so that it throws its light on all the subsequent examples (which is, of course, intended by the historian). Doubtless the process which has just been described at Salamis is intended to apply everywhere. In each city where there was a settlement of Jews, the missionaries preached in the synagogue.

Further, the Cypriote Jews were not unfavourable to the new teaching. The influence and example of Barnabas were naturally effective with his fellow-countrymen. Moreover, the Word had already been preached in Cyprus not long after Stephen’s martyrdom XI 19, and converts had been made. There was therefore a small audience ready to listen to the travelling preachers in several, perhaps in all, of the Cyprian cities. Finally, the doctrine that was preached was probably not such as to rouse strong feeling among the Jews; and, so long as the Gentiles were not specially appealed to and set on an equality with the Jews, the early Pauline teaching is not said to have caused more ill-will than the preaching of the older Apostles.

But we may also probably make some negative inferences. There was no specially marked effect; no sign of the Divine guidance or power was manifested; and the address was made only through the synagogues and nowhere directly to the Gentiles. These are the points on which the historian always lays special stress; signs of the Divine power were the guarantee of Paul’s Divine mission, and the steps by which Paul turned more and more decidedly to the Gentiles marked the stages in history as Luke conceived it.

We conclude, then, that the silence observed with regard to the Cyprian evangelisation is not due to mere ignorance on the part of the historian or to want of authorities, but to deliberate plan. On the scale on which his work was planned, and his incidents selected, there was nothing more to say.

The Apostles are said to have made a preaching tour through the whole island. In a writer so sparing of words as Luke, the addition of the word “whole” is important. We cannot press it so far as to suppose that they went through every place in the island. Its force may probably be best seen by supposing it were omitted: in that case the Greek (διελθόντες τὴν νῆσον ἄχρι Πάφου) would permit the interpretation that after landing at Salamis they went along the direct road to Paphos, preaching at convenient places. The word “whole” is probably intended to bring out clearly that they made a complete tour of the Jewish communities in the island, preaching in each synagogue.

2. PAPHOS.

(XIII 6) AND WHEN THEY HAD GONE THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND UNTO PAPHOS, THEY FOUND A CERTAIN MAN, MAGlAN, PROPHET OF LIES, JEW, BY NAME BAR-JESUS, (7) WHO WAS IN THE COMPANY OF THE PROCONSUL, SERGIUS PAULUS, A MAN OF UNDERSTANDING. THE PROCONSUL SUMMONED TO HIS PRESENCE BARNABAS AND SAUL, AND SOUGHTIn classical Greek the meaning would be “put questions to them”; and perhaps that is the sense here. TO HEAR THE WORD OF GOD. (8) AND THERE STOOD FORTH AGAINST THEM THE MAGlAN, ETOIMAS (Son Of the Ready), FOR SO IS THIS NAME TRANSLATED, SEEKING TO DIVERT THE PROCONSUL FROM THE FAITH. (9) BUT SAUL, OTHERWISE PAUL, FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, LOOKED FIXEDLY AT HIM, (10) AND SAID, “O FULL OF ALL GUILE AND ALL VILLANY, THOU SON OF THE DEVIL, THOU ENEMY OF ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS, WILT THOU NOT CEASE TO PERVERT THE RIGHT WAYS OF THE LORD? (11) AND NOW, BEHOLD THE HAND OF THE LORD IS UPON THEE, AND THOU SHALT BE BLIND, NOT SEEING THE SUN FOR A SEASON.” AND IMMEDIATELY THERE FELL ON HIM A MIST AND A DARKNESS; AND HE WENT ABOUT SEEKING SOME TO LEAD HIM BY THE HAND. (12) THEN THE PROCONSUL, WHEN HE SAW WHAT WAS DONE, BELIEVED, BEING STRUCK TO THE HEART AT THE TEACHING OF THE LORD.

We notice, first, the accuracy of the title proconsul, applied to the governor of Cyprus. The remarkable incident that follows is connected with a definite individual, who is named and characterised. He was Sergius Paulus, a man of ability.ξυνετός (in Attic) “of practical ability,” σοφός “cultivated”. Greek inscription of SoloiFound and made known by General Cesnola: but more accurately and completely published in Mr. D. G Hogarth’s Devia Cypria, p. 114. on the north coast of Cyprus is dated “in the proconsulship of Paulus,” who probably is the same governor that played a part in the strange and interesting scene now to be described.

The order and style of narrative adopted in this incident is noteworthy in itself, and instructive in regard to the author’s plan and his conception of history. He directs the reader’s attention first to the prominent figure round whom the incident is centred: “in Paphos they found a certain Bar-jesus”. Nothing is said about the length of residence in Paphos, nor about the conduct of the missionaries in the earlier part of their visit. Before anything else is mentioned about Paphos, Bar-jesus is named, and then it is explained who he was and how the missionaries came in contact with him. The order of narrative does not follow the order of time, but is guided by the special interest felt by the author, i.e., he seizes first the detail or the personage that is most important in his eyes.

If we attempt, to follow the order of development in time, the incident might be thus described. The missionaries came to Paphos. There they began preaching in the synagogues as they had done in other cities. They soon acquired notoriety and were talked about through the city; and the report about these strangers who were teaching a new kind of philosophy reached the Roman governor’s ears. The governor was a highly educated man, interested in science and philosophy; and his attention was caught by the report of the two strangers, who were giving public teaching in rhetoric and moral philosophy (p. 271).

Travellers of that class were well known at the time. Those who aimed at high rank and fame as teachers of philosophy often travelled through the great cities of the Empire, giving public demonstrations of their skill: thus they became famous, and were accepted finally in some of the great universities as established teachers and Professors of Philosophy or Morals.

The governor, Sergius Paulus, then invited or commanded a Roman proconsul’s invitation was equivalent to a command—the two travellers to his court, and sought to hear a specimen of their skill and a demonstration of their philosophy on the subject which, as he had been informed, was their favourite topic, the nature of God and His action towards human beings. The exposition which they gave seemed to him striking and excellent; and the marked effect which it produced on him was apparent to all who were in his train (who in Roman language would be termed his comites). Among these was a Jew, Etoimas Bar-jesus by name, a man skilled in the lore and the uncanny arts and strange powers of the Median priests or magi. On v. 6 see p. 115.

It is often said that the governor was “under the influence of” the Magian; implying the view that the mind of Sergius Paulus was dominated by Bar-jesus, but that the Roman, deeply impressed by the way in which Paul seemed to overpower the Magian, recognised the new master as more powerful than the old, and thus passed under the influence of a better teacher. This account seems to me not to be consistent with the text, and to give a far too unfavourable conception of the governor’s character; while it certainly conveys rather a vulgar idea of the way in which Paul’s teaching first affected the Roman world. According to the conception of Luke’s method as a historian, which guides us in this attempt to realise the facts, the words of Acts require a different interpretation. The author, who is singularly delicate, concise, and appropriate in his use of language, would not have praised Sergius Paulus as “a man of understanding,” when describing the relation in which the Magian stood to him, if he had understood that the Roman was “under the influence of” the false prophet. Either we must say that the author scatters his words heedlessly on the page, or we must understand that these words of praise coming at that precise point exclude any idea of weak submission to the strong personality of the Magian. Moreover the Greek words express the simple fact that the Magian was one of the train of comites who always accompanied a Roman governor. Some of these were personal friends who came with him from Rome, others were young Romans of rank who thus gained an insight into administrative life (which as yet they were too young to enter on), others were in official attendance on the governor, and others were provincials, men of letters or of scientific knowledge or of tastes and habits that rendered them agreeable or useful to the great man.

There is also no reason to think that the Magian was an inmate of the proconsul’s house. The words do not imply that; and the facts in no way suggest it.

3. THE MAGIAN AND THE APOSTLE.

To us the Roman governor is the prominent figure in this scene; and his attitude towards the new teaching is what interests us most. But in the estimation of Luke, the Magian is the most important character, next to Paul; and therefore the reader’s attention is directed first upon him. His prominence is perhaps due to different estimate of historical importance: ancient views on this subject differ from modern. But is it not more probable that Luke is justified in his view? It is clear that the Magian was here the representative of a System and a religion; and that his discomfiture was in itself a wide-reaching triumph. He is Commonly said to be a magician, a mere “Jewish impostor”; and he is compared to the modern gipsy teller of fortunes. Such comparisons, while having a certain element of truth, are misleading, and give a false idea of the influence exerted on the Roman world by Oriental personages like this Magian. The Magian represented in his single personality both the modern fortune-teller and the modern man of science; and he had a religious as well as a merely superstitious aspect to the outer world.

No strict line could then be drawn between lawful honourable scrutinising of the secret powers of Nature and illicit attempts to pry into them for selfish ends, between science and magic, between chemistry and alchemy, between astronomy and astrology. The two sides of investigation passed by hardly perceptible degrees into one another: and the same man might be by times a magician, by times the forerunner of Newton and Thomson (Lord Kelvin). It was not possible in the infancy of knowledge to know where lay the bounds between the possible and the impossible, between the search for the philosopher’s stone or the elixir of life and the investigation of the properties of argon or the laws of biology. It was not possible then: he would be rash who would say that it is possible now. A writer may venture on many prophecies about the future of science today, for which he would have been ridiculed as an impostor or a dreamer twenty years ago; and doubtless there are things he must not say now, which will be said soon.

It is certain that the priests of some Eastern religions possessed very considerable knowledge of the powers and processes of nature; and that they were able to do things that either were, or seemed to be, marvellous. Which of these alternatives was true is a point on which individual judgments will vary widely; but ray own experience makes me believe that, so far as influence over human or animal nature and life was concerned, their powers were wonderful. It is natural that the Magian’s knowledge and powers should have made him a striking and interesting personality; and a person like the proconsul, keenly interested in nature and philosophy, would enjoy his society.

The influence of this Eastern religion—one nature with many varieties—was widely spread; and it was inevitable that the new religion, which was strongly opposed to its methods of dominating its votaries and crushing their personality and individuality, should often be brought in collision with its teachers. Bar-jesus represented the strongest influence on the human will that existed in the Roman world, an influence which must destroy or be destroyed by Christianity, if the latter tried to conquer the Empire. Herein lies the interest of this strange scene; and we cannot wonder that to Luke, familiar with the terrible power of that religion, the Magian seemed the prominent figure round whom the action moved.

At Philippi, and at Ephesus also, collisions took place between the two influences, of slavery and of freedom for the human mind; but neither was so impressive as this at Paphos.

It is characteristic of the simple and natural evolution of the incidents, that no calculation of these great issues is represented as influencing the drama. Human action is swayed for the most part by trivial motives; and the Magian here was actuated chiefly by the fear of losing his prominent place in the governors train. His position as friend and associate (amicus and comes were the technical terms to denote his position) of the governor was an honourable one, gratifying at once to ambition, to vanity, and to worse passions. In this position he could learn a great deal about people and events. In the East it is always believed that the governor’s friend may influence his judgment; and every suppliant, every litigant, and every criminal tries to propitiate or to bribe the friend. We cannot tell in what proportion the more noble and the baser motives were mixed in the Magian’s mind; but they all lie on the surface of the situation, and each had doubtless some effect on him. He saw in the new teachers mere rivals trying to supplant him; and human nature could not accept defeat without a struggle.

Another point of method to note in the narrative is that no reason is stated for the Magian’s opposition. It is a general rule throughout Acts that facts alone are stated, and causes left to the reader to gather from the facts: the author sees the causes so clearly that he does not think of stating them. In this case he even omits part of the sequence of facts: he does not say that the Apostles expounded their views, but leaves the reader to understand that the proconsul’s desire was obeyed; and the words of verses 8, 10 (“seeking to turn aside the proconsul from the faith,” and “pervert the right ways of the Lord”) imply that the exposition was made. Then we may be certain that the Magian would not so far violate politeness and the respect due to the proconsul as to interrupt them, unless he had seen that a marked effect was produced on the governor’s mind; and he interfered from fear that, if he did not put the strangers down or turn them into ridicule, they might supplant himself in the governors society.

This view of the situation lies implicit in the text; and it is put explicitly by the Bezan Reviser, who makes Bar-jesus “stand forth in opposition to them, seeking to divert the proconsul from the faith, because he was listening with much pleasure to them”. If the added words are a gloss, they are inserted with great skill and judgment. But to me they appear to be an addition, inserted to make the narrative simpler and easier: the author, as usual, left the reason unstated.

4. SAUL, OTHERWISE PAUL.

The name Paul, here applied for the first time by the historian to the person whom he has hitherto called Saul, has given rise to much discussion and many theories. We shall not begin by theorising as to the names of this individual, but by inquiring what was the meaning of that very common formula, “Saul, otherwise Paul” in the society of the Eastern provinces; and shall then apply the results to this case.

The custom which was thus expressed seems to have originated in the bilingual governments and countries of the later centuries B.C. (or, at least, to have become common and familiar then). At that time Greece had gone forth to conquer the East; and a varnish of Greek culture was spread over many non-Greek races, affecting the richer and the educated classes of the natives, but hardly reaching the mass of the people. Then it was the fashion for every Syrian, or Cilician, or Cappadocian, who prided himself on his Greek education and his knowledge of the Greek language, to bear a Greek name; but at the same time he had his other name in the native language, by which he was known among his countrymen in general. His two names were the alternative, not the complement, of each other; and the situation and surroundings of the moment, the rôle which he was playing for the time being, determined which name he was called by. In a Greek house he played the Greek, and bore the Greek name: in a company of natives, he was the native, and bore the native name. He did not require both to complete his legal designation, as a Roman required both nomen and prænomen. His Greek name, taken alone, was a full legal designation in a Greek court.

This has an obvious bearing on the case of Saul, otherwise “Paul”. In the earlier part of this book he has been a Jew among Jews; and we have seen only his Hebrew name. Nothing has hitherto transpired to show that he was anything but “Hebrew sprung from Hebrews”. In Cyprus he went through the country city by city, synagogue by synagogue: and he was the Jew in all. But here he is in different surroundings: he stands in the hall of the proconsul, and he answers the questions of the Roman official. The interview, doubtless, began, as all interviews between strangers in the country still begin, with the round of questions: What is your name? (or who are you? ) Whence come you? What is your business? The type is seen in the question of the Cyclops to Ulysses (Odyssey IX 252): “Strangers, who are ye? Whence sail ye over the wet ways? On some trading enterprise, or at adventure do ye rove? “

To these questions how would Saul answer? After his years of recent life as a Jew, filled with the thought of a religion that originated among Jews, and was in his conception the perfected form of Jewish religion, did he reply: “My name is Saul, and I am a Jew from Tarsus”? First, let us see what he himself says as to his method of addressing an audience (I Cor. IX 20 f.), “to the Jews I made myself as a Jew that I might gain Jews; to them that are under the law as under the law (though not myself under the law); to them that are without the law as without the law; I am become all things to all men; and I do all for the Gospel’s sake”. We cannot doubt that the man who wrote so to the Corinthians replied to the questions of Sergius Paulus, by designating himself as a Roman, born at Tarsus, and named Paul. By a marvellous stroke of historic brevity, the author sets before us the past and the present in the simple words: “Then Saul, otherwise Paul, fixed his eyes on him and said”

The double character, the mixed personality, the Oriental teacher who turns out to be a freeborn Roman, would have struck and arrested the attention of any governor, any person possessed of insight into character, any one who had even an average share of curiosity. But to a man with the tastes of Sergius Paulus, the Roman Jew must have been doubly interesting; and the orator or the preacher knows how much is gained by arousing such an interest at the outset.

Coming forward in this character and name, Paul was taking a momentous step, the importance of which was fully marked in the narrative. In the first place, he was taking the leading place and guiding the tone of the interview instead of being, as heretofore, the subordinate following Barnabas. Hence in the narrative we find that Barnabas introduced Saul to the Apostles; Barnabas brought Saul to Antioch; Barnabas and Saul carried the Antiochian aims to Jerusalem; Barnabas and Saul brought back John Mark with them from Jerusalem; Barnabas was first and Saul last in the body of prophets and teachers of the Church at Antioch; Barnabas and Saul were selected by the Spirit; and Barnabas and Saul were invited to the proconsul’s presence. But now Paul took this new departure, and Paul and his company sailed away from Paphos to Pamphylia; Paul and Barnabas addressed the Gentiles in Antioch; Paul and Barnabas disputed with the Judaising party on their return to Syrian Antioch; and henceforth the regular order places Paul first. There are only two exceptions to this rule, and these serve to bring out its true character more clearly.

(1) In the Council at Jerusalem, and in the letter of the Apostles and Elders, XV 12, 25, the order is Barnabas and Paul; but there we are among Jews, who follow the order of seniority and Jewish precedence. The only surprising thing here is that they use the name Paul, not the Hebrew Saul. We can only infer from that that the Greek-speaking Jews generally used the name Paul (compare p. 169), and that the historian’s use of the name Saul in the earlier part of this narrative was deliberately chosen to emphasise the contrast between Paul’s earlier and his later manner.

(2) In the episode where the two Apostles were worshipped at Lystra, Barnabas is named first as Zeus the chief god, and Paul next as Hermes the messenger. But the same qualities which mark out Paul to us as the leader, marked him out to the populace of Lycaonia as the agent and subordinate. The Western mind regards the leader as the active and energetic partner; but the Oriental mind considers the leader to be the person who sits still and does nothing, while his subordinates speak and work for him. Hence in the truly Oriental religions the chief god sits apart from the world, communicating with it through his messenger and subordinate. The more statuesque figure of Barnabas was therefore taken by the Orientals as the chief god, and the active orator, Paul, as his messenger, communicating his wishes to men. Incidentally, we may notice both the diametrical antithesis of this conception of the Divine nature to the Christian conception, and also the absolute negation of the Oriental conception in Christ’s words to His Disciples, “whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant” (Matt. XX 26).

How delicate is the art which by simple change in the order of a recurring pair of names, and by the slight touch at the critical. moment, “Saul, otherwise Paul,” suggests and reveals this wide-reaching conception in Luke’s mind of historical development!

In the second place, when Paul thus came forward under his new aspect and personality, he was inaugurating a new policy. He was appealing direct for the first time to the Græco-Roman world as himself a member of that world. This is put plainly in XIV 27 as the great innovation and the great fact of the journey: as soon as Paul and Barnabas returned to Syrian Antioch, they made a report to the assembled Church “of all things that God had done with them, and how He had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles”. The first Stage in the admission of the Gentiles to the Christian Church was taken long before this journey. But the full implication of the Apostolate to the Gentiles was not even by Paul himself realised for many years. The second stage was achieved on this journey, and the historian fixes the psychological moment precisely at the point where the Apostles faced the Magian in the presence of the proconsul of Cyprus. Amid the conflict of the two religions before the Roman governor, Paul stepped forward in his character of citizen of the Empire; and his act was followed by that transport of power, which attested the grace that was given to the bold innovator, and the Divine approval and confirmation of his step. On former occasions the grace that was evident in Antioch confirmed the high character of the Antiochian Brotherhood in the eyes of Barnabas (Acts XI 23, and the grace that was given Paul had justified his apostolate in the eyes of James, Peter and John (Gal. II 9).

Such is the situation in which we stand when we transport ourselves in thought to the time and the country where the events took place, and take the few brief words of Luke in the sense which they bore to the men of his time. But now let us turn from this picture to see what is made of the scene by the critic, who sits in his study and writes as if the men of this book were artificial figures and not real human beings. Weizsäcker, one of the most distinguished of modern German scholars, finds in this delicacy of language nothing but a sign of double authorship. The late author, he says, used two earlier authorities, one of whom employed the name Saul, while the other designated the Apostle as Paul, and by a mere conjecture he puts the change at this point. Weizsäcker emphasises this view that the point was selected by an arbitrary conjecture, and that any other point might have been chosen equally well. It might almost seem that, in a statement like this, the learned professor is taking his fun off us, and is experimenting to see how much the world will accept at the mouth of a deservedly famous scholar without rebelling.

Mr. Lewin states better than almost any other the force of this passage when he says: “The dropping of the Jewish, and the adoption of a Roman name, was in harmony with the great truth he was promulgating—that henceforth the partition between Jew and Gentile was broken down”. He then asks, “Why is not the name of Paul introduced when he first left Antioch to commence his travels?” and after he has in a rather hesitating way suggested some quite unsuitable occasions as possible for the change, he rightly concludes, “It occurs more naturally immediately afterwards when Saul stands forth by himself and becomes the principal actor” The marvels described in Acts concern my present purpose only in so far as they bear upon the historical effect of the narrative. In themselves they do not add to, but detract from its verisimilitude as history. They are difficulties; but my hope is to show first that the narrative apart from them is stamped as authentic, second that they are an integral part of it. To study and explain them does not belong to me. Twenty years ago I found it easy to dispose of them; but now-a-days probably not even the youngest among us finds himself able to maintain that we have mastered the secrets of nature, and determined the limits which divide the unknown from the impossible. That Paul believed himself to be the recipient of direct revelations from God, to be guided and controlled in his plans by direct interposition of the Holy Spirit, to be enabled by the Divine power to move the forces of nature in a way that ordinary men cannot, is involved in this narrative. You must make up your own minds to accept or to reject it, but you cannot cut out the marvellous from the rest, nor can you believe that either Paul or this writer was a mere victim of hallucinations. To the men of that age only what was guaranteed by marvellous accompaniments was true; to us unusual accompaniments tend to disprove truth. The contrast between the ages is himmelweit.

The marvellous is indissolubly interwoven—for good or for bad—with this narrative, and cannot be eliminated. Do the marvellous adjuncts discredit the rest of the narrative, or does the vividness and accuracy of the narrative require us to take the marvels with the rest and try to understand them? Every one must answer the question for himself.

CHAPTER V.

FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCHES OF GALATIADate. On our view this journey began in March 47, and ended about July or August 49.

1. PAMPHYLIA.

(XIII 13) AND PAUL AND HIS COMPANY SET SAIL FROM PAPHOS AND CAME TO PERGA IN the province PAMPHILIA. AND JOHN DEPARTED FROM THEM, AND RETURNED TO JERUSALEM; (14) BUT THEY WENT ACROSS FROM PERGA AND ARRIVED AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH.

The phrase “Perga of Pamphylia” is not intended to distinguish this Perga from others (cp. XXI 39): there was no other city of the same name. Nor is it a mere piece of geographical information: this historian has no desire to teach the reader geography. The sense is “they proceeded to Pamphylia, to the special point Perga”; and the intention is to define their next sphere of work as being Pamphylia. This sense would have naturally been understood by every one, were it not that no missionary work was actually done in Pamphylia, for the next fact mentioned is that John left the party, and the others went on to Pisidian Antioch; and the conclusion has sometimes been drawn hastily that Pamphylia had never been contemplated as a mission-field, and was merely traversed because it lay between Cyprus and Antioch. But the plain force of the words must be accepted here, for it lies in the situation that Pamphylia was the natural continuation of the work that had been going on, first in Syria and Cilicia for many years, and next in Cyprus. They went to Pamphylia to preach there, and, as they did not actually preach there, something must have occurred to make them change their plan. Further, the reason for this change of plan must have been merely a temporary one, for they preached in Pamphylia on their return journey.

We are justified in connecting with this change of plan the one fact recorded about the missionary party in Pamphylia: John left them in circumstances that made a deep and painful impression on Paul, and remained rankling in his mind for years (XV 38). The historian places together in a marked way the departure of John and the onward journey of the others without preaching in Pamphylia. Now, as we have seen, it does not lie in this historian’s manner to state reasons; he rarely says that one event was the cause of another, but merely states the facts side by side, and leaves the reader to gather for himself the causal connection between them.

Other reasons, which need not be repeated here, point to the same conclusion, that a change of plan was the reason why John abandoned the expedition. He conceived that the new “proposal was a departure from the scheme” with which they had been charged, “carrying their work into a region different in character and not contemplated by the Church”.

Further, we observe that the country between Perga and Pisidian Antioch is not mentioned; the journey is not even summed up briefly as the Cyprian journey between Salamis and Paphos was described (XIII 6): it is simply said that “they went across (the intervening mountain lands of Taurus) to Antioch,” as in XVIII 27 Apollos “conceived the intention to go across (the intervening Ægean Sea) to Achaia”. On our hypothesis that the narrative is singularly exact in expression, and that the slightest differences are significant, we gather that the journey to Antioch was a mere traversing of the country without preaching, with the view of reaching Antioch. On the other hand, it is stated that the return journey some years later from Antioch to Perga was a preaching journey, though no marked effects are recorded on it.

Again, it is a rule in this historian’s clear and practical style, that when Paul is entering (or intending, even though unsuccessfully, to enter) a new field of missionary enterprise, the field is defined (as in v. 4); and the definition usually takes the form of a Roman provincial district. This will become apparent as the narrative proceeds, and the inferences that can be drawn from the form of definition or absence of definition in each case will illustrate and give precision to the rule. It is, I believe, a fair inference from the want of any indication of a wider sphere that when the travellers went to Pisidian Antioch, they had not in mind a wider field of work than the city: they went to Pisidian Antioch and not to the province Galatia, in which it was included.

The name is rightly given as Pisidian Antioch in the great MSS.; the form “Antioch of Pisidia” is a corruption. Besides other reasons, Antioch was not considered by Luke to be in Pisidia (p. 124).

The facts, then, which can be gathered from the narrative of Acts are these. Paul and his companions came to Perga with the view of evangelising the next country on their route, a country similar in character to and closely. connected in commerce and racial type with Cyprus and Syria and Cilicia. For some reason the plan was altered, and they passed rapidly over the Pamphylian lowlands and the Pisidian mountain-lands to Antioch, postponing the evangelisation of these districts till a later stage of their journey. They went to Antioch for some reason which concerned only that city, and did not contemplate as their object the evangelisation of the province to which it belonged. John, however, refused to participate in the changed programme, presumably because he disapproved of it. His refusal seems to have been felt as a personal slight by Paul, which suggests that the change of plan was in some way caused by Paul. What then was the reason? Is any clue to it given in any other part of Acts or in the words of Paul himself?

In passing from Perga to Pisidian Antioch, the travellers passed from the Roman province Pamphylia to the Roman province Galatia, and the rest of their journey lay in Galatia until they returned to Perga. Now, we possess a letter written by Paul to the Churches of Galatia, in which he says: “Ye know that it was by reason of physical infirmity that I preached the Gospel unto you on the first of my two visits; and the facts of my bodily constitution which were trying to you were not despised nor rejected by you, but ye received me as a messenger of God”. We learn, then, from Paul himself that an illness (we may confidently say a serious illness) was the occasion of his having originally preached to the churches of Galatia. The words do not necessarily imply that the illness began in Galatia; they are quite consistent with the interpretation that the illness was the reason why he came to be in Galatia and had the opportunity of preaching there; but they imply that the physical infirmity lasted for some considerable time, and was apparent to strangers, while he was in Galatia.

Here we have a reason, stated by Paul himself, which fully explains all the curious phenomena of the text of Acts. Paul had a serious illness in Pamphylia, and on that account he left Perga and went to Antioch. It is unnecessary to repeat the argument that this is in perfect agreement with the known facts. Any constitutional weakness was liable to be brought out by “the sudden plunge into the enervating atmosphere of Pamphylia” after the fatigue and hardship of a journey on foot through Cyprus, accompanied by the constant excitement of missionary work, culminating in the intense nervous strain of the supreme effort at Paphos. The natural and common treatment for such an illness is to go to the higher ground of the interior; and the situation of Antioch (about 3600 ft. above the sea, sheltered by mountains on the north and east, and overlooking a wide plain to the south and south-west), as well as its Jewish population, and commercial connection with the Pamphylian coast-cities, made it a very suitable place for Paul’s purpose.

But why then did the historian not state this simple fact? It lies out of his purpose and method to notice such personal details. He states in the briefest possible form the essential facts of the evangelisation of the world; and everything else he passes over as of ephemeral nature. We are dealing with a first century, and not a nineteenth century historian,—one who had not the eager desire to understand causes and reasons which characterises the present day, one who wrote for a public that was quite satisfied with a statement of facts without a study of causes. There is too much tendency to demand from the first century writers an answer to all the questions we should like to put.

Moreover, Luke passes very lightly over the sufferings and the dangers that Paul encountered; many he omits entirely, others he mentions without emphasising the serious nature of the case (p. 279 f.).

It is plain that Paul at the moment felt deeply wounded. The journey which he felt to be absolutely necessary in the interests of future work was treated by Mark as an abandonment of the work; and his sensitive nature would consider Mark’s arguments, plausible as they were in some respects, as equivalent to a declaration of want of confidence. But that feeling, though it lasted for some years, was not of the permanent nature which would put it on the same plane as the facts recorded by Luke. Who can think that Paul would have desired permanent record of his illness and Mark’s desertion? And his desire on a matter personal to himself would be Luke’s law.

2.THE “THORN IN THE FLESH”.

The character of the Pamphylian country, not merely in its modern half-cultivated condition, but at all times, must have been enervating and calculated to bring out any latent weakness of constitution. Now it is a probable and generally accepted view that the “physical weakness,” which was the occasion why Paul preached to the Galatians, was the same malady which tormented him at frequent intervals. I have suggested that this malady was a species of chronic malaria fever; and, in view of criticisms, it is necessary to dwell on this point; for I have incurred the blame of exaggerating an ephemeral attack. The question is put whether such an illness “could reasonably have called forth their contempt and loathing.Expositor, Dec., 1893, p. 4417.

A physical weakness, which recurs regularly in some situation that one is regularly required by duty to face, produces strong and peculiar effect on our human nature. An attentive student of mankind has caught this trait and described it clearly in one of the characters whom his genius has created. I quote from Charles Reade’s description of a clergyman engaged in warfare against the barbarity of prison discipline, upon whom every scene of cruelty which he had often to witness produced a distressing physical effect, sickness and trembling. “His high-tuned nature gave way. He locked the door that no one might see his weakness; and, then, succumbing to nature, he fell first into a sickness and then into a trembling, and more than once hysterical tears gushed from his eyes in the temporary prostration of his spirit and his powers. Such are the great. Men know their feats, but not their struggles. The feeling of shame at this weakness is several times described in the course of the narrative (It is Never too Late to Mend); and, when at last nature, on the verge of a more serious physical prostration, ceased to relieve itself in this painful way, “he thanked Heaven for curing him of that contemptible infirmity, so he called it”. Yet that weakness did not prevent the sufferer from facing his duty, but only came on as a consequence; and it could be hidden within the privacy of his chamber. Let the reader conceive the distress and shame of the sufferer, if the weakness had prostrated him before his duty was finished, and laid him helpless before them all when he required his whole strength. Surely he would have “besought the Lord that it might depart from” him, and regarded it as “a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him” (II Cor. XII 7, 8).

Now, in some constitutions malaria fever tends to recur in very distressing and prostrating paroxysms, whenever one’s energies are taxed for a great effort. Such an attack is for the time absolutely incapacitating: the sufferer can only lie and feel himself a shaking and helpless weakling, when he ought to be at work. He feels a contempt and loathing for self, and believes that others feel equal contempt and loathing.

Charles Reade’s hero could at least retire to his room, and lock the door, and conceal his weakness from others; but, in the publicity of Oriental life, Paul could have no privacy. In every paroxysm, and they might recur daily, he would lie exposed to the pity or the contempt of strangers. If he were first seen in a Galatian village, or house, lying in the mud on the shady side of a wall for two hours shaking like an aspen leaf, the gratitude that he expresses to the Galatians, because they “did not despise nor reject his infirmity,” was natural and deserved.

Fresh light is thrown on this subject by an observation of Mr. Hogarth, my companion in many journeys. In publishing a series of inscriptions recording examples of punishment inflicted by the God on those who had approached the sanctuary in impurity, he suggests that malarial fever was often the penalty sent by the God. The paroxysms, recurring suddenly with overpowering strength, and then passing off, seemed to be due to the direct visitation of God. This gives a striking effect to Paul’s words in Gal. IV 14, “you did not despise nor reject my physical infirmity, but received me as an angel of God”: though the Galatians might have turned him away from their door as a person accursed and afflicted by God, they received him as God’s messenger. The obvious implication of this passage has led many to the view that Paul’s malady was epilepsy, which was also attributed to the direct visitation of God.

A strong corroboration is found in the phrase: “a stake in the flesh,” which Paul uses about his malady (II Cor. XII 7)—That is the peculiar headache which accompanies the paroxysms: within my experience several persons, innocent of Pauline theorising, have described it as “like a red-hot bar thrust through the forehead”. As soon as fever connected itself with Paul in my mind, the “stake in the flesh” impressed me as a strikingly illustrative metaphor; and the oldest tradition on the subject, quoted by Tertullian and others, explains the” stake in the flesh “as headache.

The malady was a “messenger of Satan”. Satan seems to represent in Pauline language any overpowering obstacle to his work, an obstacle which it was impossible to struggle against: so Satan prevented him from returning to Thessalonica, in the form of an ingenious obstacle, which made his return impossible for the time (p. 230). The words “messenger sent to buffet me,” imply that it came frequently and unexpectedly, striking him down with the power of the Enemy.

The idea that the malady was an affection of the eyes, resulting from blinding at his conversion, seems inadequate in itself, unsuitable to his own words, and contradicted by the evidence as to the power of his eyes (p. 38).

Paul describes the malady as sent to prevent him from “being exalted overmuch by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations” which had been granted to him; and he clearly implies that it came later than the great revelation, when “he was caught up even to the third heaven” about 43 A.D. (p. 60). The malady certainly did not begin long before this journey; and the attack in Pamphylia may perhaps have been the first

3. THE SYNAGOGUE IN PISIDIAN ANTIOCH.

(XIII 13) JOHN DEPARTED FROM THEM AND RETURNED TO JERUSALEM; (14) BUT THEY WENT ACROSS FROM PERGA AND ARRIVED AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH. AND THEY WENT INTO THE SYNAGOGUE ON THE SABBATH DAY, AND SAT DOWN; (15) AND AFTER THE READING OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS, THE ARCHISYNAGOGOI SENT TO THEM SAYING, “GENTLEMEN, BRETHREN, IF THERE IS IN YOU A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE PEOPLE, SAY ON”. (16) AND PAUL STOOD UP AND MADE A GESTURE WITH HIS HAND AND SPOKE . . . (42) AND AS THEY WENT OUT, THEY BESOUGHT THAT THESE WORDS MIGHT BE SPOKEN TO THEM THE NEXT SABBATH. (43) NOW, WHEN THE SYNAGOGUE BROKE UP, MANY OF THE JEWS AND OF THE GOD-FEARING PROSELYTES FOLLOWED PAUL AND BARNABAS: WHO, SPEAKING TO THEM, URGED THEM TO CONTINUE IN THE GRACE OF GOD. (44) AND THE NEXT SABBATH ALMOST THE WHOLE CITY WAS GATHERED TOGETHER TO HEAR THE WORD OF GOD. (45) BUT WHEN THE JEWS SAW THE MULTITUDES, THEY WERE FILLED WITH JEALOUSY, AND CONTRADICTED THE THINGS WHICH WERE SPOKEN BY PAUL, AND BLASPHEMED. (46) AND PAUL AND BARNABAS SPAKE OUT BOLDLY AND SAID, “IT WAS NECESSARY THAT THE WORD OF GOD SHOULD FIRST BE SPOKEN TO YOU. SEEING YE THRUST IT FROM YOU, AND JUDGE YOURSELVES UNWORTHY OF ETERNAL LIFE, LO, WE TURN TO THE GENTILES.” . . . (48) AND AS THE GENTILES HEARD THIS, THEY WERE GLAD AND GLORIFIED THE WORD OF GOD: AND AS MANY AS WERE ORDAINED TO ETERNAL LIFE BELIEVED. (49) AND THE WORD OF THE LORD WAS SPREAD ABROAD THROUGHOUT ALL THE REGION. (50) BUT THE JEWS URGED ON THE DEVOUT WOMEN OF HONOURABLE ESTATE, AND THE CHIEF MEN OF THE CITY, AND STIRRED UP A PERSECUTION AGAINST PAUL AND BARNABAS, AND CAST THEM OUT OF THEIR BORDERS. (51) BUT THEY SHOOK OFF THE DUST OF THEIR FEET AGAINST THEM, AND CAME UNTO ICONIUM. (52) AND THE DISCIPLES WERE FILLED WITH JOY AND WITH THE HOLY GHOST.

The route between Perga and Pisidian Antioch, with its perils of rivers, perils of robbers, and the later legend connected with the journey across the Pisidian mountains by the city which still bears the Apostle’s name, is described elsewhere, and need not here detain us.

The usual punctuation of vv. 13, 14, seems to arise from the idea that Paul’s sermon was delivered on the first Sabbath after he reached Antioch. So, Conybeare and Howson say, “a congregation came together at Antioch on the Sabbath which immediately succeeded the arrival of Paul and Barnabas”. It seems, however, not possible that such powerful effect as is described in v. 44 should have been produced on the whole city within the first ten days after they arrived in Antioch. Moreover, when Paul’s teaching had become more definite and pronounced, he preached three successive Sabbaths to the Jews at Thessalonica (p. 228), and it seems implied that the rupture took place there unusually soon; hence, at this time, when he had been preaching for years in the Jewish synagogues of Cilicia, Syria and Cyprus, it is improbable that the quarrel with the Jews of Antioch took place on the second Sabbath.

But, when the passage is properly punctuated, there remains nothing to show that Paul’s speech was delivered on his first Sabbath in Antioch. Nothing is said as to the first days of the Apostles’ stay in the city. We are to understand, according to the rule already observed (p. 72 f.), that the usual method was pursued, and that some time passed before any critical event took place. As at Paphos, the fame of the new teachers gradually spread through the city. The historian gives an address to the synagogue with an outline of the teaching which produced this result; the address delivered on a critical Sabbath, after feeling had already been moved for some time, may well have remained in the memory or in the manuscript diary of some of the interested hearers, and thus been preserved. We make it part of our hypothesis that Luke took his task as a historian seriously, and obtained original records where he could.

Paul’s address to the assembled Jews and proselytes was doubtless suggested by the passages, one from the Law, one from the Prophets, which were read before he was called to speak. It has been conjectured that these passages were Deut. I and Isaiah I, which in the Septuagint Version contain two marked words employed by Paul: the Scriptures were probably read in Greek in this synagogue of Grecised Jews (see pp. 84, 169). Deut. I naturally suggests the historical retrospect with which Paul begins; and the promise of remission of sins rises naturally out of Isaiah I 18. Dean Farrar mentions that “in the present list of Jewish lessons, Deut. I-III 22 and Isaiah I 1-22 stand forty-fourth in order”. That list is of decidedly later origin; but probably it was often determined by older custom and traditional ideas of suitable accompaniment.

The climax of the address passed from the historical survey (with its assurance of unfailing Divine guidance for the Chosen People) to the sending of Jesus, who had been slain by the rulers of Jerusalem (“because they knew Him not, nor the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath,” v. 27), but whom God had raised from the dead. Then follow the promise and the peroration:—

(XIII 38) BE IT KNOWN UNTO YOU THEREFORE, BRETHREN, THAT THROUGH THIS MAN IS PROCLAIMED UNTO YOU REMISSION OF SINS; (39) AND BY HIM EVERY ONE THAT BELIEVETH IS JUSTIFIED FROM ALL THINGS, FROM WHICH YE COULD NOT BE JUSTIFIED BY THE LAW OF MOSES. (40) BEWARE, THEREFORE, LEST THAT COME UPON YOU, WHICH IS SPOKEN IN THE PROPHETS; “BEHOLD, YE DESPISERS, AND WONDER, AND PERISH; FOR I WORK A WONDER IN YOUR DAYS”.

This outspoken declaration that the Judaic system was superseded by a higher message from God is not said to have hurt the feelings of the Jews who were present. Paul was invited to continue his discourse on the following Sabbath; many of the audience, both Jews and proselytes, followed the Apostles from the synagogue; and both Paul and Barnabas addressed them further, and emphasised the effect of the previous address.

There must have been something in the situation or in the supplementary explanations given by Paul and Barnabas, which made his words specially applicable to the Gentiles; and a vast crowd of the citizens gathered to hear Paul on the following week. Paul’s address on this occasion is not given. It was in all probability addressed pointedly to the Antiochians, for violent opposition and contradiction and jealousy were roused among the Jews. We may fairly infer that the open door of belief for the whole world irrespective of race was made a prominent topic; for the passion which animated the Jewish opposition is said to have been jealousy. The climax of a violent scene was the bold declaration of Paul and Barnabas that they “turned to the Gentiles, since the Jews rejected the Gospel”.

In this scene the same fact that was observed at Paphos came out prominently. The eager interest and the invitation of the general population stimulated Paul; and his ideas developed rapidly. The first thoroughly Gentile congregation separate from the synagogue was established at Pisidian Antioch. Where he saw no promise of success, he never persisted; but where “a door was opened unto him,” he used the opportunity (I Cor. XVI 9, II Cor. II 12). The influence attributed to the women at Antioch, v. 50, is in perfect accord with the manners of the country. In Athens or in an Ionian city, it would have been impossible (p. 252).

4. THE CHURCH AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH.

The deep impression that had already been produced on the general population of Antioch was intensified when the preaching of Paul and Barnabas began to be addressed to them directly and exclusively. The effect was now extended to the whole Region. This term does not indicate the lands immediately around the fortifications of Antioch, and belonging to that city. The free population of those lands were citizens of Antioch; and the term “city,” according to the ancient idea, included the entire lands that belonged to it, and not the mere space covered by continuous houses and a fortified wail. “A city was not walls, but men;” and the saying had a wider and more practical meaning to the ancients than is generally taken from it in modern times. The phrase that is here used, “the whole Region,” indicates some distinct and recognised circle of territories.

Here we have a fact of administration and government assumed in quiet undesigned fashion: Antioch was the centre of a Region. This is the kind of allusion which affords to students of ancient literature a test of accuracy, and often a presumption of date. I think that, if we put this assumption to the test, we shall find (1) that it is right, (2) that it adds a new fact, probable in itself but not elsewhere formally stated, about the Roman administration of Galatia, (3) that it explains and throws new light on several passages in ancient authors and inscriptions. Without discussing the subject too elaborately, we may point out the essentials.

My friend Prof. Sterrett, of Amherst, Massachusetts, has discovered and published an inscription of Antioch, which speaks of a “regionary centurion” (ἑκατοντάρχην ῥεγεωνάριον), evidently a military official charged with certain duties (probably in the maintenance of peace and order) within a certain Regio of which Antioch was the centre.Partly to guard against a possible objection, partly to show how much may depend on accuracy in a single letter, it may be added that Prof. Sterrett in publishing this inscription makes a conjectural alteration, which would deprive us of the help that the inscription gives. He prints εγεωνάριον but this is an arbitrary change in violation of his own copy.

Thus we have epigraphic authority to prove that Antioch under the Roman administration was the centre of a Region. Further, we can determine the extent and the name of that Region, remembering always that in a province like Galatia, where evidence is lamentably scanty, we must often be content with reasonable probability, and rarely find such an inscription as Prof. Sterrett’s to put us on a plane of demonstrated certainty.

It is natural in the administration of so large a province as Galatia, and there are some recorded proofs, that a certain number of distinct Regiones (or χωραι) existed in Southern Galatia. To quote the exact names recorded, we have Phrygia or Φρυγία χώρα, Isauria or Ἰσαυρικὴ (χώρα), Pisidia, Lycaonia or Γαλατικὴ χώρα (with τῆς Λυκανοίας understood, denoting the Roman part of Lycaonia in contrast with Lycaonia Antiochiana or Ἀγτιοχαανὴ χώρα the part of Lycaonia ruled by King Antiochus). There can be no doubt that Pisidian Antioch (strictly “a Phrygian city towards Pisidia”) was the centre of the Region called Phrygia in inscriptions enumerating the parts of the province, and “the Phrygian Region of (the province) Galatia” in Acts XVI 6, or “the Phrygian Region” XVIII 23. This central importance of Antioch was due to its position as a Roman Colony, which made it the military and administrative centre of the country.

Thus, without any formal statement, and without any technical term, but in the course of a bare, simple and brief account of the effects of Paul’s preaching, we find ourselves unexpectedly (just as Paul and Barnabas found themselves unintentionally) amid a Roman provincial district, which is moved from the centre to the extremities by the new preaching. It is remarkable how the expression of Luke embodies the very soul of history (p. 200).

A certain lapse of time, then, is implied in the brief words of v. 49. The process whereby the whole region was influenced by the Word must have been a gradual one. The similar expression used in XIX 10 may serve as a standard of comparison: there, during a period of two years in Ephesus, “all they which dwelt in Asia heard the Word”. The sphere of influence is immensely wider in that case; but the process is the same. Persons from the other cities came to Antioch as administrative centre, the great garrison city, which was often visited by the Roman governor and was the residence of some subordinate officials: they came for law-suits, for trade, for great festivals of the Roman unity (such as that described in the Acta of Paul and Thekla).Church in R. E., p. 396; Cities and Bishoprics, p. 56. In Antioch they heard of the new doctrine; some came under its influence; the knowledge of it was thus borne abroad over the whole territory; probably small knots of Christians were formed in other towns.

How long a period of time is covered by v. 49 we cannot tell with certainty; but it must be plain to every one that the estimate of the whole residence at Antioch as two to six months, is, as is elsewhere said, a minimum. It may be observed that in the Antiochian narrative a period of some weeks is passed over in total silence, then thirty-three verses are devoted to the epoch-making events of two successive Sabbaths, and then another considerable period is summed up in v. 49.

The action by which Paul and Barnabas were expelled from Antioch has been fully described elsewhere. The expulsion was inflicted by the magistrates of the city, and was justified to their minds in the interests of peace and order. It was not inflicted by officials of the province, and hence the effect is expressly restricted by the historian to Antiochian territory. Slight as the details are, they suit the circumstances of the time perfectly.A slight addition made in Codex Bezæ at this point presents some features of interest. In the Approved Text the Jews “roused persecution” against the Apostles; but in the Codex they roused “great affliction and persecution” The additional words are not characterised by that delicate precision in the choice of terms which belongs to Luke. “Affliction” (θλίψις)refers more to the recipient, “persecution” (διωγμός) to the agent; hence the “to rouse persecution” is a well-chosen phrase, but “to rouse affliction “is not. The words of Codex Bezæ have been added under the influence of the enumeration of his sufferings given by Paul in II Cor. XI 23 (cp. II Tim. III 11). The disproportion between that list and the references to physical sufferings in Acts led to a series of additions, designed to bring about a harmony between the two authorities.

In the additions of this kind made to Codex Bezæ we have the beginnings of a Pauline myth. There is nothing in which popular fancy among the early Christians showed itself so creative as the tortures of its heroes. The earliest Acta of martyrs contain only a moderate amount of torture, such in kind as was inseparable from Roman courts of justice; as time passed, these tortures seemed insufficient, and the old Acta were touched up to suit what the age believed must have taken place. Where we possess accounts of a martyrdom of different dates, the older are less filled with sufferings than the later. A similar process of accretion to Acts was actually beginning, but was checked by the veneration that began to regard its text as sacred.

Luke passes very lightly over Paul’s sufferings: from II Tim. III 11, we see that he must have endured much. He was three times beaten with the rods of lictors before A.D. 56 (II Cor. XI 25). Now, since the Roman governors whom he met were favourable to him, these beatings must have taken place in “colonies,” whose magistrates were attended by lictors. It is probable that the persecution which is mentioned in Antioch, and hinted. at in Lystra, included beating by lictors. It is noteworthy that the magistrates of these two cities are not expressly mentioned, and therefore there was no opportunity for describing their action. The third beating by lictors was in Philippi, also a colony. Similarly it can hardly be doubted that some of the five occasions on which Paul received stripes from the Jews were in the Galatian cities, where some Jews were so active against him.

5. ICONIUM.

(XIV 1) AND IT CAME TO PASS IN ICONIUM AFTER THE SAME FASHION as in Antioch THAT THEY ENTERED INTO THE SYNAGOGUE OF THE JEWS AND SO SPAKE THAT A GREAT MULTITUDE, BOTH OF JEWS AND OF GREEKS, BELIEVED. (2) BUT THE DISAFFECTED AMONG THE JEWS STIRRED UP AND EXASPERATED THE MINDS OF THE GENTILES AGAINST THE BRETHREN. (4) AND THE POPULACE WAS DIVIDED; AND PART HELD WITH THE JEWS AND PART WITH THE APOSTLES. (5) AND WHEN THERE WAS MADE AN ONSET BOTH OF THE GENTILES AND OF THE JEWS WITH THEIR RULERS, TO ENTREAT THEM SHAMEFULLY, AND TO STONE THEM, (6) THEY BECAME AWARE OF IT, AND FLED INTO LYCAONIA.

According to the reading of the MSS., the narrative of these incidents is obscure; and it is hard to believe that the text is correct. In v. 1 the great success of the preaching is related, while in v. 2 the disaffected Jews rouse bitter feeling against the Apostles (the aorists implying that the efforts were successful). Then in v. 3 we are astonished to read, as the sequel of the Jewish action, that the Apostles remained a long time preaching boldly and with marked success: and finally, in v. 4, the consequences of the Jewish action are set forth. It is therefore not surprising that the critics who look on Acts as a patchwork have cut up this passage. It must be conceded that appearances in this case are in their favour, and that the correctness and originality of the narrative can hardly be defended without the supposition that some corruption has crept into it; but the great diversity of text in the various MSS. and Versions is, on ordinary critical principles, a sign that some corruption did take place at a very early date.

The close relation of vv. 2 and 4 is patent; and Spitta’s hypothesis of a primitive document containing vv. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, gives a clear and excellent narrative. Only, in place of his improbable theory that v. 3 is a scrap from an independent and complete narrative, I should regard it as an early gloss, similar to the many which have crept into the Bezan Text. The emphasis laid on the marvel at Lystra, which perhaps implies that it was the first sign of special Divine favour in the Galatian work (p. 115), may corroborate this view to some extent. Marvels and tortures are the two elements which, as time goes on, are added to the story of every saint and martyr; the Bezan Text of this passage shows a further addition of the same type (p. 113), and is distinguished by numerous additions telling of the Divine intervention in Paul’s work. All such additions, probably, grew in the popular belief, and then became attached as true facts to the original text.

The Bezan Text of 2, 3, is a good example of its character as a modernised and explanatory edition of an already archaic and obscure text. The discrepancy between v. 2 and v. 3 called for some remedy, which was found in the supposition that there were two tumults in Iconium: on this supposition v. 2 was interpreted of the first tumult, and a conclusion, “and the Lord soon gave peace,” was tacked on to it. The narrative then proceeds, after the renewed preaching of v. 3, to the second tumult of vv. 4, 5 (p. 113). The double tumult lent itself well to the growing Pauline myth, which sought to find occasion for the sufferings and persecutions of II Cor. XI.

But, if there were two stages in the Iconian narrative in its original uncorrupted form, we might reasonably argue from the words “in the same way (as at Antioch),” that the two stages were (1) successful preaching in the synagogue, brought to a conclusion by the jealousy and machinations of the Jews; (2) Paul and Barnabas turned to the Gentile population exclusively and were remarkably successful among them. But conjectural alteration of the text would be required to elicit that meaning; and we cannot spend more time here on this passage.

It is to be noted that no effect on the Region around Iconiurm is mentioned. According to our hypothesis we must recognise the difference from the narrative at Antioch, where the wide-spread effect is emphasised so strongly. The difference is natural, and the reason is clear, when we consider the difference between the two cities: Antioch was the governing centre of a wide Region which looked to it for administration, whereas Iconium was a comparatively insignificant town in the Region round Antioch.

Again, when Paul and Barnabas went from Antioch to Iconium, they were not going to a new district, but to an outlying city of the same district; hence there is no definition of their proposed sphere of duty. They were expelled from Antioch, and they came to Iconium. The case was very different when they found it expedient to leave Iconium. They then had to cross the frontier to a new Region of the same province, which began a few miles south and east from Iconium. The passage to a new Region and a new sphere of work is clearly marked in the text.

6. THE CITIES OF LYCAONIA.

(XIV 6) Paul and Barnabas FLED UNTO THE CITIES OF LYCAONIA, LYSTRA AND DERBE, AND THE SURROUNDING REGION; (7) AND THERE THEY WERE ENGAGED IN PREACHING THE GOSPEL.

The expression used in XIV 6 is remarkable (p. 90): “they fled into Lycaonia, especially to the part of it which is summed up as the cities, Lystra and Derbe, and the surrounding Region”. To understand this we must bear in mind that the growth of cities in Central and Eastern Asia Minor was connected with the spread of Greek civilisation; and in the primitive pre-Greek condition of the country there were no cities organised according to the Greek system, and hardly any large settlements, except the governing centres, which were, however, Oriental towns, not Greek cities. Now, in v. 6 a Region comprising part of Lycaonia is distinguished from the rest as consisting of two cities and a stretch of cityless territory (i.e., territory organised on the native pre-Greek village system).

Here, as in XIII 14, we have one of those definite statements, involving both historical and geographical facts, which the student of ancient literature pounces upon as evidence to test accuracy and date. Is the description accurate? If so, was it accurate at all periods of history, or was it accurate only at a particular period? To these questions we must answer that it was accurate at the period when Paul visited Lycaonia; that it was accurate at no other time except between 37 and 72 A.D.; and that its only meaning is to distinguish between the Roman part of Lycaonia and the non-Roman part ruled by Antiochus. It is instructive as to Luke’s conception of Paul’s method, and about Luke’s own ideas on the development of the Christian Church, that he should here so pointedly define the Roman part of Lycaonia as the region to which Paul went and where he continued preaching.

In modern expression we might call this district Roman Lycaonia; but that would not be true to ancient usage. Territory subject to Rome was not termed ager Romanus (p. 347), but was designated after the province to which it was attached; and this district was Galatica Lycaona, because it was in the province Galatia. It was distinguished from “Lycaonia Antiochiana,” which was ruled by King Antiochus.

Such was official usage; but we know the capriciousness of popular nomenclature, which often prefers some other name to the official designation. The inhabitants of the Roman part spoke of the other as “the Antiochian Region” (Ἀντιοχιζὴ χώρα, and the people of the latter spoke of the Roman part as the Galatic Region (Γαλατικὴ χώρα) It was unnecessary for persons who were living in the country to be more precise. Now this Region of Roman or Galatic Lycaonia is three times mentioned in Acts. (1) In XIV 7 it is defined by enumerating its parts; and as Paul goes to it out of Phyrgia, it is necessary to express that he went into Lycaonia: the advice which the Iconians gave him would be to go into Lycaonia. (2) In XVI 1-3 the writer does not sum up the district as a whole, for his narrative requires a distinction between the brief visit to Derbe and the long visit to Lystra. (3) In XVIII 23, as he enters the Roman Region from the “Antiochian Part,” the writer uses the name which Paul would use as he was entering it, and calls it “the Galatic Region”. This is characteristic of Acts: it moves amid the people, and the author has caught his term in many a case from the mouth of the people. But this is done with no subservience to vulgar usage; the writer is on a higher level of thought, and he knows how to select those popular terms which are vital and powerful, and to reject those which are vulgar and inaccurate: he moves among the people, and yet stands apart from them.

The subsequent narrative makes it clear that Paul visited only Lystra and Derbe. Why, then, should the author mention that Paul proceeded “to Lystra and Derbe and the Region in which they lie”? The reason lies in his habit of defining each new sphere of work according to the existing political divisions of the Roman Empire. It is characteristic of Luke’s method never formally to enunciate Paul’s principle of procedure, but simply to state the facts and leave the principle to shine through them; and here it shines clearly through them, for he made the limit of Roman territory the limit of his work, and turned back when he came to Lystra. He did not go on to Laranda, which was probably a greater city than Derbe at the time, owing to its situation and the policy followed by King Antiochus. Nor did he go to the uncivilised, uneducated native villages or towns of Roman Galatia, such as Barata.

Accordingly, the historian in the few words (XIV 6, 7) assumes and embodies the principle which can be recognised as guiding Paul’s action, viz., to go to the Roman world, and especially to its great cities. There is no more emphatic proof of the marvellous delicacy in expression that characterises the selection of words in Acts,—a delicacy that can spring only from perfect knowledge of the characters and actions described.

But the passage, not unnaturally, caused great difficulties to readers of the second century, when the bounds of Galatia had changed, and the remarkable definition of XIV 6 had become unintelligible. It was then gathered from these words that some preaching took place in “the region round about,” and the explanation was found in the later historical fact (which we may assume unhesitatingly as true), that converts of Paul carried the new religion over the whole region. This fact, got from independent knowledge, was added to the text, and thus arose the “Western” Text, which appears with slight variations in different authorities. In Codex Bezæ the result is as follows (alterations being in italics):—

“(4) AND THE POPULACE remained divided, SOME TAKING PART WITH THE JEWS, AND SOME WITH THE APOSTLES, cleaving to them through the ward of God. (5) And again the Jews, along with the Gentiles, roused perucution for the second time, and having stoned them they cast them out of the city; (6) and fleeing tiny came into Lycaonia, to a certain city called LYSTRA, AND DERBE, AND THE whole SURROUNDING REGION; (7) AND THEY WERE THERE ENGAGED IN PREACHING, and the entire population was moved at the teaching; but Paul and Barnabas continued in Lystra.”

In this text the Pauline myth has been considerably developed. The disciples cling to the Apostles, are persecuted with them, accompany their flight, and preach in the surrounding Region, while Paul and Barnabas spent their time at Lystra. But the enlarged text moves in the atmosphere of the second century. It gives us an idea of the difficulties besetting the study of Acts even then, owing to the changes that had occurred in the surroundings of the events narrated; and it shows that these difficulties were not ignored and the text accepted as inspired and above comprehension, but facts of history were applied to explain the difficulties.

7. LYSTRA.

The variation in the declension of the word Lystra (Accusative Λύστραν XIV 6, XVI 1, dative Λύστροις XIV 8, XVI 2.) is sometimes taken as a sign that the author employed two different written authorities (in one of which the word was declined as feminine singular and in the other as neuter plural), and followed them implicitly, using in each case the form employed in the authority whom he was following at the moment. This suggestion has convinced neither Spitta nor Clemen, who both assign XVI 1-3 to one author. Only the most insensate and incapable of compilers would unawares use the double declension twice in consecutive sentences. The author, whoever he was and whenever he lived, certainly considered that the proper declension of the name was Λύστροις, Λύστραν; and the only question is this: was that variation customary in the Lystran Greek usage? If it was customary, then its employment in Acts is a marked proof of first-hand local knowledge, and if it was not customary, the opposite. We have unfortunately no authorities for the Lystran usage: the city name occurs in the inscriptions only in the nominative case, Lustra. It is certain that many names in Asia Minor, such as Myra, etc., occur both in feminine singular and in neuter plural; but there is no evidence as to any local usage appropriating certain cases to each form. Excavations on the site may yield the needed evidence to test the accuracy of this detail.

One indirect piece of evidence may be added. Myra is an analogous name. Now the local form of accus. was Μύραν for the Turkish Dembre comes from τὴν Μβρα(ν) i.e. (εἰς) τὴν Μύραν. [It is most probable that in XXVII 5 Μύραν (or Μύρραν) should be read, not Μύρα.] I know no evidence as to the local form of the dative; but the genitive appears as Μύρων in the signatures of bishops.

Incidentally we notice that the name of the city is spelt Lustra, not Lystra (like Prymnessos), on coins and inscriptions. That is an indication of Latin tone, and of the desire to make the city name a Latin word. People who called their city Lustra would have distinguished themselves pointedly from the Lycaonians, the subjects of King Antiochus and mentioned in that way on his coins.

In v. 8 we observe the marked emphasis laid on the real physical incapacity of the lame man. Though Luke, as a rule, carries brevity even to the verge of obscurity, here he reiterates in three successive phrases, with growing emphasis, that the man was really lame. The three phrases are like beats of a hammer: there is no fine literary style in this device, but there is real force, which arrests and compels the readers attention. Luke uses the triple beat in other places for the same purpose, e.g. XIII 6, ”Magian, false prophet, Jew,” and XVI 6, 7 (according to the true text, p. 196).

The author therefore attached the utmost importance to this point. The man was no mendicant pretender, but one whose history from infancy was well known. The case could not be explained away: it was an incontestable proof of the direct Divine power working through Paul and guaranteeing his message to the Galatic province as of Divine origin. The sign has extreme importance in the author’s eyes as a proof that Paul carried the Divine approval in his new departure in Galatia, and we can better understand its importance he had to record in his eyes if it were the first which on distinct evidence (p. 108); but he attributes to it no influence in turning the people to Christianity. The result was only to persuade the populace that the deifies whom they worshipped had vouchsafed to visit their people; and at Malta the same result followed from the wonders which Paul wrought. The marvels recorded in Acts are not, as a rule, said to have been efficacious in spreading the new religion; the marvel at Philippi caused suffering and imprisonment; to the raising of Eutychus no effect is ascribed. The importance of these events lies rather in their effect on the mind of the Apostles themselves, who accepted them as an encouragement and a confirmation of their work. But the teaching spread by convincing the minds of the hearers (XIII 12).

The Bezan Text adds several details which have the appearance of truth. The most important is that the lame man was “in the fear of God,” i.e., he was a pagan of Lystra who had been attracted to Judaism before he came under Paul’s influence: after some time Paul recognised him as a careful hearer (ἤκουεν, corrupted ἤκουσεν in the Bezan Text) and a person inclined towards the truth. Several other authorities give the same statement at different points and in varying words; and it therefore has the appearance of a gloss that has crept into the text in varying forms. It has however all the appearance of a true tradition preserved in the Church; for the idea that he was a proselyte is not likely to have grown up falsely in a Gentile congregation, nor is it likely to have lasted long in such a congregation, even though true. It is therefore a very early gloss.

8. THE APOSTLES AS GODS.

(11) AND THE MULTITUDE, SEEING WHAT PAUL DID, LIFTED UP THEIR LIFTED IP THEIR VOICE IN THE LYCAONIAN TONGUE, SAYING, “THE GODS HAVE TAKEN THE FORM OF MEN AND HAVE COME DOWN TO US”; (12) AND THEY CALLED BARNABAS ZEUS, AND PAUL HERMES.In v. 12 the Accepted Text contains a gloss, which is rightly omitted in one old Latin Version (Fl.).

(16) WHO IN THE BYGONE GENERATIONS LEFT ALL NATIONS TO GO IN THEIR OWN WAYS. (17) AND YET HE LEFT NOT HIMSELF WITHOUT WITNESS, IN THAT HE DID GOOD, GIVING YOU FROM HEAVEN RAINS AND FRUITFUL SEASONS, FILLING YOUR HEARTS WITH FOOD AND GLADNESS.” (18) AND, SAYING THIS, THEY SCARCE RESTRAINED THE MULTITUDES FROM DOING SACRIFICE UNTO THEM.

Paul is here the Messenger of the Supreme God (p. 84): he says in Gal. IV 14, “ye received me as a Messenger of God”. The coincidence, as Prof. Rendel Harris points out, is interesting.

The Bezan Text has in several details the advantage of local accuracy—the plural “priests,” the title “Zeus before the city,” the phrase “the God,” the “extra sacrifice”. Dr. Blass rejects the Bezan reading “priests” on the ground that there was only one priest of a single god; but there was regularly a college of priests at each of the great temples of Asia Minor. The “God before the city” had in almost every case been seated in his temple when there was no city; and he remained in his own sacred place after civilisation progressed and a Greek or Roman city was rounded in the neighbourhood. According to the Bezan Text the proposed sacrifice was an extra beyond the ordinary ritual which the priests performed to the God. This sense of ἐπιθύενι does not occur elsewhere, but seems to lie fairly within the meaning of the compound. Dr. Blass, who is usually so enthusiastic a supporter of the Western Text, rejects these three variations; but they add so much to the vividness of the scene, that one cannot, with him, regard them as mere corruptions.

In Asia Minor the great God was regularly termed by his worshippers “the God”; and Paul, who introduces the Christian God to his Athenian audience as “the Unknown God,” whom they have been worshipping, might be expected to use the familiar term “the God” to the Lystran crowd. Here, probability favours the originality of the Bezan Text.

There remain some serious difficulties in this episode: Dr. Blass rejects the idea of some commentators that the sacrifice was prepared at the gates of the temple; and explains that the priests came from the temple before the city to the gates of the city. But in that case Lukan usage would lead us to expect πύλη. (cp. IX 24, XVI 13), rather than πυλών (cp. X 17, XII 13, 14). Another difficulty occurs in v. 14. Dr. Blass’s explanation is that the Apostles had gone home after healing the lame man, and there heard what was going on and hurried forth from their house. This explanation is not convincing.

Probably a better knowledge of the localities might make the narrative clearer: it has been for years a dream of mine to make some excavations at Lystra, in the hope of illustrating this interesting episode. One suggestion, however, may be made. The college of priests probably prepared their sacrifice at the outer gateway of the temple-grounds, because, being no part of the ordinary ritual, it could not be performed on one of the usual places, and because they wished the multitudes to take part; whereas sacrifice at the city-gates seems improbable for many reasons. Then as the day advanced, the Apostles, who were continuing their missionary work, heard that the priests and people were getting ready to celebrate the Epiphany of the Gods; and they hurried forth from the city to the temple.

The use of the Lycaonian language shows that the worshippers were not the Roman coloni, the aristocracy of the colony, but the natives, the less educated and more superstitious part of the population (incolæ, p. 218).

9. DERBE.

(XIV 19) AND THERE CAME JEWS FROM ANTIOCH AND ICONIUM; AND THEY PERSUADED THE MULTITUDES AND STONED PAUL AND DRAGGED his body OUT OF THE CITY, CONSIDERING THAT HE WAS DEAD. (20) BUT, WHEN THE DISCIPLES ENCIRCLED HIM, HE STOOD UP AND WENT INTO THE CITY; AND ON THE MORROW HE WENT FORTH WITH BARNABAS TO DERBE. (21) AND THEY PREACHED THE GLAD NEWS TO THAT CITY AND MADE MANY DISCIPLES.

It is interesting to observe the contrast between the emphasis of XIV 8 and the cautiousness of statement in XIV 19. The writer considered that there was full evidence as to the real condition of the lame man; but all that he can guarantee in XIV 19 is that his persecutors considered Paul to be dead; and beyond that he does not go. As usual, he simply states the facts, and leaves the reader to judge for himself. A writer who tried to find marvels would have found one here, and said so.

In Derbe nothing special is recorded: the same process went on as in previous cases. Here on the limits of the Roman province the Apostles turned. New magistrates had now come into office in all the cities whence they had been driven; and it was therefore possible to go back.

10. ORGANISATION OF THE NEW CHURCHES.

(XIV 21) THEY RETURNED TO LYSTRA AND TO ICONIUM AND TO ANTIOCH, (22) CONFIRMING THE SOULS OF THE DISCIPLES, EXHORTING THEM TO CONTINUE IN THE FAITH, AND THAT THROUGH MANY TRIBULATIONS WE MUST ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD. (23) AND WHEN THEY HAD APPOINTED FOR THEM ELDERS IN EVERY CHURCH, AND HAD PRAYED WITH FASTING, THEY COMMENDED THEM TO THE LORD, ON WHOM THEY HAD BELIEVED.

On the return journey the organisation of the newly rounded churches occupied Paul’s attention. It is probable that, in his estimation, some definite organisation was implied in the idea of a church; and until the brotherhood in a city was organised, it was not in the strictest sense a church. In this passage we see that the fundamental part of the Church organisation lay in the appointment of Elders (πρεσβύτεροι). In XIII 1 we found that there were prophets and teachers in the Antiochian church; here nothing is said about appointing them, but the reason indubitably is that prophets and teachers required Divine grace, and could not be appointed by men: they were accepted when the grace was found to have been given them.

Paul used the word Bishops (ἐπίσκοποι) as equivalent to Elders. This is specially clear in XX, where he summoned the Ephesian Elders, v. 17, and said to them: “the Holy Spirit hath made you Bishops,” verse 28. It is therefore certain that the “Bishops and Deacons” at Philippi (Phil. I 1) are the Elders and Deacons, who were the constituted officials of the Church. The Elders are also to be understood as “the rulers” (προιστάμενοι) at Rome and Thessalonica (Rom XII 8, I Thess. V 12). Both terms, Elders and Bishops, occur in the Epistles to Titus and Timothy; but it is plain from Tit. I 5-7 that they are synonymous.

It is clear, therefore, that Paul everywhere instituted Elders in his new Churches; and on our hypothesis as to the accurate and methodical expression of the historian, we are bound to infer that this first case is intended to be typical of the way of appointment followed in all later cases. When Paul directed Titus (I 5) to appoint Elders in each Cretan city, he was doubtless thinking of the same method which he followed here. Unfortunately, the term used (χειροτονήσαντες) is by no means certain in meaning; for, though originally it meant to elect by popular vote, yet it came to be used in the sense to appoint or designate (e.g., Acts X 41). But it is not in keeping with our conception of the precise and often pragmatically accurate expression of Luke, that he should in this passage have used the term χειροτονήσαντες, unless he intended its strict sense. If he did not mean it strictly, the term is fatally ambiguous, where definiteness is specially called for. It must, I think, be allowed that the votes and voice of each congregation were considered; and the term is obviously used in that way by Paul, II Cor. VIII 19.

It is also apparent that a certain influence to be exercised by himself is implied in the instructions given to Titus (I 5); but those instructions seem only to mean that Titus, as a sort of presiding officer, is to instruct the people what conditions the person chosen must satisfy, and perhaps to reject unsuitable candidates. Candidature, perhaps of a merely informal character, is implied in I Tim. III 1; but, of course, if election has any scope at all, candidature goes along with it. The procedure, then, seems to be not dissimilar to Roman elections of magistrates, in which the presiding magistrate subjected all candidates to a scrutiny as to their qualifications, and had large discretion in rejecting those whom he considered unsuitable.

Finally, it is stated in XX 28 that the Holy Spirit made men Bishops; but this expression is fully satisfied by what may safely be assumed as the final stage of the appointment, viz. the Bishops elect were submitted to the Divine approval at the solemn prayer and fast which accompanied their appointment. This meeting and rite of fasting, which Paul celebrated in each city on his return journey, is to be taken as the form that was to be permanently observed (cp. XIII 3).

The use of the first person plural in v. 22 is not personal, but general; Paul impressed on them the universal truth that “we Christians” can enter the kingdom of God by no other path than that of suffering. At the same time the author, by using the first person, associates himself with the principle, not as one of the audience at the time, but as one who strongly realised its truth. This is one of the few personal touches in Acts; and we must gather from it that, at the time when he was writing, the principle was strongly impressed on him by circumstances. I can understand this personal touch, in comparison with the studious suppression of personal feelings and views throughout Acts, in no other way than by supposing that Luke was composing this history during a time of special persecution. On that supposition the expression is luminous; but otherwise it stands in marked contrast to the style of Acts. Now evidence from a different line of reasoning points to the conclusion that Luke was writing this second book of his history under Domitian, the second great persecutor (Ch. VII).

11. PISIDIA AND PAMPHYLIA.

(XIV 24) AND HAVING MADE A MISSIONARY JOURNEY THROUGH PISIDIA, THEY CAME INTO PAMPHYLIA; (25) AND AFTER HAVING SPOKEN THE WORD IN PERGA, THEY CAME DOWN TO the harbour ATTALEIA; (26) AND FROM THENCE THEY SAILED AWAY TO ANTIOCH, WHENCE THEY HAD BEEN COMMITTED TO THE GRACE OF GOD FOR THE WORK WHICH THEY FULFILLED. (27) AND REACHING ANTIOCH, AND HOLDING A MEETING OF THE CHURCH, THEY PROCEEDED TO ANNOUNCE ALL THAT GOD DID WITH THEM, AND THAT HE OPENED TO THE NATIONS THE GATE OF BELIEF (See p. 85).

Next, the journey goes on from Antioch (v. 21), leading first into Pisidia, a Region of the province Galatia, and then into the province Pamphylia. It is clearly implied that Pisidian Antioch was not in Pisidia; and, strange as that seems, it is correct (p. 104). Any Church founded in Pisidia would rank along with those founded in Galatic Phrygia and Galatic Lycaonia as one of “the Churches of Galatia”; but neither Pisidia nor Pamphylia plays any further part in early Christian History. There was, however, a Pauline tradition at Adada.

Attaleia seems to be mentioned here solely as the port of departure (though they had formerly sailed direct up the Cestrus to Perga). Not catching Luke’s fondness for details connected with the sea and harbours (p. 20), the Bezan Reviser reads: “they came down to Attaleia, giving them the good news”.

12. THE CHURCHES.

In Lukan and Pauline language two meanings are found of the term Ecclesia. It means originally simply “an assembly”; and, as employed by Paul in his earliest. Epistles, it may be rendered “the congregation of the Thessalonians”. It is then properly construed with the genitive, denoting the assembly of this organised society, to which any man of Thessalonica may belong if he qualifies for it. The term Ecclesia originally implied that the assembled members constituted a self-governing body like a free Greek city (πόλις). Ancient religious societies were commonly organised on the model of city organisation. The term was adopted in the Septuagint, and came into ordinary use among Grecian Jews.

Gradually Paul’s idea of “the Unified Church” became definite; and, with the true philosophic instinct, he felt the need of a technical term to indicate the idea. Ecclesia was the word that forced itself on him. But in the new sense it demanded a new construction; it was no longer “the church of the Thessalonians,” but “the Church in Corinth”; and it was necessarily singular, for there was only one Church.

The new usage grew naturally in the mind of a statesman, animated with the instinct of administration, and gradually coming to realise the combination of imperial centralisation and local home rule, which is involved in the conception of a self-governing unity, the Universal Church, consisting of many parts, widely separated in space. Each of these parts must govern itself in its internal relations, because it is distant from other parts, and yet each is merely a piece carved out of the homogeneous whole, and each finds its justification and perfect ideal in the whole. That was a conception analogous to the Roman view, that every group of Roman citizens meeting together in a body (conventus Civium Romanorum) in any part of the vast Empire formed a part of the great conception “Rome,” and. that such a group was not an intelligible idea, except as a piece of the great unity. Any Roman citizen who came to any provincial town where such a group existed was forthwith a member of the group; and the group was simply a fragment of “Rome,” cut off in space from the whole body, but preserving its vitality and self-identity as fully as when it was joined to the whole, and capable of reuniting with the whole as soon as the estranging space was annihilated. Such was the Roman constitutional theory, and such was the Pauline theory. The actual working of the Roman theory was complicated by the numberless imperfect forms of citizenship, such as the provincial status (for the provincials were neither Romans nor foreigners; they were in the State yet not of the State), and other points in which mundane facts were too stubborn; and it was impeded by failure to attain full consciousness of its character. The Pauline theory was carried out with a logical thoroughness and consistency which the Roman theory, could never attain in practice; but it is hardly doubtful that, whether or not Paul himself was conscious that the full realisation of his idea could only be the end of a long process of growth and not the beginning, his successors carried out his theory with a disregard of the mundane facts of national and local diversity that produced serious consequences. They waged relentless war within the bounds of the Empire against all provincial distinctions of language and character, they disregarded the force of associations and early ties, and aimed at an absolute uniformity that was neither healthy nor attainable in human nature. The diversities which they ejected returned in other ways, and crystallised in Christian forms, as the local saints who gradually became more real and powerful in the religious thought and practice of each district than the true Christian ideas; and, as degeneration proceeded, the heads of the Church acquiesced more and more contentedly in a nominal and ceremonial unity that had lost reality.

As is natural, Paul did not abandon the old and familiar usage of the term Ecclesia, when the new and more technical usage developed in his mind and language. The process is apparent in Gal. I 13, where the new sense occurs, though hardly as yet, perhaps, with full consciousness and intention. Elsewhere in that letter the term is used in the old sense, “the Churches of Galatia “. In I Cor. I 2 the new sense of Ecclesia is deliberately and formally employed.

The term Ecclesia is used in Acts in both these ways, and an examination of the distinction throws some light on the delicacy of expression in the book. It occurs in the plural. sense of “congregations” or “every congregation” in XIV 23, XV 41, XVI 5. In each of these eases it is used about Paul’s work in the period when he was employing the term in its earlier sense; and there is a fine sense of language in saying at that period that Paul went over the congregations which he had rounded in Syria and Cilicia and in Galatia. In all other cases (in the Eastern Text at least), Luke uses Ecclesia in the singular, in some cases markedly in the sense of the Unified Church (e.g., IX 31), in some cases as “the Church in Jerusalem” (VIII 1), and in some cases very pointedly,. “the Church in so far as it was in Jerusalem” or “in Antioch” (XI 22, XIII 1); and in some cases where the sense “congregation” might be permitted by the context, the sense of “the Church” gives a more satisfactory meaning.

The author, therefore, when he speaks in his own person, stands on the platform of the developed Pauline usage, and uses Ecclesia in the sense of “the single Unified Church,” but where there is a special dramatic appropriateness in employing the earlier Pauline term to describe Paul’s work, he employs the early term.An exception occurs to this rule, in an addition of the Bezan Text, according to which Apollos went to Achaia and contributed much to strengthening the congregations (ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις). We have here not the original words of Luke, but an addition (as I believe, trustworthy in point of fact) made by a second century Reviser, imitating passages like XV 41, XVI 5, Gal. I 2, 22. This case stands in close analogy to IX 31, where many authorities have (Codex Bezæ is defective) “the Ecclesiai throughout the whole of Judea and Galilee and Samaria,” but the singular is used in the Accepted Text founded on the great MSS.

CHAPTER VI.

ST. PAUL IN GALATIA

1. THE IMPERIAL AND THE CHRISTIAN POLICY

When Paul passed out of Pamphylia into Galatia, he went out of a small province, which was cut off from the main line of historical and political development, into a great province that lay on that line. The history of Asia Minor at that time had its central motive in the transforming and educative process which the Roman imperial policy was trying to carry out in the country. In Pamphylia that process was languidly carried out by a governor of humble rank; but Galatia was the frontier province, and the immense social and educational changes involved in the process of romanising an oriental land were going on actively in it. We proceed to inquire in what relation the new Pauline influence stood to the questions that were agitating the province. What, then, was the character of Roman policy and the line of educational advance in the districts of Galatic Phrygia and Galatic Lycaonia; and what were the forces opposing the Roman policy?

The aim of Roman policy may be defined as the unification and education in Roman ideas of the province; and its general effect may be summed up under four heads, which we shall discuss in detail, comparing in each case the effect produced or aimed at by the Church. We enumerate the heads, not in order of importance, but in the order that best brings out the relation between Imperial influence and Church influence: (1) relation to Greek civilisation and language: (2) development of an educated middle class: (3) growth of unity over the Empire: (4) social facts.

(1) The Roman influence would be better defined as “Græco-Roman ”. Previous to Roman domination, the Greek civilisation, though fostered in the country by the Greek kings of Syria and Pergamos, who had successively ruled the country, had failed to affect the people as a body; it had been confined to the coast valleys of the Hermus, Cayster, Mæander and Lycus, and to the garrison cities rounded on the great central plateau by the kings to strengthen their hold on the country. These cities were at the same time centres of Greek manners and education; their language was Greek; and, in the midst of alien tribes, their interests naturally coincided with those of the kings who had rounded them.

The Roman Government, far from being opposed to Greek influence, acted in steady alliance with it. It adopted the manners of Greece, and even recognised the Greek language for general use in the Eastern provinces. Rome was so successful, because she almost always yielded to the logic of facts. The Greek influence was, on the whole, European and Western in character; and opposed to the oriental stagnation which resisted Roman educative efforts. Rome accepted the Greek language as her ally. Little attempt was made to naturalise the Latin language in the East; and even the Roman colonies in the province of Galatia soon ceased to use Latin except on state occasions and in a few formal documents. A Græco-Roman civilisation using the Greek language was the type which Rome aimed at establishing in the East.

The efforts of Rome to naturalise Western culture in Asia Minor were more successful than those of the Greek kings had been; but still they worked at best very slowly. The evidence of inscriptions tends to show that the Phrygian language was used in rural parts of the country during the second and even the third century. In some remote and rustic districts it persisted even until the fourth century, as Celtic did in parts of North Galatia.

The Christian influence was entirely in favour of the Greek language. The rustics clung longest to Paganism, while the Greek-speaking population of the cities adopted Christianity. It is not probable that any attempt was made to translate the Christian sacred books into Phrygian or Lycaonian; there is not even any evidence that evangelisation in these languages was ever attempted. The Christians seem to have been all expected to read the Scriptures in Greek. That fact was sufficient to put the Church, as regards its practical effect on society, on the same side as the romanising influence; and the effect was quite independent of any intentional policy. The most zealous enemy of the imperial Antichrist was none the less effective in aiding the imperial policy by spreading the official language. In fact, Christianity did far more thoroughly what the emperors tried to do. It was really their best ally, if they had recognised the facts of the case; and the Christian Apologists of the second century are justified in claiming that their religion was essentially a loyal religion.

(2) The Empire had succeeded in imposing its languages on the central districts of Asia only so far as education spread. Every one who wrote or read, wrote and read Greek; but those who could do neither used the native language. Hence inscriptions were almost universally expressed in Greek, for even the most illiterate, if they aspired to put an epitaph on a grave, did so in barbarous (sometimes unintelligible) Greek; the desire for an epitaph was the first sign of desire for education and for Greek.

In education lay the most serious deficiency of the imperial policy. Rome cannot be said to have seriously attempted to found an educational system either in the provinces or in the metropolis. “The education imparted on a definite plan by the State did not go beyond instituting a regular series of amusements, some of a rather brutalising tendency” (Church in R.E., p. 360). And precisely in this point, Christianity came in to help the Imperial Government, recognising the duty of educating, as well as feeding and amusing, the mass of the population. The theory of universal education for the people has never been more boldly and thoroughly stated than by Tatian (ibid. p. 345). “The weak side of the Empire—the cause of the ruin of the first Empire was the moral deterioration of the lower classes: Christianity, if adopted in time, might have prevented this result.”

Now, the classes where education and work go hand in hand were the first to come under the influence of the new religion. On the one hand the uneducated and grossly superstitious rustics were unaffected by it. On the other hand, there were “not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble” in the Churches of the first century, i.e., not many professional teachers of wisdom and philosophy, not many of the official and governing class, not many of the hereditarily privileged class. But the working and thinking classes, with the students, if not the Professors, at the Universities, were attracted to the new teaching; and it spread among them with a rapidity that seemed to many modern critics incredible and fabulous, till it was justified by recent discoveries. The enthusiasm of the period was on the side of the Christians; its dilettantism, officialism, contentment and self-satisfaction were against them.

In respect of education Christianity appears as filling a gap in the imperial policy, supplementing, not opposing it—a position which, though it earns no gratitude and often provokes hatred, implies no feeling of opposition in the giver.

(3) Again, the main. effort of Roman policy was directed towards encouraging a sense of unity and patriotism in the Empire. It discouraged the old tribal and national divisions, which kept the subject population in their pre-Roman associations, and substituted new divisions. Patriotism in ancient time was inseparable from religious feeling, and Roman policy fostered a new imperial religion in which all its subjects should unite, viz., the worship of the divine majesty of Rome incarnate in human form in the series of the emperors and especially in the reigning emperor. Each province was united in a formal association for this worship: the association built temples in the great cities of the province, held festivals and games, and had a set of officials, who were in a religious point of view priests and in a political point of view, officers of the imperial service. Everything that the imperial policy did in the provinces during the first century was so arranged as to encourage the unity of the entire Roman province; and the priests of the imperial religion became by insensible degrees a higher priesthood, exercising a certain influence over the priests of the other religions of the province. In this way a sort of hierarchy was created for the province and the empire as a whole; the reigning emperor being the religious head, the Supreme Pontiff of the State, and a kind of sacerdotal organisation being grouped under him according to the political provinces.

As time passed, gradually the Christian Church grouped itself according to the same forms as the imperial religion,—not indeed through conscious imitation, but because the Church naturally arranged its external form according to the existing facts of communication and interrelation. In Pisidian Antioch a preacher had unique opportunities for affecting the entire territory whose population resorted to that great centre (p. 105). So Perga was a centre for Pamphylia, Ephesus for Asia. But the direct influence of these centres was confined to the Roman district or province. In this way necessarily and inevitably the Christian Church was organised around the Roman provincial metropolis and according to the Roman provincial divisions.

The question then is, when did this organisation of the Church begin? I can see no reason to doubt that it began with Paul’s mission to the West. It grew out of the circumstances of the country, and there was more absolute necessity in the first century than later, that, if the Church was organised at all, it must adapt itself to the political facts of the time, for these were much stronger in the first century. The classification adopted in Paul’s own letters of the Churches which he rounded is according to provinces, Achaia, Macedonia, Asia, and Galatia. The same fact is clearly visible in the narrative of Act,: it guides and inspires the expression from the time when the Apostles landed at Perga. At every step any one who knows the country recognises that the Roman division is implied. There is only one way of avoiding this conclusion, and that is to make up your mind beforehand that the thing is impossible, and therefore to refuse to admit any evidence for it.

The issue of events showed that the Empire had made a mistake in disregarding so completely the existing lines of demarcation between tribes and races in making its new political provinces. For a time it succeeded in establishing them, while the energy of the Empire was still fresh, and its forward movement continuous and steady. But the differences of tribal and national character were too great to be completely set aside; they revived while the energy of the Empire decayed during the second century. Hence every change in the bounds of the provinces of Asia Minor from 138 onwards was in the direction of assimilating them to the old tribal frontiers; and at last in 295 even the great complex province Asia was broken up after 428 years of existence, and resolved into the old native districts, Lydia, Caria, Phrygia, etc.; and the moment that the political unity was dissolved there remained nothing of the Roman Asia. But the ultimate failure of the Roman policy must not blind us to the vigour and energy with which that policy was carried out during the first century. “Asia” and “Galatia” were only ideas, but they were ideas which the whole efforts of Roman government aimed at making into realities.

(4) There was another reason why the power of the new religion was necessarily thrown on the side of the Roman policy. Greek civilisation was strongly opposed to the social system that was inseparably connected with the native religion in all its slightly varying forms in different localities. The opposition is. as old as the landing of the earliest Greek emigrants on the Asian coasts: the colonists were the force of education, and progress and freedom, the priests arrayed against them the elements that made for stagnation and priest-ridden ignorance and slavery. Throughout Greek history the same opposition constantly appears. The Phrygian religion was always reckoned as the antithesis of Hellenism. That is all a matter of history, one might say a commonplace of history. But the same opposition was necessarily developed in the Romanisation of the provinces of Asia Minor. The priests of the great religious centres were inevitably opposed to the Roman policy; but their power was gone, their vast estates had become imperial property, and their influence with the population was weakened by the growth of the Greek spirit. This subject might be discussed at great length; but I must here content myself with referring to the full account of the districts in my Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia.

In this conflict there can be no doubt on which side the Christian influence must tell. When we consider the social system which was inculcated as a part of the native religion, it is evident that every word spoken by Paul or Barnabas must tell directly against the prevalent religion, and consequently on the side of the Roman policy. It is true that in moral tone the Greek society and religion were low, and Christianity was necessarily an enemy to them. But Greek religion was not here present as the enemy. The native religion was the active enemy; and its character was such that Greek education was pure in comparison, and the Greek moralists, philosophers, and politicians inveighed against the Phrygian religion as the worst enemy of the Greek ideals of life. Greek society and life were at least rounded on marriage; but the religion of Asia Minor maintained as a central principle that all organised and settled social life on the basis of marriage was an outrage on the free unfettered divine life of nature, the type of which was found in the favourites of the great goddesses, the wild animals of the field and the mountains. The Greek and Roman law which recognised as citizens only those born from the legitimate marriage of two citizens had no existence in Phrygian cities.

Thus in Galatia the Græco-Roman education, on the side of freedom, civilisation and a higher social morality, was contending against the old native religious centres with their influential priestly colleges, on the side of ignorance, stagnation, social anarchy, and enslavement of the people to the priests. Christian influence told against the latter, and therefore in favour of the former.

In all these ways Christianity, as a force in the social life of the time, was necessarily arrayed on the side of the Roman imperial policy. “One of the most remarkable sides of the history of Rome is the growth of ideas which found their realisation and completion in the Christian Empire. Universal citizenship, universal equality of rights, universal religion, a universal Church, all were ideas which the Empire was slowly working out, but which it could not realise till it merged itself in Christianity.” “The path of development for the Empire lay in accepting the religion which offered it the possibility of completing its organisation.”

With the instinctive perception of the real nature of the case that characterises the genius for organisation, Paul from the first directed his steps in the path which the Church had to tread. He made no false step, he needed no tentatives before he found the path, he had to retract nothing (except perhaps the unsuccessful compromise embodied in the Decree of the Apostolic Council, pp. 172, 182). It is not necessary to assert or to prove that he consciously anticipated all that was to take place; but he was beyond all doubt one of those great creative geniuses whose policy marks out the lines on which history is to move for generations and even for centuries afterwards.

It is apparent how far removed we are from a view, which has been widely entertained, “that there was an entire dislocation and discontinuity in the history of Christianity in Asia Minor at a certain epoch; that the Apostle of the Gentiles was ignored and his teaching repudiated, if not anathemarised”; and that this anti-Pauline tendency found in “Papias a typical representative”. Like Lightfoot, whose summary we quote, we must reject that view. We find in the epitaph of the second-century Phrygian saint, Avircius Marcellus, a proof of the deep reverence retained in Asia Minor for St. Paul: when he travelled, he took Paul everywhere with him as his guide and companion.

These considerations show the extreme importance of the change of plan that led Paul across Taurus to Pisidian Antioch. So far as it is right to say that any single event is of outstanding importance, the step that took Paul away from an outlying corner and put him on the main line of development at the outset of his work in Asia Minor, was the most critical step in his history. It is noteworthy that the historian, who certainly understood its importance, and whose sympathy was deeply engaged in it, does not attribute it to Divine suggestion, though he generally records the Divine guidance in the great crises of Paul’s career; and it stands in perfect agreement with this view, that Paul himself, when he impresses on the Galatian Churches in the strongest terms his Divine commission to the Gentiles, does not say that the occasion of his going among them was the Divine guidance, but expressly mentions that an illness was the cause why he preached among them at first.

Now, every reader must be struck with the stress that is laid, alike by Paul and by Luke, throughout their writings, on the Divine guidance. They both find the justification of all Paul’s innovations on missionary enterprise in the guiding hand of God. We demand that there should be a clear agreement in the occasions when they discerned that guidance; and in this case the South Galatian theory enables us to recognise a marked negative agreement.

Further, there is evidently a marked difference between the looser way of talking about “the hand of God” that is common in the present day, and the view entertained by Paul or Luke. Where a great advantage results from a serious illness, many of us would feel it right to recognise and acknowledge the “guiding hand of God”; but it is evident that, when Luke or Paul uses such language as “the Spirit suffered them not,” they refer to some definite and clear manifestation, and not to a guidance which became apparent only through the results. The superhuman element is inextricably involved in Luke’s history and in Paul’s letters.

All that has just been said is, of course, mere empty verbiage, devoid of any relation to Paul’s work and policy in Galatia, if the Churches of Galatia were not the active centres of Roman organising effort, such as the colonies Antioch and Lystra, or busy trading cities like Claud-Iconium and Claudio-Derbe, but Pessinus and some villages in the wilderness of the Axylon (as Professor Zöckler has quite recently maintained). Lightfoot saw the character of Paul’s work, and supposed him to have gone to the great cities of North Galatia, and specially the metropolis Ancyra; but the most recent development of the North-Galatian theory denies that Paul ever saw the Roman central city.

2. THE JEWS IN ASIA AND SOUTH GALATIA.

In Cyprus, Barnabas and Saul had confined themselves within the circle of the synagogue, until Paul stepped forth from it to address the Roman proconsul. In entering Galatia Paul was passing from Semitic surroundings into a province where Greek was the language of all even moderately educated persons, and where Græco-Roman manners and ideas were being actively disseminated and eagerly assimilated by all active and progressive and thoughtful persons. How then did Paul, with his versatility and adaptability, appear among the Galatians, and in what tone did he address them?

At first he adhered to his invariable custom of addressing such audience as was found within the synagogue. There was a large Jewish population in the Phrygian district of Galatia, as well as in Asian Phrygia (which Paul entered and traversed at a later date XIX 1). According to Dr. Neubauer (Géographie du Talmud, p. 315), these Jews had to a considerable extent lost connection with their country, and forgotten their language; and they did not participate in the educated philosophy of the Alexandrian Jews: the baths of Phrygia and its wine had separated the Ten Tribes from their brethren, as the Talmud expresses it: hence they were much more readily converted to Christianity; and the Talmud alludes to the numerous converts.

It is much to be desired that this distinguished scholar should discuss more fully this subject, which he has merely touched on incidentally. The impression which he conveys is different from that which one is apt to take from the narrative in Acts; and one would be glad to have the evidence on which he relies stated in detail. But my own epigraphic studies in Phrygia lead me to think that there is much in what Dr. Neubauer has said; and that we must estimate Luke’s account from the proper point. Luke was profoundly interested in the conflict between Paul and the Judaising party; and he recounts with great detail the stages in that conflict. That point of view is natural in one who had lived through the conflict, before the knot was cut by the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70; but, though short, the struggle was far more severe than later scholars, who see how complete was Paul’s triumph, are apt to imagine. Even to a writer of the second century, the conflict with the Judaisers could not have bulked largely in Church history. But to Luke that conflict is the great feature in the development of the Church. Hence he emphasises every point in the antagonism between Paul and the Judaisers; and his readers are apt to leave out of notice other aspects of the case. The Jews of Pisidian Antioch are not represented as opposed to Paul’s doctrines, but only to his placing the Gentiles on an equality with themselves (p. 101, XIII 45). A great multitude of the Iconian Jews believed (XIV 1). The few Jews of Philippi seem to have been entirely on Paul’s side: they were probably to a great extent settlers who had come, like Lydia, in the course of trade with Asia Minor. In Berea the Jews in a body were deeply impressed by Paul’s preaching. In Thessalonica, however, the Jews were almost entirely opposed to him; and in Corinth it was nearly as bad, though the archisynagogos followed him. In Corinth the Jewish colony would certainly be in close and direct communication with Syria and Palestine by sea, more than with the Phrygian Jews of the land road; and it is probable that the same was the case in Thessalonica, though no facts are known to prove it.

From the recorded facts, therefore, it would appear that the Jews in central Asia Minor were less strongly opposed to Pauline Christianity than they were in Palestine. Further, the Asian and Galatian Jews had certainly declined from the high and exclusive standard of the Palestinian Jews, and probably forgotten Hebrew. In Lystra we find a Jewess married to a Greek, who cannot have come into communion with the Jews, for the son of the marriage was not submitted to the Jewish law (XVI 1-3). The marriage of a Jewess to a Gentile is a more serious thing than that of a Jew, and can hardly have come to pass except through a marked assimilation of these Jews to their Gentile neighbours. In Ephesus the sons even of distinguished priests practised magic, and exorcised demons in the name of Jesus (XIX 14); and Dr. Schürer has shown that gross superstitions were practised by the Jews of Thyatira. There seems, therefore, to be no real discrepancy between the evidence of Luke and Dr. Neubauer’s inference about the Phrygian Jews from the Talmud.

Naturally the approximation between Jews and Gentiles in Phrygia had not been all on one side. An active, intelligent, and prosperous minority like the Jews must have exercised a strong influence on their neighbours. Evidence to that effect is not wanting in inscriptions (see Cities and Bishoprics, Chap. XIV); and we may compare the readiness with which the Antiochians flocked to the synagogue, XIII 43-4, and at a later time yielded to the first emissaries of the Judaising party in the Church (Gal. I 6). The history of the Galatian Churches is in the closest relation to their surroundings (p. 183).

3. TONE OF PAUL’S ADDRESS TO THE GALATIAN AUDIENCES.

The only recorded sermon of Paul in Galatia was delivered in the synagogue at Antioch (p. 100). Thereafter he “turned to the Gentiles,” and appealed direct to the populace of the city. Now Paul was wont to adapt himself to his hearers (p. 82). Did he address the people of Antioch as members of a nation (Phrygians, or, as Dr. Zöckler thinks, Pisidians), or did he regard them as members of the Roman Empire? We cannot doubt that his teaching was opposed to the native tendency as one of mere barbarism and superstition; and that he regarded them as members of the same Empire of which he was a citizen. Moreover, the Antiochians claimed to be a Greek foundation of remote time by Magnesian settlers: that is, doubtless, a fiction (of a type fashionable in the great cities of Phrygia), but it shows the tendency to claim Greek origin and to regard national characteristics as vulgar. Finally, Antioch was now a Roman colony, and its rank and position in the province belonged to it as the representative of old Greek culture and modern Roman government amid uncultured rustic Pisidians and Phrygians. But some North Galatian theorists resolutely maintain that Paul could never appeal to its population as “men of the province Galatia,” but only as “Pisidians”.

We possess a letter which Paul addressed to the Galatian Churches; but it was addressed to congregations which had existed for five years or more, and was written on a special occasion to rebuke and repress the Judaising tendency: it moves in a series of arguments against that tendency, and gives us little information as to the line Paul would take in addressing for the first time a pagan audience in one of the Galatian cities (see Ch. VIII).

In writing to the Corinthian Church Paul mentions that he had adopted a very simple way of appealing to them, and that his simple message was by some persons contrasted unfavourably with the more philosophical style of Apollos and the more ritualistic teaching of the Judaising Christians. But it is apparent (see p. 252) that Paul made a new departure in this respect at Corinth; and we must not regard too exclusively what he says in that letter. Though the main elements of his message were the same from first to last (Gal. III 1, I Cor. II 2), yet it is natural and probable that there should be a certain degree of development in his method; and in trying to recover the tone in which he first appealed to his Galatic audiences, we are carried back to a period in his career earlier than any of his extant letters.

The passages in Acts that touch the point are the address to his worshippers at Lystra, the speech before the Areopagus at Athens, and, at a later time, the account which the Town-clerk at Ephesus gave of his attitude as a preacher.

The Town-clerk of Ephesus reminded the rioters that Paul had not been guilty of disrespect, either in action or in language, towards the patron and guardian goddess of the city. Chrysostom in the fourth century remarks that this was a false statement to suit the occasion and calm the riot; it seemed to him impossible that Paul should refrain from violent invective against the false goddess, for the later Christians inveighed in merciless terms against the Greek gods, and (as every one who tries to understand ancient religion must feel) the Apologists from the second century onwards give a one-sided picture of that religion, describing only its worst features, and omitting those germs of higher ideas which it certainly contained. But we cannot suppose with Chrysostom that the clerk misrepresented the facts to soothe the popular tumult. The effect of his speech depended on the obviousness of the facts which he appealed to; and it would defeat his purpose, if his audience had listened to speeches in which Paul inveighed against the goddess. If this speech is taken from real life, the clerk of Ephesus must be appealing to well-known facts (see p. 281 f.).

Next we turn to the speech at Athens. So far was Paul from inveighing against the objects of Athenian veneration that he expressly commended the religious feelings of the people, and identified the God whom he had come to preach with the god whom they were blindly worshipping. He did not rebuke or check their religious ideas, but merely tried to guide them; he distinctly set forth the principle that the pagans were honestly striving to worship “the God that made the world and all things therein” (p. 251 f.).

In this speech Paul lays no emphasis on the personality of the God whom he sets forth: “what ye worship in ignorance, this set I forth unto you,” and “we ought not to think that the Divine nature is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and device of man”. The popular philosophy inclined towards Pantheism, the popular religion was Polytheistic; but Paul starts from the simplest platform common to both—there exists something in the way of a Divine nature which the religious try to please and the philosophers try to understand. That is all he seeks as a hypothesis to start from.

At Athens the speech was more philosophical in tone, catching the spirit of a more educated populace. At Lystra it was more simple, appealing to the witness they had of the God “who gives from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with gladness”. But the attitude is the same in both cases. “God who made the heaven and the earth in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways”; and “we bring you the good news that you should repent”. That is the same tone in which at Athens he said, “The times of ignorance God overlooked; but now He commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent”

There is one condition, however, on which Paul insisted from the first, at Athens and at Lystra and everywhere. The worship of idols and images was absolutely pernicious, and concealed from the nations the God whom they were groping after and trying to find: they must turn from these vain and dead gods to the God that lives. Hence the riot at Ephesus was got up by the tradesmen who made images of the Goddess Artemis in her shrine, and whose trade was threatened when the worship of images was denounced. But the denunciation of images was a commonplace of Greek philosophy; and the idea that any efficacy resided in images was widely regarded among the Greeks as a mark of superstition unworthy of the educated man. Paul stands here on the footing of the philosopher, not contravening the State laws by introducing new gods, but expounding to the people the true character of the living God whom they are seeking after.

Such was the way in which Paul introduced his Good Tidings to the peoples of the province Galatia. From this he went on step by step, and his method is summed up by himself, Gal. III 1, “Christ had been placarded before their eyes”. Now was the opportunity granted them; “through this Man is proclaimed remission of sins” (XIII 38). But if they despised the opportunity they must beware (XIII 40-1), “inasmuch as He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world” (XVII 31).

Paul’s teaching thus was introduced to his pagan audiences in the language of the purest and simplest theology current among educated men. He started from those thoughts which were familiar to all who had imbibed even the elements of Greek education. But even in the more advanced stage of his teaching he did not cut it off from the philosophy of the time. He never adopted that attitude of antagonism to philosophy which became customary in the second century, springing from the changed circumstances of that period. On the contrary, he says (Col. IV 5-6, cf. Eph. V 16): “Regulate with wisdom your conduct towards the outside world, making your market to the full from the opportunity of this life. Let your conversation be always gracious, seasoned with the salt and the refinement of delicacy, so as to know the suitable reply to make to every individual.” As Curtius says, with his own grace and delicacy of perception, the Attic salt is here introduced into the sphere of Christian ethics. Polished courtesy of address to all, was valued by Paul as a distinct and important element in the religious life; and he advised his pupils to learn from the surrounding world everything that was worthy in it, “making your market fully from the occasion” (a thought very inadequately expressed in the English Version, “redeeming the time,” Col. IV 6). But it is in Phil. IV 8 that his spirit is expressed in the fullest and most graceful and exquisite form, “whatsoever is true, whatsoever is holy, whatsoever is just, whatsoever is pure, whatsoever is courteous, whatsoever is of fine expression, all excellence, all merit, take account of these,” wherever you find these qualities, notice them, consider them, imitate them.

It is not the Jew who speaks in these and many other sentences; it is the educated citizen of the Roman world attuned to the most gracious and polished tone of educated society. We can faintly imagine to ourselves the electrical effect produced by teaching like this on the population of the Galatian cities, on a people who were just beginning to rise from the torpor of oriental peasant life and to appreciate the beauty of Greek thought and the splendour of Roman power. They found in Paul no narrow and hard bigot to dash from their lips the cup of education; they found one who guided into the right channel all their aspirations after culture and progress, who raised them into a finer sphere of thought and action, who showed them what wealth of meaning lay in their simple speculations on the nature of God, who brought within their grasp all that they were groping after. We can imagine how sordid and beggarly were the elements that Jewish ritual had to offer them in comparison; and we can appreciate the tone of Paul’s letter to them, where his argument is to recall to their minds the teaching which he had given them on his former visit, to contrast with this freedom and graciousness and progress which he offered them the hard cut and dry life of Jewish formalism, and to ask who had bewitched them into preferring the latter before the former.Curtius’s beautiful essay on Paulus in Athen has been constantly in the writer’s mind in this and some other places.

It is remarkable that, alike at Lystra and Athens, there is nothing in the reported words of Paul that is overtly Christian, and nothing (with the possible exception of “the man whom he hath ordained”) that several Greek philosophers might not have said. That is certainly not accidental; the author of Acts must have been. conscious of it; and it is a strong proof of their genuineness: no one would invent a speech for Paul, which was not markedly Christian. That remarkable omission is explained by some commentators in the speech at Athens (e.g., Meyer-Wendt) as due to the fact that the speech was not completed; and yet they acknowledge that the speech is a rounded whole, and that all the specially Pauline ideas are touched in it. To look for an addition naming the Saviour is to ignore the whole character of the speech and the scene where it was delivered.

The same mark of genuineness occurs in the central episode of the romance of Thekla, when we disentangle the tale of her trials at Pisidian Antioch from the incongruous and vulgar additions by which it is disfigured. In the beautiful story as it was originally written, probably in the latter part of the first century, Thekla appeared to the mass of the Antiochian populace to be a devotee of “the God,” bound by a rule of service given her by direct Divine command; and she commanded their sympathy, in so far as she represented their own cause; whereas, if she had been seen to be severing herself absolutely from their life and their religion, their sympathy would be incredible. In this character lies the proof of its early date: the episode in its original form is contrary to the tone of the second century.

Incidentally we notice what an anachronism it is to suppose that the attitude attributed in Acts to Paul could have been conceived by a second-century author! The tone of these speeches is of the first century, and not of the time when the Apologists were writing. In the first century Christianity and the current philosophy alike were disliked and repressed by the Flavian emperors, as favouring the spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction. But during the second, the Imperial Government and the popular philosophy were in league against the increasing power of the Church; and the tone of the speeches in incredible in a composition of that time.

CHAPTER VII.

THE APOSTOLIC COUNCIL

1 ORIGIN OF THE COUNCIL.

(XIV 27) WHEN PAUL AND BARNABAS WERE COME TO ANTIOCH AND HAD GATHERED THE CHURCH TOGETHER, THEY REHEARSED ALL THINGS THAT GOD HAD DONE WITH THEM, AND HOW THAT HE HAD OPENED A DOOR OF BELIEF UNTO THE NATIONS. (28) AND THEY TARRIED NO LITTLE TIME WITH THE DISCIPLES. (XV 1) AND CERTAIN PERSONS CAME DOWN FROM JUDEA, AND TAUGHT THE BRETHREN, THAT “EXCEPT YE BE CIRCUMCISED, AFTER THE CUSTOM OF MOSES, YE CANNOT BE SAVED”. (2) AND WHEN PAUL AND BARNABAS HAD NO SMALL DISSENSION AND QUESTIONING WITH THEM, THEY (i.e., the Brethren) APPOINTED THAT PAUL AND BARNABAS AND CERTAIN OTHER OF THEM SHOULD GO UP TO JERUSALEM ABOUT THIS QUESTION. (3) THEY, THEREFORE, BEING BROUGHT ON THEIR WAY BY THE CHURCH, PASSED THROUGH BOTH PHŒNICE AND SAMARIA, DECLARING THE CONVERSION OF THE NATIONS; AND THEY CAUSED GREAT JOY UNTO ALL THE BRETHREN.

A considerable lapse of time is implied in v.28, during which Paul and Barnabas resumed their former duties at Antioch (III 1). Luke, as usual, states the lapse of time very vaguely, and it is impossible to estimate from his words the interval between Paul’s return and the arrival of the envoys from Jerusalem (V 1). If v. 28 includes only that interval, the Apostolic Council cannot have occurred before A.D. 50; but if, as is more likely (p. 256), v. 28 refers to the whole residence of Paul at Antioch before and after the Council, then probably the Council took place in the end of 49.

A difficulty (which is described in § 2) occurred at Antioch as to the obligation of the Gentile members of the Church to come under the full ceremonial regulations of the Jewish Law; and it was resolved to send delegates to the governing body of the Church in Jerusalem about this question. We cannot doubt that this resolution was acquiesced in by Paul; probably he even proposed it. Now, the resolution clearly involved the recognition that Jerusalem was the administrative centre of the Church; and this is an important point in estimating Paul’s views on administration. With the vision of a statesman and organiser, he saw that the Church as a unified and organised body must have an administrative centre, and that a Church of separate parts could not be unified without such a centre, which should be not a governor over subordinates, but the head among equals; and his whole history shows that he recognised Jerusalem as necessarily marked out for the centre. Hence he kept before the attention of his new foundations their relation and duty to Jerusalem; and he doubtless understood the solitary injunction given him by the older Apostles on his second visit to Jerusalem (p. 57), as involving a charge to remember that duty.

Moreover, he had already communicated privately with the recognised leaders in. Jerusalem, and knew that their sentiments agreed with his own; and he must have been fully alive to the great step in organisation which would be made, if Antioch set the example of referring such a question to authoritative decision in Jerusalem at a meeting where it was represented by delegates.

In the mission of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem it is noteworthy that the Divine action plays no part. The Church in Antioch resolved, and the Church sent them to Jerusalem, escorting them on their way. This is not accidental, but expresses the deliberate judgment of Paul and of Luke. The action that led up to the Council in Jerusalem and the ineffective Decree did not originate in Divine revelation.

The accepted view is different. There is a practically universal agreement among critics and commentators of every shade of opinion that the visit described as the third in Acts XV is the one that Paul describes as the second in Gal. II 1-10. Scholars who agree in regard to scarcely any other point of early Christian history are at one in this. Now, Paul says in his letter to the Galatians that he made his second visit in accordance with revelation. Lightfoot tries to elude the difficulty of identifying this second visit by revelation with the third visit without revelation recorded in Acts XV: he says (Gal., p. 125), “here there is no contradiction. The historian naturally records the external impulse which led to the mission: the Apostle himself states his inward motive.” He quotes “parallel cases which suggest how the one motive might supplement the other”. But the parallels which he quotes to support his view seem merely to prove how improbable it is. (1) He says that in Acts XIII 2, 4, Barnabas and Paul were sent forth by the Holy Spirit through a direct command; while in XIII 3 they are sent away by the Church of Antioch. But that is not the proper force of XIII 3 (p. 67 f.): the Church merely gave Barnabas and Saul freedom from their duties and leave to depart, while the Spirit “sent them out”. In XV 3, on the contrary, the Church is said to have initiated and completed the action. (2) He founds another parallel on the mistaken idea that XXII 17 and IX 29 f. refer to the same visit (p. 62).

The journey to Jerusalem occupied some time; for in Phœnice and in Samaria the envoys took the opportunity of “describing in detail the turning of the Nations to God”. Here, evidently, the newly accomplished step, “the opening of the door of faith to the Nations,” is meant. The recital of the circumstances and results of the new step caused great joy. Now, Luke pointedly omits Judea; and his silence is, as often elsewhere, eloquent: the recital would cause no joy in Judea. Accordingly, we are not to suppose that the joy was merely caused by sympathy with the spread of Christianity, in which the Judean Brethren would doubtless rejoice as much as any. The joy of the people of Phœnice and Samaria was due to the news of free acceptance of Gentile converts: Paul, as he went, preached freely to all and invited all. When he did this in Phœnice and Samaria, it follows that he had been doing the same in Antioch since his return from Galatia: the door which had once been opened, XIV 27, remained permanently open.

2. THE DISPUTE IN ANTIOCH.

The new departure in Galatia and Antioch—the opening of the door of faith to the Nations—forced into prominence the question of the relations of Gentile to Jewish Christians.

There had already been some prospect that this question would be opened up during Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem (p. 56 f.); but for the moment the difficulty did not become acute. The older Antiochian converts, as we have seen, had all entered through the door of the synagogue; and had necessarily accepted certain prohibitions as a rule of life. But the newly rounded Galatian Churches contained large numbers who had joined Paul directly, without any connection with the synagogue; in the face of Luke’s silence on such a crucial point we cannot think that Paul imposed on them any preliminary conditions of compliance with Jewish rules; and, if so, we must understand that the same interpretation of “the open door” characterised his action in Antioch, Phœnice and Samaria.

The Jews who had been settled for generations in the cities of Syria and Asia Minor had lost much of their exclusiveness in ordinary life (p. 143). Moreover, the development of events in Antioch had been gradual; and no difficulty seems to have been caused there at first by this last step. We learn from Paul himself (Gal. II 12 f.) that even Peter, already prepared to some extent by his own bold action in the case of Cornelius, had no scruple in associating freely with the Antiochian Christians in general. But the Jews of Jerusalem were far more rigid and narrow; and when some of them came down on a mission to Antioch from the Church in Jerusalem, they were shocked by the state of things which they found there. They could not well take the ground that one Christian should not associate with another; they put their argument in a more subtle form, and declared that no one could become in the full sense a member of the Church, unless he came under the Jewish Law, and admitted on his body its sign and seal: the Nations could be received into the Church, but in the reception they must conform to the Law (XV 2). The question, it must be clearly observed, was not whether non-Jews could be saved, for it was admitted by all parties that they could, but how they were saved: did the path of belief lie through the gate of the Law alone, or was there a path of belief that did not lead through that gate? Had God made another door to Himself outside of the Law of Moses? Had He practically set aside that Law, and declared it of no avail, by admitting as freely them that disregarded it as them that believed and followed it?

When the question was put in this clear and logical form, we can well believe that Jews as a rule shrank from all the consequences that followed from free admission of the Nations. We can imagine that some who had answered practically by associating with the Gentile Christians, repented of their action when its full consequences were brought before them. Only rare and exceptional natures could have risen unaided above the prejudices and the pride of generations, and have sacrificed their Law to their advancing experience. The record confirms what we see to be natural in the circumstances. Paul stood immovably firm; and he carried with him, after some wavering, the leaders (but not the mass) of the Jewish Christians. This point requires careful study.

The occasion of the dissension at Antioch is thus described by our three authorities,—Luke, the Apostles at Jerusalem, and Paul himself.

It is noteworthy that Luke used the vague expression that “persons came down from Judea,” which is made more definite in v. 24: the champions of circumcision who caused the dissension in Antioch had come on a mission from the Apostles in Jerusalem. Luke pointedly avoids any expression that would connect the leading Apostles with the action of these emissaries. They had been sent from Jerusalem: but in v. 24 the Apostles disclaim all responsibility for their action. While Luke gives all the materials for judging, the substitution of Judea for Jerusalem in his narrative is very significant of his carefulness in the minutiæ of expression. It is in no sense incorrect (it puts the general name of the whole land in place of the city name), and it guards against a probable misconception in the briefest way.

The incidents described in Gal. II 11-1 are not usually referred to this period; and it is therefore advisable to elicit from the words of Paul the precise situation as he conceives it. Certain persons had come to Antioch from James: James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem, here stands alone as “the local representative” of that Church (to borrow a phrase from Lightfoot, Ed. Gal., p. 365). These persons had found in Antioch a situation that shocked them, and they expressed their disapproval so strongly and effectively, that Peter shrank from continuing the free intercourse with Gentile Christians which he had been practising. What do we learn from the context as to their attitude? They are styled “they of the circumcision”; and this phrase (as distinguished from the mere general expression of disagreement and dislike used about persons of the same class in Gal. II 4) implies that they actively championed that cause against Peter. The exact form of the argument which moved Peter is not stated explicitly by Paul in his hurried and impassioned narrative; but we gather what it was from the terms of his expostulation with Peter. He said to him in public: “how compellest thou the Nations to Judaise? “The words have no force unless Peter, convinced by the Judaistic envoys, had begun to declare that compliance with the Law was compulsory, before Gentiles could become members of the Church fully entitled to communion with it.

Accordingly, the situation described in (Gal. II 11-14 is that which existed in Antioch after Paul’s return from the Galatian Churches. In the first part of his letter to the Galatians, Paul recapitulates the chief stages in the development of the controversy between the Judaising party in the Church, the premonitory signs on his second visit to Jerusalem, and the subsequent open dispute with Peter in Antioch. The dispute occurred after Paul’s second, but before his third, visit to Jerusalem, i.e., either between Acts XII 25 and XIII 1, or between XIV 26 and XV 4. Now in XV 1 (cp. v. 24) envoys from James caused strife in Antioch; and we can hardly think that envoys also came from James after XII 25, and caused exactly similar strife, which was omitted by Luke but recorded in Gal. II 12.

When the question was put distinctly in all its bearings and consequences before Peter, he was unable to resist the argument that Christians ought to observe the Law, as Christ had done, and as the Twelve did. On one or two occasions, indeed, Christ had been taunted with permitting breaches of the Law; but His actions could be so construed only by captious hypercriticism. It is quite clear that Peter and the older Apostles did not for a time grasp the full import of Christ’s teaching on this subject: the actual fact that He and they were Jews, and lived as such, made more impression on them than mere theoretical teaching. Barnabas, even, was carried away by the example of Peter, and admitted the argument that the Gentile Christians ought “to live as do the Jews”. Paul alone stood firm. The issue of the situation is not described by Paul; he had now brought down his narrative to the situation in which the Galatian defection arose; and his retrospect therefore came to an end, when he reached the familiar facts (p. 185 f.). We must estimate from the context the general argument and what was the issue. Obviously, the rebuke which Paul gave must have been successful in the case of Peter and Barnabas; the immediate success of his appeal to their better feelings constitutes the whole force of his argument to the Galatians. The power of his letter to them lies in this, that the mere statement of the earlier stages of the controversy is sufficient to show the impregnability of his position and the necessity of his free and generous policy: the narrow Judaising tyranny was self-condemned; Peter was wholly with him, and so was Barnabas; but the victory had been gained, not by listening to the older Apostles, but by obeying “the good pleasure of God, who called me by His grace to preach Him among the Gentiles”. If the hesitation of Peter and Barnabas had resulted in an unreconciled dispute, the force of Paul’s argument is gone: he has urged at great length that the older Apostles were in agreement with him, and accepted him as the Apostle called to the Foreign Mission, as they were to the Jewish Mission; and, as the climax of his argument for equality of privilege, he says: “Peter and even Barnabas wavered for a moment from their course, when the gravity of its consequences, viz., the supersession of the Judaic Law, was set plainly before them by some of their friends; but I pointed out Peter’s error in one brief appeal from his present wavering to his own past action”.

From this analysis we see that the issue of the situation implied in Gal. II 11-14 is described in Acts XV 2, 7: Barnabas joined Paul in combating the Judaising party, and Peter championed the cause in emphatic and noble terms at the subsequent Council in Jerusalem. That follows naturally on the interrupted narrative of the Epistle: the history as related in Acts completes and explains the Epistle, and enables us to appreciate the force of Paul’s argument and its instantaneous effect on the Galatian Churches.

It is an interesting point, that Peter used at the Council the argument in favour of freedom with which Paul had pressed him in Antioch. Paul said to him, “In practice thou, a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles; how then compellest thou the Gentiles to act according to the Jewish Law? “Struck with this argument, Peter puts it in a more general form to the Council, “Why put a yoke on them which neither we nor our fathers could bear? “It is true to nature that he should employ to others the argument that had convinced himself.

It must, however, be confessed that while Galatians leads up excellently to Acts, and gains greatly in force from the additional facts mentioned there, Acts is silent about the facts narrated in Galatians. The eyewitness’s narrative gains from the historian and stands out in new beauty from the comparison; but here Acts seems to lose by being brought into juxtaposition with the narrative of the eye-witness. To our conception the omission of all reference to the wavering of Barnabas and Peter appears almost like the sacrifice of historic truth, and certainly loses a picturesque detail. But the difference of attitude and object, I think, fully explains the historian’s selection amid the incidents of the controversy. For him picturesque details had no attraction; and the swerving of all the Jews except Paul from the right path seemed to him an unessential fact, like hundreds and thousands of others which he had to leave unnoticed. The essential fact which he had to record was that the controversy raged, and that Paul and Barnabas championed the cause of freedom.

But, it may be objected, Barnabas had wavered, and it is not accurate to represent him as a champion along with Paul. We reply that Paul does not make it clear how far Barnabas had gone with the tide: the matter was one of tendency, more than of complete separation. Peter began to withdraw and separate himselfImperfects, not aorists. from familiar communion with the Gentile Christian: the resident Jews joined him in concealing their real sentiment and their ordinary conduct towards the non-Jewish members of the Church: even Barnabas was carried off his feet by the tide of dissembling. These words would be correct, if Barnabas had merely wavered, and been confirmed by Paul’s arguments in private. Paul’s public rebuke was not addressed to Barnabas, but only to Peter. There is a certain difficulty in the record; but I confess that, after trying honestly to give full emphasis to the difficulty, I see no reason why we should not, as the issue of the facts in Gal. II 11-14 conceive Barnabas to have come forward as a thorough-going advocate of the Pauline doctrine and practice.

Moreover, the difficulty remains, and becomes far more serious, on the ordinary view that the incidents of Gal. II 11-14 occurred after the Council in Jerusalem. According to that view, Barnabas, when delegates came from Jerusalem (Acts XV 2, 24), resisted them strenuously, represented the cause of freedom as an envoy to Jerusalem, and obtained an authoritative Decree from the Apostles disowning the action of the delegates, and emphatically condemning it as “subverting your souls” thereafter delegates came again from James, the same Apostle that had taken the foremost part in formulating the recent Decree;“The Apostolic letter seems to have been drawn up by him” (Lightfoot, Ed. Gal., p. 112, II 12). but this time Barnabas, instead of resisting, weakly yielded to their arguments.

Worse, almost, is the conduct of Peter in that view. When the ease came up before the Council to be considered in all its bearings and solemnly decided, he, “after there had been much discussion” (in which we may be sure that the consequences were fully emphasised by the Judaising party), appeared as the most outspoken advocate of freedom, and declared that “we must not demand from them what we ourselves have been unable to endure” Shortly after the Council (on that view), Peter went to Antioch and put in practice the principle of freedom for which he had contended at the Council. But “certain persons came from James” the same Apostle that had supported him in the Council; these persons reopened the controversy; and Peter abandoned his publicly expressed conviction, which in a formal letter was declared with his approval to be the word of the Holy Spirit.

We are asked to accept as a credible narrative this recital of meaningless tergiversation, which attributes to Peter and to Barnabas, not ordinary human weakness and inability to answer a grave issue at the first moment when it is presented to them, but conduct devoid of reason or sanity. Who can wonder that many who are asked to accept this as history, reply that one of the two authors responsible for the two halves of the recital has erred and is untrustworthy? For the truth of history itself one must on that theory distrust one of the two documents. That is not the faith, that is not the conduct, which conquered the world! The only possible supposition would be that the Apostles were men unusually weak, ignorant, and inconstant, who continually went wrong, except where the Divine guidance interposed to keep them right. That theory has been and is still held by some; but it removes the whole development of Christianity out of the sphere of history into the sphere of the supernatural and the marvellous, whereas the hypothesis on which this investigation is based is that it was a process intelligible according to ordinary human nature, and a proper subject for the modern historian.

It is true that Peter once before denied his own affirmed principles, but that was when he was younger, when he was a mere pupil, when a terrible strain was put on him; but this denial is supposed to have been made when he was in the maturity of his power, after he had experienced the quickening sense of responsibility as a leader of the Church for many years, and after his mind and will had been enlarged and strengthened at the great Pentecost (see p. 365).

Further, according to the view stated by Lightfoot, the feeble action of Peter and Barnabas in Antioch produced lasting consequences: it “may have prepared the way for the dissension between Paul and Barnabas which shortly afterwards led to their separation. From this time forward they never appear again associated together.” If it was so serious, the total omission of it by Luke becomes harder to understand and reconcile with the duty of a historian; whereas, if it was (as we suppose) a mere hesitation when the question was first put explicitly, it was not of sufficient consequence to demand a place in his history.

Peter’s visit to Antioch was not of the same character as his visits to Samaria and other Churches at an earlier time, in which he was giving the Apostolic approval to the congregations established there. The first visit of Barnabas to Antioch, followed by the Antiochian delegation to Jerusalem (XI 28, XII 25), and the recognition of Paul and Barnabas as Apostles (Gal. II 9), had placed Antioch on a recognised and independent basis (XIII 1). In Luke’s view, therefore, as in Paul’s, Peter’s visit was not a step in the development of the Church in Antioch, as Barnabas’s had been.

3. THE COUNCIL.

(XV 4) AND WHEN THEY WERE COME TO JERUSALEM, THEY WERE RECEIVED BY THE CHURCH AND THE APOSTLES AND THE ELDERS, AND THEY REHEARSED ALL THINGS THAT GOD HAD DONE WITH THEM. (5) BUT THERE ROSE UP CERTAIN OF THE SECT OF THE PHARISEES WHO BELIEVED, SAYING, “IT IS NEEDFUL TO CIRCUMCISE THEM, AND TO CHARGE THEM TO KEEP THE LAW OF MOSES”. (6) AND THE APOSTLES AND THE ELDERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER TO CONSIDER OF THIS MATTER. (7) AND WHEN THERE HAD BEEN MUCH DISCUSSION, PETER ROSE AND SPOKE. (12) AND ALL THE MULTITUDE KEPT SILENCE; AND THEY HEARKENED UNTO BARNABAS AND PAUL, WHO REHEARSED WHAT SIGNS AND WONDERS GOD HAD WROUGHT AMONG THE NATIONS BY THEM. (13) AND AFTER THEY HAD CEASED, JAMES SPOKE.

At Jerusalem there occurred in the first place a general meeting of the Church as a whole to receive and welcome the delegates. The Apostles and the Elders are specified as taking part in the meeting; and the separate article before each name implies distinct action of each body. At this meeting the delegates explained the circumstances which had caused their mission; and the extreme members of the Judaising party, who are described here as Pharisees, stated their view forthwith.

A mark of the developed situation since Paul’s last visit must be noted in v. 4. Paul and Barnabas now expound in a formal and public way all their missionary experience; but on their previous visit, Paul privately submitted to the leaders of the Church his views as to missionary enterprise.

Thereupon, a special meeting of the Apostles and the Elders was held to consider the matter, and a long discussion took place. Peter delivered a speech in favour of complete freedom for the new converts; and the effect which he produced was shown by the patient hearing accorded to Barnabas and to Paul, as they recounted the proofs of Divine grace and Divine action in the test that God was with them. Thus, the course of the meeting was very similar to the discussion that followed after the conversion of Cornelius (XI 1-18. The general sense was clearly against the claim of the extreme Judaistic party (called “them of the circumcision” XI 2, Gal. II 12).

But, while the champions of circumcision were clearly in the minority, apparently a decided feeling was manifest in favour of some concessions to the Jewish feeling and practice: the Nations were to be received into the Church, but the widened Church was not to be apart from and independent of the old Jewish community: it was to be “a rebuilding of the tabernacle of David”. To render possible a real unanimity of feeling, the Nations must accept the fundamental regulations of purity. The chairman’s speech summed up the sense of the meeting in a way that was universally accepted. James, the recognised head of the Church in Jerusalem, said:—

(XV 14) SYMEON HATH REHEARSED HOW FIRST GOD TOOK CARE TO GATHER FROM AMONG THE NATIONS A PEOPLE FOR HIS NAME. (15) AND TO THIS AGREE THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS: AS IT IS WRITTEN, (16) “I WILL BUILD AGAIN THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID, (17) THAT THE RESIDUE OF MEN MAY SEEK AFTER THE LORD, AND ALL THE NATIONS, OVER WHOM MY NAME IS PRONOUNCED,” SAITH THE LORD, WHO MAKETH THESE THINGS (18) KNOWN FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME.The Bezan Text, and many other authorities, have “saith the Lord who doeth this. (18) Known to the Lord from the beginning of time is His work. (19) WHEREFORE MY VOICE IS THAT WE TROUBLE NOT THEM WHICH FROM AMONG THE NATIONS TURN TO GOD; (20) BUT SEND INSTRUCTIONS TO THEM TO ABSTAIN FROM THE POLLUTIONS OF IDOLS AND FROM MARRIAGE WITHIN THE DEGREES FORBIDDEN BY THE LAW, AND FROM WHAT IS STRANGLED, AND FROM the use of BLOOD as food. (21) FOR MOSES FROM ANCIENT GENERATIONS HATH IN EVERY CITY THEM THAT PREACH HIM, AS HE IS READ IN THE SYNAGOGUES EVERY SABBATH.

James grounds his advice for partial conformity on the fact, v. 21, that the Mosaic Law had already spread widely over the cities of the empire, and that the existing facts which facilitated intercourse between Jews and “God-fearing” pagans should be continued. He grounds his advice for freedom from the rest of the Law on the declared will of God, first by prophecy in time long past, and afterwards by revelation to Peter, that the Nations should be admitted to the tabernacle of David, from which he infers that their own duty is to make admission easy.

Incidentally we observe that James used the Septuagint Version, quoting loosely from Amos IX 11, 12, passage where the telling point for his purpose occurs only in the Greek and not in the Hebrew Version.

Another point of development since Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem must be noticed here. On the second visit, as Paul declares, the recognised leaders in Jerusalem gave him no advice and no instruction, except to remember the poverty of the brethren there. It would. be hard to put that in more emphatic terms than he uses (p. 56). But on the third visit, the delegates bring a question for settlement, and receive from the recognised leaders in Jerusalem an authoritative response, giving a weighty decision in a serious matter of practical work. a decision that would have been epoch-making, if it had been permanently carried into effect. On the second visit the difficulty could be foreseen; between the second and third visit it became acute; at the third visit it was settled in a way that was a distinct rebuff to the Judaising party, but not a complete triumph for the party of freedom. It would not be honest to use the words of Gal. II 10 about the visit described in Acts XV.

Another contrast between the second and the third visit must be observed. The Church sent forth several delegates along with Paul and Barnabas on the third journey; but on the second they were the sole delegates. The common view, which identifies the second visit of Gal. II 1-10 with the third visit of Acts XV, is defended by its supporters on the ground that Titus, who went along with Paul (Gal. II 1), was one of the additional delegates mentioned, XV 2. This argument sins against the facts. In Gal. II 1 Titus is defined as a subordinate, and not as one of the delegates;συμπαραλαβών, cp. XII 25 and pp. 59, 71, 177. we have no reason to think that any subordinates went up to the Council, whereas it was necessary for the work of the second visit to use assistants. Moreover, we may be certain that, if Paul did take any subordinates with him to the Council, he was too prudent and diplomatic to envenom a situation already serious and difficult by taking. an uncircumcised Greek with him. It was different on a later visit, when the authoritative decree had decided against circumcision, or on an earlier visit, before the question was raised; but when that question was under discussion, it would have been a harsh and heedless hurt to the susceptibilities of the other party, to take Titus with him; and Paul never was guilty of such an act. The example of Timothy shows how far he went about this time in avoiding any chance of hurting Jewish feeling.

4. THE DECREE.

(XV 22) THEN IT SEEMED GOOD TO THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS, WITH THE WHOLE CHURCH, TO CHOOSE MEN OUT OF THEIR COMPANY, AND SEND THEM TO ANTIOCH WITH PAUL AND BARNABAS, namely, JUDAS CALLED BARSABAS, AND SILAS, CHIEF MEN AMONG THE BRETHREN. (23) AND THEY SENT A LETTER BY THEIR MEANS: “THE APOSTLES AND THE ELDERS [BRETHREN]Dr. Blass’s explanation of this word as an accidental corruption is highly probable. UNTO THE BRETHREN WHICH ARE OF THE NATIONS IN ANTIOCH AND SYRIA AND CILICIA, GREETING. (24) FORASMUCH AS WE HAVE HEARD THAT CERTAIN WHICH WENT OUT FROM US HAVE TROUBLED YOU WITH WORDS, SUBVERTING YOUR SOULS; TO WHOM WE GAVE NO COMMANDMENT; (25) IT SEEMED GOOD UNTO US, HAVING COME TO ONE ACCORD, TO CHOOSE OUT MEN AND SEND THEM UNTO YOU WITH OUR BELOVED BARNABAS AND PAUL, (26) MEN THAT HAVE HAZARDED THEIR LIVES FOR THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. (27) WE HAVE SENT THEREFORE JUDAS AND SILAS, WHO THEMSELVES ALSO SHALL TELL YOU THE SAME THINGS BY WORD OF MOUTH. (28) FOR IT SEEMED GOOD TO THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND TO US, TO LAY UPON YOU NO GREATER BURDEN THAN THESE NECESSARY THINGS. (29) THAT YE ABSTAIN FROM THINGS SACRIFICED TO IDOLS, AND FROM BLOOD, AND FROM THINGS STRANGLED, AND FROM MARRIAGE WITHIN THE DEGREES; FROM WHICH YE KEEP YOURSELVES, IT SHALL BE WELL WITH YOU. FARE YE WELL.”

The Decree is, as Lightfoot says, a compromise. On the one hand the extreme Judaising party is entirely disowned and emphatically condemned, as “subverting the souls” of the Gentiles. But, on the other hand, part of the Law is declared to be obligatory; and the word selected is very emphatic (ἐπάναγκες). If this word be taken in its full sense, the Decree lacks unity of purpose and definiteness of principle; it passes lamely from side to side. Now it seems impossible to suppose that Paul could have accepted a Decree which declared mere points of ritual to be compulsory; and one of them he afterwards emphatically declared to be not compulsory (I Cor. VIII 4 f.). But those who had listened to the speeches of Peter and James, and were familiar with the situation in which the question had emerged, were prepared to look specially at the exordium with its emphatic condemnation of the Judaising party; and thereafter, doubtless, they took the concluding part as a recommendation, and regarded the four points as strongly advised in the interests of peace and unity.

But the real power of a law lies in its positive enactment; and most people would look only to what the Decree ordered. Now, whether or not the last sentences must bear the sense, they certainly may naturally bear the sense, that part of the Law was absolutely compulsory for salvation, and that the Nations were released from the rest as a concession to their weakness: “we lay on you no greater burden than these necessary conditions”. This seemed to create two grades of Christians: a lower class of weaker persons, who could not observe the whole Law, but only the compulsory parts of it, and a higher class, who were strong enough to obey the whole Law. The Gentile Christians were familiar in the pagan religions with distinctions of grade; for stages of initiation into the Mysteries existed everywhere. It was almost inevitable that a Decree, which lays down no clear and formal principle of freedom, should in practice be taken as making a distinction between strong and weak, between more and less advanced Christians; and it is certain that it was soon taken in that sense.

The question is often asked, why this letter was not addressed also to the Churches of Galatia; and several answers are suggested. But the answer which seems obvious from our point of view is that the letter was addressed only to those who asked the question. The provincial organisation of the Church began through the compulsion of circumstances (p. 135): there must either be a provincial organisation or no organisation. The principle, when it has been once stated, is self-evident. Circumstances made Antioch the centre of the Church in the province Syria and Cilicia; and the address of this letter attests the recognition of that fact and its consequences.

Hence, when Paul went forth on his next journey, he did not communicate the Decree to the Churches in Syria and Cilicia, XV 41, because they had already received it, when it was first sent out. But, when he and Silas reached Galatia, “they delivered them the decrees for to keep, which had been ordained of the Apostles and Elders,” XVI 4. But the Bezan Reviser, not understanding this delicate distinction, interpolated the statement in XV 41, that Paul and Silas “delivered the instructions of the Apostles and Elders”.

5. THE RETURN TO ANTIOCH.

(XV 30) SO THEY, BEING SET FREE TO DEPART, CAME DOWN TO ANTIOCH; AND HAVING GATHERED THE MULTITUDE TOGETHER, THEY DELIVERED THE LETTER. (31) AND WHEN THEY HAD READ IT, THEY REJOICED AT THE ENCOURAGEMENT. (32) AND JUDAS AND SILAS ON THEIR OWN ACCOUNT ALSO, INASMUCH AS THEY WERE PROPHETS, ENCOURAGED THE BRETHREN AT GREAT LENGTH, AND CONFIRMED THEM. (33) AND AFTER THEY HAD SPENT SOME TIME, THEY WERE SET FREE BY THE BRETHREN TO DEPART IN PEACE TO THEM THAT SENT THEM FORTH; (34) But it pleased Silas to abide there still. (35) AND PAUL AND BARNABAS TARRIED IN ANTIOCH, TEACHING AND PREACHING THE WORD OF THE LORD, WITH MANY OTHERS ALSO. (36) AND AFTER CERTAIN DAYS PAUL SAID . . .

As in XI 24, so here, v. 32, the qualification of Judas and Silas for exhorting the congregation is carefully stated. Luke lays such evident stress on proper qualification, that he seems to have considered Divine gifts necessary in any one that was to address a congregation (p. 45).

After the Council, Paul and Barnabas returned to their ordinary duties in Antioch, where the number of qualified prophets and teachers was now larger than in XIII 1. They remained there a short time (v. 36, cp. IX 19, 23. The second journey began probably in the spring of the year 50.

At some period v. 34 was deliberately omitted from the next, from the mistaken idea that v. 33, declared the actual departure of Judas and Silas: but the officials of the Church in Antioch (the Elders?) simply informed Judas and Silas that their duties were concluded and they were free to return home, and Silas did not avail himself of the permission. Considering how XII 25 prepares the way for XIII 5, we must hold that XV 34 is genuine and prepares for XV 40; and the fact that the Bezan Reviser found 34 is the text and added to it the comment “and Judas went alone,” constitutes a distinct proof of its genuineness. It is not that any difficulty need be found in Paul selecting Silas from Jerusalem, for Barnabas here takes Mark from Jerusalem (XIII 13). But it is one of the points of Luke’s style to furnish the material for understanding a new departure, and the very marked statement that Silas voluntarily remained, when his official duty was declared to be at an end, makes the next event much more intelligible (p. 176). There is in the sequence of thought 33-4a certain harshness (characteristic of Luke when he wants to draw attention to a point); and this led to the omission of 34 in the great MSS. and by many modern editors.

6. THE SEPARATION OF PAUL AND BARNABAS.

(v 36) AND AFTER SOME DAYS PAUL SAID UNTO BARNABAS, “LET US RETURN NOW AND VISIT THE BRETHREN IN EVERY CITY WHEREIN WE PROCLAIMED THE WORD OF THE LORD, HOW THEY FARE”. (37) AND BARNABAS WAS MINDED TO TAKE WITH THEM JOHN ALSO, WHO WAS CALLED MARK. (38) BUT PAUL THOUGHT NOT GOOD TO TAKE WITH THEM HIM THAT WITHDREW FROM THEM FROM PAMPHYLIA AND WENT NOT WITH THEM TO THE WORK. (39) AND THERE AROSE A SHARP CONTENTION, SO THAT THEY PARTED ASUNDER ONE FROM THE OTHER; AND BARNABAS TOOK MARK WITH HIM, AND SAILED AWAY UNTO CYPRUS; (40) BUT PAUL CHOSE SILAS AND WENT FORTH, BEING COMMENDED BY THE BRETHREN TO THE GRACE OF THE LORD: AND HE WENT THROUGH SYRIA AND CILICIA, CONFIRMING THE CHURCHES.

Barnabas here passes out of this history. The tradition, as stated in the apocryphal Periodoi Barnabæ, a very late work, was that he remained in Cyprus till his death; and the fact that Mark reappears at a later stage without Barnabas, is in agreement. At any rate his work, wherever it was carried on, did not, in Luke’s estimation, contribute to work out the idea of the organised and unified Church. That idea was elaborated in Paul’s work; and the history is guided by Paul’s activity from the moment when he began to be fully conscious of the true nature of his work. Others contributed to the earlier stages, but, as it proceeded, all the other personages became secondary, and Paul more and more the single moving genius.

The choice of Silas was, of course, due to his special fitness for the work, which had been recognised during his ministration in Antioch. Doubtless he had shown tact and sympathy in managing the questions arising from the relations of the Gentile Christians to the Jews. His sympathies had also been shown by his preferring to remain in the mixed and freer congregation in Antioch, when he had been at liberty to return to Jerusalem.

The name Silas is a familiar diminutive of Silvanus; and the full and more dignified form is employed in the superscription of the two letters to the Thessalonians. Silvanus is a Latin name; and Silas is implied in XVI 37 to have been a Roman citizen. It may, however, be looked on as certain that he was a Hebrew, for only a Hebrew would have been a leading man among the Brethren at Jerusalem (XV 22). His double character, Hebrew and Roman, was in itself a qualification for a coadjutor of Paul; and, doubtless, the Roman side of his character caused that freedom from narrow Judaistic prejudice which shines through his action.

It appears from the term employed in v. 40 that Silas took the place of Barnabas, not of Mark. The latter was a mere unofficial companion in every case, as is shown by the word used.συμπαραλαμβένω XII 25, XV 37, p. 170/ The verbs in the next few verses are all singular; though it is clear that Silas is concerned in many of the actions. The singular was preferred by Luke because certain of the actions were special to Paul, the choosing of Silas and of Timothy. There is a decided harshness in the narrative that follows, owing to the variation between the singular and the plural. At some points in the action Paul monopolises the author’s attention; and probably the expression, harsh though it be grammatically, corresponds to the facts. At the opening of the journey Paul alone is the subject: now at the opening the new comrade was untrained to the work. After a time the plural begins, XVI 4, and, wherever travelling is described, it is employed; but, when the direction given to missionary work is alluded to, Silas disappears, and Paul alone is the subject, XVII 2.

CHAPTER VIII.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCHES OF GALATIA

1. THE VISIT OF PAUL AND SILAS.

(XVI 1) AND HE CAME ALSO TO DERBE AND TO LYSTRA; AND BEHOLD A CERTAIN DISCIPLE WAS THERE NAMED TIMOTHY, THE SON OF A JEWESS WHICH BELIEVED; BUT HIS FATHER WAS A GREEK. (2) THE SAME HAD A GOOD REPUTATION AMONG THE BRETHREN THAT WERE IN LYSTRA AND ICONIUM. (3) HIM WOULD PAUL HAVE TO GO FORTH WITH HIM; AND HE TOOK AND CIRCUMCISED HIM BECAUSE OF THE JEWS THAT WERE IN THOSE PARTS, FOR THEY ALL KNEW THAT HIS FATHER WAS A GREEK. (4) AND AS THEY WERE PASSING THROUGH THE CITIES, THEY in each DELIVERED THEM THE DECREES FOR TO KEEP, WHICH HAD BEEN ORDAINED OF THE APOSTLES AND ELDERS THAT WERE AT JERUSALEM. (5) THE CHURCHES THEN WERE STRENGTHENED IN THE FAITH, AND INCREASED IN NUMBER DAILY. (6) AND THEY MADE A MISSIONARY PROGRESS THROUGH THE PHRYGIAN REGION OF the province GALATIA (the Phrygo-Galatic Region.)

In v. 1 it is implied that Derbe and Lystra are a pair, constituting a district (p. 110). The work of this journey is divided according to districts: (1) Syria and Cilicia, a single Roman province; (2) Derbe and Lystra, a region of the province Galatia, which is here indicated by its two cities as the most convenient way, because in one. of them a considerable halt had to be described; (3) the Phrygian region of the province Galatia; (4) Asia, where preaching was forbidden, was traversed transversely to its northwestern point after an unsuccessful effort to enter the province Bithynia for missionary purposes. Between Cilicia and Derbe the great realm of Antiochus is omitted from the narrative, as being a non-Roman territory and out of Paul’s plans.

Derbe and Lystra are grouped together as a Region, but the author dwells only on Lystra. The only reason why they are grouped together and separated from the districts that precede and follow, lies in the Roman classification, which made them a group. But in order to mark that Lystra alone is referred to in the sequel, the historian repeats the preposition before it: “he came to Derbe and to Lystra”.

In v. 2 Lystra and Iconium are grouped together as the district where Timothy was well known. It is implied that he was not known at Derbe. This again is true to the facts of commerce and intercourse. Lystra is much nearer Iconium than it is to Derbe; and geographically, Lystra goes along with Iconium, while Derbe goes with Laranda and that part of Lycaonia. Neither blood nor Roman classification could prevent commerce from running in its natural channels (XIV 19). The nearest city to Iconium was Lystra, and the nearest to Lystra was Iconium; and the relations between them must always be close.

The historian is careful to add in this case, as he does about the Seven Deacons (VI 3), about Cornelius (X 22, cp. 2), and as Paul does about Ananias (XXII 12), and as is implied in I 21, that Timothy had so lived as to bear a good character in the district where he was known. It is not meant that Paul went about taking the opinion of Lystra and Iconium about Timothy, any more than it is meant in X 22 that Cornelius’s messengers went collecting evidence about him all over Palestine: we may be sure that in such a selection Paul depended on his own insight, guided perhaps by Divine approval. The author adds this information about the good repute of Timothy, because he considered good repute one of the conditions of appointment to any office however humble in the Church. He is interested in all questions of organisation, and we may compare what he says about the qualification of preachers (pp. 45, 174). As a point of literary style we note that the event of a new and important character is marked by an unusually detailed account of him.

We infer from the expression that in vv. 1-3 Paul and Silas have not gone beyond Lystra; and that it is a misconception to think that in v. 2 Paul is in Iconium. At Lystra Paul felt that, along the route which he intended to take, the Jews knew Timothy’s father to be a Greek: he was going along a frequented route of trade, on which were colonies of Jews in communication with each other, for there can be no doubt that his plan was to go by Iconium and Antioch into Asia. The opinion has sometimes been held that at this point Paul abandoned the visitation of his Churches as contemplated in XV 36; and that “the fact that God put this companion in his way served as a warning to him to go direct from Lykaonia to a new mission-field” (see Weiss’s note on XVI 2). But, on the contrary, our view is that, when Luke records any deliberately formed intention on Paul’s part, he leaves us to understand that it was carried out, if no intimation to the contrary is given (p. 342); and that Timothy here was taken as companion for the route as first planned, to fill the place of John Mark on the previous journey. There seems no reason to think (as Blass does) that one or more subordinates accompanied Paul from Syrian Antioch. It is not improbable that Paul, owing to previous experience, thought of Timothy as a companion even before he left Antioch.

Paul then proceeded on his intended route through the Phrygian Region of the province, whose two cities visited on the previous journey were Iconium and Pisidian Antioch. The cities are not specially named, as nothing striking or important occurred in either. It is implied that no Church had been rounded on the former journey in Pisidia or Pamphylia; and hence Paul had no Churches to review and confirm there. The reference to Pisidia (a Region of the province Galatia) in XIV 24 does not suggest that any success was attained there; and we may find in the list of I Peter I 1 a clear proof that there was no Church in Pamphylia at a date considerably later. That list is clearly intended to exhaust the Church in Asia Minor; and it mentions every province except Lycia and Pamphylia (which, therefore, did not yet contain any Churches, and seem to have long resisted Christianity), and Cilicia, which was part of Syria. The list, incidentally, shows that already in the first century a certain coherence was perceptible between the various Churches of Asia Minor, as distinguished from Syria and Cilicia. That springs naturally from the political conditions, and it grew stronger as time passed, until the two divisions became the patriarchates of Constantinople and of Antioch.

At this point Luke inserts an account of Paul’s action in the cities through which he was making his way. It is in his style to put this account near the beginning and expect the reader to apply it in all subsequent cases (p. 72). It does not apply to Cilicia (p. 173), and could not therefore be given sooner. In each city Paul and Silas delivered the Decree, and urged the Gentile converts to observe the necessary points of Jewish ritual; and everywhere the congregations were vigorous and growing. We cannot mistake the emphasis laid by the historian on Paul’s loyal determination to carry out the Apostolic Decree. and his anxiety to go as far as was honestly possible in the way of conciliating the Jews: that is in keeping with his view that the entire blame for the rupture between Paul and the Jews lay with the latter. But, if Paul was so anxious at this time to recommend the Decree to his converts, why does he never refer to it in any of his subsequent letters, even where he touches on points that were formally dealt with in the Decree, and why does he give advice to the Corinthians about meat offered to idols, which certainly strains the Decree to the utmost, if it be not actually inconsistent with it? The explanation lies in the immediate consequences of his action in the Galatian Churches.

2. THE DESERTION OF GALATIANS.

Soon after Paul left the province Galatia, there came to it missionaries of the Judaising party, who taught the Galatian Churches to take that view of the Apostolic Decree which we have described on p. 172 f. They pointed out that Paul himself recognised the principle that circumcision was needed for the higher grade of Christian service; for when he selected Timothy for a position of responsibility in the Church, he, as a preliminary, performed the rite on him; and they declared that thereby he was, in effect, “preaching circumcision” (Gal. V 11). Further, they threw doubt on his sincerity in this act; and insinuated that he was reluctantly complying with necessity, in order to “conciliate and ingratiate himself with” the mass of the Church (see Lightfoot on Gal. I 10). Above all they insisted on the existence of the two grades of Christians; they pointed out that Paul had himself delivered and recommended the Apostolic Decree which recognised the distinction of weaker and stronger Brethren; and they urged the Galatians to strive to attain to the higher, and not rest content with the lower grade, which was a mere concession to weakness.

Such teaching found a ready response in the minds of the Galatian Christians. Many of them had first heard Paul preaching in the synagogue, many had come under the influence of Judaism to some extent even before Paul entered Galatia; all were ready to accept the belief that, as the Jews were always the first in Paul’s own plans, and as Christianity came from the Jews, therefore it was right to imitate the Jews (p. 144). It was precisely the most enthusiastic and devoted, who would be eager to rise to the highest and most difficult stage of Christian life.

Further, the Judaistic emissaries urged that Paul was merely the messenger and subordinate of the Twelve, that these original Apostles and leaders of the Church must be accepted as the ultimate guides. and that where Paul swerved from their teaching he was in error; and they claimed likewise to be the messengers come direct from the Twelve to communicate their latest views. Paul had recently delivered the Decree of the older Apostles; and now later messengers supplemented and elucidated the Decree.

3. LETTER TO THE CHURCHES OF GALATIA.

Paul saw that his vision of the Church that should unite the civilised world was a vain dream, if it were to be bound by the fetters of Judaism; and he felt, as soon as he heard of this defection, that it must be met at once. If these Churches, his first foundations towards the west, were to pass under the party of slavery, his work was ruined at its inception: the blow to his policy and his influence was ruinous. One of the arguments by which the change had been produced was especially galling to him: his efforts at conciliation were taken advantage of to distort his motives, and to represent him as inconsistent and temporising, and his attempts to soothe the prejudices of the Judaistic party were treated as attempts at compromise. Hence he bursts forth at the outset in a strain of terrific vehemence (which I purposely give as far as possible in Lightfoot’s language): “Though we (i.e., Silas and I), or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we have told you before, so now once more I say, if any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema. What! does my boldness startle you? Is this, I ask, the language of a time-server? Will any one say now that, careless of winning the favour of God, I seek to conciliate men, to ingratiate myself with men? I speak thus strongly, for my language shall not be misconstrued, shall wear no semblance of compromise” (Gal. I 8-10). And towards the end of his letter he returns to the same point: “What! do I who have incurred the deadly hatred of the Judaisers, who am exposed to continual persecution from them, do I preach circumcision? If so, why do they persecute me? Surety what scandalises them in my teaching, the crucifixion with its atonement for sin, has been done away with, if I have, as they say, taken to their method, and begun to preach circumcision” (V 11).

Satisfied with the vehemence of the first outburst, and the sarcasm of the second, Paul wastes no argument to prove that he has been consistent throughout. He knows that the Galatic Churches cannot really believe that part of his adversaries’ arguments: they feel in their hearts that he has always been true to the first Gospel; and he proceeds to remind them of its origin and its hold on them, in order to enforce the conclusion that they must cling to the first Gospel, whoever it be that preaches any other. His argument, therefore, is directed to show that he came among them in the beginning with a message direct from God: “the Gospel which was preached by me is not after man” (I 11): “it came to me through revelation of Jesus”. Then he proceeds to show, by appealing to the facts, that he had not had the opportunity of learning anything from the recognised pillars of the Church. When it pleased God to reveal Jesus in him, bitter enemy of the Church as he was, he “conferred not with flesh and blood,” but went away for solitary meditation into Arabia. He was made by God His Apostle to the Nations years before he conferred with any of the Apostles. Twice at a later date did he go up to Jerusalem, in one case remaining fifteen days and seeing only Peter and James, in the second going up at the Divine command to help the poor at Jerusalem (II 10)—on which occasion, as a matter of fact, no injunction was laid on his Greek assistant Titus to accept the Judaic rite—and receiving the recognition of his Apostleship, but no instruction, from the heads of the Church (p. 56 f.).

Here in passing let us ask the question, Did Paul in this autobiographical sketch, given in such solemn yet vehement style, with the oath by God that he is not deceiving them—did Paul, I say, omit to mention that he had paid another visit to Jerusalem between the two that he describes? The question seems almost an insult; yet many scholars of the highest order consider that he here leaves out of sight the visit described by Luke, XI 28-30, and XII 25. I confess that, after studying all that the orthodox scholars say on this point I find a higher conception of Paul’s character and truthfulness in the position of the critics who conclude that Luke utterly misconceived the sequence of events in early Christian history and interpolated an intermediate visit where no visit occurred, than in Bishop Lightfoot’s position that “of this visit Paul makes no mention here”. Paul ’s argument is rounded on the rarity of his visits, and his aim is to show that on these visits he received no charge from the Twelve. Reason and truth rebel against the idea that he left out the middle visit. If he passed over part of the facts here, what situation can be imagined in which he would feel obliged to tell all the facts? And on that supposition, that Paul omitted a fact so essential to his purpose and to honest autobiography, the entire body of orthodox scholars have built up their theory of early Church history! It cannot be! Luke’s second visit must be Paul’s second visit; and when we build boldly on that plain foundation, the history rises before us in order and symmetry.

But further, it is obvious that Paul appeals with absolute confidence to this second visit as proving his ease: he evidently conceives that he has merely to recall the facts to the Galatians in order to make all clear. Now, there is one situation in which a man is obviously not receiving from others, and that is when he is actually giving to them: that was the situation on the second visit according to Luke, and that explains Paul’s confidence in appealing to his second visit.

Again, Paul knew that he had clever and skillful arguers to contend against. How could he expose himself to the retort that he was missing out the intermediate visit to Jerusalem? How could he feel confident that the Galatians, who had already shown themselves so liable to be deceived by specious arguments, would be able at once to reply to that obvious retort?

Finally, Paul, as an honest and rational man, could not appeal to the events of the third visit according to Luke, as proving beyond question that he received on that occasion no charge from the Apostles. He did receive a charge then, and he delivered that charge to the Churches.

Why, then, it may be objected, does Paul not mention his third visit? The answer is obvious. He is engaged in proving that, when he gave his first message to the Churches of Galatia, he had never received any charge from the older Apostles. His whole point is: “Cleave to my first message, which came direct from God: if Silas and I afterwards said anything inconsistent with that message, we are accursed”. The third visit to Jerusalem did not take place until after the Galatian Churches were rounded, and therefore it could find no place in the autobiographical retrospect of I 12-II 10; but it is clearly implied in the scornful and impetuous sentence, I 8: “Even if Silas and I (as these emissaries have been telling you), if an angel from heaven, should preach to you a Gospel contrary to that which we originally preached to you, a curse be upon us”.

After this autobiographical sketch, Paul refers to an instance which showed very strongly his independence in face of the leading Apostle Peter, and then passes on to the third and main argument of his adversaries, rounded on the supposed grades in Christian life. His line of reply is to bring out in various ways the truth that the Judaistic form is the lower stage, and the Gospel of freedom which had been delivered to the Galatians the higher stage. The Law alone was not sufficient for salvation, inasmuch as Christ had died to supplement its deficiency; therefore life according to the Law could not be the highest stage of Christian life. How could the Galatians be so foolish as to think that, having begun in the Spirit, their higher stage of development would be in the flesh (III 3)? The Christians who have entered through the Spirit are the children of the free woman, but the Judaistic Christians are the children of the bond woman and lower in rank (IV 31). The latter may rise to be free, but, if the former sink under bondage to the Law, they sacrifice their Christianity. The Judaistic Christians are children under care of a pedagogue, who have to be raised by Christ to the full growth and freedom (III 23-4). In a variety of other striking and impressive figures the superiority of the free to the Judaistic Christians is illustrated. It cannot be said that there is any reasoning or argument: illustrations are used to bring the Galatians to a clear consciousness of what they have in their own minds. Argument is too external a process; Paul merely points out to the Galatians that “they already know”.

As a whole, the letter is an eloquent and powerful claim for freedom of life, freedom of thought, freedom of the individual from external restrictions and regulations, freedom for all to work out their own salvation and develop their own nature: “Ye were called for freedom” (V 13). And towards the conclusion this turns to a glorification of love. Their freedom is freedom to do right, not freedom to do everything; “the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (V 14). Selfishness, i.e., “the flesh,” is the absolute antithesis of love, i.e., “the Spirit “; and the receiving of Christ is “crucifying the flesh with the passions thereof” (V 24). The essence of the true life lies neither in observing the Law nor in being above the Law, but in building anew one’s nature (VI 15).

4. THE DATE OF THE GALATIAN EPISTLE

The date of the Galatian Epistle, though out of chronological order, may be considered here. The defection of the Galatians occurred shortly after Paul’s second visit (not shortly after his first visit, as Lightfoot strangely takes it, I 6, p. 42). He spent the summer of 50 among them; and the Judaie emissaries may have come in the summer of 51 or 52. But, amid the sudden changes of plan on his journey, Paul could not receive many letters from Galatia. Moreover, his epistle seems to imply the possession of full knowledge, such as could not be gained from a mere letter: if the Galatians wrote to him, it is most improbable that they explained their changed attitude and all the reasons for it. No! Paul’s information comes from the personal report of a trusty messenger; and the obvious suitability of Timothy for the duty occurs at once to one’s mind. Further, it is clear that Timothy was with Paul during a considerable part of the stay in Corinth, for he joined in the greeting at the opening of both letters to Thessalonica. It is therefore hardly possible that he could have gone home, visited his friends, satisfied himself as to the condition of the Churches, and returned to Corinth before Paul left that city. Moreover, if Paul heard at that time, it is not probable that he would have spent so much time on a voyage to Jerusalem and a visit to Syrian Antioch before visiting personally the wavering Churches.

We conclude, then, that Timothy went to pay a visit to his friends, not before the latter part of Paul’s stay in Corinth; and, when he found out the real state of affairs in South Galatia, he went to meet Paul with the news. Owing to Paul’s movements, there are only two places where Timothy could have met him,—Ephesus and Syrian Antioch. The former is most unlikely, for, if Timothy left Corinth some months before Paul, he could have no assurance of meeting him there, where he merely called in passing. It is probable, then, that he brought his report to Paul at Syrian Antioch after the fourth visit to Jerusalem (p. 265). With the entire want of definite evidence, we cannot get beyond this estimate of probabilities; and it is most likely that Timothy stayed with Paul during the whole of his residence at Corinth, sailed with him as far as Ephesus, and landed there in order to go home on a visit to his friends, while Paul went on to Jerusalem. We shall at a later stage find that Paul often sent deputies to inspect his Churches; and their reports often drew forth an Epistle to correct an erring Church (pp. 275, 284).

In this way, when Paul reached Syrian Antioch, or immediately after he reached it, at the end of his visit to Cæsareia and Jerusalem, he found Timothy waiting with the disheartening news, in the summer of 53: and at once he sat down and wrote the letter which has been preserved to us.

One question remains. Why was Paul content with writing? Why did he not start at once himself? Personal intervention is always more effective in such cases. But, in the first place, a letter would certainly travel faster than Paul could get over the ground; and he would not lose a moment in letting the Galatians hear what he thought. In the second place, he could hardly sacrifice the opportunity of reviewing the Churches in Syria and Cilicia that lay on his way: everywhere he would be besieged with entreaties to stay for a little, and he could not well hurry past them without at least a brief stay of one or two days in each. Finally there are frequently reasons which make it impossible to hurry away on a serious journey like that from Syria to South Galatia. Paul was only human.

When Paul wrote the letter he must, on our view, have been intending to arrive very soon after his letter. It may be asked why he makes no reference to this intention. But we should rather ask, if, according to the ordinary view, he were not coming immediately, why he did not make some explanatory statement of the reasons that compelled him at such a crisis to be content with a letter and to do without a visit (p. 275 f.). The messenger who carried the letter carried also the news that Paul was following close after, as fast as his necessary detentions at Antioch and other cities on the way permitted; and part of the effect of the letter lay in the fact that the writer was going to be present in person very soon.

The Epistle to the Galatians, therefore, belongs to A.D. 53, and was written just when he was starting on his third journey, but before he had begun that scheme of a general contribution among all his new Churches which is so prominent in the three following letters, I, II Cor. and Rom.

To this date one objection may perhaps be urged: in IV 10, Paul asks, “Are ye observing days and months and seasons and years?” It has been urged that this implies that the Sabbatical year 54–55 was observed by the Galatians when the letter was written. But Lightfoot has rightly rejected this argument: Paul asks in sarcasm: “Are ye observing the whole series of institutions? are ye taking up anew a ritual like that of paganism from which you were set free?”

5. THE LATER HISTORY OF THE CHURCHES OF GALATIA

The later history of the churches of Galatia is obscure. They took part in the contribution raised by the Pauline Churches for the poor brethren at Jerusalem (p. 286 f.), and were represented in the delegation that carried it to Jerusalem. Thereafter history ends, and tradition alone preserves some scraps of information about Antioch, Iconium and Lystra. Derbe alone is not mentioned either in the tradition (so far as my knowledge extends) or in the history of the Church until we come down to A.D. 381, when its bishop Daphnus was present at the Council of Constantinople. The only hope of further information about the four Churches lies in archæology; but unless the spade can be brought to supplement the too scanty records that remain above ground, little can be hoped for.The Christian antiquities of Antioch and Iconium will be discussed at some length in my Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia. If my dream of excavating the deserted sites of Derbe and Lystra be ever realised, they would form the subject of a special treatise.

CHAPTER IX.

THE COMING OF LUKE AND THE CALL INTO MACEDONIA

1. ACROSS ASIA.

(XVI 6) AND THEY, HAVING MADE PROGRESS THROUGH THE PHRYGIAN REGION OF the province GALATIA, AND HAVING BEEN PREVENTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT FROM SPEAKING THE WORD IN the Province ASIA, (7) AND HAVING REACHED A POINT OVER AGAINST MYSIA (or perhaps, on the skirts of Mysia), WERE ATTEMPTING TO MAKE THEIR WAY INTO the province BITHYNIA; AND THE SPIRIT OF JESUS SUFFERED THEM NOT; (8) AND, NEGLECTING MYSIA, THEY CAME DOWN TO the harbour TROAS. (9) AND A VISION APPEARED TO PAUL BY NIGHT: THERE WAS A CERTAIN MAN, A MACEDONIAN, STANDING, AND EXHORTING HIM AND SAYING, “COME OVER TO MACEDONIA, AND HELP US”. (10) AND WHEN HE SAW THE VISION, IMMEDIATELY WE SOUGHT TO GO OUT from Asia INTO the province MACEDONIA, ASSUREDLY GATHERING THAT “GOD HAS SUMMONED US TO BRING THE GOOD NEWS TO THEM”.

Paul and his companions made a missionary progress through the Phrygian Region of the province Galatia

τὴν Φρυγίαν καὶ Γαλατικὴν χώραν. The use of καί to connect two epithets of the same person or place is regular in Greek (so Σαῦλος ὁ καὶ Παῦλος, Saul alias Paul); e.g., Strabo speaks of a mouth of the Nile as τὸ Κανωβικὸν καὶ ἡρακλεωτικόν, the mouth which is called by both names, Canopic and Heracleotic, where we should say, “the Canopic or Heracleotic mouth”. I need not dwell on such an elementary point. Another point of Greek construction comes up in XVIII 23: when a list is given in Greek, the items of which are designated by adjectives with the same noun, the regular order is to use the noun with the first alone. Strabo has numberless examples: 767, τῶν παρακειμένων Ἀραβίων ἐθνῶν Ναβαταίων τε καὶ Χαυλοτοπαίων καὶ Ἀγραίων; 751, ὁ Ἀρκεύθης ποταμὸς καὶ ὁ Ὀρόντης καὶ ὁ Λαβώτας; 802, τὸ Μενδήσιον στόμα καὶ τὸ Τανιτικόν (there are some interesting and delicate examples in Strabo, on which we cannot here dwell, of the distinction between the double epithet and the double item); Herodotus, II 17, τὸ δὲ Βολβιτινὸν στόμα καὶ τὸ Βουκολικὸν and so Luke groups two Regiones as τὴν Γαλατικὴν χώραν καὶ Φρυγίαν, XVIII 23. The North-Galatian theorists insist that Φρυγίαν in XVI 6 must be a substantive; but they have not quoted any case in which a noun with its adjective is coupled anarthrously by καί to a preceding noun with the article. Dr. Chase quoted Luke III 1, τῆς Ἰτουραίας καὶ Τραχωνίτιδος χώρας; but the case tells against him, for Luke’s intention to use Ἰτουραίας here as an adjective is proved by the following reasons:—

(1) Eusebius and Jerome repeatedly interpret Luke III 1 in that way (see Expositor, Jan. 1894, p. 52; April, p. 289). (2) Ἰτουραία is never used as a noun by the ancients, but is pointedly avoided, even where ἡ Ἰτουραίων was awkward: the reason was that Ἰτουπαία, as a noun, would indicate a political entity, whereas the Ituræi were a wandering nomadic race, who had not a definite and organised country. As my other reasons have been disputed, I do not append them here; though I consider them unshaken. [Mr. Arnold’s attempt to find one instance of Ἰτουπαία as a noun in Appian seems to refute itself, Engl. Hist Rev., 1895, p. 553.]

The expression marks clearly the distinction between the prohibition to preach in Asia, while they were actually in it, and the prohibition even to set foot in Bithynia. It was necessary for them to cross Asia in order to fulfill the purpose. for which they were about to be called.

The geographical facts of this paragraph are stated with great clearness in the text followed by the Authorised Version and the older editions; but the reading which they give is rounded on Manuscripts of an inferior class (while the great MSS. have a different text), and is characterised by the sequence of three participial clauses, a sequence almost unique in Luke’s writings, and therefore suspected and altered. But the strange form of construction by a succession of participles suits so perfectly the strange and unique character, the hurry, and the deep-lying emotion of the passage (see § 2) that, as Lightfoot’s judgment, Bibl Essays, p. 237, perceived, the inferior MSS. must here be followed. The text of the great MSS., though it does not quite conceal the feeling of the passage, yet obscures it a little, and, by approximating more to Luke’s ordinary form of sentence, loses that perfect adaptation of form to sense, which so often strikes us in this history. We have already noticed, p. 115, that Luke loves the triple iteration of successive words or clauses to produce a certain effect in arresting attention.

The reading of the inferior MSS. suits the South-Galatian theory admirably; but that fact never weighed with me for a moment in the choice. As long as the question between the two theories was alone concerned, the thought of following the inferior MSS. did not even present itself: I followed the great MSS. and interpreted them in the best way possible, neither looking aside nor feeling the slightest wish to adopt the rival text. But when the question of literary feeling came up, after the delicate adaptation of expression to emotion throughout Acts gradually revealed itself, it became clear that here the choice lay between a cast of sentence unusual in this author, and one that was quite in his ordinary style, in a place where the feeling and the facts were strange and unique: hesitation was then impossible: the unusual emotion demanded the unusual expression.

διῆλθον τὴν Φ. κ. Γ. χώπαν κωλυθέντες. Many are likely to rest on the authority of the great MSS., and prefer this reading. It may be understood, by an ellipse common in Greek, “they made a missionary progress through the Phrygian land, viz., the Galatic part of it, inasmuch as they were prevented from preaching in Asia, and could not, therefore, do missionary work in the Asian part of it”. But, if this were the writing of Luke, I should prefer to hold that he meant διῆλθον καὶ ἐκωλύθησαν, using a construction which he has in (1) XXIII 35 ἔφη κελεύσας he said, “I will hear thee, when thy accusers arrive,” and ordered him to be imprisoned: (2) XXV 13 κατήντησαν ἀσπασάμενοι “they arrived at Cæsareia and paid their respects to Festus”: (3) XVII 26 ἐποίησεν ἐξ ἑνός, ὁρίσας “he made all nations of one blood, and assigned to them limits and bounds” (here the unity of all nations is the initial idea, and the fixing of limits and distinctions is later). Blass, who thus explains XXIII 35, gives in his preface, p. 20, many examples of the present infinitive used in the same way (XVIII 23 ἐξηλθν διερχόμενος he went forth and made a progress through the Galatic Region, cp. VI 9 ἀνέστησαν συνζητουντες they rose up and disputed with Stephen, VI 11 ὑπέβαλον ἄνδρας λέγοντας they suborned men which said [also VI 13], VIII 10 προσειχον λέγοντες they hearkened and said, V. 36 ἀνέστη λέγων he stood up and said, VIII 18, XlV 22, etc.); and he accepts and prints in his text the reading of inferior authority in XXVIII 14 παρεκλήθημεν παῤ αὐτοις, ἐτιμείναντες we were cheered among them, and remained seven days. The usage is common in Paul. The use of aorist or present participle corresponds to the tense which would be used if the sentence were constructed in the fuller fashion, ἔφη καὶ ἐκελευσεν but ἐξηλθεν καὶ διήρχετο (Blass differs in regard to XXI 16, which he says = συνῆλθον καὶ ἤγαγον).

In this passage the distinction observed by Luke between Roman provincial designations and the older national names is specially clear. Wherever he mentions districts of mission work, he classifies according to the existing political (Roman) divisions (as here, the Phrygo-Galatic Region, Asia, Bithynia, Macedonia); but where he is simply giving geographical information, he either uses the pre-Roman names of lands (e.g., Mysia), or omits the land from his narrative.

The “neglecting” of Mysia is a remarkable expression, one of those by which Luke compels attention at a critical point. As a rule he simply omits a country where no preaching occurred (p. 90 f.); but here he accumulates devices to arrest the reader. His effects are always attained, not by rhetorical devices, but by order and marshalling of facts; and here, in a missionary tour, the “neglecting” of a great country is a fact that no one can pass over. Not catching the intention, many understand “passing without entering” (παρελθόντες): Dr. Blass rightly sees that a traveller cannot reach Troas without crossing Mysia; but he goes on to alter the text, following the Bezan reading (διελθόντες; see p. 235).

The journey across Mysia led naturally down the course of the river Rhyndacos, and past the south shore of the great lakes. A tradition that Paul had travelled by the sacred town of the goddess Artemis at the hot springs of the river Aisepos can be traced as early as the second century, accompanied with the legend that he had rounded a chapel in the neighbourhood. If he went down the Rhyndacos, it is practically certain that he must have passed close to, or through, Artemaia on his way to the great harbour. Under the influence of this tradition, the Bezan Reviser changed the text of v. 8, reading “making a progress through Mysia”. But evangelisation on the journey across Mysia was forbidden, v. 6. The tradition, however, is interesting, and there is further trace of very early foundations in this quarter, which will be treated elsewhere.

The rapid sweep of narrative, hurrying on from country to country, is the marked feature of this paragraph; yet it merely places before us the facts, as Paul’s missionary aims found no opening, and he was driven on and on. But. on the current North-Galatian theory, this effect, which is obviously intended, is got, not by simply stating facts, but by slurring over one of Paul’s greatest enterprises, the evangelisation of North Galatia and the rounding of several Churches in a new mission district. But the first words of v. 6 describe a progress marked by no great events, a steady continuance of a process fully described in the context (p. 72).

2. THE CALL INTO MACEDONIA.

This is in many respects the most remarkable paragraph in Acts. In the first place the Divine action is introduced three times in four verses, marking and justifying the new and great step which is made at this point. In XIII 1-11 also the Divine action is mentioned three times, leading up to the important development which the author defines as “opening the door of belief to the Nations”; but in that case there were only two actual manifestations of the Divine guidance and power. Here on three distinct occasions the guidance of God was manifested in three different ways—the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, and the Vision—and the three manifestations all lead up to one end, first forbidding Paul’s purpose of preaching in Asia, then forbidding his purpose of entering Bithynia, and finally calling him forward into Macedonia. Now, amid “the multitude of the revelations” (II Cor. XII 7) granted to Paul, Luke selects only those which have a distinct bearing on his own purpose as an historian, and omits the vast majority, which were all important in their influence on Paul’s conduct and character. What is the reason for his insistence in this case?

It is not easy to account on strictly historical grounds for the emphasis laid on the passage to Macedonia. Lightfoot, in his fine essay on “the Churches of Macedonia,” recognises with his usual insight that it is necessary to acknowledge and to explain that emphasis; but his attempt cannot be called successful. As he himself acknowledges, the narrative gives no ground to think that the passage from Troas to Philippi was ever thought of by Luke as a passage from Continent to Continent. A broad distinction between the two opposite sides of the Hellespont as belonging to two different Continents, had no existence in the thought of those who lived in the Ægean lands, and regarded the sea as the path connecting the Ægean countries with each other; and the distinction had no more existence in a political point of view, for Macedonia and Asia were merely two provinces of the Roman Empire, closely united by common language and character, and divided from the Latin-speaking provinces further west.

After an inaccurate statement that Macedonia was “the natural highroad between the East and the West” (the Ægean was the real highroad, and Corinth was “on the way of them that are being slain to God,” Church in R. E., p. 318 f.), Lightfoot finds in Alexander the Great the proof of the greatness of the step which Luke here records in Paul’s work, and even says that “each successive station at which he halted might have reminded the Apostle of the great services rendered by Macedonia as the pioneer of the Gospel!” That is mere riot of pseudo-historical fancy; and it is hardly possible to believe that Lightfoot ever composed it in the form and with the suggestion that it has in this essay. This is one of not a few places in his Biblical Essays in which the expansion of his own “briefest summary” by the aid of notes of his oral lectures taken by pupils has not been thoroughly successful. The pages of the essay amount to a practical demonstration that, on mere grounds of historical geography alone, one cannot explain the marked emphasis laid on this new departure.

In the second place, the sweep and rush of the narrative is unique in Acts: point after point, province after province are hurried over. The natural development of Paul’s work along the great central route of the Empire was forbidden, and the next alternative that rose in his mind was forbidden: he was led across Asia from the extreme south-east to the extreme north-west corner, and yet prevented from preaching in it; everything seemed dark and perplexing, until at last a vision in Troas explained the purpose of this strange journey. As before (p. 104), we cannot but be struck with the fact, that in this paragraph the idea seems to clothe itself in the natural words, and not to have been laboriously expressed by a foreign mind. And the origin of the words becomes clear when we look at the concluding sentence: “immediately we sought to go forth into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that ‘God has called us for to preach the Gospel unto them’”. The author was with Paul in Troas; and the intensity of this paragraph is due to his recollection of the words in which Paul had recounted the vision, and explained the whole Divine plan that had guided him through his perplexing wanderings. The words derive their vivid and striking character from Paul, and they remained indelibly imprinted on Luke’s memory.

3. THE COMING OF LUKE.

The introduction of the first person at this striking point in the narrative must be intentional. This is no general statement like XIV 22 (though even there the first person has a marked effect, p. 123). Every one recognises here a distinct assertion that the author was present. Now the paragraph as a whole is carefully studied, and the sudden change from third to first person is a telling element in the total effect: if there is any passage in Acts which can be pressed close, it is this. It is almost universally recognised that the use of the first person in the sequel is intentional, marking that the author remained in Philippi when Paul went on, and that he rejoined the Apostle some years later on his return to Philippi. We must add that the precise point at which the first-personal form of narrative begins is also intentional; for, if Luke changes here at random from third to first person, it would be absurd to look for purpose in anything he says. The first person, when used in the narrative of XVI, XX, XXI, XXVII, XXVIII, marks the companionship of Luke and Paul; and, when we carry out this principle of interpretation consistently and minutely, it will prove an instructive guide. This is the nearest approach to personal reference that Luke permits himself; and he makes it subservient to his historical purpose by using it as a criterion of personal witness.

Luke, therefore, entered into the drama of the Acts at Troas. Now it is clear that the coming of Paul to Troas was unforeseen and unforeseeable; the whole point of the paragraph is that Paul was driven on against his own judgment and intention to that city. The meeting, therefore, was not, as has sometimes been maintained, pre-arranged. Luke entered on the stage of this history at a point, where Paul found himself he knew not why. On the ordinary principles of interpreting literature, we must infer that this meeting, which is so skillfully and so pointedly represented as unforeseen, was between two strangers: Luke became known to Paul here for the first time. Let us, then, scrutinise more closely the circumstances. The narrative pointedly brings together the dream and the introduction of the first-personal element, “when he saw the vision, straightway we sought to go”; and collocation is everywhere one of the most telling points in Luke’s style.

When we examine the dream, we observe that in it “a certain man of Macedonia” was seen by Paul. Paul did not infer his Macedonian origin from his words, but recognised him as a Macedonian by sight. Now, there was nothing distinctive in the appearance or dress of a Macedonian to mark him out from the rest of the world. On the contrary, the Macedonians rather made a point of their claim to be Greeks; and undoubtedly they dressed in the customary Greek style of the Ægean cities. There was, therefore, only one way in which Paul could know the man by sight to be a Macedonian—the man in the dream was personally known to him; and, in fact, the Greek implies that it was a certain definite person who appeared (ἀνήρ τις, Latin quidam, very often followed by the person’s name; V 1, VIII 9, IX 10, 33, 36, X 1, etc.).

In the vision, then, a certain Macedonian, who was personally known to Paul, appeared, and called him over into Macedonia. Now, it has been generally recognised that Luke must have had some connection with Philippi; and we shall find reason to think that he had personal knowledge of the city. Further, Paul, whose life had been spent in the eastern countries, and who had come so far west only a few days past, was not likely to be personally acquainted with natives of Macedonia. The idea then suggests itself at once, that Luke himself was the man seen in the vision; and, when one reads the paragraph with that idea, it acquires new meaning and increased beauty. As always, Luke seeks no effect from artifices of style. He tells nothing but the bare facts in their simplest form; and leaves the reader to catch the causal connection between them. But we can imagine how Paul came to Troas in doubt as to what should be done. As a harbour, it formed the link between Asia and Macedonia. Here he met the Macedonian Luke; and with his view turned onwards he slept, and beheld in a vision his Macedonian acquaintance beckoning him onward to his own country.

Beyond this we cannot penetrate through the veil in which Luke has enveloped himself. Was he already a Christian, or did he come under the influence of Christianity through meeting Paul here? for the prohibition against preaching in Asia would not preclude Paul from using the opportunity to convert an individual who was brought in contact with him. No evidence remains; “something sealed the lips of that evangelist,” so far as he himself is concerned. But we have gathered from the drift of the passage that they met as strangers; and in that case there can be no doubt where the probability lies. The inference that they met accidentally as strangers is confirmed by the fact that Luke was a stranger to the Levant (p. 317). In one of the many ways in which men come across one another in travelling, they were brought into contact at Troas: Luke was attracted to Paul; and the vision was taken by Luke, as well as by Paul, for a sign. He left all, and followed his master.

All this he suggests to us only by the same kind of delicate and subtle literary devices, consisting merely in collocation of facts, order of words, and slight changes of form, by which he suggested the development of Paul’s method and the change in his relation to Barnabas (p. 82 f.). Luke always expects a great deal from his readers, but some critics give too little attention to literary effect. These will ask me for proofs; but proofs there are none. I can only point to the facts: they that have eyes to see them know; they that have not eyes to see them will treat this section (and others) as moonstruck fancy. All that can be said is that, if you read the book carefully, observing these devices, you recognise a great work; if you don’t, and follow your denial to its logical consequences, you will find only an assortment of scraps. Probably there will always be those who prefer the scraps.

It is quite in Luke’s style to omit to mention that Paul related the vision to his companions. So also he omitted in XIII 7, 8, to mention that Paul expounded the doctrine to the proconsul. Luke always expects a great deal from his readers. But here the Bezan Reviser inserts the missing detail, as he so often does (e.g., XIII 9).

While there is no authority for the circumstances of the meeting, conjecture is tempting and perhaps permissible. It will appear that Luke, though evidently acquainted with Philippi and looking to it as his city, had no home there. His meeting with Paul, then, did not take place merely on an excursion from Philippi; and he was probably one of the many Greeks in all ages who have sought their fortune away from home. His acquaintance with medicine is certain from the words of Paul himself, “Luke, the beloved physician” (Col. IV 14), and from the cast of his language in many places;Hobart, The Medical Language of St. Luke, a work which has to be used with the caution that the author recognises as needful. and it is quite natural and probable that the meeting might have been sought by Paul on that account, if Luke was resident in Troas and well known there.

4. THE ENTRANCE INTO MACEDONIA.

(XVI 1l) WE SET SAIL THEN FROM TROAS, AND MADE A STRAIGHT RUN TO SAMOTHRACE; AND THE DAY FOLLOWING we came TO the harbour NEAPOLIS, (12) AND THENCE TO PHILIPPI, WHICH IS THE LEADING CITY OF ITS DIVISION OF MACEDONIA, AND having the rank of A ROMAN COLONY: AND WE WERE IN THIS CITY TARRYING CERTAIN DAYS.

It is remarkable with what interest Luke records the incidents from harbour to harbour. He has the true Greek feeling for the sea, a feeling that must develop in every race possessing any capacity for development, and any sensitiveness to the influences of nature, when settled round the Ægean coasts; for the Ægean sea is so tempting, with its regular winds and regular sunset calm, when the water lies dead, with a surface which looks like oil, dense and glistening and dark, that it seems to invite one to walk upon it.

To a certain extent the wealth of maritime details might be accounted for by the loving interest with which Luke dwelt on his journeys in company with Paul; but caution that the author recognises as needful. this does not fully explain the facts. Every one who compares Luke’s account of the journey from Cæsareia to Jerusalem (which might be expected to live in his memory beyond others), or from Puteoli to Rome, with his account of any of the voyages, must be struck by the difference between the scanty matter-of-fact details in the land journeys, and the love that notes the voyage, the winds, the runs, the appearance of the shores, Cyprus rising out of the sea, the Cretan coast close in by the ship’s side, the mountains towering above it from which the blast strikes down. At the same time, it is quite clear that, though he reported nautical matters with accuracy, he was not a trained and practised sailor. His interest for the sea sprang from his natural and national character, and not from his occupation.

Philippi was an inland city, and Neapolis was its harbour. Having once mentioned the port, Luke leaves it to be understood in XX 6. As usual, Paul goes on to the great city, and does not preach in the port (cp. XIV 26, XVIII 18).

The description of the dignity and rank of Philippi is unique in Acts; nor can it be explained as strictly requisite for the historian’s proper purpose. Here again the explanation lies in the character of the author, who was specially interested in Philippi, and had the true Greek pride in his own city. Perhaps he even exaggerates a little the dignity of Philippi, which was still only in process of growth, to become at a later date the great city of its division. Of old Amphipolis had been the chief city of the division, to which both belonged. Afterwards Philippi quite outstripped its rival; but it was at that time in such a position, that Amphipolis was ranked first by general consent, Philippi first by its own consent. These cases of rivalry between two or even three cities for the dignity and title of “First” are familiar to every student of the history of the Greek cities; and though no other evidence is known to show that Philippi had as yet began to claim the title, yet this single passage is conclusive. The descriptive phrase is like a lightning flash amid the darkness of local history, revealing in startling clearness the whole situation to those whose eyes are trained to catch the character of Greek city-history and city-jealousies.

It is an interesting fact that Luke, who hides himself so completely in his history, cannot hide his local feeling; and there every one who knows the Greek people recognises the true Greek! There lies the strength, and also the weakness, of the Greek peoples; and that quality beyond all others has determined their history, has given them their strength against the foreigner, and their weakness as a united country.

Nationality is more conspicuous in the foibles and weaknesses of mankind, whereas great virtues and great vices have a common character in all nations. Luke shows himself the Greek when he talks of the Maltese as “the barbarians”; when he regards the journey to Jerusalem as a journey and nothing more; when he misrepresents the force of a Latin word (p. 225); when he is blind to the true character of the Roman name (the tria nomina); when he catches with such appreciation and such ease the character of Paul’s surroundings in Athens. His hatred of the Jews and his obvious inability to feel the slightest sympathy for their attitude towards Paul, are also Greek. On the other hand, his touches of quiet humour are perhaps less characteristically Greek; but he was not the old Greek of the classical period: he was the Greek of his own age, when Greece had been for centuries a power in Asia; when Macedonia had long been the leading Greek country; when Stoicism and Epicureanism were the representative philosophies (XVII 18);and when the Greek language was the recognised speech of many eastern Roman provinces, along with the Latin itself. To appreciate Luke, we must study the modern Greek, as well as the Greek of the great age of freedom.

I know that all such mundane characteristics are commonly considered to be non-existent in “the early Christian”! But an “early Christian” did not cease to be a man, and a citizen. Christianity has not taught men to retire from society and from life; and least of all did Pauline Christianity teach that lesson. It has impressed on men the duty of living their life better, of striving to mould and to influence society around them, and of doing their best in the position. in which they were placed. When Luke became a Christian, he continued to be a Greek, and perhaps became even more intensely a Greek, as his whole life became more intense and more unselfish. It is a complete and ruinous error for the historical student to suppose that Luke broke with all his old thoughts, and habits, and feelings, and friends, when he was converted. He lived in externals much as before; he observed the same laws of politeness and good breeding in society (if he followed Paul’s instructions); his house, his surroundings, continued much the same; he kept up the same family names; and, when he died, his grave, his tombstone, and his epitaph, were in the ordinary style. It took centuries for Christianity to disengage itself from its surroundings, and to remake society and the rules of life. Yet one rarely finds among modern historians of Christianity in the first two centuries of its growth, any one who does not show a misconception on this point; and the climax, perhaps, is reached in one of the arguments by which Dr. Ficker attempts to disprove the Christian character of the epitaph of the Phrygian second-century saint, Avircius Marcellus, on the ground that a Christian epitaph would not be engraved on an attar. I presume his point is that the altar-shaped form of tombstone was avoided by the Christians of that time, because it was connected with the pagan worship. But a Pauline Christian would hold that “a gravestone will not commend us to God; neither, if we use it not, are we the worse, nor if we use it, are we the better” (I Cor. VIII 8); and Avircius Marcellus mentions Paul, and Paul alone among the Apostles, in his epitaph. In fact, almost all the early Christian epitaphs at Eumeneia are engraved on altars, because there that shape was fashionable; whereas at Apameia they are rarely on altars, because there that shape was not in such common use.

Our view that the author of Acts was a Macedonian does not agree with a tradition (which was believed to occur in Eusebius, see p. 389) that Luke was an Antiochian. The modern authorities who consider this tradition to be rounded on a confusion between Lucas and Lucius, an official of the Antiochian Church (XIII 1), seem to have strong probability on their side. The form Lueas may very well be a vulgarism for Lucius; but, except the name, these two persons have nothing in common. The name Lucas is of most obscure origin: it may be a shortened form of Lucius, or Lucilius, or Lucianus, or Lucanus, or of some Greek compound name. The Latin names, Lucius, Lucilius, etc., were spelt in earlier Greek Λεύκιος, in later Greek Λούκιος; and the change may roughly be dated about A.D. 50–75, though Λεύκιος in some rare cases occurs later, and possibly Λούκιος sometimes earlier. It is noteworthy that Λουκας has the later form.

The Bezan “we” in XI 28 will satisfy those who consider the Bezan Text to be Lukan; but to us it appears to condemn the Bezan Text as of non-Lukan origin. The warmth of feeling, which breathes through all parts of Acts dealing with the strictly Greek world, is in striking contrast with the cold and strictly historical tone of the few brief references to Syrian Antioch. If the author of Acts was a native bred up in Antioch, then we should have to infer that there lay behind him an older author, whose work he adapted with little change. But our view is that the Reviser had an Antiochian connection, and betrays it in that insertion, which to him recorded a historical fact, but to us seems legend in an early stage of growth.

CHAPTER X.

THE CHURCHES OF MACEDONIA

1. PHILIPPI.

(XVI 13) ON THE SABBATH DAY WE WENT FORTH WITHOUT THE GATE BY THE RIVER SIDE, WHERE THERE WAS WONT TO BE HELD A MEETING FOR PRAYER; AND WE SAT DOWN, AND SPARE UNTO THE WOMEN THAT CAME TOGETHER. (14) AND A CERTAIN WOMAN NAMED LYDIA, A SELLER OF PURPLE, OF THE CITY OF THYATIRA, A GOD-FEARING proselyte WAS A HEARER; AND THE LORD OPENED HER HEART TO GIVE HEED UNTO THE THINGS THAT WERE SPOKEN BY PAUL. (15) AND WHEN SHE WAS BAPTISED AND HER HOUSEHOLD, SHE BESOUGHT US, SAYING, “IF YE HAVE JUDGED ME TO BE. FAITHFUL TO THE LORD, COME INTO MY HOUSE AND ABIDE THERE”; AND SHE CONSTRAINED US.

The omission of the article before the word “river” (ποταμόν) is one of the touches of familiarity which show the hand of one who knew Philippi well. As we say “I’m going to town,” the Greeks omitted the article with familiar and frequently mentioned places or things. In this phrase the commentators in general seem to understand that the Greek words mean “along a river,” which is the form of expression that a complete stranger might use about a city and a river that he had only heard of.

The text of the next clause is uncertain; but we hold that the Authorised Version is right, following the inferior MSS.The Place of Prayer at Philippi. We take our stand upon the fact that the Bezan Text, “where there seemed to be a prayer-place” (ἐδόκει προσευχὴ εἰναι , appears to be an explanation of our text (ἐομίζετο προσευχὴ εἰναι): it is therefore clear that in the middle of the second century our text was read, and was found difficult, and was misunderstood to mean “there was thought to be a prayer-place “. This misunderstanding led to other attempts at correction, one of which appears in the great MSS. (ἐνομίζομεν προσευχη εἰναι). On the first Sabbath they went along the river-bank to the regular place where the Jews in Philippi, and those non-Jews who had been attracted to Jewish customs, were wont to meet in prayer. There seems to have been no proper synagogue, which shows that the Jewish community was very small; and in the rest of the narrative no Jew is mentioned.

Lydia, the Thyatiran woman, settled at Philippi, is an interesting person in many respects. Thyatira, like the Lydian land in general, was famous for its dyeing; and its guild of dyers is known from the inscriptions. Lydia sold the purple dyed garments from Thyatira in Philippi; and she had, no doubt, a regular connection with a firm in her native city, whose agent she was. In ancient time many kinds of garments were woven in their perfect shape; and there was much less cutting and sewing of cloth than at the present day. Lydia, of course, sold also the less expensive kinds of garments; but she takes her trade-name from the finest class of her wares, indicating that she was a first-class dealer. She must have possessed a considerable amount of capital to trade in such articles. As her husband is not mentioned, and she was a householder, she was probably a widow; and she may be taken as an ordinary example of the freedom with which women lived and worked both in Asia Minor and in Macedonia.

Lydia had probably become addicted to Jewish religious practices in her native city. There had been a Jewish colony planted in Thyatira, which had exercised considerable influence on the city; and a hybrid sort of worship had been developed, half Jewish, half pagan, which is called in Revelation II 20, “the woman Jezebel”.See Schürer in Abhandlungen Weizsäcker gewidmet, p. 39.

It is not to be inferred that Lydia and her household were baptised on the first Sabbath. A certain interval must be admitted in v. 14, which shows Luke’s looseness about time. Lydia was present on the first Sabbath, and became a regular hearer; and finally her entire household came over with her.

2. THE VENTRILOQUIST.

(XVI 16) AND IT CAME TO PASS, AS WE WERE GOING TO THE PLACE OF PRAYER, THAT A CERTAIN SLAVE-GIRL, POSSESSED OF A SPIRIT PYTHON, i.e., a ventriloquist, MET US, WHICH BROUGHT HER MASTERS MUCH GAIN BY SOOTHSAYING. (17) THE SAME, FOLLOWING AFTER PAUL AND US, KEPT CRYING OUT SAYING, “THESE MEN ARE THE SLAVES OF THE GOD THE HIGHEST, WHICH ANNOUNCE TO YOU THE WAY OF SAFETY “. (18) AND THIS SHE DID FOR MANY DAYS. BUT PAUL, BEING SORE TROUBLED, TURNED AND SAID TO THE SPIRIT, “I CHARGE THEE IN THE NAME OF JESUS THE ANOINTED TO GO OUT FROM HER”; AND IT WENT OUT THAT VERY MOMENT.

The idea was universally entertained that ventriloquism was due to superhuman influence, and implied the power of foretelling the future. The girl herself believed this; and in her belief lay her power. Her words need not be taken as a witness to Christianity. “God the Highest” was a wide-spread pagan expression, and “salvation” was the object of many vows and prayers to that and other gods. We need not ask too curiously what was her motive in thus calling out at Paul’s company. In such a case there is no distinct motive; for it is a poor and false view, and one that shows utter incapacity to gauge human nature, that the girl was a mere impostor. That her mind became distorted and diseased by her belief in her supernatural possession, is certain; but it became thereby all the more acute in certain perceptions and intuitions. With her sensitive nature, she became at once alive to the moral influence, which the intense faith by which the strangers were possessed gave them, and she must say what she felt without any definite idea of result therefrom; for the immediate utterance of her intuitions was the secret of her power. She saw in Paul what the populace at Pisidian Antioch saw in Thekla, “a devotee, bound by some unusual conditions, an inspired servant of ‘the God,’ who differed from the usual type” of “God-driven” devotees.

When Paul turned on her, and ordered the spirit to come forth from her in the name of his Master, the girl, who had been assiduously declaring that Paul and his companions were God-possessed, and fully believed it, was utterly disconcerted, and lost her faith in herself and with it her power. When next she tried to speak as she had formerly done, she was unable to do so; and in a few days it became apparent that she had lost her power. Along with her power, her hold on the superstitions of the populace disappeared; and people ceased to come to her to have their fortunes read, to get help in finding things they had lost, and so on. Thus the comfortable income that she had earned for her owners was lost; and these, knowing who had done the mischief, sought revenge. This was by no means a rare motive for the outbreak of persecution against the Church in later time; and at this stage, when Christianity was an unknown religion, it was only through its interference with the profits of any individual or any class (p. 277) that it was likely to arouse opposition among the pagans.

3. ACCUSATION AND CONDEMNATION IN PHILIPPI.

(XVI 19) BUT, WHEN HER MASTERS SAW THAT THEIR HOPE OF GAIN HAD DEPARTED, THEY SEIZED PAUL AND SILAS [AND DRAGGED THEM INTO THE AGORA BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES], (20) [AND BRINGING THEM TO THE PRESENCE OF THE PRÆTORS], THEY SAID, “THESE MEN DO EXCEEDINGLY DISTURB OUR CITY, JEWS AS THEY ARE, (21) AND RECOMMEND CUSTOMS, WHICH IT IS ILLEGAL FOR US TO RECEIVE OR TO OBSERVE, AS WE ARE ROMANS”. (22) AND THE POPULACE ROSE IN A BODY AGAINST THEM; AND THE PRÆTORS, RENDING THEIR GARMENTS in horror, BADE the lictors BEAT THEM, (23) AND WHEN THEY HAD LAID MANY STRIPES ON THEM, THEY CAST THEM INTO PRISON, CHARGING THE JAILOR TO KEEP THEM SAFELY: (24) AND HE HAVING RECEIVED SUCH A CHARGE, CAST THEM INTO THE INNER PRISON, AND MADE THEIR FEET FAST IN THE STOCKS.

It is hardly possible that vv. 19, 20 have the final form that the writer would have given them. The expression halts between the Greek form and the Latin, between the ordinary Greek term for the supreme board of magistrates in any city (ἄρχοντες), and the popular Latin designation (στρατηγοί, prætores), as if the author had not quite made up his mind which he should employ. Either of the clauses bracketed is sufficient in itself; and it is hardly possible that a writer, whose expression is so concise, should have intended to leave in his text two clauses which say exactly the same thing.

The title Prætors was not technically accurate, but was frequently employed as a courtesy title for the supreme magistrates of a Roman colony; and, as usual, Luke moves on the plane of educated conversation in such matters, and not on the plane of rigid technical accuracy. He writes as the scene was enacted.

It is impossible and unnecessary to determine whether the slave-girl’s owners were actually Roman citizens. They speak here as representatives of the general population. The actual coloni planted here by Augustus when he rounded the colony, were probably far outnumbered by the Greek population (incolæ); and it is clear that in the colonies of the Eastern provinces, any Italian coloni soon melted into the mass of the population, and lost most of their distinctive character, and probably forgot even their language. The exact legal relation of the native Greek population to the Roman coloni is uncertain; but it is certain that the former occupied some kind of intermediate position between ordinary provincials and Romans or Latins (when the colony was a Latin colony like Antioch). These colonies were one of the means whereby Rome sought to introduce the Roman spirit and feeling into the provinces, to romanise them; and the accusation lodged against Paul, with the whole scene that followed, are a proof, in this vivid photographic picture, that the population prided themselves on their Roman character and actually called themselves Romans, as they called their magistrates Prætors.

Paul on other occasions claimed his right of citizen ship; why not here? It is evident that the Prætors made a great to-do over this case: they regarded it as a case of treason, or, as it was termed in Greek, “impiety” (ἀσέβεια), rent their clothes in loyal horror, with the fussy, consequential airs that Horace satirises in the would-be Prætor of a country town (Sat. I 5, 34): the fabric of the Empire was shaken to its foundations by this disgraceful conduct of the accused persons; but the Prætors of Philippi stood firm, and the populace rose as one man, like true Romans, to defend their country against her insidious enemies. In such a scene what chance was there that Paul’s protest should be listened to? Perhaps it was made and not listened to, since the whole proceedings were so disorderly and irregular.

The first person ceases at this point; the author was not arrested, and therefore could not speak in the first person of what happened in the prison. He did not accompany Paul further; but remained at Philippi as his headquarters, till Paul returned there, XX 6, when the first person is resumed. It is only natural to understand that he was left in Philippi, because of his obvious suitability for the work of evangelising that city; and his success was so striking that his “praise in the preaching of the good news was through all the Churches,” II Cor. VIII 18 (a passage which is understood by early tradition as referring to Luke). At the same time it is clear that he had not been a householder in Philippi previously, for he went with Paul to enjoy Lydia’s hospitality.

4. THE PRISON AND THE EARTHQUAKE.

(XVI 25) BUT ABOUT MIDNIGHT PAUL AND SILAS WERE PRAYING AND SINGING HYMNS UNTO GOD, AND THE PRISONERS WERE LISTENING TO THEM; (26) AND SUDDENLY THERE WAS A GREAT EARTHQUAKE, SO THAT THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE PRISON-HOUSE WERE SHAKEN; AND IMMEDIATELY ALL THE DOORS WERE OPENED; AND EVERY ONE’S FETTERS WERE SHAKEN OUT. (27) AND THE JAILOR, BEING ROUSED FROM SLEEP, AND SEEING THE PRISON-DOORS OPEN, DREW HIS SWORD, AND WAS ABOUT TO KILL HIMSELF, CONSIDERING THAT THE PRISONERS HAD ESCAPED. (28) BUT PAUL CRIED OUT WITH A LOUD VOICE, “DO THYSELF NO HARM, FOR WE ARE ALL HERE ”. (29) AND CALLING FOR LIGHTS, HE RAN HASTILY IN, AND TREMBLING FOR FEAR THREW HIMSELF BEFORE PAUL AND SILAS, (30) AND BROUGHT THEM OUT [WHEN HE HAD MADE THE REST FAST], AND SAID, “SIRS! WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?” (31) AND THEY SAID, “BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS, AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED, THOU AND THY HOUSE”. (32) AND THEY SPAKE THE WORD OF THE LORD TO HIM, WITH ALL THAT WERE IN HIS HOUSE. (33) AND HE TOOK THEM AT THAT HOUR OF THE NIGHT AND WASHED THEM OF THEIR STRIPES; AND WAS BAPTISED, HE AND ALL HIS IMMEDIATELY. (34) AND HE BROUGHT THEM UP INTO HIS HOUSE, AND SET MEAT BEFORE THEM, AND REJOICED GREATLY, WITH ALL HIS HOUSE, HAVING CONCEIVED FAITH IN GOD.

There are several difficulties which occur to every one on first reading this passage. (1) The opening of the doors and the undoing of the bonds by the earthquake seem incredible to one who thinks of doors like those in our prisons and of handcuffed prisoners. But any one that has seen a Turkish prison will not wonder that the doors were thrown open: each door was merely closed by a bar, and the earthquake, as it passed along the ground, forced the door posts apart from each other, so that the bar slipped from its hold, and the door swung open. The prisoners were fastened to the wall or in wooden stocks, v. 24; and the chains and stocks were detached from the wall, which was shaken so that spaces gaped between the stones. In the great earthquakes of 1880 at Smyrna, and 1881 at Scio, I had the opportunity of seeing and hearing of the strangely capricious action of an earthquake, which behaves sometimes like a playful, good-natured sprite, when it spares its full terrors.

(2) Why did not the prisoners run away when their fetters were loosed? The question is natural to those who are familiar with the northern races, and their self-centred tenacity of purpose and presence of mind. An earthquake strikes panic into the semi-oriental mob in the Ægean lands; and it seems to me quite natural that the prisoners made no dash for safety when the opportunity was afforded them. Moreover, they were still only partially free; and they had only a moment for action. The jailor was also roused by the earthquake, and came to the outer door; he was perhaps a soldier, or at least had something of Roman discipline, giving him presence of mind; his call for lights brought the body of diogmitai or other class of police who helped to guard the prisoners; and the opportunity was lost.

(3) It was midnight, and the jailor had to call for lights: how could Paul from the inner prison see that the jailor was going to kill himself? We must understand that the inner prison was a small cell, which had no window and no opening, except into the outer and larger prison, and that the outer prison, also, had one larger door in the opposite wall; then, if there were any faint starlight in the sky, still more if the moon were up, a person in the outer doorway would be distinguishable to one whose eyes were accustomed to the darkness, but the jailor would see only black darkness in the prison.

The jailor was responsible with his life for the safety of his prisoners; and, concluding from the sight of the open door that they had managed to set themselves free, and open the door, and escape, he preferred death by his own hand, to exposure, disgrace, and a dishonourable death.

The Bezan Text preserves in v. 30 a little detail, which is so suggestive of the orderly well-disciplined character of the jailor, that we are prompted to accept it as genuine. The jailor first attended to his proper work, and secured all his prisoners; and thereafter he attended to Paul and Silas, and brought them forth. It seems highly improbable that a Christian in later time would insert the gloss that the jailor looked after his prisoners before he cared for his salvation; it is more in the spirit of a later age to be offended with the statement that the jailor did so, and to cut it out. In his subsequent action to Paul and Silas, the jailor was not acting illegally. He was responsible for producing his prisoners when called for; but it was left to himself to keep them as he thought best.

5. RELEASE AND DEPARTURE FROM PHILIPPI.

(XVI 35) AND WHEN DAY WAS COME THE PRÆTORS SENT THE LICTORS, WITH THE MESSAGE to the jailor: “LET THOSE MEN GO”. (36) AND THE JAILOR REPORTED THE MESSAGE TO PAUL THAT “THE PRÆTORS HAVE SENT orders THAT YOU BE SET FREE. NOW, THEREFORE, GO FORTH AND TAKE YOUR WAY IN PEACE]” (37) BUT PAUL SAID UNTO THEM: “THEY FLOGGED US IN PUBLIC without investigation, ROMAN CITIZENS AS WE ARE, AND CAST US INTO PRISON; AND NOW DO THEY TURN US OUT SECRETLY? NOT SO; BUT LET THEM COME IN PERSON AND BRING US OUT.” (38) AND THE LICTORS REPORTED TO THE PRÆTORS THESE WORDS; AND THEY WERE TERRIFIED ON HEARING THAT “THEY ARE ROMAN CITIZENS”; (39) AND THEY WENT AND BESOUGHT THEM, AND BROUGHT THEM OUT, AND ASKED THEM TO GO AWAY FROM THE CITY. (40) AND THEY WENT OUT FROM THE PRISON AND ENTERED INTO LYDIA’S HOUSE; AND THEY SAW AND EXHORTED THE BRETHREN, AND WENT AWAY.

The sudden change of attitude on the part of the Prætors is remarkable. One day they sent the prisoners for careful custody: the next morning they send to release them. The Bezan Reviser felt the inconsequence, and inserts an explanation: “And when day was come the Prætors [assembled together in the agora, and remembering the earthquake that had taken place, they were afraid, and] sent the lictors”. But, though this is modelled on Luke’s language (cp. I 15, etc.), it is hardly in his style of narrative. It is more characteristic of him to give no explanation, but simply to tell the facts. Perhaps the earthquake had roused their superstitious fears on account of the irregular and arbitrary proceedings of yesterday. Perhaps they felt some misgivings about their action. if we are right in thinking that Paul and Silas had appealed vainly to their rights as Romans.

Whatever be the reason, there can be no mistake as to Luke’s intention to bring out the contrast (1) between the orders sent to the jailor in the morning, and the charge given to him at night; (2) between the humble apology of the Prætors in the morning, and their haughty action on the previous day; (3) between the real fact, that the Prætors had trampled on Roman order and right, and their fussy pretense of vindicating the majesty of Rome. And so the same Prætors who had ordered them to be beaten and imprisoned now begged them to go away from the city. In the Bezan Text the request of the Prætors is put at greater length, and with obvious truth: “the magistrates, being afraid lest there should be another conspiracy against Paul, and distrusting their own ability to keep order, said, ‘Go forth from this city, lest they, again make a riot and inveigh loudly against you to us’ ”. The weakness of municipal government in the cities of the Ægean lands was always a danger to order; and the Bezan Text hits off admirably the situation, and brings out with much skill the naive desire of the magistrates to avoid an unpleasant ease by inducing the innocent and weaker parties to submit to injustice and withdraw from the city. One would gladly think this Lukan.

In v. 37 the rendering (A.V. and R.V.) “uncondemned” does not fairly represent Paul’s meaning, for it suggests that it would have been allowable for the Prætors to condemn Paul after fair trial to be flogged. But the Prætors could not in any circumstances order him to be flogged; in fact, formal trial would only aggravate their crime, as making it more deliberate. The crime might be palliated by pleading that it was done in ignorance: and Paul would naturally cut away the plea by saying that they had made no attempt to investigate the facts. Yet the Greek is clear, and can only be translated “uncondemned”. A parallel case occurs XXII 25, where Paul asks the centurion: “is it lawful for you to flog a man that is a Roman citizen, and him uncondemned?” Here there is the same false implication that the act would be aggravated by being done without the proper formal condemnation.

Yet Paul, as a Roman citizen, must have known his rights; and it seems clear that he could not have used the exact words which Luke reports. Now, when we consider the facts, we see that it must be so. No civis Romanus would claim his rights in Greek; the very idea is ludicrous. Paul claimed them in the Roman tongue; and we may fairly understand that the officials of a Roman colony were expected to understand Latin; for the official language even of far less important colonies in Asia Minor was Latin. The phrase which Paul used was most probably re incognita, “without investigating our case”. Luke, however, had the true Greek inability to sympathise with the delicacies of Roman usage, and. translates the Latin by a term, which would in some circumstances be a fair representative, but not here, nor in XXII 25.

The whole residence of Paul at Philippi seems to have been short: it is defined by Luke as being “for certain days,” and apparently not much seems to have been accomplished before the incident of the ventriloquist and the resulting imprisonment. If the party was at Troas in October A.D. 50, they probably left Philippi before the end of the year. It seems probable from v. 40 that there were some other Christians besides those in Lydia’s house. It is, however, remarkable that Luke makes no explicit reference to any other converts.

Doubtless, before Paul left, the question was discussed what should be his next centre; and Thessalonica was suggested, probably on account of its Jewish settlers, whose synagogue offered a good opening for work. The directions which were given the travellers at starting were to make their way along the Roman road through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica (XVII 1, where διοδεύσαντες is the verb, ὁδός denoting the Roman road).

6. THESSALONICA.

(XVII 1) AND THEY WENT ALONG THE Roman ROAD THROUGH AMPHIPOLIS AND APOLLONIA, AND CAME TO THESSALONICA, WHERE WAS A SYNAGOGUE OF THE JEWS. (2) AND, AS WAS CUSTOMARY WITH PAUL, HE WENT IN TO ADDRESS THEM, AND FOR THREE SABBATHS HE REASONED WITH THEM FROM THE SCRIPTURES, (3) OPENING THEIR MEANING, AND QUOTING TO PROVE THAT IT WAS PROPER THAT THE ANOINTED ONE SHOULD SUFFER AND RISE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD, AND THAT “THE ANOINTED ONE IS THIS man, THE very JESUS WHOM I AM PROCLAIMING TO YOU”. (4) AND SOME OF THEM WERE PERSUADED; AND THERE WERE IN ADDITION GATHERED TO PAUL AND SILAS MANY OF THE GOD-FEARING proselytes, AND A GREAT MULTITUDE OF THE GREEKS, AND OF THE LEADING WOMEN NOT A FEW.In v. 4 καὶ τινες ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐπείσθησαν. καὶ προσεκληρώθησαν τῷ Παύλῳ καὶ Σιλᾳ πολλοὶ τῶν σεβομένων. καὶ ελλήνων πλῆθος πολύ. γυναικῶν τε τῶν πρώτων οὐκ ὀλίγαι, approximating to the Bezan Text, and to that of the inferior MSS. followed in the Authorized Version.

This passage is full of difficulty both in text and in interpretation. Our text, agreeing with many MSS. and Versions, recognises three classes of hearers besides the Jews; whereas the Approved Text, resting on the great MSS., unites the “God-fearing” and “the Greeks” into the single class “God-fearing Greeks”. In this case many reasons combine to show the error of the latter reading, and the falseness of the principle that has led Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and others to set almost boundless confidence in those MSS.The true reading of XVII 4 results from a comparison of A with D. The reading of the great MSS. is impossible for these reasons: (1) It restricts Paul’s converts to Jews. proselyte Greeks, and a few ladies, taking no notice of any work outside the circle of the synagogue. I Thess. gives the impression that converts direct from heathenism were the mass of the Church. (2) It restricts Paul’s work to three Sabbaths, which is opposed to all rational probability, to Thess. and to Phil.; whereas our text restricts the work within the circle of the synagogue to three Sabbaths, but adds a second stage much more important, when a great multitude of the general population of the city was affected. (3) The contrast drawn between the Jews of Berea and of Thessalonica, v. 11, is very unfair to the latter, if, as the great MSS. put it, three Sabbaths produced such vast effect within the circle of the synagogue. (4) That reading speaks of “a great multitude of God-fearing Greeks,” implying that the synagogue had exercised an astonishing influence on the population. Lightfoot quotes the fact that Salonica is still mainly a Jewish city, as a proof that Judaism gained and kept a strong hold on the city throughout Christian history; but a visit to Salonica would have saved him from this error. The Jews of Salonica speak Spanish as their language, and are descended from Spanish Jews, expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella, who found in Turkey a refuge denied or grudged them in most European countries. There is no reason known to me for thinking that Judaism was strong in the city under the Byzantine Empire; and the strong antipathy of the Greeks to the Jews makes it improbable. The Thessalonian Jews were protected by the Roman government; but one may doubt if they maintained their ground under the Christian Empire.

In v. 4 Paul goes on to a wider sphere of influence than the circle of the synagogue; and a lapse of time is implied in the extension of his work over the general population of the city (called here by the strictly correct term, Hellenes). Between the two opposite groups, the Jews and the Hellenes, there is interposed the intermediate class of God-fearing proselytes; and there is added as a climax a group of noble ladies of the city. In Macedonia, as in Asia Minor, women occupied a much freer and more influential position than in Athens; and it is in conformity with the known facts that such prominence is assigned to them in the three Macedonian cities.

In this journey a more pointed distinction than before between the short period of synagogue work, and the longer period of general work, may be noticed. The three Sabbaths of v. 2 must be taken as the entire period of work within the circle of the synagogue; and the precise statement of time may also be taken as an indication that the usual quarrel with the Jews took place earlier at Thessalonica than in former cases.

That a considerable time was spent in the wider work is proved both by its success, and by the language of I Thess. I, II, which cannot reasonably refer only to work in the synagogue or to a short missionary work among the general population. Paul clearly refers to a long and very successful work in Thessalonica. His eagerness to return, and his chafing at the ingenious obstacle preventing him, are explained by his success: he was always eager to take advantage of a good opening. Further Paul mentions that the Philippians, IV 16, “sent once and again unto my need in Thessalonica”. It is reasonable to think that some interval elapsed between the gifts (especially as Paul had to work to maintain himself, I Thess. II 9). Dec. 50–May 51 seems a probable estimate of the residence in Thessalonica.

7. THE RIOT AT THESSALONICA.

(XVII 5) AND THE JEWS BECAME JEALOUS; AND WITH SOME WORTHLESS ASSOCIATES OF THE LOWER ORDERS THEY GATHERED A MOB AND MADE A RIOT; AND, ASSAULTING THE HOUSE OF JASON, THEY SOUGHT TO BRING Paul and Silas BEFORE A PUBLIC MEETING. (6) AND WHEN THEY FOUND THEM NOT, THEY BEGAN TO DRAG JASON AND CERTAIN BRETHREN BEFORE THE POLITARCHS, SHOUTING, “THESE THAT HAVE TURNED THE CIVILISED WORLD UPSIDE DOWN HAVE COME HITHER ALSO, (7) AND JASON HATH RECEIVED THEM; AND THE WHOLE OF THEM ARE VIOLATING THE IMPERIAL LAWS, ASSERTING THAT THERE IS ANOTHER EMPEROR, JESUS”. (8) AND THEY TROUBLED THE PEOPLE AND THE POLITARCHS, WHO HEARD THIS. (9) AND THE POLITARCHS TOOK SECURITIES FOR GOOD BEHAVIOUR FROM JASON AND THE OTHERS, AND LET THEM GO.

The curious and rare title “politarchs” was given to the supreme board of magistrates at Thessalonica, as is proved by inscriptions.

The description of this riot is more detailed than any of the preceding. The lower classes, the least educated, and the most enslaved to paganism on its vulgarest and most superstitious side, were the most fanatical opponents of the new teaching; while the politarchs were by no means inclined to take active measures against it, and the better educated people seem to have supplied most of the converts. Men of all classes were impressed by the preaching of Paul, but only women of the leading families; and the difference is obviously due to the fact that the poorer women were most likely to be under the sway of superstition. A similar distinction is mentioned at Berea (XVII 12), where not a few of the high-born Greek ladies and of the male population in general were attracted by the new teaching.

It would appear that this riot was more serious than the words of Luke would at first sight suggest. The language of Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians, II 14-16, shows that a powerful, dangerous, and lasting sentiment was roused among the classes which made the riot.

The charge brought against Paul was subtly conceived and most dangerous. The very suggestion of treason against the Emperors often proved fatal to the accused; and it compelled the politarchs to take steps, for, if they failed to do so, they became exposed to a charge of treason, as having taken too little care for the honour of the Emperor. Many a man was ruined by such a charge under the earlier Emperors.

The step taken by the politarchs was the mildest that was prudent in the circumstances: they bound the accused over in security that peace should be kept. This was a penalty familiar in Roman law, from which it must have been adopted in the ordinary practice of provincial towns like Thessalonica.

Paul evidently felt very deeply his sudden and premature separation from the Church of Thessalonica: it was at once so promising and so inexperienced, that he was unusually eager to return to it; and as he says, “we endeavoured the more exceedingly to see your face with great desire; because we would fain have come to you, I Paul once and again; and Satan hindered us”. What is the meaning of the strange expression, “Satan hindered us”? How did Paul, who was so eager to go back to Thessalonica, find an insurmountable obstacle in his way? Was it mere personal danger that prevented him, or was it some more subtle device of Satanic craft that kept him out of Thessalonica?

It is not in keeping with Paul’s language to interpret “Satan” in this case as the mob, which had brought him into danger and was still enraged against him. He alludes by a very different metaphor to the opposition which he often. experienced from the vulgar, uneducated, and grossly superstitious city populace. In I Cor. XV 32 he describes his relations with the Ephesian mob as “fighting with beasts”. This term is an interesting mixture of Greek and Roman ideas, and corresponds well to Paul’s mixed education, as a Roman citizen in a Greek philosopher’s lecture-room. In the lecture room he became familiar with the Platonic comparison of the mob to a dangerous beast; and amid the surroundings of the Roman Empire he became familiar with the death-struggle of criminals against the wild beasts of the circus. But a person who designates the mob in this contemptuous way, uses the term “Satan” only of some more subtle and dangerous enemy, far harder to overcome.

Now, security against any disturbance of the peace had been exacted from Jason and his associates, the leading Christians of Thessalonica; and clearly this implied that they were bound over to prevent the cause of disturbance, Paul, from coming to Thessalonica. This ingenious device put an impassable chasm between Paul and the Thessalonians (ἐνέκοψεν is the strong term used). So long as the magistrates maintained this attitude, he could not return: he was helpless, and Satan had power. His only hope lay in an alteration of the magistrates’ policy. They would not be long in power; and perhaps their successors might act differently. But the politarchs doubtless thought that they treated the case mildly and yet effectually; they got rid of the cause, without inflicting any punishment on any person. This interpretation of the term “Satan,” as denoting action taken by the governing power against the message from God, is in keeping with the figurative use of the word throughout the New Testament.

8. BEROEA.

(XVII 10) AND THE BRETHREN IMMEDIATELY SENT AWAY PAUL AND SILAS BY NIGHT UNTO BEREA; AND WHEN THEY WERE COME HITHER THEY WENT INTO THE SYNAGOGUE OF THE JEWS. (11) NOW THESE WERE MORE NOBLE THAN THOSE IN THESSALONICA, IN THAT THEY RECEIVED THE WORD WITH ALL READINESS OF MIND, EXAMINING THE SCRIPTURES DAILY WHETHER THESE THINGS WERE SO. (12) MANY OF THEM THEREFORE BELIEVED; AS DID ALSO NOT A FEW OF THE HIGH-BORN GREEK LADIES AND OF THE MALE POPULATION. (13) BUT WHEN THE JEWS OF THESSALONICA LEARNED THAT IN BEREA ALSO THE WORD OF GOD WAS PREACHED BY PAUL, THEY CAME THERE ALSO EXCITING AND DISTURBING THE MULTITUDES. (14) THEN FORTHWITH PAUL WAS SENT FORTH BY THE BRETHREN TO GO TOWARDS THE SEA; BUT SILAS AND TIMOTHY REMAINED THERE. (15) AND THEY THAT CONDUCTED PAUL BROUGHT HIM AS FAR AS ATHENS; AND RECEIVING DIRECTIONS FOR SILAS AND TIMOTHY THAT THEY SHOULD COME TO HIM WITH ALL SPEED, THEY DEPARTED.

Here, just as at Thessalonica, a wider influence than the circle of the synagogue is distinctly implied, so that we must understand that Paul preached also to the Greek population. The nobler conduct of the Berean Jews consisted in their freedom from that jealousy, which made the Jews in Thessalonica and many other places enraged when the offer of salvation was made as freely to others as to themselves.

The process that compelled Paul’s departure from Berea was evidently quite similar to that at Thessalonica; and probably that is the reason why the riot and the accusation of treason against the Emperor are not mentioned more particularly (p. 72). As usual, we notice how lightly Luke passes over the difficulties and dangers which drove Paul from place to place.

In v. 15 we must understand that Silas and Timothy obeyed the directions, and came on to rejoin Paul. There is no point in mentioning such an order, unless it were obeyed. It is in the style of Luke to mention an intention and leave the reader to gather that it was carried into effect (p. 181). Moreover, we learn from I Thess. III 1 that Timothy was sent by Paul away from Athens to Thessalonica, which implies that he rejoined him. It is undeniable that the statement in XVIII 5, “when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia,” seems at first sight to imply that they arrived from Berea only after Paul had left Athens, and followed him on to Corinth, and met him there for the first time since his departure from Berea. But the calculation of time shows that that could hardly be the case: it would not take nearly so long to perform the journey, and we shall see that Silas and Timothy rejoined Paul in Corinth after a mission from Athens to Thessalonica and Philippi (p. 241). In that case the narrative is very awkward and badly constructed; and we can hardly suppose that it has received the final touches from the author’s hand. It is not unnatural that the Philippian author, writing about facts with which he and his nearest audience were specially familiar, and making his narrative as brief as possible, should have omitted to mention the mission from Athens to Macedonia. But it is probable that, if he had lived to put the finishing touch to his work, he would not have left this awkwardness. Another possible indication of incompleteness is the emission of the harbour of Berea, a unique omission in this history (p. 70).

The question naturally occurs, why did Paul go on from Berea alone, leaving Silas and Timothy behind, and yet send orders immediately on reaching Athens that they were to join him with all speed? There seems at first sight some inconsistency here. But again comparison between Acts and Thess. solves the difficulty. Paul was eager “once and again” to return to Thessalonica; and was waiting for news that the impediment placed in his way was removed. Silas and Timothy remained to receive the news (perhaps about the attitude of new magistrates); and to bring it on to Paul. But they could not bring it on to him until they received his message from Athens; Paul left Berea with no fixed plan, “sent forth by the brethren to go to the coast,” and the further journey to Athens was resolved on at the harbour.

We must allow several months for the residence at Berea, with the preaching in the synagogue and the city, and the riot. Paul must have reached Athens some time in August 51, as is shown by the dates of his residence in Corinth (p. 264).

There is an interesting addition made to the Bezan Text of v. 15: “and they which conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; [and he neglected Thessalia, for he was prevented from preaching the word unto them]”. Here we meet a difficult question in provincial bounds. Where should Paul go from Beroea? The one thing clear to him was that he was called to Macedonia. If Thessaly was part of that province,Ptolemy gives Thessaly to Macedonia, Strabo to Achaia (for we cannot accept Mommsen’s interpretation of Strab. p. 276): at some unknown time Thessaly was separated from Achaia (Brandis thinks by Pius, Marquardt by Vespasian, but perhaps 44 may have been the time). Larissa was the natural completion of his Macedonian work; and we could readily believe that he thought of it and was prevented by a revelation. But, in that case, why is “the revelation” left out? Such an omission is unique in Acts. On the other hand, if Thessaly was part of Achaia, Paul could not think at that time of beginning work in a new province. In Athens he was merely waiting for the chance of returning to Thessalonica (p. 240). But, in that case, we might understand, “he was prevented (by the call restricting him to Macedonia)”. Perhaps the Reviser, having eliminated παρῆλθεν from XVI 8, thought that XVII 15 was a suitable place for the idea, which he wished to preserve.

CHAPTER XI.

ATHENS AND CORINTH

1. ATHENS.

(XVII 16) NOW WHILE PAUL WAS WAITING FOR THEM IN ATHENS, HIS SOUL WAS PROVOKED WITHIN HIM AS HE BEHELD THE CITY FULL OF IDOLS. (17) SO HE REASONED IN THE SYNAGOGUE WITH THE JEWS AND THE PROSELYTES, AND IN THE MARKETPLACE EVERY DAY WITH CHANCE COMERS. . . . (23) “AS I WENT THROUGH THE CITY SURVEYING THE MONUMENTS OF YOUR RELIGION, I FOUND ALSO AN ALTAR WITH THIS INSCRIPTION ‘TO UNKNOWN GOD’.”

The picture of Paul in Athens, which is given in the ensuing scene, is very characteristic of Athenian life. Luke places before us the man who became “all things to all men,” and who therefore in Athens made himself like an Athenian and adopted the regular Socratic style of general free discussion in the agora; and he shows him to us in an atmosphere and a light which are thoroughly Attic in their clearness, delicacy, and charm.

It is evident from v. 23, and our conception of Paul’s character forces the same view on us, that he was not indifferent even to the “sights” of the great university city of the world, which united in itself so many memorials of history and of education. The feelings which would rise in the mind of an American scholar from Harvard, seeing Oxford for the first time, were not alien to Paul’s spirit The mere Jew could never have assumed the Attic tone as Paul did. He was in Athens the student of a great university, visiting an older but yet a kindred university, surveying it with appreciative admiration, and mixing in its society as an equal conversing with men of like education.

This extraordinary versatility in Paul’s character, the unequaled freedom and ease with which he moved in every society, and addressed so many races within the Roman world, were evidently appreciated by the man who wrote this narrative, for the rest of Chapter XVII is as different in tone from XIII as Athens is different from Phrygia. Only a writer who was in perfect sympathy with his subject could adapt his tone to it so perfectly as Luke does. In Ephesus Paul taught “in the school of Tyrannus”; in the city of Socrates he discussed moral questions in the market-place. How incongruous it would seem if the methods were transposed! But the narrative never makes a false step amid all the many details, as the scene changes from city to city; and that is the conclusive proof that it is a picture of real life.

Athens in Paul’s time was no longer the Athens of Socrates; but the Socratic method had its roots in the soil of Attica and the nature of the Athenian people. In Athens Socrates can never quite die, and his spirit was in Paul’s time still among the people, though the learned lecturers of the university felt already the coming spirit of Herodes Atticus more congenial to them. Among the people in the agora, then, Paul reasoned in the Socratic fashion; but when the Professors came upon the scene, they soon demanded of him a display in the style of the rhetorician.

As Paul wandered through Athens, the interest in its monuments and its university was soon overpowered by the indignation roused by the idols with which it was crowded. In this centre of the world’s education, amid the lecture-rooms where philosophers had taught for centuries that it was mere superstition to confuse the idol with the divine nature which it represented, the idols were probably in greater numbers than anywhere else in Paul’s experience. Though he was only waiting for the message to go back to Thessalonica, and resume the work in Macedonia to which he had been called, yet indignation would not let him keep silence during the short stay which he anticipated in Athens. He began to discourse in the synagogue, and to hold Socratic dialogue in the agora with any one whom he met.

Here we observe the same double mission as in Berea, Thessalonica, and elsewhere; and, as in other cases, the Jewish mission is mentioned first. There is one marked difference between this passage and the corresponding descriptions at Berea and Thessalonica. In those cases great results were attained; but in Athens no converts are mentioned at this stage, either in the synagogue or in the agora. The lack of results at this stage is, however, fully explained by the shortness of the time. Paul’s stay in Athens can hardly have been longer than six weeks, and was probably less than four; and the process described in v. 17 was brought to a premature close by the great event of his visit, which the historian describes very fully.

The time spent in Athens may be deduced approximately from the following considerations. Probably less than a fortnight elapsed before Silas and Timothy joined him there, according to his urgent directions. They brought with them no favourable news: it was still impossible for him to return to Thessalonica, and he “thought it good to be left in Athens alone, and sent Timothy to comfort the Thessalonians concerning their faith” (I Thess. III 1, 2).

Since Paul remained alone, Silas also must have been sent away from Athens; and as, some two months later, Silas with Timothy rejoined Paul from Macedonia, he was probably sent to Philippi, for frequent communication was maintained at this time between Paul and his first European Church (Phil. IV 15 f.).

Paul was still looking forward to a return to his proper work in Macedonia; and it is clear that he intended to remain in Athens until Silas and Timothy came back from their mission, which makes it probable that their absence was not intended to be a long one. Doubtless they travelled to Thessalonica together, and Timothy waited there while Silas went to Philippi, discharged his mission, and returned; and then they came to Athens together. They found Paul no longer there, for he had in the meantime gone to Corinth. Circumstances that happened in Athens had forced him to abandon the city and go to Corinth: “after this he departed from Athens and came to Corinth” (XVIII 1). In this sentence it might seem that the words “departed from Athens” are wasted; and that it would have been sufficient to say after this he came to Corinth”; but our principle is that every minute fact stated in Acts has its own significance, and the departure from Athens (χωρισθεὶς ἐκ τῶν Ἀθηνῶν is emphasised, because it was a violation of the intended plan under the compulsion of events.

The same word is used in XVIII 1 to describe Paul’s departure from Athens, and in 2 to describe Aquila’s enforced departure from Rome. On our view (p. 252) the idea of sudden, premature departure is contained in each. Further, it is clear that Paul had been in Corinth for some time and attained a certain measure of success, before Silas and Timothy arrived; and, if we allow seven weeks for their mission, which seems ample, he must have spent altogether about three or four weeks in Athens and five or six in Corinth.

2. IN THE UNIVERSITY AT ATHENS.

(XVII 18 AND CERTAIN ALSO OF THE STOIC AND EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHERS ENGAGED IN DISCUSSIONS WITH HIM; AND SOME SAID, “WHAT WOULD THIS SPERMOLOGOS [ignorant plagarist] SAY?” AND OTHERS, “HE IS APPARENTLY AN EXPONENT OF FOREIGN DIVINITIES” [BECAUSE HE WAS GIVING THE GOOD NEWS OF “JESUS” AND “RESURRECTION “]. (19) AND THEY TOOK HOLD OF HIM AND BROUGHT HIM BEFORE THE Council of AREOPAGUS, SAYING, “MAY WE LEARN WHAT IS THIS NEW TEACHING WHICH IS SPOKEN BY THEE? (20) FOR THOU BRINGEST SOME THINGS OF FOREIGN FASHION TO OUR EARS; WE WISH THEREFORE TO LEARN WHAT IS THEIR NATURE.” (21) BUT THE WHOLE crowd of ATHENIANS AND RESIDENT STRANGERS who formed the audience WERE INTERESTED ONLY IN SAYING OR HEARING SOMETHING NEW and smart. (22) AND PAUL STOOD IN THE MIDST OF THE Council of AREOPAGUS AND SAID . . . (33) THUS PAUL WENT FORTH FROM THE MIDST OF THEM.

The explanatory clause in v. 18 is wanting in the Bezan Text and an old Latin Version, and is foreign to Luke’s fashion of leaving the reader to form his own ideas with regard to the scene. It is apparently a gloss, suggested by v. 32, which found its way into the text of almost all MSS.

The different opinions of the philosophers in v. 18 are purposely placed side by side with a touch of gentle sarcasm on their inability, with all their acuteness, to agree in any opinion even about Paul’s meaning. The first opinion is the most interesting. It contains a word of characteristically Athenian slang, Spermológos, and is clearly caught from the very lips of the Athenians (as Dr. Blass happily puts it). This term was used in two senses—(1) a small bird that picks up seeds for its food, and (2) a worthless fellow of low class and vulgar habits, with the insinuation that he lives at the expense of others, like those disreputable persons who hang round the markets and the quays in order to pick up anything that falls from the loads that are carried about. Hence, as a term in social slang, it connotes absolute vulgarity and inability to rise above the most contemptible standard of life and conduct; it is often connected with slave life, for the Spermológos was near the type of the slave and below the level of the free man; and there clings to it the suggestion of picking up refuse and scraps, and in literature of plagiarism without the capacity to use correctly. In ancient literature plagiarism was not disapproved when it was done with skill, and when the idea or words taken from another were used with success: the literary offence lay in the ignorance and incapacity displayed when stolen knowledge was improperly applied.

To appreciate fully a term of social slang requires the greatest effort to sympathise with and recreate the actual life of the people who used the term. Probably the nearest and most instructive parallel in modern English life to Spermológos is “Bounder,” allowing for the difference between England and Athens. In both there lies the idea of one who is “out of the swim,” out of the inner circle, one who lacks that thorough knowledge and practice in the rules of the game that mould the whole character and make it one’s nature to act in the proper way and play the game fair. The English term might be applied to a candidate for a professorship, whose life and circumstances had lain in a different line and who wanted knowledge and familiarity with the subject; and that is the way in which St. Paul is here called a Spermológos, as one who aped the ways and words of philosophers. Dean Farrar’s rendering, “picker-up of learning’s crumbs,” is happy, but loses the touch of slang.

The general tendency of recent opinion is that Paul was taken to the Hill of Ares, in order to give an address in quiet surroundings to a crowd of Athenians on the spot where the Council that derived its name from the hill sat to hold solemn trials for murder; and the view taken in the Authorised Version and the ancient authorities, such as Chrysostom and Theophylact, that Paul was subjected to a trial before the Council, is rejected on the ground that in the proceedings there is nothing of a judicial type, no accuser, no accusation, and no defensive character in Paul’s speech, which is addressed not to a court but to a general Athenian audience. These reasons quite disprove the view that the scene described in vv. 19-34 was a trial. But the idea that the assembly of Athenians went up to the hill-top as a suitable place for listening to an address is even more unsatisfactory. The top of the little hill is a most unsuitable place from its small size and its exposed position; and it is quite out of keeping with the habits of the people to go to such a place for such a purpose. Curtius has led the way to a proper view of the whole incident, which lies wholly in the agora.

Further, it is inconsistent with the patriotism and pride of the Athenians that they should conduct a foreigner for whom they expressed such contempt to the most impressive seat of Athenian religious and national history, in order that he might there talk to them. The Athenians were, in many respects, flippant; but their flippancy was combined with an intense pride in the national dignity and the historic glory of the city, which would have revolted at such an insult as that this stranger should harangue them about his foreign deities on the spot where the Athenian elders had judged the god Ares and the hero Orestes, where the goddess Athena had presided in the highest court of her chosen people, and where still judgment on the most grave cases of homicide was solemnly pronounced.

Nor would it be a permissible interpretation that a small number of philosophic inquirers retired to this quiet spot for unimpeded discussion. The scene and the speech breathe the spirit of the agora, and the open, free, crowded life of Athens, not the quiet atmosphere of the philosophic study or class-room; while the tone of the opinions expressed in v. 18 is not one of philosophic interest and careful discussion, but of contempt, dislike, and jealousy. Moreover, it would be an insult to address philosophic inquirers in the language of vv. 22-3. The philosophers did not dedicate altars to an Unknown God, but regarded all such proceedings as the mere superstition of the vulgar. Paul’s speech is an exceedingly skillful one, if addressed to a popular audience; but to philosophers it would be unskillful and unsuitable.

But the language shows clearly that Paul was brought before the Council and not simply conducted to the Hill. He stood “in the midst of the Areopagus,” v. 22, and “he went forth from the midst of them”: he that went forth from the midst of them must have been standing in the midst of them. In this scene, full of the Attic spirit and containing typical words of Athenian slang like Spermológos, we require some distinctly Greek sense for each detail; and “Paul stood in the middle of the Hill” is in Greek an absurdity. He stood in the middle of the Council, a great and noble, but not a friendly assembly, as in IV 7 Peter stood “in the midst” of the Sanhedrim; and in Acts and the Gospels many similar expressions occur.ὁ Ἄρειος Πάγος was often used, in a conversational way, in place of the cumbrous technical form, ἡ ἐξ Ἀρείου Πάγου βουλή. The decisive passages are pointed out to me by two friends and old pupils, Mr. A. Souter and Rev. A.F. Findlay. Cicero says to Atticus, I 14, 5, Senatus [Ἄρειος Πάγος. “our Senate is a veritable Areopagus”. Cicero picked up the conversational usage during his six months residence in Athens; and hence he uses Areopagus to denote the Court, Nat. D. II 29, 74, Rep. I 27, 43. Again in an inscription of A.D. 50–100 (Cavvadias, Fouilles d’Epidaure I p. 68, No. 206) we find Ἄρειος Πάγος ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι λόγους ἐποιήσατο. (Pape quotes other cases, which are not so clear, and are denied by some authorities.) Here, as everywhere, we find Luke using the language of educated conversation.

The philosophers took hold of Paul. When a man, especially an educated man, goes so far as to lay his hands on another, it is obvious that his feelings must be moved; and the word must have some marked sense in a writer whose expression is so carefully studied as Luke’s. It occurs as a sign of friendly encouragement to a person in a solitary and difficult position, IX 27, XXIII 19; but more frequently it denotes hostile action, as XXI 30, XVIII 17, XVI 19. There must have been some stronger feeling among the philosophers than mere contempt mingled with some slight curiosity, before they actually placed their hands on Paul. Now they certainly did not act as his friends and sponsors in taking him before the Council, therefore we must understand that they took him there from dislike and with malice.

What then was their object? Every attempt to explain the scene as a trial has failed, and must fail (p. 243). Even the idea of a preliminary inquiry is unsuitable; for, if it were so, none of the marked features of the scene are preserved in the narrative, which would be contrary to our experience in Luke’s descriptions. In estimating the situation, we must remember that in vv. 18, 19, Paul is among the lecturers and professors of the university. Therein lies the chief interest of the scene, which is unique in Acts. We have seen Paul in various situations, and mixing in many phases of contemporary life. Here alone he stands amid the surroundings of a great university, disputing with its brilliant and learned teachers; and here, as in every other situation, he adapts himself with his usual versatility to the surroundings, and moves in them as to the manner born.

Two questions have to be answered in regard to the scene that follows: why was Paul taken before the Council? and what were the intentions of the philosophers in taking him there? It is clear that Paul appeared to the philosophers as one of the many ambitious teachers who came to Athens hoping to find fame and fortune at the great centre of education. Now, certain powers were vested in the Council of Areopagus to appoint or invite lecturers at Athens, and to exercise some general control over the lecturers in the interests of public order and morality. There is an almost complete lack of evidence what were the advantages and the legal rights of a lecturer thus appointed, and to what extent or in what way a strange teacher could find freedom to lecture in Athens. There existed something in the way of privileges vested in the recognised lecturers; for the fact that Cicero induced the Areopagus to pass a decree inviting Cratippus, the Peripatetic philosopher, to become a lecturer in Athens, implies that some advantage was thereby lectured to him. There certainly also existed much freedom for foreigners to become lecturers in Athens, for the great majority of the Athenian professors and lecturers were foreign. The scene described in vv. 18-34 seems to prove that the recognised lecturers could take a strange lecturer before the Areopagus, and require him to give an account of his teaching and pass a test as to its character.

When they took him to the court to satisfy the supreme university tribunal of his qualifications, they probably entertained some hope that he would be overawed before that august body, or that his teaching might not pass muster, as being of unsettling tendency (for no body is so conservative as a University Court).

The government in Greek cities exercised a good deal of control over the entire system of education, both for boys and for young men, who were trained in graduated classes and passed on from one to another in regular course. There is good reason for thinking that in Athens this control was exercised by the Council of Areopagus, in the case both of boys and of young men: it rises naturally out of their ancient charge of the manners and morals of the citizens, of the public hygiene and the state physicians, and of offences against religious ritual (though serious charges of impiety and of introducing foreign religion were not tried before the Areopagus but before the popular courts); and it is, in ancient view, related to the control of peace and order which they exercised in the Roman period. Moreover, Quintilian mentions that the Areopagus punished a boy who used to pluck out the eyes of quails, which implies their jurisdiction over the young.

In the rhetorical displays of that period, the general audience (corona) was an important feature. The influence of the audience is familiar to every reader of the literature of that time; and the younger Pliny says that even the lawyers of his time spoke more to gain the approval and applause of the audience than to influence the opinion and judgment of the court. Owing to the difficulty in multiplying copies of literary productions, public opinion could not be so well appealed to or expressed in any other way; and the applause or disapproval of the circle of hearers came to represent to a great extent the public verdict on all intellectual achievements. Luke, therefore, could not well omit the audience, even in this brief account; and he touches it off in v. 21, where the force of the imperfect tense is important: Luke is not describing the general character of the Athenian people (which would require a present tense): he places another element in the scene alongside of those already described. While the philosophers insisted with some malevolent intention on having a test applied, the general crowd of Athenians and resident strangers were merely moved by curiosity.

The unmistakable tone of contempt in the description suits a Macedonian describing an Athenian crowd (for the two peoples always disliked and despised each other); and it is not undeserved. As Mr. Capes says in his University Life in Ancient Athens: “the people commonly was nothing loath to hear: they streamed as to a popular preacher in our own day, or to an actor starring in provincial towns: the epicures accepted the invitation to the feast of words, and hurried to the theatre to judge as critics the choice of images, and refinement of the style, and all the harmony of balanced periods “. As Luke says, they were as eager to make smart criticisms as to listen.

3. THE SPEECH BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF AREOPAGUS.

(XVII 22) AND PAUL STOOD IN THE MIDST OF THE COUNCIL AND SAID, “YE MEN OF ATHENS, IN ALL RESPECTS I OBSERVE THAT YOU ARE MORE than others RESPECTFUL OF WHAT IS DIVINE. (23) FOR AS I WAS GOING THROUGH your city AND SURVEYING THE MONUMENTS OF YOUR WORSHIP, I FOUND ALSO AN ALTAR WITH THE INSCRIPTION TO UNKNOWN GOD. THAT divine nature, THEN, WHICH YOU WORSHIP, NOT KNOWING what it is, I AM SETTING FORTH TO YOU. (24) THE GOD THAT MADE THE WORLD AND ALL THINGS THEREIN, HE, LORD AS HE IS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, DWELLETH NOT IN SHRINES MADE WITH HANDS, (25) AND IS NOT SERVED BY HUMAN HANDS AS THOUGH HE NEEDED ANYTHING, SINCE HE HIMSELF GIVETH TO ALL LIFE AND BREATH AND ALL THINGS. (26) AND HE MADE OF ONE nature EVERY RACE OF MEN TO DWELL ON ALL THE FACE OF THE EARTH; AND FIXED DEFINED TIMES AND BOUNDS OF THEIR HABITATION, (27) THAT THEY SHOULD SEEK THE GOD, IF HAPLY THEY MIGHT FEEL AFTER HIM AND FIND HIM, BEING AS INDEED HE IS NOT FAR FROM EACH ONE OF US. (28) FOR IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND ARE, AS CERTAIN ALSO OF YOUR POETS HAVE SAID, FOR WE ARE ALSO HIS OFFSPRING. (29) BEING THEN THE OFFSPRING OF GOD, WE OUGHT NOT TO THINK THAT THE DIVINE NATURE IS LIKE UNTO GOLD OR SILVER OR STONE, GRAVEN BY ART AND DEVICE OF MAN. (30) NOW THE TIMES OF IGNORANCE GOD OVERLOOKED, BUT AT PRESENT HE CHARGETH ALL MEN EVERYWHERE TO REPENT, (31) INASMUCH AS HE HATH SET A DAY ON WHICH, IN the person of THE MAN WHOM HE HATH ORDAINED, HE WILL JUDGE THE WORLD IN RIGHTEOUSNESS; AND HE HATH GIVEN ALL A GUARANTEE BY RAISING HIM FROM THE DEATH.” (32) AND WHEN THEY HEARD OF “RAISING FROM THE DEAD,” SOME MOCKED, AND OTHERS SAID, “WE WILL HEAR THEE CONCERNING THIS YET AGAIN”. (33) THUS PAUL WENT OUT FROM THE MIDST OF THEM. (34) BUT CERTAIN MEN CLAVE UNTO HIM AND BELIEVED; AMONG WHOM ALSO WAS DIONYSIUS, A MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL, AND A WOMAN NAMED DAMARIS, AND OTHERS WITH THEM. (XVIII 1) AND THEREAFTER HE LEFT ATHENS, AND WENT TO CORINTH.

The influence of Paul’s Athenian surroundings may be traced in the “philosophy of history” which he sketches briefly in his address. In the Socratic position the virtue of” knowing” was too exclusively dwelt on, and in some of the earlier Platonic dialogues the view is maintained that virtue is knowledge and vice ignorance; and Greek philosophy was never clear about the relation of will and permanent character to “knowing”. The Greek philosophers could hardly admit, and could never properly understand, that a man may know without carrying his knowledge into action, that he may refuse to know when knowledge is within his grasp, and that the refusal exercises a permanent deteriorating influence on his character. Now Paul, in his estimate of the relation of the pre-Christian world to God, adopts a different position in the Athenian speech from that on which he afterwards took his stand in his letter to the Romans, I 19-32. In the latter place he recognises (to quote Lightfoot’s brief analysis) that the pagan world “might have seen God through His works. They refused to see Him. They disputed, and they blinded their hearts. Therefore they were delivered over to impurity. They not only did those things; but they took delight in those who did them.” Here we have a full recognition of that fundamental fact in human nature and life, which Æschylus expressed in his greatest dramaAgamemnon 730 f., a passage where the text is very uncertain and is terribly maltreated by many editors. Paley turns it into an elaborate genealogical tree, while Wecklein conjectures away the depravation of the will, which is the key to the philosophic position of Æschylus. a conception of his own differing from the common Greek view:” the impious act breeds more, like to its own kind: it is the nature of crime to beget new crime, and along with it the depraved audacious will that settles, like an irresistible spirit of ill, on the house”. But to the Athenians Paul says, “the times of ignorance, therefore, God overlooked”; and those times are alluded to as a period, when men were doing their best to find and to worship “God Unknown”. We must not, of course, demand that the entire theology of Paul should be compressed into this single address; but yet there is a notable omission of an element that was unfamiliar and probably repugnant to his audience, and an equally notable insistence on an element that was familiar to them. The Stoic ring in 23 f. is marked (pp. 147, 150).

One woman was converted at Athens; and it is not said that she was of good birth, as Was stated at Berea and Thessalonica and Pisidian Antioch. The difference is true to life. It was impossible in Athenian society for a woman of respectable position and family to have any opportunity of hearing Paul; and the name Damaris (probably a vulgarism for damalis, heifer) suggests a foreign woman, perhaps one of the class of educated Hetairai, who might very well be in his audience.

It would appear that Paul was disappointed and perhaps disillusioned by his experience in Athens. He felt that he had gone at least as far as was right in the way of presenting his doctrine in a form suited to the current philosophy; and the result had been little more than naught. When he went on from Athens to Corinth, he no longer spoke in the philosophic style. In replying afterwards to the unfavourable comparison between his preaching and the more philosophical style of Apollos, he told the Corinthians that, when he came among them, he “determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (I Cor. I 12); and nowhere throughout his writings is he so hard on the wise, the philosophers, and the dialecticians, as when he defends the way in which he had presented Christianity at Corinth. Apparently the greater concentration of purpose and simplicity of method in his preaching at Corinth is referred to by Luke, when he says, XVIII 5, that when Silas and Timothy rejoined him there, they found him wholly possessed by and engrossed in the word. This strong expression, so unlike anything else in Acts, must, on our hypothesis, be taken to indicate some specially marked character in the Corinthian preaching.

4. CORINTH.

(XVIII 1) AFTER THESE EVENTS HE LEFT ATHENS AND WENT TO CORINTH. (2) AND, FINDING A CERTAIN JEW NAMED AQUILA, A MAN OF PONTUS BY BIRTH, WHO HAD LATELY COME FROM ITALY, AND PRISCILLA HIS WIFE, BECAUSE CLAUDIUS HAD COMMANDED ALL THE JEWS TO LEAVE ROME, HE ACCOSTED THEM. (3) AND BECAUSE HE WAS OF THE SAME CRAFT, HE ABODE WITH THEM, AND WROUGHT AT HIS TRADE [FOR THEY WERE TENTMAKERS BY THEIR CRAFT]. (4) AND HE USED TO DISCOURSE IN THE SYNAGOGUE EVERY SABBATH, AND TRIED TO PERSUADE JEWS AND GREEKS. (5) AND WHEN SILAS AND TIMOTHY ARRIVED FROM MACEDONIA, HE WAS WHOLLY ABSORBED IN PREACHING, ATTESTING TO THE JEWS THAT THE ANOINTED ONE IS JESUS.

Almost all MSS. add to v. 3 the explanation which we have given in parentheses; but it comes in very awkwardly, for Luke, who said at the beginning of the verse, “because he was of the same craft,” did not intend to say at the end, “for they were tentmakers by craft”. The Bezan Text and an old Latin Version (Gig.) omit this detail; and they must here represent the original state of the text. In order to make the explanation a little less awkward, the two great MSS. read, “he abode with them and they wrought”. The explanation is a gloss, which crept from the margin into the text. It is doubtless very early, and perfectly trustworthy: its vitality lies in its truth, for that was not the kind of detail that was invented in the growth of the Pauline legend.

Aquila, a man of Pontus, settled in Rome bears a Latin name; and must therefore have belonged to the province and not to non-Roman Pontus. This is a good example of Luke’s principle to use the Roman provincial divisions for purposes of classification (pp. 91, 196).

There is here a reference to Imperial history. Aquila and Priscilla had come recently from Rome, on account of an edict of Claudius expelling the Jews from Rome. Suetonius says that the expulsion was caused by a series of disturbances “due to the action of Chrestus”; and in all probability this Chrestus must be interpreted as “the leader of the Chrestians” (p. 47 f.), taken by a popular error as actually living. In the earliest stages of Christian history in Rome, such a mistake was quite natural; and Suetonius reproduces the words which he found in a document of the period. As Dion Cassius mentions, it was found so difficult to keep the Jews out of Rome on account of their numbers, that the Emperor did not actually expel them, but made stricter regulations about their conduct. It would therefore appear that the edict was found unworkable in practice; but Suetonius is a perfect authority that it was tried, and it is quite probable that some Jews obeyed it, and among them Aquila. Neither Suetonius nor Dion gives any clue to the date; but Orosius says that it occurred in Claudius’s ninth year, 49. I believe that this date is a year wrong, like that of the famine (p. 68), and for the same reason: the edict must be placed in the end of 50, and thus Aquila arrived in Corinth six or seven months before Paul came in Sept. 51.

The careful record of Aquila’s antecedents must, on our hypothesis, be taken as not a mere picturesque detail; Luke mentioned his Roman residence, because it had some bearing on his subject. After some time (during most of which Paul had been in Aquila’s company at Corinth and at Ephesus), a journey to Rome is announced as Paul’s next intention, XIX 21. Aquila was able to tell him of the events that had occurred in Rome “at the action of Chrestus”; and his experience showed him how important it was to go direct to the great centres of Roman life. The connection of Luke with the Macedonian journey (p. 203) is an interesting parallel.

Paul mentions in writing to the Romans, XV 24, that he intended to go on from Rome to Spain. Such an intention implies in the plainest way an idea already existent in Paul’s mind of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire. Spain was by far the most thoroughly romanised district of the Empire, as was marked soon after by the act of Vespasian in 75, when he made the Latin status universal in Spain. From the centre of the Roman world Paul would go on to the chief seat of Roman civilisation in the West, and would thus complete a first survey, the intervals of which should be filled up by assistants, such as Timothy, Titus, etc.

5. THE SYNAGOGUE AND THE GENTILES IN CORINTH.

(XVIII 6) AND WHEN THEY BEGAN TO FORM A FACTION AGAINST HIM AND BLASPHEME, HE SHOOK OUT HIS GARMENTS AND SAID UNTO THEM, “YOUR BLOOD ON YOUR OWN HEAD! I ON MY SIDE AM CLEAN! FROM HENCEFORTH I WILL GO UNTO THE GENTILES,” i.e., in this city. (7) AND HE CHANGED HIS PLACE from the synagogue, AND WENT INTO THE HOUSE OF A CERTAIN MAN NAMED TITIUS JUSTUS, A GOD-FEARING proselyte, WHOSE HOUSE JOINED HARD TO THE SYNAGOGUE. (8) BUT CRISPUS, THE ARCHISYNAGOGOS, BELIEVED IN THE LORD WITH ALL HIS HOUSE; AND MANY OF THE PEOPLE OF CORINTH USED TO HEAR AND BELIEVE AND RECEIVE BAPTISM. (9) AND THE LORD SAID IN THE NIGHT BY A VISION UNTO PAUL, “BE NOT AFRAID, BUT SPEAK ON, AND HOLD NOT THY PEACE; (10) BECAUSE I AM WITH THEE, AND NO MAN SHALL SET ON THEE TO HARM THEE; BECAUSE I HAVE MUCH PEOPLE IN THIS CITY”. (11) AND HE SETTLED A YEAR AND SIX MONTHS, TEACHING AMONG THEM THE WORD OF GOD.

The distinction between the period of work in the synagogue, and that of direct preaching to the populace, is expressed with marked emphasis at Corinth. Corinth stood on the highroad between Rome and the East; and was therefore one of the greatest centres of influence in the Roman world. Macedonia was in this respect quite secondary, though one of the routes to the East passed across it; and hence Paul was ordered to sit down for a prolonged stay when he reached Corinth. It is characteristic of Luke to define the entire stay before relating some incidents that occurred in it (pp. 153, 289).

It must be acknowledged that Paul had not a very conciliatory way with the Jews when he became angry. The shaking out of his garments was undoubtedly a very exasperating gesture; and the occupying of a meetinghouse next door to the synagogue, with the former archisynagogos as a prominent officer, was more than human nature could stand. Probably he found unusual opposition here, pp. 143, 287; but it is not strange that the next stage of proceedings was in a law-court.

Titius Justus was evidently a Roman or a Latin, one of the coloni of the colony Corinth. Like the centurion Cornelius, he had been attracted to the synagogue. His citizenship would afford Paul an opening to the more educated class of the Corinthian population.

It seems to be implied by vv. 8, 17, that there was only one archisynagogos in the Corinthian synagogue; and, when Crispus became a Christian, a successor was appointed. At Pisidian Antioch there were several archisynagogoi. M.S. Reinach has shown from a Smyrnæ an inscription that the title in Asia Minor did not indicate an office, but was a mere expression of dignity, “a leading person in the synagogue”; and the Bezan Text of XIV 2 distinguishes clearly between the archons of the synagogue (officials, probably two in number), and the archisynagogoi.

6. THE IMPERIAL POLICY IN ITS RELATION TO PAUL AND TO CHRISTIAN PREACHING.

(XVIII 12) BUT WHILE GALLIO WAS PROCONSUL OF ACHAIA, THE JEWS WITH ONE ACCORD ROSE UP AGAINST PAUL, AND BROUGHT HIM BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL, SAYING, (13) “THIS MAN PERSUADETH PEOPLE TO WORSHIP GOD CONTRARY TO THE LAW” (14) BUT WHEN PAUL WAS ABOUT. TO OPEN HIS MOUTH, GALLIO SAID UNTO THE JEWS, “IF A MISDEMEANOUR OR A CRIME WERE IN QUESTION, YE JEWS, REASON WOULD THAT I SHOULD BEAR WITH YOU; (15) BUT IF THEY ARE QUESTIONS OF WORD, not deed, AND OF NAMES, not things, AND OF YOUR LAW, not Roman law, YE YOURSELVES WILL LOOK TO IT: TO BE A JUDGE OF THESE MATTERS for my part HAVE NO MIND”. (16) AND HE DROVE THEM FROM THE TRIBUNAL. (17) AND ALL THE GREEKS SEIZED SOSTHENES, THE ARCHISYNAGOGOS, AND PROCEEDED TO BEAT HIM BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL; AND GALLIO TOOK NO NOTICE OF THIS CONDUCT.

Achaia was governed by a proconsul from B.C. 27 to A.D. 15, and from A.D. 44 onwards. It was a province of the second rank, and was administered by Roman officials, after holding the prætorship, and generally before the consulship. Corinth had now become the chief city of Achaia, and the residence of its governors (as Marquardt infers from this passage).

Here we have another point of contact with Roman history. Gallio was a brother of the famous Seneca, and shared his fortunes.Gallio. One of the many difficulties in which Dr. Clemen’s theory involves him is that he has to deny the identity of Luke’s Gallio with Seneca’s brother. Gallio’s voyage from Achaia, undertaken on account of a local fever (Seneca, Ep. Mor. 104, 1), was not the same as his voyage from Rome to Egypt after his consulship on account of phthisis (Pliny, XXXI 33), though probably the first also was to Egypt. Seneca was in disgrace from 41 to 49; but in 49 he was recalled from banishment and appointed prætor for A.D. 50. Pliny mentions that Gallio attained the consulship, which was probably after his proconsulship in Achaia. In his career of office Gallio must have been prætor not less than five years before he went to Achaia; but no evidence survives to show in what year he held the prætorship (except that it cannot have been between 41 and 49):as the elder brother, he probably held it before Seneca. There is no other evidence that Gallio governed Achaia; but the statement of Luke is corroborated by the fact, which Seneca mentions, that Gallio caught fever in Achaia, and took a voyage for change of air.

Either the Jews at Corinth did not manage their accusation so well as those of Thessalonica, or Gallio elicited the true character of their complaints against Paul as being really matters of mere Jewish concern. It is clear that Gallio’s short speech represents the conclusion of a series of inquiries, for the accusation, as it is quoted, does not refer to words or names, but only to the Law. But it is reasonable to suppose that the Jews put their accusation at first in a serious light, with a view to some serious penalty being inflicted; and Gallio, on probing their allegations, reduced the matter to its true dimensions as a question that concerned only the self-administering community of “the Nation of the Jews in Corinth”. It would have been interesting to know more about this case, for it seems to show that Gallio shared the broad and generous views of his brother about the policy of Rome in regard to the various religions of the provinces. The Greeks, who always hated the Jews, took advantage of the marked snub which the governor had inflicted on them, to seize and beat Sosthenes, who had been appointed to replace Crispus as Archisynagogos, and who doubtless was taking a prominent part in the proceedings. Gallio took no notice of this piece of “Lynch law,” which probably seemed to him to be a rough sort of justice.

The fact that Sosthenes (whether the same or another) joined with Paul in writing to the Corinthians, I 1, caused an early misapprehension of the scene. It was understood that Gallio, after deciding against the Jews, allowed them to console themselves by beating a Christian; and the word “Greeks” is omitted in the great MSS. under the influence of this mistake. But such action is inconceivable in the Roman governor; and the text of the inferior MSS. which substitutes a lifelike and characteristic scene for one that is utterly foolish, must undoubtedly be preferred. Probably two persons at Corinth named Sosthenes were brought into relations with Paul, one a Jew, the other a prominent Christian; or perhaps the Jew was converted at a later date.

This action of the Imperial government in protecting him from the Jews, and (if we are right) declaring freedom in religious matters, seems to have been the crowning fact in determining Paul’s line of conduct. According to our view, the residence at Corinth was an epoch in Paul’s life. As regards his doctrine he became more clearly conscious of its character, as well as more precise and definite in his presentation of it; and as regards practical work he became more clear as to his aim and the means of attaining the aim, namely, that Christianity should be spread through the civilised, i.e., the Roman, world (not as excluding, but as preparatory to, the entire world, Col. III 11), using the freedom of speech which the Imperial policy as declared by Gallio seemed inclined to permit. The action of Gallio, as we understand it, seems to pave the way for Paul’s appeal a few years later from the petty outlying court of the procurator of Judea, who was always much under the influence of the ruling party in Jerusalem, to the supreme tribunal of the Empire (p. 306 f.).

The letters to the Thessalonians belong to the earlier part of his stay in Corinth, before he had definitely reached the new stage of thought and aim. To the new stage, when he had attained full consciousness and full dominion over his own plans, belong the four great letters, Gal. I and II Cor., Rom.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CHURCH IN ASIA

1. THE SYRIAN VOYAGE AND THE RETURN TO EPHESUS.

(XVIII 18) AND PAUL TOOK HIS LEAVE OF THE BRETHREN, AND SAILEDἐξέλει, lit. “he set about the voyage”; contrast XX 6, ἐξεπλεύσαμεν aorist. THENCE FOR SYRIA, AND WITH HIM PRISCILLA AND AQUILA; AND HE SHORE HIS HEAD IN CENCHREÆ, FOR HE HAD A VOW. (19) AND THEY REACHED EPHESUS, AND HE LEFT THE OTHERS THERE. AND FOR HIMSELF, HE WENT INTO THE SYNAGOGUE, AND DELIVERED A DISCOURSE UNTO THE JEWS. (20) AND WHEN THEY ASKED HIM TO ABIDE A LONGER TIME, HE CONSENTED NOT; (21) BUT HE TOOK HIS LEAVE OF THEM, AND SAID, [“I MUST BY ALL MEANS PASS THE COMING FEAST IN JERUSALEM]; IF GOD PLEASE, I WILL RETURN UNTO YOU;” AND HE SET SAIL FROM EPHESUS. (22) AND, REACHING CÆSAREIA, HE WENT UP to Jerusalem, SALUTED THE CHURCH, AND then WENT DOWN TO ANTIOCH. (23) AND, HAVING SPENT SOME TIME there, HE WENT FORTH, AND MADE A PROGRESS IN ORDER from first to last THROUGH THE GALATIC REGION AND THE PHRYGIAN Region, CONFIRMING ALL THE DISCIPLES. . . . (IX 1) AND IT CAME TO PASS THAT PAUL, MAKING A MISSIONARY PROGRESS THROUGH THE HIGHER-LYING QUARTERS of Asia, CAME TO the capital of the province EPHESUS (Expositor, July, 1895, p. 39).

Just as in XX 6 the company sailed away from Philippi (Neapolis, where they really embarked, being omitted, p. 70), so here Paul sailed from Corinth, the harbour being left out of sight. Then the harbour is brought in as an afterthought: before actually embarking at Cenchreæ, the eastern port of Corinth, Paul cut his hair, marking the fulfilment of a vow which apparently was connected with safe embarkation from Corinth. Though the grammatical construction of v. 18 would suggest that Aquila made the vow, and one old Latin Version makes this sense explicit, yet the natural emphasis marks Paul as the subject here.

Aquila and Priscilla remained in Ephesus until the end of 55 (I Cor. XVI 19); but in 56 they returned to Rome, where they were in the early part of A.D. 57 (Rom. XVI 3). We may fairly suppose that Timothy came with Paul to Ephesus, and went up on a mission from thence to his native city and the other Churches of Galatia.

This is an important passage for dating the journey. If we accept the longer reading of v. 21 (which appears in the Bezan Text, and elsewhere), it is certain that Paul was hurrying to Jerusalem for the coming feast, which may be confidently understood as the Passover. But even with the shorter reading of the great MSS., it would be highly probable that the reason why he postponed accepting the invitation to work in Ephesus and hurried on to Cæsareia, could lie only in his desire to be present at Jerusalem on some great occasion; and the Passover is the feast which would attract him. Paul seems to have made a practice of beginning his journeys in the spring.

According to our view the whole journey took place thus. Paul was always eager to. profit by any “open door,” and an invitation from his own people to preach to them in Ephesus must have been specially tempting to him. Nothing but some pressing duty, which seemed to him to imperatively require his presence in Jerusalem at the feast, was likely to hurry him away from them. Further, the feast must have been close at hand, otherwise he could have waited some weeks before going on. Now, in A.D. 53, Passover fell on March 22; and navigation began as a rule only on March 5. But Paul took an early ship for Cæsareia, probably a pilgrim ship, carrying from Corinth and Ephesus many Jews for the coming Passover, and directing its course accordingly. In these circumstances he could not lose a day on the road, and could merely promise to return, “if God will “.

On reaching Cæsareia, he went up and saluted the Church. Dr. Blass considers that he went up from the harbour to the city of Cæsareia and saluted the Church there, and then “went down” to Antioch. That interpretation is impossible for several reasons. (1) It is impossible to use the term “went down” of a journey from the coast-town Cæsareia to the inland city Antioch. On the contrary, one regularly “goes down” to a coast-town (III 4, XIV 25, XVI 8, etc.). (2) The terms “going up” and “going down” are used so frequently of the journey to and from Jerusalem as to establish this usage. Usually the phrase is given in full, “they went up to Jerusalem”; but Dr. Blass accepts as Lukan a reading in XV 6, in which “to go up to the Elders” is used in the sense of “to go up to Jerusalem to the Elders”. If he admits that sense in XV 6, why not also in XVIII 22? Conversely, the phrase “to go down” is used XXIV 22, where the reader has to understand “from Jerusalem to Cæsareia”. Now, the aim of Paul’s journey to Jerusalem, having been put in the reader’s mind by the words of v. 21, is readily and naturally supplied in v. 22.

The shipload of pilgrims to Jerusalem, with Paul among them, landed at Cæsareia, and went up to Jerusalem to the Passover in regular course. Paul exchanged greetings with the Church (this phrase implies that he made only a brief stay), and went down to Antioch. There he received serious news about the Galatian Churches (p. 190); and with all convenient speed he went by the land route through Cilicia, to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch. With the shortest stay that can be supposed, when he was seeing old and loved friends after years of absence, Paul can hardly have reached Derbe before July 53. We cannot allow less than two months for confirming the wavering Churches of Galatia, especially as on this visit (I Cor. XVI 1) he probably planned the collection for the poor in Jerusalem, which was made universal throughout his new Churches during the following three years. Thus he would have completed his work in Galatia by the beginning of September. Then he went on to Ephesus, taking the higher-lying and more direct route, not the regular trade route on the lower level down the Lycus and Mæander valleys. As he made a missionary progress through the upper lands, he can hardly have reached Ephesus before the end of September, A.D. 53, and October is a more probable time. Such a journey must have occupied much time, even if we cut it down to the shortest possible limits. The distances are very great, and progression was very slow; and even on a rapid journey many interruptions must be allowed for (as any one who travels in these countries knows only too well).

In interpreting v. 22, we had to understand that the thought of Jerusalem as Paul’s aim had been suggested to the reader’s mind by v. 21. That is the case when the longer form of v. 21 is accepted; but with the shorter text it becomes too harsh and difficult to supply the unexpressed thought in v. 22. We conclude that the longer form is the original text, and the shorter form is a corruption. But how did the corruption originate? A curious error appears in Asterius (c. 400, A.D.), and in Euthalius (probably c. 468), and therefore was probably part of the early tradition, according to which Pisidian Antioch, not Syrian Antioch, was alluded to in v. 22. By that misconception the whole journey is obscured, and especially a visit to Jerusalem in v. 22 becomes impossible. Two ways of curing the difficulty were tried. The Bezan Text retained the allusion to Jerusalem and the feast in v. 22, and explained the supposed failure to pay the visit by interpolating in XIX 1 the statement, “now when Paul wished according to his own plan to go to Jerusalem, the Spirit bade him turn away into Asia”. On the other hand, in the text of the great MSS., the reference to the intended visit to Jerusalem is cut out of v. 21. Each of these seems a deliberate and conscious effort made by some editor to eliminate a difficulty from the passage as it stood originally

2. APOLLOS, PRISCILLA AND AQUILA.

During the time that Paul was absent from Ephesus, there came thither an Alexandrian Jew named Apollos, a good speaker, and well read in the Scriptures. He had learned in Alexandria the doctrine of John the Baptist and his prophecy of the immediate coming of Christ; and this he preached in Ephesus with great fervour and detailed proof from Scripture. Priscilla and Aquila, having heard his preaching, instructed him with regard to the fulfilment of John’s prophecy. Afterwards he conceived the intention of crossing over to Achaia; and the Brethren gave him letters of recommendation to the disciples in Corinth. When he settled there he became an effective preacher, and a powerful opponent of the Jews, showing how in Jesus the prophecies with regard to the Anointed One were fulfilled.

This episode is obviously introduced, not so much for its own intrinsic importance, as for the sake of rendering the opening of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians clear and intelligible. A contrast is drawn there between the more elaborate and eloquent style of Apollos and the simple Gospel of Paul; and it is implied that some of the Corinthian Brethren preferred the style and Gospel of Apollos. The particulars stated here about Apollos have clearly been selected to throw light on the circumstances alluded to, but not explained in the letter.

In the Bezan Text the account of Apollos appears in a different form, which has all the marks of truth, and yet is clearly not original, but a text remodelled according to a good tradition. The name is given in the fuller form Apollonius; but Paul uses the diminutive Apollos; and Luke, to make his explanation clearer would naturally use the same form. Moreover, Luke regularly uses the language of conversation, in which the diminutive forms were usual; and so he speaks of Priscilla, Sopatros and Silas always, though Paul speaks of Prisca, Sosipatros and Silvanus. On that principle we must prefer the form Apollos.

Again, the text of almost all MSS. mentions Priscilla first; but the Bezan Text alters the order, putting Aquila first. Elsewhere also the Bezan Reviser shows his dislike to the prominence assigned to women in Acts. In XVII 12 he changes “not a few of the honourable Greek women and of men” into “of the Greeks and the honourable many men and women”. In XVII 34 he cuts out Damaris altogether. In XVII 4 he changes the “leading women” into “wives of the leading men” These changes show a definite and uniform purpose, and therefore spring from a deliberate Revision of the original Received Text.

The unusual order, the wife before the husband (so XVIII 18), must be accepted as original; for there is always a tendency among scribes to change the unusual into the usual. Paul twice (II Tim. IV 19, Rom. XVI 3) mentions Prisca before Aquila; that order was, therefore, a conversational custom, familiar in the company among whom they moved; though it must have seemed odd to strangers in later generations.

Probably Prisca was of higher rank than her husband, for her name is that of a good old Roman family. Now, in XVIII 2 the very harsh and strange arrangement of the sentence must strike every reader. But clearly the intention is to force on the reader’s mind the fact that Aquila was a Jew, while Priscilla was not; and it is characteristic of Luke to suggest by subtle arrangement of words a distinction which would need space to explain formally (pp. 85, 204). Aquila was probably a freedman. The name does indeed occur as cognomen in some Roman families; but it was also a slave name, for a freedman of Mæcenas was called (C. Cilnius) Aquila. There is probably much to discover with regard to this interesting pair, but in this place we cannot dwell on the subject.

The order in which the different threads of the narrative here succeed one another exactly recalls the method of XI 27-XII 25. There vv. 27-30 narrate the events in Antioch, and bring Barnabas and Saul to the gates of Jerusalem; next, the events in Jerusalem are brought up to date; and then the action of the envoys in Jerusalem is described. So here Paul’s journey is narrated, and he is brought to the frontier of Asia; next, the events in Ephesus are brought up to date; and then Paul’s entrance into Asia and his action at Ephesus are described.

3. EPHESUS.

(XIX 1) AND IT CAME TO PASS, THAT, WHILE APOLLOS WAS AT CORINTH, PAUL, HAVING PASSED THROUGH THE UPPER DISTRICTS, CAME TO EPHESUS. (8) AND HE ENTERED INTO THE SYNAGOGUE, AND SPAKE BOLDLY FOR THE SPACE OF THREE MONTHS, REASONING AND PERSUADING AS TO WHAT CONCERNS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. (9) BUT WHEN SOME WERE HARDENED AND DISOBEDIENT, SPEAKING EVIL OF THE WAY BEFORE THE MULTITUDE, HE DEPARTED FROM THEM AND SEPARATED THE DISCIPLES, REASONING DAILY IN THE SCHOOL OF TYRANNUS [FROM THE FIFTH TO THE TENTH HOUR]. (10) AND THIS CONTINUED FOR THE SPACE OF TWO YEARS.

The distinction between the period of preaching in the synagogue and the direct address to the Ephesian population is very clearly marked, and the times given in each case. In vv. 2-7 a strange episode is related before Paul entered the synagogue. He found twelve men who had been baptised by the baptism of John, and induced them to accept rebaptism. This episode I must confess not to understand. It interrupts the regular method of Luke’s narrative; for in all similar cases, Paul goes to the synagogue, and his regular efforts for his own people are related before any exceptional cases are recorded. The circumstances, too, are difficult. How had these twelve escaped the notice of Aquila, Priscilla, and Apollos, and yet attracted Paul’s attention before he went to the synagogue? Perhaps the intention is to represent Paul as completing and perfecting the work begun by Apollos; rebaptism was, apparently, not thought necessary for Apollos, and now Paul lays down the principle that it is required in all such cases. But that seems distinctly below the level on which Luke’s conception of Paul is pitched. If there were any authority in MS. or ancient Versions to omit the episode, one would be inclined to take that course. As there is none, I must acknowledge that I cannot reconcile it with the conception of Luke’s method, founded. on other parts of the narrative, which is maintained in this book. Possibly better knowledge about the early history of the Ephesian Church might give this episode more significance and importance in the development history than it seems to possess.

We should be glad to know more about the lecture room of Tyrannus. It played the same part in Ephesus that the house of Titius Justus adjoining the synagogue did in Corinth. Here Paul regularly taught every day; and the analogy which we have noticed in other cases (pp. 75, 243) between his position, as it would appear to the general population, and that of the rhetors and philosophers of the time, is very marked. There is one difference, according to the Bezan Text of v. 9: Paul taught after the usual work of the lecture-room was concluded, i.e., “after business hours “. Doubtless he himself began to work (XX 34, I Cor. IV 12) before sunrise and continued at his trade till closing time, an hour before noon. His hours of work are defined by himself, I Thess. II 9, “ye remember our labour and toil, working day and night “; there, as often in ancient literature, the hours before daybreak are called “night,” and his rule at Thessalonica may be extended to Ephesus. Public life in the Ionian cities ended regularly at the fifth hour; and we may add to the facts elsewhere stated a regulation at Attaleia in Lydia that public distribution of oil should be “from the first to the fifth hour”In an inscription, Bulletin de Corresp. Hellen., 1887, p. 400.. Thus Paul himself would be free, and the lecture-room would be disengaged, after the fifth hour; and the time, which was devoted generally to home-life and rest, was applied by him to mission-work.

In the following narrative the powers of Paul are brought into competition with those of Jewish exorcists and pagan dabblers in the black art, and his superiority to them demonstrated. Ephesus was a centre of all such magical arts and practices, and it was therefore inevitable that the new teaching should be brought in contact with them and triumph over them. There can be no doubt that, in the conception of Luke, the measure of success lay in the extent to which Divine power and inspiration was communicated to a new Church; and perhaps the whole description may be defended as the extremist example of that view. But it seems undeniable that, when we contrast this passage with the great scene at Paphos, or the beautiful though less powerful scene with the ventriloquist at Philippi, there is in the Ephesian description something like vulgarity of tone, together with a certain vagueness and want of individuality, very different from those other scenes. Such details, too, as are given, are not always consistent and satisfactory. The seven sons in v. 14 change in an unintelligible way to two in v. 16 (except in the Bezan Text); and the statement that the seven were sons of a chief priest, looks more like a popular tale than a trustworthy historical statement. There is no warrant in the text for the view sometimes advocated, that Sceva was merely an impostor who pretended to be a chief priest. The money value of the books that were destroyed is another touch that is thoroughly characteristic of the oriental popular tale. The inability of the vulgar oriental mind to conceive any other aim, object, or standard in the world except money, and its utter slavery to gold, are familiar to every one who has seen the life of the people, or studied the Arabian Nights: in the West one sees nothing like the simple, childish frankness with which the ordinary oriental measures all things by gold, and can conceive of no other conscious aim except gold. So far as the oriental peasant is natural and unconscious, he is interesting and delightful, and his complete difference of nature at once attracts and holds at a distance the man of Western thoughts; but so far as he consciously attempts to conceive motives and form plans, gold is his sole standard of value.

In this Ephesian description one feels the character, not of weighed and reasoned history, but of popular fancy; and I cannot explain it on the level of most of the narrative The writer is here rather a picker-up of current gossip, like Herodotus, than a real historian. The puzzle becomes still more difficult when we go on to v. 23, and find ourselves again on the same level as the finest parts of Acts. If there were many such contrasts in the book as between vv. 11-20 and 23-41, I should be a believer in the composite character of Acts. As it is, I confess the difficulty in this part; but the existence of some unsolved difficulties is not a bar to the view maintained in the present treatise (p. 16).

4. THE CHURCH IN THE PROVINCE OF ASIA.

(XIX 10) THIS CONTINUED FOR THE SPACE OF TWO YEARS, SO THAT ALL THEY THAT DWELT IN ASIA HEARD THE WORD. . . . (21) NOW AFTER THESE THINGS WERE ENDED, PAUL PURPOSED IN THE SPIRIT, WHEN HE HAD MADE A PROGRESS THROUGH MACEDONIA AND ACHAIA, TO GO TO JERUSALEM, SAYING, “AFTER I HAVE BEEN THERE, I MUST ALSO SEE ROME”. (22) AND, HAVING SENT INTO MACEDONIA TWO OF THEM THAT ASSISTED HIM, TIMOTHY AND ERASTUS, HE HIMSELF STAYED IN ASIA FOR A WHILE.

The work in Asia, which had been Paul’s aim in A.D. (p. 198), was now carried out. The long residence suits the greatness of the work, for Asia was the richest. one of the largest, and in many ways the leading province of the East.

Ephesus, as the seat of government, was the centre from which the whole province of Asia could best be affected (p. 104); and the effect of Paul’s long work there extended far over that vast province, but chiefly, of course, along the great lines of communication. For example, Churches arose in three cities of the Lycos Valley, Laodiceia, Colossai, and Hierapolis, though Paul himself did not go there. All the seven Churches mentioned in the Revelation were probably rounded during this period, for all were within easy reach of Ephesus, and all were great centres of trade. It is probable that they, being the first foundations in the province, retained a sort of representative character; and thus they were addressed in the Revelation (perhaps as heads over districts), when there were certainly other Churches in the province.

In the ordinary communication between the capital and the other cities of the province, the influence from Ephesus would be carried to these cities; but that was not the only way in which these other Churches grew. Paul had with him a number of subordinate helpers, such as Timothy, Erastus, Titus, etc. The analogy of many other cases in the early history of the Church would leave no room to doubt that helpers were often employed in missions to the new Churches; and, as Timothy joined with Paul in the letter to the Colossians, it may be inferred that he had been working in that city. The clear conception of a far-reaching plan revealed in v. 21 is confirmed by Rom. XV 24 (see p. 255).

It has been argued by some (and notably by Lightfoot) that Paul made a short visit to Corinth, during his Ephesian mission. But this conjectural visit (II Cor. XII 14, XIII 1) is more likely to have been made from Philippi, (p. 283), for clearly (Acts XIX 9, 10) Paul resided in Ephesus throughout the period Oct. 53 to Jan. 56. In the latter part of autumn 55 he sent to Corinth the First Epistle; and at that time his intention was to remain in Ephesus till Pentecost 56 (XVI 8), and then to go through Macedonia to Corinth. But this was an alteration of a previous plan to sail direct from Ephesus to Corinth, thence going to Macedonia, and returning to Corinth, from whence he should sail for Jerusalem (II Cor. I 16). That intention was abandoned, and a letter, I Cor., was sent instead: the full knowledge of the state of things in Corinth, which is revealed in that letter, was gained by the report of some envoys (XVI 17, compare p. 284). The abandonment of the plan was doubtless due to the conviction that the success of the work in Asia demanded a longer residence. He, therefore, cut out of his programme the first of these two proposed visits to Corinth, and restricted himself to one, which he should pay after a progress through Macedonia (I Cor. XVI 5). He sent Timothy and Erastus to Macedonia, instructing the former to go on to Corinth, and he told the Corinthians, IV 17, that Timothy was coming, “who shall put you in remembrance of my ways which be in Christ”. Finally, when his Asian work was cut short, he went from Philippi to Corinth, April 56 (see Preface).

The analogy of this case strengthens our interpretation of the Galatian letter (p. 190). In each case Paul had to encounter a serious and dangerous situation in a distant Church. In the case of Corinth, he could not go, but sent a substitute and a letter explaining that the substitute was on the way, and the bearer would give the reason why Paul could not go then; but he adds in the letter a promise to go later, though “some of them fancied that he was not coming”. In the case of Galatia he was able to go immediately, and sent off a hasty letter in front, the bearer of which would announce that he was following. But on the usual theory, Paul, in that serious emergency In Galatia, neither thought of going there, nor of explaining that he could not go.

No allusion to Timothy occurs between XVIII 5 (where he rejoined Paul at Corinth) and XIX 22. According to the analogy of Luke’s method (p. 46 f.), this shows that he was understood by the author to have been attached to Paul’s service during the intervening period, ready for any mission, such as that to Galatia, or this to Macedonia. According to I Cor. IV 17, Timothy was to go on to Corinth: Luke speaks only of Macedonia. Both are correct; it becomes clear from II Cor. that Timothy did not go on to Corinth, and that Paul found him in Macedonia: probably he met Titus on his way back to report to Paul the result of the first letter, and waited instructions before going on. See p. 285.

The plan of staying in Ephesus till Pentecost was interrupted by a popular riot. Already in the autumn of 55 Paul spoke of the difficulties in Ephesus caused by the opposition of the vulgar populace (p. 230, I Cor. XV 32); and the character of the city shows how inevitable that was. The superstition of all Asia was concentrated in Ephesus. Throughout the early centuries the city mob, superstitious, uneducated, frivolous, swayed by the most commonplace motives, was everywhere the most dangerous and unfailing enemy of Christianity, and often carried the imperial officials further than they wished in the way of persecution. Moreover, round the great Ephesian temple, to which worshippers came from far, many tradesmen got their living from the pilgrims, supplying them with victims and dedicatory offerings of various kinds, as well as food and shelter. During the year 55, the tension in Ephesus grew more severe: the one hand, the teaching spread so fast that Paul was tempted to remain longer than he had intended (p. 275): on the other hand, his success only enraged and alarmed the opposing forces. “A great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries” (I Cor. XVI 9): “after the manner of men I fought with beasts in Ephesus” (ib. XV 32, p. 230).

The most sensitive part of “civilised” man is his pocket; and it was there that opposition to Christian changes, or “reforms,” began. Those “reforms” threatened to extinguish some ancient and respectable trades, and promised no compensation; and thus all the large class that lived off the pilgrims and the temple service was marshalled against the new party, which threatened the livelihood of all.

5. DEMETRIUS THE SILVERSMITH.

The scene which follows is the most instructive picture of society in an Asian city at this period that has come down to us. It is impossible here to treat it so fully as it deserves; and we can only enumerate the more striking points, and refer to previous discussions. A certain Demetrius was a leading man in the associated trades, which made in various materials, terra-cotta, marble and silver, small shrines (naoi) for votaries to dedicate in the temple, representing the Goddess Artemis sitting in a niche or naiskos, with her lions beside her. Vast numbers of these shrines were offered to the goddess by her innumerable votaries. The rich bought and offered them in more expensive materials and more artistic form, the poor in simple rude terra-cotta. The temple and the sacred precinct were crowded with dedications; and the priests often cleared away the old and especially the worthless offerings to make room for new gifts. The richer tradesmen made shrines in the more expensive material, and silver was evidently a favourite material among the wealthy. Demetrius, then, must have had a good deal of capital sunk in his business. He called a meeting of the trades, doubtless in a guild house where they regularly met, and pointed out that Paul, by teaching the worthlessness of images, was seriously affecting public opinion and practice over almost the whole province Asia,In an inscription, Bulletin de Corresp. Hellen., 1887, p. 400. and endangering their business as well as the worship of the goddess. The tradesmen were roused; they rushed forth into the street;I formerly erred as to the sense of Asia in XIX 26, 27, Church in R. E., p. 166. a general scene of confusion arose, and a common impulse carried the excited crowd into the great theatre. The majority of the crowd were ignorant what was the matter; they only knew from the shouts of the first rioters that the worship of Artemis was concerned; and for about two hours the vast assembly, like a crowd of devotees or howling dervishes, shouted their invocation of “Great Artemis”. In this scene we cannot mistake the tone of sarcasm and contempt, as Luke tells of this howling mob; they themselves thought they were performing their devotions, as they repeated the sacred name; but to Luke they were merely howling, not praying.

A certain Alexander was put forward by the Jews to address the mob; but this merely increased the clamour and confusion. There was no clear idea among the rioters what they wanted: an anti-Jewish and an anti-Christian demonstration were mixed up, and probably Alexander’s intention was to turn the general feeling away from the Jews. It is possible that he was the worker in bronze, who afterwards did Paul much harm (II Tim. IV 14).

Our conception of the scene assumes that the Bezan reading in 28, 34 (μεγάλη Ἄρτεμις) is original. The accepted text, “Great is Artemis,” gives a different tone to the scene: that is the quiet expression in which a worshipper recognises and accepts a sign of the goddess’s power, drawing an inference and expressing his respect and gratitude. “Great Artemis” was a common formula of devotion and prayer, as is attested by several inscriptions; and it gives a more natural and a far more effective tone to the scene.

Two of Paul’s companions in travel, Gaius and Aristarchus, had been carried into the theatre with the crowd; and he himself was on the point of going there, but the disciples would not allow him, and his friends among the Asiarchs sent urging him not to risk himself among the mob. It is noteworthy that Luke, as usual, adds no comments or reflections of his own as to the danger in which Paul was placed. But the slightest consideration suffices to show that he must have been at this period in the most imminent danger, with the mob of a great Ionian coast-city raging against him. In the speech of Demetrius are concentrated most of the feelings and motives that, from the beginning to the end, made the mob so hostile to the Christians in the great oriental cities. Paul himself says, “concerning our affliction which befell in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, insomuch that we despaired even of life” (II Cor. I 8). His immediate withdrawal from Ephesus, in the midst of his promising work, was forced on him.

It is a question whether the reading of some few MSS., “Gaius and Aristarchus a Macedonian,” should not be followed. Gaius, in that case, would be the native of Derbe mentioned in XX 4. Luke, himself a Macedonian, does not omit the little touch of national pride in Aristarchus; but he was not so interested in the nationality of Gaius. The peculiar phraseology, with the ethnic in singular (Μακεδόνα) following two names, and preceding συνεκδήμους, led naturally to the change (Μακεδόνας), which appears in most MSS. The epithet, “travelling companions,” seems to point forward to XX 4, as we have no reason to think that either Gaius or Aristarchus had hitherto been companions of Paul on a journey. Prof. Blass, recognising the probability that Gaius is the travelling companion of XX 4, accepts Valckenaer’s alteration of the text in that place, making Gaius a Thessalonian, and Timothy a man of Derbe; and that alteration would be very tempting, were it not for the insurmountable statement, XVI 1, that Timothy was a Lystran.

The reference to the Asiarchs is very important, both in respect of the nature of that office (on which it throws great light, though that opens up a wide and disputed field), and as a fact of Pauline history. The Asiarchs, or High Priests of Asia, were the heads of the imperial, political-religious organisation of the province in the worship of “Rome and the Emperors” (p. 134); and their friendly attitude is a proof both that the spirit of the imperial policy was not as yet hostile to the new teaching, and that the educated classes did not share the hostility of the superstitious vulgar to Paul. Doubtless, some of the Asiarchs had, in the ordinary course of dignity, previously held priesthoods of Artemis or other city deities; and it is quite probable that up to the present time even the Ephesian priests were not at all hostile to Paul. The eclectic religion, which was fashionable at the time, regarded new forms of cult with equanimity, almost with friendliness; and the growth of each new superstition only added to the influence of Artemis and her priests. My friend, Mr. J. N. Farquhar, Principal of the L.M.S. College, Calcutta, writes that he is struck with similar facts in the situation of mission work in India, and its relation to the priests and people.

Luke, having stated the accusation against Paul, does not fail to show up its utter groundlessness in the eyes of responsible officials. The speech of the Town-clerk, which is given at length, is a very skillful and important document, in its bearing on the whole situation, and on Luke’s plan (p. 304 f.). The Clerk was probably the most important official in Ephesus, and therefore in close contact with the court of the proconsul, who generally resided in that city; and his speech is a direct negation of the charges commonly brought against Christianity, as flagrantly disrespectful in action and in language to the established institutions of the State. He points out that the only permissible method of procedure for those who have complaints against a Christian is action before the courts of the province, or the assembly of the municipality; and he warns the rioters that they are bringing themselves into danger by their disorderly action.

This address is so entirely an apologia of the Christians that we might almost take it as an example of the Thucydidean type of speech, put into the mouth of one of the actors, not as being precisely his words, but as embodying a statesmanlike conception of the real situation. At any rate, it is included by Luke in his work, not for its mere Ephesian connection, but as bearing on the universal question of the relations in which the Church stood to the Empire (p. 306). The well-known rescripts of Hadrian to Fundanus, and of Antoninus Pius to the Greek cities, take their stand on the same permanent and obvious ground, which at all times formed the one statesmanlike principle of action, and the basis for the Church’s claim to freedom and toleration.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE VOYAGE TO JERUSALEM

1. THE SECOND EUROPEAN JOURNEY.

(XX 1) AND AFTER THE RIOT CEASED, PAUL, HAVING SENT FOR THE DISCIPLES AND EXHORTED THEM, BADE THEM FAREWELL, AND DEPARTED TO MAKE HIS WAY INTO MACEDONIA. (2) AND HAVING MADE A PROGRESS THROUGH THOSE QUARTERS, AND EXHORTED THEM WITH MUCH PREACHING, HE WENT INTO GREECE. (3) AND HE SPENT THREE MONTHS there.

Paul took a coasting vessel from Ephesus, we may be sure; and, as was often the case, he had to transship in Troas. Here “a door was opened to him” (II Cor. II 12). Doubtless he had to wait some time for a passage to Macedonia; for, though in January a passage could be easily obtained along the safe Asian coast, it was more difficult to find opportunity for the longer voyage over the open sea to Macedonia; perhaps none was found till general navigation began, March 5. It is probable that already in the voyages between Ephesus and Macedonia, the new teaching had effected a lodging in Troas (XIX 10);and in the delay there, Paul had a good opening. In Troas Paul had expected to meet Titus; and was much disappointed that he was not there. At the same time he was greatly dispirited by the strong opposition which had driven him prematurely from Ephesus (II Cor. I 8 f.); and was in a depressed frame of mind owing to ill-health (ib. IV 7 f.).

Titus is the most enigmatic figure in early Christian history. His omission from Acts has been alluded to (P. 59). He enters on the stage of history for a short time in A.D. 45–6, and then we hear nothing of him, until we learn that Paul expected to find him in Troas in January or February 56. He was now on his way from Corinth to Macedonia; and he joined Paul after he had arrived at Philippi in February or March, bringing a detailed report of the state of the Corinthian Church. Now in II Cor. Titus is prominent to a degree unique in Paul’s letters; he is named nine times, and always with marked affection and distinction. Why, then, is he never mentioned in I Cor.?. There is one satisfactory reason, and only one, so far as I can judge: he was the bearer of the first letter.Suggested as possible by Dr. Plumptre in Intro. to II Cor. p. 359. His special interest in Corinth is mentioned, VII 15, VIII 16. He was eager to return on a second mission to Corinth, VIII 17, and along with him Paul sent the Brother whose praise in the delivery of the good tidings was spread over all the Churches (Luke, according to an early tradition), and another, who was selected on account of the confidence that he felt in the Corinthians. It may be safely assumed that the Titus of II Cor. is the same Titus that is mentioned in Gal II 1.

Titus, then, had been sent on his first mission to Corinth in autumn 55, probably by direct ship. He could not come back across the open sea during the winter (Nov. 10 to March 5), and must take a coasting voyage by Macedonia. Paul expected to find him in Troas; but he was detained too long, and met Paul in Philippi in February or early March 56; and he returned thence on a second mission to Corinth.

As Titus was at hand in Ephesus about October 55, it is hardly open to doubt that he had been in Paul’s company on the whole of the third journey. It is equally clear that he had not been with Paul on the first or the second journey, for he is mentioned in Gal. II 1 as a stranger to the Galatians, whose Greek birth had to be explained to them. Probably it was his Greek origin that had prevented Paul from taking him as a companion on earlier journeys.

We have seen how careful Paul was to conciliate the Jews on his second journey; and we may fairly consider that the grumbling of the Jews in Jerusalem in 46 (even when Titus was bringing food to them) had warned Paul that it was not expedient to have Titus with him when he entered the synagogues of strange cities. For his companions on the second journey he selected Silas, a Jewish Roman, and Timothy, half-Greek, half-Jew. Finally, on his third journey, when he was putting down the Judaising tendency in Galatia, he took Titus with him by a carefully planned stroke of policy: one of the arguments by which the Judaisers proved that Judaic Christianity was the higher stage was that Paul had circumcised Timothy before promoting him to an office of trust. He replied by taking Titus with him to Galatia; and from II Cor. we gather that Titus proved one of the most congenial and useful of his assistants. The space which he fills in II Cor. II 13, VII 6 f., 13 f., VIII 6 f., 16-24, XII 18. is a unique fact in Paul’s letters; and in the loving and tender sympathy of Paul’s language about him we may read a wish to compensate for the neglect that had during many years sacrificed him to the thankless policy of conciliating the Jews.

The importance of Titus in subsequent years confirms the impression derived from II Cor. He seems to have remained in Europe when Paul went to Jerusalem in March 57. At a later time he was sent to Dalmatia, II Tim. IV 10; and near the end of Paul’s career he was entrusted with the general oversight of the Churches in Crete, Tit. I 5.

Paul spent the summer and autumn of 56 in Macedonia. He found Timothy waiting him either in Thessalonica or in Bercea; and they joined in addressing the second letter to the Corinthians, enforcing in a more personal way the instructions already sent through the three envoys who had come from Philippi. The common view (which is as old as the subscription added in some MSS. to the letter), that the envoys carried with them II Cor., seems improbable. In winter Paul went on to Hellas (the Greek term for the country forming the main part of the Roman province), and spent December, January. and February in Corinth.

2. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE FOUR PROVINCES.

(3) AND WHEN HE HAD SPENT THREE MONTHS, AND A PLOT WAS LAID AGAINST HIM BY THE JEWS WHILE HE WAS ON THE POINT OF SETTING SAIL FOR SYRIA, HE ADOPTED THE PLAN OF MAKING HIS RETURN JOURNEY to Jerusalem THROUGH MACEDONIA. (4) AND THERE ACCOMPANIED HIM on the journey to Jerusalem SOPATER, SON OF PYRRHUS OF BEREA, AND on the part OF THE THESSALONIANS ARISTARCHUS AND SECUNDUS, AND GAIUS OF DERBE AND TIMOTHY, AND THE ASIANS TYCHICUS AND TROPHIMUS (NOW THESE Asian delegates, COMING TO MEET US, AWAITED US IN TROAS). (5) AND WE SAILED AWAY FROM PHILIPPI AFTER THE DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, AND CAME UNTO THEM TO TROAS.

At the opening of navigation, Paul had arranged to sail from Corinth to Jerusalem, obviously with the intention of celebrating the Passover there; but the discovery of a Jewish plot to kill him altered his plans. The style of this plot can be easily imagined. Paul’s intention must have been to take a pilgrim ship carrying Achaian and Asian Jews to the Passover (p. 264). With a shipload of hostile Jews, it would be easy to find opportunity to murder Paul. He therefore abandoned the proposed voyage and sailed for Macedonia, where he easily arrived in time to celebrate the Passover in Philippi.

It is clear that the plot was discovered at the last moment, when delegates from the Churches had already assembled. The European delegates were to sail from Corinth, the Asian from Ephesus, where doubtless the pilgrim ship would call (as in 53, P. 264). When the plan was changed, word was sent to the Asian delegates; and they went as far as Troas to meet the others, for in ancient voyages it could be calculated with certainty that Paul’s company would put in at that harbour.

The purpose of this numerous company is not stated in this part of the text; but in XXIV 17, Paul says: “I came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings,” and the reason is often alluded to in the Epistles to Corinth and Rome. In Rom. XV 25, written from Corinth about Jan. 57, Paul says: “Now I go unto Jerusalem, acting as an administrator of relief to the saints”. The scheme of a general contribution collected week by week for a long time in all the Pauline Churches of Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia, has been well described by Mr. Rendall (Expositor, Nov. 1893, p. 321). The great importance which Paul attached to this contribution, and to the personal distribution of the fund (δαικονία), is attested, not merely by the long and careful planning of the scheme, and by the numerous body of delegates who carried it to Jerusalem, but also by his determination to conduct the delegates personally, in spite of all the dangers which, as he knew, awaited him there: “I go constrained by the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing what shall befall me there, save that the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me”. It is evident that he thought this scheme the crowning act of his work in these four provinces; and as soon as it was over, his purpose was to go to Rome and the West (p. 255), and cease for the time his work in the Eastern provinces (XX 25).

The scheme is not alluded to in the letter to the Galatian Churches: but it seems to have been inaugurated there by oral instructions during the third visit (I Cor. XVI 1). The mission of Timothy and of Titus in 56 doubtless helped to carry it out in Europe. Luke evidently took it up with special zeal, and he was from an early date selected as one of the administrators who were to carry it to Jerusalem (II Cor. VIII 19). In the list, v. 4, Luke omits his own name, but suggests his presence by his familiar device. No representative from Achaia is on the list; but perhaps we may understand that the Corinthians had asked Paul himself to bear their contribution, the amount of which he praises (II Cor. IX 2).

In v. 4 we have probably a case like XVI 19 f., in which the authority hesitated between two constructions, and left an unfinished sentence containing elements of two forms. The facts were probably as stated in our rendering; and it would lead too far to discuss the sentence, which perhaps never received the author’s final revision.

3. THE VOYAGE TO TROAS.

(XX 6) WE SAILED AWAY FROM PHILIPPI AFTER THE DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, AND CAME UNTO THEM TO TROAS IN FIVE DAYS; AND THERE WE TARRIED SEVEN DAYS. (7) AND ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK WHEN WE WERE GATHERED TOGETHER TO BREAK BREAD, PAUL DISCOURSED WITH THEM, BEING ABOUT TO DEPART ON THE MORROW; AND HE PROLONGED HIS SPEECH UNTIL MIDNIGHT . . . (13) AND WE, GOING BEFORE TO THE SHIP, SET SAIL FOR ASSOS.

In A.D. 57 Passover fell on Thursday, April 7. The company left Philippi on the morning of Friday, April 15, and the journey to Troas lasted till the fifth day, Tuesday, April 19. In Troas they stayed seven days, the first of which was April 19, and the last, Monday, April 25. Luke’s rule is to state first the whole period of residence, and then some details of the residence (see pp. 153, 256, and XIX 10). On the Sunday evening just before the start, the whole congregation

4. EUTYCHUS.

(XX 7) AND UPON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, WHEN WE WERE GATHERED TOGETHER TO BREAK BREAD, PAUL DISCOURSED TO THEM, INTENDING TO GO AWAY ON THE MORROW; AND HE PROLONGED HIS SPEECH UNTIL MIDNIGHT. (8) AND THERE WERE MANY LIGHTS IN THE UPPER CHAMBER, WHERE WE WERE GATHERED TOGETHER. (9) AND THERE SAT IN THE WINDOW A CERTAIN YOUNG MAN NAMED EUTYCHUS, WHO WAS GRADUALLY OPPRESSED BY SLEEP AS PAUL EXTENDED HIS DISCOURSE FURTHER, AND BEING BORNE DOWN BY HIS SLEEP HE FELL FROM THE THIRD STORY TO THE GROUND, AND WAS LIFTED UP DEAD. (10) AND PAUL WENT DOWN AND FELL ON HIM, AND EMBRACING HIM SAID, “MAKE YE NO ADO; FOR HIS LIFE IS IN HIM”. (11) AND HE WENT UP, AND BROKE BREAD AND ATE, AND TALKED WITH THEM A LONG WHILE, EVEN TILL BREAK OF DAY; AND THUS HE DEPARTED. (12) AND THEY BROUGHT THE LAD ALIVE, AND WERE NOT A LITTLE COMFORTED. (13) BUT WE, GOING BEFORE TO THE SHIP, SET SAIL FOR ASSOS, INTENDING TO TAKE PAUL ON BOARD FROM THENCE; FOR SO HE HAD ARRANGED, INTENDING HIMSELF TO GO BY LAND.

In this case the author vouches that Eutychus was dead, implying apparently that, as a physician, he had satisfied himself on the point In XIV 19 he had no authority for asserting that Paul was dead, but only that his enemies considered him dead.

The sequence of the narrative is remarkable: the young man fell: Paul declared he was not dead: Paul went upstairs again, partook of the common meal (conceived here as a sacrament), and conversed till break of day: they brought the young man living. But the interruption of the story of Eutychus’s fate is intentional. The narrator was present in the upper chamber, and saw Eutychus fall, and heard Paul declare that he was not dead; but he does not claim to have been a witness of the man’s recovery, and he marks the difference by a break in the narrative. The ship, having to round the projecting cape Lectum, would take longer time to reach Assos than the land journey required; and Paul stayed on to the last moment, perhaps to be assured of Eutychus’s recovery, while the other delegates went on ahead in the ship. Thus the fact that Eutychus recovered is in a sense the final incident of the stay at Troas. The Bezan reading makes the sequence clearer: “and while they were bidding farewell, they brought the young man living, and they were comforted”.

There is a very harsh change of subject in v. 12; the persons who brought the youth are not those who were comforted (as Dr. Blass points out). A similar change of subject, but not quite so harsh, occurs in XIII 2-3. The word “brought,” not “carried,” implies that Eutychus was able to come with some help.

5. THE VOYAGE TO CÆSAREIA.

(14) AND WHEN HE MET US AT ASSOS, WE TOOK HIM BOARD, AND CAME TO MITYLENE; (15) AND SAILING FROM THENCE ON THE FOLLOWING DAY, WE REACHED a point on the mainland OPPOSITE CHIOS; AND ON THE MORROW WE STRUCK ACROSS TO SAMOS, AND [AFTER MAKING A STAY AT TROGYLLIA] ON THE NEXT DAY WE CAME TO MILETUS. (16) FOR PAUL HAD DECIDED TO SAIL PAST EPHESUS, TO AVOID SPENDING TIME IN ASIA;Literally, “that it might not come to pass that he spent time in Asia.” FOR HE WAS HASTENING, IF IT WERE PENTECOST. (17) AND FROM MILETUS HE SENT TO EPHESUS, AND SUMMONED THE ELDERS OF THE CHURCH. (18) AND WHEN THEY WERE COME TO HIM, HE SAID UNTO THEM . . . (36) AND WHEN HE HAD THUS SPOKEN, HE KNEELED DOWN WITH THEM ALL, AND PRAYED. (37) AND THEY ALL WEPT SORE, AND FELL ON PAUL’S NECK, AND KISSED HIM, SORROWING MOST OF ALL FOR THE WORD WHICH HE HAD SPOKEN, THAT THEY WILL BEHOLD HIS FACE NO MORE. (38) AND THEY BROUGHT HIM ON HIS WAY UNTO THE SHIP. (XXI 1) AND WHEN IT CAME TO PASS THAT WE, TEARING OURSELVES FROM THEM, SET SAIL, WE MADE A STRAIGHT RUN TO COS, AND THE NEXT DAY TO RHODES, AND FROM THENCE TO PATARA [and Myra]. (2) AND, FINDING A SHIP GOING OVER SEA TO PHŒNICE, WE WENT ON BOARD AND SET SAIL. (3) AND, HAVING SIGHTED CYPRUS, LEAVING IT ON OUR LEFT, WE SAILED UNTO SYRIA, AND LANDED AT TYRE; FOR THERE THE SHIP WAS TO UNLADE. (4) AND HAVING FOUND THE DISCIPLES, WE TARRIED THERE SEVEN DAYS; AND THESE SAID THROUGH THE SPIRIT TO PAUL NOT TO SET FOOT IN JERUSALEM. (5) AND WHEN IT CAME TO PASS THAT WE HAD FINISHED OUR TIME, WE DEPARTED AND WENT ON OUR JOURNEY; AND THEY ALL, WITH WIVES AND CHILDREN, BROUGHT US ON OUR WAY TILL WE WERE OUT OF THE CITY. AND KNEELING DOWN ON THE BEACH, WE PRAYED, (6) AND BADE EACH OTHER FAREWELL; AND WE WENT ON BOARD SHIP, BUT THEY RETURNED HOME AGAIN. (7) AND FINISHING THE short RUN FROM TYRE, WE REACHED PTOLEMAIS; AND WE SALUTED THE BRETHREN AND ABODE WITH THEM ONE DAY.

The ship evidently stopped every evening. The reason lies in the wind, which in the Ægean during the summer generally blows from the north, beginning at a very early hour in the morning; in the late afternoon it dies away; at sunset there is a dead calm, and thereafter a gentle south wind arises and blows during the night. The start would be made before sunrise; and it would be necessary for all passengers to go on board soon after midnight in order to be ready to sail with the first breath from the north.

In v. 14 our translation (agreeing with Blass) assumes that the reading συνέβαλεν is correct; but the great MSS. read συνέβαλλεν, and perhaps the imperfect may be used, implying that Paul did not actually enter Assos, but was descried and taken in by boat as he was nearing the city. On Monday, April 25, they reached Mitylene before the wind fell; and on Tuesday afternoon they stopped at a point opposite Chios (probably near Cape Argennum). Hence on Wednesday morning they ran straight across to the west point of Samos, and thence kept in towards Miletus; but when the wind fell, they had not got beyond the promontory Trogyllia at the entrance to the gulf, and there, as the Bezan Text mentions, they spent the evening. Early on Thursday, April 28, they stood across the gulf (which is now in great part filled up by the silt of the river Mæander) to Miletus. Here they found that they could reckon on a stay of some days, and Paul sent a messenger to Ephesus. The messenger could not reach Ephesus that day, for the land road round the gulf made a vast circuit, and the wind would prevent him from sailing across to Priene in the forenoon. Moreover, it would take some time to land, and to engage a messenger. In the early afternoon there would arise a sea-breeze blowing up the gulf (called in modern times Imbat, ἐμβάτης), which would permit the messenger to sail to the north side of the gulf. He would probably land at Priene, cross the hills, and thereafter take the coast road to Ephesus, which he might reach during the night. Some time would be required to summon the presbyters; and they could not travel so fast as a single chosen messenger. They would show good speed if they reached Priene in the evening and were ready to sail to Miletus with the morning wind. The third day of Paul’s stay at Miletus, then, was devoted to the presbyters; and we cannot suppose that the ship left Miletus before Sunday morning, May 1, while it is possible that the start took place a day later.

On that day they reached Cos, on May 2 Rhodes, May 3 Patara, May 4 Myra, and, probably, May 7 Tyre. In Tyre they stayed seven days, and sailed on May 13 for Ptolemais, where they spent the day, and on May 14 they reached Cæsareia. As Pentecost was on May 28, they had still a considerable time before them. If Paul remained several days in Cæsareia, then, the reason must be that there was still plenty of time to do so without endangering his purpose.

We reach the same conclusion from observing the author’s concise style. After stating the object of the journey in v. 16, he leaves the reader to gather from his silence that the object was attained. The fact was clear in his own mind, and he was content with one single incidental allusion to it, not for its own sake (he as a Greek felt little interest in Jewish festivals), but to explain a point in which he was interested, viz., the sailing past Ephesus without touching there.

The statement in v. 16 has led to a common misconception that Paul was sailing in a vessel chartered by himself, whose stoppages he could control as he pleased. But if Paul had been able to fix where the vessel should stop, it was obviously a serious waste of time to go to Miletus and summon the Ephesian elders thither; the shorter way would have been to stop at Ephesus and there make his farewell address. Clearly the delay of three days at Miletus was forced on him by the ship’s course, and the facts of the journey were these. From Neapolis they sailed in a ship bound for Troas. Here they had to transship; and some delay was experienced in finding a suitable passage. Paul would not voluntarily, have spent seven days at Troas: the length of a coasting voyage was too uncertain for him to waste so many days at the beginning, when he was hastening to Jerusalem. After a week, two chances presented themselves: one ship intended to make no break on its voyage, except at Miletus, the other to stop at Ephesus. The latter ship was, for some reason, the slower; either it was not to sail further south than Ephesus (in which case time might be lost there in finding a passage); or it was a slow ship, that intended to stop in several other harbours. The shortness of the time determined Paul to choose the ship that went straight to Miletus, and “to sail past Ephesus”; and the pointed statement proves that the question had been discussed, and doubtless the Ephesian delegates begged a visit to their city.

To Luke the interest of Pentecost lay not in itself, but in its furnishing the reason why Paul did not go to Ephesus. There, as in so many other touches, we see the Greek, to whom the Jews were little more than “Barbaroi”.

We notice that Paul, having been disappointed in his first intention of spending Passover at Jerusalem, was eager at any rate to celebrate Pentecost there. For the purpose which he had at heart, the formation of a perfect unity between the Jewish and the non-Jewish sections of the Church, it was important to be in Jerusalem to show his respect for one of the great feasts.

Modern discussion of the voyage to Cæsareia illustrates the unnecessary obscurity in which a remarkably accurate narrative has been involved by over-subtlety, want of experience of rough-and-ready travel, and inattention to the peculiar method of Luke as a narrator. As we have seen, only two numbers are at all doubtful: the length of the stay at Miletus, and the duration of the over-sea voyage to Tyre; but in each case a day more or less is the utmost permissible variation. We find that Paul had fully thirteen days to spare when he reached Cæsareia. Yet many excellent scholars have got so far astray in this simple reckoning of days as to maintain that Paul was too late. Even Weiss, in his edition (in many respects excellent), so lately as 1893, concludes that already in Tyre Paul found that it was impossible to reach Jerusalem in time. Yet, at a pinch, the journey from Tyre to Jerusalem could have been performed in four days.

The farewell speech to the Ephesians, simple, pathetic, and characteristic of Paul as it. is, contains little that concerns our special purpose. Paul intimates clearly that this is his farewell before entering on his enterprise in the West: “Ye all shall no longer see my face”. With a characteristic gesture he shows his hands: “these hands ministered unto my necessities”.

Incidentally we notice the ancient custom of reckoning time: the residence in Asia, which can hardly have been more than two years six months at the most, is estimated loosely as “three years”. The clinging affection which is expressed in the farewell scene, and in the “tearing ourselves away” of XXI 1, makes a very pathetic picture.

Myra is mentioned on this voyage in the Bezan Text, and there can be no doubt that the ship on which the company was embarked either entered the harbour of Myra, or, at least, went close to it before striking across the open sea west of Cyprus to the Syrian coast. The voyage may be taken as typical of the course which hundreds of ships took every year, along a route familiar from time immemorial. It had been a specially frequented route since the age of the earlier Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings, when, as Canon Hicks remarks, “there must have been daily communication between Cos and Alexandria “.Paton and Hick’s Inscriptions of Cos, p. xxxiii. I should hardly venture to speak so strongly; but Mr. Hicks is an excellent authority on that period.

The harbour of Myra seems to have been the great port for the direct cross-sea traffic to the coasts of Syria and Egypt. It was the seat of the sailors god, to whom they offered their prayers before starting on the direct long course, and paid their vows on their safe arrival; this god survived in the Christianised form, St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron-saint of sailors, who held the same position in the maritime world of the Levant as St. Phokas of Sinope did in that of the Black Sea (where he was the Christianised form of Achilles Pontarches, the Ruler of the Pontos).

Myra is termed by the pilgrim Sawulf (as I learn from Dr. Tomaschek) “the harbour of the Adriatic Sea, as Constantinople is of the Ægean Sea”; and this importance is hardly intelligible till we recognise its relation to the Syrian and Egyptian traffic. The prevailing winds in the Levant throughout the season are westerly; and these westerly breezes blow almost with the steadiness of trade-winds. Hence the ancient ships, even though they rarely made what sailors call “a long leg” across the sea, were in the habit of running direct from Myra to the Syrian, or to the Egyptian coast. On the return voyage an Alexandrian ship could run north to Myra, if the wind was nearly due west; but, if it shifted towards north-west (from which quarter the Etesian winds blew steadily for forty days from July 20), the ships of Alexandria ran for the Syrian coast. The same steady winds, which favoured the run from Myra to Tyre, made the return voyage direct from Tyre to Myra an impossibility. Hence the regular course for ships from Syria was to keep northwards past the east end of Cyprus till they reached the coast of Asia Minor; and then, by using the land winds which blow off the coast for some part of almost every day, and aided also to some extent by the current which sets steadily westward along the Karamanian coast (as it is now called), these traders from Syria worked their way along past Myra to Cnidos at the extreme south-western corner of Asia Minor.

It may, then, be safely assumed that Myra was visited by Paul’s ship, as the Bezan Text asserts. But the addition of “and Myra” is a mere gloss (though recording a true fact), for it implies that the transshipment took place at Myra. We need not hesitate to accept the authority of the great MSS. that Paul and his company found at Patara a ship about to start on the direct Syrian course, and went on board of it (probably because their ship did not intend to make the direct voyage, or was a slower vessel). Luke then hurries over the direct voyage, mentioning only the fact which specially interested him, that they sighted the western point of Cyprus. He did not mention Myra; he was giving only a brief summary of the voyage, and for some reason the visit to Myra did not interest him.

Many circumstances might occur to deprive the visit of interest and to make Luke omit it (as he omits many other sights) from his brief summary of the voyage. Formerly I illustrated this by my own experience. I was in the port of Myra in the course of a voyage; yet I never saw either the town or the harbour, and would probably omit Myra, if I were giving a summary description of my experiences on that voyage.

At Tyre the vessel stayed seven days unloading; it must therefore have been one of the larger class of merchant vessels; and probably only that class ventured to make the direct sea voyage from Lycia by the west side of Cyprus. Small vessels clung to the coast. As the same shipin v. 2 “a ship,” in v. 6 “the ship”. was going on as far as Ptolemais, and as there was still abundant time for the rest of the journey, Paul remained until the allotted time of its stay was over, v. 5. None of the party seems to have known Tyre, for they had to seek out the Brethren there. The hearty welcome which they received from strangers, whose sole bond of union lay in their common religion, makes Luke dwell on this scene as showing the solidarity of feeling in the Church. There took place a kindly farewell on the shore at Tyre, as at Miletus; but the longing and sorrow of long personal friendship and love could not here be present to the same extent as there. The scenes are similar, and yet how different! Such touches of diversity amid resemblance could be given only by the eye-witness.

The ship completed the short voyage to Ptolemais early; and the party spent the day with the Brethren; and went on to Cæsareia next day. Probably they went in the same ship. The emphasis laid on “finishing the voyage” from Tyre to Ptolemais is due to the fact that it was probably over about 10 A.M.

6. CÆSAREIA AND JERUSALEM.

(XXI 8) ON THE MORROW WE DEPARTED, AND CAME INTO CÆSAREIA. AND, ENTERING INTO THE HOUSE OF PHILIP THE EVANGELIST, WHO WAS ONE OF THE SEVEN, WE ABODE WITH HIM. (9) NOW THIS MAN HAD FOUR DAUGHTERS, VIRGINS, WHICH DID PROPHESY. (10) AND, AS WE TARRIED THERE SOMELiterally, “more days,” a considerable number of days. DAYS, THERE CAME DOWN FROM JUDEA A CERTAIN PROPHET NAMED AGABUS. (11) AND COMING TO US AND TAKING PAUL’S GIRDLE, HE BOUND HIS OWN FEET AND HANDS AND SAID: “THUS SAITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, ‘SO SHALL THE JEWS BIND AT JERUSALEM THE MAN THAT OWNETH THIS GIRDLE, AND DELIVER HIM INTO THE HANDS OF THE. GENTILES’”. . . . (15) AND AFTER THESE DAYS, WE, HAVING EQUIPPED horses, PROCEEDED ON OUR WAY TO JERUSALEM. (16) AND THERE WENT WITH US ALSO some OF THE DISCIPLES FROM CÆSAREIA,

The length of the stay at Cæsareia is concealed, with Luke’s usual defective sense of time, by the vague phrase, v. 10, ἡμέρας πλείους. The sense of this expression varies greatly according to the situation (cp. XXIV 17, with XIII 31, XXVII 20); but here it is not likely to be less than nine or ten.

The party was therefore cutting down the time for the journey to the utmost. Evidently they desired to remain as long as possible with the Brethren; and the plan for the journey was arranged for them, so that with Cæsareian guidance and help it could be done with comfort and certainty when time necessitated departure. Now, it is an elementary principle of prudent living in Southern countries that one should avoid those great exertions and strains which in Northern countries we often take as an amusement. The customs of the modern peoples (whom we on superficial knowledge are apt to think lazy, but who are not so) show that this principle guides their whole life; and it may be taken as certain that in ancient time the same principle was followed. Moreover, Paul was accompanied by his physician, who fully understood the importance of this rule, and knew that Paul, subject as he was to attacks of illness, and constantly exposed to great mental and emotional strains, must not begin his work in Jerusalem by a hurried walk of sixty-four miles from Cæsareia, more especially as it is clear from a comparison of the Bezan with the Accepted Text that the journey was performed in two days. We conclude, then, that the journey was not performed on foot; and when we look at the words with this thought in our minds we find there the verb which means in classical Greek, “to equip or saddle a horse” Chrysostom took the word in that sense;He says λαβόντες τὰ πρὸς τὴν ὁδοιπορίαν (i.e. ὑποζύγια). but the modern commentators have scorned or misunderstood him.

Some of the Brethren from Cæsareia accompanied them as far as a village on the road, where they stayed for a night with Mnason of Cyprus, one of the earliest Christian converts. The next day the Brethren returned with the conveyances to Cæsareia, while Paul and his company performed the rest of the journey (which was probably not far) on foot. Time had passed rapidly, when a convert of A.D. 30 or 31 was “ancient” in 57; but the immense changes that had occurred made the Church of 30 seem divided by a great gulf from these Macedonian and Asian delegates as they approached Jerusalem.

7. THE CRISIS IN THE FATE OF PAUL AND OF THE CHURCH.

From the moment when Paul was arrested onwards, the narrative becomes much fuller than before. It still continues true to the old method of concentrating the reader’s attention on certain selected scenes, which are described in considerable detail, while the intervening periods are dismissed very briefly. Thus XXI 17-XXIV 23 describes the events of twelve days, XXIV 24-27 of two years, XXV 1-XXVIII 7 of about five months, XXVIII 8-11 of three months. But the scenes selected for special treatment lie closer together than formerly; and it is beyond doubt that, on our hypothesis, the amount of space assigned to Paul’s imprisonment and successive examinations marks this as the most important part of the book in the author’s estimation. If that is not the case—if the large space devoted to this period is not deliberately intended by the author as proportionate to its importance—then the work lacks one of the prime qualities of a great history. It is essential to our purpose to establish that we are now approaching the real climax, and that what has hitherto been narrated leads up to the great event of the whole work. If we fail in that, we fail in the main object for which we are contending; and we should have to allow that Acts is a collection of episodic jottings, and not a real history in the true sense of the word.

It must strike every careful reader that Luke devotes special attention throughout his work to the occasions on which Paul was brought in contact with Roman officials. Generally on these occasions, the relations between the parties end in a friendly way: the scene with the proconsul of Cyprus is the most marked case: but Gallio, too, dismissed the case against him, and the formal decision of a proconsul had such weight as a precedent that the trial practically resulted in a declaration of religious liberty for the province.

To come to subordinate Roman officials, the “Prætors” of the colony Philippi, though treating him severely at first, ended by formally apologising and acknowledging his rights, and only begged of him as a favour to move on—a request which he instantly granted. In the colonies Antioch and Lystra he was treated severely, but the blame is laid entirely on the Jews, and the magistrates are not directly mentioned; while in both cases it is brought out in the narrative that condemnation was not pronounced on fair charges duly proved. But though the reader’s attention is not drawn to the magistrates, there can be no doubt that, at least in Antioch, the magistrates took action against Paul; and there is some probability that in each place he was scourged by lictors (p. 107), though these and many other sufferings are passed over. In the first stages of his work in Asia Minor. he was in collision with Roman colonial officials; but these events are treated lightly, explained as due to error and extraneous influence, and the Roman character of the cities is not brought out. While the picture is not discoloured, yet the selection of details is distinctly guided by a plan.

The clerk (Grammateus) of the city of Ephesus was not a Roman official, but, as the most important officer of the capital of the province, he was in closer relations with the Roman policy than ordinary city magistrates: and he pointedly acquitted Paul of any treasonable design against the State or against the established order of the city, and challenged the rioters to bring any charge against Paul before the Roman Courts. The Asiarchs, who were officials of the province, and therefore part of the Roman political system, were his friends, and showed special care to secure his safety at that time. Even the jailor at Philippi was an officer of Rome, though a very humble one; and he found Paul a friend in need, and became a friend in turn.

The magistrates of ordinary Greek cities were not so favourable to Paul as the Roman officials are represented. At Iconium they took active part against him; and the silence about the magistrates of the colonies Antioch and Lystra is made more marked by the mention of those of Iconium. At Thessalonica the magistrates excluded him from the city as a cause of disorder. At Athens the Areopagus was contemptuous and undecided. The favourable disposition of Roman officials towards Paul is made more prominent by the different disposition of the ordinary municipal authorities.

These facts acquire more meaning and more definite relation to the historian’s purpose when we come to the last scenes of the book. We cannot but recognise how pointedly the Imperial officials are represented as Paul’s only safeguard from the Jews, and how their friendly disposition to him is emphasised. Even Felix, one of the worst of Roman officials, is affected by Paul’s teaching, and on the whole protects Paul, though his sordid motives are not concealed, and he finally left Paul bound, as “desiring to gain favour with the Jews,” XXIV 27; but at least there was no official action on the part of Felix against him. Festus, his successor, is described as just and fair towards Paul; he found in him “nothing worthy of death,” and had difficulty in discovering any definite charge against him that he could report when sending him for trial before the supreme court of the Empire. The inferior officials, from the tribune Claudius Lysias, to the centurion Julius, are represented as very friendly. This is all the more marked, because nothing is said at any stage of the proceedings of kindness shown to Paul by any others; yet no one can doubt that the household of Philip and the general body of Christians in Cæsareia tried to do everything possible for him. We see then that the historian, out of much that might be recorded, selects for emphasis the friendliness of the Roman officials: in the climax of his subject he concentrates the reader’s attention on the conduct of Romans to Paul,Luke says nothing about kindness shown to Paul by James and others in Jerusalem; but we do not (like Dean Farrar) gather that they were unfriendly. and on their repeated statements that Paul was innocent in the eyes of Roman Imperial law and policy.

Throughout the whole book, from the time when the centurion Cornelius is introduced, great art is shown in bringing out without any formal statement the friendly relations between the Romans and the new teaching, even before Paul became the leading spirit in its development. To a certain extent, of course, that lies in the subject matter, and the historian simply relates the facts as they occurred, without colouring them for his purpose; but he is responsible for the selection of details, and while he has omitted an enormous mass of details (some of which we can gather from other informants), he has included so many bearing on this point, as to show beyond all question his keen interest in it.

Further, when we compare Luke with other authorities in their treatment of the same subject, we see how much more careful he is than they in bringing out the relations in which Christianity stood to the Imperial government. In the Third Gospel, Luke alone among the four historians records formally the attempt made by the Jews to implicate Jesus in criminal practices against the Roman Empire,Less formally, John XVIII 30. and the emphatic, thrice John XVIII 38; Matthew XXVII 24. repeated statement of Pilate acquitting Him of all fault (XXIII 2, 4, 14, 22) before the law.

We must conclude, then, that the large space devoted to the trial of Paul in its various stages before the Roman Imperial tribunals is connected with a strongly marked interest and a clear purpose running through the two books of this history; and it follows that Luke conceived the trial to be a critical and supremely important stage in the development of the Church.

The next question that faces us is whether Luke is justified as a historian in attaching such importance to this stage in the development of Christianity. Perhaps the question may be best answered by quoting some words used in a different connection and for a different purpose. “It is both justifiable and necessary to lay great stress on the trial of Paul. With the legal constructiveness and obedience to precedent that characterised the Romans, this case tried before the supreme court must have been regarded as a test case and a binding precedent, until some act of the supreme Imperial authority occurred to override it. If such a case came for trial before the highest tribunal in Rome, there must have been given an authoritative and, for the time, final judgment on the issues involved.”

But, further, it is obvious that the importance of the trial for Luke is intelligible only if Paul was acquitted. That he was acquitted follows from the Pastoral Epistles with certainty for all who admit their genuineness; while even they who deny their Pauline origin must allow that they imply an early belief in historical details which are not consistent with Paul’s journeys before his trial, and must either be pure inventions or events that occurred on later journeys. I have elsewhere argued that the subsequent policy of Nero towards the Church is far more readily intelligible if Paul was acquitted. But, if he was acquitted, the issue of the trial was a formal decision by the supreme court of the Empire that it was permissible to preach Christianity: the trial, therefore, was really a charter of religious liberty, and therein lies its immense importance. It was, indeed, overturned by later decisions of the supreme court; but its existence was a highly important fact for the Christians.

The importance of the preliminary stages of the trial lies in its issue; and it is obviously absurd to relate these at great length, and wholly omit the final result which gives them intelligibility and purpose. It therefore follows that a sequel was contemplated by the author, in which should be related the final stages of the trial, the acquittal of Paul, the active use which he made of his permission to preach, the organisation of the Church in new provinces, and the second trial occurring at the worst and most detested period of Nero’s rule. That sequel demands a book to itself; and we have seen that the natural implication of Luke’s expression in Acts I 1, if he wrote as correct Greek as Paul wrote, is that his work was planned to contain, a least, three books.

This view of Luke’s historical plan suits well the period at which he wrote. It is argued in Ch. XVII 2 that he was engaged in composing this book under Domitian, a period of persecution, when Christians had come to be treated as outlaws or brigands, and the mere confession of the name was recognised as a capital offence. The book was not an apology for Christianity: it was an appeal to the truth of history against the immoral and ruinous policy of the reigning Emperor, a temperate and solemn record, by one who had played a great part in them, of the real facts regarding the formation of the Church, its steady and unswerving loyalty in the past, its firm resolve to accept the facts of Imperial government, its friendly reception by many Romans, and its triumphant vindication in the first great trial at Rome. It was the work of one who had been trained by Paul to look forward to Christianity becoming the religion of the Empire and of the world who regarded Christianity as destined not to destroy but to save the Empire.

8. FINANCES OF THE TRIAL.

It has been asked where Paul got the money which he required to pay the expenses of four poor men (XXI 23), purifying themselves in the temple; and the suggestion has been made that the elders who advised him to undertake this expense, followed up their advice by giving him back some of the money which the delegates from the four provinces had just paid over to them. Without laying any stress on the silence of Luke as to any such action, we cannot believe that Paul would accept that money for his own needs, or that James would offer it. They were trustees of contributions destined for a special purpose; and to turn it to any other purpose would have been fraudulent. It is incredible that Paul, after laying such stress on the purpose of that contribution, and planning it for years (p. 288), should divert part of it to his own use the day after he reached Jerusalem.

But several other facts show clearly that, during the following four years, Paul had considerable command of money. Imprisonment and a long lawsuit are expensive. Now, it is clear that Paul during the following four years did not appear before the world as a penniless wanderer, living by the work of his hands. A person in that position will not either at the present day or in the first century be treated with such marked respect as was certainly paid to Paul, at Cæsareia, on the voyage, and in Rome. The governor Felix and his wife, the Princess Drusilla, accorded him an interview and private conversation. King Agrippa and his Queen Berenice also desired to see him. A poor man never receives such attentions, or rouses such interest. Moreover, Felix hoped for a bribe from him; and a rich Roman official did not look for a small gift. Paul, therefore, wore the outward appearance of a man of means, like one in a position to bribe a Roman procurator. The minimum in the way of personal attendants that was allowable for a man of respectable position was two slaves; and, as we shall see, Paul was believed to be attended by two slaves to serve him. At Cæsareia he was confined in the palace of Herod; but he had to live, to maintain two attendants, and to keep up a respectable appearance. Many comforts, which are almost necessities, would be given by the guards, so long as they were kept in good humour, and it is expensive to keep guards in good humour. In Rome he was able to hire a lodging for himself and to live there, maintaining, of course, the soldier who guarded him.

An appeal to the supreme court could not be made by everybody that chose. Such an appeal had to be permitted and sent forward by the provincial governor; and only a serious case would be entertained. But the case of a very poor man is never esteemed as serious; and there is little doubt that the citizen’s right of appeal to the Emperor was hedged in by fees and pledges. There is always one law for the rich man and another for the poor: at least, to this extent, that many claims can be successfully pushed by a rich man in which a poor man would have no chance of success. In appealing to the Emperor, Paul was choosing undoubtedly an expensive line of trial. All this had certainly been estimated before the decisive step was taken. Paul had weighed the cost; he had reckoned the gain which would accrue to the Church if the supreme court pronounced in his favour; and his past experience gave him every reason to hope for a favourable issue before a purely Roman tribunal, where Jewish influence would have little or no power. The importance of the case, as described in the preceding section, makes the appeal more intelligible.

Where, then, was the money procured? Was it from new contributions collected in the Churches? That seems most improbable, both from their general poverty, from Paul’s personal character, and from the silence of Luke on the point. Luke himself was probably a man dependent on his profession for his livelihood. His name is not that of a man of high position. There seems no alternative except that Paul’s hereditary property was used in those four years. As to the exact facts, we must remain in ignorance. If Paul hitherto voluntarily abstained from using his fortune, he now found himself justified by the importance of the case in acting differently. If, on the other hand, he had for the time been disowned by his family, then either a reconciliation had been brought about during his danger (perhaps originating in the bold kindness of his young nephew), or through death property had come to him as legal heir (whose right could not be interfered with by any will). But, whatever be the precise facts, we must regard Paul as a man of some wealth during these years.

He appeared to FelixProcuratorship of Felix. The remarkable contradiction between Josephus (who makes Cumanus governor of Palestine 48–52, Felix being his successor in 52), and Tacitus (who makes Felix governor of Samaria [and probably of Judea], contemporary with Cumanus as governor of Galilee, the latter being disgraced in 52, and the former acquitted and honoured at the same trial), is resolved by Mommsen in favour of Tacitus as the better authority on such a point; and most students of Roman history will agree with him. and to Festus, then, as a Roman of Jewish origin of high rank and great learning, engaged in a rather foolish controversy against the whole united power of his nation (winch showed his high standing, as well as his want of good judgment). That is the spirit of Festus’s words, “Paul! Paul! you are a great philosopher, but you have no common sense”.

On the details given of the incidents in Jerusalem and Cæsareia, I shall not enter. I am not at home on the soil of Palestine; and it seems better not to mix up second-hand studies with a discussion of incidents where I stand on familiar ground.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE VOYAGE TO ROME

In describing the voyage from Cæsareia to Malta, we are guided by the excellent work of James Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul (third edition, 1866); but as there are some points of interest which he has not explained satisfactorily, we shall briefly describe the voyage, and treat more elaborately such points as need to be added to Smith’s results.

1. CÆSAREIA TO MYRA.

A convoy of prisoners was starting for Rome under charge of a centurion of the Augustan cohort, and a detachment of soldiers; and Paul was sent along with it. He, of course, occupied a very different position from the other prisoners. He was a man of distinction, a Roman citizen who had appealed for trial to the supreme court in Rome. The others had been in all probability already condemned to death, and were going to supply the perpetual demand which Rome made on the provinces for human victims to amuse the populace by their death in the arena.

The cohorts of the Roman legions never bore surnames, and it would therefore seem that this “Augustan cohort” was one of the auxiliary cohorts, which had regularly one or more surnames. But the duty which is here performed by the centurion was never performed by an auxiliary officer, but only by an officer of a legion. It would therefore appear that an auxiliary officer is here represented in a position which he could not hold.

But, when we recollect (1) that Luke regularly uses the terms of educated conversation, not the strict technical names, and (2) that he was a Greek who was careless of Roman forms or names, we shall not seek in this case to treat the Greek term (σπεῖρα Σεβαστή) as a translation of a correct Roman name; but we shall look for a body in the Roman service which was likely to be called “the troop of the Emperor” by the persons in whose society Luke moved at the time. We give the answer to which Mommsen seems to incline Berlin Akad. Sitzungsber, 1895, p. 501, adding the evidence of Luke’s style, but otherwise quoting Mommsen. First we ask what officer would be likely to perform the duty here assigned to Julius. It would naturally be a legionary centurion on detached service for communication between the Emperor and his armies in the provinces (as described on p. 348). That the centurion whom Luke alludes to was one of this body is confirmed by the fact that, when he reached Rome, he handed Paul over to his chief. We conclude, then, that the “troop of the Emperor” was a popular colloquial way of describing the corps of officer-couriers; and we thus gather from Acts an interesting fact, elsewhere unattested but in perfect conformity with the known facts.

Luke uses the first person throughout the following narrative; and he was therefore in Paul's company. But how was this permitted? It is hardly possible to suppose that the prisoner’s friends were allowed to accompany him. Pliny mentions a case in point (Epist. III 16). Paetus was brought a prisoner from Illyricum to Rome, and his wife Arria vainly begged leave to accompany him; several slaves were permitted to go with him as waiters, valets, etc., and Arria offered herself alone to perform all their duties; but her prayer was refused. The analogy shows how Luke and Aristarchus accompanied Paul: they must have gone as his slaves, not merely performing the duties of slaves (as Arria offered to do), but actually passing as slaves. In this way not merely had Paul faithful friends always beside him; his importance in the eyes of the centurion was much enhanced, and that was of great importance. The narrative clearly implies that Paul enjoyed much respect during this voyage, such as a penniless traveller without a servant to attend on him would never receive either in the first century or the nineteenth.

In the harbour of Cæsareia there was no convenient ship about to sail for Rome; and the convoy was put on board of an Adramyttian ship which was going to make a voyage along the coast towns of the province Asia. Communication direct with Rome might be found in some of the great Asian harbours, or, failing any suitable ship in the late season, the prisoners might be taken (like Ignatius half a century later) by Troas and Philippi and the land road to Dyrrachium, and thence to Brundisium and Rome.

The direct run from Lycia to the Syrian coast was often made, but it is hardly possible that a direct run from Syria back to Myra was ever attempted by ancient ships. They never ventured on such a run except when a steady wind was blowing which could be trusted to last. But westerly breezes blow with great steadiness through the summer months in the Levant; and it is certain that ancient ships westward bound sailed east of Cyprus, as the Adramyttian ship now did. Luke explains why they sailed on this side of Cyprus; and he must, therefore, have expected to take the other side. Now, a sailor or a person accustomed to these seas would not have thought of making any explanation, for the course of the ship was the normal one. But Luke had come to Sidon from Myra by the west side of Cyprus, and he, therefore, was impressed. with the difference, and (contrary to his. usual custom) he gives a formal explanation; and his explanation stamps him as a stranger to these seas.

The ship worked slowly along the Cilician and Pamphylian coast, as the sailors availed themselves of temporary local land breezes and of the steady westward current that runs along the coast. The description given in the Periodoi of Barnabas of a voyage from Seleuceia in Syria to Cyprus in the face of a prevailing steady westerly wind, the work of a person familiar with the circumstances, illustrates perfectly the voyage on this occasion. The Adramyttian ship crept on from point to point up the coast, taking advantage of every opportunity to make a few miles, and lying at anchor in the shelter of the winding coast, when the westerly wind made progress impossible.

Smith in his masterly work collects several other examples of the same course which was adopted by the Adramyttian ship. Modern sailing ships, even with their superior rig, have several times been forced by the steady westerly wind towards the north, keeping east of Cyprus, and using the breezes which blow at intervals from the Caramanian coast.

In this description there is an addition made in the Later Syriac version and some other authorities, which Westcott and Hort put in the margin as one “which appears to have a reasonable probability of being the true reading”. The ship, in this addition, is said to have spent fifteen days in beating along the Cyprio-Pamphylian coast. This addition obviously suits the situation, and may be unhesitatingly accepted as true, whether as written by Luke or as a well-informed gloss. Most probably it is Lukan, for Luke gives rough statements of the time throughout this voyage; and an exact estimate at this point is quite in his style. It perhaps dropped out of most MSS., as wanting interest for later generations. If we may judge from the Periodoi Barnabæ, the coasting voyage was accomplished comparatively rapidly as far as Myra (see also p. 320).

In the harbour of Myra, the centurion found an Alexandrian ship on a voyage towards Italy. He embarked his convoy on board of this ship. It is characteristic of the style of Luke that he does not mention the class of ship or the reason of its voyage from Alexandria to Italy; but simply tells facts as they occur. Now, Egypt was one of the granaries of Rome; and the corn trade between Egypt and Rome was of the first importance and of great magnitude. There is, therefore, a reasonable probability that this ship was carrying corn to Rome; and this inference is confirmed by Luke himself, who mentions in v. 38 that the cargo was grain.

A ship-captain familiar with the Levant informed me that he had known ships going west from Egypt keep well to the north, in order to avail themselves of the shelter of the Cretan coast. No ancient ship would have ventured to keep so much out to sea as to run intentionally from Egypt to Crete direct, and moreover the winds would rarely have permitted it; but it is probable that this Alexandrian ship had sailed direct to Myra across the Levant. The steady westerly Breezes which prevented ships from making the direct run from Sidon, were favourable for the direct run from Alexandria. Probably this course was a customary one during a certain season of the year from Alexandria to Italy. Any one who has the slightest knowledge of “the way of a ship in the sea,” will recognise that, with a steady wind near west, this was the ideally best course; while if the breeze shifted a little towards the north, it would be forced into a Syrian port; and, as we know from other sources, that was often the case.

As we saw (p. 298), Myra was one of the great harbours of the Egyptian service. It is, therefore, unnecessary and incorrect to say, as is often done, that the Alexandrian ship had been blown out of its course. The ship was on its regular and ordinary course, and had quite probably been making a specially good run, for in the autumn there was always risk of the wind shifting round towards the north, and with the wind N.W. the Alexandrian ships could only fetch the Syrian coast.

A voyage which Lucian, in his dialogue The Ship, describes as made by a large Egyptian corn-ship, may be accepted as a fair description of what might occur in the first or second century; and it illustrates well the course of both the Alexandrian and the Adramyttian ship. Lucian’s Ship attempted to run direct from Alexandria to Myra. It was off the west point of Cyprus (Cape Akamas) on the seventh day of its voyage, but was thence blown to Sidon by a west wind so strong that the ship had to run before it. On the tenth day from Sidon it was caught in a storm at the Chelidonian islands and nearly wrecked; ten days from Sidon to the islands would correspond to fully thirteen from Cæsareia to Myra. Thereafter its course was very slow; it failed to keep the proper course to the south of Crete; and at last it reached Piræus on the seventieth day from Alexandria.

2. FROM MYRA TO FAIR HAVENS.

(XXVII 7) AND WHEN WE HAD SAILED SLOWLY MANY DAYS, AND WERE COME WITH DIFFICULTY OFF CNIDOS, AS THE WIND DID NOT PERMIT our straight course ONWARDS, WE SAILED UNDER THE LEE OF CRETE, OFF Cape SALMONE; (8) AND COASTING ALONG IT WITH DIFFICULTY, WE CAME UNTO A CERTAIN PLACE CALLED FAIR HAVENS, NIGH TO WHICH WAS A CITY LASEA.

From Myra the course of both the Adramyttian and the Alexandrian ship would coincide as far as Cnidos. But they found great difficulty in making the course, which implies that strong westerly winds blew most of the time. After a very slow voyage they came opposite Cnidos; but they were not able to run across to Cythera (a course that was sometimes attempted, if we can accept Lucian’s dialogue The Ship, as rounded on possible facts) on account of strong northerly winds blowing steadily in the Ægean, and threatening to force any ship on the north coast of Crete, which was dangerous from its paucity of harbours Accordingly, the choice was open either to put in to Cnidos, and wait a fair wind, or to run for the east and south coast of Crete. The latter alternative was preferred in the advanced season; and they rounded the eastern promontory, Salmone (protected by it from a north-westerly wind), and began anew to work slowly to the west under the shelter of the land. They kept their course along the shore with difficulty until they reached a place named Fair Havens, near the city Lasea, which, as Smith has shown conclusively, is the small bay, two leagues east of Cape Matala, still bearing the same name (in the modern Greek dialect Λιμεωνασ Καλούς); and there they lay for a considerable time. It is not stated in the narrative why they stayed so long at this point, but the reason is clear to a sailor or a yachtsman: as Smith points out, Fair Havens is the nearest shelter on the east of Cape Matala, whilst west of that cape the coast trends away to the north, and no longer affords any protection from the north or north-west winds, and therefore they could go no farther so long as the wind was in that quarter.

The voyage to Cnidos had been slow and hard, and the course along Crete was made with difficulty. At the best that part of the voyage must always have been troublesome, and as the difficulty was unusually great in this case, we cannot allow less time between Myra and Fair Havens than from September 1 to 25. The arrival at Fair Havens is fixed by the narrative; and thus we get the approximate date, August 17, for the beginning of the voyage from Cæsareia.

3. THE COUNCIL.

(XXVII 9) AND WHEN A LONG TIME ELAPSED, AND SAILING WAS NOW DANGEROUS (AS THE FAST ALSO WAS ALREADY OVER), PAUL OFFERED HIS ADVICE (10) IN THESE WORDS: “SIRS, I PERCEIVE THAT THE VOYAGE IS LIKELY TO BE ACCOMPANIED WITH HARDSHIP AND MUCH LOSS, NOT MERELY TO SHIP AND CARGO, BUT ALSO TO OUR LIVES”. (11) BUT THE CENTURION WAS INFLUENCED MORE BY THE SAILING-MASTER AND THE CAPTAIN THAN BY WHAT PAUL SAID. (12) AND, AS THE HAVEN WAS BADLY SITUATED FOR WINTERING IN, THE MAJORITY of the council APPROVED THE PLAN TO GET UNDER WEIGH FROM THENCE, AND ENDEAVOUR TO MAKE PHŒNIX AS A STATION TO WINTER IN—A HARBOUR THAT FACES SOUTH-WEST AND NORTH-WEST.

The great Fast fell in 59 on Oct. 5, and, as Paul and Aristarchus observed the Fast, Luke uses it as an indication of date. The dangerous season for navigation lasted from Sept. 14 to Nov. 11, when all navigation on the open sea was discontinued. The ship reached Fair Havens in the latter part of September, and was detained there by a continuance of unfavourable winds until after Oct. 5. We might be disposed to infer that the Feast of Tabernacles, Oct. 10, fell after they left Fair Havens, otherwise Luke would have mentioned it rather than the Fast, as making the danger more apparent. The picturesque ceremonies of the Tabernacles would have remained in Luke’s mind; but at sea they were not possible; and the Fast was therefore the fact that impressed him, as it was observed by Paul and Aristarchus.

In these circumstances a meeting was held to consider the situation, at which Paul was present, as a person of rank whose convenience was to some extent consulted, whose experience as a traveller was known to be great. It is characteristic of Luke’s style not to mention formally that a council was held. He goes straight to what was the important point in his estimation, viz., Paul’s advice; then he explains why Paul’s advice was not taken; and in the explanation it comes out in what circumstances the advice was given. The whole scene forms, in point of narrative method, an exact parallel to the interview at Paphos (p. 75). We notice also that Luke as a mere servant could not have been present at the council, and depended on Paul’s report; and his account follows the order in which Paul would describe the proceedings. We can imagine that Paul on coming forth, did not formally relate to his two friends that the council met, that the chairman laid the business before it, and so on, but burst forth with his apprehension that “they had made a mistake in not taking the prudent course”.

At the council it is implied that the centurion was president, while the captain and sailing-master were merely advisers. To our modern ideas the captain is supreme on the deck of his ship; and, even if he held a meeting to decide on such a point as the best harbour to lay up in, or consulted the wishes of a distinguished officer in the military service, yet the ultimate decision would lie with himself. Here the ultimate decision lies with the centurion, and he takes the advice of the captain. The centurion, therefore, is represented as the commanding officer, which implies that the ship was a Government ship, and the centurion ranked as the highest officer on board. That, doubtless, is true to the facts of the Roman service. The provisioning of the vast city of Rome, situated in a country where farming had ceased to pay owing to the ruinous foreign competition in grain, was the most serious and pressing department of the Imperial administration. Whatever else the Emperor might neglect, this he could not neglect and live. In the urban populace he was holding a wild beast by the ear; and, if he did not feed it, the beast would tear him to pieces. With ancient means of transport, the task was a hundred times harder than it would be now; and the service of ships on which Rome was entirely dependent was not left to private enterprise, but was a State department. It is, therefore, an error of the Authorised and Revised Versions to speak of the owner (ναύκληρος) of this Alexandrian ship:The owners of private merchant ships were distinguished as ἔμποροι from the captains, in a Delian inscription εἰς Βιθυνίαν ἔμποροι καὶ ναύκληροι, Bulletin de Corresp. Hellen. 1880, p. 222. the ship belonged to the Alexandrian fleet in the Imperial service. The captains of the fleetοἰ ναύκληροι του πορευτικου Ἀλεξανδρείνου στύλου, Kaibel, Inscript. Grac. in Italia, No. 918. made dedications on account of safe passage at Ostia, and Seneca sat in his house at Puteoli and watched the advance ships sail in announcing the approach of the Alexandrian fleet (Ep. Mor. 77). Passengers were landed at Puteoli; but cargo was carried on to Ostia. As a general rule the ships sailed in fleets; but, of course, incidental reasons often kept one ship apart (as we see in XXVIII 11, and in the opening of Lucian’s dialogue The Ship).

Now, there was not in Rome that strict separation between the naval and the military services which now exists. There was only one service; the same person was at one moment admiral of a fleet, at another general of a land army and an officer might pass from one branch to the other. The land-service, however, ranked higher, and a legionary centurion was certainly of superior rank to the captain of a vessel of the Alexandrian fleet. In this case, then, the centurion sat as president of the council. Naturally, he would not interfere in navigation, for his life might pay the forfeit of any error, but the selection of a port for wintering in was more in his line. Now, it was the regular practice for all Roman officials, who often had to take responsibility in cases in which they were not competent alone to estimate all the facts, to summon a council (consilium) of experienced and competent advisers before coming to a decision. Such was the nature of the meeting here described.

The centurion, very properly, was guided in this matter, against the advice of Paul, by the opinion of his professional advisers, who were anxious to get on as far as possible before navigation ceased on November 11, and it was resolved to take any fair opportunity of reaching the harbour of Phoenix, which was not only further on, but also better protected.

In the council-scene, then, when we put events in their sequence in time, and add those facts of the situation which Luke assumes as familiar to his readers, we have a vivid and striking incident, agreeing with the general type of Roman procedure, and yet giving us information about life on board a Government transport such as we could not find in any other part of ancient literature.

There has been a good deal of discussion as to the description of the harbour Phoenix, the modern Lutro, “the only secure harbour in all winds on the south coast of Crete “. This, however, faces the east, not the west. Smith tries to interpret the Greek words in that sense; but it must be observed that Luke never saw the harbour, and merely speaks on Paul’s report of the professional opinion. It is possible that the sailors described the entrance as one in which inward-bound ships looked towards N.W. and S.W., and that in transmission from mouth to mouth, the wrong impression was given that the harbour looked N.W. and S.W.

4. THE STORM.

(XXVII 13) AND WHEN A MODERATE SOUTHERLY BREEZE AROSE, SUPPOSING THAT THEY HAD GOT THEIR OPPORTUNITY,Literally, had got their purpose. THEY WEIGHED ANCHOR AND SAILED ALONG THE CRETAN COAST CLOSE IN. (14) BUT AFTER NO LONG TIME THERE STRUCK DOWN FROM THE ISLAND A TYPHONIC WIND, WHICH GOES BY THE NAME EURAQUILO. (15) AND WHEN THE SHIP WAS CAUGHT BY IT, AND COULD NOT FACE THE WIND, WE GAVE WAY AND LET THE SHIP DRIVE. (16) AND, WHEN WE RAN UNDER THE LEE OF A SMALL ISLAND, CAUDA BY NAME, WE WERE ABLE WITH DIFFICULTY TO HAUL IN THE BOAT. (17) AND HAVING UNDERGIRDING IT; AND BEING IN TERROR LEST THEY BE CAST ON “THE GREAT QUICKSANDS,” THEY REDUCED SAIL, AND LET THE SHIP DRIFT IN THAT POSITION (viz., laid-to under storm-sails).

One morning, after the council, their chance came with a moderate south wind, which favoured their westerly voyage. At this point the writer says that they went close inshore; and this emphatic statement, after they had been on a coasting voyage for weeks, must in a careful writer have some special force. Cape Matala projected well out to the south about six miles west of Fair Havens, and it needed all their sailing power to clear it on a straight course. From Luke’s emphasis we gather that it was for some time doubtful whether they could weather the point; and in the bright late autumn morning we can imagine every one gathered on the deck, watching the wind, the coast and the cape ahead. If the wind went round a point towards the west, they would fail; and the anxious hour has left its record in the single word of v. 13 (ἀσσον), while the inability of some scribes or editors to imagine the scene has left its record in the alteration (θασσον).

After passing Cape Matala, they had before them a fair course with a favouring breeze across the broad opening of the Gulf of Messara. But before they had got halfway across the open bay,Seventeen miles from shore on their course, according Smith. there came a sudden change, such as is characteristic of that sea, where “southerly winds almost invariably shift to a violent northerly wind”. There struck down from the Cretan mountains, which towered above them to the height of over 7000 feet, a sudden eddying squall from about east- north-east. Every one who has any experience of sailing on lakes or bays overhung by mountains will appreciate the epithet “typhonic,” which Luke uses. As a ship-captain recently said to me in relating an anecdote of his own experience in the Cretan waters, “the wind comes down from those mountains fit to blow the ship out of the water”.

An ancient ship with one huge sail was exposed to extreme danger from such a blast; the straining of the great sail on the single mast was more than the hull could bear; and the ship was exposed to a risk which modern vessels do not fear, foundering in the open sea. It appears that they were not able to slacken sail quickly; and, had the ship been kept up towards the wind, the strain would have shaken her to pieces. Even when they let the ship go, the leverage on her hull must have been tremendous, and would in a short time have sent her to the bottom. Paul, who had once already narrowly escaped from such a wreck, drifting on a spar or swimming for a night and a day (II Cor. XI 25), justified in his advice at Fair Havens not to run the risk of coasting further in the dangerous season on a coast where such sudden squalls are a common feature. In this case the ship was saved by getting into calmer water under the shelter of an island, Cauda (now Gozzo), about twenty-three miles to leeward.

At this point Smith notices the precision of Luke’s terminology. In v. 4 they sailed under the lee of Cyprus, keeping northwards with a westerly wind on the beam (ὑπεπλεύσαμεν); here they ran before a wind under the lee of Cauda (ὑποδραμόντες).

The sailors knew that their only hope was in the smoother water behind Cauda, and kept her up accordingly with her head to the wind, so that she would make no headway, but merely drifted with her right side towards the wind (“on the starboard tack”).

Here three distinct operations were performed; and it is noteworthy that Luke mentions first among them, not the one which was the most important or necessary, but the one in which he himself took part, viz., hauling in the boat. In the light breeze it had been left to tow behind, and the squall had come down too suddenly to haul it in. While the other operations required skill, any one could haul on a rope, and Luke was pressed into the service. The boat was waterlogged by this time; and the historian notes feelingly what hard work it was to get it in, v. 16.

While this was going on, ropes were got out, and the ship undergirded to strengthen her against the storm and the straining of her timbers. The scholars who discuss nautical subjects seem all agreed that undergirders were put longitudinally round the ship (i.e., horizontal girders passed round stem and stern). If any of them will show how it was possible to perform this operation during a storm, I shall be ready to accept their opinion; but meantime (without entering on the question what “undergirders,” ὑποζώματα, were in Athenian triremes) I must with Smith believe that cables were passed underneath round the ship transversely to hold the timbers together. This is a possible operation in the circumstances, and a useful one.

Luke mentions last what a sailor would mention first, the most delicate and indispensable operation, viz., leaving up just enough of sail to keep the ship’s head to the wind, and bringing down everything else that could be got down. It is not certain that he fully understood this operation, but perhaps the Greek (χαλάσαντες τὸ σκεῦος) might be taken as a technical term denoting the entire series of operations, slackening sail, but leaving some spread for a special purpose.

This operation was intended to guard against the danger of being driven on the great quicksands of the African coast, the Syrtes. These were still far distant; but the sailors knew that at this late season the wind might last many days. The wind was blowing straight on the sands; and it was absolutely necessary, not merely to delay the ship’s motion towards them, but to turn it in a different direction. In the Gulf of Messara, the wind had been an eddying blast under the mountains; but further out it was a steady, strong east-north-easterly gale.

Dragging stones or weights at the end of ropes from the stern, which is the meaning elicited by some German commentators and writers on nautical matters, might be useful in other circumstances; but how that meaning can be got from the Greek words (χαλάσαντες τὸ σκεῦος), I confess that I cannot see. Moreover, as we have said, what the sailors wished was not merely to delay their course towards the Syrtes, but to turn their course in another direction.

Accordingly, the ship drifted, with her head to the north, steadied by a low sail, making lee-way proportionate to the power of the wind and waves on her broadside. As Smith shows in detail, the resultant rate of motion would vary, according to the size of the ship and the force of the wind, between ¾ and 2 miles per hour; and the probable mean rate in this case would be about 1½ miles per hour; while the direction would approximate to 8° north of west. The ship would continue to drift in the same way as long as the wind blew the same, and the timbers and sails held; and at the calculated rates, if it was under Cauda towards evening, it would on the fourteenth night be near Malta.

5. DRIFTING.

(XXVII 18) AND, AS WE LABOURED EXCEEDINGLY WITH THE STORM, THE NEXT DAY THEY BEGAN TO THROW THE FREIGHT OVERBOARD, (19) AND ON THE THIRD DAY WE CAST OUT, WITH OUR OWN HANDS ACTUALLY, THE SHIP’S FURNITURE. (20) AND AS NEITHER SUN NOR STARS WERE VISIBLE FOR MANY DAYS, AND A SEVERE STORM WAS PRESSING HARD ON US, ALL HOPE THAT WE SHOULD BE SAVED WAS GRADUALLY TAKEN AWAY. (21) AND WHEN THERE HAD BEEN LONG ABSTINENCE FROM FOOD, THEN PAUL STOOD FORTH IN MIDST OF THEM, AND SAID: “THE RIGHT COURSE, GENTLEMEN, WAS TO HEARKEN TO ME, AND NOT TO SET (22) AND MY ADVICE TO YOU IN THE PRESENT IS TO TAKE HEART; FOR LOSS OF LIFE THERE SHALL BE NONE AMONG YOU, BUT OF THE SHIP. (23) FOR THERE STOOD BY ME THIS NIGHT AN ANGEL OF THE GOD WHOSE I AM, WHOM ALSO I SERVE, (24) SAYING: ‘FEAR NOT, PAUL; THOU MUST STAND BEFORE CÆSAR; AND, LO! THERE HAVE BEEN GRANTED THEE BY GOD ALL THEY THAT SAIL WITH THEE’. (25) WHEREFORE TAKE HEART, GENTLEMEN; FOR I BELIEVE GOD, THAT IT SHALL BE SO AS IT HATH BEEN SPOKEN UNTO ME. (26) HOWBEIT WE MUST BE CAST ON SOME ISLAND.”

In their situation the great danger was of foundering through leakage caused by the constant straining due to the sail and the force of the waves on the broadside, which ancient vessels were not strong enough to stand. To lessen the danger, the sailors began to tighten the ship, by throwing away the cargo. On the day after, the whole company, Luke among them, sacrificed the ship’s equipment. v. 19 is a climax; “with our own hands we threw away all the ship’s fittings and equipment,” the extreme act of sacrifice. The first person, used in the Authorised Version, occurs only in some less authoritative MSS., but greatly increases the effect. The sailors threw overboard part of the cargo; and the passengers and supernumeraries, in eager anxiety to do something, threw overboard whatever movables they found, which was of little or no practical use, but they were eager to do something. This makes a striking picture of growing panic; but the third person, which appears in the great MSS., is ineffective, and makes no climax.

One of the miserable accompaniments of a storm at sea is the difficulty of obtaining food; and, if that is so in a modern vessel, it must have been much worse in an ancient merchant ship, inconveniently crowded with sailors and passengers. Moreover, the sacrifice of the ship’s furniture must have greatly increased the difficulty of preparing food.

Worse than all, the leakage was steadily growing from the straining of the mast, and yet they dared not cut the mast away, as it alone helped them to work off the dreaded African sands. Day after day the crew sat doing nothing, eating nothing, waiting till the ship should sink. In such a situation the experience of many cases shows that some individual, often one not hitherto prominent, and not rarely a woman, comes forward to cheer the company to the hope of escape and the courage of work; and many a desperate situation has been overcome by the energy thus imparted. In this case Paul stood forth in the midst of the helpless, panic-struck crowd. When caution was suitable (v. 10), he had been the prudent, cautious adviser, warning the council of prospective danger. But now, amidst panic and despair, he appears cool, confident, assured of safety; and he speaks in the only tone that could cheer such an audience as his, the tone of an inspired messenger. In a vision he has learned that all are to escape; and he adds that an island is to be the means of safety.

6. LAND.

(XXVII 27) BUT WHEN THE FOURTEENTH NIGHT WAS COME, AS WE WERE DRIVEN TO AND FRO IN THE ADRIA, TOWARDS MIDNIGHT THE SAILORS SURMISED THAT SOME LAND WAS NEARING THEM; (28) AND THEY SOUNDED, AND FOUND TWENTY FATHOMS; AND AFTER A LITTLE SPACE THEY SOUNDED AGAIN, AND FOUND FIFTEEN FATHOMS. (29) AND FEARING LEST HAPLY WE SHOULD BE CAST ON ROCKY GROUND THEY LET GO FOUR ANCHORS FROM THE STERN, AND PRAYED THAT DAY COME ON. (30) AND AS THE SAILORS WERE SEEKING TO MAKE THEIR ESCAPE FROM THE SHIP, AND HAD LOWERED THE BOAT INTO THE SEA, UNDER PRETENCE OF LAYING OUT ANCHORS FROM THE BOW, (31) PAUL SAID TO THE CENTURION AND THE SOLDIERS, “UNLESS THESE ABIDE IN THE SHIP, YOU CANNOT BE SAVED”. (32) THEN THE SOLDIERS CUT AWAY THE ROPES OF THE BOAT AND LET HER FALL AWAY. (33) AND WHILE THE DAY WAS COMING ON, PAUL BESOUGHT THEM ALL TO TAKE SOME FOOD, SAYING: “THIS DAY IS THE FOURTEENTH DAY THAT YOU WATCH AND CONTINUE FASTING, AND HAVE TAKEN NOTHING. (34) WHEREFORE, I BESEECH YOU TO TAKE SOME FOOD, FOR THIS IS FOR YOUR SAFETY; FOR THERE SHALL NOT A HAIR PERISH FROM THE HEAD OF ANY OF YOU.” (35) AND WHEN HE HAD SAID THIS HE TOOK BREAD AND GAVE THANKS TO GOD IN THE PRESENCE OF ALL; AND HE BRAKE IT, AND BEGAN TO EAT. (36) THEN WERE THEY ALL OF GOOD CHEER, AND THEMSELVES ALSO TOOK SOME FOOD. (37) AND WE WERE IN ALL ON THE SHIP 276 SOULS. (38) AND WHEN THEY HAD EATEN ENOUGH, THEY PROCEEDED TO LIGHTEN THE SHIP, THROWING OUT THE WHEAT INTO THE SEA.

Luke seems to have had the landsman’s idea that they drifted to and fro in the Mediterranean. A sailor would have known that they drifted in a uniform direction; but it seems hardly possible to accept Smith’s idea that the Greek word (διαφερομένων) can denote a straight drifting course.

The name Adria has caused some difficulty. It was originally narrower in application; but in the usage of sailors it grew wider as time passed, and Luke uses the term that he heard on shipboard, where the sailors called the sea that lay between Malta, Italy, Greece, and Crete “the Adria”. As usual, Luke’s terminology is that of life and conversation, not of literature. Strabo the geographer, who wrote about A.D. 19, says that the Ionian sea on the west of Greece was “a part of what is now called Adria,” implying that contemporary popular usage was wider than ancient usage. In later usage the name was still more widely applied: in the fifth century “the Adria” extended to the coast of Cyrene; and mediæval sailors distinguished the Adriatic, as the whole Eastern half of the Mediterranean, from the Ægean sea (see p. 298).

On the fourteenth midnight, the practised senses of the sailors detected that land was nearing: probably, as Smith suggests, they heard the breakers, and, as an interesting confirmation of his suggestion, one old Latin version reads “that land was resounding”.Resonare Gig. Compared with προσαχειν, B, as Prof. Rendel Harris suggests to me, this implies an early Greek reading προσηχειν. was now necessary to choose where they should beach the vessel; for the sound of the breakers warned them that the coast was dangerous. In the dark no choice was possible; and they therefore were forced to anchor. With a strong wind blowing it was doubtful whether the cables and anchors would hold; therefore, to give themselves every chance, they let go four anchors. Smith quotes from the sailing directions that in St. Paul’s Bay (the traditional scene of the wreck), “while the cables hold there is no danger, as the anchors will never start”. He also points out that a ship drifting from Cauda could not get into the bay without passing near the low rocky point of Koura, which bounds it on the east. The breakers here warned the sailors; and the charts show that after passing the point the ship would pass over 20 fathoms and then over 15 fathoms depth on her course, W. by N.

Anchoring by the stern was unusual; but in their situation it had great advantages. Had they anchored by the bow, the ship would have swung round from the wind; and, when afterwards they wished to run her ashore, it would have been far harder to manage her when lying with her prow pointing to the wind and away from the shore. But, as they were, they had merely to cut the cables, unlash the rudders, and put up a little foresail (v. 40); and they had the ship at once under command to beach her at any spot they might select.

As the ship was now lying at anchor near some land, the sailors were about to save themselves by the boat and abandon the ship to its fate without enough skilled hands to work it; but Paul, vigilant ever, detected their design, and prevented it. Then, in order that the company might have strength for the hard work that awaited them at daybreak, he encouraged them once more with the assurance of safety, urged them to eat with a view thereto, and himself set the example. There is perhaps an intention in v. 35 to represent Paul as acting like Jesus at the last Passover; and the resemblance is more pointed if the words added in one MS. and some versions are original, “giving also to us”. But it would be necessary to understand “us” to mean only Luke and Aristarchus (as Dr. Blass agrees); and this is harsh after the word has been so often used in a much wider sense. It is characteristic of Christianity in all periods to seek after resemblances between the Founder and any great hero of the faith at some crisis of history; and this addition seems a later touch to bring out the resemblance.

7. PAUL’S ACTION ON THE SHIP.

The account of the voyage as a whole is commonly accepted by critics as the most trustworthy part of Acts and as “one of the most instructive documents for the knowledge of ancient seamanship,” (Holtzmann on XXVII 4, p. 421). But in it many critics detect the style of the later hand, the supposed second-century writer that made the work out of good and early documents, and addressed his compilation to Theophilus. Many hold that this writer inserted vv. 21-26, and some assign to him also vv. 33-35, because the character there attributed to Paul is quite different from his character in the genuine old document, especially vv. 10 and 31; in the original parts Paul is represented as a simple passenger, cautious to a degree, suffering from hunger, apprehensive of the future, keenly alive to prospective danger, and anxious to provide against it: on the other hand, in vv. 21-26 he knows that their safety is assured; he speaks as the prophet, not the anxious passenger; he occupies a position apart from, and on a higher plane than human.

This is a fair hypothesis, and deserves fair and dispassionate consideration; no one whose mind is not already definitely made up on all questions can pass it by; and only those who feel that they understand the entire narrative in every turn and phrase and allusion would willingly pass it by, for every real student knows how frequently his knowledge is increased by changing his point of view.

We may at once grant that the narrative would go on without any obvious awkwardness if 21-26 were omitted, which is of course true of many a paragraph describing some special incident in a historical work.

But it is half-hearted and useless to cut out 21-26 as an interpolation without cutting out 33-38; there, too, Paul is represented as the prophet and the consoler on a higher plane, though he is also the mere passenger suffering from hunger, and alive to the fact that the safety of all depends on their taking food and being fit for active exertion in the morning. Some critics go so far as to cut out vv. 33-35. But it is not possible to cut these out alone; there is an obvious want of sequence between 32 and 36, and Holtzmann therefore seems to accept 33-35. But if they are accepted I fail to see any reason for rejecting 21-26; these two passages are so closely akin in purport and bearing on the context that they must go together; and all the mischief attributed to 21-26 as placing Paul on a higher plane is done in 33-35.

Further, the excision of 21-26 would cut away a vital part of the narrative. (1) These verses contain the additional fact, natural in itself and assumed in v. 34 as already known, that the crew and passengers were starving and weak. (2) They fit well into the context, for they follow naturally after the spiritlessness described in v. 20, and Paul begins by claiming attention on the ground of his former advice (advice that is accepted by the critics as genuine because it is different in tone from the supposed interpolation). “In former circumstances,” says he, “I gave you different, but salutary advice, which to your cost you disregarded; listen to me now when I tell you that you shall escape.” The method of escape, the only method that a sailor could believe to be probable, is added as a concluding encouragement.

But let us cut out every verse that puts Paul on a higher plane, and observe the narrative that would result: Paul twice comes forward with advice that is cautiously prudent, and shows keen regard to the chance of safety. If that is all the character he displayed throughout the voyage, why do we study the man and his fate? All experience shows that in such a situation there is often found some one to encourage the rest; and, if Paul had not been the man to comfort and cheer his despairing shipmates, he would never have impressed himself on history or made himself an interest to all succeeding time. The world’s history stamps the interpolation-theory here as false.

Moreover, the letters of Paul put before us a totally different character from this prudent calculator of chances. The Paul of Acts XXVII is the Paul of the Epistles: the Paul who remains on the interpolation theory could never have written the Epistles.

Finally, the reason why the historian dwells at such length on the voyage lies mainly in vv. 21-26 and 33-38. In the voyage he pictures Paul on a higher plane than common men, advising more skillfully than the skilled mariners, maintaining hope and courage when all were in despair, and breathing his hope and courage into others, playing the part of a true Roman in a Roman ship, looked up to even by the centurion, and in his single self the saviour of the lives of all. But the interpolation-theory would cut out the centre of the picture.

There remains no reason to reject vv. 21-26 which I can discover, except that it introduces the superhuman element. That is an argument to which I have no reply. It is quite a tenable position in the present stage of science and knowledge to maintain that every narrative which contains elements of the marvellous must be an unhistorical and untrustworthy narrative. But let us have the plain and honest reasons; those who defend that perfectly fair position should not try to throw in front of it as outworks flimsy and uncritical reasons, which cannot satisfy for a moment any one that has not his mind made up beforehand on that fundamental premise. But the superhuman element is inextricably involved in this book: you cannot cut it out by any critical process that will bear scrutiny. You must accept all or leave all.

8. ON SHORE.

(XXVII 39) AND WHEN IT WAS DAY THEY DID NOT RECOGNISE THE LAND; BUT THEY WERE AWARE OF A SORT OF BAY OR CREEK WITH A SANDY BEACH, AND THEY TOOK COUNSEL, IF POSSIBLE, TO DRIVE THE SHIP UP ON IT. (40.) AND CASTING OFF THE ANCHORS, THEY LEFT THEM IN THE SEA, WHILST LOOSING THE FASTENINGS OF THE RUDDERS, AND SETTING THE FORESAIL TO THE BREEZE, THEY HELD FOR, THE OPEN BEACH. (41) AND CHANCING ON A BANK BETWEEN TWO SEAS, THEY DROVE THE SHIP ON IT; AND THE PROW STRUCK AND REMAINED IMMOVABLE, BUT THE AFTER PART BEGAN TO BREAK UP FROM THE VIOLENCE. (42) AND THE SOLDIERS COUNSEL WAS TO KILL THE PRISONERS, LEST ANY SHOULD SWIM AWAY AND ESCAPE; (43) BUT THE CENTURION, WISHING TO SAVE PAUL, STAYED THEM FROM THEIR PURPOSE, AND BADE THEM THAT COULD SWIM TO LEAP OVERBOARD AND GET FIRST TO LAND, (44) AND THE REST, SOME ON PLANKS, AND SOME ON PIECES FROM THE SHIP. AND SO IT CAME TO PASS THAT ALL ESCAPED SAFE TO THE LAND.

No description could be more clear and precise, selecting the essential points and omitting all others. Smith quotes some interesting parallels from modern narratives of shipwreck. Some doubt has arisen whether “the bank between two seas” was a shoal separated from the shore by deep water, or, as Smith says, a neck of land projecting towards the island of Salmonetta, which shelters St. Paul’s Bay on the north-west. But the active term “drove the ship on it” (ἐπέκειλαν) implies purpose, and decides in Smith’s favour. The fact that they “chanced on a ridge between two seas” might at the first glance seem to imply want of purpose; but, as Smith points out, they could not, while lying at anchor, see the exact character of the spot. They selected a promising point, and as they approached they found that luck had led them to the isthmus between the island and the mainland. In their situation the main object was to get the ship close up to the shore, and safe from being rapidly and utterly smashed up by the waves. No place could have better favoured their purpose. The ship (which probably drew eighteen feet of water) “struck a bottom of mud, graduating into tenacious clay, into which the fore part would fix itself, and be held fast, while the stern was exposed to the force of the waves”. Thus the foreship was held together, until every passenger got safe to dry land. Only the rarest conjunction of favourable circumstances could have brought about such a fortunate ending to their apparently hopeless situation; and one of the completest services that has ever been rendered to New Testament scholarship is James Smith’s proof that all these circumstances are united in St. Paul’s Bay. The only difficulty to which he has applied a rather violent solution is the sandy beach: at the traditional point where the ship was run ashore there is no sandy beach; but he considers that it is “now worn away by the wasting action of the sea”. On this detail only local knowledge would justify an opinion,

In v. 41 “the violence” is rate expression used by a person standing on the shore and watching the waves smash up the ship: he does not need to specify the kind of violence. This expression takes us on to the beach, and makes us gaze on the scene. The humblest scribe can supply κυμάτων here, and most of them have done so.

9. MALTA.

(XXVIII 1) AND WHEN WE WERE ESCAPED, THEN WE LEARNT THAT THE ISLAND IS CALLED MELITA. (2) AND THE BARBARIANS SHOWED US NO COMMON KINDNESS; FOR THEY KINDLED A FIRE, AND WELCOMED US ALL, BECAUSE OF THE PRESENT RAIN AND BECAUSE OF THE COLD. (3) BUT WHEN PAUL HAD GATHERED A BUNDLE OF STICKS AND LAID THEM ON THE FIRE, A VIPER CAME OUT BY REASON OF THE HEAT AND FASTENED ON HIS HAND. (4) AND WHEN THE BARBARIANS SAW THE BEAST HANGING FROM HIS HAND, THEY SAID TO ONE ANOTHER, “NO DOUBT THIS MAN IS A MURDERER, WHOM, THOUGH HE HATH ESCAPED FROM THE SEA, YET JUSTICE WILL NOT SUFFER TO LIVE”. (5) HOWBEIT HE SHOOK OFF THE BEAST INTO THE FIRE, AND TOOK NO HARM. (6) BUT THEY EXPECTED THAT HE WOULD HAVE SWOLLEN OR FALLEN DOWN DEAD SUDDENLY; BUT WHEN THEY WERE LONG IN EXPECTATION AND BEHELD NOTHING AMISS COME TO HIM, THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS, AND SAID THAT HE WAS A GOD. (7) NOW IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THAT PLACE WERE LANDS BELONGING TO THE FIRST man OF THE ISLAND, NAMED POPLIUS, WHO RECEIVED US AND ENTERTAINED US THREE DAYS COURTEOUSLY. (8) AND IT WAS SO THAT THE FATHER OF POPLIUS LAY SICK OF A FEVER AND DYSENTERY; AND PAUL ENTERED IN UNTO HIM, AND PRAYED, AND LAYING HIS HANDS ON HIM HEALED HIM. (9) AND WHEN THIS WAS DONE THE REST ALSO WHICH HAD DISEASES IN THE ISLAND CAME AND WERE CURED; (10) WHO ALSO HONOURED US WITH MANY HONOURS, AND WHEN WE SAILED PUT ON BOARD SUCH THINGS AS WE NEEDED.

The name Poplius is the Greek form of the prænomen Publius; but it is not probable that this official would be called by a simple prænomen. Poplius might perhaps be the Greek rendering of the nomen Popilius. Yet possibly the peasantry around spoke familiarly of “Publius” his prænomen simply; and Luke (who has no sympathy for Roman nomenclature) took the name that he heard in common use. The title “first” technically correct in Melita: it has inscriptional authority.

Doubtless many of the sailors had been at Malta before, for eastern ships bound for Rome must have often touched at the island, v. 11. “But St. Paul’s Bay is remote from the great harbour, and possesses no marked features by which it could be recognised” from the anchorage in the bay.

The objections which have been advanced, that there are now no vipers in the island, and only one place where any wood grows, are too trivial to deserve notice. Such changes are natural and probable in a small island, populous and long civilised.

The term “barbarians,” v. 2, is characteristic of the nationality of the writer. It does not indicate rudeness or uncivilised habits, but merely non-Greek birth; and it is difficult to imagine that a Syrian or a Jew or any one but a Greek would have applied the name to the people of Malta, who had been in contact with Phoenicians and Romans for many centuries.

CHAPTER XV.

ST. PAUL IN ROME

1 THE COMING TO ROME.

(XXVIII 11) AFTER THREE MONTHS WE SET SAIL IN A SHIP OF ALEXANDRIA, WHICH HAD WINTERED IN THE ISLAND, WHOSE SIGN WAS “THE TWIN BROTHERS”. (12) AND TOUCHING AT SYRACUSE, WE TARRIED THERE THREE DAYS. (13) AND FROM THENCE, BY TACKING, WE ARRIVED AT RHEGIUM. AND AFTER ONE DAY A SOUTH WIND SPRANG UP, AND ON THE SECOND DAY WE CAME TO PUTEOLI: (14) WHERE, FINDING BRETHREN, WE WERE CONSOLED AMONG THEM, REMAINING SEVEN DAYS;The text of most MSS., “we were entreated to tarry with them seven days,” seems irreconcilable with Paul’s situation as a prisoner. However friendly Julius was to Paul, he was a Roman officer, with whom discipline and obedience to rule were natural. With Blass, we follow the text of the inferior MSS. (see p. 212). AND THEREUPON WE CAME TO ROME. (15) AND FROM THENCE THE BRETHREN, HEARING THE NEWS ABOUT US, CAME TO MEET US AS FAR AS “APPIUS MARKET” AND “THREE TAVERNS”: WHOM, WHEN PAUL SAW, HE THANKED GOD AND TOOK COURAGE. (16) AND WHEN WE ENTERED INTO ROME [the centurion delivered the prisoners to the stratopedarch, and] PAUL WAS SUFFERED TO ABIDE BY HIMSELF WITH THE SOLDIER THAT GUARDED HIM [outside of the camp]. . . . (30) HIRED DWELLING, AND RECEIVED ALL THAT WENT IN UNTO HIM, (31) AND PREACHED THE KINGDOM OF GOD, AND TAUGHT WHAT CONCERNED THE LORD JESUS CHRIST WITH ALL BOLDNESS, NONE FORBIDDING HIM (see note, p. 362).

The wreck took place before the middle of November (p. 322); therefore they sailed from Malta in February. That is earlier than the usual beginning of over-sea navigation; but we may understand that favourable weather tempted them to an early start; and as the autumn was unusually tempestuous, it is probable that fine weather began early. Luke does not tell what sort of wind blew, leaving the reader to understand that it was from a southerly quarter (as otherwise no ancient ship would attempt the over-sea voyage). The wind fell and they had to wait three days in Syracuse. Then though the breeze was not from the south, they were able by good seamanship to work up to RhegiumWestcott and Hort prefer the text of the great MSS. περιελόντες, which could hardly mean more than “casting off,” an unnecessary piece of information here, though important in XXVII.. Here, after one day, a south wind arose; and they sailed across to Puteoli, arriving there on the second day.

The passage probably took not much over twenty-four hours, beginning one day and ending the following morning: with a following wind, these large merchant vessels sailed fast. The passengers landed in Puteoli; but the cargo, doubtless, was carried to Ostia, where it had to be transshipped to smaller vessels which could go up the Tiber to Rome.

Luke mentions the name of the last vessel, but not of any of the others. The reason lies in the circumstances. He heard the news about the last vessel before he saw it; but he became acquainted with the others by seeing them. Probably the news that the Dioscuri, of the Alexandrian Imperial fleet, was lying in the great harbour, reached the shipwrecked party during the three days when they were in Poplius’s house; and was so noted in Luke’s memoranda. But he had not the sailor’s mind, who thinks of his ship as a living friend, and always speaks of her by her name; hence the other ships were to him only means of conveyance, whereas the name of the Dioscuri was the first fact which he learned about her.

Puteoli, as a great harbour, was a central point and a crossing of intercourse; and thus Christianity had already established itself there. All movements of thought throughout the Empire acted with marvellous rapidity on Rome, the heart of the vast and complicated organism; and the crossing-places or knotsEach of them may be called πάροδος, the epithet applied to Ephesus by Ignatius, Rom. 12, Church in R. E., p. 318 f. on the main highways of intercourse with the East—Puteoli, Corinth, Ephesus, Syrian Antioch—became centres from which Christianity radiated. At Pompeii, which is not far from Puteoli, the Christians were a subject of gossip among loungers in the street before it was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79.

The double expression of arrival at Rome in vv. 14 and 16 is remarkable; and has caused much speculation among commentators. Blass is inclined to seek a change of text, giving the sense “we proceeded on our way (imperfect) to Rome, then we came to Appii Forum, etc., and finally we entered Rome “. Others prefer other interpretations. But the double expression seems due to the double sense that every name of a city-state bears in Greek: the word Rome might either include the entire territory of the city, the XXXV tribes as they were completed in B.C. 241, i.e., the whole ager Romanus, or be restricted to the walls and buildings. Thus v. 13, “we reached the state Rome,” the bounds of which were probably pointed out as the party reached them; in 14, “we passed through two points in the ager Romanus”; and in 15, “we entered the (walls of) Rome” (see p. 111).

It is evident that Paul, when he reached this crisis of his fate, was feeling dispirited; for the tendency to low spirits is always one of the most trying concomitants of his chronic disorder, as described in Ch. V § 2. The allusions to the consolation that he received from meeting Brethren at Puteoli, Appius’s Forum, and the Three Taverns, must be taken as indications of some marked frame of mind. We have already observed him in a similar state of depression when he was in Troas and Philippi (p. 283 f.).

When the party reached Rome, the centurion delivered his charge to his superior officer, who bears the title Chief of the Camp (Stratopedarch) in the Greek text.Text of XXVIII 16. The failure in the great MSS. of the delivery of Paul to the Stratopedarch is a very clear case of omitting a Lukan detail, which had only a mundane interest; and the failure of similar details in XXVII 5, XVI 30, etc., may be estimated by the analogy of this case. This title has always hitherto been interpreted as denoting the Prefect of the Prætorian Guard, stationed in a large camp adjoining the wails of Rome. But that interpretation is not well suited either to the natural character of language or to the facts of the Roman service. The title could not properly designate an officer of such high rank; and the Prætorian Prefect would hardly be concerned with a comparatively humble duty like the reception of and responsibility for prisoners. The Greek title Stratopedarch very rarely occurs; and it remained for Mommsen, aided by the form given in an old Latin version, Princeps Peregrinorum, to explain who the officer really was, and to place the whole episode of Paul’s Roman residence in a new light (see p. 315).

Augustus had reduced to a regular system the maintenance of communications between the centre of control in Rome and the armies stationed in the great frontier provinces. Legionary centurions, called commonly frumentarii, went to and fro between Rome and the armies; and were employed for numerous purposes that demanded communication between the Emperor and his armies and provinces. They acted not only for commissariat purposes (whence the name), but as couriers, and for police purposes, and for conducting prisoners; and in time they became detested as agents and spies of Government. They all belonged to legions stationed in the provinces, and were considered to be on detached duty when they went to Rome; and hence in Rome they were “soldiers from abroad,” peregrini. While in Rome they resided in a camp on the Cælian Hill, called Castra Peregrinorum; in this camp there were always a number of them present, changing from day to day, as some came and others went away. This camp was under command of the Princeps Peregrinorum; and it is clear that Stratopedarch in Acts is the Greek name for that officer (see p. 315). This whole branch of the service is very obscure. Marquardt considers that it was first organised by Hadrian; but Mommsen believes that it must have been instituted by Augustus.

2. THE RESIDENCE IN ROME.

Paul was treated in Rome with the utmost leniency. He was allowed to hire a house or a lodging in the city, and live there at his own convenience under the surveillance of a soldier who was responsible for his presence when required. A light chain fastened Paul’s wrist to that of the soldier. No hindrance was offered to his inviting friends into his house, or to his preaching to all who came in to him; but he was not allowed to go out freely.

After the depression of spirit in which Paul entered Rome, Acts concludes with a distinct implication of easier and more hopeful circumstances. His work went on unimpeded, while the rest after the fatigue and hardships of the voyage would be beneficial to his physical health (even though September might afterwards prove unhealthy); and thus the two chief reasons for his gloomy frame of mind on landing in Italy were removed. He regarded himself as “an ambassador in a chain” (Eph. VI 20); he asked for the prayers of the Colossians and the Asian Churches generally for his success in preaching; his tone is hopeful and full of energy and spirit for the work (1. c., Col. IV 3, 4); and he looked forward to acquittal and a visit to Colossai (Philem. 22). We may date these letters to Philemon, to Colossai, and to the Asian Churches generally (Eph.) near the middle of the long imprisonment; an accurate date is impossible, but for brevity’s sake we may speak of their date as early in 61.

The presence of many friends in Rome also cheered Paul. He had been permitted to take two personal attendants with him from Cæsareia; but though his other companions in Jerusalem were prevented from accompanying him in his voyage, some of them followed him to Rome. Timothy was with him during great part of his imprisonment, was sent on a mission to Philippi about the end of 61 (Phil. II 19), and thereafter seems to have had his headquarters in Asia, whence he was summoned by Paul to join him during his second imprisonment. Tychicus also joined Paul in Rome in 60, and was sent on a mission to Asia, and especially to the Churches of the Lycos valley, early in 61. They probably left Cæsareia when Paul sailed for Rome, visited on the way their own homes, and arrived in Rome not long after Paul himself.

Moreover, Mark, who had become reconciled with Paul (probably during his residence at Jerusalem, or his imprisonment in Cæsareia), came also to Rome. He left Rome in 61, contemplating an extended tour in the province Asia, in the course of which he would probably visit Colossai. Oral instructions had been already sent to the Colossians, and, doubtless, other Pauline Churches (probably by Onesimus and Tychicus), to welcome him as Paul’s deputy; and Paul writes to the Colossians a formal recommendation of him (IV 10). The terms in which Paul speaks suggest that he had not taken any active interest in the new Pauline Churches since the unfortunate quarrel in Pamphylia, and that there was likely to be some coldness towards him among the Pauline Christians. From this year, apparently, began a new era in Mark’s life. His work seems to have lain in Asia during the next few years, for about the close of his life Paul bids Timothy (IV 11) bring Mark with him to Rome, implying that they were near each other; and Timothy was in Ephesus at the time. Probably Paul had been informed of Mark’s desire to rejoin him in his troubles. At a later date Mark is associated with the greeting of I Peter V 13 to the Churches of the provinces of Asia Minor, in such a way as to imply personal acquaintance with them; and this wide range of work, though not easily reconcilable with the earlier dates assigned to that Epistle, suits naturally and well the date about 80 (Church in R.E., p. 280 f). On this view Mark after Paul’s death must have devoted himself to work in the more easterly provinces of Asia Minor; and returned to Rome ten or twelve years later.

It is remarkable that Luke has not a word to say about the process by which Christianity spread to Rome; but, according to the plan which we have already seen to be shadowed forth for the sequel of this history, the process would form part of the contemplated Third Book. That Book would naturally open with a brief statement of the western dispersion and the planting of Christianity in Italy, going back for the moment to an earlier date, just as in XI 27 the historian, when he has to include Antioch in the stage of his drama, turns back to the movement originating in Stephen’s work. So here he brings Paul to Rome; and thereafter he would probably have made a new start with the Churches of the West and the new impulse imparted to them by Paul’s acquittal. We are compelled to make some conjecture on this point; for no one can accept the ending of Acts as the conclusion of a rationally conceived history. Such an ending might exist in a diary, which has no determining idea, but not in a history; and we, who work on the hypothesis that Acts is a history, must strive to understand the guiding idea of an unfinished work.

According to modern ideas, the rapidity with which every movement in the provinces influenced Rome is a sign of strong vitality and intimate union of the parts of that vast Empire. The Imperial policy fostered intercommunication and unity to the utmost; and it is not too much to say that travelling was more highly developed, and the dividing power of distance was weaker, under the Empire than at any time before or since, until we come down to the present century. But that fact, which we estimate as probably the best measure of material civilisation, was regarded with horror by the party of old Roman thought and manners, which was stubbornly opposed in mind to the Imperial rule, though it was powerless against it. They saw that the old Roman character was changed, and the old Roman ideals of life and government were destroyed, by the influx of provincial thoughts and manners. The Orontes was pouring its waters into the Tiber; Syrian and Greek vices were substituted for Roman virtues; and prominent among these vices were Judaism, Christianity, and other “debasing superstitions”

The new movement made marked progress in the vast Imperial household; and Paul, in sending to the Philippian Church the greetings of the Roman Christians, says, “All the saints salute you, especially they that are of Cæsar’s household ”. This is quite to be expected. The Imperial household was at the centre of affairs and in most intimate relations with all parts of the Empire; and in it influences from the provinces were most certain to be felt early. There can be no doubt that Lightfoot is right in considering that Christianity effected an entrance into Cæesar’s household before Paul entered Rome; in all probability he is right also in thinking that all the slaves of Aristobulus (son of Herod the Great) and of Narcissus (Claudius’s favourite freedman) had passed into the Imperial household, and that members of these two familiæ are saluted as Christians by Paul (Rom. XVI 10 f.).

3. SENECA AND PAUL.

The question has been much discussed what relation, if any, existed between Seneca and Paul at this time. A tradition existed in the fourth century that they had been brought into close relation. It is, however, exceedingly doubtful whether this tradition had any other foundation than the remarkable likeness that many of Seneca’s phrases and sentiments show to passages in the New Testament. But, however striking these extracts seem when collected and looked at apart from their context, I think that a careful consideration of them as they occur in the books, must bring every one to the conclusion advocated by Lightfoot, by Aubé, and by many others, that the likeness affords no proof that Seneca came into such relations with Paul as to be influenced in his sentiments by him: resemblances quite as striking occur in works written before Paul came Rome (according to the received, although not always absolutely certain, chronology of Seneca’s works), as in those written after. Nor was it among the professed philosophers that Paul was likely to be listened to: they considered that they knew all he had to say, and could quote from their own lectures a good moral precept to set alongside of anything he could tell them.

Yet there can be no doubt that some very striking parallels between Senecan and Pauline sayings occur; and this is true of Seneca to a greater extent than of any other non-Christian writer. It is possible that the philosophical school of Tarsus had exercised more influence on Paul than is commonly allowed; and it is certain that Seneca was influenced by Athenodorus of Tarsus. Lightfoot refers especially to the fact that both Paul and Seneca “compare life to a warfare, and describe the struggle after good as a contest with the flesh “. Seneca makes one long quotation from Athenodorus (de Clem., 4), and in it the idea that life is a warfare is worked out elaborately; and the saying (Ep. X), “So live with men, as if God saw you; so speak with God, as if men heard you,” occurs immediately after a quotation from Athenodorus,The owners of private merchant ships are distinguished as ἔμποροι from the captains, in a Delian inscription εἰς Βιθυνίαν ἔμποροι καὶ ναύκληροι, Bulletin de Corresp. Hellen. 1880, p. 222. and seems to be a reflection in Seneca’s words of Athenodorus’s intention. Athenodorus lived much in Rome, and died there in Cato’s house, 60–50 B.C.; but it is probable both that his system exercised great influence in the university of his own city, and that Paul’s expression and language may contain traces of his university training in Tarsus.

But though there is no reason to think that Seneca was influenced by Paul’s language or thoughts, yet there is every reason to think that the liberal policy of the Empire at this period in religion was due to Seneca’s broad views. It is certain that he had exercised very great influence on the Imperial policy, since his pupil Nero became Emperor in 54; and it is highly probable that the energy with which that policy was carried out in the East, and the generous freedom with which all religious questions were treated during that period, are due to Seneca’s spirit. He is perhaps the only distinguished politician of the first century who shows some of the wide views of Hadrian; and it is remarkable that both Seneca and Hadrian were sprung from Spain, being thus thoroughly Roman and yet absolutely free from the old narrow Roman spirit. It is clear that, in the later years of Nero’s reign, the Empire began to fall into dangerous disorganisation, while in his early years the government at home and abroad seems to have been remarkably successful; and it is not easy to account for the contrast, except by connecting the success with Seneca’s guiding spirit. Now, the tone which marks the relations of the State to Paul throughout the period described in Acts, is quite different from that which began in A.D. 64 and subsequently became intensified. Surely we can best account for the change by the disgrace and retirement of Seneca in 62: his spirit departed from the administration by rapid steps after that date. Circumstances had given him for a few years such influence as perhaps never again was exercised by a private citizen in the Empire. As a rule, the Emperors held the reins of government tight in their own hands, and allowed no subordinate to exert any influence on the general conduct of affairs; and there are many great Emperors, but only one great Minister under the Empire, Seneca.

The household of Seneca during his ascendancy was likely to be brought into close relations with the great movements that were agitating the Empire. It is therefore natural to expect that the new religion should affect it in some degree, as it did the Imperial household. Nor are we left to mere conjecture on this point. A remarkable inscription of somewhat later date has been found at Ostia, “M. Annaeus Paulus to M. Annaeus Paulus Petrus, his very dear son:” the name “Paul Peter” must be taken as an indubitable proof of religion. These persons possibly belong to a family of freed men connected with the household of Seneca; but, assuming that, it is no more admissible to quote this inscription as corroborating Seneca’s traditional subjection to Christianity, than it would be to quote the strong leaven of Christianity in Cæsar’s household in proof of Cæsar’s amenability to the same influence.

4. THE TRIAL.

It is doubtful why Paul’s trial was so long delayed. Perhaps his opponents, despairing of obtaining his condemnation, preferred to put off the trial as long as possible; and there were then, as there are now, many devices in law for causing delay. Perhaps the case was being inquired into by the Imperial Office: the trial had to take place before the Emperor or one of his representatives (probably one of the two Prefects of the Prætorian Guard). The whole question of free teaching of an oriental religion by a Roman citizen must have been opened up by the case; and it is quite possible that Paul’s previous proceedings were inquired into.

The trial seems to have occurred towards the end of A.D. 61 Its earliest stages were over before Paul wrote to the Philippians, for he says, I 12, “the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the progress of the Good News; so that my bonds became manifest in Christ in the whole Prætorium, and to all the rest; and that most of the Brethren in the Lord, being confident in my bonds, are more abundantly bold to speak the word of God without fear”. This passage has been generally misconceived and connected with the period of imprisonment; and here again we are indebted to Mommsen for the proper interpretation. The Prætorium is the whole body of persons connected with the sitting in judgment, the supreme Imperial Court, doubtless in this case the Prefect or both Prefects of the Prætorian Guard, representing the Emperor in his capacity as the fountain of justice, together with the assessors and high officers of the court. The expression of the chapter as a whole shows that the trial is partly finished, and the issue as yet is so favourable that the Brethren are emboldened by the success of Paul’s courageous and free-spoken defence and the strong impression which he evidently produced on the court; but he himself, being entirely occupied with the trial, is for the moment prevented from preaching as he had been doing when he wrote to the Colossians and the Asian Churches generally.

That Philippians was written near the end of the imprisonment has been widely recognised, though the powerful opposition of Lightfoot has carried away the general current of opinion in England. When Paul was writing to the Church at Philippi, his custom of sending his subordinates on missions had stripped him of companions; and so he says, “I have no man like-minded (with Timothy) who will show genuine care for your state, for they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ, but ye recognise his proved character” (Phil II 20 f.). It seems impossible to believe that Paul could have written like this, if he had had with him Tychicus, “faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord,” Aristarchus, Mark, and above all Luke. Yet, if anything is sure about that period, it is that Aristarchus and Luke had been with Paul from his arrival in Rome till after Coloss., Philem. and Eph. were written, while Tychicus probably joined him with Timothy in 60. On our supposition, Mark and Tychicus had already been sent on missions to Asia; Luke is either the “true yoke-fellow” addressed in Phil IV 3, or was actually the bearer of the letter to Philippi; Aristarchus also had been sent on a mission during the summer of 61; and Epaphras naturally had returned to the Lycos valley. There remained some friends with Paul (IV 21), probably Demas among them (Col. IV 14, Philem. 24); but he did not feel sure of their thorough trustworthiness, and his doubt about Demas was afterwards justified (II Tim. IV 10). Hence his eagerness to get back to the company of real and trusty friends (II 24 ff.).

Amid the general tone of hopefulness and confidence in Philippians, there are some touches of depression, which may be attributed to the absence of so many intimate friends, to the increased strain that the trial now proceeding must have put on his powers (p. 94 f.), and to the probable closer confinement necessitated by the trial, that he might always be accessible in case of need. There is more eagerness for the issue of the long proceedings manifest in Phil. than in the other letters from Rome; but it is part of human nature to be more patient when the end is still far off, and more excited and eager as the end approaches.

The letter to Philippi was not called forth by any dangerous crisis there, as were the letters to Colossai and to the Asian Churches generally (Eph.). Hence Col. and Eph. “exhibit a more advanced stage in the development of the Church” than Phil. Lightfoot and others are indubitably right in that point; but their inference that Phil. was written earlier than the others does not follow. The tone of Col. and Eph. is determined by the circumstances of the Churches addressed. The great cities of Asia were on the highway of the world, which traversed the Lycos valley, and in them development took place with great rapidity. But the Macedonians were a simple-minded people in comparison with Ephesus and Laodiceia and Colossai, living further away from the great movements of thought. It was not in Paul’s way to send to Philippi an elaborate treatise against a subtle speculative heresy, which had never affected that Church. His letter was called forth by the gifts which had been sent by the Philippians; it is a recognition of their thoughtful kindness; and hence it has a marked character, being “the noblest reflection of St. Paul’s personal character and spiritual illumination, his large sympathies, his womanly tenderness, his delicate courtesy” (to use once more the words of Lightfoot). It is plain that he did not actually need the help that the), now sent; but his gratitude is as warm and genuine as if he had been in deep need, and he recurs to the former occasions when his real poverty had been aided by them. The freedom from anxiety about the development at Philippi, and the hearty affection for kind friends, make this in many respects the most pleasing of all Paul’s letters.

Though prepared to face death if need be, Paul was comparatively confident of the issue when he wrote to Philippi: “I have the confident conviction that I shall remain and abide for you all to your progress and joy of believing,” and “I trust that I shall come to you shortly” That he was acquitted is demanded both by the plan evident in Acts (p. 308) and by other reasons well stated by others.

5. LAST TRIAL AND DEATH OF PAUL.

His later career is concealed from us, for the hints contained in the Pastoral Epistles hardly furnish even an outline of his travels, which must have lasted three or four years, 62–65 A.D. At his second trial the veil that hides his fate is raised for the moment. On that occasion the circumstances were very different from his first trial. His confinement was more rigorous, for Onesiphorus had to take much trouble before obtaining an interview with the prisoner (II Tim. I 17): “he fared ill as far as bonds, like a criminal” (II 9). He had no hope of acquittal: he recognised that he was “already being poured forth as an offering, and the time of his departure was come”. The gloom and hopelessness of the situation damped and dismayed all his friends: at his first hearing “all forsook” him; yet for the time he “was delivered out of the mouth of the lion”. In every respect the situation thus indicated is the opposite of the circumstances described on the first trial. Phil. occupies the same place in the first as II Tim. in the second trial; but Phil. looks forward to a fresh career among the Churches, while II Tim. is the testament of a dying man. In one respect, however, the second trial was like the first. Paul again defended himself in the same bold and outspoken way as before, expounding the principles of his life to a great audience, “that all the Gentiles might hear”.

Yet the circumstances of this second trial are totally different from that “short way with the dissenters” which was customary under Domitian and Trajan and later Emperors. After his first examination Paul could still write to Asia bidding Timothy and Mark come to him, which shows that he looked forward to a considerable interval before the next stage of his trial. He was charged as a malefactor, crimes had to be proved against him, and evidence brought; and the simple acknowledgment that he was a Christian was still far from sufficient to condemn him, as it was under Domitian. It is a plausible conjecture of Conybeare and Howson that the first hearing, on which he was acquitted and “delivered out of the lion’s mouth,” was on the charge of complicity and sympathy with the incendiaries, who had burned Rome in 64; and that charge was triumphantly disproved. The trial in that case did not occur until the first frenzy of terror and rage against the supposed incendiaries was over; and some other species of crime had to be laid to the account of the Christians charged before the courts. The second and fatal charge, heard later, was doubtless that of treason, shown by hostility to the established customs of society, and by weakening the Imperial authority.

If our conception of the trial is correct, the precedent of the first great trial still guided the courts of the empire (as we have elsewhere sought to prove). It had then been decided that the preaching of the new religion was not in itself a crime; and that legal offences must be proved against Christians as against any other subjects of the empire. That was the charter of freedom (p. 282) which was abrogated shortly after; and part of Luke’s design was, as we have seen (p. 307), to record the circumstances in which the charter had been obtained, as a protest against the Flavian policy, which had overturned a well-weighed decision of the supreme court.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHRONOLOGY OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY — 30–40 A.D.

1. THE STATE OF THE CHURCH IN A.D. 30.

The chronological difficulty has probably weighed with many, as it has with Lightfoot (Ed. Gal. p. 124), in rejecting the identification which we advocate of the visit in Acts XI with that in Gal. II 1-10. It is therefore necessary to glance briefly at the chronology of the early chapters of Acts, in order to show that there is no real difficulty for those who (like Lightfoot) date the Crucifixion in A.D. 30. Our identification, if proved, would make it certain that the Death of Christ cannot be dated so late as 33.

Luke’s historical method required him in the opening of his Second Book to give a full account of the first condition of the Church in Jerusalem, and then to concentrate attention on the critical steps and persons by whom the Universal Church was moulded to the form it had in his time.

In I, after a short preamble, connecting the narrative with the preceding book, he describes how the number of the Apostles was filled up. The organisation of the Church was always a subject of keen interest to Luke; he “evidently had the impression that the guidance of affairs rested with the Apostles in Jerusalem” (p. 53); and the appointment of this important official was in his estimation a matter of great moment. Peter took the lead; two were selected by common agreement and vote; and out of these the lot showed which was preferred by the Divine will.

In II 1-42 the events of Pentecost (May 26, A.D. 30), and the effect produced on the character of the converts, are described; and the general state and conduct of this primitive Church is summed up in II 43-47.

The second part of II 47, “the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved,” is one of those phrases in which Luke often hits off a long, steady, uniform process. It is to be taken as a general description of subsequent progress in Jerusalem, during the course of which occurred the events next related.

The space devoted by Luke to Pentecost shows that he considered the events of that day to be of the highest importance. On that day the Divine grace was given to the Apostles, qualifying them (p. 45) for the work which they were now required to perform since their Master had left them. Luke shows true historical insight in fixing the reader’s attention on Pentecost. For the permanence of a movement of this kind, much depends on the successors of the first leader; and the issue is determined in the period following the leader’s removal. Has the leader shown that electrical creative power that remoulds men and communicates his own spirit to his disciples, or will the movement be found leaderless and spiritless, when the originator is taken away? While the leader is with his disciples, they have little or no opportunity of showing independence and originality and capacity for command. When he is re moved from them, the first effect must be discouragement and a sense of emptiness, proportionate to the influence exerted by the leader. Then comes the real test, which determines the vitality and permanence of the movement. Has the spirit of the founder descended on his followers? With Luke, and with all the great leaders of the first century, that was the test of every new man and every new congregation: had the Spirit been granted to them?

In the second month after their leader was taken away, on the day of Pentecost, the test was fulfilled in the primitive Church; and the capacity of his disciples to carry on his work was shown. They became conscious of the power that had been given them, and their new power was recognised by the multitude in their words and in their looks. The same impression of a transformed and recreated nature was made on the elders and scribes, when they examined Peter and John (IV 13 f., see § 2).

By virtue of that Divine grace, “many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles,” v. 43, during the following time. But it is vital to Luke’s method not to rest contented with. that general statement, but to give one special, clear example of the power communicated to the Apostles and to the Church of which they were the leaders. It would be waste of time to regret that he passes over so much that we should like to know, and devotes so much space to a marvel that is to us a difficulty: our present aim is to understand the purpose of what he does say, not to long after what he omits.

The example is given in III; the subsequent events of the same day are narrated IV 1-4; and the following day is described IV 5-31, when Peter and John, in whom the proof of Divine grace had been shown forth. were examined before a meeting of “the rulers and eiders and scribes”. These are represented as realising now for the first time, v. 13, the change that had come over Peter and John, who from “unlearned and ignorant men” had been transformed into bold and eloquent preachers. Evidently. the historian conceives that this transformation, wrought at Pentecost, was now beginning to be generally felt; and therefore he is still (as we have said) describing the immediate issue of Pentecost. Thereafter comes a second general statement of the state and character of the primitive Church, startlingly similar to II 43-47.

Thus the whole passage II 43-IV 35 hangs very closely together, and describes the Church in the period immediately succeeding May 26, A.D. 30. Two episodes of this period, exemplifying the conduct of the true and the false convert, are described IV 36-V 11; and then comes a third general description of the state of the Church in this period V 12-16, followed by a statement of the attempt made by the Jewish leaders to coerce the Apostles into silence V 17-41.

That at least two accounts by two different authorities underlie Luke’s narrative, and have been worked up by him with little change, seems clear. It is, of course, obvious that he was entirely dependent for this period of his history on the authority of other persons; and we see in the Third Gospel how much he was influenced by the very language of his authorities, and how little change he made on their words.Thus the particle μὲν οὐν, so common in Acts, occurs only once in the Third Gospel, in a passage peculiar to Luke III 18. In XXII 56 he added the little touch ἀτενίσασα to the narrative as used by Matthew and Mark, see p. 39.

2. TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE NARRATIVE.

Acts I-V. It is obvious that the trustworthiness of this part of Acts stands on quite a different footing from that of the Pauline narrative, which we have hitherto discussed. The author had means of knowing the later events with perfect accuracy (so far as perfection can be attained in history); but the means which helped him there fail in I-V, and the scene and surroundings were to him strange and remote (p. 19 f.). He was here dependent entirely on others, and it was more difficult for him to control and make himself master of the evolution of events. We discern the same guiding hand and mind, the same clear historical insight seizing the great and critical steps, in the early chapters, as in the later; but the description of the primitive Church wants precision in the outline and colour in the details. It seems clear that the authorities on which Luke depended were not equally good; and here second-rate incidents are admitted along with first-rate in a way that has done his reputation serious injury in the estimation of those who begin to study Acts from this, its necessarily weakest part. One or two examples will bring out our meaning. First we take an incident related also by Matthew.

There can be no hesitation in accepting the vivid and detailed description which Matthew gives of this incident. But, if so, the account given in Acts cannot be accepted as having any claim to trustworthiness in any point of discrepancy. The character of this account is marked, and its origin obvious. It is a growth of popular fancy and tradition, which preserved the main facts, viz., the connection between the name, Field of Blood, and the price paid to the betrayer. But it is characteristic of popular tradition, while it preserves some central fact, to overlay it with fanciful accretions, which often conceal completely the historical kernel. In this case, we have the tale arrested at an early point in its growth, when its elements are still separable. The name Field of Blood had to be explained suitably to the remembered fact that it was bought with the betrayer’s reward; but its meaning was mistaken. Popular fancy always craves for justice; it connected the name with the betrayer’s punishment, took the Blood, which formed one element of the name, as the betrayer’s blood, and evolved a myth which united fact and retributory justice in a moral apologue.

It is a remarkable thing that popular tradition should so soon distort a tale so simple and so impressive. But oriental tradition never clings to fact with anything like the same tenacity as Greek tradition; and we know how much even the latter distorts and covers over the facts that it preserves. The oriental mind has little or nothing of the proper historical tone. It remembers facts, not for their own value, but for the lesson they can convey. It substitutes the moral apologue for history in the strict sense of the term, craving for the former, and possessing little regard for the latter. It acts with great rapidity, transforming the memory of the past within the lapse of a few years; and probably those who know the East best will find least difficulty in believing that the stow which Luke here gives might have been told him, when the Field of Blood was pointed out to him at Jerusalem in 57 A.D.

But in this rapid transformation of fact in Eastern popular tradition lies the best safeguard of the historical student against it. He rarely needs to doubt, as he often must in Greece, whether any narrative is history or mere popular tradition. Greek tradition often has such a natural appearance that it is hard to say where fact ends and fancy begins. But oriental tradition is so free in its creation, so unfettered by any thought of suitability in the accessories, that it is marked off from history by a broad and deep gap. By history we mean narrative rounded on documents that are nearly contemporary with the actual facts, or on the accounts of eye-witnesses, not implying that “history” must be absolutely true. To give a true account even of a single incident that one has actually participated in is not within the power of all, for it needs education, skill in selection, and an eye to distinguish the relative importance of different points. To give a true account of a long series of incidents is, of course, much more difficult. No history is absolutely true; all give accounts that are more or less distorted pictures of fact. But the conception of history as an attempt to represent facts in correct perspective, even when it is poorly and feebly carried out, is a great and sacred possession, which we owe to the Greeks; and is a generically different thing from popular tradition, which aims either at the moral apologue, or the glow of an individual or a family, and regards faithfulness to actual facts as quite a secondary thing.

The episode of Ananias and Sapphira V 1 f. excites reasonable suspicion. That Ananias should be carried forth and buried unknown to his family, unmourned by his kindred and friends, is not merely contrary to right conduct, but violates the deepest feelings of oriental life. That a man should be properly lamented and wept for by his family is and has always been a sacred right, which even crime does not forfeit. But the desire to bring into strong relief the unselfishness of the primitive Church has worked itself out in a moral apologue, which has found here an entrance alongside of real history.

Again in II 5-11 another popular tale seems to obtrude itself. In these verses the power of speaking with tongues, which is clearly described by Paul as a species of prophesying (I Cor. XII 10 f., XIV 1 f.), is taken in the sense of speaking in many languages. Here again we observe the distorting influence of popular fancy. Yet alongside of these suspicious stories we find passages which show strongly the characteristic method of Luke; and the entire plan of the narrative, concentrating attention on the successive critical steps, is thoroughly Lukan. We take one example of a Lukan passage.

The incident in IV 13 f. is especially characteristic of Luke’s style; and it has been widely misunderstood. Zeller, Holtzmann, Meyer-Wendt and others, understand these verses to mean that the members of the Sanhedrim became aware only during the trial that Peter and John had been disciples of Jesus: which, as they justly point out, is most unnatural and unsuitable. But the force of the passage seems to be very different: the Jewish leaders perceived the bold and fluent speech of Peter and John, and yet they observed from their dress and style of utterance that they were not trained scholars; and they marvelled (for there was then probably an even more marked distinction than at the present day between the speech and thought of a fisherman or shepherd and of an educated person); and they further took cognisance of the fact that they were disciples of Jesus; and they gazed on the man that had been cured standing along with his preservers. These were the facts of the case: all were undeniable; and all were vividly brought before them. What conclusion could be drawn from them? The historian’s point is that there was only one possible inference; and, as the Jewish leaders were unwilling to draw that inference, they perforce kept silence, not having wherewithal to dispute the obvious conclusion.

Here, as usual, the historian does not himself draw the inference; but merely states the main facts, and leaves them to tell their own tale. But in no passage does he state the facts in more dramatic form. The conclusion lies close at hand, rig., that these illiterate fishermen had acquired the art and power of effective oratory through their having been the disciples of Jesus, and through the Divine grace and power communicated to them.

We notice also that John’s speech has not previously been mentioned, yet now it is assumed that he had spoken. This is characteristic of the writer’s style, as we have seen it in the second part of the work. It is evident that Peter’s single speech did not exhaust the proceedings at the trial; but Luke assumes that the reader conceives the general situation and the style of procedure in such trials; and he quotes the most telling utterance, and leaves the rest to the reader’s imagination.

We are struck with the marked difference of Acts I-V, not merely from the later chapters, but also from Luke’s First Book, the Gospel. In composing his Book I, he had formal works of a historical kind to use for his authorities (Luke I 1); and he followed them very closely, not giving scope to his own method of narration or of grouping. But these formal works seem all to have ended either with the death or the ascension of the Saviour; and the most obscure and difficult period for a historian writing about 80–85 A.D. was the time that immediately succeeded the death of Jesus. Luke was dependent here on informal narratives, and on oral tradition; and, if we be right in our view that he did not live to put the last touches to his work, we may fairly suppose that the most difficult period was left the least perfect part of the whole. But we must content ourselves here with this slight indication of a view that would require much minute argument to state properly. There is a marked resemblance between I-V and XIX. In both, episodes that savour of popular fancy stand side by side with Lukan work of the best kind.

3. APPOINTMENT OF STEPHEN AND THE SEVEN.

The first distinct step in development from the primitive condition of the Church, when it was a mere small and almost unorganised community, was due to the pressure of poverty. In Jerusalem very poor Jews were numerous, and many of them had become Christian. Hence from the beginning the Church had to contend against a chronic state of want among its adherents. Probably we are apt to find a more communistic sense than Luke intended in II 44, IV 32; for II 4, IV 35 indicate judicious charity, and even the action of Barnabas in IV 37 looks more like charity than communism:The story of Ananias points more to communism. Yet even here Peter’s speech regards the act of a purely voluntary one, though V 2 seems to represent it a duty. he and others sold their possessions and gave the money in trust to the Apostles for the good of the Church. In later years, as the Church spread, the pressure of need in Jerusalem acted as a bond to unite the scattered congregations in active ministration (pp. 49 f., 288); and at the beginning it stimulated the primitive Church to originate a better organisation.

The difficulties in which the Church was placed, which would have killed a weakly life, only stimulated its vigour and its creative energy. This creative vitality is to the historian the most interesting side of the early Church; it was free from dead conservatism; it combined the most perfect reverence for its earliest form with the most perfect freedom to adapt that form to new exigencies; it did not stifle growth on the plea that it must remain exactly as it was. It was growing so rapidly that it burst through its earliest forms, before they could acquire any binding force, or fix themselves in the prejudices of its members. This free untrammeled expansion was the law of its life, and the Divine reality of its being. In later times, on the contrary, many of its adherents have maintained that its Divine life lies in its preserving unchanged from the beginning the form that was prescribed for it. Thus the view taken in Acts is that the Church’s Divine character lies in the free unceasing growth of its form and institutions; but the common view of later times has been that its Divine character lies in the permanence and unchangeability of its form from the beginning onwards.

At first Luke represents the superintendence and distribution of these charities as undertaken solely by the Apostles, who soon found that “it was not meet that they should forsake preaching and perform the ministration at tables” (VI 2). Moreover, in the pressure of claims and accumulation of duties, complaint was made that the widows among the Hellenist Jews were neglected in favour of the native Hebrews. It was therefore arranged that a new class of officers should be instituted,—for whom no name is here given, but who were the origin out of which the “Deacons” of the developed Church arose.

It is a remarkable fact that the Elders are not mentioned here; and this is one of the points which show Luke’s want of proper authorities about the primitive Church. When we come to a period, where his information was good, we find the Elders prominent, and specially in practical business matters (pp. 52, 166, 171); and there can be no doubt that this characteristic Jewish institution existed as a matter of course in the primitive Church. The superintendence of relief measures was recognised as peculiarly their province (XI 30). It seems clear that in the memory of tradition the Apostles had survived alone as being the far more prominent figures, while the first Elders had been almost forgotten.

The new officers are here termed simply “Seven Men in charge of this duty” (i.e., septem viri mensis ordinandis). It would be easy to find Jewish analogies that would explain the original idea; but it would not be easy to find any Jewish analogy to explain the vitality and adaptability of the institution. We must turn to Roman organising methods to find anything that will explain the importance and lasting effect of this step. Roman ideas were in the air; and the vigorous life of the Church was shown in its power of seizing and adapting to its own purposes all that was strong and serviceable in the world. It suited itself to its surroundings, and used the existing political facts and ideas, “learning from the surrounding world everything that was valuable in it” (p. 149).

The Seven who were appointed bear purely Greek names; and one was not a Jew, but a proselyte of Antioch. There can, therefore, be no doubt that a distinct step towards the Universalised Church was here made; it was already recognised that the Church was wider than the pure Jewish race; and the non-Jewish element was raised to official rank. Nikolaos was a proselyte of the higher and completer type (p. 43); and his case was therefore quite different in character from that of Cornelius (p. 42 f.), who was only God-fearing. In the conferring of office on Nikolaos a distinct step was made; but it was quite in accordance with the principle of the extreme Judaistic party in the Church (p. 157). The case of Cornelius was a second and more serious step.

The consequences of this first step in advance were soon apparent. The wider sympathies and wider outlook of Hellenistic Jews quickened the life of the young community; and Stephen, especially, was conspicuous for the boldness with which he advocated the faith and opposed the narrowness of Judaism, saying, as his accusers alleged, “that this Jesus or Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered unto us “. Even though this is a perversion of Stephen’s meaning, yet the form implies that Stephen had advanced beyond the previous position of the Apostles as regards their relation to Judaism.

The critical point in chronology is to determine the date or Stephen’s accusation and martyrdom. Luke gives us no clear evidence as to the length of the two periods that he describes, viz., (1) between Pentecost and the election of the Seven, (2) between the election and the death of Stephen. The latest date which our view leaves open is A.D. 33, for Paul’s conversion followed shortly after Stephen’s death, and in the fourteenth year after his conversion he visited Jerusalem for the second time, probably in 46 (though 45 is not absolutely excluded, pp. 51, 68). Can we suppose that the necessity for the admission of the Hellenistic Jews to official rank was felt already in A.D. 32, and that Stephen’s brief career ended in 33? The space of two years has seemed sufficient to many scholars; some have been content with one. The difficulties which the primitive Church had to meet by appointing the Seven faced it from the first; and that step was probably forced on it very soon. The wider spirit shown in the selection of the Seven was likely to cause an early collision with Jewish jealousy; and the party which had cut off Jesus was not likely to suffer His followers to increase so rapidly without an effort to stop the movement. Now the persecution that caused and followed Stephen’s death was the first attempt at coercion; the actions described in IV 5 f. and V 17 f. were mere warnings and threats, which naturally resulted soon in active measures. We cannot easily believe that repressive measures were delayed more than two or three years at the utmost; we should rather have expected them even sooner. It is therefore quite fair to date Stephen’s death about two and a half or three years after the great Pentecost.

4. PHILIP THE EVANGELIST AND PETER.

After the death of Stephen, the history widens, and several threads appear in it. The foundation of a series of Churches over Judea and Samaria is first described; and the author’s attention is directed chiefly on three steps in the progress towards the Universalised Church, the foundation of an extra-Judean Church in the city of Samaria, and the admission of an EthiopianHe was evidently a proselyte (VIII 27), like Nikolaos. and of a Roman centurion as Christians. These steps are connected with the names of Philip and Peter. The institution of a series of Churches in Palestine, a process which must have occupied a long time, is briefly but clearly indicated in VIII 40, IX 31-35, 42f; but Luke’s personal interest in the expansion of a still purely Judaic Church was not great. Yet the episodes of Æneas and Dorcas, IX 33-42, show that, though the details seemed to Luke not required for his purpose, the spread of the Church over Palestine was conceived by him as an important step in history. These episodes are introduced, because they proved that the Divine power worked in the process whereby the Church of Jerusalem expanded into the Church of all Palestine. In the utter absence of statement as to Luke’s authority for the two episodes, they cannot be placed by the historian on a higher level than general belief. It is remarkable that we have no knowledge whether Luke ever met Peter. The want of any reference to Peter in XXI 18 must, in our view, be taken as a proof that he was not in Jerusalem at the time.

In the midst of the narrative describing this expansion is interposed an account of Saul’s life during the three years 33–5;We shall speak of 33 as the date of Stephen’s death and Paul’s conversion, acknowledging, however, that perhaps 32 is the proper year. and this arrangement is obviously intended to bring out the long period over which that process of expansion was spread. According to our theory it continued from A.D. 33 until it was checked to some extent by the development of the Pauline idea and the jealousy roused thereby among almost all Jews except the great and leading minds, which were able to rise more or less completely above it. Then came the supreme catastrophe of the great war, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the suppression of “the Nation” of the Jews.

The expansion of the Church beyond Palestine is first alluded to in XI 19, where the dispersion of missionaries over Phœnice, Cyprus, and Syria is mentioned (Ch. III, § 1). It is remarkable that Luke never alludes to the development of the Church towards the south or east. Yet the dispersion that followed Stephen’s death must have radiated in all directions; and II 7-11, and VIII 27 f., lead naturally to some general spread of the new teaching in all directions. It is obvious that Luke has not made it his object to write the history of the whole expansion of the Church; but selected the facts that bore on a narrower theme, viz., the steps by which the Church of Jerusalem grew into the Church of the Empire, and the position of the Church in the Empire. Egypt, Ethiopia, and the East and South are therefore excluded from his narrative.

5. PAUL IN JUDEA AND ARABIA.

The introduction of Paul is connected with the death of Stephen: he was then a young man, and probably was entering for the first time on public life. At this point the subjective touch in VIII 1, “Saul was consenting unto his death,” is a clear indication that Luke’s authority was Paul himself. The phrase is a confession of inward feeling, not a historian’s account of action; and the words are Paul’s own (XXII 20). A dramatic touch like this is, on our theory, deliberately calculated. Luke intends to set before his readers the scene at Cæsareia, where Philip narrated the story of Stephen and of his own early work, and Paul interposed the agonised confession of VIII 1 The narrative from VI 9 to VIII 39 probably reproduces Philip’s words very closely; while Luke has inserted touches, as VII 58, VIII 1, and adapted the whole to his plan.The enumeration of synagogues in VI 9, which does not agree with Luke’s manner, was perhaps noted down verbatim (Expositor, July 1895, p. 35).

The slight variations in the three accounts of Paul’s conversion do not seem to be of any consequence. Luke did not seek to modify Paul’s speeches in order to produce verbal conformity with the account which seemed to him to represent the facts fairly; but the spirit and tone and the essential facts are the same, IX 3-18, XXII 6-16, XXVI 12-18.

Two difficulties, however, deserve notice in the account of Paul’s conduct during the first years after his conversion. In the first place, why does Luke say nothing about Paul’s journey into Arabia? But we have no authority for believing that the journey was of such importance as to require a place in this history, for Luke does not enumerate all the influences that moulded Paul’s development. Paul’s reference to the incident (Gal. I 17) is clear and complete in itself, if it was not a serious journey, but a small episode in his private life. “When it pleased God to call me to the work of my life, so far was I from needing counsel or instruction from Jerusalem, that I retired into Arabia, and came back again to Damascus.” Damascus was at the time subject to the King of Arabia Petræa; and the natural interpretation is that a person describing incidents of his experience in Damascus means by Arabia the adjacent country on the east. Had this excursion been an important step in the development of Paul’s thought (as Lightfoot inclines to think, when he sees in it a sojourn on Mount Sinai after the style of Moses), Luke might be expected to mention it and show how much underlies Paul’s words; but, as he does not mention it, the fair inference is that there was no more in it than Paul says explicitly.

Moreover, Luke divides Paul’s stay in Damascus into two periods, a few days residence with the disciples IX 19, and a long period of preaching 20-23. The quiet residence in the country for a time, recovering from the serious and prostrating effect of his conversion (for a man’s life is not suddenly reversed without serious claim on his physical power), is the dividing fact between the two periods. The division is certainly very awkwardly and insufficiently indicated; but Luke everywhere shows similar weakness in indicating the temporal relations of events.

In the second place, the accounts of Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem, in the third year after his conversion, are obscure. In Gal. I 18 f. Paul says he went up to see Peter (evidently regarding him as the leading spirit in the development of the Church), and saw no other Apostle, except James the Lord’s brother. But in Acts IX 28 f. “he was with the Apostles going in and going out at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spake and disputed against the Grecian Jews; but they went about to kill him.” In weighing this account we must bear in mind Luke’s intention: he conceived the Apostles as the permanent governing body in Jerusalem (p. 53), and they dwarfed in his estimation any other administrative body in the primitive Church (p. 374). Here, therefore, he speaks loosely of “the Apostles,” meaning the governing body of the Church, without implying that they were all present in Jerusalem. It was one of his objects to insist on the agreement between Paul and the leaders of the Church; and he distinctly had, and communicates, the impression that the opposition of the extreme Judaistic party to Paul was factious, and was condemned by the leaders. It therefore seemed important to him to emphasise the harmony between Paul and the Jewish leaders at this first visit; and, though most of the Apostles were absent, yet the two real leaders were present. We certainly should not naturally infer from Luke’s words that the visit lasted only fifteen days; but there is no real difficulty in supposing that Paul’s life was at this time in danger from the first. He had deserted his former friends, and they would feel towards him the hatred that always pursues a deserter.

On the other hand, XXVI 20 is distinctly in contradiction with all other authorities; but, as Dr. Blass points out, the Greek is solecistic, and his altered reading, “in every land to both Jews and Gentiles,” seems to me to carry conviction with it.πᾶσάν τε τὴν χώραν τῆς Ἰουδαίας is not Lukan, and hardly Greek, read εἰς πᾶσαν χώραν Ἰουδαίοις τε.

The difficulty with regard to the interval between Paul’s first and second visit to Jerusalem (which we consider to have been only eleven years, whereas many take it as fourteen, Gal. II 1) disappears when we take the Greek in its real sense. Paul says to the Galatians, “Then, in the third year,“After three years” misrepresents the meaning. I went up to Jerusalem... then, when the fourteenth year was ending “. The two reckonings go together, and are estimated from the same starting-point.

CHAPTER XVII.

COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS.

1. HYPOTHESIS OF “THE TRAVEL DOCUMENT”.

We have seen that Luke represents himself as having been an eye-witness of some of the incidents which he describes; and we have inferred, from the pointed way in which he does this, that he was not an eye-witness of the rest. In the parts where he had no personal knowledge his trustworthiness depends on his authority in each case. In a former work I have tried to show that there lies behind the narrative of Paul’s journeys a document originating “from a person acquainted with the actual circumstances,” and therefore “composed under St. Paul’s own influence”. I was careful “to express his influence in the most general terms, and to avoid any theorising about the way in which it was exercised”; and I purposely left the question untouched whether the “Travel-Document” was composed by the author of Acts or by a different person; for my object then was to show that the document was a trustworthy record of facts, to avoid constructing a system, to investigate each fact independently on its own evidence, and to give no opening to the criticism that I was twisting the evidence at any point in order to suit an idea derived from elsewhere.

In the present work the reasons on which the supposition of a “Travel-Document” was rounded are much strengthened; and we must now put the question in a more precise form. What is the relation between the “Travel-Document” and the completed text of Acts? To this the answer must be that the “Travel Document” was Luke’s own written notes (supplemented by memory, and the education of further experience and reading and research). His diary, where he was an eye-witness, and his notes of conversation with Paul, and doubtless others also, were worked into the book of Acts suitably to the carefully arranged plan on which it is constructed. We have found traces of deep and strong emotion which must be understood as Paul’s own feeling: the technical term for making a missionary progress through a districtItinerating is the modern equivalent, I am told. is used only by Paul (I Cor. XVI 5) and by Luke in describing Paul’s work; XIII 6, XIV 24, XV 3, 41, XVI 6, XVIII 23, XIX 1, 21, XX 2. while in describing the precisely similar work of other missionaries, he uses a different and a more usual Greek construction. VIII 4, 40, XI 19, IX 32, Luke IX 6. This line of investigation might be carried much further so as to show that Luke everywhere follows with minute care the best authority accessible to him; and in Acts especially Paul and Philip. As we have seen, Ch. XVI, § 2, the period in which he found greatest difficulty was that which intervened between the conclusion of his formal historical authorities for the life of the Saviour, and the beginning of the careful narratives which he had noted down from Paul and Philip about their own personal experiences.

One episode, which bears all the marks of vivid personal witness, comes under neither of these categories, viz., the story of Peter’s imprisonment and escape, XII. Here some other authority was used; and the narrative suggests distinctly that the authority was not Peter himself, but one of those in the house of Mary. John Mark, who is pointedly mentioned as being in Jerusalem, XII 25, and who was afterwards with Luke and Paul in Rome, was almost certainly (v. 12) the ultimate authority here.

Luke added to these authorities an obvious acquaintance with Paul’s own letters. He rarely states anything that is recorded in them; he assumes them as known; and he makes it one of his objects to set them in a clearer light.

The whole of his materials he used with the true historical sense for the comparative importance of events and for the critical steps in a great movement, and also with a wide and careful study of the general history of the contemporary world (i.e., the Roman Empire). The research which Luke applied in the execution of his work is shown with especial clearness in the chronological calculations which he introduced in Book I (similar to those which he would probably have added in Book II, see p. 23). These calculations deserve fresh study with a view to estimate the work which the author has compressed into them. The accuracy of one of them (viz., the statement about Philip in Luke III 1) I have defended elsewhere, and, as I believe, on grounds which would carry conviction to every one, were it not that they are inconsistent with the dominant North-Galatian theory. Again the census (Luke II 1) under Quirinius is pointedly called the first, implying that it was the first of a series of census. A census is known to have been made in Syria by Quirinius in his second government, about 6 A.D., which suggests that they were perhaps decennial. We have no other evidence as to a census in 5–4 B.C.; but when we consider how purely accidental is the evidenceAn inscription found in Venice is the sole authority. As the stone was lost, the inscription was pronounced a forgery, apparently for no reason except that it mentioned Quirinius’s census. Even Mommsen refused to admit it as genuine, until, fortunately, part of the stone was rediscovered. for the second census, the want of evidence for the first seems to constitute no argument against the trustworthiness of Luke’s statement. It is certain that the dependent kingdoms paid tribute to Rome exactly as if they had been part of the Empire; and it is in perfect accord with the methodical character of Augustus’s administration that he should order such census to be made regularly throughout “the whole world”. Incidentally we observe in this phrase that Luke’s view is absolutely confined to the Roman Empire, which to him is “the world”. Luke investigated the history of this series of census.

2. DATE OF THE COMPOSITION OF ACTS.

The elaborate series of synchronisms by which Luke dates the coming of John the Baptist are especially remarkable; and it is to them we turn for evidence as to the date of composition. On our view the Crucifixion took place at the Passover of A.D. 30, the fourth Passover in the public career of Jesus. Now John was six months older than Jesus; and his career began in his thirtieth year, a little before the coming of Jesus. Thus we reach the conclusion that the synchronisms of Luke III 1, 2, are calculated for the summer (say July) of A.D. 26; and he calls this year the fifteenth of the reign of Tiberius, implying that he reckoned his reign to begin A.D. 12, when Tiberius was associated by Augustus in the Empire. But such a method of reckoning the reign of Tiberius was unknown. According to Roman reckoning, Tiberius, in July A.D. 26, was either in his twelfth year (reckoning from the death of his predecessor) or in his twenty-eighth year (reckoning his tenure of the tribunician power). No other way of reckoning his reign was ever employed by Romans. How then could Luke speak of his fifteenth year? There can hardly be any other reason than that the calculation was made under an Emperor whose years were reckoned from his association as colleague; so that Luke, being familiar with that method, applied it to the case of Tiberius. Now that was the case with Titus. His reign began from his association with his father on 1st July A.D. 71.

We thus get a clue, though in itself an uncertain one, to suggest the date when Luke was at work. His chronological calculations were probably inserted as the finishing touches of Book I (p. 23), while Titus was reigning as sole Emperor, 79–81 A.D.; and the composition of that book belongs to the years immediately preceding, while the composition of Book II belongs to the years immediately following. This argument, taken by itself, would be insufficient; but it is confirmed by the impression which the book as a whole makes. Acts could not have been written so late as Trajan, when long persecution had altered the tone and feeling of the Church towards the State. It is the work of a man whose mind has been moulded in a more peaceful time. and who has not passed through a time like the reign of Domitian (p. 22). On the other hand, its tone is not that of assured conviction about the relation to the State, such as we observe in Paul’s Epistles. It is the tone of one who seeks to prove a position that is doubtful and assailed, but still of one who believes that it may be proved. As we have seen, there runs through the entire work a purpose which could hardly have been conceived before the State had begun to persecute on political grounds. So long as Christians were proceeded against merely on the ground of crimes, which the accuser sought to prove by evidence (as was the case with Paul, p. 360), there was no necessity to establish that Christianity was legal. Defence then consisted in disproving the specific crimes charged against the individual Christian; but, after the Flavian policy had declared Christianity illegal and proscribed the Name, the first necessity for defence was to claim legal right.

3. THEOPHILUS.

It has an important bearing on Luke’s attitude towards the Roman State that his work is addressed to a Roman officer,The epithet κράτιστος is technical and distinctive, and not a mere usitata appellatio hominum dignitate prœstantium as even Blass takes it, on Acts XXIII 26. Luke uses it strictly here and in XXIV 3, XXVI 25, implying equestrian rank. Some Greeks were not so accurate as Luke. who had become a Christian. We may safely say that in the first century a Roman official would hardly bear the name Theophilus; and therefore it must be a name given to him at baptism, and used or known only among the Christians. The fact that his public name is avoided, and only the baptismal name used, favours the supposition (though not absolutely demanding it) that it was dangerous for a Roman of rank to be recognised as a Christian. In the narrative of Acts there is not the slightest trace of private or baptismal names. These seem to have been adopted under the pressure of necessity and from the desire for concealment. Thus the very dedication of the work points to a developed state of the relations between Church and State, and carries us down to the time of Domitian.

4. THE FAMILY OF LUKE.

We have made it an object to collect the scanty traces of Luke’s personality that remain in Acts; and we may therefore conclude our task by referring to the tradition about his birthplace. The later tradition, as it appears in Jerome, Euthalius, etc., declares that Luke was an Antiochian,Αντιοχεὺς γὰρ οὐτος ὑπάρχων τὸ γένος, Euthalius in Migne, Patr. Gr. vol. 85, p 85, p. 633. Lucas medicus Antiochensis Jerome, Vir. Ill. but it is practically certain that the authority for all the later statements is Eusebius. Eusebius, however, does not say that Luke was an Antiochian; he merely speaks of him as “being according to birth of those from Antioch”.Λουκας δὲ τό μὲν γένος ὠν των ἀπ Αντιοχείας, Hist. Eccles. III 4. This curious and awkward expression is obviously chosen in order to avoid the statement that Luke was an Antiochian; and it amounts to an assertion that Luke was not an Antiochian, but belonged to a family that had a connection with Antioch. Eusebius therefore had access to a more detailed and distinct tradition, which he reproduces in this brief form. The older tradition must have told that Luke had a family connection with Antioch; and Eusebius carefully restricts himself to that statement; but the tradition probably set forth the exact connection, and it is perhaps allowable to conclude our study with a conjecture.

Antioch, as a Seleucid foundation, had almost certainly a Macedonian element in its population. It is now well established that the military strength of the Seleucid colonies lay usually in a contingent of Macedonians; and a considerable number of Seleucid cities style themselves Macedones on coins or inscriptions. It is quite probable that intercourse and connection may have been maintained between the Macedonian element in Antioch and their original home; and migrations to and fro are likely to have occurred between Macedonia and Antioch in the constant and easy intercourse of the centuries following the foundation. Thus it may very well have happened that Luke was a relative of one of the early Antiochian Christians; and this relationship was perhaps the authority for Eusebius’s carefully guarded statement. Further, it is possible that this relationship gives the explanation of the omission of Titus from Acts, an omission which every one finds it so difficultWe cannot agree with Lightfoot, who solves the difficulty by denying that Titus was important enough to deserve mention in Acts (Biblical Essays, p. 281). to understand. Perhaps Titus was the relative of Luke; and Eusebius found this statement in an old tradition, attached to II Cor. VIII 18, XII 18, where Titus and Luke (the latter not named by Paul, but identified by an early tradition) are associated as envoys to Corinth. Luke, as we may suppose, thought it right to omit his relative’s name, as he did his own name, from his history. There is not sufficient evidence to justify an opinion; but this conjecture brings together an enigmatic expression in Eusebius and a serious difficulty in Acts, and finds in each a satisfactory solution of the other.

III. CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX TO THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL

Indexes