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ST. PAUL.

CHAPTER I

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

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

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

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discussed. If the main position of this book is admitted, it will furnish a secure basis for the Epistles to rest on. Works that profess to be historical are of various kinds and trustworthy in varying degrees. (1) There is the historical romance, which in a framework of history interweaves an invented tale. Some of the Apocryphal tales of the Apostles are of this class, springing apparently from a desire to provide Christian substitutes for the popular romances of the period. (2) There is the legend, in which popular fancy, working for generations, has surrounded a real person and real events with such a mass of extraneous matter that the historical kernel is hardly discernible. Certain of the Apocryphal tales of the Apostles may belong to this class, and many of the Acta of martyrs and saints certainly do. (3) There is the history of the second or third rate, in which the writer, either using good authorities carelessly and without judgment, or not possessing sufficiently detailed and correct authorities, gives a narrative of past events which is to a certain degree trustworthy, but contains errors in facts and in the grouping and proportions, and tinges the narrative of the past with the colour of his own time. In using works of this class the modern student has to exercise his historical tact, comparing the narrative with any other evidence that can be obtained from any source, and judging whether the action attributed to individuals is compatible with the possibilities of human nature. (4) There is, finally, the historical work of the highest order, in which a writer commands excellent means of knowledge either through personal acquaintance or through access to original authorities, and brings to the treatment of his subject

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genius, literary skill, and sympathetic historical insight into human character and the movement of events. Such an author seizes the critical events, concentrates the reader’s attention on them by giving them fuller treatment, touches more lightly and briefly on the less important events, omits entirely a mass of unimportant details, and makes his work an artistic and idealised picture of the progressive tendency of the period.

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

But, while recognising the risk, and the probable condemnation that awaits the rash attempt, I will venture to add one to the number of the critics, by stating in the

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following chapters reasons for placing the author of Acts among the historians of the first rank.

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

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

SEC 1. Trustworthiness

early Church history, yet attach some value to his opinion upon the spuriousness of documents which he has condemned solely on the ground that they disagree with his theory.

The most important group among those who assign the author to the second rank of historians, consists of them that accept his facts as true, although his selection of what he should say and what he should omit seems to them strangely capricious. They recognise many of the signs of extraordinary accuracy in his statements; and these signs are so numerous that they feel bound to infer that the facts as a whole are stated with great accuracy by a personal friend of St. Paul. But when they compare the Acts with such documents as the Epistles of Paul, and when they study the history as a whole, they are strongly impressed with the inequalities of treatment, and the unexpected and puzzling gaps; events of great importance seem to be dismissed in a brief and unsatisfactory way; and, sometimes, when one of the actors (such as Paul) has left an account of an event described in Acts, they find difficulty in recognising the two accounts as descriptions of the same event. Bishop Lightfoot’s comparison of Gal. II 1-10 with Acts XV may be quoted as a single specimen out of many: the elaborate process whereby he explains away the seeming discrepancies would alone be sufficient, if it were right, to prove that Acts was a second-rate work of history. We never feel on firm historical ground, when discrepancies are cleverly explained away: we need agreements to stand upon. Witnesses in a law court may give discrepant accounts of the same event; but they are half-educated, confused, unable to rise to historical truth. But when a historian

The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I

is compared with the reminiscences of an able and highly educated actor in the same scenes, and when the comparison consists chiefly in a laboured proof that the discrepancies do not amount to positive contradiction, the conclusion is very near, that, if the reminiscences are strictly honest, the historian’s picture is not of the highest rank.

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

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part, it was possible to show why the eye-witness saw one set of incidents, while Acts described quite a different set. The historian who is to give a brief history of a great period need not reproduce on a reduced uniform scale all the facts which he would mention in a long history, like a picture reduced by a photographic process. If a brief history is to be a work of true art, it must omit a great deal, and concentrate the reader’s attention on a certain number of critical points in the development of events, elaborating these sufficiently to present them in life-like and clearly intelligible form. True historical genius lies in selecting the great crises, the great agents, and the great movements, in making these clear to the reader in their real nature, in passing over with the lightest and slightest touch numerous events and many persons, but always keeping clear before the reader the plan of composition. The historian may dismiss years with a word, and devote considerable space to a single incident. In such a work, the omission of an event does not constitute a gap, but is merely a proof that the event had not sufficient importance to enter into the plan. A gap is some omission that offends our reason and our sense of harmony and propriety; and where something is omitted that bears on the author’s plan, or where the plan as conceived by the author does not correspond to the march of events, but only to some fanciful and subjective view, there the work fails short of the level of history.

I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without any prejudice in favour of the conclusion which I shall now attempt to justify to the reader. On the con-

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trary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tübingen theory had at one time quite convinced me. It did not lie then in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found myself often brought in contact with the book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne in upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvellous truth. In fact, beginning with the fixed idea that the work was essentially a second-century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first-century conditions,. I gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult investigations. But there remained still one serious objection to accepting it as entirely a first-century work. According to the almost universally accepted view, this history led Paul along a path and through surroundings which seemed to me historically and topographically self-contradictory. It was not possible to bring Paul’s work in Asia Minor into accordance with the facts of history on the supposition that an important part of that work was devoted to a district in the northern part of the peninsula, called Galatia. It may appear at first sight a mere topographical subtlety whether Paul travelled through North Galatia or through Lycaonia; but, when you consider that any details given of his journeys must be false to the one side just in proportion as they are true to the other, you will perceive that, if you try to apply the narrative to the wrong side of the country, it will not suit the scene, and if it does not suit, then it must appear to be written by a person ignorant of what he pretends to know. The case might be illustrated from our own experience. Suppose

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that an unknown person came to Auburn from New York, and you wished to find out whether he was an impostor or not. In our country we are exposed to frequent attempts at imposition, which can often be detected by a few questions; and you would probably ask him about his experiences on his journey from New York to Auburn. Now suppose you had been informed that he had come not along the direct road, but by a long detour through Boston, Montreal, and Toronto, and had thus arrived at Auburn; and suppose that you by questioning elicited from him various facts which suited only a route through Schenectady and Utica, you would condemn the man as an impostor, because he did not know the road which he pretended to have travelled. But suppose further that it was pointed out by some third party that this stranger had really travelled along the direct road, and that you had been misinformed when you supposed him to have come by the round-about way, your opinion as to the stranger’s truthfulness would be instantly affected. Precisely similar is the case of Acts as a record of travel; generations and centuries have been attempting to apply it to the wrong countries. I must speak on this point confidently and uncompromisingly, for the facts stand out so clear and bold and simple that to affect to hesitate or to profess any doubt as to one’s judgment would be a betrayal of truth.

I know the difficulties of this attempt to understand rightly a book so difficult, so familiar, and so much mis- understood as Acts. It is probable that I have missed the right turn or not grasped the full meaning in some cases. I am well aware that I leave some difficulties unexplained, sometimes from inability, sometimes from mere omission.

The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I

But I am sustained by the firm belief that I am on the right path, and by the hope that enough of difficulties have been cleared away to justify a dispassionate historical criticism in placing this great writer on the high pedestal that belongs to him.

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

SEC 2. Development of Modern Criticism on Acts.

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

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

The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I

against the other; and, if we. admit (as I think we must admit), that each view is rounded on a correct but one-sided perception of certain qualities in this remarkable book, we may fairly say that each disproves the other.

Certain theorists, and especially Clemen in his extraordinarily ingenious and bold work Chronologie der Paulinischen Briefe, see clearly that such a bald scissors-and-paste theory as Spitta’s is quite inadequate to explain the many-sided character of this history. Dr. Clemen supposes that three older documents, a history of the Hellenistic Jews, a history of Peter, and a history of Paul, were worked into one work by a Judaist Redactor, who inserted many little touches and even passages of considerable length to give a tone favourable to the Judaising type of Christianity; and that this completed book was again worked over by an anti-Judaist Redactor II, who inserted other parts to give a tone unfavourable to the Judaising type of Christianity, but left the Judaistic insertions. Finally, a Redactor III of neutral tone incorporated anew document (VI 1-6), and gave the whole its present form by a number of small touches. When a theory becomes so complicated as Clemen’s, the humble scholar who has been trained only in philological and historical method finds himself unable to keep pace, and toils in vain behind this daring flight. We shall not at present stop to argue from examples in ancient and modern literature, that a dissection of this elaborate kind cannot be carried out. Style is seen in the whole rather than in single sentences, still less in parts of sentences; and a partition between six authors, clause by clause, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, of a work that seemed even to bold and revolutionary critics like Zeller

SEC 2. Development of Modern Criticism on Acts.

and Baur in Germany and Renan in France to be a model of unity and individuality in style, is simply impossible. Moreover, the plan of this study is not to argue against other theories, but to set forth a plain and simple interpretation of the text, and appeal to the recognised principle of criticism that, where a simple theory of origin can be shown to hold together properly, complicated theories must give way to it.

One feature in Dr. Clemen’s theory shows true insight. No simple theory of gluing together can exhaust the varied character of the Acts: a very complex system of junctures is needed to explain its many-sidedness. But Dr. Clemen has not gone far enough. There is only one kind of cause that is sufficiently complex to match the many-sided aspects of the book, and that cause is the many-sided character of a thoughtful and highly educated man. Dr. Clemen seems to assume that every instance where Paul adopts an attitude of conciliation towards the Jews is added by a Judaistic Redactor, and every step in his growing estrangement from them is due to an anti-Judaistic Redactor. He does not, I venture to think, allow due scope to the possibility that an historian might record both classes of incidents in the interests of truth. It is admitted that a dislocation occurred in the early Church, and that the contention between the Judaising and the Universalising (to adopt a convenient designation) parties was keen for a time. It is natural that the estrangement should be gradual; and the historian sets before us a gradual process. He shows us Paul acting on the principle that the Jews had the first claim (XIII 46), and always attempting to conciliate them; but he also shows us that Paul did not struggle against the facts, but turned his back on the Jews when

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they rejected him (as their Whole history proves, even without the evidence of Acts, that they were sure to do).

It is hard to find a sufficient foundation for Dr. Clemen’s theory without the preliminary assumption that an early Christian must necessarily be incapable of taking a broad and unbiased view of history as: a whole. Grant that assumption, and his theory is built up with marvellous skill, patience and ingenuity.

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

We must face the facts boldly. If Luke wrote Acts, his narrative must agree in a striking and convincing way with Paul’s: they must confirm, explain and com- plete one another. This is not a case of two common-

SEC 3. Working Hypothesis of the Investigation.

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

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

Further, we cannot admit readily that peculiarities of Luke’s narrative are to be accounted for by want of

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information: in his case this explanation really amounts to an accusation of culpable neglect of a historian’s first duty, for full information was within Luke’s reach, if he had taken the trouble to seek it. We shall find no need of this supposition. Finally, it is hard to believe that Paul’s letters were unknown to Luke; he was in Paul’s company when some of them were written; he must have known about the rest, and could readily learn their contents in the intimate intercommunication that bound together the early Churches. We shall try to show that Luke had in mind the idea of explaining and elucidating the letters.

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

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

Further, it is necessary to study every historian’s method, and not to judge him according to whether or not he uses

SEC 3. Working Hypothesis of the Investigation.

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

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

I know of no person except Bishop Lightfoot who has seriously attempted to test or revise or improve the traditional statements (often, the traditional blunders) about Asian antiquities as bearing on Acts; but the

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materials were not at his disposal for doing this successfully. But it is bad method to found theories of its composition on wrong interpretations of its meaning: the stock misconceptions should first be cleared away, and the book studied in relation to the localities and the antiquities.

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

His plan leads him to concentrate attention on the critical steps. Hence he often passes lightly over a long period of gradual development marked by no striking incident; and from his bad chronological sense he gives no measure of the lapse of time implied in a sentence, a clause, or even a word. He dismisses ten years in a breathe and devotes a chapter to a single incident. His character as an historian, therefore, depends on his selection of topics. Does he show the true historian’s power of seizing the great facts, and marking dearly the stages in the development of his subject? Now, what impresses me is the sense of proportion in Acts, and the skill with which a complex and difficult subject is grouped to bring out the historical development from the primitive Church (ch. I-V) through the successive steps associated with four great names, Stephen, Philip,

SEC 3. Working Hypothesis of the Investigation.

Peter, Paul. Where the author passes rapidly over a period or a journey, we shall find reason to believe that it was marked by no striking feature and no new foundation. The axiom from which we start must be that which is assumed in all literary investigations—preference is to be given to the interpretation which restores order, lucidity, and sanity to the work. All that we ask in this place is the admission of that axiom, and a patient hearing, and especially that the reader, before condemning our first steps as not in harmony with other incidents, will wait to see how we can interpret those incidents.

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

There is a contrast between the early chapters of Acts and the later. In the later chapters there are few sentences that do not afford some test of their accuracy by mentioning external facts of life, history, and antiquities. But the earlier chapters contain comparatively few such details; the subject in them is handled in a vaguer way, with a less vigorous and nervous grasp; the facts are

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rarely given in their local and historical surroundings, and sometimes seem to float in air rather than to stand on solid ground.

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

4. THE AUTHOR OF ACTS AND HIS HERO. It is rare to find a narrative so simple and so little forced as that of Acts. It is a mere uncoloured recital of the important facts in the briefest possible terms. The narrator’s individuality and his personal feelings and preferences are almost wholly suppressed. He is entirely absorbed in his work; and he writes with the single aim to state the facts as he has learned them. It would be difficult in the whole range of literature to find a work where there is less attempt at pointing a moral or drawing

SEC 4. The Author of Acts and his Hero

a lesson from the facts. The narrator is persuaded that the facts themselves in their barest form are a perfect lesson and a complete instruction, and he feels that it would be an impertinence and even an impiety to intrude his individual views into the narrative.

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

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

The characterisation of Paul in Acts is so detailed and individualised as to prove the author’s personal acquaint- ance. Moreover, the Paul of Acts is the Paul that appears to us in his own letters, in his ways and his thoughts, in his educated tone of polished courtesy, in his quick and

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vehement temper, in the extraordinary versatility and adapt- ability which made him at home in every society, moving at ease in all surroundings, and everywhere the centre of interest, whether he is the Socratic dialectician in the agora of Athens, or the rhetorician in its University, or conversing with kings and proconsuls, or advising in the council on shipboard, or cheering a broken-spirited crew to make one more effort for life. Wherever Paul is, no one present has eyes for any but him.

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

¹ Church in R. E., Ch. XIII.

SEC 4. The Author of Acts and his Hero

The question must be fairly considered whether Luke had completed his history. There is one piece of evidence from his own hand that he had not completed it, but contemplated a third book at least. His work is divided into two books, the Gospel and the Acts, but in the opening line of the Acts he refers to the Gospel as the First discourse (πρῶτος ν λόγος) Had he not contemplated a third book, we expect the term Former Discourse (πρότερος) In a marked position like the opening of a book, we must take the word first strictly (Note, p. 27).

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

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

5. THE TEXTS OF ACTS. It was my wish to take no notice here of differences of reading, but simply to

The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I

follow Westcott and Hort (except in two impossible cases, XI 20, XII 25). This, however, proved impracticable; for there are some cases in which over-estimate of the two great MSS. (the Sinaitic and the Vatican) has led to the adoption of a reading that obscures history. In several places I have been driven back on the Received Text and the Authorised Version, and in others the Bezan Text either contains or gives the clue to the original text; and wherever the Bezan Text is confirmed by old Versions and by certain Greek MSS., it seems to me to deserve very earnest consideration, as at least pointing in the direction of an original reading subjected to wide-spread corruption.

It is universally admitted that the text of Acts was exposed to very careless or free handling in the second century. This came about in various ways, for the most part unintentionally, but partly by deliberate action. At that time great interest was taken in gathering from trustworthy sources supplementary information, beyond what was contained in the Gospels and Acts. Eusebius, III 39, quotes a passage from Papias describing his eager inquiries after such information from those who had come into personal relations with the Apostles, and another, V 20, from Irenaeus, describing how Polycarp used to tell of his intercourse with John and the rest that had seen the Lord. Now there was a natural tendency to note on the margin of a MS. additional information obtained on good authority about incidents mentioned in the text; and there is always a danger that such notes may be inserted in the text by a copyist, who takes them for parts accidentally omitted. There is also a certain probability that deliberate addi-

SEC. 5 The text of Acts

tions might be made to the text (as deliberate excisions are said to have been made by Marcion). The balance of evidence is, on the whole, that Mark XVI 9-20 is a later composition, designed to complete a narrative that had all the appearance of being defective. Again, explanatory notes on the margin of a MS. are often added by a reader interested in the text; there is no doubt that in some books such glosses have crept into the text through the errors of the copyist; and there are on our view three such cases at least in the generally accepted text of Acts.

But, beyond this, when translations were made into Syriac and Latin (the former certainly, the later probably, as early as the middle of the second century), the attention of scholars was necessarily directed to the difficulties in interpretation of the text, with its occasional archaic expressions, obscure words, and harsh constructions; and the practical usefulness of a simplified and modernised text was thus suggested. Tatian’s Harmony of the Four Gospels, and Marcion’s doctored editions, show how attempts were made from different points of view and in different ways to adapt the sacred narrative for popular use: Tatian changed the order, Marcion altered the text by excision or worse. Thus the plan of a simplified text was quite in keeping with the custom of the second century; and the Bezan Text seems to be of that kind. As a whole it is not Lukan: it has a fatal smoothness, it loses the rather harsh but very individual style of Luke, and it neglects some of the literary forms that Luke observed. But it has a high value for several reasons: (1) it preserves with corruptions a second-century witness to the text, and often gives valuable, and sometimes

The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I

conclusive, evidence of readings; (2) it shows what view was held as to the meaning of various passages in the second century; (3) it adds several pieces of information which probably rest on good evidence, though they were not written by Luke. Thus we can often gather from the Bezan comment what was the original reading commented on; and it vindicates the great MSS. in XVI 12 against Dr. Hort’s conjecture. It reveals to us the first beginnings of Pauline legend (p. 106); and in this respect it stands on much the same level as the original text of the Acta of Paul and Thekla, where also it is hard to distinguish where history ends and romance begins. With the help of these two authorities, combined with early Christian inscriptions (which begin only about 190, but give retrospective evidence), we can recover some faint idea of the intellectual life of the second-century Christians in Asia Minor and North Syria.

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

While the Bezan Text has gone furthest from the original Lukan Text, there is no MS. which has not suffered seriously from the various causes of depravation. Several of the errors that have affected the two great MSS. look like changes made intentionally in order to suit a mistaken idea of the meaning of other passages; but there is always a possibility that in these cases an

SEC. 5 The text of Acts

editor was making a choice between varieties of reading that had been produced unintentionally. Only in the Bezan Text can we confidently say that deliberate alterations were made in the text.

I believe that the Bezan Reviser made many skillful changes in passages relating to Asia Minor and some foolish changes in European passages. In some of these cases, the view remains open that the Bezan reading is the original; but evidence is as yet not sufficient to give certainty. The home of the Revision is along the line of intercourse between Syrian Antioch and Ephesus, for the life of the early Church lay in intercommunication, but the Reviser was connected with Antioch, for he inserts “we” in XI 28. Dr. Chase emphasizes this point.

Note. τὸν πρῶτον λόγον. The commentators universally regard this as an example of the misuse of πρῶτος; but they give no sufficient proof that Luke elsewhere misused that word. In Stephen’s speech (VII 12) the adverb πρῶτον misused for πρότερον occurs, but a dispassionate consideration of the speeches in Acts must convince every reader that they are not composed by the author, but taken verbatim from other authorities (in this case from Philip at Cæsareia, XXI 8). Blass, p. 16, points out with his usual power, that the character and distinction of the comparative and superlative degrees was decaying in the Greek of the N.T., and that in many adjectives one of the two degrees played the part of both. But such changes do not affect all words simultaneously; and the distinction between πρότερος and πρῶτος might be expected to last longer than that between most other pairs. We observe that Paul uses both, and

The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I

distinguishes them correctly (though he blurs the distinction in other words): τὸ πρότερον as the former of two visits Gal. IV 13, τὴν προτέραν ἀναστροθήν Eph. IV 22. Blass, with the grammarian’s love for making absolute rules, conjectures the last example away, in order to lay down the law that the adjective πρότερος is not employed in N.T.; but we follow the MSS., and find in them the proof that the distinction was only in process of decay, and that the pair πρότερος — πρῶτος still survived among the more educated writers in N.T. So long as Paul could distinguish πρότερος and πρῶτος, there is a probability that Luke would not utterly confuse them; and the fact that John uses πρῶτος in the most glaring way for πρότερος has no bearing on Luke, who was a far better master of Greek. We find several instances where Luke uses πρῶτος correctly in Acts XII 10 there were obviously three gates and three wards to pass (Peter was allowed to pass the first and the second, being taken presumably as a servant; but no servant would be expected to pass beyond the outermost ward at night, and a different course was needed there): in Luke II 2 a series of census are contemplated as having occurred, p. 386: in Luke XI 26 the man is described as passing through several stages: cp. XIII 30, XIV 18, XVI 5, XIX 16, XX 29. And, if there survived in Luke the slightest idea of any difference between comparative and superlative, the opening of a book is the place where we should expect to find the difference expressed. We conclude, then, that the use of πρῶτος there is more easily reconcilable with the plan of three books, than of two; but certainty is not attainable, as πρότερος does not actually occur in his writings.

CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGIN OF ST. PAUL

1. PAUL’S NATIONALITY. In the growth of Christianity we observe that all the threads of development which had been formed in the life of the great races of older history are gathered together into one complex whole. Hence we have just the same assurance of the truth of Christianity that we have of the trustworthiness of earlier history: the earlier works into the later, the later grows out of the earlier, in such a way that all must be taken together. The correspondence is in itself a guarantee of truth. Each exists for the other: each derives its full comprehensibility from the other. We must accept the general outline of early history as a whole, or we must reject it as a whole on the plea of insufficient evidence. There is not a fact of early history, whether Christian or pre-Christian, which is not susceptible of being disputed with a fair show of rational and logical argument: the evidence is nowhere such as would convince a man whose mind is made up against the trustworthiness of ancient history. Let any one test the evidence for any point in regard to the battles of Salamis or of Marathon; and he will find that everywhere he is reduced to a balance of evidence, and frequently to a balance so delicate that no one can feel any assured confidence on the point. Yet

The Origin of St. Paul CHAP. II

our confidence in the general facts regarding each battle and its results is not, as a rule, affected by our uncertainty as to the details. Doubtless there will always be some who argue that the trustworthiness of the whole must be proportionate to the trustworthiness of the parts, and conclude that, where all details are so uncertain, the whole is unworthy of study; and those who cannot see—or rather feel—for themselves the fallacy of the argument will not be convinced by any reasoning that can be adduced. But for those who do not adopt the extreme agnostic position, there is no other logical position except that of accepting the. general scheme of ancient history, in which Christianity is the crowning factor that gives unity and rational plan to the whole.

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

At present, however, we must emphasise the complex influences amid which Paul grew up. According to the law of his country, he was first of all a Roman citizen. That character superseded all others before the law and

SEC 1. Paul's Nationality

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

Paul was, in the second place, a “Tarsian, a citizen of a distinguished city” (XXI 39, IX 11). He was not merely a person born in Tarsus, owing to the accident of his family being there: he had a citizen’s rights in Tarsus. We may confidently assume that Paul was careful to keep within demonstrable law and custom, when he claimed to be a Tarsian citizen in describing himself to the Tribune. According to the strict interpretation of the Roman law, the civitas superseded all other citizenship, but this theoretical exclusiveness was opposed to the Imperial spirit; and it is clear that Roman cives in a provincial city commonly filled the position of high-class citizens, and even had magistracies pressed upon them by general consent. Now, if Paul’s family had merely emigrated to Tarsus from Judæa some years

The Origin of St. Paul CHAP. II

before his birth, neither he nor his father would have been “Tarsians,” but merely “residents” (incolæ). It is probable, but not certain, that the family had been planted in Tarsus with full rights as part of a colony settled there by one of the Seleucid kings in order to strengthen their hold on the city. Such a re-foundation took place at Tarsus, for the name Antiocheia was given it under Antiochus IV (175–164 B.C.). The Seleucid kings seem to have had a preference for Jewish colonists in their foundations in Asia Minor. Citizenship in Tarsus might also have been presented to Paul’s father or grandfather for distinguished services to the State; but that is much less probable.

In the third place, Paul was “a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews “. The expression is a remarkable one. It is used not to a Jewish audience, but to a Greek Church (Phil. III 5), and it is similar to a familiar expression among the Greeks: “a priest sprung from priests” is a term commonly applied to members of the great sacerdotal families which play so important a part in the society of Asian cities. He was a Jew at least as much as he was a Tarsian and a Roman, as regards his early surroundings; and it is obvious that the Jewish side of his nature and education proved infinitely the most important, as his character developed. But it is a too common error to ignore the other sides. Many interpreters seem to think only of his words, XXII 3, “I am a Jew born in Tarsus,” and to forget that he said a few moments before, “I am a Jew, a Tarsian, a citizen of no mean city”. To the Hebrews he emphasises his Jewish character, and his birth in Tarsus is added as an accident: but to Claudius Lysias, a

SEC 1. Paul's Nationality

Greek-Roman, he emphasises his Tarsian citizenship (after having old of his Roman citizenship). Now, there is no inconsistency between these descriptions of himself. Most of us have no difficulty in understanding that a Jew at the present day may be a thoroughly patriotic English citizen, and yet equally proud of his ancient and honourable origin. In the extraordinarily mixed society of the Eastern provinces, it was the usual rule in educated society that each man had at least two nationalities and two sides to his character. If we would clearly understand the society in which Paul worked, and the mission of Rome to make the idea of cosmopolitanism and universal citizenship a practical reality—an idea that had been first conceived by the Stoic philosophy in its attempt to fuse Greek and oriental thought into a unified system—we must constantly bear in mind that double or even triple character, which was so common.

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

The Origin of St. Paul CHAP. II

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

2. PAUL’S FAMILY. If Paul belonged to a family of wealth and position, how comes it that in great part of his career (but not in the whole, p. 312) he shows all the marks of poverty, maintaining himself by his own labour, and gratefully acknowledging his indebtedness to the contributions of his Philippian converts, in Rome, in Corinth, and twice in Thessalonica (Phil. IV 15, II Cor. XI 9; see p. 360)? It was not simply that he voluntarily worked with his hands in order to impress on his converts the dignity and duty of labour, for he conveys the impression, II Cor. XI 8 f., I Thess. II 9, that he had to choose between accepting help from his’ converts, and making his own living. But it often happens in our own experience that a member of a rich family is in a position

SEC 2. Paul's Family

of poverty. It would be enough simply to accept the fact; but, as Paul in his later career is found in a different position, and as the same conjecture about his poverty must arise in every one’s mind, we may glance for a moment at the relations in which Paul would stand to his own family after his conversion.

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

Now, as Paul himself says, he had been brought up in strict Judaic feeling, not as a Sadducee, accepting the non-Jewish spirit, but as a Pharisee; and we must infer that the spirit of his family was strongly Pharisaic. The whole history of the Jews shows what was likely to be the feeling among his parents and brothers and

The Origin of St. Paul CHAP. II

sisters, when he not merely became a Christian, but went to the Gentiles. Their pride was outraged; and we should naturally expect that such a family would regard Paul as an apostate, a foe to God and the chosen race, and a disgrace to the family; his own relatives might be expected. to be his most bitter enemies. Looking at these probabilities, we see a special force in Paul’s words to the Philippians, III 8, that he had given up all for Christ, “for whom I suffered the loss of all things and do count them but refuse”. These emphatic words suit the mouth of one who had been disowned by his family, and, reduced from a position of wealth and influence in his nation to poverty and, contempt.

Perhaps it is some terrible family scene that made Paul so keenly alive to the duty owed by a father to his children. Probably nothing in family life makes a more awful and lasting impression on a sensitive mind than a scene where a respected and beloved parent makes a demand beyond what love or duty permits, and tries to enforce that demand by authority and threats. If Paul had to face such a scene, we can appreciate the reason why he lays so much stress on the duty of parents to respect their children’s just feelings: “ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the education and admonition of the Lord” (VI 4): “fathers, provoke not your children, lest they lose heart” (Col. III 21). Not every person would think this one of the most important pieces of advice to give his young societies in Asia Minor. But, according to our conjecture, Paul had good cause to know the harm that parents may do by

SEC 2. Paul's Family

not reasonably considering their children’s desires and beliefs. At the same time he strongly emphasises in the same passages the duty of children to obey their parents, and sets this before the duty of parents to their children. That also is characteristic of one who had been blameless as touching all the commandments (Phil. III 6), and who therefore must have gone to the fullest extreme in compliance with his father’s orders before he announced that he could comply no further.

3. PERSONALITY. While Luke is very sparing of personal details, he gives us some few hints about Paul’s physical characteristics as bearing on his moral influence. As an orator, he evidently used a good deal of gesture with his hands; for example, he enforced a point to the Ephesian Elders by showing them “these hands” (XX 34). When he addressed the audience at Pisidian Antioch, or the excited throng of Jews in Jerusalem, he beckoned with the hand; when he addressed Agrippa and the distinguished audience in the Roman governor’s hail, he “stretched forth his hand”. This was evidently a characteristic and hardly conscious feature of his more impassioned oratory; but, when more quiet and simple address was suitable (as in the opening of his speech to the Ephesian Elders, before the emotion was wrought up), or when a purely argumentative and restrained style was more likely to be effective (as in addressing the critical and cold Athenian audience, or the Roman procurator’s court), no gesture is mentioned. On the other hand, in the extreme excitement at Lystra he “rent his garments”; and in the jailor’s critical situation, XVI 28, Paul called

The Origin of St. Paul CHAP. II

out with a loud voice. Wherever any little fact is mentioned by Luke, we can always observe some special force in it, and such details must have had real importance, when an author so brief and so impersonal as Luke mentions them; and they are very rare in him. Alexander tried to obtain a hearing from the Ephesian mob by such a gesture; and the din, as they howled like a lot of dervishes, is set before us strongly by the fact that speaking was impossible and gesture alone could be perceived. Peter, when he appeared to his astonished friends in Mary’s house after his escape, beckoned to them to make no noise that might attract attention and betray his presence. Otherwise such gestures are mentioned only where the hand is stretched out to aid or to heal or to receive help.

Two of the most remarkable instances of Paul’s power over others are prefaced by the statement that Paul “fixed his eyes on” the man (XIII 9, XIV 9, cp. XXIII 1); and this suggests that his fixed, steady gaze was a marked feature in his personality, and one source of his influence over them that were brought into relations with him. Luke frequently notes this trait. Peter tells that he fixed his gaze on the heavenly vision, XI 6; and he fixed his eyes on the lame man, III 4. Stephen turned his fixed gaze towards heaven, and saw it open to disclose the vision of glory to him. In these cases the power of the eye is strongly brought out. The same trait is alluded to where intense astonishment or admiration is involved, as when the bystanders gazed at Peter and John after they had healed the lame man, or Stephen’s auditors stared on him as they saw his face suffused with glory, or the disciples gazed

SEC 3. His Personality

upwards as Jesus was taken away from them, or Cornelius stared at the Angel. In the third Gospel, IV 20, the stare of the congregation in Nazareth at Jesus, when He first spoke in the synagogue after His baptism, suggests that a new glory and a new consciousness of power in Him were perceived by them. The power which looks from the eyes of an inspired person attracts and compels a corresponding fixed gaze on the part of them that are brought under his influence; and this adds much probability to the Bezan reading in III 3, where the fixed gaze of the lame man on Peter seems to rouse the power that was latent in him. The Greek word is almost peculiar to Luke, and occurs chiefly in Acts. Elsewhere in N.T. it is used only by Paul in II Cor. III 7, 13; and it has often seemed to me as if there were more of Lukan feeling and character in II Cor. than in any other of Paul’s letters. A consideration of these passages must convince every one that the action implied by the word (ἀτενίζειν) is inconsistent with weakness of vision: in fact, Paul says that the Jews could not gaze fixedly on the glory of Moses’ face, implying that their eyes were not strong enough. The theory which makes Paul a permanent sufferer in his eyes, unable to see distinctly persons quite near him, and repulsive to strangers on account of their hideous state (Gal. IV 13 f.), is hopelessly at variance with the evidence of Luke. In that word, as he uses it, the soul looks through the eyes.

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

CHAPTER III.

THE CHURCH IN ANTIOCH

1. THE GENTILES IN THE CHURCH.

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

When Acts was written, the Church of Antioch was only about fifty years old, but already its beginning seems to have been lost in obscurity. It had not been founded, it had grown by unrecorded and almost unobserved steps. In the dispersion of the primitive Church at Jerusalem, during the troubles ensuing on the bold action of Stephen, certain Cypriote and Cyrenaic Jews, who had been brought up in Greek lands and had wider outlook on the world than the Palestinian Jews, came to Antioch. There they made the innovation of addressing not merely Jews but also Greeks. We may understand here (1) that the words used

SEC 1. The Gentiles in the Church.

imply successful preaching and the admission of Greeks to the Christian congregation, and (2) that such an innovation took place by slow degrees, and began in the synagogue, where Greek proselytes heard the word. The Cypriote and Cyrenaic Jews began pointedly to include these Greeks of the synagogue in their invitations, and thus a mixed body of Jews and Greeks constituted the primitive congregation of Antioch; but the Greeks had entered through the door of the synagogue (see pp. 62, 85, 156).

In verses 19-21 the narrative for the moment goes back to a time earlier than X and XI 1-18, and starts a new thread of history from the death of Stephen (VII 60). That event was a critical one in the history of the Church. The primitive Church had clung to Jerusalem, and lived there in a state of simplicity and almost community of goods, which was an interesting phase of society, but was quite opposed to the spirit in which Jesus had said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation”. For the time it seemed that the religion of Christ was stagnating into a sociological experiment. Stephen’s vigour provoked a persecution, which dispersed itinerant missionaries over Judea and Samaria (VIII 1-4), first among whom was Philip the colleague of Stephen. New congregations of Christians were formed in many towns (VIII 14, 25, 40, IX 31, 32, 35, 42, X 44); and it became necessary that, if these were to be kept in relation with the central body in Jerusalem, journeys of survey should be made by delegates from Jerusalem. The first of these journeys was made by Peter and John, who were sent to Samaria, when the news that a congregation had been formed there by Philip reached Jerusalem (VIII 14). This may be taken as a specimen of many similar journeys, one of which is recorded

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

(IX 32 f.) on account of the important development that took place in its course. It appears from Acts that Peter was the leading spirit in these journeys of organisation, which knit together the scattered congregations in Judea and Samaria. Hence the first great question in the development of the Church was presented to him, viz., whether Hebrew birth was a necessary condition for entrance into the kingdom of the Messiah and membership of the Christian Church. That question must necessarily be soon forced on the growing Church; for proselytes were not rare, and the Christian doctrine, which was preached in the synagogues, reached them. It was difficult to find any justification for making the door of the Church narrower than the door of the synagogue, and there is no record that any one explicitly advocated the view that Christianity should be confined to the chosen people, though the condition and regulations on which non-Jews should be admitted formed the subject of keen controversy in the following years.

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

But this step, though an important one, was only the first stage in a long advance that was still to be made.

SEC 1. The Gentiles in the Church.

Cornelius was a proselyte; and Peter in his speech to the assembly in his house laid it down as a condition of reception into the Church that the non-Jew must approach by way of the synagogue (X 35), and become “one that fears God”.

Without entering on the details of a matter which has been and still is under discussion, we must here allude to the regulations imposed on strangers who wished to enter into relations with the Jews. Besides the proselytes who came under the full Law and entered the community of Moses, there was another class of persons who wished only to enter into partial relations with the Jews. These two classes were at a later time distinguished as “Proselytes of the Sanctuary” and “of the Gate”; but in Acts the second class is always described as “they that fear God”.¹ The God-fearing proselytes were bound to observe certain ceremonial regulations of purity in order to be permitted to come into any relations with the Jews; and it is probable that these rules were the four prohibitions enumerated in XV 28, to abstain from the flesh of animals sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from animals strangled, and from marriage within the prohibited degrees (many of which were not prohibited by Greek or Roman law). These prohibitions stand in close relation to the principles laid down in Leviticus XVII, XVIII, for the conduct of strangers dwelling among the Israelites; and it would appear that they had become the recognised rule for admission to the synagogue and for the first stage of approximation to the Jewish communion. They stand on a different plane from the moral law of the Ten Commandments, being rules of purity.

¹ φοβούμενοι or σεβόμενοι τόν θεόν

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

While no one, probably, urged that the Church should be confined to born Hebrews, there was a party in the Church which maintained that those non-Jews who were admitted should be required to conform to the entire “Law of God ”: this was the party of “champions of the circumcision,”¹ which played so great a part in the drama of subsequent years. This party was silenced by Peter’s explanation in the case of Cornelius, for the preliminary vision and the subsequent gift of grace could not be gainsaid. But the main question was not yet definitely settled; only an exceptional case was condoned and accepted.

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

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

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

¹ οἰ ἐκ περιτομη, XI 2, Gal. II 12: “some of the sect of the Pharisees that believed,” XV 5.

SEC 2. The Coming of Barnabas.

WHOLE YEAR THEY MET IN THE ASSEMBLY, AND TAUGHT MUCH PEOPLE; AND THAT THE DISCIPLES WERE CALLED “CHRISTIANS” FIRST IN ANTIOCH.

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

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

It lies in Luke’s style to give no reason why Barnabas summoned Saul to Antioch. This historian records the

¹ παρεκάλει, imperfect.

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

essential facts as they occurred; but he does not obtrude on the reader his own private conception as to causes or motives. But we cannot doubt that Barnabas, who became Saul’s sponsor at Jerusalem (IX 27), and related to the Apostles the circumstances of his conversion, knew that God had already called him “to preach Him among the Gentiles” (Gal. I 16), and recognised that this congregation of the Gentiles was the proper sphere for Saul’s work. We find in Barnabas’s action the proof of the correctness of Paul’s contention in Epist. Gal., that his aim as an Apostle had been directed from the first towards the Gentiles; his sphere was already recognised.

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

A point in Luke’s style here deserves note. He has mentioned in IX 30 that Saul was sent away to Tarsus; and he now takes up the thread from that point, saying that Barnabas went to Tarsus to seek for Saul. He implies that the reader must understand Tarsus to have been Saul’s headquarters during the intervening period. Not merely. does XI 25 require one to look back, but also IX 30

SEC 2. The Coming of Barnabas.

requires one to look forward; each is the complement of the other, and the two together hit off a long period during which no critical event had to be recorded. The same period, together with the following year in Antioch, is described by Paul himself, Gal. I 21, 22: “Then I came into the climes of Syria and Cilicia: and I continued to be unknown by face to the churches of Judea, but they only heard say, ‘He that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith’”. Paul and Luke complete each other, and make up a picture of over ten years of quiet work within the range of the synagogue and its influence.

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

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

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

their leader (p. 254). In any case the name belongs to popular slang.

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

3. THE ANTIOCHIAN COLLECTION FOR THE POOR OF JERUSALEM.

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

Luke’s brief statement about the famine is declared by Dr. Schürer to be unhistorical, improbable, and uncorroborated by other evidence.¹ Opinions differ widely; for the famine seems to me to be singularly well attested, considering the scantiness of evidence for this period. Suetonius alludes to assiduæ sterilitates causing famine- ¹ Eine ungeschichtliche Generalisirung, and again, ist, wie an sich unwahrscheinlich, so auch nirgends bezeugt (Jüd. Volk I p. 474.

SEC 3. The Antiochian Collection for the Poor.

prices under Claudius, while Dion Cassius and Tacitus speak of two famines in Rome, and famine in Rome implied dearth in the great corn-growing countries of the Mediterranean; Eusebius mentions famine in Greece, and an inscription perhaps refers to famine in Asia Minor.¹ Thus widespread dearth over the Roman world is fully attested independently; beyond the Roman world our evidence does not extend. Dr. Schürer seems to require a distinct statement that a famine took place in the same year all over Europe, Asia, and Africa. But that is too hard on Luke, for he merely says that famine occurred over the whole (civilised) world in the time of Claudius: of course the year varied in different lands.

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

The eagerness to date the famine in 44 arises from a mistake as to the meaning and order of the narrative of Acts. Between XI 30 and XII 25 there is interposed an account of Herod’s persecution and his miserable death, events which belong to the year 44; and it has been supposed that Luke conceives these events as happening while Barnabas and Saul were in Jerusalem. But that is not the case. Luke describes the prophecy of Agabus, and the assessment imposed by common arrangement on the whole congregation in proportion to their individual resources. Then he adds that this arrangement was carried out and the whole sum sent to Jerusalem. The

¹ Le Bas-Waddington no. 1192, Studia Biblica IV p. 52 f. 31

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

process thus described was not an instantaneous subscription. The money was probably collected by weekly contributions, for the congregation was not rich, and coin was not plentiful in Syrian cities. This collection would take a considerable time, as we gather both from the analogy of the later Pauline contribution (p. 288), and from the fact that the famine was still in the future, and no necessity for urgent haste existed. The arrangements were made beforehand in full reliance on the prophecy; but there is no reason to think that the money was used until the famine actually began, and relief was urgently needed. The manner of relief must, of course, have been by purchasing and distributing corn, for it would have shown criminal incapacity to send gold to a starving city; and the corn would not be given by any rational person, until the famine was at its height. When Sir Richard Wallace relieved the distress in Paris after the siege, he did not content himself with telegraphing money from London, nor yet with distributing gold to the starving people in Paris. He brought food and gave it. As he did, so we may be sure did the Antiochian delegates do; and no rational person will suppose that the corn was brought to Jerusalem until the famine was actually raging. But in a land where transport was difficult, preparations took time; and Luke states at the outset the general course of the preparations which the Divine revelation aroused.

Thereafter, before describing the actual distribution of relief in Jerusalem, the author’s method requires him to bring down the general narrative of events in Jerusalem and Judæa to the point when the famine began; and then at last he mentions the actual administering of the relief. He, therefore, tells about the persecution of Herod

SEC 3. The Antiochian Collection for the Poor.

(which took place near the time when Agabus prophesied), and about Herod’s death; and then at last he mentions the execution of the Antiochian design and the return of the delegates to their own city.

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

The service in Jerusalem must have occupied Barnabas and Saul for. a considerable time. They acted as administrators (διάκονοι) of the relief; and it becomes evident how much is implied in the words of XI 29, XII 25 from the comparison of VI 1 “the daily ministration” of food to the poor. The same term (διακονία) that is used in these cases is applied (with λόγου understood) to the steady constant work of a missionary or an apostle, XX 24, XXI 19, I 17, 25, VI 4. The Antiochian delegates did not merely act as carriers of money; they stayed in Jerusalem through the famine and acted as providers and distributors, using all the opportunity of encouraging and comforting the dis-

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

tressed that was thus afforded. In this way Saul’s second visit to Jerusalem was an important moment in the development of the Church, and is related as such by Luke: it united far-distant parts of the Church at a great crisis; it gave to the poor in Jerusalem the sense of brotherhood with the Antiochian brethren, and to the Antiochian congregation that consciousness of native life and power which comes only from noble work nobly done. But for this end it was necessary that the work should be done from first to last by the Antiochian congregation, and that every starving disciple in Jerusalem should realise that he owed his relief to his brethren at Antioch. Great part of the effect would have been lost, if the delegates had merely handed a sum of money to the leaders in Jerusalem to distribute; and the author, who is so sparing of words, does not fail to assure us that the two delegates “completed the ministration” before they returned to Antioch.

It must be noticed that only the Elders at Jerusalem are here mentioned, whereas in XV Paul and Barnabas were sent to the Apostles and Elders. The marked difference may probably be connected with the author’s conception of the appropriate duties of each. In XV, when a matter of conduct and principle was in question, the Apostles were primarily concerned; but when it was a matter of the distribution of food, the Apostles were not concerned, for it was right that they should not “serve tables,” but “continue in the ministry of the word” (VI 2-4). It would have been quite natural to say that the contributions were sent to the congregation, or to the Brethren, in Jerusalem; and it is apparent that here the Elders represent the congregation of Jerusalem as directors of its practical working, while in XV the Apostles and Elders represent the Church in every aspect.

SEC 3. The Antiochian Collection for the Poor.

The omission of the Apostles in XI 29 commonly explained on other grounds, not very honourable to them. Even Lightfoot says: “the storm of persecution had broken over the Church of Jerusalem.” One leading Apostle had been put to death; another, rescued by a miracle, had fled for his life. It is probable that every Christian of rank had retired from the city. No mention is made of the Twelve; the salutations of the Gentile Apostles are received by ‘the Elders’. They arrived charged with alms for the relief of the poor brethren of Jerusalem. Having deposited these in trustworthy hands, they would depart with all convenient speed. But Luke expressly says that the administration of the relief was performed in detail by the two Antiochian delegates (XII 25); and one can only marvel that Lightfoot ever stooped to the idea that they sneaked into the city and sneaked out hastily again, leaving the poor without a single “Christian of rank” to minister to them. Nor is there any good reason to think that the Apostles all fled from Jerusalem, and left the disciples to look after themselves. It was not men like that who carried Christianity over the empire within a few years. Such an act of cowardice should not be attributed to the Apostles without distinct evidence; and here the evidence tells in the opposite direction: (1) at the far more serious persecution following the death of Stephen, “all scattered abroad except the Apostles” (VIII 1): (2) it is implied that “James and the Brethren” were in Jerusalem, when Peter escaped from prison and retired (XII 17); and immediately after, Herod went away and the persecution was at an end. The author of Acts evidently had the impression that the guidance of affairs rested with the Apostles in Jerusalem; and they are conceived by him as being there permanently, except when absent on a special mission.

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

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

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

The preceding notes have shown how much is contained in the brief record of Luke: all the main points in the execution of the scheme of relief are touched in the few words XI 29, 30, XII 25. But we are not reduced to this single account of the mission to Jerusalem. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, also mentions it; his reason for alluding to it lay in certain incidental and unessential facts that occurred at Jerusalem; but he tells enough to show what

¹See Mr. Rendall’s admirable paper in Expositor, Nov., 1893.

SEC 3. The Antiochian Collection for the Poor.

was the primary object of the visit. In describing his intercourse with the older Apostles, he mentions his second visit to Jerusalem in the following terms (I expand the concise language of Paul to bring out the close-packed meaning):—

(Gal. II 1) THEN IN THE FOURTEENTH YEAR after it pleased God to call me, I WENT UP AGAIN TO JERUSALEM WITH BARNABAS, AND TOOK TITUS ALSO AS A COMPANION.

(2) NOW I may explain that I WENT UP ON AN ACCOUNT OF A REVELATION (which shows how completely my action was directly guided by the Divine will, and how independent it was of any orders or instructions from the Apostles). AND I COMMUNICATED TO THEM WITH A VIEW TO CONSULTATION THE GOSPEL WHICH I CONTINUE PREACHING AMONG THE GENTILES, BUT I did so PRIVATELY TO THOSE WHO WERE RECOGNISED AS THE LEADING SPIRITS, not publicly to the whole body of Apostles; since the latter course would have had the appearance of consulting the official governing body, as if I felt it a duty to seek advice from them; whereas private consultation was a purely voluntary act. MY PURPOSE IN THIS CONSULTATION WAS TO CARRY WITH ME THE LEADING SPIRITS OF THE CHURCH, SINCE MISUNDERSTANDING OR WANT OF COMPLETE APPROVAL ON THEIR PART MIGHT ENDANGER OR FRUSTRATE MY EVANGELISTIC WORK WHETHER IN THE FUTURE OR THE PAST, if doubt or dispute arose as to the rights of my converts to full membership in the Church without further ceremony. (3) NOW, as I have touched on this point, I may mention parenthetically that NOT EVEN WAS MY COMPANION TITUS, GREEK AS HE WAS, REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TO CIRCUMCISION, much less was the general principle laid down that the Jewish rite was a necessary preliminary to the full membership of the

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

Church. (4) FURTHER, THE OCCASION of my consulting the leading Apostles WAS BECAUSE OF CERTAIN INSINUATING FALSE BRETHREN, WHO ALSO CREPT INTO OUR SOCIETY IN AN UNAVOWED WAY TO ACT THE SPY ON OUR FREEDOM (WHICH WE FREE CHRISTIANS CONTINUE ENJOYING THROUGHOUT MY MINISTRY), IN ORDER TO MAKE US SLAVES to the ritual which they count necessary. (5) BUT NOT FOR AN HOUR DID WE YIELD TO THESE FALSE BRETHREN BY COMPLYING WITH THEIR IDEAS, OR EXPRESSING AGREEMENT WITH THEM; AND OUR FIRMNESS THEN WAS INTENDED TO SECURE THAT THE GOSPEL IN ITS TRUE FORM SHOULD CONTINUE IN LASTING FREEDOM FOR YOU to enjoy. (6) BUT FROM THE RECOGNISED LEADERS—HOW DISTINGUISHED SOEVER WAS THEIR CHARACTER IS NOT NOW THE POINT; GOD ACCEPTETH NOT MAN’S PERSON—THE RECOGNISED LEADERS, I SAY, IMPARTED NO NEW INSTRUCTION TO ME; (7) BUT, ON THE CONTRARY, PERCEIVING THAT I THROUGHOUT MY MINISTRY AM CHARGED SPECIALLY WITH THE MISSION TO FOREIGN (NON-JEWISH) NATIONS AS PETER IS WITH THE JEWISH MISSION—(8) FOR HE THAT WORKED FOR PETER TO THE APOSTOLATE OF THE CIRCUMCISION WORKED ALSO FOR ME TO BE THE MISSIONARY TO THE GENTILES—(9) AND PERCEIVING from the actual facts THE GRACE THAT HAD BEEN GIVEN ME, THEY, JAMES AND CEPHAS AND JOHN, THE RECOGNISED PILLARS OF THE CHURCH, GAVE PLEDGES TO ME AND TO BARNABAS OF A JOINT SCHEME OF WORK, OURS TO BE DIRECTED TO THE GENTILES, WHILE THEIRS WAS TO THE JEWS. (10) ONE CHARGE ALONE THEY GAVE US, TO REMEMBER THE POOR brethren at Jerusalem. A DUTY WHICH AS A

SEC 3. The Antiochian Collection for the Poor.

MATTER OF FACT I at that time MADE IT MY SPECIAL OBJECT TO PERFORM.

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

How graceful and delicate is the compliment which the older Apostles paid to Paul! “the only advice and instruction which we have to give is that you continue to do what you have been zealously doing,” so they spoke at the conclusion of his visit. And in what a gentlemanly spirit does Paul refer to that visit! His object is to prove to the Galatians that, on his visits to Jerusalem, he received nothing in the way of instruction or commission from the older Apostles; and to do this he gives an account of his visits. When he comes to the second visit he might have said in the tone of downright and rather coarse candour, “So far from receiving on this occasion, I was sent by Divine revelation to be the giver”. But not even in this hot and hasty letter does he swerve from his tone of respect and admiration, or assume in the slightest degree a tone of superiority to Peter and James. The facts are all there to

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

show the real situation; but they are put so quietly and allusively (the revelation in verse 2, the object in verse 10), as to avoid all appearance of boasting in what was really a very legitimate cause of satisfaction; and even of self-gratulation. It is precisely because on his second visit Paul was so obviously not the recipient, that he appeals to it with such perfect confidence as proving his independence.

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

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

But why is Acts silent about this? Simply because it never came to an open discussion, and therefore did not reach the proper level of importance. Luke confines himself to the great steps in development. Nor is it strange that Titus is not mentioned by Luke. In carrying the relief to Jerusalem, it is obvious that Barnabas and Saul must have had

SEC 3. The Antiochian Collection for the Poor.

assistants. The work was one of considerable magnitude, and involved a good deal of organisation. We may gather from Luke that the two envoys were entrusted with the management; but the whole details of purchase, transport, and distribution lie outside of his conception and plan. The essential fact for his purpose was that relief was sent by the congregation in Antioch (XI 30), and its distribution personally carried out by Paul and Barnabas in Jerusalem (XII 25); and he tells us no more. In his letter Paul says that Titus was privately selected associate and not an official; and we may confidently add that he was one of the assistants who were needed to carry out the work described in Acts (see also the omission is made on p. 170.

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

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

We find ourselves obliged to regard this visit as more

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

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

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

4. THE RETURN FROM JERUSALEM TO ANTIOCH.

(XXII 17) WHEN I HAD RETURNED TO JERUSALEM, AND WHILE I PRAYED IN THE TEMPLE, I FELL INTO A TRANCE, (18) AND SAW HIM SAYING UNTO ME, “MAKE HASTE, AND GET THEE QUICKLY OUT OF JERUSALEM; BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT RECEIVE OF THEE TESTIMONY CONCERNING ME”. (19) AND I SAID, “LORD, THEY THEMSELVES KNOW THAT I IMPRISONED AND BEAT IN EVERY SYNAGOGUE THEM THAT BELIEVED ON THEE: (20) AND WHEN THE BLOOD OF STEPHEN THY WITNESS WAS SHED, I ALSO WAS

SEC 4. The Return from Jerusalem Antioch.

STANDING BY, AND CONSENTING, AND KEEPING THE: GARMENTS OF THEM THAT SLEW HIM (and therefore they must see that some great thing has happened to convince me)”. (21) AND HE SAID UNTO ME, “DEPART: FOR I WILL SEND THEE FORTH FAR HENCE UNTO THE NATIONS “.

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

This incident is usually assigned to the first visit which Paul paid to Jerusalem after his conversion. But he does

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

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

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

To place this revelation on the first visit leads to

SEC 4. The Return from Jerusalem Antioch.

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

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

One objection to this view is likely to be made. Many infer from XXII 18 that the visit was short. But there is no implication as to the duration of the visit. The words merely show that Paul was thinking of a longer stay, when the vision bade him hasten away forthwith. The second visit, according to Lightfoot’s supposition, was even shorter than the first, but on our view it began when the failure of harvest in 46 turned scarcity into famine, and it probably lasted until the beginning of 47.

Our reference of XXII 17 to the second visit is corroborated by the reading of the two great uncial

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

MSS. in XII 25, “returned to Jerusalem”: this seems to be an alteration made deliberately by an editor, who, because these passages referred to the same visit, tampered with the text of XII 25 to bring it into verbal conformity with XXII 17.

5. THE MISSION OF BARNABAS AND SAUL.

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

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

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

¹Prof. Armitage Robinson, quoted in Church in R. E. p. 52

SEC 5. The Mission of Barnabas and Saul.

ment of the Church through the extension of Christian influence was the guiding idea of his historical work.

Probably the variation between the connecting particles (καί and τε) marks a distinction between three prophets, Barnabas, Symeon and Lucius, and two teachers, Manaen and Saul. In Acts VI 5, the list of seven deacons is given without any such variation; and it seems a fair inference that the variation here is intentional.¹ The distinction between the qualifications required in prophets and in teachers is emphasised by Paul in I Cor. XII 28. As regards Barnabas and Saul their difference in gifts and qualifications appears clearly in other places. Everywhere Saul is the preacher and teacher, Barnabas is the senior and for a time the leader on that account.

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

What is the subject in v. 3? It cannot be the five

¹ Compare Mr. Page’s note on the grouping of the list in I 13.

The Church in Antioch. CHAP. III

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

What was the effect of the public ceremony described in v. 3? The high authority of Lightfoot answers that it constituted Barnabus and Saul as Apostles. He acknow-

SEC 5. The Mission of Barnabas and Saul.