HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH

 

 

CHAPTER V.

 

ST. PAUL AND THE CONVERSION OF THE GENTILES.

 

cavriti qeou' eivmi; o{ eijmi, kai; hJ cavri" auvtou' hJ eij" ejme; ouj kenh; ejgenhvqÀh, ajlla; perissovteron aujtw'n pavntwn ejkopivasa, ojuk ejgw; de;, ajlla; hJ cavri" tou' qeou' su;n ejmoiv.—1 Cor. 15:10.

 

Cristo;"  jIhsou'" h\lqen eij" to;n kovsmon aJmartwlou;" sw'sai, w}n prw'tov" eijmi ejgwv.—1 Tim. 1:15.

 

"Paul’s mind was naturally and perfectly adapted to take up into itself and to develop the free, universal, and absolute principle of Christianity."—Dr. Baur (Paul, II. 281, English translation).

 

"Did St. Paul’s life end with his own life?  May we not rather believe that in a sense higher than Chrysostom ever dreamt of [when he gave him the glorious name of ’the Heart of the world’], the pulses of that mighty heart are still the pulses of the world’s life, still beat in these later ages with even greater force than ever?"—Dean Stanley (Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age. p. 166).

 

 § 29. Sources and Literature on St. Paul and his Work.

 

I. Sources.

 

1. The authentic sources:

The Epistles of Paul, and the Acts of the Apostles 9:1–30 and 13 to 28. Of the Epistles of Paul the four most important Galatians, Romans, two Corinthians—are universally acknowledged as genuine even by the most exacting critics; the Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians are admitted by nearly all critics; the Pastoral Epistles, especially First Timothy, and Titus, are more or less disputed, but even they bear the stamp of Paul’s genius.

On the coincidences between the Acts and the Epistles see the section on the Acts. Comp. also § 22, pp. 213 sqq.

 

2. The legendary and apocryphal sources:

Acta Pauli et Theclae, edition in Greek by E. Grabe (from a Bodleian MS. in Spicileg. SS. PP., Oxon. 1698, tom. I. pp. 95–128; republished by Jones, 1726), and by Tischendorf (from three Paris MSS, in Acta Apost. Apocrypha, Lips. 1851); in Syriac, with an English version by W. Wright (in Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, Lond. 1871); Engl. transl. by Alex. Walker (in Clark’s "Ante-Nicene Christian Library," vol. XVI. 279 sqq.). Comp. C. Schlau: Die Acten des Paulus und der Thecla und die ältere Thecla-Legende, Leipz. 1877.

The Acts of Paul and Thecla strongly advocate celibacy. They are probably of Gnostic origin and based on some local tradition. They were originally written, according to Tertullian (De Bapt. cap. 17, comp. Jerome, Catal. cap. 7), by a presbyter in Asia "out of love to Paul," and in support of the heretical opinion that women have the right to preach and to baptize after the example of Thecla; hence the author was deposed. The book was afterwards purged of its most obnoxious features and extensively used in the Catholic church. (See the patristic quotations in Tischendorf’s Prolegomena, p. xxiv.) Thecla is represented as a noble virgin of Iconium, in Lycaonia, who was betrothed to Thamyris, converted by Paul in her seventeenth year, consecrated herself to perpetual virginity, was persecuted, carried to the stake, and thrown before wild beasts, but miraculously delivered, and died 90 years old at Seleucia. In the Greek church she is celebrated as the first female martyr. Paul is described at the beginning of this book (Tischend. p. 41) as "little in stature, bald-headed, bow-legged, well-built (or vigorous), with knitted eye-brows, rather long-nosed, full of grace, appearing now as a man, and now having the face of an angel." From this description Renan has borrowed in part his fancy-sketch of Paul’s personal appearance.

Acta Pauli (Pravxei" Pauvlou¼, used by Origen and ranked by Eusebiu" with the Antilegomena »or novqa rather). They are, like the Acta Petri (Pravxei", or Perivodoi Pevtrou), a Gnostic reconstruction of the canonical Acts and ascribed to the authorship of St. Linus. Preserved only in fragments.

Acta Petri et Pauli. A Catholic adaptation of an Ebionite work. The Greek and Latin text was published first in a complete form by Thilo, Halle, 1837-’38, the Greek by Tischendorf (who collated six MSS.) in his Acta Apost. Apoc. 1851, 1–39; English transl. by Walker in "Ante-Nicene Libr., " XVI. 256 sqq. This book records the arrival of Paul in Rome, his meeting with Peter and Simon Magus, their trial before the tribunal of Nero, and the martyrdom of Peter by crucifixion, and of Paul by decapitation. The legend of Domine quo vadis is here recorded of Peter, and the story of Perpetua is interwoven with the martyrdom of Paul.

The pseudo-Clementine Homilies, of the middle of the second century or later, give a malignant Judaizing caricature of Paul under the disguise of Simon Magus (in part at least), and misrepresent him as an antinomian arch-heretic; while Peter, the proper hero of this romance, is glorified as the apostle of pure, primitive Christianity.

The Correspondence of Paul and Seneca, mentioned by Jerome (De vir. ill. c. 12) and Augustin (Ep. ad Maced. 153, al. 54), and often copied, though with many variations, edited by Fabricius, Cod. Apocr. N. T., and in several editions of Seneca. It consists of eight letters of Seneca and six of Paul. They are very poor in thought and style, full of errors of chronology and history, and undoubtedly a forgery. They arose from the correspondence of the moral maxims of Seneca with those of Paul, which is more apparent than real, and from the desire to recommend the Stoic philosopher to the esteem of the Christians, or to recommend Christianity to the students of Seneca and the Stoic philosophy. Paul was protected at Corinth by Seneca’s brother, Gallio (Acts 18:12–16), and might have become acquainted with the philosopher who committed suicide at Rome in 65, but there is no trace of such acquaintance. Comp. Amédée Fleury: Saint-Paul et Sénèque (Paris, 1853, 2 vols.); C. Aubertin: Étude critique sur les rapports supposé entre Sénèque et Saint-Paul (Par. 1887); F. C. Baur: Seneca und Paulus, 1858 and 1876; Reuss: art. Seneca in Herzog, vol. XIV. 273 sqq.; Lightfoot: Excursus in Com. on Philippians, pp 268–331; art. Paul and Seneca, in "Westminster Review," Lond. 1880, pp. 309 sqq.

 

II. Biographical and Critical.

 

Bishop Pearson (d. 1686): Annales Paulini. Lond. 1688. In the various editions of his works, and also separately: Annals of St. Paul, transl. with geographical and critical notes. Cambridge, 1825.

Lord Lyttleton (d. 1773): The Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul. 3d ed. Lond. 1747. Apologetic as an argument for the truth of Christianity from the personal experience of the author.

Archdeacon William Paley (d. 1805): Horae Paulinae: or The Truth of the Scripture History of Paul evinced by a comparison of the Epistles which bear his name, with the Acts of the Apostles and with one another. Lond. 1790 (and subsequent editions). Still valuable for apologetic purposes.

J. Hemsen: Der Apostel Paulus. Gött. 1830.

Carl Schrader: Der Apostel Paulus. Leipz. 1830-’36. 5 Parts. Rationalistic.

F. Chr. Baur (d. 1860): Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi. Tüb. 1845, second ed. by E. Zeller, Leipzig, 1866-’67, in 2 vols. Transl. into English by Allan Menzies. Lond. (Williams & Norgate) 1873 and ’75, 2 vols. This work of the great leader of the philosophico-critical reconstruction of the Apostolic Age (we may call him the modern Marcion) was preceded by several special treatises on the Christ-Party in Corinth (1831), on the Pastoral Epistles (1835), on the Epistle to the Romans (1836), and a Latin programme on Stephen’s address before the Sanhedrin (1829). It marks an epoch in the literature on Paul and opened new avenues of research. It is the standard work of the Tübingen school of critics.

Conybeare and Howson: The Life and Epistles of St. Paul. Lond. 1853, 2 vols., and N. York, 1854; 2d ed. Lond. 1856, and later editions; also an abridgment in one vol. A very useful and popular work, especially on the geography of Paul’s travels. Comp. also Dean Howson: Character of St. Paul (Lond. 1862; 2d ed. 1864); Scenes from the Life of St. Paul (1867); Metaphors of St. Paul (1868); The Companions of St. Paul (1871). Most of these books were republished in America.

Ad. Monod (d. 1856): Saint Paul. Six sermons. See his Sermons, Paris, 1860, vol. II. 121–296. The same in German and English.

W. F. Besser: Paulus. Leipz. 1861. English transl. by F. Bultmann, with Introduction by J. S. Howson. Lond. and N. York, 1864.

F. Bungener: St. Paul, sa vie, son oeuvre et ses épitres. Paris, 1865.

A. Hausrath: Der Apostel Paulus. Heidelb. 1865; 2d ed. 1872. Comp. also his N. T. liche Zeitgeschichte, Part III.

M. Krenkel: Paulus, der Apostel der Heiden. Leipz. 1869.

Ernest Renan: Saint Paul. Paris, 1869. Transl. from the French by J. Lockwood, N. York, 1869. Very fresh and entertaining, but full ,of fancies and errors.

Thomas Lewin (author of "Fasti Sacri") The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, new ed. Lond. and N. York, 1875, 2 vols. A magnificent work of many years’ labor, with 370 illustrations.

Canon F. W. Farrar: The Life and Work of St. Paul. Lond. and N. York, 1879, 2 vols. Learned and eloquent.

W. M. Taylor: Paul as a Missionary. N. York, 1881.

As biographies, the works of Conybeare and Howson, Lewin, and Farrar are the most complete and instructive.

Also the respective sections in the Histories of the Ap. Age by Neander, Lechler, Thiersch, Lange, Schaff (226–347 and 634–640), Pressensé.

 

III. Chronological.

 

Thomas Lewin: Fasti Sacri, a Key to the Chronology of the New Testament.  London, 1865. Chronological Tables from b.c. 70 to a.d. 70.

Wieseler: Chronologie des apostolischen Zeitalters. Göttingen, 1848.

 

IV. Doctrinal and Exegetical.

 

L. Usteri: Entwicklung des Paulinischen Lehrbegriffs. Zürich, 1824, 6th ed. 1851.

A. P. Dähne: Entwicklung des Paulinischen Lehrbegriffs. Halle, 1835.

Baur: Paulus. See above.

R. A. Lipsius: Die Paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre. Leipz. 1853.

C. Holsten: Zum Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus. Rostock, 1868. This book, contains: 1. An essay on the Christusvision des Paulus und die Genesis des paulinischen Evangeliums, which had previously appeared in Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift," 1861, but is here enlarged by a reply to Beyschlag; 2. Die Messiasvision des Petrus (new); 3. An analysis of the Epistle to the Galatians (1859); 4. A discussion of the meaning of savrx in Paul’s system (1855). By the same: Das Evangelium des Paulus. Part I. Berlin, 1880.

TH. Simar (R. C.): Die Theologie des heil. Paulus. Freiberg, 1864.

Ernesti: Die Ethik des Ap. Paulus. Braunschweig, 1868; 3d ed. 1880.

R. Schmidt: Die Christologie des Ap. Paulus. Gött., 1870.

Matthew Arnold: St. Paul and Protestantism. Lond. 1870; 3d ed. 1875.

William I. Irons (Episcop.): Christianity as taught by St. Paul. Eight Bampton Lectures for 1870. Oxf. and Lond. 1871; 2d ed. 1876.

A. Sabatier: L’apôtre Paul. Esquisse d’une histoire de sa pensée. Strasb. and Paris, 1870.

Otto Pfleiderer (Prof. in Berlin): Der Paulinismus. Leipzig, 1873. Follows Baur and Holsten in developing the doctrinal system of Paul from his conversion. English translation by E. Peters. Lond. 1877, 2 vols. Lectures on the Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity (The Hibbert Lectures). Trsl. by J. Fr. Smith. Lond. and N. Y. 1885. Also his Urchristenthum, 1887.

C. Weizsäcker: D. Apost. Zeitalter (1886), pp. 68–355.

Fr. Bethge: Die Paulinischen Reden der Apostelgesch. Göttingen, 1887.

 

V. Commentaries.

 

The Commentators on Paul’s Epistles (in whole or in part) are so numerous that we can only mention some of the most important:

1. On all the Pauline Epp.: Calvin, Beza, Estius (b.c.), Corn. A Lapide (R. C.), Grotius, Wetstein, Bengel, Olshausen, De Wette, Meyer, Lange (Am. ed. enlarged), Ewald, Von Hofmann, Reuss (French), Alford, Wordsworth, Speaker’s Com., Ellicott (Pop. Com.), Schaff (Pop. Com., vol. III. 1882). Compare also P. J. Gloag: Introduction to the Pauline Epistles. Edinburgh, 1874.

2. On single Epp.: Romans by Tholuck (5th ed. 1856), Fritzsche (3 vols. in Latin), Reiche, Rückert, Philippi (3d ed. 1866, English transl. by Banks, 1878-’79, 2 vols.), Mos. Stuart, Turner, Hodge, Forbes, Jowett, Shedd (1879), Godet (L’épitre aux Romains, 1879 and 1880, 2 vols).—Corinthians by Neander, Osiander, Hodge, Stanley, Heinrici, Edwards, Godet, Ellicott.—Galatians by Luther, Winer, Wieseler, Hilgenfeld, Holsten, Jowett, Eadie, Ellicott, Lightfoot.—Ephesians by Harless, Matthies, Stier, Hodge, Eadie, Ellicott, J. L. Davies.—Other minor Epp. explained by Bleek (Col., Philemon, and Eph.), Koch (Thess.), van Hengel (Phil.), Eadie (Col.), Ellicott (Phil., Col., Thess., Philem.), Lightfoot (Phil, Col., Philemon).—Pastoral Epp. by Matthies, Mack (R. C.), Beck (ed. Lindenmeyer, 1879), Holtzmann (1880), Fairbairn, Ellicott, Weiss (1886), Knoke (1887), Kölling (1887).

3. The Commentaries on the second part of Acts by De Wette, Meyer, Baumgarten, Alexander, Hackett, Lechler, Gloag, Plumptre, Jacobson, Lumby, Howson and Spence.

 

 § 30. Paul before his Conversion.

 

His Natural Outfit.

 

We now approach the apostle of the Gentiles who decided the victory of Christianity as a universal religion, who labored more, both in word and deed, than all his colleagues, and who stands out, in lonely grandeur, the most remarkable and influential character in history. His youth as well as his closing years are involved in obscurity, save that he began a persecutor and ended a martyr, but the midday of his life is better known than that of any other apostle, and is replete with burning thoughts and noble deeds that can never die, and gather strength with the progress of the gospel from age to age and country to country.

Saul or Paul341 was of strictly Jewish parentage, but was born, a few years after Christ,342 in the renowned Grecian commercial and literary city of Tarsus, in the province of Cilicia, and inherited the rights of a Roman citizen. He received a learned Jewish education at Jerusalem in the school of the Pharisean Rabbi, Gamaliel, a grandson of Hillel, not remaining an entire stranger to Greek literature, as his style, his dialectic method, his allusions to heathen religion and philosophy, and his occasional quotations from heathen poets show. Thus, a "Hebrew of the Hebrews,"343 yet at the same time a native Hellenist, and a Roman citizen, be combined in himself, so to speak, the three great nationalities of the ancient world, and was endowed with all the natural qualifications for a universal apostleship. He could argue with the Pharisees as a son of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, and as a disciple of the renowned Gamaliel, surnamed "the Glory of the Law." He could address the Greeks in their own beautiful tongue and with the convincing force of their logic. Clothed with the dignity and majesty of the Roman people, he could travel safely over the whole empire with the proud watchword: Civis Romanus sum.

This providential outfit for his future work made him for a while the most dangerous enemy of Christianity, but after his conversion its most useful promoter. The weapons of destruction were turned into weapons of construction. The engine was reversed, and the direction changed; but it remained the same engine, and its power was increased under the new inspiration.

The intellectual and moral endowment of Saul was of the highest order. The sharpest thinking was blended with the tenderest feeling, the deepest mind with the strongest will. He had Semitic fervor, Greek versatility, and Roman energy. Whatever he was, he was with his whole soul. He was totus in illis, a man of one idea and of one purpose, first as a Jew, then as a Christian. His nature was martial and heroic. Fear was unknown to him—except the fear of God, which made him fearless of man. When yet a youth, he had risen to high eminence; and had he remained a Jew, he might have become a greater Rabbi than even Hillel or Gamaliel, as he surpassed them both in original genius and fertility of thought.

Paul was the only scholar among the apostles. He never displays his learning, considering it of no account as compared with the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, for whom he suffered the loss of all things,344 but he could not conceal it, and turned it to the best use after his conversion. Peter and John had natural genius, but no scholastic education; Paul had both, and thus became the founder of Christian theology and philosophy.

 

His Education.

 

His training was thoroughly Jewish, rooted and grounded in the Scriptures of the Old Covenant, and those traditions of the elders which culminated in the Talmud.345  He knew the Hebrew and Greek Bible almost by heart. In his argumentative epistles, when addressing Jewish converts, he quotes from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Psalms, now literally, now freely, sometimes ingeniously combining several passages or verbal reminiscences, or reading between the lines in a manner which betrays the profound student and master of the hidden depths of the word of God, and throws a flood of light on obscure passages.346  He was quite familiar with the typical and allegorical methods of interpretation; and he occasionally and incidentally uses Scriptural arguments, or illustrations rather, which strike a sober scholar as far-fetched and fanciful, though they were quite conclusive to a Jewish reader.347  But he never bases a truth on such an illustration without an independent argument; he never indulges in the exegetical impositions and frivolities of those "letter-worshipping Rabbis who prided themselves on suspending dogmatic mountains by textual hairs." Through the revelation of Christ, the Old Testament, instead of losing itself in the desert of the Talmud or the labyrinth of the Kabbala, became to him a book of life, full of types and promises of the great facts and truths of the gospel salvation. In Abraham he saw the father of the faithful, in Habakkuk a preacher of justification by faith, in the paschal lamb a type of Christ slain for the sins of the world, in the passage of Israel through the Red Sea a prefigurement of Christian baptism, and in the manna of the wilderness a type of the bread of life in the Lord’s Supper.

The Hellenic culture of Paul is a matter of dispute, denied by some, unduly exalted by others. He no doubt acquired in the home of his boyhood and early manhood348 a knowledge of the Greek language, for Tarsus was at that time the seat of one of the three universities of the Roman empire, surpassing in some respects even Athens and Alexandria, and furnished tutors to the imperial family. His teacher, Gamaliel, was comparatively free from the rabbinical abhorrence and contempt of heathen literature. After his conversion he devoted his life to the salvation of the heathen, and lived for years at Tarsus, Ephesus, Corinth, and other cities of Greece, and became a Greek to the Greeks in order to save them. It is scarcely conceivable that a man of universal human sympathies, and so wide awake to the deepest problems of thought, as he, should have under such circumstances taken no notice of the vast treasures of Greek philosophy, poetry, and history. He would certainly do what we expect every missionary to China or India to do from love to the race which he is to benefit, and from a desire to extend his usefulness. Paul very aptly, though only incidentally, quotes three times from Greek poets, not only a proverbial maxim from Menander,349 and a hexameter from Epimenides,350 which may have passed into common use, but also a half-hexameter with a connecting particle, which he must have read in the tedious astronomical poem of his countryman, Aratus (about b.c. 270), or in the sublime hymn of Cleanthes to Jupiter, in both of which the passage occurs.351  He borrows some of his favorite metaphors from the Grecian games; he disputed with Greek philosophers of different schools and addressed them from the Areopagus with consummate wisdom and adaptation to the situation; some suppose that he alludes even to the terminology of the Stoic philosophy when he speaks of the "rudiments" or "elements of the world."352  He handles the Greek language, not indeed with classical purity and elegance, yet with an almost creative vigor, transforming it into an obedient organ of new ideas, and pressing into his service the oxymoron, the paronomasia, the litotes, and other rhetorical figures.353  Yet all this does by no means prove a regular study or extensive knowledge of Greek literature, but is due in part to native genius. His more than Attic urbanity and gentlemanly refinement which breathe in his Epistles to Philemon and the Philippians, must be traced to the influence of Christianity rather than his intercourse with accomplished Greeks. His Hellenic learning seems to have been only casual, incidental, and altogether subordinate to his great aim. In this respect he differed widely from the learned Josephus, who affected Attic purity of style, and from Philo, who allowed the revealed truth of the Mosaic religion to be controlled, obscured, and perverted by Hellenic philosophy. Philo idealized and explained away the Old Testament by allegorical impositions which he substituted for grammatical expositions; Paul spiritualized the Old Testament and drew out its deepest meaning. Philo’s Judaism evaporated in speculative abstractions, Paul’s Judaism was elevated and transformed into Christian realities.

 

His Zeal for Judaism.

 

Saul was a Pharisee of the strictest sect, not indeed of the hypocritical type, so witheringly rebuked by our Saviour, but of the honest, truth-loving and truth-seeking sort, like that of Nicodemus and Gamaliel. His very fanaticism in persecution arose from the intensity of his conviction and his zeal for the religion of his fathers. He persecuted in ignorance, and that diminished, though it did not abolish, his guilt. He probably never saw or heard Jesus until he appeared to him at Damascus. He may have been at Tarsus at the time of the crucifixion and resurrection.354  But with his Pharisaic education he regarded Jesus of Nazareth, like his teachers, as a false Messiah, a rebel, a blasphemer, who was justly condemned to death. And he acted according to his conviction. He took the most prominent part in the persecution of Stephen and delighted in his death. Not satisfied with this, he procured from the Sanhedrin, which had the oversight of all the synagogues and disciplinary punishments for offences against the law, full power to persecute and arrest the scattered disciples. Thus armed, he set out for Damascus, the capital of Syria, which numbered many synagogues. He was determined to exterminate the dangerous sect from the face of the earth, for the glory of God. But the height of his opposition was the beginning of his devotion to Christianity.

 

His External Relations and Personal Appearance.

 

On the subordinate questions of Paul’s external condition and relations we have no certain information. Being a Roman citizen, he belonged to the respectable class of society, but must have been poor; for he depended for support on a trade which he learned in accordance with rabbinical custom; it was the trade of tent-making, very common in Cilicia, and not profitable except in large cities.355

He had a sister living at Jerusalem whose son was instrumental in saving his life.356

He was probably never married. Some suppose that he was a widower. Jewish and rabbinical custom, the completeness of his moral character, his ideal conception of marriage as reflecting the mystical union of Christ with his church, his exhortations to conjugal, parental, and filial duties, seem to point to experimental knowledge of domestic life. But as a Christian missionary moving from place to place, and exposed to all sorts of hardship and persecution, he felt it his duty to abide alone.357 He sacrificed the blessings of home and family to the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.358

His "bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible" (of no value), in the superficial judgment of the Corinthians, who missed the rhetorical ornaments, yet could not help admitting that his "letters were weighty and strong."359  Some of the greatest men have been small in size, and some of the purest souls forbidding in body. Socrates was the homeliest, and yet the wisest of Greeks. Neander, a converted Jew, like Paul, was short, feeble, and strikingly odd in his whole appearance, but a rare humility, benignity, and heavenly aspiration beamed from his face beneath his dark and bushy eyebrows. So we may well imagine that the expression of Paul’s countenance was highly intellectual and spiritual, and that he looked "sometimes like a man and sometimes like an angel."360

He was afflicted with a mysterious, painful, recurrent, and repulsive physical infirmity, which he calls a "thorn in the flesh, " and which acted as a check upon spiritual pride and self-exultation over his abundance of revelations.361  He bore the heavenly treasure in an earthly vessel and his strength was made perfect in weakness.362  But all the more must we admire the moral heroism which turned weakness itself into an element of strength, and despite pain and trouble and persecution carried the gospel salvation triumphantly from Damascus to Rome.

 

 § 31. The Conversion of Paul.

 

Eujdovkhsen oJ qeo" ... ajpokaluvyai to;n uiJo;n aujtou' ejn ejmoi;, iJna eujaggelivzwmai aujto;n ejn toi'" ej[qnesin   Gal. 1:15, 16.

 

The conversion of Paul marks not only a turning-point in his personal history, but also an important epoch in the history of the apostolic church, and consequently in the history of mankind. It was the most fruitful event since the miracle of Pentecost, and secured the universal victory of Christianity.

The transformation of the most dangerous persecutor into the most successful promoter of Christianity is nothing less than a miracle of divine grace. It rests on the greater miracle of the resurrection of Christ. Both are inseparably connected; without the resurrection the conversion would have been impossible, and on the other hand the conversion of such a man and with such results is one of the strongest proofs of the resurrection.

The bold attack of Stephen—the forerunner of Paul—upon the hard, stiff-necked Judaism which had crucified the Messiah, provoked a determined and systematic attempt on the part of the Sanhedrin to crucify Jesus again by destroying his church. In this struggle for life and death Saul the Pharisee, the bravest and strongest of the rising rabbis, was the willing and accepted leader.

After the martyrdom of Stephen and the dispersion of the congregation of Jerusalem, he proceeded to Damascus in suit of the fugitive disciples of Jesus, as a commissioner of the Sanhedrin, a sort of inquisitor-general, with full authority and determination to stamp out the Christian rebellion, and to bring all the apostates he could find, whether they were men or women, in chains to the holy city to be condemned by the chief priests.

Damascus is one of the oldest cities in the world, known in the days of Abraham, and bursts upon the traveller like a vision of paradise amidst a burning and barren wilderness of sand; it is watered by the never-failing rivers Abana and Pharpar (which Naaman of old preferred to all the waters of Israel), and embosomed in luxuriant gardens of flowers and groves of tropical fruit trees; hence glorified by Eastern poets as "the Eye of the Desert."

But a far higher vision than this earthly paradise was in store for Saul as he approached the city. A supernatural light from heaven, brighter than the Syrian sun, suddenly flashed around him at midday, and Jesus of Nazareth, whom he persecuted in his humble disciples, appeared to him in his glory as the exalted Messiah, asking him in the Hebrew tongue: "Shaûl, Shaûl, why persecutest thou Me?363  It was a question both of rebuke and of love, and it melted his heart. He fell prostrate to the ground. He saw and heard, he trembled and obeyed, he believed and rejoiced. As he rose from the earth he saw no man. Like a helpless child, blinded by the dazzling light, he was led to Damascus, and after three days of blindness and fasting he was cured and baptized—not by Peter or James or John, but—by one of the humble disciples whom he had come to destroy. The haughty, self-righteous, intolerant, raging Pharisee was changed into an humble, penitent, grateful, loving servant of Jesus. He threw away self-righteousness, learning, influence, power, prospects, and cast in his lot with a small, despised sect at the risk of his life. If there ever was an honest, unselfish, radical, and effective change of conviction and conduct, it was that of Saul of Tarsus. He became, by a creative act of the Holy Spirit, a "new creature in Christ Jesus."364

We have three full accounts of this event in the Acts, one from Luke, two from Paul himself, with slight variations in detail, which only confirm the essential harmony.365  Paul also alludes to it five or six times in his Epistles.366  In all these passages he represents the change as an act brought about by a direct intervention of Jesus, who revealed himself in his glory from heaven, and struck conviction into his mind like lightning at midnight. He compares it to the creative act of God when He commanded the light to shine out of darkness.367  He lays great stress on the fact that he was converted and called to the apostolate directly by Christ, without any human agency; that he learned his gospel of free and universal grace by revelation, and not from the older apostles, whom he did not even see till three years after his call.368

The conversion, indeed, was not a moral compulsion, but included the responsibility of assent or dissent. God converts nobody by force or by magic. He made man free, and acts upon him as a moral being. Paul might have "disobeyed the heavenly vision."369  He might have "kicked against the goads," though it was "hard" (not impossible) to do so.370  These words imply some psychological preparation, some doubt and misgiving as to his course, some moral conflict between the flesh and the spirit, which he himself described twenty years afterwards from personal experience, and which issues in the cry of despair: "O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"371  On his journey from Jerusalem to Damascus, which takes a full week on foot or horseback—the distance being about 140 miles—as he was passing, in the solitude of his own thoughts, through Samaria, Galilee, and across Mount Hermon, he had ample time for reflection, and we may well imagine how the shining face of the martyr Stephen, as he stood like a holy angel before the Sanhedrin, and as in the last moment he prayed for his murderers, was haunting him like a ghost and warning him to stop his mad career.

Yet we must not overrate this preparation or anticipate his riper experience in the three days that intervened between his conversion and his baptism, and during the three years of quiet meditation in Arabia. He was no doubt longing for truth and for righteousness, but there was a thick veil over his mental eye which could only be taken away by a hand from without; access to his heart was barred by an iron door of prejudice which had to be broken in by Jesus himself. On his way to Damascus he was "yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," and thinking he was doing "God service;" he was, to use his own language, "beyond measure" persecuting the church of God and endeavoring to destroy it, "being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of his fathers" than many of his age, when "it pleased God to reveal his Son in him." Moreover it is only in the light of faith that we see the midnight darkness of our sin, and it is only beneath the cross of Christ that we feel the whole crushing weight of guilt and the unfathomable depth of God’s redeeming love. No amount of subjective thought and reflection could have brought about that radical change in so short a time. It was the objective appearance of Jesus that effected it.

This appearance implied the resurrection and the ascension, and this was the irresistible evidence of His Messiahship, God’s own seal of approval upon the work of Jesus. And the resurrection again shed a new light upon His death on the cross, disclosing it as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, as the means of procuring pardon and peace consistent with the claims of divine justice. What a revelation!  That same Jesus of Nazareth whom he hated and persecuted as a false prophet justly crucified between two robbers, stood before Saul as the risen, ascended, and glorified Messiah!  And instead of crushing the persecutor as he deserved, He pardoned him and called him to be His witness before Jews and Gentiles! This revelation was enough for an orthodox Jew waiting for the hope of Israel to make him a Christian, and enough for a Jew of such force of character to make him an earnest and determined Christian. The logic of his intellect and the energy of his will required that he should love and promote the new faith with the same enthusiasm with which he had hated and persecuted it; for hatred is but inverted love, and the intensity of love and hatred depends on the strength of affection and the ardor of temper.

With all the suddenness and radicalness of the transformation there is nevertheless a bond of unity between Saul the Pharisee and Paul the Christian. It was the same person with the same end in view, but in opposite directions. We must remember that he was not a worldly, indifferent, cold-blooded man, but an intensely religious man. While persecuting the church, he was "blameless" as touching the righteousness of the law.372  He resembled the rich youth who had observed the commandments, yet lacked the one things needful, and of whom Mark says that Jesus "loved him."373  He was not converted from infidelity to faith, but from a lower faith to a purer faith, from the religion of Moses to the religion of Christ, from the theology of the law to the theology of the gospel. How shall a sinner be justified before the tribunal of a holy God?  That was with him the question of questions before as well as after his conversion; not a scholastic question merely, but even far more a moral and religious question. For righteousness, to the Hebrew mind, is conformity to the will of God as expressed in his revealed law, and implies life eternal as its reward. The honest and earnest pursuit of righteousness is the connecting link between the two periods of Paul’s life. First he labored to secure it by works of the law, then obedience of faith. What he had sought in vain by his fanatical zeal for the traditions of Judaism, he found gratuitously and at once by trust in the cross of Christ: pardon and peace with God. By the discipline of the Mosaic law as a tutor he was led beyond its restraints and prepared for manhood and freedom. Through the law he died to the law that he might live unto God. His old self, with its lusts, was crucified with Christ, so that henceforth he lived no longer himself, but Christ lived in him.374  He was mystically identified with his Saviour and had no separate existence from him. The whole of Christianity, the whole of life, was summed up to him in the one word: Christ. He determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified for our sins, and risen again for our justification.375

His experience of justification by faith, his free pardon and acceptance by Christ were to him the strongest stimulus to gratitude and consecration. His great sin of persecution, like Peter’s denial, was overruled for his own good: the remembrance of it kept him humble, guarded him against temptation, and intensified his zeal and devotion. "I am the least of the apostles," he said in unfeigned humility  that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."376  This confession contains, in epitome, the whole meaning of his life and work.

The idea of justification by the free grace of God in Christ through a living faith which makes Christ and his merits our own and leads to consecration and holiness, is the central idea of Paul’s Epistles. His whole theology, doctrinal, ethical, and practical, lies, like a germ, in his conversion; but it was actually developed by a sharp conflict with Judaizing teachers who continued to trust in the law for righteousness and salvation, and thus virtually frustrated the grace of God and made Christ’s death unnecessary and fruitless.

Although Paul broke radically with Judaism and opposed the Pharisaical notion of legal righteousness at every step and with all his might, he was far from opposing the Old Testament or the Jewish people. Herein he shows his great wisdom and moderation, and his infinite superiority over Marcion and other ultra- and pseudo-Pauline reformers. He now expounded the Scriptures as a direct preparation for the gospel, the law as a schoolmaster leading to Christ, Abraham as the father of the faithful. And as to his countrymen after the flesh, he loved them more than ever before. Filled with the amazing love of Christ who had pardoned him, "the chief of sinners," he was ready for the greatest possible sacrifice if thereby he might save them. His startling language in the ninth chapter of the Romans is not rhetorical exaggeration, but the genuine expression of that heroic self-denial and devotion which animated Moses, and which culminated in the sacrifice of the eternal Son of God on the cross of Calvary.377

Paul’s conversion was at the same time his call to the apostleship, not indeed to a place among the Twelve (for the vacancy of Judas was filled), but to the independent apostleship of the Gentiles.378  Then followed an uninterrupted activity of more than a quarter of a century, which for interest and for permanent and ever-growing usefulness has no parallel in the annals of history, and affords an unanswerable proof of the sincerity of his conversion and the truth of Christianity.379

 

Analogous Conversions.

 

God deals with men according to their peculiar character and condition. As in Elijah’s vision on Mount Horeb, God appears now in the mighty rushing wind that uproots the trees, now in the earthquake that rends the rocks, now in the consuming fire, now in the still small voice. Some are suddenly converted, and can remember the place and hour; others are gradually and imperceptibly changed in spirit and conduct; still others grow up unconsciously in the Christian faith from the mother’s knee and the baptismal font. The stronger the will the more force it requires to overcome the resistance, and the more thorough and lasting is the change. Of all sudden and radical conversions that of Saul was the most sudden and the most radical. In several respects it stands quite alone, as the man himself and his work. Yet there are faint analogies in history. The divines who most sympathized with his spirit and system of doctrine, passed through a similar experience, and were much aided by his example and writings. Among these Augustin, Calvin, and Luther are the most conspicuous.

St. Augustin, the son of a pious mother and a heathen father, was led astray into error and vice and wandered for years through the labyrinth of heresy and scepticism, but his heart was restless and homesick after God. At last, when he attained to the thirty-third year of his life (Sept., 386), the fermentation of his soul culminated in a garden near Milan, far away from his African home, when the Spirit of God, through the combined agencies of the unceasing prayers of Monica, the sermons of Ambrose, the example of St. Anthony, the study of Cicero and Plato, of Isaiah and Paul, brought about a change not indeed as wonderful—for no visible appearance of Christ was vouchsafed to him—but as sincere and lasting as that of the apostle. As he was lying in the dust of repentance and wrestling with God in prayer for deliverance, be suddenly heard a sweet voice as from heaven, calling out again and again: ’Take and read, take and read!"  He opened the holy book and read the exhortation of Paul: "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." It was a voice of God; he obeyed it, he completely changed his course of life, and became the greatest and most useful teacher of his age.

Of Calvin’s conversion we know very little, but he himself characterizes it as a sudden change (subita conversio) from papal superstition to the evangelical faith. In this respect it resembles that of Paul rather than Augustin. He was no sceptic, no heretic, no immoral man, but as far as we know, a pious Romanist until the brighter life of the Reformation burst on his mind from the Holy Scriptures and showed him a more excellent way. "Only one haven of salvation is left for our souls," he says, "and that is the mercy of God in Christ. We are saved by grace—not by our merits, not by our works." He consulted not with flesh and blood, and burned the bridge after him. He renounced all prospects of a brilliant career, and exposed himself to the danger of persecution and death. He exhorted and strengthened the timid Protestants of France, usually closing with the words of Paul  If God be for us, who can be against us?"  He prepared in Paris a flaming address on reform, which was ordered to be burned; he escaped from persecution in a basket from a window, like Paul at Damascus, and wandered for two years as a fugitive evangelist from place to place until he found his sphere of labor in Geneva. With his conversion was born his Pauline theology, which sprang from his brain like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. Paul never had a more logical and theological commentator than John Calvin.380

But the most Paul-like man in history is the leader of the German Reformation, who combined in almost equal proportion depth of mind, strength of will, tenderness of heart, and a fiery vehemence of temper, and was the most powerful herald of evangelical freedom; though inferior to Augustin and Calvin (not to say Paul) in self-discipline, consistency, and symmetry of character.381 Luther’s commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, though not a grammatical or logical exposition, is a fresh reproduction and republication of the Epistle against the self-righteousness, and bondage of the papacy. Luther’s first conversion took place in his twenty-first year (1505), when, as a student of law at Erfurt, on his return from a visit to his parents, he was so frightened by a fearful thunder-storm and flashes of lightning that he exclaimed: "Help, dear St. Anna, I will become a monk!"  But that conversion, although it has often been compared with that of the apostle, had nothing to do with his Paulinism and Protestantism; it made him a pious Catholic, it induced him to flee from the world to the retreat of a convent for the salvation of his soul. And he became one of the most humble, obedient, and self-denying of monks, as Paul was one of the most earnest and zealous of Pharisees. "If ever a monk got to heaven by monkery," says Luther, "I ought to have gotten there." But the more he sought righteousness and peace by ascetic self denial and penal exercises, the more painfully he felt the weight of sin and the wrath of God, although unable to mention to his confessor any particular transgression. The discipline of the law drove him to the brink of despair, when by the kind interposition of Staupitz he was directed away from himself to the cross of Christ, as the only source of pardon and peace, and found, by implicit faith in His all-sufficient merits, that righteousness which he had vainly sought in his own strength.382  This, his second conversion, as we may call it, which occurred several years later (1508), and gradually rather than suddenly, made him an evangelical freeman in Christ and prepared him for the great conflict with Romanism, which began in earnest with the nailing of the ninety-nine theses against the traffic in indulgences (1517). The intervening years may be compared to Paul’s sojourn in Arabia and the subordinate labors preceding his first great missionary tour.

 

False Explanations.

 

Various attempts have been made by ancient heretics and modern rationalists to explain Paul’s conversion in a purely natural way, but they have utterly failed, and by their failure they indirectly confirm the true view as given by the apostle himself and as held in all ages by the Christian church.383

1. The Theory of Fraud.—The heretical and malignant faction of the Judaizers was disposed to attribute Paul’s conversion to selfish motives, or to the influence of evil spirits.

The Ebionites spread the lie that Paul was of heathen parents, fell in love with the daughter of the high priest in Jerusalem, became a proselyte and submitted to circumcision in order to secure her, but failing in his purpose, he took revenge and attacked the circumcision, the sabbath, and the whole Mosaic law.384

In the pseudo-Clementine Homilies, which represent a speculative form of the Judaizing heresy, Paul is assailed under the disguise of Simon Magus, the arch-heretic, who struggled antinomian heathenism into the church. The manifestation of Christ was either a manifestation of his wrath, or a deliberate lie.385

2. The Rationalistic Theory of Thunder and Lightning.—It attributes the conversion to physical causes, namely, a violent storm and the delirium of a burning Syrian fever, in which Paul superstitiously mistook the thunder for the voice of God and the lightning for a heavenly vision.386 But the record says nothing about thunderstorm and fever, and both combined could not produce such an effect upon any sensible man, much less upon the history of the world. Who ever heard the thunder speak in Hebrew or in any other articulate language? And had not Paul and Luke eyes and ears and common sense, as well as we, to distinguish an ordinary phenomenon of nature from a supernatural vision?

3. The Vision-Hypothesis resolves the conversion into a natural psychological process and into an honest self-delusion. It is the favorite theory of modern rationalists, who scorn all other explanations, and profess the highest respect for the intellectual and moral purity and greatness of Paul.387 It is certainly more rational and creditable than the second hypothesis, because it ascribes the mighty change not to outward and accidental phenomena which pass away, but to internal causes. It assumes that an intellectual and moral fermentation was going on for some time in the mind of Paul, and resulted at last, by logical necessity, in an entire change of conviction and conduct, without any supernatural influence, the very possibility of which is denied as being inconsistent with the continuity of natural development. The miracle in this case was simply the mythical and symbolical reflection of the commanding presence of Jesus in the thoughts of the apostle.

That Paul saw a vision, he says himself, but he meant, of course, a real, objective, personal appearance of Christ from heaven, which was visible to his eyes and audible to his ears, and at the same time a revelation to his mind through the medium of the senses.388  The inner spiritual manifestation389 was more important than the external, but both combined produced conviction. The vision-theory turns the appearance of Christ into a purely subjective imagination, which the apostle mistook for an objective fact.390

It is incredible that a man of sound, clear, and keen mind as that of Paul undoubtedly was, should have made such a radical and far reaching blunder as to confound subjective reflections with an objective appearance of Jesus whom he persecuted, and to ascribe solely to an act of divine mercy what he must have known to be the result of his own thoughts, if he thought at all.

The advocates of this theory throw the appearances of the risen Lord to the older disciples, the later visions of Peter, Philip, and John in the Apocalypse, into the same category of subjective illusions in the high tide of nervous excitement and religious enthusiasm. It is plausibly maintained that Paul was an enthusiast, fond of visions and revelations,391 and that he justifies a doubt concerning the realness of the resurrection itself by putting all the appearances of the risen Christ on the same level with his own, although several years elapsed between those of Jerusalem and Galilee, and that on the way to Damascus.

But this, the only possible argument for the vision-hypothesis, is entirely untenable. When Paul says: "Last of all, as unto an untimely offspring, Christ appeared to me also," he draws a clear line of distinction between the personal appearances of Christ and his own later visions, and closes the former with the one vouchsafed to him at his conversion.392 Once, and once only, he claims to have seen the Lord in visible form and to have heard his voice; last, indeed, and out of due time, yet as truly and really as the older apostles. The only difference is that they saw the risen Saviour still abiding on earth, while he saw the ascended Saviour coming down from heaven, as we may expect him to appear to all men on the last day. It is the greatness of that vision which leads him to dwell on his personal unworthiness as "the least of the apostles and not worthy to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the church of God." He uses the realness of Christ’s resurrection as the basis for his wonderful discussion of the future resurrection of believers, which would lose all its force if Christ had not actually been raised from the dead.393

Moreover his conversion coincided with his call to the apostleship. If the former was a delusion, the latter must also have been a delusion. He emphasizes his direct call to the apostleship of the Gentiles by the personal appearance of Christ without any human intervention, in opposition to his Judaizing adversaries who tried to undermine his authority.394

The whole assumption of a long and deep inward preparation, both intellectual and moral, for a change, is without any evidence, and cannot set aside the fact that Paul was, according to his repeated confession, at that time violently persecuting Christianity in its followers. His conversion can be far less explained from antecedent causes, surrounding circumstances, and personal motives than that of any other disciple. While the older apostles were devoted friends of Jesus, Paul was his enemy, bent at the very time of the great change on an errand of cruel persecution, and therefore in a state of mind most unlikely to give birth to a vision so fatal to his present object and his future career. How could a fanatical persecutor of Christianity, "breathing threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," stultify and contradict himself by an imaginative conceit which tended to the building up of that very religion which he was laboring to destroy!395

But supposing (with Renan) that his mind was temporarily upset in the delirium of feverish excitement, he certainly soon recovered health and reason, and had every opportunity to correct his error; he was intimate with the murderers of Jesus, who could have produced tangible evidence against the resurrection if it had never occurred; and after a long pause of quiet reflection he went to Jerusalem, spent a fortnight with Peter, and could learn from him and from James, the brother of Christ, their experience, and compare it with his own. Everything in this case is against the mythical and legendary theory which requires a change of environment and the lapse of years for the formation of poetic fancies and fictions.

Finally, the whole life-work of Paul, from his conversion at Damascus to his martyrdom in Rome, is the best possible argument against this hypothesis and for the realness of his conversion, as an act of divine grace. "By their fruits ye shall know them." How could such an effective change proceed from an empty dream?  Can an illusion change the current of history?  By joining the Christian sect Paul sacrificed everything, at last life itself, to the service of Christ. He never wavered in his conviction of the truth as revealed to him, and by his faith in this revelation he has become a benediction to all ages.

The vision-hypothesis denies objective miracles, but ascribes miracles to subjective imaginations, and makes a he more effect ive and beneficial than the truth.

All rationalistic and natural interpretations of the conversion of Paul turn out to be irrational and unnatural; the supernatural interpretation of Paul himself, after all, is the most rational and natural.

 

Remarkable Concessions.

 

Dr. Baur, the master-spirit of skeptical criticism and the founder of the "Tübingen School," felt constrained, shortly before his death (1860), to abandon the vision-hypothesis and to admit that "no psychological or dialectical analysis can explore the inner mystery of the act in which God revealed his Son in Paul (keine, weder psychologische noch dialektische Analyse kann das innere Geheimniss des Actes erforschen, in welchem Gott seinen Sohn in ihm enthülte). In the same connection he says that in, "the sudden transformation of Paul from the most violent adversary of Christianity into its most determined herald" he could see "nothing short of a miracle (Wunder);" and adds that "this miracle appears all the greater when we remember that in this revulsion of his consciousness he broke through the barriers of Judaism and rose out of its particularism into the universalism of Christianity."396  This frank confession is creditable to the head and heart of the late Tübingen critic, but is fatal to his whole anti-supernaturalistic theory of history. Si falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. If we admit the miracle in one case, the door is opened for all other miracles which rest on equally strong evidence.

The late Dr. Keim, an independent pupil of Baur, admits at least spiritual manifestations of the ascended Christ from heaven, and urges in favor of the objective reality of the Christophanies as reported by Paul, 1 Cor. 15:3 sqq., "the whole character of Paul, his sharp understanding which was not weakened by his enthusiasm, the careful, cautious, measured, simple form of his statement, above all the favorable total impression of his narrative and the mighty echo of it in the unanimous, uncontradicted faith of primitive Christendom."397

Dr. Schenkel, of Heidelberg, in his latest stage of development, says that Paul, with full justice, put his Christophany on a par with the Christophanies of the older apostles; that all these Christophanies are not simply the result of psychological processes, but "remain in many respects psychologically inconceivable," and point back to the historic background of the person of Jesus; that Paul was not an ordinary visionary, but carefully distinguished the Christophany at Damascus from his later visions; that he retained the full possession of his rational mind even in the moments of the highest exaltation; that his conversion was not the sudden effect of nervous excitement, but brought about by the influence of the divine Providence which quietly prepared his soul for the reception of Christ; and that the appearance of Christ vouchsafed to him was "no dream, but reality."398

Professor Reuss, of Strasburg, likewise an independent critic of the liberal school, comes to the same conclusion as Baur, that the conversion of Paul, if not an absolute miracle, is at least an unsolved psychological problem. He says: "La conversion de Paul, après tout ce qui en a été dit de notre temps, reste toujours, si ce n’est un miracle absolu, dans le sens traditionnel de ce mot (c’est-à-dire un événement qui arrête ou change violemment le cours naturel des choses, un effet sans autre cause que l’intervention arbitraire et immédiate de Dieu), du moins un problème psychologique aujourd’hui insoluble. L’explication dite naturelle, qu’elle fasse intervenir un orage on qu’elle se retranche dans le domaine des hallucinations ... ne nous donne pas la clef de cette crise elle-même, qui a décidé la métamorphose du pharisien en chrétien."399

Canon Farrar says (I. 195): "One fact remains upon any hypothesis and that is, that the conversion of St. Paul was in the highest sense of the word a miracle, and one of which the spiritual consequences have affected every subsequent age of the history of mankind."

 

 § 32. The Work of Paul.

 

"He who can part from country and from kin,
And scorn delights, and tread the thorny way,

A heavenly crown, through toil and pain, to win—
He who reviled can tender love repay,
And buffeted, for bitter foes can pray—

He who, upspringing at his Captain’s call,
Fights the good fight, and when at last the day
Of fiery trial comes, can nobly fall—

Such were a saint—or more—and such the holy Paul!"

—Anon.

 

The conversion of Paul was a great intellectual and moral revolution, yet without destroying his identity. His noble gifts and attainments remained, but were purged of Selfish motives, inspired by a new principle, and consecrated to a divine end. The love of Christ who saved him, was now his all-absorbing passion, and no sacrifice was too great to manifest his gratitude to Him. The architect of ruin became an architect of the temple of God. The same vigor, depth and acuteness of mind, but illuminated by the Holy Spirit; the same strong temper and burning zeal, but cleansed, subdued and controlled by wisdom and moderation; the same energy and boldness, but coupled with gentleness and meekness; and, added to all this, as crowning gifts of grace, a love and humility, a tenderness and delicacy of feeling such as are rarely, if ever, found in a character so proud, manly and heroic. The little Epistle to Philemon reveals a perfect Christian gentleman, a nobleman of nature, doubly ennobled by grace. The thirteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians could only be conceived by a mind that had ascended on the mystic ladder of faith to the throbbing heart of the God of love; yet without inspiration even Paul could not have penned that seraphic description of the virtue which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, which never faileth, but will last for ever the greatest in the triad of celestial graces: faith, hope, love.

Saul converted became at once Paul the missionary. Being saved himself, he made it his life-work to save others. "Straight way" he proclaimed Christ in the synagogues, and confounded the Jews of Damascus, proving that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God.400  But this was only a preparatory testimony in the fervor of the first love. The appearance of Christ, and the travails of his soul during the three days and nights of prayer and fasting, when he experienced nothing less than a spiritual death and a spiritual resurrection, had so shaken his physical and mental frame that he felt the need of protracted repose away from the noise and turmoil of the world. Besides there must have been great danger threatening his life as soon as the astounding news of his conversion became known at Jerusalem. He therefore went to the desert of Arabia and spent there three years,401 not in missionary labor (as Chrysostom thought), but chiefly in prayer, meditation and the study of the Hebrew Scriptures in the light of their fulfilment through the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. This retreat took the place of the three years’ preparation of the Twelve in the school of Christ. Possibly he may have gone as far as Mount Sinai, among the wild children of Hagar and Ishmael.402 On that pulpit of the great lawgiver of Israel, and in view of the surrounding panorama of death and desolation which reflects the terrible majesty of Jehovah, as no other spot on earth, he could listen with Elijah to the thunder and earthquake, and the still small voice, and could study the contrast between the killing letter and the life-giving spirit, between the ministration of death and the ministration of righteousness.403 The desert, like the ocean, has its grandeur and sublimity, and leaves the meditating mind alone with God and eternity.

"Paul was a unique man for a unique task."404 His task was twofold: practical and theoretical. He preached the gospel of free and universal grace from Damascus to Rome, and secured its triumph in the Roman empire, which means the civilized world of that age. At the same time he built up the church from within by the exposition and defence of the gospel in his Epistles. He descended to the humblest details of ecclesiastical administration and discipline, and mounted to the sublimest heights of theological speculation. Here we have only to do with his missionary activity; leaving his theoretical work to be considered in another chapter.

Let us first glance at his missionary spirit and policy.

His inspiring motive was love to Christ and to his fellow-men. "The love of Christ," he says, "constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died: and He died for all that they who live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again." He regarded himself as a bondman and ambassador of Christ, entreating men to be reconciled to God. Animated by this spirit, he became "as a Jew to the Jews, as a Gentile to the Gentiles, all things to all men that by all means he might save some."

He made Antioch, the capital of Syria and the mother church of Gentile Christendom, his point of departure for, and return from, his missionary journeys, and at the same time he kept up his connection with Jerusalem, the mother church of Jewish Christendom. Although an independent apostle of Christ, he accepted a solemn commission from Antioch for his first great missionary tour. He followed the current of history, commerce, and civilization, from East to West, from Asia to Europe, from Syria to Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and perhaps as far as Spain.405  In the larger and more influential cities, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, he resided a considerable time. From these salient points he sent the gospel by his pupils and fellow-laborers into the surrounding towns and villages. But he always avoided collision with other apostles, and sought new fields of labor where Christ was not known before, that he might not build on any other man’s foundation. This is true independence and missionary courtesy, which is so often, alas! violated by missionary societies inspired by sectarian rather than Christian zeal.

His chief mission was to the Gentiles, without excluding the Jews, according to the message of Christ delivered through Ananias: "Thou shalt bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel." Considering that the Jews had a prior claim in time to the gospel,406 and that the synagogues in heathen cities were pioneer stations for Christian missions, he very naturally addressed himself first to the Jews and proselytes, taking up the regular lessons of the Old Testament Scriptures, and demonstrating their fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth. But almost uniformly he found the half-Jews, or "proselytes of the gate," more open to the gospel than his own brethren; they were honest and earnest seekers of the true religion, and formed the natural bridge to the pure heathen, and the nucleus of his congregations, which were generally composed of converts from both religions.

In noble self-denial he earned his subsistence with his own hands, as a tent-maker, that he might not be burthensome to his congregations (mostly belonging to the lower classes), that he might preserve his independence, stop the mouths of his enemies, and testify his gratitude to the infinite mercy of the Lord, who had called him from his headlong, fanatical career of persecution to the office of an apostle of free grace. He never collected money for himself, but for the poor Jewish Christians in Palestine. Only as an exception did he receive gifts from his converts at Philippi, who were peculiarly dear to him. Yet he repeatedly enjoins upon the churches to care for the liberal temporal support of their teachers who break to them the bread of eternal life. The Saviour of the world a carpenter! the greatest preacher of the gospel a tent-maker!

Of the innumerable difficulties, dangers, and sufferings which he encountered with Jews, heathens, and false brethren, we can hardly form an adequate idea; for the book of Acts is only a summary record. He supplements it incidentally. "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Three times was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren: in labor and toil, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, the anxious care for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak?  Who is offended, and I burn not?"407  Thus he wrote reluctantly to the Corinthians, in self-vindication against his calumniators, in the year 57, before his longest and hardest trial in the prisons of Caesarea and Rome, and at least seven years before his martyrdom. He was "pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not in despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed."408  His whole public career was a continuous warfare. He represents the church militant, or "marching and conquering Christianity." He was "unus versus mundum," in a far higher sense than this has been said of Athanasius the Great when confronted with the Arian heresy and the imperial heathenism of Julian the Apostate.

Yet he was never unhappy, but full of joy and peace. He exhorted the Philippians from his prison in Rome: "Rejoice in the Lord alway; again I will say, Rejoice." In all his conflicts with foes from without and foes from within Paul was "more than conqueror" through the grace of God which was sufficient for him. "For I am persuaded," he writes to the Romans in the strain of a sublime ode of triumph, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."409  And his dying word is an assurance of victory: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved his appearing."410

 

 § 33. Paul’s Missionary Labors.

 

The public life of Paul, from the third year after his conversion to his martyrdom, a.d. 40–64, embraces a quarter of a century, three great missionary campaigns with minor expeditions, five visits to Jerusalem, and at least four years of captivity in Caesarea and Rome. Some extend it to a.d. 67 or 68. It may be divided into five or six periods, as follows:

1. a.d. 40–44. The period of preparatory labors in Syria and his native Cilicia, partly alone, partly in connection with Barnabas, his senior fellow-apostle among the Gentiles.

On his return from the Arabian retreat Paul began his public ministry in earnest at Damascus, preaching Christ on the very spot where he had been converted and called. His testimony enraged the Jews, who stirred up the deputy of the king of Arabia against him, but he was saved for future usefulness and let down by the brethren in a basket through a window in the wall of the city.411  Three years after his conversion he went up to Jerusalem to make the acquaintance of Peter and spent a fortnight with him. Besides him he saw James the brother of the Lord. Barnabas introduced him to the disciples, who at first were afraid of him, but when they heard of his marvellous conversion they "glorified God" that their persecutor was now preaching the faith he had once been laboring to destroy.412  He did not come to learn the gospel, having received it already by revelation, nor to be confirmed or ordained, having been called "not from men, or through man, but through Jesus Christ." Yet his interview with Peter and James, though barely mentioned, must have been fraught with the deepest interest. Peter, kind-hearted and generous as he was, would naturally receive him with joy and thanksgiving. He had himself once denied the Lord—not malignantly but from weakness—as Paul had persecuted the disciples—ignorantly in unbelief. Both had been mercifully pardoned, both had seen the Lord, both were called to the highest dignity, both could say from the bottom of the heart: "Lord thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." No doubt they would exchange their experiences and confirm each other in their common faith.

It was probably on this visit that Paul received in a vision in the temple the express command of the Lord to go quickly unto the Gentiles.413  Had he stayed longer at the seat of the Sanhedrin, he would undoubtedly have met the fate of the martyr Stephen.

He visited Jerusalem a second time during the famine under Claudius, in the year 44, accompanied by Barnabas, on a benevolent mission, bearing a collection of the Christians at Antioch for the relief of the brethren in Judaea.414  On that occasion he probably saw none of the apostles on account of the persecution in which James was beheaded, and Peter imprisoned.

The greater part of these four years was spent in missionary work at Tarsus and Antioch.

2. a.d. 45–50. First missionary journey. In the year 45 Paul entered upon the first great missionary journey, in company with Barnabas and Mark, by the direction of the Holy Spirit through the prophets of the congregation at Antioch. He traversed the island of Cyprus and several provinces of Asia Minor. The conversion of the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, at Paphos; the rebuke and punishment of the Jewish sorcerer, Elymas; the marked success of the gospel in Pisidia, and the bitter opposition of the unbelieving Jews; the miraculous healing of a cripple at Lystra; the idolatrous worship there offered to Paul and Barnabas by the superstitious heathen, and its sudden change into hatred against them as enemies of the gods; the stoning of the missionaries, their escape from death, and their successful return to Antioch, are the leading incidents of this tour, which is fully described in Acts 13 and 14.

This period closes with the important apostolic conference at Jerusalem, a.d. 50, which will require separate consideration in the next section.

3. From a.d. 51–54. Second missionary journey. After the council at Jerusalem and the temporary adjustment of the difference between the Jewish and Gentile branches of the church, Paul undertook, in the year 51, a second great journey, which decided the Christianization of Greece. He took Silas for his companion. Having first visited his old churches, he proceeded, with the help of Silas and the young convert, Timothy, to establish new ones through the provinces of Phrygia and Galatia, where, notwithstanding his bodily infirmity, he was received with open arms like an angel of God.

From Troas, a few miles south of the Homeric Troy and the entrance to the Hellespont, he crossed over to Greece in answer to the Macedonian cry:  "Come over and help us!"  He preached the gospel with great success, first in Philippi, where he converted the purple dealer, Lydia, and the jailor, and was imprisoned with Silas, but miraculously delivered and honorably released; then in Thessalonica, where he was persecuted by the Jews, but left a flourishing church; in Beraea, where the converts showed exemplary zeal in searching the Scriptures. In Athens, the metropolis of classical literature, he reasoned with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, and unveiled to them on Mars’ Hill (Areopagus), with consummate tact and wisdom, though without much immediate success, the "unknown God," to whom the Athenians, in their superstitious anxiety to do justice to all possible divinities, had unconsciously erected an altar, and Jesus Christ, through whom God will judge the world in righteousness.415  In Corinth, the commercial bridge between the East and the West, a flourishing centre of wealth and culture, but also a sink of vice and corruption, the apostle spent eighteen months, and under almost insurmountable difficulties he built up a church, which exhibited all the virtues and all the faults of the Grecian character under the influence of the gospel, and which he honored with two of his most important Epistles.416

In the spring of 54 he returned by way of Ephesus, Caesarea, and Jerusalem to Antioch.

During this period he composed the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, which are the earliest of his literary remains excepting his missionary addresses preserved in the Acts.

4. a.d. 54–58. Third missionary tour. Towards the close of the year 54 Paul went to Ephesus, and in this renowned capital of proconsular Asia and of the worship of Diana, he fixed for three years the centre of his missionary work. He then revisited his churches in Macedonia and Achaia, and remained three months more in Corinth and the vicinity.

During this period he wrote the great doctrinal Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, which mark the height of his activity and usefulness.

5. a.d. 58–63. The period of his two imprisonments, with the intervening winter voyage from Caesarea to Rome. In the spring of 58 he journeyed, for the fifth and last time, to Jerusalem, by way of Philippi, Troas, Miletus (where he delivered his affecting valedictory to the Ephesian presbyter-bishops), Tyre, and Caesarea, to carry again to the poor brethren in Judaea a contribution from the Christians of Greece, and by this token of gratitude and love to cement the two branches of the apostolic church more firmly together.

But some fanatical Jews, who bitterly bated him as an apostate and a seducer of the people, raised an uproar against him at Pentecost; charged him with profaning the temple, because he had taken into it an uncircumcised Greek, Trophimus; dragged him out of the sanctuary, lest they should defile it with blood, and would undoubtedly have killed him had not Claudius Lysias, the Roman tribune, who lived near by, come promptly with his soldiers to the spot. This officer rescued Paul, out of respect for his Roman citizenship, from the fury of the mob, set him the next day before the Sanhedrin, and after a tumultuous and fruitless session of the council, and the discovery of a plot against his life, sent him, with a strong military guard and a certificate of innocence, to the procurator Felix in Caesarea.

Here the apostle was confined two whole years (58–60), awaiting his trial before the Sanhedrin, uncondemned, occasionally speaking before Felix, apparently treated with comparative mildness, visited by the Christians, and in some way not known to us promoting the kingdom of God.417

After the accession of the new and better procurator, Festus, who is known to have succeeded Felix in the year 60, Paul, as a Roman citizen, appealed to the tribunal of Caesar and thus opened the way to the fulfilment of his long-cherished desire to preach the Saviour of the world in the metropolis of the world. Having once more testified his innocence, and spoken for Christ in a masterly defence before Festus, King Herod Agrippa II. (the last of the Herods), his sister Bernice, and the most distinguished men of Caesarea, he was sent in the autumn of the year 60 to the emperor. He had a stormy voyage and suffered shipwreck, which detained him over winter at Malta. The voyage is described with singular minuteness and nautical accuracy by Luke as an eye-witness. In the month of March of the year 61, the apostle, with a few faithful companions, reached Rome, a prisoner of Christ, and yet freer and mightier than the emperor on the throne. It was the seventh year of Nero’s reign, when he had already shown his infamous character by the murder of Agrippina, his mother, in the previous year, and other acts of cruelty.

In Rome Paul spent at least two years till the spring of 63, in easy confinement, awaiting the decision of his case, and surrounded by friends and fellow-laborers "in his own hired dwelling." He preached the gospel to the soldiers of the imperial body-guard, who attended him; sent letters and messages to his distant churches in Asia Minor and Greece; watched over all their spiritual affairs, and completed in bonds his apostolic fidelity to the Lord and his church.418

In the Roman prison he wrote the Epistles to the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon.

6. a.d. 63 and 64. With the second year of Paul’s imprisonment in Rome the account of Luke breaks off, rather abruptly, yet appropriately and grandly. Paul’s arrival in Rome secured the triumph of Christianity. In this sense it was true, "Roma locuta est, causa finita est."  And he who spoke at Rome is not dead; he is still "preaching (everywhere) the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, with all boldness, none forbidding him."419

But what became of him after the termination of those two years in the spring of 63?  What was the result of the trial so long delayed?  Was he condemned to death? or was he released by Nero’s tribunal, and thus permitted to labor for another season?  This question is still unsettled among scholars. A vague tradition says that Paul was acquitted of the charge of the Sanhedrin, and after travelling again in the East, perhaps also into Spain, was a second time imprisoned in Rome and condemned to death. The assumption of a second Roman captivity relieves certain difficulties in the Pastoral Epistles; for they seem to require a short period of freedom between the first and a second Roman captivity, and a visit to the East,420 which is not recorded in the Acts, but which the apostle contemplated in case of his release.421  A visit to Spain, which he intended, is possible, though less probable.422  If he was set at liberty, it must have been before the terrible persecution in July, 64, which would not have spared the great leader of the Christian sect. It is a remarkable coincidence that just about the close of the second year of Paul’s confinement, the celebrated Jewish historian, Josephus, then in his 27th year, came to Rome (after a tempestuous voyage and shipwreck), and effected through the influence of Poppaea (the wife of Nero and a half proselyte of Judaism) the release of certain Jewish priests who had been sent to Rome by Felix as prisoners.423  It is not impossible that Paul may have reaped the benefit of a general release of Jewish prisoners.

The martyrdom of Paul under Nero is established by the unanimous testimony of antiquity. As a Roman citizen, he was not crucified, like Peter, but put to death by the sword.424  The scene of his martyrdom is laid by tradition about three miles from Rome, near the Ostian way, on a green spot, formerly called Aquae Salviae, afterwards Tre Fontane, from the three fountains which are said to have miraculously gushed forth from the blood of the apostolic martyr. His relics were ultimately removed to the basilica of San Paolo-fuori-le-Mura, built by Theodosius and Valentinian in 388, and recently reconstructed. He lies outside of Rome, Peter inside. His memory is celebrated, together with that of Peter, on the 29th and 30th of June.425  As to the year of his death, the views vary from a.d. 64 to 69. The difference of the place and manner of his martyrdom suggests that he was condemned by a regular judicial trial, either shortly before, or more probably a year or two after the horrible wholesale massacre of Christians on the Vatican hill, in which his Roman citizenship would not have been regarded. If he was released in the spring of 63, he had a year and a half for another visit to the East and to Spain before the outbreak of the Neronian persecution (after July, 64); but tradition favors a later date. Prudentius separates the martyrdom of Peter from that of Paul by one year. After that persecution the Christians were everywhere exposed to danger.426

Assuming the release of Paul and another visit to the East, we must locate the First Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus between the first and second Roman captivity, and the Second Epistle to Timothy in the second captivity. The last was evidently written in the certain view of approaching martyrdom; it is the affectionate farewell of the aged apostle to his beloved Timothy, and his last will and testament to the militant church below in the bright prospect of the unfading crown in the church triumphant above.427

Thus ended the earthly course of this great teacher of nations, this apostle of victorious faith, of evangelical freedom, of Christian progress. It was the heroic career of a spiritual conqueror of immortal souls for Christ, converting them from the service of sin and Satan to the service of the living God, from the bondage of the law to the freedom of the gospel, and leading them to the fountain of life eternal. He labored more abundantly than all the other apostles; and yet, in sincere humility, he considered himself "the least of the apostles," and "not meet to be called an apostle," because he persecuted the church of God; a few years later he confessed: "I am less than the least of all saints," and shortly before his death: "I am the chief of sinners."428  His humility grew as he experienced God’s mercy and ripened for heaven. Paul passed a stranger and pilgrim through this world, hardly observed by the mighty and the wise of his age. And yet how infinitely more noble, beneficial, and enduring was his life and work than the dazzling march of military conquerors, who, prompted by ambitions absorbed millions of treasure and myriads of lives, only to die at last in a drunken fit at Babylon, or of a broken heart on the rocks of St. Helena!  Their empires have long since crumbled into dust, but St. Paul still remains one of the foremost benefactors of the human race, and the pulses of his mighty heart are beating with stronger force than ever throughout the Christian world.

 

Note on the Second Roman Captivity of Paul.

 

The question of a second Roman captivity of Paul is a purely historical and critical problem, and has no doctrinal or ethical bearing, except that it facilitates the defence of the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles. The best scholars are still divided on the subject. Neander, Gieseler, Bleek, Ewald, Lange, Sabatier, Godet, also Renan (Saint Paul, p. 560, and L’Antechrist, p. 106), and nearly all English biographers and commentators, as Alford, Wordsworth, Howson, Lewin, Farrar, Plumptre, Ellicott, Lightfoot, defend the second captivity, and thus prolong the labors of Paul for a few years. On the other hand not only radical and skeptical critics, as Baur, Zeller, Schenkel, Reuss, Holtzmann, and all who reject the Pastoral Epistles (except Renan), but also conservative exegetes and historians, as Niedner, Thiersch, Meyer, Wieseler, Ebrard, Otto, Beck, Pressensé, deny the second captivity. I have discussed the problem at length in my Hist. of the Apost. Church, § 87, pp. 328–347, and spin in my annotations to Lange on Romans, pp. 10–12. I will restate the chief arguments in favor of a second captivity, partly in rectification of my former opinion.

1. The main argument are the Pastoral Epistles, if genuine, as I hold them to be, notwithstanding all the objections of the opponents from De Wette (1826) and Baur (1835) to Renan (1873) and Holtzmann (1880). It is, indeed, not impossible to assign them to any known period in Paul’s life before his captivity, as during his three years’ sojourn in Ephesus (54–57), or his eighteen months’ sojourn in Corinth (52–53), but it is very difficult to do so. The Epistles presuppose journeys of the apostle not mentioned in Acts, and belong apparently to an advanced period in his life, as well as in the history of truth and error in the apostolic church.

2. The release of Timothy from a captivity in Italy, probably in Rome, to which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 13:23 alludes, may have some connection with the release of Paul, who had probably a share in the inspiration, if not in the composition, of that remarkable production.

3. The oldest post-apostolic witness is Clement of Rome, who wrote about 95:, Paul ... having come to the limit of the West (ejpi; to; tevrma th'" duvsew" ejlqwn) and borne witness before the magistrates (marturhvsa" epi; tw'n hJgoumevnwn, which others translate, "having suffered martyrdom under the rulers"), departed from the world and went to the holy place, having furnished the sublimest model of endurance" (Ad Corinth. c. 5). Considering that Clement wrote in Rome, the most natural interpretation of tevrma th'" duvsew", "the extreme west," is Spain or Britain; and as Paul intended to carry the gospel to Spain, one would first think of that country, which was in constant commercial intercourse with Rome, and had produced distinguished statesmen and writers like Seneca and Lucan. Strabo (II. 1) calls the pillars of Hercules pevrata th'" oijkoumevnh"; and Velleius Paterc. calls Spain "extremus nostri orbis terminus." See Lightfoot, St. Clement, p. 50. But the inference is weakened by the absence of any trace or tradition of Paul’s visit to Spain.429  Still less can he have suffered martyrdom there, as the logical order of the words would imply. And as Clement wrote to the Corinthians, he may, from their geographical standpoint, have called the Roman capital the end of the West. At all events the passage is rhetorical (it speaks of seven imprisonments, eJptavki" desma; forevsa"), and proves nothing for further labors in the East.430

4. An incomplete passage in the fragmentary Muratorian canon (about a.d. 170): "Sed profectionem Pauli ab urbe ad Spaniam proficiscentis ..." seems to imply a journey of Paul to Spain, which Luke has omitted; but this is merely a conjecture, as the verb has to be supplied. Comp., however, Westcott, The Canon of the N. Test., p. 189, and Append. C., p. 467, and Renan, L’Antechrist, p. 106 sq.

5. Eusebius (d. 310) first clearly asserts that "there is a tradition (lovgo" e[cei) that the apostle, after his defence, again set forth to the ministry of his preaching and having entered a second time the same city [Rome], was perfected by his martyrdom before him [Nero]." Hist. Eccl. II. 22 (comp. ch. 25). But the force of this testimony is weakened first by its late date; secondly, by the vague expression lovgo" e[cei, "it is said," and the absence of any reference to older authorities (usually quoted by Eusebius); thirdly, by his misunderstanding of 2 Tim. 4:16, 17, which he explains in the same connection of a deliverance from the first imprisonment (as if ajpologiva were identical with aijcmalwsiva); and lastly by his chronological mistake as to the time of the first imprisonment which, in his "Chronicle," he misdates a.d. 58, that is, three years before the actual arrival of Paul in Rome. On the other hand he puts the conflagration of Rome two years too late, a.d. 66, instead of 64, and the Neronian persecution, and the martyrdom of Paul and Peter, in the year 70.

6. Jerome (d. 419): "Paul was dismissed by Nero that he might preach Christ’s gospel also in the regions of the West (in Occidentis quoque partibus). De Vir. ill. sub Paulus. This echoes the tevrma th'" duvsew" of Clement. Chrysostom (d. 407), Theodoret, and other fathers assert that Paul went to Spain (Rom. 15:28), but without adducing any proof.

These post-apostolic testimonies, taken together, make it very probable, but not historically certain, that Paul was released after the spring of 63, and enjoyed an Indian summer of missionary work before his Martyrdom. The only remaining monuments, as well as the best proof, of this concluding work are the Pastoral Epistles, if we admit them to be genuine. To my mind the historical difficulties of the Pastoral Epistles are an argument for rather than against their Pauline origin. For why should a forger invent difficulties when he might so easily have fitted his fictions in the frame of the situation known from the Acts and the other Pauline Epistles?  The linguistic and other objections are by no means insurmountable, and are overborne by the evidence of the Pauline spirit which animates these last productions of his pen.

 

 § 34. The Synod of Jerusalem, and the Compromise between Jewish and Gentile Christianity.

 

Literature.

 

I. Acts 15, and Gal. 2, and the Commentaries thereon.

II. Besides the general literature already noticed (in §§ 20 and 29), compare the following special discussions on the Conference of the Apostles, which tend to rectify the extreme view of Baur (Paulus, ch. V.) and Overbeck (in the fourth edition of De Wette’s Com. on Acts) on the conflict between Acts 15 and Gal. 2, or between Petrinism and Paulinism, and to establish the true historic view of their essential unity in diversity.

Bishop Lightfoot: St. Paul and the Three, in Com. on Galat., London, 1866 (second ed.), pp. 283–355. The ablest critical discussion of the problem in the English language.

R. A. Lipsius: Apostelconvent, in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexikon, I. (1869), pp. 194–207. A clear and sharp statement of eight apparent contradictions between Acts 15 and Gal. 2. He admits, however, some elements of truth in the account of Acts, which he uses to supplement the account of Paul. Schenkel, in his Christusbild der Apostel, 1879, p. 38, goes further, and says, in opposition to Overbeck, who regards the account of Acts as a Tendenz- Roman, or partisan fiction: "The narrative of Paul is certainly trustworthy, but one-sided, which was unavoidable, considering his personal apologetic aim, and passes by in silence what is foreign to that aim. The narrative of Acts follows oral and written traditions which were already influenced by later views and prejudices, and it is for this reason unreliable in part, yet by no means a conscious fiction."

Otto Pfleiderer: Der Paulinismus. Leipzig, 1873, pp. 278 sqq. and 500 sqq. He tones down the differences to innocent inaccuracies of the Acts, and rejects the idea of "intentional invention."

C. Weizsäcker (successor of Dr. Baur in Tübingen, but partly dissenting from him): Das Apostelconcil in the "Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie" for 1873, pp. 191–246. And his essay on Paulus und die Gemeinde in Korinth, ibid., 1876, pp. 603–653. In the last article he concludes (p. 652) that the real opponents of Paul, in Corinth as well as in Galatia, were not the primitive apostles (as asserted by Baur, Schwegler, etc.), but a set of fanatics who abused the authority of Peter and the name of Christ, and imitated the agitation of Jewish proselytizers, as described by Roman writers.

K. Schmidt: Der Apostel-Konvent, in Herzog and Plitt, R. E. I. (1877), 575–584. Conservative.

Theod. Keim: Aus dem Urchristenthum. Zürich, 1879, Der Apostelkonvent, pp. 64–89. (Comp. Hilgenfeld’s review in the "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftl. Theologie," 1879, pp. 100f sqq.)  One of the last efforts of the author of the Leben Jesu von Nazara. Keim goes a step further than Weizsäcker, strongly maintains the public as well as the private character of the apostolic agreement, and admits the circumcision of Timothy as a fact. He also entirely rejects the view of Baur, Weizsäcker, and Overbeck that the author of Acts derived his information from the Ep. to the Galatians, and perverted it for his irenic purpose.

F. W. Farrar: The Life and Work of Paul (Lond., 1879), chs. XXII.-XXIII. (I. 398–454).

Wilibald Grimm: Der Apostelconvent, in the "Theol. Studien und Kritiken" (Gotha), for 1880, pp. 405–432. A critical discussion in the right direction. The exegetical essay of Wetzel on Gal. 2:14, 21, in the same periodical, pp. 433 sqq., bears in part on the same subject.

F. Godet: Com. on the Ep. to the Romans, vol. I. (1879), pp. 3742, English translation. Able and sound.

Karl Wieseler: Zur Gesch. der N. T.lichen Schrift und des