PAUL THE APOSTLE
i. The Authorities.—Before discussing the life and teaching of St. Paul, we may consider what material we have at our disposal for determining the facts. We have a history (the Acts of the Apostles) and a collection of Epistles, which have been judged by most or by many scholars to be 1st cent. writings, and to be by St. Luke and St. Paul respectively. Of the Epistles we may, however, set aside the anonymous one to the Hebrews, which the Eastern Fathers generally considered to be St. Paul’s, but which is now recognized by almost all scholars not to be the work of that Apostle himself. It is even denied by many that it belongs to the immediate Pauline circle at all. We may also put aside the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, which, though it may include some genuine 1st cent. information, is clearly a romance of a later age. We have thus left the canonical Act 13:1-52 Epistles. The genuineness of these is considered under the separate articles in this Dictionary, but we may here briefly summarize the results of critical investigation with regard to them.
1. The Tübingen theory.—F. C. Baur, the founder of the Tübingen School (1792–1860), maintained that only four, called by him ‘principal,’ Epistles were really St. Paul’s (Rom 1:1-32 and 2 Cor., Gal.), and that the rest, as also Acts, were not genuine. From the ‘principal’ Epistles, and from a clue in the 2nd cent. pseudo-Clementine literature, he gathered that there were originally two bitterly opposed factions in the Church, Jewish and Gentile, headed respectively by St. Peter and St. Paul. Mainly because this controversy is not found in the other Epistles, but also from other minor considerations, he held that the rest of the ‘Pauline’ literature and Acts were writings with a purpose or ‘tendency,’ issued in the 2nd cent. in order to promote the idea of a Catholic Church, and to reconcile the contending parties. Baur has few, if any, followers now. It has been seen that it is had criticism to make a theory on insecure grounds, and then to reject all the literature which contradicts it.
2. The Dutch School.—We may thus name a school of writers which has lately arisen, as their chief strength is in Holland. Prof. van Manen has popularized their teaching in Encyc. Bibl. (e.g. artt. ‘Old-Christian Literature,’ ‘Paul,’ ‘Philemon,’ ‘Philippians’; see also art. ‘Acts’ by Schmiedel). According to this school, all the 13 Epistles and the Acts are ‘pseudepigraphic,’ though some fragments of 1st cent. works, such as ‘Acts of Paul’ and ‘Acts of Peter,’ are embedded in them. The reasons given are that the 13 writings in question are not really epistles intended for definite readers, but are books written in the form of epistles for edification; that there is no trace of the impression which, if genuine, they must have made on those addressed; that St. Paul would not have written to the Romans as be did without knowing them personally; that the large experience and wide field of vision shown in the Epistles were an impossibility at so early a date; that time was required for ‘Paulinism,’ which was a radical reformation of the older Christianity, to spring up; that the problems discussed (the Law and the Gospel, Justification, Election, etc.) did not belong to the first age; that persecution had already arisen, whereas in St. Paul’s lifetime, so far as we know, there had been none; and that the chapters Rom 9:1-33; Rom 10:1-21; Rom 11:1-36 presuppose a date later than the Fall of Jerusalem. In a word, the historical background of the Epistles is said to be that of a later age, perhaps a.d. 125–150. The ‘Pauline’ literature sprang from the ‘heretical’ circles of Syria or Asia Minor. Marcion was the first (van Manen alleges) to make an authoritative group of Pauline Epistles; and they were not much approved by Irenæus or Tertullian, who, however, used them to vanquish the Gnostics and Marclonites with their own weapons.
One is tempted to ask, Was, then, St. Paul a myth? No, it is replied, he was a historical person, and the little that we know about him can be gathered from the older material (such as the ‘we’ sections of Acts) which is included in our present literature. It is enough to reply to the above reasoning that the objection already made to the Tübingen theory applies here with increased force; no criticism can be more unscientific than that which makes up its mind a priori what St. Paul ought to have done and said, and then judges the genuineness of the literature by that standard. And such a deluge of forgery or ‘pseudepigraphy’ in the 2nd cent. (for the Epistles of Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp must also, according to this school, go by the board) is absolutely incredible.
3. English and German criticism.—Returning to better-balanced views about the literature, we may remark that scholars in this country are more and more disposed to treat Acts and all the 13 Epistles as genuine, and that in Germany the tendency is in the same direction, though it does not go quite so far. Thus Harnack (Luke the Physician, 1906, Eng. tr.
4. The thirteen Epistles.—It appears that St. Paul wrote other letters than these; references to lost ones are found, probably, in 2Th 3:17 and 1Co 5:9. The thirteen which remain may be divided into four groups. These are all well attested by early Christian writers, and (as van Manen remarks) the Pastoral Epistles have as good external testimony as the rest. By way of example (to take but a few instances), it may be noted that Ignatius (c
(a) First Group (1 and 2 Thess.). These were written from Corinth 52 or 53 a.d.; the early date is seen from the fact that the writer expected the Second Advent to be in his lifetime (1Th 4:13-18), and this is a real sign of authenticity, for a forger would never have put into St. Paul’s mouth, after his death, the words ‘we that are alive’ (v. 15). A possible misconception is rectified by St. Paul in 2Th 2:2 f., for he says that the ‘man of sin’ must be manifested before the Lord comes.
(b) Second Group, Baur’s ‘principal epistles’ (Gal 1:1-24 and 2 Cor., Rom.), marked by the struggle for Gentile liberty and by the assertion of St. Paul’s Apostleship, which the Judaizing Christians denied. The controversy was evidently dying out when Romans was written, for that Epistle is a calm and reasoned treatise, almost more than a letter (see art. Galatians [Ep. to the], § 4). The early date of these four Epistles is seen from the consideration that, as Gentile Churches spread and the converts multiplied, it must have been found impossible to force the yoke of the Law on them. The controversy on both heads was settled by St. Paul’s evangelistic activity; his Apostleship was seen by its fruits.
(c) Third Group, the Epistles of the first Roman captivity (Eph., Ph., Col., Phllem.). No really serious objections have been raised against Philippians and Philemon, for it is hard to take seriously van Manen’s arguments in his articles on these Epistles in Encyc. Bibl. And indeed it is impossible that a forger could have conceived such a gem as the latter Epistle; the writer’s pleading with Philemon for the runaway slave Onesimus bears genuineness on its face. But the authenticity of these two Epistles has a decided bearing on that of Ephesians and Colossians, for all four hang together, especially Philemon and Colossians, which appear to have been written at the same time. It is objected that the phraseology of this group differs from that of the second; that Gnosticism did not rise till the 2nd cent.; that the Christology of these Epistles is derived from the Johannine writings; and that ‘Ephesians is a mere vapid expansion of Colossians.’ These objections appear to be based on the idea that a man must be interested in the same questions and controversies all through his life, and must always use the same vocabulary. The reverse is known to be commonly the case. The controversy with Judaism having died out, it is a mark of genuineness, not the opposite, that that question does not form one of the topics discussed in this group. St. Paul at Rome would learn much; and a certain change in vocabulary is natural enough. Yet the literary connexions between this group and the earlier ones are very real. Bishop Lightfoot has shown that the Colossian heresy is a very incipient form of semi-Jewish Gnosticism, such as we should expect in the 1st cent. (Colossians, p. 71 ff.). And the argument from the Christology is a pure begging of the question. Note that the doctrine is exactly the same in Colossians (which treats of the glories of the Head of the Church, while Ephesians describes those of the Church itself) as in Php 2:5 ff.
(d) Fourth Group, the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Tim., Tit.), so called because they are concerned mainly with the duties of Christian ministers. These all hang together, and from coincidences of style and subjects are judged to be certainly by one writer. They are quoted by, or were known to, Polycarp, Justin, Hegesippus (see Salmon, Introd. to NT8, p. 398), but were rejected by Marcion. Tatian accepted Titus, but rejected the other two, probably because 1Ti 4:3 f., 1Ti 5:14; 1Ti 5:23 offended his Encratite ideas. In modern times it has been asserted that these Epistles are not St. Paul’s, because of differences of diction (many phrases and words being found in this group which do not occur elsewhere in St. Paul); because the controversies are not the same as in the other Epistles, there being nothing about the Mosaic Law and justification by faith, and Gnosticism being attacked (for the name ‘gnosis,’ i.e. ‘knowledge,’ see 1Ti 6:20; cf. Col 2:3, 1Co 8:1; 1Co 12:8), a heresy more Jewish in tone than even that which appears in Colossians (Tit 1:14); because the ministry is said to be too fully developed for the lifetime of St. Paul; but especially because it is impossible to reconcile these Epistles with Acts. With the last statement almost all scholars entirely agree, though they do not assent to the deduction made from it. This is the really crucial argument, and may be treated first. It is assumed by most of the objectors to these Epistles, that they must be placed somewhere in the history related in Acts, because that book ‘concludes with the end of St. Paul’s ministry’; and, as it is impossible to make the journeys referred to in these Epistles fit in with Acts, it is said that the former cannot be genuine. To this it is answered that St. Paul may have been acquitted, and that the journeys mentioned may have taken place after the acquittal; but the objectors reply that the acquittal is unhistorical. The truth is that history (outside these Epistles) does not explicitly tell us whether St. Paul was acquitted or condemned after the two years’ imprisonment of Act 28:30; if the acquittal is unhistorical, so also is the condemnation. We may, then, take these Epistles, which have excellent external attestation, and therefore are a priori worthy of credit, as new evidence, and infer from them that St. Paul was released, made journeys to the scenes of his old labours, and was later re-arrested and imprisoned (2Ti 1:8). Even if these Epistles are not St. Paul’s, they are evidence for an early belief that he was acquitted the first time; this is shown by the fact that the journeys described are quite independent of Acts (cf. also 2Ti 4:16 f.). Further, there was, quite apart from these Epistles, an early tradition that St. Paul went to Spain (Muratorian Fragment, c.
We may briefly sum up what has been said on the difference of subject-matter and style in the thirteen Epistles. At the birth of a Gentile Church the controversy with Judaizing Christians was that which was most likely to arise, as we see in the Second Group. Questions were then asked about the Person of Christ and about the Church as a whole, as we see in the Third Group. As the communities grew, their organization occupied much attention, as we see in the Fourth Group. The special interest of the moment colours the diction and style. Sanday-Headlam (Romans, p. liv. ff.) suggest, further, that variations of style are largely due to the nervous temperament of the Apostle, now calm, now fervid; and in a considerable degree also to the employment of different amanuenses. St. Paul did not write his letters himself, but only added postscripts in his own hand. Probably he dictated his Epistles, and they were taken down in shorthand; a difference of scribe would thus mean an appreciable difference of style.
We shall, then, in what follows, without hesitation use the 13 Epistles as genuine. If what has been briefly argued above be not accepted, this article must be taken as describing, at least, the life and teaching of St. Paul as the early Christians believed that he lived and taught.
5. Acts of the Apostles.—For the reasons stated in the article on that book, we may with confidence use Acts as a trustworthy authority for St. Paul’s life. But we may here ask what we are to think of St. Paul’s speeches in Acts, whether they are a true record of what he said, and whether we may use them to determine his teaching. It is not easy to suppose that they were taken down verbatim as they were spoken; and St. Luke himself was not present at all of them (e.g. Act 13:16 ff; Act 14:15 ff; Act 17:22 f.). Yet the speeches agree very well with the circumstances in which they were delivered, and the diction and sentiments coincide largely with the Pauline Epistles. Lukan phrases have been found in some of them, which is natural enough; more so in the speech of Act 22:1-30, which was spoken in Aramaic, and therefore is clearly not the Apostle’s ipsissima verba, than in the Athenian speech (Act 17:22 ff.) which has no Lukan element. The conclusion may be that the speeches were written down, soon after they were delivered, by a hearer—sometimes the bearer was St. Luke himself—and the notes then taken were afterwards used by the author of Acts.
ii. Sketch of St. Paul’s Life
1. Name.—The future Apostle is first made known to us under the name Saul (Act 7:58). Being of the tribe of Benjamin (Rom 11:1, Php 3:5), a fact of which he was proud, he doubtless was named directly or indirectly after the king whom that tribe gave to Israel. But while Saul was his Jewish name, he must, as a Roman citizen, have had three Roman names. His praenomen and nomen we do not know, but his cognomen was Paul. After the interview with the proconsul Sergius Paulus in Cyprus (Act 13:6 ff.), the author of Acts uses no other name than this; from the outset of his mission to the Roman Empire it was fitting that he should be known by his Roman name. We must at once dismiss both the conjecture of Augustine that the Apostle on that occasion assumed the name Paul out of compliment to the proconsul, and also the suggestion that the name was personal to himself, denoting that he was small of stature. The existence of alternative names side by side, a Jewish and a Greek or Roman name, was quite a common thing among Jews of the 1st cent., e.g. John-Mark, Jesus-Justus. But here the case is different; we never read of Saul-Paul.
2. Birthplace and family.—St. Paul was not only a native but also a citizen of Tarsus, possessed of full civil rights in that famous University town, the capital of Cilicia (Act 9:11; Act 21:39; Act 22:8). His family had perhaps been planted there by one of the Seleucid kings (Ramsay). They were probably Pharisees (Act 23:6; cf. 2Ti 1:3); and Aramaic-speaking (Php 3:5, though here the Apostle may be speaking of his teachers). Several indications point to the fact that the family was of some importance, and was fairly rich. It is not against this view that the Apostle himself was poor, and that he worked for his livelihood as a tent-maker, as did many Cilicians (Act 18:3; Act 20:33 f.; cf. 1Co 9:15, 1Th 2:9, 2Th 3:8); for it is very probable that his family cast him off because of his conversion, and especially because of his attitude to the Gentiles; and moreover, it was the custom for all Jewish boys to be taught a trade. The prosperity of the family is seen from the fact that later St. Paul clearly had money at his command. Perhaps a reconciliation had been effected; his sister’s son saved his life (Act 23:16); and the whole story of the imprisonment in Palestine and Rome and of the voyage to Italy proves that he was a prisoner of distinction. This could come only from the possession of some wealth and from family influence.
3. Roman citizenship.—Of this position St. Paul was justly proud. He was not a Roman citizen merely because he had the freedom of Tarsus, for Tarsus was not a Roman Colony; probably his father or grandfather had rendered some service to the State, and had been thus rewarded. In any case St. Paul was freeborn (Act 22:28). He had not, like so many under Claudius, bought the citizenship through the infamous favourites of the Court. He appealed to his privilege to prevent illegal treatment at Philippi and Jerusalem (Act 16:37; Act 22:25). And more than once in the Epistles he alludes to citizenship, transferring the term from the earthly to the heavenly sphere—an allusion which would come home especially to the Philippians, who were so proud of their city being a Colony, and of their therefore being Roman citizens (Act 16:12; Act 16:21); see Php 1:27 [RVm
4. Early life.—St. Paul was educated, no doubt, partly at Tarsus (Act 26:4), where he would be influenced by Stoic teachers (see (§ iv.), but chiefly at Jerusalem under the Pharisee Gamaliel (Act 22:3; Act 26:4; cf. Act 5:34 ff.); he did not, however, see our Lord (cf. 1Co 9:1 with 1Co 15:8), though he would be there in Jesus’ lifetime on earth. Probably this period of education was over before our Lord’s ministry began. He was brought up a strict Pharisee (Act 23:6; Act 26:5, Gal 1:14, Php 3:5), and long after his conversion he retained a certain pride in his Jewish hirth and a great affection for his own people (Rom 4:1; Rom 9:3; Rom 10:1; Rom 11:1, 2Co 11:22). Though born outside Palestine, he was brought up, not as a Greek-speaking Jew or Hellenist, but as a Hebrew; for this last term denotes a difference of language and manners (Php 3:5; see Lightfoot’s note). Accordingly we find him speaking Aramaic fluently (Act 21:40; Act 22:2).
The result of this education, in spite of Gamaliel’s liberality of thought, was to make St. Paul a zealous and bigoted Jew, determined with all the ardour of youth to uphold the traditions of his fathers. We first meet with him as a young man ‘consenting unto’ Stephen’s death, holding the clothes of those who stoned the first martyr (Act 7:58; Act 8:1), and persecuting the Christians in Jerusalem (Act 26:10). Thereafter he secured authority from the high priest to go to Damascus in order to arrest all the disciples, and to bring them bound to Jerusalem (Act 9:1 f.).—[In the following paragraphs the numbers in square brackets denote the dates a.d. as given by Ramsay. Lightfoot’s dates are mostly a year or two later; Harnack’s earlier. Turner’s (in Hastings’ DB
5. Conversion [33].—The journey to Damascus was the great turning-point of Saul’s life (Act 9:3 ff.), and is often referred to by him (Act 22:5 ff; Act 26:12 ff., 1Co 9:1; 1Co 15:8, Php 3:7 etc.). When approaching Damascus he saw a strong light, and Jesus appearing to him (so explicitly 1Co 9:1), saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ The voice was unintelligible to his companions (Act 22:9), though they saw the light (ib.) and heard a sound (Act 9:7). Saul was blinded by the vision and led into Damascus, where he was instructed and baptized by one Ananias. Immediately he confesses Christ in the synagogues at Damascus (Act 9:20), and then retires into Arabia (perhaps the Sinaitic peninsula, see Lightfoot’s Gal 6:1-18, p. 87 ff.), doubtless for spiritual preparation (Gal 1:17). He ever recognizes his conversion as being his call to Apostleship, which was neither of human origin nor received by human mediation, i.e. not through the Twelve (Gal 1:1; Gal 1:12; Gal 1:17; cf. Rom 1:1; Rom 1:5, 1Co 1:1; 1Co 4:1; 1Co 9:1 f., 1Co 15:9). The Lord Himself designates his work as being among the Gentiles (Act 9:15; cf. Act 22:21; Act 26:17, Rom 11:13; Rom 15:16, Gal 2:7, Eph 3:8, 1Ti 2:7, 2Ti 1:11 AV
6. First Missionary Journey, Act 13:4 to Act 14:26 [47 to 49].—Sent forth from Antioch, Paul and Barnabas with Mark sail to Cyprus and preach there; at Salamis, the capital, on the west side of the island, they for the first time address a Roman governor. Henceforward Saul is always in NT called by his Roman name. Opposed by the ‘magician’ Elymas (or Etoimas), Paul rebuked him, and predicted his blindness; the magus was immediately deprived of sight, and the proconsul ‘believed.’ This can hardly mean that he actually became a Christian; but, having been under the influence of Elymas, his eyes are now opened, and he listens to the gospel message favourably.—From Cyprus they sail to the mainland of Pamphylia, and reach Perga, where Mark leaves them and returns to Jerusalem. The reason of this defection is not obvious, but it may be that St. Paul now made a plan for the further extension of Christianity among the Gentiles of the interior of Asia Minor, which Mark, whose view had not yet been sufficiently enlarged, disapproved. It is not unlikely that St. Paul was struck down with malaria in the low-lying littoral of Pamphylia, and that this favoured the idea of a journey to the mountainous interior, where he would recover his health. Ramsay takes malaria to be the thorn or stake in the flesh (2Co 12:7), and this would agree with the statement that St. Paul first visited Galatia owing to an infirmity of the flesh (Gal 4:13). On the S. Galatian theory (here assumed; see the discussion in art. Galatians [Ep. to the], § 2) the Church in Galatia was now founded; the journey Included visits to the South Galatian cities of Pisidian Antioch (a Roman Colony), Iconium (where the Apostles were stoned, and whence they fled into the Lycaonian district of Galatia), Lystra (also a Roman Colony, where they were taken for gods, and where the people spoke Lycaonian), and Derbe. Thence they returned, reversing their route, confirming souls and ordaining presbyters. Persecutions in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra are mentioned in 2Ti 3:11. From the port of Attalia they sailed to Antioch, and spent a long time there. In these journeys it was the custom of St. Paul to preach to the Jews first (Act 17:2 etc.), and when they would not hear, to turn to the Gentiles.—At this time perhaps occurred the incident of St. Peter at Antioch (Gal 2:11 ff.). He at first ate with the Gentiles, but, persuaded by Judaizers who professed to come ‘from James,’ he drew back; and even Barnabas was influenced by them. But Paul ‘resisted’ Peter ‘to the face,’ and his expostulation clearly was successful, as we see from the conduct of the latter at the Council (Act 15:7 ff.).
7. The Apostolic Council, Act 15:1-29 [49 or 50].—As soon as Gentiles were admitted into the Church, the question whether they must obey the Mosaic law became urgent. Judaizers having come to Antioch preaching the necessity of circumcision, Paul and Barnabas with others were sent to Jerusalem to confer with the Apostles and elders. This is the third visit to Jerusalem. The Council decided that the Gentiles need not be subject to the Law, but enjoined them to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication, by which marriage within the prohibited degrees is perhaps intended. Paul and Barnabas, with Judas and Silas, were sent to Antioch with the decrees, and the two latter probably then returned to Jerusalem, though there is some doubt about the movements of Silas.
8. Second Missionary Journey. Act 15:36 to Act 18:22 [50 to 53].—Paul and Barnabas had a dissension, the former refusing and the latter wishing to take Mark with them; they therefore separated, and Paul took Silas (sent for from Jerusalem?). These two went through Syria and Cilicia and (by the Cilician gates) to Derbe and Lystra and delivered the Council’s decrees. At Lystra they find Timothy, son of a Greek father and of a Jewish mother named Eunice. He had been carefully brought up by his mother and by his grandmother Lois (2Ti 1:5; 2Ti 3:15). St. Paul, wishing to take him with him, first, for fear of giving offence to the Judaizers (as he was half a Jew), caused him to be circumcised. They then go through the ‘Phrygo-Galatic region’ of the province Galatia (see art. Galatians [Ep. to the], § 2), not being allowed by God to evangelize the province Asia (i.e. the western sea-board of Asia Minor) or to enter Bithynia (the northern sea-board), and come to Troas, where they meet St. Luke. [On the N. Galatian theory they made a very long detour before entering the province Asia, to Galatia proper, founding Churches there and returning almost to the point in the journey which they had left.] At Troas, St. Paul sees in a dream ‘a certain Macedonian,’ saying ‘Come over into Macedonia and help us’ (Act 16:9; see art. Acts of the Apostles, § 3). This induces him to sail over to that province, and they come to Philippi, a Roman colony, where they lodge with one Lydia of Thyatira, a seller of purple. St. Paul casts out a ‘spirit of divination’ (ventriloquism?) from ‘a certain maid,’ and, owing to the opposition of the girl’s masters, he and Silas are cast into prison. An earthquake looses their bonds and the jailor is converted. In the morning the magistrates send to release them, and then Paul and Silas assert their Roman citizenship. Leaving Luke behind at Philippi, they pass on to Thessalonica; and this mission seems to be the limit of which the Apostle speaks when he says to the Romans (Rom 15:10) that he had preached from Jerusalem even unto Illyricum [= Dalmatia], the Illyrian frontier being not far off. At Thessalonica they spent a long time (1Th 1:9; 1Th 2:1; 1Th 2:9 ff.), and had much success; many of the ‘chief women’ were converted. Paul worked for his livelihood (2Th 3:8), but gifts were twice sent to him here from Philippi (Php 4:15 f.; cf. 2Co 8:1 f., 2Co 11:9). The missionary zeal of the Thessalonians is commended in 1Th 1:8. The opposition again came from the Jews (cf. 2Co 11:24), who accused St. Paul’s host, Jason, of disloyalty to Rome; ball was taken from Jason, and the Apostle was thus injured through his friend. This seems to have been the ‘hindrance of Satan’ which prevented his return (1Th 2:14; 1Th 2:18, 2Th 1:4). They then went to Berœa, where they met with much success; but the Thessalonian Jews stirring up trouble there, Paul went on to Athens, leaving Siias and Timothy behind, probably to bring news as to the possibility of returning to Macedonia. At Athens the Apostie spent much time, and addressed the Court of the Areopagus in a philosophic style; but not many, save Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris, were converted. Timothy returned to Athens and was sent back again to Thessalonica; and Silas and Timothy later joined St. Paul at Corinth (1Th 3:1 f., 6, Act 18:5). From Corinth were sent 1 Thessalonians, and, a little later, 2 Thessalonians. At Corinth St. Paul changed his method, and preached the Cross, simply, without regard to philosophy (1Co 1:23; 1Co 2:2-6, 2Co 4:5); here he had great success, chiefly in the lower social ranks (1Co 1:26). Here also he met Aquila and Priscilla, who had been expelled from Rome; and they all worked as tentmakers. The Jews being deaf to his persuasions, Paul left the synagogue and went to the house of Titus Justus close by; Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, was converted with all his house, as well as others, among whom was perhaps Sosthenes (Crispus’ successor in the synagogue? Act 18:17, 1Co 1:1). Encouraged by a vision, St. Paul spent eighteen months in Corinth; the Jews opposed him, and brought him before the proconsul Gallio, who, however, dismissed the case. Here we read of the Apostle taking a vow, after the manner of his countrymen, and shaving his head in Cenchreæ. He then sailed with Priscilia and Aquila, and, leaving them at Ephesus, landed at Cæsarea, whence he made his fourth visit to Jerusalem [53], and so passed to the Syrian Antioch. It is probable that from Ephesus Timothy was sent to his home at Lystra, and that he met St. Paul again at Antioch, bringing news that the Galatians were under the influence of Judaizers, who taught that circumcision was, if not essential to salvation, at least essential to perfection[see art. Galatians [Ep. to the], § 4]. St. Paul in haste wrote Galatians to expostulate, sending Timothy back with it, and intending himself to follow shortly. [On the N. Galatian theory, this Epistle was written later, from Ephesus or from Macedonia.]
9. Third Missionary Journey, Act 18:23 to Act 21:16 [53 to 57].—St. Paul, after ‘some time’ at Antioch, went again, probably by the Cilician Gates, to the ‘Galatic Region’ and the ‘Phrygian Region’ (see art. Galatians [Ep. to the], § 2), and so came to Ephesus by the upper road, not passing along the valley of the Lycus (Act 19:1; see Col 2:1). [On the N. Galatian theory another long digression to Galatia proper is here necessary.] At Ephesus he found twelve persons who had known only John’s baptism. St. Paul caused them to be ‘baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus,’ and when he ‘had laid his hands upon’ them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied.’ At Ephesus the Apostle spent 21/4 years and converted many who had practised magic. Hence he proposed to go to Macedonia, Greece, Jerusalem, Rome (Act 19:21, Rom 1:10 ff.), and Spain (Rom 15:24; Rom 15:28); he sent Timothy to Macedonia, with Erastus as a companion so far (Act 19:22), and then on to Corinth (1Co 4:17; 1Co 16:10), while he kept Sosthenes with him (1:1). After Timothy’s departure (4:17) he sent off 1 Corinthians, which he wrote after he had heard of divisions at Corinth (1Co 1:10 ff.), of the success of Apollos (1Co 1:12, 1Co 3:4 ff., 1Co 16:12), who had gone there from Ephesus (Act 18:27 f.), of a case of incest and abuses in respect to litigation and to the Eucharist (1Co 5:1-13; 1Co 6:1-20; 1Co 11:1-34). This letter was in answer to one from Corinth asking for directions on marriage, etc. The Apostle announces his intention of going to Corinth himself by way of Macedonia after Pentecost (Act 16:5 ff.). and Lightfoot thinks that he did pay this visit to Corinth from Ephesus (cf. 2Co 13:1 ‘the third time’), but Ramsay puts the visit somewhat later. In 2Co 1:16; 2Co 1:23 St. Paul says that he had Intended to go by way of Corinth to Macedonia, and back to Corinth again, and so to Judæa, but that he had changed his plan. At Ephesus there were many persecutions (2Co 1:8; cf. 1Co 4:8; 1Co 6:4 f.), and Onesiphorus was very useful to him there (2Ti 1:16 ff.). The stay at Ephesus was suddenly brought to an end by a riot instigated by Demetrius, a maker of silver shrines of Artemis. St. Paul went to Macedonia by Troas, where he had expected to meet Titus coming from Corinth, though he was disappointed in this. At Troas he preached with success; ‘a door was opened’ (2Co 2:12). From Macedonia he wrote 2 Corinthians urging the forgiveness of the incestuous Corinthian. [Some modification of the above is required if this Epistle, as many think, is an amalgamation of two or more separate ones. Some think that the person referred to in 2 Cor. is not the offender of 1Co 5:1-13 at all.] Titus joined St. Paul in Macedonia, and gave a good account of Corinth (2Co 7:8 ff.), but troubles arose in Macedonia itself (2Co 7:6). Titus was sent back to Corinth with two others (2Co 8:6; 2Co 8:17 f., 2Co 8:22), taking the letter and announcing St. Paul’s own coming (2Co 13:1). All this time the Apostle was developing his great scheme of a collection for the poor Christians of Judæa, which was responded to so liberally in Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia (1Co 16:1 f., 2Co 8:1-7; 2Co 9:2, Rom 15:25), and which prompted that journey to Jerusalem which is the last recorded in Acts (Act 24:17). He claimed the right to live of the gospel himself (1Co 9:6 ff.); yet he would not usually do so, but instead asked offerings for the ‘poor saints.’ From Macedonia he went to’ Greece’ (Act 20:2), i.e. to Corinth, for three months, and here wrote Romans [57], which he sent by Phœbe, a deaconess at Cenchreæ, the port of Corinth (Rom 16:1). At Corinth he heard of a plot against his life; he had intended to sail direct to Syria, and the plot seems to have been to murder him on the ship; he therefore took the land journey by way of Macedonia, but sent on several friends to join him at Troas: Sopater of Berœa, Aristarchus and Secundus (both of Thessalonica), Timothy, Tychicus and Trophimus (both probably of Ephesus), and Gaius of Derbe, who was perhaps his host at Corinth (Rom 16:23, 1Co 1:14; if so he must have come to Corinth to stay. The Macedonian Gaius of Act 19:29 was probably a different man). St. Paul spent the Passover at Philippi, and then, with Luke (Act 20:5 f.). set sail for Troas. Here, at an all-night service which ends with the Eucharist, occurs the incident of the young man Eutychus, who being asleep falls down from the third storey and is taken up dead; but the Apostle restores him alive to his friends. From Troas the party sail along the west coast of Asia Minor, calling at Miletus. Here St. Paul has a visit from the presbyters of Ephesus, for whom he had sent, and hids them farewell, saying that they would see his face no more (see above i. 4 (d)). At Cæsarea (in Palestine) they land, and stay with Philip the evangelist; and here Agabus, taking Paul’s girdle and binding his own feet and hands, prophesies that the Jews will do the same to the owner of the girdle, and will deliver him to the Gentiles.
10. Fifth visit to Jerusalem, Act 21:17 to Act 23:30 [57].—St. Paul is received at an apparently formal council by James, the Jerusalem presbyters being present; and he tells them of the success of his ministry to the Gentiles. They advise him to conciliate the Christians of Jerusalem, who thought that he persuaded Jews not to keep the Law, and to undertake the Temple charges for four men who were under a vow, and to ‘purify’ himself with them. This he does, showing, as in many other instances, that he is still a Jew (Act 18:18; Act 20:6; Act 20:16; Act 27:9). But his presence in the Temple is the occasion of a riot, the Jews believing that he had brought within the precincts Trophimus, the Gentile of Ephesus, whom they had seen with him in the city. He is saved only by the intervention of the Roman soldiers, who take him to the ‘Castle.’ He is allowed to address the people, on the way, in Aramaic; but when he speaks of his mission to the Gentiles, they are greatly incensed and the chief captain (chiliarch), Claudius Lysias, has him brought into the Castle and orders him to be examined by scourging; but Paul asserts his Roman citizenship. Next day he is brought before the Jewish Sanhedrin, of whom some were Pharisees, some Sadducees, and when he affirms his belief in ‘the hope and resurrection of the dead,’ the former favour him. In the night he is encouraged by a vision of the Lord telling him that he must bear witness in Rome (Act 23:11). A plot of the Jews against him, revealed by his nephew, is the cause of his being sent down guarded to Cæsarea to the governor Felix. The Jews go down there to accuse him, and Felix and his wife Drusilla, a Jewess, hear him often; but he is left a prisoner for two years, and Felix, when he is recalled, does not release him, hoping to please the Jews. He had expected a bribe from Paul (24:26). Festus, his successor, is asked by the Jews to send Paul to Jerusalem, there being a secret plot to kill him on the road; but Paul appeals to Cæsar. While he is at Cæsarea, Agrippa and Bernice come down to visit Festus, and Paul narrates to them his conversion (Act 25:13 to Act 26:32).
11. Roman imprisonment.—From Cæsarea the Apostle is sent, with the two companions allowed to accompany him (Luke and Aristarchus), on a voyage to Italy [59], under the charge of Julius, centurion of the Augustan Band or Cohort. They sail first, after touching at Zidon, under the lee (to the east) of Cyprus, the usual winds in the Levant in summer being westerly, and coast along Asia Minor. St. Paul is treated kindly and as a prisoner of distinction, and his advice is often asked. At Myra they tranship and embark in what is apparently a Government vessel taking corn from Egypt to Italy. Sailing south of Crete they reach Fair Havens, and spend at least some few days there; then, though the season of the year is late, they set sail again, hoping to reach Italy safely. But being caught in a storm, they drift for many days, and finally are shipwrecked on the coast of Malta, where the people receive them kindly. St. Paul heals the father of the ‘first man,’ Publius, of fever and dysentery. Next spring [60] they sail for Italy by way of Sicily, and land at Puteoli, whence they reach Rome by land. Here Paul is allowed to live in a hired house, guarded by a soldier, and he remains there ‘two whole years,’ doing evangelistic work [60, 61]. From Rome, while a prisoner (Php 1:7; Php 1:13, Col 4:3; Col 4:18, Eph 3:1; Eph 4:1; Eph 6:20, Phm 1:1), he wrote Ephssians, probably a circular letter to the Churches of Asia (the ‘Epistle from Laodicea’ of Col 4:16). At the same time he seems to have sent Colossians and Philemon by Tychicus and Onesimus. The Colossians had not seen Paul (Col 2:1), but, having heard of errors at Colossæ, he writes to exhort them and Archippus (Col 4:17; cf. Phm 1:2), who seems to have been their chief minister. The short letter to Philemon is a touching appeal from’ Paul the aged’ (v. 9) to a master to receive back a fugitive slave Onesimus; the master formerly, and now the slave, owed their Christianity to St. Paul. At this time the Apostle has with him Epaphras of Colossæ (who had come to Rome and was a ‘fellow prisoner’ with Paul, Phm 1:23), Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus, Justus, Luke, and Demas. About the same date Philippians was written, and sent by Epaphroditus of Philippi (Php 2:25 ff.), who had been sick nigh to death, but had recovered; he had been sent by the Philippians with alms to Rome (Php 4:10; Php 4:18). St. Paul exhorts his ‘true yokefellow’ (whom Lightfoot takes to be Epaphroditus, but who is more probably the chief minister of the Philippian Church) to appease a quarrel between two Church workers, Euodia and Syntychs (Php 4:2 f.); the ‘Clement’ there mentioned seems to have been a Philippian convert. St. Paul hopes soon to send Timothy to Philippi (Php 2:19), and to be free to come soon to them himself (Php 2:24; cf. Phm 1:22).
12. Later life [end of 61 to 67].—This we can in part construct from the Pastoral Epistles; those who reject them will take their own view of the account which follows. We may first ask whether St. Paul went to Spain. As we have seen, he meant to do so (Rom 15:24; Rom 15:28), and early tradition affirmed that he did go (above, 1.4 (d)). This tradition, however, may have been based only on his recorded intention; and it is a difficulty that no trace is left of a Spanish visit, and that no Church in Spain claims to have been founded by him. Journeys to the East are better attested; he certainly intended to go from Rome eastwards (Php 2:24). We read that he went to Corinth and left Erastus there (2Ti 4:20); that he sailed along the west coast of Asia Minor, leaving Trophimus sick at Miletus (ib.), and Timothy at Ephesus to rule the Church there for a time (1Ti 1:3 etc.); that he called at Troas and left some things there (2Ti 4:13); and that he went to Macedonia (1Ti 1:3). But these events need not have happened on the same journey. At Ephesus we read of various heretics—of Hymenæus and Alexander whom Paul ‘delivered unto Satan’ (1Ti 1:20)—Alexander is perhaps the coppersmith who opposed Paul, probably at Ephesus, not Troas (2Ti 4:14),—of Hymenæus (perhaps the same as in 1 Tim.) and Philetus, who explained the resurrection of the dead in a figurative sense as an event already past (2Ti 2:18), and of Phygelus and Hermogenes, who, with ‘all that are in Asia’ (2Ti 1:15), deserted the Apostle; but it is uncertain whether the references are to a time before or after the first imprisonment at Rome. Another journey was to Crete, where St. Paul left Titus to rule the Church for a time (Tit 1:5); thereafter the Apostle went to Nicopolis, on the west coast of Achaia, opposite Italy, where he Intended to winter (Tit 3:12). Before reaching Nicopolis he wrote 1 Timothy (probably) and Titus; he asked Titus to come to him whenever another could be sent to take his place (Tit 3:12).
The last scene of the Apostle’s life is at Rome. He is now a second time a prisoner (2Ti 2:9), conscious that his life is near its end (2Ti 4:6 f.). He writes 2 Timothy to his faithful disciple, who is apparently at Ephesus [Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus are mentioned as being with Timothy (2Ti 1:16, 2Ti 4:19), and he himself is in a position of authority; these considerations point to Ephesus, where he was before]. When St. Paul writes, he is, save for Luke’s attendance, alone; Demas has forsaken him; Crescens, Titus, and Tychicus have been sent on missions (Titus to Dalmatla, not to Crete); and Timothy is pressed to bring Mark and to come to Rome with the things left behind at Troas. Tychicus seems to have been sent as his substitute to Ephesus (2Ti 4:9-13). In this letter St. Paul speaks of Onesiphorus having helped him, not only at Ephesus on a former occasion, but when he was a prisoner in Rome, perhaps at the first imprisonment, for he seems to have died before 2 Tim. was written (2Ti 1:16-18). It is disputed whether the ‘first defence’ (first, not former) of 2Ti 4:10, when ‘all forsook him,’ refers to a preliminary examination in the second imprisonment, or, as seems more likely (Zahn), to the first imprisonment; the Apostle speaks of his being delivered out of the mouth of the lion, that through him ‘the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear.’ This seems to refer to the further travels of the Apostle after his first imprisonment, whereas when writing 2 Tim. he knew that he was near his end.
13. By universal tradition the martyrdom of St. Paul was at Rome [Harnack 64, Turner 64–65, Ramsay and Lightfoot 67]. Clement of Rome (Cor. 5), c
14. Appearance.—The following is the description in the Acts of Paul and Thecla (Armen. vers. § 3, Conybeare’s Monuments, p. 62), which may go back, in this matter, to the 1st cent.: ‘Onesiphorus … saw Paul coming along, a man of moderate stature, with curly hair … scanty, crooked legs, with blue eyes and large knit brows, long nose; and he was full of the grace and pity of the Lord, sometimes having the appearance of a man, but sometimes looking like an angel.’ The ‘blue eyes’ are peculiar to the Armenian. The other versions say that he was bow-legged, with meeting eyebrows, and bald-headed. This unflattering description does not agree badly with that of St. Paul’s detractors in 2Co 10:10; 2Co 11:6, who said that though his letters were weighty and strong, his bodily presence was weak, and his speech of no account; he was ‘rude in speech.’ The appearance of the Apostle would be made worse by the permanent marks of persecution, the ‘marks of Jesus,’ as most moderns interpret Gal 6:17, which branded Paul as the slave of Christ.
iii. St. Paul’s Teaching.—It would be a mistake to look on the Pauline Epistles as constituting a Summa Theologica, a compendium of Christian doctrine. The writer always assumes that his readers have in their possession the Christian tradition. We have no record of the method by which Paul preached the gospel, but he takes it for granted that it is known by those to whom he writes, and he repeats his teaching only when some special circumstances call for repetition. Doctrines like the Godhead of our Lord and of the Holy Spirit, the Atonement, and the Sacraments, are not stated as in a theological manual, but assumed (cf. 2Th 2:15; 2Th 3:6, 1Co 11:2). Even the Epistle to the Romans, addressed to those who had not heard the Pauline presentation of the gospel, and partaking more of the nature of a treatise than do any of the rest, assumes the substratum of Christian dogma; note, for example, the way in which the Atonement is alluded to in Rom 3:25; Rom 5:17. It follows that it would be extremely unsafe to build any argument as to St. Paul’s teaching upon his silence. The paragraphs which here follow are an attempt to bring together references in the Epistles to some of the more important points of Christian doctrine. But we may first ask whether St. Paul used a creed in his instructions. In 1Co 15:3 f. he seems to be quoting something of this nature; and a verse from a creed-like hymn is given in 1Ti 3:16. Yet the earliest known creed (the Apostles’) cannot be traced back in any form beyond the second quarter of the 2nd cent., and the existence of anything like a creed in the Apostle’s times is therefore a matter of conjecture only.
1. The Fatherhood of God.—Christianity inherited this doctrine from the OT. Yet it was fully revealed to us only by our Lord, for the Jews had hardly got beyond the truth that God was the Father of Israel. The Apostle develops this truth. God is the Father of Jesus (2Co 1:3, Eph 1:3 etc.), who is ‘the Son of God’ (Gal 2:20, Rom 1:4, 2Co 1:19, Eph 4:13; cf. 1Th 1:10)—His ‘own Son’ (i.e. partaker of His nature), whom He did not spare (Rom 8:3; Rom 8:32, passages which recall both Mar 1:11 and Joh 3:16).—But, further, God is the father of all creatures (Eph 4:6), from Him ‘every fatherhood’ (i.e. family) in heaven and earth is named (Eph 3:14 f.); He is ‘the Father’ (Gal 1:1 etc.), the ‘Father of glory’ (Eph 1:17).—In a special sense He is the Father of all Christians, who are His sons by adoption (Rom 8:15 f., Gal 3:28; Gal 4:5 f., Eph 1:5 etc.). St. Paul never confuses the relation of the Father to the Son with that of the Father to mankind, but keeps the distinction of Joh 20:17 (‘my Father and your Father’).
2. The Fall of Man.—The universality of sin is the most prominent theme in Rom., among both Gentiles (Rom 1:18 ff.) and Jews (Rom 2:9 ff.); all are ‘under sin’ (Rom 3:10 ff.). Sin is due to Adam’s fall, and is punished by death; yet each man is responsible (Rom 5:12). ‘Sin’ does not mean mere error, as it was understood by the heathen, but moral wrong (cf. Psa 51:4; so frequently in OT). From Adam came a taint which is called the ‘law of sin’ in the members (Rom 7:23); it is a moral weakness which makes man inclined to sin. It is noticeable that Genesis says nothing of the penalty and taint as inherited from Adam upon which St. Paul insists; we find it first in Wis 2:23 f., and probably in Sir 25:24. The Rabbinical teaching varied; some Jewish teachers emphasized the inherited taint and penalty, others the responsibility of each man. For the first cf. 2Es 4:30 f., 7:118 [2Es 7:48]; for the second cf. 2Es 9:11 (freedom of choice) and Apocalypse of Baruch 54:15–19; 2Es 3:20 ff. combines both views. These two works are probably of the 1st cent. a.d., and parts of 2 Esdras (but not those quoted) seem to have been added by a Christian hand (see Thackeray, St. Paul and Jewish Thought, ch. ii. and p. 21f.; a most suggestive book).—St. Paul traces the universality of sin to the Instigation of Satan, the personal power of evil (1Co 7:6 etc.), and of his evil angels (Eph 6:12).
3. The Incarnation.—The remedy for universal sin is provided by the love of the Father (Rom 8:32) and of the Son (Gal 2:20), in the Incarnation. That St. Paul uses the title ‘Son of God’ in no mere ethical sense is seen by the language in which he describes the pre-existence of our Lord. The Manhood and the Godhead are both spoken of in Rom 1:8 f. (‘of the seed of David according to the flesh,’ ‘declared to be the Son of God’) and Rom 8:3 (‘God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh’). The Christ is of the fathers as concerning the flesh, but is over all, God blessed for ever (Rom 9:5; so EV
4. The Atonement.—‘As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’ ‘The last Adam became a life-giving spirit’ (1Co 15:22; 1Co 15:45; cf. Rom 5:14-17). Our Lord is the ‘second’ or ‘last’ Adam, thus re-establishing what the first Adam destroyed. It has been thought that ‘the second Adam’ was a common Rabbinic title for the Messiah, but this seems doubtful. The term ‘first Adam’ is found, but is used in contradistinction to other men (‘Adam’ = ‘man’), not as opposed to Messiah (Thackeray, op. cit. p. 41). Others have thought that St. Paul got his contrast between Adam and Christ from Philo and the Alexandrian Jewish school. However this may be, St. Paul teaches that our Lord came to be the Second Adam ‘from heaven’ (1Co 15:47), to restore all things, to be the representative man, and to recapitulate or sum up the human species in Himself (cf. Eph 1:10), to show to fallen humanity what God meant man to be.
This restoration was to be by the death of Jesus, by a sacrifice. Christ was set forth by God to be a propitiation, or (as we should perhaps translate) to be propitiatory (Rom 3:25; cf. 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:10). The word is used in LXX
This reconciliation is effected by a vicarious sacrifice. In ordinary life vicarious suffering is common, and is usually involuntary. But Christ freely offered Himself (Gal 2:20, 1Ti 2:6, Tit 2:14), the sinless for the guilty. He was ‘made sin in our behalf’ (2Co 5:21; cf. 1Co 5:7; 1Co 15:3, Gal 3:13).
This sacrifice was for all men (2Co 5:14 f.). And here we notice that St. Paul does not attempt to reconcile the Divine sovereignty with man’s choice, God’s predestination with human freewill. He sometimes states the former (e.g. Rom 9:1-33), sometimes the latter (e.g. Rom 10:1-21), looking sometimes at one side of the truth, sometimes at the other. On the one hand, God is the potter with power over the clay (Rom 9:21), foreordaining and calling before the foundation of the world (Rom 8:29 f., Rom 9:23 f., Eph 1:4 f.), purposing that all men shall be saved (Rom 11:32, 1Ti 2:4; 1Ti 4:10), sending His Son to the world not only to save mankind generally, as a body, but to save each individual (cf. Gal 2:20). On the other hand, man can exercise his free will to thwart God’s purpose, as all Israel except a remnant did (Rom 9:27; Rom 11:1; Rom 11:5), and the call does not necessitate salvation (1Co 9:27). The election is therefore to ‘privilege,’ as it is called; God has chosen certain men to receive privileges in this world, as Jews in the Old Covenant, Christians in the New. Yet there is also an election to life; the ‘glory’ of Rom 9:22 f. is not of this world only. Here St. Paul leaves the question, and we may do well to avoid theorizing on it, whether in the direction of the Arminian view (named from van Harmen, a.d. 1560–1609), which was that God knows who will and who will not respond to His call, and therefore predestinates the former to life; or of the Calvinist or ultra-Augustinian view, which is that predestination is arbitrary, and that Christ died only for those predestined to life (‘particular redemption’). The paradox is insoluble with our present knowledge, and we must patiently wait for its solution in the fuller light of the world to come. It may be remarked that St. Paul, while dwelling on both the goodness and the severity of God (Rom 2:4; Rom 11:22), never speaks of predestination to condemnation.
By another metaphor the atoning work of our Lord is called by St. Paul a ‘ransom’ or ‘redemption.’ We are ‘bought with a price’ (1Co 6:20; 1Co 7:23; cf. Gal 3:10; Gal 4:5, Tit 2:14 etc., and 2Pe 2:1). In his charge to the presbyters of Ephesus, St. Paul speaks of ‘the church of God which he purchased with his own blood’ (Act 20:28). Without stopping to discuss the other difficulties of this verse (for we cannot be sure that we have St. Paul’s ipsissima verba), we may remark that the metaphor of purchase or ransom must not be pressed too far. There need be no question of the person to whom the price is paid, whether it be God the Father, or Satan, who is supposed by some to have acquired a right to man by the Fall. The force of the metaphor lies, not in the person recompensed, but in the price paid. It is the immensity of the sacrifice that is emphasized, and the figure must not be carried further than this.
5. Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord.—The former event is made by St. Paul the great foundation of his teaching. In 1Co 15:1-11 he explains the gospel which he preached as he had received it, that Christ died, was buried, and was raised on the third day (the ‘scriptures’ referred to seem to be Isa 53:5 ff., Psa 16:8 ff.); the historical fact of the resurrection was, he says, witnessed by Cephas, ‘the twelve,’ the 500 brethren [in Galilee?] of whom most still survived, James [not in Gospels or Acts], ‘all the apostles’ [at the Ascension?], and lastly by himself as ‘one born out of due time.’ The appearance of Christ at his conversion he took to be as real and as little a hallucination as the appearances before the Ascension. So far from the fact of the appearance to St. Paul and those to the rest being put on a par showing that in St. Paul’s view the latter were pure hallucinations, it shows that he was convinced of the reality of both alike (cf. esp. 1Co 9:1). The criterion of Apostleship was that a man had seen Jesus, not merely dreamt that he had seen Him. In a word, if Christ’s resurrection be false, Paul’s preaching is vain, our faith is vain (1Co 15:14; cf. 1Th 1:10; 1Th 4:14, 2Ti 2:8 etc.). The historical fact is treated as fundamental in the sermons at Pisidian Antioch (Act 13:30 ff.), at Athens (Act 17:31), and before Agrippa (Act 26:23); and the salient point of Paul’s teaching seized on by Festus was that he affirmed Jesus, who was dead [‘had died’], to be alive (Act 25:19). It is this fact that is the great power of the Christian life (Php 3:10).
The Ascension and Future Return of our Lord are often alluded to by St. Paul (see also 10 below). It is explicitly stated in Eph 4:8 that Jesus ascended to give ‘gifts unto men,’ and Psa 68:18 is quoted. Jesus is exalted in glory (Php 2:9, 1Ti 3:16), or, in the symbolic language found also elsewhere in NT, expressing the same fact, is seated on the right hand of God (Rom 8:34, Eph 1:20, Col 3:1, from Psa 110:1); so the believer is made to sit in heavenly places (Eph 2:8). Jesus is expected to return ‘from heaven’ (1Th 1:10; 1Th 4:10, Php 3:20), to judge the world (2Co 5:10, 2Ti 4:8, Act 17:31; cf. Joh 5:22; Joh 5:27).—It is said, however, by Prof. Harnack that the Ascension had no separate place in primitive Christian tradition, and that the Resurrection and Session were thought of as one act. As regards St. Paul, his silence in 1Co 15:3 ff., Rom 8:34 as to the Ascension is alleged. In the former place reference to the Ascension would have no point, for the Apostle is proving the truth of the Resurrection. In the latter we have the sequence ‘died’—‘was raised’—‘is at the right hand of God’—‘maketh intercession.’ If we are to take the second and third phrases as denoting one act, why not the first and second? [For a full discussion on this point, see Swete, The Apostles’ Creed, p. 64 ff.]
6. The Holy Ghost.—In Rom 8:1-27 St. Paul gives a great exposition of the work of the Spirit, which closely approximates to the description of the Paraclete (Helper, Comforter, Advocate) in Jn., though the name itself is not used. The ‘Spirit of life’ dwells in us (cf. 1Co 3:16; 1Co 6:19) to quicken us [at the same time we read of this as ‘Christ’ being ‘in us,’ Rom 8:9-11], to lead us, and to help us to pray. He makes intercession for us [to the Father]—words in which St. Paul indicates what the technical language of Christianity calls the ‘personality’ of the Holy Spirit, distinct from the Father. So in Eph 4:30 the Holy Ghost can be grieved. He is the ‘Spirit of Christ’ (Rom 8:9). In 1Co 12:1-31 the Apostle describes the varying work of the Spirit in man, ‘dividing … as he will’ (1Co 12:11; note the indication of personality). We live by the Spirit (Gal 5:25). In 2Co 3:17 the Spirit is at first sight identified with Christ—‘the Lord is the Spirit’; the gift of the Spirit is the gift of Christ. Here again we recall our Lord’s words in Jn., where the coming of the Spirit and the coming of Christ are identified (Joh 14:16-23). So also are reconciled the apparently contradictory sayings, ‘I will be with you alway’ (Mat 28:20) and ‘I go away … I will send him unto you’ (Joh 16:7). It is the work of the Spirit to make Christ’s presence real to us. Hence also the Spirit works within us; we are united to Christ by Him, and from the beginning of our Christian life we are all baptized in one Spirit into one body (1Co 12:13). The Spirit is also spoken of as being given to us (Gal 3:5, Tit 3:6, Act 19:2; Act 19:6 etc.). Lastly, we notice that the Father, Son, and Spirit are joined together in the Apostolic benediction (2Co 13:14), but in a striking order, our Lord coming first. Perhaps the Apostle’s thought is that it is only by the grace of the Son that we can come to the love of the Father, and that the outpouring of the gifts of the Spirit applies that grace and love to us.
7. Justification by faith.—The Jewish teachers who bad preceded St. Paul had taught that man is always laying up a treasure of good and had deeds (cf. Rom 2:5); and according as either preponderate at any given time, he is declared righteous or is condemned; while if the good and evil deeds are equal, God gives man the benefit of the doubt; and moreover, a man’s good deeds may be supplemented by those of the patriarchs. [An echo of this may be seen in Rom 11:23; see Thackeray, op. cit. p. 83f.] It was taught that the whole transaction was a matter of contract, God owing a debt to man for goodness. St. Paul adopts the forensic metaphor of judge and verdict; man is ‘justified,’ or accounted righteous, by God, though he is not righteous. ‘The Christian life,’ it has been said, ‘is made to have its beginning in a fiction’ (Sanday-Headlam, Romans, p. 36). But this is merely another way of saying that God does not exact the debt to the utmost; He forgives freely (Rom 3:24; Rom 8:33). Man is given a fresh start, with a clear record. The great difference between St. Paul and the Jewish teachers lies in the place assigned by him to faith (Rom 1:17; Rom 4:3, Gal 3:6; Gal 3:11), in his denying the merits of works of the Law (Gal 2:16; Gal 3:21), and in the gift of justification being free. The Jews recognized faith only as one of the works, and with them it was no more than obedience to the Law.
The forgiveness of man is described by St. Paul as a manifestation of the righteousness (or ‘a righteousness’) of God (2Co 5:21, Rom 1:17, Php 3:8), which is regarded as being diffused among men, as in the second Isaiah (Isa 45:23 RVm
In this connexion we may glance at St. Paul’s view of the Mosaic Law. He was no Marcionite, rejecting the OT. In his view the Law was useful as a guardian, a tutor, having charge of the world in its childhood (Gal 3:23 f.). It is proved, however, to have been subsidiary and transitory, (a) by the fact that the promise was given to Abraham, before the Law (Gal 3:17)—and in this place St. Paul uses a Rabbinical argument from the grammatical form of the word ‘seed,’ which he applies to Christ; and (b) by the fact that it was given not direct from God, as was the promise to Abraham, but by the hands of angel ministers (Gal 3:19; the reference is perhaps to Deu 33:2, Psa 68:17; cf. Act 7:38), and by a mediator, Moses (cf. Deu 5:5). The Law affixes a penalty to sin, but does not provide the way to escape from it; thus those who are under the Law are under a curse, which is removed by the gospel (Gal 3:10 ff.). In another passage St. Paul draws an allegory from the story of Moses veil, put on his face that the people might not see the glory passing away from it. For the Lawgiver veiled himself, not because they could not bear to look on his face, but because he knew that the Law was transitory, and wished to hide the fact from the people. This seems to be the Apostle’s meaning in 2Co 3:13 ff. (see Thackeray, op. cit. p. 75).
In teaching free forgiveness St. Paul does not teach lawlessness (Rom 6:1 f.; see Rom 6:8). But it was perhaps a distorted account of his early teaching that caused St. James to write the famous passage on works which occurs in his Epistle (Jas 2:14 ff.). There is no real contradiction between the two Apostles; as so often in religious controversy, an apparent difference comes from words being used in diverse senses. St. James speaks of an empty faith which does not produce a holy life, that is, which is no real faith at all; while St. Paul speaks of barren works that are a mere mechanical obedience to the Law, as opposed to a faith which necessarily produces active obedience to the commands of the Master.
8. Sanctification and Sacraments.—As has been said, St. Paul dwells on the necessity, not only of forgiveness, but of holiness. The two are inextricably interwoven. We must ‘become the righteousness of God’ (2Co 5:21) and be ‘conformed to the image of his Son’ (Rom 8:29) as the Son is the image of the Father (see above, 3). Sanctification is described as an implanting in the Christian of the life of Christ (Gal 2:20), for the risen life must begin in a very real sense here below if it is to be perfected hereafter (Col 3:1). By a slightly different figure we are said in Rom 6:5 (see RV
Again, of this union with Christ St. Paul makes the Eucharist at once a symbol and an instrument. That Sacrament is not only a union of Christians among themselves (‘one bread, one body’), but also a ‘participation in’ or ‘communion of’ the body and blood of Christ (1Co 10:16 f.). It is this feature of the Sacrament that made the Corinthian abuses so heinous, and that makes an unworthy reception by the communicant so serious, ‘if he discern not the body’ (1Co 11:23-32).
This union with Christ cannot be effected by man’s own unaided power, but requires grace. It is impossible here to describe all the shades of meaning which St. Paul gives to this word. But we may say in brief that it is God’s good favour towards us, not only as a Divine attribute, but as actively operating and as freely given to man through the Incarnation (Rom 5:21, 1Co 1:4). Hence it is the ‘grace of Jesus Christ’ (2Co 8:9; 2Co 13:14). It is at once God’s good favour towards us and the active help or power which God gives to man to enable him to overcome (Eph 4:7), and is ‘sufficient’ for him (2Co 12:9). Emphasis is laid on the fact that grace is not earned, and it is opposed to a ‘debt’ (Rom 4:4) and to meritorious deeds (‘works,’ Rom 11:5). The word is especially used in connexion with the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, of the help given both to the evangelizer (1Co 3:10 etc.) and to the evangelized (2Co 6:1, Act 13:43 etc.). But in St. Paul the use of it is somewhat more fluid than in Latin theological language, in which ‘Divine help’ became the crystallized sense.
9. The Catholic Church and Universality of the Gospel.—The large subject of the Church can here be referred to only very briefly. St. Paul maintains in Rom. and Gal. the universality of the Church, a society for all the world, which need not be entered through Judaism. Christ has broken down the wall between Jew and Gentile (Eph 2:14; Eph 3:5). His Church is a visible society (Eph 4:11 f.); one (1Co 10:17; 1Co 12:13) because God is one (Eph 4:4 ff.); holy because all Christians are called to be saints (1Co 1:2), and it is ‘cleansed by the laver of water with the word’ (Eph 5:26), though it contains some wicked men (cf. 1Co 5:1-13); catholic, because for every man (Col 1:28: there is no ‘inner circle’ of the initiated), and for all nations and ages, and containing all truth (Gal 3:28 etc., 1Ti 3:15, 2Ti 2:15; cf. Joh 16:13: the name itself is not found before Ignatius); and apostolic (Eph 2:20). The last thought is the same as that of Joh 20:21, for Christians are not a self-constituted body, but are ‘sent’ by God; that is, they are ‘apostolic’ St. Paul describes the Church under various metaphors. It is the body of Christ (1Co 12:27, Eph 4:12; Eph 5:30, Col 1:18; Col 1:24) because its members are united to Christ (see 8 above), and Christ is its head (Eph 1:22 f.); the idea is led up to by Rom 12:5 (‘one body in Christ’), 1Co 12:12 (‘the body is one’). Also the Church is the bride of Christ; the title is implied in Eph 5:25 ff. (cf. Rev 21:2). It is the house of God (1Ti 3:15), a common metaphor which still gives us the double meaning of ‘church’ and the phrase ‘to be edified’ (Rom 15:2 etc.); the building, foundation, and corner-stone are described in Eph 2:20 ff., where ‘each several building’ of RV
In this Church St. Paul describes a regular ministry; Apostles like himself; apostolic delegates such as Timothy and Titus, whose work, like that of the Apostles, was mainly itinerant; settled or local officers, called bishops (overseers) and deacons (ministers) at Philippi (Php 1:1) and in the Pastoral Epistles (no deacons are mentioned in Tit.). Presbyters (elders) are also mentioned in the Pastoral Epistles (cf. also Act 11:30; Act 15:2 ff; Act 16:4; Act 21:18 for those at Jerusalem, Act 14:23; Act 20:17 for those elsewhere); and the identity of these with ‘bishops’ in the Apostolic age seems to be shown by a comparison of these pairs of passages: Act 20:17; Act 20:28, 1Ti 3:1; 1Ti 5:1, Tit 1:5; Tit 1:7, 1Pe 5:1-2, though this inference is denied by some. The appointment is by laying on of hands (1Ti 5:22; cf. Act 6:6). Timothy is said to have been ordained ‘with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery’ (1Ti 4:14; probably the body of presbyters is intended), and ‘through the laying on’ of St. Paul’s hands (2Ti 1:6). Nothing is said in the Pauline Epistles of the method of choosing ministers (see Act 6:5 f.).—In 1Co 12:28 St. Paul seems to enumerate not so much names of officials as various works done by the ministry (Apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healings, helps, governments, tongues); so in Eph 4:11 (Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers—the last two denote the same persons). In any case the regular ministry did not exclude the existence side by side with it of a ‘charismatic’ ministry, gifts of prophecy, tongues, healings, and other miracles being exercised by many outside the official ministry (Rom 12:3 ff., 1Co 12:1-31; 1Co 13:1-13; 1Co 14:1-40; see also art. Tongues [Gift of]).
The power of exercising discipline in the Church is recognized by St. Paul in 1Co 5:6, 1Ti 1:20, though the exact force of the phrase ‘to deliver unto Satan’ is uncertain. It may denote either simple excommunication or the miraculous infliction of some punishment; but the former seems to be the more probable explanation.
10. Eschatology.—As St. Paul makes the Resurrection of our Lord the foundation of his teaching, so he insists on the resurrection of the body at the Last Day as a cardinal truth. But in the Epistles he does not always deal with the same side of eschatological doctrine. (a) In the earliest of his extant Epistles (1Th 4:13 ff.) his language is so deeply coloured by his expectation of the Immediate return of our Lord, that he says nothing of the time between death and the Judgment, but thinks only of Jesus coming with His saints (1Th 3:13), at the sound of the trump (1Th 4:16; cf. also 1Co 15:52, 2Es 6:23), to awaken the sleeping dead (cf. 1Co 15:20; 1Co 15:51)—all common Jewish figures; for the phrase ‘we that are left’ cf. 2Es 7:28; 2Es 13:24; 2Es 13:26. Perhaps the supposed nearness of the Second Advent is reflected in Maran atha, ‘The Lord cometh’ (1Co 16:22), but the phrase may mean ‘The Lord hath come.’ Lest misapprehension of his language should arise, St. Paul adds in 2Th 2:3 ff. the caution that the ‘man of sin’ must first come, and persecution must arise (so 1Co 7:26 if we translate ‘the imminent distress’). The idea of trouble before the End is common in the Jewish apocalypses. The one thing certain is that the Coming will be unexpected (1Th 5:2).—(b) In these earliest Epistles nothing is said of the transformation of the body. But in 1Co 15:35 ff. this is insisted on (so Php 3:21; cf. Rom 8:23). As the Resurrection of Christ is an assured fact, so that of all men is certain (1Co 15:12 ff.); the resurrection body is at once the same and not the same as the terrestrial body; there is an identity, and yet a change. The resurrection body is a spiritual body, the necessary result of the terrestrial body, just as a particular seed must result in a particular plant, and yet the seed is changed to become the plant (cf. our Lord’s similar metaphor in Joh 12:24). In the Apocalypse of Baruch (1st cent. a.d.) there is the thought of the transformation, but as taking place after the Judgment; the dead in this book rise as they were, in order that they may be recognized (cf. also 4Ma 9:22 ‘as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings’). St. Paul says that this transformation is necessary, because in our present state we cannot see God; for this seems to be the meaning of the saying that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (1Co 15:50, cf. also Php 3:21). In this discussion St. Paul does not speak of the resurrection of the wicked; but elsewhere he re-echoes the teaching of Dan 12:2 that the righteous and the evil rise together for judgment (Act 24:15, Rom 2:5 ff; Rom 14:10-12, 2Co 5:10). It is therefore not probable that in 1Co 15:28 f. a resurrection first of the righteous, and then, after an interval, of the wicked, is intended; the righteous alone are here considered, and they rise at Christ’s coming, and ‘then’ (at Christ’s coming) is the end. Those who see in this passage a millennium, and an interval between the rising of the good and of the wicked, are influenced greatly by Rev 20:4-6; but the ‘thousand years’ there seems to be a symbolical phrase for the interval between the first Advent and the last conflict, in which the baptized share in Christ’s resurrection (cf. Col 3:1, a paradox of obvious meaning). See Swete’s Apocalypse of St. John, p. 260 ff.—(c) In yet another passage, 2Co 4:16 to 2Co 5:10, the Apostle looks only at the state of the departed immediately after death. Here the metaphor of sleep is dropped, and the nearness to Christ of the faithful dead is dwelt on; they are ‘with Christ,’ whereas in 1Th 4:1-18 ‘we that are left’ shall meet the Lord only at the sound of the trump at the Last Day, and the ‘dead in Christ’ will meet Him at the same time. An excessive literalism has suggested to some that St. Paul changed his mind about the resurrection of the body and gave up the belief in it in favour of a belief in the immortality of the soul only, perhaps under the influence of Alexandrian theology (Wis 9:15 is cited as showing that the latter had no doctrine of the resurrection of the body.) But this supposition, which is very unlikely in itself when we consider the short interval between the two Corinthian Epistles, is decisively negatived by Php 3:21. In 2Ti 4:8, written in daily expectation of imminent death, he yet looks beyond the intermediate state to the Day of Judgment, ‘that day,’ ‘the day of the Lord,’ when he shall receive the crown of righteousness.
11. Marriage and virginity.—St. Paul writes no treatise on marriage, but he often alludes to it. Both Jews and Gentiles had been accustomed to divorce being easily obtained. But St. Paul says that a Christian woman is to be bound to her husband for life, though a widow may marry again (Rom 7:1 ff.). Marriage is not to be forbidden (1Ti 4:3; cf. 1Co 9:6). In 1Co 7:1-40, according to the usual interpretation, the Corinthians having asked whether among Christians marriage should be discouraged, St. Paul answers that marriage is permissible for all, though the unmarried state is the better one because of the present (or imminent) distress (1Co 7:26); the thought is of the nearness of Christ’s coming, and of the persecutions which would precede it. But Ramsay thinks that such a question is not to be expected from either Jews or Gentiles of that time, seeing that the Jews for many ages had looked on marriage as a universal duty, and that the Roman law greatly encouraged it; he supposes, therefore, that the Corinthians had asked whether marriage ought to be made obligatory for Christians, and that St. Paul pleaded for a permissible celibacy.—In Eph 5:22 ff. the Apostle emphatically treats marriage as holy, symbolizing the union between Christ and His Church.
In 1Ti 3:2; 1Ti 3:12, Tit 1:6 a bishop (presbyter) or deacon must be ‘the husband of one wife.’ This need not necessarily imply compulsory marriage for the clergy. It has, however, been variously interpreted as forbidding (a) bigamy—but that was forbidden to all Christians; or (b) digamy, i.e. marrying again after the death of the first wife, as in a later ecclesiastical discipline; or (c) divorce: i.e. the bishop must be one who, in his pre-Christian days, had not divorced his wife and taken another. [The last two explanations are not exclusive.] So in 1Ti 5:2 a ‘widow’ on the roll must have been ‘the wife of one man.’
iv. Predecessors and Teachers.—In the Apostle of the Gentiles all will recognize one of the most original of thinkers; but originality does not necessarily mean having no predecessors in one’s line of thought. It lies rather in new organization and arrangement, in the employment of old terminology in a higher and wider sense, or in the re-construction of old material so as to make a nobler whole. Again, the fact that the Christian Church believes that St. Paul was an inspired Apostle does not preclude the idea of human preparation for his life-work. And he undoubtedly gleaned from many fields.
1. Jewish official teachers.—St. Paul had been a pupil of Gamaliel in Jerusalem (Act 22:3). This Rabbi, whom we may take to be the famous grandson of Hillel (Act 5:34 ff.), was of that liberal school of the Pharisees which encouraged the study of Greek literature. It has been objected by Baur that the statement in Act 22:8 cannot be historical, because Paul before his conversion was such a zealot, so blindly bigoted, so unlike Gamaliel. But pupils do not always follow their masters, and we cannot doubt that in God’s providence Gamaliel’s moderation had its influence on the Apostle in the end, and eventually contributed much to his well-balanced character.
2. Influence of popular Jewish writings.—The Jewish apocalypses have greatly influenced St. Paul (for examples see § iii.); the Alexandrian writings not so much. But the Book of Wisdom is clearly used in the descriptions of heathen corruption in Rom 1:18-32, and of the power of the Creator in Rom 9:19 ff., The influence of contemporary Jewish thought is also seen in St. Paul’s method of treating the OT. His running commentaries (Rom 10:5 ff., Gal 4:22 ff., Eph 4:7 ff.), the making of a cento of OT passages to prove a point, thought to be due to the use of a Jewish anthology (Rom 3:10 ff., 2Co 6:15 ff.), his mystical interpretations of OT such as those of 1Ti 5:18, 1Co 9:9 f. (‘for our sake it was written’; cf. Rom 15:4, 2Ti 3:13, 2Pe 1:20 f.), 1Co 10:1 ff. (the passage of the Red Sea a ‘Baptism,’ the manna and the water from the rock an ‘Eucharist’), Gal 4:21 ff. (Hagar, note Gal 4:24), are all thoroughly Jewish; and so is the adoption by the Apostle, for purposes of illustration, of some legendary stories added by the Jews to the OT, such as the references to the Rock which was said to have followed the Israelites in the wilderness (1Co 10:4), the persecution of Isaac by Ishmael (Gal 4:29), and Jannes and Jambres (2Ti 3:8 f.). For these and some other possible instances of the use of legends see Thackeray, op. cit. pp. 180, 204, 50, 159 ff.
3. Greek philosophy.—This influence, to be expected in a pupil of Gamaliel, is certainly noticeable in St. Paul’s speeches and writings. Stoicism especially seems to have left a mark on them. Here we may remark on the undoubted connexion which exists between St. Paul and the Stoic philosopher Seneca (see Lightfoot’s essay in his Philippians, p. 270 ff.). Seneca’s writings have very numerous coincidences with the Pauline Epistles, with the Gospels, and even with the other books of NT. He and the Apostle were contemporaries. Could either have influenced the other? There are difficulties in the way of supposing that Seneca was influenced by NT. Chronology forbids us to think that he knew the Johannine writings or Hebrews, as he died in Nero’s reign; yet he has many coincidences with these books also. Again, Seneca quotes many of the phrases common to him and NT from older writers; these, then, are not due to NT. Further, the coincidences are often verbal rather than real; the sense is often quite dissimilar, the Stoic pantheism and materialism and the absence in that philosophy of any real consciousness of sin making an absolute separation from Christianity. Yet many striking coincidences remain,—more between NT and Seneca than between NT and Epictetus or any other Stoic writer. Thus we are surprised to find that the phrase ‘to spend and be spent’ (2Co 12:15) is common to St. Paul and Seneca; and this is only one out of many parallels. The connexion, however, is probably not between the two writers directly; nor yet (as has been suggested) through Seneca’s brother Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia, who was the last person likely to have been interested in St. Paul’s doctrine (Act 18:17). But probably the Apostle, educated partly at Tarsus, a great Stoic centre, imbibed in his youth many Stoic phrases which we find repeated in the Hispano-Latin Seneca, who derived his Stoicism from the East. If so, we notice that St. Paul often assigned quite a new and a much higher meaning to these phrases. In the same way St. John drew on Alexandrian Judaism for the word Logos, but assigned to it a higher sense than it ever had before. The influence of Stoic philosophy on St. Paul may be seen in the speech at Athens (where many Stoics were present), containing as it does a quotation from the Stoic Aratus (Act 17:28; also found in the Stoic Cleanthes). An example of a striking word which comes into Christianity from Stoicism is ‘conscience.’—We are not here concerned with the coincidences mentioned above between Seneca and the other NT writers; but the explanation in their case is probably similar to that just given.
4. Influence of the Roman Empire.—It has already been remarked (Act 2:3) that St. Paul was greatly influenced by his position as a Roman citizen, to which he owed his great plan of evangelization. The same thing may be incidentally seen from the allusions to the law of the Empire in the special form in which it was in force in the particular province to which he was writing. The Greek law was left in possession by the Romans in those provinces where it had formerly been in force. Accordingly in Gal 3:15 the reference is to the form of testamentary disposition known to the Greek (and to the older but obsolete Roman) law, the irrevocable will. In Gal 4:1 ff. the adoption of an heir, like the making of a will, is irrevocable, the adopted heir becoming necessarily a son, and the terms ‘heir’ and ‘son’ becoming interchangeable. In the existing Roman law wills were revocable and heirs could be disinherited; accordingly, writing to Rome (Rom 8:15 ff.), St. Paul puts the truth of which he had written to the Galatians in a different way. Heirship is now deduced from sonship, whereas in Galatians sonship is deduced from heirship; for at Rome a son must be an heir, but an heir need not be a son (cf. Heb 9:15 ff. which presupposes Roman law and the revocability of a will).—So in Gal 3:24, 1Co 4:15 the ‘pedagogue’ or ‘tutor’ (not ‘schoolmaster’) is a reference to a Greek institution adopted by the Romans; this person was the guardian of the child, often one of the upper slaves, who took him to school. The guardian of the child’s property (Gal 4:2) was a different person. On the whole subject see Ramsay, Galatians, pp. 337–393.
5. Christian teachers.—In Gal. St. Paul insists so much on his Apostleship being Divine, not only in its source but in the channel by which it is conveyed (esp. Act 1:1), and on his not having received anything from the Twelve (Act 2:8), that at first sight it seems as if he describes himself as having become a fully instructed Christian in a moment, on his conversion. Yet he must have learned much from Christians both before and after that great change. He was clearly much influenced by Stephen, with whom he had perhaps had arguments (Act 6:9; note ‘Cilicia,’ Paul’s province). After his conversion he must have learned the facts of Christianity from Christian teachers such as Ananias at Damascus, and the prophets and teachers (especially Barnabas) at Antioch (Act 13:1), and no doubt also at Tarsus. Of this instruction there are some traces in the Pauline Epistles; the facts of the Last Supper, though ‘received of the Lord’ (1Co 11:23), must have come by a human channel; and so the account of the Resurrection appearances (1Co 15:3). On the other band, St. Paul ascribes to direct revelation from God his knowledge of the spiritual meaning of the facts (Gal 1:12); his visions are frequently referred to (Act 9:3 ff; Act 16:6 f., Act 16:9, Act 18:9, Act 22:3 ff., Act 22:17, Act 23:9; Act 23:11, Act 26:13 ff., 1Co 9:1; 1Co 15:8, 2Co 12:1 ff., Gal 2:2, Eph 3:3); he was directly ‘taught of God.’
In such ways was St. Paul prepared for his work. His education was manifold. Partly the Jew, partly the Greek, partly the Roman citizen, but wholly the Christian, he went forth equipped for his many labours as the Apostle of the Gentiles.
A. J. Maclean.
I. Sources
1. The Acts
2. The Thirteen Epistles
(1) Pauline Authorship
(2) Lightfoot’s Grouping
(a) First Group (1 and 2 Thessalonians)
(b) Second Group (1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans)
(c) Third Group-(Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians)
(d) Fourth Group (1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy)
(3) Paul’s Conception of His Epistles
(4) Development in Paul’s Epistles
II. MODERN THEORIES ABOUT PAUL
1. Criticism Not Infallible
2. The Tubingen Theory
3. Protest against Baur’s View
4. Successors to Baur
5. Appeal to Comparative Religion
6. The Eschatological Interpretation
III. CHRONOLOGY OF PAUL’S CAREER
1. Schemes
2. Crucial Points
(1) The Death of Stephen
(2) The Flight from Damascus
(3) The Death of Herod Agrippa I
(4) The First Mission Tour
(5) The First Visit to Corinth
(6) Paul at Troas according to Acts 20:6 f
(7) Festus Succeeding Felix
IV. EQUIPMENT
1. The City of Tarsus
2. Roman Citizenship
3. Hellenism
4. The Mystery-Religions
5. Judaism
6. Personal Characteristics
(1) Personal Appearance
(2) Natural Endowments
(3) Supernatural Gifts
7. Conversion
(1) Preparation
(2) Experience
(3) Effect on Paul
V. WORK
1. Adjustment
2. Opposition
3. Waiting
4. Opportunity
5. The First Great Mission Campaign
6. The Conflict at Jerusalem
7. The Second Mission Campaign
8. The Third Mission Campaign
9. Five Years a Prisoner
10. Further Travels
11. Last Imprisonment and Death
VI. GOSPEL
LITERATURE
I. Sources.
1. The Acts:
For discussion of the historical value of the Acts of the Apostles see the article on that subject. It is only necessary to say here that the view of Sir W.M. Ramsay in general is accepted as to the trustworthiness of Luke, whose authorship of the Acts is accepted and proved by Harnack (Die Apostelgeschichte, 1908; The Acts of the Apostles, translation by Wilkinson, 1909; Neue Untersuch. zur Ap., 1911; The Date of the Acts and of the Synoptic Gospels, translations by Wilkinson, 1911). The proof need not be given again. The same hand appears in the “we” sections and the rest of the book. Even Moffatt (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 311) admits the Lukan authorship though dating it in 100 AD instead of 60-62 AD, against Harnack. The Acts is written independently of the Epistles of Paul, whether early or late, and supplements in a wonderful way the incidental references in the epistles, though not without lacunae and difficulties.
2. The Thirteen Epistles:
(1) Pauline Authorship.
See the articles on each epistle for detailed criticism. It is here assumed that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul, though Pauline in point of view. One cannot stop to prove every statement in an article like this, else a large book would be needed. Criticism is not an infallible science. One can turn easily from the Hatch-Van Manen article on “Paul” in Encyclopedia Biblica (1902) to the Maclean article on “Paul the Apostle” in the 1-vol HDB (1909). Van-Manen’s part of the one denies all the thirteen, while Maclean says: “We shall, in what follows, without hesitation use the thirteen epistles as genuine.” It is certain that Paul wrote more epistles, or “letters,” as Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, 225) insists on calling all of Paul’s epistles. Certainly Philera is a mere “letter,” but it is difficult to say as much about Romans. Deissmann (St. Paul, 22) admits that portions of Romans are like “an epistolary letter.” At any rate, when Moffatt (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 64-82) carefully justifies the Pauline authorship of both 1 and 2 Thessalonians, it is clear that the case against them cannot be very strong, especially as Moffatt stands out against the genuineness of Ephesians (op. cit., 393) and the Pastoral Epistles (p. 414).
Bartlet, who was once at a loss to know what to do with the Pastorals on theory that Paul was not released from the Roman imprisonment (Apostolic Age, 1899, 200), is now quite willing to face the new facts set forth by Ramsay (Expos, VII, viii-ix, VIII, i), even if it means the admission of a second Roman imprisonment, a view that Bartlet had opposed. He now pleads for “the fresh approach from the side of experience, by men who are in touch with the realities of human nature in all its variety, as well as at home in the historical background of society in the early Roman empire, that has renovated the study of them and taken it out of the old ruts of criticism in which it has moved for the most part in modern times” (Expos, January, 1913, 29). Here Bartlet, again, now eloquently presents the view of common-sense criticism as seen by the practical missionary better than by a life “spent amid the academic associations of a professor’s chair,” though he pauses to note as an exception Professor P. Gardner’s The Religious Experience of Paul (1912). We may quote Bartlet once more (Expos, January, 1913, 30): “In the recovery of a true point of view a vital element has been the newer conception of Paul himself and so of Paulinism. Paul the doctrinaire theologian, or at least the prophet of a one-sided gospel repeated with fanatical uniformity of emphasis under all conditions, has largely given place to Paul the missionary, full indeed of inspired insight on the basis of a unique experience, but also of practical instinct, the offspring of sympathy with living men of other types of training. When the Pastorals are viewed anew in the light of this idea, half their difficulties disappear.” One need not adopt Deissmann’s rather artificial insistence on “letters” rather than “epistles,” and his undue depreciation of Paul’s intellectual caliber and culture as being more like Amos than Origen (St. Paul, 1912, 6), in order to see the force of this contention for proper understanding of the social environment of Paul. Against Van Manen’s “historical Paul” who wrote nothing, he places “the historic Paul” who possibly wrote all thirteen. “There is really no trouble except with the letters to Timothy and Titus, and even there the difficulties are perhaps not quite so great as many of our specialists assume” (St. Paul, 15). See PASTORAL EPISTLES. Deissmann denies sharply that Paul was an “obscurantist” who corrupted the gospel of Jesus, “the dregs of doctrinaire study of Paul, mostly in the tired brains-of gifted amateurs” (p. 4). But A. Schweitzer boldly proclaims that he alone has the key to Paul and Jesus. It is the “exclusively Jewish eschatological” (Paul and His Interpreters, 1912, ix), conception of Christ’s gospel that furnishes Schweitzer’s spring-board (The Quest of the Historical Jesus). Thus he will be able to explain “the Hellenization of the gospel” as mediated through Paul. To do that Schweitzer plows his weary way from Grotius to Holtzmann, and finds that they have all wandered into the wilderness. He is positive that his eschatological discovery will rescue Paul and some of his epistles from the ruin wrought by Steck and Van Manen to whose arguments modern criticism has nothing solid to offer, and the meager negative crumbs offered by Schweitzer ought to be thankfully received (ibid, 249).
(2) Lightfoot’s Grouping.
(Compare Biblical Essays, 224.) There is doubt as to the position of Galatians. Some advocates of the South-Galatian theory make it the very earliest of Paul’s Epistles, even before the Jerusalem Conference in Acts 15. So Eramet, Commentary on Galatians (1912), ix, who notes (Preface) that his commentary is the first to take this position. But the North Galatian view still has the weight of authority in spite of Ramsay’s powerful advocacy in his various books (see Historical Commentary on Galatians), as is shown by Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 90 ff. Hence, Lightfoot’s grouping is still the best to use.
(a) First Group (1 and 2 Thessalonians):
1 and 2 Thessalonians, from Corinth, 52-53 AD. Harnack’s view that 2 Thessalonians is addressed to a Jewish Christian church in Thessalonica while 1 Thessalonians is addressed to a Gentilechurch is accepted by Lake (Earlier Epistles of Paul, 1911, 83 ff) but Frame (ICC, 1912, 54) sees no need for this hypothesis. Milligan is clear that 1 Thessalonians precedes 2 Thessalonians (Commentary, 1908, xxxix) and is the earliest of Paul’s Epistles (p. xxxvi). The accent on eschatology is in accord with the position of the early disciples in the opening chapters of Acts. They belong to Paul’s stay in Corinth recorded in Acts 18.
(b) Second Group (1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans):
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, 55-58 AD. This is the great doctrinal group, the four chief epistles of Baur. They turn about the Judaizing controversy which furnishes the occasion for the expansion of the doctrine of justification by faith in opposition to the legalistic contention of the Judaizing Christians from Jerusalem (Act 15:1-3; Gal 2:1-10). The dates of these epistles are not perfectly clear. 1 Corinthians was written shortly before the close of Paul’s 3 years’ stay at Ephesus (Act 20:31; 1Co 16:8; Act 20:1 f). 2 Corinthians was written a few months later while he was in Macedonia (2Co 2:13; 2Co 7:5, 2Co 7:13; 2Co 8:16-24). Romans was written from Corinth (Rom 16:23; Act 20:2 f) and sent by Phoebe of Cenchrea (Rom 16:1). The integrity of Romans is challenged by some who deny in particular that chapter 16 belongs to the epistle Moffatt (Intro, 134-38) gives an able, but unconvincing, presentation of the arguments for the addition of the chapter by a later hand. Deissmann (St. Paul, 19) calls Rom 16 “a little letter” addressed to the Christians at Ephesus. Von. Soden (History of Early Christian Literature, 78) easily justifies the presence of Rom 16 in the Epistle to the Romans: “These greetings, moreover, were certainly intended by Paul to create bonds of fellowship between the Pauline Christians and the Roman community, and to show that he had not written to them quite exclusively in his own name.” A common-sense explanation of Paul’s personal ties in Rome is the fact that as the center of the world’s life the city drew people thither from all parts of the earth. So, today many a man has friends in New York or London who has never been to either city. A much more serious controversy rages as to the integrity of 2 Corinthians. Semler took 2 Cor 10 through 13 to be a separate and later ep., because of its difference in tone from 2 Cor 1 through 9, but Hausrath put it earlier than chapters 1 through 9, and made it the letter referred to in 2Co 2:4. He has been followed by many scholars like Schmiedel, Cone, McGiffert, Bacon, Moffatt, Kennedy, Rendall, Peake, Plummer. Von Soden (History of Early Christian Literature, 50) accepts the partition-theory of 2 Corinthians heartily: “It may be shown with the highest degree of probability that this letter has come down to us in 2 Cor 10:1 through 13:10.” But the unity of the epistle on theory that the change in tone is a climax to the disobedient element of the church is still maintained with force and justice by Klopper, Zahn, Bachmann, Denhey, Bernard, A. Robertson, Weiss, Menzies. The place of the writing of Galatians turns on its date. Lightfoot (in loc.) argues for Corinth, since it was probably written shortly before Romans. But Moffatt (Introduction, 102) holds tentatively to Ephesus, soon after Paul’s arrival there from Galatia. So he gives the order: Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans. In so much doubt it is well to follow Lightfoot’s logical argument. Galatians leads naturally to Romans, the one hot and passionate, the other calm and contemplative, but both on the same general theme.
(c) Third group (Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians):
Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians. Date 61-63, unless Paul reached Rome several years earlier. This matter depends on the date of the coming of Festus to succeed Felix (Act 24:27). It was once thought to be 60 AD beyond any doubt, but the whole matter is now uncertain. See “Chronology,” III, 2, (2), below. At any rate these four epistles were written during the first Roman imprisonment, assuming that he was set free.
But it must be noted that quite a respectable group of scholars hold that one or all of these epistles were written from Caesarea (Schultz, Thiersch, Meyer, Hausrath, Sabatier, Reuss, Weiss, Haupt, Spitta, McPherson, Hicks). But the arguments are more specious than convincing. See Hort, Romans and Ephesians, 101-10. There is a growing opinion that Philemon, Colossians and Ephesians were written from Ephesus during a possible imprisonment in Paul’s stay of 3 years there. So Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, 229; Paul, 16); Lisco (Vincula Sanctorum, 1900); M. Albertz (Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1910, 551 ff); B. W. Bacon (Journal of Biblical Lit., 1910, 181 ff). The strongest argument for this position is that Paul apparently did not know personally the readers of Eph (Eph 1:15); compare also Col 1:4. But this objection need not apply if the so-called Ephesian Epistle was a circular letter and if Paul did not visit Colosse and Laodicea during his 3 years at Ephesus. The theory is more attractive at first than on reflection. It throws this group before Romans - a difficult view to concede.
But even so, the order of these epistles is by no means certain. It is clear that Philemon, Colossians and Ephesians were sent together. Tychicus was the bearer of Colossians (Col 4:7 f) and Ephesians (Eph 6:21 f). Onesimus carried the letter to Philemon (Phm 1:10, Phm 1:13) and was also the companion of Tychicus to Colosse (Col 4:9). So these three epistles went together from Rome. It is commonly assumed that Phil was the last of the group of four, and hence later than the other three, because Paul is balancing life and death (Php 1:21 ff) and is expecting to be set free (Php 1:25), but he has the same expectation of freedom when he writes Philemon (Phm 1:22). The absence of Luke (Php 2:20) has to be explained on either hypothesis. Moffatt (Introduction, 159) is dogmatic, “as Philippians was certainly the last letter that he wrote,” ruling out of court Ephesians, not to say the later Pastoral Epistles. But this conclusion gives Moffatt trouble with the Epistle to the Laodiceans (Col 4:16) which he can only call “the enigmatic reference” and cannot follow Rutherford (St. Paul’s Epistles to Colosse and Laodicea, 1908) in identifying the Laodicean Epistle with Ephesians, as indeed Marcion seems to have done. But the notion that Ephesians was a circular letter designed for more than one church (hence, without personalities) still holds the bulk of modern opinion.
Von Soden (History of Early Christian Literature, 294) is as dogmatic as Wrede or Van Manen: “All which has hitherto been said concerning this epistle, its form, its content, its ideas, its presuppositions, absolutely excludes the possibility of a Pauline authorship.” He admits “verbal echoes of Pauline epistles”
Lightfoot puts Philippians before the other three because of its doctrinal affinity with the second group in chapter 3 as a reminiscence, and because of its anticipation of the Christological controversy with incipient Gnosticism in chapter 2. This great discussion is central in Colossians and Ephesians. At any rate, we have thus a consistent and coherent interpretation of the group. Philemon, though purely personal, is wondrously vital as a sociological document. Paul is in this group at the height of his powers in his grasp of the Person of Christ.
(d) Fourth Group (1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy):
1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy. The Pastoral Epistles are still hotly disputed, but there is a growing willingness in Britain and Germany to make a place for them in Paul’s life. Von Soden bluntly says: “It is impossible that these epistles as they stand can have been written by Paul” (History of Early Christian Literature, 310). He finds no room for the heresy here combated, or for the details in Paul’s life, or for the linguistic peculiarities in Paul’s style. But he sees a “literary nicety” - this group that binds them together and separates them from Paul. Thus tersely he puts the case against the Pauline authorship. So Moffatt argues for the “sub-Pauline environment” and “sub-Pauline atmosphere” of these epistles with the advanced ecclesiasticism (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 410 ff). Wrede thrusts aside the personal details and argues that the epistles give merely the tendency of early Christianity (Ueber Aufgabe und Metbode der Sogen. New Testament Theologie, 1897, 357). The Hatch-Van Manen article in Encyclopedia Biblica admits only that “the Pastoral Epistles occupy themselves chiefly with the various affairs of the churches within ’Pauline circles.’ “
Moffatt has a vigorous attack on these letters in EB, but he “almost entirely ignores the external evidence, while he has nothing to say to the remarkable internal evidence which immediately demands our attention” (Knowling, Testimony of Paul to Christ, 3rd edition, 1911, 129). Moffatt (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 414) holds that the Pastoral Epistles came from one pen, but the personality and motives are very vague to him. The personal details in 2Ti 1:14-18; 2Ti 4:9-22 are not on a paragraph with those in The Acts of Paul and Thekla in the 2nd century. Many critics who reject the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles admit the personal details in 2 Timothy, but it is just in such matters that forgeries are recognizable. To admit these fragments is logically to admit the whole (Maclean in 1-vol HDB), as Moffatt sees (Intro, 414), however much he seeks to tone down the use of Paul’s name as “a Christian form of
(3) Paul’s Conception of His Epistles
Assuming, therefore, the Pauline authorship of the thirteen epistles, we may note that they, reveal in a remarkable way the growth in Paul’s apprehension of Christ and Christianity, his adaptation to varied situations, his grasp of world-problems and the eternal values of life. Paul wrote other epistles, as we know. In 1Co 5:9 there is a clear reference to a letter not now known to us otherwise, earlier than 1 Corinthians. The use of “every epistle” in 2Th 3:17 naturally implies that Paul had written more than two already. It is not certain to what letter Paul refers in 2Co 2:4 - most probably to one between 1 and 2 Corinthians, though, as already shown, some scholars find that letter in 2 Cor 10 through 13. Once more Paul (Col 4:16) mentions an epistle addressed to the church at Laodicea. This epistle is almost certainly that which we know as Ephesians. If not, here is another lost epistle. Indeed, at least two apocryphal Epistles to the Laodiceans were written to supply this deficiency. As early as 2Th 2:2 forgers were at work to palm, off epistles in Paul’s name, “or by epistle as from us,” to attack and pervert Paul’s real views, whom Paul denounces. It was entirely possible that this “nefarious work” would be continued (Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament, 1907, 191), though, as Gregory argues, Paul’s exposure here would have a tendency to put a stop to it and to put Christians on their guard and to watch for Paul’s signature to the epistles as a mark of genuineness (2Th 3:17; 1Co 16:21; Gal 6:11; Col 4:18). This was all the more important since Paul evidently dictated his letters to amanuenses, as to Tertius in the case of Rom 16:22. In the case of Phm 1:19, Paul probably wrote the whole letter. We may be sure therefore that, if we had the other genuine letters of Paul, they would occupy the same general standpoint as the thirteen now in our possession. The point to note here is that the four groups of Paul’s Epistles fit into the historical background of the Acts as recorded by Luke, barring the fourth group which is later than the events in Acts. Each group meets a specific situation in a definite region or regions, with problems of vital interest. Paul attacks these various problems (theological, ecclesiastical, practical) with marvelous vigor, and applies the eternal principles of the gospel of Christ in such fashion as to furnish a norm for future workers for Christ. It is not necessary to say that he was conscious of that use. Deissmann (St. Paul, 12 f) is confident on this point: “That a portion of these confidential letters should be still extant after centuries, Paul cannot have intended, nor did it ever occur to him that they would be.” Be that as it may, and granted that Paul’s Epistles are “survivals, in the sense of the technical language employed by the historical method” (ibid., 12), still we must not forget that Paul attached a great deal of importance to his letters and urged obedience to the teachings which they contained: “I adjure you by the, Lord that this epistle be read unto all the brethren” (1Th 5:27). This command we find in the very first one preserved to us. Once more note 2Th 3:14: “And if any man obeyeth not our word by this ep., note that man, that ye have no company with him.” Evidently therefore Paul does not conceive his epistles as mere incidents in personal correspondence, but authoritative instructions for the Christians to whom they are addressed. In 1Co 7:17, “And so ordain I in all the churches,” he puts his epistolary commands on a paragraph with the words of Jesus quoted in the same chapter. Some indeed at Corinth (2Co 10:9 f) took his “letters” as an effort to “terrify” them, a thing that he was afraid to do in person. Paul (2Co 10:11) does not deny the authority of his letters, but claims equal courage when he comes in person (compare 2Co 13:2, 2Co 13:10). That Paul expected his letters to be used by more than the one church to which they were addressed is clear from Col 4:16: “And when this epistle hath been read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea.” If the letter to Laodicea is our Eph and a sort of circular letter (compare Galatians), that is clear. But it must be noted that Colossians, undoubtedly a specific letter to Colosse, is likewise to be passed on to Laodicea. It is not always observed that in 1Co 1:2, though the epistle is addressed “unto the church of God which is at Corinth,” Paul adds, “with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours.” Philemon is, of course, a personal letter, though it deals with a sociological problem of universal interest. The Pastoral Epistles are addressed to two young ministers and have many personal details, as is natural, but the epistles deal far more with the social aspects of church life and the heresies and vices that were threatening the very existence of Christianity in the Roman empire. Paul is eager that Timothy shall follow his teaching (2Ti 3:10 ff), and “the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2Ti 2:2). It is this larger view of the future of Christianity that concerns Paul very keenly. The very conception of his ministry to the Gentiles (Rom 15:16; Eph 3:7 ff) led Paul to feel that he had a right to speak to all, “both to Greeks and to Barbarians” (Rom 1:14), and hence, even to Rome (Rom 1:15 f). It is a mistake to limit Paul’s Epistles to the local and temporary sphere given them by Deissmann.
(4) Development in Paul’s Epistles
For Paul’s gospel or theology see later. Here we must stress the fact that all four groups of Paul’s Epistles are legitimate developments from his fundamental experience of grace as conditioned by his previous training and later work. He met each new problem with the same basal truth that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, revealed to Paul on the way to Damascus. The reality of this great experience must here be assumed (see discussion later). It may be admitted that the Acts does not stand upon the same plane as the Pauline Epistles as a witness concerning Paul’s conversion (Fletcher, The Conversion of Paul, 1910, 5). But even so, the Epistles amply confirm Luke’s report of the essential fact that Jesus appeared to Paul in the same sense that He did to the apostles and 500 Christians (1Co 15:4-9). The revelation of Christ to Paul and in Paul (
We cannot here trace in detail the growth of Paulinism. Let Wernle speak (Beginnings of Christianity, 1903, I, 224) for us: “The decisive factor in the genius of Paul’s theology was his personal experience, his conversion on the road to Damascus.” This fact reappears in each of the groups of the Epistles. It is the necessary implication in the apostolic authority claimed in 1Th 2:4-6; 2Th 2:15; 2Th 3:6, 2Th 3:14. “We might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ” (1Th 2:6). For the second group we need only refer to 1Co 9:1 f and 1Co 15:1-11, where Paul justifies his gospel by the fact of having seen the risen Jesus. His self-depreciation in 1Co 15:9 is amply balanced by the claims in 1Co 15:10. See also 2 Cor 10 through 13 and Galatians 1 and 2 for Paul’s formal defense of his apostolic authority. The pleasantry in Rom 15:14 does not displace the claim in Rom 15:16, Rom 15:23 f. In the third group note the great passage in Php 3:12-14, where Paul pointedly alludes to his conversion: “I was laid hold of by Jesus Christ,” as giving him the goal of his ambition, “that I may lay hold”; “I count not myself yet to have laid hold.” This concentration of effort to come up to Christ’s purpose in him is the key to Paul’s life and letters, “I press on toward the goal.” So the golden cord reappears in Eph 3:2-13: “How that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ.” In the fourth group he still recalls how Christ Jesus took pity on him, the blasphemer, the persecutor, the chief of sinners, and put him into the ministry, “that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his longsuffering, for an ensample of them that should thereafter believe on him unto eternal life” (1Ti 1:16). He kept up the fight to the end (2Ti 4:6 f), for the Lord Jesus stood by him (2Ti 4:17), as on the road to Damascus. So the personal note of experience links all the epistles together.They reveal Paul’s growing conception of Christ. Paul at the very start perceived that men are redeemed by faith in Jesus as the Saviour from sin through His atoning death, not by works of the Law (Act 13:38 f). In the first group there are allusions to the “work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Th 1:3). He speaks of “election” (1Th 1:4) and “our gospel” (1Th 1:5) and the resurrection of Jesus (1Th 1:10). The Father, Son and Spirit cooperate in the work of salvation (2Th 2:13 f), which includes election, belief, sanctification, glorification. It is not necessary to press the argument for the conception of salvation by faith in Christ, grace as opposed to works, in the second group. It is obviously present in the third and the fourth. We seem forced to the view therefore that Paul’s experience was revolutionary, not evolutionary. “If we consider the whole history of Paul as it is disclosed to us in his letters, are we not forced to the conclusion that his was a catastrophic or explosive, rather than a slowly progressive personality?” (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 1911, 32). “His gospel was included in his conversion, and it was meditation that made explicit what was thus implicit in his experience” (same place) . This is not to say that there was no “spiritual development of Paul” (Matheson, 1890). There was, and of the richest kind, but it was a growth of expression in the successive application of the fundamental Christian conception. The accent upon this or that phase of truth at different stages in Paul’s career does not necessarily mean that the truth is a new one to him. It may simply be that the occasion has arisen for emphasis and elaboration.
In a broad generalization the first group of the epistles is eschatological, the second soteriological, the third Christological, and the fourth pastoral (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 22). But one must not get the notion that Paul did not have a full gospel of salvation in the first group, and did not come to the true motive of the person of Christ as Lord till the second, or understand the pastoral office till the fourth. See emphasis on Paul’s work as pastor and preacher in 1 Thess 2 (first group), and the Lordship of Christ also (1Th 1:1, 1Th 1:3; 2Th 1:1; 2Th 2:13 f), on a paragraph with the Father.
There was a change of accent in each group on questions of eschatology, but in each one Paul cherishes the hope of the second coming of Christ up to the very end when he speaks of his own death (2Ti 4:8, 2Ti 4:18). Paul has a whole gospel of grace in all his epistles, but he presses home the special phase of truth needed at the moment, always with proper balance and modification, though not in the form of a system of doctrine. In the first group he relieves the minds of the Thessalonian Christians from the misapprehension into which they had fallen concerning his position on the immediate coming of Christ. In the second group Paul vindicates the gospel of grace from the legalistic addition of the Judaizers who sought to rob the Gentiles of their freedom by insisting that they become Jews as well as Christians. This ringing battle is echoed in Acts 15 and is the mightiest conflict of Paul’s career. We hear echoes of it in Phil 3, but he had won his contention. In the third group the battle with error has shifted to the province of Asia, especially the Lycus Valley, where a mystic mixture of Judaism (Essenism) and heathen mystery-religions and philosophies (incipient Gnosticism) was so rife in the 2nd century (the various forms of Gnosticism which combined with some aspects of Christianity). It is possible also that Mithraism was already a foe of Christianity. The central position and essential deity of Jesus Christ was challenged by these new and world-old heresies, and Paul attacks them with marvelous skill in Col and Eph and works out in detail his teaching concerning the person of Christ with due emphasis on the soteriological aspects of Christ’s work and on Christian life. Bruce (St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity) conceives that Paul gives us his entire conception of Christianity in the four great epistles of the second group, while B. Weiss (Biblical Theology of the New Testament) sees a more developed doctrine in the third group. He is in his prime in both groups. In the fourth group the same struggle lingers on with variations in Crete and even in Ephesus. The Jewish phase of the heresy is more decided (perhaps Pharisaic), and recalls to some extent the Judaistic controversy in the second group. Paul is older and faces the end, and Christianity has enemies within and without. He turns to young ministers as the hope of the future in the propagation of the gospel of the happy God. The fires have burned lower, and there is less passion and heat. The tone is now fierce, now tender. The style is broken and reminiscent and personal, though not with the rush of torrential emotion in 2 Corinthians, nor the power of logic in Galatians and Romans. Each epistle fits into its niche in the group. Each group falls into proper relation to the stage in Paul’s life and justly reveals the changes of thought and feeling in the great apostle. It is essential that one study Paul’s Epistles in their actual historical order if one wishes to understand the mind of Paul. Scholars are not agreed, to be sure on this point. They are not agreed on anything, for that matter. See two methods of presenting Paul’s Epistles in Robertson, Chronological New Testament (1904), and Moffatt, Historical New Testament (1901).
II. Modern Theories About Paul.
1. Criticism Not Infallible:
Findlay (HDB, “Paul”) utters a needed warning when he reminds us that the modern historical and psychological method of study is just as liable to prepossession and prejudice as the older categories of scholastic and dogmatic theology. “The focus of the picture may be displaced and its colors falsified by philosophical no less than by ecclesiastical spectacles” (same place). Deissmann (St. Paul, 4 f) sympathizes with this protest against the infallibility of modern subjective criticism: “That really and properly is the task of the modern student of Paul: to come back from the paper Paul of our western libraries, Germanized, dogmatised, modernized, to the historic Paul; to penetrate through the ’Paulinism’ of our New Testament theologies to the Paul of ancient reality.” He admits the thoroughness and the magnitude of the work accomplished in the 19th century concerning the literary questions connected with Paul’s letters, but it is a “doctrinaire interest” that “has gone farther and farther astray.” Deissmann conceives of Paul as a “hero of piety first and foremost,” not as a theologian. “As a religious genius Paul’s outlook is forward into a future of universal history.” In this position of Deissmann we see a return to the pre-Baur time. Deissmann would like to get past all the schools of criticism, back to Paul himself.
2. The Tubingen Theory:
Baur started the modern critical attitude by his Pastoralbriefe (1835, p. 79), in which he remarked that there were only four epistles of Paul (Galatians 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans) which could be accepted as genuine. In his Paulus (1845) he expounded this thesis. He also rejected the Acts. From the four great epistles and from the pseudo-Clementine literature of the 2nd century, Baur argued that Paul and Peter were bitter antagonists. Peter and the other apostles were held fast in the grip of the legalistic conception of Christianity, a sort of Christianized Pharisaism. Paul, when converted, had reacted violently against this view, and became the exponent of Gentile freedom. Christianity was divided into two factions, Jewish Christians (Petrinists) and Gentile Christians (Paulinists). With this “key” Baur ruled out the other Pauline epistles and Acts as spurious, because they did not show the bitterness of this controversy. He called them “tendency” writings, designed to cover up the strife and to show that peace reigned in the camp. This arbitrary theory cut a wide swath for 50 years, and became a fetich with many scholars, but it is now dead. “It has been seen that it is bad criticism to make a theory on insecure grounds, and then to reject all the literature which contradicts it” (Maclean in 1-vol HDB). Ramsay (The First Christian Century, 1911, 195) contends that the perpetuation of the Baur standpoint in Moffatt’s Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament is an anachronism: “We are no longer in the 19th century with its negations, but in the 20th century with its growing power of insight and the power of belief that springs therefrom.” Van Marten (Encyclopedia Biblica) calls the Baur view that of the “old guard” of liberal theology in Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland, and, to some extent, in Britain.
3. Protest Against Baur’s View:
But even in Germany the older conservative view of Paul has always had champions. The most consistent of the recent opponents of Baur’s views in Germany is Th. Zahn (compare his Einlin das New Testament, 2 volumes, 1897-99; Introduction to the New Testament, 3 volumes, 1910). In Britain the true successor of Lightfoot as the chief antagonist of the Tubingen School is Sir W.M. Ramsay, whose numerous volumes (Church in the Roman Empire, 1893; Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 1895; St. Paul the Traveler, 1896; Pauline and Other Studies, 1906; Cities of St. Paul, 1908; Luke the Physician and Other Studies, 1908; Pictures of the Apostolic Church, 1910; The First Christian Century, 1911) have given the finishing touches to the overthrow of Baur’s contention.
4. Successors to Baur:
But even so, already the Baur school had split into two parts. The ablest representatives, like H. J. Holtzmann, Pfleiderer, Harnack, Julicher, Lipsius, von Soden, were compelled to admit more of Paul’s Epistles as genuine than the four principal ones, till there are left practically none to fight over but Eph and the Pastoral Epistles. This progress eliminated completely Baur’s thesis and approached very nearly to the position of Lightfoot, Ramsay and Zahn. Von Soden (Early Christian Literature, 324) still stands out against 2 Thessalonians, but Harnack has deserted him on that point. But the old narrow view of Baur is gone, and von Soden is eloquent in his enthusiasm for Paul (ibid., 119): “As we gaze upon the great literary memorials of the Greeks we may well question whether these Pauline letters are not equal to them - indeed, do not surpass them - in spiritual significance, in psychological depths and loftiness of ideal, above all in the art of complete and forcible expression.” The other wing of Baur’s school Findlay (HDB) calls “ultra-Baurians.” It is mainly a Dutch school with Loman and Van Manen as its main exponents, though it has support in Germany from Steck and Volter, and in America from W. B. Smith. These writers do not say that Paul is a myth, but that our sources (Acts and the 13 epistles) are all legendary. It is a relentless carrying of Baur’s thesis to a reductio ad absurdum. Van Manen (Encyclopedia Biblica) says of “the historical, Paul” as distinct from “the legendary Paul”: “It does not appear that Paul’s ideas differed widely from those of the other disciples, or that he had emancipated himself from Judaism or had outgrown the law more than they.” When one has disposed of all the evidence he is entirely free to reconstruct the pictures to suit himself. Quite arbitrarily, Van Manen accepts the “we”-sections in Acts as authoritative. But these give glimpses of the historical Jesus quite as truly as the Pauline Epistles, and should therefore be rejected by advocates of the mythical Jesus. So the pendulum swings back and forth. One school destroys the other, but the fact of Paul’s personality remains. “The new start is one of such importance that we must distinguish the pre-Pauline from the post-Pauline Christianity, or, what amounts to the same thing, the Palestinian sect and the world-religion” (Wernle, Beginnings of Christianity, I, 159).
5. Appeal to Comparative Religion:
In his Paulus (1904), Wrede finds the explanation of Paul’s theology in late Jewish apocalyptic views and in the oriental mystery religions. Bousset (Die Religion des Judenthums im New Testament Zeitalter, 1903) seeks to find in the “late Jewish apocalyptic” “conceptions from the Babylonian and the Irano-Zarathustrian religions” (Schweitzer, Paul and His Interpreters, 173). According to Wrede’s view, Paul is one of the creators of “Christ” as distinct from the Jesus of history (compare “Jesus or Christ,” HJ, suppl., January, 1909). “Wrede’s object is to overthrow the view predominant in modern theology, that Paul loyally and consistently expounded and developed theology of Jesus” (J. Weiss, Paul and Jesus, 1909, 2). J. Weiss in this book makes a careful reply to Wrede as others have done; compare A. Meyer, Jesus or Paul (1909), who concludes (p. 134) dramatically: “Paul - just one who points the way to Jesus and to God!” See also Julicher, Paulus und Jesus (1907); Kaftan, Jesus und Paulus (1906); Kolbing, Die geistige Einwirkung der Person Jesu und Paulus (1906). The best reply to Wrede’s arguments about the mystery-religion is found in articles in the The Expositor for 1912-13 (now in book form) by H.A.A. Kennedy on “St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions.” The position of Wrede is carried to its logical conclusion by Drews (Die Christus-Mythe, 1909), who makes Paul the creator of Christianity. W. B. Smith (Der vorchristliche Jesus, 1906) tries to show that “Jesus” was a pre-Christian myth or god. Schweitzer (Paul and His Interpreters, 235) sums the matter up thus: “Drews’s thesis is not merely a curiosity; it indicates the natural limit at which the hypothesis advanced by the advocates of comparative religion, when left to its own momentum, finally comes to rest.”
6. The Eschatological Interpretation:
Schweitzer himself may be accepted as the best exponent of the rigid application of this view to Paul (Paul and His Interpreters, 1912) that he had made to Jesus (The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 1910). He glories in the ability to answer the absurdities of Steck, Loman and Van Manen and Drews by showing that the eschatological conceptions of Paul in his epistles are primitive, not late, and belong to the 1st century, not to the 2nd (Paul and His Interpreters, 249). He thus claims to be the true pupil of Baur, though reaching conclusions utterly different. There is undoubtedly an element of truth in this contention of Schweitzer, but he loses his case, when he insists that nothing but eschatology must be allowed to figure. “The edifice constructed by Baur has fallen,” he proclaims (p. viii), but he demands that in its place we allow the “exclusively Jewish-eschatological” (p. ix) interpretation. There he slips, and his theory will go the way of that of Baur. C. Anderson Scott (“Jesus and Paul,” Cambridge Biblical Essays, 365) admits that Paul has the same eschatological outlook as Jesus, but also the same ethical interest. It is not “either ... or,” but both in each case. See a complete bibliography of the “Jesus and Paul” controversy in J. G. Machens’ paper on “Jesus and Paul” in Biblical and Theological Studies (1912, 547 f). As Ramsay insists, we are now in the 20th century of insight and sanity, and Paul has come to his own. Even Wernle (Beginnings of Christianity, I, 163) sees that Paul is not the creator of the facts: “He merely transmits historical facts. God - Christ - Paul, such is the order.” Saintsbury (History of Criticism, 152) says: “It has been the mission of the 19th century to prove that everybody’s work was written by somebody else, and it will not be the most useless task of the 20th to betake itself to more profitable inquiries.”
III. Chronology of Paul’s Career.
1. Schemes:
There is not a single date in the life of Paul that is beyond dispute, though several are narrowed to a fine point, and the general course and relative proportion of events are clear enough. Luke gave careful data for the time of the birth of Jesus (Luk 2:1 f), for the entrance of the Baptist on his ministry (Luk 3:1 f), and the age of Jesus when He began His work (Luk 3:23), but he takes no such pains in the Acts with chronology. But we are left with a number of incidental allusions and notes of time which call for some discussion. For fuller treatment see CHRONOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Garvie (Life and Teaching of Paul, 1910, 181) gives a comparative table of the views of Harnack, Turner, Ramsay and Lightfoot for the events from the crucifixion of Christ to the close of Acts. The general scheme is nearly the same, differing from one to four years here and there. Shaw (The Pauline Epistles, xi) gives a good chronological scheme. Moffatt (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 62 f) gives theories of 23 scholars:
Turner, “Chronology,” in HDB; Neteler, Untersuchung New Testament Zeitverhaltnisse, 1894; O. Holtzmann, New Testament Zeitgeschichte, 1895, changed in 2nd edition, 1906; Bartlet, Apostolic Age, xiii f; Cornely (compare Laurent), New Testament Studien; Harnack, Chron. d. altchristl. Lit. bis Eusebius, 233-329; McGiffert, Apostolic Age, 164, 172; Zahn, Intro, III, 450 f; Ramsay, “The Pauline Chronology,” Pauline and Other Studies, 345 f; Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, 213-33; Wendt, Acts, 53-60, Meyer, Commentary; Renan, St. Paul; Bornemann, Thess, 17 f, Meyer, Comm.; Clemen, Paulus, I, 411; Giffert, Student’s Life of Paul, 242-59; Weiss, Intro, I, 154 f; Sabatier, Paul, 13 f; Julicher, Einl6, 31 f; Findlay, “Paul” in HDB; Farrar, Paul, Appendix; Belser, Theol. Quartalschrift; Steinmann, Abfassungszeit d. Gal, 169; Hoennicke, Die Chronologie des Paulus.
Let us look at the dates given by ten of this list:
Turner | Bartlet | Harnack | McGiffert | Zahn | |||||||
Conversion | 35-36 | 31-32 | 30 | 31-32 | 35 | ||||||
1st visit to Jerusalem | 38 | 34-35 | 33 | 34-45 | 38 | ||||||
2nd visit to Jerusalem | 46 | 46 | 44 | 45 | 44 | ||||||
1st missionary tour | 47 | 47 | 45 | before 45 | 50-51 | ||||||
Meeting in Jerusalem | 49 | 49 | 46-47 | 45 | 52 | ||||||
2nd missionary tour | 49 | 49 | 46-47 | 46 | 52 | ||||||
3rd missionary tour | 52 | 52 | 50 | 49 | 54 | ||||||
Arrest in Jerusalem | 56 | 56 | 53-54 | 53 | 58 | ||||||
Arrival in Rome | 59 | 59 | 56-57 | 56 | 61 | ||||||
Death of Paul | 64-65 | 61-62 | 64 | 58 | 66-67 | ||||||
Ramsay | Lightfoot | Clemen | Findlay | Hoennicke | |||||||
Conversion | 32 | 34 | 31 | 36 | 33-35 | ||||||
1st visit to Jerusalem | 34 | 37 | 34 | 39 | 36-38 | ||||||
2nd visit to Jerusalem | 45 | 45 | 45-46 | ||||||||
1st missionary tour | 46-48 | 48 | 46 | 46 | 49? | ||||||
Meeting in Jerusalem | 50 | 51 | 48 | 49 | 50-52 | ||||||
2nd missionary tour | 50-53 | 51 | 49-52 | 49 | |||||||
3rd missionary tour | 53-57 | 54 | 53-59 | 53 | |||||||
Arrest in Jerusalem | 57 | 58 | 59 | 57 | |||||||
Arrival in Rome | 60 | 61 | 62 | 60 | 60-62 | ||||||
Death of Paul | 67 | 67 | 64 | 67 | |||||||
This table shows very well the present diversity of opinion on the main points in Paul’s life. Before expressing an opinion on the points at issue it is best to examine a few details. Paul himself gives some notes of time. He gives “after 3 years” (Gal 1:18) as the period between his conversion and first visit to Jerusalem, though he does not necessarily mean 3 full years. In Gal 2:1, Paul speaks of another visit to Jerusalem “after the space of 14 years.” Then again Luke quotes him as saying to the Ephesian elders at Miletus that he had spent “3 years” at Ephesus (Act 20:31). These periods of time all come before Paul’s last visit and arrest in Jerusalem, and they do not embrace all the time between his conversion and arrest. There is also another note of time in 2Co 12:2, where he speaks in an enigmatic way of experiences of his “14 years” ago from the writing of this epistle from Macedonia on the third tour. This will take him back to Tarsus before coming to Antioch at the request of Barnabas, and so overlaps a bit the other “14” above, and includes the “3 years” at Ephesus. We cannot, therefore, add these figures together for the total. But some light may be obtained from further details from Acts and the Epistles.
2. Crucial Points:
(1) The Death of Stephen.
Saul is “a young man” (Act 7:58) when this event occurs. Like other young Jews he entered upon his life as a rabbi at the age of thirty. He had probably been thus active several years, especially as he was now in a position of leadership and may even have been a member of the Sanhedrin (Act 26:10). Pontius Pilate was not deposed from his procuratorship till 36 AD, but was in a state of uneasiness for a couple of years. It is more probable, therefore, that the stoning of Stephen would take place after his deposition in the interregnum, or not many years before, when he would be afraid to protest against the lawlessness of the Jewish leaders. He had shown timidity at the death of Jesus, 29 or 30 AD, but some of the forms of law were observed. So nothing decisive is here obtained, though 35 AD seems more probable than 32 or 33.
(2) The Flight from Damascus.
Paul locates this humiliating experience (2Co 11:32 f) when “the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes.” Aretas the Arabian, and not the Roman, has now control when Paul is writing. The likelihood is that Aretas did not get possession of Damascus till 37 AD, when Tiberius died and was succeeded by Caligula. It is argued by some that the expression “the city of the Damascenes” shows that the city was not under the control of Aretas, but was attacked by a Bedouin chieftain who lay in wait for Paul before the city. That to me seems forced. Josephus (Ant., XVIII, v, 3; vi, 3) at any rate is silent concerning the authority of Aretas over Damascus from 35-37 AD, but no coins or inscriptions show Roman rule over the city between 35 and 62 AD. Ramsay, however (“The Pauline Chronology,” Pauline and Other Studies, 364), accepts the view of Marquardt (Romische Staatsalterth., I, 404 f) that it was possible for Aretas to have had possession of Damascus before 37 AD. The flight from Damascus is the same year as the visit to Jerusalem, Paul’s first after his conversion (Act 9:26; Gal 1:18). If we knew the precise year of this event, we could subtract two or three years and reach the date of his conversion. Lightfoot in his Commentary on Gal gives 38 as the date of this first visit to Jerusalem, and 36 as the date of the conversion, taking “after 3 years” in a free way, but in his Biblical Essays, 221, he puts the visit in 37 and the conversion in 34, and says “ ’after 3 years’ must mean three whole years, or substantially so.” Thus we miss a sure date again.
(3) The Death of Herod Agrippa I.
Here the point of contact between the Acts (Act 12:1-4, Act 12:19-23) and Josephus (Ant., XIX, viii) is beyond dispute, since both record and describe in somewhat similar vein the death of this king. Josephus says that at the time of his death he had already completed the 3rd year of his reign over the whole of Judea (Ant., XIX, viii, 2). He received this dignity soon after Claudius began to reign in 41 AD, so that makes the date 44 AD. He died after the Passover in that year (44), for Peter was imprisoned by him during that feast (Act 12:3). But unfortunately Luke sandwiches the narrative about Herod Agrippa in between the visit of Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem from Antioch (Act 11:29 f) and their return to Antioch (Act 12:25). He does not say that the events here recorded were exactly synchronous with this visit, for he says merely “about that time.” We are allowed therefore to place this visit before 44 AD or after, just as the facts require. The mention of “elders” in Act 11:30 instead of apostles (compare both in Act 15:4) may mean that the apostles are absent when the visit is made. After the death of James (Act 12:1 f) and release of Peter we note that Peter “went to another place” (Act 12:17). But the apostles are back again in Jerusalem in Act 15:4 ff. Lightfoot (Biblical Essays, 216) therefore places the visit “at the end of 44, or in 45.” Once more we slip the connection and fail to fix a firm date for Paul. It is disputed also whether this 2nd visit to Jerusalem according to Acts (Act 9:26; Act 11:29 f) is the same as the “again” in Gal 2:1. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 59) identifies the visit in Gal 2:1 with that in Act 11:29 f, but Lightfoot (Biblical Essays, 221) holds that it “must be identified with the third of the Acts” (Act 15:4 ff). In Gal 1 and 2 Paul is not recording his visits to Jerusalem, but showing his independence of the apostles when he met them in Jerusalem. There is no proof that he saw the apostles on the occasion of the visit in Act 11:29 f. The point of Lightfoot is well taken, hut we have no point of contact with the outside history for locating more precisely the date of the visit of Gal 2:1 and Act 15:4 ff, except that it was after the first missionary tour of Acts 13 and 14.
(4) The First Missionary Tour.
Sergius Paulus is proconsul of Cyprus when Barnabas and Saul visit the island (Act 13:7). The proconsul Paulus is mentioned in a Greek inscription of Soloi (Hogarth, Devia Cypria, 1889, 114) and Lucius Sergius Paulus in CIL, VI, 31, 545, but, as no mention of his being proconsul is here made, it is probably earlier than that time. The Soloi inscription bears the date 53 AD, but Sergius Paulus was not proconsul in 51 or 52. Hence, he may have been proconsul in 50 or the early part of 51 AD.It could not be later and may have been earlier.
(5) The First Visit to Corinth.
The point to note here is that Gallio becomes proconsul of Achaia (Act 18:12). Paul has been apparently in Corinth a year and six months when Gallio appears on the scene (Act 18:11). Aquila and Priscilla had “lately come from Italy” (Act 18:2) when Paul arrived there. They had been expelled from Rome by the emperor Claudius (Act 18:2). On the arrival of Gallio the Jews at once accuse Paul before him; he refuses to interfere, and Paul stays on for a while and then leaves for Syria with Aquila and Priscilla (Act 18:18). Deissmann (St. Paul, Appendix, I, “The Proconsulate of L. Junius Gallio”) has shown beyond reasonable doubt that Gallio, the brother of Seneca, became proconsul of Achaia about July, 51 AD (or possibly 52). On a stone found at Delphi, Gallio is mentioned as proconsul of Achaia according to the probable restoration of part of the text. But the stone mentions the fact that Claudius had been acclaimed imperator 26 times. By means of another inscription we get the 27th proclamation as imperator in connection with the dedication of an aqueduct on August 1, 52 AD. So thus the 26th time is before this date, some time in the earlier part of the year. We need not follow in detail the turns of the argument (see Deissmann, op. cit.). Once more we do not get a certain date as to the year. It is either. the summer of 51 or 52 AD, when Gallio comes. And Paul has already been in Corinth a year and a half. But the terminus ad quem for the close of Paul’s two years’ stay in Corinth would be the early autumn of 52 AD, and more probably 51 AD. Hence, the 2 Thessalonian Epistles cannot be later than this date. Before the close of 52 AD, and probably 51, therefore must come the 2nd missionary tour, the conference at Jerusalem, the first missionary tour, etc. Deissmann is justified in his enthusiasm on this point. He is positive that 51 AD is the date of the arrival of Gallio.
(6) Paul at Troas According to Act 20:6 F.
On this occasion Luke gives the days and the time of year (Passover). Ramsay figures (St. Paul the Traveler, 289 f) that Paul had his closing service at Troas on Sunday evening and the party left early Monday morning. Hence, he argues back to the Passover at Philippi and concludes that the days as given by Luke will not fit into 56, 58, or 59 AD, but will suit 57. If he is correct in this matter, then we should have a definite year for the last trip to Jerusalem. Lewin (Fasti Sacri, numbers 1856, 1857) reaches the same conclusion. The conclusion is logical if Luke is exact in his use of days in this passage. Yet Lightfoot insists on 58 AD but Ramsay has the advantage on this point. See Pauline and Other Studies, 352 f.
(7) Festus Succeeding Felix.
When was Felix recalled? He was appointed procurator in 52 AD (Schurer, Jewish People in the Time of Christ, I, ii, 174). He was already ruler “many years” (Act 24:10) when Paul appears before him in Caesarea. He holds on “two years” when he is succeeded by Festus (Act 24:27). But in the Chronicle of Eusebius (Armenian text) it is stated that the recall of Felix took place in the last year of Claudius, or 54 AD. But this is clearly an error, in spite of the support given to it by Harnack (Chronologie d. Paulus), since Josephus puts most of the rule of Felix in the reign of Nero (Ant., XX, viii, 1-9; BJ, II, xii, 8-14), not to mention the “many years” of Paul in Act 24:10. But the error of Eusebius has now been explained by Erbes in his Todestage Pauli und Petri, and is made perfectly clear by Ramsay in Pauline and Other Studies, 349 ff. Eusebius over-looked the interregnum of 6 years between the death of Herod Agrippa I in 44 AD and the first year of Herod Agrippa II in 50 AD. Eusebius learned that Festus came in the 10th year of Herod Agrippa II. Counting from 50 AD, that gives us 59 AD as the date of the recall of Felix. This date harmonizes with all the known facts. “The great majority of scholars accept the date 60 for Festus; but they confess that it is only an approximate date, and there is no decisive argument for it” (Ramsay, Pauline and Other Studies, 351). For minute discussion of the old arguments see Nash, article “Paul” in new Sch-Herz Enc; Schurer, Hist of the Jewish People, I, ii, 182 ff. But if Erbes and Ramsay are correct, we have at last a date that will stand. So then Paul sails for Rome in the late summer of 59 AD and arrives at his destination in the early spring (“had wintered,” Act 28:11) of 60 AD. He had been “two whole years in his own hired dwelling” (Act 28:30) when Luke closes the Acts. On the basis of his release in 63 or early 64 and the journeyings of the Pastoral Epistles, Paul’s death would come by early summer of 68 before Nero’s death, and possibly in 67. On this point see later. We can now count back from 59 AD with reasonable clearness to 57 as the date of Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem. Paul spent at least a year and three months (Act 19:8, Act 19:10) in Ephesus (called in round numbers three years in Act 20:31). It took a year for him to reach Jerusalem, from Pentecost (1Co 16:8) to Pentecost (Act 20:16). From the spring of 57 AD we thus get back to the end of 53 as the time of his arrival in Ephesus (Act 19:1). We have seen that Gallio came to Corinth in the summer of 51 AD (or 52), after Paul had been there a year and a half (Act 18:11), leaving ample time in either case for the journeys from Corinth to Ephesus, to Caesarea, to Jerusalem apparently (Act 18:21 f), and to Ephesus (Act 19:1) from the summer of 51 (or 52) we go back two years to the beginning of the 2nd missionary tour (Act 16:1-6) as 49 (or 50). The Jerusalem Conference was probably in the same year, and the first missionary tour would come in the two (or three) preceding years 47 and 48 (48-49). The stay at Antioch (Act 14:28) may have been of some length. So we come back to the end of 44 or beginning of 45 for the visit to Jerusalem in Act 11:29 f. Before that comes the year in Antioch with Barnabas (Act 11:26), the years in Tarsus in Cilicia, the “three years” after the conversion spent mostly in Arabia (Gal 1:17 f), Paul’s first appearance at the death of Stephen (Act 7:58). These early dates are more conjectural, but even so the facts seem to indicate 35 AD as the probable year of Saul’s conversion. The year of his birth would then be between 1 and 5 AD, probably nearer 1. If so, and if his death was in 67 or 68 AD, his age is well indicated. He was “Paul the Aged” (Phm 1:9) when he wrote to Philemon from Rome in 61-63 AD.
IV. His Equipment.
Ramsay chooses as the title of chapter ii, in his St. Paul the Traveler, the words “The Origin of Paul.” It is not possible to explain the work and teaching of Paul without a just conception of the forces that entered into his life. Paul himself is still woefully misunderstood by some. Thus, A. Meyer (Jesus or Paul, 1909, 119) says: “In spite of all that has been said, there is no doubt that Paul, with his peculiar personality, with his tendency to recondite Gnostic speculation and rabbinic argument, has heavily encumbered the cause of Christianity. For many simple souls, and for many natures that are otherwise constituted than himself, he has barred the way to the simple Christianity of Jesus.” That is a serious charge against the man who claimed to have done more than all the other apostles, and rightly, so far as we can tell (1Co 15:10), and who claimed that his interpretation of Jesus was the only true one (Gal 1:7-9). Moffatt (Paul and Paulinism, 1910, 70) minimizes the effect of Paulinism: “The majority of Paul’s distinctive conceptions were either misunderstood, or dropped, or modified, as the case might be, in the course of a few decades.” “Paulinism as a whole stood almost as far apart from the Christianity that followed it as from that which preceded it” (ibid., 73). “The aim of some scholars seems to be to rob every great thinker of his originality” (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 1). Ramsay (Pauline and Other Studies, 3 ff) boldly challenges the modern prejudice of some scholars against Paul by asking, “Shall we hear evidence or not?” Every successive age must study afresh the life and work of Paul (ibid., 27) if it would understand him. Deissmann (St. Paul, 3 f) rightly sees that “St. Paul is spiritually the great power of the apostolic age.” Hence, “the historian, surveying the beginnings of Christianity, sees Paul as first after Jesus.” Feine (Jesus Christus und Paulus, 1902, 298) claims that Paul grasped the essence of the ministry of Christ “auf das tiefste.” I own myself a victim to “the charm of Paul,” to use Ramsay’s phrase (Pauline and Other Studies, 27). In seeking to study “the shaping influences” in Paul’s career (Alexander, The Ethics of St. Paul, 1910, 27), we shall be in error if we seek to explain everything by heredity and environment and if we deny any influence from these sources. He is what he is because of original endowments, the world of his day, and his experience of Christ Jesus. He had both essential and accidental factors in his equipment (Fairbairn, Studies in Religion and Theology, 1910, 469 f). Let us note the chief factors in his religious development.
1. The City of Tarsus:
Geography plays an important part in any life. John the Baptist spent his boyhood in the hill country of Judea in a small town (Luk 1:39) and then in the wilderness. Jesus spent His boyhood in the town of Nazareth and the country round. Both John and Jesus show fondness for Nature in all its forms. Paul grew up in a great city and spent his life in the great cities of the Roman empire. He makes little use of the beauties of Nature, but he has a keen knowledge of men (compare Robertson, Epochs in the Life of Paul, 12). Paul was proud of his great city (Act 21:39). He was not merely a resident, but a “citizen” of this distinguished city. This fact shows that Paul’s family had not just emigrated from Judea to Tarsus a few years before his birth, but had been planted in Tarsus as part of a colony with full municipal rights (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, 31 f). Tarsus was the capital of Cilicia, then a part of the province of Syria, but it had the title of metropolis and was a free city, urbs libera (Pliny, NH, v. 27). To the ancient Greek the city was his “fatherland” (Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, 1908, 90). Tarsus was situated on the river Cydnus, and in a wide plain with the hill country behind and the snow-covered Taurus Mountains in the distance. It was subject to malaria. Ramsay (ibid., 117 ff) from Gen 10:4 f holds that the early inhabitants were Greeks mingled with Orientals. East and West flowed together here. It was a Roman town also with a Jewish colony (ibid., 169 ff), constituting a city tribe to which Paul’s family belonged. So then Tarsus was a typical city of the Greek-Roman civilization.
The religions of the times all met there in this great mart of business. But it was one of the great seats of culture also. Strabo (xiv. 6, 73) even says that “Tarsus surpassed all other universities, such as Alexandria and Athens, in the study of philosophy and educational literature in general.” “Its great preeminence,” he adds, “consists in this, that the men of learning here are all natives.” Accordingly, he and others have made up a long list of distinguished men who flourished at Tarsus in the late autumn of Greek learning: philosophers - of the Academy, of the Epicurean and Stoic schools - poets, grammarians, physicians. At Tarsus, one might say, “you breathed the atmosphere of learning” (Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, 205). But Ramsay (Cities of St. Paul, 231 f) cautions us not to misunderstand Strabo. It was not even one of the three great universities of the world in point of equipment, fame, students from abroad, or general standing. It was not on a paragraph with Athens and Alexandria, except that “it was rich in what constitutes the true excellence and strength of a university, intense enthusiasm and desire for knowledge among the students and great ability and experience among some at least of the teachers” (ibid., 233). Strabo was very fond of Athenodorus, for instance. No students from abroad came to Tarsus, but they went from Tarsus elsewhere. But Philostratus represents Apollonius of Tyana as disgusted with the university and the town, and Dio Chrysostom describes Tarsus as an oriental and non-Hellenic town.
Ramsay speaks of Tarsus in the reign of Augustus as “the one example known in history of a state ruled by a university acting through its successive principals.” “It is characteristic of the general tendency of university life in a prosperous and peaceful empire, that the rule of the Tarsian University was marked by a strong reaction toward oligarchy and a curtailment of democracy; that also belongs to the oriental spirit, which was so strong in the city. But the crowning glory of Tarsus, the reason for its undying interest to the whole world, is that it produced the apostle Paul; that it was the one city which was suited by its equipoise between the Asiatic and the Western spirit to mold the character of the great Hellenist Jew; and that it nourished in him a strong source of loyalty and patriotism as the citizen of no mean city” (Ramsay, op. cit., 235). The city gave him a schooling in his social, political, intellectual, moral, and religious life, but in varying degrees, as we shall see. It was because Tarsus was a cosmopolitan city with “an amalgamated society” that it possessed the peculiar suitability “to educate and mold the mind of him who would in due time make the religion of the Jewish race intelligible to the Greek-Roman world” (ibid., 88). As a citizen of Tarsus Paul was a citizen of the whole world.
2. Roman Citizenship:
It was no idle boast with Paul when he said, “But I am a Roman born” (Act 22:28). The chief captain might well be “afraid when he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him” (Act 22:29). Likewise the magistrates at Philippi “feared when they heard that they were Romans” (Act 16:39), and promptly released Paul and Silas and “asked them to go away from the city.” “To the Roman his citizenship was his passport in distant lands, his talisman in seasons of difficulties and danger. It shielded him alike from the caprice of municipal law and the injustice of local magistrates” (Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, 203). As a citizen of Rome, therefore, Paul stood above the common herd. He ranked with the aristocracy in any provincial town (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, 31). He would naturally have a kindly feeling for the Roman government in return for this high privilege and protection. In its pessimism the Roman empire had come to be the world’s hope, as seen in the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil (Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, 49). Paul would seize upon the Roman empire as a fit symbol of the kingdom of heaven. “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Php 3:20); “Ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints” (Eph 2:19). So he interprets the church in terms of the body politic as well as in terms of the Israelite theocracy (Col 2:19). “All this shows the deep impression which the Roman institutions made on Paul” (Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, 205). Ramsay draws a striking parallel under the heading, “Paulinism in the Roman Empire” (Cities of St. Paul, 70 ff). “A universal Paulinism and a universal Empire must either coalesce, or the one must destroy the other.” It was Paul’s knowledge of the Roman empire that gave him his imperialism and statesmanlike grasp of the problems of Christianity in relation to the Roman empire. Paul was a statesman of the highest type, as Ramsay has conclusively shown (Pauline and Other Studies, 49-100). Moffatt (Paul and Paulinism, 66) does say: “His perspective was not imperialistic,” but he shows thereby a curious inability to understand Paul. The vision of Paul saw that the regeneration of the empire could come only through Christianity. Ramsay strikingly shows how the emperor dreaded the spiritual upheaval in Paulinism and fought it steadily till the time of Constantine, when “an official Christianity was victorious, but Pauline Christianity had perished, and Paul was now a mere saint, no longer Paul but Paul, forgotten as a man or a teacher, but remembered as a sort of revivification of the old pagan gods” (Cities of St. Paul, 78). But, as Ramsay says, “it was not dead; it was only waiting its opportunity; it revived when freedom of thought and freedom of life began to stir in Europe; and it guided and stimulated the Protestants of the Reformation.” Suffer Ramsay once more (Pauline and Other Studies, 100): “Barbarism proved too powerful for the Greek-Roman civilization unaided by the new religious bond; and every channel through which that civilization was preserved or interest in it maintained, either is now or has been in some essential part of its course Christian after the Pauline form.” Paul would show the Roman genius for organizing the churches established by him. Many of his churches would be in Roman colonies (Antioch in Pisidia, Philippi, Corinth, etc.). He would address his most studied epistle to the church in Rome, and Rome would be the goal of his ministry for many years (Findlay, HDB). He would show his conversance with Roman law, not “merely in knowing how to take advantage of his rights as a citizen, but also in the use of legal terms like “adoption” (Gal 4:5 f), where the adopted heir becomes son, and heir and son are interchangeable. This was the obsolete Roman law and the Greek law left in force in the provinces (compare Gal 3:15). But in Rom 8:16 f the actual revocable Roman law is referred to by which “heirship is now deduced from sonship, whereas in Gal sonship is deduced from heirship; for at Rome a son must be an heir, but an heir need not be a son (compare Heb 9:15 ff which presupposes Roman law and the revocability of a will)” (Maclean in 1-vol HDB). So in Gal 3:24 the tutor or pedagogue presents a Greek custom preserved by the Romans. This personal guardian of the child (often a slave) led him to school, and was not the guardian of the child’s property in Gal 4:2. See Ramsay, Gal, 337-93; Ball, St. Paul and the Roman Law, 1901, for further discussion. As a Roman, Paul would have “
3. Hellenism:
It is not possible “to specify all the influences that worked on Paul in his youth” (Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, 79). We do not know all the life of the times. But he was subject to all that life in so far as any other Jewish youth was. “He was master of all the education and the opportunities of his time. He turned to his profit and to the advancement of his great purpose all the resources of civilization” (Ramsay, Pauline and Other Studies, 285). I heartily agree with this conception of Paul’s ability to assimilate the life of his time, but one must not be led astray so far as Schramm who, in 1710, wrote De stupenda eruditione Pauli (“On the Stupendous Erudition of Paul”). This is, of course, absurd, as Lightfoot shows (Biblical Essays, 206). But we must not forget Paul lived in a Greek city and possessed Greek citizenship also (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, 33). Certainly the Greek traits of adaptability, curiosity, alertness, the love of investigation were marked features of his character, and Tarsus afforded wide opportunity for the acquiring of these qualities (The Ethics of St. Paul, 39). He learned to speak the vernacular
Paul as the apostle to the Greek-Roman world had to “understand the bearings of the moral and religious life of Greece as expressed in her literature, and this lesson he could learn more impartially and more fully at Tarsus in the days of her decline than at Athens in the freshness of her glory” (same place). Ramsay waxes bold enough to discuss “the Pauline philosophy of history” (Cities of St. Paul, 10-13). I confess to sympathy with this notion and find it in all the Pauline Epistles, especially in Romans. Moffatt (Paul and Paulinism, 66) finds “a religious philosophy of history” in Rom 9 through 11, throbbing with strong personal emotion. Paul rose to the height of the true Christian philosopher, though not a technical philosopher of the schools. Deissmann (St. Paul, 53) admits his language assigns him “to an elevated class,” and yet he insists that he wrote “large letters” (Gal 6:11) because he had “the clumsy, awkward writing of a workman’s hand deformed by toil” (p. 51). I cannot agree that here Deissmann understands Paul. He makes “the world of Paul” on too narrow a scale.
4. The Mystery-Religions:
Was Paul influenced by Mithraism? H.A.A. Kennedy has given the subject very careful and thorough treatment in a series of papers in The Expositor for 1912-13, already mentioned (see II, 5, above). His arguments are conclusive on the whole against the wild notions of W.B. Smith, Der vorchristliche Jesus; J.M. Robertson, Pagan Christs; A. Drews, Die Christus-Mythe; and Lublinski, Die Entstehung des Christenrums aus der antiken Kultur. A magic papyrus about 300 AD has “I adjure thee by the god of the Hebrew Jesu” (ll. 3019 f), but Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, 256) refuses to believe this line genuine: “No Christian, still less a Jew, would have called Jesus ’the god of the Hebrews.’ “ Clemen (Primitive Christianity and Its non-Jewish Sources, 1912, 336) endorses this view of Deissmann and says that in the 1st century AD “one cannot speak of non-Jewish influences on Christology.” One may dismiss at once the notion that Paul “deified” Jesus into a god and made Him Christ under the influence of pagan myths. Certainly pagan idolatry was forced upon Paul’s attention at every turn. It stirred his spirit at Athens to see the city full of idols (Act 17:16), and he caught eagerly at the altar to an unknown god to give him an easy introduction to the true God (Act 17:23); but no one can read Rom 1 and 2 and believe that Paul was carried away by the philosophy of vain deceit of his time. He does use the words “wisdom” and “mystery” often in 1 Corinthians, Colossians, and Ephesians, and in Php 4:12, “I (have) learned the secret,” he uses a word employed in the mystic cults of the time. It is quite possible that Paul took up some of the phrases of these mystery-religions and gave them a richer content for his own purposes, as he did with some of the Gnostic phraseology (
There is nothing incongruous in the notion that Paul knew as much about the mystery-religions as he did about incipient Gnosticism. Indeed the two things may have been to some extent combined in some places. A passage in Col 2:18 has long bothered commentators: “dwelling in the things which he hath seen,” or (margin) “taking his stand upon the things,” etc. Westcott and Hort even suspected an early error in the text, but the same word,
For further discussion see Jacoby, Die antiken Mysterienreligionen und das Christentum; Glover, Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire; Reitzenstein, Die hell. Mysterienreligionen; Friedlander, Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire, III; Thorburn, Jesus Christ, Historical or Mythical.
M. Bruckner (Der sterbende und auferstehende Gottheiland in den orientalischen Religionen und ihr Verhaltnis zum Christentum, 1908) says: “As in Christianity, so in many oriental religions, a belief in the death and resurrection of a Redeemer-God (sometimes as His Son), occupied a central place in the worship and cult.” To this Schweitzer (Paul and His Interpreters, 193) replies: “What manipulations the myths and rites of the cults in question must have undergone before this general statement could become possible! Where is there anything about dying and resurrection in Mithra?” There we may leave the matter.
5. Judaism:
Paul was Greek and Roman, but not “pan-Babylonian,” though he was keenly alive to all the winds of doctrine that blew about him, as we see in Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles. But he was most of all the Jew, that is, before his conversion. He remained a Jew, even though he learned how to be all things to all men (1Co 9:22). Even though glorying in his mission as apostle to the Gentiles (Eph 3:8), he yet always put the Jew first in opportunity and peril (Rom 2:9 f). He loved the Jews almost to the point of death (Rom 9:3). He was proud of his Jewish lineage and boasted of it (2Co 11:16-22; Act 22:3 ff; Act 26:4 ff; Php 3:4-6). “His religious patriotism flickered up within his Christianity” (Moffatt, Paul and Paulinism, 66). Had he not been a Roman citizen with some Greek culture and his rich endowments of mind, he would probably not have been the “chosen vessel” for the work of Christ among the Gentiles (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 15). Had he not been the thorough Jew, he could not have mediated Christianity from Jew to Greek. “In the mind of Paul a universalized Hellenism coalesced with a universalized Hebraism” (Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, 43). Ramsay strongly opposes the notion of Harhack and others that Paul can be understood “as purely a Hebrew.” So in Paul both Hebraism and Hellenism meet though Hebraism is the main stock. He is a Jew in the Greek-Roman world and a part of it, not a mere spectator. He is the Hellenistic Jew, not the Aramaic Jew of Palestine (compare Simon Peter’s vision on the house-top at Joppa, for instance). But Paul is not a Hellenizing Jew after the fashion of Jason and Menelaus in the beginning of the Maccabean conflict. Findlay (HDB) tersely says: “The Jew in him was the foundation of everything that Paul became.” But it was not the narrowest type of Judaism in spite of his persecution of the Christians. He belonged to the Judaism of the Dispersion. As a Roman citizen in a Greek city he had departed from the narrowest lines of his people (Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, 47). His Judaism was pure, in fact, as he gives it to us in Php 3:5. He was a Jew of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew, of the seed of Abraham (2Co 11:22). He shared in full all the covenant blessings and privileges of his people (Rom 9:1-5), whose crowning glory was, that of them came Jesus the Messiah. He was proud of the piety of his ancestors (2Ti 1:3), and made progress as a student of Judaism ahead of his fellows (Gal 1:14). His ancestry was pure, Hebrew of the Hebrews. (Php 3:5), and so his family preserved the native Palestinian traditions in Tarsus. His name Saul was a proof of loyalty to the tribe of Benjamin as his cognomen Paul was evidence of his Roman citizenship. In his home he would be taught the law by his mother (compare Gal 1:14), as was true of Timothy’s mother and grandmother (2Ti 1:5). In Tarsus he would go to the synagogue also. We know little of his father, save that he was a Roman citizen and so a man of position in Tarsus and possibly of some wealth; that he was a tent-maker and taught his son the same trade, as all Jewish fathers did, whatever their rank in life; that he was a Pharisee and brought up his son as a Pharisee (Act 23:6), and that he sent the young Saul to Jerusalem to study at the feet of Gamaliel (Act 22:3). Paul always considered himself a Pharisee as distinct from the Sadducaic scepticism (Act 23:6). Many of the Pharisaic doctrines were identical with those of Christianity. That Paul did not consider himself a Pharisee in all respects is shown later by his conflict with the Judaizers (Gal 2; Acts 15; 2 Cor 10 through 13). Paul says that he was reared as a strict Pharisee (Act 26:5), though the school of Gamaliel (grandson of Hillel) was not so hard and narrow as that of Shammai. But all Pharisees were stricter than the Sadducees. So Jerusalem played an important part in the training of Saul (Act 22:3), as Paul recognized. He was known in Jerusalem as a student. He knew Aramaic as well as Greek (and Latin), and could speak in it so as to attract the attention of a Jewish audience (Act 22:2). Paul was fortunate in his great teacher Gamaliel, who was liberal enough to encourage the study of Greek literature. But his liberality in defending the apostles against the Sadducees in Act 5:34-39 must not be misinterpreted in comparison with the persecuting zeal of his brilliant pupil against Stephen (Act 7:58). Stephen had opened war on the Pharisees themselves, and there is no evidence that Gamaliel made a defense of Stephen against the lawless rage of the Sanhedrin. It is common for pupils to go farther than their teachers, but Gamaliel did not come to the rescue. Still Gamaliel helped Saul, who was undoubtedly his most brilliant pupil and probably the hope of his heart for the future of Judaism. Harnack (History of Dogma, I, 94) says: “Pharisaism had fulfilled its mission in the world when it produced this man.” Unfortunately, Pharisaism did not die; in truth has never died, not even from Christianity. But young Saul was the crowning glory of Pharisaism. An effort has recently been made to restore Pharisaism to its former dignity. Herford (Pharisaism, Its Aim and Method, 1912) undertakes to show that the Gospels have slandered Pharisaism, that it was the one hope of the ancient world, etc. He has a chapter on “Pharisaism and Paul,” in which he claims that Paul has not attacked the real Pharisaism, but has aimed his blows at an unreal creation of his own brain (p. 222). But, if Paul did not understand Pharisaism, he did not understand anything. He knew not merely the Old Testament in the Hebrew and the Septuagint translation, for he quotes from both, though usually from the Septuagint, but he also knew the Jewish Apocrypha and apocalypses, as is shown in various ways in his writings (see articles on these subjects). Schweitzer (Paul and His Interpreters) carries too far his idea that Paul and Jesus merely moved in the circle of Jewish eschatology. He makes it explain everything, and that it cannot do. But Paul does show acquaintance with some of these books. See Kennedy, St. Paul’s Conception of the Last Things (1904), for a sane and adequate discussion of this phase of the subject. Pfleiderer pursues the subject in his Paulinism, as does Kabisch in his Eschatologie. So Sanday and Headlam use this source in their Commentary on Romans. Paul knew Wisd, also, a book from the Jewish-Alexandrian theology with a tinge of Greek philosophy (see Goodrick, Book of Wisd, 398-403; compare also Jowett’s essay on “St. Paul and Philo” in his Epistles of Paul). Paul knew how to use allegory (Gal 4:24) in accord with the method of Philo. So then he knew how to use the Stoic diatribe, the rabbinical diatribe and the Alexandrian allegory. “In his cosmology, angelology, and demonology, as well as eschatology, he remains essentially Jewish” (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 17). When he becomes a Christian he will change many of his views, for Christ must become central in his thinking, but his method learned in the rabbinical schools remains with him (Kohler, Zum Verstandnis, etc., 7). Here, then, is a man with a wonderfully rounded culture. What of his mental gifts?
6. Personal Characteristics:
Much as we can learn about the times of Paul (compare Selden, In the Time of Paul, 1900, for a brief sketch of Paul’s world), we know something of the political structure of the Roman world, the social life of the 1st century AD, the religious condition of the age, the moral standards of the time, the intellectual tendencies of the period. New discoveries continue to throw fresh light on the life of the middle and lower classes among whom Paul chiefly labored. And, if Deissmann in his brilliant study (St. Paul, A Study in Social and Religious History) has pressed too far the notion that Paul the tent-maker ranks not with Origen, but with Amos the herdman (p. 6, on p. 52 he calls it a mistake “to speak of Paul the artisan as a proletarian in the sense which the word usually bears with us”), yet he is right in insisting that Paul is “a religious genius” and “a hero of piety” (p. 6). It is not possible to explain the personality and work of a man like Paul by his past and to refer with precision this or that trait to his Jewish or Greek training (Alexander, Ethics of St. Paul, 58). “We must allow something to his native originality” (same place) . We are all in a sense the children of the past, but some men have much more the power of initiative than others. Paul is not mere “eclectic patchwork” (Bruce, Paul’s Conception of Christ, 218). Even if Paul was acquainted with Philo, which is not certain, that fact by no means explains his use of Philo, the representative Jew of the Hellenistic age. “Both are Jews of the Dispersion, city-dwellers, with marked cosmopolitan traits. Both live and move in the Septuagint Bible. Both are capable of ecstatic and mystical experiences, and have many points of contact in detail. And yet they stand in very strong contrast to one another, a contrast which reminds us of the opposition between Seneca and Paul... Philo is a philosopher, Paul the fool pours out the vials of his irony upon the wisdom of the world” (Deissmann, St. Paul, 110). Deissmann, indeed, cares most for “the living man, Paul, whom we hear speaking and see gesticulating, here playful, gentle as a father, and tenderly coaxing, so as to win the hearts of the infatuated children - there thundering and lightning with the passionate wrath of a Luther, with cutting irony and bitter sarcasm on his lips” (ibid., 16 f).
(1) Personal Appearance.
We have no reliable description of Paul’s stature and looks. The Acts of Paul and Thecla (section3) have a protraiture thus: “Baldheaded, bowlegged, strongly built, a man small in size, with meeting eyebrows, with a rather large nose, full of grace, for at times he looked like a man and at times he had the face of an angel,” and Ramsay (Church in the Roman Empire, 32) adds: “This plain and unflattering account of the apostle’s personal appearance seems to embody a very early tradition,” and in chapter xvi he argues that this story goes back to a document of the 1st century. We may not agree with all the details, but in some respects it harmonizes with what we gather from Paul’s Epistles Findlay (HDB) notes that this description is confirmed by “the lifelike and unconventional figure of the Roman ivory diptych, ’supposed to date not later than the 4th century.’ “ (Lewin’s Life and Epistles of Paul, Frontispiece, and II, 211). At Lystra the natives took Barnabas for Jupiter and Paul for Hermes, “because he was the chief speaker” (Act 14:12), showing that Barnabas had the more impressive appearance, while Paul was his spokesman. In Malta the natives changed their minds in the opposite direction, first thinking Paul a murderer and then a god because he did not die from the bite of the serpent (Act 28:4-6). His enemies at Corinth sneered at the weakness of his bodily presence in contrast to the strength of his letters (2Co 10:9 f). The attack was really on the courage of Paul, and he claimed equal boldness when present (2Co 10:11 f), but there was probably also a reflection on the insignificance of his physique. The terrible bodily sufferings which he underwent (2Co 11:23-26) left physical marks (
(2) Natural Endowments.
In respect to his natural endowments we can do much better, for his epistles reveal the mind and soul of the man. He is difficult to comprehend, not because he conceals himself, but because he reveals so much of himself in his epistles. He seems to some a man of contradictions. He had a many-sided nature, and his very humanness is in one sense the greatest thing about him. There are “great polar contradictions” in his nature. Deissmann (St. Paul, 62 ff) notes his ailing body and his tremendous powers for work, his humility and his self-confidence, his periods of depression and of intoxication with victory, his tenderness and his sternness; he was ardently loved and furiously hated; he was an ancient man of his time, but he is cosmopolitan and modern enough for today. Findlay (HBD) adds that he was a man possessed of dialectical power and religious inspiration. He was keenly intellectual and profoundly mystical (compare Campbell, Paul the Mystic, 1907). He was a theologian and a man of affairs. He was a man of vision with a supreme task to which he held himself. He was a scholar, a sage, a statesman, a seer, a saint (Garvie, Studies in Paul and His Gospel, 68-84). He was a man of heart, of passion, of imagination, of sensibility, of will, of courage, of sincerity, of vivacity, of subtlety, of humor, of adroitness, of tact, of genius for organization, of power for command, of gift of expression, of leadership - “All these qualities and powers went to the making of Jesus Christ’s apostle to the nations, the master-builder of the universal church and of Christian theology” (Findlay, HDB; see Lock, Paul the Master Builder, 1905; and M. Jones, Paul the Orator, 1910).
I cannot agree with Garvie’s charge of cowardice (Life and Teaching of Paul, 173,) in the matter of the purifying rites (Act 21:23) and the dividing of the Sanhedrin (Act 23:6). The one was a mere matter of prudence in a nonessential detail, the other was justifiable skill in resisting the attack of unscrupulous enemies. One does not understand Paul who does not understand his emotional nature. He was “quick, impetuous, strenuous, impassioned” (Bevan, Paul in the Light of Today, 1912, 26). His heart throbs through his epistles, and he loves his converts like a mother or a lover (Findlay, HDB) rather than a pastor. We feel the surging emotion of his great spirit in 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, Philippians, 2 Timothy in particular. He had the spiritual temperament and reaches his highest flights in his moments of rhapsody. He has elasticity and rebound of spirit, and comes up with the joy of victory in Christ out of the severest trials and disappointments. His ambition is great, but it is to serve Christ his Lord. He is a man of faith and a man of prayer. For him to live is Christ. He has a genius for friendship and binds men to him with hooks of steel - men like Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Luke, Titus (Speer, The Man Paul, 1900, 111 ff). He is not afraid to oppose his friends when it is necessary for the sake of truth, as with Peter (Gal 2:11 ff) and with Barnabas (Act 15:35 ff). “While God made Paul like the other apostles out of the clay whereof ordinary men are fashioned, yet we may say that He took extraordinary pains with his education” (Fairbairn, Studies in Religion and Theology, 471). If ever a man, full-blooded and open-eyed, walked the earth, it was Paul. It is a debatable question whether Paul was married or not. He certainly was not when he wrote (1Co 7:7; 1Co 9:5). But, if he was a member of the Sanhedrin when he cast his vote against the disciples (Act 26:10), as his language naturally means, then he had been married.
There is in Paul the gift of leadership in a marked degree. He, though young, is already at the head of the opposition to Stephen (Act 7:58), and soon drives the disciples out of Jerusalem.
(3) Supernatural Gifts.
He had his share of them. He had all the gifts that others could boast of at Corinth, and which he lightly esteemed except that of prophecy (1Co 14:18-29). He had his visions and revelations, but would not tell what he had seen (2Co 12:1-9). He did the signs of an apostle (2Co 12:12-14). He had the power to work miracles (1Co 4:19-21) and to exercise discipline (1Co 5:4 f; 2Co 13:1-3). But what he cared for most of all was the fact that Jesus had appeared to him on the road to Damascus and had called him to the work of preaching to the Gentiles (1Co 15:8).
7. Conversion:
No other element in the equipment of Paul is comparable in importance to his conversion.
(1) Preparation.
It was sudden, and yet God had led Saul to the state of mind when it could more easily happen. True, Saul was engaged in the very act of persecuting the believers in Jerusalem. His mind was flushed with the sense of victory. He was not conscious of any lingering doubts about the truth of his position and the justice of his conduct till Jesus abruptly told him that it was hard for him to kick against the goad (Act 26:14). Thus suddenly brought to bay, the real truth would flash upon his mind. In later years he tells how he had struggled in vain against the curse of the Law (Rom 7:7 f). It is probable though not certain, that Paul here has in mind his experience before his conversion, though the latter part of the chapter may refer to a period later. There is difficulty in either view as to the “body of this death” that made him so wretched (Rom 7:24). The Christian keeps up the fight against sin in spite of defeat (Rom 7:23), but he does not feel that he is “carnal, sold under sin” (Rom 7:14). But when before his conversion did Paul have such intensity of conviction? We can only leave the problem unanswered. His reference to it at least harmonizes with what Jesus said about the goad. The words and death of Stephen and the other disciples may have left a deeper mark than he knew. The question might arise whether after all the Nazarenes were right. His plea for his conduct made in later years was that he was conscientious (Act 26:9) and that he did it ignorantly in unbelief (1Ti 1:13). He was not willfully sinning against the full light as he saw it. It will not do to say with Holsten that Saul was half convinced to join the disciples, and only needed a jolt to turn him over. He was “yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Act 9:1), and went to the high priest and asked for letters to Damascus demanding the arrest of the disciples there. His temper on the whole is distinctly hostile to Christ, and the struggle against his course was in the subconscious mind. There a volcano had gathered ready to burst out.
It is proper to ask whether Paul had known Jesus in the flesh, but it is not easy to give a categorical reply. It is possible, though hardly likely, that Paul had come to Jerusalem to study when Jesus as a boy of 12 visited the temple, and so heard Jesus and the doctors. That could be true only in case Paul was born 5 or 6 BC, which is quite unlikely. It is possible again that Paul may have remained in Jerusalem after his graduation the school of Gamaliel and so was present in Jerusalem at the trial and death of Jesus. Some of the ablest of modern scholars hold that Paul knew Jesus in the flesh. It will at once seem strange that we have no express statement to this effect in the letters of Paul, when he shows undoubted knowledge of various events in the life of Christ (compare Wynne, Fragmentary Records of Jesus of Nazareth, 1887). It is almost certain, as J. Weiss admits (Paul and Jesus, 41), that in 1Co 9:1 Paul refers to the Risen Jesus. The passage in 2Co 5:16 is argued both ways: “Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh: even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.” J. Weiss (ibid., 41-55) argues strongly for the view that he knew Jesus in the flesh. But in the first clause of the sentence above Paul means by “after the flesh,” not acquaintance, but standpoint. It is natural to take it in the same way as applied to Christ. He has changed his viewpoint of Christ and so of all men. Weiss pleads (ibid., p. 40), at any rate, that we have no word saying that “Paul had not seen Jesus in person.” It may be said in reply that the fact that Jesus has to tell Paul who He is (Act 9:5) shows that Paul did not have personal acquaintance with Him. But the question may be left in abeyance as not vitally important. He certainly had not understood Jesus, if he knew Him.
(2) Experience.
Space does not, permit a discussion of this great event of Paul’s conversion at all commensurate with its significance. A literature of importance has grown up around it besides the lengthy discussions in the lives and theologies of Paul (see e.g. Lord Lyttleton’s famous Observations on Saul’s Conversion, 1774; Fletcher’s A Study of the Conversion of Paul, 1910; Gardner, The Religious Experience of Paul, 1911; Maggs, The Spiritual Experience of Paul). All sorts of theories have been advanced to explain on naturalistic grounds this great experience of Christ in the life of Paul. It has been urged that Paul had an epileptic fit, that he had a sunstroke, that he fell off his horse to the ground, that he had a nightmare, that he was blinded by a flash of lightning, that he imagined that he saw Jesus as a result of his highly wrought nervous state, that he deliberately renounced Judaism because of the growing conviction that the disciples were right. But none of these explanations explains. Mere prejudice against the supernatural, such as is shown by Weinel in his Paulus, and by Holsten in his able book (Zum Evangelium d. Paulus und Petrus), cannot solve this problem. One must be willing to hear the evidence. There were witnesses of the bright light (Act 26:13) and of the sound (Act 9:7) which only Paul understood (Act 22:9), as he alone beheld Jesus. It is claimed by some that Paul had a trance or subjective vision, and did not see Jesus with his eyes. Denney (Standard Bible Dictionary) replies that it is not a pertinent objection. Jesus (Joh 21:1) “manifested” Himself, and Paul says that he “saw” Jesus (1Co 9:1), that Jesus “appeared” (1Co 15:8) to him. Hence, it was both subjective and objective. But the reality of the event was as clear to Paul as his own existence. The account is given 3 times in Acts (chapters 9; 22; 26) in substantial agreement, with a few varying details. In Acts 9 the historical narrative occurs, in Acts 22 Paul’s defense before the mob in Jerusalem is given, and in Acts 26 we have the apology before Agrippa. There are no contradictions of moment, save that in chapter 26 Jesus Himself is represented as giving directly to Paul the call to the Gentiles while in chapters 9 and 22 it is conveyed through Ananias (the fuller and more accurate account). There is no need to notice the apparent contradiction between Act 9:7 and Act 22:9, for the difference in case in the Greek gives a difference in sense, hearing the sound, with the genitive, and not understanding the sense, with the accusative. Findlay (HBD) remarks that the conversion of Paul is a psychological and ethical problem which cannot be accounted for save by Paul’s own interpretation of the change wrought in him. He saw Jesus and surrendered to Him.
(3) Effect on Paul.
His surrender to Jesus was instantaneous and complete: “What shall I do, Lord?” (Act 22:10). He could not see for the glory of that light (Act 22:11), but he had already seen “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2Co 4:6). The god of this world could blind him no longer. He had seen Jesus, and all else had lost charm for Paul. There is infinite pathos in the picture of the blind Saul led by the hand (Act 9:8) into Damascus. All the pride of power is gone, all the lust for vengeance. The fierceness of the name of Saul is well shown in the dread that Ananias has and the protest that he makes to the Lord concerning him (Act 9:10-14). Ananias doubtless thought that the Lord had made a strange choice of a vessel to bear the message of Christ to the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel (Act 9:15), but there was hope in the promise of chastisement to him (Act 9:16). So he went, and calls him “Brother Saul.” Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit, the scales fell from his eyes, he was baptized. And now what next? What did the world hold in store for the proud scion of Judaism who had renounced power, place, pride for the lowly Nazarene? He dared not go back to Jerusalem. The Jews in Damascus would have none of him now. Would the disciples receive him? They did. “And he was certain days with the disciples that were at Damascus” (Act 9:19). Ananias vouched for him by his vision. Then Saul took his courage in his hands and went boldly into the synagogues and “proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God” (Act 9:20). This was a public committal and a proclamation of his new creed. There was tremendous pith and point in this statement from Saul. The Jews were amazed (Act 9:21). This is the core of Paul’s message as we see in his later ministry (Acts 13; Act 17:3). It rests at bottom on Paul’s own experience of grace. “His whole theology is nothing but the explanation of his own conversion” (Stalker, Life of Paul, 45). We need not argue (Garvie, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 51) that Paul understood at once the full content of the new message, but he had the heart of it right.
V. Work.
1. Adjustment:
There was evidently a tumult in Paul’s soul. He had undergone a revolution, both intellectual and spiritual. Before he proceeded farther it was wise to think through the most important implications of the new standpoint. Luke gives no account of this personal phase of Paul’s career, but he allows room for it between Act 9:21 and Act 9:22. It is Paul who tells of his retirement to Arabia (Gal 1:17 f) to prove his independence of the apostles in Jerusalem. He did not go to them for instruction or for ecclesiastical authority. He did not adopt the merely traditional view of Jesus as the Messiah. He knew, of course, the Christian contention well enough, for he had answered it often enough. But now his old arguments were gone an4t he must work his way round to the other side, and be able to put his new gospel with clearness and force. He was done with calling Jesus anathema (1Co 12:3). Henceforth to him Jesus is Lord. We know nothing of Paul’s life in Arabia nor in what part of Arabia he was. He may have gone to Mt. Sinai and thought out grace in the atmosphere of law, but that is not necessary. But it is clear that Paul grew in apprehension of the things of Christ during these years, as indeed he grew to the very end. But he did not grow away from the first clear vision of Christ. He claimed that God had revealed His Son in him that he might preach to the Gentiles (Gal 1:16). He claimed that from the first and to the very last. The undoubted development in Paul’s Epistles (see Matheson, Spiritual Development of Paul, and Sabatier, The Apostle Paul) is, however, not a changing view of Christ that nullifies Paul’s “original Christian inheritance” (Kohler, Zum Verstandnis des Apostels Paulus, 13). Pfieiderer (Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity, 3rd edition, 1897, 217) rejects Colossians because of the advanced Christology here found. But the Christology of Col is implicit in Paul’s first sermon at Damascus. “It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the significance and value of the Cross became clear to him almost simultaneously with the certainty of the resurrection and of the Messiahship of Jesus” (Garvie, Studies, etc., 57). The narrow Jew has surrendered to Christ who died for the sins of the world. The universal gospel has taken hold of his mind and heart, and it will work out its logical consequences in Paul. The time in Arabia is not wasted. When he reappears in Damascus (Act 9:22) he has “developed faith” (Findlay, HDB) and energy that bear instant fruit. He is now the slave of Christ. For him henceforth to live is Christ. He is crucified with Christ. He is in Christ. The union of Paul with Christ is the real key to his life. It is far more than a doctrine about Christ. It is real fellowship with Christ (Deissmann, St. Paul, 123). Thus it is that the man who probably never saw Christ in the flesh understands him best (Wernle, Beginnings of Christianity, I, 159).
2. Opposition:
Saul had “increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews that dwelt in Damascus, proving that this is the Christ” (Act 9:22). Now he not merely “proclaims” as before (Act 9:20); he “proves.” He does it with such marvelous skill that the Jews are first confounded, then enraged to the point of murder. Their former hero was now their foe. The disciples had learned to run from Saul. They now let him down in a basket through the wall by night and he is gone (Act 9:23 ff). This then is the beginning of the active ministry of the man who was called to be a chosen vessel to Gentiles, kings, and Jews, There was no need to go back to the wilderness. He had gotten his bearings clearly now. He had his message and it had his whole heart. He had not avoided Jerusalem because he despised flesh and blood, but because he had no need of light from the apostles since “the divine revelation so completely absorbed his interest and attention” (Garvie, Life and Teaching of Paul, 33). No door was open as yet among the Gentiles. Sooner or later he must go to Jerusalem and confer with the leaders there if he was to cooperate with them in the evangelization of the world. Saul knew that he would be an object of suspicion to the disciples in Jerusalem. That was inevitable in view of the past. It was best to go, but he did not wish to ask any favors of the apostles. Indeed he went in particular “to visit Cephas” (margin, “to become acquainted with” Gal 1:18). They knew each other, of course, as opponents. But Saul comes now with the olive branch to his old enemy. He expressly explains (Gal 1:19) that he saw no other apostle. He did see James, the Lord’s brother, who was not one of the Twelve. It seems that at first Peter and James were both afraid of Saul (Act 9:26), “not believing that he was a disciple.” If a report came 3 years before of the doings at Damascus, they had discounted it. All had been quiet, and now Saul suddenly appears in Jerusalem in a new role. It was, they feared, just a ruse to complete his work of old. But for Barnabas, Saul might not have had that visit of 15 days with Peter. Barnabas was a Hellenist of Cyprus and believed Saul’s story and stood by him. Thus, he had his opportunity to preach the gospel in Jerusalem, perhaps in the very synagogues in which he had heard Stephen, and now he is taking Stephen’s place and is disputing against the Grecian Jews (Act 9:29). He had days of blessed fellowship (Act 9:28) with the disciples, till the Grecian Jews sought to kill him as Saul had helped to do to Stephen (Act 9:29). It was a repetition of Damascus, but Saul did not wish to run again so soon. He protested to the Lord Jesus, who spoke in a vision to him, and recalls the fate of Stephen, but Jesus bids him go: “For I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles” (Act 22:17-21). One martyr like Stephen is enough. So the brethren took him down to Caesarea (Act 9:30). It was an ominous beginning for a ministry with so clear a call. Where can he go now?
3. Waiting:
They “sent him forth to Tarsus” (Act 9:30). Who would welcome him there? At Jerusalem he apparently avoided Gamaliel and the Sanhedrin. He was with the Christians and preached to the Hellenistic Jews. The Jews regarded him as a turncoat, a renegade Jew. There were apparently no Christians in Tarsus, unless some of the disciples driven from Jerusalem by Saul himself went that far, as they did go to Antioch (Act 11:19 f). But Saul was not idle, for he speaks himself of his activity in the regions of Syria and Cilicia during this “period of obscurity” (Denney, Standard Bible Dict.) as a thing known to the churches of Judea (Gal 1:21 f). He was not idle then. The way was not yet opened for formal entrance upon the missionary enterprise, but Saul was not the man to do nothing at home because of that. If they would not hear him at Damascus and Jerusalem, they would in the regions of Syria and Cilicia, his home province. We are left in doubt at first whether Paul preached only to Jews or to Gentiles also. He had the specific call to preach to the Gentiles, and there is no reason why he should not have done so in this province, preaching to the Jews first as he did afterward. He did not have the scruples of Simon Peter to overcome. When he appears at Antioch with Barnabas, he seems to take hold like an old hand at the business. It is quite probable, therefore, that this obscure ministry of some 8 or 10 years may have had more results than we know. Paul apparently felt that he had done his work in that region, for outside of Antioch he gives no time to it except that in starting out on the second tour from Antioch “he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches” (Act 15:41), churches probably the fruit of this early ministry and apparently containing Gentiles also. The letter from the Jerusalem conference was addressed to “the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia” (Act 15:23). Cilicia was now part of the Roman province of Syria. So then we conclude that Saul had a Gentileministry in this region. “Independently, under no human master, he learned his business as a missionary to the heathen” (Findlay, HDB). One can but wonder whether Saul was kindly received at home by his father and mother. They had looked upon him with pride as the possible successor of Gamaliel, and now he is a follower of the despised Nazarene and a preacher of the Cross. It is possible that his own exhortations to fathers not to provoke their children to wrath (Eph 6:4) may imply that his own father had cast him out at this time. Findlay (HDB) argues that Saul would not have remained in this region so long if his home relations had been altogether hostile. It is a severe test of character when the doors close against one. But Saul turned defeat to glorious gain.
4. Opportunity:
Most scholars hold that the ecstatic experience told by Paul in 2Co 12:1-9 took place before he came to Antioch. If we count the years strictly, 14 from 56 AD would bring us to 42 AD. Paul had spent a year in Antioch before going up to Jerusalem (Act 11:29 f). Findlay (HDB) thinks that Paul had the visions before he received the call to come to Antioch. Garvie (Life and Teaching of Paul, 41) holds he received the call first. “Such a mood of exaltation would account for the vision to which he refers in 2Co 12:1-4.” At any rate he had the vision with its exaltation and the thorn in the flesh with its humiliation before he came to Antioch in response to the invitation of Barnabas. He had undoubtedly had a measure of success in his work in Cilicia and Syria. He had the seal of the divine blessing on his work among the Gentiles. But there was a pang of disappointment over the attitude of the Jerusalem church toward his work. He was apparently left alone to his own resources. “Only such a feeling of disappointment can explain the tone of his references to his relations to the apostles (Gal 1:11-24)” (Garvie, Life and Teaching of Paul, 41). There is no bitterness in this tone - but puzzled surprise. It seems that the 12 apostles are more or less absent from Jerusalem during this period with James the brother of the Lord Jesus as chief elder. A narrow Pharisaic element in the church was active and sought to shape the policy of the church in its attitude toward the Gentiles. This is clear in the treatment of Peter, when he returned to Jerusalem after the experience at Caesarea with Cornelius (Acts 11:1-18). There was acquiescence, but with the notion that this was an exceptional case of the Lord’s doing. Hence, they show concern over the spread of the gospel to the Greeks at Antioch, and send Barnabas to investigate and report (Act 11:19-22). Barnabas was a Hellenist, and evidently did not share the narrow views of the Pharisaic party in the church at Jerusalem (Act 11:2), for he was glad (Act 11:23 f) of the work in Antioch. Probably mindful of the discipline attempted on Simon Peter, he refrained from going back at once to Jerusalem. Moreover, he believed in Saul and his work, and thus he gave him his great opportunity at Antioch. They had there a year’s blessed work together (Act 11:25 ff). So great was the outcome that the disciples received a new name to distinguish them from the Gentiles and the Jews. But the term “Christian” did not become general for a long time. There was then a great Greek church at Antioch, possibly equal in size to the Jewish church in Jerusalem. The prophecy by Agabus of a famine gave Barnabas and Saul a good excuse for a visit to Jerusalem with a general collection - “every man according to his ability” - from the Greek church for the relief of the poverty in the Jerusalem church. Barnabas had assisted generously in a similar strain in the beginning of the work there (Act 4:36 f), unless it was a different Barnabas, which is unlikely. This contribution would help the Jerusalem saints to understand now that the Greeks were really converted. It was apparently successful according to the record in Acts. The apostles seem to have been absent, since only “elders” are mentioned in Act 11:30.
The incidents in Acts 12, as already noted, are probably not contemporaneous with this visit, but either prior or subsequent to it. However, it is urged by some scholars that this visit is the same as that of Gal 2:1-10 since Paul would not have omitted it in his list of visits to Jerusalem. But then Paul is not giving a list of visits, but is only showing his independence of the apostles. If they were absent from Jerusalem at that time, there would be no occasion to mention it. Besides, Luke in Acts 15 does recount the struggle in Jerusalem over the problem of Gentileliberty. If that question was an issue at the visit in Act 11:30, it is quite remarkable that he should have passed it by, especially if the matter caused as much heat as is manifest in Gal 2, both in Jerusalem and Antioch. It is much simpler to understand that in Acts 15 and Gal 2:1-10 we have the public and the private aspects of the same issue, than to suppose that Luke has slurred the whole matter over in Act 11:30. The identification of the visit of Gal 2 with that in Act 11:30 makes it possible to place Galatians before the conference in Jerusalem in Acts 15 and implies the correctness of the South Galatian theory of the destination of the epistle and of the work of Paul, a theory with strong advocates and arguments, but which is by no means established (see below for discussion at more length). So far as we can gather from Luke, Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem with John Mark (Act 12:25),” when they had fulfilled their ministration” with satisfaction. The Pharisaic element was apparently quiescent, and the outlook for the future work among the Gentiles seemed hopeful. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 62 ff) argues strongly for identifying the revelation mentioned in Paul’s speech in Act 22:20 f with this visit in Act 11:30 (Act 12:25), rather than with the one in Act 9:29 f. There is a textual problem in Act 12:25, but I cannot concur in the solution of Ramsay.
5. The First Great Mission Campaign:
Acts 13 and 14, 47 and 48 AD:
Paul had already preached to the Gentiles in Cilicia and Syria for some 10 years. The work was not new to him. He had had his specific call from Jerusalem long ago and had answered it. But now an entirely new situation arises. His work had been individual in Cilicia. Now the Spirit specifically directs the separation of Barnabas and Saul to this work (Act 13:2). They were to go together, and they had the sympathy and prayers of a great church. The endorsement was probably not “ordination” in the technical sense, but a farewell service of blessing and good will as the missionaries went forth on the world-campaign (Act 13:3). No such unanimous endorsement could have been obtained in Jerusalem to this great enterprise. It was momentous in its possibilities for Christianity. Hitherto work among the Gentiles had been sporadic and incidental. Now a determined effort was to be made to evangelize a large section of the Roman empire. There is no suggestion that the church at Antioch provided funds for this or for the two later Campaigns, as the church at Philippi came to do. How that was managed this time we do not know. Some individuals may have helped. Paul had his trade to fall back on, and often had resort to it later. The presence of John Mark “as their attendant” (Act 13:5) was probably due to Barnabas, his cousin (Col 4:10). The visit to Cyprus, the home of Barnabas, was natural. There were already some Christians there (Act 11:20), and it was near. They preach first in the synagogues of the Jews at Salamis (Act 13:5). We are left to conjecture as to results there and through the whole island till Paphos is reached. There they meet a man of great prominence and intelligence, Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul, who had been under the spell of a sorcerer with a Jewish name - Elymas Bar-jesus (compare Peter’s encounter with Simon Magus in Samaria). In order to win and hold Sergius Paulus, who had become interested in Christianity, Paul has to punish Bar-jesus with blindness (Act 13:10 ff) in the exercise of that apostolic power which he afterward claimed with such vigor (1Co 5:4 f; 2Co 13:10). He won Sergius Paulus, and this gave him cheer for his work. From now on it is Paul, not Saul, in the record of Luke, perhaps because of this incident, though both names probably belonged to him from the first. Now also Paul steps to the fore ahead of Barnabas, and it is “Paul’s company” (Act 13:13) that sets sail from Paphos for Pamphylia. There is no evidence here of resentment on the part of Barnabas at the leadership of Paul. The whole campaign may have been planned from the start by the Holy Spirit as the course now taken may have been due to Paul’s leadership. John Mark deserts at Perga and returns to Jerusalem (his home), not to Antioch (Act 13:13). Paul and Barnabas push on to the tablelands of Pisidia. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 93) thinks that Paul had malaria down at Perga and hence desired to get up into higher land. That is possible. The places mentioned in the rest of the tour are Antioch in Pisidia (Act 13:14), and Iconium (Act 13:51), Lystra (Act 14:8), and Derbe (Act 14:20), cities of Lycaonia. These terms are ethnographic descriptions of the southern divisions of the Roman province of Galatia, the northern portion being Galatia proper or North Galatia. So then Paul and Barnabas are now at work in South Galatia, though Luke does not mention that name, using here only the popular designations. The work is wonderfully successful. In these cities, on one of the great Roman roads east and west, Paul is reaching the centers of provincial life as will be his custom. At Antioch Paul is invited to repeat his sermon on the next Sabbath (Act 13:42), and Luke records at length the report of this discourse which has the characteristic notes of Paul’s gospel as we see it in his epistles. Paul may have kept notes of the discourse. There were devout Gentiles at these services. These were the first to be won, and thus a wider circle of Gentiles could be reached. Paul and Barnabas were too successful at Antioch in Pisidia. The jealous Jews opposed, and Paul and Barnabas dramatically turned to the Gentiles (Act 13:45 ff). But the Jews reached the city magistrate through the influential women, and Paul and Barnabas were ordered to leave (Act 13:50 f). Similar success brings like results in Iconium. At Lystra, before the hostile Jews come, Paul and Barnabas have great success and, because of the healing of the impotent man, are taken as Mercury and Jupiter respectively, and worship is offered them. Paul’s address in refusal is a fine plea on the grounds of natural theology (Act 14:15-18). The attempt on Paul’s life after the Jews came seemed successful. In the band of disciples that “stood round about him,” there may have been Timothy, Paul’s son in the gospel. From Derbe they retrace their steps to Perga, in order to strengthen the churches with officers, and then sail for Seleucia and Antioch. They make their report to the church at Antioch. It is a wonderful story. The door of faith is now wide open for the Gentiles who have entered in great numbers (Act 14:27). No report was sent to Jerusalem. What will the Pharisaic party do now?
6. The Conflict at Jerusalem:
Acts 15; Gal 2, 49 AD:
The early date of Galatians, addressed to these churches of Pisidia and Lycaonia before the Conference in Jerusalem does not allow time for a second visit there (Gal 4:13), and requires that the Judaizers from Jerusalem followed close upon the heels of Paul and Barnabas (Gal 1:6; Gal 3:1) in South Galatia. Besides, there is the less likelihood that the matter would have been taken a second time to Jerusalem (Act 15:2 f) if already the question had been settled in Paul’s favor (Act 11:30). It is strange also that no reference to this previous conference on the same subject is made in Acts 15, since Peter does refer to his experience at Caesarea (Act 15:9) and since James in Act 21:25 specifically (“we wrote”) mentions the letter of Acts 15 in which full liberty was granted to the Gentiles. Once more, the attack on the position of Paul and Barnabas in Act 15:1 is given as a new experience, and hence the sharp dissension and tense feeling. The occasion for the sudden outbreak at Antioch on the part of the self-appointed (Act 15:24) regulators of Paul and Barnabas lay in the reports that came to Jerusalem about the results of this campaign on a large scale among the Gentiles. There was peril to the supremacy of the Jewish element. They had assumed at first, as even Peter did who was not a Judaizer (Acts 10), that the Gentiles who became disciples would also become Jews. The party of the circumcision had made protest against the conduct of Peter at Caesarea (Act 11:1 f) and had reluctantly acquiesced in the plain work of God (Act 11:18). They had likewise yielded in the matter of the Greeks at Antioch (Act 11:19 ff) by the help of the contribution (Act 11:29 f). But they had not agreed to a campaign to Hellenize Christianity. The matter had to stop. So the Judaizers came up to Antioch and laid down the law to Paul and Barnabas. They did not wait for them to come to Jerusalem. They might not come till it was too late (compare Barnabas in Acts 11). Paul and Barnabas had not sought the controversy. They had both received specific instructions from the Holy Spirit to make this great campaign among the Gentiles. They would not stultify themselves and destroy the liberty of the Gentiles in Christ by going back and having the Mosaic Law imposed on them by the ceremony of circumcision. They saw at once the gravity of the issue. The very essence of the gospel of grace was involved. Paul had turned away from this yoke of bondage. He would not go back to it nor would he impose it on his converts. The church at Antioch stood by Paul and Barnabas. Paul (Gal 2:2) says that he had a revelation to go to Jerusalem with the problem. Luke (Act 15:3) says that the church sent them. Surely there is no inconsistency here. It is not difficult to combine the personal narrative in Gal 2 with the public meetings recorded in Acts 15. We have first the general report by Paul and Barnabas to the church in Jerusalem (Act 15:4 f) to which instant exception was made by the Judaizing element. There seems to have come an adjournment to prepare for the conflict, since in Act 15:6 Luke says again that “the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider of this matter.” Between these two public meetings we may place the private conference of Paul and Barnabas with Peter, John and James and other teachers (Gal 2:1-10). In this private conference some of the timid brethren wished to persuade Paul to have Titus, a Greek Christian whom Paul had brought down from Antioch (a live specimen!), offered as a sacrifice to the Judaizers (“false brethren”) and circumcised. But Paul stood his ground for the truth of the gospel and was supported by Peter, John and James. They agreed all around for Paul and Barnabas to go on with their work to the Gentiles, and Peter, John and James would push the work among the Jews (a division in sphere of work, like home and foreign missions, not a denominational cleavage). Here, then, for the first time, Paul has had an opportunity to talk the matter over with the apostolic teachers, and they agree. The Judaizers will have no support from the apostles. The battle was really won in their private conference. In the second public meeting (Acts 15:6-29) all goes smoothly enough. Ample opportunity for free discussion is offered. Then Peter shows how God had used him to preach to the Romans, and how the Jews themselves had to believe on Christ in order to be saved. He opposed putting a yoke on the Gentiles that the Jews could not bear. There was a pause, and then Barnabas and Paul (note the order here: courtesy to Barnabas) spoke again. After another pause, James, the president of the conference, the brother of the Lord Jesus, and a stedfast Jew, spoke. He cited Amo 9:11 f to show that God had long ago promised a blessing to the Gentiles. He suggests liberty to the Gentiles with the prohibition of pollution of idols, of fornication, things strangled, and blood. His ideas are embodied in a unanimous decree which strongly commends “our beloved Barnabas and Paul” and disclaims responsibility for the visit of the Judaizers to Antioch. The Western text omits “things strangled” from the decree. If this is correct, the decree prohibits idolatry, fornication and murder (Wilson, Origin and Aim of the Acts of the Apostles, 1912, 55). At any rate, the decision is a tremendous victory for Paul and Barnabas. If the other reading is correct, Jewish feelings about things strangled and blood are to be respected. The decision was received with great joy in Antioch (Act 15:30-35). Some time later Peter appears at Antioch in the fullest fellowship with Paul and Barnabas in their work, and joins them in free social intercourse with the Gentiles, as he had timidly done in the home of Cornelius, till “certain came from James” (Gal 2:11 f), and probably threatened to have Peter up before the church again (Act 11:2) on this matter, claiming that James agreed with them on the subject. This I do not believe was true in the light of Act 15:24, where a similar false claim is discredited, since James had agreed with Paul in Jerusalem (Act 15:19 ff; Gal 2:9 f). The new ground for complaint was that they had not settled the question of social relations with the Gentiles in the Jerusalem conference and that Peter had exceeded the agreement there reached. Peter quailed before the accusation, “fearing them that were of the circumcision” Gal 2:12) To make it worse, “even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation” (Gal 2:13). Under this specious plea Paul was about to lose the fruit of the victory already won, and charged Peter to his face with Judaizing hypocrisy (Gal 2:11-14). It was a serious crisis. Peter had not changed his convictions, but had once more cowered in an hour of peril. Paul won both Barnabas and Peter to his side and took occasion to show how useless the death of Christ was if men could be saved by mere legalism (Gal 2:21). But the Judaizers had renewed the war, and they would keep it up and harry the work of Paul all over the world. Paul had the fight of his life upon his hands.
7. The Second Mission Campaign:
Acts 15:36 through 18:22; 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 49-51 (or 52) AD:
The impulse to go out again came from Paul. Despite the difference in Gal 2:13, he wished to go again with Barnabas (Act 15:36), but Barnabas insisted on taking along John Mark, which Paul was not willing to do because of his failure to stick to the work at Perga. So they agreed to disagree after “sharp contention” (Act 15:39 f). Barnabas went with Mark to Cyprus, while Paul took Silas, “being commended by the brethren to the grace of the Lord.” Luke follows the career of Paul, and so Barnabas drops out of view (compare later 1Co 9:6). Paul and Silas go “through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches” (Act 15:41). They pass through the Cilician gates to Derbe, the end of the first tour, and go to Lystra. Here they pick up Timothy, who more than takes Mark’s place in Paul’s life. Timothy’s mother was a Jewess and his father a Greek. Paul decided therefore to have him circumcised since, as a half-Jew, he would be especially obnoxious to the Jews. This case differed wholly from that of Titus, a Greek, where principle was involved. Here it was a matter merely of expediency. Paul had taken the precaution to bring along the decrees of the Conference at Jerusalem in case there was need of them. He delivered them to the churches. It has to be noted that in 1 Cor 8 through 10 and in Rom 14 and 15, when discussing the question of eating meats offered to idols, Paul does not refer to these decrees, but argues the matter purely from the standpoint of the principles involved. The Judaizers anyhow had not lived up to the agreement, but Paul is here doing his part by the decision. The result of the work was good for the churches (Act 16:4).
When we come to Act 16:6, we touch a crucial passage in the South-Galatian controversy. Ramsay (Christianity in the Roman Empire, chapters iii through vi; History and Geography of Asia Minor; St. Paul the Traveler, chapters v, vi, viii, ix; The Expositor, IV, viii, ix, “replies to Chase”; “Galatia,” HDB; Commentary on Gal; The Cities of St. Paul; The Expositor T, 1912, 1913) has become by his able advocacy the chief champion of the view that Paul never went to Galatia proper or North Galatia, and that he addressed his epistle to South Galatia, the churches visited in the first tour. For a careful history of the whole controversy in detail, see Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 90-106, who strongly supports the view of Lightfoot, H.J. Holtzmann, Blass, Schurer, Denney, Chase, Mommsen, Steinmann, etc. There are powerful names with Ramsay, like Hausrath, Zahn, Barrlet, Garvie, Weizsacker, etc. The arguments are too varied and minute for complete presentation here. The present writer sees some very attractive features in the South-Galatian hypothesis, but as a student of language finds himself unable to overcome the syntax of Act 16:6. The minor difficulty is the dropping of
Besides, “the Phrygio-Galatic region” lay between Lystra and Asia, and, according to Ramsay, after the prohibition in Lystra, he went straight on toward Asia. This is certainly very artificial and unlike the usual procedure. According to the other view, Paul had already visited the churches in Lycaonia and Pisidia on his former visit. He wished to go on west into Asia, probably to Ephesus, but was forbidden by the Holy Spirit, and as a result turned northward through Phrygia and the regions of Galatia, using both terms in the ethnographic sense. Paul was already in the province of Galatia at Derbe and Lystra. The matter has many “ins and outs” and cannot be argued further here. It is still in debate, but the present interpretation is in harmony with the narrative in Acts. See also GALATIA; GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE.
By this view Paul had not meant to stop in Galatia proper and did so only because of an attack of illness (Gal 4:13). It is possible that Luke may have come to his rescue here. At any rate, he finally pushes on opposite Mysia and Bithynia in the extreme north and was forbidden by the Spirit from going on into Bithynia. So they came down to Troas (Act 16:7 f) when Luke (“we,” Act 16:10) appears on the scene and the Macedonian call comes to Paul. Thus Paul is led out of Asia into Europe and carries the gospel successively to Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth. The gospel is finally planted in the great provinces of Macedonia and Achaia. In Philippi, a Roman colony and military outpost, Paul finds few Jews and has to go out to a prayer-place to find a few Jewish women to whom he can tell the story of Jesus. But he gains a start with Lydia and her household, and soon arouses the hostility of a company of men who were making money out of a poor girl’s powers of divination. But before Paul and Silas leave the jail, the jailer is himself converted, and a good church is established. At Thessalonica Paul has great success and arouses the jealousy of the Jews who gather a rabble and raise a disturbance and charge it up to Paul. At Philippi appeal was made to prejudice against Jews. At Thessalonica the charge is made that Paul preaches Jesus as a rival king to Caesar. In Berea Paul and Silas have even more success till the Jews come from Thessalonica and drive Paul out again. Timothy, who has come out from Philippi where Luke has remained, and Silas stay in Berea while Paul hurries on to Athens with some of the brethren, who return with the request for Timothy and Silas “to come to him with all speed.” Apparently Timothy did come (1Th 3:1 f), but Paul soon sent him back to Thessalonica because of his anxiety about conditions there. Left alone in Athens, Paul’s spirit was stirred over the idolatry before his eyes. He preaches in the synagogues and argues with the Stoics and Epicureans in the Agora who make light of his pretensions to philosophy as a “babbler” (Act 17:18). But curiosity leads them to invite him to speak on the Areopagus. This notable address, all alive to his surroundings, was rather rudely cut short by their indifference and mockery, and Paul left Athens with small results for his work. He goes over to Corinth, the great commercial city of the province, rich and with bizarre notions of culture. Paul determined (1Co 2:1-5) to be true to the cross, even after his experience in Athens. He gave them, not the flashy philosophy of the sophists, but the true Wisdom of God in simple words, the philosophy of the cross of Christ (1 Cor 1:17 through 3:4). In Corinth Paul found fellow-helpers in Aquila and Priscilla, just expelled from Rome by Claudius. They have the same trade of tentmakers and live together (Act 18:1-4), and Paul preached in the synagogues. Paul is cheered by the coming of Timothy and Silas from Thessalonica (Act 18:5) with supplies from Philippi, as they had done while in Thessalonica (Php 4:15 f). This very success led to opposition, and Paul has to preach in the house of Titus Justus. But the work goes on till Gallio comes and a renewed effort is made to have it stopped, but Gallio declines to interfere and thus practically makes Christianity a religio licita, since he treats it as a variety of Judaism. While here, after the arrival of Timothy and Silas, Paul writes the two letters to Thessalonica, the first of his 13 epistles. They are probably not very far apart in time, and deal chiefly with a grievous misunderstanding on their part concerning the emphasis placed by him on the Man of Sin and the Second Coming. Paul had felt the power of the empire, and his attention is sharply drawn to the coming conflict between the Roman empire and the kingdom of God. He treats it in terms of apocalyptic eschatology. When he leaves Corinth, it is to go by Ephesus, with Aquila and Priscilla whom he leaves there with the promise to return. He goes down to Caesarea and “went up and saluted the church” (Act 18:22), probably at Jerus (fourth visit), and “went down to Antioch.” If he went to Jerusalem, it was probably incidental, and nothing of importance happened. He is back once again in Antioch after an absence of some 3 or 4 years.
8. The Third Mission Campaign:
Acts 18:23 through 21:14; 1 and 2 Corinthians; Galatians; Romans, 52 (or 53)-57 (or 58) AD:
The stay of Paul at Antioch is described as “sometime” (Act 18:23). Denney (Standard Bible Dictionary) conjectures that Paul’s brief stay at Jerusalem (see above) was due to the fact that he found that the Judaizers had organized opposition there against him in the absence of the apostles, and it was so unpleasant that he did not stay. He Suggests also that the Judaizers had secured letters of commendation from the church for their emissaries (2Co 3:1) to Corinth and Galatia, who were preaching “another Jesus” of nationalism and narrowness, whom Paul did not preach (Gal 1:6; 2Co 11:4). Both Denney and Findlay follow Neander, Wieseler, and Sabatier in placing here, before Paul starts out again from Antioch, the visit of certain “from James” (Gal 2:12), who overpowered Peter for the moment. But I have put this incident as more probably before the disagreement with Barnabas over Mark, and as probably contributing to that breach at the beginning of the second tour. It is not necessary to suppose that the Judaizers remained acquiescent so long.
Paul seems to have set out on the third tour alone - unless Timothy came back with him, of which there is no evidence save that he is with Paul again in Ephesus (Act 19:22). What became of Silas? Paul “went through the region of Galatia, and Phrygia, in order, establishing all the disciples” (Act 18:23), the opposite order to Act 16:6, “through the region of Phrygia and Galatia.” According to the North-Galatian view, here followed, he went through the northern part of the province, passing through Galatia proper and Phrygia on his way west to Ephesus. Luke adds, “Paul having passed through the upper country came to Ephesus” (Act 19:1). The ministry of Apollos in Ephesus (Act 18:24-28) had taken place before Paul arrived, though Aquila and Priscilla were still on hand. Apollos passed over to Corinth and innocently became the occasion of such strife there (1 Cor 1 through 4) that he left and refused to return at Paul’s request (1Co 16:12). Paul has a ministry of 3 years, in round numbers, in Ephesus, which is full of excitement and anxiety from the work there and in Corinth. He finds on his arrival some ill-informed disciples of John the Baptist who are ignorant of the chief elements of John’s teaching about repentance, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (Act 19:2-7), matters of which Apollos had knowledge, though he learned more from Priscilla and Aquila, but there is no evidence that he was rebaptized as was true of the 12 disciples of John (Robertson, John the Loyal, 290-303). The boldness of Paul in Ephesus led in 3 months to his departure from the synagogue to the schoolhouse of Tyrannus, where he preached for 2 years (Act 19:8-10) with such power that “all they that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord.” It is not strange later to find churches at Colosse and Hierapolis in the Lycus Valley (compare also Rev 1:11). Paul has a sharp collision with the strolling Jewish exorcists that led to the burning of books of magic by the wholesale (Act 19:11-20), another proof of the hold that magic and the mysteries had upon the Orient. Ephesus was the seat of the worship of Diana whose wonderful temple was their pride. A great business in the manufacture of shrines of Diana was carried on here by Demetrius, and “this Paul” had hurt his trade so much that he raised an insurrection under the guise of piety and patriotism and might have killed Paul with the mob, if he could have got hold of him (Acts 19:23-41). It was with great difficulty that Paul was kept from going to the amphitheater, as it was. But here, as at Corinth, the Roman officer (the town clerk) defended Paul from the rage of his enemies (there the jealous Jews, here the tradesmen whose business suffered). He was apparently very ill anyhow, and came near death (2Co 1:9). All this seems to have hastened his departure from Ephesus sooner than Pentecost, as he had written to the Corinthians (1Co 16:8). His heart was in Corinth because of the discussions there over him and Apollos and Peter, by reason of the agitation of the Judaizers (1Co 1:10-17). The household of Chloe had brought word of this situation to Paul. He had written the church a letter now lost (1Co 5:9). They had written him a letter (1Co 7:1). They sent messengers to Paul (1Co 16:17). He had sent Timothy to them (1Co 4:17; 1Co 16:10), who seems not to have succeeded in quieting the trouble. Paul wrote 1 Cor (spring of 56), and then sent Titus, who was to meet him at Troas and report results (2Co 2:12 f). He may also have written another letter and sent it by Titus (2Co 2:3 f). The sudden departure from Corinth brought Paul to Troas ahead of time, but he could not wait for Titus, and so pushed on with a heavy heart into Macedonia, where he met him, and he had good and bad news to tell (2Co 2:12 ff; 2Co 7:5-13). The effect on Paul was instantaneous. He rebounded to hope and joy (2Co 2:14 ff) in a glorious defense of the ministry of Jesus (compare Robertson, The Glory of the Ministry; Paul’s Exultation in Preaching), with a message of cheer to the majority. of the church that had sustained Paul and with instructions (2 Cor 8 and 2Co 9:1-15) about the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem, which must be pushed to a completion by Titus and two other brethren (possibly also Luke, brother of Titus, and Erastus). Timothy and Erastus had been sent on ahead to Macedonia from Ephesus (Act 19:22), and Timothy sends greetings with Paul to the Corinthians in a letter (2 Corinthians) which Paul now forwards, possibly by Titus. The latter part of the epistle (1 Cor 10 through 13) deals with the stubborn minority who still resist the authority of Paul as an apostle. On the proposed treatment of these chapters as a separate epistle see the earlier part of this article. Paul seems to wait a while before going on to Corinth. He wishes the opposition to have time to repent. During this period he probably went round about to Illyricum (Rom 15:19). He spent three months in Greece (Act 20:2 f), probably the winter of 56 and 57.
We have placed Galatians in the early part of this stay in Corinth, though it could have been written while at Ephesus. Romans was certainly written while here, and they both treat the same general theme of justification by faith. Ramsay (Expos, February, 1913, 127-45) has at last come to the conclusion that Gal belongs to the date of Act 15:1 f. He bases this conclusion chiefly on the “absolute independence” of his apostleship claimed in Gal 1 and 2, which, he holds, he would not have done after the conference in Acts 15, which was “a sacrifice of complete independence.” This is a curious interpretation, for in Gal 2:1-10 Paul himself tells of his recognition on terms of equality by Peter, John and James, and of his going to Jerusalem by “revelation,” which was just as much “a sacrifice of complete independence” as we find in Acts 15. Besides, in 2Co 11:5 and 2Co 12:11 Paul expressly asserts his equality (with all humility) with the very chiefest apostles, and in 1Co 15:10 he claims in so many words to have wrought more than all the apostles. Perhaps messengers from Galatia with the contributions from that region report the havoc wrought there by the Judaizers. Gal is a tremendous plea for the spiritual nature of Christianity as opposed to Jewish ceremonial legalism.
Paul had long had it in mind to go to Rome. It was his plan to do so while at Ephesus (Act 19:21) after he had gone to Jerusalem with the great collection from the churches of Asia, Galatia, Achaia, and Macedonia. He hoped that this collection would have a mollifying effect on the Jerusalem saints as that from Antioch had (Act 11:29 f). He had changed some details in his plans, but not the purpose to go to Jerusalem and then to Rome. Meanwhile, he writes the longest and most important letter of all to the Romans, in which he gives a fuller statement of his gospel, because they had not heard him preach, save his various personal friends who had gone there from the east (Acts 16). But already the shadow of Jerusalem is on his heart, and he asks their prayers in his behalf, as he faces his enemies in Jerusalem (Rom 15:30-32). He hopes also to go on to Spain (Rom 15:24), so as to carry the gospel to the farther west also. The statesmanship of Paul comes out now in great clearness. He has in his heart always anxiety for the churches that consumes him (2Co 11:28 f). He was careful to have a committee of the churches go with him to report the collection (2Co 8:19 f). Paul had planned to sail direct for Syria, but a plot on his life in Corinth led him to go by land via Macedonia with his companions (Act 20:2-4). He tarried at Philippi while the rest went on to Troas. At Philippi Paul is joined again by Luke, who stays with him till Rome is reached. They celebrate the Passover (probably the spring of 57) in Philippi (Act 20:6). We cannot follow the details in Acts at Troas, the voyage through the beautiful Archipelago, to Miletus. There Paul took advantage of the stop to send for the elders of Ephesus to whom he gave a wonderful address (Acts 20:17-38). They change ships at Patara for Phoenicia and pass to the right of Cyprus with its memories of Barnabas and Sergius Paulus and stop at Tyre, where Paul is warned not to go on to Jerusalem. The hostility of the Judaizers to Paul is now common talk everywhere. There is grave peril of a schism in Christianity over the question of Gentile liberty, once settled in Jerusalem, but unsettled by the Judaizers. At Caesarea Paul is greeted by Philip the evangelist and his four daughters (prophetesses). At Caesarea Paul is warned in dramatic fashion by Agabus (compare Act 11:28) not to go on to Jerusalem (Act 21:9 ff), but Paul is more determined than ever to go, even if he die (Act 20:13). He had had three premonitions for long (Act 20:22 ff), but he will finish his course, cost what it may. He finds a friend at Caesarea in Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, who was to be the host of Paul in Jerusalem (Act 21:16).
9. Five Years a Prisoner:
Acts 21:17 through 28:31; Philippians; Philemon; Colossians; Ephesians, 57-62 (or 63) AD:
Paul had hoped to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost (Act 20:16). He seems to have done so. Luke gives the story of Paul in Jerusalem, Caesarea, and the voyage to Rome in much detail. He was with him and considered this period of his ministry very important. The welcome from the brethren in Jerusalem was surprisingly cordial (Act 21:17). On the very next day Paul and his party made a formal call on James and all the elders (Act 21:18 f), who gave a sympathetic hearing to the narrative of God’s dealings with Paul and the Gentiles. He presented the alms (collection) in due form (Act 24:17), though some critics have actually suggested that Paul used it to defray the expenses of the appeal to Caesar. Ramsay’s notion that he may have fallen heir by now to his portion of his father’s estate is quite probable. But the brethren wish to help Paul set himself right before the rank and file of the church in Jerusalem, who have been imposed upon by the Judaizers who have misrepresented Paul’s real position by saying that he urged the Jewish Christians to give up the Mosaic customs (Act 21:21). The elders understand Paul and recall the decision of the conference at which freedom was guaranteed to the Gentiles, and they have no wish to disturb that (Act 21:25). They only wish Paul to show that he does not object to the Jewish Christians keeping up the Mosaic regulations. They propose that Paul offer sacrifice publicly in the temple and pay the vows of four men, and then all will know the truth (Act 21:23 f). Paul does not hesitate to do that (Act 21:26 ff). He had kept the Jewish feasts (compare Act 20:6) as Jesus had done, and the early disciples in Jerusalem. He was a Jew. He may have had a vow at Corinth (Act 18:18). He saw no inconsistency in a Jew doing thus after becoming a Christian, provided he did not make it obligatory on Gentiles. The real efficacy of the sacrifices lay in the death of Jesus for sin. Garvie (Life and Teaching of Paul, 173) calls this act of Paul “scarcely, worthy of his courage as a man or his faith in God.” I cannot see it in that light. It is a matter of practical wisdom, not of principle. To have refused would have been to say that the charge was true, and it was not. So far as the record goes, this act of Paul accomplished its purpose in setting Paul in a right light before the church in Jerusalem. It took away this argument from the Judaizers. The trouble that now comes to Paul does not come from the Judaizers, but from “the Jews from Asia” (Act 21:27). If it be objected that the Jerusalem Christians seem to have done nothing to help Paul during his years of imprisonment, it can be said that there was little to be done in a legal way, as the matter was before the Roman courts very soon. The attack on Paul in the temple was while he was doing honor to the temple, engaged in actual worship offering sacrifices. But then Jews from Ephesus hated him so that they imagined that he had Greeks with him in the Jewish court, because they had seen him one day with Trophimus in the city (Act 21:27 ff). It is a splendid illustration of the blindness of prejudice and hate. It was absolutely untrue, and the men who raised the hue and cry in the temple against Paul as the desecrator of the holy place and the Law and the people disappear, and are never heard of more (Act 24:18 f). But it will take Paul five years or more of the prime of his life to get himself out of the tangled web that will be woven about his head. Peril follows peril. He was almost mobbed, as often before, by the crowd that dragged him out of the temple (Act 21:30 f). It would remind Paul of Stephen’s fate. When the Roman captain rescued him and had him bound with two chains as a dangerous bandit, and had him carried by the soldiers to save his life, the mob yelled “Away with him” (Act 21:36 f), as they had done to Jesus. After the captain, astonished that “Paul the Egyptian assassin” can speak Greek, grants him permission to stand on the steps of the tower of Antonia to speak to the mob that clamored for his blood, he held their rapt attention by an address in Aramaic (Act 22:2) in which he gave a defense of his whole career. This they heard eagerly till he spoke the word “Gentiles,” at which they raged more violently than ever (Act 22:21 ff). At this the captain has Paul tied with thongs, not understanding his Aramaic speech, and is about to scourge him when Paul pleads his Roman citizenship, to the amazement of the centurion (Act 22:24 ff). Almost in despair, the captain, wishing to know the charge of the Jews against Paul, brings him before the Sanhedrin. It is a familiar scene to Paul, and it is now their chance for settling old scores. Paul makes a sharp retort in anger to the high priest Ananias, for which he apologizes as if he was so angry that he had not noticed, but he soon divides the Sanhedrin hopelessly on the subject of the resurrection (compare the immunity of the disciples on that issue when Gamaliel scored the Sadducees in Acts 5). This was turning the tables on his enemies, and was justifiable as war. He claimed to be a Pharisee on this point, as he was still, as opposed to the Sadducees. The result was that Paul had to be rescued from the contending factions, and the captain knew no more than he did before (Act 23:1-10). That night “the Lord stood by him” and promised that he would go to Rome (Act 23:11). That was a blessed hope. But the troubles of Paul are by no means over. By the skill of his nephew he escaped the murderous plot of 40 Jews who had taken a vow not to eat till they had killed Paul (Act 23:12-24). They almost succeeded, but Claudius Lysias sent Paul in haste with a band of soldiers to Caesarea to Felix, the procurator, with a letter in which he claimed to have rescued Paul from the mob, “having learned that he was a Roman” (Act 23:26-30). At any rate he was no longer in the clutches of the Jews. Would Roman provincial justice be any better? Felix follows a perfunctory course with Paul and shows some curiosity about Christianity, till Paul makes him tremble with terror, a complete reversal of situations (compare Pilate’s meanness before Jesus). But love of money from Paul or the Jews leads Felix to keep Paul a prisoner for two years, though convinced of his innocence, and to hand him over to Festus, his successor, because the Jews might make things worse for him if he released him (Acts 24). The case of the Sanhedrin, who have now made it their own (or at least the Sadducean section), though pleaded by the Roman orator Tertullus, had fallen through as Paul calmly riddied their charges. Festus is at first at a loss how to proceed, but he soon follows the steps of Felix by offering to play into the hands of the Jewish leaders by sending Paul back to Jerusalem, whereupon Paul abruptly exercises his right of Roman citizenship by appealing to Caesar (Act 25:1-12). This way, though a long one, offered the only ray of hope. The appearance of Paul before Agrippa and Bernice was simply by way of entertainment arranged by Festus to relieve his guests of ennui, but Paul seized the opportunity to make a powerful appeal to Agrippa that put him in a corner logically, though he wriggled out and declined to endorse Christianity, though confirming Paul’s innocence, which Festus also had admitted (Acts 25:13 through 26:32). Paul was fortunate in the centurion Julius who took him to Rome, for he was kindly disposed to him at the start, and so it was all the way through the most remarkable voyage on record. Luke has surpassed his own record in Acts 27, in which he traces the voyage, stage by stage, with change of ship at Myra, delay at Fair Havens, Crete, and shipwreck on the island of Malta. More is learned about ancient seafaring from this chapter than from any other source (see the article PHOENIX, and Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of Paul, 1866). In it all Paul is the hero, both on the ships and in Malta. In the early spring of 60 another ship takes Paul and the other prisoners to Puteoli. Thence they go on to Rome, and enter by the Appian Way. News of Paul’s coming had gone on before (his epistle had come 3 years ago), and he had a hearty welcome. But he is now an imperial prisoner in the hands of Nero. He has more liberty in his own hired house (Act 28:16, Act 28:30), but he is chained always to a Roman soldier, though granted freedom to see his friends and to preach to the soldiers. Paul is anxious to remove any misapprehensions that the Jews in Rome may have about him, and tries to win them to Christ, and with partial success (Act 28:17-28). And here Luke leaves him a prisoner for 2 years more, probably because at this point he finishes the Book of Acts. But, as we have seen, during these years in Rome, Paul wrote Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians. He still has the churches on his heart. They send messengers to him, and he writes back to them. The incipient Gnosticism of the East has pressed upon the churches at Colosse and Laodicea, and a new peril confronts Christianity. The Judaizing controversy has died away with these years (compare Php 3:1 ff for an echo of it), but the dignity and glory of Jesus are challenged. In the presence of the power of Rome Paul rises to a higher conception than even that of the person of Christ and the glory of the church universal. In due time Paul’s case was disposed of and he was once more set free. The Romans were proverbially dilatory. It is doubtful if his enemies ever appeared against him with formal charges.
10. Further Travels:
The genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles is here assumed. But for them we should know nothing further, save from a few fragments in the early Christian writings. As it is, some few who accept the Pastoral Epistles seek to place them before 64 AD, so as to allow for Paul’s death in that year from the Neronian persecution. In that case, he was not released. There is no space here to argue the question in detail. We can piece together the probable course of events. He had expected when in Corinth last to go on to Spain (Rom 15:28), but now in Rome his heart turns back to the east again. He longs to see the Philippians (Php 1:23 ff) and hopes to see Philemon in Colosse (Phm 1:22). But he may have gone to Spain also, as Clement of Rome seems to imply (Clement ad Cor 5), and as is stated in the Canon of Muratori. He may have been in Spain when Rome was burned July 19, 64 AD. There is no evidence that Paul went as far as Britain. On his return east he left Titus in Crete (Tit 1:5). He touched at Miletus when he left Trophimus sick (2Ti 4:20) and when he may have met Timothy, if he did not go on to Ephesus (1Ti 1:3). He stopped at Troas and apparently expected to come back here, as he left his cloak and books with Carpus (2Ti 4:13). He was on his way to Macedonia (1Ti 1:3), whence he writes Timothy in 65-67 a letter full of love and counsel for the future. Paul is apprehensive of the grave perils now confronting Christianity. Besides the Judaizers, the Gnostics, the Jews and the Romans, he may have had dim visions of the conflict with the mystery-religions. It was a syncretistic age, and men had itching ears. But Paul is full of sympathy and tender solicitude for Timothy, who must push on the work and get ready for it. Paul expects to spend the winter in Nicopolis (Tit 3:12), but is apparently still in Macedonia when he writes to Titus a letter on lines similar to those in 1 Timothy, only the note is sharper against Judaism of a certain type. We catch another glimpse of Apollos in Tit 3:13. Paul hits off the Cretans in Tit 1:10 with a quotation from Epimenides, one of their own poetic prophets.
11. Last Imprisonment and Death:
68 (or 67) AD:
When Paul writes again to Timothy he has had a winter in prison, and has suffered greatly from the cold and does not wish to spend another winter in the Mamertine (probably) prison (2Ti 4:13, 2Ti 4:21). We do not know what the charges now are. They may have been connected with the burning of Rome. There were plenty of informers eager to win favor with Nero. Proof was not now necessary. Christianity is no longer a religio licita under the shelter of Judaism. It is now a crime to be a Christian. It is dangerous to be seen with Paul now, and he feels the desertion keenly (2Ti 1:15 ff; 2Ti 4:10). Only Luke, the beloved physician, is with Paul (2Ti 4:11), and such faithful ones as live in Rome still in hiding (2Ti 4:21). Paul hopes that Timothy may come and bring Mark also (2Ti 4:11). Apparently Timothy did come and was put into prison (Heb 13:23). Paul is not afraid. He knows that he will die. He has escaped the mouth of the lion (2Ti 4:17), but he will die (2Ti 4:18). The Lord Jesus stood by him, perhaps in visible presence (2Ti 4:17). The tradition is, for now Paul fails us, that Paul, as a Roman citizen, was beheaded on the Ostian Road just outside of Rome. Nero died June, 68 AD, so that Paul was executed before that date, perhaps in the late spring of that year (or 67). Perhaps Luke and Timothy were with him. It is fitting, as Findlay suggests, to let Paul’s words in 2Ti 4:6-8 serve for his own epitaph. He was ready to go to be with Jesus, as he had long wished to be (Php 1:23).
VI. Gospel.
I had purposed to save adequate space for the discussion of Paul’s theology, but that is not now possible. A bare sketch must suffice. Something was said (see above on his epistles and equipment) about the development in Paul’s conception of Christ and his message about Him. Paul had a gospel which he called his own (Rom 2:16). I cannot agree with the words of Deissmann (St. Paul, 6): “St. Paul theologian looks backward toward rabbinism. As a religious genius Paul’s outlook is forward into a future of universal history.” He did continue to use some rabbinical methods of argument, but his theology was not rabbinical. And he had a theology. He was the great apostle and missionary to the heathen. He was a Christian statesman with far-seeing vision. He was the loving pastor with the shepherd heart. He was the great martyr for Christ. He was the wonderful preacher of Jesus. But he was also “Paul theologian” (Garvie, Life and Teaching of Paul, chapter v) . There are two ways of studying his teaching. One is to take it by groups of the epistles, the purely historical method, and that has some advantages (compare Sabatier, The Apostle Paul). But at bottom Paul has the same message in each group, though with varying emphasis due to special exigencies. The same essential notes occur all through. The more common method, therefore, is to Study his gospel topically, using all the epistles for each topic. A measure of historical development may still be observed. Only the chief notes in Paul’s gospel can be mentioned here. Even so, one must not turn to his epistles for a complete system of doctrine. The epistles are “occasional letters, pieces de circonstance” (Findlay, HDB), and they do not profess, not even Romans, to give a full summary of Christian doctrine. They are vital documents that throb with life. There is no theological manual in them. But Paul’s gospel is adequately stated repeatedly. Paul’s message is Christocentric. Jesus as Messiah he preached at once on his conversion (Act 9:20, Act 9:22). He knew already the current Jewish Messianism to which Jesus did not correspond. The acceptance of Jesus as He was (the facts about Him and teachings) revolutionized his Messianic conceptions, his view of God, and his view of man. “When he takes and uses the Messianic phraseology of his day, he fills it with a meaning new and rich” (Rostron, Christology of St. Paul, 31). Paul was not merely a new creature himself, but he had a new outlook: “Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh: even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more. Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2Co 5:16-19). Perhaps no single passage in Paul’s Epistles tells us more than this one of the change in Paul’s theological conceptions wrought by his conversion. His view of Christ as the revealer of God (God in Christ) and the manifestation of love for men (of God, who reconciled us to Himself, reconciling the world to Himself) and the means (through Christ) by whom God is able to forgive our sins (“not reckoning unto them their trespasses”) on the basis of the atoning death of Christ (“wherefore”; for this see 2Co 5:14 f just before 2Co 5:16) with whom the believer has vital union (“in Christ”) and who transforms the nature and views of the believer, is here thoroughly characteristic. Paul’s passion is Christ (2Co 5:14; Php 1:21). To gain Christ (Php 3:8), to know Christ (Php 3:10), to be found in Christ (Php 3:9), to know Christ as the mystery of God (Col 2:2 f), to be hid with Christ in God (Col 3:3) - this with the new Paul is worth while. Thus Paul interprets God and man, by his doctrine of Christ. To him Jesus is Christ and Christ is Jesus. He has no patience with the incipient Cerinthian Gnosticism, nor with the docetic Gnosticism that denied the true humanity of Jesus. The real mystery of God is Christ, not the so-called mystery-religions. Christ has set us free from the bondage of ceremonial legalism. We are free from the curse of the law (Gal 3:13). Grace is the distinctive word for the gospel (Rom 3 through 5), but it must lead to sanctification (Rom 6 through 8), not license (Col 3). Paul’s Christology is both theocentric and anthropocentric, but it is theocentric first. His notion of redemption is the love of God seeking a world lost in sin and finding love’s way, the only way consonant with justice, in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ His Son (Rom 3:21-31). The sinner comes into union with God in Christ by faith in Christ as Redeemer and Lord. Henceforth he lives to God in. Christ by the help of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8; Gal 5). Paul presents God as Father of all in one sense (Eph 4:6), but in a special sense of the believers in Christ (Rom 8:15 f). Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the pre-incarnate Son of God (2Co 8:9; Php 2:5-10), who is both God and man (Rom 1:3 f). With Paul the agent of creation is Jesus (Col 1:15 f), who is also the head of the church universal (Col 1:18; Eph 1:22 f). In the work of Christ Paul gives the central place to the cross (1Co 1:17 f; 1Co 2:2; Col 2:20; Eph 2:13-18). Sin is universal in humanity (Rom 1:18 through 3:20), but the vicarious death of Christ makes redemption possible to all who believe (Rom 3:21 ff; Gal 3:6-11). The redeemed constitute the kingdom of God or church universal, with Christ as head. Local bodies (churches) are the chief means for pushing the work of the kingdom. Paul knows two ordinances, both of which present in symbolic form the death of Christ for sin and the pledge of the believer to newness of life in Christ. These ordinances are baptism (Rom 6:1-11) and the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:17-34). If he knew the mystery-religions, they may have helped him by way of illustration to present his conception of the mystic union with Christ. Paul is animated by the hope of the second coming of Christ, which will be sudden (1Th 5:1-11) and not probably at once (2 Thess 2), but was to be considered as always imminent (1Th 5:2 ff). Meanwhile, death brings us to Christ, which is a glorious hope to Paul (2Co 5:1-10; Php 1:21 ff; 2Ti 4:18). But, while Paul was a theologian in the highest and best sense of the term, the best interpreter of Christ to men, he was also an ethical teacher. He did not divorce ethics from religion. He insisted strongly on the spiritual experience of Christ as the beginning and the end of it all, as opposed to mere ritualistic ceremonies which had destroyed the life of Judaism. But all the more Paul demanded the proof of life as opposed to mere profession. See Rom 6 through 8 in particular. In most of the epistles the doctrinal section is followed by practical exhortations to holy living. Mystic as Paul was, the greatest of all mystics, he was the sanest of moralists and had no patience with hypocrites or licentious pietists or idealists who allowed sentimentalism and emotionalism to take the place of righteoushess. His notion of the righteousness demanded by God and given by God included both sanctification and justification. In the end, the sinner who for Christ’s sake is treated as righteous must be righteous. Thus the image of God is restored in man by the regenerating work of the Spirit of God (2Co 3:18). Paul sees God in the face of Christ (2Co 4:6), and the vision of Christ brings God to all who see.
Literature.
Out of the vast Pauline literature the following selections may be mentioned:
(1) General Works:
Addis, Christianity and the Roman Empire, 1893; Bartlet, The Apostolic Age, 1899; Bohlig, Die Geisteskultur yon Tarsos, 1913; Clemen, Primitive Christianity and Its Non-Jewish Sources, 1912; Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 1911; Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 1910; Dewick, Primitive Christian Eschatology, 1912; Dollinger, Gentile and Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ, translation, 1862; Farrar, Early Days of Christianity, 1882, Darkness and Dawn, 1893; Ferrero, Greatness and Decline of Rome, 1908; Friedlander, Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire; Glover, Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, 1910; Gunkel, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verst. d. New Testament, 1903; Hausrath, Time of the Apostles, translation; Neander, Planting and Training of the Christian Church, translation; McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, 1897; Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 1895, The First Christian Century, 1911; Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen, 1910; Ropes, The Apostolic Age, 1906; Schurer, HJP; Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age in the Christian Church, 1894-95.
(2) Introductions:
E. Burton, Chronicle of Paul’s Epistles; Clemen, Die Chron der Paulinischen Briefe, 1893, Die Einheitlichkeit der Paulinischen Briefe, 1894; Findlay, Epistles of Paul the Apostle, 1893; Gloag, Introduction to the Pauline Epistles, 1876; Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament, 1900; Herr, Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians, 1895; Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, 1909, Date of the Acts and the Synoptic Gospels, 1911, History of Early Christian Literature until Eusebius, 1897; Holtzmann, Einleitung3, 1892; James, Genuineness and Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, 1906; Julicher, Introduction to the New Testament, 1903; Lake, Earlier Epistles of Paul, 1911; Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 1911; Peake, Critical Introduction to the New Testament, 1909; Salmon, Introduction to the New Testament, 1892; R. Scott, Epistles of Paul, 1909; Shaw, The Pauline Epistles, 1903; von Soden, History of Early Christian Literature, 1906; B. Weiss, Present State of the Inquiry Concerning the Genuineness of Paul’s Epistles, 1897; Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, 1909.
(3) Commentaries:
For exegetical commentaries on special epistles see special articles For the ancients see Chrysostom for the Greeks, and Pelagius for the Latins. For the Middle Ages see Thomas Aquinas. For the later time see Beza, Calvin, Colet, Estius, Grotius, Cornelius a Lapide, Wettstein, Bengel. Among the moderns note Alford, Beet (Romans-Colossians), Boise, Bible for Home and School, Cambridge Bible for Schools, Cambridge Greek Testament, New Century Bible; Drummond, Epistles of Paul, Ellicott (all but Romans and 2 Corinthians), Expositor’s Bible, Expositor’s Greek Testament; Holtzmann, Hand-Comm. zum New Testament; Jewett (1 and 2 Thessalonians, Romans, Galatians), Lightfoot (Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon and Notes), Lietzmann, Handbuch zum New Testament; Meyer (translation, revised German editions), Zahn, Kommentar zum New Testament.
(4) Lives and Monographs:
Albrecht, Paulus der Apestel Jesu Christi, 1903; Bacon, The Story of Paul, 1904; Bartlet, article in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition; Baring-Gould, A Study of Paul, 1897; Baur, The Apostle Paul2, 1845; Bevan, Paul in the Light of Today, 1912; Bird, Paul of Tarsus, 1900; Campbell, Paul the Mystic, 1907; Chrysostom, Homiliae in Laude S. Pauli, Opera, volume II, edition Montf. (more critically in Field’s edition); Clemen, Paulus, 1904; Cone, Paul the Man, the Missionary, 1898; Cohu, Paul in the Light of Recent Research, 1910; Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of Paul (many editions); Deissmann, Paul, 1912; Drescher, Das Leben Jesu bei Paulus, 1900; Drury, The Prison Ministry of Paul, 1910; Eadie, Paul the Preacher, 1859; Farrar, Life and Work of Paul (various editions); Erbes, Die Todestage der Apostel Paulus und Petrus, 1899; Fletcher, A Study of the Conversion of Paul, 1911; Forbes, Footsteps of Paul in Rome, 1899; Fouard, Paul and His Mission, 1894, Last Years of Paul, 1897; Gardner, Religious Experience of Paul, 1911; Garvie, Life and Teaching of Paul, 1909, Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 1911; Gilbert, Student’s Life of Paul, 1899; Heim, Paulus, 1905; Honnicke, Chronologie des Lebens Pauli, 1904; Iverach, Paul, His Life and Time, 1890; Johnston, The Mission of Paul to the Roman Empire, 1909; M. Jones, Paul the Orator, 1910; Kennedy, Paul and the Mystery-Religions, 1913; Kohler, Zum Verstandnis d. Apostels Paulus, 1908; Lewin, Life and Epistles of Paul, 1875; Lock, Paul the Master Builder, 1905; Lyttleton, Observations on Saul’s Conversion, 1774; Myers, Saint Paul (various editions); Matheson, Spiritual Development of Paul, 1891; Means, Paul and the Ante-Nicene Church, 1903; Noesgen, Paulus der Apostel der Heiden, 1908; Paley, Horae Paulinae, 1790; Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, 1896, Pauline and Other Studies, 1906, Cities of St. Paul, 1908, Luke the Physician and Other Studies, 1908, Pictures of the Apostolic Church, 1910; Renan, Paul, 1869; A. T. Robertson, Epochs in the Life of Paul, 1909, The Glory of the Ministry or Paul’s Exultation in Preaching, 1911; Sabatier, The Apostle Paul, 1896; Selden, In the Time of Paul, 1900; Schweitzer, Paul and His Interpreters, 1912; Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of Paul4, 1880; Speer, The Man Paul, 1900; Stalker, Life of Paul, 1889; Taylor, Paul the Missionary, 1882; Underhill, Divine Legation of Paul, 1889; Weinel, Paul (translation, 1906); Whyte, The Apostle Paul, 1903; Wilkinson, Epic of Saul, 1891, Epic of Paul, 1897; Wrede, Paulus2, 1907 (translation); Wright, Cities of St. Paul, 1907; Wynne, Fragmentary Records of Jesus of Nazareth by a Contemporary, 1887.
(5) Teaching:
A.B.D. Alexander, The Ethics of St. Paul, 1910; S.A. Alexander, Christianity of Paul, 1899; Anonymous, The Fifth Gospel, 1906; R. Allen, Christelegy of Paul, 1912; M. Arnold, Paul and Protestantism, 1897; Ball, Paul and the Roman Law, 1901; Breitenstein, Jesus et Paul, 1908; Bruce, Paul’s Conception of Christianity, 1898; Bruckner, Die Entstehung der Paulinischen Christologie, 1903; Bultmann, Der Stil der Paulin. Predigt und die kyn. Diatribe, 1910; Chadwick, Social Teaching of Paul, 1907, Pastoral Teaching of Paul, 1907; M. Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus, 1909; Dickie, Culture of the Spiritual Life, 1905; Dickson, Paul’s Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit, 1883; Du Bose, Gospel according to Paul, 1907; Dykes, Gospel according to Paul, 1888; Everett, Gospel of Paul, 1893; Feine, Paul as Theologian (translation, 1908); Greenough, Mind of Christ in Paul; Goguel, L’Apotre Paul et Jesus Christ, 1904; Harford, The Gospel according to Paul, 1912; Hicks, “St. Paul and Hellenism,” Stud. Bibl., IV; Holsten, Das Evangelium des Paulus, 1898; Julicher, Paulus und Jesus, 1907; Kaftan, Jesus und Paulus, 1906; Kennedy, Paul’s Conceptions of Last Things, 1904; Knowling, Testimony of Paul to Christ (3rd edition, 1911); A. Meyer, Jesus or Paul? 1909; Moffatt, Paul and Paulinism, 1910; Montet, Essai sur la christologie de Saint Paul, 1906; Nageli, Der Wortschatz des Apostels Paulus, 1905; Oehler, Paulus und Jesus, 1908; Paterson, The Pauline Theology, 1903; Pfleidercr, Paulinismus, 1873, Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity, 1885; Prat, La theologie de Saint Paul, 1907; Ramsay, The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day, 1913; Resch, Paulinismus und die Logia Jesu, 1904; Rostron, The Christology of St. Paul, 1912; Simon, Die Psychologie des Apostels Paulus, 1897; Somerville, Paul’s Conception of Christ, 1897; Stevens, The Pauline Theology, 1894; Thackeray, Relation of Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, 1900; J. Weiss, Paul and Jesus, 1909; Paul and Justification, 1913; Williams, A Plea for a Reconstruction of Paul’s Doctrine of Justification, 1912; Wustmann, Jesus und Paulus, 1907; Zahn, Das Gesetz Gottes nach der Lehre des Apostels Paulus2, 1892.
- Paul figures prominently in the Acts of the Apostles and his letters are a large part of the Letters of the New Testament. He also played a vital role in taking the Gospel to Gentiles and in developing a theology of Christianity proving it be a new religion and not a Jewish cult. Over the centuries, he has therefore been described by some commentators as the "inventor" of Christianity. But to place Paul into perspective within the Christian story, as important, as brilliant, as brave, as loyal to Christ as he was, a number of points should be borne in mind:
(1) It was Jesus during his ministry on earth, who preached the Gospel in Judea and beyond - and not only to Jews (for example Matthew 8:5-13 and 15:21-28, Luke 17:11-19);
(2) Of the apostles, it was Peter who first brought Gentiles into the Christian fold (Acts 10), and other Jews who converted many Gentiles in Syrian Antioch (Acts 11:19) before Paul’s arrival there;
(3) The church in Rome was already established by the time Paul wrote his letter to the Romans;
(4) The areas evangelized by Paul - Cyprus, the the south and western half of Asia Minor, and Greece - cover only a part of the locations traditionally visited by the original apostles.
Paul (or Saul) of Tarsus travelled widely, made at least three major missionary journeys, wrote many letters of which thirteen still exist (some scholars dispute three of them), and his life and work is touched upon in a variety of ways in his letters. On returning to Jerusalem after his third journey, he was arrested and during his subsequent trials, as a Roman citizen "appealed to Caesar" for judgement - all covered by Acts 21-26. Chapters 27 and 28 then describe Paul’s voyage and journey to Rome in fascinating nautical detail. Thereafter his life, and death is a matter of conjecture and tradition.
For some two years after his arrival in Rome, he was under house-arrest, before possibly being executed in the persecutions of Emperor Nero that followed the burning of Rome in AD64. If so, Paul’s authorship of the three "Pastoral Letters" - 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus - can be open to doubt.
However, there are strong traditions that on appeal to the Emperor on what was a Jewish religious charge, he was acquitted. He remained free for perhaps three years, revisiting Ephesus and other churches, and even going as far as Spain, before being re-arrested and sentenced to death. In his cell, he wrote his last letter - the Second Letter to Timothy - before execution around the year AD67.
Tradition is he was beheaded at a place now called Tre Fontane in Rome, and that the church of St. Paul stands over his grave. The apocryphal "Acts of Paul" comes from the second century. They describe Paul as "a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel!"
Paul was a leading figure in the first-century church. He was an apostle to the Gentiles and wrote 13 letters in the New Testament.
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Family and Cultural Background
Paul was born around AD 10, a Jew in a family of Pharisees (Acts 23:6) of the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3:5) in Tarsus of Cilicia (Acts 9:11; 21:39; 22:3). Tarsus was a center of commerce and learning that embraced the Hellenistic spirit and Roman politics. It was a city of which he could be proud (21:39). His parents named him Saul, perhaps after the first king of Israel, who was also a Benjaminite (1 Samuel 11:15; Acts 13:21). But Acts 13:9 notes that he “was also called Paul.” He uses the Roman name Paul throughout his letters.
Paul received knowledge of the Law and Prophets and the Hebrew and Aramaic languages from religious parents (Acts 21:40; 22:2–3; 23:6; Galatians 1:14; Philippians 3:5–6). Tarsus, however, was not a Jewish city. Rather, it had a Greek character, being a place where the Greek language was spoken and Greek literature was cultivated. This accounts for Paul’s familiarity with Greek (Acts 21:37), the language of the streets and shops of Tarsus.
Jews were brought to Tarsus, the capital of the Roman province of Cilicia, in 171 BC to promote business in the region. At that time Paul’s ancestors were probably given Roman citizenship. Paul inherited from his father both Tarsisian and Roman citizenship. This would prove to be of great value to Paul in his later life as he traveled with the gospel throughout the Roman Empire (Acts 16:37; 22:25–29; 23:27). Paul may have had several brothers and sisters, but Acts 23:16 mentions only one sister, whose son saved Paul's life.
Paul was a tentmaker (Acts 18:3). He may have learned this trade from his father, or he may have selected it as a means of self-support, as was the custom of those in rabbinical training. Tarsus was well known for the goat’s-hair cloth called cilicium. By weaving and fashioning this cloth into tents, sails, awnings, and cloaks, Paul gained economic independence during his apostolic ministry (Acts 18:3; 20:34; 28:30; 2 Corinthians 11:9; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8).
Education
Although born in Tarsus, Paul testified to the Jews in Jerusalem that he had been brought up in this city and studied under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). It is not clear when Paul was first brought to Jerusalem, but it is likely that sometime between the ages of 13 and 20 he began his formal rabbinical studies. His teacher, Gamaliel, was the grandson of Hillel, founder of a Pharisaic school whose teachings are still present in Talmudic writings today. This is the same Gamaliel whose wisdom persuaded the Sanhedrin to spare the lives of Peter and the apostles (5:33–40). Certainly, it was while studying under Gamaliel in Hillel’s school that Paul began to advance in Judaism beyond many Jews of his own age and became extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers (Galatians 1:14). Perhaps then also Paul began to experience the struggles with the law he would later describe in Romans 7.
While Paul was studying the Jewish law in Jerusalem, Jesus was working as a carpenter in Nazareth. Then Jesus gathered the disciples who would one day be Paul’s coworkers in the gospel. Jesus fulfilled his ministry, and accomplished redemption on the cross (AD 30). Christ’s resurrection gave birth to the church, which was baptized in the Holy Spirit at the Feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem (Acts 2:1–13).
Saul the Persecutor
Shortly after these world-changing events, the members of certain synagogues in Jerusalem, including the Cilician synagogue, where Paul was from (Acts 6:9), could not resist the wisdom and spirit (verse 10) of a member of the church in Jerusalem named Stephen (verses 5, 8). They accused him of blasphemy before the Sanhedrin (verses 11–15). After Stephen's eloquent defense (7:1–53), they dragged him out of the city, where he was stoned to death. He became the first Christian martyr. The record does not fully reveal Paul's role in these events. But we know he was present and prominent because the witnesses against Stephen, who were required to throw the first stones in the execution, “laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul [Paul]” (verse 58).
At Stephen’s trial, Paul heard Stephen’s historical method of defense. Paul later used it himself at Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13:16–41). He witnessed the man with the face of an angel (6:15), full of the Holy Spirit, looking above and proclaiming “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (7:56). Stephen’s death initiated the events that would culminate in Paul’s conversion and commission as the apostle to the Gentiles. But at that time Paul was a leader of the oppressors of the church. He breathed threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord (9:1). He persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it (Galatians 1:13) by imprisoning Christians, both male and female (Acts 22:4), in many cities.
Conversion and Calling
Paul had obtained letters from the high priest in Jerusalem to the synagogues in Damascus authorizing him to arrest the believers there and bring them to Jerusalem for trial (Acts 9:1–2). Paul traveled to Damascus for this purpose. Then, on the outskirts of the city, came the event that was to transform this law-keeping persecutor of Jesus Christ and blasphemous destroyer of the infant church into the chief propagator of the gospel of grace and master builder of the church (1 Corinthians 3:10; 1 Timothy 1:13). This was the occasion of Paul’s conversion (around AD 31–33). It was of such revolutionary and lasting importance that three detailed accounts of it are given in the book of Acts (Acts 9:1–19; 22:1–21; 26:1–23). Many references are also given to it in Paul’s own writings (1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:8; Galatians 1:15–16; Ephesians 3:3; Philippians 3:12).
At that time a light from heaven, brighter than the midday sun, shone around Paul and his traveling companions, and they fell to the ground (Acts 26:13–14). Only Paul, however, heard the voice of Jesus instruct him in his commission as a minister and witness to the Gentiles (verses 14–18). Temporarily blinded, Paul was led into Damascus (9:8). There, the disciple Ananias and the Christian community forgave Paul. They baptized him, and helped him through the bewildering event of his conversion (verses 10–22). After a short time with the church there, Paul was threatened with death by the Jews to whom he preached Jesus (verses 20–22), but he was protected by the believers and ingeniously delivered from his persecutors (verses 23–25).
Preparation for Ministry
Then began a period of preparation, which lasted about 13 years. During this time, Paul first was in the desert of Arabia for three years. Here was his opportunity to pray and reflect on Stephen’s defense to the Sanhedrin, the momentous significance of his conversion, the vision he received of Jesus Christ, and the meaning of all this in the light of Jewish theology. Following this, Paul returned to Damascus and then visited Peter in Jerusalem for 15 days (Galatians 1:17–18).
At first, the disciples in Jerusalem were afraid of him because they did not believe he was a disciple of Jesus (Acts 9:26). But he was championed by Barnabas and thus accepted by the believers in Jerusalem (verses 27–28). While there, Paul may have heard the oral gospel, a summary of the words and deeds of Jesus, handed down to all converts. This would have included the institution of the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23–25), specific words of the Lord (Acts 20:35; 1 Corinthians 7:10; 9:14), the appearances of the resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 15:3–8), and the spirit and character of Jesus (2 Corinthians 10:1; Philippians 2:5–8). Paul also preached in Jerusalem, perhaps in the same synagogues in which he had heard Stephen. However, when his life was again threatened by the Jews, the believers sent him away to Tarsus (Acts 9:29–30; Galatians 1:21).
The end of Paul’s preparation came when Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for him and bring him to Antioch. By this time Paul had lived for 10 years in Cilicia. Since his conversion, before being sent to Tarsus, he had proclaimed Jesus (Acts 9:20), speaking boldly in the name of the Lord (verse 27). There is no reason to think he did otherwise while living among the Gentiles in Cilicia. In fact, his work may have been so effective that he began to attract attention in Antioch. During these years, Paul probably underwent many of the sufferings mentioned in 2 Corinthians 11:24–26. Several scholars think that the ecstatic experience mentioned in 2 Corinthians 12:1–9, with its accompanying “thorn in the flesh,” also took place before he came to Antioch.
Sent Out from Antioch
The church in Antioch had its origins in the persecution fomented by Paul after the death of Stephen. Until they arrived in Antioch, the scattered believers had only spoken the word to Jews (Acts 11:19). It was here that the Gentiles first heard the good news (verse 20), and many became believers (verse 21). It is fitting that Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 22:21; Romans 11:13), who was as yet unknown by sight to the churches of Judea (Galatians 1:22), should appear in Antioch to formally begin the ministry to which he was called (Acts 26:17–18).
Barnabas and Paul stayed with the church in Antioch for a year. Their work there was so blessed that a new name, Christian, was coined to distinguish the believers in Antioch from Gentiles and Jews (Acts 11:26). Hearing of a famine in Judea, the disciples in Antioch determined to send relief to the believers in Judea and did so by Barnabas and Paul (verse 30). Such a gift displayed to the Jewish churches the potency of the gospel among the Gentiles. Their mission complete, Barnabas and Paul returned to Antioch with John Mark (12:25), Barnabas’s cousin (Colossians 4:10).
Beginning from the Day of Pentecost, the work in the gospel had been casual and incidental. Contacts were made in the homes, the marketplace, the streets, synagogues, highways, and other similar things. (Acts 3:1; 5:12, 42; 8:26–29; 10:22). But in Antioch the Holy Spirit initiated a determined effort to evangelize a section of the Roman Empire (13:1–3). By the Holy Spirit’s instructions, the church separated Barnabas and Paul for this work. With the prayers and encouragement of this church, and with John Mark as their assistant, Barnabas and Paul, sent out by the Holy Spirit, sailed for Cyprus (verse 4).
Traveling with Barnabas
Arriving in Salamis, they preached in the synagogues as they traveled the length of the island to Paphos (Acts 13:5–6). There the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, wanted to hear the word of God (verse 7). A magician named Elymas Bar-Jesus tried to prevent the proconsul from believing in Jesus but was stricken with temporary blindness by Paul’s command (verses 8–11). This was the first manifestation in Paul of the signs of an apostle (2 Corinthians 12:12). From then on, the name Paul, not Saul, is used in Luke’s record of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 13:9), and Paul replaced Barnabas as the leader of the party. So “Paul and his companions” set sail from Paphos and arrived in Perga of Pamphylia (verse 13). John Mark deserted them at Perga and returned to his home in Jerusalem (verse 13). This caused discord (15:39), but Paul and Mark were later reconciled (Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11).
Paul’s travels with the gospel now continued through the Roman province of Asia, specifically in the southern portion of Galatia, the areas of Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia. The coastal area where the party landed is a hot region affected by malaria. It is thought that Paul contracted malaria there and so traveled inland through the mountains to the 4,000-foot- (1,219.2-meter-) high tablelands. Such a journey would have been full of dangerous rivers and bandits (2 Corinthians 11:26), but Paul was well cared for by the Galatian highlanders when he arrived (Galatians 4:13–15). He was rewarded with a warm reception to his message (Acts 13:48–49).
Paul and Barnabas were asked to speak at the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:15), and Paul delivered a discourse full of the characteristics of the gospel he would later record in his letters to the churches (verses 16–41). He was invited to speak the next week (verse 42). Nearly the whole city gathered together to hear the word of God (verse 44). This aroused jealousy in the Jews who opposed Paul’s words (verse 45), causing the apostles’ dramatic turn to the Gentiles (verses 46–47). Many Gentiles in Antioch believed and spread the word throughout the region, but Paul and Barnabas were forced out and went to Iconium in Lycaonia (verses 48–51).
The success in Antioch was duplicated in Iconium as was the Jews’ opposition (Acts 14:1), and the apostles fled from the threat of a stoning to Lystra and Derbe in Lycaonia (verses 5–6). In Lystra the signs of an apostle were again seen when Paul healed a man who had been crippled since birth (verses 8–10). The idolatrous citizens of the town, however, primed by the popular belief that Jupiter, accompanied by Mercury, had once visited their region, worshiped Paul and Barnabas as these deities (verses 11–13). Even the convincing words of Paul, whom they mistook for Mercury, hardly restrained the crowds from offering a sacrifice (verses 14–18).
It was in Lystra that Paul first encountered the same kind of treatment he had previously inflicted on Christians. The Jews stoned him, dragged him out of the city, and left him for dead (Acts 14:19). Timothy (16:1–3) may have been among the new disciples surrounding Paul as he lay outside the gate (14:20). Timothy was Paul’s son in the faith (1 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Tm 1:2), eyewitness to his suffering (2 Timothy 3:10–11), faithful companion, and fellow worker (Acts 19:22; 20:4; Romans 16:21; 1 Thessalonians 3:2). The next day Barnabas and Paul went on to Derbe (Acts 14:20).
After making many disciples in Derbe, the apostles retraced their steps through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia. They strengthened and encouraged the new believers and appointed elders in each church (Acts 14:21–23). Arriving again in Perga, they sailed back to Antioch of Syria. There they reported to the church the wonderful news that God had provided an opportunity of faith for the Gentiles (verses 25–27).
The Council of Jerusalem
The Jews had closely followed Paul and Barnabas throughout Galatia. They continued to pursue Paul and Barnabas, seeking to bewitch the Gentiles there. The Jews convinced them to desert the grace of Christ and submit to the Jewish law (Galatians 1:6; 3:1). Shortly after the apostles’ return to Antioch, Judaizers (Christian Jews who attempted to impose the Jewish way of life on Gentile Christians) came from Judea to Antioch, teaching salvation by the law (Acts 15:1). This began the war against the gospel of grace, which Paul preached.
The church in Antioch sent Paul, Barnabas, and others to Jerusalem to settle the controversy of the law versus grace with the apostles and elders there (AD 49, Acts 15:2). Along the way to Jerusalem they spread the news of the conversion of the Gentiles. This brought great joy to the believers (verse 3). Such joy was not shared by some in Jerusalem, who in the first meeting of the council said that the Gentiles should be ordered to keep the law of Moses (verse 5).
After this meeting, Paul and Barnabas met privately with Peter, John, and James (Galatians 2:1–10). They explained the gospel they had been preaching to the Gentiles. These three leaders of the church in Jerusalem saw the grace that had been given to Paul to bring the gospel to the Gentiles and extended to him the “right hand of fellowship” [an expression of unity and partnership]. This private meeting seems to have decided the question of compliance to the Jewish law because in the next general meeting Peter said, “We believe it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved” (Acts 15:11). James decided that “we should not cause trouble for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19). This was a great victory for Paul and Barnabas, and the news was received with rejoicing by the church in Antioch (verses 30–35).
Later, Peter visited Antioch and freely associated with the Gentile believers as he had timidly done in Cornelius’s house (Acts 10:28). This continued until “certain men came from James.” Their presence brought fear to Peter, clouding the light of the gospel of grace, and causing him to separate himself from the Gentiles. Peter’s action influenced others, including Barnabas, to do the same (Galatians 2:12–13). Paul rose to the challenge of this serious crisis. He confronted Peter publicly and charged him with Judaizing and hypocrisy (verse 14). Paul won the battle and rescued Peter and Barnabas with eloquent words on justification by faith (verses 15–21), but the Judaizers had resumed their war. From this time on, they did not rest. Rather, they tormented and persecuted Paul all over the world. But the apostle did not submit to them for a moment. He was engaged in the fight of his life so that the truth of the gospel might remain with the Gentile believers (verse 5).
Further Travel
Paul wanted to visit the new believers and see how they were doing. So he proposed to Barnabas that they return to the cities where they had previously preached about Jesus (Acts 15:36). Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them, but Paul would not take him since he had deserted them during their earlier journey (13:13). This sharp disagreement ended Barnabas’s association with Paul (15:37–39). Silas, a leader among the brothers in Jerusalem (verse 22), accompanied Paul as he set out by land through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches (verses 40–41).
Beginning from Derbe in Galatia, Paul and Silas revisited the churches Paul had established with Barnabas. While in Lystra, they were joined by Timothy (Acts 16:1–3). The apostles delivered to these young churches the letter drafted by the elders and apostles in Jerusalem concerning the observance of the law (15:23–29), thus strengthening and increasing them (16:4–5).
It is likely that Ephesus, a major city in the Roman province of Asia, was the party’s main objective for the advancement of the gospel. But “the Holy Spirit had prevented them from speaking the word in the province of Asia” (Acts 16:6). Then they attempted to turn north and enter the region of Bithynia, “but the Spirit of Jesus would not permit them” (verse 7). In this way they were forced by God to continue straight westward to Troas on the Aegean Sea. There Luke joined them (“we” in verse 10), and Paul had a vision in which he was called out of Asia into Macedonia (verses 8–9). Paul and his party immediately crossed by boat into Europe (verse 11) where they carried the gospel to Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth.
Philippi was a Roman colony and military outpost where there were few Jews, so Paul went to a place by the river where the local Jews prayed. He spoke to some women there, notably Lydia, who believed and with her household was baptized (Acts 16:12–15), beginning the first church in Europe. Paul cast a spirit of divination out of a girl in Philippi, and as a result, he and Silas were jailed (verses 16–24). The events of their night in jail made the jailer a believer in God (verses 25–34). He and his family were added to the church in Philippi, which met in Lydia’s home (verse 40). When Paul disclosed his Roman citizenship, he was released and was asked to leave the city (verses 35–39).
At Thessalonica, the Jews, aroused to jealousy by the success of Paul’s gospel message, raised a mob to search for the apostles. They complained to the city authorities that the people “who have turned the world upside down have now come here” and accused the apostles of “saying that there is another king [besides Caesar], named Jesus” (Acts 17:5–7).
Paul and Silas quickly left Thessalonica by night and arrived in Berea, a city thereafter distinguished by its citizens who eagerly and thoughtfully received the gospel (Acts 17:10–12). The Thessalonian Jews did not rest but trailed Paul to Berea to incite the crowds. The believers then sent Paul away to Athens, while Silas and Timothy stayed behind (verses 13–15).
The Athenians called Paul a babbler but let him express his views before the Areopagus. Paul’s speech there was alive with his broad knowledge. He alluded to Greco-Roman philosophy (Acts 17:27), poetry (verse 28), sculpture (verses 25, 29), architecture (verse 24), and religion while proclaiming the existence of an “unknown god” (verse 23). But he was rudely cut short by scoffing and indifference when he mentioned the resurrection (verse 32). Though Paul’s words delighted the minds of many, they influenced the will of few. So when he arrived in Corinth, he determined not to proclaim the mystery of God in eloquent words of wisdom so that the believers’ faith would not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1–5).
In Corinth Paul met Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2–3), Roman Jews with whom he lived and worked as a tentmaker and who would become prominent among the churches (Acts 18:26; Romans 16:3; 1 Corinthians 16:19; 2 Timothy 4:19). He stayed in Corinth 18 months from AD 50 to 51. There he raised up a church (Acts 18:11) on the strength of a vision from God (verses 9–10) and despite the attacks of the Jews (verses 12–17). Paul wrote the first and second letters to the Thessalonians from Corinth to establish the believers in a holy, industrious life (1 Thessalonians 3:13; 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:7–12) in hope of the second coming of Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:15–18; 2 Thessalonians 2:1 and following).
Accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila, Paul sailed from Corinth for Syria. He left his fellow workers in Ephesus, sailed to Caesarea, briefly visited Jerusalem, and returned to Antioch (Acts 18:18–22). Paul stayed in Antioch for a while but did not remain absent from the field of his labors for long. Alone, he departed from Antioch, went from place to place in Galatia and Phrygia strengthening all the disciples, and eventually arrived in Ephesus (18:23; 19:1).
Labor in the Gospel
A Jew named Apollos had ministered in Ephesus before Paul’s arrival and had recently gone over to Corinth (Acts 18:24–28). There Apollos innocently became the cause of such discord (1 Corinthians 3:3–9) that he left and refused to return even at Paul’s request (16:12). Paul’s earlier visit to Ephesus (Acts 18:19–20), Apollos’s ministry, and the presence of Priscilla and Aquila had prepared Ephesus so that the apostle could preach the gospel of Christ.
Paul began his work in Ephesus by correcting the misconceptions of some ill-informed disciples of John the Baptist (Acts 19:1–7). He then spent three months preaching at the local synagogue until members of the congregation “publicly maligned the Way [the Christian faith]” (verse 9). Paul then took the disciples and continued his arguments on the neutral ground of Tyrannus’s school (verses 8–9), where Jews and Greeks were free to come. He continued there for two years and “that everyone who lived in the province of Asia, Jews and Greeks alike, heard the word of the Lord” (verse 10).
The work in Ephesus was a great success (Acts 19:10, 20, 26). Paul enjoyed an opportunity for effective work (1 Cor 16:9), bolstered by extraordinary miracles (Acts 19:11–17), a public burning of valuable books of sorcery (verses 18–19), and the assistance of friendly officials from the province of Asia (verse 31). There were also many adversaries (1 Corinthians 15:32; 16:9), especially among the artisans associated with the temple of Diana. Paul’s ministry had hurt their trade to the extent that they were incited to riot (Acts 19:23–41). Paul had intended to stay in Ephesus until Pentecost (1 Corinthians 16:8), but this tumult seems to have hastened his departure (Acts 20:1).
During his stay in Ephesus, the household of Chloe sent word to Paul from Corinth that there were divisions in the church there (1 Corinthians 1:10–13). This report generated a flurry of letters and travels. Paul wrote a letter, which is now lost, to this church (5:9). The church in Corinth wrote a letter (7:1) and sent messengers to Paul (16:17), and Paul sent Timothy to them (4:17; 16:10). Paul then wrote 1 Corinthians (AD 53) and sent it by Titus, who was to meet him in Troas to report the results (2 Corinthians 2:12–13).
After his hasty exit from Ephesus, Paul found an opportunity for the gospel in Troas. But he so longed to hear from Corinth that he continued on into Macedonia (2 Corinthians 2:12–13). There he was finally comforted by Titus (7:5–7) and rejoiced at the news of the Corinthians’ repentance, earnestness, longing, and zeal (verses 8–16). From Macedonia Paul wrote 2 Corinthians (AD 54), toured northwest to proclaim the good news of Christ in Illyricum (Romans 15:19), and then turned south for Achaia and his third visit to Corinth (Acts 19:21; 20:1–3; 2 Cor 13:1).
The time and place from which Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians is a topic of controversy. Some date it before the council at Jerusalem, about AD 45. Others say he wrote it from Corinth at this stage in his history. The latter opinion is the choice of this narrative.
A three-month winter stay in Corinth (AD 55–56) produced the Letter to the Romans, which firmly set the benchmark of the gospel for all time. Paul had many personal friends in Rome (Romans 16) and had long intended to visit there (1:10–15). He planned to deliver a collection from the Gentile churches to Jerusalem (Acts 20:35; Romans 15:25–26; 1 Corinthians 16:1) and then visit Rome (Acts 19:21) on his way to Spain (Romans 15:23–24).
The Arrest in Jerusalem
Paul’s trip from Corinth to Jerusalem was marked by abundant warnings of the danger awaiting him in Jerusalem. The Judaizers’ acrimony toward Paul was common talk everywhere, but all alarms went unheeded (Acts 20:22–24, 38; 21:4, 10–15). However, the request for prayer in Romans 15:30–32 shows that Paul knew he might soon need a divine rescue from the unbelievers in Judea.
The travelers, carrying the collection for Jerusalem, journeyed swiftly in order to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost (Acts 20:16). They proceeded by land from Achaia, through Macedonia, to Philippi in time for the Passover (spring AD 56, verse 6). Crossing by sea to Troas, they visited the believers there (verses 7–12). They then sailed through the archipelago [a group of islands] of the eastern Aegean Sea to Miletus (verses 13–16). From Miletus, Paul sent for the elders of Ephesus, to whom he delivered an impassioned speech containing his own dire warnings for them (verses 17–38).
Parting from them, Paul and his companions set sail to Cos, to Rhodes, and then to Patara. There they changed ships for Phoenicia (Acts 21:1–2). A straight course to Tyre brought them within sight of Cyprus, with its memories of Barnabas and Sergius Paulus (verse 3). “Through the Spirit” the disciples in Tyre “kept telling Paul not to go up to Jerusalem” (verse 4), but he pressed on to Caesarea. There he and his company stayed with Philip, who had formerly served with the martyred Stephen (21:8; compare 6:5). In Caesarea, Paul would not be persuaded by an especially dramatic prophecy of his coming arrest (21:10–14).
In Jerusalem, the group of apostles stayed with Mnason, an early disciple, and were warmly welcomed by the brothers there (Acts 21:15–17). James and the elders of the church praised God when they heard of the things he had done through Paul among the Gentiles (verses 18–20), and when they received the collection from the churches (24:17). They told Paul of his bad reputation among the thousands of Jewish believers in Jerusalem and urged him to set right the Judaizers’ misrepresentation that he encouraged Jewish Christians to forsake the Mosaic customs (21:21–24). Acts 21:25 shows the Jerusalem elders understood that the Gentiles were under no obligation to Moses. Their concern was for Paul to demonstrate that Jewish believers were free to continue their traditional observances.
Paul had kept the Jewish feasts (Acts 20:6), as had Jesus and the early disciples in Jerusalem. He had also cut his hair in a vow at Cenchreae (18:18), so it was a small matter for him, a Jew, to ceremonially purify himself after becoming a Christian, especially if it would undermine the arguments of the Judaizers. To have refused the elders’ request would have lent credence to the Judaizers’ charge. The success of this plan is seen in that it was the Jews from Asia, visiting Jerusalem for the Pentecost feast of AD 57, who caused trouble for Paul (21:27–29)—not the Judaizers from Jerusalem.
The whole city was aroused by Paul’s persistent persecutors. A violent crowd dragged him out of the temple just as Stephen had once been hauled to his martyrdom. They tried to kill him, but he was rescued by Roman soldiers as the mob cried, “Away with him!”—just as they had done to Jesus (Acts 21:30–36). At this juncture, the educational and cultural diversity of Paul’s life came to his rescue. As he was carried for safety to the Roman barracks, he spoke in Greek to the tribune, who had mistaken him for an Egyptian assassin (verses 37–38). Permitted to speak to the crowd, he did so in the Aramaic language then common in Israel (verses 39–40). The hushed crowd eagerly heard Paul’s defense until he uttered the word “Gentiles.” At this, the crowd resumed its threatening and violence, and Paul was brought into the barracks (22:1–24). There the Romans prepared to flog him, until Paul revealed that he was not only a Jew from Tarsus but also a freeborn Roman citizen. The tribune was afraid, since he had bound a Roman citizen. Wanting to know the charges against Paul, he brought him to the Sanhedrin (verses 25–30).
This meeting of the Jewish judiciary was shortly reduced to dissension and violence. Paul resorted to tactics justifiable in such a war and hopelessly divided the Sanhedrin on the subject of the resurrection (Acts 23:1–9). Paul again was rescued, this time from the contending factions of the Jewish leadership, and taken to the barracks, where the Lord encouraged him, promising that he would go to Rome (AD 56, verses 10–11).
In the meantime, 40 Jews plotted to murder Paul. They vowed not to eat or drink until they had killed the apostle (Acts 23:12–15). They almost succeeded, but with the help of the son of Paul’s sister (verse 16), the conspiracy was exposed. For safety, Paul was taken from Jerusalem to Caesarea under guard of 470 soldiers and handed over to the custody of Felix the governor (verses 16–35). Inconclusive hearings before Felix (Acts 24), his successor, Festus (25:1–12), and King Agrippa (25:23–26:32) occupied Paul in his two years of imprisonment in Caesarea. Festus, wanting to please the Jews, suggested that Paul be returned to Jerusalem for trial, but Paul knew the murderous intent of his accusers and again utilized his Roman citizenship by making a dramatic appeal to Caesar (25:9–12).
Voyage and Stay in Rome
To plead his case at Caesar’s court, Paul and his companions, Aristarchus and Luke, were taken on a dangerous voyage (AD 58, Acts 27:1–28:16). Their passage by ship from Caesarea to Rome is one of the most remarkable on record. Luke’s detailed account is a treasure of information on ancient ships, navigation, and seamanship. It is also a beautiful portrait of a heroic and dignified apostle Paul. Paul was the gospel’s ambassador in chains (Ephesians 6:20), who with the guidance and assurance of his God (Acts 27:23–26), led the 276 people on board to safety (verse 37).
Luke traces the voyage stage by stage through every crisis, with a change of ship at Myra, a delay at Fair Havens on Crete, and the shipwreck on Malta. Finally, in the spring of AD 59, they arrived at Puteoli, Italy, and made their way to Rome. They were welcomed by the believers along the Appian Way (Acts 28:13–16).
Luke provided a peaceful resolution to the Acts, even though the apostle was an imperial prisoner of Caesar Nero. Paul lived by himself in his own house, chained to a Roman guard (Acts 28:16, 30). There he received the local Jewish leaders—to calm any misgivings they may have had about him and, at the same time, to convince them about Jesus. His efforts had mixed success (verses 17–28). During Paul’s two or more years in Rome, the Judaizers seem to have withdrawn, only to be replaced by the peril of Eastern Gnosticism [a type of religious thinking that focuses on hidden and mystical knowledge, valuing knowledge over faith]. This is seen in Paul’s letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians, and to Philemon, all written at this time. It is unlikely that Paul’s accusers appeared in Rome to bring formal charges before Caesar, so Paul was probably released in AD 61.
Final Years and Martyrdom
It is here assumed that the Pastoral Letters (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus) are truly Paul’s work. Only through them can the probable course of events in Paul’s final years be traced. Romans 15:28 shows that Paul intended to deliver the collection to Jerusalem and then to “set off to Spain by way of you [Rome].” The arrest and imprisonment in Jerusalem not only destroyed these plans but also extracted five precious years from the prime of a most productive life. Although Clement of Rome implied that Paul did fulfill his desire to go to Spain (Clement to the Corinthians 5), it is certain that the daily pressure of Paul’s anxious care for all the churches (2 Corinthians 11:28) did not decrease.
If Paul went to Spain, he may have been there when Rome was burned on July 19, AD 64. Tradition says that Paul traveled as far as Britain, but there is no evidence to confirm this. Returning east, he left Titus in Crete (Titus 1:5) and traveled through Miletus, south of Ephesus, where he left Trophimus sick (2 Timothy 4:20). Traveling toward Macedonia, Paul visited Timothy in Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:3). On the way, Paul left his cloak and books with Carpus in Troas (2 Timothy 4:13). This indicates that he intended to return there for his possessions. From Macedonia Paul wrote his loving yet apprehensive first letter to Timothy (AD 62–64). He had decided to spend the winter in Nicopolis (Titus 3:12), northwest of Corinth on the Adriatic Sea, but was still in Macedonia when he wrote his letter to Titus. This letter is similar to 1 Timothy, yet with a somewhat harsher tone. In it is a final glimpse of the eloquent and zealous Apollos (Titus 3:13), who is still in association with Paul 10 or more years after his first appearance in Ephesus (Acts 18:24).
From here Paul’s path is obscure. He may have wintered in Nicopolis, but he did not return to Troas for his winter cloak (2 Timothy 4:13). At some point he was arrested by the Romans, because he spent a winter in Rome’s Mamertine Prison, suffering from the cold in that rock cell before he wrote his second letter to Timothy (AD 66–67). He may have been anticipating the coming winter when he requested that Timothy bring his cloak (verses 13, 21). The charges against Paul were possibly related to the burning of Rome (this is unknown). It was, however, now “illegal” to be a Christian since the “new religion” was no longer protected by Roman law as being part of Judaism (which was a legalized, recognized religion by Roman law).
It was dangerous to be associated with Paul at this time. Many deserted him (2 Timothy 4:16), including all his coworkers in Asia (1:15) and Demas, who loved the world (4:10). Only Luke, the physician and author of Luke and Acts, was with him when he wrote his second letter to Timothy (verse 11). Faithful believers still in hiding in Rome were also in contact with the apostle (1:16; 4:19, 21). He told Timothy to come to him in Rome and bring Mark also (4:11). Apparently Timothy did come and was imprisoned (Hebrews 13:23). Paul’s request for the books and parchments (2 Timothy 4:13) discloses that he was reading and studying the Scripture to the end.
The apostle Paul had two hearings before Caesar Nero. At his first defense only the Lord stood by him (2 Timothy 4:16). There he not only pleaded his own cause but also that of the gospel, still longing that all the Gentiles would hear its message. Perhaps no decision was made, and thus he was “delivered from the mouth of the lion” (verse 17). Though he knew he would soon die, he was not afraid, but was assured that the Lord would give him a crown of righteousness on the last day (verse 8). Finally, the apostle himself recorded his seminal encouragement to all believers: “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all” (verse 22). After this, the Scripture is silent regarding Paul.
Nothing is known of Paul’s second hearing but that it resulted in the sentence of capital punishment. History does not record Paul’s end. Nero died in the summer of AD 68, so Paul was executed before that date. As a Roman citizen, he must have been spared the lingering torture that had recently been suffered by his fellow martyrs. Tradition says that he was decapitated by the sword of an imperial headsman on the Ostian Road just outside of Rome, and buried nearby. This fulfilled Paul’s desire “to depart and be with Christ, which is far better” (Philippians 1:23).
Aquifer Open Bible Dictionary © 2026 Mission Mutual, an adaptation of the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.