§ 36. Christianity in Rome.

§ 36. Christianity in Rome.

§ 36. Christianity in Rome.

I. On the general, social, and moral condition of Rome under the Emperors:

Ludwig Friedländer: Sittengeschichte Roms. Leipzig, 1862, 5th ed. revised and enlarged, 1881, 3 vols.

Rod. Lanciani: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. Boston, 1889 (with 100 illustrations).

II. On the Jews in Rome and the allusions of Roman Writers to Them:

Renan: Les Apôtres, 287–293; Merivale: History of the Romans, VI., 203 sqq.; Friedländer: l.c. III., 505 sqq.; Hausrath: Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, III., 383–392 (2d ed.); Schürer: Lehrbuch der Neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte, pp. 624 sq., and Die Gemeindeverfassung der Juden in Rom in der Kaiserzeit, Leipz., 1879; Huidekoper: Judaism at Rome, 1876. Also John Gill: Notices of the Jews and their Country by the Classic Writers of Antiquity. 2d ed. London, 1872. On Jewish Roman inscriptions see Garrucci (several articles in Italian since 1862), von Engeström (in a Swedish work, Upsala, 1876), and Schürer (1879).

III. On the Christian Congregation in Rome:

The Histories of the Apostolic Age (see pp. 189 sqq.); the Introductions to the Commentaries on Romans (mentioned p. 281), and a number of critical essays on the origin and composition of the Church of Rome and the aim of the Epistle to the Romans, by Baur (Ueber Zweck und Veranlassung des Römerbriefs, 1836; reproduced in his Paul, I., 346 sqq., Engl. transl.), Beyschlag (Das geschichtliche Problem des Römerbriefs in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1867), Hilgenfeld (Einleitung in das N. T., 1875, pp. 302 sqq.), C. Weizsäcker (Ueber die älteste römische Christengemeinde, 1876, and his Apost. Zeitalter, 1886, pp. 415–467).

W. Mangold: Der Römerbrief und seine gesch. Voraussetzungen, Marburg, 1884. Defends the Jewish origin and character of the Roman church (against Weizsäcker).

Rud. Seyerlen: Entstehung und erste Schicksale der Christengemeinde in Rom. Tübingen, 1874.

Adolf Harnack: Christianity and Christians at the Court of the Roman Emperors before the Time of Constantine. In the "Princeton Review," N. York, 1878, pp. 239–280.

J. Spencer Northcote and W. R. Brownlow (R. C.): Roma Sotterranea, new ed., London, 1879, vol. I., pp. 78–91. Based upon Caval. de Rossi’s large Italian work under the same title (Roma, 1864–1877, in three vols. fol.). Both important for the remains of early Roman Christianity in the Catacombs.

Formby: Ancient Rome and its Connect. with the Chr. Rel. Lond., 1880.

Keim: Rom. u. das Christenthum. Berlin, 1881.

[MAP INSET] From "Roma Sotteranea," by Northcote and Brownlow.

The City of Rome.

The city of Rome was to the Roman empire what Paris is to France, what London to Great Britain: the ruling head and the beating heart. It had even a more cosmopolitan character than these modern cities. It was the world in miniature, "orbis in urbe." Rome had conquered nearly all the nationalities of the then civilized world, and drew its population from the East and from the West, from the North and from the South. All languages, religious, and customs of the conquered provinces found a home there. Half the inhabitants spoke Greek, and the natives complained of the preponderance of this foreign tongue, which, since Alexander’s conquest, had become the language of the Orient and of the civilized world.⁴⁸¹  The palace of the emperor was the chief centre of Oriental and Greek life. Large numbers of the foreigners were freedmen, who generally took the family name of their masters. Many of them became very wealthy, even millionnaires. The rich freedman was in that age the type of the vulgar, impudent, bragging upstart. According to Tacitus, "all things vile and shameful" were sure to flow from all quarters of the empire into Rome as a common sewer. But the same is true of the best elements: the richest products of nature, the rarest treasures of art, were collected there; the enterprising and ambitious youths, the men of genius, learning, and every useful craft found in Rome the widest field and the richest reward for their talents.

With Augustus began the period of expensive building. In his long reign of peace and prosperity he changed the city of bricks into a city of marble. It extended in narrow and irregular streets on both banks of the Tiber, covered the now desolate and feverish Campagna to the base of the Albanian hills, and stretched its arms by land and by sea to the ends of the earth. It was then (as in its ruins it is even now) the most instructive and interesting city in the world. Poets, orators, and historians were lavish in the praises of the urbs aeterna,

"qua nihil posis visere majus."⁴⁸²

The estimates of the population of imperial Rome are guesswork, and vary from one to four millions. But in all probability it amounted under Augustus to more than a million, and increased rapidly under the following emperors till it received a check by the fearful epidemic of 79, which for many days demanded ten thousand victims a day.⁴⁸³  Afterwards the city grew again and reached the height of its splendor under Hadrian and the Antonines.⁴⁸⁴

The Jews in Rome.

The number of Jews in Rome during the apostolic age is estimated at twenty or thirty thousand souls.⁴⁸⁵  They all spoke Hellenistic Greek with a strong Hebrew accent. They had, as far as we know, seven synagogues and three cemeteries, with Greek and a few Latin inscriptions, sometimes with Greek words in Latin letters, or Latin words with Greek letters.⁴⁸⁶  They inhabited the fourteenth region, beyond the Tiber (Trastevere), at the base of the Janiculum, probably also the island of the Tiber, and part of the left bank towards the Circus Maximus and the Palatine hill, in the neighborhood of the present Ghetto or Jewry. They were mostly descendants of slaves and captives of Pompey, Cassius, and Antony. They dealt then, as now, in old clothing and broken ware, or rose from poverty to wealth and prominence as bankers, physicians, astrologers, and fortunetellers. Not a few found their way to the court. Alityrus, a Jewish actor, enjoyed the highest favor of Nero. Thallus, a Samaritan and freedman of Tiberius, was able to lend a million denarii to the Jewish king, Herod Agrippa.⁴⁸⁷  The relations between the Herods and the Julian and Claudian emperors were very intimate.

The strange manners and institutions of the Jews, as circumcision, Sabbath observance, abstinence from pork and meat sacrificed to the gods whom they abhorred as evil spirits, excited the mingled amazement, contempt, and ridicule of the Roman historians and satirists. Whatever was sacred to the heathen was profane to the Jews.⁴⁸⁸  They were regarded as enemies of the human race. But this, after all, was a superficial judgment. The Jews had also their friends. Their indomitable industry and persistency, their sobriety, earnestness, fidelity and benevolence, their strict obedience to law, their disregard of death in war, their unshaken trust in God, their hope of a glorious future of humanity, the simplicity and purity of their worship, the sublimity and majesty of the idea of one omnipotent, holy, and merciful God, made a deep impression upon thoughtful and serious persons, and especially upon females (who escaped the odium of circumcision). Hence the large number of proselytes in Rome and elsewhere. Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, as well as Josephus, testify that many Romans abstained from all business on the Sabbath, fasted and prayed, burned lamps, studied the Mosaic law, and sent tribute to the temple of Jerusalem. Even the Empress Poppaea was inclined to Judaism after her own fashion, and showed great favor to Josephus, who calls her "devout" or "God-fearing" (though she was a cruel and shameless woman).⁴⁸⁹  Seneca, who detested the Jews (calling them sceleratissima gens), was constrained to say that this conquered race gave laws to their conquerors.⁴⁹⁰

The Jews were twice expelled from Rome under Tiberius and Claudius, but soon returned to their transtiberine quarter, and continued to enjoy the privileges of a religio licita, which were granted to them by heathen emperors, but were afterwards denied them by Christian popes.⁴⁹¹

When Paul arrived in Rome he invited the rulers of the synagogues to a conference, that he might show them his good will and give them the first offer of the gospel, but they replied to his explanations with shrewd reservation, and affected to know nothing of Christianity, except that it was a sect everywhere spoken against. Their best policy was evidently to ignore it as much as possible. Yet a large number came to hear the apostle on an appointed day, and some believed, while the majority, as usual, rejected his testimony.⁴⁹²

Christianity in Rome.

From this peculiar people came the first converts to a religion which proved more than a match for the power of Rome. The Jews were only an army of defense, the Christians an army of conquest, though under the despised banner of the cross.

The precise origin of the church of Rome is involved in impenetrable mystery. We are informed of the beginnings of the church of Jerusalem and most of the churches of Paul, but we do not know who first preached the gospel at Rome. Christianity with its missionary enthusiasm for the conversion of the world must have found a home in the capital of the world at a very early day, before the apostles left Palestine. The congregation at Antioch grew up from emigrant and fugitive disciples of Jerusalem before it was consolidated and fully organized by Barnabas and Paul.

It is not impossible, though by no means demonstrable, that the first tidings of the gospel were brought to Rome soon after the birthday of the church by witnesses of the pentecostal miracle in Jerusalem, among whom were "sojourners from Rome, both Jews and proselytes."⁴⁹³  In this case Peter, the preacher of the pentecostal sermon, may be said to have had an indirect agency in the founding of the church of Rome, which claims him as the rock on which it is built, although the tradition of his early visit (42) and twenty or twenty-five years’ residence there is a long exploded fable.⁴⁹⁴  Paul greets among the brethren in Rome some kinsmen who had been converted before him, i.e., before 37.⁴⁹⁵  Several names in the list of Roman brethren to whom he sends greetings are found in the Jewish cemetery on the Appian Way among the freedmen of the Empress Livia. Christians from Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece must have come to the capital for various reasons, either as visitors or settlers.

The Edict of Claudius.

The first historic trace of Christianity in Rome we have in a notice of the heathen historian Suetonius, confirmed by Luke, that Claudius, about a.d. 52, banished the Jews from Rome because of their insurrectionary disposition and commotion under the instigation of "Chrestus" (misspelt for "Christus").⁴⁹⁶

This commotion in all probability refers to Messianic controversies between Jews and Christians who were not yet clearly distinguished at that time. The preaching, of Christ, the true King of Israel, would naturally produce a great commotion among the Jews, as it did at Antioch, in Pisidia, in Lystra, Thessalonica, and Beraea; and the ignorant heathen magistrates would as naturally infer that Christ was a political pretender and aspirant to an earthly throne. The Jews who rejected the true Messiah looked all the more eagerly for an imaginary Messiah that would break the yoke of Rome and restore the theocracy of David in Jerusalem. Their carnal millennarianism affected even some Christians, and Paul found it necessary to warn them against rebellion and revolution. Among those expelled by the edict of Claudius were Aquila and Priscilla, the hospitable friends of Paul, who were probably converted before they met him in Corinth.⁴⁹⁷

The Jews, however, soon returned, and the Jewish Christians also, but both under a cloud of suspicion. To this fact Tacitus may refer when he says that the Christian superstition which had been suppressed for a time (by the edict of Claudius) broke out again (under Nero, who ascended the throne in 54).

Paul’s Epistle.

In the early part of Nero’s reign (54–68) the Roman congregation was already well known throughout Christendom, had several meeting places and a considerable number of teachers.⁴⁹⁸  It was in view of this fact, and in prophetic anticipation of its future importance, that Paul addressed to it from Corinth his most important doctrinal Epistle (a.d. 58), which was to prepare the way for his long desired personal visit. On his journey to Rome three years later he found Christians at Puteoli (the modern Puzzuolo at the bay of Naples), who desired him to tarry with them seven days.⁴⁹⁹  Some thirty or forty miles from the city, at Appii Forum and Tres Tabernae (The Three Taverns), he was met by Roman brethren anxious to see the writer of that marvellous letter, and derived much comfort from this token of affectionate regard.⁵⁰⁰

Paul in Rome.

His arrival in Rome, early in the year 61, which two years later was probably followed by that of Peter, naturally gave a great impulse to the growth of the congregation. He brought with him, as he had promised, "the fulness of the blessing of Christ." His very bonds were overruled for the progress of the gospel, which he was left free to preach under military guard in his own dwelling.⁵⁰¹  He had with him during the whole or a part of the first Roman captivity his faithful pupils and companions: Luke, "the beloved physician" and historian; Timothy, the dearest of his spiritual sons; John Mark, who had deserted him on his first missionary tour, but joined him at Rome and mediated between him and Peter; one Jesus, who is called Justus, a Jewish Christian, who remained faithful to him; Aristarchus, his fellow-prisoner from Thessalonica; Tychicus from Ephesus; Epaphras and Onesimus from Colossae; Epaphroditus from Philippi; Demas, Pudens, Linus, Eubulus, and others who are honorably mentioned in the Epistles of the captivity.⁵⁰²  They formed a noble band of evangelists and aided the aged apostle in his labors at Rome and abroad. On the other hand his enemies of the Judaizing party were stimulated to counter-activity, and preached Christ from envy and jealousy; but in noble self-denial Paul rose above petty sectarianism, and sincerely rejoiced from his lofty standpoint if only Christ was proclaimed and his kingdom promoted. While he fearlessly vindicated Christian freedom against Christian legalism in the Epistle to the Galatians, he preferred even a poor contracted Christianity to the heathenism which abounded in Rome.⁵⁰³

The number which were converted through these various agencies, though disappearing in the heathen masses of the metropolis, and no doubt much smaller than the twenty thousand Jews, must have been considerable, for Tacitus speaks of a "vast multitude" of Christians that perished in the Neronian persecution in 64; and Clement, referring to the same persecution, likewise mentions a "vast multitude of the elect," who were contemporary with Paul and Peter, and who, "through many indignities and tortures, became a most noble example among ourselves" (that is, the Roman Christians).⁵⁰⁴

Composition and Consolidation of the Roman Church.

The composition of the church of Rome has been a matter of much learned controversy and speculation. It no doubt was, like most congregations outside of Palestine, of a mixed character, with a preponderance of the Gentile over the Jewish element, but it is impossible to estimate the numerical strength and the precise relation which the two elements sustained to each other.⁵⁰⁵

We have no reason to suppose that it was at once fully organized and consolidated into one community. The Christians were scattered all over the immense city, and held their devotional meetings in different localities. The Jewish and the Gentile converts may have formed distinct communities, or rather two sections of one Christian community.

Paul and Peter, if they met together in Rome (after 63), would naturally, in accordance with the Jerusalem compact, divide the field of supervision between them as far as practicable, and at the same time promote union and harmony. This may be the truth which underlies the early and general tradition that they were the joint founders of the Roman church. No doubt their presence and martyrdom cemented the Jewish and Gentile sections. But the final consolidation into one organic corporation was probably not effected till after the destruction of Jerusalem.

This consolidation was chiefly the work of Clement, who appears as the first presiding presbyter of the one Roman church. He was admirably qualified to act as mediator between the disciples of Peter and Paul, being himself influenced by both, though more by Paul. His Epistle to the Corinthians combines the distinctive features of the Epistles of Paul, Peter, and James, and has been called "a typical document, reflecting the comprehensive principles and large sympathies which had been impressed upon the united church of Rome."⁵⁰⁶

In the second century we see no more traces of a twofold community. But outside of the orthodox church, the heretical schools, both Jewish and Gentile, found likewise au early home in this rendezvous of the world. The fable of Simon Magus in Rome reflects this fact. Valentinus, Marcion, Praxeas, Theodotus, Sabellius, and other arch-heretics taught there. In heathen Rome, Christian heresies and sects enjoyed a toleration which was afterwards denied them by Christian Rome, until, in 1870, it became the capital of united Italy, against the protest of the pope.

Language.

The language of the Roman church at that time was the Greek, and continued to be down to the third century. In that language Paul wrote to Rome and from Rome; the names of the converts mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of the Romans, and of the early bishops, are mostly Greek; all the early literature of the Roman church was Greek; even the so-called Apostles’ Creed, in the form held by the church of Rome, was originally Greek. The first Latin version of the Bible was not made for Rome, but for the provinces, especially for North Africa. The Greeks and Greek speaking Orientals were at that time the most intelligent, enterprising, and energetic people among the middle classes in Rome. "The successful tradesmen, the skilled artisans, the confidential servants and retainers of noble houses—almost all the activity and enterprise of the common people, whether for good or for evil, were Greek."⁵⁰⁷

Social Condition.

The great majority of the Christians in Rome, even down to the close of the second century, belonged to the lower ranks of society. They were artisans, freedmen, slaves. The proud Roman aristocracy of wealth, power, and knowledge despised the gospel as a vulgar superstition. The contemporary writers ignored it, or mentioned it only incidentally and with evident contempt. The Christian spirit and the old Roman spirit were sharply and irreconcilably antagonistic, and sooner or later had to meet in deadly conflict.

But, as in Athens and Corinth, so there were in Rome also a few honorable exceptions.

Paul mentions his success in the praetorian guard and in the imperial household.⁵⁰⁸

It is possible, though not probable, that Paul became passingly acquainted with the Stoic philosopher, Annaeus Seneca, the teacher of Nero and friend of Burrus; for he certainly knew his brother, Annaeus Gallio, proconsul at Corinth, then at Rome, and had probably official relations with Burrus, as prefect of the praetorian guard, to which he was committed as prisoner; but the story of the conversion of Seneca, as well as his correspondence with Paul, are no doubt pious fictions, and, if true, would be no credit to Christianity, since Seneca, like Lord Bacon, denied his high moral principles by his avarice and meanness.⁵⁰⁹

Pomponia Graecina, the wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain, who was arraigned for "foreign superstition" about the year 57 or 58 (though pronounced innocent by her husband), and led a life of continual sorrow till her death in 83, was probably the first Christian lady of the Roman nobility, the predecessor of the ascetic Paula and Eustochium, the companions of Jerome.⁵¹⁰  Claudia and Pudens, from whom Paul sends greetings (2 Tim. 4:21), have, by an ingenious conjecture, been identified with the couple of that name, who are respectfully mentioned by Martial in his epigrams; but this is doubtful.⁵¹¹  A generation later two cousins of the Emperor Domitian (81–96), T. Flavius Clemens, consul (in 95), and his wife, Flavia Domitilla, were accused of "atheism, " that is, of Christianity, and condemned, the husband to death, the wife to exile (a.d. 96).⁵¹²  Recent excavations in the catacomb of Domitilla, near that of Callistus, establish the fact that an entire branch of the Flavian family had embraced the Christian faith. Such a change was wrought within fifty or sixty years after Christianity had entered Rome.⁵¹³

 "Paul" (Little) is merely the Hellenized or Latinized form for his Hebrew name "Saul" (Desired), and has nothing whatever to do either with his own conversion, or with the conversion of Sergius Paulus of Cyprus. There are many similar instances of double names among the Jews of that time, as Hillel and Pollio, Cephas and Peter, John and Mark, Barsabbas and Justus, Simeon and Niger, Silas and Silvanus. Paul may have received his Latin name in early youth in Tarsus, as a Roman citizen; Paulus being the cognomen of several distinguished Roman families, as the gens AEmilia, Fabia, Julia, Sergia. He used it in his intercourse with the Gentiles and in all his Epistles. See Hist. Apost. Ch., p. 226, and my annotations to Lange on Romans 1:1, pp. 57 and 58.

 When Paul wrote to Philemon, a.d. 63, he was an aged man (presbuvth", Phil. 9), that is, about or above sixty. According to Hippocrates a man was called presbuvth" from forty-nine to fifty-six, and after thatgevrwn, senes. In a friendly letter to a younger friend and pupil the expression must not be pressed. Walter Scott speaks of himself as "an old grey man" at fifty-five. Paul was still a "youth" (neaniva", Acts 7:58) at the stoning of Stephen, which probably took place in 37; and although this term is likewise vaguely used, yet as he was then already clothed with a most important mission by the Sanhedrin, he must have been about or over thirty years of age. Philo extends the limits of neaniva" from twenty-one to twenty-eight, Xenophon to forty. Comp. Lightfoot on Philemon, v. 9 (p. 405), and Farrar, I., 13, 14.

 Phil. 3:5. A Hebrew by descent and education, though a Hellenist or Jew of the dispersion by birth, Acts 22:3. Probably his parents were Palestinians. This would explain the erroneous tradition preserved by Jerome (De vir. ill. c. 5), that Paul was born at Giscala in Galilee (now El-Jish), and after the capture of the place by the Romans emigrated with his parents to Tarsus. But the capture did not take place till a.d. 67

 Comp. the sublime passage, Phil. 3:8-10, and 1 Cor. 2:1, 2.

 Gal. 4:14: "I made progress in Judaism beyond many of mine own age in my nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers."

 Scripture references and allusions abound in the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians, but are wanting in the Thessalonians, Colossians, and Philemon, and in his address to the heathen hearers at Athens, whom he referred to their own poets rather than to Moses and the prophets.

 As the reasoning from the singular or rather collective spevrma(zera)in Gal. 3:16, the allegorical interpretation of Hagar and Sarah, 4:22 sqq., and the rock in the wilderness, 1 Cor. 10:1-4. See the commentaries.

 Comp. Gal. 1:21; Acts 9:30; 11:25.

 1 Cor. 15:33. fqeivrousin h[qh crhsta; oJmilivai kakaiv.

"Evil associations corrupt good manners."

 Tit. 1:12. KrhÀte" ajei; yeuÀstai, kaka; qhriva, gastevre" ajrgaiv.

"Cretans are liars alway, bad beasts, and indolent gluttons."

As Epimenides was himself a Cretan, this contemptuous depreciation of his countrymen gave rise to the syllogistic puzzle: "Epimenides calls the Cretans liars; Epimenides was a Cretan: therefore Epimenides was a liar: therefore the Cretans were not liars: therefore Epimenides was not a liar," etc.

 Acts 17:28. TouÀ [poetic for touvtou] ga;r kai; gevno" ejsmevn.

" For we are also His (God’s) offspring."

The passage occurs literally in the Phoenomena of Aratus, v. 5, in the following connection:

...." We all greatly need Zeus,

For we are his offspring; full of grace, he grants men

Tokens of favor ....

The Stoic poet, Cleanthes (Hymn. in Jovem, 5) uses the same expression in an address to Jupiter:  jEk souÀ ga;r gevno" ejsmevn, and in the Golden Poem, qeiÀon ga;r gevno" ejsti; brotoiÀsin. We may also quote a parallel passage of Pindar, Nem. VI., which has been overlooked by commentators:

}En ajndrwÀn, e}n qewÀn gevno", ejk miaÀ" de; pnevomen matro;" ajmfovteroi.

" One race of men and gods, from one mother breathe we all."

It is evident, however, that all these passages were understood by their heathen authors in a materialistic and pantheistic sense, which would make nature or the earth the mother of gods and men. Paul in his masterly address to the Athenians, without endorsing the error, recognizes the element of truth in pantheism, viz., the divine origin of man and the immanence of God in the world and in humanity.

 ta; stoiceiÀa touÀ kovsmou, Gal. 4:3, 9. So Hilgenfeld, Einleitung, p. 223. Thiersch assumes (p. 112) that Paul was familiar with the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, and that his dialectics is classical rather than rabbinical; but this is scarcely correct. In Romans 5:16, 18, he uses the word dikaivwma in the Aristotelian sense of legal adjustment (Rechtsausgleichung). See Eth. Nicom. v. 10, and Rothe’s monograph on Rom. 5:12-21. Baur compares Paul’s style with that of Thucydides.

 Farrar, I. 629 sq., counts "upwards of fifty specimens of thirty Greek rhetorical figures in St. Paul," which certainly disprove the assertion of Renan that Paul could never have received even elementary lessons in grammar and rhetoric at Tarsus.

 Cor. 9:1 refers to the vision of Christ at Damascus. In 2 Cor. 5:16: though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more,"the particles eij kaiv (quamquam, even though, wenn auch) seem to chronicle a fact, as distinct from kai; eij (etiam si, even if, selbst wenn), which puts an hypothesis; but the stress lies on the difference between an external, carnal knowledge of Christ in his humility and earthly relations or a superficial acquaintance from hearsay, and a spiritual, experimental knowledge of Christ in his glory. Farrar (I. 73 sqq.), reasons that if Paul had really known and heard Jesus, he would have been converted at once.

 He is called a tent-maker, skhnopoiov", Acts 18:3. Tents were mostly made of the coarse hair of the Cilician goat (Kilivkio" travgo", which also denotes a coarse man), and needed by shepherds, travellers, sailors, and soldiers. The same material was also used for mantelets, shoes, and beds. The Cilician origin of this article is perpetuated in the Latin cilicium and the French cilice, which means hair-cloth. Gamaliel is the author of the maxim that " learning of any kind unaccompanied by a trade ends in nothing and leads to sin."

 Acts 23:16.

 In 1 Cor. 9:5 (written in 57) he claims the right to lead a married life, like Peter and the other apostles, and the brethren of the Lord; but in 1 Cor. 7:7, 8 he gives for himself in his peculiar position the preference to single life. Clement of Alexandria, Erasmus, and others supposed that he was married, and understood Syzyge, in Phil. 4:3, to be his wife. Ewald regards him as a widower who lost his wife before his conversion (VI. 341). So also Farrar (I. 80) who infers from 1 Cor. 7:8 that Paul classed himself with widowers: "I say, therefore, to the unmarried [to widowers, for whom there is no special Greek word] and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I." He lays stress on the fact that the Jews in all ages attached great importance to marriage as a moral duty (Gen. 1:28), and preferred early marriage; he also maintains (I. 169) that Paul, being a member of the Sanhedrin (as he gave his vote for the condemnation of the Christiana, Acts26:10), must have had, according to the Gemara, a family of his own. Renan fancies (ch. VI.) that Paul contracted a more than spiritual union with sister Lydia at Philippi, and addressed her in Phil. 4:3 as his suvzuge gnhvsie, that is, as his true co-worker or partner (conjux), since it is not likely that he would have omitted her when he mentioned, in the preceding verse, two deaconesses otherwise unknown, Euodia and Syntyche. The word suvzugo",as a noun, may be either masculine or feminine, and may either mean generally an associate, a co-worker ("yoke -fellow" in the E. V.), or be a proper name. Several persons have been suggested, Epaphroditus, Timothy, Silas, Luke. But Paul probably means a man, named Suvzugo"and plays upon the word: "Yokefellow by name and yoke-fellow in deed." Comp. a similar paronomasia in Philem. 10, 11jOnhvsimon, i.e., Helpful,-a[crhston, eu[crhston, unprofitable, profitable). See the notes of Meyer and Lange (Braune and Hackett) on these passages.

 This sublime loneliness of Paul is well expressed in a poem, Saint Paul, by Frederic W. H. Myers (1868), from which we may be permitted to quote a few lines:

"Christ! I am Christ’s! and let the name suffice you;

Aye, for me, too, He greatly hath sufficed;

 Lo, with no winning words I would entice you;

Paul has no honor and no friend but Christ.

" Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter—

Yes, w ithout stay of father or of son,

 Lone on the land, and homeless on the water,

Pass I in patience till the work be done.

"Yet not in solitude, if Christ anear me

Waketh Him workers for the great employ;

 Oh, not in solitude, if souls that hear me

Catch from my joyance the surprise of joy.

 Hearts I have won of sister or of brother,

Quick on the earth or hidden in the sod

 Lo, every heart awaiteth me, another

Friend in the blameless family of God."

 2 Cor. 10:10 hJ parousiva touÀ swvmato" ajsqenh;" , kai; oJ lovgo" ejxouqenhmevno", or, as Cod. B. reads, ejxoudenhmevno", which has the same meaning. Comp. 10:1, where he speaks of his " lowly" personal appearance among the Corinthians (kata;provswpon tapeinov"). He was little, compared with Barnabas (Acts 14:12).

 This is from the tradition preserved in the apocryphal Acts of Thecla. See the description quoted above, p. 282. Other ancient descriptions of Paul in the Philopatris of pseudo-Lucian (of the second, but more probably of the fourth century), Malala of Antioch (sixth century), and Nicephorus (fifteenth century), represent Paul as little in stature, bald, with a prominent aquiline nose, gray hair and thick beard, bright grayish eyes, somewhat bent and stooping, yet pleasant and graceful. See these descriptions in Lewin’s St. Paul, II. 412. The oldest extant portraiture of Paul, probably from the close of the first or beginning of the second century, was found on a large bronze medallion in the cemetery of Domitilla (one of the Flavian family), and is preserved in the Vatican library. It presents Paul on the left and Peter on the right. Both are far from handsome, but full of character; Paul is the homelier of the two, with apparently diseased eyes, open mouth, bald head and short thick beard, but thoughtful, solemn, and dignified. See a cut in Lewin, II. 211. Chrysostom calls Paul the three-cubit man (oJ trivphcu" a[nqrwpo", Serm. in Pet. et Paul.). Luther imagined: "St. Paulus war ein armes, dürres Männlein, wie Magister Philippus "(Melanchthon). A poetic description by J. H. Newman see in Farrar I. 220, and in Plumptre on Acts, Appendix, with another (of his own). Renan (Les Apôtres, pp. 169 sqq.) gives, partly from Paul’s Epistles, partly from apocryphal sources, the following striking picture of the apostle: His behavior was winning, his manners excellent, his letters reveal a man of genius and lofty aspirations, though the style is incorrect. Never did a correspondence display rarer courtesies, tenderer shades, more amiable modesty and reserve. Once or twice we are wounded by his sarcasm (Gal. 5: 12; Phil. 3:2). But what rapture! What fulness of charming words! What originality! His exterior did not correspond to the greatness of his soul. He was ugly, short, stout, plump, of small head, bald, pale, his face covered with a thick beard, an eagle nose, piercing eyes, dark eyebrows. His speech, embarrassed, faulty, gave a poor idea of his eloquence. With rare tact he turned his external defects to advantage. The Jewish race produces types of the highest beauty and of the most complete homeliness (des types de la plus grande beauté et de la plus complète laideur); but the Jewish homeliness is quite unique. The strange faces which provoke laughter at first sight, assume when intellectually enlivened, a peculiar expression of intense brilliancy and majesty (une sorte d’éclat profond et de majesté).

 2 Cor. 12:7-9; Gal. 4:13-15. Comp. also 1 Thess. 2:18; 1 Cor. 2:3; 2 Cor. 1:8, 9; 4:10. Of the many conjectures only three: sick headache, acute ophthalmia, epilepsy, seem to answer the allusions of Paul which are dark to us at such a distance of time, while they were clear to his personal friends. Tertullian and Jerome, according to an ancient tradition, favor headache; Lewin, Farrar, and many others, sore eyes, dating the inflammation from the dazzling light which shone around him at Damascus (Acts 9:3, 17, 18; Comp. 22:13; 23:3, 5; Gal. 4:15); Ewald and Lightfoot, epilepsy, with illustration from the life of King Alfred (Mohammed would be even more to the point). Other conjectures of external, or spiritual trials (persecution, carnal temptations, bad temper, doubt, despondency, blasphemous suggestions of the devil, etc.) are ruled out by a strict exegesis of the two chief passages in 2 Cor. 12 and Gal. 4, which point to a physical malady. See an Excursus on Paul’s thorn in the flesh in my Commentary on Gal. 4:13-15 (Pop. Com. vol. III.).

 2 Cor. 4:7; 12:9, 10.

 Acts 9:4, the Hebrew form Saouvl, Saouvl, is used instead of the usual GreekSauÀlo", 9:8, 11, 22, 24, etc.

 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15.

 Acts 9, 22, 26. These accounts are by no means mere repetitions, but modifications and adaptations of the same story to the audience under apologetic conditions, and bring out each some interesting feature called forth by the occasion. This has been well shown by Dean Howson in Excursus C on Acts 26, in his and Canon Spence’s Commentary on Acts. The discrepancies of the accounts are easily reconciled. They refer chiefly to the effect upon the companions of Paul who saw the light, but not the person of Christ, and heard a voice, but could not understand the words. The vision was not for them any more than the appearance of the risen Lord was for the soldiers who watched the grave. They were probably members of the Levitical temple guard, who were to bind and drag the Christian prisoners to Jerusalem.

 Gal. 1:15, 16; 1 Cor. 15:8, 9; 9:1; 2 Cor. 4:6; Phil. 3:6; 1 Tim 1:12-14.

 2 Cor. 4:6.

 Gal. 1:1, 11, 12, 15-18.

 This is implied in his words to King Agrippa, Acts 26:19.

 Acts 26:14. Christ said to him: sklhrovn soi pro;" kevntra laktivzein. This is a proverbial expression used by Greek writers of refractory oxen in the plough when urged by a sharp-pointed instrument of the driver. The ox may and often does resist, but by doing so he only increases his pain. Resistance is possible, but worse than useless.

 Rom. 7:7-25. This remarkable section describes the psychological progress of the human heart to Christ from the heathen state of carnal security, when sin is dead because unknown, through the Jewish state of legal conflict, when sin, roused by the stimulus of the divine command, springs into life, and the higher and nobler nature of man strives in vain to overcome this fearful monster, until at last the free grace of God in Christ gains the victory. Some of the profoundest divines-Augustin, Luther, Calvin-transfer this conflict into the regenerate state; but this is described in the eighth chapter which ends in an exulting song of triumph.

 Phil 3:6, kata; dikaisuvnh th;n ejn novmw/ genovmeno" a[mempto".

 Mark 10:21.

 In his address to Peter at Antioch, Gal. 2:11-21, he gives an account of his experience and his gospel, as contrasted with the gospel of the Judaizers. Comp. Gal. 3:24; 5:24; 6:14; Rom. 7:6-13; Col. 2:20

 1 Cor. 2:2; Gal. 6:14; Rom. 4:24, 25.

 1 Cor. 15:9, 10; comp. Eph. 3:8: "Unto me who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given;"1 Tim. 1:15, 16: "to save sinners of whom I am chief," etc.

 Rom. 9:2, 3; comp. Ex. 32:31, 32.

 Paul never numbers himself with the Twelve. He distinguishes himself from the apostles of the circumcision, as the apostle of the uncircumcision, but of equal authority with them. Gal. 2:7-9. We have no intimation that the election of Matthias (Acts 1:26) was a mistake of the hasty Peter; it was ratified by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit immediately following.

  On the testimony of Paul to Christianity see above § 22. I will add some good remarks of Farrar, I. 202: "It is impossible," he says, "to exaggerate the importance of St. Paul’s conversion as one of the evidences of Christianity .... To what does he testify respecting Jesus? To almost every single primary important fact respecting his incarnation, life, sufferings, betrayal, last supper, trial, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and heavenly exaltation .... The events on which the apostle relied in proof of Christ’s divinity, had taken place in the full blaze of contemporary knowledge. He had not to deal with uncertainties of criticism or assaults on authenticity. He could question, not ancient documents, but living men; he could analyze, not fragmentary records, but existing evidence. He had thousands of means close at hand whereby to test the reality or unreality of the Resurrection in which, up to this time, he had so passionately and contemptuously disbelieved. In accepting this half-crushed and wholly execrated faith he had everything in the world to lose-he had nothing conceivable to gain; and yet, in spite of all-overwhelmed by a conviction he felt to be irresistible—Saul, the Pharisee, became a witness of the resurrection, a preacher of the cross."

 See my History of the Creeds of Christendom, I. 426 sqq.

 This is fully recognized by Renan, who, however, has little sympathy either with the apostle or the reformer, and fancies that the theology of both is antiquated. "That historical character," he says, "which upon the whole bears most analogy to St. Paul, is Luther. In both there is the same violence in language, the same passion, the same energy, the same noble independence, the same frantic attachment to a thesis embraced as the absolute truth." St. Paul, ch. XXII. at the close. And his last note in this book is this: "The work which resembles most in spirit the Epistle to the Galatians is Luther’s De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae."

 For particulars of his inner conflicts during his Erfurt period, see Köstlin’s Martin Luther (1875), I. 40 sqq. and 61 sqq.

  Comp. the section on the Resurrection of Christ, pp. 172 sqq.

  Reported by Epiphanius, Haer XXX. 16 (ed. Oehler, tom. I. 268 sq.).

  In the Clem. Hom., XVII., ch. 19 (p. 351, ed. Dressel), Simon Peter says to Simon Magus: "If, then, our Jesus appeared to you in a vision (di j oJravmato" oJfqeiv" made himself known to you, and conversed with you, it is as one who is enraged with an adversary (wJ" ajntikeimevnw/ ojrgizovmeno"). And this is the reason why it was through visions and dreams (di j oJramavtwn kai; ejnupnivwn), or through revelations that, were from without (h] kai; di j ajpokaluvyewn e[zwqen oujsw'n) that He spoke to you. But can any one be rendered fit for instruction through apparitions? (di j ojtasivan) .... And how are we to believe your word, when you tell us that He appeared to you? And how did He appear to you, when you entertain opinions contrary to His teaching? But if you have seen and were taught by Him, and became His apostle for a single hour, proclaim His utterances, interpret His sayings, love His apostles, contend not with me who companied with Him. For you stand now in direct opposition to me, who am a firm rock, the foundation of the church (sterea;n pevtran, qemevlion ejkklhsiva", comp. Matt. 16:18). If you were not opposed to me, you would not accuse me, and revile the truth proclaimed by me, in order that I may not be believed when I state what I myself have heard with my own ears from the Lord, as if I were evidently a person that was condemned and had not stood the test [according to the true reading restored by Lagarde, ajdokivmou o[nto" instead of ejudokimou'nto",’in good repute’]. But if you say that I am ’condemned’ (eij kategnwsmevnon me levgei", comp. Gal. 2:11), you bring an accusation against God, who revealed the Christ to me, and you inveigh against Him who pronounced me blessed on account of the revelation (Matt. 16:17). But if you really wish to be a co-worker, in the cause of truth, learn first of all from us what we have learned from Him, and, becoming a disciple of the truth, become a fellow-worker with me."

The allusions to Paul’s Christ-vision and his collision with Peter at Antioch are unmistakable, and form the chief argument for Baur’s identification of Simon Magus with Paul. But it is perhaps only an incidental sneer. Simon represents all anti-Jewish heresies, as Peter represents all truths.

 This theory was proposed by the so-called "vulgar" or deistic rationalists (as distinct from the more recent speculative or pantheistic rationalists), and has been revived and rhetorically embellished by Renan in Les Apôtres (ch. X., pp. 175 sqq.). "Every step to Damascus," says the distinguished French Academicien, "excited in Paul bitter repentance; the shameful task of the hangman was intolerable to him; he felt as if he was kicking against the goads; the fatigue of travel added to his depression; a malignant fever suddenly seized him; the blood rushed to the head; the mind was filled with a picture of midnight darkness broken by lightning flashes; it is probable that one of those sudden storms of Mount Hermon broke out which are unequalled for vehemence, and to the Jew the thunder was the voice of God, the lightning the fire of God. Certain it is that by a fearful stroke the persecutor was thrown on the ground and deprived of his senses; in his feverish delirium he mistook the lightning for a heavenly vision, the voice of thunder for a voice from heaven; inflamed eyes, the beginning of ophthalmia, aided the delusion. Vehement natures suddenly pass from one extreme to another; moments decide for the whole life; dogmatism is the only thing which remains. So Paul changed the object of his fanaticism; by his boldness, his energy, his determination he saved Christianity, which otherwise would have died like Essenism, without leaving a trace of its memory. He is the founder of independent Protestantism. He represents le christianisme conquérant et voyageur. Jesus never dreamed of such disciples; yet it is they who will keep his work alive and secure it eternity." In this work, and more fully in his St. Paul, Renan gives a picture of the great apostle which is as strange a mixture of truth and error, and nearly as incoherent and fanciful, as his romance of Jesus in the Vie de Jésus.

 So Strauss (Leben Jesu, § 138, in connection with the resurrection of Christ), Baur (with much more seriousness and force, in his Paul, P. I., ch. 3) and the whole Tübingen School, Holsten, Hilgenfeld, Lipsius, Pfleiderer, Hausrath, and the author of Supernatural Religion (III. 498 sqq.). Baur at last gave up the theory as a failure (1860, see below). But Holsten revived and defended it very elaborately and ingeniously in his essay on the Christusvision des Paulus, in Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift" for 1861. W. Beyschlag (of Halle) very ably refuted it in an article: Die Bekehrung des Paulus mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Erklärungsversuche von Baur und Holsten, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1864, pp. 197-264. Then Holsten came out with an enlarged edition of his essay in book form, Zum Evang. des Paulus und des Petrus, 1868, with a long reply to Beyschlag. Pfleiderer repeated the vision-theory in his Hibbert Lectures (1885).

Some English writers have also written on Paul’s conversion in opposition to this modern vision-theory, namely, R. Macpherson: The Ressurection of Jesus Christ (against Strauss), Edinb., 1867, Lect. XIII., pp. 316-360; Geo. P. Fisher: Supernatural Origin of Christianity, N. York, new ed. 1877, pp. 459-470, comp. his essay on "St. Paul" inDiscussions in History and Theology, N.Y. 1880, pp. 487-511; A. B. Bruce (of Glasgow): Paul’s Conversion and the Pauline Gospel, in the "Presbyt Review" for Oct. 1880 (against Pfleiderer, whose work on Paulinism Bruce calls "an exegetical justification and a philosophical dissipation of the Reformed interpretation of the Pauline system of doctrine").

 He describes it as an oujravnio" ojptasiva Acts 26:19, and says that he saw Christ, that Christ was seen by him, 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8. So the vision of the women at the tomb of the risen Lord is called an ojptasiva tw'n ajggevlwn, Luke 24:23. But even Peter, who was less critical than Paul, well knew how to distinguish between an actual occurrence (an ajlhqw'" genovmenon) and a merely subjective vision (a o{rama) Acts 12:9. Objective visions are divine revelations through the senses; subjective visions are hallucinations and deceptions.

 Gal. 1:16, ajpokaluvyai tovn uiJo;n aujtou' ejn ejmoiv, within me, in my inmost soul and consciousness.

 Baur was disposed to charge this confusion upon the author of the Acts and to claim for Paul a more correct conception of the Christophany, as being a purely inner event or "a spiritual manifestation of Christ to his deeper self-consciousness" (Gal. 1:16, ejn ejmoiv); but this is inconsistent with Paul’s own language in 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8. Holsten admits that, without a full conviction of the objective, reality of the Christophany, Paul could never have come to the conclusion that the crucified was raised to new life by the almighty power of God. He states the case from his standpoint clearly in these words (p. 65): "Der glaube des Paulus an Jesus als den Christus war folge dessen, dass auch ihm Christus erschienen war, (1 Cor. 15:8).Diese vision war für das bewusstsein des Paulus das schauen einer objectiv-wirklichen, himmlischen gestalt, die aus ihrer transcendenten unsichtbarkeit sich ihm zur erscheinung gebracht habe. Aus der wirklichkeit dieser gesehauten gestalt, in welcher er den gekreuzigtenJesus erkannte, folgerte auch er, dass der kreuzestote zu neuem leben von der allmacht Gottes auferweckt worden, aus der gewissheit der auferweckung aber, dass dieser von den toten auferweckte der sohn Gottes und der Messias sei. Wie also an der wirklichkeit der auferweckung dem Paulus die ganze wahrheit seines evangelium hängt (vgl. 1 Cor. 15, 12 f.), so ist es die, vision des auferweckten, mit welcher ihm die wahrheit des messias-glaubens aufging, und der umschwung seines bewusstseins sich vollendete.

"Diese vision war für Paulus der eingriff einer fremden transcendenten macht in sein geistesleben. Die historische kritik aber unter der herrschaft des gesetzes der immanenten entwicklung des menschlichen geistes aus innerweltlichen causalitäten muss die vision als einen immanenten, psychogischen akt seines eigenen geistes zu begreifen suchen. Ihr liegt damit eine ihrer schwiezigsten aufgaben vor, eine so schwierige, dass ein meister der historischen kritik, der zugleich so tief in das wesen des paulinischen geistes eingedrungen ist, als Baur, noch eben erklärt hat, dass ’keine, weder psychologische, noch dialektische analyse das innere geheimnis des aktes erforschen könne, in welchem Gott seinen sohn dem Paulus enthüllte.’Und doch darf sich die kritik von dem versuch, dies geheimnis zu erforschen, nicht abschrecken, lassen. Denn diese vision ist einer der entscheidendsten punkte für ein geschichtliches begreifen des urchristentums. In ihrer genesis ist der keim des paulinischen evangelium gegeben. So lange der schein nicht aufgehoben ist, dass die empfängnis dieses keims als die wirkung einer transcendenten kraft erfolgt sei, besteht über dem empfangenen fort und fort der schein des transcendenten. Und die kritik am wenigsten darf sich damit beruhigen, dass eine transcendenz, eine objectivität, wie sie von ihren gegnern für diese vision gefordert wird, von der selbstgewissheit des modernen geistes verworfen sei. Denn diese selbstgewissheit kann ihre wahrheit nur behaupten, solange und soweit ihre kategorieen als das gesetz der wirklichkeit nachgewiesen sind."Dr. Pfleiderer moves in the same line with Holsten, and eliminates the supernatural, but it is due to him to say that he admits the purely hypothetical character of this speculative theory, and lays great stress on the moral as well as the logical and dialectical process in Paul’s mind, "Darum war,"he says (Paulinismus, p. 16)."der Prozess der Bekehrung nichts weniger, als eine kalte Denkoperation; es war vielmehr der tiefsittliche Gehorsamsakt eines zarten Gewissens gegen die sich unwiderstehlich aufdrängende höhere Wahrheit (daher ihm auch der Glaube eine uJpakohvist), ein Akt grossartiger Selbstverleugnung, der Hingabe des alten Menschen und seiner ganzen religiösen Welt in den Tod, um fortan keinen Ruhm, ja kein Leben mehr zu haben, als in Christo, dem Gekreuzigten. Das ist ja der Grundton, den wir aus allen Briefen des Apostels heraustönen hören, wo immer er sein persönliches Verhältniss zum Kreuz Christi schildert; es ist nie bloss ein Verhältniss objectiver Theorie, sondern immer zugleich und wesentlich das der subjectiven Verbundenheit des innersten Gemüths mit dem Gekreuzigten, eine mystische Gemeinschaft mit dem Kreuzestod und mit dem Auferstehungsleben Christi."

 Comp. 2 Cor. 12:2; Acts 18:9; 22:17. Some of these modern critics suppose that he was epileptic, like Mohammed and Swedenborg, and therefore all the more open to imaginary visions.

 1 Cor. 15:8: e[scaton de; pavntwn, wJsperei; tw/À ejktrwvmati, w[fqh kajmoiv. Meyer justly remarks in loc.: e[scatonschliesst die Reihe leibhaftiger Erscheinungen ab, und scheidet damit diese von späteren visionären oder sonst apokalyptischen."Similarly Godet (Com. sur l’épitre aux Romains, 1879, I. 17) "Paul clôt l’énumeration des apparitions de Jésus ressuscité aux apôtres par celle qui lui a été accordée à lui-méme; il lui attribue donc la méme réalité qu’à celles-là, et il la distingue ainsi d’une manière tranchée de toutes les visions dont il fut plus tard honoré et que mentionnent le livre des Actes, et les épitres."

 1 Cor 15:12 sqq. Dean Stanley compares this discussion to the Phaedo of Plato and the Tusculan Disputations of Cicero, but it is far more profound and assuring. Heathen philosophy can at best prove only the possibility and probability, but not the certainty, of a future life. Moreover the idea of immortality has no comfort, but terror rather, except for those who believe in Christ, who is "the Resurrection and the Life."

 Gal. 1:16; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8; Acts 22:10, 14.

 Acts 9:2; comp. Gal. 1:13; 1 Cor. 15:9; Phil. 3:6; 1 Tim. 1:13

 See Baur’s Church History of the First Three Centuries, Tübingen, 2d ed. p. 45; English translation by Allan Menzies, London, 1878, vol. I. 47.

 Geschichte Jesu von Nazara. Zürich, 1872, vol. III. 532.

 Das Christusbild der Apostel. Leipzig, 1879, pp. 57 sq.

 Les Épitres pauliniennes. Paris, 1878, vol. I. p. 11.

 The eujqew"of Acts 9:20 compels us to put this short testimony during the few days (hJmejra" tinav") which he spent with the disciples at Damascus, before his departure to Arabia. About three years afterwards (or after "many days,"hJmevrai iJkanaiv, were fulfilled, Acts 9:23), he returned to Damascus to renew his testimony (Gal. 1:17).

 Gal. 1:17, 18. In the Acts (9:23) this journey is ignored because it belonged not to the public, but private and inner life of Paul.

 Comp. Gal. 4:25, where "Arabia" means the Sinaitic Peninsula.

 2 Cor. 3:6-9.

 Thus Godet sums up his life (Romans, Introd. I. 59). He thinks that Paul was neither the substitute of Judas, nor of James the son of Zebedee, but a substitute for a converted Israel, the man who had, single-handed, to execute the task which properly fell to his whole nation; and hence the hour of his call was precisely that when the blood of the two martyrs, Stephen and James, sealed the hardening of Israel and decided its rejection.

 "Westward the course of empire takes its way." This famous line of Bishop Berkeley, the philosopher, express a general law of history both civil and religious. Clement of Rome says that Paul came on his missionary tour "to the extreme west" (ejpi; to; tevrma th'" duvsew"), which means either Rome or Spain, whither the apostle intended to go (Rom. 15:24, 28). Some English historians (Ussher, Stillingfleet, etc.) would extend Paul’s travels to Gaul and Britain, but of this there is no trace either in the New Test., or in the early tradition. See below.

 Rom. 1:16, "to the Jews first," not on the ground of a superior merit (the Jews, as a people, were most unworthy and ungrateful), but on the ground of God’s promise and the historical order (Rom. 15:8).

 2 Cor. 11:24-29.

 2 Cor. 4:8, 9.

 Rom. 8:31-39.

 2 Tim. 4:6-8. We may add here the somewhat panegyric passage of Clement of Rome, who apparently exalts Paul above Peter, Ep. ad Corinth. c. 5: "Let as set before our eyes the good Apostles. Peter, who on account of unrighteous jealousy endured not one or two, but many toils, and thus having borne his testimony (marturhvsa", or, suffered martyrdom), went to his appointed place of glory. By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the price of patient endurance. After having been seven times in bonds, driven into exile, stoned, and after having preached in the East and in the West, he won the noble reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the boundary of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the magistrates, he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having become the greatest example of patient endurance."

 Acts 9:23-25; comp. 2 Cor. 11:32, 33. The window of escape is still shown in Damascus, as is also the street called Straight, the house of Judas, and the house of Ananias. But these local traditions are uncertain.

 Gal. 1:18-24; Comp. Acts 9:26, 27.

 Acts 22:17-21. It is remarkable that in his prayer he confessed his sin against "Stephen the martyr;" thus making public reparation for a public sin in the city where it was committed.

 Acts 11:28-30; 12:25.

 "Paul left Athens," says Farrar (I. 550 sq.), "a despised and lonely man. And yet his visit was not in vain .... He founded no church at Athens, but there-it may be under the fostering charge of the converted Areopagite-a church grew up. In the next century it furnished to the cause of Christianity its martyr bishops and its eloquent apologists (Publius, Quadratus, Aristides, Athenagoras). In the third century it flourished in peace and purity. In the fourth century it was represented at Nicaea, and the noble rhetoric of the two great Christian friends, St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, was trained in its Christian schools. Nor were many centuries to elapse ere, unable to confront the pierced hands which held a wooden cross, its myriads of deities had fled into the dimness of outworn creeds, and its tutelary goddess, in spite of the flashing eyes which Homer had commemorated, and the mighty spear which had been moulded out of the trophies of Marathon, resigned her maiden chamber to the honour of that meek Galilaean maiden who had lived under the roof of the carpenter at Nazareth-the virgin mother of the Lord." Yet Athens was one of the last cities in the Roman empire which abandoned idolatry, and it never took a prominent position in church history. Its religion was the worship of ancient Greek genius rather than that of Christ. "Il est been moins disciple de Jésus et de saint Paul que de Plutarque et de Julien," says Renan, St. Paul, p. 208. His chapter on Paul in Athens is very interesting.

 In Corinth Paul wrote that fearful, yet truthful description of pagan depravity in Rom. 1:18 sqq. The city was proverbially corrupt, so that korinqiavzomai means to practise whoredom, and korinqiasthv", a whoremonger. The great temple of Venus on the acropolis had more than a thousand courtezans devoted to the service of lust. With good reason Bengel calls a church of God in Corinth a "laetum et ingens paradoxon (in 1 Cor. 1:2). See the lively description of Renan, St. Paul, ch. VIII. pp. 211 sqq

 Weiss (Bibl. Theol. des N. T., 3d ed. p. 202) is inclined to assign the composition of the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians to the period of the imprisonment at Caesarea. So also Thiersch, Reuss, Schenkel, Meyer, Zöckler, Hausrath. See Meyer Com. on Eph. (5th ed. by Woldemar Schmidt, 1878, p. 18), and on the other side, Neander, Wieseler, and Lightfoot (Philippians, 3d ed. 1873, p. 29), who date all the Epistles of the captivity from Rome.

 Acts 28:30, 31. Comp. the Epistles of the captivity.

 Bengel remarks on Acts 28:31 "Paulus Romae, apex evangelii, Actorum finis: quae Lucas alioqui (2 Tim. 4:11)facile potuisset ad exitum Pauli perducere. Hierosolymis cœpit: Romae desinit." The abruptness of the close seems not to be accidental, for, as Lightfoot remarks (Com. on Philippians, p. 3, note), there is a striking parallelism between the Acts and the Gospel of Luke in their beginning and ending, and there could be no fitter termination of the narrative, since it is the realization of that promise of the universal spread of the gospel which is the starting-point of the Acts.

 Namely, to Ephesus 1 Tim. 1:3; 2 Tim. 4:13, 20; to Crete, Tit. 1:5 and to Nicopolis, Tit. 3:12.

 Phil. 1:25; 2:24; Philem. 22. These passages, however, are not conclusive, for the Apostle claims no infallibility in personal matters and plans; he was wavering between the expectation and desire of speedy martyrdom and further labors for the brethren, Phil. 1:20-23; 2:17. He may have been foiled in his contemplated visit to Philippi and Colosse.

 Rom. 15:24, 28. Renan denies a visit to the Orient, but thinks that the last labors of Paul were spent in Spain or Gaul, and that he died in Rome by the sword, a.d. 64 or later (L’Antechrist, 106, 190). Dr. Plumptre (in the Introduction to his Com. on Luke, and in an Appendix to his Com. on Acts) ingeniously conjectures some connection between Luke, Paul’s companion, and the famous poet, M. Annaeus Lucanus (the author of the Pharsalia, and a nephew of Seneca), who was a native of Corduba (Cordova) in Spain, and on this basis he accounts for the favorable conduct of J. Annaeus Gallic (Seneca’s brother) toward Paul at Corinth, the early tradition of a friendship between Paul and Seneca, and Paul’s journey to Spain. Rather fanciful.

 Jos. Vita, c. 3. Comp. Plumptre, l.c.

 Tertullian (De praescr. haeret. c. 36): "Romae Petrus passioni Dominica adaequatur, Paulus Joannis [Baptistae]exitu coronatur."

 Comp. § 26, pp. 250, 257-259.

 Ewald (VI. 631) conjectures that Paul, on hearing of the Neronian persecution, hastened back to Rome of his own accord, to bear testimony to Christ, and being seized there, was again brought to trial and condemned to death, a.d. 65. Ewald assumes an intervening visit to Spain, but not to the East.

 2 Tim. 4:6-8. Bengel calls this Epistle testamentum Pauli et cycnes cantio.

 1 Cor. 15:9 (a.d. 57); Eph. 3:8 (a.d. 62); 1 Tim. 3:15 (a.d. 63 or 64?)

 A Latin inscription in Spain, which records the success of Nero in extirpating the new superstition, Gruter, Inscript., p. 238, is now commonly abandoned as spurious.

 I must here correct an error into which I have fallen with Dr. Wieseler, in my Hist. of the Ap. Ch., p. 342, by reading uJpo; to; tevrma and interpreting it "before the highest tribunal of the West."ejpiv is the reading of the Cod. Alex. (though defectively written), as I have convinced myself by an inspection of the Codex in the British Museum in 1869, in the presence of Mr. Holmes and the late Dr. Tregelles. The preposition stands at the end of line 17, fol. 159^b, second col., in the IVth vol. of the Codex, and is written in smaller letters from want of space, but by the original hand. The same reading is confirmed by the newly discovered MS. of Bryennios.

 "Circumcision," says Renan (St. Paul, ch. III. p. 67)."was, for adults, a painful ceremony, one not without danger, and disagreeable to the last degree. It was one of the reasons which prevented the Jews from moving freely about among other people, and set them apart as a caste by themselves. At the baths and gymnasiums, those important parts of the ancient cities, circumcision exposed the Jew to all sorts of affronts. Every time that the attention of the Greeks and Romans was directed to this subject, outbursts of jestings followed. The Jews were very sensitive in this regard, and avenged themselves by cruel reprisals. Several of them, in order to escape the ridicule, and washing to pass themselves off for Greeks, strove to efface the original mark by a surgical operation of which Celsus has preserved us the details. As to the converts who accepted this initiation ceremony, they had only one course to pursue, and that was to hide themselves in order to escape sarcastic taunts. Never did a man of the world place himself in such a position; and this is doubtless the reason why conversions to Judaism were much more numerous among women than among men, the former not being put, at the very outset, to a test, in every respect repulsive and shocking. We have many examples of Jewesses married to heathens, but not a single one of a Jew married to a heathen woman."

 Acts 10 and 11.

 Acts 15:1, 5:tine;" tw'n ajpo; th'" aiJrevsew" twÀn Farisaivwn pepisteukovte" .

 Gal. 2:4: pareivsaktoi (comp. pareisavxousin in 2 Pet. 2:1) yeudavdelfoi oi{tine" pareishÀlqon(who came in sideways, or crept in, sneaked in; comp. Jude 4, pareisevdusan) kataskoph'sai th;n ejleuqerivan hJmw'n h}n e[comen ejn Cristw/'  jIhsou', i{na hJma'" katadoulwvsousin. The emissaries of these Pharisaical Judaizers are ironically called "super-extra-apostles,"uJperlivan ajpovstoloi, 2 Cor. 11:5; 12:11. For these are not the real apostles (as Baur and his followers maintained in flat contradiction to the connection of 2 Cor. 10 to 12), but identical with the "false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ,"2 Cor. 11:13. Baur’s monstrous misinterpretation has been completely refuted by Weizsäcker (on Paul and the Congregation of Corinth, l.c. p. 640), Keim, Klöpper, Wieseler, and Grimm (l.c. 432). Comp. also Godet, l.c. pp. 49 sq.

 Gal. 1:22-24.

 To what ridiculous extent some Jewish rabbis of the rigid school of Shammai carried the overestimate of circumcision, may be seen from the following deliverances quoted by Farrar (I. 401): "So great is circumcision that but for it the Holy One, blessed be He, would not have created the world; for it is said (Jer. 33:25), ’But for my covenant [circumcision] I would not have made day and night, and the ordinance of heaven and earth.’" "Abraham was not called ’perfect’ till he was circumcised."

 Paul mentions the subjective motive, Luke the objective call. Both usually unite in important trusts. But Baur and Lipsius make this one of the irreconcilable contradictions!

 Luke reports the former and hints at the latter (comp. Acts 5 and 6) Paul reports the private understanding and hints at the public conference, saying (Gal. 2:2): "I laid (ajneqevmhn) before them [the brethren of Jerusalem] the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before them who were of repute (or, before those in authority),"i.e., the pillar-apostles of the circumcision, James, Cephas, and John, comp. Acts 2:9. Dr. Baur who denies the public conference, mistranslates kat j ijdivan de; toiÀ'" dokouÀsin  und zwar wandte ich mich speciell (specially) an die vorzugsweise Geltenden,"so that toi'" dokou'sin would be the same as the preceding aujtoi'"  (Paul, ch. V. p. 117, in the English translation, I. 122). But this would have been more naturally expressed by toi'" dokouÀsin ejn aujtoi''" and kat j ijdivan, as Grimm, the lexicographer of the N. T., remarks against Baur (l.c., p. 412), does not mean "specially" at all, but privatim, seorsum, "apart," "in private," as in Mark 4:34, and kat j ijdivan eijpei'n, Diod. I. 21.

 _1. The order in which they are named by Paul is significant: James first, as the bishop of Jerusalem and the most conservative, John last, as the most liberal of the Jewish apostles. There is no irony in the term oij doko'Ànte" and oij stuÀloi, certainly not at the expense of the apostles who were pillars in fact as well as in name and repute. If there is any irony in Gal 2:6, oJpoi'oiv pote h\san, oujdevn moi diafevrei, it is directed against the Judaizers who overestimated the Jewish apostles to the disparagement of Paul. Even Keim (l.c., p. 74) takes this view: "Endlich mag man aufhören, von ironischer Bitterkeit des Paulus gegenüber den Geltenden zu reden: denn wer gleich nachher den Bundesschluss mit den ’Säulen’feierlich und befriedigt registrirt, der hat seine Abweisung der menschlichen Autoritäten in v. 6 nicht dem Andenken der Apostel gewidmet, sondern dem notorischen Uebermuth der judenchristlichen Parteigänger in Galatien."

 Gal. 2:7-10; comp. Acts 11:30; 24:17; 1 Cor. 16:1-3; 2 Cor. 8 and 9; Rom. 15:25-27.

 Barnabas, as the older disciple, still retained precedence in the Jewish church, and hence is named first. A later forger would have reversed the order.

 Dr. Plumptre remarks against the Tübingen critics (on Acts 15:7): "Of all doctrines as to the development of the Christian church, that which sees in Peter, James, and John the leaders of a Judaizing anti-Pauline party is, perhaps, the most baseless and fantastic. The fact that their names were unscrupulously used by that party, both in their lifetime and, as the pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions show, after their death, cannot outweigh their own deliberate words and acts."

 This is very evident from the indignant tone of Paul against the Judaizers, and from the remark in Acts 15:6: pollhÀ" suzhthvsew" genomevnh", comp. Acts 15:2: genomevnh" stavsew"(factious party spirit, insurrection, Luke 23:19; Mark 15:7) kaiv zhthvsew" oujk ojlivgh". Such strong terms show that Luke by no means casts the veil of charity over the differences in the apostolic church.

 Gal. 2:3-5. See the note below.

 Acts 16:3. The silence of Luke concerning the non-circumcision of Titus has been distorted by the Tübingen critics into a wilful suppression of fact, and the mention of the circumcision of Timothy into a fiction to subserve the catholic unification of Petrinism and Paulinism. What a designing and calculating man this anonymous author of the Acts must have been, and yet not shrewd enough to conceal his literary fraud or to make it more plausible by adapting it to the account in the Galatians, and by mentioning the full understanding between the apostles themselves! The book of Acts is no more a full history of the church or of the apostles than the Gospels are full biographies of Christ.

 Comp. Rom. 14 and 15; 1 Cor. 9:19-23; Acts 21:23-26.

 Gal. 5:6; 6:15; 1 Cor. 7:19. Dr. Plumptre’s remarks on the last passage are to the point: "Often those who regard some ceremony as unimportant magnify the very disregard of it into a necessary virtue. The apostle carefully guards against that by expressing the nothingness of both circumcision and uncircumcision (Rom. 2:25; Gal. 5:6; 6:15). The circumicision of Timothy, and the refusal to circumcise Titus by St. Paul himself, are illustrations at once of the application of the truth here enforced, and of the apostle’s scrupulous adherence to the principles of his own teaching. To have refused to circumcise Timothy would have attached some value to noncircumcision. To have circumcised Titus would have attached some value to circumcision."

 Acts 15:7-11; comp. Acts 10: 28 sqq.; 1 Pet. 1:12; 5:12; 2 Pet. 3:15, 16. The style of Peter is distinctly recognizable, as in the epithet of God, oJ kardiognwvsth, Acts 15:8, comp. Acts 1:24. Such minute coincidences go to strengthen the documentary trustworthiness of the Acts.

 Like the Popes, who do not attend synods at Jerusalem or elsewhere and make speeches, but expect all doctrinal controversies to be referred to them for their final and infallible decision.

 Acts15:11: thÀ" cavrito" tou' kurivou jIhsou' pisteuvomen swqhnvai, kaq j o}n tropon kajkeinoi (the heathen). Comp. Rom. 10:12, 13.

 Comp. Acts15:13-21; 21:18-25; James 1:25; 2:12; and the account of Hegesippus quoted in § 27, p. 274.

 The Gentile form of greeting, caivrein, Acts 15:23, occurs again in James 1:1, but nowhere else in the New Testament, except in the letter of the heathen, Claudius Lysias (Acts 23:26); the usual form being cavri" kai; eijrhvnh. This is likewise one of those incidental coincidences and verifications which are beyond the ken of a forger.

 According to the oldest reading, oiJ ajpovstoloi kai; oiJ presbuvteroi ajdelfoiv, which may also be rendered: "the apostles, and the presbyters, brethren;" comp. Acts 15:22. The omission of ajdelfoiv in some MSS. may be due to the later practice, which excluded the laity from synodical deliberations.

 Acts 15:23-29.

 Acts 16:4

 Acts 21:15. Comp. also Rev. 2:14, 20. But why does Paul never refer to this synodical decree? Because he could take a knowledge of it for granted, or more probably because he did not like altogether its restrictions, which were used by the illiberal constructionists against him and against Peter at Antioch (Gal. 2:12). Weizsäcker and Grimm (l.c., p. 423) admit the historic character of some such compromise, but transfer it to a later period (Acts 21:25), as a proposition made by James of a modus vivendi with Gentile converts, and arbitrarily charge the Acts with an anachronism. But the consultation must have come to a result, the result embodied in a formal action, and the action communicated to the disturbed churches.

 Justin Martyr, about the middle of the second century, considered the eating of eijdwlovquta as bad as idolatry. Dial. c. Tryph. Jud. 35

 Ex. 34:,15; Lev. 17:7 sqq.; Deut. 12:23 sqq. The reason assigned for the prohibition of the taste of blood is that "the life of the flesh is in the blood," and the pouring out of blood is the means of "the atonement for the soul" (Lev. 17:11). The prohibition of blood as food was traced back to the time of Noah, Gen. 9:4, and seems to have been included in the seven "Noachian commandments" so-called, which were imposed upon the proselytes of the gate, although the Talmud nowhere specifies them very clearly. The Moslems likewise abhor the tasting of blood. But the Greeks and Romans regarded it as a delicacy. It was a stretch of liberality on the part of the Jews that pork was not included among the forbidden articles of food. Bentley proposed to read in Acts 15:20 porkeiva (frompovrko", porcus) for porneiva, but without a shadow of evidence.

 1 Cor. 8:7-13; 10:23-33; Rom. 14:2, 21; 1 Tim. 4:4.

 The word porvneia, without addition, must be taken in its usual sense, and cannot mean illegitimate marriages alone, which were forbidden to the Jews, Ex. 34; Lev. 18, although it may include them

 Apoc. 2:14, 20.

 1 Cor. 6:13-20; comp. 1 Cor. 5:9; 1 Thess. 4:4, 5; Eph. 5:3, 5; Col. 3:5. What a contrast between these passages and the sentence of Micio in Terence.

"Non es flagitium, mihi crede, adulescentulum

 Scortari, neque potare."—Adelph. i. 2. 21, 22. (Ed. Fleckeisen p. 290.)

To which, however, Demea (his more virtuous married brother) replies:

"Pro Juppiter, tu homo adigis me ad insaniam.

 Non est flagitium facere haec adulescentulum?"—Adelph. i. 2. 31, 32

 Acts 15:21; comp. Acts 13:15; 2 Cor. 3:14, 15.

 Acts 21:20-25. Irenaeus understood the decree in this sense (Adv. Haer III. 12, 15: "Hi qui circa Jacobum apostoli gentibus quidem libere agere permittebant; ipsi vero ... perseverabant in pristinis observationibus ... religiose agebant circadispositionem legis quae est secundum Mosem."Pfleiderer (l.c. 284) takes a similar view on this point, which is often overlooked, and yet most important for the proper understanding of the subsequent reaction. He says: "Die Judenchristen betreffend, wurde dabei stillschweigend als selbstverständliche Voraussetzung angenommen, dass bei diesen Alles beim Alten bleibe, dass also aus der Gesetzesfreiheit der Heidenchristen keierlei Consequenzen für die Abrogation des Gesetzes unter den Judenchristen zu ziehen seien; auf dieser Voraussetzung beruhte die Beschränkung der älteren Apostel auf die Wirksamkeit bei den Juden (da eine Ueberschreitung dieser Schranke ohne Verletzung des Gesetzes nicht möglich war); auf dieser Voraussetzung beruhte die Sendung der Leute von Jakobus aus Jerusalem nach Antiochia und beruhte der Einfluss derselben auf Petrus, dessen vorhergegangenes freieres Verhalten dadurch als eine Ausnahme von der Regel gekennzeichnet wird."

 Without intending any censure, we may illustrate the position of the strict constructionists of the school of St. James by similar examples of conscientious and scrupulous exclusiveness. Roman Catholics know no church but their own, and refuse all religious fellowship with non Catholics; yet many of them will admit the action of divine grace and the possibility of salvation outside of the limits of the papacy. Some Lutherans maintain the principle: "Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers only; Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only." Luther himself refused at Marburg the hand of fellowship to Zwingli, who was certainly a Christian, and agreed with him in fourteen out of fifteen articles of doctrine. High church Anglicans recognize no valid ministry without episcopal ordination; close communion Baptists admit no valid baptism but by immersion; and yet the Episcopalians do not deny the Christian character of non-Episcopalians, nor the Baptists the Christian character of Pedo-Baptists, while they would refuse to sit with them at the Lord’s table. There are psalm-singing Presbyterians who would not even worship, and much less commune, with other Presbyterians who sing what they call "uninspired" hymns. In all these cases, whether consistently or not, a distinction is made between Christian fellowship and church fellowship. With reference to all these and other forms of exclusiveness we would say in the spirit of Paul: "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision" (viewed as a mere sign) "availeth anything, nor uncircumcision," neither Catholicism nor Protestantism, neither Lutheranism nor Calvinism, neither Calvinism nor Arminianism, neither episcopacy nor presbytery, neither immersion nor pouring nor sprinkling, nor any other accidental distinction of birth and outward condition, but "a new creature, faith working through love, and the keeping of the commandments of God."Gal. 5:6; 6:15; 1 Cor. 7:19.

 The imperfect sunhvsqien meta; tw'n ejqnw'n, Gal. 2:12, indicates habit he used to eat with the uncircumcised Christians. This is the best proof from the pen of Paul himself that Peter agreed with him in principle and even in his usual practice. The eating refers, in all probability, not only to common meals, but also to the primitive love-feasts (agapae) and the holy communion, where brotherly recognition and fellowship is consummated and scaled.

 Acts 10:27-29, 34, 35; 11:3: "thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them."

 tine;" ajpo; jIakwvbou, Gal, 2:12, seems to imply that they were sent by James (comp. Matt. 26:47; Mark 5:25; John 3:2), and not simply disciples of James or members of his congregation, which would be expressed by tine;" tw'n ajpo; jIakwvbou. See Grimm, l.c., p. 427.

 There are not a few examples of successful intimidations of strong and bold men. Luther was so frightened at the prospect of a split of the holy Catholic church, in an interview with the papal legate, Carl von Miltitz, at Altenburg in January, 1519, that he promised to write and did write a most humiliating letter of submission to the Pope, and a warning to the German people against secession. But the irrepressible conflict soon broke out again at the Leipzig disputation in June, 1519.

 Gal 2:14-21. We take this section to be a brief outline of Paul’s address to Peter; but the historical narrative imperceptibly passes into doctrinal reflections suggested by the occasion and adapted to the case of the Galatians. In the third chapter it naturally expands into a direct attack on the Galatians.

 Paul draws, in the form of a question, a false conclusion of the Judaizing opponents from correct premises of his own, and rejects the conclusion with his usual formula of abhorrence, mh; gevnoito, as in Rom. 6:2.

 Gal. 2:11, Peter stood self-condemned and condemned by the Gentiles, kategnwsmevno" h\n, not " blameworthy," or " was to be blamed"(E. V.).

 Comp. 1 Cor. 9:5, 6; 15:5; Col. 4:10; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11.

 1 Pet. 5:12; 2 Pet. 3:15, 16.

 So Clement of Alexandria, and other fathers, also the Jesuit Harduin.

 This monstrous perversion of Scripture was advocated even by such fathers as Origen, Jerome, and Chrysostom. It gave rise to a controversy between Jerome and Augustin, who from a superior moral sense protested against it, and prevailed.

 Comp. 2 Cor, 4:7; Phil. 3:12; James 3:2; 1 John 1:8; 2:2.

 Comp. Acts 21:17-20.

 The E. V. translates uJperlivan ajpovstoloi, 2 Cor. 11:5, "the very chiefest apostles," Plumptre better, "those apostles-extraordinary." They are identical with the yeudapovstoloi, 11:13, and not with the pillar-apostles of the circumcision, Gal. 2:9; see above, p. 334, note 1.

 Augustin thus distinguishes three periods in the Mosaic law: 1, lex viva, sed non vivifica; 2, l. moribunda, sed non mortifera; 3, l. mortua et mortifera.

⁴⁸¹  Friedländer, I. 372 sqq.

⁴⁸²  See some of these eulogistic descriptions in Friedländer, I. 9, who says that the elements which produced this overwhelming impression were "the enormous, ever changing turmoil of a population from all lands, the confusing and intoxicating commotion of a truly cosmopolitan intercourse, the number and magnificence of public parks and buildings, and the immeasurable extent of the city." Of the Campagna he says, p. 10: "Wo sich jetzt eine ruinenerfüllte Einöde gegen das Albanesergebirge hinerstreckt, über der Fieberluft brütet, war damals eine durchaus gesunde, überall angebaute, von Leben wimmelden Strassen durchschnittene Ebene."See Strabo, v. 3, 12

⁴⁸³  Friedländer, I. 54 sqq., by a combination of certain data, comes to the conclusion that Rome numbered under Augustus (A. U. 749) 668,600 people, exclusive of slaves, and 70 or 80 years later from one and a half to two millions.

⁴⁸⁴  Friedländer, I. 11: "In dem halben Jahrhundert von Vespasian bis Hadrian erreichte Rom seinen höchsten Glanz, wenn auch unter den Antoninen und später noch vieles zu seiner Verschönerimg geschehen ist."

⁴⁸⁵  By Renan, L’Antechrist, p. 7; Friedländer, I. 310, 372; and Harnack, l.c., p. 253. But Hausrath, l.c., III. 384, assumes 40,000 Jews in Rome under Augustus, 60,000 under Tiberius. We know from Josephus that 8,000 Roman Jews accompanied a deputation of King Herod to Augustus (Ant. XVII. 11, 1), and that 4,000 Jews were banished by Tiberius to the mines of Sardinia (XVIII. 3, 5; comp. Tacitus, Ann. II. 85). But these data do not justify a very definite calculation.

⁴⁸⁶  Friedländer, III. 510: "Die Inschrift sind überwiegend griechisch, allerdings zum Theil bis zur Unverständlichkeit jargonartig; daneben finden sich lateinische, aber keine hebräischen."See also Garrucci, Cimiterio in vigna Rondanini, and the inscriptions (mostly Greek, some Latin) copied and published by Schürer, Die Gemeindeverfassung der Juden, etc., pp. 33 sqq.

⁴⁸⁷  Josephus, Ant. XVIII. 6,4. Comp. Harnack, l.c., p. 254.

⁴⁸⁸  Tacitus, Hist. V. 4: "Profana illic omnia quae apud nos sacra; rursum concessa apud illos quae nobis incesta."Comp. his whole description of the Jews, which is a strange compound of truth and falsehood.

⁴⁸⁹  "Poppaea Sabina, the wife of Otho, was the fairest woman of her time, and with the charms of beauty she combined the address of an accomplished intriguer. Among the dissolute women of imperial Rome she stands preëminent. Originally united to Rufius Crispinus, she allowed herself to be seduced by Otho, and obtained a divorce in order to marry him. Introduced by this new connection to the intimacy of Nero, she soon aimed at a higher elevation. But her husband was jealous and vigilant, and she herself knew how to allure the young emperor by alternate advances and retreats, till, in the violence of his passion, he put his friend out of the way by dismissing him to the government of Lusitania. Poppaea suffered Otho to depart without a sigh. She profited by his absence to make herself more than ever indispensable to her paramour, and aimed, with little disguise, at releasing herself from her union and supplanting Octavia, by divorce or even death." Merivale, Hist. of the Romans, VI. 97. Nero accidentally kicked Poppaea to death when in a state of pregnancy (65), and pronounced her eulogy from the rostrum. The senate decreed divine honors to her. Comp. Tac. Ann. XIII. 45, 46; XVI. 6; Suet., Nero, 35.

⁴⁹⁰  "Victi victoribus leges dederunt."Quoted by Augustin (De Civit. Dei, VI. 11) from a lost work, De Superstitionibus. This word received a singular illustration a few years after Seneca’s death, when Berenice, the daughter of King Agrippa, who had heard the story of Paul’s conversion at Caesarea (Acts 25:13, 23), became the acknowledged mistress first of Vespasianus and then of his son Titus, and presided in the palace of the Caesars. Titus promised to marry her, but was obliged, by the pressure of public opinion, to dismiss the incestuous adulteress. "Dimisit invitus invitam." Sueton. Tit., c. 7; Tacit. Hist., II. 81.

⁴⁹¹  The history of the Roman Ghetto (the word is derived from [Dg:, caedo, to cut down, comp. Isa. 10:33; 14:12; 15:2; Jer. 48:25, 27, etc., presents a curious and sad chapter in the annals of the papacy. The fanatical Pope Paul IV. (1555-’59) caused it to be walled in and shut out from all intercourse with the Christian world, declaring in the bull Cum nimis: "It is most absurd and unsuitable that the Jews, whose own crime has plunged them into everlasting slavery, under the plea that Christian magnanimity allows them, should presume to dwell and mix with Christians, not bearing any mark of distinction, and should have Christian servants, yea even buy houses." Sixtus V. treated the Jews kindly on the plea that they were "the family from which Christ came;" but his successors, Clement VIII., Clement XI., and Innocent XIII., forbade them all trade except that in old clothes, rags, and iron. Gregory XIII. (1572-’85), who rejoiced over the massacre of St. Bartholomew, forced the Jews to hear a sermon every week, and on every Sabbath police agents were sent to the Ghetto to drive men, women, and children into the church with scourges, and to lash them if they paid no attention! This custom was only abolished by Pius IX., who revoked all the oppressive laws against the Jews. For this and other interesting information about the Ghetto see Augustus J. C. Hare, Walks in Rome, 1873, 165 sqq., and a pamphlet of Dr. Philip, a Protestant missionary among the Jews in Rome, On the Ghetto, Rome, 1874.

⁴⁹²  Acts 28:17-29.

⁴⁹³  Acts 2:10:oiJ ejpidhmou'ntes JRwmaiÀoi, jIoudaiÀoi te kai; proshvlutoi . Sojourners are strangers (comp. 17:21, oiJ epidhmou'nte" zevnoi), as distinct from inhabitants (katoikou'nte", 7:48; 9:22; Luke 13:4). Among the Hellenistic Jews in Jerusalem who disputed with Stephen were Libertini, i.e., emancipated Roman Jews, descendants of those whom Pompey had carried captive to Rome, Acts 6:9.

⁴⁹⁴  Given up even by Roman Catholic historians in Germany, but still confidently reasserted by Drs. Northcote and Brownlow, l.c. I.,p. 79, who naively state that Peter went to Rome with Cornelius and the Italian band in 42. Comp. on this subject §26, pp. 254 sqq.

⁴⁹⁵  Rom. 16:7, "Salute Andronicus and Junias (or Junia), my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners who ... have been in Christ before me." If Junias is masculine, it must be a contraction from Junianus, as Lucas from Lucanus. But Chrysostom, Grotius, Reiche, and others take it as a female, either the wife or sister of Andronicus.

⁴⁹⁶  Sueton., Claud., c. 25: "Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit." The Romans often confounded Christus (the Anointed) andChrestus (from crhstov", useful, good), and called the Christians crhstianoiv, Chrestiani. Compare the French form chrétien. Justin Martyr uses this etymological error as an argument against the persecution of the Christians for the sake of their name. Apol. I.,c. 4 (I. p. 10, ed. Otto): Cristianoi; ei\nai kathgorouvmeqa, to; de; crhsto;n miseiÀ'sqai ouj divkaion. He knew, however, the true origin of the name of Christ, I.c. 12:  jIhsou'" Cristov", ajf j ou\ kai; to; Cristianoi; ejponomavzesqai ejschvkamen. Tertullian says that the name Christus was almost invariably mispronounced Chrestus bythe heathen. Apol., c. 3; Ad Nat., I.3. This mistake continued to be made down to the fourth century, Lactantius, Instit. Div., IV. 7, and is found also in Latin inscriptions. Renan derives the name Christianus from the Latin (like Herodian, Matt. 22:16, Pompejani, Caesareani), as the derivation from the Greek would require Crivsteio" (Les âpotres, p. 234). Lightfoot denies this, and refers to Sardiano;", Trallianov"(Philippians, p.16, note 1); but Renan would regard these nouns as Latinisms like jAsianov" (Acts 20:4, Strabo, etc.). Antioch, where the name originated (Acts 11:26), had long before been Romanized and was famous for its love of nicknames. Renan thinks that the term originated with the Roman authority as an appellation de police. The other two passages of the N.T. in which it occurs, Acts 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16, seem to imply contempt and dislike, and so it is used by Tacitus and Suetonius. But what was originally meant by the heathen to be a name of derision has become the name of the highest honor. For what can be nobler and better than to be a true Christian, that is, a follower of Christ. It is a remarkable fact that the name " Jesuit,"which was not in use till the sixteenth century, has become, by the misconduct of the order which claimed it, a term of reproach even in Roman Catholic countries; while the term " Christian"embraces proverbially all that is noble, and good, and Christ-like.

⁴⁹⁷  Acts 18:2; Rom. 16:3. An unconverted Jew would not have taken the apostle under his roof and into partnership. The appellation .jIoudai'o" often signifies merely the nationality (comp. Gal. 2:13-15). The name Aquila, i.e., Eagle, Adler, is still common among Jews, like other high sounding animal names (Leo, Leopardus, Löwe, Löwenherz, Löwenstein, etc.). The Greek jAkuvla" was a transliteration of the Latin, and is probably slightly altered in Onkelos, the traditional author of one of the Targums, whom the learned Emmanuel Deutsch identifies with Aquila (jAkuvla",  slyq[ in the Talmud), the Greek translator of the Old Testament, a convert to Judaism in the reign of Hadrian, and supposed nephew of the emperor. Liter. Remains (N. York, 1874), pp. 337-340. The name of his wife, Priscilla (the diminutive form of Prisca), " probably indicates a connection with the gens of the Prisci, who appear in the earliest stages of Roman history, and supplied a long series of praetors and consuls." Plumptre on Acts, 18:2.

⁴⁹⁸  Rom. 1:8; 16:5, 14, 15, 19.

⁴⁹⁹  Acts 28:13. Puteoli was, next after Ostia, the chief harbor of Western Italy and the customary port for the Alexandrian grain ships; hence the residence of a large number of Jewish and other Oriental merchants and sailors. The whole population turned out when the grain fleet from Alexandria arrived. Sixteen pillars still remain of the mole on which St. Paul landed. See Friedländer, II. 129 sq.; III. 511, and Howson and Spence on Acts 28:13.

⁵⁰⁰  Acts 28:15. The Forum of Appius (the probable builder of the famous road called after him) is denounced by Horace as a wretched town "filled with sailors and scoundrel tavern-keepers." Tres Tabernae was a town of more importance, mentioned in Cicero’s letters, and probably located on the junction of the road from Antium with the Via Appia, near the modern Cisterna. The distances from Rome southward are given in the Antonine Itinerary as follows: "to Aricia, 16 miles; to Tres Tabernae, 17 miles; to Appii Forum, 10 miles."

⁵⁰¹  Phil. 1:12-15; Acts 28:30.

⁵⁰²  Col. 4:7-14; Eph. 6:21; Philem. 24; Phil. 2:25-30; 4:18; comp. also 2 Tim. 4:10-12.

⁵⁰³  Phil. 1:15-18. Comp. Lightfoot in loc.

⁵⁰⁴  Ad Cor., ch. 6. The polu; plhÀqo" ejklektw'n corresponds precisely to the "ingens multitudo"of Tacitus, Ann. XV. 44.

⁵⁰⁵  Comp. my Hist. Ap. Ch., p. 296 sqq. Dr. Baur attempted to revolutionize the traditional opinion of the preponderance of the Gentile element, and to prove that the Roman church consisted almost exclusively of Jewish converts, and that the Epistle to the Romans is a defense of Pauline universalism against Petrine particularism. He was followed by Schwegler, Reuss, Mangold, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Holsten, Holtzmann., and also to some extent by Thiersch and Sabatier. But he was opposed by Olshausen, Tholuck, Philippi, De Wette, Meyer, Schott, Hofmann, in favor of the other view. Beyschlag proposed a compromise to the effect that the majority, in conformity with Paul’s express statements, were Gentile Christians, but mostly ex-proselytes, and hence shared Judaizing convictions. This view has been approved by Schürer and Schultz. Among the latest and ablest discussions are those of Weizsäcker and Godet, who oppose the views both of Baur and Beyschlag. The original nucleus was no doubt Jewish, but the Gentile element soon outgrew it, as is evident from the Epistle itself, from the last chapter of Acts, from the Neronian persecution, and other facts. Paul had a right to regard the Roman congregation as belonging to his own field of labor. The Judaizing tendency was not wanting, as we see from the 14th and 15th chapters, and from allusions in the Philippians and Second Timothy, but it had not the character of a bitter personal antagonism to Paul, as in Galatia, although in the second century we find also a malignant type of Ebionism in Rome, where all heretics congregated.

⁵⁰⁶  Lightfoot, Galat., p. 323.

⁵⁰⁷  Lightfoot, l.c., p. 20. See especially the investigations of Caspari, in his Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols, vol. III. (1875), 267-466. According to Friedländer, I. 142, 481, Greek was the favorite language at the imperial court, and among lovers.

⁵⁰⁸  Phil. 1:13; 4: 22. The praitwvrion embraces the officers as well as the soldiers of the imperial regiments; oiJ ek th'" kaivsaro" oijkiva"  may include high functionaries and courtiers as well as slaves and freedmen, but the latter is more probable. The twenty names of the earlier converts mentioned in Rom. 16 coincide largely with those in the Columbaria of the imperial household on the Appian way. Comp. Lightfoot, Philipp., p. 169 sqq., Plumptre, Excursus to his Com. on Acts, and Harnack, l.c., pp. 258 sq. Harnack makes it appear that the two trusty servants of the Roman church, Claudius Ephebus and Valerius Bito, mentioned in the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, c. 63, belonged to the household of the emperor Claudius.

⁵⁰⁹  See above, § 29, p. 279, especially the essay of Lightfoot quoted there. Harnack (l.c., p. 260) and Friedländer regard the acquaintance of Paul with Seneca as very improbable, Plumptre as probable. An epitaph from the third century was found in Ostia which reads: D M. M. Anneo. Paulo. Petro. M. Anneus. Paulus. Filio. Carissimo. See De Rossi in the Bullet. di archeol. christ., 1867, pp. 6 sq., and Renan, L’Antechrist, p. 12. Seneca belonged to the gens Annaea. But all that the inscription can be made to prove is that a Christian member of the gens Annaea in the third century bore the name of "Paul," and called his son "Paulus Petrus," a combination familiar to Christiana, but unknown to the heathen. Comp, Friedländer, III. 535.

⁵¹⁰  Here Christianity has been inferred from the vague description of Tacitus, Ann. XIII. 32. See Friedländer III. 534; Lightfoot, p. 21; Northcote and Brownlow, I. 82 sq. Harnack, p. 263. The inference is confirmed by the discovery of the gravestone of a Pomponius Graecinus and other members of the same family, in the very ancient crypt of Lucina, near the catacomb of St. Callistus. De Rossi conjectures that Lucina was the Christian name of Pomponia Graecina. But Renan doubts this, L’Antech., p. 4, note 2.

⁵¹¹  Plumptre, l.c. Martial, a spaniard by birth, came to Rome a.d. 66.

⁵¹²  Sueton., Domit. 15; Dion Cass., 67, 14; Euseb., H. E. III. 18.

⁵¹³  De Rossi, Bullett. for 1865, 1874 and 1875; Lightfoot, St. Clement of Rome, Append., 257 sq., Harnack, 266-269.

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