_APOSTOLIC QUARRELS AND THE SECOND TOUR._
"And after some days Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us return now
and visit the brethren in every city wherein we proclaimed the
word of the Lord, and see how they fare.... And there arose a
sharp contention between them, so that they parted asunder one
from the other."--ACTS xv. 36, 39.
"And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having
been forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia....
They came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the
night; There was a man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him, and
saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us."--ACTS xvi. 6, 8,
9.
The second missionary tour of St. Paul now claims our attention,
specially because it involves the first proclamation of Christianity
by an apostle within the boundaries of Europe. The course of the
narrative up to this will show that any Christian effort in Europe by
an apostle, St. Peter or any one else prior to St. Paul's work, was
almost impossible. To the Twelve and to men like-minded with them, it
must have seemed a daring innovation to bring the gospel message
directly to bear upon the masses of Gentile paganism. Men of
conservative minds like the Twelve doubtless restrained their own
efforts up to the time of St. Paul's second tour within the bounds of
Israel according to the flesh in Palestine and the neighbouring lands,
finding there an ample field upon which to exercise their diligence.
And then when we turn to St. Paul and St. Barnabas, who had dared to
realise the freeness and fulness of the gospel message, we shall see
that the Syrian Antioch and Syria itself and Asia Minor had hitherto
afforded to them scope quite sufficient to engage their utmost
attention. A few moments' reflection upon the circumstances of the
primitive Christian Church and the developments through which
Apostolic Christianity passed are quite sufficient to dispel all such
fabulous incrustations upon the original record as those involved in
St. Peter's episcopate at Antioch or his lengthened rule over the
Church at Rome. If the latter story was to be accepted, St. Peter must
have been Bishop of Rome long before a mission was despatched to the
Gentiles from Antioch, if not even before the vision was seen at Joppa
by St. Peter when the admission of the Gentiles to the Church was
first authorised under any terms whatsoever.[129] In fact, it would be
impossible to fit the actions of St. Peter into any scheme whatsoever,
if we bring him to Rome and make him bishop there for twenty-five
years beginning at the year 42, the time usually assigned by Roman
Catholic historians. It is hard enough to frame a hypothetical scheme,
which will find a due and fitting place for the various recorded
actions of St. Peter, quite apart from any supposed Roman episcopate
lasting over such an extended period. St. Peter and St. Paul had, for
instance, a dispute at Antioch of which we read much in the second
chapter of the Galatian Epistle. Where shall we fix that dispute? Some
place it during the interval between the Synod at Jerusalem and the
second missionary tour of which we now propose to treat. Others place
it at the conclusion of that tour, when St. Paul was resting at
Antioch for a little after the work of that second journey. As we are
not writing the life of St. Paul, but simply commenting upon the
narratives of his labours as told in the Acts, we must be content to
refer to the Lives of St. Paul by Conybeare and Howson, and Archdeacon
Farrar, and to Bishop Lightfoot's _Galatians_, all of whom place this
quarrel before the second tour, and to Mr. Findlay's _Galatians_ in
our own series, who upholds the other view. Supposing, however, that
we take the former view in deference to the weighty authorities just
mentioned, we then find that there were two serious quarrels which
must for a time have marred the unity and Christian concord of the
Antiochene Church.
[129] St. Jerome places the beginning of St. Peter's twenty-five
years' episcopate at Rome in A.D. 42--that is, two years before
Herod's attempt to put St. Peter to death. This idea has been
worked up into an elaborate story, which will be found duly set
forth in great detail in Fleury's _Ecclesiastical History_, Book
I., where St. Peter is made Bishop of Rome prior to the death of
Herod Agrippa, whence he despatches disciples to found Churches in
various towns of Italy, and whence he writes his first Epistle to
the Jews of the Dispersion in Asia Minor. A simple statement of
this is sufficient refutation for any one who knows the bare text
of the Acts. There seems, however, no reason whatsoever to doubt
the ancient tradition which fixes the martyrdom of St. Peter at
Rome. See on the whole subject the interesting article on St.
Peter in Schaff's _Encyclopædia of Theology_, p. 1814. In the
_Acta Sanctorum_, published by the Bollandists, April, vol. iii.,
p. 346, we are told that St. Peter despatched St. Mark to found
the Church of Aquileia, which claims the next rank to the Church
of Rome among the Italian sees. In fact, the Bishops of Aquileia
regarded themselves as of such importance, owing to their
apostolic origin, that they headed a separation from the Church of
Rome, which lasted from about A.D. 570 to 700. See Robertson's
_History of the Church_, ii., p. 306, and the authorities there
quoted, on this interesting anticipation of the Reformation in
England.
The reproof of St. Peter by St. Paul for his dissimulation was made
on a public occasion before the whole Church. It must have caused
considerable excitement and discussion, and raised much human feeling
in Antioch. Barnabas too, the chosen friend and companion of St. Paul,
was involved in the matter, and must have felt himself condemned in
the strong language addressed to St. Peter. This may have caused for a
time a certain amount of estrangement between the various parties. A
close study of the Acts of the Apostles dispels at once the notion men
would fain cherish, that the apostles and the early Christians lived
just like angels without any trace of human passion or discord. The
apostles had their differences and misunderstandings very like our
own. Hot tempers and subsequent coolnesses arose, and produced evil
results between men entrusted with the very highest offices, and paved
the way, as quarrels always do, for fresh disturbances at some future
time. So it was at Antioch, where the public reproof of St. Peter by
St. Paul involved St. Barnabas, and may have left traces upon the
gentle soul of the Son of Consolation which were not wholly eradicated
by the time that a new source of trouble arose.
The ministry of St. Paul at Antioch was prolonged for some time after
the Jerusalem Synod, and then the Holy Ghost again impelled him to
return and visit all the Churches which he had founded in Cyprus and
Asia Minor. He recognised the necessity for supervision, support, and
guidance as far as the new converts were concerned. The seed might be
from heaven and the work might be God's own, but still human effort
must take its share and do its duty, or else the work may fail and the
good seed never attain perfection. St. Paul therefore proposed to
Barnabas a second joint mission, intending to visit "the brethren in
every city wherein they had proclaimed the word of the Lord." Barnabas
desired to take with them his kinsman Mark, but Paul, remembering his
weakness and defection on their previous journey, would have nothing
to say to the young man. Then there arose a sharp contention between
them, or, as the original expression is, there arose a paroxysm
between the apostles, so that the loving Christian workers and friends
of bygone years, "men who had hazarded their lives for the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ," separated the one from the other, and worked from
henceforth in widely different localities.
I. There are few portions of the Acts more fruitful in spiritual
instruction, or teeming with more abundant lessons, or richer in
application to present difficulties, than this very incident. Let us
note a few of them. One thought, for instance, which occurs at once to
any reflecting mind is this: what an extraordinary thing it is that
two such holy and devoted men as Paul and Barnabas should have had a
quarrel at all; and when they did quarrel, would it not have been far
better to have hushed the matter up and never have let the world know
anything at all about it? Now I do not say that it is well for
Christian people always to proclaim aloud and tell the world at large
all about the various unpleasant circumstances of their lives, their
quarrels, their misunderstandings, their personal failings and
backslidings. Life would be simply intolerable did we live always, at
all times, and under all circumstances beneath the full glare of
publicity. Personal quarrels too, family jars and bickerings have a
rapid tendency to heal themselves, if kept in the gloom, the soft,
toned, shaded light of retirement. They have an unhappy tendency to
harden and perpetuate themselves when dragged beneath the fierce
light of public opinion and the outside world. Yet it is well for the
Church at large that such a record has been left for us of the fact
that the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas waxed so fierce that they
departed the one from the other, to teach us what we are apt to
forget, the true character of the apostles. Human nature is intensely
inclined to idolatry. One idol may be knocked down, but as soon as it
is displaced the heart straightway sets to work to erect another idol
in its stead, and men have been ready to make idols of the apostles.
They have been ready to imagine them supernatural characters, tainted
with no sin, tempted by no passion, weakened by no infirmity. If these
incidents had not been recorded--the quarrel with Peter and the
quarrel with Barnabas--we should have been apt to forget that the
apostles were men of like passions with ourselves, and thus to lose
the full force--the bracing, stimulating force--of such exhortations
as that delivered by St. Paul when he said to a primitive Church,
"Follow me, as I, a poor, weak, failing, passionate man, have followed
Christ." We have the thorough humanity of the apostles vigorously
presented and enforced in this passage. There is no suppression of
weak points, no accentuation of strong points, no hiding of defects
and weaknesses, no dwelling upon virtues and graces. We have the
apostles presented at times vigorous, united, harmonious; at other
times weak, timorous, and cowardly.
Again, we note that this passage not only shows us the human frailties
and weaknesses which marked the apostles, and found a place in
characters and persons called to the very highest places; it has also
a lesson for the Church of all time in the circumstances which led to
the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas. We do well to mark carefully
that Antioch saw two such quarrels, the one of which, as we have
already pointed out, may have had something to say to the other. The
quarrel between St. Paul and St. Peter indeed has a history which
strikingly illustrates this tendency of which we have just now spoken.
Some expositors, jealous of the good fame and reputation and temper of
the apostles, have explained the quarrel at Antioch between St. Paul
and St. Peter as not having been a real quarrel at all, but an
edifying piece of acting, a dispute got up between the apostles to
enforce and proclaim the freedom of the Gentiles, a mere piece of
knavery and deception utterly foreign to such a truth-loving character
as was St. Paul's.[130] It is interesting, however, to note as
manifesting their natural characteristics, which were not destroyed,
but merely elevated, purified, and sanctified by Divine grace, that
the apostles Paul and Barnabas quarrelled about a purely personal
matter. They had finished their first missionary tour on which they
had been accompanied by St. Mark, who had acted as their attendant or
servant, carrying, we may suppose, their luggage, and discharging all
the subordinate offices such service might involve. The labour and
toil and personal danger incident to such a career were too much for
the young man. So with all the fickleness, the weakness, the want of
strong definite purpose we often find in young people, he abandoned
his work simply because it involved the exercise of a certain amount
of self-sacrifice. And now, when Paul and Barnabas are setting out
again, and Barnabas wishes to take the same favourite relative with
them,[131] St. Paul naturally objects, and then the bitter passionate
quarrel ensues. St. Paul just experienced here what we all must more
or less experience, the crosses and trials of public life, if we wish
to pass through that life with a good conscience. Public life, I
say--and I mean thereby not political life, which alone we usually
dignify by that name, but the ordinary life which every man and every
woman amongst us must live as we go in and out and discharge our
duties amid our fellow-men,--public life, the life we live once we
leave our closet communion with God in the early morning till we
return thereto in the eventide, is in all its departments most trying.
It is trying to temper, and it is trying to principle, and no one can
hope to pass through it without serious and grievous temptations. I do
not wonder that men have often felt, as the old Eastern monks did,
that salvation was more easily won in solitude than in living and
working amid the busy haunts of men where bad temper and hot words so
often conspire to make one return home from a hard day's work feeling
miserable within on account of repeated falls and shortcomings. Shall
we then act as they did? Shall we shut out the world completely and
cease to take any part in a struggle which seems to tell so
disastrously upon the equable calm of our spiritual life? Nay indeed,
for such a course would be unworthy a soldier of the Cross, and very
unlike the example shown by the blessed apostle St. Paul, who had to
battle not only against others, but had also to battle against himself
and his own passionate nature, and was crowned as a victor, not
because he ran away, but because he conquered through the grace of
Christ.
[130] "Origen started this theory that the dispute between Peter
and Paul was simulated; in other words, being of one mind in the
matter they got up this scene that St. Paul might the more
effectually condemn the Judaisers through the chief of the
apostles, who, acknowledging the justice of the rebuke, set them
an example of submission. Thus he, in fact, substituted the much
graver charge of dishonesty against both apostles in order to
exculpate the one from the comparatively venial offence of moral
cowardice and inconsistency. Nevertheless this view commended
itself to a large number of subsequent writers, and for some time
may be said to have reigned supreme." (Lightfoot's _Galatians_, p.
129.) St. Chrysostom and St. Jerome maintained the same view,
while St. Augustine opposed it. The epistles exchanged between
Jerome and Augustine on this topic are very interesting. They may
be most easily perused in Augustine's _Epistles_, vol. i., pp. 131
and 280, as translated in T. & T. Clark's series (Edinburgh,
1872).
[131] Mark is usually regarded as nephew to Barnabas. This opinion
is grounded upon Col. iv. 10, as translated in the Authorised
Version. They were, however, cousins merely. The Revised Version
translates Col. iv. 10 thus: "Mark, the cousin of Barnabas." Dr.
Lightfoot, in his _Colossians_, p. 236, has a long note showing
that the word used about St. Mark in that passage is ὁ ἀνεψιός,
which always means cousin german: see Thayer's edition of Grimm's
_Lexicon of New Testament_, _s.v._
And now it is well that we should note the special trials he had to
endure. He had to fight against the spirit of cowardly self-indulgence
in others, and he had to fight against the spirit of jobbery. These
things indeed caused the rupture in the apostolic friendship. St.
Barnabas, apostle though he was, thought far more of the interests of
his cousin than of the interests of Christ's mission. St. Paul with
his devotion to Christ may have been a little intolerant of the
weakness of youth, but he rightly judged that one who had proved
untrustworthy before should not be rapidly and at once trusted again.
And St. Paul was thoroughly right, and has left a very useful and
practical example. Many young men among us are like St. Mark. The St.
Marks of our own day are a very numerous class. They have no respect
for their engagements. They will undertake work and allow themselves
to be calculated upon, and arrangements to be made accordingly. But
then comes the stress of action, and their place is found wanting,
and the work undertaken by them is found undone. And then they wonder
and complain that their lives are unsuccessful, and that men and women
who are in earnest will not trust or employ them in the future! These
are the men who are the social wrecks in life. They proclaim loudly in
streets and highways the hard treatment which they have received. They
tell forth their own misery, and speak as if they were the most
deserving and at the same time the most ill-treated of men; and yet
they are but reaping as they have sown, and their failures and their
misfortunes are only the due and fitting rewards of their want of
earnestness, diligence, and self-denial. To the young this episode
proclaims aloud: Respect your engagements, regard public employments
as solemn contracts in God's sight. Take pains with your work. Be
willing to endure any trouble for its sake. There is no such thing as
genius in ordinary life. Genius has been well defined as an infinite
capacity for taking pains. And thus avoid the miserable weakness of
St. Mark, who fled from his work because it entailed trouble and
self-denial on his part.
Then, again, we view St. Paul with admiration because he withstood the
spirit of jobbery when it displayed itself even in a saint. Barnabas
in plain language wished to perpetrate a job in favour of a member of
his family, and St. Paul withstood him. And how often since has the
same spirit thus displayed itself to the injury of God's cause! Let us
note how the case stood. St. Barnabas was a good pious man of very
strong emotional feelings. But he allowed himself to be guided, as
pious people often do, by their emotions, affections, prejudices, not
by their reason and judgment. With such men when their affections
come into play jobbery is the most natural thing in the world. It is
the very breath of their nostrils. It is the atmosphere in which they
revel. Barnabas loved his cousin John Mark, with strong, powerful,
absorbing love, and that emotion blinded Barnabas to Mark's faults,
and led him on his behalf to quarrel with his firmer, wiser, and more
vigorous friend. Jobbery is a vice peculiar to no age and to no
profession. It flourishes in the most religious as in the most worldly
circles. In religious circles it often takes the most sickening forms,
when miserable, narrow selfishness assumes the garb and adopts the
language of Christian piety. St. Paul's action proclaims to Christian
men a very needful lesson. It says, in fact, Set your faces against
jobbery of every kind. Regard power, influence, patronage as a sacred
trust. Permit not fear, affection, or party spirit to blind your eyes
or prejudice your judgment against real merit; so shall you be
following in the footsteps of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, with
his heroic championship of that which was righteous and true, and of
One higher still, for thus you shall be following the Master's own
example, whose highest praise was this: "He loved righteousness, and
hated iniquity."[132]
[132] The sequel of this story as made known through the Epistles
is most interesting. The quarrel between St. Paul and St. Barnabas
was not a permanent one. Five years or so later, when writing the
1st Epistle to the Corinthians (ix. 6), St. Paul associates
himself with Barnabas as if they were companions once again: "Or I
only, and Barnabas, have we not a right to forbear working?" It is
interesting too to trace the change that came in subsequent years
over the relations between St. Paul and St. Mark as revealed by
the Epistles. About the year 50 St. Paul treated Mark sternly, and
that same sternness was most beneficial to the young man. It was
just what his character wanted. Fifteen years passed over both
their heads, and the scene was then very different. In Col. iv.
10, 11 Mark is commended unto the Church of Colossæ as one of the
few Jewish Christians who had been a comfort in his bonds to the
prisoner of Jesus Christ; while again, when on the point of his
departure, in the 2nd Epistle to Timothy, iv. 11, the once weak
disciple is most touchingly and lovingly remembered: "Only Luke is
with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is useful to
me for ministering." St. Mark, after being the cause of this
quarrel, appears no more in the Acts. The traditions about him
will be found collected in English in Nelson's _Fasts and
Festivals_, under his Feast Day, April 25th; or better still in
Cave's _Lives of the Apostles_, pp. 217-23 (London, 1684); and in
Latin in the _Acta Sanctorum_, Ed. Boll., April, iii., 344-58.
Cave and the Bollandists give all the traditions about his
foundation of the Church of Alexandria, the patriarchs of which
still claim descent from him. Some historical writers have
maintained, that they used to be ordained by the imposition of St.
Mark's dead hand. This seems a mistake, however. Mr. Butler, in
his _Coptic Churches of Egypt_, vol. ii., p. 311, says that the
newly ordained Patriarch of Alexandria used to hold St. Mark's
head in his hands during the celebration of Mass after his
consecration. (See also COPTIC CHURCH in _Dict. Christ. Biog._).
Renaudot, a learned French writer, published a history of the
Alexandrian Patriarchate in 1713, which industriously collects all
the details of St. Mark's life true and imaginary alike. St.
Mark's supposed body was carried to Venice from Alexandria about
A.D. 1235.
We have now bestowed a lengthened notice upon this quarrel, because it
corrects a very mistaken notion about the apostles, and shows us how
thoroughly natural and human, how very like our own, was the everyday
life of the primitive Church. It takes away the false halo of
infallibility and impeccability with which we are apt to invest the
apostles, making us view them as real, fallible, weak, sinful men like
ourselves,[133] and thereby exalts the power of that grace which made
them so eminent in Christian character, so abundant in Christian
labours. Let us now apply ourselves to trace the course of St. Paul's
second tour.
[133] It is curious to note how widespread is this notion that the
apostles always possessed supernatural powers in virtue of their
office, enabling them, for instance, infallibly to read men's
hearts and thoughts. In a letter in the _Church Times_ for August
19th, 1892, from an eminent dignitary of the Church of England, I
noticed an example of it. He was discussing a question with which
I have nothing to say, and in doing so writes: "The commission
given by our Lord to the apostles cannot be used in precisely the
same sense by ourselves. The apostles' powers were miraculous....
They could tell whether the condition of the soul of the recipient
of their gifts was right or the reverse in a manner not possible
for us.... They could perceive and gauge faith in a way that is
not our prerogative.... It is clear that the apostles could have
perceived whether repentance and faith were genuine." I do not
deny that God sometimes made such special revelations to them. But
_quâ_ apostles they had no such gift of discerning spirits, else
why did Peter baptize Simon Magus, or St. Paul and Barnabas take
Mark with them at all, or St. Paul tolerate Demas even for a
moment, or why did he not indicate the "grievous wolves" who
should ravage the Ephesian Church after his departure?
The effect of the quarrel between the friends was that St. Paul took
Silas and St. Barnabas took Mark, and they separated; the latter going
to Cyprus, the native country of Barnabas, while Paul and Silas
devoted themselves to Syria and Asia Minor and their Churches. The
division between these holy men became thus doubly profitable to the
Church of Christ. It is perpetually profitable, by way of warning and
example, as we have just now shown; and then it became profitable
because it led to two distinct missions being carried on, the one in
the island of Cyprus, the other on the continent of Asia. The wrath of
man is thus again overruled to the greater glory of God, and human
weakness is made to promote the interests of the gospel. We read, too,
"they parted asunder the one from the other." How very differently
they acted from the manner in which modern Christians do! Their
difference in opinion did not lead them to depart into exactly the
same district, and there pursue a policy of opposition the one against
the other. They sought rather districts widely separated, where their
social differences could have no effect upon the cause they both
loved. How very differently modern Christians act, and how very
disastrous the consequent results! How very scandalous, how very
injurious to Christ's cause, when Christian missionaries of different
communions appear warring one with another in face of the pagan world!
Surely the world of paganism is wide enough and large enough to afford
scope for the utmost efforts of all Christians without European
Christendom exporting its divisions and quarrels to afford matter for
mockery to scoffing idolaters! We have heard lately a great deal about
the differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries in
Central Africa, terminating in war and bloodshed and in the most
miserable recriminations threatening the peace and welfare of the
nations of Europe. Surely there must have been an error of judgment
somewhere or another in this case, and Africa must be ample enough to
afford abundant room for the independent action of the largest bodies
of missionaries without resorting to armed conflicts which recall the
religious wars between the Roman Catholic and Protestant Cantons of
Switzerland! With the subsequent labours of Barnabas we have nothing
to do, as he now disappears from the Acts of the Apostles,[134] though
it would appear from a reference by St. Paul--1 Cor. ix. 6, "Or I
only, and Barnabas, have we not a right to forbear working?"--as if
at that time four or five years after the quarrel they were again
labouring together at Ephesus, where First Corinthians was written, or
else why should Barnabas be mentioned in that connexion at all?
[134] Ecclesiastical history and tradition tell us more about
Barnabas and Cyprus. They represent Barnabas as the Apostle of the
Church of Cyprus. This idea played a prominent part in the fifth
century. The ancient connection between Antioch and Cyprus was
then kept up, and the patriarchs of Antioch wished to subject the
Archbishop and Bishops of Cyprus to their rule. The Seventh
Session of the Great Council of Ephesus, which dealt with the
Nestorian controversy, was engaged with this question of Cyprus.
The session was held on July 31st, 431. The Cypriote bishops
claimed that they had been free from the dominion of Antioch back
to apostolic times, and the Council confirmed their freedom: see
Mansi's _Councils_, iv., 1465-1470; Hefele's _Councils_ (T. & T.
Clark's translation), vol. ii., p. 72. Forty years later the same
claim was advanced by the celebrated Peter the Fuller, Patriarch
of Antioch, and resisted by Anthemius, Bishop of Salamis or
Constantia. The bishops of Cyprus were again successful, owing to
the timely discovery of the body of Barnabas lying in a tomb with
a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew upon his heart, which,
according to the opinion of the times, settled the point in
dispute: see Anthemius in the _Dict. Christ. Biog._, vol. i., p.
118. Cave, in his _Apostolici, or Lives of the Fathers_, pp.
33-43, diligently collects every scrap of information about St.
Barnabas. An early tradition found in the Clementine
_Recognitions_, lib. i., cap. 7, and dating from about A.D. 200,
makes him the first apostle to preach in Rome, preceding St. Peter
himself, against which theory as trenching on St. Peter's
prerogatives Cardinal Baronius disputes very vigorously in his
_Annals_, A.D. 51, lii.-liv.; see also Dr. Salmon on Clementine
Literature in the _Dict. Christ. Biog._, i., 568.
Let us now briefly indicate the course of St. Paul's labours during
the next three years, as his second missionary tour must have extended
over at least that space of time. St. Paul and his companion Silas
left Antioch amid the prayers of the whole Church. Evidently the
brethren viewed Paul's conduct with approbation, and accompanied him
therefore with fervent supplications for success in his self-denying
labours. He proceeded by land into Cilicia and Asia Minor, and
wherever he went he delivered the apostolic decree in order that he
might counteract the workings of the Judaisers. This decree served a
twofold purpose. It relieved the minds of the Gentile brethren with
respect to the law and its observances, and it also showed to them
that the Jerusalem Church and apostles recognised the Divine authority
and apostolate of St. Paul himself, which these "false brethren" from
Jerusalem had already assailed, as they did four or five years later
both in Galatia and at Corinth. We know not what special towns St.
Paul visited in Cilicia, but we may be sure that the Church of Tarsus,
his native place, where in the first fervour of his conversion he had
already laboured for a considerable period, must have received a visit
from him. We may be certain that his opponents would not leave such an
important town unvisited, and we may be equally certain that St. Paul,
who, as his Epistles show, was always keenly alive to the opinion of
his converts with respect to his apostolic authority, would have been
specially anxious to let his fellow townsmen at Tarsus see that he was
no unauthorised or false teacher, but that the Jerusalem Church
recognised his work and teaching in the amplest manner.
Starting then anew from Tarsus, Paul and Silas set out upon an
enormous journey, penetrating, as few modern travellers even now do,
from the south-eastern extremity of Asia Minor to the north-western
coast, a journey which, with its necessarily prolonged delays, must
have taken them at least a year and a half. St. Paul seems to have
carefully availed himself of the Roman road system. We are merely
given the very barest outline of the course which he pursued, but then
when we take up the index maps of Asia Minor inserted in Ramsay's
_Historical Geography of Asia Minor_, showing the road systems at
various periods, we see that a great Roman road followed the very
route which St. Paul took. It started from Tarsus and passed to
Derbe, whence of course the road to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch had
already been traversed by St. Paul.[135] He must have made lengthened
visits to all these places, as he had much to do and much to teach. He
had to expound the decree of the Apostolic Council, to explain
Christian truth, to correct the errors and abuses which were daily
creeping in, and to enlarge the organisation of the Christian Church
by fresh ordinations. Take the case of Timothy as an example of the
trouble St. Paul must have experienced. He came to Derbe, where he
first found some of the converts made on his earlier tour; whence he
passed to Lystra, where he met Timothy, whose acquaintance he had
doubtless made on his first journey. He was the son of a Jewess,
though his father was a Gentile. St. Paul took and circumcised him to
conciliate the Jews. The Apostle must have bestowed a great deal of
trouble on this point alone, explaining to the Gentile portion of the
Christian community the principles on which he acted and their perfect
consistency with his own conduct at Jerusalem and his advocacy of
Gentile freedom from the law. Then he ordained him. This we do not
learn from the Acts, but from St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy. The Acts
simply says of Timothy, "Him would Paul have to go forth with him."
But then when we turn to the Epistles written to Timothy, we find that
it was not as an ordinary companion that Timothy was taken. He went
forth as St. Paul himself had gone forth from the Church of Antioch, a
duly ordained and publicly recognised messenger of Christ. We can
glean from St. Paul's letters to Timothy the order and ceremonies of
this primitive ordination. The rite, as ministered on that occasion,
embraced prophesyings or preachings by St. Paul himself and by others
upon the serious character of the office then undertaken. This seems
plainly intimated in 1 Tim. i. 18: "This charge I commit unto thee, my
child Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee";
while there seems a reference to his own exhortations and directions
in 2 Tim. ii. 2, where he writes, "The things which thou hast heard
from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men."
After this there was probably, as in modern ordinations, a searching
examination of the candidate, with a solemn profession of faith on his
part, to which St. Paul refers in 1 Tim. vi. 12, "Fight the good fight
of faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called,
and _didst confess the good confession in the sight of many
witnesses_. I charge thee in the sight of God who quickeneth all
things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the
good confession; that thou keep the commandment, without spot, without
reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." And finally
there came the imposition of hands, in which the local presbyters
assisted St. Paul, though St. Paul was so far the guiding and ruling
personage that, though in one place (1 Tim. iv. 14) he speaks of the
gift of God which Timothy possessed, as given "by prophecy with the
laying on of the hands of the presbytery," in another place he
describes it as given to the young evangelist by the imposition of St.
Paul's own hands (2 Tim. i. 6). This ordination of Timothy[136] and
adoption of him as his special attendant stood at the very beginning
of a prolonged tour throughout the central and northern districts of
Asia Minor, of which we get only a mere hint in Acts xvi. 6-8: "They
went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden
of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia; and when they were come
over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit
of Jesus suffered them not; and passing by Mysia, they came unto
Troas." This is the brief sketch of St. Paul's labours through the
north-western provinces of Asia Minor, during which he visited the
district of Galatia and preached the gospel amid the various tribal
communities of Celts who inhabited that district.
[135] The record of a very similar journey performed five years
ago in July 1887 may be read in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_
for April 1890. Mr. D. G. Hogarth, who writes the story, travelled
on that occasion from the borders of Galatia to the Cilician
coast. His narrative gives a vivid picture of the scenery over the
Taurus Range as St. Paul must have seen it on this second
missionary tour, and of the difficulties by which he must have
been surrounded. Cf. Ramsay's _Historical Geography of Asia
Minor_, p. 362.
[136] Cave has a long account of Timothy in his _Apostolici, or
Lives of the Fathers_, pp. 45-53, where he gives an account of
Timothy's martyrdom at Ephesus from Photius, the celebrated Greek
scholar and patriarch of the ninth century: see Photius,
_Bibliotheca_, cod. 254, and the _Acta Sanctorum_ for January,
vol. ii., pp. 562-69. Timothy is said in the Martyrologies to have
been buried on Mount Prion, a hill upon the side of which ancient
Ephesus was built (see Wood's _Ephesus_, chap. i.), after he was
cruelly put to death by the Ephesians enraged at his protest
against one of their popular feasts. He suffered under Domitian
about thirty years after St. Paul, and according to Photius was
succeeded at Ephesus by St. John, who had been recalled from
exile. His feast-day in the Calendar is January 24th.
St. Paul's work in Galatia is specially interesting to ourselves. The
Celtic race certainly furnished the groundwork of the population in
England, Ireland, and Scotland, and finds to this day lineal
representatives in the Celtic-speaking inhabitants of these three
islands. Galatia was thoroughly Celtic in St. Paul's day. But how, it
may be said, did the Gauls come there? We all know of the Gauls or
Celts in Western Europe, and every person of even moderate education
has heard of the Gauls who invaded Italy and sacked Rome when that
city was yet an unknown factor in the world's history, and yet but
very few know that the same wave of invasion which brought the Gauls
to Rome led another division of them into Asia Minor, where--as Dr.
Lightfoot shows in his Introduction to his Commentary--about three
hundred years before St. Paul's day they settled down in the region
called after them Galatia, perpetuating in that neighbourhood the
tribal organisation, the language,[137] the national feelings, habits,
and customs which have universally marked the Celtic race whether in
ancient or in modern times. St. Paul on this second missionary tour
paid his first visit to this district of Galatia. St. Paul usually
directed his attention to great cities. Where vast masses of humanity
were gathered together, there St. Paul loved to fling himself with all
the mighty force of his unquenchable enthusiasm. But Galatia was
quite unlike other districts with which he had dealt in this special
respect. Like the Celtic race all the world over, the Gauls of Galatia
specially delighted in village communities. They did not care for the
society and tone of great towns, and Galatia was wanting in such. St.
Paul, too, does not seem originally to have intended to labour amongst
the Galatians at all. In view of his great design to preach in large
cities, and concentrate his efforts where they could most effectually
tell upon the masses, he seems to have been hurrying through Galatia
when God laid His heavy hand upon the Apostle and delayed his course
that we might be able to see how the gospel could tell upon Gauls and
Celts even as upon other nations. This interesting circumstance is
made known to us by St. Paul himself in the Epistle to the Galatians
iv. 13: "Ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached
the gospel unto you for the first time." Paul, to put it in plain
language, fell sick in Galatia.[138] He was delayed on his journey by
the ophthalmia or some other form of disease, which was his thorn in
the flesh, and then, utilising the compulsory delay, and turning every
moment to advantage, he evangelised the village communities of Galatia
with which he came in contact, so that his Epistle is directed, not as
in other cases to the Church of a city or to an individual man, but
the Epistle in which he deals with great fundamental questions of
Christian freedom is addressed to the Churches of Galatia, a vast
district of country. Mere accident, as it would seem to the eye of
sense, produced the Epistle to the Galatians, which shows us the
peculiar weakness and the peculiar strength of the Celtic race, their
enthusiasm, their genuine warmth, their fickleness, their love for
that which is striking, showy, material, exterior.[139] But when we
pass from Galatia we know nothing of the course of St. Paul's further
labours in Asia Minor. St. Luke was not with him during this portion
of his work, and so the details given us are very few. We are told
that "the Spirit of Jesus" would not permit him to preach in Bithynia,
though Bithynia became afterwards rich in Christian Churches, and was
one of the districts to which St. Peter some years later addressed his
first Epistle.[140] The Jews were numerous in the districts of
Bithynia and Asia, and "the Spirit of Jesus" or "the Holy Ghost"--for
the sacred writer seems to use the terms as equivalent the one to the
other--had determined to utilise St. Paul in working directly among
the Gentiles, reserving the preaching of the gospel to the Dispersion,
as the scattered Jews were called, to St. Peter and his friends. It is
thus we would explain the restraint exercised upon St. Paul on this
occasion. Divine providence had cut out his great work in Europe, and
was impelling him westward even when he desired to tarry in Asia. How
the Spirit exercised this restraint or communicated His will we know
not. St. Paul lived, however, in an atmosphere of Divine communion. He
cultivated perpetually a sense of the Divine presence, and those who
do so, experience a guidance of which the outer world knows nothing.
Bishop Jeremy Taylor, in one of his marvellous spiritual discourses
called the _Via Intelligentiæ_, or The Way of Knowledge, speaks much
on this subject, pointing out that they who live closest to God have a
knowledge and a love peculiar to themselves.[141] And surely every
sincere and earnest follower of Christ has experienced somewhat of the
same mystical blessings! God's truest servants commit their lives and
their actions in devout prayer to the guidance of their heavenly
Father, and then when they look back over the past they see how
marvellously they have been restrained from courses which would have
been fraught with evil, how strangely they have been led by ways which
have been full of mercy and goodness and blessing. Thus it was that
St. Paul was at length led down to the ancient city of Troas, where
God revealed to him in a new fashion his ordained field of labour. A
man of Macedonia appeared in a night vision inviting him over to
Europe, and saying, "Come over into Macedonia, and help us." Troas was
a very fitting place in which this vision should appear. Of old time
and in days of classic fable Troas had been the meeting-place where,
as Homer and as Virgil tell, Europe and Asia had met in stern
conflict, and where Europe as represented by Greece had come off
victorious, bringing home the spoils which human nature counted most
precious. Europe and Asia again meet at Troas, but no longer in carnal
conflict or in deadly fight. The interests of Europe and of Asia
again touch one another, and Europe again carries off from the same
spot spoil more precious far than Grecian poet ever dreamt of, for
"when Paul had seen the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into
Macedonia, concluding that God called us for to preach the gospel unto
them." Whereupon we notice two points and offer just two observations.
The vision created an enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm was contagious.
The vision was seen by Paul alone, but was communicated by St. Paul
unto Silas and to St. Luke, who now had joined to lend perhaps the
assistance of his medical knowledge to the afflicted and suffering
Apostle. Enthusiasm is a marvellous power, and endows a man with
wondrous force. St. Paul was boiling over with enthusiasm, but he
could not always impart it. The two non-apostolic Evangelists are
marked contrasts as brought before us in this history. St. Paul was
enthusiastic on his first tour, but that enthusiasm was not
communicated to St. Mark. He turned back from the hardships and
dangers of the work in Asia Minor. St. Paul was boiling over again
with enthusiasm for the new work in Europe. He has now with him in St.
Luke a congenial soul who, when he hears the vision, gathers at once
its import, joyfully anticipates the work, and "straightway sought to
go forth into Macedonia." Enthusiasm in any kind of work is a great
assistance, and nothing great or successful is done without it. But
above all in Divine work, in the work of preaching the gospel, the man
devoid of enthusiasm begotten of living communion with God such as St.
Paul and St. Luke enjoyed is sure to be a lamentable and complete
failure.
[137] The provinces of Asia Minor all retained their ancient
languages at the time of St. Paul. Latin and Greek were the
language of society, but the mass of the people all spoke the
original language of the country. In the time of St. Jerome, four
centuries after St. Paul, Celtic was still spoken in Galatia as
well as in Gaul. St. Paul must then have heard a language
identical with that of Wales and the western districts of Ireland
and Scotland, as is shown by Bishop Lightfoot in his _Galatians_,
pp. 240-44, by his analysis of the remains of the Galatian
language which ancient writers have handed down to us. Texier, a
modern French traveller, thought that he could even trace Celtic
features in the present inhabitants of the district. Cf.
Lightfoot's _Galatians_, p. 12. It is very probable that a careful
study of the existing language of Galatia, when treated according
to the methods of modern scientific philology, would disclose
Celtic elements. When Celtic elements survived in England and
France, it is not likely they died out in Galatia. We know at any
rate that the other original languages of Asia Minor have not
perished without leaving some traces behind. There is a learned
Review published at Smyrna from time to time. It is called the
_Museum of the Evangelical School of Smyrna_. In the volume
published for 1880-84 there is an article of more than 200 pages
treating of the ancient Cappadocian and Lycaonian dialects, and
the traces of them which remain. On p. 71 there is a notice of the
accuracy with which Acts xiv. 11 mentions the speech or dialect of
the men of Lystra, which Mr. Hogarth, in the article in the
_Journal of Hellenic Studies_, April 1890, p. 157, to which we
have already referred, identifies with the Phrygian dialect spoken
till the sixth century of our era. Mr. Hogarth copied several
inscriptions in this ancient Lycaonian or Phrygian speech. See
also an English article by Professor W. M. Ramsay in Kühn's
_Journal of Comparative Philology_ for 1887, where he treats of
this Lycaonian speech, and avows his belief (p. 382) that
Græco-Roman civilisation and language did not begin to affect the
rural parts of Northern and Eastern Phrygia till A.D. 100, long
after St. Paul's day. The mass of the people spoke nothing but the
original Phrygian. The reader who wishes to investigate what I
consider the bearing of this subject on the gift of tongues should
consult another article in English by Professor Ramsay, styled
_Laodicea Combusta_, in the Transactions of the German
Archæological Institute, vol. xiii., p. 248 (Athens, 1888).
[138] See Lightfoot's _Galatians_, pp. 22 and 172.
[139] Those who have access to great libraries will see a good
description of Galatia accompanied with splendid plates in
Texier's _Description de l'Asie_, in 3 vols. folio, published at
Paris between 1839 and 1849. Mr. Lewin has reproduced some of the
pictures in his _Life of St. Paul_.
[140] We owe one of the earliest glimpses of the Christian Church
after apostolic days to this same province of Bithynia. Pliny went
there as proconsul about 110 A.D. He found the whole country
covered with Christians, and the Church organised, with
deaconesses even, as in Greece and Ephesus. See the first volume
of this commentary, p. 274. The picture of the saintly slave
deaconesses tortured for their faith within ten years of St.
John's death is an interesting confirmation of the faith. It would
be instructive to trace back the connexion of the second-century
martyrs who have been well authenticated, with the Churches
founded by the apostles. Justin Martyr suffered, for instance, at
Rome about A.D. 165. With him there died Hierax, who had been born
of Christian parents at Iconium. His grandfather might have been
converted by St. Paul. In his examination he dwells upon the fact
that he had been born of believing parents. See Ruinart's _Acta
Sincera_, p. 44, a translation of which passage will be found in
the works of Justin Martyr, in Clark's Series of Ante-Nicene
Writers.
[141] See this sermon in Taylor's works, vol. viii., Ed. C. P.
Eden (London, 1850). On p. 380 we find the following eloquent and
profound passage bearing on this point: "Lastly there is a sort of
God's dear servants who walk in perfectness, who perfect holiness
in the fear of God, and they have a degree of charity and divine
knowledge more than we can discourse of, and more certain than the
demonstrations of geometry, brighter than the sun and indeficient
as the light of heaven. This is called by the Apostle the
ἀπαύγασμα τοῦ θεοῦ. Christ is this 'brightness of God' manifested
in the hearts of His dearest servants. But I shall say no more of
this at this time, for this is to be felt and not to be talked of;
and they that have never touched it with their finger, may secretly
perhaps laugh at it in their heart, and be never the wiser. All
that I have now to say of it is, that a good man is united unto
God, κέντρον κέντρῳ συνάψας, as a flame touches a flame and combines
into splendour and glory; so is the spirit of a man united unto
Christ by the Spirit of God. These are the friends of God, and
they best know God's mind, and they only that are so know how much
such men do know. They have a special unction from above."
Then again, and lastly, we note the slow progress of the gospel as
shown to us by this incident at Troas. Here we are a good twenty years
after the Crucifixion, and yet the chief ministers and leaders of the
Church had not yet crossed into Europe. There were sporadic Churches
here and there. At Rome and at possibly a few Italian seaports, whence
intercourse with Palestine was frequent, there were small Christian
communities; but Macedonia and Greece were absolutely untouched up to
the present. We are very apt to overrate the progress of the gospel
during those first days of the Church's earliest Church life. We are
inclined to view the history of the Church of the first three
centuries all on an heap as it were. We have much need to distinguish
century from century and decennium from decennium. The first ten years
of the Church's history saw the gospel preached in Jerusalem and
Palestine, but not much farther. The second decennium saw it
proclaimed to Asia Minor; but it is only when the third decennium is
opening that Christ despatches a formal mission to that Europe where
the greatest triumphs of the gospel were afterwards to be won.
Ignorance and prejudice and narrow views had been allowed to hinder
the progress of the gospel then, as they are hindering the progress of
the gospel still; and an express record of this has been handed down
to us in this typical history in order that if we too suffer the same
we may not be astonished as if some strange thing had happened, but
may understand that we are bearing the same burden and enduring the
same trials as the New Testament saints have borne before us.