Paul and Barnabas start west to preach the Gospel.--The
prevailing ideas on religion in Asia Minor.--Theology of
Plato and Philo.--The effect produced by the preaching of
Paul.
Paul, in the year A.D. 45, with Barnabas and Mark as his companions, set
his face west in the direction of Asia Minor. The people who inhabited
the country from Antioch in Syria along the north coast of the
Mediterranean and the AEgean, or the Archipelago, to Thessalonica in
Macedonia, were for the most part descendants of the early colonists
from Greece. A large number of cities were scattered along the shores,
which had been enriched by commerce, and were the seats of learning
and luxury. The Greek of Asia Minor, in the latter part of the first
century, was not the Greek of the time of Pericles and Epaminondas.
His levity and cunning had outlived his courage, his love of country and
stern endurance. The college at Alexandria was the source of all light
and learning, and the doctrines of that celebrated school, like a subtle
fluid, pervaded all classes of men. It was here that Plato took lessons
which led him to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity, and expose
to the eyes of mortals the nature of the divine persons who regulated
the affairs of the universe. In his imagination he populated Heaven, and
divided among the different deities the share of each in the
government of the world. According to Plato there was one God who was
superessential, and in him was blended or united all that was powerful
and good. This he called the _One_, or the first principle of things.
Proculus, of the same school, says the _One_ is the God of all gods, the
Unity of the unities, the Holy among the holies. Plato compares him with
the sun. For as the sun by his light not only confers the power of being
seen on visible objects, but is likewise the cause of their generation,
nutriment, and increase, so the good of the One, through superessential
light, imparts being and power. As a consequence, both Plato and
Pythagoras conclude that the immediate issue of this ineffable Cause
must be gods, and each must partake of the same nature and have a
superessential existence. That "everything in nature which is the result
of progression exists in a mysterious unity and similitude with its
first cause. They are superessential, and differ in no respect from the
highest good. From the supereminent Cause, as from an exalted place
of survey, we may contemplate the divine unities, that is, the gods,
flowing in admirable and ineffable order, and at the same time abiding
in profound union with each other, and with their Cause."
The first procession, from the first One, or intelligible Cause, is the
intelligible Triad, consisting of Being, Life, and Intellect, which
are the three highest things after the first God. Plato, in his
_Parmenides_, calls the Author of the Universe Intellect and Father, and
represents him commanding the junior gods to imitate the power which he
employed in their generation. It follows, that that which generated from
the Father is offspring, Son or Logos, second in the Triad. The third
power or principle in the Triad is Intellect, or Spirit of the Universe.
Here we have the Father, the Logos, and the Soul of the Universe in
a mysterious union; and as they all proceed from the One, are one in
unity. The author of "Decline and Fall" thus defines the theology of
Plato: "The vain hope of extricating himself from these difficulties
which must forever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind,
might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold
modification of the First Cause, the Reason or Logos and the Soul or
Spirit of the Universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and
animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three archial or original
principles were represented in the Platonic system as three gods, united
with each other by a mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos
was particularly considered, under the more accessible character of the
Son of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world."
(Vol. I., page 438.)
Such is an outline of the theology of Plato, as we learn it from the
"Explanatory translation" of Taylor to the _Cratylus_ and other works
of the great light of Greece. The ideas of Plato, under the teachings
of the Alexandrian school, underwent changes and modifications, but were
the source of all subsequent systems of theology, and we can readily
detect in each the genius of the Athenian. Through the invitation of the
Ptolemies, large numbers of Jews settled in the new capital of Egypt,
who carried with them the laws and institutions of Moses. It was
not many years before the religious ideas of the descendants of the
colonists were tinctured and in some degree moulded after the doctrines
taught at the school of Alexandria. Under the lead of Philo a new
school arose, which was formed from a union of "Mosaic faith and Grecian
philosophy," in which the distinctive features of each are clearly
preserved.
Philo Judaeus was an Alexandrian Jew, descended from a noble and
sacerdotal family, and was distinguished in his day for his wisdom
and eloquence. He was born before Christ, and survived him. He was the
author of numerous works, and esteemed one of the most learned men of
his day. A tumult arose in Alexandria between the Jews and the Greeks,
and out of each party three were chosen as embassadors to go to Rome and
lay the case before Caligula, who was then emperor. Philo was chosen as
one to represent his countrymen, and undertook to act as chief spokesman
in the imperial presence. He was treated with insolence--ordered to
be silent--and the emperor was so carried away by his passions that
personal violence seemed imminent. The equanimity of the philosopher
was not disturbed, and having discharged his duty, he quitted the palace
filled with the contempt for the tyrant which has loaded his memory in
all subsequent ages. (Josephus, _Antiq_., lib. xviii. ch. 8, sec. I.)
The system taught by Philo dispensed with the third person in the
Godhead, which was composed of the Father and the _Logos_, a divine
_Duad_, which did not exist in unity, like the trinity of Plato: but
the Logos with him, like the Mediator of the Hebrews, was possessed of
mediatorial powers, and was an intercessor in behalf of the fallen race
of Adam. It is difficult to define the relation of the _Logos_ of Philo
with the Creator of the Universe, whether he is an attribute which is
made manifest in creative power, or whether he has a separate existence.
He is the Son of God, and was with the Father before the world was
created. His powers embrace the mediatorial, and he stands between God
and man, and represents the Father in his providences to our race. He is
not an hypostasis, and yet he was begotten.
Such are some of the ideas which prevailed in Asia Minor, and other
countries along the shores of the Mediterranean, when Paul and Barnabas
entered the country, bringing with them a new religion. It is as
difficult to define what Paul's real belief was of the relations which
Christ bore to the Creator, as it is to determine the real belief of
Philo on the same subject. With Paul, Christ was the Son of God, but
what was the exact relation he did not pretend to say. He says he is
less than the angels--superior to Moses (Hebrews ii. and iii.); but he
nowhere says he is equal to God. Paul seems to have been less concerned
about the nature of Christ, and the place occupied by him in the
Godhead, than he was about his mediatorial powers. Through the fall of
Adam, all men were under condemnation, and it was the office of Christ,
through his blood, to make atonement, and once more restore man to the
favor of the Creator. With him Christ was not the Creator, like the
Logos of Philo, but was the Saviour of the world. He did not exist from
the beginning, but, like all flesh, from his natural birth. But still he
was, as was the _Logos_ of Philo, the Son of God.
With such ideas, Paul made his way among the Greeks. The Jews were the
first to make war upon him. But he stood his ground and gained more. The
small churches which he established were like so many fortresses in an
enemy's country. Wherever he went he started discussion. The friction
between the new and the old ideas produced heat: and with heat came
light.
But, after all, Paul's converts, for the most part, were from the less
informed and the middle classes. The learned turned away from him,
because he had no tangible proof to satisfy them that what he preached
was true. The story of his conversion was improbable, and could be
ascribed to the effects of natural causes.
The time for miracles had not yet come, and Paul did not claim anything
from them.*
* Had it been true that an apron which came in contact with
Paul's person could cure diseases, all Asia would have been
converted while he was making a few hundred believers.
Tacitus speaks of Christians as a race of men detested for their evil
practices, and classes their doctrines among the pernicious things which
flowed into Rome as into a common sewer. (_Annals_, lib. xv. sec 54.)
Still the churches established by Paul grew slowly, but seemed to
require the influence of his presence and personal efforts to keep
them alive. As long as the fight went on between Paul and the Jews, and
unconverted Gentiles, his lofty courage and iron will were enough to
hold him up. But he soon had troubles of a different kind. He found them
in the churches themselves. It is not difficult to tell what would be
the effect of Paul's ideas when brought face to face with doctrines
of the Alexandrian school. It was like the meeting of the acid and the
alkali. The first sign of the effervescence appears at Corinth, and two
hundred years passed before it ceased, if it ceased at all. From the
time the quarrel commenced at Corinth, between the followers of Paul,
until the time when the questions disappear altogether, mental phenomena
are exhibited unlike any other in the history of man. Even the quarrels
and disputes of the Realists and Nominalists of the thirteenth century
bear no comparison. The contest between the different sects had all
the earnestness of a struggle between gladiators. From being warm
disputants, men became dishonest. Books were forged entire, others were
mutilated, and some suppressed and put out of sight. It was an age of
downright dishonesty on all sides. But from these dark and discordant
elements arose the true Church.