(Macmillan, 1897), i. 249.
[21] Prov. xxxi. 10 ff.
[22] 1 Cor. xi. 5.
[23] _Lambeth Conference_, 1897. Report on Religious Communities, pp.
57 ff.
[24] See Paris, _Quatenus foeminae res publicas in Asia Minore Romanis
inperantibus attigerint_ (Paris, 1891).
[25] Ramsay, _Paul the Traveller_, p. 268.
[26] Mark x. 19; cf. Matt xix. 18, 19; Luke xviii. 20.
[27] Cited from Exod. xx. 12 according to the LXX, which assimilates
the passage to Deut. v. 16.
[28] Col. iii. 21. In 2 Cor. ix. 2, the only other place where the
word is used by St. Paul or in the New Testament, it means to
_stimulate by emulation_.
[29] Accompanied with circumcision and sacrifice.
[30] See Dr. Taylor, _The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, pp. 55-58,
and Sabatier, La _Didache_, pp. 84-88, both very suggestive passages.
Cf. Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus_, App. xii, and Schuerer,
_Jewish People_, Div. ii. vol. ii. pp. 319 ff.
[31] 1 Cor. vii. 21, 23.
[32] Philem. 16.
[33] 1 Tim. vi. 1.
{237}
DIVISION II. Sec. 6. CHAPTER VI. 10-20.
_The personal spiritual struggle._
[Sidenote: _The spiritual struggle_]
The ethics of Christianity are, as has appeared, social ethics, the
ethics of a society organized in mutual relationships: and Christianity
is concerned with the whole life of man, body as well as soul, his
commerce and his politics as well as his religion. But because this
requires to be made emphatic, does it follow that we are to neglect or
depreciate the inward, personal, spiritual struggle? Are we to give a
reduced, because we give a better balanced, importance to 'saving one's
own soul,' that is preserving or recovering into its full power and
supremacy one's own spiritual personality? Of course not: because
social health depends on personal character. The more a good man
throws himself into social, including ecclesiastical, duties the more
he feels the need of character in himself and others. And the more
serious a man is {238} about his character, the more deeply he feels
the attention and self-discipline that character needs. Certainly the
most ascetic words of our Lord--those in which He speaks of the
necessity for cutting off or plucking out hand or eye if hand or eye
cause us to stumble, and warns us that we must be strong at the
spiritual centre of our being, before we can be free in exterior
action--are likely to come home to no one with more force than to one
who would do his duty in Church or state. Christ cannot redeem the
world without Himself passing through the temptation and the agony in
the garden. And thus St. Paul, after he has been dwelling on the
fraternal and corporate character of the Christian life, comes back at
the last to emphasize the personal spiritual struggle. To be a good
member of the body, he says in effect, you must be in personal
character a strong man, strong enough in Christ's might to win the
victory in a fearful struggle.
Against what is our spiritual struggle? It is against the weakness and
lawlessness of our own flesh. 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is
weak.' 'Our eye and hand and foot cause us to stumble.' Or again it
is the world which is too much for us. 'We seek honour one of another
{239} and not the glory that cometh from the only God.' Quite true.
But behind the manifest disorder of our nature and the insistence of
worldly motives there are other less apparent forces; and these, in St.
Paul's mind, so overshadow the more visible and tangible ones that, in
the Biblical manner of speech, he denies for the moment the reality of
the latter. 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood,' not against our
own flesh or a visibly corrupt public, but against an unseen spiritual
host organized for evil.
It was noticed above that St. Paul has no doubt at all that moral evil
has its origin and spring in the dark background behind human
nature--in the rebel wills of devils. It has become customary to
regard belief in devils or angels as fanciful and perhaps
superstitious. Now no doubt theological and popular fancy has intruded
itself into the things it has not seen, and, instead of the studiously
vague[1] language of St. Paul, has developed a sort of geography and
ethnology for spirits good and bad which is mythological and allied to
superstition. But it has acted in the same way, and shown the same
resentment of the discipline of ignorance, in the case of even more
central spiritual realities. No {240} doubt again the belief in the
devil has sometimes become, in practical force, belief in a rival God.
But this sort of Manichaeism or dualism represents a very permanent
tendency in the untrained religious instincts of men, which the Bible
is occupied in restraining. In the Bible certainly Satan and his hosts
are rebel angels and not rival Gods. Once more undoubtedly demonology
has been a source of much misery and many degrading practices. But
demonology represents a natural religious instinct. It is older than
the Bible. And what our religion has done, where it has been true to
itself, is to purge away the noxious and non-moral superstitions. St.
Paul is representative of true Christianity in his stern refusal to use
the services of contemporary soothsaying and magic and sorcery[2]. One
has only to compare the exorcisms of our Lord with contemporary Jewish
exorcism to note the moral difference. And every truth has its
exaggeration and its abuse. The question still remains; are there no
spiritual beings but men? Is there no moral evil, but in the human
heart? Our Lord gives the most emphatic negative answer. His teaching
about evil (and good) spirits is unmistakable and {241} constant. If
He is an absolutely trustworthy teacher in the spiritual concerns of
life, then temptation from evil spirits is a reality, and a reality to
be held constantly in view. And our Lord's authority is confirmed by
our own experiences. Sometimes experience irresistibly suggests to us
the presence of unseen bad companions who can make vivid suggestions to
our minds. Or we are impressed like St. Paul with the delusive, lying
character of evil, which makes the belief in a malevolent will almost
inevitable. Or the continuity in evil influences, social or personal,
seems to disclose to us an organized plan or 'method[3]' a kingdom of
evil.
It is then in view of unseen but personal spiritual adversaries
organized against us as armies, under leaders who have at their control
wide-reaching social forces of evil, and who intrude themselves into
the highest spiritual regions 'the heavenly places' to which in their
own nature they belong, that St. Paul would have us equip ourselves for
fighting in 'the armour of light[4].'
If there is a spiritual battle, armour defensive and offensive becomes
a natural metaphor which {242} St. Paul frequently uses[5]. But in his
imprisonment he must have become specially habituated to the armour of
Roman soldiers, and here, as it were, he makes a spiritual meditation
on the pieces of the 'panoply' which were continually under his
observation.
We are, then, to 'take up' or 'put on' the panoply or whole armour of
God. This means more than the armour which God supplies. It is
probably like 'the righteousness of God,' something which is not only a
gift of God, but a gift of His own self. Our righteousness is Christ,
and He is our armour. Christ, the 'stronger man,' who overthrew 'the
strong man armed' in His own person[6], and 'took away from him his
panoply in which he trusted,' is to be our defence. And by no external
protection; we are to clothe ourselves in His nature, to put Him on as
our armour. His is the strength in which we are, like Him, to come
triumphant through the hour of darkness.
Now the parts of the armour, the elements of Christ's unconquerable
moral strength, what are they?
{243}
The belt which keeps all else in its place is for the Christian,
truth--that is, singleness of eye or perfect sincerity--the pure and
simple desire of the light. 'Unless the vessel be clean (or sincere)'
said the old Roman proverb, 'whatever you put into it turns sour.' A
lack of sincerity at the heart of the spiritual life will destroy it
all. Then the breastplate which covers vital organs is, for the
Christian, righteousness--the specific righteousness of Christ, St.
Paul seems to imply[7], in which in its indivisible unity he is to
enwrap himself. And, as the feet of the soldier must be well shod not
only for protection but also to facilitate free movement on all sorts
of ground, the Christian too is to be so possessed with the good
tidings of peace that he is 'prepared' to move and act under all
circumstances--all hesitations, and delays, and uncertainties which
hinder movement gone--his feet shod with the preparedness which belongs
to those who have peace at the heart. ('How beautiful upon the
mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings, that
publisheth peace.') In these three fundamental
dispositions--single-mindedness, whole-hearted {244} following of
Christ, readiness such as belongs to a believer in the good
tidings--lies the Christian's strength. But the armour is not yet
complete. The attacks of the enemy upon the thoughts will be frequent
and fiery. A constant and rapid action of the will will be necessary
to protect ourselves from evil suggestions lest they obtain a
lodgement. And the method of self-protection is to look continually
and deliberately out of ourselves up to Christ--to appeal to Him, to
invoke His name, to draw upon His strength by acts of our will. Thus
faith, continually at every fresh assault looking instinctively to
Christ and drawing upon His help, is to be our shield, off which the
enemy's darts will glance harmless, their hurtful fire quenched. And
in thus defending ourselves we must have continually in mind that God
has delivered man by a great redemption[8]. It is the sense of this
great salvation, the conviction of each Christian that he is among
those who have been saved and are tasting this salvation, which is to
cover his head from attack like a helmet[9]. And God's {245}
word--God's specific and particular utterances, through inspired
prophets and psalmists--is to equip his mouth with a sword of power; as
in His temptation and on the cross, Christ 'put off from Himself the
principalities and powers, and made a show of them, triumphing over
them openly' by the words of Holy Scripture; as Bunyan's Christian,
when 'Apollyon was fetching him his last blow, nimbly stretched out his
hand and caught' for his 'sword' the word of Micah, 'when I fall I
shall arise.' This is one fruit of constant meditation on the words of
Holy Scripture, that they recur to our minds when we most need them.
And then St. Paul passes from metaphor to simple speech, and for the
last weapon bids the Christians use 'always' that most powerful of all
spiritual weapons for themselves and others, 'prayer and supplication'
of all kinds and 'in all seasons.' But it is not to be ignorant and
blind prayer; it is to be prayer 'in the spirit,' 'who helpeth our
infirmities, for we know not of ourselves how to pray as we ought.'
'The things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God'[10]; and it is
to be the sort of prayer about which trouble is taken, and which is
persevering; and it is to be {246} prayer for others as well as for
themselves, 'for all the saints.' And St. Paul uses the pastor's
privilege, and asks for himself the support of his converts' prayers,
that he may have both power of speech and courage to proclaim the good
tidings of the divine secret disclosed, for which he is already
suffering as a prisoner.
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Put
on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood,
but against the principalities, against the powers, against the
world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual _hosts_ of
wickedness in the heavenly _places_. Wherefore take up the whole
armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and,
having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins
with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and
having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to
quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: with
all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and
watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the
saints, and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in
opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the
gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak
boldly, as I ought to speak.
{247}
St. Paul does not only exhort Christians to pray, but he gives them
abundant examples. In this epistle there are two specimens[11] of
prayer for the spiritual progress of his converts, mingled with
thanksgivings and praise. We habitually pray for others that they may
be delivered from temporal evils, or that they may be converted from
flagrant sin or unbelief. But surely we very seldom pray rich prayers,
like those of St. Paul's, for others' progress in spiritual
apprehension.
[1] Col. i. 16.
[2] Acts xiii. 6-12; xvi. 16-18; xix. 13-20.
[3] This is akin to St. Paul's word in the Greek, iv. 14; vi. 11.
[4] Rom. xiii. 12.
[5] Rom. vi. 13; xiii. 12; 2 Cor. vi. 7; x. 4; 1 Thess. v. 8. Cf. Isa.
xi. 4, 5, and Wisd. v. 19.
[6] Luke xi. 21, 22.
[7] By the use of the articles. Contrast Is. lix. 17 which he is
quoting.
[8] Isa. lix. 17.
[9] 'Salvation' is sometimes viewed as already accomplished, i.e. in
the victory of Christ: sometimes as still to be realized at 'the
redemption of our bodies': so in 1 Thess. v. 8 the helmet is 'the hope
of salvation' yet to be attained.
[10] Rom. viii. 26; 1 Cor. ii. 11.
[11] Eph. i. 15 ff.; iii. 14 ff.
{248}
CONCLUSION. CHAPTER VI. 21-24.
[Sidenote: _Conclusion_]
But that ye also may know my affairs, how I do, Tychicus, the beloved
brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all
things: whom I have sent unto you for this very purpose, that ye may
know our state, and that he may comfort your hearts. Peace be to the
brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in
uncorruptness.
Tychicus was a native of Asia Minor[1], a companion and delegate of St.
Paul, like Timothy and others[2]. He was entrusted with the task
presumably of conveying this letter to the churches of Asia Minor, and
certainly of informing them as to the apostle's state in his Roman
imprisonment--information which could not fail to comfort and encourage
them.
St. Paul brings this wonderful letter to a conclusion with a brief
benediction to the brethren--an invocation upon them of divine peace,
and love with faith--an invocation of divine favour upon all that 'love
our Lord Jesus Christ in {249} uncorruptness.' Corruption is the fruit
of sin, the condition of the 'old man[3].' Incorruption is the state
of the risen Christ, and in Him the members of His body are to be
preserved, and at last raised 'incorruptible[4]' in body. But there is
a prior 'incorruptibleness' of spirit in which all Christians are to
live from the first[5], a freedom from all such doublemindedness or
uncleanness as can corrupt the central life of the man. And to love
Christ with this incorruptibility is the condition of the permanent
enjoyment of all that His good favour would bestow upon us.
[1] Acts xx. 4.
[2] 2 Tim. iv. 12.
[3] Eph. iv. 22
[4] Cor. xv. 52.
[5] 1 Pet. iii. 4.
{251}
APPENDED NOTES.
NOTE A. See p. 26.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE RECOGNIZED BY CHRISTIAN
WRITERS AS A DIVINE PREPARATION FOR
THE SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL.
(1) The Spanish poet Prudentius (_c._ A.D. 400) fully appreciates the
influence of the Roman Empire in welding together the world into a
unity of government, laws, language, customs, and religious rites, to
prepare the way for the universal Church. The stanzas are remarkable
and worth quoting. They are put as a prayer into the mouth of the
Roman deacon Laurence during his martyrdom. He recognizes what the
Roman Empire has done, and prays that Rome may follow the example of
the rest of the world in becoming Christian.
O Christe, numen unicum ut discrepantum gentium
O splendor, O virtus Patris, mores et observantiam,
O factor orbis et poli, linguas et ingenia et sacra,
atque auctor horum moenium! unis domares legibus.
Qui sceptra Romae in vertice En omne sub regnum Remi
rerum locasti, sanciens mortale concessit genus:
mundum quirinali togae idem loquuntur dissoni
servire et armis cedere: ritus, id ipsum sentiunt.
{252}
Hoc destinatum, quo magis Confoederantur omnia
ius Christiani nominis hinc inde membra in symbolum:
quodcunque terrarum iacet mansuescit orbis subditus:
uno illigaret vinculo. mansuescat et summum caput.
Da, Christe, Romanis tuis _Peristephanon_, ii. 413 ff.
sit Christiana ut civitas:
per quam dedisti ut caeteris
mens una sacrorum foret.
(2) The Pope, Leo the Great (_c._ A.D. 450), speaks thus (_Serm._
lxxxii. 2): 'That the result of this unspeakable grace (the
Incarnation) might be spread abroad throughout the world, God's
providence made ready the Roman Empire, whose growth has reached so far
that the whole multitude of nations have been brought into
neighbourhood and connexion. For it particularly suited the divinely
planned work that many kingdoms should be leagued together in one
empire, so that the universal preaching might make its way quickly
through nations already united under the government of one state. And
yet that state, in ignorance of the author of its aggrandisement,
though it ruled almost all races, was enthralled by the errors of them
all; and seemed to itself to have received a great religion, because it
had rejected no falsehood. And for this very reason its emancipation
through Christ was the more wondrous that it had been so fast bound by
Satan.' Leo further recognizes that the Popes are entering into the
position of the Caesars (c. 1), that Rome, 'made the head of the world
by being the holy see of blessed Peter, should rule more widely by
means of the divine religion than of earthly sovereignty.' But his
statement of the relation of Peter to Paul in the evangelization of the
world (c. 5) is remarkably unhistorical.
{253}
NOTE B. See p. 29.
THE (SO-CALLED) 'LETTERS OF HERACLEITUS.'
Nine letters under the name of the great philosopher of Ephesus remain
to us. In one of them (iv) Heracleitus is represented as saying to
some Ephesian adversaries, 'If you had been able to live again by a new
birth 500 years hence, you would have discovered Heracleitus yet alive
[i.e. in the memory of men] but not so much as a trace of your name.'
This probably indicates that the author is writing 500 years after
Heracleitus' supposed age. His age was differently estimated. But
'500 years after Heracleitus' would mean, according to all reckonings,
about the first half of the first century A.D. All the other
indications of age in the letters agree with this. (See Jacob Bernays'
_Heraclitischen Briefe_, Berlin, 1869, p. 112.) They were written
presumably at Ephesus, and all or most of them by a Stoic philosopher.
I do not think that it is necessary to assume traces of Jewish
influence in these letters, any more than in the writings of Seneca.
And the bulk of the letters is so thoroughly Stoic and contrary to
Jewish feeling, that a Jew is hardly likely to have interpolated them.
They illustrate therefore the current philosophic ideas which were at
work in the world in which St. Paul lived and taught, when he was
outside Judaea. That St. Paul was familiar with these ideas, however
his familiarity may have been gained, is shown beyond possibility of
mistake by his speeches--supposing them substantially genuine--at
Lystra and Athens.
The following passages in these letters are interesting:
(1) (From Heracleitus' defence of himself against {254} a charge of
impiety in letter iv) 'Where is God? Is he shut up in the temples?
You forsooth are pious who set up the God in a dark place. A man takes
it for an insult if he is said to be "made of stone": and is God truly
described as "born of the rocks"? Ignorant men, do ye not know that
God is not fashioned with hands, nor can you make him a sufficient
pedestal, nor shut him into one enclosure, but the whole world is his
temple, decorated with animals and planets and stars? I inscribed my
altar "to Heracles the Ephesian" [Greek: ERAKLEI TOI EPHESIOI] making
the God your citizen, not--he continues--to myself "Heracleitus an
Ephesian" [the same letters differently divided], as I am accused of
doing by you in your ignorance. Yet Heracles was a man deified by his
goodness and noble deeds; and were his virtues and labours greater than
mine? I have conquered money and ambition: I have mastered fear and
flattery,' &c. Then after a passage about the certainty of his own
immortal renown, he returns to ridicule idolatry. 'If an altar of a
god be not set up, is there no god? or if an altar be set up to what is
not a god, is it a god--so that stones become the evidences (witnesses)
of Gods? Nay it is his works which shall bear witness to God, as the
sun, the day and night, the seasons, the whole fruitful earth, and the
circle of the moon, his work and witness in the heavens.' The whole of
this letter (iv), which can be paralleled in all its ideas from Stoic
and Platonic sources, may compare and contrast with Acts xiv. 15-18;
xvii. 22-29.
(2) Letter v is written by Heracleitus in sickness. He gives a theory
of disease as an excess of some element in the body; and describes his
soul as a divine thing reproducing in his body the healing activity of
God in the world as a whole,--'imitating God' by knowledge of the
method of nature. Even if his body prove unmanageable and succumb to
fate, yet his soul will rise {255} to heaven and 'I shall have my
citizenship (Greek: politeusouai) not among men but among Gods.'
'Perhaps my soul is giving prophetic intimation of its release even now
from its prison house' so short lived and worthless. Letter vi is a
continuation of v, containing a denunciation of contemporary medicine
on the ground of its lack of science, and a further explanation of the
Stoic doctrine of the immanence of God in all nature--forming,
ordering, dissolving, transforming, healing everywhere. 'Him will I
imitate in myself and dismiss all others.' We should compare and (even
more) contrast St. Paul's assertions of independence of bodily
circumstances; his belief in the higher sense of 'nature' (Rom. ii.
14), and such phrases as Phil. ii. 20, 'our citizenship is in heaven,'
Eph. v. 1, 'Be ye imitators of God.'