Pauls Life

Last

Visit to Jerusalem.--He went forward, having arranged with a trusty host at Jerusalem in the person of Mnason, a Hellenist of Cyprus; and entered the holy city in good time to show his loyalty to the Jewish Feast of Pentecost. He was well received by James and the elders of the Church. So far scholars are agreed, since the "we" form of narrative, which began again at Philippi (xx. 5), reaches to this point. But as to the historical value of what follows, before "we" reappears with the start for Rome, there is diversity of opinion. The present writer, holding that "we" is no exclusive mark of the eye-witness (see Acrs), sees no reason to distrust the narrative in Acts xxi. 19–xxvi. We are not told how the Gentile offering of loyal love was met by the Jerusalem Church as a whole. That its general effect upon the comity of the two branches of the Messianic Ecclesia was good, seems implied by the serene tone of Paul's later references to the unity of the Body (Eph. ii. 19-22; iii. 5 seq.). What does stand out clearly in Acts is all that bears on Paul's position as between the Jewish and the Roman authorities. Here we observe a gradual shifting of the charge against him, corre sponding in part to the changes of venue. The more local elements recede, and those of interest to a Roman court emerge. And here the transference of the case from the provincial court to Nero's own appeal court at Rome was of ill omen. The last words of Agrippa, "This man could have been set at liberty had he not appealed to Caesar," are probably recorded with a touch of tragic irony.

Rome.

The journey to Rome calls for no detailed notice (see Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller). Its main interest for us is the impression of nobility, courage and power, which Paul conveyed to the centurion Julius and his fellow-passengers generally ; while the enthusiasm of the eyewitness himself visibly rises as dangers thicken and Paul rises above them all. At last Italy is reached, and Paul is met by "brethren" from Rome, who came 3o or 4o miles to welcome him; "whom when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage." From Paul's letters, however, we gather that if he looked for sympathy from the Roman Church he looked largely in vain. Whilst some welcomed, and most regarded him as indeed a champion of the Gospel, whose fearless testimony even in bonds emboldened many—including the Judaizing section who wished him no good—to preach Jesus more openly than before; few, if any, really showed him brotherly love or cared for the interests of Christ outside Rome that were on his heart (Phil. i. 12-17, ii. 21). Such absorption in their own affairs struck Paul as strangely un-Christian, and added disappointment to irksome confinement, chained as he was by one wrist to a praetorian soldier night and day. Yet he rose above it all. Only let "Christ be magnified" in his body, whether by life or death.

Epistles from Rome.

The letter which makes us aware how things lay is Philippians, the most devotional of all his writings.

It flows from his heart as joyful thanks for tokens of continued mindfulness of him recently received from his old Philippian friends through Epaphroditus, one of their number. Touched and filled with spiritual joy, he turns to comfort his friends in their sorrow for him, out of the stores of Divine consolation received through his own fresh sense of need (cf. 2 Cor. i. 3 sqq.). "Re joice in the Lord" is its recurring note. Here we get the word of the hour, both for Paul and for his converts.

Of the remaining epistles written during his imprisonment in Rome, the little note to Philemon touching his slave Onesimus casts fresh light on Paul "the Christian gentleman," by its humour and considerateness. The two larger ones do not

seem at first sight to reflect his personality so much as his life as the father of churches, and the way in which he extended the lines of his gospel, to bear on problems raised by ever fresh reactions upon it of the old traditions amid which his Asian converts still lived (see COLOSSIANS). Both aspects really blend; for the epistles are addressed to churches which were feeling certain effects of the seeming calamity that had overtaken him whom they in some sense regarded as their founder, and aim at raising them to the writer's own higher standpoint (Eph.

13, vi. 19-22; Col. ii. I seq., iv. 8 seq.).

The Pastoral Epistles.

In the so-called Pastoral Epistles the same subjects in the main are handled similarly, yet more sum marily, as befits one writing instructions to friends familiar with the spirit behind his concrete precepts. Allowing for this, and for the special circumstances presupposed, there is no more "moralism" about the "wholesome instruction" in the Christian walk given in these epistles (I Tim. i. 1o; cf. vi. 3; 2 Tim. iv. 3) than in the other group. "Moralism" is ethical precept divorced from the Christian motive of grateful love, or connected with the notion of salvation as "of works" rather than prevenient grace.

But of this there is no real trace in the Pastorals, which are a type of letter by themselves as regards their recipients and cer tain of the aspects of church life with which they deal. As dealing with methods of instruction and organization, which must have increasingly occupied the attention of those responsible for the daily course of church life, they contain nothing inappropriate to the last two years of Paul's life, when he was considering how his churches might best be safeguarded from errors.

The main difficulties as to their substance have been imported by anachronistic reading of them, and are falling to the ground with the progress of exegesis and knowledge of the conditions of early church life. Our real difficulties in conceiving the Pas torals as what they purport to be, relate to their form, and "lie in the field of language and of ideas as embodied in language" (Hort., Jud. Christ. p. 131). But these, even as regards style and syntax, are reduced to narrow limits, when once due weight is given to the analogies furnished by the now admitted Imprison ment Epistles. As to the rhythmic fragment in I Tim. iii. 16, not only is it one in type with that in Eph. v. 14, but may even be part of the same hymn. Hence there seem no insuperable difficulties as to the authenticity of all three epistles—which most scholars recognize as at least partly from Paul's pen, though they disagree as to the exact limits of the genuine fragments—if only a natural historic setting can be found for them in Paul's life. But there is a general assumption that this cannot be found within the limits allowed by Acts. Accordingly some reject the situa tions implied in them on the whole as unhistorical, while others postulate a period in Paul's life of which Acts says nothing, if it does not exclude it (for these theories see PASTORAL EPISTLES). The only virtually contemporary external evidence, too, refers to Paul (and Peter) as having been joined in the place of reward by the Neronian martyrs, and therefore as already dead in (1 Clem. vi.). Further no tradition is clear enough to override the implication of Acts (xx. 25 and 38, cf . xxvi. 32) that Paul never visited Asia after his farewell at Miletus. Accordingly room for the epistles must be found, if at all, within the two years or so allowed by Acts. The following is an attempt to show how this may be done.