THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL. CHAPTER I. "And the title was written in Hebrew, and Greek and Latin.”—Joh. xix. 20. GREAT MEN OF GREAT PERIODS. PERIOD OF CHRIST'S APOSTLES.-JEWS,. GREEKS, AND ROMANS.-RELIGIOUS CIVILISATION OF THE JEWS. THEIR HISTORY AND ITS RELATION TO THAT OF THE WORLD.-HEATHEN PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL.-CHARACTER AND LANGUAGE OF THE GREEKS. ALEXANDRIA. -ANTIOCH AND ALEXANDRIA.-GROWTH AND GOVERNMENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.-MISERY OF ITALY AND THE PROVINCES.-PREPARATION IN THE EMPIRE FOR CHRISTIANITY. DISPERSION OF THE JEWS IN ASIA, AFRICA, and EUROPE.—PROSELYTES.-PROVINCES OF CILICIA AND JUDÆA.—THEIR GEOGRATHE ROMANS.-TARSUS.-CICERO.— JUDEA.-HEROD AND HIS FAMILY.-THE ROMAN PHY AND HISTORY.—CILICIA UNDER THE life of a great man, in a great period of the world's history, is a subject to command the attention of every thoughtful mind. Alexander on his Eastern expedition, spreading the civilisation of Greece over the Asiatic and African shores of the Mediterranean Sea,—Julius Cæsar contending against the Gauls, and subduing the barbarism of Western Europe to the order and discipline of Roman Government, Charlemagne compressing the separating atoms of the feudal world, and reviving for a time the image of imperial unity,-Columbus sailing westward over the Atlantic to discover a new world which might receive the arts and religion of the old,-Napoleon on his rapid campaigns, shattering the ancient system of European states, and leaving a chasm between our present and VOL. I.—1 the past these are the colossal figures of history, which stamp with the impress of their personal greatness the centuries in which they lived. The interest with which we look upon such men is natural and inevitable, even when we are deeply conscious that, in their character and their work, evil was mixed up in large proportions with the good, and when we find it difficult to discover the providential design which drew the features of their respective epochs. But this natural feeling rises into something higher, if we can be assured that the period we contemplate was designedly prepared for great results, that the work we admire was a work of unmixed good, and the man whose actions we follow was an instrument specially prepared by the hands of GOD. Such a period was that in which the civilised world was united under the first Roman emperors: such a work was the first preaching of the Gospel: and such a man was Paul of Tarsus. Before we enter upon the particulars of his life and the history of his work, it is desirable to say something, in this introductory chapter, concerning the general features of the age which was prepared for him. We shall not attempt any minute delineation of the institutions and social habits of the period. Many of these will be brought before us in detail in the course of the present work. We shall only notice here those circumstances in the state of the world, which seem to bear the traces of a providential pre-arrangement. Casting this general view on the age of the first Roman emperors, which was also the age of JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles, we find our attention arrested by three great varieties of national life. The Jew, the Greek, and the Roman appear to divide the world between them. The outward condition of Jerusalem itself, at this epoch, might be taken as a type of the civilised world. Herod the Great, who rebuilt the Temple, had erected, for Greek and Roman entertainments, a theatre within the same walls, and an amphitheatre in the neighbouring plain. His coins, and those of his grandson Agrippa, bore Greek inscriptions: that piece of money, which was brought to our Saviour (Matt. xxii. Mark xii. Luke Ba E H COIN OF HEROD THE GREAT. 1 JOSEPH. Ant. xv. 8, 1. B. J. i. 21, 8. 2 These two coins of Herod the Great and his grandson Agrippa I., with the Dena rius of Tiberius, are taken, by Mr. Akerman's kind permission, from his excellent little work, "Numismatic Illustrations of the New Testament." xx.), was the silver Denarius, the "image" was that of the emperor, the superscription" was in Latin: and at the same time when the common currency consisted of such pieces as these, since coins with the images of men or with heathen symbols would have been a profanation to the Treasury,"—there might be found on the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, shekels and half-shekels with Samaritan letters, minted under the Maccabees. Greek and Roman names were borne by multitudes of those Jews who came up to worship at the festivals. Greek and Latin words were current in the popular "Hebrew" of the day: and while this Syro-Chaldaic dialect was spoken by the mass of the people with the tenacious affection of old custom, Greek had long been wellknown among the upper classes in the larger towns, and Latin was used in the courts of law, and in the official correspondence of magistrates.1 On a critical occasion of St. Paul's life," when he was standing on the stair between the Temple and the fortress, he first spoke to the commander of the garrison in Greek, and then turned round and addressed his countrymen in Hebrew; while the letter of Claudius Lysias was written, and the oration of Tertullus spoken, in Latin. We are told by the historian Josephus, that on a parapet of stone in the Temple area, where a flight of fourteen steps led up from the outer to the inner court, pillars were placed at equal distances, with notices, some in Greek and some in Latin, that no alien should enter the sacred enclosure of the Hebrews. And we are told 1 Val. Max. ii. 2. Magistratus vero prisci quantopere suam populique Romani majestatem retinentes se gesserint, hinc cognosci potest, quod inter cætera obtinendæ gravitatis indicia, illud quoque magna cum perseverantia custodiebant, ne Græcis unquam, nisi Latinè responsa darent. Quinetiam ipsa linguæ volubilitate, quâ plurimum valent, excussâ, per interpretem loqui cogebant; non in urbe tantum nostra, sed etiam in Græcia et Asia: quo scilicet Latinæ vocis honos per omnes gentes venerabilior diffunderetur. Nec illis deerant studia doctrinæ, sed nulla non in re pallium togæ subjici debere arbitrabantur: indignum esse existimantes, illecebris et suavitate literarum imperii pondus et auctoritatem domari. 2 Acts xxi. xxii. 3 Acts xxiii. The letter was what was technically called an Elogium, or certificate, and there is hardly any doubt that it was in Latin. See De Wette and Olshausen, in loc. 4 Acts xxiv. Mr. Milman (Bampton Lectures, p. 185) has remarked on the peculiarly Latin character of Tertullus's address: and the preceding quotation from Valerius Maximus seems to imply that its language was Latin. 5 B. J. v. 5, 2. Compare vi. 2, 4. ~ 3 by two of the Evangelists,1 that when our blessed Saviour was crucified, the superscription of His accusation" was written above His cross “in letters of Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin." The condition of the world in general at that period wears a similar appearance to a Christian's eye. He sees the Greek and Roman elements brought into remarkable union with the older and more sacred elements of Judaism. He sees in the Hebrew nation a divinely-laid foundation for the superstructure of the Church, and in the dispersion of the Jews a soil made ready in fitting places for the seed of the Gospel. He sees in the spread of the language and commerce of the Greeks, and in the high perfection of their poetry and philosophy, appropriate means for the rapid communication of Christian ideas, and for bringing them into close connection with the best thoughts of unassisted humanity. And he sees in the union of so many incoherent provinces under the law and government of Rome, a strong framework which might keep together for a sufficient period those masses of social life which the Gospel was intended to pervade. The City of God is built at the confluence of three civilisations. We recognise with gratitude the hand of God in the history of His world : and we turn with devout feelings to trace the course of these three streams of civilised life, from their early source to the time of their meeting in the Apostolic age. We need not linger about the fountains of the national life of the Jews. We know that they gushed forth at first, and flowed in their appointed channels, at the command of God. The call of Abraham, when one family was chosen to keep and hand down the deposit of divine truth,the series of providences which brought the ancestors of the Jews into Egypt, the long captivity on the banks of the Nile,—the work of Moses, whereby the bondsmen were made into a nation,-all these things are represented in the Old Testament as occurring under the immediate direction of Almighty power. The people of Israel were taken out of the midst of an idolatrous world, to become the depositaries of a purer knowledge of the one true God than was given to any other people. At a time when (humanly speaking) the world could hardly have preserved a spiritual religion in its highest purity, they received a divine revelation enshrined in symbols and ceremonies, whereby it might be safely kept till the time of its development in a purer and more heavenly form. The peculiarity of the Hebrew civilisation did not consist in the culture of the imagination and intellect, like that of the Greeks, nor in the organisation of government, like that of Rome, but its distinguishing feature was Religion. To say nothing of the Scriptures, the prophets, the miracles of the Jews, their frequent festivals, their constant sacrifices, 1 Luke xxiii. 38. John xix. 20. : everything in their collective and private life was connected with a revealed religion their wars, their heroes, their poetry, had a sacred character,their national code was full of the details of public worship,-their ordinary employments were touched at every point by divinely-appointed and significant ceremonies. Nor was this religion, as were the religions of the heathen world, a creed which could not be the common property of the instructed and the ignorant. It was neither a recondite philosophy which might not be communicated to the masses of the people, nor a weak superstition, controlling the conduct of the lower classes, and ridiculed by the higher. The religion of Moses was for the use of all and the benefit of all. The poorest peasant of Galilee had the same part in it as the wisest Rabbi of Jerusalem. The children of all families were taught to claim their share in the privileges of the chosen people. 1 And how different was the nature of this religion from that of the contemporary Gentiles! The pious feelings of the Jew were not dissipated and distracted by a fantastic mythology, where a thousand different objects of worship, with contradictory attributes, might claim the attention of the devout mind. "One God," the Creator and Judge of the world, and the Author of all good, was the only object of adoration. And there was nothing of that wide separation between religion and morality, which among other nations was the road to all impurity. The will and approbation of Jehovah was the motive and support of all holiness: faith in His word was the power which raised men above their natural weakness: while even the divinities of Greece and Rome were often the personifications of human passions, and the example and sanction of vice. And still farther :-the devotional scriptures of the Jews express that heartfelt sense of infirmity and sin, that peculiar spirit of prayer, that real communion with God, with which the Christian, in his best moments, has the truest sympathy. So that, while the best hymns of Greece3 are ouly mythological pictures, and the literature of heathen Rome hardly produces anything which can be called a prayer, the Hebrew psalms 1 ὅπερ ἐκ φιλοσοφίας τῆς δοκιμωτάτης περιγίνεται τοῖς ὁμιληταῖς ἀυτῆς, τοῦτο διὰ νόμων καὶ ἐθὼν Ἰουδαίοις, ἐπιστήμη τοῦ ἀνωτάτου καὶ πρεσβυτάτου πάντων, τὸν ἐπὶ τοῖς γενητοῖς θεοῖς πλάνον ἀπωσαμένοις. Quoted with other passages from Philo by Neander, General Church History, vol. i. pp. 70, 71. (Torrey's translation, Edinburgh, 1847.) 2 Neander observes that it has been justly remarked that the distinctive peculiarity (die auszeichnende Eigenthumlichkeit) of the Hebrew nation from the very first, was, that conscience was more alive among them than any other people. Pflanzung und Leitung, p. 91, ed. 1847. See also the Eng. Trans. of the former edition, vol. i. p. 61. 3 There are some exceptions, as in the hymn of the Stoic Cleanthes, who was born at Assos 350 years before St. Paul was there; yet it breathes the sentiment rather of acquiescence in the determinations of Fate, than of resignation to the goodness of Providence. See Mr. Cotton's notice of Cleanthes in Smith's Dictionary of Biography and Mythology. |