the results, while the Roman Mission gives occasion to the treatment, are conspicuously meant to be applicable always and universally. Meantime, such is the writer, we never for one moment find ourselves in the atmosphere of mere speculation, academic and abstracted from realities. The reasoner is himself unutterably alive in heart as well as intellect. And he has before him always, in an intense consciousness, the living personalities who are well-nigh as present to him as himself, and who have, like himself, to meet life and death.

Incidentally meanwhile (and here is a difference from Ephesians) the Epistle has a good deal to say to us of the personal and incidental. It pauses to speak of the present position and future plans of the writer, of his personal relation with his readers, of the friends he has around him and those he is thinking of far away. It is a treatise, but also the unforced,

unartificial utterance of friend to friends.

It

The Epistolary Element in the New Testament. may be opportune here to quote a few sentences from Canon T. D. Bernard's Development of the Doctrine in the New Testament, the Bampton Lectures for 1864 :—' The Prophets delivered oracles to the people, but the Apostles wrote letters to the brethren, letters characterised by all that fulness of unreserved explanation, and that play of various feeling, which are proper to that form of intercourse. . The fact that the teaching of the Apostles is represented by their letters is a peculiarity not only in comparison with the teaching of the Prophets but with ancient teaching in general. ... The form adopted in the N.T. combines the advantages of the treatise and the conversation. The letter may treat important subjects with accuracy and

fulness, but it will do so in immediate connection with actual life. It is written to meet an occasion. It is addressed to particular states of mind. It breathes the heart of the writer. In these respects it suits well with a period of instruction in which the Word of God is to be given to men not so much in the way of information as in the way of education; or in other words, in which the truth is to be delivered not abstractedly but with a close relation to the condition of mind of its recipients.'

EPHESIANS

Genuineness. We may accept this Epistle as genuine, on purely literary grounds, without the slightest misgiving. The early evidence of allusions and quotations is ample and absolutely unanimous. St. Irenæus, in the second century, a learned and careful theologian, often quotes the Epistle. In the writings of the Fathers at large no book of the N.T. is more frequently quoted. If the external evidence is inadequate, then we have no adequate evidence that Virgil wrote the Georgics, or Horace the Odes, or Augustine the Confessions.' And the internal evidence responds to this with a profound harmony. 'Ephesians,' writes the late Prof. Hort, the last man to suppress a doubt if he felt it, 'bears the impress of St. Paul's wonderful mind.' We may well say, with the late Dr. J. S. Howson, life-long student of St. Paul as he was, ‘No one but St. Paul could have been the writer.' For if not St. Paul, then who? Some personality at once great in the loftiest spiritual insight and morally low enough to pass off his composition as St. Paul's. Common sense is the best critic in such

a case. The human heart is the truest reasoner against the possibility of fabrication when a writing like this is in question.

To be sure students have been found, in recent times, to discredit the Epistle. Renan (Saint Paul, p. xviii.) coolly calls it 'a third-rate Epistle,' and takes it for a belated imitation. Place against this S. T. Coleridge's dictum (Table Talk): 'One of the divinest compositions of man.' Behind this set the verdict of universal Christian thought and feeling, and we need not be doubtful of the fact that we have here a veritable writing of the man who was 'the chosen vessel to bear the name' of the Redeemer.

Date. We may safely place this at some point within the two years (Acts xxviii. 30) spent by St. Paul in honourable custody at Rome; very probably about A.D. 62 or 63 (see further below, p. xxi.); in the latter and rapidly-darkening years of Nero's reign, but before the great crisis of open persecution (A.D. 68). The conjecture that the imprisonment referred to in the Epistle (vi. 19) was that at Cæsarea (Acts xxiv,) has many serious objections. This and the companion Epistles (Philippians, Colossians) seem obviously to belong to a period of eminent activity and importance in St. Paul's life and thought. And allusions in Philippians to the imperial guard and household point in almost so many words to Rome.

Destination. A question of special interest is raised here in the case of Ephesians. We have no doubt whatever that Romans was written on purpose for the converts at Rome, and Philippians for those at Philippi. But we cannot say that Ephesians was for certain written on purpose for the converts

at Ephesus. It is doubtful whether it was, in the strict sense, an Epistle to the Ephesians at all. To be sure, in the A.V. the point seems to be settled otherwise; for the title is The Epistle to the Ephesians,' and the first sentence addresses the message 'To the saints which are at Ephesus.' But the margin of the R. V. has a note there to the effect that 'some very ancient authorities omit at Ephesus.' This refers to three important manuscripts (N, B, and '67 of St. Paul'). It may be asked whether these three have weight against the whole mass of other ancient copies. But the reply is that they stand by no means alone. Certain early Christian writers, much earlier than any of our existing manuscripts, Tertullian and Origen particularly, write in a way which shows that in the opening lines of our Epistle they found a problem. There were evidently many copies in the second century (and Basil, in the fourth century, speaks of these as 'the older') which did not contain the words 'at Ephesus' at all; their reading was, 'to the saints which are, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.' We cannot doubt that this was no mere accident; a reason lay behind it.

Archbishop Ussher, in the seventeenth century (and in our times Bishop Lightfoot developed his thought), suggested the solution that the Epistle was written as a Circular Letter to the Missions of Roman Asia. He conjectured that copies were prepared leaving a blank after the words 'which are,' which blank was to be filled up for each church-'at Ephesus,' 'at Hierapolis,' etc. This appears very fairly to explain the phenomena just described, in manuscripts and Fathers; the more so if we suppose St. Paul to have addressed the original document to Ephesus as the mother-city, that it might be there copied for distribution in the Province.

It would thus be addressed to a considerable circle of Missions. The Roman Province known as pro-consular Asia included a large district on the western coast of our 'Asia Minor,' and an extensive Hinterland. With this great region St. Paul's intercourse was long-continued and close, from the time recorded, Acts xviii. 18, to the very end, probably, of his career. It contained many Christian stations, all probably originated by his converts; the Seven Churches of Rev. ii., iii., were all among them, and also Troas, Assos, Adramyttium, Miletus, Trogyllium, Hierapolis, Colossæ.

Thus Colossæ would have its part and interest in the Circular Letter, as well as in that addressed to itself. And it is at least highly likely that 'the Epistle from Laodicea' (Col. iv. 16) means our 'Epistle to the Ephesians.' As a Circular, it would be first sent to Laodicea, the district-capital (see below, p. xxvii.), and thence to the minor town, Colossæ. On the other hand the Epistle to the Colossians would have a special interest for the district-capital, and so St. Paul directs that it should be read in the assembly there also.

The 'Epistle to the Ephesians' itself confirms Ussher's theory by the fact that it alone, of St. Paul's Letters, is almost entirely devoid of local allusions. Ephesus had been for three years (Acts xx. 31) the scene of St. Paul's life and labour. Yet not a single greeting to friend or friends at Ephesus appears in these six chapters, nor any reference to the condition of the Church.

Occasion. It may seem difficult, if the character of the Epistle is thus abstract, to assign a definite occasion to it. But we may find one in the Epistle to the Colossians, which