THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor"_
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
BY
G. T. STOKES, D.D.
_VOLUME II_
NEW YORK
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
51 EAST TENTH STREET
1892
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
_Crown 8vo, cloth, price $1 50c. each vol._
FIRST SERIES, 1887-8.
Colossians.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D.
St. Mark.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
Genesis.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
1 Samuel.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
2 Samuel.
By the same Author.
Hebrews.
By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D.
SECOND SERIES, 1888-9.
Galatians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.
The Pastoral Epistles.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Isaiah I.--XXXIX.
By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. I.
The Book of Revelation.
By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.
1 Corinthians.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
The Epistles of St. John.
By Rt. Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D.
THIRD SERIES, 1889-90.
Judges and Ruth.
By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D.
Jeremiah.
By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.
Isaiah XL.--LXVI.
By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. II.
St. Matthew.
By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.
Exodus.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
St. Luke.
By Rev. H. BURTON, B.A.
FOURTH SERIES, 1890-1.
Ecclesiastes.
By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.
St. James and St. Jude.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Proverbs.
By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A.
Leviticus.
By Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.
The Gospel of St. John.
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I.
FIFTH SERIES, 1891-2.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I.
1 and 2 Thessalonians.
By JAS. DENNEY, B.D.
The Book of Job.
By R. A. WATSON, D.D.
Ephesians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.
The Gospel of St. John.
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. II.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II.
SIXTH SERIES, 1892-3.
Philippians.
By Principal RAINY, D.D.
1 Kings.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Joshua.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II.
Daniel.
By Prof. FULLER, M.A.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
NEW YORK: A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, 51 EAST TENTH STREET.
THE
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
BY THE REV.
G. T. STOKES, D.D.
PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN
AND VICAR OF ALL SAINTS', BLACKROCK
_VOLUME II_
NEW YORK
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
51 EAST TENTH STREET
1892
PREFACE.
The following volume terminates my survey and exposition of the Acts
of the Holy Apostles. I have fully explained in the body of this work
the reasons which led me to discuss the latter portion of that book
more briefly than its earlier chapters. I did this of set purpose. The
latter chapters of Acts are occupied to a great extent with the work
of St. Paul during a comparatively brief period, while the first
twenty chapters cover a space of well-nigh thirty years. The riot in
Jerusalem and a few speeches at Cæsarea occupy the larger portion of
the later narrative, and deal very largely with circumstances in St.
Paul's life, his conversion and mission to the Gentiles, of which the
earlier portion of this volume treats at large. Upon these topics I
had nothing fresh to say, and was therefore necessarily obliged to
refer my readers to pages previously written. I do not think, however,
that I have omitted any topic or passage suitable to the purposes of
the _Expositor's Bible_. Some may desiderate longer notices of German
theories concerning the origin and character of the Acts. But, then,
an expositor's Bible is not intended to deal at length with critical
theories. Critical commentaries and works like Dr. Salmon's
_Introduction to the New Testament_ take such subjects into
consideration and discuss them fully, omitting all mere exposition. My
duty is exposition, and the supply or indication of material suitable
for expository purposes. If I had gone into the endless theories
supplied by German ingenuity to explain what seems to us the simplest
and plainest matters of fact demanding no explanation whatsoever, I am
afraid there would have been little space left for exposition, and my
readers would have been excessively few. Those who are interested in
such discussions, which are simply endless, and will last as long as
man's fancy and imagination continue to flourish, will find ample
satisfaction in the eighteenth chapter of Dr. Salmon's _Introduction_.
Perhaps I had better notice one point urged by him, as an illustration
of the critical methods of English common sense. German critics have
tried to make out that the Acts were written in the second century in
order to establish a parallel between St. Peter and St. Paul when men
wished to reconcile and unite in one common body the Pauline and
Petrine parties. This is the view set forth at length by Zeller in his
work on the Acts, vol. ii., p. 278, translated and published in the
series printed some years ago under the auspices of the Theological
Translation Fund. Dr. Salmon's reply seems to me conclusive, as
contained in the following passage, _l.c._, p. 336: "What I think
proves conclusively that the making a parallel between Peter and Paul
was not an idea present to the author's mind, is the absence of the
natural climax of such a parallel--the story of the martyrdom of both
the Apostles. Very early tradition makes both Peter and Paul close
their lives by martyrdom at Rome--the place where Rationalist critics
generally believe the Acts to have been written. The stories told in
tolerably ancient times in that Church which venerated with equal
honour the memory of either apostle, represented both as joined in
harmonious resistance to the impostures of Simon Magus. And though I
believe these stories to be more modern than the latest period to
which any one has ventured to assign the Acts, yet what an opportunity
did that part of the story which is certainly ancient--that both
Apostles came to Rome and died there for the faith (Clem. Rom.,
5)--offer to any one desirous of blotting out the memory of all
differences between the preaching of Peter and Paul, and of setting
both on equal pedestals of honour! Just as the names of Ridley and
Latimer have been united in the memory of the Church of England, and
no count has been taken of their previous doctrinal differences, in
the recollection of their first testimony for their common faith, so
have the names of Peter and Paul been constantly bound together by the
fact that the martyrdom of both has been commemorated on the same day.
And if the object of the author of the Acts had been what has been
supposed, it is scarcely credible that he could have missed so obvious
an opportunity of bringing his book to its most worthy conclusion, by
telling how the two servants of Christ--all previous differences, if
there had been any, reconciled and forgotten--joined in witnessing a
good confession before the tyrant emperor, and encouraged each other
to steadfastness in endurance to the end."
But though I have not dealt in any formal way with the critical
theories urged concerning the Acts, I have taken every opportunity of
pointing out the evidence for its early date and genuine character
furnished by that particular line of historical exposition and
illustration which I have adopted. It will be at once seen how much
indebted I am in this department to the researches of modern scholars
and travellers, especially to those of Professor Ramsay, whose long
residence and extended travels in Asia Minor have given him special
advantages over all other critics. I have made a diligent use of all
his writings, so far as they had appeared up to the time of writing,
and only regret that I was not able to use his paper on St. Paul's
second journey, which appeared in the _Expositor_ for October, after
this work had been composed and printed. That article seems to me
another admirable illustration of the critical methods used by our own
home scholars as contrasted with those current abroad. Professor
Ramsay does not set to work to spin criticisms out of his own
imagination and elaborate theories out of his own inner consciousness
even as a spider weaves its web; but he takes the Acts of the
Apostles, compares it with the facts of Asia Minor, its scenery,
roads, mountains, ruins, and then points out how exactly the text
answers to the facts, showing that the author of it wrote at the time
alleged and must have been an eyewitness of the Apostles' doings.
While again by a similar comparison in the case of the apocryphal acts
of St. Paul and Thecla he demonstrates how easily a forger fell into
grievous mistakes. I do not think a better illustration can be found
of the difference between sound historical criticism and criticism
based on mere imagination than this article by Professor Ramsay.
In conclusion I ought to explain that I systematically quote the
Fathers whenever I can out of the translations published by Messrs. T.
& T. Clark, or in the Oxford Library of the Fathers. It would have
been very easy for me to give this book a very learned look by adding
the references in Greek or Latin, but I do not think I should have
thus conduced much to its practical utility. The Fathers are now a
collection of works much spoken of, but very little read, and the
references in the original added to theological works are much more
overlooked than consulted. It would conduce much to a sound knowledge
of primitive antiquity were the works translated of all the Christian
writers who flourished down to the triumph of Christianity. Authors
who fill their pages with quotations in Latin and Greek which they do
not translate forget one simple fact, that ten or twenty years in a
country parish immersed in its endless details make the Latin and
Greek of even good scholars somewhat rusty. And if so, what must be
the case with those who are not good scholars, or not scholars at all,
whether bad or good? I am often surprised noting how much more
exacting from their readers modern scholars are in this direction than
our forefathers of two hundred years ago. Let any one, for instance,
take up the works composed in English by Hammond or Thorndike
discussing the subject of Episcopacy, and it will be found that in
every case when they use a Latin, Greek, or Hebrew quotation while
they give the original they always add the translation. Finally I have
to acknowledge, what every page will show, the great assistance I have
derived from the Lives of St. Paul written by Archdeacon Farrar, Mr.
Lewin, and Messrs. Conybeare & Howson, and to express a hope that this
volume together with the previous one will be found helpful by some as
they strive to form a better and truer conception of the manner in
which the Church of the living God was founded and built up amongst
men.
GEORGE T. STOKES.
ALL SAINTS' VICARAGE, BLACKROCK,
_Nov. 4th, 1892_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE TRAINING OF SAUL THE RABBI.
ACTS vii. 58; xxii. 3.
PAGE
St. Paul's Appearance on the Christian Stage and its
Results--The Tübingen Theory--His Parentage--Birthplace--
Testimony of St. Epiphanius--Early Friends--Education--
Trade--Gamaliel and his Influence--Evidence of Talmud--
Pharisaic Schools--Their Casuistry and Exegesis--Parallel
between Hagar and Sarah 1-21
CHAPTER II.
THE CONVERSION OF THE PERSECUTOR.
ACTS viii. 3; ix. 1-6.
Saul of Tarsus and St. Stephen--Saul and the Sanhedrin--
Conduct of Saul when Unconverted--Continuity of Judaism
and Christianity--Saul and Blasphemy of Christ--Sense of
Sin compatible with Sense of Forgiveness--Hooker on the
Litany--Jeremy Taylor on Humility--Saul's Mission to
Damascus--Domestic Tribunal permitted to the Jews by the
Romans--Used against the Men of the Way--Meaning of this
expression--Influence of it--Saul's Journey--Scene of
Conversion--Lord Lyttelton's _Observations upon St. Paul's
Conversion_--Supernatural Accompaniments appropriate
to--Apostle's own Narrative--Reflections of the
Venerable Bede 22-47
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW CONVERT AND HIS HUMAN TEACHER.
ACTS ix. 10, 11.
Saul and the Vision--Which probably produced Ophthalmia--
Portrait of St. Paul--Ananias of Damascus--Straight
Street--St. Chrysostom on the Spiritual Greatness of
Ananias--Seventeenth-century Travellers in Palestine--
Conversation between Jesus Christ and Ananias--Its
Theology--Meaning of word Saint--Protest against
Antinomianism--St. Paul and title Vas Electionis--And
Doctrine of Election--Balance of Doctrine--The New
Convert and Prayer 48-67
CHAPTER IV.
SAUL AND SINAI.
ACTS ix. 19, 20.
Visit of Ananias to House of Judas--Christ the True
Visitor--Keble's Hymn for Easter Monday--Restoration
of Saul's Sight--His Baptism--Language of Ananias--
Importance of this fact--Saul's Work in Damascus--
Narrative in Acts and in Galatians--Difficulties--
Reconciliation--Saul in Arabia--Ancient Explanations
of--Discipline of--Value of Seasons of Retirement--Waste
of Vital Spiritual Tissues in Activity--Abuse of this
Principle in Monasticism--Celtic Monasticism--Saul, the
Vas Electionis, trained like Jesus Christ 68-91
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST GENTILE CONVERT.
ACTS x. 1-6.
The Turning-points of Primitive Church History--Conversion
of Saul and of Cornelius--Saul's earliest Ministry at
Jerusalem--His Escape to Tarsus--St. Peter and Church
in Joppa--Temporary Peace after Saul's Conversion--
Caligula's attempt to erect his Statue in Jerusalem--St.
Peter and Simon the Tanner--Time of Conversion of
Cornelius was Providential--Place, Cæsarea-by-the-Sea,
Providential--Cornelius, a Roman Centurion--The Legions
and Palestine--Modern Authorities confirm the Acts--New
Testament and Favourable Estimate of Soldiers--Catholic
Nature of Christianity--Value of Discipline--Lessons
Taught by Example of Cornelius 92-114
CHAPTER VI.
THE PETRINE VISION AT JOPPA.
ACTS x. 9-15.
St. Peter led to Joppa Unconsciously--His Period of
Repose--Joppa and Missions to the Gentile World--
Jonah--Peter and the Hour of Prayer--Value of Forms--
Canonical Hours--Tertullian's Testimony--Nature of
Peter's Vision--Conditioned by his Natural State--
Exactly suited to Destroy his Prejudices--John
Calvin's View--St. Peter at Cæsarea--His Sermon--Not
Latitudinarian, as some Think--But Truly Catholic--Peter
presupposes some Knowledge of Gospel Facts--Evidence of
Resurrection--Necessarily Limited--Unless Course of
Human Affairs was to be Upset--And God's Usual Laws set
Aside--Outpouring of Holy Ghost on Gentiles--Baptism
of Cornelius 115-141
CHAPTER VII.
THE HARVEST OF THE GENTILES.
ACTS xi. 26.
Reception of News of Gentile Conversion at Jerusalem--
Debate and Strife with St. Peter--The Early Church
Knew Nothing of the Privilegium Petri--Fable of Pope
Marcellinus--Origin of Antiochene Church--Foundation
of Antioch--Scenery and History--Orators and Water
Supply--Arrival of Barnabas and of Saul--Invention
of the Name Christians--Remarks of Archbishop Trench--
The Prophet Agabus and the Outgoings of Charity 142-163
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DEFEAT OF PRIDE.
ACTS xii. 1-3, 23, 24.
Contact of Sacred and Secular History in this Chapter--
Story of Herod Agrippa--Illustration of Principle of
Heredity--First Martyrdom among Apostles--Character of
James, Son of Zebedee--His Spiritual Eminence--His Death
a Real Answer to Prayer--St. Peter's Deliverance--Granted
to a Pleading Church--Angelic Interference--And the
Proprieties of Christianity--Clement of Alexandria and
the Pædagogue--Herod's Ostentation and Miserable Death--
Testimony of Josephus 164-187
CHAPTER IX.
ST. PAUL'S ORDINATION AND FIRST MISSIONARY TOUR
ACTS xiii. 2-4, 14; xiv. 1, 26.
Thirteenth Chapter may be called the Watershed of the
Acts--Calvin and St. Paul's Ordination--Title Apostle
Henceforth Applied to Him--Ember Seasons, Reason of--
First Formal Mission to the Gentile World--Outline of
Apostolic Tour--Saul and Sergius Paulus--Discoveries
of General Cesnola--St. Paul's Sermon at the Pisidian
Antioch--Jewish Jealousy and Opposition--Iconium--Lystra
and Greek Legends--Discovery of Site of Lystra--Roman
Police in Asia Minor--Dialects of Asia Minor--_Museum
of the Evangelical School at Smyrna_--St. Paul and
Church Organisation 188-218
CHAPTER X.
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COUNCIL.
ACTS xv. 1, 2, 6, 19.
History of the great General Councils--Originates at that
of Jerusalem--Date and Subject-matter--The Controversy
about Circumcision--Social Questions springing from it--
St. Paul's Position--His Apparent Inconsistencies--
Lessons of Apostolic Council--Early Church Scene of
Controversies--No Infallible Guide--Composition of
Council--Lay Element in Church Synods--Hooker and the
Church of England--Witness of Prayer Book--Experience
of Irish Church--Proceedings of the Council--Triumph
of Gentile Freedom 219-244
CHAPTER XI.
APOSTOLIC QUARRELS AND THE SECOND TOUR.
ACTS xv. 36, 39; xvi. 6, 8, 9.
Introduction of Christianity to Greece--St. Peter and his Asserted
Roman Episcopate of Twenty-five Years--Quarrel between
St. Paul and St. Barnabas--Between St. Paul and St. Peter--Patristic
Explanations--St. Augustine and St. Jerome--St.
Paul's Opposition to Nepotism--Barnabas and Mark--Blessings
of Sternness--The Wrath of Man praises God--Outline
of St. Paul's Second Tour--Ramsay's Historical Geography of
Asia Minor--Timothy's Ordination--The Gospel among the
Celts--Jeremy Taylor and the _Via Intelligentiæ_--The Vision
at Troas 245-270
CHAPTER XII.
ST. PAUL IN MACEDONIA.
ACTS xvi. 29, 31; xvii. 1, 2, 10.
Ancient Roads and Rome--The Gospel at Philippi--History
of that Town--Constitution of Roman Colonies--Lydia
and Jewish Oratory--Francis de Sales and Small
Congregations--Politics and Christianity--The Apostle
before the Duumviri--The Jailer and the Earthquake--
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and Thou shalt be
Saved"--The Philippian Church and Persecution--St. Paul
at Thessalonica and Berœa--The Politarchs 271-300
CHAPTER XIII.
ST. PAUL IN GREECE.
ACTS xvii. 16-18; xviii. 1.
St. Paul and St. Athanasius, a Parallel--Escape to
Athens down the Thermaic Gulf--Visit of Pausanias to
that City--Ideal Character of Athenian Paganism--
Areopagus and St. Paul--The Unknown God--The Greek
Poets--Jesus and the Resurrection--The Primitive
Athenian Church and its Theology--Aristides and his
_Apology_--Dionysius the Areopagite and his reputed
Philosophy--Origin of Corinthian Church--The Saintly
Tentmakers--The Firstfruits of Achaia--Gallio and the
Jews--Philosophy and Christ 301-330
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EPHESIAN CHURCH AND ITS FOUNDATION.
ACTS xviii. 19-21, 24-26; xix. 1.
History of Ephesus--Cenchreæ and its Church--Aquila and
his Vow--Christianity and External Actions--Judaism
and Christianity confounded by Romans--St. Paul's
Journey to Ephesus and Jerusalem--Visit to Galatia--
Ephesus and John's Disciples--Slow Progress of Gospel
in Apostolic Age--Apollos and Meyer's Theory about
Baptism--The Baptismal Formula--The School of
Tyrannus--Ephesian Magic and its Professors--Story
of St. Chrysostom--The Sons of Sceva 331-356
CHAPTER XV.
THE EPHESIAN RIOT AND A PRUDENT TOWN CLERK.
ACTS xix. 23-28.
Duration of St. Paul's Ministry at Ephesus--Date of
1st Corinthians--Diana of Ephesus and her Persian
Worship--Weakness of Argument _e silentio_--Demetrius
and the Craftsmen--Artemisian Festivals and Christian
Sufferings--Testimony of Achilles Tatius--Martyrdom of
Polycarp--Celtic Conventions--Mr. Wood's Discoveries
at Ephesus--Gaius Vibius Salutarius--Extant Specimen
of Ephesian Silverwork--Speech of Demetrius--The
Asiarchs and the Recorder--Apostolic Controversy and
its Methods 357-384
CHAPTER XVI.
ST. PAUL AND THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.
ACTS xx. 1, 7, 17-19, 28.
St. Paul's Position in A.D. 57--Personal Character of
St. Luke's Narrative--Defects of German Criticism--
Apostle's Second Visit to Macedonia--"Round about unto
Illyricum"--Visitation of Corinth--Passover at Philippi--
Holy Communion at Troas--The Lord's Day in the Primitive
Church--Argument from Silence, Dangers of--Justin Martyr
on Sunday--Eucharistic Amen--Evening Celebrations--The
Agape--Fasting Communion--St. Paul's Sermon and Eutychus--
Miletus and Charge to Ephesian Elders--Its Apologetic
Tone--St. Paul's view of Sermons--Decay of Modern
Preaching--Apostolic Power of Prevision--The Ministry
and Personal Religion--The Holy Ghost and Ordination--
Origin of Episcopacy--Dr. Hatch's Theories unhistorical--
Irenæus on Bishops--Derived from Apostles--Communicatio
Idiomatum--St. Paul's Farewell 385-421
CHAPTER XVII.
A PRISONER IN BONDS.
ACTS xxi. 2, 3, 17, 33, 39, 40; xxii. 22, 30; xxiv. 1; xxvi. 1.
St. Paul's Voyage from Miletus to Jerusalem--Christianity at
Tyre--"The Seed growing silently"--The Church at Cæsarea
and its Teachers--St. Paul's Interview with St. James--The
Nazarite Vow--St. Paul's Arrest and Appearance before the
Sanhedrin--His Defence before Felix--Felix and Drusilla--
Lessons of St. Paul's Vicissitudes--Agabus and Prophesying--
St. James and Compromise--St. Paul and the High Priest--His
Quickness and Tact--Tertullian on Flight in Persecution--
Quietism and Quakerism--St. Paul and the Herodian Family--
Argument of his Address before Agrippa and Bernice--His
Appeal to Cæsar 422-449
CHAPTER XVIII.
"IN PERILS ON THE SEA."
ACTS xxvii. 1-3; xxviii. 16.
St. Paul as a Traveller and a Prisoner--Length of his
Imprisonment--Blessed Results of his Captivity--"The
Prisoner of the Lord"--Teaching of the Seventeenth
Sunday after Trinity--His Captivity Benefited--(_a_)
His Personal Religion--(_b_) The Church at Cæsarea--(_c_)
The Church at Rome--(_d_) The Universal Church--
Composition of St. Luke's Gospel--Technical Use of word
Gospel--Testimony of Aristides and Irenæus--Epistles of
the Captivity--Story of the Voyage to Rome--Roman
Provincial Organisation--Writings of Mr. James Smith
of Jordanhills--Church at Sidon--The Storm--Malta
and Puteoli--Christianity at Pompeii--Christian
Inscription there Discovered--St. Paul's Approach to
Rome--Intense Humanity of the Apostle--Interview with
the local Jewish Sanhedrin--Christianity at Rome--
Investigations of Harnack and Schürer 450-471
CHAPTER I.
_THE TRAINING OF SAUL THE RABBI._
"A young man named Saul."--ACTS vii. 58.
"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this
city, at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict
manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as
ye all are this day."--ACTS xxii. 3.
The appearance of St. Paul upon the stage of Christian history marks a
period of new development and of more enlarged activity. The most
casual reader of the Acts of the Apostles must see that a personality
of vast power, force, individuality, has now entered the bounds of the
Church, and that henceforth St. Paul, his teaching, methods, and
actions, will throw all others into the shade. Modern German critics
have seized upon this undoubted fact and made it the foundation on
which they have built elaborate theories concerning St. Paul and the
Acts of the Apostles. Some of them have made St. Paul the inventor of
a new form of Christianity, more elaborate, artificial, and dogmatic
than the simple religion of nature which, as they think, Jesus Christ
taught. Others have seen in St. Paul the great rival and antagonist of
St. Peter, and have seen in the Acts a deliberate attempt to reconcile
the opposing factions of Peter and Paul by representing St. Paul's
career as modelled upon that of Peter's.[1] These theories are, we
believe, utterly groundless; but they show at the same time what an
important event in early Church history St. Paul's conversion was, and
how necessary a thorough comprehension of his life and training if we
wish to understand the genesis of our holy religion.
[1] See this portion of Baur's theory refuted in Dr. Salmon's
_Introduction to the New Testament_, ch. xviii., p. 335, 4th ed.,
where the writer admits a certain parallelism between the history
of SS. Peter and Paul in the Acts, but denies that it was an
invented parallelism. He remarks on the next page, "What I think
proves decisively that the making a parallel between St. Peter and
St. Paul was not an idea present to the author's mind is the
absence of the natural climax of such a parallel--the story of the
martyrdom of both the Apostles.... If the object of the author of
the Acts had been what has been supposed, it is scarcely credible
that he could have missed so obvious an opportunity of bringing
his book to its most worthy conclusion, by telling how the two
servants of Christ--all previous differences, if there had been
any, reconciled and forgotten--joined in witnessing a good
confession before the tyrant emperor, and encouraged each other in
steadfastness in endurance to the end."
Who and whence, then, was this enthusiastic man who is first
introduced to our notice in connexion with St. Stephen's martyrdom?
What can we glean from Scripture and from secular history concerning
his earlier career? I am not going to attempt to do what Conybeare and
Howson thirty years ago, or Archdeacon Farrar in later times, have
executed with a wealth of learning and a profuseness of imagination
which I could not pretend to possess. Even did I possess them it would
be impossible, for want of space, to write such a biography of St.
Paul as these authors have given to the public. Let us, however,
strive to gather up such details of St. Paul's early life and training
as the New Testament, illustrated by history, sets before us. Perhaps
we shall find that more is told us than strikes the ordinary
superficial reader. His parentage is known to us from St. Paul's own
statement. His father and mother were Jews of the Dispersion, as the
Jews scattered abroad amongst the Gentiles were usually called; they
were residents at Tarsus in Cilicia, and by profession belonged to the
Pharisees who then formed the more spiritual and earnest religious
section of the Jewish people. We learn this from three passages. In
his defence before the Council, recorded in Acts xxiii. 6, he tells us
that he was "a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees." There was no division in
religious feeling between the parents. His home life and his earliest
years knew nothing of religious jars and strife. Husband and wife were
joined not only in the external bonds of marriage, but in the
profounder union still of spiritual sentiment and hope, a memory which
may have inspired a deeper meaning begotten of personal experience in
the warning delivered to the Corinthians, "Be not unequally yoked with
unbelievers." Of the history of his parents and ancestors we know
practically nothing more for certain, but we can glean a little from
other notices. St. Paul tells us that he belonged to a special
division among the Jews, of which we have spoken a good deal in the
former volume when dealing with St. Stephen. The Jews at this period
were divided into Hebrews and Hellenists: that is, Hebrews who by
preference and in their ordinary practice spoke the Hebrew tongue, and
Hellenists who spoke Greek and adopted Greek civilisation and customs.
St. Paul tells us in Philippians iii. 5 that he was "of the stock of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews," a statement
which he substantially repeats in 2 Corinthians xi. 22. Now it was
almost an impossibility for a Jew of the Dispersion to belong to the
Hebrews. His lot was cast in a foreign land, his business mixed him
up with the surrounding pagans, so that the use of the Greek language
was an absolute necessity; while the universal practice of his
fellow-countrymen in conforming themselves to Greek customs, Greek
philosophy, and Greek civilisation rendered the position of one who
would stand out for the old Jewish national ideas and habits a very
trying and a very peculiar one. Here, however, comes in an ancient
tradition, recorded by St. Jerome, which throws some light upon the
difficulty. Scripture tells us that St. Paul was born at Tarsus. Our
Lord, in His conversation with Ananias in Acts ix. 11, calls him "Saul
of Tarsus," while again the Apostle himself in the twenty-second
chapter describes himself as "a Jew born in Tarsus". But then the
question arises, how came his parents to Tarsus, and how, being in
Tarsus, could they be described as Hebrews while all around and about
them their countrymen were universally Hellenists? St. Jerome here
steps in to help us. He relates, in his _Catalogue of Illustrious
Writers_, that "Paul the Apostle, previously called Saul, being
outside the number of the Twelve, was of the tribe of Benjamin and of
the city of the Jewish Gischala; on the capture of which by the Romans
he migrated with them to Tarsus." Now this statement of Jerome,
written four hundred years after the event, is clearly inaccurate in
many respects, and plainly contradicts the Apostle's own words that he
was born in Tarsus.
But yet the story probably embodies a tradition substantially true,
that St. Paul's parents were originally from Galilee. Galilee was
intensely Hebrew. It was provincial, and the provinces are always far
less affected by advance in thought or in religion than the towns,
which are the chosen homes of innovation and of progress. Hellenism
might flourish in Jerusalem, but in Galilee it would not be tolerated;
and the tough, sturdy Galileans alone would have moral and religious
grit enough to maintain the old Hebrew customs and language, even amid
the abounding inducements to an opposite course which a great
commercial centre like Tarsus held out. Assuredly our own experience
affords many parallels illustrating the religious history of St.
Paul's family. The Evangelical revival, the development of Ritual in
the Church of England, made their mark first of all in the towns, and
did not affect the distant country districts till long after. The
Presbyterianism of the Highlands is almost a different religion from
the more enlightened and more cultured worship of Edinburgh and
Glasgow. The Low Church and Orange developments of Ulster bring us
back to the times of the last century, and seem passing strange to the
citizens of London, Manchester, or Dublin, who first make their
acquaintance in districts where obsolete ideas and cries still retain
a power quite forgotten in the vast tide of life and thought which
sways the great cities. And yet these rural backwaters, as we may call
them, retain their influence, and show strong evidence of life even in
the great cities; and so it is that even in London and Edinburgh and
Glasgow and Dublin congregations continue to exist in their remoter
districts and back streets where the prejudices and ideas of the
country find full sway and exercise. The Presbyterianism of the
Highlands and the Orangeism of Ulster will be sought in vain in
fashionable churches, but in smaller assemblies they will be found
exercising a sway and developing a life which will often astonish a
superficial observer.
So it was doubtless in Tarsus. The Hebrews of Galilee would delight
to separate themselves. They would look down upon the Hellenism of
their fellow-countrymen as a sad falling away from ancient orthodoxy,
but their declension would only add a keener zest to the zeal with
which the descendants of the Hebrews of Gischala, even in the third
and fourth generations, as it may have been, would retain the ancient
customs and language of their Galilean forefathers.[2]
[2] The tradition mentioned by St. Jerome is not the only one
which deals with the early life of St. Paul. Another very learned
writer of the same, or perhaps we should rather say of a still
earlier, period was St. Epiphanius, the historian of Heresies and
bishop of Constantia, or Salamis, in Cyprus. He wrote a great work
describing the various heresies which had sprung up in the Church,
containing much valuable information which his research and early
date enabled him to incorporate in his pages. He describes,
amongst others, the Ebionites, telling us of their hostility to
St. Paul and of the charges they brought against him. The
Ebionites denied that he was a Jew at all. The words of Epiphanius
are "They say that he was a Greek, and sprung from the Gentiles,
and then afterwards became a proselyte," in opposition to which he
quotes the Apostle's own words in Phil. iii. 5 and in 2 Cor. xi.
22. Epiphanius then proceeds to explain how St. Paul might have
been born in Tarsus and yet have been a Jew by nation, because
that, under Antiochus Epiphanes and at other times, vast numbers
of the Jews had been dispersed as captives among the Gentiles. See
Epiphanius, in _Corpus Hæreseologicum_, Ed. Oehler, vol. ii., p.
283. Berlin, 1859. This is a good instance how the Jewish
hostility, which pursued St. Paul through life, had not quite died
out three centuries later. Epiphanius was born about A.D. 310. He
wrote his work on Early Heresies about A.D. 375, calling it
_Panarion_, or, as he himself explains in his introductory
epistle, the Medicine Chest, full of remedies against the bite of
the Old Serpent. Epiphanius must have had a great store of early
literature at his command which has now completely perished. See a
long and critical account of him and his writings, written by Dr.
R. A. Lipsius, in the _Dict. Christ. Biog._, vol. ii.
St. Paul and his parents might seem to an outsider mere Hellenists,
but their Galilean origin and training enabled them to retain the
intenser Judaism which qualified the Apostle to describe himself as
not only of the stock of Israel, but as a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
St. Paul's more immediate family connexions have also some light
thrown upon them in the New Testament. We learn, for instance, from
Acts xxiii. 16, that he had a married sister, who probably lived at
Jerusalem, and may have been even a convert to Christianity; for we
are told that her son, having heard of the Jewish plot to murder the
Apostle, at once reported it to St. Paul himself, who thereupon put
his nephew into communication with the chief captain in whose custody
he lay. While again, in Romans xvi. 7, 11, he sends salutations to
Andronicus, Junias, and Herodion, his kinsmen, who were residents in
Rome; and in verse 21 of the same chapter joins Lucius and Jason and
Sosipater, his kinsmen, with himself in the Christian wishes for the
welfare of the Roman Church, with which he closes the Epistle. It is
said, indeed, that this may mean simply that these men were Jews, and
that St. Paul regarded all Jews as his kinsmen. But this notion is
excluded by the form of the twenty-first verse, where he first sends
greetings from Timothy, whom St. Paul dearly loved, and who was a
circumcised Jew, not a proselyte merely, but a true Jew, on his
mother's side, at least; and then the Apostle proceeds to name the
persons whom he designates his kinsmen. St. Paul evidently belonged to
a family of some position in the Jewish world, whose ramifications
were dispersed into very distant quarters of the empire. Every scrap
of information which we can gain concerning the early life and
associations of such a man is very precious; we may therefore point
out that we can even get a glimpse of the friends and acquaintances of
his earliest days. Barnabas the Levite was of Cyprus, an island only
seventy miles distant from Tarsus. In all probability Barnabas may
have resorted to the Jewish schools of Tarsus, or may have had some
other connexions with the Jewish colony of that city. Some such early
friendship may have been the link which bound Paul to Barnabas and
enabled the latter to stand sponsor for the newly converted Saul when
the Jerusalem Church was yet naturally suspicious of him. "And when he
was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples:
and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.
But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles" (Acts ix. 26,
27). This ancient friendship enabled Barnabas to pursue the Apostle
with those offices of consolation which his nascent faith demanded. He
knew Saul's boyhood haunts, and therefore it is we read in Acts xi. 25
that "Barnabas went forth to Tarsus to seek for Saul" when a multitude
of the Gentiles began to pour into the Church of Antioch. Barnabas
knew his old friend's vigorous, enthusiastic character, his genius,
his power of adaptation, and therefore he brought him back to Antioch,
where for a whole year they were joined in one holy brotherhood of
devout and successful labour for their Master. The friendships and
love of boyhood and of youth received a new consecration and were
impressed with a loftier ideal from the example of Saul and of
Barnabas.
Then again there are other friends of his youth to whom he refers.
Timothy's family lived at Lystra, and Lystra was directly connected
with Tarsus by a great road which ran straight from Tarsus to Ephesus,
offering means for that frequent communication in which the Jews ever
delighted. St. Paul's earliest memories carried him back to the devout
atmosphere of the pious Jewish family at Lystra, which he had long
known, where Lois the grandmother and Eunice the mother had laid the
foundations of that spiritual life which under St. Paul's own later
teaching flourished so wondrously in the life of Timothy.[3] Let us
pass on, however, to a period of later development. St. Paul's
earliest teaching at first was doubtless that of the home. As with
Timothy so with the Apostle; his earliest religious teacher was
doubtless his mother, who from his infancy imbued him with the great
rudimentary truths which lie at the basis of both the Jewish and the
Christian faith. His father too took his share. He was a Pharisee, and
would be anxious to fulfil every jot and tittle of the law and every
minute rule which the Jewish doctors had deduced by an attention and a
subtlety concentrated for ages upon the text of the Old Testament. And
one great doctor had laid down, "When a boy begins to speak, his
father ought to talk with him in the sacred language, and to teach him
the law"; a rule which would exactly fall in with his father's natural
inclination.[4] He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, though dwelling among
Hellenists. He prided himself on speaking the Hebrew language alone,
and he therefore would take the greatest pains that the future
Apostle's earliest teachings should be in that same sacred tongue,
giving him from boyhood that command over Hebrew and its dialects
which he afterwards turned to the best of uses.
[3] See 2 Tim. i. 5, and iii. 14, 15. It is evident that St.
Paul's language implies an acquaintance with Timothy's family of
very long standing.
[4] Schœttgen's _Hor. Hebr._, vol. i., p. 89; Lewin's _St.
Paul_, vol. i., p. 7.
At five years old Jewish children of parents like St. Paul's advanced
to the direct study of the law under the guidance of some doctor,
whose school they daily attended, as another rabbi had expressly
enacted, "At five years old a boy should apply himself to the study of
Holy Scripture." Between five and thirteen Saul was certainly educated
at Tarsus, during which period his whole attention was concentrated
upon sacred learning and upon mechanical or industrial training. It
was at this period of his life that St. Paul must have learned the
trade of tentmaking, which during the last thirty years of his life
stood him in such good stead, rendering him independent of all
external aid so far as his bodily wants were concerned. A question has
often been raised as to the social position of St. Paul's family; and
people, bringing their Western ideas with them, have thought that the
manual trade which he was taught betokened their humble rank. But this
is quite a mistake. St. Paul's family must have occupied at least a
fairly comfortable position, when they were able to send a member of
their house to Jerusalem to be taught in the most celebrated
rabbinical school of the time. But it was the law of that school--and
a very useful law it was too--that every Jew, and especially every
teacher, should possess a trade by which he might be supported did
necessity call for it. It was a common proverb among the Jews at that
time that "He who taught not his son a trade taught him to be a
thief." "It is incumbent on the father to circumcise his son, to
redeem him, to teach him the law, and to teach him some occupation,
for, as Rabbi Judah saith, whosoever teacheth not his son to do some
work is as if he taught him robbery." "Rabbin Gamaliel saith, He that
hath a trade in his hand, to what is he like? He is like to a vineyard
that is fenced." Such was the authoritative teaching of the schools,
and Jewish practice was in accordance therewith. Some of the most
celebrated rabbis of that time were masters of a mechanical art or
trade. The Vice-president of the Sanhedrin was a merchant for four
years, and then devoted himself to the study of the law. One rabbi was
a shoemaker; Rabbi Juda, the great Cabbalist, was a tailor; Rabbi Jose
was brought up as a tanner; another rabbi as a baker, and yet another
as a carpenter.[5] And so as a preparation for the office and life
work to which his father had destined him, St. Paul during his earlier
years was taught one of the common trades of Tarsus, which consisted
in making tents either out of the hair or the skin of the Angora goats
which browsed over the hills of central Asia Minor. It was a trade
that was common among Jews. Aquila and his wife Priscilla were
tentmakers, and therefore St. Paul united himself to them and wrought
at his trade in their company at Corinth (Acts xviii. 3). It has often
been asserted that at this period of his life St. Paul must have
studied Greek philosophy and literature, and men have pointed to his
quotations from the Greek poets Aratus, Epimenides, and Menander to
prove the attention which the Apostle must have bestowed upon
them.[6] Tarsus was certainly one of the great universities of that
age, ranking in the first place along with Athens and Alexandria. So
great was its fame that the Roman emperors even were wont to go to
Tarsus to look for tutors to instruct their sons. But Tarsus was at
the very same time one of the most morally degraded spots within the
bounds of the Roman world, and it is not at all likely that a strict
Hebrew, a stern Pharisee, would have allowed his son to encounter the
moral taint involved in freely mixing with such a degraded people and
in the free study of a literature permeated through and through with
sensuality and idolatry. St. Paul doubtless at this early period of
his life gained that colloquial knowledge of Greek which was every day
becoming more and more necessary for the ordinary purposes of secular
life all over the Roman Empire, even in the most backward parts of
Palestine.[7] But it is not likely that his parents would have
sanctioned his attendance at the lectures on philosophy and poetry
delivered at the University of Tarsus, where he would have been
initiated into all the abominations of paganism in a style most
attractive to human nature.
[5] Josephus, _Antiqq._, XVIII., ix., 1, says of certain Jews of
Babylon, "Now there were two men, Asineus and Anileus, brethren to
one another. They were destitute of a father, and their mother put
them to learn the art of weaving curtains, it not being esteemed a
disgrace among them for men to be weavers of cloth." Then we find
in the New Testament Simon of Joppa was a tanner, Aquila a
tentmaker, the apostles fishermen, and our Lord a carpenter. See a
long note on this subject by Mr. Lewin in his _Life of St. Paul_,
vol. i., p. 8. Massutius, a Jesuit commentator on St. Paul's life,
lib. i., cap. iii., notices that Charlemagne, according to his
biographer Eginhard, would have his sons and daughters taught some
mechanical trade.
[6] See Acts xvii. 28; Titus i. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 33.
[7] See an article on "Greek the Language of Galilee in the time
of Christ," by the Rev. Dr. Abbott, Professor of Hebrew in the
University of Dublin, in his _Essays chiefly on the Original Texts
of the Old and New Testaments_. London, 1891.
At thirteen years of age, or thereabouts, young Saul, having now
learned all the sacred knowledge which the local rabbis could teach,
went up to Jerusalem just as our Lord did, to assume the full
obligations of a Jew and to pursue his higher studies at the great
Rabbinical University of Jerusalem. To put it in modern language, Saul
went up to Jerusalem to be confirmed and admitted to the full
privileges and complete obligations of the Levitical Law, and he also
went up to enter college. St. Paul himself describes the period of
life on which he now entered as that in which he was brought up at the
feet of Gamaliel. We have already touched in a prior volume upon the
subject of Gamaliel's history and his relation to Christianity, but
here it is necessary to say something of him as a teacher, in which
capacity he laid the foundations of modes of thought and reasoning,
the influence of which moulded St. Paul's whole soul and can be traced
all through St. Paul's Epistles.
Gamaliel is an undoubtedly historical personage. The introduction of
him in the Acts of the Apostles is simply another instance of that
marvellous historical accuracy which every fresh investigation and
discovery show to be a distinguishing feature of this book. The Jewish
Talmud was not committed to writing for more than four centuries after
Gamaliel's time,[8] and yet it presents Gamaliel to us in exactly the
same light as the inspired record does, telling us that "with the
death of Gamaliel I. the reverence for the Divine law ceased, and the
observance of purity and abstinence departed." Gamaliel came of a
family distinguished in Jewish history both before and after his own
time. He was of the royal House of David, and possessed in this way
great historical claims upon the respect of the nation. His
grandfather Hillel and his father Simeon were celebrated teachers and
expounders of the law. His grandfather had founded indeed one of the
leading schools of interpretation then favoured by the rabbis. His
father Simeon is said by some to have been the aged man who took up
the infant Christ in his arms and blessed God for His revealed
salvation in the words of the _Nunc Dimittis_; while, as for Gamaliel
himself, his teaching was marked by wisdom, prudence, liberality, and
spiritual depth so far as such qualities could exist in a professor of
rabbinical learning. Gamaliel was a friend and contemporary of Philo,
and this fact alone must have imported an element of liberality into
his teaching. Philo was a widely read scholar who strove to unite the
philosophy of Greece to the religion of Palestine, and Philo's ideas
must have permeated more or less into some at least of the schools of
Jerusalem, so that, though St. Paul may not have come in contact with
Greek literature in Tarsus, he may very probably have learned much
about it in a Judaised, purified, spiritualised shape in Jerusalem.
But the influence exercised on St. Paul by Gamaliel and through him by
Philo, or men of his school, can be traced in other respects.[9]
[8] Basnage, in his _History of the Jews_, translated by Thomas
Taylor, Book III., ch. vi., p. 168 (London, 1708), states, "It is
agreed by the generality of Jewish and Christian doctors that the
Talmud was completed in the 505th year of the Christian Æra." Cf.
Serarius, _De Rabbinis_, Lib. I., c. ix., p. 251; Bartolocci,
_Bibl. Rabbin._, t. i., p. 488, t. iii., p. 359; Morinus, _Exerc.
Bibl._, Lib. II., ex. 6, c. ii. and iii., p. 294. Schaff's
_Encyclopædia of Historical Theology_, vol. iii., pp. 2292-96, has
a good article on the Talmud, giving a long list of authorities to
which reference may be made by any one interested in this subject.
[9] Philo is the subject of a very long and learned article by Dr.
Edersheim in Smith's _Dict. Christ. Biog._, vol. iv., with which
may be compared a shorter article in Schaff's _Encyclopædia of
Hist. Theol._, vol. ii.
The teaching of Gamaliel was as spiritual, I have said, as rabbinical
teaching could have been; but this is not saying very much from the
Christian point of view. The schools at Jerusalem in the time of
Gamaliel were wholly engaged in studies of the most wearisome, narrow,
petty, technical kind. Dr. Farrar has illustrated this subject with a
great wealth of learning and examples in the fourth chapter of his
_Life of St. Paul_. The Talmud alone shows this, throwing a fearful
light upon the denunciations of our Lord as regards the Pharisees, for
it devotes a whole treatise to washings of the hands, and another to
the proper method of killing fowls. The Pharisaic section of the Jews
held, indeed, that there were two hundred and forty-eight commandments
and three hundred and sixty-five prohibitions involved in the Jewish
Law, all of them equally binding, and all of them so searching that if
only one solitary Jew could be found who for one day kept them all and
transgressed in no one direction, then the captivity of God's people
would cease and the Messiah would appear.[10]
[10] These facts throw much light upon our Lord's words in Matt.
xv. 1-9 and xxii. 34-40.
I am obliged to pass over this point somewhat rapidly, and yet it is a
most important one if we desire to know what kind of training the
Apostle received; for, no matter how God's grace may descend and the
Divine Spirit may change the main directions of a man's life, he never
quite recovers himself from the effects of his early teaching. Dr.
Farrar has bestowed much time and labour on this point. The following
brief extract from his eloquent words will give a vivid idea of the
endless puerilities, the infinite questions of pettiest, most minute,
and most subtle bearing with which the time of St. Paul and his
fellow-students must have been taken up, and which must have made him
bitterly feel in the depths of his inmost being that, though the law
may have been originally intended as a source of life, it had been
certainly changed as regards his own particular case, and had become
unto him an occasion of death.
"Moreover, was there not mingled with all this nominal adoration of
the Law a deeply seated hypocrisy, so deep that it was in a great
measure unconscious? Even before the days of Christ the rabbis had
learnt the art of straining out gnats and swallowing camels. They had
long learnt to nullify what they professed to defend. The ingenuity of
Hillel was quite capable of getting rid of any Mosaic regulation which
had been found practically burdensome. Pharisees and Sadducees alike
had managed to set aside in their own favour, by the devices of the
mixtures, all that was disagreeable to themselves in the Sabbath
scrupulosity.[11] The fundamental institution of the Sabbatic year had
been stultified by the mere legal fiction of the Prosbol.[12] Teachers
who were on the high road to a casuistry which could construct rules
out of every superfluous particle, had found it easy to win credit for
ingenuity by elaborating prescriptions to which Moses would have
listened in mute astonishment. If there be one thing more definitely
laid down in the Law than another, it is the uncleanness of creeping
things; yet the Talmud assures us that 'no one is appointed a member
of the Sanhedrin who does not possess sufficient ingenuity to prove
from the written Law that a creeping thing is ceremonially clean'; and
that there was an unimpeachable disciple at Jabne who could adduce one
hundred and fifty arguments in favour of the ceremonial cleanness of
creeping things. Sophistry like this was at work even in the days when
the young student of Tarsus sat at the feet of Gamaliel; and can we
imagine any period of his life when he would not have been wearied by
a system at once so meaningless, so stringent, and so insincere?"
[11] The rabbinical device of mixtures is fully explained in
Buxtorf's _Lexicon_, col. 1657, Ed. Basil (1639), or in Kitto's
_Biblical Encyclopædia_, under the article "Sabbath." The Talmud
had a special treatise called _Tractatus Mixtorum_, which taught
how, for instance, dwellings might be mixed or mingled so as to
avoid technical breaches of the Sabbatical law. Planks were laid
across intervening residences, so that houses at a very great
distance might be brought into touch and connexion, and thus
regarded as one common dwelling for a number of people who wished
for a common feast on the Sabbath. This was called _Mixtio
conclavium_. It was simply one of those wretched devices to which
casuistry always leads; something like the rules for banquets on
fast days, which we find in Lacroix, _Manners of the Middle Ages_,
p. 170, where a most sumptuous Episcopal banquet is described. It
was given on a fast day, therefore no flesh is included; but its
place was amply supplied by rare fish and other dainties: see G.
T. Stokes, _Ireland and Anglo-Norman Church_, p. 143.
[12] Prosbol is simply a transliteration into Hebrew of two Greek
words, πρὸς βουλήν. The Jewish Law enacted a cancelling of all
debts in the Sabbatic year on the part of Jews towards their
brethren. This enactment was found to hinder commerce about the
time of Hillel--_i.e._, 75 years B.C. The rich would not lend to
the poor on account of the Sabbatical year. So the doctors devised
the Prosbol, which was a declaration to the effect that the
Sabbatical year was not to affect the debt. There was a legal
fiction invented which made void the law. The creditor said to the
debtor, "In accordance with the Sabbatical year I remit thee the
debt," and then the debtor replied, "Nevertheless I wish to pay
it," and then the creditor was free from the obligation of Deut.
xv.
These words are true, thoroughly true, in their extremest sense.
Casuistry is at all times a dangerous weapon with which to play, a
dangerous science upon which to concentrate one's attention. The mind
is so pleased with the fascination of the precipice that one is
perpetually tempted to see how near an approach can be made without a
catastrophe, and then the catastrophe happens when it is least
expected. But when the casuist's attention is concentrated upon one
volume like the law of Moses, interpreted in the thousand methods and
combinations open to the luxuriant imagination of the East, then
indeed the danger is infinitely increased, and we cease to wonder at
the vivid, burning, scorching denunciations of the Lord as He
proclaimed the sin of those who enacted that "Whosoever shall swear by
the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of
the temple, he is a debtor." St. Paul's whole time must have been
taken up in the school of Gamaliel with an endless study of such
casuistical trifles; and yet that period of his life left marks which
we can clearly trace throughout his writings. The method, for
instance, in which St. Paul quotes the Old Testament is thoroughly
rabbinical. It was derived from the rules prevalent in the Jewish
schools, and therefore, though it may seem to us at times forced and
unnatural, must have appeared to St. Paul and to the men of his time
absolutely conclusive. When reading the Scriptures we Westerns forget
the great difference between Orientals and the nations of Western
Europe. Aristotle and his logic and his logical methods, with major
and minor premises and conclusions following therefrom, absolutely
dominate our thoughts. The Easterns knew nothing of Aristotle, and his
methods availed nothing to their minds. They argued in quite a
different style, and used a logic which he would have simply scorned.
Analogy, allegory, illustration, form the staple elements of Eastern
logic, and in their use St. Paul was elaborately trained in Gamaliel's
classes, and of their use his writings furnish abundant examples; the
most notable of which will be found in his allegorical interpretation
of the events of the wilderness journey of Israel in 1 Corinthians x.
1-4, where the pillar of cloud, and the passage of the Red Sea, and
the manna, and the smitten rock become the emblems and types of the
Christian Sacraments; and again, in St. Paul's mystical explanation of
Galatians iv. 21-31, where Hagar and Sarah are represented as typical
of the two covenants, the old covenant leading to spiritual bondage
and the new introducing to gospel freedom.[13]
[13] The parallel between Hagar and Sarah is drawn out at full
length after the rabbinical method in Basnage's _History of the
Jews_ (Taylor's translation), book iii., ch. 22; in Lightfoot's
_Galatians_, pp. 178, 179, 189-99, and Farrar's _St. Paul_, ch.
iii. Philo in his writings uses the very same illustration.
Perhaps it may be well to add the concluding words of Bishop
Lightfoot when discussing on p. 197 of his _Galatians_, the
similar use made by St. Paul and by Philo of this illustration of
Hagar: "At the same time we need not fear to allow that St. Paul's
method of teaching here is coloured by his early education in the
rabbinical schools. It were as unreasonable to stake the Apostle's
inspiration on the turn of a metaphor or the character of an
illustration or the form of an argument, as on purity of diction.
No one now thinks of maintaining that the language of the inspired
writers reaches the classical standard of correctness and
elegance, though at one time it was held almost a heresy to deny
this. 'A treasure contained in earthen vessels,' 'strength made
perfect in weakness,' 'rudeness in speech, yet not in knowledge,'
such is the far nobler conception of inspired teaching, which we
may gather from the Apostle's own language. And this language we
should do well to bear in mind. But, on the other hand it were
mere dogmatism to set up the intellectual standard of our own age
or country as an infallible rule. The power of allegory has been
differently felt in different ages, as it is differently felt at
any one time by diverse nations. Analogy, allegory, metaphor--by
what boundaries are these separated the one from the other? What
is true or false, correct or incorrect, as an analogy or an
allegory? What argumentative force must be assigned to either? We
should at least be prepared with an answer to these questions
before we venture to sit in judgment on any individual case."
These, indeed, are the most notable examples of St. Paul's method of
exegesis derived from the school of Gamaliel, but there are
numberless others scattered all through his writings. If we view them
through Western spectacles, we shall be disappointed and miss their
force; but if we view them sympathetically, if we remember that the
Jews quoted and studied the Old Testament to find illustrations of
their own ideas rather than proofs in our sense of the word, studied
them as an enthusiastic Shakespeare or Tennyson or Wordsworth student
pores over his favourite author to find parallels which others, who
are less bewitched, find very slight and very dubious indeed,[14] then
we shall come to see how it is that St. Paul quotes an illustration of
his doctrine of justification by faith from Habakkuk ii. 4--"The soul
of the proud man is not upright, but the just man shall live by his
steadfastness"; a passage which originally applied to the Chaldeans
and the Jews, predicting that the former should enjoy no stable
prosperity, but that the Jews, ideally represented as the just or
upright man, should live securely because of their fidelity;[15] and
can find an allusion to the resurrection of Christ in "the sure
mercies of David," which God had promised to give His people in the
third verse of the fifty-fifth of Isaiah.[16]
[14] The latest instance of this method which I have noticed is
_Illustrations of Tennyson_, by J. C. Collins, reviewed by the
Dean of Armagh in the January number of the _Bookman_, where a
number of such parallelisms are quoted which seem to me rather
dubious.
[15] Bishop Lightfoot, on Galatians iii. 11, says of this verse,
"In its original context the passage has reference to the temporal
calamities inflicted by the Chaldean invasion. Here a spiritual
meaning and general application are given to words referring
primarily to special external incidents." See also Farrar on St.
Paul's method of scriptural quotation, in his _Life of St. Paul_,
ch. iii.
[16] See St. Paul's address to the Jews of the Pisidian Antioch in
Acts xiii. 34. Other specimens of the same rabbinical method used
by St. Paul will be found in Rom. iii., iv., and ix. 33; 1 Cor.
ix. Eph. iv. 8.
Rabbinical learning, Hebrew discipline, Greek experience and life,
these conspired together with natural impulse and character to frame
and form and mould a man who must make his mark upon the world at
large in whatever direction he chooses for his walk in life. It will
now be our duty to show what were the earliest results of this very
varied education.[17]
[17] The great leaders in the divine struggle for righteousness,
in every great onward movement on behalf of truth have always been
men of this varied training. Moses, David, Elijah, Ezra, Saul of
Tarsus, were great leaders of thought and action and they were all
men whose education had been developed in very various schools.
They were not men of books merely, nor men of action alone. They
gained the flexibility of mind, the genuine liberality of thought
which led them out of the old rucks by experiences gained from
very opposite directions. The mere man of books may be very
narrow; the practical man, whose knowledge is limited to every day
affairs and whose horizon is bounded by to-morrow, is often an
unthinking bigot. A man trained like Moses, or David, or Saul is
the true leader of men for his mind is trained to receive truths
from every quarter.