The period of his residence in this city is made highly interesting
and important in the history of the sacred canon, by the circumstance
that here he wrote some of the first of those epistles to his various
missionary charges, which constitute the most controverted and the most
doctrinal portion of the New Testament. In treating of these writings,
in the course of the narrative of his life, the very contracted limits
now left to his biographer, will make it necessary to be much more
brief in his literary history, than in that of those other apostles,
whose writings have claimed and received so full a statement, under
their respective lives. Nor is there so much occasion for the labors
of the apostolic historian on this part of the history of the apostolic
works, as on those already so fully treated; for while the history of
the writings of Peter, John, Matthew, James and Jude, has so seldom
been presented to the eyes of common readers, the writings of Paul,
which have always been the great storehouse of Protestant dogmatism,
have been discussed and amplified in their history, scope, character,
and style, more fully than all the rest of the Bible, for common
readers; but in the great majority of instances, proving such a comment
on the sadly prophetical words of Peter on these very writings, that
the apostolic historian may well and wisely dread to immerse himself
in such a sea of difficulties as presents itself to view; and he
therefore cautiously avoids any intermeddling with discussions which
will possibly involve him in the condemnation pronounced by the great
apostolic chief, on those “unlearned and unstable,” who even in his
time had begun to “wrest to their own destruction, the things hard
to be understood in the epistles of his beloved brother Paul;” a
sentence which seems to have been wholly overlooked by the great
herd of dogmatizing commentators, who, very often, without either the
“learning” or the “stability,” which Peter thought requisite for the
safe interpretation of the Pauline epistles, have rushed on to the
task of vulgarizing these noble and honest writings, to suit the base
purposes of some popular system of mystical words and complex doctrines.
If then, the “unlearned and unstable” have been thus distinctly warned
by the highest apostolic authority, against meddling with these obscure
and peculiar writings; and since the whole history of didactic theology
is so full of melancholy comments on the undesignedly prophetical force
of Peter’s denunciation,――it is no more than prudent to decline the
slightest interference with a subject, which has been on such authority
declared to require the possession of so high a degree of learning and
stability, for its safe and just treatment. The few things which may
be safely stated, will merely concern the place, time and immediate
occasion of the writing of each of these epistles.
In the first place, as to the _order_ in which these works of Paul are
arranged in the common New Testament canon, it should be observed that
it has reference neither to date, subject, nor anything whatever in
their character or object, except the very arbitrary circumstance of
the _rank_ and _importance_ of the places and persons that were the
original objects of their composition. The epistle to the Romans is
always placed first, because the imperial city to which it was directed
was beyond all question the greatest in the world. The epistles to
the Corinthians are next, because that city was the nearest in rank
and importance to Rome, of all those which were the objects of Paul’s
epistolary attentions. The epistle to the Galatians is next, because
it was directed to a great province, inferior indeed in importance,
to the two great cities before mentioned, but vastly above any of the
other places to which Paul wrote. The epistle to the Ephesians comes
next, because Ephesus ranked far above any of the cities which follow.
Philippi was _supposed_, by those who arranged the canon, greater than
Colosse and Thessalonica, because it was thought to have been a capital
city. Thus all those epistles which are addressed to whole churches,
are placed first; and those which are addressed to individuals in the
same manner, form a class by themselves; that to Timothy being placed
first of these, because he was the most eminent of all the apostle’s
assistants,――Titus being inferior to him in dignity, and Philemon,
a person of no account at all, except from the bare circumstance,
that he was accidentally the subject of Paul’s notice. The epistle to
the Hebrews is last of all, because it is altogether peculiar in its
character, addressed neither to churches, nor to an individual, but
to a whole nation, being published and circulated for their general
benefit. The circumstance also that it was long denied a place in the
canon, and considered as a spurious writing, improperly attributed to
Paul, probably caused it to be put last of all his writings, when in
the course of time, it was at length allowed a place in the canon.