THE EARLIER NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS.
The books of the New Testament are now before us. Our task is not
without its difficulties; questions will confront us which have never
yet been answered, and probably will never be; nevertheless, compared
with the Old Testament writings, the books of the New Testament are
well-known documents; we are on firm ground of history when we talk
about them; of but few of the famous books of Greek and Latin authors
can we speak so confidently as to their date and their authorship as we
can concerning most of them.
We have in the New Testament a collection of twenty-seven books, by nine
different authors. Of these books thirteen are ascribed to the Apostle
Paul; five to John the son of Zebedee; two to Peter; two to Luke; one
each to Matthew, Mark, James, and Jude, and the authorship of one is
unknown.
Of these books it must be first remarked that they were not only written
separately but that there is no trace in any of them of the
consciousness on the part of the author that he was contributing to a
collection of sacred writings. Of the various epistles it is especially
evident that they were written on special occasions, with a certain
audience immediately in view; the thought that they were to be preserved
and gathered into a book, which was to be handed down through the coming
centuries as an inspired volume, does not appear to have entered the
mind of the writer. But this fact need not detract from their value;
often the highest truth to which a man gives utterance is truth of whose
value he is imperfectly aware.
It must also be remembered that these books of the New Testament were
nearly all written by apostles. The only clear exceptions are the Gospel
of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistle
to the Hebrews; and the authors of these books, though not apostles,
were undoubtedly in the closest relations with apostolic men, and
reflected their thought. These apostolic men had received a special
training and a definite commission to bear witness of their Master, to
tell the story of his life and death, and to build up his kingdom in the
world.
We must admit that they possessed unusual qualifications for this work.
Those who had been for three years in constant and loving intercourse
with Jesus Christ ought to have been inspired men. And he promised them,
before he parted from them, that the Spirit of truth should come to them
and abide with them to lead them into all truth.
Now although we may find it difficult to give a satisfactory definition
of inspiration; though we may be utterly unable to express, in any
formularies of our own, the influence of the Infinite Spirit upon human
minds, yet we can easily believe that these apostolic men were
exceptionally qualified to teach religious truth. No prophet of the
olden time had any such preparation for his mission as that which was
vouchsafed to them. No school of the prophets, from the days of Samuel
downward, could be compared to that sacred college of apostles,--that
group of divine peripatetics, who followed their master through Galilee
and Perea, and sat down with him day by day, for three memorable years,
on the mountain top and by the lake side, to listen to the words of life
from the lips of One who spake as never man spake.
To say that this training made them infallible is to speak beyond the
record. There is no promise of infallibility, and the history makes it
plain enough that no such gift was bestowed. The Spirit of all truth was
promised; but it was promised for their guidance in all their work, in
their preaching, their administration, their daily conduct of life.
There is no hint anywhere that any special illumination or protection
would be given to them when they took the pen into their hands to write;
they were then inspired just as much as they were when they stood up to
speak, or sat down to plan their missionary campaigns,--just as much and
no more.
Now it is certain that the inspiration vouchsafed them did not make them
infallible in their ordinary teaching, or in their administration of the
church. They made mistakes of a very serious nature. It is beyond
question that the majority of the apostles took at the beginning an
erroneous view of the relation of the Gentiles to the Christian church.
They insisted that Gentiles must first become Jews before they could
become Christians; that the only way into the Christian church was
through the synagogue and the temple. It was a grievous and radical
error; it struck at the foundations of Christian faith. And this error
was entertained by these inspired apostles after the day of Pentecost;
it influenced their teaching; it led them to proclaim a defective
gospel. This is not the assertion of a skeptic, it is the clear
testimony of the Apostle Paul. If you will read the second chapter of
his Epistle to the Galatians you will learn from the mouth of an
unimpeachable witness that the very leaders of the apostolic band, Peter
and James and John, were greatly in error with respect to a most
important subject of the Christian teaching. In his account of that
famous council at Antioch, Paul says that Peter and James and John were
wholly in the wrong, and that Peter, for his part, had been acting
disingenuously:--
"But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he
stood condemned. For before that certain came from James, he did eat
with the Gentiles: but when they came, he drew back and separated
himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the
Jews [the Jewish Christians] dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that
even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw
that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I
said unto Cephas before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the
Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how compellest thou the Gentiles to
live as do the Jews?"
Now it is evident that one or the other of these opposing parties in the
apostolic college must have been in error, if not greatly at fault, with
respect to this most vital question of Christian faith and doctrine.
When one apostle resists another to the face because he stands
condemned, and tells him that he walks not uprightly, according to the
truth of the gospel, it must be that one or the other of them has, for
the time being, ceased to be infallible in his administration of the
truth of the gospel. And if these apostolic men, sitting in their
councils, teaching in their congregations, can make such mistakes as
these, how can we be sure that they never make a mistake when they sit
down to write, that then their words are always the very word of God? We
can have no such assurance. Indeed we are expressly told that their
words are not, in some cases, the very word of God; for the Apostle Paul
plainly tells us over and over, in his epistles to the Corinthians (1
Cor. vii.; 2 Cor. xi.), that upon certain questions he is giving his own
opinion,--that he has no commandment of the Lord. With respect to one
matter he says that he is speaking after his own judgment, but that he
"thinks" he has the Spirit of the Lord; two or three times he distinctly
declares that it is he, Paul, and not the Lord, that is speaking.
All of these facts, and others of the same nature clearly brought before
us by the New Testament itself, must be held firmly in our minds when we
make up our theory of what these writings are. That these books were
written by inspired men is, indeed, indubitable; that these men
possessed a degree of inspiration far exceeding that vouchsafed to any
other religious teachers who have lived on the earth is to my mind
plain; that this degree of inspiration enabled them to bear witness
clearly to the great facts of the gospel of Christ, and to present to us
with sufficient fullness and with substantial verity the doctrines of
the kingdom of heaven I am very sure; but that they were absolutely
protected against error, not one word in the record affirms, and they
themselves have taken the utmost pains to disabuse our minds of any such
impression. That is a theory about them which men made up out of their
own heads hundreds of years after they were dead. We shall certainly
find that they were not infallible; but we shall also find that, in all
the great matters which pertain to Christian faith and practice, when
their final testimony is collected and digested, it is clear,
harmonious, consistent, convincing; that they have been guided by the
Spirit of the Lord to tell us the truth which we need to know respecting
the life that now is and that which is to come.
Furthermore, it is a matter of rejoicing when we take up these books of
the New Testament to find their substantial integrity unimpeached. There
is no reason to suspect that any important changes have been made in any
of these books since they came from the hands of their writers. Whatever
may be said about the first three Gospels (and we shall come to that
question in our next chapter), the remaining books of the New Testament
have come down to us, unaltered, from the men who first wrote them.
There is none of that process of redaction, and accretion, and
reconstruction whose traces we have found in many of the Old Testament
books. There may be, here and there, a word or two or a verse or two
which has been interpolated by some officious copyist, but these
alterations are very slight. The books in our hands are the very same
books which were in the hands of the contemporaries and successors of
the apostles.
I shall not attempt any elaborate discussion of these twenty-seven
books. I only propose to go rapidly over them, indicating, with the
utmost brevity, the salient facts, so far as we know them, respecting
their authorship, the date and the place at which they were written, and
the circumstances which attended the production of them.
From the fact that the Gospels stand first in the New Testament
collection it is generally assumed that they are the earliest of the New
Testament books, but this is an error. Several of the Epistles were
certainly written before any of the Gospels; and one of the Gospels,
that of John, was written later than any of the Epistles, except the
three brief ones by the same author.
The first of these New Testament books that saw the light was, as is
generally supposed, the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. It was in
the year 48 of our era that St. Paul set out on his first missionary
journey from Antioch through Cyprus and Eastern Asia Minor, a journey
which occupied about a year. Two years afterward, his second journey
took him through the eastern part of Asia Minor and across the Ægean Sea
to Europe, where he preached in Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens,
and Corinth. His stay in Thessalonica was interrupted, as you will
remember, by the hostility of the Jews, and he remained but a short time
in that place; long enough, however, to gather a vigorous church.
Afterward, while he was in Corinth, he learned from one of his helpers
that the people of Thessalonica had misunderstood portions of his
teaching, and were in painful doubt on certain important subjects. To
set them right on these matters he wrote his first epistle, which was
forwarded to them from Corinth, probably about the year 52.
This explanation was also misunderstood by the Thessalonians, and it
became necessary during the next year to write to them again. These two
letters are in all probability the first of the Christian writings that
we possess. They contain instruction and counsel of which the Christians
of Thessalonica were just then in need. The question which had most
disturbed them had relation to the second coming of Christ. They
expected him to return very soon; they were impatient of delay; they
thought that those who died before his coming would miss the glorious
spectacle; and therefore they deplored the hard fate of some of their
number who had been snatched away by death before this sublime event. In
his first epistle the apostle assures them that the dead in Christ would
be raised to participate in their rejoicing. "We who are alive when the
Lord returns," he says, "will have no advantage over those who have been
called to their reward before us; for they will be raised from their
graves to take part with us in this great triumph." It is manifest that
Paul, when he wrote this, expected that Christ would return to earth
while he was alive. Alford and other conservative commentators say that
he here definitely expresses that expectation; others deny that these
words can be so interpreted, but concede that he did entertain some such
expectation. "It does not seem improper to admit," says Bishop Ellicott,
"that in their ignorance of the day of the Lord the apostles might have
imagined that he who was coming would come speedily." [Footnote: _Com.
in loc._] "It is unmistakably clear from this," says Olshausen, "that
Paul deemed it possible that he and his contemporaries might live to see
the coming again of Christ." "The early church, and even the apostles
themselves," say Conybeare and Howson, "expected their Lord to come
again in that very generation. St. Paul himself shared in that
expectation, but being under the guidance of the Spirit of truth, he did
not deduce any erroneous conclusions from this mistaken premise."
[Footnote: _Life and Epistles of St. Paul_, i. 401.] It is evident,
then, that St. Paul and the rest of the apostles were mistaken on this
point; this is one of the evidences which they themselves have taken
pains to point out to us of the fact that though they were inspired men
they were not infallible.
Paul's first letter to the Christians at Thessalonica was interpreted by
them, very naturally, as teaching that the return of the Lord was
imminent; and they began to neglect their daily duties and to behave in
the same foolish way that men have behaved in all the later ages, when
they have got their heads full of this notion. His second letter was
written chiefly to rebuke this fanaticism, and to bid them go right on
with their work making ready for the Lord's coming by a faithful
discharge of the duties of the present hour. St. Paul might have been
mistaken in his theories about the return of his Master, but his
practical wisdom was not at fault; it was his spirit that survived in
Abraham Davenport, the Connecticut legislator, who, in the "dark day" of
1780 when his colleagues thought that the end of the world had come,
refused to vote for the adjournment of the House, but insisted on
calling up the next bill; saying as Whittier has phrased it:--
"'This well may be
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
But be it so or not, I only know
My present duty, and my Lord's command
To occupy till he come. So at the post
Where he hath set me in his providence,
I choose, for one, to meet him face to face,--
No faithless servant frightened from my task,
But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
Let God do his work, we will see to ours.
Bring in the candles.' And they brought them in."
These two letters are, then, the earliest of the New Testament writings.
Like most of the other Epistles of Paul they begin with a salutation.
The common salutation with which the Greeks began their letters was
"Live well!" that of the Roman was "Health to you!" But Paul almost
always began with a Christian greeting, "Grace, mercy, and peace to
you." In these letters he associates with himself in this greeting his
two companions, Timothy and Silas.
The last words of his epistles are almost always personal messages to
individuals known to him in the several churches,--to men and women who
had "labored with him in the gospel,"--casual yet significant words,
which "show a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity." The
letters were written by an amanuensis,--all save these concluding words
which Paul added in his own chirography. He seems to desire to put more
of himself into these personal messages than into the didactic and
doctrinal parts of his epistles. At the end of the second of the letters
to the Thessalonians we find these words: "The salutation of me Paul
with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write;"
better, perhaps, "This is my handwriting." This signature and this
concluding greeting are to be proof to them of the genuineness of the
letter. It appears from other references in the same epistle (ch. ii. 2)
that some busybody had been writing a letter to the Thessalonians, which
purported to be a message from Paul; he puts them on their guard against
these supposititious documents. At the end of the letter to the
Galatians you find in the old version: "Ye see how large a letter I have
written unto you with my own hand;" but the right rendering is in the
new version: "See with how large letters [what a bold chirography] I
have written unto you with my own hand." "These last coarse characters
are my own handwriting." It is almost universally assumed that Paul was
a sufferer from some affection of the eyes; the large letters are thus
explained. Mr. Conybeare, in a foot-note on this passage, speaks of
receiving a letter from the venerable Neander a few months before his
death, which illustrates this point in a striking manner: "His letter,"
says Mr. Conybeare, "is written in the fair and flowing hand of an
amanuensis, but it ends with a few irregular lines in large and rugged
characters, written by himself and explaining the cause of his needing
the services of an amanuensis, namely the weakness of his eyes (probably
the very malady of St. Paul). It was impossible to read this autograph
without thinking of the present passage, and observing that he might
have expressed himself in the very words of St. Paul: 'Behold the size
of the characters in which I have written to you with my own hand.'"
[Footnote: _Life and Epistles of St. Paul_, ii. 149.]
There is another touching sentence at the end of Paul's letter to the
Colossians which was written from Rome when he was prisoner there: "The
salutation of me Paul with mine own hand. Remember my bonds. Grace be
with you. Amen." This seems to say: "There is a manacle, you remember,
on my wrist. I cannot write very well. Grace be with you." I will only
add that the subscriptions which follow the epistles in the old version
are no part of the epistles, and in several cases they are erroneous.
They embody conjectures of later copyists, or traditions which are
without foundation. These letters to the Thessalonians, for example, are
said to have been written from Athens; but we know that they were
written from Corinth. For Paul expressly says (iii. 6) that the letter
was written immediately after the return of Timothy from Thessalonica,
and we are told, in Acts xviii. 5, that Silas and Timothy joined him at
Corinth after he had left Athens and had gone to Corinth. Besides, he
associates Silas and Timothy with himself in his greetings, and they
were not with him at Athens. The evidence is therefore conclusive, that
the subscription is incorrect. You will not find any of these
subscriptions in the new version. Some of them are undoubtedly correct,
but some of them are not; and in no case is the subscription an integral
part of the epistle. The excision of these traditional addenda was one
of the first results of what is called the "Higher Criticism," and
admirably illustrates the uses of this kind of criticism, which, to some
of our devout brethren, is such a frightful thing. Why should it be
regarded as a dangerous, almost a diabolical proceeding, to let the
Bible tell its own story about its origin, instead of trusting to
rabbinical traditions and mediæval guesses and _a priori_ theories
of seventeenth century theologians?
These two letters were, no doubt, read in the assemblies of the
Thessalonian Christians more than once, and were sacredly treasured by
them. They were the only Christian documents possessed by them; and
there was, at this time, no other church so rich as they were. The
Gospels, as we have them now, were not then in the possession of any
Christian church. The story of the gospel had been repeated to them by
Paul and Silas and Timothy, and had been diligently impressed upon their
memories; but it was only an oral gospel that had been delivered to
them; the written record of Christ's life and sayings was not in their
hands. They remembered, therefore, the things which had been told them
concerning the life and death of Jesus Christ; they repeated them over
one to another, and they explained and supplemented these remembered
words by the two letters which they had received from the great apostle.
The next year after Paul wrote these letters to the Thessalonians from
Corinth, he returned to Jerusalem and Antioch (Acts xviii. 18-23), and
the year following, probably 54, he set out on his third missionary
journey, which took him through Galatia and Phrygia in Asia Minor to
Ephesus, where his home was for two or three years. While there, perhaps
in the year 57, he wrote the first of his letters to the Christians in
Corinth. Shortly after writing it he went on to Macedonia, whence the
second of his letters to the Corinthians was written; presently he
followed his letters to Corinth, and while there, probably in 58, he
wrote his letter to the Galatians. Galatia was a province rather than a
city; there may have been several churches, which had been established
by Paul, in the province; and this may have been a circular letter, to
be handed about among them, copies of it to be made, perhaps, for the
use of each of the churches. It was in the spring of the next year,
while he was still in Corinth, that he wrote his letter to the Romans,
the longest, and from some points of view, the most important of his
epistles. He had never, at the time of this writing, been in Rome (ch.
i. 13), but he had met Roman Christians in many of the cities of the
East where he had lived and taught; and, doubtless, since all roads led
to Rome, and the metropolis of the world was constantly drawing to
itself men of every nation and province, many of Paul's converts in Asia
and Macedonia and Achaia had made their way to the Eternal City, and had
joined themselves there to the Christian community. The long list of
personal greetings with which the epistle closes shows how large was his
acquaintance in the Roman church, and, doubtless, by his correspondence,
he had become fully informed concerning the needs of these disciples. He
tells the Romans, in this letter, that he hopes to visit them by and by;
he did not, however, at that time, expect to appear among them as a
prisoner. This was the fate awaiting him. Shortly after writing this
epistle he returned from Corinth to Jerusalem, bearing a collection
which had been gathered in Europe for the poor Christians of the mother
church; at Jerusalem he was arrested; in that city and in Cæsarea he
was for a long time imprisoned; finally, probably in the spring of 61,
he was sent as a prisoner to Rome, because he had appealed to the
imperial court; and here, for at least two years, he dwelt a prisoner,
in lodgings of his own, chained by day and night to a Roman soldier.
During this imprisonment, probably in 62, he wrote the letters to the
Colossians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, and Philemon. From the first
imprisonment he seems to have been released; and to have gone westward
as far as Spain, and eastward as far as Asia Minor, preaching the
gospel. During this journey he is supposed to have written the first
letter to Timothy and the letter to Titus. At length he was re-arrested,
and brought to Rome where, in the spring of 68, just before his death,
he wrote the second letter to Timothy, the last of his thirteen
epistles.
Much of this account of the late years of Paul's life, following the
close of his first two years at Rome, where the narrative in the Acts of
the Apostles abruptly leaves him, is traditional and conjectural; I do
not give it to you as indubitable history; it furnishes the most
reasonable explanation that has been suggested of that productive
activity of his which finds its chief expression in the letters that
bear his name.
Of these letters it is impossible to give any adequate account in this
place. Let it suffice to say that the principal theme of the two
epistles to the Thessalonians is the expected return of Christ to earth;
that those to the Corinthians are largely occupied with questions of
Christian casuistry; that those to the Galatians and the Romans are the
great doctrinal epistles unfolding the relation of Christianity to
Judaism, and discussing the philosophy of the new creed; that the
Epistle to the Philippians is a luminous exposition of Christianity as a
personal experience; that those to the Colossians and the Ephesians are
the defense of Christianity against the insidious errors of the
Gnostics, and a wonderful revelation of the immanent Christ; that the
Epistle to Philemon is a letter of personal friendship, embodying a
great principle of practical religion; and that the letters to Timothy
and Titus are the counsel of an aged apostle to younger men in the
ministry.
"May we go farther," with Archdeacon Farrar, "and attempt, in one or two
words, a description of each separate epistle, necessarily imperfect
from the very brevity, and yet perhaps expressive of some one main
characteristic. If so we might perhaps say that the First Epistle to the
Thessalonians is the epistle of consolation in the hope of Christ's
return; and the second of the immediate hindrances to that return, and
our duties with regard to it. The First Epistle to the Corinthians is
the solution of practical problems in the light of eternal principles;
the second, an impassioned defense of the apostle's impugned authority,
his _Apologia pro vita sua_. The Epistle to the Galatians is the
epistle of freedom from the bondage of the law; that to the Romans of
justification by faith. The Epistle to the Philippians is the epistle of
Christian gratitude and of Christian joy in sorrow; that to the
Colossians the epistle of Christ the universal Lord; that to the
Ephesians, so rich and many-sided, is the epistle of the 'heavenlies,'
the epistle of grace, the epistle of ascension with the ascended Christ,
the epistle of Christ in his one and universal church; that to Philemon
the Magna Charta of Emancipation. The First Epistle to Timothy and that
to Titus are the manuals of a Christian pastor; the Second Epistle to
Timothy is the last message of a Christian ere his death." [Footnote:
_The Life and Work of St. Paul_, chap. xlvi.]
The genuineness of several of these books has been assailed by modern
criticism. The authorship of Paul has been disputed in the cases of nine
out of the thirteen epistles. The Epistle to the Galatians, that to the
Romans, and the two to the Corinthians are undisputed; all the rest have
been spoken against. I have attended to these criticisms; but the
reasons urged for denying the Pauline authorship of these epistles seem
to me in many cases far-fetched and fanciful in the extreme. Respecting
the pastoral epistles, those to Timothy and Titus, it may be admitted
that there are some difficulties. It is not easy for us to understand
how there could have been developed in the churches at that early day so
much of an ecclesiasticism as these letters assume; and there is force
in the suggestion that the peculiar errors against which some of these
counsels are directed belong to a later day rather than to the apostolic
age. To this it may be replied that ecclesiasticism is a weed which
grows rapidly when once it has taken root, and that the germs of
Gnosticism were in the church from the earliest day. And although the
vocabulary of these epistles differs in rather a striking way, as Dr.
Harnack has pointed out, [Footnote: _Encyc. Brit._, art. "Pastoral
Epistles." ] from that of Paul's other epistles, I can easily imagine
that in familiar letters to his pupils he would drop into a different
style from that in which he wrote his more elaborate theological
treatises. One could find in the letters of Macaulay or Charles Kingsley
many words that he would not find in the history of the one or the
sermons of the other. Putting all these objections together, I do not
find in them any adequate reason for denying that these epistles were
written by St. Paul. Indeed, it seems to me incredible that the Second
Epistle of Timothy should have been written by any other hand than that
which wrote the undoubted letters to the Corinthians and the Romans.
When we come to the other disputed epistles, those to the Thessalonians,
the Ephesians, the Philippians, and the Colossians, I confess that the
doubts of their genuineness seem to me the outcome of a willful
dogmatism. What Archdeacon Farrar says of the cavils respecting the
epistles to the Philippians applies to much of this theoretic criticism:
"The Tübingen school, in its earlier stages, attacked it with the
monotonous arguments of their credulous skepticism. With those critics,
if an epistle touches on points which make it accord with the narrative
of the Acts it was forged to suit them; if it seems to disagree with
them the discrepancy shows that it is spurious. If the diction is
Pauline it stands forth as a proved imitation; if it is un-Pauline it
could not have proceeded from the apostle." [Footnote: _Life and Work
of St. Paul_, chap, xlvi] One grows weary with this reckless and
carping skepticism, much of which springs from a theory of a permanent
schism in the early church,--a theory which was mainly evolved from the
inner consciousness of some mystical German philosopher, and which has
been utterly exploded.
We may, then, receive as genuine the thirteen epistles ascribed to St.
Paul; and we have good reason for believing that we have them in their
integrity, substantially as he wrote them.
The title of one of these epistles, that to the Ephesians, is, however,
undoubtedly erroneous. As Mr. Conybeare says, the least disputable fact
about the letter is that it was not addressed to the Ephesians. For it
is incredible that Paul should have described a church in whose
fellowship he had lived and labored for two years as one of whose
religious life he knew only by report (ch. i. 15); and it is strange
that he should not have a single word of greeting to any of these
Ephesian Christians. Several of the early Christian fathers testify that
the words "at Ephesus" are omitted from the first verse of the
manuscript known to them. The two oldest manuscripts now in existence,
that of the Vatican and that known as the Sinaitic manuscript, both omit
these words. The destination of the epistle is not indicated. The place
filled by the words "at Ephesus" is left blank. Thus it reads: "Paul, an
apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints which are
and the faithful in Christ Jesus." Some of the old fathers
expatiate on this title, drawing distinctions between the saints which
_are_ and the saints which _seem to be_,--an amusing example of
exegetical thoroughness. Undoubtedly the letter was designed as a
circular letter to several churches in Western Asia,--Laodicea among the
number; and a blank was left in each copy made, in which the name of the
church to which it was delivered might be entered. Some knowing copyist
at a later day wrote the words "at Ephesus" into one of these copies;
and it is from this that the manuscript descended from which our
translation was made.
That these letters of Paul were highly prized and carefully preserved by
the churches to which they were written we cannot doubt; and as from
time to time messengers passed back and forth between the churches,
copies were made of the letters for exchange. The church at Thessalonica
would send a copy of its letter to the church at Philippi and to the
church at Corinth and to the church at Ephesus, and would receive in
return copies of their letters; and thus the writings of Paul early
obtained a considerable distribution. We have an illustration of these
exchanges in the closing words of the Epistle to the Colossians (iv.
16): "And when this epistle hath been read among you, cause that it be
read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that you also read the
epistle from Laodicea." It is probable that the last-named epistle was
the one of which we have just been speaking, called in our version, the
Epistle to the Ephesians.
The Epistle to the Hebrews is ascribed in its title to "Paul the
Apostle." But the title was added at a late date; the Greek Testaments
contain only the brief title "To the Hebrews," leaving the question of
authorship unsettled. Of all the other epistles ascribed to Paul his
name is the first word; this epistle does not announce its author. In
the early church there was much controversy about it; the Eastern
Christians generally ascribed it to Paul, while the Western church,
until the fourth century, refused to recognize his authorship. One
sentence in the epistle (ch. ii. 3) is supposed to signify that the
writer was of the number of those who had received the gospel at second
hand, and this was an admission that Paul always refused to make; he
steadily contended that his knowledge of the gospel was as direct and
immediate and copious as that of any of the apostles. For these and
other reasons it has been contended that the letter was written by some
one not an apostle, but an associate and pupil of apostolic men; the
most plausible conjecture ascribes it to Apollos. The date of it is not
easily fixed; it was probably written before the destruction of
Jerusalem; such an elaborate discussion of the Jewish ritual would
scarcely have been made after the temple was destroyed, without any
reference to the fact of its destruction.
Following the letter to the Hebrews in our New Testament are seven
epistles ascribed to four different authors, James, Peter, John, and
Jude. These are commonly called the "Catholic Epistles,"--catholic
meaning general or universal,--since they are not addressed to any one
congregation, but to the whole church, to Christians in general. Two of
them, however, the Second and Third of John, hardly deserve the
designation, for they are addressed to individuals.
The author of the Epistle of James is not easily identified. There are
numerous Jameses in the New Testament history; we do not readily
distinguish them. It was not James the son of Zebedee, for he was put to
death by Herod only six or seven years after the death of our Lord (Acts
xii. 2). Probably this was the one named James the Lord's brother, who
was a near relative of Jesus, brother or cousin, and who was the leading
man--perhaps they called him bishop--of the church at Jerusalem. He may,
also, be identical with that James the son of Alpheus, who was one of
the apostles. The letter was issued at an early day, probably before the
year 60. It was addressed to the "twelve tribes which are of the
Dispersion,"--that was the name by which the Jews scattered through Asia
and Europe were generally known. To Christians who had been Jews,
therefore, this letter was written; in this respect it is to be classed
with the letter to the Hebrews; but in the tenor of its teaching it is
wholly unlike that letter; instead of putting emphasis on the ritual and
symbolical elements of religion, it leaves these wholly on one side, and
makes the ethical contents of the Christian teaching the matter of
supreme concern. There is more of applied Christianity in this than in
any other of the epistles; and both in style and in substance we are
reminded by it of the teaching of our Lord more strongly than by any
other portion of the New Testament.
The First Epistle of Peter is addressed to the same class of persons,--to
"the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion" in various provinces
of Asia Minor. The only intimation of tha locality of the writing is
contained in one of the concluding verses: "She that is in Babylon,
elect together with you, saluteth you." What Babylon is this? Is it the
famous capital of the Euphrates? So some have supposed, for there is a
tradition that Peter journeyed to the distant East and founded Christian
churches among the Jews, who, in large numbers, were dwelling there.
Others take it to be the mystical Babylon,--Rome upon her seven hills.
This theory helps to support the contention, for which there is small
evidence, that Peter was the first bishop of Rome. The first conjecture
has a firmer basis. But who is "she" that sends her salutations to these
Asian saints? Was it the church or the wife of the apostle? Either
interpretation is difficult; I cannot choose between them. Of the origin
of this letter we know little; but there is nothing in it inconsistent
with the unbroken tradition which ascribes it to the impetuous leader of
the apostolic band. Like the Epistle of James it is full of a strenuous
morality; while it does not disregard the essentials of Christian
doctrine it puts the emphasis on Christian conduct.
The Second Epistle of Peter is the one book of the New Testament
concerning whose genuineness there is most doubt. From the earliest days
the canonicity of this book has been disputed. It is not mentioned by
any early Christian writer before the third century; and Origen, who is
the first to allude to the book, testifies that its genuineness has been
doubted. The early versions do not contain it; Eusebius marks it
doubtful; Erasmus and Calvin, in later times, regarded it as a dubious
document. It seems almost incredible, with such witnesses against it,
that the book should be genuine; but if it is not the work of St. Peter
it is a fraudulent writing, for it openly announces him as its author
and refers to his first epistle. There is a remarkable similarity
between this letter and the short Epistle of Jude; it would appear that
this must be an imitation and enlargement of that, or that a
condensation of this. There are some passages in this book with which we
could ill afford to part,--with which, indeed, we never shall part; for
whether they were written by Peter or by another they express clear and
indubitable verities; and even though the author, like that Balaam whom
he quotes, may have been no true prophet, he was constrained, even as
Balaam was, to utter some wholesome and stimulating truth.
The three epistles of John are the last words of the disciple that Jesus
loved. The evidence of their genuineness, particularly of the first of
them, is abundant and convincing; Polycarp, who was John's pupil and
friend, quotes from this book, and there is an unbroken chain of
testimony from the early fathers respecting it. Of course those who have
determined, for dogmatic reasons, to reject the Fourth Gospel, are bound
to reject these epistles also; but that procedure is wholly unwarranted,
as we shall see in the next chapter. These epistles were probably
written from Ephesus during the last years of the first century. The
first is a meditation on the great fact of the incarnation and its
mystic relation to the life of men; it sounds the very depths of that
wonderful revelation which was made to the world in the person and work
of Jesus Christ. The other two are personal letters, wherein the
fragrance of a gracious friendship still lingers, and in which we see
how the spirit of Christ was beginning, even then, to transfigure with
its benignant gentleness the courtesies of life.
The Book of Jude, the last of the epistles, is one of whose author we
have little knowledge. He styles himself "the brother of James," but
that, as we have seen, is a vague description. Of the close relation
between this letter and Second Peter I have spoken. It is not in the
early Syriac version; Eusebius and Origen question it, and Chrysostom
does not mention it; we may fairly doubt whether it came from the hand
of any apostolic witness. One feature of this short letter deserves
mention; the writer quotes from one of the old apocryphal books, the
Book of Enoch, treating it as Scripture. If a New Testament citation
authenticates an ancient writing, Enoch must be regarded as an inspired
book. We must either reject Jude or accept Enoch, or abandon the rule
that makes a New Testament citation the proof of Old Testament
canonicity. The abandonment of the rule is the simplest and the most
rational solution of the difficulty.
I have now run rapidly over the history of twenty-one of the twenty-seven
books of the New Testament,--all of the Epistles of the inspired
book. The end of the first century found these books scattered through
Europe and Asia, each probably in possession of the church to which it
had been sent; those addressed to individuals probably in the hands of
their children or children's children. Some exchanges, such as I have
suggested, had taken place; and some churches might have possessed
several of these apostolic letters, but there was yet no collection of
them. Of the beginning of this collection of the New Testament writings
I shall speak in the chapter upon the canon.
I said at the beginning that these writers probably had no thought when
they composed these letters that they were contributing to a volume that
would outlast empires, and be a manual of study and a guide of conduct
in lands to the world then unknown, and in generations farther from them
than they were from Abraham. But each of them uttered in sincerity the
word that to him seemed the word of the hour; and God who gives life to
the seed gave vitality to these true words, so that they are as full of
divine energy to-day as ever they were. It is easy to cavil at a
sentence here and there, or to pick flaws in their logic; but the
question always returns, What kind of fruit have they borne? "By their
fruits ye shall know them." One of the most precious gifts of God to men
is contained in these twenty-one brief letters. It is not in equal
measure in all of them, but there is none among them that does not
contain some portion of it. The treasure is in earthen vessels; it was
so when the apostles were alive and speaking; it is so now; it always
was and always will be so; but the treasure is there, and he who with
open mind and reverent spirit seeks for it will find it there, and will
know that the excellency of the power is of God, and not of men.