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LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 NEW YORK SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, 
 
 BY 
 
 REV.DRS. WESTON, BEVAN, LLOYD, STORES, HALL, 
 
 TAYLOR, VINCENT, ELDER, FOWLER, 
 
 TIFFANY, AND JOHNSON, 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1881, 
 BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 
 
THE GOSPEL 
 
 ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, 
 
 BY REV. HENRY G. WESTON, D. D., 
 
 CHESTER, PA. 
 
THE 
 
 QOSPEL ACCORDINQTO [VIATTHEW. 
 
 Preliminary to the examination of any one of the 
 Gospels, two questions present themselves : What is the 
 purpose of the Gospel history ? and What relation do 
 the narratives of the Evangelists sustain to one another ? 
 These four histories, with marked agreements and diver- 
 sities, cover substantially one interval of time. Is there 
 anything in their nature or design which requires that 
 there should be more than one Gospel ? Are their like- 
 nesses and divergencies, their insertions and omissions, 
 their differences of arrangement and apparent discrepan- 
 cies, accidental, or are they determined by a plastic and 
 fundamental purpose ? Is there " an ever-active law of 
 exclusion and inclusion," and can that law be ascertained 
 and formulated ? 
 
 Various theories have been adopted to account for the 
 number and character of the Gospels. One is, that they 
 are memoirs of Jesus Christ intended as a model human 
 life, and that their variations arise from the idiosyncrasies 
 of the writers ; another, that the Evangelists were but 
 partially acquainted with the facts of our Lord's life, the 
 
 1* 
 
4 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 materials out of which they built their narratives being 
 fragmentary and imperfect ; a third, that Matthew ad- 
 dressed the Jew, Mark the Roman, Luke the Greek, John 
 the church ; that the three nations represent the three 
 great, permanent classes of unspiritual men, and that the 
 Synoptic Gospels wer*^ so shaped in order to convince 
 these classes respectively of the truth of Christianity. 
 
 If the Gospels are memoirs of Jesus Christ, or are 
 designed to present a model human life, why do they 
 pass over in silence the thirty years in which our Lord 
 most nearly touched the ordinary duties and positions of 
 men, and record only his Messianic, official, miraculous 
 deeds and words ? Why do the Epistles know no " Christ 
 after the flesh" (2 Cor. 5:16), never drawing motive, ex- 
 ample, or sanction, from Christ's precruciiixion life, but 
 always appealing to his resurrection as the grand source, 
 and to his death as the grand model, of Christian action 
 (Phil. 3:10; I Pet. 2:21-24).!* Is it credible that the 
 omissions of the Gospels arose from a lack of informa- 
 tion on the part of the writers } Could Matthew by any 
 possibility have been unacquainted with the resurrection 
 of Lazarus } Was John ignorant of the transfiguration } 
 Did Matthew know nothing of those events which con- 
 stitute one-half of Luke's Gospel } Were Matthew and 
 John, apostles both, unaware of Christ's ascension .? The 
 third hypothesis, that the Gospels were designed for 
 different types of character, is inadequate to meet the 
 facts of the case, leaves a large part of their phenomena 
 unexplained, and is especially inadmissible when it claims 
 that the first three Gospels were addressed to unbeliev- 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 5 
 
 ers. The New Testament is the Christian's book. It 
 was written for those instructed in the ways of the Lord. 
 It everywhere addresses persons who have received the 
 truth. It presupposes a knowledge of the essential inci- 
 dents in the Gospel history. The orderly arrangement 
 of the primary facts of Christianity is for those who be- 
 lieve those facts, just as the Epistle to the Romans, the 
 systematic discussion of justification, is not for the un- 
 justified, but for the justified. You answer the question 
 of the sinner, " How shall I be just with God T not by 
 giving him the Epistle to the Romans, but by bidding 
 him believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He needs to 
 know, not the processes of salvation, but Christ the Sa- 
 viour. Paul's exposition of the method of justification 
 was written for those who had experienced the doctrine 
 and were prepared to retrace the ground and study the 
 provisions and methods of salvation. 
 
 What, then, are the Gospels } They are histories of 
 redemption as accomplished in the incarnation, life, death, 
 burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. They 
 are in part what the Bible is in full ; the Scripture does 
 not give all of God's deeds on the one side, nor all the 
 world's deeds on the other, but only those which pertain 
 to the history of salvation ; and the Gospels are neither 
 memoirs nor chronicles, but histories : they record no 
 facts except those which are em.braced in their design 
 and purpose. Each Gospel presents its own phase of 
 the history of redemption — Christ's work in a special 
 aspect. 
 
 Matthew is the opening book — the Genesis — of the 
 
6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 new covenant. The Old Testament closes with the 
 Jewish nation looking for their promised King and Mes- 
 siah. The Jews are the favored people of God. To 
 them belong peculiar privileges, an economy established 
 by Heaven, and a future prosperity sung by every prophet 
 and longed for by every generation. In the Gospel age 
 the Jewish nation is deserted by God. A church exists 
 in which the dominant portion are Gentiles, to whom the 
 practice of the Mosaic rites is forbidden. These astound- 
 ing facts " required to be not demonstrated, but explained, 
 and in some respects justified. How had the Church 
 been founded } How had it become open to the Gen- 
 tiles } How were the people of Israel, from the midst of 
 whom it had gone forth, themselves excluded from W. 
 How reconcile with these unexpected events God's faith- 
 fulness to his promises ?" The Gospel according to 
 Matthew answers these questions. It gives the causes 
 and methods of this wonderful change. It relates the 
 coming of Jesus to the Jews as their king, his rejection 
 by them, the abrogation of the old covenant, and the 
 prospective establishment of the church with its consti- 
 tution and ordinances. It shows us that this was no 
 afterthought or expedient, but had been foretold by the 
 prophets, and that in the earliest dealings of God with 
 the Abrahamic people, its basal principles are seen. The 
 Gospel according to Matthew conducts us from the posi- 
 tion of the Old Testament to that of the New. If we 
 have rightly represented its design, it will be systematic, 
 fundamental, official, and will embrace in its view the 
 time from the calling of Abraham to the end of the age. 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 7 
 
 I. The systematic character of the Gospel governs its 
 general structure and its details. Chronological sequence, 
 the order of occurrence, is disregarded for the sake of 
 the logical arrangement and regular development of 
 ideas. Homogeneous events are grouped together, some- 
 times in succinct statements (4:23-25), sometimes more 
 in detail (chaps. 8, 9). The indefinite tote, used nearly 
 one hundred times, marks the transitions in the narra- 
 tive. Our Lord's instructions in Luke are in conversa- 
 tions, and in John what may be called conversational 
 discourses ; in Matthew they are discourses in the 
 strictest sense — compact, elaborate, symmetrica] — all 
 marked with an organic and vital unity. The teleologi- 
 cal consecutiveness of the Gospel is perfect; there is 
 not a sentence but is in its logical place, not one that is 
 not a link in the chain. The completeness of the great 
 discourses of our Lord and the topical arrangement of the 
 Gospel are shown by the phrase — peculiar to Matthew — 
 "when Jesus had ended these sayings" (7:28; 11 :i* 
 13*53; 19*1; 26:1). These discourses — of the kingdom 
 in its nature and characteristics (chaps. 5-7), in its pre- 
 sentation (chap. 10), in its organic manifestation and 
 development (chap. 13), in its internal spirit and relations 
 (chap. 18), and in its consummation chaps. 24, 25) — • 
 follow one another in regular progression, connected 
 closely by the intervening narrative. The first words of 
 Christ declare the object of his Messianic work, " to fulfil 
 all righteousness " — to bring in and make actual perfect 
 righteousness. The last words of Christ's instructions 
 are, '' the righteous into life eternal," and between there 
 
8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 two — the announcement of his purposes and its accom- 
 plishment in the entrance of the righteous into the king- 
 dom prepared for them from the foundation of the world — 
 one theme is kept in view. The portrait in the sermon 
 on the Mount of the perfectly righteous man — the ideal 
 character to be produced — is followed by the details of 
 Christ's work, through which the glorious result is 
 attained. Into these we cannot now enter ; all that is 
 possible for us at this time, is to point out some of the 
 more general and obvious divisions of the Gospel. 
 
 In the method of Christ's teaching, two stages are 
 distinctly marked. In the first twelve chapters his 
 statements are direct and explicit. In the thirteenth 
 chapter, with the recognition of the judicial blindness of 
 the Jews, our Lord introduces a new mode of teaching — 
 by parables. 
 
 A like order and distinction are observed in the mira- 
 cles. Before this important epoch, they are all exhibi- 
 tions of authority — external miracles. Now begins a new 
 class of miracles — revelations of Christ in his essential 
 nature and relations. 
 
 The topics of Christ's teaching are equally distinct, 
 divided by the sixteenth chapter. Previously to the 
 recognition of his true character by his disciples in that 
 chapter, his instruction has reference to his nature and 
 person. " Who is Christ .?" is the question in every 
 miracle and controversy. When this is rightly answered, 
 the manner of redemption, by death and resurrection, 
 occupies the attention. In other words, the person and 
 the work of Christ are taught in their order. 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 9 
 
 The twenty miracles recorded by Matthew follow a 
 regular sequence, beginning with the cure of leprosy, the 
 symbol of sin, and ending with the withering of the fig- 
 tree, the type of judgment. 
 
 The arrangement of the fourteen parables is equally 
 systematic, commencing with that of the sower scattering 
 the seed of the kingdom, and closing with that of the 
 talents, the adjudication of the last day. 
 
 As a history of Christ's presentation to the Jewish 
 nation, the plan of the Gospel is readily seen. 
 
 1. His presentation as the royal heir, ending with his 
 flight into Egypt and his secluded residence in Nazar- 
 eth — chapters i and 2. 
 
 2. His presentation as the Son of God, resulting in 
 his rejection by the nation, and in his recognition by the 
 twelve disciples — chapters 3 to 20. 
 
 3. His formal and avowed presentation to the nation 
 as their king, resulting in a like formal and avowed rejec- 
 tion, in his death, burial and resurrection, in a commission 
 to his apostles to disciple all nations, and in the assu- 
 rance of his continual presence with them until the end 
 of the age — chapters 21 to 28. 
 
 n. It is the Fundamental Gospel — it narrates the 
 rejection of the Jewish King and the foundation of the 
 Christian church. 
 
 I. It is the Jewish Gospel. By this is not meant that 
 it was written for the Jews, either Christian or unbe- 
 lieving, any more than when we say it is the kingly 
 Gospel, we mean that it was addressed to kings. It is 
 the record of salvation offered to the Jews. The Mes- 
 
10 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, 
 
 siah comes to the covenant people. Here Christ is not 
 sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel 
 (15:24). When the apostles are empowered to preach, 
 their instructions begin : " Go not into the way of the 
 Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye 
 not" (10:5). The Jews are the children of the kingdom 
 (8:12), and Gentile is synonymous with heathen: *' Let 
 him be unto thee as the Gentile* and the publican " 
 (18: 17): "Use not vain repetitions as the Gentiles* do" 
 (6 : 7). The point of departure, the phenomena, the divine 
 appellations, the drapery, the symbolism, are all Jewish. 
 Matthew explains no facts, no laws or customs, peculiar 
 to the nation, nor does he describe the position of places 
 in Judea, as do all the other evangelists (Mark 7:3,4; 
 Luke 22:1; John 4:9; 5:2). In this Gospel only is 
 Jerusalem the holy city (4 : 5), the city of the great King 
 (5*35)) and the Jewish temple God's dwelling-place 
 (23:21), the holy place (24:15), the temple of God 
 (26 : 6). Here only does Christ assume the sacred and 
 sanctifying power of the temple and altar (23:17-21), 
 and draw from the altar service illustrations of obedience 
 to the divine requirement (5 : 23, 24). The freedom of 
 the nation from the unclean spirit of idolatry is distinct- 
 ly recognized (12 : 43-45) ; authority over unclean spirits 
 is given to the apostles (10: i), but in striking contrast 
 to the other Synoptic Gospels there is no instance in 
 Matthew of possession by a spirit designated as unclean. 
 The authority of those who sit in Moses' seat is asserted, 
 and obedience to their official commands enforced 
 
 * In the authorized Version, translated ** heathen." 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. n 
 
 (23 : 1-3). Only in this Gospel are the disciples directed 
 to pray that their flight be not on the Sabbath-day 
 (24 : 20). In Christ's reply to those who accuse him of 
 breaking the Sabbath, in addition to the arguments 
 common to other gospels, he defends himself by the 
 custom of the priests in the temple (12:15). Our 
 Lord's genealogy is traced to Abraham, and marked by 
 the great events in Hebrew history ; for Christ is here 
 Son of David, Son of Abraham, heir to the kingdom and 
 covenants. In Luke it ascends to Adam, and the con- 
 necting eras are both civil and sacred ; for there Christ 
 is the Son of humanity, allied to the whole human race. 
 When the amazed people seem on the point of recogni- 
 zing the Messiah, they give expression to their conviction 
 in the words, "Is not this the Son of David" (12 :22) } 
 Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus, is addressed by the 
 angel as Son of David (i :20). The blind men in the 
 house cry, "Son of David, have mercy on us" (9:27) ; 
 and the Syrophenician woman prays, " Have mercy on 
 me, O Lord, Son of David" (15 : 22). 
 
 The symbolism is Jewish. Not to speak of other 
 examples, the symbolism in number pervades the Gos- 
 pel. Seven, ten, twelve, with their multiples, repeatedly 
 appear. The genealogy is arranged in three fourteens. 
 There are fourteen parables divided by place and pur- 
 pose into two sevens. There are twenty miracles sepa- 
 rated in like manner into two tens. The number seven 
 generally divides itself into four and three, the human 
 and the divine. In the sermon on the Mount, the Chris- 
 tian character is sketched in seven beatitudes (5 : 1-9). 
 
 2 
 
12 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 Of these the first four are exclusively human — they are 
 states which Christ. cannot share; the last three express 
 emotions and conduct which belong to God as well as 
 man. In the thirteenth chapter seven parables present 
 the kingdom of heaven in various relations. The first 
 four are from the human side, accidental, „ temporary, 
 varying — the kingdom in its historical development, as 
 man beholds it ; the last three are inherent, essential — 
 the kingdom as seen by Christ, who joyfully sells all that 
 he has, that he may buy the pearl of priceless value and 
 the field in which the treasure is hidden. The Lord's 
 prayer in Matthew has seven petitions : the first three 
 relating to God, co-ordinate, co-equal ; the last four re- 
 lating to man, joined by particles of sequence (6:9-12). 
 
 2. It is the kingly gospel. 
 
 The genealogy is the royal succession, giving the 
 heirs of the throne. David the king begat Solomon the 
 king, Roboam the king, etc., while Luke gives either 
 Joseph's natural lineage, or, what is more probable and 
 more in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel, the 
 maternal ancestry of Jesus. As Christ's regal descent 
 was through his reputed father, the divine revelations in 
 our Gospel are to Joseph ; in Luke, the Gospel of hu- 
 manity, Mary, through whom Christ took on himself 
 human nature, receives the angelic announcement (Luke 
 I : 27). The Magi inquire, " Where is he that is born 
 King of the Jews " (2 : 2) } Of Bethlehem it is said : " Out 
 of thee shall come a Governor who shall rule my people 
 Israel " (2 :6). It is a rival king that seeks to kill Christ 
 (2:13). John the Baptist cries: "Repent ye, for the 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 13 
 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand" (3:2); in Mark and Luke 
 he preaches the baptism of repentance for the remission 
 of sins (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). In Matthew angels 
 minister to the King after his victory over the tempter 
 (4:11); in Luke the sufferer receives an angel's strength- 
 ening help during the agony of Gethsemane's conflict 
 (22:43). The authority of the Sermon on the Mount 
 astonishes the multitudes {y \2^, 29), as they recognize 
 in the "But I say unto you" (5 :22), the tones, not of the 
 interpreter of law, but of the Lawgiver himself. The 
 genuineness of the doxology in the Lord's prayer is very 
 seriously questioned, but it is significant that in this 
 Gospel we find the ascription, " Thine is the kingdom, and 
 the power, and the glory" (6 : 13). The parables are all 
 of the kingdom of heaven. Luke, the evangelist of 
 humanity, begins his parables : " A certain man — went 
 down from Jerusalem to Jericho" (Luke 10:30); made 
 a great supper (14:16); had two sons (15:11), etc. 
 Matthew's parables, with three exceptions, begin : " The 
 kingdom of heaven is like — unto leaven ; unto treasure ; 
 unto a net" (13:33, 44, 47), etc. There are four miracles 
 peculiar to Matthew ; the opening the eyes of two blind 
 men in the house (9:27-31); the cure of the blind 
 demoniac (12 : 22) ; Peter's walk on the water (14:24-29) ; 
 and the provision of the tribute-money (17:24-27). 
 The first two are Jewish, the last two are regal ; they 
 show the kingly character of Christ and his followers. 
 Only in this Gospel is it said : "The Son of Man shall 
 send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his king- 
 dom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity " 
 
14 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, 
 
 (13 :4i) ; here only is the word preached the word of 
 the kingdom (13:19); and that which in the other 
 books of the New Testament is the gospel,* is in Mat- 
 thew, with a single exception, the gospel of the kingdom 
 (4 : 23 ; 9:35; 24 : 14). Here only does our Lord give 
 Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven (16 : 19). Only 
 in this Gospel, and here twice, does he speak of the Son 
 of Man sitting on the throne of his glory (19 : 28 ; 
 25 : 31) ; here only does he gather all nations before his 
 throne for judgment, and apply to himself those wonder- 
 ful words, " Then shall the King say unto them," " And 
 the King shall answer and say unto them" (25 : 34, 40). 
 At the royal entry into Jerusalem the multitudes cry, 
 and .the children in the temple repeat the ascription, 
 " Hosanna to the Son of David," a title which recognizing 
 him as the Jewish king sorely displeased the chief priests 
 and scribes, and drew from them a strong remonstrance 
 (21 :9-i6). Matthew alone tells us that in the closing 
 hours of Christ's life, more than ten legions of angels 
 awaited his word (26 153); that at his death the earth 
 was shaken, and the rocks were rent, and the graves 
 were opened (27:51-53) — heaven, earth, and hades all 
 acknowledging their king ; and the Gospel closes with 
 the assurance that in heaven and in earth Christ has ex- 
 clusive authority (28 : 19). 
 
 The kingly character of Christ in this Gospel differs 
 from that in Luke and John. Here he is born King of 
 the Jews (2:2); in Luke his kingship is in the future, 
 appointed to him by his Father (22 : 29) ; in John he 
 
 * Of the kingdom, INIark I : 14, is probably an interpolation. 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO AIATTHEW. 15 
 
 reigns now, but his domain is different from that of either 
 of the preceding Gospels (John 18 136, 37) : on his head 
 are many crowns (Rev. 19:12). And because in Matthew 
 and John alone does he now occupy, in the one his innate, 
 and in the other his essential, office, in those Gospels only 
 is the prophecy of Zechariah quoted : " Tell ye the daugh- 
 ter of Zion, Behold thy King cometh unto thee sitting on 
 an ass's colt" (Matt. 21 15 ; John 12: 15). Luke says, 
 " The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his 
 father David " (i : 32), a promise yet to be accomplished ; 
 and in the parable of the talents, he represents the noble- 
 man as going into a far country to receive for himself a 
 kingdom, and to return (19:12). In Matthew our Lord 
 is worshipped from his birth (2 \2,Z, 11); in Luke not 
 until his ascension (24 : 52). 
 
 3. It is the Gospel of Rejection. Compare the intro- 
 duction of this Gospel with that of Luke, the Gospel of 
 Acceptance. In the one the advent of Christ is hailed 
 with joy by all. Zacharias, Elisabeth, Mary, Simeon, 
 Anna, the angels, the shepherds, pour forth their exult- 
 ing praise in canticles sung by the church in all ages. 
 When a boy of twelve years he sits in the temple, the 
 centre of an admiring circle, astonishing them by his un- 
 derstanding and his answers ; and the second chapter 
 closes : " Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in 
 favor with God and man." In the other, before Christ is 
 born he exposes his mother to the danger of repudiation 
 by her husband, from which she is saved only by divine 
 interposition ; at his birth Jerusalem is troubled, and 
 Herod seeks to kill the young child j on the plains of 
 
 2'* 
 
1 6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 Bethlehem, in place of the chorus sweeping through the 
 midnight sky, the wail of mothers for their slaughtered 
 babes is heard ; instead of a multitude of the heavenly 
 host, a solitary spectre is seen — Rachel from her tomb 
 looks in vain for her children, and bewails their loss ; 
 Christ returns from Egypt, and for thirty years his life is 
 covered by a single sentence, with which this second 
 chapter closes : *' He shall be called a Nazarene." 
 
 In this Gospel he withdraws from Judea, in conse- 
 quence of the imprisonment of his forerunner, John the 
 Baptist (4: 12), and begins an itinerant ministry in Gali- 
 lee. In Luke no such reason is assigned : " He returned 
 in the power of the Spirit into Galilee" (4: 14). In both 
 Gospels great multitudes follow him (4 : 25) ; they see 
 the proofs of his power (9 : 8) ; they are astonished at his 
 doctrine (7 : 28 ; 22 : 23) ; they marvel and are amazed 
 (9:33; 22:23); but Luke adds what is not found in 
 Matthew : He taught in their synagogues, being glorified 
 by all; they wondered at the words of grace which pro- 
 ceed out of his mouth (4 : 22) ; the people gladly re- 
 ceived him, for they were all waiting for him (8 : 40) ; they 
 stayed him that he should not depart from them (4:42). 
 Even in the embittered hostility which marked the last 
 days of Christ's intercourse with the Jewish people, Luke 
 tells us that from certain of the scribes came commen- 
 dation of Christ's replies: "Master, thou hast well said" 
 (20 : 39). Matthew's Gospel is the record of the national 
 opposition to Christ, and of Christ's withdrawal from that 
 opposition. The word ava,rwpew is characteristic of this 
 Evangelist; found once in Mark (3 : 7), and once in John, 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 17 
 
 (6 : 15), and not at all in Luke, it occurs ten times in Mat- 
 thew. At the beginning of our Lord's work in this Gos- 
 pel, we read those sad words recorded near the close by 
 Luke, in which Christ declares the inveterate rancor of 
 his foes, and the result of their determined pursuit as 
 foreseen by him : The foxes have holes where they may 
 escape from their pursuers, the birds of the air have shel- 
 ters where they are safe, but the Son of man hath no 
 place where he may lay his head ; he will be hunted to 
 the death (8:20). In this Gospel Christ's life begins 
 with withdrawal from his enemies ; to escape the mur- 
 derous rage of Herod he withdraws into Egypt (2:14) ; 
 on his return he withdraws into Galilee for fear of Arche- 
 laus (2 : 22). His public ministry commences and contin- 
 ues in the same way : Now when Jesus had heard that John 
 was delivered up, he withdrew into Galilee (4 : 12). The 
 Pharisees follow him, and hold a council against him how 
 they may destroy him : ** But when Jesus knew it he with- 
 drew himself thence" (12:15). Jobn the Baptist is put to 
 death : When Jesus heard of it he withdrew by ship into 
 a desert place apart (14 : 13). Still pursued by the Phar- 
 isees he withdraws from Judea into the borders of Tyre 
 and Sidon (15 :2i) ; he returns and evades his pursuers 
 by crossing and recrossing the lake of Gennesaret (15: 39) ; 
 until finally, the purpose of his earthly life accomplished, 
 he ascends to Jerusalem to die (19:1). And because 
 Matthew's Gospel is a history of withdrawals, he does 
 not record the journeys through Perea in which Christ 
 goes to meet his enemies ; in Luke that journey occupies 
 nearly one-half of the Gospel. For in Luke Jesus con- 
 
i8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 fronts and defies hostility : " Go ye and tell that fox, be 
 replies to those who would drive him from Galilee by a 
 threat of Herod, I cast out devils and do cures to-day and 
 to-morrow and the third day I shall be perfected "(13:32). 
 In Luke he bids his disciples prepare for resistance : " He 
 that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one " 
 (22 : 36) ; in Matthew the injunction is, " When they per- 
 rsecute you in this city, flee ye into another" (10 : 23). 
 
 The characteristic of rejection governs the death as 
 well as the life of Christ. Matthew records but one^cry 
 on the cross; it is that desolate wail : " My God, my God, 
 why hast thou forsaken me " (27 : 46). In another Gospel 
 there follow him to Calvary a great company of people 
 and of women, who bewail and lament him (Luke 23 : 27) ; 
 and when the sad deed is consummated, all the peo- 
 ple that came together to that sight smite their breasts 
 and return (23:48); but in Matthew no penitent thief 
 prays, Lord, remember me; no word of sympathy from 
 any human voice is heard ; on the contrary, those that 
 pass by revile him (27 : 39) ; and the chief priests mock- 
 ing him, with the scribes and elders, cry: " He trusted in 
 God ; let him deliver him now if he will have him" (27 : 43). 
 Only in this Gospel do the enemies of Christ carry their 
 malice beyond the crucifixion, and set a seal and guard 
 to prevent his resurrection (27 :62, 65). 
 
 This Gospel necessarily excludes the idea of success. 
 Christ is rejected, and the disciple must be as his master 
 (10:24, 25). Hence there is a remarkable absence of 
 motive or encouragement founded on what will be accom- 
 plished. In Luke, when Peter is called to follow Christ, 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 19 
 
 a miraculous draught of fishes foretells success in catch- 
 ing men ; but this incident is omitted by Matthew (Luke 
 5 : 4-10 ; Matt. 4 : 18-20). In the commission to the apos- 
 tles in the tenth chapter — a commission covering succes- 
 sively the three eras, to Christ's death (5-15), to the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem (16-23), to the end of the age 
 (24-42) — the one thought is, you will share the treatment 
 your Master receives, but your Heavenly Father sees all, 
 knows all, and will at the end reward all ; just as Christ's 
 only assurance to his disciples, when he sends them to all 
 nations is : " Lo, I am with you" (28 : 20). Of Christ him- 
 self no success in this age is asserted. Matthew has no 
 prediction like that in John : " I, if I be lifted up from the 
 earth, will draw all men unto me" (12 123) ; it is simply 
 stated : " This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in 
 all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall 
 the end come" (24:14). Of the forerunner, Matthew 
 says : " The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare 
 ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (3:3); 
 but he.does not add what is found in Luke : " Every valley 
 shall be filled, and every mountain shall be brought low ; 
 and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough 
 ways shall be male smooth, and all flesh shall see the 
 salvation of God" (3:5, 6). 
 
 This feature of the rejection of Christ by the nation 
 gives tone to all our Lord's teaching in the Gospel. 
 Here only do we find the declaration, *' Strait is the gate 
 and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few 
 there be that find it" (7: 14). In Luke the injunction, 
 " Strive to enter in," is enforced on the ground that now 
 
20 GOSFEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, 
 
 the gate can be entered, and the time comes when it will 
 be shut (Luke 13 124); in Matthew the reason for the 
 exhortation is a truth which finds expression only here : 
 " Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to 
 destruction, and many there be which go in thereat" 
 (7 : 13). Only in this Gospel are we told that many are 
 called, but few chosen (22 : 14) ; that in the closing peri- 
 od of the age the love of the majority (rwv TtoWa^v) shall wax 
 cold (24: 12) ; that many will claim in that day, *'Lord, 
 Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy 
 name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many 
 wonderful works ?" to whom Christ will say, " I never knew 
 you " (7 : 22, 23) ; here only do we read of the tares that 
 are to be gathered out of the wheat field in the time of 
 harvest and burned (13 : 30) ; of the net that gathered of 
 every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore, 
 and gathered the good into vessels,, and cast the bad 
 away (13 147, 48) ; of the foolish virgins (25 : 2) ; of the 
 man without the wedding garment; and of the outer 
 darkness into which they shall be cast (22:12, 13). 
 Matthew and Luke both record Christ's saying : " He that 
 is not with me is against me" (Matt. 12:30; Luke 11:23;; 
 but Matthew does not give, as do Mark and Luke, the 
 other saying of our Lord : " He that is not against you is 
 on your part " (Mark 9 : 39 ; Luke 9 : 50). 
 
 The statement sometimes made that Matthew's Gospel 
 was written to convince the Jew of the truth of Christi- 
 anity, conveys a very erroneous impression of its struc- 
 ture and contents. Our Lord and his disciples are not 
 here shown in close and pleasing conformity to the Mo- 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEVA 21 
 
 saic ritual. Matthew, the writer of the Gospel, was him- 
 self one of a rejected and despised class, with whom no 
 reputable Jew would so much as eat (9:11). It is a 
 later Gospel that begins and ends with the temple; that 
 records the priestly descent of the forerunner of Christ 
 (1:5); the circumcision of both John and Jesus (i : 59 ; 
 2:21); the presentation of the infant Redeemer to the 
 Lord (2 : 22) ; the performance of all things according to 
 the law (2 : 39), and his appearance in the temple at the 
 age of twelve years in obedience to the Jewish custom 
 (2 :42). It is Luke, not Matthew, who brings before us 
 at the commencement an aged pair walking in all the 
 Jewish ordinances, and at the close the disciples resting 
 on the Sabbath-day, according to the commandment 
 (23 : 56) ; who gives Christ's parting injunction, "Begin at 
 Jerusalem" (24:47); whose Gospel ends with the disci- 
 ples in the temple praising and blessing God (24:53). 
 Matthe w records no appearance of the risen Lord in Ju- 
 dea, but leaves the disciples in Galilee (28 : 16). Books 
 which present Christianity in Jewish forms, like the first 
 Epistle of Peter, which show the Mosaic types fulfilled 
 in Christ, like the Epistle to the Hebrews, must come 
 after this Gospel. Christ must be accepted as a spiritual 
 King before the Messianic blessings can be actualized. 
 Hence the scrupulous care with which this purely spirit- 
 ual work is kept unmingled with any other element. In 
 Matthew the first characterization of the coming Messiah 
 is, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his 
 people from their sins" (1:21); and the first miracle is in 
 accordance with its statement of the mission of Christ — ■ 
 
22 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 the cure of leprosy, the symbol of sin (8 : 2-4). The first 
 miracle in Luke is in sympathy with its opening songs — 
 deliverance from enemies (i :7i) ; Christ rescues a man 
 from the power of an unclean demon (4: 33-36). Through- 
 out Matthew the true nature of Christ's kingship is care- 
 fully and clearly set forth. All the other writers of the 
 New Testament speak of the kingdom which John and 
 Christ preached as the kingdom of God. Matthew, with 
 five exceptions, always says "kingdom of heaven," a 
 term which he alone employs. " Kingdom of God," to 
 Jewish ears, might mean a civil polity like the original 
 constitution of the Hebrew commonwealth, in which no 
 earthly ruler was acknowledged and God was recognized 
 as the immediate Head of the state ; in that case the new 
 kingdom could be the old one renovated, defecated, enno- 
 bled, and clothed with universal dominion. The phrase, 
 "kingdom of heaven," was subject to no such ambiguity. 
 It set forth a dispensation radically unlike any earthly 
 dynasty. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ expounds 
 his kingdom ; in it he fulfils the law and the prophets, 
 not by obeying their precepts, which is never fulfilling a 
 law ; not by enforcing obedience to them, which again 
 is never fulfilling law, but by making actual that right- 
 eousness which they had in view. He presents a sys- 
 tem, not of preparation, but of perfection ; not of laws, 
 but of principles. The Mosaic code was a collection of 
 rules to be obeyed ; the precepts in the Gospel of Mat- 
 thew " are positively mischievous to those who try to 
 obey them as rules, instead of using them as aids to the 
 apprehension of that perfection, in which every man is a 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 23 
 
 law to himself." It is not enough to say that Christ 
 brushes away from the Mosaic law unauthorized Jewish 
 accretions. This is only incidental. He does far more. 
 He contrasts what was commanded to their fathers with 
 what he commands.* He repeals laws of Moses which 
 entered into the whole civil and social policy of the Jews, 
 He declares that the new garment is not the old one 
 patched, and that for the new wine there must be new 
 vessels (9:16, 17). There were three national distinctions 
 that the Jews in Christ's time specially valued : the tem- 
 ple, the Sabbath, and the ceremonial prohibition of certain 
 kinds of food. Around these raged the warfare between 
 Christ and the Jewish leaders. In our Gospel he asserts 
 that he is greater than the temple (12 :6), that he is Lord 
 of the Sabbath (12 : 8), and he pronounces all food clean 
 (15 : 11). He annuls the laws of divorce (5 : 32 ; 19 : 9). 
 He denounces the authorities of the nation (23 : 1-5) ; 
 he accuses them of making God's commandments of 
 none effect on the dne hand (15 : 6), and on the other of 
 perverting the whole purpose of the Levitical dispensa- 
 tion. God meant it as an instrument of redemption ; 
 they made it a system of ritual observance. God sought 
 to provide a way in which he could show mercy to sin- 
 ners ; they made him intent on receiving sacrifices 
 (12:7). He charges that as soon as the kingdom of 
 heaven was preached by John the Baptist, they laid vio- 
 lent hands on it, and continually endeavored to wrest it 
 from its purpose and pervert its character (11 : 12) ; that 
 
 * eppe^Ti Tolc apxaiotg (5:21) is not, It has been said dj/ them of old 
 time, but, to them of old time. 
 
 3 
 
24 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 when John would not dance to their piping nor Christ 
 mourn to their wailing, they stigmatized the one as pos- 
 sessed by a demon, and the other as a friend of publicans 
 and sinners (ii : 16-19) ; that by their acknowledged in- 
 ability to decide the position of John the Baptist, they 
 voluntarily abdicated their place as the religious guides 
 of the nation, and thus convicted by their own confes- 
 sion {21:27), convicted by the conduct of abandoned 
 sinners (21 131), convicted by the law (21 : 33-41), and 
 convicted by the Gospel (22 : 1-8), nothing remained for 
 them but to fill up the measure of their fathers by put- 
 ting Christ to death (23 : 32). 
 
 In the trial and condemnation of our Lord, as record- 
 ed by Matthew, the nature of the Messiahship and the 
 fulness of the national rejection are clearly seen. The 
 trial is mainly that before the Sanhedrim, as Luke is oc- 
 cupied with that before Pilate. The charge relates to 
 his divine Sonship and his alleged purpose to destroy the 
 temple (26 : 59, 66) ; we hear nothing of the social accu- 
 sation, found elsewhere, of perverting the nation and for- 
 bidding to give tribute to Caesar. (Luke 23 : 2.) Only 
 in this Gospel, and here twice, does Pilate formally put 
 the solemn question, " Whom will ye that I release unto 
 you, Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ ?" Twice 
 they decide to take Barabbas, and, Matthew significantly 
 adds, destroy Jesus (27 : 17, 22). After the disclaimer of 
 Pilate, we find only in Matthew those fearful words by 
 which the nation assumed the whole guilt of the crime : 
 " Then answered all the people, His blood be on us and 
 on our children" (27 : 25). 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 25 
 
 This Gospel of rejection is necessarily Christ's rejec- 
 tion of the nation. Only here do we read : " The king- 
 dom of God shall be taken from you and given to a na- 
 tion bringing forth the fruits thereof" (21 :43). Here 
 only does Christ, portraying the return of the unclean 
 spirit to his former habitation, making the last state of 
 the man worse than the first, say, " Even so shall it be also 
 unto this wicked generation" (12 145). Here only does 
 he declare that the horrible assertion. He doth not cast 
 out demons but by Beelzebub the prince of the demons 
 (12 :24), was the exponent and proof of a depravity so 
 thorough and complete, that when God and the devil 
 stood before them they could not tell one from the oth- 
 er ; they had lost the power of discriminating between 
 heaven and hell, between infinite compassion and demo- 
 niac hate ; and that this terrible moral condition of heart 
 and tongue was on the very verge of remediless ruin 
 (12 : 33-37). Here only does he quote the prophecy of 
 Isaiah : ** By hearing, ye shall hear and shall not under- 
 stand ; and seeing, ye shall see and not perceive : for 
 this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull 
 of hearing, and their eyes they have closed ; lest at any 
 time they should see with their eyes and hear with their 
 ears, and should understand with their heart, and should 
 be converted, and I should heal them " (13 : 14, 15). Here 
 only does he say of the religious teachers of the Jews : 
 " Every plant that my Father hath not planted shall be 
 rooted up" (15:13). All the parables spoken in public 
 after the thirteenth chapter — of the two sons (21:28), 
 of the householder (21 :33), and of the marriage of the 
 
26 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 king's son (22 : 2) — set forth the national sin and de- 
 struction. The closing" miracle is the blasting of the fig- 
 tree, the emblem of the fate of the nation — covered with 
 green leaves, the promise of fertility, but bearing no 
 fruit (21 : 19). The last public discourse is an arraign- 
 ment of the heads of the nation ; with burning indigna- 
 tion he portrays their character and history, bids them, 
 in words found only in Matthew, " Fill ye up the measure 
 of your fathers" (23 132) ; and with the terrible inquiry, 
 " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape 
 the damnation of hell " (23 : 33) ? pronounces their doom, 
 and departs for ever from the temple (21:1). Compare 
 all this with the last sentence in Luke's account of the 
 public ministry of Christ : " And in the day time he was 
 teaching in the temple, and at night he went out and 
 abode in the Mount of Olives ; and all the people came 
 early in the morning to him in the temple for to hear 
 him" (21:37, 38). 
 
 4. The refusal of the nation to receive their Messiah 
 results in " a new covenant, a new election, a new legis- 
 lation, a new community." When the world in former 
 times had rejected God, he raised up a nation of which 
 he should be Head and Lawgiver. When this nation 
 rejects Christ, he calls a people to whom he shall stand 
 in still closer relation as Head and sole Lawgiver. He 
 gathers a small company of disciples who attend him 
 constantly (4 : 18-22 ; 5:1; 10 : i), and who finally rec- 
 ognize his divine character (16: 16). When this is ac- 
 complished he is ready for the cross. In his address to 
 the Father, in the seventeenth chapter of John, he says : 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 27 
 
 " I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. I have 
 manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest 
 me out of the world. I have given unto them the words 
 which thou gavest me, and they have received them, and 
 have known surely that I came out from thee, and they 
 have believed that thou didst send me. As thou hast 
 sent me into the world, even also have I sent them into 
 the world. And the glory which thou gavest me I have 
 given them, that they may be one, even as we are one." 
 The persons thus qualified and endowed are to be Christ's 
 representatives, the salt of the earth, the light of the 
 world (5:13, 14). When they have rightly apprehended 
 his nature and mission, he makes known to them his in- 
 tention to constitute a church — an ecclesia, a selection of 
 individuals — comprising those persons to whom Christ 
 is revealed by the Father : " I will build my church upon 
 this rock"— the divinely imparted knowledge of Christ 
 (16: 17-19). This is the nation to which the kingdom 
 of God shall be given, for it will bring forth the fruits 
 thereof, (i Peter 2 : 9.) The church differs from the 
 old dispensation not only in membership, but in dura- 
 tion. That was founded on natural relationship, and its 
 ties cannot outlast the grave. This is of spiritual ori- 
 gin ; earth and time do not bound it ; death does not sun- 
 der its connection ; the gates of hades shall not prevail 
 against it : 
 
 " The saints on earth, and all the dead 
 But one communion make." 
 
 No Evangelist but Matthew mentions the church, 
 and he announces its constitution, membership, duties, 
 
 3* 
 
28 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 discipline and ordinances. The commands to administer 
 and observe the rites of baptism (28:19) and the com- 
 munion (26:26, 27), are given only in this Gospel* 
 Here only is found the sacred formula used at the initia- 
 ting ordinance of the Christian church : In the name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost 
 (28:19). 
 
 HI. The Gospel according to Matthew is thus, by 
 its very nature, official and organic, having primarily 
 to do with these two nations — that from which the 
 kingdom of God is taken (21:43), ^^^ that to which 
 it is given (i Pet. 2:9); the one outward, carnal, Jew- 
 ish, the other spiritual, holy. Christian ; the one rejected, 
 the other founded and proleptically organized. Christ 
 comes to the nation. He deals, as God dealt throughout 
 the Old Testament, with an organic body acting through 
 lawfully constituted and acknowledged representatives. 
 The persons connected with the infancy of Christ all 
 hold official stations; the parables ^are all organic or 
 official ; the duties inculcated are all organic ; the final 
 scene is the judgment of the nations ; and the commis- 
 sion at the close of the Gospel is the official one : " Go ye, 
 therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
 have commanded you" (28 : 19, 20). The official relation 
 of John the Baptist is constantly noticed, the great stages 
 of Christ's work being preceded by a statement of the 
 position of John (4: 14; 11:2; 14:12; 17:11-13). In 
 
 * In Mark 14 : 22 (pdyere, eat is an interpolation. 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 29 
 
 Luke this is passed over in some cases with no mention, 
 and in others with brief allusion, but the same Evangelist 
 gives in detail Herod's scornful treatment of our Lord just 
 before his crucifixion (23 : 7-1 1), to which, as it is mere- 
 ly individual, like Christ's personal friendships, Matthew 
 does not refer. He records the formal request of the 
 sons of Zebedee for official position (20:20-23); Luke 
 omits this incident, but narrates the personal strife of the 
 disciples on another occasion as to who should be the 
 the greatest (23 : 24). The denunciations in this Gospel 
 are of the national authorities, as elsewhere they are of 
 character and conditions (Matt. 23 ; Luke 6 : 24-26). 
 Here the woes are pronounced against the representa- 
 tives and guides of the people. No Gospel but this tells 
 us that in the last days many false prophets shall arise 
 and shall deceive many (24: i) ; none but this warns us 
 against false teachers, ravening wolves in sheep's cloth- 
 ing (7:15), blind guides straining out a gnat and swal- 
 lowing a camel (23:24), shutting up the kingdom of 
 heaven against men (23 : 13). 
 
 The impersonal character of Matthew's narratives is 
 one of his most marked characteristics. Of our Lord's 
 unofficial relations to individuals our Gospel makes no 
 mention until the rejection has been consummated by the 
 death on the cross (27:56, 57).* Before that time there 
 is no account of those personal friendships and affections 
 which appear in Luke so abundantly and in John almost 
 exclusively. Here there is no reference to the family in 
 Bethany (Luke 12 : 38; John 12:2) ; no loving catalogue 
 
 * The change in this respect, beginning at verse 55, is very striking. 
 
30 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 of the names of the women who followed with the twelve, 
 and ministered to him of their substance (Luke 8:2, 3) ; 
 no commendation, as in other Gospels, of the poor widow 
 who threw her two mites into the treasury (Mark 
 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4). The anointing by Mary is 
 inserted to explain the conduct of the Sanhedrim in seiz- 
 ing Christ at the Passover contrary to their previous in- 
 tention, but the name of Mary is not given (26:1-16). 
 
 . There is a marked difference between the position of 
 Satan in this Gospel and that which he holds in Luke and 
 John. Here he is the official head of a kingdom in con- 
 flict with the kingdom of Christ ; there his individual 
 dealings with individuals are essential elements in the his- 
 tory. (Luke 23:3, 32; 13:16; John 13:27). In the nar- 
 rative part of his Gospel, Matthew never calls Peter by his 
 personal name Simon, as do the^vangelists, but always 
 by his official name Peter (Luke 5 : 3, 10) ; in like manner 
 he himself is styled Levi by Mark and Luke, but here is 
 found only his apostolic name, Matthew. Thei genealogy 
 of Christ is given in the order of descent, the form of the 
 official records, while Luke gives the roll of our Lord's 
 ancestors in the ascending series — the way most natural 
 in the narrative of an individual life. If Matthew, in 
 the narratives common to the . Synoptic Gospels, de- 
 parts from the arrangement of the other Evangelists, the 
 reason can always be found in the distinctive character 
 of his Gospel. In the account of the temptation, for ex- 
 ample, he presents, first the temptation in the wilderness, 
 then that in the temple, then that on the mountain. In 
 Luke, the arrangement of the last two is reversed. The 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 31 
 
 'reason for the divergence is obvious. In Matthew the 
 temptations are official and follow the official order : Son 
 of Man, Son of God, Messiah — undo the Incarnation, 
 violate the Divine relation, abdicate the Messiahship; 
 Luke, the individual Gospel, adopts the sequence of an 
 individual experience — the temptation to spiritual pride 
 and presumption coming naturally after other forms of 
 solicitation to evil have been successfully resisted. 
 
 In God's arrangement, the national, official offer and 
 rejection must precede the seeking for individuals — those 
 for whom the supper was prepared must refuse the invi- 
 tation before the command is given. Go ye therefore into 
 the highways, and as many as ye shall find bid to the 
 marriage (22:9). The time for the free, indiscriminate 
 offer of salvation to all and by all is not yet come, and 
 hence in this Gospel, none but the apostles preach the 
 glad tidings, and they are restricted to their own nation 
 (10: 5, 6). In the latter Gospels, the man out of whom 
 the legion of demons had been cast entreats permission 
 to remain with Christ, but Jesus sends him away, saying, 
 " Return to thine own house, and show how great things 
 God hath done unto thee" (Mark 5: 18, 19; Luke 8 138, 39) ; 
 in Matthew there is no such direction (8:28-33). In 
 Luke, to the man who begs leave to go and bury his 
 father, Christ says, " Let the dead bury their dead, but go 
 thou and preach the kingdom of God " (9 : 60) ; this latter 
 clause is omitted by Matthew (8 : 23}. No Samaritan 
 woman here tells the story of her conversion, and brings 
 a whole village to Christ (John 4 : 28-40) ; no one, as in 
 the other Gospels, casts out demons in Christ's name who 
 
32 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 does not follow with the disciples (Mark 9:38; Luke 
 9:49). 
 
 In this Gospel the evidence which accompanies the 
 Messianic claims is fundamental, official, and complete. 
 Here only is the will of God revealed in dreams, the 
 method adapted to the lowest stage of spiritual develop- 
 ment (1:20; 2:12, 13, 19, 22; 27:19); earthquakes 
 attend the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord 
 (27 : 5 1 ; 28 : 2) ; the graves are opened and the dead 
 arise (27:52); the angel who rolls back the stone from 
 the door of the tomb appears to the keepers, who, terri- 
 fied at the sight, become as dead men (28 :2, 4); Judas, 
 his betrayer, brings again the thirty pieces of silver to 
 the chief priests and elders, and casting them down in 
 the temple, says : " I have sinned in that I have betrayed 
 the innocent blood" (27:3, 5) ; Pilate, his judge, washes 
 his hands in testimony of the groundlessness of the 
 accusation against Christ (27:24); the Roman guard at 
 the cross declare their belief in Christ's divinity (27 : 54); 
 his persecutors give public declaration of our Lord's 
 prediction of his resurrection (27:62, 6^)\ and the 
 official watch testify to the futility of all their efforts to 
 detain Christ in the tomb (28:11, 14). Compare this 
 with the Gospel of John, and note there the absence of 
 all external testimony, whether from man or nature, and 
 the presence of that only which inheres in Christ. 
 
 IV. One of the main objects of this Gospel is, to 
 show that the great facts of the Christian age have not 
 thwarted the Divine purposes, nor compelled the adop- 
 tion of principles previously unknown. God's dealings 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. zi 
 
 with the called are throughout consistent and coherent. 
 Christianity is ideal as well as historic and actual. In 
 the kingdom of heaven the law and the prophets are 
 fulfilled. The uniformity of God's work in the past, the 
 present, and the future, is shown throughout the Gospel. 
 The genealogy of our Lord contains the names of four 
 Gentile women, three of them stained by heinous crime, 
 who by faith and grace obtained a place in the royal 
 line, and whose blood flowed in the veins of all the 
 Jewish kings (1:3, 5, 6). In the first chapter of this 
 Gospel, the fact is thus set forth, that God interwove the 
 two great principles of the New Dispensation — grace and 
 faith — into the very warp and woof of the Abrahamic 
 people. By these, strangers and foreigners sought and 
 secured a place in the household. In the second chap- 
 ter, the Magi, the Gentiles, recognize and honor Christ 
 (2:11), while the rulers and theocratic guides of the 
 nation pass him by in contempt. A refuge is provided 
 in Egypt from Jewish malevolence (2:14, 15). It is a 
 Roman centurion whose faith was such as he' had not 
 found in Israel (8 : 10). It is one of the accursed race 
 of the Canaanites who draws from our Lord the exclama- 
 tion : "O woman, great is thy faith" (15:28). It is 
 the mixed multitudes fed by Christ — the four thousand — 
 who glorify the God of Israel (15 :3i).* It is Pilate's 
 Gentile wife who sends the warning: "Have thou noth- 
 ing to do with that just man" (27:14); and the only 
 recognition of Christ's innocence by those who stand 
 
 * The Gentile character of this multitude will be apparent on a study 
 of the words of the Evangelist. 
 
34 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 around the cross in this Gospel, is on the part of the 
 Roman guards (27:54). 
 
 The coherence of the work of redemption and its 
 vital connection with the past may be seen also in the 
 fact that in this Gospel we have no beginnings of spir- 
 itual life. All the disciples are believers at their first 
 appearance in the narrative. The Gentiles — the Magi 
 and the Syrophoenician woman — present a developed 
 faith of marvellous strength and persistence. There are 
 no awakenings from the dead, like that of the penitent 
 thief in Luke (23:40), or of the Samaritan woman in 
 John (4: 1-28). The same principle governs in miracu- 
 lous restoration to life. In Matthew the miracle of this 
 class is that of the daughter of Jairus, who is at the point 
 of death when the stricken father goes in search of the 
 Saviour (9 : 18). In Luke, in addition to this miracle, 
 the son of the widow of Nain is restored to his mother 
 (7: 11-15) ; but in this case the dead man is being car- 
 ried to the grave, while in John, who begins his Gospel 
 where Matthew ends, with the recognized rejection of 
 Christ, Lazarus is raised from the tomb in which he has 
 lain so long that decay is doing its work. (John 1 1 : 1-43.) 
 For the same reason there are no miracles of healing in 
 the Gospel of Matthew unless they are sought or ex- 
 pected by the recipient or his friends, no unanticipated 
 miracles springing from Christ's unprompted mercy. In 
 Luke are many such, in John, with perhaps one excep- 
 tion, they are all such. But Matthew records no miracle 
 of spontaneity like the healing of the ear of Malchus, 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 35 
 
 (Luke 22 : 51) ; none like the cure of the man at the pool 
 of Bethesda. (John 5 : 9).* 
 
 * Those who impugn the credibility or information of the Evange- 
 lists, because they omit important events or incidental details, will find 
 on examination, that the omission arises from the fact that each historian 
 narrates only the incidents belonging to that aspect of the history of redemp- 
 tion which it is the design of his Gospel to present. The second miracle 
 recorded by Matthew (8 ; 5, 13) may illustrate this remark. Luke (7 : i-io) 
 tells us that the centurion sent elders of the Jews to intercede on his be- 
 half. Of this Matthew makes no mention, but adds the words of our 
 Lord which Luke omits : " The children of the kingdom shall be cast into 
 outer darkness." Alford, to whom be all honor for his fairness and can- 
 dor, says in his comment on this passage, " Here Matthew simply states 
 the fact of the healing, not knowing of those that were sent." Why is 
 this a necessary inference "i And why is it not equally clear that Luke 
 did not know what Christ said? Each Evangelist relates what belongs 
 to his Gospel. Matthew is the historian of the nation's rejection of the 
 Messiah. In the case of the centurion he simply adheres to a principle 
 which leads him to pass over the appreciative answer of the scribe not 
 far from the kingdom of God (Mark 12:32-34); the commendation of 
 Christ by the scribes as he silenced for ever his questioners — a com- 
 mendation very remarkable in its place and time (Luke 20:39); the 
 tribute of that ruler in Jerusalem to whom Christ in response so wonder- 
 fully revealed the heavenly truths that constitute the very marrow of the 
 Gospel. (John 3:1-21.) Luke, whose history is not one of official hos- 
 tility, but of individual acceptance, docs not here record the prophesied 
 rejection of the children of the kingdom. 
 
 I may be allowed to mention another passage which Westcott says is 
 attended with serious difficulty. (Luke 9 : 57 compared with Matt. 8 : 18-22.) 
 The object of Luke in this short section is to give the requisites for 
 discipleship; of Matthew to show the character of the nation. Hence he 
 omits all reference to the third statement in Luke, "No man having put 
 his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God," 
 In the later Gospel the passage is found near the close of our Lord's 
 life ; in Matthew near the commencement, one of the many intimations 
 that at the very beginning of his work, Christ anticipated his death, and 
 recognized the character and doom of the Jewish people. They would 
 pursue him to the cross, and the dead nation would be abandoned to its 
 fate. The interpretation that makes "The Son of Man hath not where 
 to lay his head" a declaration of poverty cannot be reconciled with the 
 facts of the Gospels. The meaning is far deeper. 
 
 4 
 
36 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 Thus does this Gospel, which has in its first sentence 
 the call of Abraham, and in its last the end of the age, 
 grasp the whole covenant period and set forth the con- 
 tinuity of God's dealings, and the accomplishment of his 
 designs. The phrases " that it might be fulfilled," and 
 " to the end of the age," are among its prominent and 
 constantly recurring peculiarities. The references to 
 the Old Testament, and the verbal citations from it in 
 Matthew, far exceed in number those found in any other 
 Evangelist ; but, with a single exception, they are not 
 such as would be employed to prove to an unbeliever, by 
 the fulfilment of prophecy, the Messiahship of Jesus. 
 Many commentators deny that in the great majority of 
 these predictions there is any direct reference to the 
 Messiah. They are addressed to believers in Christ ; 
 they vindicate by reference to Old Testament facts and 
 principles, his lowly condition, his apparent powerless- 
 ness, his reception by inferior and despised classes. The 
 one exception is the prophecy of Micah cited by the 
 Sanhedrim in answer to Herod's inquiry as to the birth- 
 place of Christ. This is given by Matthew, not to prove 
 the Messiahship, but to condemn the Sanhedrim out of 
 their own mouth (2 : 4-6); they pointed the Gentiles to a 
 Christ whom they themselves neglected, and threw the 
 clear light of Scripture on the path in which they refused 
 to walk. The uniform character of the other quotations 
 will be obvious as you recall them : " Out of Egypt have I 
 called my Son "(2:15): " He shall be called a Nazarene " 
 (2:23): "The people which sat in darkness saw great 
 light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 37 
 
 death, light is sprung up" (4:16): "He shall not strive 
 nor cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets : 
 A bruised reed shall he not break,* and smoking flax 
 shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto 
 victory" (12 : 19, 20) : " For this people's heart is waxed 
 gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes 
 they have closed ; lest at any time they should see with 
 their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should under- 
 stand with their heart, and should be converted, and I 
 should heal them" (13:15): "I will open my mouth in 
 parables ; I will utter things which have been kept secret 
 from the foundation of the world " (13 : 35) : " Tell ye the 
 daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, 
 meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an 
 ass "(21:5): " Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings 
 thou hast perfected praise" (21 : 16) : "The stone which 
 the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the 
 corner" (21 \^2). 
 
 God's word does not return unto him void. His 
 promises have a far wider, better, more glorious fulfil- 
 ment than ever man imagined. The first book of the 
 Old Testament records the calling out of a nation from 
 which the Messiah should come ; this first book of the 
 New Testament records the calling out of a nation in 
 which the Messiah shall dwell. The tabernacle and tem- 
 ple are destroyed, but the Divine Presence which they 
 promised, and represented in shadow, is here in blessed 
 
 * A bruised reed is not an emblem of a penitent and heart-broken 
 sinner, but of an enemy of God. (2 Kings 18 : 21.) Christ did not retreat 
 from his enemies for fear of them — they were weakness itself — but in pur- 
 suance of his plans for the world. 
 
38 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. 
 
 reality : Lo, I am with you alway, unto the end of the age. 
 On the Galilean mountain are uttered the words of 
 which the voice out of heaven which John heard in the 
 isle of Patmos (Rev. 21 13) is only the echo : " Behold, the 
 tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with 
 them, and they will be his people, and God himself shall 
 be with them and be their God." There is in our Gospel 
 no account of the ascension — that belongs to another 
 point of view. Here the final and abiding thought, as 
 the church commences her world-wide mission, is the 
 fulfilment of the Old Testament promise, the name with 
 which this Gospel begins and ends — Jesus, Emmanuel, 
 God with us. 
 
THE GOSPEL 
 
 ACCORDING TO MARK 
 
 BY REV. L, D. SEVAN, D. D., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 4* 
 
THE 
 
 QOSPEL ACCOR^DINQ TO MAF^K, 
 
 The first question that presents itself in a discussion 
 of the second gospel concerns its authorship. It is called 
 the gospel according to St. Mark, and the universal doc- 
 trine of the Christian church ascribes it to the hand of 
 that evangelist. 
 
 The gospel itself contains no statement as to its au- 
 thor. Like the other memoirs of our Lord, it is anony- 
 mous ; but the tradition of the ancient church is, without 
 exception, to the effect that it bears the name of its wri- 
 ter. With him has been associated the apostle Peter, 
 whose amanuensis Mark was said to have been. It was 
 apparently thought by the earlier writers of the church 
 that Peter dictated the gospel to Mark, but this has not 
 been the accepted view of modern critics. 
 
 The first statement in the church in respect to the 
 authorship of the second gospel is that of Papias, whose 
 words are quoted by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory (III., 39). Papias was bishop of Hieropolis some- 
 where during the first half of the second century, and 
 although he appears to have been a man of small judg- 
 
4 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 ment, easily led into wild, wayward fancies, his testimony 
 as to a matter of fact, in relation to an opinion prevalent 
 at the time concerning a work then extant, and its alleged 
 author, would not be at all affected by the weakness of 
 his judgment or the trifling character of his views. He 
 says, as quoted by Eusebius, that " Mark, being Peter s 
 interpreter, wrote carefully what things he (Peter) narra- 
 ted, though he recorded not in order, as it was spoken or 
 done by the Lord, for he neither heard nor followed our 
 Lord, but, as before said, he was the companion of Peter, 
 who arranged his instructions as was necessary, but did 
 not give a history of our Lord's discourses. Wherefore 
 Mark has not erred in any way by writing some things 
 as he remembered them ; for he was careful of one thing, 
 not to omit anything of what he had heard, or to falsify 
 anything in these accounts." 
 
 Now we may not set any great store by these opin- 
 ions of Papias as to the form in which Mark composed 
 the gospel, but beyond a doubt the following facts are 
 established : that in the time of this minister at Hierapo- 
 lis there was extant some work upon the life of Jesus ; 
 that it was said to be written by Mark; and that the view 
 which the church accepted was, that in the composition 
 of it, Mark was intimately associated with the apostle 
 Peter. 
 
 A second early reference to the authorship of Mark 
 is that of Irenseus, also quoted by Eusebius in his History 
 (V., 8) : " Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, has 
 himself also handed down to us in writing what was an- 
 nounced by Peter." 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK, 5 
 
 The historian (II., 15), on the authority of Clement 
 (Hypotyposes VI.), declares that many of those who lis- 
 tened to the preaching of Peter in Rome requested Mark, 
 who had followed the apostle for some time, to write out 
 what Peter had spoken. Peter, hearing of this, was 
 pleased at the interest shown by his hearers, and author- 
 ized the work to be read in the churches. We may ob- 
 serve here that this is inconsistent with a statement which 
 Eusebius adds to the second reference which we have 
 quoted, to the effect that Mark's writing was after the 
 decease of Peter and Paul. 
 
 In another passage Eusebius (Hist. Eccl,, VI., 14) 
 cites the already quoted words of Clement, but adds to 
 the account, that Peter, knowing of Mark's work when 
 completed and given to the public, " encouragingly nei- 
 ther hindered nor advanced it;" which may be under- 
 stood to mean, that while he gave the gospel a general 
 approval, he took no active part in either correction or 
 addition to its contents. Without further quotation, we 
 may just call attention to the fact that Tertullian and 
 Jerome also refer to Mark's gospel as receiving the con- 
 firmation of Peter, as indeed he was only an interpreter 
 and amanuensis of the apostle's declaration concerning 
 Jesus Christ. (Tertull. contra Marcion, IV., 5 ; Jerome, 
 ad Helvidium, Quest. XI.) 
 
 Added to these evidences from early Christian writers 
 of the genuineness of Mark's gospel, we may mention 
 Justin Martyr and Tatian as proving the existence, in 
 the second century of the church, of a gospel such as the 
 second in our canon, which was held to be the work of 
 
6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 the evangelist Mark. Some modern critics have ques- 
 tioned the evidence upon which the authorship of Mark 
 has been accepted, but the grounds of doubt are certainly 
 not as valid as the reasons for belief, and in one case at 
 least a leading antagonist of the authorship of Mark 
 (Credner) has seen reasons for changing his views. 
 
 Some of the internal reasons for believing that the 
 authorship of Mark is well founded may be noticed be- 
 low. 
 
 There is no reason, then, why we should not accept 
 the tradition of the church that Mark was the author of 
 the gospel, and we therefore now inquire. Who was this 
 Mark } and. What do we know concerning him ? 
 
 Simply to attach the gospel to some person of the 
 name of Mark would have been a dry and sterile fact in 
 the history of the New Testament. And we are fortu- 
 nately not left to a mere statement so isolated and uninter- 
 esting. Mark is said to have been the person mentioned 
 in Acts 12 : 12, 25. The former passage relates that 
 Peter, after his liberation from prison, found his way " to 
 the house of Mary, the mother of John whose surname 
 was Mark ;" and in the other passage, occurring in the 
 same chapter, and without any change of expression, so 
 that we are justified in referring it to the same person, 
 we are told that " Barnabas and Saul returned from Jeru- 
 salem when they had fulfilled their ministry, and took 
 with them John whose surname was Mark." In the fol- 
 lowing chapter the course of the two apostles is marked 
 out, upon the first missionary journey, on which they were 
 sent by the Holy Spirit, and in the fifth verse it is reia- 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 7 
 
 ted that they had " also John to their minister." Clearly 
 this is the same person who in the preceding chapter is 
 said to have possessed the surname Mark. In the thir- 
 teenth verse we learn that John at Perga left them and 
 returned from his ministry to Jerusalem. In the well- 
 known passage, 15 : 37-39, Paul refuses to take with him 
 upon the second journey "John who was surnamed Mark," 
 because he had departed from them in Pamphylia ; and 
 the discussion between the apostles became sufficiently 
 severe to cause a separation between them, Barnabas 
 taking Mark, and Paul choosing Silas, apparently receiv- 
 ing the sanction of the brethren in his new determina- 
 tion. Mark does not appear to be again mentioned in 
 the Acts of the Apostles, but some references to him 
 occurring in the Epistles must not be overlooked. In 
 Col. 4: 10, Paul mentions him with accompanying words 
 of commendation: "Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner sa- 
 luteth you, and Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas (touch- 
 ing whom ye received commandments : if he come unto 
 you receive him) ;" and the writer adds, " These only are 
 my fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God, which have 
 been a comfort unto me." In 2 Tim. 4:11, Paul again 
 speaks of Mark in kindly terms. " Take Mark," he says, 
 " and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for 
 the ministry ;" and in the closing words of the letter to 
 Philemon Mark is numbered by Paul among his fellow- 
 prisoners. In the first Epistle of Peter, 5 :i3, Mark is 
 mentioned as " my son," apparently referring to the proba- 
 ble fact that he owed his Christian faith to the teaching 
 of the writer. These are the only passages of Scripture 
 
8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 where the name occurs. Three in which a supposed 
 reference is made to him will be noticed by us in the 
 short sketch of a life of Mark which we now would pre- 
 sent, gathered from these Scriptural references and such 
 remains of tradition as may seem not worthy of rejec- 
 tion. 
 
 The original name of the evangelist was most proba- 
 bly John, Mark being a Roman name which he adopted 
 at some time in his life, in accordance with that custom 
 of which we have an illustration in the name which the 
 Jewish Saul adopted, and by which he has been altogeth- 
 er known. That this may have arisen from some con- 
 nection with a Roman family of that name has been sug- 
 gested by his familiarity with Latin, which has been 
 gathered from the fact that he became the interpreter of 
 Peter. His father may have been a proselyte of Rome, 
 although reference is made only to his mother, who was 
 Barnabas' sister. The later tradition of the church has 
 sometimes separated between the two names, and in 
 this way converted what was probably one minister of 
 Jesus Christ into two or three saints of the ecclesiastical 
 calendar. Some modern critics have endeavored to es- 
 tablish the separateness between the companion of Paul 
 and the " son " of Peter ; but this is rather to be set 
 down to one of those skilful acrobatisms of New Testa.- 
 #/6 ment criticism which absorbs all our attention to the 
 skill of the act, so that we forget the absolute nothing- 
 ness of the result. Mark was evidently of a somewhat 
 excitable and mobile disposition, and that he who once 
 accompanied Peter should have also been the companion 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 9 
 
 of Paul is not such an extraordinary circumstance as to 
 warrant the necessity of finding different individuals to 
 sujDply the respective places. 
 
 Mark was the son of Mary the sister of Barnabas, and 
 evidently belonged to a family of deep emotional charac- 
 teristics, and whose worldly position enabled them to ren- 
 der considerable service to the early church. Barnabas 
 was a man of property, belonging to Cyprus, and his sister 
 seems to have lived in such state at Jerusalem that she 
 could entertain a considerable number of the church at an 
 assembly for prayer (Acts 12 : 12), testifying not only to 
 the extent of her property, but also to the boldness and 
 confidence of her faith. James, the brother of John, had 
 been killed by Herod. Peter was in prison, and the 
 church felt that nothing was left to it but to implore the 
 help of God. One at least of their number, a woman, is 
 brave enough to throw open her house and invite the 
 community there to seek the Divine aid. It was no pri- 
 vate meeting. It apparently was a recognized centre of 
 Christian hospitality and influence. Thither went Peter 
 straightway, needing no angel to guide him to a place 
 which was well known to the apostle as a place of Chris- 
 tian resort. It was the house of Mary, Barnabas' sister, 
 the mother of Mark. 
 
 It is not very difficult to picture to ourselves the 
 young man who was the son of this Mary, the nephew of 
 the son of consolation. Noble-hearted, frank, and gen- 
 erous, we may well suppose him, sometimes, too much 
 swayed by impulse, quick to go forth upon the great 
 errands of the cross, too easily, however, impelled to lay 
 
 5 
 
lo GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK, 
 
 down his arms and retire from the conflict. His uncle is 
 a fervent man, feeling the enthusiasm of the hour, and 
 ready to consecrate his property for the common service 
 of the church, in that mistaken, though generous, com- 
 munity of goods, which marked the early history of the ec- 
 clesiastical brotherhood at Jerusalem. With a mother of 
 similar spirit, we may well picture to ourselves the warm, 
 impulsive temperament of the young John Mark. This 
 consideration lends some probability, or perhaps possi- 
 bility, to the supposition that Mark was the young man 
 to whom he alone of the evangelists refers (14 : 5 1), who 
 when all the disciples forsook their Master and fled, "fol- 
 lowed him/' " having a linen coat cast about his naked 
 body ; and the young men laid hold on him, and he left 
 the linen cloth and fled from them naked." 
 
 It has been supposed that Mary, being a wealthy pro- 
 prietress, may have possessed a residence at the foot of 
 Olivet, just outside the city. It may have been her gar- 
 den into which Christ entered for prayer and retirement — 
 Gethsemane, earth's solemn scene of agony and tears 
 and blood. Did the youth know it t It would be very 
 natural. Were his slumbers broken by the company that 
 entered the garden, with torches and riot, to seize the 
 Lord .? Would it be strange that this lad, impetuous and 
 heart-driven, should rise from his bed, throw around him 
 hastily a linen sheet, and go forth among the crowd t 
 He sees the Lord a prisoner, abandoned. He rushes 
 forward to rescue, grasps Him to free Him from His 
 guards. A soldier advances, seizes the youth, whose 
 courage vanishes as suddenly as it arose. The young 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK, n 
 
 man flies, and leaves behind his garment, amid the rude 
 laughter and mocking taunt of the guard. It is a picture 
 which imagination draws, but it is not impossible, and is 
 not inconsistent with what we know of the evangelist, 
 who alone narrates the event in his graphic story. 
 
 Peter was probably the first Christian teacher of this 
 youth, and if the expression, "My son," is thus to be in- 
 terpreted, it is significant that this disciple of the first 
 apostle should not have been unwilling to join Paul and 
 Barnabas in their evangelistic tour. His relations to Peter 
 also may have led Mark more easily to separate himself 
 from Paul, who as yet was too generous and liberal for 
 him, in his interpretation of the Lord's command to "> 
 preach the gospel to every nation. 
 
 We do not know the exact merits of the dispute be- 
 tween Paul and Barnabas, when it was proposed by the 
 latter to take Mark with them, which was so strenuously 
 opposed by his friend and companion. Paul's relations 
 to Barnabas were very intimate. Apparently old friends, 
 Barnabas had been the first to extend to Paul the friendly 
 assurances of the Jerusalem church, and even united the 
 i)ew convert with himself in his labors at Antioch. Their 
 fellowship in the gospel was therefore most close ; but, 
 notwithstanding this, Paul, who was by no means an un- 
 generous or forgetful man, was willing to sacrifice his 
 fellow-apostle's companionship rather than pass over the 
 delinquency of Mark. We cannot think that it was any 
 personal feeling which led Paul to so severe a step ; but 
 if, as we have suggested, Mark had gained any narrow 
 sentiments from his relation to Peter in regard to the 
 
12 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 scope and mode of the progress of the gospel, we may 
 well understand how Paul would refuse, even at the cost 
 of personal friendship, to allow anything to hinder that 
 work to which he had given himself with peculiar conse- 
 cration. Barnabas, on the other hand, was tender-heart- 
 ed, a true son of consolation. Moreover, it was his 
 nephew^ the son of Mary, that sister who may well be 
 ranked among the other famous women of the gospel ; 
 and he yields to the claims of kinship and tenderness of 
 heart, what Paul would not sacrifice — the interests of the 
 church, and the unhindered progress of the gospel among 
 the Gentiles. 
 
 But a later period of the history shows us that Mark 
 became reinstated in the good opinion of the great apos- 
 tle, and, as we have seen, was found by him of much 
 service and fidelity in the gospel. Indeed, Paul seems to 
 reiterate his assurances of confidence in his old friend's 
 nephew. The story of their estrangement had got abroad. 
 The church knew it, and Mark had lost caste and char- 
 acter among the faithful, certainly among those who were 
 the disciples of Paul. But for these, and for the after 
 ages, for all time, Paul takes care that it shall be well 
 known that the fault was forgotten, that he had received 
 Mark back again to confidence ; nay, more, that he had 
 made him a companion, and found him most faithful. 
 Mere harmony will not be sufficient. Again and again, 
 in different directions, does the apostle send forth his 
 commendation of the helper Mark ; and the Spirit Who 
 directed this record of His choicest workings has left it 
 for us, as an example of the way in which the erring are 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 13 
 
 to be treated, and Christian charity and forgiveness and 
 brotherliness to be rendered triumphant in all our rela- 
 tions (^ life. 
 
 The letters in which Paul refers to the presence of 
 Mark with him were written from Rome at the time of the 
 apostle's first imprisonment (62 a. d.). Afterwards he 
 is found with Peter at Babylon, and it has been thought 
 that the evangelist passed from the one apostle to the 
 other as their means of communication, at a time of pe- 
 culiar peril to the Christian church, fraught with the out- 
 working of those forces which were soon to overthrow 
 Judaism in its seat and centre at Jerusalem. 
 
 In the later epistle of Paul, Timothy is commanded 
 to bring Mark with him, and if, in accordance with this 
 request, the evangelist accompanied Timothy, or at a 
 later time came with Peter, either of which suppositions 
 is possible, this fact would supply a basis for the opinion 
 held so widely in the early church, that Mark was with 
 Peter in Rome, and there discharged the duties of an 
 interpreter. All these points, however, are mere sur- 
 mises, and need only to be mentioned to complete what 
 is possible for us of the life of Mark. 
 
 It may not be uninteresting to observe how the tra- 
 dition of the church has completed the life of the evan- 
 gelist. It is said that, after the death of Peter and Paul, 
 he went to Egypt, and preached in Lybia and Thebais 
 for twelve years. He founded the church of Alexan- 
 dria, and became its first bishop. His miracles roused 
 the anger of the heathen. They declared that he was a 
 magician, and during a feast of Serapis an attack was 
 
 5* 
 
14 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 made upon the bishop of the Christian church while he 
 was worshipping. He was fastened by cords, dragged 
 along the road, especially over stony places, till he died, 
 while a terrible tempest of lightning and hail scattered 
 and destroyed his murderous assailants. The body of 
 the martyred evangelist was buried by the church, and 
 his tomb became an object of peculiar veneration until 
 the year 815, when some traders from Venice stole the 
 relics and conveyed them over the sea to their native 
 city, where the noble cathedral which bears his name 
 was erected above the spot, in which they were deposited. 
 I need scarcely add that Mark then became the guardian 
 saint of the great republic, as the winged lion by which 
 he is symbolized in sacred art evidences, from the stately 
 pillar upon which it stands in front of the Doge's palace 
 on the Piazzetta. 
 
 Some of the legends connected with the history of 
 St. Mark are quaint and interesting. That of the heal- 
 ing of Arianus, the cobbler, who had wounded his hand 
 with the awl, and was afterwards converted and succeed- 
 ed Mark as bishop of Alexandria; and the delivery from 
 torture at the hands of his master of the Christian slave 
 by the descent from heaven of the saint at whose shrine 
 the slave was praying, are legendary stories told in honor 
 of our evangelist ; while the story of the fisherman, which 
 I will venture to extract at length from the version of 
 the Venetian chronicle given by Mrs. Jamieson in her 
 Sacred and Legendary Art, has furnished material for 
 some of the grandest achievements of the artist's skill : 
 
 " On the 25th of February, 1340, there fell out a won- 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 15 
 
 derful thing in this land, for during three days the waters 
 rose continually, and in the night there was fearful rain 
 and tempest, such as had never been heard of. So great 
 was the storm that the waters rose three cubits higher 
 than had ever been known in Venice ; and an old fisher- 
 man, being in his little boat on the canal of St. Mark, 
 reached with difficulty the Riva di San Marco, and there 
 he fastened his boat and waited the ceasing of the storm. 
 And it is related, that at the time this storm was at the 
 highest, there came an unknown man and besought him 
 that he would row him over to San Giorgio Maggiore, 
 promising to pay him well. And the fisherman replied, 
 * How is it possible to go to San Giorgio t We shall 
 sink by the way.'- But the man only besought him the 
 more that he should set forth. So, seeing that it was 
 the will of God, he arose and rowed over to San Giorgio 
 Maggiore, and the man landed there, and desired the 
 boatman to wait. In a short while he returned with a 
 young man, and they said, * Now row towards San Nicolo 
 di Lido.' And the fisherman said, ' How can one possi- 
 bly go so far with one oar.?' And they said, * Row bold- 
 ly, for it shall be possible to thee, and thou shalt be well 
 paid.' And he went, and it appeared to him as if the 
 waters were smooth. Being arrived at San Nicolo di 
 Lido, the two men landed, and returned with a third, 
 and having entered into the boat, they commanded the 
 fisherman that he should row beyond the two castles. 
 And the tempest raged continually. Being come to the 
 open sea, they beheld approaching, with such terrific 
 speed that it appeared to fly over the waters, an enormous 
 
i6 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 galley, full of demons (as it is written in the Chronicles, 
 and Marco Sabellino also makes mention of this mira- 
 cle) : the said bark approached the castles to overwhelm 
 Venice, and to destroy it utterly ; anon the sea, which 
 had hitherto been tumultuous, became calm ; and these 
 three men, having made the sign of the cross, exorcised 
 the demons, and commanded them to depart, and imme- 
 diately the galley, or the ship, vanished ; then these three 
 men commanded the fisherman to land them, the one at 
 San Nicolo di Lido, the other at San Giorgio Maggiore, 
 and the third at San Marco. And when he had landed 
 the third, the fisherman, notwithstanding the miracle he 
 had witnessed, desired that he would pay him, and he 
 replied, 'Thou art right ; go now to the doge and to the 
 procuratore of St. Mark, and tell them what thou hast 
 seen, for Venice would have been overwhelmed, had it 
 not been for us three. I am St. Mark, the evangelist, 
 the protector of this city ; the other is the brave knight 
 St. George ; and he whom thou didst take up at the Lido 
 is the holy bishop of St. Nicholas. Say to the doge and 
 to the procuratore that they are to pay you ; and tell 
 them, likewise, that this tempest arose because of a certain 
 schoolmaster dwelling at San Felice, who did sell his soul 
 to the devil, and afterwards hanged himself.' And the 
 fisherman replied, ' If I should tell them this, they will 
 not believe me.' Then St. Mark took off a ring which 
 was on his finger, which ring was worth five ducats ; and 
 he said, * Show them this, and tell them, when they look 
 in the sanctuary, they will not find it;' and thereupon he 
 disappeared. The next morning the said fisherman pre- 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 17 
 
 sented himself before the doge, and related all he had 
 seen the night before, and showed him the ring for a 
 sign. And the procuratore having sent for the ring, 
 and sought in the usual place, found it not ; by reason of 
 which miracle the fisherman was paid, and a solemn pro- 
 cession was ordained, giving thanks to God and to the 
 relics of the three holy saints who rest in our land, and 
 who delivered us from this great danger. The ring was 
 given to Signor Marco Loredano and to Signor Andrea 
 Dandolo, the procuratore, who placed it in the sanctuary ; 
 and, moreover, a perpetual provision was made for the 
 aged fisherman above-mentioned." 
 
 This story, by no means to be classed among the 
 most absurd of ecclesiastical legends, we give thus at 
 length, in order that the reader may see the deep gulf 
 which divides the narratives of miracles contained in the- 
 Scripture from those which have been multiplied by the 
 superstitions of the church. 
 
 We now turn from the author of the gospel to the 
 gospel itself, and inquire concerning its structure and 
 most characteristic features. We shall find that the na- 
 ture of the man is repeated in the nature of the work. 
 For while we ever remember that the Bible is the word 
 of God, it must not be forgotten that it is the word of 
 God spoken through men, and that we fail to note one of 
 the most distinctive values of the Sacred Scriptures when 
 we lose sight of the human side. The Bible has thus 
 suffered greatly by being regarded as only a divine word. 
 But all its parts bear unmistakably the image of those 
 through whom it was delivered unto us. That man is a 
 
1 8 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 poor observer of the human race who cannot see the 
 individual traits that lie upon the general base of a 
 common humanity, and he fails utterly to comprehend 
 the books of the Bible who cannot distinguish in each 
 the peculiar feature which its human authorship has sup- 
 plied. , 
 We have, then, four gospels, lives of Jesus Christ. 
 They are pictures of our Lord taken from different stand- 
 points. Luke and John have a common universalness of 
 application, which hardly belongs to the other two — Mat- 
 thew's and Mark's gospels being rather concerned with 
 the presentation of the relation which the life of Christ 
 bore to the kingdom of God, the former viewing the life 
 as the fulfilment of the types and foreshadowings which 
 were found in the former dispensation, while the gospel 
 under special review presents our Lord as the manifes- 
 tation of Deity, in an independent form, but specially en- 
 gaged in antagonism with the world-forces which opposed 
 God in the person of his Son. It is a gospel of conflict 
 and victory. The cries of battle ring through all its pas- 
 sages, but they are the cries of battle which change into 
 the shout of triumph, for it is the life of Him who has 
 gloriously vanquished his foes, and ascended up on high 
 amid the glory of his Father, and leading captivity cap- 
 tive. This gospel presents our Lord breaking up the old 
 rather than fulfilling it, and establishing a new kingdom 
 of glory and freedom. Hence, the symbol of the lion has 
 been attached in the legendary art of the church to the 
 second evangelist. He has told the story of Judah's 
 lion — majestic, kingly, overwhelming, and on the vivid 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 19 
 
 page of his narrative we see the strength and courage, 
 the all-mastering power of the Son of God. 
 
 With such a distinctive purpose and character we 
 need hardly say that we reject altogether the theory that 
 Mark's gospel is in any sense an abridgment or abstract 
 of the other gospels. Indeed, we may almost certainly 
 conclude that he had never seen the writings of his fel- 
 low-historians. That there should be correspondencies 
 is very natural. In proportion as they are truthful nar- 
 rations, that correspondence will be most pronounced. I 
 see no reason for rejecting the supposition, that the writ- 
 ten gospels are more or less a repetition of what was 
 told in living speech, by the apostles and immediate fol- 
 lowers of the Lord. That such repetitions would make 
 current a Christian phraseology, and especially conserve 
 the form of our Lord's words must be granted, and that 
 this would be distinctly reflected in the writings of the 
 evangelists, seems clear enough ; but that there need be 
 on this account any relation between the writers, does 
 not seem to me to follow. And certainly, the supposition 
 that Mark abridged another gospel can only have arisen 
 in an age, either ignorant of the true character of the 
 gospels, or wholly uncritical. Mark's narrative is graphic, 
 picturesque, vivid. It may omit some events told by the 
 others, but in those which it relates it is fuller of detail, 
 many of the points noted by Mark having escaped the 
 attention of the other synoptists. 
 
 In answer to the opinion that Mark was an abbre- 
 viator of Matthew or Luke, or both, observe the num- 
 ber of points which Mark alone notes. It is Mark alone 
 
20 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 who, in 3 : 20, 21, observes that the crowd was so great 
 that they could not eat bread, and that the friends of 
 Jesus were so opposed to his work, or at least in such 
 little sympathy with him, that they declared him to be 
 beside himself. The simile of the kingdom of God to 
 the seed planted, which grew without the knowledge of 
 him who planted — a profound criticism upon the progress 
 of the church of Jesus Christ — is told us only by Mark, 
 4 : 26-30. The graphic points in the narrative of the 
 healing of the deaf and dumb man — one of _the most 
 beautiful pictures in the life of our Lord, where he " took 
 aside the deaf and dumb, and put his fingers into his ears, 
 and he spat and touched his tongue, and looking up to 
 heaven, he sighed and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that 
 is, Be opened " — are all supplied by Mark alone, as also is 
 the touching doxology of the people, who cry, " He hath 
 done all things well ; he maketh both the deaf to hear and 
 the dumb to speak," 7 . 3 1--37. In 8 : 22-26, the healing of 
 the blind man at Bethsaida, whose returning sight came 
 only slowly back, is related by this evangelist alone. 
 Mark only, refers to the young man who came out to the 
 crowd of guards when our Lord was taken prisoner, as 
 we have already noticed. Besides these passages, pecu- 
 liar to Mark, there are certain forms of expression and 
 single words which he adds to the narratives, as they 
 stand in the other writers, which render his style pecu- 
 liarly individual and marked. In 1:13, Mark adds that, 
 while in the wilderness at the temptation, our Lord was 
 among the wild animals. In i : 42, Mark intensifies the 
 speedy healing of the leper: "As soon as he had spoken, 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 21 
 
 immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was 
 cleansed." In describing the demoniac who dwelt among 
 the tombs of Gadara, 5:4, 5, Mark makes the picture 
 most graphic : " The man had often been bound with fet- 
 ters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asun- 
 der by him, and the fetters broken in pieces : neither 
 could any man tame him. And always, night and day, 
 he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and 
 cutting himself with stones." Compare this with Mat- 
 thew's *'two men possessed with devils coming out of 
 the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass 
 by that way;" and Luke's, "A certain man which had 
 devils long time, and wore no clothes, neither abode in 
 any house, but in the tombs," and the notion of Mark's 
 being a copyist or abbreviator falls to the ground — the 
 baseless fabric of a wayward fancy. Those who are in- 
 terested in this matter will find further illustrations in 
 7:3,4; 9:21-26; 10:24, 34»49; and 12:32, 34. 
 
 But there is no feature so characteristic of Mark as 
 the mode in which he commences and closes his narra- 
 tive. Matthew has two chapters upon the genealogy, 
 birth, and childhood of our Lord. Luke in a similar 
 manner and at greater length recounts the circumstances 
 of the early life of Jesus. John introduces his gospel by 
 the wonderful revelation of the preexistence and incarna- 
 tion of the divine Logos ; but Mark leaps at once to the 
 story of Christ's public ministry with an account of the 
 office of John the Baptist, and the baptism of Jesus. 
 This introductory passage may seem to be an abridgment 
 of the histories in the other evangelists, but the movement 
 
 6 
 
22 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 of the style is abrupt, the touches are graphic and life- 
 like. None of the gospels contain so forcible an account 
 of these and earlier scenes in the Lord's public and offi- 
 cial ministry. 
 
 We can only briefly notice in passing some other 
 theories concerning the relation of the gospels to each 
 other. 
 
 The great German critic Herder propounded the the- 
 ory that the gospel of Mark was really the original record, 
 and that the other histories were derived from it. But 
 this again may be met, as was the already-noticed theory, 
 which is really the reverse of this, by an appeal to the 
 evident independence of the narratives. The modes of 
 presentation, and especially the order of narration, are 
 so entirely distinct, that even supposing Mark's gospel 
 were the primitive work, and had been in the hands of 
 Matthew and Luke, we are compelled to conclude that 
 they made no use of it, but furnished the church with 
 their own independent records. 
 
 The hypothesis of a still more original gospel, from 
 which all are alike derived, is nothing but a fancy, and 
 though it is quite possible that such a gospel may have 
 existed, it is strange that no record of it should be left, 
 and not the vaguest reference to it can be found in all 
 the writings of the ancient church. The existence of the 
 sea-serpent is more certain than the existence of this 
 original Christian evangel. That wonderful creature has 
 at least been recorded as seen. We all know people who 
 have heard that it has been said that somebody some- 
 where saw a sea-serpent. But even such evidence can- 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 23 
 
 not be found for this primitive gospel. Some critics 
 have said that there may have been such a gospel. Even 
 they do not venture to suggest that somebody ever hinted 
 that there had been such a document. 
 
 A modification of the theory is that there was a gen- 
 eral tradition, orally preserved from apostles and apos- 
 tolical men, and that our gospels are only later reductions 
 of this general apostolic tradition to a written form. We 
 may quite believe that the story of the life of Jesus was 
 told by the apostles and early preachers of the word, as 
 they went from city to city in the great work of world- 
 evangelization, and we know from Luke's testimony that 
 these orally-delivered histories were reduced into written 
 form, by many in the churches ; but these writings were 
 probably only fragmentary, and of the character of notes. 
 The gospels which we now possess bear too markedly the 
 sign of the authorship of eye-witnesses, to be "referred to 
 any such process as the reduction of oral tradition into a 
 written form, at a late period of the church's history. The 
 style of these writings is so different from anything else 
 in the early period of the church ; they are so simple, 
 direct, and vivid, that the generally-received doctrine of 
 the church concerning them is less open to objection 
 than any other explanation which we can give of their 
 origin, and is therefore to be accepted by us. 
 
 At the same time we need not deny that Mark, for 
 example, recorded in his narrative much of the testimony 
 borne by Peter. The very ancient tradition of the church 
 seems to point to some such relation, and it may very 
 well be allowed, that he also incorporated something of 
 
24 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 that general evangelical knowledge, which had very soon 
 become a portion of the church's possession, and upon 
 the proclamation of which the foundation of the Chris- 
 tian communities had first of all been laid. 
 
 We may now sum up the sources of the gospel as 
 found in apostolic testimony, generally accepted church 
 teaching, personal knowledge, and these, moulded and 
 fashioned in the gospel story by the individual character- 
 istics of the evangelist, and finally, the Holy Spirit's 
 grace and power, directing, overruling, and inspiring 
 all. 
 
 If we take a general view of the gospel, we shall 
 easily perceive those characteristics which would natu- 
 rally be found in the work of Mark. He was enthusias- 
 tic, active, driven by impulse, little given probably to 
 leisurely thought and contemplation. And this is the 
 character of his narrative. It rushes everywhere head- 
 long, like a leaping stream. There is no quiet contem- 
 plation, little tendency to wait and ask what such events 
 mean, what such words imply. Instead of this, you have 
 picturesque descriptions, brief touches that illumine a 
 scene in vivid brightness. Events are related rather 
 than words. There are no discourses, sermons, conver- 
 sations. The words of Jesus are brief, pregnant. They 
 are generally controversial or denunciatory. They blaze 
 with wrath against the false, the hypocritical ; they ring 
 with the tones of conscious victory. 
 
 The narrative of events is also characteristic. Mark 
 has rapid transitions, and abrupt breakings off from one 
 event to another. It has been well said " that the word 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 25 
 
 straightway (eiGeuf) may be designated as the appropriate 
 watchword of our gospel." Matthew gradually unfolds 
 each page in the record of His life who fulfilled the 
 prophets and the law. Luke in a few general words in- 
 troduces each section of the story of the Man of Naza- 
 reth, the Friend and Brother of His race. Mark, with a 
 " forthwith," '' straightway," summons a scene before us 
 with vivid imagery and graphic words. He constantly 
 drops the past tense and speaks as of a present event, 
 while his reports are but little in the third person, but 
 introduced with the very words of the interlocutor in 
 each conversation. We must not forget here also the 
 minuteness of detail, the recollection of names, and a cer- 
 tain tenderness and gentleness of nature which is seen in 
 the constant use of diminutives and words of affectionate 
 significance. 
 
 The antagonisms and victories of the Son of God are 
 told by Mark in a series of glowing sections. Christ 
 comes forth, the expression of the Divine power, and the 
 destroyer of the power of the devil. His appearance is 
 the signal for popular enthusiasms, and the crowds that 
 gather about him press to hear, but chiefly to feel the 
 force of that Divine healing, which puts diseases to 
 flight, exorcises the demons, sheds light upon the blind- 
 ed eye, and opens the sealed ear. Wherever he comes, a 
 holy joy, an overwhelming awe seize the people. If not 
 received, he is rejected with a hatred that seems devil- 
 born. He appears in Galilee, and wins disciples, con- 
 quers devils, attracts the people, rouses the hatred of the 
 Pharisees and scribes. He battles against the unbelief 
 
 6* 
 
26 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 of his people, encounters the hostility of the king. The 
 final scenes approach. Everywhere are conflicts and vic- 
 tories. Into Jerusalem he rides in triumph, cleanses the 
 temple, asserts himself not only Lord to save, but also to 
 destroy. Then come agony and shame and death. The 
 only articulate cry which Mark records is well named the 
 *' Lion's cry of pain," " My God, my God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me ?" but even when he died, he impressed the 
 centurion with his glory, and was declared by the Roman 
 to be truly the Son of God. How brief is the picture of 
 the risen Lord, but how vivid ! and if the concluding pas- 
 sages of the gospel (16:9-20) be accepted as genuinely 
 the work of Mark, is it not still in perfect consistency 
 that, having abruptly closed at the eighth verse, he should 
 have added another section, swift and brief and expres- 
 sive, in which our Lord's final victory over his disciples' 
 doubt is recorded, and the triumphant progress of his 
 gospel declared, with the accompanying victory of the 
 Lord, and the confirming signs which followed the preach- 
 ing of his word } 
 
 If we ask the question, " For whom was this gospel 
 specially prepared .^" the answer would seem to be ready, 
 For Gentile Christians. And the proofs of this have been 
 thus summarized : First, the omission of all genealogical 
 notices of our Lord's descent. Had Mark intended his 
 gospel for the Jews, he would have been careful to define 
 the place of our Lord's family in relation to the Jewish 
 kingdom and religion. 
 
 In the second place, when we compare Mark espe- 
 cially with Matthew, we are struck with, the absence in 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 27 
 
 our gospel of Old Testament citations. There are only 
 two, I : 2, 3, and 15 : 28, and the latter is rejected by the 
 critics as having no authority. Some of the Hebrew 
 and Aramaean terms are accompanied by a translation. 
 "Talitha cumi" of 5 : 41 is interpreted, as are also " Cor- 
 ban, a gift," of 7 : 11, and " Ephphatha, Be opened," of the 
 34th verse of the same chapter. In 7 : 3, 4 the writer 
 explains the customs of the Jews in respect of washing 
 of hands before meals ; while some additions and some 
 omissions are found in narratives common to Mark and 
 the other gospels, which may suggest that the evangelist 
 had a particular class before his eye when he composed 
 his history. In 11:17, Mark inserts the words, "for all 
 the nations," where our Lord speaks of the house of God 
 being called a house of prayer. Tfiere is no mention of 
 the Jewish law in this gospel, and the limitations of the 
 mission of the disciples, which Matthew relates — that 
 they are not to go into the way of the Gentiles, and into 
 any city of the Samaritans they were not to enter — are 
 omitted by Mark, which omission is also to be observed 
 in the third gospel — perhaps the most humane and cos- 
 mopolitan of all. 
 
 As to the questions of place, and time, and language,^ 
 in which the gospel was composed, we have only the 
 conjectures of the critics. Irenaeus (III., i) says that it 
 was after the deaths of Peter and Paul. This would be 
 probably later than the year 63. It is not likely that the 
 gospel was composed after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 for we can hardly think that such an event would be un- 
 noticed in its pages. This may therefore supply us with 
 
28 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 a term beyond which we cannot affix a date for its com- 
 position. 
 
 Most ancient writers, such as Clement, Eusebius, 
 Jerome, and Epiphanes, state that the place of composi- 
 tion was the scene of the martyrdom of the apostle at 
 whose inspiration the gospel was supposed to have been 
 written. Chrysostom says Alexandria, and a modern 
 critic fixes on Antioch, from a comparison (on too slen- 
 der grounds) of Acts 1 1 : 20 with chap. 15:21 of the gos- 
 pel. This is perhaps a good example of the narrow foun- 
 dation upon which modern criticism is able to build its 
 splendid erections of conjecture, hypothesis, belief, or in- 
 fidelity. 
 
 The language of the gospel was presumably Greek. 
 Here also there is nothing upon which any definite con- 
 clusions can be reached. The language which Mark used 
 was most likely to have been Greek ; and the argument in 
 favor of Latin, which Romish writers have urged, seems 
 not to be well founded. 
 
 Little remains for us now to say, but in conclusion, to 
 present a brief abstract or general view of the contents 
 of the gospel. 
 
 Lange suggests that the words of Peter, in Acts 
 10: 38, may be taken as its motto: "Jesus of Nazareth, 
 anointed by God with the Holy Ghost and with power : 
 who went about doing good, and healing all that were 
 oppressed of the devil ; for God was with him." 
 
 It were indeed a vain thing for us to endeavor to pre- 
 sent the aspect of our Lord and his life as seen by the 
 evangelist Mark. How poor and feeble are all the words 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 29 
 
 of uninspired historians, after the rich fulness of the word 
 of God ! And yet our sketch of the evangehst and his 
 gospel will be incomplete unless, as we close, we endeavor 
 to draw the picture of our Lord which Mark sets before 
 us, though it can be, at best, only an imperfect sketch. 
 
 He stands forth, in the very first words, a full-grown 
 man. We see him before the Baptist. And there, having 
 had the consecration which gathers all the past of law 
 and prophets upon his head, he is filled with the Holy 
 Ghost, and announced to the world, by the voice of God, 
 as the Beloved Son in whom the Eternal is well pleased. 
 Thence he passes to the conflict with the devil in the 
 temptation of the wilderness, whence, all victorious, he 
 returns with angels as his ministers. When he comes 
 forth to preach the kingdom, he calls disciples, and they 
 obey. The people are astonished at his doctrine, and 
 the ills which afflict humanity fly at his word and touch. 
 Demons, fevers, palsies, leprosies — every form of human 
 misery he meets and conquers. His fame goes abroad 
 throughout all the region, and vast crowds gather to hear 
 his words and see his wondrous works. 
 
 And this ministry, so strange, so powerful, is not for 
 the privileged few, the recognized respectabilities of the 
 time. It is for humanity. A publican hears his call and 
 follows, leaving the receipt of custom and all he pos- 
 sessed. He takes his place among the publicans and 
 sinners, relaxes the code of traditionary religion, and de- 
 fends his followers from the charges of sacrilege and want 
 of reverence which are brought against them. 
 
 Further manifestations of power are given, and the 
 
30 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 signs of conflict multiply. He is charged with possess- 
 ing a devil, and the very grace by which he conquers 
 Satan is referred to Beelzebub. Now he comes forth as 
 the friend and brother of mankind, and declares that obe- 
 dience to his will and the fulfilment of his word will bind 
 a man more closely to him than the most sacred ties of 
 sister, brother, mother. 
 
 But Jesus is not only a miracle worker. He speaks 
 the word of wisdom, and binds his truth and the signifi- 
 cance of his growing word upon the ear of corn, the 
 mustard grains, the bursting seeds. He sleeps in weari- 
 ness upon a pillow in the hinder portion of the rocking 
 boat. The tempest beats, and threatens to overwhelm. 
 They wake him. He rises, speaks to the sea, and all is 
 calm. Verily, it is the Son of God, who worketh thus, 
 so mightily upon earth. 
 
 A legion of devils is conquered — death itself com- 
 pelled to give up its victim. At home, abroad, in Galilee 
 or Gadara, he is everywhere, alike, the very power of the 
 mighty God. 
 
 But now comes opposition. His fellow-countrymen 
 condemn him, and deprive themselves of his gracious 
 workings by their want of faith. But this does not les- 
 sen the power of Christ. Indeed, he endows his disciples 
 with the same all-conquering force. He walks the sea, 
 and its waves are adamant. He breaks the bread, and 
 with a harvest-fulness, feeds five thousand with the food 
 of five. 
 
 ** 'T was springtime when he blessed the bread, 
 'T was harvest when he broke." 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 31 
 
 The signs of opposition are not only among the people. 
 The scribes feel the terrible force of his words of purity, 
 and the king hears of him, and would fain see more of his 
 mighty works. Now he advances to attack the hypocrite 
 and unmask the false pretender to religious sanctity. 
 The common people hear him gladly, rejoice at his 
 power, and lift up the voice of praise and glory. 
 
 The miracle of feeding, repeated, gives occasion for 
 further onslaught upon the leaven of Pharisees and Her- 
 od. He confesses himself to be the Christ, and utters the 
 prediction to his disciples of his coming passion, with a 
 promise of future victory. 
 
 His transfiguration displays the indwelling Godhead. 
 His works of power, repeated among the people, show 
 how he has the faith which is ever victorious ; and with 
 lessons to his disciples upon humility and catholicity of 
 heart, the first part of the gospel closes with his retire- 
 ment from Galilee into the deserts of Peraea. 
 
 Here he prepares his disciples for the journey that 
 lies before them, combating the carnal doctrines of Phar- 
 isees and scribes, schooling the ambitions of his follow- 
 ers, and making ready for the wonderful scenes which are 
 to crowd upon him in his last days. 
 
 Now he moves onward to Jerusalem ; at Jericho, heals 
 Bartimeus, the blind man ; sends for the colt upon which 
 he shall ride, and enters the sacred city with a triumphal 
 procession. The fig-tree is cursed, the temple is purged. 
 He asserts his right to perform these deeds of a divine 
 authority, and refuses the challenge of his enemies. 
 Words of solemn import, warning the careless, the un-. 
 
32 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 faithful, are spoken in parables. The quibbles of rabbis 
 and the questions of lawyers are answered, with a wis- 
 i(iom none can gainsay. He closes the mouth of adver- 
 saries, and gives occasion for the praise of the people ; 
 he tenderly observes and commends the poor widow, 
 whose mites are richer gifts in God's treasury than all 
 the lavish bounty of the wealthy. 
 
 Then he foretells the destruction of the temple, prom- 
 ises judgment and deliverance, and paints the awful pic- 
 tures of the last days. 
 
 But conspiracy and plot are thickening. Having 
 eaten the passover and instituted the Christian feast, he 
 passes to Gethsemane, to the council, to Pilate's bar, to 
 the cross, to the grave. Now it seems as if the strong 
 One were indeed overcome, as if the very Elect of God 
 must yield to the great wickedness of the destroyer. But 
 no, the grave is empty ! The Lord has risen, appears to 
 his disciples, and ascends into glory ! 
 
 Thus, in rapid outline have we sketched the picture 
 which the evangelist has given us. "Who is this that 
 comes from Edom," we ask, " with dyed garments from 
 Bozrah t this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in 
 the greatness of his strength t I that speak in righteous- 
 ness, mighty to save. 
 
 "Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy 
 garments like him that treadeth in the winefat 1 
 
 " I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the peo- 
 ple there was none with me." 
 
 See how the mighty Lord appears. The heavens 
 open and proclaim him the Son of God. He speaks, and 
 
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 33 
 
 the people hear with awe and wonder. He moves among 
 them, and stills the madness of the fever's pulse, pours 
 light upon the darkened eye, says, " Be opened," to the 
 deaf, rolls upon the astonished ear the music of this joy- 
 ous world, while the lips are loosed to sing the praises 
 of our God. Devils quake and tremble, and fly before 
 his holy gaze. The leprous stand with skins as pure as 
 the infant's, when He touches or speaks the, healing word. 
 And death, itself, acknowledges Him, as Lord, and lays 
 down its spoils, already vanquished and destroyed. See 
 how He stills the sea, controls the storm, and bends all 
 nature's forces to his will ! 
 
 Yet men oppose him. Faithlessness robs him of his 
 triumph, but chiefly itself of his grace. Hypocrisy hates, 
 and plots against, and kills him. Royal wickedness and 
 priestly blindness, with injustice seated on the throne of 
 equity, combine to destroy the Son of God. And they 
 triumph; but it is only a seeming triumph, for he who 
 in his ministry often retires for rest and communion with 
 God, that he might come forth to mightier working, lies 
 down in the silent tomb only that he might return to 
 life, death all vanquished, sins all smitten, hell crushed, 
 heaven opened ; that he might be for ever the Lord and 
 Saviour of those who put their trust in him. 
 
 Here, then, is the Jesus whom Mark presents to us — 
 the Son of God, the Lord and Master of men, great ago- 
 nizer, mighty conqueror, destroyer of all evil, founder, king 
 for ever of all good. And yet the Lion of the tribe of Ju- 
 dah is gentle as the Lamb of God. Does he not sigh o'er 
 human suffering and want t Does he not gently and ten- 
 
 7 
 
34 GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK. 
 
 derly remember all men in their deep needs of sinfulness 
 and sorrow ? If not as sublime as the Jesus of John ; if 
 not as human as the Christ of the good physician's por- 
 traiture; if he does not gather up the lines of all the 
 past, and show himself the issue and the glory of all that 
 has gone before as the fulfiller of the publican's narra- 
 tive — Mark's Christ is still a Christ we need — a Lord to 
 save, strong to conquer for us, wise to rule. Thus is 
 completed the glorious square of the evangelic history, 
 and won by the love of the God-man whom the proph- 
 ets predicted and the types foreshadowed, we rest confi- 
 dently in the hands of Him who is the Son of God, the 
 Redeemer of the world, the Lord God omnipotent, who 
 reigneth and triumpheth for evermore. 
 
THE GOSPEL 
 
 ACCORDING TO LUKE. 
 
 BY REV, WILLIAM LLOYD, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE 
 
 QOSPEL ACCORDINQ TO LUKE. 
 
 About six hundred years before the birth of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, a Jewish exile sat upon the banks of 
 the river Chebar. He was one of many captives who 
 had been carried to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. As 
 he sat sadly musing, the heavens were opened and he 
 saw visions of God which are thus recorded : " And I 
 looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, 
 a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness 
 was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of 
 amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the 
 midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. 
 And this was their appearance : they had the likeness of 
 a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had 
 
 four wings As for the likeness of their faces, 
 
 they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, 
 on the right side : and they four had the face of an ox on 
 the left side ; and they four had also the face of an eagle." 
 
 More than six centuries after this vision had been 
 accorded to tlte captive Ezekiel, another Jewish exile was 
 
 7"' 
 
4 THE GOSPEL 
 
 walking upon the wave-washed shore of the isle of Pat- 
 mos whither he had been banished for the truth's sake. 
 Unto him also was given a vision which you will find in 
 Rev., ch. 4. " And in the midst of the throne (that is, 
 the throne of God) were four living creatures ; and the 
 first living creature was like a lion, and the second like 
 unto a calf, and the third had the face of a man, and the 
 fourth living creature was like unto a flying eagle.** 
 
 It is impossible for the reader to fail to note the 
 similarity of these two visions. According to some of 
 the early Fathers, these cherubic forms were representa- 
 tive of the four phases of Christ's person, character, and 
 works, which the Four Gospels delineate. It is clear 
 that a different aim prompted and guided each evange- 
 list in his work. There is nothing casual or random in 
 their narratives. Each seems to have a well-defined line 
 of thought and purpose. Each has a plan through which 
 this purpose is seen running like a thread, around which 
 the incidents crystallize into beautiful and symmetrical 
 shape. They do not describe four Christs, but the one 
 Christ in four aspects. Christ is the same in each and 
 all. It is the same glorious figure that stands forth upon 
 the pages of each, the difference is only in the lines of 
 perspective. Now this view of the Fathers may be only 
 a fancy, but it is not a vain or profitless one. It was, as 
 Illuminated Missals, old Bibles, Windows of Churches 
 and Marble carvings witness, for centuries regarded by 
 the church as a correct application. 
 
 Matthew shows us the face of the Lion: Christ as a 
 king and the founder of a kingdom. Hi^ Gospel binds 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE. 5 
 
 as a clasp the Old with the New Testament. He holds 
 up the lamp of prophecy and flings its radiance full upon 
 Christ the Messiah, and shows us that the kingdom of 
 Israel which found its first fitting expression in David 
 was But an adumbration of the greater kingdom of 
 which Christ was the king. Matthew's is the Gospel of 
 the Royalty of Jesus. 
 
 Mark gives us the face of the patient Ox. In his 
 evangel we see the divine Son, the servant of man, bear- 
 ing men's burdens, healing their sicknesses, and whether 
 bound to the plough or prepared for the altar the servant 
 of all. 
 
 John's is the face of the Eagle. He soars into realms 
 of thought so bright with the light that enfolds and 
 drapes Deity, that we shade our eyes in the dazzling 
 presence. 
 
 Luke discloses the face of The Man. Christ on the 
 human side. Humanity shown as God designs it to be. 
 To this third Gospel and its author I am requested to 
 direct your thoughts, and to this particular manifestation 
 of Christ it is my purpose to devote this lecture. 
 
 Firstly, I will speak upon the author. You will 
 acknowledge that acquaintance, either personal or his- 
 torical, with the author of any work tends to increase our 
 interest therein, and enables us the better to understand 
 it. You stand before a painting by some master hand. 
 You are charmed by the genius it displays, its breadth 
 of tone and fidelity to truth. But if you have a knowl- 
 edge of the artist, his mental peculiarities, the idiosyn- 
 crasies of his style, (if I may so call them,) your pleasure 
 
6 THE GOSPEL 
 
 in viewing it is greatly enhanced. Fine lines and slight 
 touches, which would otherwise pass unnoticed, become 
 deeply suggestive. So is it with a book. Every true 
 book is to a greater or lesser extent a revelation of its 
 author. Knowledge of the author alone enables us to 
 fully enter into and understand it. This is certainly true 
 of the Gospels. For while we claim for them a plenary 
 inspiration, we also claim they are stamped with the 
 personality of their authors. 
 
 The Gospel according to Luke. The records concern- 
 ing the writer of this book are few and fragmentary. 
 His name is an abbreviation of Lucanus, and he is not 
 to be confounded with Lucius mentioned in Acts 13:1; 
 Rom. 16 : 21. His name is mentioned three times in the 
 New Testament, and is found in some few brief ecclesi- 
 astical traditions. We must be content to blend the 
 certain and uncertain, the traditional and Scriptural 
 records. Brief as these are, and dim as is the outline of 
 his life they furnish, we nevertheless gather three very 
 important and undeniable facts. 
 
 First in order is the passage found in Col. 4 : 14. 
 " Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you." 
 From the connection in which this passage stands it is 
 clear Luke was of Pagan origin. In verses 10-12 Paul 
 mentions his fellow-laborers who were of the circumcis- 
 ion, that is, Jews, and in verse 13 those who were of 
 Gentile birth, and in this group Luke is placed. He was 
 probably born at Antioch. (Eusebius' Hist. 3 :4.) 
 
 This is a very suggestive fact. It demonstrates that 
 not only was not the mission of Christ confined to the 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE, 7 
 
 limits of Judaism, but the work of recording it was not 
 to be exclusively in Jewish hands. It was eminently 
 fitting that the Gospel, which should more than any other 
 declare the fulness, the universality of the grace of God, 
 the light which should lighten the Gentiles, should be 
 written by one who had been brought out of pagan dark- 
 ness into its marvellous light. When he was converted 
 we know not. Some have supposed under the ministry 
 of Christ himself, that he was one of the Seventy, and 
 also one of the two unto whom Christ appeared on the 
 way to Emmaus. But this, I think, the prologue to his 
 Gospel disproves. There is in that a clear intimation 
 that he was not an eyewitness of the facts he records. 
 The strongest supposition is that he was converted 
 through the labor of the apostle Paul, with whose jour- 
 neyings and toils he became so intimately associated. 
 
 The second fact we learn is, " he was a physician." 
 This is of value. It shows that he was a man of educa- 
 tion. I know this is disputed by the archbishop of York, 
 who wrote the article upon Luke in Smith's Bible Dic- 
 tionary ; but there is one important historical fact cited 
 by Tholuck and Godet, which is confirmatory of this 
 opinion : " There existed at Rome in the time of the em- 
 perors a system of medical supervision ; a superior col- 
 lege was charged with the duty of examining in every 
 city those who desired to practise the healing art. Newly- 
 admitted practitioners were placed under the care of 
 older physicians ; their modes of treatment were strictly 
 scrutinized, and their mistakes severely punished, some- 
 times by taking away their diplomas." Luke must have 
 
8 THE GOSPEL 
 
 passed through this ordeal successfully, and therefore pos- 
 sessed, we conclude, an amount of scientific and literary 
 culture above the majority of the other evangelists and 
 apostles. We need only refer you to the grace, dignity, 
 and purity of his literary style as a further confirmation 
 of this. It is in beautiful harmony with the design of 
 this Gospel that the writer should have been a member 
 of one of the most humane, liberal, and beneficial pro- 
 fessions. 
 
 The third fact we learn is that he was a beloved fel- 
 low-laborer with Paul in his mission to the heathen, and 
 the writer of the Acts of the Apostles. Read in 2 Tim. 
 4:11. As this lecture is not a critical one, I will simply 
 call your attention to a few passages which throw light 
 upon this, and thereby considerably enrich our knowl- 
 edge of our author's life. 
 
 ** And after he had seen the vision, immediately we 
 endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering 
 that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto 
 them. Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a 
 straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Ne- 
 apolis ; and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief 
 city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony : and we were 
 in that city abiding certain days," etc. Acts 16 : 10-17. 
 
 " There accompanied him into Asia Sopater of Berea ; 
 and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus ; 
 and Gains of Derbe, and Timotheus ; and of Asia, Tych- 
 icus and Trophimus. These going before tarried for us 
 at Troas. And we sailed away from PhiUppi after the 
 days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE. 9 
 
 in five days ; where we abode seven days." Acts 
 20 : 4-6. 
 
 " And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren 
 received us gladly." Acts 21:17. 
 
 "And when it was determined that we should sail 
 into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prison- 
 ers unto one named Julius." Acts 27 : i. 
 
 " And when we came to Rome, the centurion deliv- 
 ered the prisoners to the captain of the guard : but Paul 
 was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept 
 him." Acts 28 : 16. 
 
 From these passages we see the first clear ray of his- 
 torical light fall upon Luke when he joins Paul at Troas. 
 They also indicate through what parts of the great apos- 
 tle's missionary tour the beloved physician was his com- 
 panion. 
 
 Silently, unobtrusively, he takes his place with Paul, 
 the fact being marked only by the transition in the style 
 of narrative from the singular to the first person plural. 
 He accompanies him to Philippi, the place where the 
 gospel standard was first planted in Europe ; with some 
 slight interruptions shares in his toils and perils until 
 the end came in the last imprisonment and the martyr's 
 death at Rome. 
 
 Of the latter part of Luke's life we know nothing 
 certainly. Legends cluster about his name, but we have 
 no means of ascertaining their truth — the most probable 
 being that he died in Achaia ; and Jerome says " the 
 emperor Constantine sought for his ashes to carry them 
 away to Constantinople." 
 
lo THE GOSPEL 
 
 Such is a brief and imperfect outline of the life of the 
 man who by birth, character, culture, and association, was 
 eminently fitted to write this third Gospel. We will now 
 proceed to the study of the book. 
 
 When and where was it written .? What are the 
 proofs of its authenticity } Is the gospel we possess the 
 gospel written by Luke and dedicated to Theophilus } 
 What relation to the other Gospels does it sustain, and 
 what is its aim and purpose .-* These are the questions 
 we propose to examine briefly and as far as we are able 
 to answer. 
 
 I. The place where it was written is unknown. Opin- 
 ions are divided between Caesarea, Achaia, Alexandria, 
 Rome, and Asia Minor. It is impossible, however, to ver- 
 ify any of these traditions and conjectures, neither is the 
 verification, if possible, of any great importance. The 
 date, however, is of grave importance. And upon this 
 we are not left in much doubt. We will with Godet take 
 our stand in the middle of the second century and as- 
 cend the stream. If we find in a book of any certain 
 date, quotations from some other writer, then it follows 
 that the book quoted from existed before the composition 
 of the one in which the quotation is found. Now it is 
 well known that quotations from this Gospel are found in 
 works issued between the years i6o and 195. Theophilus 
 of Antioch wrote about 170; Irenaeus about 180. The 
 Clementine Homilies appeared about 160. In all of 
 these and other works I have not named of the same 
 time, undoubted quotations from Luke are found. Still 
 further proof is furnished by the fact that the Gnostic 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE. n 
 
 Heracleon wrote a commentary upon this Gospel and 
 upon John's between the years 175 and 195. By Origen 
 this Gospel is ranked among the four Gospels admitted 
 by all the churches under heaven. A majority of the 
 most reliable commentators place the date of its compo- 
 sition between the years 58 and 64, some years before 
 the Acts, it being "the former treatise," to which Luke 
 refers in the opening of that book. We thus perceive 
 that it was given to the world while there were upon the 
 earth eyewitnesses of our Lord's life who could have 
 exposed the falsehood of any statement therein contained, 
 had it been untrue. 
 
 n. Its authenticity. Proofs of genuineness are fur- 
 nished first by heretical writings. The enemies of the cross 
 of Christ have ever been made to minister to its triumphs. 
 From the writings of errorists and perverters some of 
 the strongest confirmations of truth have been gathered. 
 From the years 120 to 170 lived and taught three great 
 heretics, Marcion, Cerdo, and Bassilides. Marcion was 
 the author of a gospel written evidently to support theo- 
 ries he himself taught. His system may be briefly 
 stated thus : He held that the Old Testament was not a 
 preparation for the coming of the Lord, but was in spirit 
 hostile to the gospel. That the God of the Old Testa- 
 ment was a lower being than Christ, and characterized 
 only by jealousy and cruelty. In this divorce of the 
 Old Testament and the New, of God and Christ, he was 
 preceded by Cerdo. Perhaps his error was the result of 
 his strong repulsion to the Judaic conception which 
 claimed Christ as the Messiah of the Jews only. But his 
 
12 THE GOSPEL 
 
 gospel is manifestly a perversion and falsification of facts 
 gained from other sources. Many passages are clearly 
 alterations of Luke, and says Godet, "A scientific criti- 
 cism can only conclude that our Gospel of Luke was in 
 existence before that of Marcion, and that he chose this 
 among all the gospels as the one which he could the 
 most readily adapt to his system." Thus it is clear that 
 in the year 140 this Gospel possessed full authority, the 
 result of a conviction of its genuineness. 
 
 Bassilides, a Gnostic of Alexandria, claimed to be a 
 pupil of the Apostle Matthias, which claim implies the 
 circulation of the Acts, in which alone is the apostolate 
 of Matthias recorded, and consequently of this Gospel 
 which we have proved was composed before the Acts. 
 
 Secondly, we have the testimony from the church 
 Fathers. Having proved that this Gospel was in the 
 hands of Marcion and Cerdo in the year 140, it is perfectly 
 legitimate to assume that it was received by the church 
 and would be in the hands of the Fathers of that period. 
 To their witness we therefore turn for further proof of 
 its genuineness. I here refer you principally to Godet's 
 Introduction and also to Ebrard's Gospel History. In 
 the writings of Justin Martyr, says Godet, we find passa- 
 ges which prove unanswerably that the writer was ac- 
 quainted with and used as authoritative this Gospel. The 
 angelic announcement to Mary is quoted in his dialogue 
 with Trypho almost verbatim. The taxing of Quirinus, 
 which is given only by Luke, is also mentioned. The 
 institution of the Lord's Supper is given according to the 
 text of Luke, and the sending of Jesus to Herod, as also 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE. 13 
 
 the cry, " Father, into thy hand I commit my spirit," both 
 of which facts of the passion of our Redeemer are re- 
 corded only by our evangehst. Is it possible then to 
 doubt that this Gospel formed a recognized part of those 
 apostolic memoirs from which this eminent Father derived 
 all the gospel facts by him narrated ? 
 
 We have seen that beyond question this Gospel was 
 written before the Acts of the Apostles. Now every proof 
 from the writings of the Fathers which proves the ex- 
 istence of and acceptance of the Acts, must be taken 
 as proving the existence and acceptance of this Gospel. 
 As the citation of such passages will more properly belong 
 to a future lecture, I 'pass them by, only saying, there 
 are many such in the writings of Polycarp, Clement, and 
 others. Says Ebrard, " The existence of the Gospel of 
 Luke in the very earliest times is attested by a multitude 
 of proofs." Referring to the witness of the Fathers, he 
 says, " These witnesses all agree in this : that in this 
 Gospel we possess the carefully elaborated work of a well- 
 educated man, who was intimately acquainted with many 
 eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus." 
 
 Thirdly, we have evidence from other parts of the 
 New Testament. My time and space will prevent an 
 elaborate presentation of the proofs from this source. 
 They are found in the Gospels of John and Mark, and in 
 the Acts. A most distinct trace of its existence and in- 
 fluence upon other New Testament writings is found in 
 the close of Mark's Gospel, chap. 16:9-20. In many 
 ancient manuscripts the second Gospel closes with the 
 words of the eighth verse. It is absent from the Sinaitic 
 
14 
 
 THE GOSPEL 
 
 and the Vatican manuscripts. It is impossible for a 
 comparison between it and some portions of Luke to be 
 instituted without concluding that it is borrowed from 
 the Gospel of the latter. Compare the following passages : 
 
 Mark 16:9: Now when Jesus was 
 risen early, the first day of the week, 
 he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, 
 out of whom he had cast seven devils. 
 
 Mark 16 : 10, ii: And she went 
 and told them that had been with 
 him, as they mourned and wept. 
 And they, when they had heard that 
 he was alive, and had been seen of 
 her, believed not. 
 
 Mark 16:12: After that, he ap- 
 peared in another form unto two of 
 them, as they walked, and went into 
 the country. 
 
 Mark 16:13: And they went and 
 told it unto the residue : neither be- 
 lieved they them. 
 
 Mark 16:14: Afterward he ap- 
 peared unto the eleven, as they sat 
 at meat, and upbraided them with 
 their unbelief and hardness of heart, 
 because they believed not them which 
 had seen him after he was risen. 
 
 Luke 8:2: And certain women, 
 which had been healed of evil spirits 
 and infirmities, Mary called Magda- 
 lene, out of whom went seven devils. 
 
 Luke 24: ID, 12 : It was Mary Mag- 
 dalene, and Joanna, and Mary the 
 mother of James, and other women 
 that were with them, which told 
 these things unto the apostles. Then 
 arose Peter, and ran unto the sepul- 
 chre, and stooping down, he beheld 
 the linen clothes laid by themselves, 
 and departed, wondering in himself 
 at that which was come to pass. 
 
 Luke 24 : 13, 32 : And, behold, two 
 of them went that same day to a vil- 
 lage called Emmaus, which was from 
 Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. 
 And they said one to another. Did 
 not our heart burn within us, while 
 he talked with us by the way, and 
 while he opened to us the Scriptures ? 
 
 Luke 24: 33, 35 : And they rose up 
 the same hour, and returned to Jeru- 
 salem, and found the eleven gathered 
 together, and them that were with 
 them. And they told what things 
 were done in the way, and how he 
 was known of them in breaking of 
 bread. 
 
 Luke 24 : 36, 43 : And as they thus 
 spake, Jesus himself stood in the 
 midst of them, and saith unto them. 
 Peace be unto you. And he took it, 
 and did eat before them. 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE. t^ 
 
 Up to the last chapter wc find no trace of Luke in 
 Mark. We infer that this portion was penned by some 
 other hand than Mark's ; and if so, it places our Gospel as 
 a received authority in the middle of the second century. 
 Mark must have been interrupted in his writing by some 
 event which prevented its completion for some time. 
 The only probable explanation is that the sudden perse- 
 cution under Nero in a. d. 64 and the martyrdom of Paul 
 led to Mark's hurried flight from Rome. A copy of the 
 unfinished work remained deposited in the archives of 
 the church there. This would explain the existence of 
 the unfinished manuscript and its completion by the help 
 of Luke's Gospel, which must then have been in circu- 
 lation. This explanation implies the high antiquity of 
 this book. 
 
 Passing over the corroborations from the Acts, we 
 sum up thus : The use of this Gospel by Marcion and 
 Cerdo demonstrate its existence in the middle of the sec- 
 ond century. The comparison with Mark and the Acts 
 gives color to the presumption that it was in circulation 
 in the latter part of the first century. But admitting 
 this as open to question, ecclesiastical use of it in the 
 church in the second century, as shown by Justin and 
 other fathers, is decisive and sufficient with every candid 
 mind to establish its' authenticity. 
 
 Concerning the sources from which our author de- 
 rived his facts there can be but two opinions: ist, that 
 he was an eyewitness of the events recorded. This his 
 prologue denies. Or, 2d, that he received his informa- 
 tion from the lips of the apostles, and from other wri- 
 
i6 THE GOSPEL 
 
 tings, and was preserved from errors by writing under 
 the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. This latter view I 
 believe to be the correct one. Some of the ancients held 
 that he wrote entirely under the influence of Paul. But 
 his own language is against this idea. Doubtless he 
 gathered much from the lips of his great Master, but 
 with the Spirit of God as his guide the evangelist made 
 the Saviour's life a subject of close research, and with 
 the materials thus gained wrote the Gospel which bears 
 his name. 
 
 " But are we sure that the book as we have it has 
 come to us as it came from the author's hand .''" I an- 
 swer, Yes. The afore-given evidences can be taken in 
 proof of this. Moreover, we can securely rest our faith 
 upon the fact that of the forty-four New Testament man- 
 uscripts we still have, written previous to the tenth cen- 
 tury, and which, from their antiquity and variety, are 
 deemed of the greatest importance, thirty in all contain 
 this Gospel in whole or in part. 
 
 III. Let us now proceed to consider its distinctive 
 aim and characteristics. 
 
 I have already intimated what I believe these to be. 
 Recurring to the cherubic symbol, this Gospel shows us 
 the face of the Man. It is emphatically the Gospel of 
 the humanity. It sets forth the perfect manhood of 
 Christ in all its regal grace and beauty, in all its human 
 and universal gentleness and sympathy. In Matthew He 
 is the fulfiller of the law, the restorer of the kingdom. In 
 Mark He is the Lord of nature, commanding its forces 
 as a monarch his vassals, hushing the waves in their 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE. 17 
 
 wildest mood with a word, and holding the winds like 
 hounds in a leash. In Luke He is active and all-em- 
 bracing compassion ; the good Samaritan, binding up 
 the wounds of despoiled and smitten humanity; the 
 good shepherd, seeking over mountain steep and desert 
 wild the lost sheep. It is the memoir, not of the son of 
 David, the saviour of a race, but of the Son of man, the 
 Second Man. " Here is man according to God ; the pat- 
 tern man in and through whom all men are blessed and 
 God is glorified, not only in moral perfectness, but in all 
 the sufferings and honors which according to God's pur- 
 pose are the heritage of the sons of men." 
 
 In Christ we see humanity, triumphant over evil, 
 bowed to the dust of death, raised to God's right hand 
 and invested with the right to rule over all. So that the 
 words which the poet uttered, when exultingly he sang, 
 
 " Slain like him, like him we rise, 
 Ours the cross, the grave, the skies," 
 
 are not poetic rhapsody, but grand and blessed truth. 
 To do more than give a few hints, which you may sup- 
 plement by closer study, would demand more time than 
 is. permissible. I can but glance at some few forms 
 in which this Gospel distinctively portrays Christ the 
 Ma7t. 
 
 First the prologue and opening chapters. Luke is the 
 only evangelist who mentions, in connection with his 
 work, a personal friend. He dedicates his Gospel to The- 
 ophilus. Mark also the difference between his geneal- 
 ogy and that givA by Matthew. Matthew's is decidedly 
 Jewish. The descent of Christ is traced to Abraham. 
 
i8 THE GOSPEL 
 
 Luke gives the genealogy to Adam, thereby showing us 
 that He was akin to the race. 
 
 No less characteristic is the opening chapter. When 
 St. John opens, he at once lifts us as upon eagles' wings 
 above the earth, bears us unto the presence of the eter- 
 nal and unbegotten Word; but Luke opens with the 
 human aspect only. He introduces us to human rela- 
 tionships and sympathies in a way unlike any other Gos- 
 pel. He alone gives us the angelic annunciations to 
 Zacharias and to Mary, of the coming both of the fore- 
 runner and of the Lord. Here, and here only, do we 
 find the canticles of Elisabeth and Mary. What a fine 
 touch of human nature is given in thus recording the 
 joy of motherhood which broke forth in these songs of 
 blended maternal and pious hope. Here also we have 
 the prayer of aged Simeon, whose eyes, dim with age, 
 yet see God's Salvation, and who rejoices that the light 
 shall be not only the glory of Israel, but the light also 
 of the Gentiles. Equally remarkable is the announce- 
 ment made by the angels to the shepherds. Matthew 
 speaks of monarch-sages who came seeking a king ; but 
 Luke records the angelic song, "Behold, I bring you glad 
 tidings of great joy," etc. — a Saviour — all that God could 
 give, all that man could want ; and the notes of that cho- 
 rus still linger upon earth, and in their music shall all its 
 discord yet be hushed. 
 
 I pass over much which might be noted in this chap- 
 ter in the same connection, and come to the baptism. 
 Here only do we read, "When all the 'people were bap- 
 tized, Christ also being baptized, and praying, the heaven 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE, 19 
 
 was opened." Here he is linked with all the people in 
 the rite of baptism and in an act of devotion. 
 
 Glance at a few facts of his early ministry. He opens 
 that ministry at Nazareth, the place where he had been 
 brought up. Bringing up is a part of every man's lot. 
 He commences by reading a prophecy which he claims 
 for himself, which describes Him as an anointed man, and 
 declares his mission is to proclaim to all captive souls 
 deliverance, and good tidings to all the sad and broken- 
 hearted. And this peculiarity runs all through this Gospel,- 
 this extension of grace far beyond the elect Israel to the 
 Gentiles. He sends out the Twelve, and they go every- 
 where preaching the gospel ; and when on their return 
 John tells of one whom they found casting out devils, 
 and forbade him because he followed not with them, He 
 rebukes the narrow spirit, and declares that he who is 
 not against Him is on his side. 
 
 Luke also is the only one who gives us that touching 
 revelation of the Lord's love for and forbearance with 
 men even while they rejected him — when he rebuked his 
 disciples for their uncharitable severity towards the Sa- 
 maritans, saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit 
 ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy 
 men's lives, but to save them." 
 
 In harmony with this special love for man as man is 
 the manner in which, in many passages peculiar to Luke, 
 Christ reveals to men His own nature, that they may be 
 made to feel their need of Him. As an instance I cite 
 the revelation which was made to Peter by command to 
 let down his net after an unsuccessful night of toil, and 
 
20 THE GOSPEL 
 
 the result : " Depart from me," cries Peter, " for I am a 
 sinful man, O Lord." It is the cry of a heart conscious 
 of sin in the presence of Sinlessness. The first desire of 
 any soul awakened to a sense of its own sinfulness is to 
 have the vision of infinite purity removed. Many such 
 fine touches, which are distinctive of St. Luke, you will 
 readily recall. 
 
 Again : Luke gives us glimpses into Christ's interior 
 life which we do not find in the other Gospels. Espe- 
 cially are we impressed with this in relation to that most 
 important subject — prayer. Matthew records very fully 
 Christ's directions concerning prayer, impresses its obli- 
 gations, and gives most fully that inimitable model for 
 prayer which has become a part of all Christian liturgies. 
 But Luke does more than this : he shows us most fully 
 our blessed Lord exemplifying and illustrating his own 
 precepts. As man He needed help to fulfil his great 
 work, power to meet and overcome temptation, patience 
 to endure trial and contradiction. So Luke, picturing 
 Him as man, shows how He continually exercised this 
 grace of dependence. Only here do we read that at his 
 baptism he prayed. Before him lay the work of conflict, 
 the pain and agony of Gethsemane and Calvary ; and he 
 prayed as he was baptized, and entered upon it. When 
 he chose the Twelve, we read here only that " He con- 
 tinued all night in prayer ; and when it was day he called 
 his disciples unto him, and of them he chose twelve." 
 
 May we venture with most reverent footsteps to at- 
 tempt to enter the mystery of that night of prayer.? 
 What supplications ascended that the men to be chosen 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE, 21 
 
 on the morrow might be endued with his spirit and be 
 fitted for their great, new work! And what strength 
 the remembrance of that night-vigil of their Master must 
 have given them ! 
 
 In the ninth chapter and eighteenth verse we see 
 that it was after his disciples had suddenly come upon 
 him praying, that Peter made that grand confession of 
 Christ's deity, upon which, as an immovable rock, the 
 church stands. 
 
 When with the favored three, the sons of thunder 
 and the man of rock, he stood upon the mountain-brow 
 and was transfigured, it is Luke only who records, "As 
 he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was changed." 
 A grand truth this : prayer, the transforming power. 
 And to this Gospel we are indebted for the words spoken 
 to Peter after his fall and recovery, words which have 
 cheered many a soul saddened by failure in time of test- 
 ing — " I have prayed for thee." All of this, I say, is pecu- 
 liar to Luke, and is in beautiful harmony with the aim of 
 this Gospel of the human side of our Lord. 
 
 Again : this is manifested in the narratives of certain 
 miracles of our Lord : for example, in fhe touching story 
 of the widow of Nain, chap. 7:11-16, and that of Jairus, 
 chap. 8 : 41-56, compared with Matt. 9 : 18-26. A father 
 came seeking his help, and here only are the words re- 
 corded, "She is mine only child." Comp. Matt, i/: 15. 
 Such facts reveal beautifully and blessedly the perfect 
 sympathy of him who is not ashamed to call us bretJiren. 
 The same trait appears in the parables peculiar to Luke. 
 We have not the parables of the kingdom as they appear 
 
22 THE GOSPEL 
 
 in Matthew ; but we have those which are more espe- 
 cially related to us on our human side. Truth is pre- 
 sented to us through human characteristics and affec- 
 tions. They always begin, " A certain man." Witness 
 "The Good Samaritan," "The Pharisee and Publican," 
 and especially that blessed three, " The Lost Sheep," 
 "The Lost Coin," and "The Prodigal Son." What a 
 fellowship with man, lost, helpless, beggared, degraded, 
 and perishing, do these parables reveal ; and what an 
 unfolding of the depth and tenderness of the Divine 
 yearnings over him they likewise give ! Thousands have 
 been, and countless thousands yet unborn will through 
 them be, won from the mountains of unbelief and from the 
 far-off land of first revelry and then want, to the warmth 
 of the Father's house and heart. As we near the close 
 of his life this tender human element is still more mani- 
 fest, and the universality of the blessings his death will 
 procure more plainly declared. We can only allude, in 
 this connection, to the promised " times of the Gentiles," 
 to the place of crucifixion called by the Gentile name of 
 Calvary, the salvation of the dying thief, and to the pa- 
 thetic and yearning voices of Calvary. 
 
 I had designed to dwell upon Luke's witness to our 
 Lord's divinity ; but I am warned I must close. I refer 
 you for this to Liddon's Lectures upon the Divinity of 
 Christ, where you will find the subject clearly and ex- 
 haustively treated. As a conclusion, allow me to pre- 
 sent three practical lessons : 
 
 I. The view here given of Christ encourages us to 
 approach him with confidence. His royalty alone would 
 
ACCORDING TO LUKE. 23 
 
 fill us with trembling awe. As we see him rebuking the 
 winds and waves, controlling the powers of darkness, 
 summoning the universe to his judgment-seat, we feel 
 constrained to cry, " Depart from me !" His deity fully 
 unveiled would overpower us with its infinite splendors. 
 But in this Gospel we behold our Elder Brother — man 
 with us — compassed with the same infirmities, grappling 
 with the same temptations. Are we tempted } He was 
 tempted also. Are we saddened by the faithlessness of 
 friends } He passed through the same sorrow. Are we 
 disheartened because our most earnest efforts fail } He 
 scattered seed only in many instances to see it die upon 
 the rock. When we come in contrition or sadness or dis- 
 couragement to him, we come not to a cold abstraction, 
 but to a loving, human-hearted Saviour, helper, friend. 
 With such thoughts, how full of sweetness and force are 
 the words we sing : 
 
 " He in the days of feeble flesh 
 
 Poured out strong cries and tears, 
 And in his measure feels afresh 
 What every member bears." 
 
 2. Christ's frequent praying impresses us with the 
 importance and value of prayer. Did he pray in the 
 presence of duty, on the eve of conflict, and in the dark- 
 ness of approaching death } and shall we not pray } Be- 
 loved, believe me, success in labor, triumph in strife, 
 calmness in trial, are all alike impossible to the pray- 
 erless soul. Fellow-laborers in the vineyard of this 
 world, learn, I beseech you, this lesson from your Lord. 
 The history of the church's heroes is a history of the 
 
 9 
 
24 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE, 
 
 power of prayer. Great results must be prepared for \x\ 
 the closet. The true soldier burnishes his armor and 
 sharpens his sword ere he enters the battle. The best 
 reapers whet the sickle ere they stand amid the grain. 
 
 3. That which was the crown and glory of Christ's 
 humanity must be ours also. I have said Christ's man- 
 hood was a manifestation of humanity, as its Maker 
 meant it to be. He was perfect : tried in every way, 
 yet always true. He came to do the will of the Father, 
 and from that purpose he never swerved. His life was 
 one of unflinching loyalty to God, and complete sacrifice 
 of self for humanity. By these he gained an eternal 
 sovereignty. Angels hastened to minister unto him in 
 his weariness after conflict and his agony in sacrifice. 
 He conquered death and broke the bondage of the grave, 
 and as he ascended gave the pattern and pledge of the 
 dominion which all who trust in him and strive by loy- 
 alty to God and love for man after perfect manhood, shall 
 receive. The man Christ Jesus is the measure of man's 
 capacities. Embrace him by faith. Study his life as 
 your example ; rely upon his sacrifice as your salvation. 
 Through these Gospels behold the Lamb of God that 
 taketh away the sin of the world. Look away from im- 
 perfect men to the Perfect. Look until, with the disci- 
 ples upon the mount, you see Jesus only. Here, the gaze 
 will feed you with triumphant hope, and hereafter will 
 make that hope a reality, as gazing upon The Man, the 
 God, Jesus, blessed for ever, you become like him. 
 
THE GOSPEL 
 ACCORDING TO JOHN 
 
 BY REV. R. S. STORRS, D.D., 
 
 BROOKLYN. N. Y. 
 
THE 
 
 QOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN- 
 
 My Christian Friends : It is an alluring and a de- 
 lightful task, but it is also a very large and difficult task, 
 which has been assigned to me this evening — to speak 
 upon the Gospel according to St. John. If that canon 
 of criticism be a just one which affirms that a man can 
 speak worthily only of that which he was competent to 
 have produced — that only the poet can justly criticise or 
 celebrate the poem — that only the accomplished and skil- 
 ful architect can fairly illustrate the subtile mysteries of 
 proportion and rhythm in great cathedrals — that only the 
 philosopher can rightly expound the profound philosophic 
 treatise of another — who among the sons of men would 
 venture to speak of the Gospel of St. John : the supreme 
 literary work in the world; which presents the highest 
 subject, and presents it in the most harmonious and per- 
 fect manner ; where the author is always hidden, while 
 the theme is always luminously exhibited ; where the 
 style is lucid as the light, while the contents are immense, 
 incalculable, surpassing thought, celestial in nature. 
 Divine in glory > who shall speak without presumption of 
 
 9* 
 
4 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN, 
 
 this book, which aims to present to us, almost as in an 
 autobiography, the infinite personality of the one Divine 
 Being who has trodden the earth ? 
 
 I compare with this aim that of any other writer, the 
 most distinguished in the world : of Plato, in his " Re- 
 public ;" of Milton, in his " Paradise Lost ;" of Dante, in 
 his " Divina Commedia :" I compare with it the aim of 
 any man who has lifted the rocks in praise to God, in the 
 walls and spires of the cathedral, or who has covered the 
 canvas with the glowing outbreak of his imagination, in 
 the pictured forms of the Madonna and her child : I com- 
 pare with it the aim of the physiologist, searching into 
 the secrets of life, or of the astronomer, with his penetra- 
 ting tube sounding the untrodden spaces of the heavens : 
 and there is no other aim, contemplated or conceived by 
 man, which is comparable to that which the writer of this 
 book had before him, and which he has so marvellously 
 accomplished. If we wait till some one has become wor- 
 thy to speak of this Gospel of John, we must wait until 
 we can call him back from the heavens, again to open his 
 lips before us as he did before the assemblies at Ephe- 
 sus, to tell us of the things concerning which he here has 
 written, to show us how he was moved and inspired to 
 write as he did ! 
 
 And yet there are some things which may be said 
 concerning this book, in a merely general and external 
 way, which will not be adequate, certainly, to the theme, 
 but which may not be unprofitable, and which may assist, 
 more or less, in the study of the book ; and to say a few 
 of these things, in a very simple manner, is the purpose 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 5 
 
 of my coming here this evening. I hope that God may 
 bless them at least to my own heart, as I utter them, and 
 may add his blessing upon them to your hearts, as you 
 hear them. 
 
 The first question which arises concerning this Gos- 
 pel of John relates to the peculiar office which it was 
 intended to accomplish. 
 
 It comes, you observe, after three preceding lives of 
 the Son of God in the world ; and the question naturally 
 arises, " Why was the fourth needed ?" What does it do 
 for us which neither of the others, nor all the others com- 
 bined, had sufficiently accomplished i* — It is a fair ques- 
 tion. It meets us at the outset ; and we ought to have 
 an answer, reasonable and sufficient, to give to it. The 
 answer, I think, is not hard to find. 
 
 In the biographies of men we are familiar with two 
 forms and sorts of composition. In the first of these, the 
 external events and incidents of the man's life are narra- 
 ted, often faithfully and largely; the actions which he 
 performed, the letters which he wrote, the words which 
 he spoke, the enterprises which he planned/ and the gen- 
 eral way in which he bore himself amid the great crises 
 of danger, or suffering, or duty, which beset him. These 
 are narrated in order that from them we may infer the 
 character, genius, power of the man whose life in its ex- 
 ternal particulars is thus set before us. And such narra- 
 tives, in proportion as they faithfully record and clearly 
 present the circumstances, the actions, and the words of 
 the man, enable us, reasoning backward from these par- 
 ticulars, to judge of the genius and temper of the man, 
 
6 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN, 
 
 the phenomena of whose life are thus set before us. 
 From the phenomena we infer the personality, which is 
 involved in them ; and often, thus, we gain a perfectly 
 vivid conception of the spirit of the man through the 
 actions and the words which are full of significance. 
 
 Of course we have innumerable examples of this kind 
 of biography. Xenophon's " Memorabilia " sets Socrates 
 before us in this way. Hildebrand, Luther, William of 
 Orange, Washington, have been shown by such biogra- 
 phies. Almost every eminent man in the world, who has 
 had large power or borne a distinguished part in affairs, 
 has been presented to the appreciation, perhaps to the 
 admiration, perhaps to the condemnation, of the reading 
 world, by those who have thus traced his career and illus- 
 trated his character. 
 
 But now there is another kind of biography, in which 
 he who writes it seizes at the outset, as by a vivid spirit- 
 ual intuition, the peculiar force, genius, spirit, of the man 
 concerning whom he is to write. These are present to 
 the writer from the very inception of his work ; and he 
 simply illustrates them in the particulars which he after- 
 wards recites, conceFning the action and career of the 
 man. He does not infer the personality from the inci- 
 dents of that career; but, having all that was peculiar to 
 the man clearly before him at 'the beginning, he inter- 
 prets and illuminates by that the subsequent action, the 
 record of which he rapidly makes. This is the highest 
 class in biographical writing — most appreciated by the 
 matured, cultured, and sympathetic reader. We feel at 
 once that such would have been the life of Socrates, if 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN, 7 
 
 it had been fully written by Plato. Any life so written, 
 of Cicero, Bernard, Angelo, Pascal, permanently enriches 
 the world. It is in this way that Shakespeare treats 
 the characters which he sets before us. He develops 
 them from within outward ; from the person to the phe- 
 nomena ; from the internal genius and character, vividly 
 apprehended, and continuously carried in the mind of 
 the writer, to the action and the speech in which that 
 specific genius and character subsequently reveal them- 
 selves. And thus it is that he holds his place as the 
 first dramatist of the world ; because, having seized so 
 distinctly, and held so decisively in mind, the spirit which 
 he would illustrate to the world, he afterward presents 
 it so naturally — through imaginary incidents, indeed, but 
 through incidents which are real in their fitness to the 
 character which they are contrived and constructed to 
 reveal. Carlyle, in our time, has this power to a remarks 
 able, almost to a preeminent degree ; and it is this which 
 makes him the recognized master of biographical writing, 
 in spite of all that is cumbrous, unattractive, perhaps 
 repellent, in his style. You see it where he traces the 
 career of Frederick the Great. In the marvellous portrait- 
 ure of his character and life which Carlyle has given to 
 the world, he has seized the character first, and the genius 
 of the man, and then has illuminated the subsequent 
 particular external story by the radiance of that original 
 conception which he never has lost, which nothing has 
 ever obscured in his mind, and by which he interprets 
 whatever he subsequently in detail narrates. 
 
 There are, then, these two classes of biographical 
 
8 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 writing : the first, that in which the external incidents are 
 related, in order that the writer may work back through 
 them to the conception of the character and the power 
 of the man whose life he is to describe ; the second, that 
 in which the character and power of the man, perfectly, 
 vividly comprehended by the writer, are made subse- 
 quently to illuminate whatever his pen afterward re- 
 cords. And we should expect, I think — certainly we 
 should regard it as desirable — that when a Divine Person 
 comes into the world, if it be possible in the nature of 
 things, both of these classes of writings should be com- 
 bined in the narratives which present him to the honor, 
 the homage, the adoration of the world. We must hope 
 that there will be this, which relates the familiar acts, 
 the incidental words, the apothegms, the gnomic sen- 
 tences, the parables, as well as the wondrous works of 
 power, and through which we are carried back to the 
 conception of the power and spirit which dwelt and 
 reigned in Him who is thus revealed to our faith ; and 
 we must hope, also, if it be possible, by the constitution 
 of human nature and by the inspiration of the Holy 
 Spirit, that there will be at least one writer who will 
 seize at the outset the unique, the supreme, the tran- 
 scendent, the Divine, in this solitary Person thus walking 
 the world to challenge its allegiance, and who after- 
 ward will, simply by the radiance of that conception, 
 illuminate all discourse, emphasize all action, interpret 
 all suffering, and gloriously unfold the consummation 
 and the end of the life thus wondrous in nature and in 
 scope. - ■ ' . , 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 9 
 
 In the one case we are like a man travelling from 
 the frontier toward the capital ; in the other case we are 
 like one who first understands, surveys, masters in 
 thought, the imperial capital, and then from that point 
 surveys the empire in which it is central, over which it is 
 dominant. In the one case we are like the man who fol- 
 lows a campaign in its successive incidents, of battle, 
 march, and apparent defeat, and through all these suc- 
 cessive combinations reasons back to the plan, and even 
 to the genius, of the general commanding ; in the other 
 case we comprehend the genius and the plan at the out- 
 set, and in the light of this foreknowledge read whatever 
 subsequently occurs. In the one case we go from moon 
 and planet toward the sun ; in the other case we stand 
 in the sun itself, central and supreme, and from it survey 
 the entire system which it irradiates, and which it car- 
 ries through the immense ethereal spaces, — which takes 
 from it all light and beauty, and which is evermore up- 
 held and controlled by its unfailing sovereign energy. 
 
 Both these classes of biographical writing, as I have 
 said, might perhaps have been expected— certainly both 
 might have been desired — in a book which should seek 
 to present to us the marvellous story of a Divine Person 
 coming into the conditions of human life, subjecting him- 
 self to the limitations of our weakness and frailty, tarry- 
 ing on earth through the term of a mortal life, that he 
 might lift the race to which he came toward God and 
 heaven ! And both these sorts of biographical writing 
 we find in the New Testament. 
 
 We have first the early oral teachings of the apos- 
 
lo THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JO HIST. 
 
 ties concerning the Master — whom they had so long ac- 
 companied, whose words had fallen with immense im- 
 pressiveness upon their minds, from whom they had fled, 
 their affection and their allegiance failing at the critical 
 moment, yet whom they reverenced, trusted, adored, es- 
 pecially after his resurrection from the dead, and to 
 whom they gave the service of their life. This early 
 oral teaching of the apostles was the Gospel, which was 
 proclaimed by them, which their office ordained them to 
 proclaim, as eyewitnesses of the things which they had 
 seen and heard, and which afterward they were to report 
 to mankind. This was the Gospel by which men were first 
 to be addressed, that they might be converted to Christ, 
 and made the believing disciples of him, under the quick- 
 ening grace of God's Spirit. This was the Gospel in 
 which they were to be examined afterward, questioned 
 and catechized, when they offered themselves to be re- 
 ceived into the church. This was the Gospel by which 
 they were to be subsequently instructed, built up in the 
 faith, and through which they were always to be pressed 
 to new and nobler Christian activity, after their conver- 
 sion and their personal association with the body of be- 
 lievers. 
 
 Now, as the apostles grew older, and it was Increasing- 
 ly evident that, in the multiplying number of the church- 
 es, some of these would hardly be able to hear at all the 
 apostles' voices, and that sooner or later, in the nature of 
 things, they must pass from the scene of their ministry, 
 it was a natural desire of the churches — and certainly 
 not less a desire of the apostles, a movement in their 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. n 
 
 minds of the Spirit of God — that there should be carefully 
 reduced to writing these narratives which they had given 
 orally ; that these might remain, permanently instructing 
 and inspiring to good, among the churches ; that copies 
 of them might be multiplied, and circulated more widely ; 
 that there might be no possible risk of that interpolation, 
 and that gradually growing misinterpretation, which 
 would be plainly likely to occur if they should leave the 
 Gospel, thus taught by their several voices, to be commu- 
 nicated to subsequent times simply by tradition. So that 
 oral proclamation of the apostles, concerning Him whom 
 they had seen, was reduced to writing by three evange- 
 lists. By Matthew, who was himself an apostle, and a 
 witness of the things which he recorded ; who writes 
 with many personal characteristics appearing in his 
 style ; its Hebraistic peculiarities showing him to be of 
 the Hebrew descent ; the carefulness of his method indica- 
 ting his commercial training ; collating miracles by them- 
 selves, and parables by themselves ; arranging according 
 to the nature of the subject, rather than chronologically; 
 and who writes with primary reference, evidently — as 
 internal and external proofs conspire to teach us — to the 
 dispersed converted Hebrews. He shows how the Old 
 Testament was continually fulfilled in the life, the action, 
 and the sufferings of the Divine Person, concerning whom 
 his pen is reciting what before his lips had told. 
 
 Then Mark — not an apostle, but long a companion of 
 Peter, and perfectly familiar with his account of the life 
 of the Lord — writes that account as he had received it ; 
 writes, according to the earliest testimony which remains 
 
 10 
 
12 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 to us concerning this Gospel, under the supervision of 
 Peter himself, and under his direction. He gives no 
 genealogy of Jesus ; but starts, as the impetuous apostle 
 might have been expected to start, suddenly launching 
 forth in full career upon the wonderful historical action of 
 the Lord in the world. He writes, apparently, especially 
 for the Romans. He writes as though he were inditing an 
 answer to that scornful and skeptical question of Pilate, 
 " What hast thou done T — the question which naturally 
 arose to the Roman lip. "No matter what thou hast 
 thought or taught ; that is a mere fancy in the mind, or 
 a mere noise in the air." The Roman law takes cogni- 
 zance of character only as revealed in action, and thus 
 becoming the fit subject of judicial inquiry, approval, or 
 punishment. So, " What hast thou done i^" Mark 
 writes as if to answer this : to show what the Son of 
 God, anointed with the Holy Ghost, and clothed upon 
 with power from heaven, had done in the world. His 
 entire Gospel has, apparently, a principal reference to 
 the Roman world. 
 
 Then Luke, long a companion of St. Paul — possibly, 
 though not probably, one of the seventy disciples — of 
 Greek descent, and of careful Greek culture — writes his 
 narrative, to set forth in order what he has heard from 
 St. Paul ; what he has gathered, as he tells us himself, 
 from all the sources to which he has had access, which 
 could furnish him the authentic information of eyewit- 
 nesses, concerning the career of the Lord in the world. 
 He writes with great care, skill, and elegance. His per- 
 sonal characteristics appear in his narrative as clearly as 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 13 
 
 those of Mark and Matthew do in theirs. He writes ev- 
 idently for the Greek converts ; that they may share the 
 inestimable benefits of which the Hebrew and Roman 
 converts were assured through the other gospels, and may 
 know exactly what the Lord, whose message of grace 
 was for Greek and Jew, had done and said. 
 
 Each of these, you observe, writes independently of 
 the others ; neither having seen, apparently, the equiva- 
 lent or the parallel writing of either of the others. They 
 write in substantial agreement, because they are writing 
 the same original apostolic story — the story of Christ's 
 work upon earth, and of his teachings, as the apostles 
 had severally heard them. They write, however, for 
 some reason to us unknown, but which to them was con- 
 trolling and imperative, principally, almost wholly, of his 
 ministry in Galilee, and of his last visit to Jerusalem, 
 with the discourses which he there uttered, in the hear- 
 ing of the Pharisees, the people, and his disciples, and with 
 the significant and tremendous particulars of his death 
 and resurrection. Except so far as that last visit is pic- 
 tured in their narratives, we should hardly know that he 
 had made any journeys to Jerusalem, or had accom- 
 plished any ministry in Judea. Of these only the last 
 Gospel especially informs us. Each of the others writes, 
 as I have said, independently of the rest ; yet all write in 
 substantial agreement, though with incidental differences 
 and superficial diversities, which, as plainly as anything 
 else, show that these narratives were directed by the 
 Holy Ghost. They attest sincerity, and they grapple 
 attention. To these three harmonious and parallel but 
 
14 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 diverse records the attention of scholars is incessantly 
 drawn anew ; and the labors of harmonists in reconcilino- 
 their apparent differences, and in bringing into one con- 
 tinuous narrative these three stories of the life and work 
 and words of the Lord — these have been, as you know, 
 continuous and immense. 
 
 One characteristic belongs to them all. In each we 
 have the external action ; the word spoken to the world 
 at large, rather than to the disciples : the words spoken 
 concerning the kingdom of Christ in the world, with 
 the means and appliances to forward it, and through 
 its extension to bless mankind. But from all these rec- 
 ords we are led constantly backward and upward to the 
 conception, more and more clearly and strongly presented, 
 of the power and the spirit of Him by whom the words were 
 spoken, and by whose might the acts were performed. 
 
 Turn now to the foui th Gospel, and you see at once 
 the other method of biographical portraiture, applied by 
 the human mind, under the inspiration and instruction of 
 the Divine Spirit, to the representation of the life and 
 person of this mysterious Son of God ! At the very 
 beginning we are confronted by that which is transcen- 
 dent, supreme, unsearchable. Divine, in the person and 
 the life of Him whom the writer would present. He 
 traces the Lord's genealogy, not to Abraham, not to 
 Adam, but to the eternity of God's own being ; and the 
 subsequent discourses, and the sublime actions, are in- 
 tended to set forth with vivid fidelity the amazing truth 
 contained in that majestic proem with which the book 
 ppens. They are the illustrations of that central, domi- 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 15 
 
 nant, illuminating fact, which breaks upon us with the 
 first writing of his pen, with the earliest utterance of his 
 intuitive and inspired soul. Everything else is tributary 
 to this. You are throned in the sun, and are looking 
 forth thence upon the whole system. You have started at 
 the capital, and are traversing the country which that 
 governs and crowns. You begin at the centre and sum- 
 mit of the story, and go from thence, through all the 
 crowded and radiant gospel, to its utmost circumference. 
 
 That is the peculiar office which this Gospel is in- 
 tended to fulfil, and which it in fact marvellously accom- 
 plishes. The aim of the writer is to present this holy, 
 omnipotent, eternal Son of God, in that which he said, 
 in that which he did : nature first, action afterward ; first 
 the mind, then the utterance which revealed it. It is the 
 grandest aim, as I said before, ever conceived by the 
 human intelligence ; an aim so vast that, unless you rec- 
 ognize not only the genius, or the character, but also 
 the special inspiration of the man, his folly in attempting 
 it will be most obvious. Ambition so daring, unless sus^ 
 tained by divine assistance, must shadow all his claims 
 on human attention. The folly of the attempt will be. 
 come only more final, and more fatal, because of the 
 absolutely transcendent character of the unique purpose 
 which he has in view. 
 
 So we come to observe more distinctly the man him- 
 self, to whom this task has been committed, and by whom 
 it is sought to be accomplished. But concerning him 
 we know comparatively little. We know that he was of 
 the middle class in society — not of the very 'poor, not of 
 
i6 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 the very rich. We know that he was by human relation- 
 ship a kinsman of the Lord ; that there was some bond 
 of blood between them. What precisely this was, it is 
 perhaps not possible absolutely to affirm. Probably his 
 mother Salome was a sister of Mary. If so, he was of 
 course, on the human side, a cousin of the Lord ; and 
 that relationship would have led him naturally, we should 
 suppose, to observe and magnify the human side of 
 Christ's life. If he, standing in such a relationship to 
 the Lord, affirms his divinity, and shows it streaming 
 into and everywhere exalting the subsequent record, then 
 that affirmation and that demonstration are emphasized 
 by the fact that he was humanly so close in the kinship 
 of him concerning whom he writes. 
 
 But the temperament, spirit, and genius of the man are 
 the things we must especially consider. He walks before 
 us as "a veiled figure," it has well been said, throughout his 
 Gospel. He does not mention his own name. He speaks 
 of himself in the third person, whenever he has occasion 
 to refer to himself at all ; and yet his words so throb with 
 the beautiful and intense vitality of his spirit that we 
 know him almost as if the whole book had been written 
 about himself, as if there had been exact descriptions, 
 detailed accounts, of his characteristics as revealed in his 
 life. A meditative, contemplative, affectionate, enthusi- 
 astic, ideal nature — this is evident in all parts of the Gos- 
 pel. It is evident especially in all the relations which he 
 sustains to the Master. It is evident in his Epistles, and in 
 the Apocalypse, as well as in his Gospel. A nature en- 
 dowed with almost feminine intuitiveness ; with a deli- 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 17 
 
 cacy of insight incomparable among men. "A virgin 
 spirit " he has been called, and called most justly — pure, 
 ethereal, unseculaf, reserved. He appears indeed a Son 
 of Thunder — the Master thus named him ; but this de- 
 scribes, not boisterous and noisy force, but the intensity, 
 the moral earnestness, the vivid and masterful energy, 
 which were in him ; the affectionate ardor, the devout and 
 adoring fervor of spirit, the intense and consuming en- 
 thusiasm of nature. In such a nature the sharpness of 
 moral conception and judgment is perfect. It is capa- 
 ble of the most profound and absorbing excitement, in 
 which is involved also a vast power over others, in kin- 
 dling and quickening their hearts with ardor. As such 
 a person the Lord describes him ; as such a person we 
 always see him, in the wondrous and inspiring records of 
 this book. 
 
 Then observe, further, his special relation of affection 
 to the Master. First, he is one of many disciples. Then 
 he is one of the twelve apostles. Then he is one of the 
 three disciples with the Master in the chamber of death, 
 where he raises the dead child to life. He is one of the 
 three with him again on the Mount of Transfiguration ; 
 one of the three nearest to him, amid the gloom and 
 agony of Gethsemane. Then he is the one of all the dis- 
 ciples who leans on the Master's breast at the supper ; 
 the one to whom Lord commends his mother from the 
 awfulness of the cross ; the one to whom he reveals him- 
 self later in the final Apocalypse, from amid the glory 
 which succeeds the ascension. The circle constantly 
 narrows ; the relation becomes more intimate and pecu- 
 
i8 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 liar, between this affectionate, enthusiastic, intuitive apos- 
 tle and the Master whose glory he discerns ; whose glory 
 he is afterward to portray to the world as no other could. 
 Out of this affection, pure, tender, supreme, comes 
 inspiration to every faculty ; comes always added clear- 
 ness of insight into the temper, into the nature, into the 
 essential relations to the universe, of Him whom he loves. 
 Compare him with Matthew, for example, or with James, 
 or even with Peter, and you see instantly the peculiar 
 intimacy between his mind and Christ's mind. You see 
 how much more fully the Lord was revealed to him than 
 in the nature of the case He could be revealed to a less 
 capacious, less sensitive and delicate receptivity, in an- 
 other. We know in daily experience how different is the 
 very faculty of seeing among men. One looks upon a 
 picture, and marks it on his guide-book, and passes on. 
 Another sees in it the gloom and agony and triumph of 
 Calvary, painted by the master's hand ; or sees the flush of 
 rapture in the martyr's face, as Agnes or Perpetua looks 
 up into the heavens whose radiance is opening wide 
 above them. One man sees nothing on the canvas but 
 the reproduced lines of hills and valleys, such as he has 
 seen in nature a hundred times ; another in the same 
 picture sees the scene of great historic events, where 
 Charlemagne conquered, Columbus landed, or Titian was 
 born. To him a spell and charm are in all the lines to 
 which the other is wholly blind. So St. John, with this 
 intense, intuitive, ethereal nature, saw more in Christ, when 
 the Spirit of God had purified, had almost transfigured 
 that nature, than any other of the disciples, even stand- 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 19 
 
 ing in the same external relations, could possibly have seen. 
 The intimacy became closer, the fellowship sweeter, the 
 inward revelation of Christ more perfect, the longer the 
 interactions of their minds upon each other continued in 
 the world. 
 
 Observe, too, the peculiar opportunity which John 
 had for the most perfect knowledge of Christ, through his 
 subsequent companionship with Mary, the revered moth- 
 er of the Lord. No commentator, so far as I remember, 
 has dwelt upon this point, as especially arresting his at- 
 tention, and as illustrating the hidden and peculiar riches 
 of this Gospel. Perhaps some have done so, but I do not 
 recall it. Yet there is great significance in it. It was 
 with John, after the death of Jesus, that Mary tarried, 
 you remember. Has it occurred to you that her moth- 
 er's heart must have known more, in some respects, of 
 that wondrous Son than any other human heart } that 
 there were facts connected with his coming into life upon 
 the earth of which she alone was conscious, of which 
 others could only have heard 1 that there must have been 
 inward recognitions of the Divine in him on her part 
 which almost superseded the necessity of outward reve- 
 lation } which illuminated facts, emphasized discourses, 
 and gave a certain transfiguring glory to all the common 
 life of the Lord t Yet she has said nothing concerning 
 it to the world, except as she has spoken through Luke 
 and through John. Unquestionably Luke must have 
 got from her much of that which he reports, so particu- 
 larly and so fully, in the first two chapters of his Gos- 
 pel. Unquestionably, I think, John also got much from 
 
20 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 her, in the long hours of reverent conversation which fol- 
 lowed the ascension of Christ from the earth, when 
 Mary and her young nephew — if nephew he were — were 
 talking together of Him whom they both supremely 
 adored. And it is to me a beautiful thought that the 
 mother's heart speaks to us in this Gospel, which has 
 been referred to so justly in the words of the prayer, as 
 " the heart of Christ revealed to the world." 
 
 It was not the intrepid dialectics of Paul, or his sov- 
 ereign submission ; it was not the rugged fidelity of 
 Peter, or the clear ethical convictions of James ; it was 
 the sympathetic tenderness and the illuminating affection 
 of the mother's heart — who had followed that divine Son 
 from birth to death, and after death had seen him going 
 up into the heavens, with his hands lifted in benediction 
 until the cloud received him out of her sight — it was 
 this which largely, instrumentally, I think, interpreted 
 to John the mystery of grace and glory in Christ. He 
 was sure of the Incarnation ; and he made it the key- 
 word of his Gospel : " In the beginning was the Word ; 
 
 and the Word was with God ; and the Word was God 
 
 And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us ; 
 and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten 
 of the Father, full of grace and truth." 
 
 Observe, too, how the inspiration of the Holy Spirit 
 operated constantly, though silently, upon this enthusi- 
 astic, ideal, intuitive nature, purified by grace, instructed 
 by affectionate intercourse with the Master, and by pro- 
 longed subsequent converse with His mother; how it 
 recalled to him what otherwise might have faded, and 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO yOHN. 21 
 
 interpreted to him what otherwise might have been ob- 
 scure ; how it refreshed, exalted, augmented every power, 
 and made him competent, if ever man was competent 
 or could be, to write the amplest Life of the Master, on 
 the plan which I have indicated — beginning with his 
 divinity, and from that summit-fact illuminating every- 
 thing ; not beginning with the external work, and from 
 this ascending towards the ultimate sovereign conception 
 of its author ! 
 
 So qualified in himself, so blessed in abundant oppor- 
 tunity of knowledge, so quickened by the Spirit, in his 
 old age, after the others had written their records, but 
 while everything is yet vivid before him, he writes this 
 Gospel, spreading out as in a panorama before us his 
 whole recollection of the Lord and of His work. He 
 tells us when he first met the Lord, at that most critical 
 moment in his life ; he remembers that " it was about 
 the tenth hour;" he remembers just how high the sun 
 was above the Mediterranean ; the very aspect of the 
 Jordan valley is vividly before him. He recalls the words 
 of Christ, reasoning with the Jews on the temple floor. 
 He sees again their bitter hatred, hears their contemjo- 
 tuous replies, sees their sour faces ; and the chill of 
 the wind still smites him, as he says "It was winter." 
 The very blast is on his cheek as he pens the word. He 
 feels again the icy sharpness of that cold hour, corre- 
 sponding to the sullen chill in the skeptical temper of 
 those around Christ. He speaks of Judas, and we see 
 the sign by which Judas is disclosed and made known as 
 the traitor. Judas rises and goes out, and John says, " It 
 
22 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 was night." What a picture has he sketched in this sin- 
 gle line ! John was reclining, I suppose, with his Master, 
 next to him ; Peter was perhaps at the end of the table ; 
 and Judas, perhaps, opposite to John ; and as Judas went 
 out, having received the morsel of bread which was the 
 sacrament of brotherhood, when the door swung open 
 into the windy inner court, John, following him with his 
 eye, sees the darkness, hears the gust, and he writes it all 
 in that one word, " It was night." He went into the 
 night, prophetic of the darker, denser, eternal night 
 which lay beyond ! 
 
 So vivid is his recollection, even in old age, because 
 of his affection, because of his intuition of the glory of 
 Christ, because of the inspiration of the Spirit which is 
 upon him. In the evening of his life, having often talked 
 of these things with his disciples, he writes the narrative 
 out in full, that this Divine Person whom he had known 
 may ba set forth before the world : — the grandest work 
 ever committed to a man ; committed to the chiefest of the 
 apostles in fitness for it ; the last work of his life, it is 
 supposed ; and certainly the greatest work that the human 
 mind has ever imagined, has ever attempted to achieve. 
 
 Then observe, in the light of this office of the Gos- 
 pel, and of the man to whom that office is intrusted, the 
 method which the Gospel followed. It differs essentially 
 from the method pursued in the preceding narratives, 
 which treat principally of the ministry in Galilee, of the 
 external actions, and of the teachings of Christ to the 
 world at large concerning his kingdom. This Gospel 
 starts, as I have said, with the Divine, eternal genealogy 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORVIiXG TO yOHN. 23 
 
 of Christ. Then it represents his Divine mind in his 
 discourses — discourses uttered not to the world, so 
 much as to the chosen circle of his disciples — discour- 
 ses, not concerning his kingdom in the world, of which 
 the other disciples have chiefly written, but concerning 
 his own attributes, his own nature, his relations to the 
 Father, his plans and purposes for mankind. John un- 
 dertakes to give these to his readers ; illuminating them 
 all with the light of that supreme conception with which 
 he starts — the absolute union of the Lord with God in 
 the essential deity of his person. Not merely thus does 
 he set forth the mind of Christ ; he sets forth also his 
 spirit and character, his Divine temper of self-sacrifice — 
 that supremest thing in God of which there is no other 
 revelation in all the universe known to us ! It implies no 
 self-sacrifice on the part of God to carry the planets for 
 ever forward, in their musical order, or to set the suns on 
 their poise in the heavens. It implies no self-sacrifice on 
 the part of God to carry the world on its path through 
 the heavens, from age to age ; to adjust the rhythmic and 
 melodious motions of those mighty masses with which 
 the earth is related. It is the joy of God — so far as that 
 joy springs from anything material — to uphold and con- 
 trol the mighty universe which He has built. It involves 
 no self-sacrifice in yonder organist when he loosens into 
 the air the mighty harmonies and the cadenced melodies 
 with which the instrument is instinct, by the touch of a 
 key. It involves no self-sacrifice to the poet when he 
 utters, in his melodious numbers, the thoughts and fancies 
 which fill his soul And there is no self-sacrifice to God 
 
 n 
 
24 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 in sprinkling the sod with summer blooms, or making the 
 autumn orchards rich with ripened fruit, in bending his 
 bow upon the clouds, or piling beauty and wealth upon 
 the world. The only revelation of self-sacrifice in God 
 is that which is made in Christ his Son, through whom 
 His heart is declared to the world. That is part of John's 
 conception of God in Christ ; and he writes to show how 
 that self-sacrifice wrought itself into transcendent exhi- 
 bition, in his long patience, his suffering, and his death. 
 God's Son was to be glorified ; that was a part of the in- 
 finite counsel. But His glorification was not at all to be 
 on a throne, lifted up, in sight of Jerusalem. It was not 
 to be in his suddenly descending from the pinnacle of 
 the temple, as the tempter had suggested that he should, 
 with a legion of angels for his attending acclaiming co- 
 horts. His glory was to be realized in this : that while 
 he had power to sweep Pilate, v/ith all his legionaries, into 
 the Mediterranean sea — power, when the officers came to 
 take him, not merely to beat them to the earth by a 
 glance of his eye, but to pin them there forever, if he 
 chose, till their dry ashes mingled with the dust — he 
 yielded his mighty and omnipotent hands to the binding 
 fetters ; he allowed them to be transfixed with nails, and 
 fastened to the cross; he permitted himself to be crowned 
 with the acanthine crown, on the brow where now are 
 many diadems ! He was glorified in dying, because he 
 died the Sinless for the sinful, the Lord of the earth for 
 the redemption of mankind. 
 
 That is the burden, that is the consummation, that is 
 the supremest lesson, of the Gospel of John ! Starting 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 25 
 
 with God manifest in the flesh, flashing back thenceforth 
 each Divine discourse from the mirror of his serene con- 
 templation and his clear recollection, rehearsing the ever- 
 memorable works in which the kingly mind in Christ 
 was illustriously revealed, he shows us as well the celes- 
 tial spirit, the unimagined Divine temper, most fully 
 shown, most gloriously crowned, when dying for His ene- 
 mies ; dying beneath Jewish malice, and Roman coward- 
 ice ; dying for the world which hated and killed Him ! 
 Only a nature like that of John, related to Christ so inti- 
 mately as he was, taught by Christ's mother as he had 
 been, inspired of the Spirit as he certainly was, could 
 have given that amazing conception of Christ : — which 
 has lifted the race, and brought the heavens nearer the 
 earth, as he has wrought it out in the manifold illustra- 
 tions which crowd his record. 
 
 Herein he indicates the whole plan of Christ's king- 
 dom, and the universality of that kingdom in the earth. 
 *' And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all 
 men unto me." How touching it is that the next words 
 he puts into a parenthetical form, as if to show that he 
 did not feel himself to have wholly understood them at 
 the time ! " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
 all men unto me." John no doubt thought, when he 
 heard the words, that what Christ meant was : " If I be 
 lifted up in some illustrious transfiguration, over the tem- 
 ple and the city ;" " If I be lifted up as on the wings of 
 sustaining angels :" and so he adds afterward, when he 
 came to a better and deeper understanding of the say- 
 ing, " This he said, signifying by what death he should 
 
26 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 die." It was to be the lifting up on the cross which at 
 last should draw the world unto himself ! This is John's 
 conception of Christ ; this his manifestation of His glory, 
 transcendent in the world ; this his foresight of that uni- 
 versal kingdom on earth, in which He is at last to reign, 
 the King of kings and Lord of lords. The Apocalypse 
 itself only answers thus to the sovereign idea of John's 
 Gospel. If the Apocalypse were written before the Gos- 
 pel, then it interprets some things which are otherwise 
 obscure in the history of this book. But whether writ- 
 ten before or after, it only carries out, in that vivid, tumultu- 
 ous, panoramic exhibition, as of a supernal drama, the same 
 idea which John elsewhere more simply develops, of the 
 universal kingdom of the Lord on the earth. It is there 
 shown coming to its final supremacy, over the stress of 
 human resistance, and through terrific clash of conflict, 
 by instrumentalities which God in his providence raises 
 up, but coming at last to the same complete and final 
 supremacy which is all put before us when we read these 
 words of Christ himself, recorded by his affectionate 
 scholar, ' I will draw at last all men to me 1' 
 
 It is a beautiful thought, too, concerning this Gospel, 
 in its connection with the Apocalypse, that the first im- 
 pression ever made on the mind of John concerning Je- 
 sus was made by that which was spoken at the outset by 
 John the Baptist : " Behold the Lamb of God !" It shows 
 the tenacity of the memory which lost nothing; it shows 
 the spiritual perfection of view which interpreted every- 
 thing, — that this title of Christ recurs continually in the 
 Apocalypse. It links that book with the first impression 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 27 
 
 which John ever received of Jesus. The vision of the 
 royal Conqueror is before him, of the mighty King, of Him 
 whose face shines as the sun, who is girt about with the 
 golden girdle, who marches at the head of the armies of 
 God, leading them to victory ; and yet, " I beheld, and lo, 
 in the midst of the throne, a Lamb, as it had been slain !" 
 From the first moment of his incipient discipleship to 
 the last ecstasy of the final Apocalypse, was John filled 
 with this image of the Lamb — of the Lamb that was 
 slain for the sin of the world ! Perea and Paradise are 
 inseparably linked by it. 
 
 This is the method of John's Gospel. It is the one 
 which in large measure supplements the others. It has 
 sometimes been spoken of, therefore, as the supplementary 
 Gospel. In some sense it is such ; not as filling out the 
 tracings of their previous delineation, or adding other 
 particulars of the same kind which they had narrated ; 
 but as presenting, as I have said, the ministry in Judea 
 more thoroughly than they had done — developing freely 
 what the others had touched upon lightly — and espe- 
 cially as giving us the profounder discourses, under the 
 higher and clearer illumination of that supreme concep- 
 tion of Christ which John had at the outset, and which 
 irradiates all his writing. So it is an ever-unfolding Gos- 
 pel, and will be such to the end of time. When we have 
 searched the heavens through, and counted and weighed 
 each star in its orbit ; when we have reduced those lumi- 
 nous films of celestial light to the islands in the universe 
 which they undoubtedly are ; when we know all the au- 
 gust and solemn mysteries of the heavens, in their order 
 
 II* 
 
28 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 
 
 and brightness, their secret harmonies and their im- 
 mense outreach, beyond our thought, — even then we shall 
 not know God to perfection, in the majesty and the beau- 
 ty of his mind and his will ; and until we know Him, as 
 manifest in Christ, we shall not fully have apprehended 
 the meanings, have comprehended the ideas, have search- 
 ed and sounded the spiritual facts and spaces in their 
 immeasurable depths, which are infolded in this divi- 
 nest of the Gospels, this luminous and transcendent book 
 of the Word ! 
 
 Finally we must face this question, and give if we 
 can the answer to it — a question which meets us often : 
 Why was this book so late in appearing ? and what was 
 at last the immediate motive in which it originated ? 
 
 Evidently it tarried long, imbedded vitally in the 
 consciousness of St. John, but not written out by him 
 until that comparatively late period in his ministry when 
 he put it into this full and wonderful expression. Really, 
 therefore, the question concerning this book, which is 
 urged so often by skeptical writers on the battlefield of 
 debate in the Biblical controversy of this century, is this : 
 Why did not John write his Gospel earlier .'* Why did 
 he delay it so long t To this question it is not perhaps 
 possible for us to give an answer wholly satisfactory. 
 We do not know why. Any answer must be largely 
 conjectural. It is one of those matters concerning which, 
 after so many centuries have passed, it is almost idle to 
 inquire. By-and-by, perhaps, when we meet him in the 
 heavens, we may learn directly from him whether the 
 Christian consciousness of the churches was not suffi- 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO yOHN. 29 
 
 ciently advanced to receive it at an earlier stage, or what 
 other influence it was which detained him from writino- 
 But the motive for ultimately writing the marvellous 
 book is easy to comprehend. 
 
 He did not write it in order to fill out the synoptical 
 outline of the earlier evangelists, supplying similar par- 
 ticulars which they had failed to narrate, and completing 
 the early teachings of the apostles by adding other de- 
 tails of the ministry in Galilee. He wrote to supple- 
 ment the preceding gospels in a different and a higher 
 sense. He wrote from an independent and supreme 
 point of view, in an original method. There must have 
 been the continual motive in his mind, which is in the 
 mind of any man who has a great truth, known to him- 
 self but unknown to others, which it is for their profit 
 and welfare to know, and which he can communicate. 
 An affectionate and enthusiastic nature like John's, rev- 
 erent, adoring, wholly consecrated to Christ, must have 
 been moved all the time to utter to others those things 
 which he knew and had seen concerning this Divine 
 Lord. Then there was, added to this, that practical mo- 
 tive which he himself indicates in the thirty-first verse of 
 the twentieth chapter, where he says, " These things are 
 written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
 the Son of God ; and that, believing, ye might have life 
 through his name." 
 
 That is reason enough for his writing at any time ; 
 while the special reason for his writing at a period so late 
 may possibly be found in the fact that there was then a 
 comparatively rich maturity of Christian knowledge and 
 
30 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO yOHN. 
 
 spiritual experience among the churches, which had been 
 wanting in the earlier time. The first converts had 
 been suddenly brought out of Judaism and heathenism, 
 into the knowledge and faith of Christ, and into a per- 
 sonal consecration to him. All their conceptions of 
 truth were crude ; their chief thought concerning Christ 
 contemplated him as a governing Master. Into the 
 mysteries of his life and love, of his esoteric teaching, 
 of his stupendous redemption, they hardly could enter. 
 
 In the last ten years of that first century, in the time 
 when John wrote this Gospel, there were many Chris- 
 tians who had been born and trained in Christian house- 
 holds ; who had had, one may say, a hereditary Chris- 
 tian experience behind them; who had not been born 
 heathen or Jews, but had been taught, from the earliest 
 unfolding of consciousness, the truths and precepts and 
 the promises of the New Testament. To such a com- 
 parative maturity of Christian knowledge, and of spirit- 
 ual experience, this Gospel is addressed. It presupposes 
 a fruitful preceding moral culture. It is not apt to rude 
 beginners in the Divine service. The missionary now 
 may reach the heathen better and more directly through 
 the narratives of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, than through 
 the sublimer record of John. It is after a man has been 
 converted, has been trained and disciplined by teaching 
 and by suffering, after his children have come to read 
 and love the New Testament, and the spirit of it has 
 moulded the life of the household — it is then that the 
 great, incomparable truths of the Gospel of John will be 
 most amply and familiarly opened to the soul. 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN, 31 
 
 So in the gradual development of the church at Eph- 
 esus — which was half an Oriental, and half an Occidental 
 city — where magic and heathenism confronted fiercely 
 the rising power of Christian consecration and apostolic 
 instruction — it had come to pass, in the old age of John, 
 that there were many for whom the magic had utterly 
 ceased to have charm or power ; over whom superstition 
 exerted no influence, and to whom an idol had never 
 been anything but a dead image, of brass or of wood. 
 They had been taught, from their earliest recollection, in 
 the new and Divine dispensation of religion, had always 
 walked in the prospect of the unending Future ! They 
 were ready, therefore, to hear what John now said, at 
 first with his lips, and afterwards with his pen. The 
 plate was prepared for the impression of all his words to 
 be stamped upon it, in the clear radiance of the Sun of 
 Righteousness. Their souls could now contain the truth 
 which, fresh from idolatries, they could not before have 
 mastered or have held. 
 
 Then there were special crises arising, calling for just 
 this exhibition of the truth, which had lain imbedded in the 
 consciousness of John, while Paul was writing, journey- 
 ing, and founding churches, while Peter was contending 
 valiantly for the faith, and was being crucified with his 
 head downward. A controlling design appears in the 
 writing of each of the apostles. John's Gospel certainly 
 is not wanting in it. He knew the very ultimate truth 
 ever revealed to the human mind concerning Christ. He 
 had spoken of it, no doubt, to his friends, but it had not 
 yet been committed to documents. Now was the time, 
 
32 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO yOHN. 
 
 without the church as well as within it, for that to be 
 done. Differences were arising, which had begun to ap- 
 pear in Paul's time, and questions were being asked : as 
 to the authority of the apostles, and the certainty of their 
 knowledge concerning the reality and the nature of the 
 resurrection of Christ; a question as to why it was that 
 Christ had been rejected of his own nation ; a question as 
 to why it was that Christ, if Divine, had submitted him- 
 self to the strange endurance of anguish and of death. On 
 the one hand, the Ebionites maintained that he was not 
 Divine in any essential eternal sense ; that he had been 
 only a just, benevolent, highly-gifted, noble-minded Jew, 
 who had been taken as the Messiah by those who believed 
 him because of these excellent characteristics, and be- 
 cause of the spiritual influence which they gave. That 
 conception of the Lord was to be answered and displaced. 
 On the other hand, the Docetse affirmed that Christ's 
 humanity had not been real. While the Ebionite denied 
 his divinity, these differing doubters held that his human- 
 ity had not been actual and true ; because they held, with 
 other Gnostics, that matter was essentially and eternally 
 evil. Either, then, what appeared the body of Christ 
 had not been his body, but one which he phantasmally 
 assumed, without taking it for the true garment of his 
 soul, or else it had been of an ethereal substance, not 
 of the earthly material which men thought that they 
 saw. It was either a fiction altogether, or it was a cheat- 
 ing appearance. This doctrine was active against the 
 church on every side, and even was widening within it. 
 Other errors, as well, were springing up, out of that 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. Z2> 
 
 mysterious Gnosticism, that malignant compound of poly- 
 theism, pantheism, monotheism, materialism, mysticism, 
 and the wildest demonology. The fiercest and haughtiest 
 enemy which Christianity has met was this organized, 
 many-sided, aristocratic, licentious heresy. It seriously 
 tried, and it hopefully expected, to drive the Gospel from 
 the earth. John does not antagonize it by argument. He 
 simply supersedes it, rules it out of the sphere of thought, 
 in his disciples. He crushes it to powder, and scatters 
 it on all the winds, by setting forth in contrast with it the 
 true doctrine of God manifest in the flesh : the Eternal 
 Word, creating at the outset the heavens and the earth, 
 and in the fulness of time becoming Brother, Redeemer, 
 and King of men ! 
 
 So heresy always brings out the truth. So the doc- 
 trine of meritorious works in the Roman church, with 
 the doctrine of a purchasable indulgence for sin, however 
 flagrant the sin might be, brought out the doctrine of 
 justification by faith, which was thundered through the 
 world in such articulate trumpet-tones by the early re- 
 formers. It was preached with an earnestness — it had a 
 vivid and vehement development — which it could not 
 have had except for that heresy which confronted and 
 aroused, in a sense determined it. So the law of true 
 Christian perfection is revealed when Antinomianism 
 assails the church. So the proper Divinity of our 
 Lord, and the efiicacy of his atoning death as the condi- 
 tion of man's salvation, are proclaimed the more earnestly 
 when the doctrine which denies his Divinity and his sac- 
 rifice, and which makes Him only a beautiful example, finds 
 
34 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO yOHN. 
 
 currency in periodicals, and in the common speech of 
 men. So the doctrine of Retribution, final and inevita- 
 ble, continuing as long as sin continues, is to be more 
 distinctly developed, more earnestly and more impres- 
 sively preached, because men are daring enough to set 
 th*eir minds against the sovereign mind of Christ, and to 
 affirm that he spoke rashly, and did not know what he 
 was saying when he said, " These shall go away into ever- 
 lasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." 
 
 Always, heresy brings the truth to more vivid exhibi- 
 tion. And these heresies, then, arising around Ephesus, 
 and around all the churches which John supervised, 
 brought out at length, from his enlightened and certain 
 consciousness, this consummate and illustrious doctrine 
 of Christ : his divinity, his eternity, his oneness with God, 
 his oneness with man, the wisdom of his discourse, the 
 glory of his spirit in his supreme sacrifice, and the uni- 
 versality of his kingdom in the earth ! It was an original, 
 self-moulded Gospel, inspired by the Spirit, but depend- 
 ent on no other. John may never even have seen the 
 writing of any other of the evangelists. What he wrote 
 came from his own mind ; it came with a gush. It is the 
 most profoundly individual book, one may say, in all the 
 Scripture. It is "like the seamless garment of the Lord," 
 one has said, so thoroughly interwoven, so glistening 
 with celestial gold. I should rather say it is like the 
 sudden gush of the gold, long fused and simmering in 
 the furnace, until all dross has vanished from it, and all 
 impurity has been cleansed away — which at last, when 
 the door is opened, rushes forth, glowing, incandescent. 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 35 
 
 streaming with light, and precious beyond estimate or 
 compare ! So came the Gospel from the heart which had 
 held it so intimately and long, and which spoke it at last, 
 to be thenceforth the inestimable possession of the world 
 for ever ! 
 
 One cannot but wonder and admire, as he comes to 
 the end of this train of thought, at the immense diversity 
 of gifts which God employs in his ministry to the world ! 
 I think of Peter, resolute, tough, fearless against resist- 
 ance, zealous and courageous, though far enough cer- 
 tainly from perfection, at last asking as a favor, tradition 
 says, to be crucified with his head downward, as not wor- 
 thy to be crucified as his Master had been. I read his 
 Epistles, eloquent and powerful, of faith and of hope. I 
 think of Paul, that man of immense incisive intellect, 
 discursive, energetic, perfectly acquainted with the Greek 
 literature, catching his images from the Greek games, the 
 illustrious and unwearied champion of the truth in his 
 own time and in all time — whose firm will, braced upon 
 God, the whole Roman empire could not break down — 
 whose words have rung evermore through the ages, from 
 that day to this, whenever liberty of conscience has been 
 imperilled, and individual conviction has been fighting 
 against tyrannical assumption — himself the Calvinist and 
 the Puritan of the world — alike magnificent in character 
 and in mind, the pattern and the exemplar of whatever 
 is at once most heroic and most lovely in personal valor 
 and in personal courtesy. And then I turn to John, the 
 ideal, the contemplative, the affectionate, the adoring 
 one, who was nearest the heart of Christ, who saw his 
 
 12 
 
36 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO yOHN. 
 
 glory most clearly, and portrayed it most tenderly and 
 triumphantly; — and I think of the Mind above them all, 
 which used them as its instruments, having prepared 
 them for their office and sent them on their errand, and 
 having constantly inspired them to their endeavors and 
 successes ; and then I know that the kingdom of Christ 
 remaineth for ever ! He who had these men, all alike, 
 while so unlike, for his servants — for his " slaves," as they 
 proudly represented themselves — He of whom these men 
 equally witnessed, and for whom they equally gladly 
 wrought — in whose name they triumphed and died, and 
 for the vision of whom they looked when the heavens 
 should open — His kingdom can never fail ! It must be 
 as pure as His heart — as supreme and immortal as His 
 power and will ! 
 
 It has been said that the Roman church is the church 
 of St. Peter — the church of exact administration and dis- 
 cipline ; that the church of the Reformation is the church 
 of St. Paul, with his development of the plan of Redemp- 
 tion, and his doctrine of justification by faith; that the 
 church of the Future is the church of St. John, the apos- 
 tle of love, and of the holy heart of Christ. I do not 
 accept this, altogether ; but I know that in the future* 
 when the three shall have blended together in the Chris- 
 tian wisdom of the world, as the blue and the crimson 
 and the gold are blended in the perfect splendor of the 
 sunbeam, this Gospel of John shall still irradiate all the 
 Scripture, and shall be unfolding new treasures and 
 riches, transcendent ideas, celestial meanings ! that wher- 
 ever a soul hun.frers then for the vision of Christ, once 
 
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. 37 
 
 tarrying on earth, now ascended into heaven, it shall find 
 it here ! wherever a soul has manifested to it the glory 
 of Christ, in any rapturous vision of His person, it shall 
 find it reflected from these supreme and luminous pages ! 
 wherever a soul goes to death, triumphant in the Lord, 
 it shall carry still these words on its lips : " Let not your 
 heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid !" To the end 
 of time — where experience is deepest, where vision is clear- 
 est and most transfiguring — this Gospel of John shall be 
 still most precious. And next to the vision of the Son of 
 God himself, in his glory, there can be nothing so attractive 
 in all the future, nothing so rejoicing to the heart, as to 
 look on the illumined face of him who clasped the hand 
 of Christ, and leaned upon His sustaining breast, and 
 who, as taught by His own Spirit, has taught the world 
 that "the Word was God," that "the Word was made 
 flesh," and that that Word, so incarnated in our nature, 
 shall at last conquer the world ! 
 
THE 
 
 Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 BV REV. JOHN HALL, D. D., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 12^ 
 
THE 
 
 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.* 
 
 It has been suggested to me by the Vice-President 
 of this Association that instead of attempting to deal with 
 the whole subject of the Acts of the Apostles in one 
 address, it should be divided into two; that I should take 
 the opening part of the book for to-night, and some one 
 will no doubt be found happy enough and competent 
 enough to take up the latter part of the book in some 
 subsequent series of lectures ; in this way it may be pos- 
 sible to fix your attention more closely upon details than 
 it otherwise would be possible to do, for any one who 
 looks at the book must be conscious of what a very 
 wide region it covers, and how difficult it would be to 
 bring immediately, solidly and instructively before the 
 view of an audience, all this broad area within the com- 
 pass of an evening's address. 
 
 I remember a time in my own thought when, if any 
 one had asked me how the books of the New Testament 
 came to be as they are, I should either have been at a 
 loss altogether for an answer, or I should have been ready 
 to say that in the process of putting the books together, 
 
 * This is a verbatim report of an address which was spoken, not 
 read : hence its colloquial form. j, h. 
 
4 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, 
 
 perhaps in the process of binding them, it had been found 
 convenient to arrange them just as they are. But when 
 one comes to know his Bible a Uttle better, he gets rid 
 of all such hazy explanations as this, and he finds out 
 that the New Testament in its place, and the Old Testa- 
 ment in its place, are both organisms with a distinct and 
 definite structure, with their various portions so placed 
 that he who would undertake to make a change of the 
 the order in which they are arranged would, in a great 
 degree destroy the symmetry of the whole. It is a little 
 easier to make that perfectly plain in connection with the 
 New Testament than it is with the Old ; although I do 
 not doubt that we shall be able to see some general prin- 
 ciple running through the Old Testament. It is very 
 easy to see how it is with the New. The New Testa- 
 ment, being the revelation of Jesus Christ, naturally the 
 first part of the book is devoted to a history of Christ. 
 This is done by four consecutive evangelists no two of 
 them alike. I dare say to many of you it appears a 
 strange thing that there should be four writers going 
 over the same ground and dealing with the life of one 
 individual. I am afraid that in the first instance many 
 persons do not discriminate between the various evange- 
 lists, or look out for the personal characteristics of the 
 writers of the Gospels in their various productions. 
 Whenever the reader does come to discriminate in this 
 way, then I think the interest with which he reads the 
 , Gospels is very greatly increased. I have been in the 
 habit of illustrating this fourfold characteristic of the 
 evangelistic narrative by an illustration which all of us 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 5 
 
 can easily comprehend. If you want a plan for a house 
 and one is prepared, it is scarcely ever presented upon a 
 single surface. There will be a ground plan ; there will 
 be a front elevation ; there will be a side view and, gen- 
 erally speaking, there will be four presentations of the 
 building you desire to erect. In no other way can it 
 adequately be brought before the eye. So here we see 
 the manifold character of our blessed Lord. Men are 
 placed at different standpoints, so to speak, and they 
 have an opportunity to study him, and each from his 
 own particular standpoint as it were, inspired by the 
 Spirit of God, has recorded what he has observed so that 
 it shall stand out with distinctness before the reader, 
 that at the distance of centuries he may be able to get 
 some clear, full and comprehensive notion of the char- 
 acter and the life of Christ. Generally speaking, writers 
 are agreed that Matthew prepared the Gospel for the 
 Hebrews, as is indicated by the genealogy which he 
 gives of our Lord and by his very numerous quotations 
 from the Old Testament Scripture, and the application 
 of those passages to a general delineation of the truths 
 as brought out by our blessed Lord, which would strike 
 the mind of the Jewish reader and suggests to him that 
 the advent of the Saviour introduces the fulfilment of 
 the prophecy that had been given to the Fathers. There 
 is an obvious and natural transition from the Old Testa- 
 ment to the narrative of Matthew. How easy is the 
 translation from Malachi to Matthew. Then comes 
 Mark's Gospel, the general understanding among critics 
 being that he received his main assistance from the apos- 
 
6 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 tie Peter. It is a gospel of movement or action, In which 
 our Saviour is seen as doing rather than heard as speak- 
 ing, and in which he stands before us so prominently and 
 distinctly as the man Christ Jesus going about doing 
 good. 
 
 Then we come to the Gospel of Luke, connected as 
 it is with the subject that we have before us to-night. It 
 is not necessary for us to enter into speculations as to 
 who Luke probably was. There are some who allege 
 that he appears to have been a Gentile by birth. That, 
 however, is only a matter of speculation. Probably 
 nothing can be said with confidence one way or the oth- 
 er about that matter. He was, for a long time, the com- 
 panion of the apostle Paul ; and we can trace, as we 
 proceed in the narration of the Acts of the Apostles, in 
 the use of the pronoun " we^' very naturally, a writer who 
 was with Paul. We can trace points at which he takes 
 up the journey and becomes the companion of Paul with- 
 out mentioning the fact. By his use of the pronoun 
 "ze;^" we conclude that he must have been a companion 
 of Paul, and a fellow-laborer with Paul. 
 
 He is called the " Beloved Physician." I do not think 
 we are bound to attach any importance to the specu- 
 lation that probably, as has been suggested, he is called 
 a physician in a figurative and metaphorical sense, so as 
 to indicate the bringing of medicines for the minds of 
 men. Nor is the parallel of his case to be found in the 
 case of those servants of the Lord who were called fish- 
 ermen. It is to be borne in mind that such was their 
 occupation at the time that Christ commanded them to 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, 7 
 
 follow Him, and the title was subsequently applied to 
 them in a spiritual sense, having a spiritual significance ; 
 but it is not, to my mind, in any figurative or spiritual 
 sense, but in a practical and actual sense as an historical 
 statement, that Luke is alluded to as the Beloved Phy- 
 sician. It appears that in many instances educated 
 Greeks, who were really no higher socially than slaves 
 or freedmen, were nevertheless educated for physicians, 
 educated upon the standard of the time ; and it has been 
 conjectured that he stood in this rank. At any rate, his 
 style and the general character of the expressions by 
 which his narrative is marked, indicate that he was an 
 intelligent man, such a man as would be regarded among 
 us relatively as an educated man. 
 
 There are certain features about Luke's Gospel which 
 would seem to indicate that he had been specially se- 
 lected to write a gospel intended for Gentile believers, 
 in which the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ and his 
 work might be presented in such an aspect as would 
 conciliate the Gentile mind. And it is impossible for 
 any one to go through the Gospel of Luke without noti- 
 cing these characteristics, standing out with great clear- 
 ness, even upon the surface of the narrative. Wherever 
 the Messiah comes in contact with the Gentiles, when- 
 ever a word is spoken in their favor, whenever they are 
 presented in a favorable aspect, whenever the matter 
 that is being referred to touches their case, though it 
 may not find a place in Mark or in Matthew, you are 
 sure to find it upon the pages of the evangelist Luke. 
 His exhibit is not Jesus Christ simply as the Messiah 
 
8 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 for the Hebrews,, fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies 
 as to the Jews, but a Messiah for the world — for the 
 Jews as well as the Gentiles. So the parable of the 
 Good Samaritan finds a place in Luke's pages. So the 
 existence of the grateful Samaritan finds its place upon 
 Luke's pages. In one word, (for I have no time to par- 
 ticularize upon this subject,) any seemingly insignificant 
 circumstances in our Lord's career that touch this great 
 feature, have a charm for this writer; and as the Spirit 
 of God directs him he puts them in his pages as if he 
 were thinking that educated men, freedmen, slaves, good 
 centurions, Romans and Gentiles, to the very ends of 
 the earth would need to study the character of our Re- 
 deemer, who came, not to Jews only, nor to Gentiles 
 only, but who came to make Jews and Gentiles one, 
 breaking down for ever the middle wall of separation 
 between them. 
 
 It does not lie within my purpose to touch the Gos- 
 pel of John, although if it were proper to do so I would 
 say here that it goes to show in the clearest way the 
 plan and the unity of these narrations of the evangelists. 
 It is easy to see how this evangelist, Luke, is the proper 
 person to be used for chronicling the establishment of 
 the Christian church in the world. Jesus Christ comes. 
 He reveals the Father unto men. He is the witness to 
 the truth. He is a leader unto the people. He sets 
 forth the old Hebrew law in a new light. He clears 
 away from it excrescences that were permitted to re- 
 main there. He discriminates between the local and 
 temporary, and the spiritual and permanent ; and above 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 9 
 
 all he sets forth himself as the representative of the 
 Father, with his gracious invitations, repeated in numer- 
 ous texts, such as, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
 are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." If this were 
 all of the New Testament, an earnest questioner might 
 ask, "What will come of it? Here we have a great 
 teacher, and a great revelation, and floods of light come 
 upon that which has hitherto been obscure. But he 
 leaves the earth, he says he is going to his Father and 
 our Father. What will come of it.?" and if our New 
 Testament had been cut off, so to speak, abruptly at the 
 close of the Gospels, how many wondering interrogatories 
 must have been in the human mind. Will any perma- 
 nent result flow from this Teacher } Will there be any 
 organization 1 Will there be anything further } Will 
 there be any organized unity t Will there be any sym- 
 pathy or fellowship with this Jewish church — this visible 
 theocracy that has been identified with God and his 
 truth and his cause in the world.? The Acts of the 
 Apostles as a book furnishes the answer to that great 
 question. We do not need to deal in any degree with 
 the questions that have been raised touching Theophi- 
 lus, to whom the Gospel of Luke and this book alike 
 are dedicated. It is not material to our purpose to 
 determine whether it is a fictitious name, intended to 
 represent everybody that loved the Lord and honored 
 him, or whether it is the actual name of a real man. 
 But it is proper to say that it is in no wise contrary to 
 the analogy of the Scripture to suppose that it was the 
 name of an actual man, a believer and a Gentile — as we 
 
 13 
 
10 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 may presume from his name, compounded as it is of two 
 Greek words — and whom Luke made prominent by in- 
 troducing and dedicating to him a Gospel Hke that, and 
 a history Hke that which it was the function and the 
 honor of Luke to present to Christendom. He says, 
 "The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus," which 
 naturally suggests that there is a close link or connec- 
 tion between the former and that which is now produced, 
 so that the Acts may be taken as a kind of second Luke, 
 a continuation of his Gospel, a carrying forward of the 
 history first introduced by Jesus Christ, and then to be 
 perpetuated and to be rung in the ears of men in all 
 lands and through succeeding ages, through those who 
 received his commission and were baptized with his 
 Spirit. 
 
 I remember my attention was called many years ago 
 to a work that I suppose is not very much used now, 
 because some later books have superseded it — namely, 
 Baumgarten on the Acts. It is in Clark's Foreign 
 Theological Library. It is not by any means a perfect 
 book, but it contains some most admirable and useful 
 presentations of the truth, and if you should come in the 
 way of it, and ^houjd find time to read and study it, 
 I think it would be of great service and value to you. 
 I remember that it was a kind of revelation to me. I 
 was comparatively young when I saw, what he takes 
 pains to delineate in this work, that, strictly speaking, 
 the title of the book is misleading. I do not mean that 
 the title is not applicable to the book itself, but strictly 
 speaking, the book does not contemplate the acts- or do- 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. ii 
 
 ings of the apostles, so much as it contemplates the acts 
 or doings of Christ who sent the apostles ; as though we 
 read between the lines in some such way as this : " The 
 former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that 
 Jesus began to do and teach until he was taken up into 
 heaven ; and this I dedicate to thee, O Theophilus, that 
 I may show thee what Jesus continued to do and to teach 
 after he was taken up into heaven." And the more you 
 study the book the more just that criticism will seem to 
 you to be. 
 
 Practically all the apostles are not here. They are 
 just mentioned as a list in the beginning. We find that 
 most of them were put out of sight. Practically two 
 apostles monopolize the attention of the writer through- 
 out this book. The book never claims to give a consec- 
 utive history of either one or the other of these two. 
 We have the apostle Paul, who has the largest share 
 of the book, and whose movements are presented to us 
 with great fulness ; yet we can easily satisfy ourselves, 
 by comparison of the Epistles with the book of the Acts, 
 that some movements of Paul that had a very important 
 bearing upon the world's evangelization do not find any 
 place in the Acts of the Apostles. Plainly it is not in- 
 tended by the writer to give us successive pictures of the 
 whole of the apostolic band. His intention is to present 
 to us the continuous work of the Lord ; and he has se- 
 lected certain things as examples. It is his intent to 
 keep Christ before the mind of the reader, and to make 
 the reader understand what is being done by the church 
 below. The Head of the church is above. But he con- 
 
12 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 tinues to teach; he continues to do; he continues to 
 work. If you by his grace are the children of God, you 
 are being taught by him. If you do as Stephen did, as 
 Teter did, as John did, as Paul did — if you do mighty 
 works, it is because Christ from his throne is working in 
 you and by you, and carrying on his gracious purposes 
 in the banishment of the Mosaic law, and in the intro- 
 duction and establishment of his truth among the nations 
 of the earth. 
 
 Accordingly we find this book is not at all biograph- 
 ical in the strict and proper sense of the word. It is 
 more ; it is what might be called ecclesiological. It is 
 not intended to show how a particular man or particular 
 men carry themselves ; it is intended to show the prog- 
 ress of the work of the church of Christ on earth. The 
 veritable body of Christ disappeared from the earth, but 
 another and no less glorious body is to be set up on 
 the earth, the mystical body composed of living saints, 
 an organism with Christ as its head and the Holy Ghost 
 as its heart. The Acts of the Apostles shows how this 
 organism grew up, and how it contained all the requi- 
 sites that it needed to take within itself every tribe and 
 tongue and people and nation. 
 
 In accordance with this general character of the 
 Acts, one need not exercise any subtle ingenuity in 
 seeking for the divisions of the book. It divides itself 
 into two great portions. The first we find occupied with 
 the establishment of the Christian church among the 
 Jews ; the second by the establishment of the Christian 
 church among the Gentiles, The idea is to show how 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 13 
 
 this truth that Jesus Christ left alone in our world, so to 
 speak, and which he charged his servants in his name to 
 make known, grows ; how it comes from one great cen- 
 tre to another and finds a lodgment in each one of them, 
 and impresses itself upon the attention and the con- 
 science of those who hear; how it spreads in each one 
 of these centres, beginning at Jerusalem, until it has 
 reached what was then the capital of Gentiledom, Rome, 
 and established itself there; and when that has been 
 done, when the narrative of that has been set before us, 
 then the book closes, and closes with an abruptness that 
 shows how little the writer thought of himself, and how 
 little he thought about anybody else, dear as they were 
 to him, and venerable as most of them were in the 
 church ; how little he thought of them except in so far 
 as they were the instruments of Christ in carrying out his 
 will and in fulfilling that portion of the Old Testament 
 prophecy that the Lord should come forth out of Zion 
 and out of Jerusalem, and at the same time that the Gen- 
 tiles should see his light and all the nations of the earth 
 behold his glory. 
 
 Now these two great classes of Jews and Gentiles 
 constituted the world at that time ; and I need not dwell 
 upon the bitter animosities that existed between these 
 two races, nor call your attention to the fact of how wide 
 was the chasm that separated them, or what a gulf of 
 prejudice, mutual suspicions, and bitter hostility, lay be- 
 tween them ; how complete was the contempt with which 
 the Jew, forgetting what he owed to grace, and taking 
 his high privileges as a right, regarded the Gentile, and 
 
 13* 
 
14 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 with what compounded interest the Gentile returned his 
 scorn and hatred, so that "the accursed Jew" was the 
 formula that most naturally came to the lips and tongue 
 of even the cultivated Roman when he had occasion to 
 speak of an inhabitant of Judea. Any man who would 
 appreciate the gigantic difficulties in the way of estab- 
 lishing this living spiritual unity among Jews and Gen- 
 tiles and placing them upon the same level as brethren, 
 must take into account all the divergences which grew 
 up for centuries, dividing the Jew from the Gentile. It 
 is no wonder that we should find so many indications in 
 this book, and so many corresponding indications through- 
 out the Epistles, of the jealousies with which, even when 
 they became Christians, Jews by birth regarded Gentiles 
 by birth, and Gentiles by birth regarded Jews by birth, 
 that were believers. 
 
 Having now called your attention to the order and 
 the sequence of the gospel narrative, and to the narra- 
 tive of the book of the Acts in general, it will be proper 
 for me, in the second place, to proceed to an analysis, 
 such as ought to be before the mind of the teacher if he 
 would give a clear and comprehensive account of the suc- 
 ceeding portions of the book. The first chapter is in 
 some sense introductory to that which comes after. 
 After the graceful preface to which allusion has been 
 already made, involving the dedication, the writer takes 
 lip his narrative where he dropped it at the end of his 
 Gospel, and proceeds to give a vivid description of the 
 ascension of our blessed Lord : upon which it is not ne- 
 cessary for us to dwell. In obedience to the Master's 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 15 
 
 command, they had waited for the promised Spirit that 
 was to constitute their motive-power. In the mean time 
 they seem to have been mindful of the theocratic arrange- 
 ment that had prevailed among the tribes of Israel, having 
 no doubt the idea that there was some intentional resem- 
 blance between the twelve tribes and the number of the 
 disciples or apostles ; and it seems to have appeared to 
 them proper that, one of their number having fallen by 
 his transgression, they should take the necessary steps 
 for appointing his successor, so as to make the complete 
 number twelve. This was done apparently, not by the 
 eleven alone, but in consultation and apparent coopera- 
 tion with the rest of the believers in Jerusalem, the num- 
 ber altogether being about one hundred and twenty. 
 
 They seem to have continued in this state of prayer- 
 ful expectation until the day of Pentecost was fully come, 
 and the second chapter of the book very naturally occu- 
 pies itself with the startling details of that transaction. 
 Peter is the man who figures most prominently in it. 
 Just at this point I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction 
 of calling your attention to the singular delicacy which 
 runs through the whole of this narrative when it touches 
 individuals. I will suppose one to be reading continu- 
 ously through the Gospels, and as he finishes the Gospels 
 the thing that is uppermost in his heart is : What a shame 
 for Peter ! What a disgrace that a disciple so favored as 
 he was, so honored and so near to Christ as he was — 
 what a disgrace to him and to humanity that he should 
 so dishonor and belie his calling and his Lord ! Sup- 
 pose that, passing with these feelings from the Gospels, 
 
i6 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 he comes into the Acts and reads the narrative in the 
 second chapter. We have some feehng of revulsion in 
 our minds, that feeUng of suspicion of which we are all 
 conscious when some one of our brethren has commit- 
 ted an error or has been betrayed into some action that 
 is not according to our standard of right. We come to 
 the Acts of the Apostles with a kind of feeling against 
 this man, so base and so mean, being brought forward so 
 prominently here. - But you will notice that the Gospel 
 which immediately precedes the Acts is the Gospel of 
 John. The last chapter of that Gospel gives us a most 
 touching delineation of the details of the restoration of 
 Peter by Jesus Christ himself : *' Feed my lambs ; shep- 
 herd my lambkins ; take care of my sheep." Again and 
 again and again Jesus Christ spoke to this man, lifted 
 him up, restored him to his love and confidence, and re- 
 stored him therefore to ours, so that we have no sense of 
 revulsion. Our idea of the fitness of things is not shocked 
 when this impulsive, impetuous, and brave man, sound at 
 heart, though momentarily weak, is permitted to stand 
 forth in that day when the Holy Ghost is shed upon the 
 believers, and to bear, in the Master's name, that testi- 
 mony which thousands believe, and believing it, they are 
 received into the Christian faith. There is to me a sin- 
 gular beauty in this collocation of facts. The Lord Jesus 
 knows, not our thoughts only, not our convictions only, 
 not our souls and consciences only, but he knows our 
 feelings, and with a touch of infinite delicacy applies his 
 gospel to them, so that we shall not only adore, but ad- 
 mire while we adore him. He is the incarnation of 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, 17 
 
 grace and beauty as he is dealing with the children of 
 men. 
 
 I do not need to dwell upon this second chapter. I 
 have already mentioned the work of Baumgarten, and I 
 will say here to any one who wants to get a book that 
 will touch his heart with its delineation of this great mir- 
 acle of Christianity, let him provide himself with the 
 book of Mr. Arthur, a most able and earnest Methodist 
 minister and a most entertaining and instructive writer, 
 called " The Tongue of Fire." It is a striking thing that 
 when the Master sends out his disciples to conquer the 
 world he does not give them swords to fight with, but 
 tongues of fire, to speak burning words that will save 
 human souls and inflame the people with love to God 
 and zeal for Christ. 
 
 That was practically the birthday of the Christian 
 church. It may be said that the church was born on the 
 day of Pentecost. Now it began to stand forth as a uni- 
 ty. Baptism is the recognized emblem and badge of 
 the believer. We have been baptized unto the Father, 
 the Son and the Holy Ghost, We have a most beautiful 
 picture of the condition of believers in the temple. " And 
 all that believed were together, and had all things in com- 
 mon ; and sold their possessions and goods and parted 
 them to all men as every man had need. And they 
 'continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and 
 breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat 
 with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and 
 having favor with all people ; and the Lord added to the 
 church daily such as should be saved." This is the model 
 
i8 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 church ; this is the mother church ; this is the pattern 
 of what a church should be. Other churches, as they 
 are estabHshed throughout the nations, are, so far as pos- 
 sible, catching the spirit of Jesus. They are looking 
 back to this early, pure, bright day of Christianity in the 
 world, and, so far as possible, are catching its spirit and 
 reproducing its features. 
 
 Now one might suppose there is nothing but for such 
 a church to go on with successful and ever-increasing 
 movement throughout the world. But that has never 
 been true, dear friends, of any good movement in the world. 
 Accordingly the next chapter brings before us, with 
 sufficient distinctness ^nd with sufficient fulness, the 
 subsequent dangers to which the church may be expected 
 to be exposed in her future history. A miracle is wrought 
 by Peter and John. As a consequence of that miracle, 
 attention is drawn to the church of Christ and an oppor- 
 tunity is given of explaining the way in which the mira- 
 cle is wrought, and calling attention once again to the 
 risen and glorified Saviour. But as the people of Christ 
 speak to their fellow-citizens, a hostile power is aroused 
 and is arrayed against these men. " The captain of the 
 temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being ag- 
 grieved that they taught the people and preached through 
 Jesus the resurrection from the dead." These Sadducees 
 were the liberals of their time — broad-minded men, men 
 at least who so complimented themselves ; men of ad- 
 vanced thought ; men that had got rid of the super- 
 natural; men to whom indeed angels and spirits were 
 nothing ; men to whom the resurrection was a mockery 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, 19 
 
 and the future life a mere dream. But behold these 
 Christian teachers, who not merely say that they are wit- 
 nesses of the resurrection of the dead, but they say that 
 their Master has risen from the dead and that they have 
 proof of it. The Sadducees were too liberal to persecute 
 or to annoy anybody for an abstract opinion. The Sad- 
 ducees in all ages have been ready to make a great pa- 
 rade of their liberalism, but the moment that a doctrine 
 that is new touches their own creed, true to their own 
 character in more ages than one they have been forward 
 in the ranks of the persecutors and among the readiest 
 to put down, with the strong hand of power, the hum- 
 ble witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
 
 This is not the only kind of danger to which the 
 church is exposed. I do not need to go into these details. 
 Every person has read them, or can read them and satis- 
 fy himself. Well, the church got over that danger as it 
 always will get over such dangers. It has nothing to 
 fear from mere brute power, but there are other perils 
 to which the church is exposed. It seems a perfectly 
 obvious thing that there was no design on the part of the 
 sacred writer to chronicle every incident and every fact. 
 On the contrary there is a principle of selection running 
 through this narrative, and specimens are given of that 
 which the church has to encounter or which the church 
 has to anticipate or fear in all time to come. On the 
 one hand the church was to be apprehensive of the 
 world's persecuting power. On the other hand she is 
 to be afraid of secularism and vanity, ambition and 
 self-seeking, ostentation and corruption among her 
 
2a THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 own members. How early Ananias and Sapphira led 
 the way in that direction. This was not " Socialism." 
 There was no obligation upon the people to give up their 
 possessions for the common good. It was a matter of 
 free will, but it was undoubtedly true that credit was 
 given to those who did sell their possessions for the sake 
 of the common benefit. So Ananias and Sapphira laid 
 their heads together. *' We have possessions," they say, 
 ** and let us sell them and keep a portion of them our- 
 selves ; let us appear to be giving the whole and get the 
 credit for the whole while we keep a portion ourselves." 
 And they talked it over with themselves. Many a man 
 will do a bad and wicked thing while its secret is in his 
 own bosom, who is not base enough and bad enough to 
 do it in concert with another. Men have always held a 
 conspiracy to be a worse crime than a mere individual 
 offence. They conspired together ; they were so delib- 
 erate about it. They talked it over. Husband and wife 
 are sometimes bad enough individually, but they are very 
 bad when they come to concert a plan of wickedness with 
 one another. They did that, and so they are detected 
 and exposed and signally punished. Of course there is 
 a parallel between this tragedy at the beginning of the 
 Christian dispensation and the tragedy at the beginning 
 of the Jewish dispensation. There was a reason for both. 
 Covetousness was the lesson of both tragedies, that of 
 Judaism in its infancy and Christianity in its youth. 
 
 I said there was no Socialism in the church at this 
 time ; that seems to be assumed in the very appeal which 
 Peter makes when he says, ** Was it not thine own ?" 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 21 
 
 They were not bound to dispose of their possessions, and 
 after they were sold there was no obligation upon them 
 to give up the whole of the money. They could give as 
 much or as little as they pleased. It was because they 
 agreed together to tempt the Holy Ghost, that the pun- 
 ■ ishment was visited upon them. This was another proof 
 of the personality of the Holy Ghost, for man cannot 
 tempt an attribute and cannot lie to an attribute. It is 
 proof al'so of the Deity of the Holy Ghost, for it is said 
 afterwards, '* Ye have not lied unto men, but unto God ;" 
 and on that sad day, for it must have been a sad day 
 even to the church, the bodies of these two transgressors 
 were carried out and buried. No wonder that great fear 
 fell upon the church and upon as many as heard these 
 things, and that of the rest durst no man join himself 
 unto them. Brethren, it is not always a healthy sign 
 when crowds are joining themselves to the church. It is 
 sometimes a good sign when men feel that there is some- 
 thing awful and holy about the church, and that they are 
 not to join themselves to it as a light and every-day 
 matter. 
 
 I do not mean to dwell upon these things. What I 
 want to make plain to you is this : that among the mul- 
 titudinous incidents that must have happened, the sacred 
 writer describes just those that may be expected to be 
 typical of the future, and full of instruction to the church 
 in all time to come. 
 
 But there is another danger that menaces the church. 
 First it is the persecuting power of the world ; then it is 
 vanity and ostentation in the members ; and now it is 
 
 14 
 
22 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 class feeling, and the rivalry of old antipathies and old 
 class jealousies. The number of the disciples was multi- 
 plied, and somebody had to administer the possessions 
 that were sold and put into the common stock. There 
 arose a murmuring among the Greek-speaking people — 
 who did not always live in Palestine, but who were there 
 only for the time — against the Hebrews, because their 
 widows were neglected in the daily ministration. We 
 all know how it comes about. There begins to be a little 
 shaking of the head and a little side-whispering of a man 
 to his neighbor, and a little intimation that there is some- 
 thing in the way or something wrong — something that 
 had better be looked into. " Do n't you talk about it ; 
 you need not quote me as saying it, but there is some- 
 thing that had better be changed." There arose a mur- 
 muring, an undertone of discontent and dissatisfaction, 
 such as sometimes runs through a congregation and par- 
 alyzes its usefulness for a time. That was the trouble ; 
 and observe the brave and manly way in which the trou- 
 ble is met by the men who are by God's appointment at 
 the time the leaders of the church. They do not stifle 
 it. They do not hush it up. They do not say, " Let us 
 quiet it, and say nothing about it." Powder is perilous 
 when it is closely confined. Let the explosion go off in 
 the open air, and there is a mere whiff of smoke, and the 
 thing is harmlessly over. Bring it into the daylight and 
 see what is wrong. Let us look fairly at it, and if there 
 be anything wrong, let us meet it and make things right. 
 This was done. " It is not our business to take charge 
 of this matter. The thing was put into our hands be- 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 23 
 
 cause there was nobody else to take hold of it, and we 
 have done it. It is no particular pleasure to us to do it. 
 It would be a relief to us to get rid of it. Let us choose 
 men to administer to the various wants of our people." 
 And so to this ecclesiastical body, this corporation of 
 Christians, there comes the needed supply in the election 
 of these good and true men to administer this trust. 
 Thus they took away the cause of complaint that existed 
 among the people in regard to this matter. They treat- 
 ed the subject in a bold and manly way, and the people 
 became obedient to the faith. 
 
 This was the way in which the church in the olden 
 time treated the danger that came to her then. The dan- 
 gers that menaced the church in those times exist in the 
 history of the church to-day. The church is not only 
 exposed to the danger of persecution, and the danger of 
 pride and vanity, but there is a danger against which 
 Christian people ought constantly to be on their guard. 
 It should be a matter of solemn duty to stop whispering, 
 to put down the backbiter ; to say, " If there is anything 
 wrong, out with it ! out with it ! Let it be explained and 
 cleared away, and dealt with in a manly, straightforward 
 way; but let there be none of this subterranean rumbling, 
 that never can do anything else than disturb and harass 
 and paralyze men honestly seeking to do their duty.'* 
 
 I am reminded by looking at the face of the clock 
 that the time has come when it will be proper to bring 
 these remarks to a close; and probably there is not 
 much more to be said ; at any rate, not very much that 
 will not come legitimately under the notice of the broth- 
 
24 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 ers who will succeed me in dealing with Paul, and espe- 
 cially his work among the Gentiles ; and so, if you please, 
 with the few remarks with which I shall conclude, I shall 
 turn your attention away from this analysis of the narra- 
 tive and ask you to look at two or three prominent 
 instances that pass before us in the course of this history, 
 and at two or three men who act a prominent part, and 
 in whom there is so much that we may with great advan- 
 tage imitate. Take for example, Barnabas, who is to 
 play a very conspicuous part in the latter part of the 
 book. The sacred narrative takes occasion to introduce 
 him at a proper time as one of those who, having a pos- 
 session, sold it for the common good. There was no 
 particular claim upon him to do this, but out of the love 
 of God, and the spirit of Christ which animated him, he 
 dispossessed himself of that which he owned and sold it 
 for the benefit of the church. We will omit, for the 
 time, any reference to the rest of the apostles, and follow 
 him through the book. See how intelligent and how 
 true be is ! He was evidently a man of good family and 
 of considerable property. He had a sister who had a 
 house in Jerusalem, and it was there that many of the 
 leading Christians came. Everybody knew Mary's house. 
 It was the headquarters of the Christian people in that 
 city. As a matter of course they used to have prayer- 
 meetings there, and when Peter was released from prison, 
 we learn from the sacred narrative that he went to the 
 house of Mary, the sister of Barnabas, where there was a 
 company of Christians assembled together. Even the 
 domestic that served in the house of Mary caught some- 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 25 
 
 thing of her mistress' spirit. I can almost picture the 
 girl as she stands looking through the lattice to see who 
 is there. She has heard people talk about Peter ; about 
 his being in prison ; and when she sees him there at the 
 door she goes in and tells the assembled company that 
 Peter is at the threshhold. They say, " Why the girl is 
 mad ! Peter is in prison !" But she is so earnest, and 
 reiterates her assertion with such solemnity that they go 
 and look, and behold, he is there ! 
 
 Now Mary has a son ; and his name is John, and his 
 surname is Mark. Barnabas, having no family of his 
 own, takes his nephew John Mark with him and pets 
 him as it were. Now John Mark had to give up a good 
 deal. He might have thought something in this wise : 
 " There are the possessions which my uncle owned that 
 might have been mine ; but he has given them up to the 
 church. I have no liking for this kind of life. It is not 
 by any means a pleasant kind of work ; there is a great 
 deal of inconvenience and some danger, and it is very 
 different from the comfort and luxury of my life in Jeru- 
 salem at my mother's house." And so he turns his 
 back, for the time being, upon the gospel work, and this 
 produces some sharp words between Barnabas and Paul, 
 and leads to a temporary separation. But then, as we 
 follow the sacred narrative, we find that this young man 
 comes back again — as the sons of good mothers nearly 
 always do when they go astray — into the path of loyalty 
 and obedience. And we find that Paul himself bears 
 evidence to the faithfulness of John Mark, and of his 
 personal affection for him. 
 
 J4* 
 
26 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, 
 
 There is another man mentioned in the narrative, of 
 a different sort entirely, and his name is Gamaliel. He 
 had the reputation of being a man of great wisdom. It 
 seems to some persons that on that occasion he uttered 
 words of profound wisdom in the advice which he gave 
 touching these men, when he said, " Let them alone. If 
 this cause be not of God, it will come to naught ; but if it 
 be of God, there is no use of your fighting against it." I 
 have never been able to see any indications of great wis- 
 dom and nobleness in that man : never. He was a man 
 learned in the law, a very eminent doctor of divinity in 
 the city, and he should have had very decided opinions 
 upon matters of this kind. He should have been ready 
 to give his opinion in favor of the right side, and against 
 the wrong side, if there was a wrong side : but he did not 
 do it. It seems to me that he exhibited a good deal of 
 mere human wisdom, a little approximating to what we 
 call " being on the fence." " If this cause be of God, it 
 will stand of itself." Is that a test of duty to you and to 
 me t Am I to remain undecided until I see whether a 
 cause will succeed or not, and then if it succeeds attach 
 myself to it } Are accessions of that kind worth any- 
 thing to a cause } Is that a proof of heroism, of devotion, 
 of self-sacrifice for the cause of duty .? And even if you 
 test his principle by the facts of history, it seems to me 
 that his principle will not stand the test. Am I to allege 
 that everything that is put down is proved not to belong 
 to the cause of Christ ? Why, they trampled out Prot- 
 estant reformation in Spain, and they trampled it out in 
 Italy, and they baptized it in blood and wellnigh tram- 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 27 
 
 pled it out in sunny France. Am I to say that the cause 
 of this Book is not God's cause because some earthly 
 power triumphs against it for a time ? Rather would it 
 seem to me to have been the duty of Gamaliel, learned 
 in the Scriptures, to have searched the Scriptures and 
 compared their testimony with the testimony of these 
 men ; and if he should be convinced that these men were 
 on the side of truth, and that this cause was of God, then 
 should he have been on their side fearlessly, whether the 
 cause should seem then to succeed, or whether it should 
 seem then to fail. 
 
 One thing further. Peter and Paul are the typical 
 men of the apostles. It is probably one of the meanings 
 of the statements made by Christ to Peter, " I will give 
 to thee the keys," that Peter has the honor of opening 
 the door of the proposed path to the Jews and then to 
 the Gentiles. These two men worked on parallel lines 
 for the most part, but sometimes they crossed each oth- 
 er's path in such a way as to show that they were work- 
 ing in the same service and were moved by the same 
 spirit. Peter seems to have been chosen to bring the 
 Gentiles into the Christian church. Paul was an apostle 
 to the Gentiles ; but in the providence of God Peter was 
 first chosen to carry the gospel to them. Peter was just 
 the man for bringing in the Gentiles. Peter subdues the 
 Gentiles and leads them along in the light of the truth. 
 
 I need not detain you by referring to the wonderful 
 wisdom and the wonderful grace that was shown to the 
 man who was to be first brought in. He was not a noto- 
 riously bad man ; he was not a disreputable man ; but he 
 
28 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 was a praying man, an almsgiving man, a man against 
 whom there was no possible objection but the one of 
 being a Gentile, The offence is made as light as pos- 
 sible so as not to offend too strongly the prejudices of 
 the Jews. The barrier between them is reduced, so to 
 speak, to a minimum, so as to make it as easy as pos- 
 sible for these Jews, who were Christians now, to over- 
 come their rigid prejudices and breathe the free air of 
 the unity, in which there is to be neither Jew nor Greek, 
 neither barbarian nor Scythian, nor bond nor free, but 
 all to be one in Jesus Christ. It will come naturally to 
 your mind to notice the beautiful and exquisite way in 
 which the Christian church grows up out of the Jewish — 
 not a new creation, but the old with a new form in a new 
 body; the old with a new and more glorious nature. 
 Brethren, we are the children of Abraham ; we sit down 
 with Abraham and Isaac and with Jacob. It is one of 
 those thoughts that sometimes come to me when I think 
 of heaven, what a glorious, inspiriting, and freshening 
 thing it will be to meet upon equal terms the grave fathers 
 of the olden time, to meet men like Isaiah and Jeremiah 
 and Daniel and Ezekiel and Hosea, washed by the same 
 blood, sanctified by the same Spirit, basking in the beams 
 of the same eternal light, and with the same ceaseless 
 and ever-rolling eternity of unbroken felicity in the pres- 
 ence of the common Lord ! I would like to realize this 
 conception in its earthly application ; I would make no 
 walls between the Old Testament and the New. I would 
 draw no line of demarkation between. I would study the 
 New Testament in the light of the Old, and the Old in 
 
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 29 
 
 the light of the New. I would have the Christian church 
 looked upon as the outgrowth of the olden time. The 
 temple indeed has no parallel of a material kind. But 
 the Temple of Zion to-day is more lovely because it is a 
 temple in which all true saints are stones ; these edi- 
 fices, indeed, in which we worship are analogous to the 
 synagogues of the Jews ; and our talking to the people, 
 our Scripture reading, our Scripture explanations, our 
 singing of hymns, our prayers in common, and even our 
 collections, are the literal and lineal descendants, as any 
 man will see who will take the trouble to examine into 
 the matter, of the ordinances and institutions and ways 
 of worship that were carried on in these Old Testament 
 synagogues. The temple was to be taken out of the 
 way. The priest was gradually going down, and the 
 prophet was rising up to prepare you and me, to prepare 
 the Jews and the Gentiles, and all the world for that dis- 
 pensation, the joys of which we inherit, and which Christ 
 bade his disciples to go preach to all nations, saying to 
 them, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
 the world." 
 
 May we be led to catch the spirit of this new dispen- 
 sation of which we are made heirs, so that we may be 
 true, faithful, and effective in the noble and blessed ser- 
 vice of the best of masters. 
 
THE 
 
 Epistle to the Galatians. 
 
 BY REV. WILLIAM M. TA YLOR, D. D., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE 
 
 Epistle to the Galatians. 
 
 Somewhere about three hundred years before the 
 birth of Christ a horde of adventurers from the western 
 extremity of Europe pushed their way eastward, crossed 
 the Hellespont, and overran the greater portion of Asia 
 Minor, where for a time the Syrian kings were compelled 
 to submit to them. At length, however, they were them- 
 selves overcome by Attains of Pergamus, who hemmed 
 them in within comparatively narrow limits. The terri- 
 tory to which they were thus confined was composed of 
 parts of Phrygia and Cappadocia, and came to be known 
 as Galatia, from the name " Gauls," by which the inva- 
 ders were called. There these western barbarians came 
 into contact with the original Phrygians and the Greek 
 settlers who were scattered among them, and were so 
 influenced by them that they adopted the manners and 
 customs of the Greeks, so that their land was sometimes 
 denominated Gallo-Graecia. In the conflict between 
 Antiochus and the Romans they took the side of the 
 former, and were easily subdued by the consul Manlius. 
 
4 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 But their conquerors allowed them for more than a cen- 
 tury and a half to retain their own form of government, 
 and it was not until the twenty-fifth year of the Chris- 
 tian era that they were reduced to a Roman province. 
 
 The population of this region was thus, at the time 
 when Paul wrote, of a composite description. First, 
 there were the descendants of the invading Gauls, who 
 retained those peculiarities which even till this day have 
 kept such persistent hold on all the branches of the 
 Celtic race. Next, there were the genuine Phrygians, 
 who were devoted to the idolatry of Bacchus and Cybele. 
 Then came the Greek colonists, who carried with them 
 their culture, their language, and their philosophy. To 
 these must be added a large Jewish element, for Antio- 
 chus had settled two thousand Jewish families in Lycao- 
 nia and Phrygia, and many more were probably attracted 
 to the three great cities — Pessinus, Ancyra, and Tavi- 
 um — by the facilities which their situation afforded for 
 commercial enterprise. Each of these classes brought 
 its own deposit and contributed it to the formation of 
 the national character ; but the dominating qualities 
 were those of the Gauls. The rugged external features 
 of the half-barbarous Europeans had yielded somewhat 
 to the enervating influence of the effeminate Phrygians, 
 but beneath the surface they were Celtic still, and were 
 distinguished by eager restlessness, shallow vivacity, 
 short-lived enthusiasm, and that unreliable fickleness 
 which Caesar found in his Gallic allies and antagonists. 
 Indeed, one cannot read this letter of Paul's, even in the 
 most superficial manner, without being reminded that 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 5 
 
 the Galatians were the kinsmen of those whom the great 
 Roman general has described as "fickle in taking up 
 plans, fond of innovating, and utterly untrustworthy." 
 The Jewish influence, so far as it went, was no doubt 
 wholesome, and the presence of his kinsmen amono- 
 the people gave the apostle the same point of contact 
 with the Gentile mind which he invariably improved in 
 other quarters ; but on the other hand, the Celtic fond- 
 ness for ritual observances served also to give the Juda- 
 izing party in the early church an advantage which they 
 were not slow to use against the gospel which Paul 
 preached. 
 
 So far as appears the churches in Galatia, which were 
 probably situated in the three principal cities which I 
 have already named, were founded by the apostle him- 
 self, and in the Acts of the Apostles there is special 
 mention of two visits which he made to this district. 
 The first (Acts 16:6) was in the course of his second 
 missionary journey, not long before he crossed from 
 Troas into Macedonia. He was suffering at the time 
 from some severe bodily aflfliction — probably from an 
 unusually acute attack of that chronic malady which he 
 has elsewhere called his " thorn in the flesh ;" for in his 
 letter he speaks of his having preached to them at first 
 "through infirmity of the flesh" (4 : 13). But the effect 
 of his weakness was to elicit the sympathy and kindness 
 of his hearers, for he represents them as neither despising 
 nor rejecting his trial, but as receiving him as if he had 
 been an angel of God ; nay, as if he had been Christ 
 himself. Such had been their eagerness to help him, 
 
6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 that he bears them record that if it had been possible they 
 would have plucked out their 'ownj eyes and given them 
 to him. His preaching among them had been a setting ] 
 forth before their eyes of Jesus Christ as evidently cru- 
 cified among them. And as Lightfoot has eloquently 
 said, " If we picture to ourselves the apostle as he ap- 
 peared before the Galatians, a friendless outcast, writhing 
 under the tortures of a painful malady, yet instant in 
 season and out of season, by turns denouncing and en- 
 treating, appealing to the agonies of a crucified Saviour, 
 perhaps also, as at Lystra, enforcing this appeal by some 
 striking miracle, we shall be at no loss to conceive how 
 the fervid temperament of the Gaul might have been 
 aroused, while yet only the surface of his spiritual con- 
 sciousness was ruffled."* Great enthusiasm apparently 
 prevailed among them ; they received, by the laying on 
 of apostolic hands, the gift of the Spirit and the power 
 of working miracles. They spake of the blessedness that 
 had come to them through his ministry. They started 
 off with eagerness and did run well, so that when he left 
 them his heart was full of joy, and he anticipated great 
 things from them in the future. But when, after an in- 
 terval of two years or more, he made them another visit 
 (Acts 18:23), he found that some evil influence had 
 been at work among them, and felt -it necessary to de- 
 nounce every one who preached to them another gospel 
 than that which he had proclaimed (i : 9) ; while at the 
 same time he told them some unpalatable truth, for which 
 he seems to fear that they held him as their enemy 
 
 * Lightfoot's Galatians, p. 24. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 7 
 
 (4 : 16). We know next to nothing of what was clone or 
 said by him on this occasion, but it is probable that he 
 went to Ephesus feeHng reassured concerning them, and 
 having the hope that he had established them in the 
 faith. Yet he would be naturally solicitous about their 
 movements, and would endeavor to keep up his knowledo-e 
 of them by every means in his power. Indeed it was the ^ 
 report of their virtual apostasy which struck out of him 
 the letter which we are now to consider, and which is in 
 some respects*the most remarkable of his writings. 
 
 Its genuineness is as good as universally admitted. 
 Only one even of the negative critics of Germany has 
 ventured to call its authorship in question, and his views 
 have been condemned by all. We have here, therefore, 
 an undoubtedly authentic letter, written some think from 
 Ephesus, about the year 54 ; and others, as Lightfoot, 
 Howson, and Alford, from Macedonia, about the year 57 
 or 58. At the very latest, therefore, we are only twenty- 
 nine years from the crucifixion of Christ; and as we 
 crowd into our modern years, by steamship, railroad, and 
 telegraph, so much more than they did in ancient times, 
 these twenty-nine years may be taken as representing 
 only fifteen years of this century. That is to say, we 
 have here a letter which is virtually as near to the date 
 of the Redeemer's death, as we are to-day to the battle of 
 Gettysburg. Let that fact be realized in all its signifi- 
 cance, and you will see how absurd all these theories are 
 which would account for the Gospels by the gradual ac- 
 cretion of mythical stories round some ideal nucleus. 
 Those myths, to which Niebuhr and others refer in sec- 
 
 15* 
 
8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 ular history, are the growth of ages ; but there is posi- 
 tively no opportunity for their formation in the brief in- 
 terval which elapsed between the resurrection and the 
 beginning of the Christian literature, even if the epoch 
 to which we are referring had been adapted to their pro- 
 duction. Here is a letter of a date that is less than thirty 
 years removed from the death and resurrection of Christ ; 
 it is the undoubted production of one of the most intel- 
 lectual men of his own or any other age ; and it has come 
 to us virtually as he wrote it ; yet we couid easily bring 
 out of it all the great facts and doctrines of the gospel : 
 so that the mythical theory is thereby demonstrated to 
 be a palpable impossibility. 
 
 The occasion on which this letter was written, as we 
 have already hinted, was the receipt of intelligence by 
 the apostle to the effect that the Galatian converts had 
 fallen from their belief in salvation by grace, through 
 faith in Jesus Christ, and had submitted to the Jewish 
 rite of circumcision on the alleged ground that it was 
 essential to their acceptance with God. This had been 
 brought about by the agency of false teachers from Je- 
 rusalem, who pretended to speak as the messengers of 
 the apostles ; and from the specification by Paul of one 
 particular troubler (5 : 10), it is probable that there was 
 one individual among them who made his antagonism 
 peculiarly prominent, and was, as we might say, a ring- 
 leader in the revolt against his instructions. But, who- 
 ever they were, they went most insidiously to work, for 
 they began by endeavoring to undermine the apostolic 
 character and authority of Paul. They represented that 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 9 
 
 he was subordinate to James, Peter, and John, and that 
 these pillars of the church were irreconcilably opposed 
 to his teachings ; and, working upon the fears and foi- 
 bles of the people, they drew them away in large num- 
 bers from the simplicity of the gospel. The apostasy 
 was as sudden and as enthusiastic as their original con- 
 version had been. It seemed to the apostle almost as if 
 they had been spellbound by some evil influence ; and as 
 he heard the news of it there was a strange commingling 
 and contending of opposing feelings within his heart. 
 Indignation at the troublers ; sorrow, surprise, and dis- 
 pleasure, at the conduct of his old friends ; yearnings 
 after their return, interblended with dissatisfaction at 
 their departure from the faith ; scorn at the accusations 
 which had been brought against himself, and deepest 
 anguish at the dishonor which had been done to Christ — 
 all were simultaneously at work within him. Out of this 
 tumult of emotions the Epistle to the Galatians was 
 born ; and as we can trace the marks of volcanic fires on 
 the rocks which some great convulsion has upheaved, so 
 we can clearly discern the effects of Paul's inner feelings 
 in the style and argument which he has employed. It 
 has a burning vehemence peculiar to itself. The " ar- 
 rows of its thoughts" are " headed and winged with 
 flame." It is characterized by passionate energy, scath- 
 ing invective, rapid movement, parental tenderness, and 
 condensed power. It is logic on fire, and its conclusions 
 scorch those who refuse to be convinced. As Douglas 
 of Cavers has admirably said, " The mind of Paul [in it] 
 is rapid as the lightning, and yet strikes, by its zigzag 
 
lo THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 impetuosity, every projecting point that approaches its 
 path ; and, still undelayed by these deflections, attains 
 instantaneously the goal." The sternness of its reproof, 
 however, as many passages in it conclusively prove, was 
 but the other side of love ; and even its personal refer- 
 ences are to be accounted for by his longing for the re- 
 turn of those who had gone back, by his zeal for the 
 purity of the gospel, and by his enthusiastic devotion to 
 the cause of Christian liberty. 
 
 In the order of the development of Christian doctrine, 
 the Epistle to the Galatians stands midway between the 
 second letter to the Corinthians and the letter to the 
 Romans. Indeed, as Lightfoot has conclusively estab- 
 lished, there is the same connection between the Epistles 
 to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans, that there is 
 between those which have been called the Epistles of the 
 Imprisonment. They constitute a group, and they reach 
 their climax in that greatest of all our apostle's writings, 
 which may be styled a treatise rather than a letter. In 
 the second letter to the Corinthians we have a personal 
 vindication similar to that which makes so conspicuous 
 a feature of the letter to the Galatians ; in both we have 
 the same indignant denunciation of his antagonists, with 
 the same concern for the honor of the Gospel and for the 
 restoration of the fallen ; while in the Epistle to the 
 Romans we have the full elaboration of the argument 
 which is briefly epitomized in that to the Galatians. Or 
 as Lightfoot has expressed it in his own clean-cut fashion, 
 " To the Galatians the apostle flashes out in indignant 
 remonstrance the first eager thoughts kindled by his zeal 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. ii 
 
 for the Gospel striking suddenly against a stubborn form 
 of Judaism. To the Romans he writes at leisure, under 
 no pressure of circumstances, in the face of no direct 
 antagonism, explaining, completing, extending the teach- 
 ings of the earlier letter, by giving it a double edge 
 against Jew and Gentile alike. The matter which in the 
 one Epistle is personal and fragmentary, elicited by the 
 special needs of an individual church, is in the other 
 generalized and arranged so as to form a comprehensive 
 and systematic treatise."* 
 
 Proceeding now to the analysis of the letter itself, we 
 find that it may be easily divided into three parts : the 
 Pei'sonaly the Doctrinal, and the Practical. 
 
 The Personal portion extends to the close of the sec. 
 ond chapter, and is devoted to an establishment of his 
 apostolical authority. So eager is he to get at his theme, 
 that in the very salutation he calls himself an apostle, 
 " not of man, neither by men," that is, not of men's ap- 
 pointment, nor even of the appointment of Jesus through 
 any human instrumentality, but designated directly and 
 immediately by the Lord Jesus himself. And he proceeds 
 to the establishment of these assertions by affirming that 
 after his conversion he had no communication whatever 
 with any of the apostles for three years ; because he went 
 immediately to Arabia, and after a while returned to Da- 
 mascus, from which, at the end of the period I have just 
 named, he went to Jerusalem. But even then he had no 
 opportunity of receiving any commission, for he was only 
 fifteen days with Peter, and he saw none of the other 
 
 * Lightfoot's Galatians, p. 49. 
 
12 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 apostles save James, the Lord's brother. Indeed, so brief 
 was his sojourn, that he was unknown by face to the 
 churches of Judaea. The only other occasion on which 
 at Jerusalem he came into contact with any of the apos- 
 tles was at the meeting of what is styled the Council of 
 Jerusalem. He had indeed with Barnabas, as we know 
 from the narrative in the Acts, been at the Holy City 
 with offerings for the poor saints in the interval between 
 those two visits to which he here refers ; but that was in 
 the very heat of the Herodian persecution, when in all 
 likelihood the apostles were absent, and he himself made 
 a very limited stay ; therefore, as it is to his purpose only 
 to mention his personal interviews with the pillars of the 
 church, he leaves that altogether out of the account, that 
 he might give prominence to the fact that for fourteen 
 years he had been preaching continuously, recognized 
 and unchallenged as an apostle, though he had only spent 
 fifteen days with Peter. 
 
 It may be regarded by some persons as a difficulty 
 that Paul affirms in this letter that he went up at this time 
 to Jerusalem by revelation, whereas in the narrative in 
 the Acts it is alleged that he and Barnabas, with certain 
 others, were deputed by the church at Antioch to consult 
 the apostles and elders on the circumcision controversy 
 which had just arisen. But to this the answer is obvious, 
 for the journey might be both "by revelation" and by 
 the appointment of the church, since the revelation might 
 be given either directly to the church, or to Paul himself 
 after the action of the church, for the purpose of remov- 
 ing any doubt which he might have as to the propriety 
 
THE EPIS7XE TO THE GALATIANS, 13 
 
 of the proceeding. We have here one of a class of cases 
 in which the addition in one account of some particular 
 that is unmentioned in another is neither a contradiction 
 nor a discrepancy. A week or two ago, when I returned 
 to my home from the Sabbath evening service in my 
 church, I was told of a great fire which was raging in 
 Twenty-third street in this city; and when I inquired 
 into its character, I was informed by a member of my 
 family that the first account she received from a passer- 
 by was that it was a chair-factory ; the second, from an- 
 other casual informant, was, that it was an armory ; and 
 the third, from still another witness, was, that it was a 
 church, and she did not know which to believe ; but 
 when I opened my newspaper on the following morning, 
 I found that it had been all the three, and that even if 
 there had been a fourth report that two churches had 
 been destroyed, that also would have been accurate. 
 Now a case like that, occurring at one's own doorstep, 
 is a complete vindication of the harmonizing principle 
 which we have here adopted, and which permits us to 
 believe that Paul went to Jerusalem by the appointment 
 of the brethren of the church at Antioch, fortified and 
 confirmed by a direct revelation to himself from the 
 Lord. 
 
 Now on this visit two things occurred, which proved 
 the independent apostleship of Paul, and his coordinate 
 authority with James, Cephas, and John. The first was 
 his refusal to circumcise Titus, a Gentile Christian, who 
 was one of his companions. The Judaizing party in- 
 sisted that this Greek should be subjected to the Abra- 
 
14 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 hamic rite, as a thing essential to his salvation and his 
 standing in the Christian church ; but Paul " gave place 
 to them by subjection, no, not for an hour." But so far 
 from being repudiated by the other apostles for this 
 action, he was, in a private interview which he had with 
 them, distinctly recognized by them as coordinate with 
 themselves, and they came to an understanding with him 
 that he should go to the Gentiles, while they should con- 
 tinue to work among the Jews ; both alike honoring the 
 grace that was given to them, and giving to each other 
 the right hand of fellowship. 
 
 It may seem strange that here Paul makes no refer- 
 ence to the public deliberations of the Council, or to the 
 decree which was adopted by it, and which, specifying a 
 few things from which the Gentiles were to keep them- 
 selves, yet left them free from the yoke of the Jewish law 
 as a whole. But the decree was the determination of 
 the church, speaking through the apostles and elders and 
 brethren ; and Paul is arguing here throughout on his 
 own official standing and position ; therefore he keeps 
 himself rigidly to the matter in hand, and suffers no side 
 issue to be raised. 
 
 For the same reason it is that, passing all other 
 things, he fixes attention next on his contention with 
 Peter. From the account here given, it would appear 
 that, after the discussion in the assembly at Jerusalem, 
 in which it will be remembered that he took the ex- 
 tremely liberal side, and gave his voice for leaving the 
 Gentiles perfectly free from the yoke of the law, Peter 
 went down to Antioch. On his first arrival, and proba- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 15 
 
 bly with the view of showing that he was in full accord 
 in every respect with Paul, he ate with the Gentiles with- 
 out scruple. After a while, however, certain Jews came 
 from James — that is, not necessarily commissioned by 
 James, but from Jerusalem, the place where James was — 
 and then, fearing them that " were of the circumcision," j 
 Peter withdrew and separated himself. The influence of 
 his example was so serious, that all the Jews went after 
 him, and even Barnabas was carried away with the cur- 
 rent. We can readily understand the case, especially 
 when we remember that with all his admirable qualities, 
 Peter was too much a man of impulse, and went fre- 
 quently from one extreme to another. That scene with 
 the Master upon the lake was typical of the elder son of 
 Jonas throughout his career. He was always the first to 
 start out over a sea of difficulties to meet his Lord, but 
 often, ere he reached Him, his fears overmastered his 
 faith, and he began to sink. It certainly was so in this 
 instance. At first he braved all opposition and despised 
 all prejudice ; but the men from Jerusalem got round 
 him, and wrought upon his fears. They represented, 
 perhaps, that a great outcry would be made against his 
 conduct by his friends in the Holy City ; that the course 
 which he was taking would create controversy and de- 
 velop antagonism ; that it would seriously interfere with 
 his comfort and mar his usefulness, and that if he had any 
 regard for his own happiness, he should at once retrace 
 his steps. Thus they prevailed upon him to do as they 
 desired. But in Paul's estimation this conduct was dis- 
 simulation. He did not mean to allege, indeed, that Peter 
 
 i3 
 
1 6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 designed to deceive others, for he imputes no motives 
 But he indicates that Peter's action was dissimulation, in 
 the hteral sense of the word, that is, an appearance of 
 being what he really was not. He had not changed his 
 opinions. He was as sound in the faith as he had ever 
 been. But what Paul complained of was, that his altera- 
 tion of his conduct at that particular juncture was such 
 as to convey the impression that he had changed his con- 
 victions ; and feeling that something should be done to 
 counteract the evil which would otherwise result, he went 
 directly to his friend and publicly exposed the inconsist- 
 ency of which he had publicly been guilty. 
 
 Let it be clearly understood therefore, that Peter's 
 error was not one of doctrine, but of practice. Hence, 
 they are entirely at fault who bring up this difference 
 between these two apostles as if it disproved the inspira- 
 tion of either or of both. Inspiration is one thing, 
 sanctification is another. Both indeed are the effects of 
 the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. In the one He 
 employs the powers of the mind in the communication 
 of truth to others : in the other He operates on them 
 in the formation of the individual's own character. 
 There may be inspiration without sanctification, as in 
 the case of such a one as Balaam ; and there may be 
 sanctification without inspiration, as in the case of ordi- 
 nary believers. In respect of inspiration the two apostles 
 were upon an equality, and the sermons and epistles of 
 Peter are in perfect harmony with the discourses and 
 letters of Paul. But in respect of sanctification they 
 were different. Each had his own distinctive excellcn- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 17 
 
 ces, and each his own characteristic defects. One of 
 the failings of Peter, as we have seen, was a hasty im- 
 pulsiveness, which sometimes made him the first in 
 noble daring, and occasionally led him to act with start- 
 ling inconsistency. But his convictions were right ; 
 and it was his knowledge of that fact that led Paul to 
 expostulate with him in the address which is here epit- 
 omized, and which presents the finest possible combina- 
 tion of firmness with delicacy, and of faithfulness with 
 affection. It would well repay the most minute consid- 
 eration ; but I must be content with setting before you 
 the substance of the appeal which it makes, and while I 
 do so you will perceive that Paul by introducing it here 
 is at once vindicating his own apostleship, and presenting 
 a most cogent argument against the reasoning of the 
 Judaizers, which it is the main design of this letter to 
 refute. Fitly therefore, does it form the point of transi- 
 tion from the personal to the doctrinal section of the 
 Epistle. 
 
 I! is something like the following : If you who are a 
 Jew by birth, and therefore have been brought up under 
 the law of Moses, feel yourself at liberty to disregard its 
 prohibitions and to live as you were doing a little while 
 ago after the manner of the Gentiles, it is absurd in you 
 to oblige the Gentiles to conform in everything to the 
 Mosaic institutes. You do not, indeed, insist on that 
 in so many words ; but still the natural inference from 
 your present withdrawal from the Gentile Christians, is 
 that you have now come to believe that circumcision is 
 essential to salvation. For this is not a case of conform- 
 
1 8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 ing to the wishes of a weak brother ; it is a complying 
 with the demands of those who say " Except ye be cir- 
 cumcised after the manner of Moses, ye can not be saved." 
 Now observe how your conduct affects the fundamental 
 i:)rinciples of the gospel. We who are Jews, having be- 
 come convinced that we could not be justified by the 
 works of the law, have sought salvation through faith in 
 Christ ; but if in so doing we are after all found to be 
 transgressors, because we have wilfully neglected the 
 law as an appointed means of salvation, then it must 
 follow that Christ, who taught us to neglect it in that 
 relation, has been to us the minister of sin. That is a 
 conclusion, from which of course you will shrink with 
 horror ; still you must be prepared to face it, or you 
 must admit that by your present conduct you have made 
 yourself a transgressor. There is transgression some- 
 where. If you were wrong before in eating with the 
 Gentiles, then as you did that under the direct command 
 of the Lord given to you in a vision, he Avas to you the 
 minister of sin. But if you were right before, then you 
 are wrong now, and you are yourself the transgressor. 
 If you were right in destroying then it is clear that you 
 make yourself a transgressor by building up again the 
 things which you had formally thrown down. There is 
 no other alternative. By your present conduct you are 
 either making Christ the minister of sin, or making your- 
 self a transgressor ; and when the matter is put thus, I 
 know well what will be your answer. For indeed your 
 experience and my own are here identical, and I through 
 the law am dead to the law. Its condemnation killed 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 19 
 
 me. But Christ killed it ; and delivered me, yet not to 
 lawlessness but rather to love, that I might live unto 
 God ; and such is my union to him, that I am crucified 
 with him, yet I live, but after all it is not I that live, but 
 he that liveth in me. Thus I do not make the grace of 
 God unnecessary, as I certainly should do if I were to go 
 back to the law for salvation ; for if it were possible to 
 obtain righteousness by the law, then there was no need 
 for the death of Christ, and he was sacrificed in vain. 
 
 There is nothing said anywhere as to how Peter re- 
 ceived this admonition ; but from what we know of his 
 character and temperament, we may conclude that he 
 frankly owned his error ; and we are sure that no root of 
 bitterness was left by it to spring up and trouble the heart 
 of the apostle of the circumcision, for long after he writes 
 of his censor as " our beloved brother Paul." 
 
 The sum of this personal apologia then is, that after 
 his conversion Paul received no instruction in the gospel 
 from any of the apostles, and was not commissioned by 
 men ; that he had only seen Peter for fifteen days in 
 fourteen years — and that three years after he had been 
 commissioned by Christ himself; that when he had met 
 the apostles in conference at Jerusalem, he had done so 
 as an equal ; and that at Antioch he had stood up suc- 
 cessfully against the leading apostle, in defence of the 
 liberty of the Gospel ; therefore it could not be said with 
 any truth, that he was a whit behind the very chiefest 
 apostles. 
 
 But before proceeding to the second division of the 
 Epistle, it may be well to see how many facts in the his- 
 
 iG 
 
20 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 tory of Paul, additional to those which are elsewhere 
 furnished to us, are brought out here ; and to mark how, 
 though incidentally mentioned in the course of this 
 argument, they fit into the other records, in a manner 
 which proves at once the independence of the separate 
 narratives and the truthfulness of them both. Perhaps 
 no portion of Paley's admirable work (Horas Paulinse) 
 is so rich in undesigned coincidences as that which 
 he has devoted to this Epistle ; and as a specimen of 
 the argument of a book which I fear is too much neg- 
 lected in these days, but which is of inestimable and 
 perennial value, I will direct your attention to one or 
 two of the points which he makes. We are indebted to 
 this letter for the information that Paul went from Da- 
 mascus into Arabia; now see how Paley makes this 
 establish the independence of the Acts and the Epistle, 
 in this convincing style : " If the narrative in the Acts 
 had been made up from the Epistle, it is impossible that 
 this journey should have been passed over in silence ; 
 if the Epistle had been composed out of what the author 
 had read of Paul's history in the Acts, it is unaccount- 
 able that it should have been inserted." Bearing in 
 mind then this evidence of the fact that these two wri- 
 tings, the Acts and the Epistles, come from independent 
 sources, see how they confirm each other. The history 
 tells us that Paul was " brought up at the feet of Gama- 
 liel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the 
 law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God ;" the 
 Epistle says, " I profited in the Jews' religion above 
 many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceed- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 21 
 
 ingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers." The his- 
 tory affirms that " Saul made havoc in the church ;" in 
 the Epistle he confesses " that beyond measure he per- 
 secuted the church and wasted it." The history records 
 that he was converted on the way to Damascus and went 
 immediately into that city; the Epistle says, "I went 
 into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus." Now 
 if you recollect that in the Epistle Damascus has not 
 been before named, and is only now brought in incident- 
 tally to give an accurate description of his return journey, 
 you will agree with Paley when he says, " Nothing can 
 be more like simplicity and undesignedness than this." 
 Again the shortness of Paul's stay with Peter in Jerusa- 
 alem fits in with the words which were heard by Paul 
 while he was praying in the temple and which the his- 
 torian has preserved: "Make haste! get thee quickly out 
 of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony con- 
 cerning me." Thus the words of one book are seen to be 
 in incidental conformity with a specification delivered in 
 another book, "a species of consistency," says Paley, 
 " not, I think, usually found in fabulous relations." 
 
 The Doctrinal division of the Epistle begins with the 
 opening of the third chapter, and extends to the close of 
 the fourth ; and the transition to it is made both natu- 
 rally and easily from the experimental reference with 
 which the first portion concludes. The apostle has 
 affirmed that if righteousness come by the law, Christ is 
 dead in vain ; and, remembering with what distinctness he 
 had set the Lord before their eyes as evidently crucified 
 among them, he appeals to them whether they had re- 
 
2 2 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 ceived the miraculous gifts of the Spirit in connection 
 with their submission to the law, or with the hearing of 
 faith. He knew what their answer must be ; for their 
 beginning had been in the spirit ; but if now they were 
 to be made perfect by the fiesh, then over and above the 
 absurdity of such an anti-climax they stultified them- 
 selves, for all the persecutions which they had endured 
 at the hands of the Jews had been in vain, and they had 
 made themselves martyrs by mistake. Then, as in a 
 later day Luther went behind the Fathers who were 
 quoted in support of justification by works, to the grand- 
 fathers, as he called the apostles, who proclaimed justi- 
 fication by faith, so Paul here goes back beyond the law 
 to Abraham, who " believed God and it was accounted 
 unto him for righteousness," and affirms that the true 
 spiritual descendants of Abraham are those who are 
 seeking salvation by faith. He alleges that the promise 
 made to Abraham, " in thee shall all nations be blessed," 
 was the gospel in germ ; that thus the gospel came 
 before the law, and that its blessing now, as in the days 
 of Abraham, was to be obtained through faith. It was 
 indeed true that the law was not of faith ; for its founda- 
 tion principle was this : " The man that doeth them shall 
 live in them." But there was no salvation in that ; for 
 they could not keep the precepts of the law, and so the 
 only effect of their attempt would be to bring them 
 under its curse ; for it is written, *' Cursed is every one 
 that continueth not in all things that are written in the 
 book of the law to do them." Indeed, it was to redeem 
 us from that curse that Christ had condescended to be 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 23 
 
 made a curse for us in giving himself up to crucifixion 
 on our behalf, and thus it comes to pass that the bless- 
 ing of Abraham is enjoyed by the Gentiles through Jesus 
 Christ ; for they receive the promise of the Spirit 
 through faith. 
 
 To all this it might perhaps be answered, that as 
 the law came after the promise it virtually annulled it ; 
 but there is no force in that objection, for the covenant of 
 God stands through all generations, and is not affected 
 by anything that came after it ; and, as that covenant 
 gave the inheritance by promise, the law could not take 
 it back. The law was given by angels in the hand of a 
 mediator, even Moses, who represented not only the 
 people before God, but also God before the people : for 
 a mediator is not a mediator of one, but of two parties ; 
 and as in this case one of the parties is God, who is un- 
 changeably faithful to all his promises, it follows that 
 the law, to the covenant of which he was one of the 
 parties, could not be a retraction of the promise. 
 
 But if this be so, some one will ask what was the use 
 of the law } It was added, replies Paul, because of the 
 liability of the people to transgressions, and its purpose 
 was to keep them under due restraint until the coming 
 of that seed of whom God in the promise spake to 
 Abraham. The law was the paedagogue, or slave that 
 kept the child in its minority under strict surveillance 
 until the coming of Christ ; but when Christ came, the 
 office of the paedagogue was at an end, and the boy 
 passed from minority to manhood, from the position of a 
 child under a guardian to that of a full-grown son. The 
 
24 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 law served for a disciplinary restraint until Christ came ; 
 but when he appeared the restraint was thrown down ; 
 and Jews and Gentiles alike were introduced by him into 
 the status of full-grown sons of God, or into what the 
 apostle has elsewhere called " the glorious liberty of the 
 children of God" by faith. Thus speaking from the Jew- 
 ish standpoint, to go back from the gospel to the, law was 
 as foolish as it would be for the heir who had attained 
 full possession of a large inheritance at his majority, to 
 abjure it and the liberty of its enjoyment, and voluntarily 
 return to the position of a minor, by placing himself 
 under his old tutors and governors. And though the 
 Gentiles among them had never come under the Jewish 
 law, yet the same principles applied to their old heathen- 
 ism, which, however degraded it had been, was, equally 
 with Judaism, a system of restraint, and had this in com- 
 mon with it, that, as a ritual, it was made up of precepts 
 and ordinances, and so was a system of law as opposed 
 to grace. Therefore, even for those of them who had 
 been Gentiles, the adoption of the Jewish law would be 
 a going back to a rudimentary bondage to elements 
 which, though far from being so rude and low as heathen- 
 ism was, were yet in themselves weak and beggarly as 
 every merely ritualistic system must be, now that Christ 
 has absorbed the spirituality that was in them all. 
 
 At this point of his argument the apostle breaks off 
 into an earnest and affectionate appeal to his readers in 
 which an effective contrast is drawn between their first 
 reception of him when he preached to them in weakness, 
 and their altered feelings toward him now that they 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 25 
 
 seemed to regard him as their enemy because he had 
 told them the truth. He affirms that his attachment to 
 them is unabated, and beseeches them, as his Uttle chil- 
 dren of whom he travailed in birth again until Christ be 
 formed in them, that they should return to their first love. 
 Then knowing the allegorical use which his antagonists 
 made of many portions of the law, he turned their own 
 weapons against themselves, by taking the history of 
 Isaac and Ishmael as an illustration both parabolical and 
 prophetical of the argument which he had just enforced. 
 The sons of Abraham were two : the one, Ishmael, was 
 of the bond woman Hagar, and was of the flesh ; the 
 other, Isaac, was of the free woman Sarah, and was by 
 promise ; but Ishmael and his mother were cast out and 
 Isaac and his mother were retained, according to the 
 command, " Cast out the bondwoman and her son ; for 
 the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son 
 of the free woman." Now the spiritual analogues to 
 these historical yet typical characters are as follows. 
 Hagar represents the Sinaitic covenant, that of the law, 
 and has her issue in the earthly Jerusalem, which is in 
 spiritual bondage with her children. Sarah represents 
 the covenant of promise, and issues in the heavenly Je- 
 rusalem, that city of which even now the Christian is a 
 denizen, and which is the home of spiritual freedom. 
 Thus the difference between Paul and the Judaizers was 
 that while they both alike traced their parentage to 
 Abraham, he claimed to be a son of the free woman and 
 they were the sons of the slave. He was a child of 
 promise, and they were children of the flesh ; and that 
 
26 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 accounted perfectly for their antagonism to him ; for just 
 as Ishmael mocked Sarah and Isaac and he that was 
 born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after 
 the spirit, even so it is now. Thus even their opposition 
 to him made it only the more apparent that he and his 
 adherents were not the children of the bondwoman but 
 of the free. 
 
 The argument of this portion of the Epistle turns on 
 the use of the law, and it is needful to a right under- 
 standing of it that we clearly perceive the meaning which 
 here belongs to the term " adoption," when it is said that 
 Christ came " to redeem them that were under the law 
 that we might receive the adoption of sons." Usually 
 adoption denotes the reception of a stranger into the 
 family as a son ; but here it is the elevation to the status 
 of full-grown sonship, of those who having been children 
 from the first, were up till that time under the charge 
 of tutors and governors ; and so the view which he gives 
 of the law is that of restraint, rather than of education. 
 It is true that elsewhere he speaks of the law as having 
 been of signal service in the religious training of the 
 people, and our translation, by giving the rendering here, 
 that the law was our schoolmaster " to bring tis to Christ,'* 
 would seem to favor the idea that he lays stress on that 
 aspect of it in this Epistle. But the office of the paeda- 
 gogue was one of control rather than of instruction, and 
 the proper translation, as is made evident from his con- 
 trast later on between the heir as a servant and as a son, 
 ought to be " the law was our paedagogue until Christ." 
 Hence, when Christ came the occupation of the law was 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 27 
 
 gone. There was no further need for its operation, and 
 they who were set free from it came under the higher 
 principle of love. They were absolved from the control 
 of minute restrictions, only however to give free play to 
 the strength of their filial affection as the full-grown 
 sons of God. 
 
 So when he proceeds to the Practical part of his let- 
 ter in the fifth chapter and bids his readers stand fast 
 in their liberty, he is careful to distinguish between lib- 
 erty and license; and warns them against using it for an 
 occasion to the flesh. He contrasts the works of the 
 flesh with the fruit of the Spirit ; and after an enumera- 
 ation of evils, each of which is in itself an indication that 
 the individual guilty of it is still carnally-minded, he 
 holds up to admiration the one grape-cluster of Christian 
 graces, which is the Eshcol earnest of the heavenly in- 
 heritance ; and the presence of which not in single vir- 
 tues, but in a group, is needed in order to authenticate it 
 as the result of the Spirit's work. 
 
 Then, after brief but pointed exhortations to mutual 
 burden-bearing, to liberality and to unflagging perseve- 
 rance, he sums up in a few comprehensive sentences, 
 each of which, like Luther's words long after, is in 
 itself a " half-battle." He bids them take note of his 
 affectionate solicitude for them, as manifested in the fact 
 that he had written to them, not through an amanuensis 
 as usual, but with his own hand ; and they might see 
 how much that effort cost him, when they looked upon 
 the large letters which, owing to his infirmity, he had 
 been compelled to make. He contrasts the conduct of 
 
 17 
 
28 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 the Judaizers, whose desire was only to glory in external 
 ordinances, with his absorbing purpose to glory only in 
 the cross of Christ. He asserts that the one grand in- 
 dispensable thing is, not to be circumcised, but to be 
 created anew in Christ Jesus. And alluding to the fact 
 that the ownership of a slave was attested by the brands 
 which had been burned into his flesh, he declares that 
 he carries with him the evidence of his apostleship in 
 the scars of persecution with which he was marked. 
 " From henceforth, let no man trouble me, for I bear 
 in my body the marks," or stigmata, "of the Lord Jesus." 
 Then, calling them once more by the endearing name 
 of " Brethren," he concludes as usual with a benedic- 
 tion. 
 
 Such is a brief analysis of this unique Epistle. We 
 cannot tell what effect it produced upon the churches to 
 whom it was primarily addressed. But many centuries 
 later, when the truths which it contends for had been 
 buried under the rites and ceremonies of the Papal 
 church, the exposition of this portion of Scripture by 
 Martin Luther was one of the most powerful agencies 
 in giving depth and breadth and permanence to the 
 Reformation with which the name of the German preach- 
 er is imperishably associated. And now in our times, 
 when many among us are seeking to give undue promi- 
 nence to ritual observances, the principles which it en- 
 forces have come again into importance, so that its study 
 is incumbent upon all who would make themselves men 
 who have " understanding of the times, to know what Is- 
 rael ought to do." For what is true of circumcision, which 
 
THE EPISTLE TV THE GALATIANS. 29 
 
 was the ordinance of the old covenant, is just as true of 
 baptism and the Lord's supper, which are the ordinances 
 of the new. Everything which in any degree would tend 
 to make the cross of Christ of non-effect ; everything 
 which would lead men to glory in an external rite, rather 
 than in the death of the Lord Jesus ; everything which 
 would exalt baptism and the Lord's Supper above that 
 faith which worketh by love, and make them of more 
 importauce than the new creation which is the result of 
 the work of God's Spirit upon the soul, is to be resisted 
 with an energy as intense and a zeal as vehement and 
 an earnestness as sublime as those which Paul manifest- 
 ed in the instance of the Galatian apostasy. When men, 
 anywhere, insist on something as essential to salvation, 
 other than that faith in Christ which has received the 
 promise of the Spirit, we are to give place by subjection, 
 no, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel may con- 
 tinue with us. Nay more ; if the inconsistency of one 
 who is recognized as a pillar of the church should seem 
 to lend the influence of his name to error, we are to with- 
 stand him to the face. We are to make the cross of 
 Christ the touchstone and test of every novelty in re- 
 ligion ; and if the necessity of that is repudiated, or its 
 efficiency denied, then no considerations of a personal 
 character are to prevent us from opposing the innova- 
 tor with all our might. The truth of the Gospel, and 
 the honor of the cross, are to be dearer to us than all 
 else ; and however tolerant we may be in regard to minor 
 matters, however much like Paul himself we may seek 
 to become " all things to all men," we are to be firm and 
 
30 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJANS. 
 
 resolute and uncompromising here — not scrupling even to 
 use the language of the apostle, " though we, or an angel 
 from heaven, preach any other gospel, let him be anathe- 
 ma." The danger of our day, unless I greatly misread 
 the indications of the spiritual barometer, lies just here. 
 In our zeal for liberality we are becoming latitudinarian, 
 and forgetting that there is a point where intolerance is 
 necessary in order to the very preservation of liberty. 
 This letter was written in the interests of freedom. Its 
 conclusion is, *' Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ 
 has made us free ;" and yet, for the very purpose of 
 maintaining that liberty, Paul here hurls his anathema 
 at the Judaizers' heads. Let us not forget, therefore, 
 that there is an intolerance in the Gospel as well a tol- 
 eration. We may, and we ought, to exercise the fullest 
 forbearance in regard to minor matters ; but there must 
 be no toleration of treason to the cross ; for the tolera- 
 tion of such treason is always treachery. I say not, 
 indeed, that all such errors should be put down by force. 
 God forbid. But I do say that they should be denounced 
 by every loyal servant of the Lord, and that the church 
 should absolve itself from all complicity with the errorists. 
 And though there be many who would cry out against 
 such a course as bigoted, I would rather, even in the in- 
 terests of freedom itself, have, if you choose to call it so, 
 the bigotry of Paul, than the indifference of him who 
 counts nothing essential, and who is "everything by 
 turns and nothing long." Luther was no foe to freedom ; 
 and in the proportion in which like him we are intoler- 
 ant of everything that compromises the honor of Christ 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 31 
 
 or the doctrine of his cross, we shall conserve and widen 
 the liberty which he did so much to secure. So let us 
 raise anew the shout of Paul, making it our motto, not 
 for the moment of enthusiasm merely, but for all our 
 lives. " God forbid that I should glory save in the cross 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified 
 unto me and I unto the world." 
 
 >7* 
 
THE 
 
 Epistle to the Philippians 
 
 BY REV. MARVIN R. VINCENT, D, D., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE 
 
 Epistle to the Philippians, 
 
 On a spring day in the year of our Lord 6i, the 
 crowd of idlers who usually were found lounging on the 
 quay at Puteoli might have been seen watching an ap^ 
 proaching vessel. The words, "An Alexandrian corn- 
 ship," passed from mouth to mouth. From the sheltered 
 nook in the north of the Bay of Naples, where lay Pute- 
 oli, the Liverpool of Rome, the loungers could see the 
 vessel as she came up between the island of Capri and 
 the Minervan cape, and would recognize her character 
 from her not striking her topsails as other vessels were 
 compelled to do on entering the bay. She swept past 
 the lighthouse on the end of the mole, of which seven- 
 teen arches may still be seen by the modern tourist ; and 
 as the throng buzzed round the landing-place, eager to 
 catch a sight of her passengers and to pick up scraps of 
 news from Africa, they met, passing to the shore, a cen- 
 turion and some soldiers having in charge prisoners for 
 Rome. Perhaps few noticed among these unfortunates 
 a somewhat undersized man with keen, aquiline features, 
 
4 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 an oval face shaded with gray hair, bushy eyebrows, 
 pointed beard, worn and travel-stained, as if from a long 
 and hard journey. 
 
 It was thus that the great apostle to the Gentiles 
 made his first appearance in Italy — a prisoner. Assault- 
 ed by the Jews at Jerusalem, Paul had put himself as a 
 Roman citizen under the protection of Claudius Lysias, 
 the commandant of the Roman garrison, and had been 
 sent by him to Felix, the procurator of Judaea, whose 
 headquarters were at Caesarea. 
 
 Here Paul had been detained for two years, appear- 
 insr meanwhile before Felix and his successor Festus, 
 and again before Herod Agrippa II., then king of Chal- 
 cis, during his complimentary visit to the new governor. 
 Festus having desired Paul to go back to Jerusalem and 
 be tried under his protection, Paul refused, falling back 
 on his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to the em- 
 peror. 
 
 The governor thus had no alternative but to send 
 him to Rome under guard. The journey was made by 
 sea, and involved the memorable shipwreck at Malta ; 
 and it is at the end of this journey that we now meet the 
 apostle at Puteoli. 
 
 Time forbids us to follow him along the Appian Way 
 to the metropolis. Once in Rome, he became the sub- 
 ject of "the law's delay." The official documents in his 
 case had probably been lost in the shipwreck, and it 
 would be long before duplicates could be obtained. The 
 prosecutor and witnesses had to be brought from Syria 
 to Italy, a tedious and perilous journey. Nero the em- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 5 
 
 peror was full of caprice, and so averse to business that 
 it was only at rare intervals that he could be persuaded 
 to hear a suit and pronounce a verdict. 
 
 Thus began another confinement of two years, yet 
 not a season of idleness, as we shall soon see ; and in 
 order that we may understand some of the points at 
 which Paul's activity was brought to bear, and to which 
 reference is made in the epistle under consideration, we 
 must glance at certain of the elements of Roman society 
 with which the apostle found himself in contact. 
 
 And, first, there were the Jews. In the twenty- 
 eighth chapter of Acts we are told that Paul, three days 
 after his arrival, called the chief of the Jews together, and 
 strove to disabuse them of the unfavorable impression 
 respecting himself which he naturally supposed that the 
 Asiatic Jews would have endeavored to create among 
 them in advance of his arrival ; and that, on a subse- 
 quent day, he defended and expounded the gospel in 
 their hearing. The Jews formed a very large and influ^ 
 ential community in Rome. In such numbers had they, 
 with other Orientals, poured into the city, that a contem- 
 porary poet represented their influx by the metaphor of 
 the Syrian river Orontes pouring itself into the Roman 
 Tiber. The draught upon the specie of the city, made 
 by the annual payment by each Jew of about twenty-five 
 cents towards the expenses of the temple, was so great 
 as to cause complaint. They were feared and hated, yet 
 they stood high in the favor of the government. Jewish 
 slaves and freedmen rose to influence in patrician house- 
 holds, and Jewish names are still found in the aristo- 
 
6 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS, 
 
 cratic burial-places on the Appian road. Their assem- 
 blies were countenanced, their temples received gifts 
 from the emperor, and they were admitted to share in 
 the public distribution of corn. Not only this, but their 
 faith became fashionable. The religious dilettanti of 
 Rome affected Judaism, and professed to honor the name 
 of Moses and the sacred books. Poppaea, Nero's con- 
 sort, than whom no viler creature ever disgraced a throne 
 or dishonored a home, was their patroness ; and so suc- 
 cessful were they in the work of proselyting Greeks and 
 Romans, that Seneca, Nero's tutor, said, " the Jewish 
 faith is now received on every hand. The conquered 
 have given laws to the conquerors." It was among these, 
 as we shall presently see, that the "envy and strife" and 
 the attempt "to add affliction" to Paul's bonds (1:15) 
 were chiefly nourished. From them came the " dogs," 
 the " evil workers," " the concision," to whom he alludes 
 in chap. 3:2. 
 
 2d. There were the Christians. In ch. i : 14 refer- 
 ence is made to " the brethren," and in 4 : 22 to " the 
 saints," especially " they of Caesar's household." In Acts 
 28 : 14 we read that, on landing at Puteoli, on his way to 
 Rome, the apostle found a Christian community evident- 
 ly in intimate relations with the church at Rome, since 
 they communicated Paul's arrival to it, and called out 
 the deputation which met him at Appii Forum. There 
 was, then, a church at Rome when Paul arrived there ; 
 not organized, indeed, but numerous, since, three years 
 before his arrival, he had addressed to the Roman Chris- 
 tians the most important of his EpistleS; in which he 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIFFIANS. 7 
 
 sends salutations to more persons than in any other. 
 We know very little about its members, but the pre- 
 sumption is that they belonged mostly to lower social 
 grades, yet were not for that reason altogether without 
 influence. Every student of Roman history knows what 
 a large and often terrible part was played by petted ser- ^ 
 vants of the imperial households, and what multitudes 
 of them were required not only to minister to the sensu- 
 ality and luxury of their royal masters, but also to serve 
 their intellectual demands. Hence among the servants, 
 the freedmen, even the slaves of Caesar's household, one 
 might easily come into contact with secretaries, profes- 
 sors, physicians, and philosophers. Singularly enough 
 there was discovered some years since a burying- place 
 belonging to the emperor just preceding Nero, a sepul- 
 chre of the kind known as a " columbarium," or dovecot, 
 because its walls were lined with pigeon-holes for the 
 reception of little caskets containing the ashes of the 
 dead. In this were found many of the identical names 
 mentioned in the salutations of the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans : Amplias, Urbanus, Stachys, Tryphasna, and Try- 
 phosa, with others. " If," as Mr. Merivale remarks, 
 " these are indeed the very individuals to whom he sends 
 his salutations, we are authorized to conclude that the 
 faith as known at Rome before his own arrival there had 
 already made its way within the precincts of the palace 
 itself." The gospel was already heard among them " of 
 Caesar's household." 
 
 3d. There was the Pr^torian Guard. In the 
 
 thirteenth verse of the first chapter, we read or ought to 
 
 18 
 
8 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPFIANS, 
 
 read, "my bonds in Christ are manifest throughout the 
 praetorian guard and to all others." The scene of Paul's 
 confinement is a matter of conjecture. It may have been 
 the camp of the praetorian guards, to the northeast of 
 the city, outside the walls, which was large enough to 
 have contained within its precincts lodgings for prisoners 
 under military custody; so that Paul could dwell, as we 
 are told he did, (Acts 28:30,) in "his own hired house," 
 and yet have been within the camp. These praetorians 
 formed the imperial guard. They were picked men, ten 
 thousand in number, and all of Italian birth. Their pay 
 was higher and their privileges greater than those of 
 other troops. Their power was enormous and dangerous. 
 Already they held the empire in their hands, and the 
 day came at last when, having murdered their emperor, 
 they put the empire of the world up at auction on the 
 city wall and knocked it down to the highest bidder. 
 Into the camp of these haughty, licentious troops the 
 apostle was thrown, and as each soldier took his turn in 
 guarding him, he was chained to his hand. Hence 
 comes his frequent mention of his ''bonds" in these 
 Epistles, as in Eph. 6 : 20, where he says " I am an ambas- 
 sador in bonds," using the word which means the coup- 
 ling chain. Relieving one another in the duty of mount- 
 ing guard, the members of the corps would come suc- 
 cessively into personal contact with the apostle; so that 
 it is easy to understand how he could say to the Philip- 
 pians that his bonds had "borne witness to the gospel 
 throughout the Imperial guard.." 
 
 We have thus the Roman setting to these four 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 9 
 
 Epistles, to which let us now turn our attention. These 
 four Epistles — to the Colossians, Philippians, Ephesians, 
 and Philemon — are perhaps the richest fruit of Paul's 
 first imprisonment. No serious question arises as to 
 their authorship, or as to the place of their composition. 
 They are generally conceded to be Paul's, and to have 
 been written at Rome. A very few critics have vainly 
 endeavored to show that they were composed at Caesarea 
 during the apostle's two years* confinement. 
 
 On the order of their composition, however, a ques- 
 tion of some nicety arises. It is generally conceded that 
 Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, belong together, 
 being written and despatched about the same time-; 
 while Philippians stands by itself. The question is 
 whether these three were first written, or Philippians. 
 The majority of critics adopt the opinion which places 
 Philippians last, basing it on the following arguments. 
 
 1. That the ^ogress of the gospel indicated in the 
 Epistle would require a longer time than would be allowed 
 if the Epistle were written early in the imprisonment. — 
 
 But we have already seen that Yz}A found a strong body <:2jiarfd 
 of Christians on his arrival. '^'^ ""~" A^^^/^^* '^ 
 
 2. That the names of Paul's associates, Luke and ' 
 Aristarchus, mentioned in the salutations in Colossians 
 and Philemon, are not mentioned in Philippians, thus 
 showing that they had left Rome before the Epistle to 
 the Philippians was written. — But, if this proves the 
 later composition of Philippians, why does it not equally ^ 
 prove the later composition of Ephesians, since neither /W-^*-<A>^- 
 of those names occurs there } Or, to take another case, *" -^ ""^^ 
 
lo THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 why is Jesus Justus, who is saluted in Colossians, not 
 saluted in Philemon, which was written at the same time, 
 sent to the same place, and carried by the same messen- 
 ger? The matter is sufficiently explained by the fact 
 that the salutations in Philippians 2SQ, general ^ "all the 
 saints," which may have included these names, while 
 those in the others are special. 
 
 3. That the numerous journeys between Rome and 
 Philippi, to announce the apostle's captivity, to carry the 
 Philippians' contribution to Paul, to announce the sick- 
 ness of Epaphroditus, and again to tell Epaphroditus that 
 the Philippians had heard of his sickness, required more 
 time than the early composition of the Epistle would 
 \ cx^yx. K.V' allow. — But it is not proved that these four journeys were 
 \^(^hT made or were necessary; and if they were, the time 
 tc</ y^%y^/'> required in going between the two places was a little 
 ;^/-6l^^>. less than a month. It has been supposed by some that 
 y ^^«^v<, Aristarchus left the vessel at Myra, and went to his 
 *^ • home in Macedonia before going to Rome; in which 
 case he could have announced to the Philippians the 
 apostle's journey to Rome, and Epaphroditus might 
 have left at once and have met Paul on his arrival in 
 Rome. 
 
 JO - /^Cr^' '^' ^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^"^ ^^ ^^^ Philippian Epistle is 
 
 ^/.^v^^^jT^more despondent than that of the others; indicating the 
 
 :-^.J"<6* . depression attending a long confinement. — On the con- 
 
 Ih^ <# trary the Philippian Epistle is perhaps, on the whole, the 
 
 ^<>^^^^-^ ^' most cheery of all Paul's writings. Even his possible 
 
 sufferings are contemplated with joyful hope. Look, 
 
 for instance, at 1:21, 22. So marked is this that Bengel, 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPFIANS. ii 
 
 a commentator who knows how to compress a great deal 
 into a word, says, "The sum of the Epistle is, 'I rejoice, 
 do ye rejoice.' " 
 
 Thus, as it seems to me, the evidences fail to substan- 
 tiate the later date of the Epistle, while, on the other 
 hand, its resemblance in style and contents to the earlier 
 group of the Epistles, especially Romans, and the fact 
 that Ephesians and Colossians both deal with advanced 
 forms of error, and assume a larger development of the 
 church than appears in Philippians, seem to indicate that 
 Ephesians and Colossians ought to be placed as late as 
 possible, and Philippians as early as possible. I there- 
 fore follow the minority in placing Philippians first in- 
 stead of last ; somewhere about 6r or 62 a. d.* 
 
 Let us now try and get some idea of the place and 
 people to which this Epistle is addressed. 
 
 Philippi was in Macedonia. Travellers by sea, like 
 Paul, landed at Neapolis, and then travelled ten miles 
 over the mountains along the Roman highway to Phi- 
 lippi. 
 
 The city commanded the high road between Europe 
 and Asia. It was a Roman colony ; or, in other words, 
 a little Rome, in which every feature of the parent civili- 
 zation was reproduced as minutely as possible. The civil 
 and military organization, the language, the names of the 
 magistrates, were the same as at Rome. As we read the 
 story of Paul's visit as told by Luke, we discover a Roman 
 sentiment in the protest of the officers against the recep- 
 
 * I have followed Professor Lightfoot, both in the argument and in 
 the conclusion ; but have carefully gone over the ground with other 
 authorities, and have reached his conclusion independently. 
 
 18* 
 
12 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 tion of strange customs in religion. It is because Paul is 
 a Roman citizen that he obtains redress and apology for 
 his imprisonment from the magistrates, and in the Epis- 
 tle to the Philippians it is the franchise of Roman citizen- 
 ship which he uses to symbolize that of the kingdom of 
 Christ : " Our citizenship is in heaven " (3 : 20). 
 
 From its central position between Asia and Europe, 
 on a thoroughfare of traffic, a variety of national types 
 met and mingled in Philippi. There were the Greek, the 
 Roman, the Asiatic, representing all varieties of philos- 
 ophy and of religious speculation ; Greek and Roman 
 paganism, Greek skepticism. Oriental mysticism, Jewish 
 legalism. It was a grand theatre on which to demon- 
 strate the power of the gospel to deal effectively with 
 all phases of nationality and of faith alike, with both 
 sexes and with all social grades. Thus the three conver- 
 sions which were specially identified with Paul's first 
 visit represented, ist, three national types. Lydia, the 
 purple-seller, was an Asiatic of Thyatira, the crazed 
 slave was a Greek, and the jailer a Roman. 2d. Three 
 types of religion. Lydia was a Jewess, the damsel a 
 Greek pagan, and the jailer a Roman pagan "of the 
 politico-religious type, if he preserved the characteristic 
 features of his race." 3d. Three social conditions. Lydia 
 was a rich merchantwoman ; the Greek sorceress was a 
 slave, a chattel without social or political rights ; the 
 jailer was a subordinate officer under the government. 
 In the early history of the Philippian church there is 
 therefore illustrated one of the great features of the work 
 of the gospel as set forth in Paul's words to the Gala- 
 
r THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIFFIANS. 13 
 
 tians (3 : 28) ; " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is 
 neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female ; 
 for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Another interesting fact, and one which seems to 
 interpret at least one significant allusion in the Epistle, 
 is the exceptional position of woman in Macedonia. Not 
 only popular prejudice, but the deliberate verdict of Gre- 
 cian wisdom in its best age, asserted the natural inferi- 
 ority of woman. The Athenian law enacted that every- 
 thing which a man might do by the counsel or request 
 of a woman should be null in law. She was little better 
 than a slave. To educate her was to advertise her as a 
 harlot. Her apartments were a prison, her companions 
 mainly children and slaves. 
 
 But in Macedonia, for some reason, woman was evi- 
 dently held in high esteem. Monuments were erected to 
 women by public bodies ; and what is very significant, 
 records of male proper names are found in Macedonian 
 inscriptions, formed on the name of the mother instead 
 of on that of the father. Macedonian women were per- 
 mitted to hold property, and were treated as mistresses 
 of the house. These facts are borne out by the account 
 of Paul's labors in Macedonia. In Thessalonica, Beroea, 
 and Philippi there were additions of women of rank to 
 the church ; and the prominence of women in church 
 affairs at Philippi appears from the fourth chapter of the 
 Epistle, where two ladies, Euodia and Syntyche — or, to 
 give the English equivalents, "Sweet Scent" and "Hap- 
 py-go-lucky" — are besought by the apostle to reconcile 
 their differences which had caused disturbance in the 
 
14 THE EPISTLE TO THE rHILrPPIANS. 
 
 church, and are commended to his colleagues as- women 
 who labored with him in the Lord. 
 
 Paul, as you will remember, was summoned to Mace- 
 donia from Troas by the vision of the Macedonian man 
 saying, " Come over and help us." Taking ship at Troas, 
 and accompanied by Silas, Timothy, and Luke, he pro- 
 ceeded to Neapolis, on the southern coast of Macedonia, 
 and thence, as we have seen, along the Egnatian road, 
 one of the great Roman highways, ten miles in a north- 
 westerly direction, to Philippi. 
 
 With the coming of Paul and his companions to Phi- 
 lippi, the gospel first entered Europe. The first Chris- 
 tian service was held in the Jews' praying-place by the 
 little river Gangas ; and Lydia, the first Christian con- 
 vert, opened her heart to Christ, and her home and purse 
 to his ambassadors. 
 
 I need not dwell on the familiar stories of the healing 
 of the possessed damsel, the imprisonment and scour- 
 ging, and the conversion of the jailer. Paul's first visit 
 closed with the persecution which violated his right as a 
 Roman citizen by scourging him, and condemned him to 
 a night in the inner or lower prison. If the Philippian 
 jailer continued in office, it is a suggestive fact that Paul 
 should have left a Christian convert in charge of the very 
 prison to which so many would be likely to follow the 
 apostle for Christ's sake. 
 
 But Paul did not forget to provide for the nurture of 
 the infant church. He left Luke behind him to complete 
 its organization. Five years later he sent Timothy and 
 Erastus, and shortly after made, himself, a second visit 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 15 
 
 (2 Cor. I : 15-17; conf. i Cor. 16:5, 6), which was fol- 
 lowed almost immediately by a third, owing to a plot 
 against his life which compelled him to return from Cor- 
 inth to Macedonia. (Acts 19: 21 ; 20: i, 3.) From this 
 time we hear nothing of the Philippian church until 
 Paul's letter is written to it from Rome. 
 
 The Philippians had been already marked by their 
 generosity in contributing to Paul's needs. After the 
 close of his first visit, while he was still in Macedonia, 
 they had more than once sent him timely assistance to 
 Thessalonica. (Phil. 4:16.) When from Macedonia he 
 passed on to Achaia, fresh supplies from Philippi reached 
 him at Corinth. (Phil. 4:15 ; 2 Cor. 11:8, 9.) Then 
 when they heard of his being sent to Rome, Epaphrodi- 
 tus was despatched with their gift. Epaphroditus, hav- 
 ing come to Rome, not only discharged his commission 
 as the bearer of the gift, but entered so heartily into 
 Paul's work that he fell sick. " He staked his life on 
 the hazard," says Paul (Phil. 2 : 30), " that he might 
 supply the lack of your personal ministration." He 
 recovered, but with returning health came home-sick- 
 ness. He feared that his friends in Philippi might be 
 alarmed by the tidings of his sickness ; so that in the 
 year 61 or 62 he started for Macedonia, carrying with 
 him the Epistle to the Philippians. The general state of 
 the church, as gathered from this Epistle and elsewhere, 
 may be thus briefly sunrimed up : They were poor. In 
 2 Cor. 8 : 1, 2, we read of their deep poverty. They were 
 in trouble, probably from persecution. In the same pas- 
 sage we read of their "great trial of affliction," and in 
 
1 6 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. ' 
 
 the last four verses of the first chapter of this Epistle, 
 the mention of "adversaries" and conflict, together with 
 the figure of the arena which underlies the whole passage, 
 seem to indicate a state of persecution. They were in 
 danger of dissension, if not already suffering from it. To 
 such a condition the exhortation to humility and the 
 warning against strife in 2 : 1-4 are addressed, also the 
 admonition "to stand fast in one spirit" (i :2y), to "do all 
 things without murmurings and disputings" (2 : 14), and 
 the words to the two ladies at the beginning of chapter 
 4, counselling them to "be of the same mind in the 
 Lord." 
 
 Coming now to the Epistle itself, our first duty is 
 to present a brief analysis of its contents. This must 
 needs be unsystematic, for the Epistle itself is utterly 
 unsystematic. As Professor Lightfoot remarks, " Of 
 plan and arrangement there is even less than in St. 
 Paul's letters generally. The origin and motive of the 
 Epistle are hardly consistent with any systematic treat- 
 ment. As in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, the 
 torrent of personal feeling is too strong to submit to any 
 such restraint. Even the threefold division into the 
 explanatory, doctrinal, and hortatory portions, which may 
 generally be observed in his Epistles is obliterated 
 here."* 
 
 The opening salutation is of unusual length, consist- 
 ing of the first eleven verses of the first chapter, and 
 containing thanks to God for their Christian fellowship 
 and cooperation, expressions of confidence as to the com- 
 
 * Int. to Com. on Philip., p. 67. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 17 
 
 pletion of the good work begun in them by God's Spirit, 
 and prayer for their growth in grace. From 12 to 26 he 
 describes his personal circumstances, the progress of the 
 gospel at Rome, the work of his opposers, the zeal of his 
 friends, and his own feelings as to the possibility of his 
 death or life. With verse 27 he begins an exhortation 
 to Christian unity and courage which extends to the 4th 
 verse of chapter 2, where he enters upon the example of 
 Christ as an exhibition of the humility essential to the 
 maintenance of fellowship, expanding into that magnifi- 
 cent picture of our Lord's humiliation : a passage pro- 
 foundly suggestive and inspiring; yet of which a recent 
 writer has said that " the diversity of opinion among its 
 interpreters is enough to fill the student with despair, 
 and to afflict him with intellectual paralysis."* A few 
 words of exhortation follow, and he closes chapter 2 with 
 an expression of hope of his speedy release, his purpose 
 of sending Timothy, and the announcement of the recent 
 illness and contemplated return of Epaphroditus. The 
 word "finally!' at the beginning of chapter 3, seems tq 
 indicate that the apostle was about to close the Epistle 
 with some parting exhortations to unity and peace : but 
 some tidings may have reached him at this point respect- 
 ing the attempts of the Judaizers to corrupt his converts, 
 reminding him that the same influences may be at work 
 in Philippi. At the 2d verse of chap. 3, therefore, he 
 diverges into a warning against these ; and proceeds to 
 contrast his teaching with theirs — the true circumcision 
 with the false ; the power of faith with the inefiiciency 
 
 * Bruce, " Humiliation of Christ." 
 
i8 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPFIANS. 
 
 of works ; all of which he illustrates by a comparison of 
 his own early education, prospects, and aims as a Jew, 
 with his present hopes as a Christian (to ver. 15), follow- 
 ing this with an exhortation to steadfastness, a lament 
 over the victims of sensuality and worldliness, and a 
 contrast of these with the citizen of heaven, who, instead 
 of minding earthly things, looks for the Saviour, the 
 Lord Jesus from heaven. With the beginning of chap. 
 4, he resumes the line broken off at the beginning of 
 chap. 3. He exhorts two prominent ladies to reconcilia- 
 tion. At ver. 4, he says, '^Farewell,'' not "rejoice,' "in 
 the Lord :" following the salutation with some parting 
 admonitions to high aims and holy thoughts of things 
 lovely and pure, ver. 8, and after dwelling at some length 
 as has been aptly said " with a graceful intermingling of 
 manly independence and courteous delicacy" upon the 
 gift brought from them by Epaphroditus, he closes with 
 salutations and the usual benediction. 
 
 The pervading tone of the Epistle is imparted by the 
 apostle's strong personal attachment to the church. The 
 only Epistle which bears comparison with it in this par- 
 ticular, is the first to the Thessalonians. He thanks 
 God at every remembrance of their Christian fellowship 
 from the first day (1:3-5). He congratulates himself 
 on being the subject of their prayers (i : 19). He is 
 assured that the continuance of his life and work will 
 be not only profitable but grateful to them (i 124-26). 
 He rejoices at being "poured out" like a libation for 
 their sakes (2 : 17). He speaks of his sufferings as such 
 a man is wont to speak only to his nearest friends (i :/, 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE FHILIFPIANS. 19 
 
 16, 23, 29, 30). He longs after them "in the heart of 
 Jesus Christ" (1:8). They are his "joy" and his 
 "crown" (4: i). In the very opening salutation of the 
 letter he drops his official title, and greets them as a 
 friend and fellow-servant of Jesus Christ. The tone of the 
 Epistle is one of almost unmitigated commendation. This 
 puts it in strong contrast with the "sustained severity" of 
 the Epistle to the Galatians, and the sharp reproachful- 
 ness of portions of ist and 2d Corinthians. There is no 
 more personal feeling expressed here than in Galatians, 
 1st Corinthians, the second part of 2d Corinthians, and 
 1st Thessalonians; but it is of a different character from 
 that of the three first named. In Galatians, the feeling 
 is intense, indignant, and sustained. In 2d Corinthians 
 it is affectionate, but apologetic and self-vindicatory, 
 changing from a "conciliatory and affectionate strain of 
 entreaty" in the first part, to a tone of stern command 
 and almost of menace. Expressions of devotion to the 
 church blend with sarcasm and irony. Thankfulness 
 and indignation struggle in his mind like cross tides. 
 The Epistle to the Philippians, on the other hand, flows 
 on to the end in a steady stream of thankful joy and 
 commendation. The feeling has equal strength and 
 depth; but less tension : equal energy, but less fire. In 
 2d Corinthians we have the expression of a heart relieved 
 by the penitence of offending brethren. In Philippians 
 we have the calm of unimpaired confidence. It is with- 
 out the sense of restraint which attaches to Colossians, 
 where the writer cannot forget that he is in a contro- 
 versial attitude, and is treating truth in its relations to 
 
 19 
 
20 THE EPISTLE TO THE FHILIPPIANS. 
 
 heresy. It more resembles Ephesians in the freedom 
 with which Paul gives himself up to those spontaneous 
 impulses of thought which lead him away from the direct 
 line of his subject into the awful depths of some divine 
 counsel, or bear upward his soul in some impassioned 
 prayer. At the same time, the Philippian Epistle does 
 not imply so high a capacity as that of the Ephesian 
 believers for receiving the higher mysteries of the faith, 
 such as the unity of mankind in Christ, and the symbol- 
 ism of the marriage relation as setting forth the relation 
 of Christ to his church. In this epistle we see none of 
 Paul's ■' sensitiveness about the behavior of his converts 
 to himself, which appeals in Galatians and 2d Corin- 
 thians ; none of the earnestness about points of difference, 
 none of the consciousness of the precarious basis of his 
 authority in the existing state of the two churches."* 
 There is the assumption throughout of frank understand- 
 ing and Christian friendship, the substitution of lively 
 hopefulness for the gloomy foreboding of the 2d Corin- 
 thian Epistle. 
 
 The second general characteristic of the Epistle is 
 the absence of formulated doctrinal teaching, which 
 throws it into such marked contrast with the Roman, 
 Galatian, and Colossian Epistles. In Philippians we have 
 the substance and heart of the Gospel, rather than its re- 
 lation to any specific form of error. The doctrinal points 
 elaborated in other Epistles are here matters of allusion, 
 rather than of development or of discussion. The docu- 
 ment is not a theologian's lecture nor a bishop's encycli- 
 
 * Jowett, cit. by Lightfoot, Intro, to Galati:.ns. 
 
THE EFISTLE TO THE PHILIPFIANS. 21 
 
 cal, but the affectionate letter of a father to a household. 
 Between the apostle and his readers there is assumed a 
 community of faith in the truths to which he confidently 
 appeals for the enforcement of all that is honest, pure, 
 lovely, and of good report. 
 
 This ethical character of the Epistle is very strongly 
 marked ; by which I mean that its tendency is to exhibit 
 doctrine on the side of practical duty, rather than on its 
 abstract side. In this particular the whole Epistle par- 
 takes largely of the character of the twelfth chapter of 
 Romans. When he praises them, it is for their active 
 cooperation in the defence and confirmation of the gos- 
 pel (i : 7). His exhortation centres upon their "conver- 
 sation," or daily behavior, that it may be such as " be- 
 cometh the gospel ;" that they " stand fast" in ^^ striving 
 for the faith of the gospel" (i : 27) ; that they "work out 
 their own salvation" (2:12); that they be "blameless 
 and harmless," so as to be " lights in the world " amid a 
 perverse people (2 : 15). The finest example of this, how- 
 ever, occurs in the second chapter, in the description of 
 the humiliation of Jesus. There he describes, in one of 
 the grandest passages of inspired rhetoric to be found in 
 Scripture, the descent of Christ from the glory of God to 
 the conditions of our earthly state : " Let this mind be in 
 you, which was also in Christ Jesus : who, being in the 
 form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with 
 God : but made himself of no reputation, and took upon 
 him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness 
 of men : and being found in fashion as a man, he hum- 
 bled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the 
 
22 THE EFISl'LE TO THE PHILIPFIANS. 
 
 death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly ex- 
 alted him, and given him a name which is above every 
 name : that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
 of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things un- 
 der the earth ; and that every tongue should confess that 
 Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 
 Had this passage occurred in the Epistle to the Colos- 
 sians, it would probably have been used to illustrate the 
 doctrine of the union of the divine and human natures in 
 Christ ; to show how the incarnation of the Son of God 
 contradicted the Gnostic, whose doctrine of the inherent 
 evil of matter led him to shrink from associating God 
 with a material body, and consequently made him re- 
 solve Christ into a phantom, a mere semblance or effi- 
 gy of flesh and blood. But in this Epistle this whole 
 tremendous passage is brought to bear upon the practi- 
 cal duty of humility : " Let this mind be in you, which 
 was also in Christ." 
 
 The section of the Epistle which, more than any 
 other, partakes of a doctrinal character, is that embraced 
 in chapter 3. The apostle there deals with two doctri- 
 nal errors — yndaism and Antinomianisni. Yet, to re- 
 peat what has been hinted at already, his treatment of 
 the former error is significant of the earlier date of this 
 Epistle as compared with Ephesians and Colossians. It 
 marks a transition-point between the discussion of the 
 old Pharisaic Judaism and the discussion of the new phil- 
 osophic Gnosticism with which the two latter Epistles 
 are occupied, and which was to disturb the church for 
 two centuries to come. " In the Epistle to the Philip- 
 
■ THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPFIANS. 23 
 
 plans we have," to quote the words of Professor Light- 
 foot, " the spent-wave of the old Judaic controversy." 
 
 At the same time you observe that within this chap- 
 ter the contrast of faith and law, and of the true and 
 false circumcision, are sharply emphasized, and the in- 
 troduction to the chapter is marked by three epithets, 
 *'dogs," "evil workers," " the concision," the severity of 
 which indicate strong feeling on the writer's part. 
 
 We are through these epithets introduced to .a phase 
 of Judaism and to a party in the Christian church from 
 whom Paul experienced the most bitter and persistent 
 opposition ; namely, the yiidaizcrs. These were nomi- 
 nally Christians, who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, but 
 as the Saviour of Israel only. They insisted therefore 
 that Christ's kingdom could be entered only through the 
 gate of Judaism. Circumcision was their watchword. 
 Circumcised converts alone were in a state of full accep- 
 tance with God. They appeared quite early in the his- 
 tory of the church. These were they of whom we read 
 in Acts 15:1, who came down from Judaea and disturbed 
 the church at Antioch by teaching the converts, " Except 
 ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot 
 be saved." 
 
 Your attention has already been called to the num- 
 bers and influence of the Jews in Rome. In the prov- 
 inces of the empire these were still greater ; and how- 
 ever the Judaizers might be disowned by the pure Jews 
 for their position on the Messianic question, they could 
 avail themselves of their influence and organization ev- 
 erywhere to undermine the faith of the new converts, to 
 
 19* 
 
24 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 establish the rite of circumcision and the law of Moses, 
 and especially to attack Paul. As the centre and soul of 
 the movement towards the Gentiles, he was the object of 
 their special hatred and abuse. They challenged his 
 birth, his authority, his motives. They charged him 
 with weakness, with vacillation, with cowardice, with 
 serving his own interest under a cloak of disinterested- 
 ness. " In a thousand ways they struck at his reputation, 
 and exerted themselves to counteract his work. * Paul 
 must be destroyed,' was as truly their watchword, as 
 the cry for the destruction of Carthage had been of old 
 to the Roman senator."* These are the persons refer- 
 red to in the sixteenth verse of the first chapter, who 
 " preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing 
 to add affliction to my bonds." These are the " dogs," 
 the " evils workers " of chapter third, against whom the 
 Philippians are warned — "the concision;" that is, those 
 whose circumcision, being a mere form, was nothing 
 more nor better than the senseless mutilations which 
 the priests of Baal inflicted on themselves on Carmel, 
 or which were practised by the worshippers of Cybe- 
 le, of whose orgies he had probably learned in Galatia. 
 Against these his words in the third chapter are aim- 
 ed — contrasting the doctrine of salvation by works 
 with that of salvation by grace ; claiming that those 
 who are saved by faith are the true Israel; illustra- 
 ting the futility of lineage and of works from his own 
 example. The whole passage, from the third to the 
 eleventh verse, is well worthy of study, since it is full of 
 
 * Stanley, " Sermons an 1 Lectures on the Apostolic Age." 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPFIANS. 25 
 
 incidental hints lurking in single words, and not always 
 apparent in our version ; hints which, while they serve 
 to illustrate the main point in the discussion, are also 
 answers to the assertions of the Judaizers. For instance, 
 '* We serve God in the spirit." The choice word, used by 
 a Jew to express his service as one of God's elect, is here 
 boldly claimed by Paul for a Gentile Christian's service. 
 He alone is of the true Israel. Such an application of 
 the word would appeal to a Jew just as the phrase " Sac- 
 rament of the Lord's Supper" would appeal to you if a 
 Chinaman should apply it to the worship of Joss. So, 
 too, in recounting his own lineage and education, it is 
 interestinsf to see with what care his words are chosen. 
 Do the Judaizers depreciate him in comparison with the 
 apostles of the circumcision ? He was circumcised the 
 eighth day ; and thus proven to be neither an Ishmael- 
 ite, who would not be circumcised until his thirteenth 
 year, nor a proselyte, who would be circumcised in ma- 
 ture life, but a Jew according to the law. Do they chal- 
 lenge the purity of his descent ? . He is not only a He- 
 brew, which would merely distinguish him from a Greek- 
 speaking Jew : not only a Jew as distinguished from a 
 Gei2tile. He is of the stock of Israel, the name which 
 expressed the dignity and glory of the people as God's 
 covenant people, not descending through Ishmael nor 
 Edom, but direct from Israel, the prince of God. Do 
 they challenge his Palestinian birth } He was indeed 
 born in Asia Minor, but he is of the tribe of Benjamin, 
 the only one of the patriarchs born in the land of prom- 
 ise. He is of ancestors, too, who had not, like so many 
 
26 THE EPISTLE TO THE FHILIFPIANS. 
 
 others, given up their native tongue, but had continued 
 to be Hebrew speakers. He is a Hebrew of the Hebrews. 
 Thus the old theme, so thoroughly and exhaustively treat- 
 ed in Romans and Galatians — citizenship in Christ, as 
 against Jewish pretension ; faith in Jesus, as against flesh- 
 ly descent and fleshly ordinances, is here treated again, but 
 this time mainly in the light of Paul's own experience, 
 with an undercurrent of self-defence against the Judaizing 
 " dogs " and " evil workers " who are disturbing the Ro- 
 man converts and seeking to add affliction to his bonds. 
 
 The second doctrinal error is Antinoinianismy the ex- 
 treme reaction from Judaism, the doctrine which declares 
 that the gospel does away with the obligations of the 
 moral law. This is handled from the sixteenth to the 
 nineteenth verse of the third chapter. Though the Chris- 
 tian brethren are made free in Christ Jesus, let them re- 
 member that they are nevertheless to walk by a ride ; and 
 not like those who have given themselves up to sensuali- 
 ty, making " their God their belly," forgetting that " the 
 kingdom of God is not meat and drink ;" glorying in the 
 unfettered license which is their " shame," and having 
 their minds set on " earthly things." The treatment of 
 this error is incidental ; not argumentative, but hortative, 
 and illustrated by the contrast with those (ver. 20) whose 
 " citizenship is in heaven," whose mind is set on '* heav- 
 enly things," whose God is the coming Saviour, and 
 whose end is a change into his likeness. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the attitude of this Epistle 
 towards doctrinal error is none the less decided and un- 
 compromising for its lack of the distinctively doctrinal 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS, 27 
 
 type of Romans or Galatians. Its dealing with these 
 errors reminds us, by the intensity of its language, that 
 the writer is still the Paul of the Galatian and Corinthian 
 Epistles, yet it cannot but be noted how this, as all the 
 other Epistles, bears witness to the discriminating quality 
 of a ripe charity; to the sound wisdom of Christian love 
 which knows how to draw the line between weakness and 
 perverseness, between the lapses of an undisciplined will 
 and the obstinate wickedness of an estranged heart, be- 
 tween the mistakes of an untutored conscience and the 
 selfish persistence of an unholy desire. 
 
 But while the Epistle commends itself to those who 
 are concerned with the substance rather than with the 
 processes of Christian doctrine, while it is ethical rather 
 than controversial in character, it gives, on the other 
 hand, no countenance to the effort to resolve the gospel' 
 into a mere code of morals. The peculiar value of this 
 Epistle is its exiiibition of the gospel as centring in 2. per- 
 son and a life, rather than in a code or a dogmatic system. 
 The personal Christ is its very heart, though his person 
 and work are treated from its own point of view as dis- 
 tinguished from others of the Epistles. In Romans and 
 Galatians we see Christ in his relation to the Jewish law 
 and ordinances. In Colossians his divine majesty and 
 authority are emphasized as against Gnostic angel-wor- 
 ship and asceticism. In Ephesians we see him as the 
 head of the body, the church ; the chief corner-stone of 
 a building ; his divine energy informing the earthly 
 church, himself the centre and perfection of the promised 
 church above. The controversial element underlying all 
 
28 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 these three is wanting in the Epistle to the Philippians, 
 as is the handling of those profounder Christian rnyste- 
 ries which characterize Colossians and Ephesians, such as 
 the relation of Christ to the eternal counsels of God ; his 
 position as the instrument of the divine election ; his 
 exaltation, through resurrection, to the heavenly places ; 
 the secret of vital union with his earthly church as set 
 forth in the marriage relation. In both these Christ is 
 sharply defined as the instrument of God's redeeming 
 plan of salvation by faith as compared with works. He 
 is the reconciler of Jew and Gentile in one body. In 
 Philippians the treatment of Christ is more subjective 
 than in Ephesians or Colossians. I mean that while in 
 Ephesians, for instance, we see Christ before Paul as an 
 object of contemplation, in Philippians we see Christ in 
 Paul as the subject of his experience ; not what he knozvs 
 Him to be by study, and by revelation of Him as the King 
 of glory and the Head of the church, but what he feels 
 Him to be in His power over his own life. In Paul's expe- 
 rience we see a rule of life indeed, but we see the person 
 and life of Jesus incarnating and interpreting the rule. 
 The summary of Paul's life is Christ (i :2i). Christ's 
 death is not only a sorrowful recollection ; it has been 
 shared by Paul's moral nature in his own death to sin. 
 His view of Christ's resurrection is a standing rebuke to 
 the loose grasp with which the modern Christian church 
 holds that truth. It is to him a blessed memory and an 
 inspiring hope, but it is also a present energy. The goal 
 of his spiritual ambition is to know the power of Christ's 
 fesurrection nozv and here, as well as hereafter (3 : 10), 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 29 
 
 Christ's life is more than a beautiful story. He not only 
 lives after it, he lives it. Christ's own affection possesses 
 him. He longs after the brethren as with Christ's own 
 love, " in the heart of Jesus Christ " (i : 8). He emphasi- 
 zes the inward impulse of duty — the inittd of Christ 
 (2:5). He urges them to "work out" their own salva- 
 tion, but in the next breath reminds them that God work- 
 eth /;/ them to will (2:12, 13). He does not depreciate 
 conduct. No man could ever draw from his words license 
 for moral looseness, but he exalts conduct by exhibiting 
 it as the expression of the inner life of faith, and as a 
 growth into the likeness of Christ. 
 
 Having thus discussed the great characteristics of the 
 Epistle, it now remains to call attention to certain minor 
 details. 
 
 And first it is interesting to discover in the words 
 and imagery of this Epistle some traces of the coloring 
 of stoicism, the best moral system of paganism, with 
 which Paul had probably become acquainted in the East, 
 the representatives of which he had encountered on 
 Mars' Hill at Athens, and which, at the time of Paul's 
 imprisonment, was represented in Nero's household by 
 the philosopher Seneca. Whether Paul and Seneca ever 
 met, as some have supposed, is very doubtful ; but it is 
 not strange that the apostle's vigorous and picturesque 
 language, in which so many of the objects of his wide 
 and varied observation constantly appear, should have 
 taken some tinge from a school so widely known and so 
 influential as that of the Stoics. There, for example, is 
 the word " citizenship " (3 : 20), " our citizenship is in 
 
30 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 heaven," and also in i : 28, " Be citizens in a manner be- 
 coming the gospel." The ideal of a great human broth- 
 erhood, of a world-wide state, was a favorite one with the 
 Stoic. "I will look," says Seneca, "upon all lands as 
 belonging to me, and on my own land as belonging to 
 all. Nature gave me alone to all men, and all men to me 
 alone." It certainly is not impossible that this concep- 
 tion may have helped to give the mould to the thought 
 of heavenly citizenship, the more so since the Stoic ideal 
 seems to have included heaven as well as earth, the divine 
 system as well as the human, in its ideal commonwealth ; 
 so that the conception has an external resemblance, 
 though of course not a deep, inner correspondence, to 
 Paul's beautiful thought of a Christian living in the econ- 
 omy and communion of heaven even while he remains 
 upon earth. 
 
 There, too, is the word in 4:2, "content," or, liter- 
 ally, "self-sufficient," and the whole sentiment of the 
 passage to the eighteenth verse. That word " self-suffi- 
 cient" was the Stoic word. It set forth the Stoic's idea 
 of moral kinghood — man sufficient unto himself because 
 he possesses all things in himself. Was it not most nat- 
 ural that the Stoic's word should have carried to the 
 apostle's mind the thought of a higher self-sufficiency, 
 centring not in Paul, but in Christ, Paul's neiv self, and 
 interpreted by the words, " I can do all things through 
 Christ which strengtheneth me" t And once more : if 
 you will take the passage in chapter i : 21-27, ^.nd begin 
 studying it with the thought that the Stoic had no hope 
 of immortality, and that his philosophy encouraged and 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 31 
 
 justified suicide as a means of escape from the world's 
 burdens, you will find it most instructive to pursue the 
 vivid contrast presented not only by Paul's contempla- 
 tion of death, but by his brave willingness to live and 
 suffer and delay the being with Christ for the church's 
 sake. 
 
 Paul's language, as I have said, is peculiarly pictu- 
 resque ; not only in his constant use of vivid metaphors 
 and striking figures, but from the fact that very often a 
 single word contains a picture in itself, which is not re- 
 produced in the translation, but which really gives color- 
 ing and tone to the thought, and sometimes furnishes the 
 mould in which the whole thought is cast. This Epistle 
 is very rich in such words ; andl will call your attention 
 to a few of them. In the twenty-eighth verse of the first 
 chapter the apostle exhorts the Philippians not to be 
 terrified \iy their adversaries. The word "terrified" is 
 that which is used of a frightened horse, flying out of the 
 road at every stump or wisp of straw ; pointing a good 
 lesson to those timid Christians who live in constant fear 
 that something will overthrow the church or undermine 
 their faith. 
 
 In the twenty-third verse of the same chapter we 
 have a beautiful picture in the word " depart," which is 
 entirely lost in our translation. Its selection is exqui- 
 site, when we remember the atmosphere of struggle in 
 which Paul lived. It is a soldier's word, meaning to 
 "break camp." Join it with those other words in 2 Cor. 
 5 : I, "Our earthly house of this tait or tabernacle',' and 
 
 you have the picture complete. The feeble, manacled 
 20 
 
32 THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 body is but the weather-stained tent through the torn 
 curtains of which the tired soldier looks out towards 
 home. To strike this tent, to " break camp," and to go 
 to be with Christ is "far better." 
 
 In chap. 2, ver. 17, we read, "If I be offered upon 
 the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice 
 with you all." Here, again, our version gives scarce a 
 hint of the picture in the word '' offered',' which is, lit- 
 erally, '^poured out as a drink-offering^ Thus Paul says, 
 " You have laid your faith and service on God's altar ; 
 now if my very life be poured out like a libation upon this 
 offering of yours, to further your Christian work and con- 
 secration, I rejoice with you." 
 
 So in chap. 4, ver. 7, we read, " And the peace of 
 God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your 
 hearts and minds through Jesus Christ." Here is an- 
 other military figure, of which, by-the-way, Paul is very 
 very fond, in the word '^ keep!' It \^/^ moimt guard" — 
 the peace of God, like a sentinel patrolling before the 
 believer's heart. The picture might almost have been in 
 the poet's thought when he wrote, 
 
 " Love is and was my King and Lord, 
 And will be, though as yet I keep 
 Within his court on earth, and sleep 
 
 Encompassed by his faithful guard, 
 
 And hear at times a sentinel 
 
 Who moves about from place to place, 
 And whispers to the worlds of space, 
 
 In the deep night, that all is well." 
 
 These are all that time will allow me to unfold ; and 
 now, in conclusion, let me briefly refer you to the prin- 
 
THE EPIS2LE TO THE PHILIFPIANS. zi 
 
 cipal passages in which our version gives a wrong or in- 
 adequate idea of the text. 
 
 In chap. I, ver. 8, instead of "bowels," you should 
 read, "the heart!' The Greeks used the original word 
 to mean the nobler intestines — the heart, liver, and 
 lungs — where the affections were supposed to reside. 
 Indeed, our use of the word ''heart'' in that sense is 
 really a trace of the same error. The apostle means 
 that he loves the Philippians with Christ's own love. 
 
 In chap. 2, ver. i, instead of ''consolation!' read, "ex- 
 hortation!' The word is an appeal to the power of 
 Christ's precept and example as exhorting them to unity 
 and peace. The word consolation, or comfort, follows 
 immediately after. 
 
 In ver. 6 of chap. 2 is a very important one. You 
 will remember that the apostle is illustrating the descent 
 of Christ from the glory of heaven to our earthly state ; 
 showing that, though equal with God, he did not hesitate 
 to become man, and to serve and to suffer. Now if we 
 read according to our version, "thought it not robbery 
 to be equal with God," you see that we abruptly intro- 
 duce the thought of Christ's laying claim to equality with 
 God, into a course of thought which hinges on Christ's 
 voluntary htiniiliation. On the contrary, Paul's words 
 mean that, in his assuming our nature, Christ did not for 
 the time being emphasize or press his claim to equality 
 with God, but laid aside his divine majesty and entered 
 into the conditions -of our humanity. It remains true, as 
 appears by the words, " being in the form of God," that 
 Christ did not think it robbery to be equal with God ; but 
 
34 THE EPISTLE TO THE FHILIFFIANS, 
 
 that is not the truth which is held in these words, which 
 we ought to read thus : " Being in the form of God, He 
 did not regard eqtmlity with God as a thing to be eagerly 
 grasped at (as though he were anxious only to assert His 
 deity), but on the contrary, " emptied Himself I' which is 
 the right rendering of the words *' made Himself of no 
 reputation." 
 
 In chap. 2, ver. lo, instead of ^^ at the name of Jesus," 
 read, " /;/ the name of Jesus." The difference seems slight, 
 but is very wide. To bow at the name of Jesus, is to 
 bow at the mention of his name ; and hence this verse 
 is cited as authority for the custom of bowing when the 
 sacred name is pronounced. Whereas the meaning is 
 the same as doing or asking in the name of Jesus. It. 
 simply means that all prayer shall be made in his name ; 
 that no man shall come unto the Father but by him." 
 In the words of Dean Alford, " It were much to be wished 
 that such indefensible senses of Scripture texts might be 
 universally, by honest men, abandoned, and that we might 
 no longer be told that St. Paul, in the sublimest part of 
 his most sublime description of the glory of our exalted 
 Redeemer, is laying down a rule for a mere outward ges- 
 ture when his name is mentioned." 
 
 In chap. 2, ver. I2, instead of " work ont'' your own sal- 
 ,vation, which conveys the idea of our saving ourselves by 
 our own works, read "carry ont" your salvation ; not for- 
 getting indeed that salvation is God's gift, but equally not 
 forgetting that it is to be carried out by a "life of holy 
 obedience and advance to Christian perfection." In the 
 following verse, instead of " of his good pleasure," read 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPFIANS, 35 
 
 "for his good pleasure." In the one case the meaning is, 
 God does with and in us as hQ pleases ; in the other, that 
 God works in us to carry out in and by us his own perfect 
 and holy will. 
 
 In chap. 3, ver. 20, for the word "conversation" it is 
 better to read citizeiiship. If conversation retained the 
 meaning it had when our translation was made, repre- * 
 senting the whole sum of a man's active relations to 
 society, the translation could not be improved. But 
 conversation has now come to mean almost exclusively 
 the interchange of talk, so that the apostle's meaning is 
 better expressed by the word "citizenship ;'' for he means 
 to say, we are members of the heavenly commonwealth 
 here on earth. God is our King, and we live under 
 heaven's laws and speak heaven's language, and are on 
 earth as strangers and pilgrims. 
 
 In verse 21, instead of "vile body," read "body of 
 otir hnmiliation i" for, as the dying Archbishop of Dub- 
 lin said when the passage was read to him, " Nothing that 
 He made is vile." So, instead of "glorious body I' we 
 should read, " body of His glory y 
 
 The name Euodias, at the beginning of chapter four, 
 should be Euodia, the other form being a masculine ter- 
 mination, and the person referred to being a Macedonian 
 lady. 
 
 Thus tender and strong, wise and sympathetic, beau- 
 tiful in that very lack of systematic structure which 
 marks the impulsive utterance of a loving heart, this 
 precious letter comes into our hands. It appeals to us 
 through this element of personal sympathy, because it 
 
36 THE EPISTLE TO THE FHILIPFIANS. 
 
 shows us so much of Paul's inner self. We do not lose 
 sight of the teacher, but he falls into shadow behind the 
 confiding friend ; yet, best of all, though the letter is per- 
 vaded with the apostle's personality, the prominent figure 
 in our minds, as we rise from its perusal, is not Paul, but 
 Paul's Master and Saviour. The apostle is, after all, our 
 medium for the clearer seeing of his Lord and ours. And 
 in this magnifying of the living Christ above the forms 
 of doctrine, through this, the least doctrinal of the apos- 
 tle's letters, we receive a legitimate stimulus to a broader, 
 more generous, and more intelUgent study of doctrine. 
 The Philippian letter is the best introduction to the 
 study of the Pauline writings, in that it leads us to the 
 noble themes of Christian doctrine in Christ's own way — 
 through the adorable person of Him who through self- 
 emptying, service, and obedience to death, justly claims 
 the homage of every knee and the confession of every 
 tongue. 
 
 There comes to my mind to-night a memory of a 
 summer evening among the Styrian Alps, as I drifted 
 in my boat past the gray, scarred rocks which encircle 
 the beautiful Trauensee. The twilight drew on almost 
 unawares, and the great mountain bulwarks began to fall 
 back into the shadow which crept across the quiet lake ; 
 but as I cast my eye upward, it lighted on a neighboring 
 height crowned with a cross ; and there, while the shad- 
 ows lay dark below, while the mountain ramparts were 
 fading out in the gathering gloom, the sunset light lin- 
 gered round the cross, and it stood out clear and sharp 
 against the evening sky, as though some strange power 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 37 
 
 had been given it to beat back the darkness. And so 
 the cross, and the men and the works which the cross 
 inspires, ever Uft themselves into the Ught while the 
 night of time gathers thickly round the old empires 
 and the memory of their tyrants and of their prisons. 
 So it comes to pass that a Christian apostle outlives 
 and outworks a pagan empire, and a Christian letter sur- 
 vives a pagan prison. So it is that we to-night, after the 
 lapse of nearly nineteen centuries, are studying this brief 
 letter of Paul to a little feeble provincial church, and are 
 stimulated to thought and kindled to devotion by those 
 same words, while the shadows gather round the forgot- 
 ten graves of Nero and of Seneca, while the tourist wan- 
 ders idly over the Palatine, and looks down into the 
 choked vaults of the palace of the Caesars, and the anti- 
 quarian digs where Nero's fish-ponds sparkled and wild 
 beasts rent the limbs of Christian martyrs for the amuse- 
 ment of the populace. The cross which gives this clus- 
 ter of Epistles their stamp and their inspiration, will lift 
 them with itself into ever clearer light and sharper out- 
 line, while the world passeth away and the lusts thereof, 
 until, in the sunset of the latter days, the world with its 
 rebellious wills, and the church with its warring creeds, 
 shall vindicate Paul's unswerving faith, and Christ shall 
 be all and in all. 
 
THE EPISTLES 
 
 TO THE 
 
 COLOSSIANS AND PhILEMON, 
 
 BY REV. JAMES F. ELDER, D. D., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE EPISTLE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE COLOSSIANS 
 
 COLOSSI AND ITS CHURCH. 
 
 Two hundred miles due south of Constantinople, one 
 hundred miles due east of Ephesus, would be the approx- 
 imate site of Colossae. The river whose name has given 
 to our language one of its most expressive words — 
 meander — here receives into its upper waters from the 
 east a tributary called the Lycus. On the south bank of 
 the Lycus, just above its junction with the Meander, lay 
 the commercial city of Laodicea, which is mentioned 
 repeatedly in this Epistle. " Here was that lukewarm 
 church mentioned in the Revelation to which Jesus 
 wrote, " Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Its 
 haughty claim, " I am rich and have gotten wealth and 
 have need of nothing," was no idle boast : and though 
 prostrated by an earthquake a few years before, it speed- 
 ily rose from its ruins — by its own resources alone — with 
 more than its former splendor. 
 
 Six miles across the valley of the Lycus, on the rocky 
 
4 THE EPISTLE TO THE CO LOSS TANS. 
 
 spur between the Lycus and the Meander, was Hierapo- 
 lis, also mentioned in the letter to the Colossians. This 
 was a gay and fashionable watering-place, the mountain 
 streams containing medicinal properties ; and its ruins 
 still testify to its former greatness and importance. 
 About twelve miles farther up the valley of the Lycus is 
 the probable site of Colossae. Unlike Laodicea and 
 Hierapolis, which were situated upon the banks back 
 from the river, Colossae lay right athwart the stream. It 
 was near the great highway from Ephesus to the Eu- 
 phrates Valley, and in the days of the Persian conquests 
 was a great and populous city. But at this time it was 
 a place of little note, overshadowed by its more prosper- 
 ous rivals toward the mouth of the Lycus. Its site has 
 only recently been identified, if at all ; its very name is 
 uncertain, Colossae or Colassae ; and altogether, accord- 
 ing to Lightfoot, here was the least important church to 
 which any Epistle of Paul was addressed. 
 
 There is no evidence that Paul had visited the neigh- 
 borhood prior to writing this letter. On the contrary, 
 in the first verse of the second chapter, he says, " I would 
 that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and for 
 them at Laodicea, and for as tnany as have not seen my 
 face in the flesh " — language which, fairly construed, 
 would imply that he had never been either at Laodicea or 
 Colossae. But we know that Paul labored three years at 
 Ephesus, only one hundred miles away, holding daily 
 discussions most of the time in Tyrannus' lecture-room, 
 and supplementing his public teaching with the most 
 assiduous and tender labors from house to house : '' so 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIAKS. 5 
 
 that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the 
 Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks." His methods, no 
 doubt, ^ere analogous to those of modern missionary 
 leaders. Keeping his headquarters at Ephesus, he re- 
 ceived curious and interested listeners from all parts of 
 the country. Here and there one would be converted, 
 and return to his own city carrying the word of life. 
 Now Colossse, we have seen, was near the great highway 
 of travel, and its representatives would be certainly found 
 at Ephesus, and very likely some of them came in con- 
 tact with the noted preacher of the new religion. It is 
 altogether probable that in this way Philemon, a native 
 of Colossae, was converted through Paul's ministry, and 
 Epaphras also, who appears to have been a spiritual 
 father to the churches of Lycus, Through such con- 
 verts in part — what in modern missions would be known 
 as native helpers — Paul kept up his intercourse with a 
 large number of communities, and maintained his " care 
 of all the churches." 
 
 And now, five years later, during his imprisonment at 
 Rome, Epaphras of Colossae visits him with tidings from 
 the valley of the Lycus. Of the Colossian church he 
 has much to say that is hopeful and encouraging to the 
 apostle: but the insidious influence of some false or in- 
 competent teacher is plainly hinted, and gives Paul no 
 little anxiety. He is about to send Tychicus to Asia 
 Minor to inform the churches of his condition and pros- 
 pects ; and by him he sends the letter which we know 
 as the Epistle to the Ephesians, but which some consider 
 a circular letter, copies of which were to be distributed 
 
 21 
 
6 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 among prominent churches in Asia. In this view, the 
 letter from Laodicea, alluded to in chapter 4:16, is sup- 
 posed to be one of these copies. Paul also wished Ones- 
 imus to accompany Tychicus and return to his master, 
 and so prepares the letter to Philemon. At the same 
 time and by the same messenger he sends a special 
 letter to the Colossian church in order to prevent further 
 mischief, if possible, from the false teaching of which 
 Epaphras had brought him word. The three Epistles 
 to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, therefore, 
 were probably written and despatched at the same time. 
 That Paul wrote the Epistle we have under consideration 
 has -never been seriously questioned, save by some mod- 
 ern German writers, who have been sufficiently answered 
 by competent critical authorities. It may be safely 
 assumed that there is no intelligent lay reader of Paul's 
 letter who would not recognize on internal grounds his 
 .authorship of this Epistle. 
 
 i 
 
 THE DESIGN OF THE EPISTLE. 
 
 But the more interesting question for us is, What 
 were the special difficulties and harmful tendencies which 
 this letter was designed to meet } So far as these have 
 express mention or clear intimation in the Epistle, they 
 are pretty much grouped in the last sixteen verses of 
 chapter 2 (8-23). That part of the Epistle which fol- 
 lows these verses — chapters 3 and 4 — consists for the 
 most part of plain and practical observations, and for 
 our present purpose may be dismissed without further 
 notice — save perhaps, the first four verses of chapter 3. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 7 
 
 Turning now to the first cliapter, we find Paul, after 
 his customary benediction (i, 2), expressing his thanks 
 to God for the encouraging report received from Epa- 
 phras of their spiritual condition (3-8), and assuring them 
 of his constant prayer for their increase in knowledge 
 and good works, for their patient and joyful endurance, 
 and for a thankful spirit to the Father who had given 
 them so glorious a redemption through the Son of his 
 love (9-14). On this allusion to the Son he glides into 
 a most eloquent and exalted strain, asserting the preemi- 
 nence of Christ, both in creation and in the church, and 
 the good pleasure of God that through the blood of the 
 cross the universe should yet be reconciled to himself 
 (15-20). He then speaks of this reconciling grace as it 
 had been bestowed on the Colossians (21-23), ^i^^ con- 
 cludes the chapter with a reference to his own steward- 
 ship in the mystery of the gospel, the sufferings which it 
 involved and the anxieties and the labors which it imposed. 
 
 With the opening of the second chapter we can 
 almost see the shadow of these anxieties settle on the 
 very page as we read. He now gives utterance to his 
 great struggle of mind for the welfare of the churches 
 of Colossae and Laodicea, and adds frankly, " This I say 
 lest any man should beguile you with enticing words." 
 He compliments them, however, on their firm array and 
 steadfast faith, and exhorts them to persevere in the same 
 (2 : 1-7). 
 
 This brings us to the sixteen verses in which are 
 grouped the special allusions which give to this Epistle 
 its distinctive character. In the whole letter there arc 
 
8 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 thirty-six words not found elsewhere in Paul's writings 
 or in the New Testament. Of these words one-half are 
 in these verses before us, showing that the new ideas 
 combated or advanced in this Epistle are largely con- 
 centrated here. Unfortunately, however, for a clear 
 understanding of the situation, we do not find well-devel- 
 oped systems of doctrine or sharply-outlined heresies 
 assailed by the apostle ; but rather certain mischievous 
 tendencies, superstitious customs, vain speculations, 
 whose precise character and bearings are not always 
 clearly defined. Nor is there apparently any logical 
 treatment of these errors, but Paul seems to pass to and 
 fro among the various types of error with perplexing 
 freedom. Let us, nevertheless, select some of the most 
 distinctly marked evils which Paul combats, as they are 
 suggested by his language, or confirmed by subsequent 
 developments of speculative thought. 
 
 RITUALISM. 
 
 I. The influence of Judaic Ritualism is very appar- 
 ent in the teaching of this Colossian errorist. 
 
 Jews were everywhere. Antiochus the Great trans- 
 planted 2,000 Jewish families from the Euphrates into 
 this very region. Laodicea as a great trading mart would 
 attract them ; and as their fondness for watering-places 
 is by no means a modern characteristic of the race, 
 Hierapolis would have its charm for them also. But it 
 was hard for Judaism to appreciate the freedom which 
 the gospel taught. Even a converted Jew would find it 
 difficult sometimes to emancipate himself from the tram- 
 
■ THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS, q 
 
 mels of the old faith (as witness Peter's dissimulation at 
 Antioch), and Judaizing teachers were constantly spring- 
 ing up in the churches, and insisting on some of the old 
 ritualistic observances. To some of their scruples Paul 
 was lenient. But when they insisted on these dead 
 forms as essential .to salvation, circumcision for example, 
 he was a roused lion, and would give place by subjec- 
 tion, no, not for an hour. How sternly he combated that 
 fatal error may be seen in the Epistle to the Galatians. 
 
 But as compared with that Epistle his tone here is 
 moderate and calm. And the explanation is to be sought 
 in the different attitude which the Judaic errorist here 
 assumes. There he made the keeping of the law vital 
 to salvation. Here the end of his ritualism seems to be 
 the attainment of a superior piety. Circumcision is not 
 now so much a condition of salvation, as a species of 
 self-mortification tending to and perhaps symbolizing a 
 holier life. As such it was comparatively harmless, but 
 at best a beggarly provision against carnal nature, in the 
 light of that grace by which the gospel enables us to 
 triumph over the flesh. *' Your circumcision, performed 
 by hand," Paul would say, '' is utterly futile as regards 
 the putting off your fleshly nature. It .takes away but 
 a small part of the body, and removes not one sinful 
 propensity. But there is a spiritual circumcision per- 
 formed by Christ, which consists in the putting away of 
 the whole body of the flesh by the renewal of your 
 being \ so that when you are buried with him in bap- 
 tism you leave your carnal nature, as it were, like 
 graveclothes in the tomb, and rise with Christ to his 
 
 21* 
 
lo THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 new and exalted life at the right hand of God. Your 
 holiness does not proceed from outward observances, 
 but from an inward life, and that life draws its inspira- 
 tion from your practical participation in Christ's resur- 
 rection to glory. It is a life hidden with Christ in God. 
 Your sins are forgiven ; your nature is renewed ; hence- 
 forth keep your mind fixed on this substantial fact, that 
 you share by faith in Christ's resurrection-life, and sin 
 shall not have dominion over you." 
 
 How many, who are yearning for greater attainments 
 ia holiness, would find this thought helpful in their 
 struggles for victory over self and sin. As Paul else- 
 where says : " Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead 
 indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord." The reckoning it to be so will go far toward 
 making it so. We are dead, and our life is hid with 
 Christ in God. We are to live constantly in the con- 
 sciousness of this resurrection-life of Christ shared by 
 us through faith. And when temptation presents its 
 alluring face, instead of wallowing in the mire of our 
 own corrupt natures as we wrestle and roll in the bitter 
 struggle with sin, let us simply reckon, consider, believe, 
 know that we are by Christ's side, at his Father's throne, 
 with the angels, citizens of the heavenly kingdom, and 
 the temptation will vanish like a horrid dream, and we 
 shall walk in the white robes of victory. 
 
 ACETICISM. 
 2. A decided ascetic tendency is discernible in 
 connection with this Judaic ritualism. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS, ii 
 
 This ascetic tendency in Judaism had already crys- 
 tallized in an organization known as the Essenes. They 
 were as much stricter than the Pharisees as the Phar- 
 isees were stricter than the common people. Their rev- 
 erence for Moses and his word amounted almost to 
 worship. They observed the Sabbath rigidly, were most 
 scrupulous about eating and drinking, and eschewed 
 marriage — recruiting their ranks by the adoption of Jew- 
 ish youths into the order. Their principal settlements 
 were on the Dead sea, though members of the order 
 were scattered throughout Palestine. That some one in 
 love with the tenets of this order had found his way into 
 the Colossian church is by no means improbable. Or, 
 considering the location of Colossse, some philosophy 
 tinged with Oriental Buddhism may have prompted these 
 ascetic practices — which is almost saying that they are 
 the spontaneous product cf our poor, yearning, groping 
 human nature. But the rigorous self-denials inculcated 
 among the Colossian Christians, were more likely con- 
 nected with the Mosaic law. The "feast days, new 
 moons, and Sabbaths," point to Jewish festivals, annual, 
 monthly, and occasional, enjoined by the old law. And 
 the restrictions in the matter of food have the same 
 source. To this "observance of days and months and 
 times and years," Paul in Galatians applied the same 
 curious term, which he twice uses in similar connection 
 in the passage before us — " the rudiments of the world." 
 The word "rudiment" means the beginnings of things — 
 the first principles — like the letters of the alphabet, or 
 the lines and points and surfaces with which you begin 
 
12 THE EPISTLE TO THE CO LOSS TANS. 
 
 to teach geometry. " This vaunted wisdom in keeping 
 of ordinances, which you prize so highly," Paul would 
 say, "is the merest alphabet of knowledge. It had its 
 place when men were first put to school in things divine ; 
 but in the school of Christ these things are comparative- 
 ly useless and childish. They were only a shadow cast 
 before the substance ; and the body — the substance that 
 cast the shadow— is Christ's, i. e., is found in the things 
 of Christ — his cross, his resurrection, his spirit of life. 
 
 *' But do you say that such things are commanded in 
 the law, and we are under bonds to keep them "i Bonds .^ 
 Why talk you of bonds .? Do you not understand that 
 that bond was cancelled when Christ died } that he took 
 it out of the way, nailing it to his cross "i so that lifted 
 far above your reach, torn with the same cruel nails that 
 rent his hands, and stained and blurred by his blood, 
 that law of ordinances which was such a yoke of bond- 
 age to man should never again confront him to condemn 
 him 1 Why, then, do you let any man take you to task 
 about eating or drinking, or observing festivals or Sab- 
 baths } When Christ died on the cross you died — as 
 your burial with him in baptism testifies. Is Christ sub- 
 ject to that law of ordinances in his resurrection state .'* 
 then no more are ye who died with him and rose again. 
 But if your participation in Christ's resurrection-life 
 emancipated you from all law of ordinances, why, as 
 though you were still living only in the world, and your 
 participation in that life were an utterly meaningless 
 thing, are you overridden by these foolish ordinances, 
 such as 'Handle not, taste not, touch not'.^ What possi- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. i3 
 
 ble influence on your souls can the things have to which 
 these rules refer, if wisely used ? They are all made to 
 be used with thanksgiving, and in the using to be de- 
 stroyed. They go into the belly and are cast out into 
 the draught. Do ye not perceive that whatsoever thing 
 from without entereth into a man it cannot defile him t 
 These are teachings of men, and you subject yourself to 
 them after the Lord died to deliver you from like bond- 
 age." 
 
 " To be sure," Paul adds, " such things have a show 
 of wisdom. It seems commendable for a man to impose 
 such self-denying service, and to humiliate himself and 
 treat his body rigorously ; it might do some men good, 
 done in a proper spirit ; but these things, after all, have 
 no permanent value in preventing our carnal natures 
 from asserting their sway." And how true it is that a 
 monastic life and ascetic practices cannot bring the body 
 of the flesh into complete and lasting subjection. A man 
 may immure himself in a desert cave, may macerate his 
 body unsparingly, but he cannot get away from himself. 
 Our sinful nature clings to us despite all such self-morti- 
 fication, and like the garment of Hercules steeped in the 
 blood of Nessus, fills our whole being with the agony of 
 its poison. In some instances, too, men claiming that 
 the body alone was the seat of evil, and that the soul 
 could not be contaminated by it, have professed a lofty 
 contempt for this miserable mass of clay and corruption, 
 and veering to the other extreme, have given themselves 
 over to work all unclean ness with greediness. Not phi- 
 losophy or asceticism, but a vital union with Christ in 
 
14 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLO SSI ANS, 
 
 his enthronement at God's right hand can solve this 
 problem of victory over the flesh, and emancipate from 
 its thraldom the millions of earth who to-day are seeking 
 rest through self-mortification and conformity to rigor- 
 ous ordinances and traditions of men. 
 
 PRACTICAL LESSONS. 
 Obviously this treatment of the evil in the Colossian 
 church has an important bearing on the great question 
 of Christian liberty under the gospel. It is human na- 
 ture to multiply ordinances and impose restrictions — to 
 make rules. Churches might be found who have made 
 almost every questionable practice, from tobacco-chew- 
 ing to slaveholding, a disqualification for membership. 
 So far as such rules are an expression of opinion — a kind 
 of moral Nilometer — they may have their place and their 
 use. But when they are imposed as conditions of Chris- 
 tian life and fellowship, they are Judaism reenacted. 
 Who ever knew of a church enacting, " No member of 
 this church shall commit murder or steal, or worship 
 idols".'' And why.? Simply because such a rule would 
 be superfluous. As well enact a law that no mother shall 
 hate her own babe. Before such a law could reach the 
 subjects of it, it would fall to the earth of its own impo- 
 tence. In such matters — these grievous breaches of pub- 
 lic morals and fundamental obligations — you concede 
 everything to the restraining and directing influence of 
 the enlightened Christian conscience, or to universal hu- 
 man instinct. So the law of the spirit of life in Christ 
 Jesus, which reigns in the renewed man, may be trust- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 15 
 
 ed, if followed, to keep him from walking after the 
 flesh. 
 
 Now I say — as I believe Paul says, in effect — Seek 
 to have all Christian conduct regulated by the same in- 
 ternal law — this same divine instinct. Educate it by all 
 the truth of God to its intensest susceptibility, but let 
 that inner principle of the new life decide all matters of 
 duty and indulgence. Away with your handwriting of 
 prohibitory ordinances: handle not — the billiard-cue; 
 taste not — wine ; touch not — a partner in the dance. 
 The church of God has no right to make such rules for 
 the control of its members. Christ has put an all-suffi- 
 cient law in their renewed natures, and by that law, as 
 confirmed and illustrated by the Word, must they stand 
 or fall to their own Master. But has the church no ris^ht 
 
 CD 
 
 of discipline over its members .-* Most assuredly ; and 
 when the church or its regularly-established tribunal is 
 convinced that a member is not walkino: accordinsf to 
 that law of the Spirit, as they understand it, it is their 
 duty to interfere, remonstrate, and, if need be, discipline 
 the offender. I only say, beware how you impose mi- 
 nute prescriptions and special rules for the government 
 of the Christian life of others. The New Testament is 
 remarkably free from prohibitory legislation in the way 
 of special precepts, but exceedingly rich in great princi- 
 ples for the conduct of life. While your regulative code 
 may be a restraint on one, it may only be a pall on the 
 Christian life of another. Your negative rules may be 
 unconsciously adopted as a standard of Christian attain- 
 ment by some inexperienced soul, and resting in the let- 
 
i6 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 ter of your ordinance, he may only repress the spiritual 
 life within him that was meant to be developed from 
 grace to grace. 
 
 Hearken, my beloved brethren : Does the risen Christ 
 need a law to keep him from going astray ? Would he 
 be more likely to remain the Sinless One if there were 
 hung before his eyes an eternal "Thou shalt not"? No 
 more does the Christian whose life is truly hid with 
 Christ in God need the restraint of outward law. He 
 does, need restraint ; he does need law. But the law that 
 will be most potent to keep him will be the law of the 
 spirit of life in Christ Jesus, written on his renewed 
 spirit by the finger of God, and faithfully followed in the 
 light of Scripture teachings. He may, under the im- 
 pulse of that renewed nature, lay down special rules for 
 himself, for daily guidance ; but even that is perilous, 
 for he may find himself following a formal rule long after 
 the free spirit would otherwise have made this rule su- 
 perfluous. Life in nature makes most symmetrical or- 
 ganisms : so in spiHtual things inward life v/ill "make the 
 most faultless conduct. The measure of a Christian's in- 
 dulgence must be determined in all cases by the law of 
 the renewed spirit in the light of Christ's enthroned 
 presence. 
 
 Does that Christian young man frequent the billiard- 
 saloon } Do not say to him dogmatically and imperious- 
 ly, " This is all wrong." But try to lead him to an appre- 
 ciation of his share in the risen Christ-life ; help him to 
 realize what are the associations of that life which is hid 
 with Christ in God ; bring these heavenly ideas into con- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 17 
 
 trast with the associations of the billiard-room, and en- 
 deavor so to stimulate his Christian instinct that from 
 pure disrelish he shall drop his cue. This of course will 
 take time and patience and prayer ; but when your work, 
 is done, you have not only rescued the young man from 
 degrading associations and a vicious habit, perchance, but 
 you have put under his Christian life and character an 
 immutable and eternal foundation. You have given him 
 a principle of action, and not put him under bondage to 
 a rule. But go to him with your short and arbitrary 
 " Thou shalt not," and you will get only a reluctant sur- 
 render of his pastime ; you may bring a sense of bondage 
 over his spirit, and perhaps in the end a reckless and de- 
 fiant reaction, in which his last state shall be worse than 
 the first. 
 
 Or that Christian man who insists on his rlcrht to 
 drink wine t Vou may dash the cup from his hands with 
 your inflexible ordinance, " Taste not," but you have not 
 won your brother — perhaps made an angry foe. Keep 
 your ordinances, and for him (though they may be of 
 temporary advantage to many) your pledges out of sight, 
 and address yourself to the Christ-life within. Ask him 
 if such gratification of his appetite mars his enjoyment 
 of the Holy Spirit's presence .'' Can he ask his Master's 
 blessing on the cup } Is there no peril for himself or 
 his children in this habit .^ no slavery of spirit.? Or 
 does he know that yonder pale, shrinking wife has no 
 power over her drunken husband to reform him, because 
 he defends his rum-drinking by the example of his Chris- 
 tian neighbor over the way } Would Christ's self-sacrifi" 
 
 22 
 
i8 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLO SSI ANS. 
 
 cing love not prompt the abandonment of the cup for the 
 sake of the perishing men and weary wives and suffering 
 children about him ? Self-sacrifice is the highest law of 
 that realm from which, as a Christian man, the springs of 
 his life are expected to flow. 
 
 Or that Christian girl who dearly loves to dance — are 
 there no considerations, drawn from the new life which 
 she has professed, that will regulate or even subdue her in- 
 dulgence in this pleasure ? Is she indeed crucified to the 
 world, and the world to her, by the cross of Christ ? Or 
 does she only wear a cross as an ornament on her neck, 
 and not take the cross to her heart as a means of self- 
 mortification ? Does her sense of fellowship with Christ 
 suffer no shock from the associations and spirit of the 
 ballroom ? If right for her to dance at all, it is right to 
 " do it heartily as unto the Lord " — even as David danced 
 before the Lord with all his might. Are there no mis- 
 givings in reference to that which she allows and defends t 
 *' Whatsoever is not of faith is sin." Thus her dancing, 
 under given circumstances, is to be controlled by her 
 participation in that life which is hid with Christ in God. 
 
 By this perpetual reference of life and conduct to the 
 Christ life within us, and the heavenly citizenship into 
 which that life inducts us. Christian character is freed 
 most rapidly from unworthy elements, and built up most 
 swiftly and completely on principles that shall rule 
 throughout eternal ages. 
 
 I acknowledge that this liberty into which the gospel 
 introduces us is attended with great peril. So is the pos- 
 session of free will in God's intelligent creatures every- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLO SSI ANS, 19 
 
 where. But as that is what makes them likest God when 
 their choice is directed to holiness, so this Christian lib- 
 erty, used as not abusing it, is the very flower and perfec- 
 tion of our prerogatives in Christ. We are no more 
 slaves and children, but full-grown sons, with liberty to 
 do as we please, on the presumption that we will always 
 please to do right. Christ has lifted from our souls the 
 crushing tables of stone, but he has left there in living 
 characters of love the knowledge of his will written in 
 our hearts. And to this inner law of our renewed being 
 is all conduct to be referred — the law of the spirit of life 
 in Christ Jesus. And nothing will help us to realize the 
 Scripture ideal faster than the conscientious exercise of 
 our freedom in the constant study of the Word and 
 prayer. The perils of this liberty, to a true Christian, 
 are as nothing compared with the paralyzing influence of 
 such rules and ordinances as Paul here condemned. 
 
 In the same connection in which he speaks of their 
 liberty in the matter of eating and drinking, Paul also 
 mentions ^'Sabbaths' (ver. 16). If he refers at all to the 
 weekly Sabbath, he may have meant that none were to 
 consider themselves bound to keep the seventh if they 
 preferred to observe the first day of the week. But the 
 more probable reference is to occasional festivals and 
 fasts, also called sabbaths, which were observed by the 
 Jews, but could not be regarded as binding on the Chris- 
 tian conscience. Being distinctively Jewish or ceremo- 
 nial, they were a part of that handwriting of ordinances 
 which Christ took out of the way, nailing it to his 
 cross. 
 
20 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLO SSI ANS, 
 
 Some, however, find in Paul's language here and in 
 Romans 14 : 5 the entire abrogation of the Sabbath, and 
 deny that it is binding in any form on the Christian 
 church. But it seems impossible that the Sabbath, as a 
 day of physical rest at least, should ever be abrogated. 
 Jesus said, " The Sabbath was made for man ;" and while 
 man needs its merciful provisions, it will stand. The 
 obligation to labor six days and to rest one day, in regu- 
 lar alternation, appears to ground itself in constituent 
 laws of being, and will last so long as the present consti- 
 tution of man endures. The importance of the Sabbath 
 as a provision no less for man's religious nature, implies 
 its permanence and demands its regular observance. For 
 these reasons it was embedded in the Decalogue among 
 other fundamental and immutable laws. 
 
 The Lord's day has taken the place of the Jewish 
 Sabbath — as autumn takes the place of summer, as noon 
 takes the place of dawn. The prop07'lion of labor and 
 rest is alone immutable, while the object commemorated 
 in that rest may be changed by divine direction, if a 
 more worthy occasion should arise. And a finished re- 
 demption took the precedence of a finished creation as 
 the supreme object of Christian contemplation. (See 
 Taylor Lewis, in Lange's Genesis, page 197.) 
 
 If it be asked how we may spend the Sabbath most 
 appropriately without falling into Jewish bondage on the 
 one hand, or transcending our Christian liberty on the 
 other, I would say, in a word, that we shall best keep the 
 day by observing it in the spirit of its new name — the 
 Lord's day. As on Washington's birthday we recall the 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 21 
 
 man, recount his sacrifices, and review his character, so 
 on the Lonfs day we are to give our thoughts, disen- 
 gaged from the world by the Sabbath rest, to the con- 
 templation and the imitation of Christ ; to study his per- 
 son and word, to sing his praise, to adore his name, to do 
 works of mercy, and to teach the children his love. 'We 
 should carefully refrain from all unnecessary things that 
 will infringe on the repose of the day, or distract our 
 minds from fellowship with the Lord. For it is a day to 
 be spent in the company of the Master ; sometimes, like 
 Mary, sitting in happy communion at his feet; sometimes 
 listening to his divine teachings in the gathered throng ; 
 sometimes helping the little ones to come unto him to be 
 blessed ; sometimes, like the favored three, going with 
 him to the house of mourning ; and sometimes, like them 
 also, standing with him in the mount, where we have 
 dazzling visions of his glory, and fain would abide for 
 evermore. 
 
 But if the Gospel does not abrogate the Sabbath, 
 either as a -day of rest or worship, neither does it propose 
 to leave it in utter isolation as consecrated time. The 
 ideal life in Christ, of which Paul speaks in the passage 
 before us, demands, in its practical workings, that holiness 
 to the Lord shall be upon the bells of the horses, and that 
 the meanest cooking utensil shall be as the bowls before 
 the altar of God. (Zech. 14:20, 21.) In other words, 
 Christian life and conduct in all their details are to be 
 permeated with that spirit of devout consecration which 
 alone can really sanctify the deed or the doer. The Is- 
 raelite under the law was required to give one-tenth of 
 
 22* 
 
22 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 his substance to the Lord ; the ideal under the Gospel is 
 that of life and possessions wholly devoted to God. And 
 if God still claims one-seventh of our time as peculiarly 
 his own, it does not imply that he means us to be any 
 less holy when engaged in the duties of intervening days 
 than when employed in the services appropriate to the 
 Sabbath. A Christian's life is hid with Christ in God, 
 not only on Sunday, but at all times. In that heavenly 
 presence he moves as a royal priest of God continually, 
 and every act of daily duty is a priestly service. He is 
 bound to keep holy the Sabbath-day, according to the 
 commandment ; but he will also endeavor to sanctify the 
 rest of the week by doing whatever he does — the eating 
 and the drinking, the marrying and the giving in mar- 
 riage, the buying and the selling, as well as the praying 
 and the praising — all, all to the glory of God. 
 
 But the Sabbath itself will always be to him a day 
 above all other days. Its welcome rest, its distinctively 
 religious employments, its hallowed associations, its 
 divine sarxtions, will ever give it a peerless rank, and he 
 will haste to meet it as the lark soars to meet the morn- 
 ing in the upper air. Indeed, without this glad and faith- 
 ful observance of the Lord's day, there is small hope of 
 living on a high spiritual plane on-any other day. 
 
 As regards, however, a holy temper and a consecrated 
 purpose, there should be no violent divorce of the Sab- 
 bath from the rest of the week ; no chilling transition 
 as we turn from worship to business, from rest to toil. I 
 fear the idea that Sunday alone is God's time tends to 
 make some professed Christians unconsciously put on 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 23 
 
 and off their religion with their Sunday clothes ; while 
 the Gospel idea is for all days to be spent in priestly 
 service, and all, even the most mean and trivial of daily 
 duties, to be done to the glory of God. 
 
 ANGEL-WORSHIP. 
 
 3d. But the last point which we notice among the 
 errors rebuked by the apostle is the worship of angels. 
 
 The Pharisees, we are told, confessed the existence of 
 both angels and spirits, but there is no evidence in Scrip- 
 ture that the worship of angels was a part of the Jewish 
 faith. This element, therefore, was probably introduced 
 from extra- Judaic sources, and was no doubt a part of 
 that " philosophy and vain deceit " against which Paul 
 warns the Colossians as having no more substantial basis 
 than the tradition of men. Later Jews, indeed, indulged 
 in the most extravagant speculations as to the successive 
 ranks and orders of angels; and in the second century a 
 most stupendous system of error, embodying analogous 
 speculations, arose — derived largely through Alexandrian 
 literature from the various Oriental speculative and mys- 
 tical philosophies. This system was known as Gnosti- 
 cism, and arrogated to itself the possession of peculiar 
 knowledge, to be comprehended only by the favored few. 
 Certain Gnostic tendencies are supposed to be hinted at 
 in this Epistle, and indeed one of the charges brought 
 against the genuineness of the Epistle by Baur is, that it 
 reveals the existence of a system which historically should 
 be placed a century later. But such a charge cannot 
 fairly be supported. There are only hints, at the most. 
 
24 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 of Gnostic tendencies, not the outlines of a Gnostic sys- 
 tem to be found here. 
 
 But perhaps 'a brief glance at the main features of 
 full-grown Gnosticism may give us a clearer idea of some 
 of these mischievous tendencies which Paul combats. 
 Adopting the dualistic theory of the universe, Gnosti- 
 cism postulates the existence of two mutually opposing 
 kingdoms : one of light, the abode of the absolute and 
 incommunicable God, and the other of darkness, a world 
 of formless matter in which all evil inhered. The great 
 problem was how to bring God into relation with this 
 world of matter so that creation could occur, and yet God 
 not be compromised by contact with this kingdom of 
 evil. Accordingly, they conceived a series of aeons, or 
 spirits, varying in number with different systems, evolved 
 in successive emanations from the absolute God. At 
 each evolution less and less of the Original Light was 
 reflected by the aeon, till at last an emanation was pro- 
 duced sufficiently remote, and contact with the kingdom 
 of evil became possible, and creation took place. 
 
 Now this angel-worship grew out of a similar false 
 idea about the distance and incommunicability of the 
 Deity. It said, apparently. Sin cannot come into imme- 
 diate contact with holiness : even Christ is too pure and 
 too remote for us to approach directly : it will be more 
 fitting and expressive of proper humility if we interpose 
 the mediation of the angels, who excel in strength, and 
 who may intercede for us, at least avail to help us. 
 Here comes in the apostle's warning, " Let no one rob 
 you of your prize — the Christian's reward — by persuad- 
 
2HE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 25 
 
 ing you into this false humility in the worship of angels. 
 These men are idle dreamers, puffed up by their idle car- 
 nal speculations. As there is to your body one head from 
 which the whole body, duly attached and supported, de- 
 rives its unity and growth, so in spiritual life there is one 
 Head, even Christ. No angel mediators should be suf- 
 fered to come between you and him. As your own head 
 is directly and firmly attached to your body, so the con- 
 tact and union of each believer with Christ is direct, or- 
 ganic, vital. To interpose other mediators is to cut your- 
 selves off from the only source of life and growth. In 
 him, made flesh, dwells all the fulness of the Godhead ; 
 and out of his fulness all your fulness comes, and that 
 directly from his divine-human person. He is the head 
 of all principality and power and every other name you 
 may apply to the celestial hosts : yea, he rules the spir- 
 itual hosts of darkness as well : for on the cross he strip- 
 ped them of their power and made a show of them open- 
 ly, leading them in triumph. And will you sever your 
 connection with your spiritual head, and yet hope to 
 grow } Will you turn from the personal audience of the 
 King, freely tendered you, to seek his favor through his 
 servants t You do but dishonor your Master with such 
 mock humility." 
 
 With reference to the more fully developed Gnostic 
 scheme, while it cannot fairly be discovered in the Epis- 
 tle, yet a single passage in the first chapter is wondrously 
 adapted to meet this false conception of God's relation to 
 the universe. With Paul there is no room, as there is no 
 occasion, for successive emanations. He knows of but 
 
26 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 
 
 one being who stands in any such relation to God : and 
 he is the image of the Invisible One, the first-born of all 
 creation. There are no long approaches to be prepared 
 before God can compass the work of creation ; for in 
 him, the first-born of God, were created all things, those 
 in the heavens and those on earth, the visible and the 
 invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities 
 or powers, all things were created through him and for 
 him. And he is before all things, and in him all things 
 subsist. As he is the head of creation, so also he is the 
 head of the body — the church, since he is the beginning, 
 the first-born from the dead ; that in all things he may 
 be preeminent. For God was pleased that in him all 
 fulness should dwell. Outside of Christ, then, there are 
 no aeons or angels who in any sense are an extension of 
 the Godhead. All the fulness of the Godhead resides in 
 him who was made flesh and who wears our nature still. 
 What revelation of God was better calculated to meet 
 the incipient evil of angel-worship at Colossae, or the 
 more gigantic system of error that afterward arose as 
 Gnosticism } 
 
 A SIMILAR ERROR OF TO-DAY. 
 And what shall we say, in concluding our remarks on 
 this Epistle, of those who to-day are repeating and de- 
 fending an error almost identical with that which Paul 
 here condemns, namely : the invocation of saints, and for 
 that matter, of angels too ? who dishonor the Head of 
 the church by making their approaches to him through 
 a deceased woman ? who invoke departed Christians, 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 127 
 
 and supplicate the good offices of angels on the ground 
 which would place them on a par with the Gnostic aeons, 
 that in a subordinate degree they are partakers of the 
 Divine nature ? It only shows how inveterate is that in- 
 stinct of false humility which dishonors Christ by refu- 
 sing to recognize him as the sole and sufficient mediator 
 between God and man. Well does the Scripture exhort 
 us to come boldly to a throne of grace. 
 
 And are we not liable unwittingly to fall into the _^.y^,4^ 
 same slough by magnifying too highly the intercession 
 of living saints on behalf of ourselves or others ? This 
 urging the anxious to rise for prayers, th[s_sending up of 
 multitudinous requests to some popular place where 
 prayer is wont to be made, this desire for the prayers of 
 some individual especially prominent or gifted — may 
 there not lurk in it all the germs of a feeling that may / 
 unconsciously put some one else in the place of Christ pf 
 as intercessor.? When the idea is that others '' strive^' '^^ 
 together with us " in prayer to God, there is no impro- 
 priety or peril ; but if the secret thought is, " This per- 
 son is better than I, Christ will listen to him more read- 
 ily than to me," we are verging towards the idolatry of 
 the Romanist and the angel-worship of the Colossian 
 church. " Whosoever cometh unto me I will in no wise 
 cast out." Let us teach men that the throne of grace 
 is free to the direct approach of all, and may the good 
 Lord keep us from the subtleties of our own deceitful 
 hearts, and enable us to live in close and conscious fel- 
 lowship with our living Head. 
 
28 THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 
 
 THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 
 
 But a few moments remain for the consideration of 
 the Epistle to Philemon ; and, in truth, there are no seri- 
 ous difficulties to detain us, though it would furnish in its 
 suggestiveness a multitude of practical lessons. It is 
 brief — a single chapter of twenty-five verses — conceived 
 in the most beautiful spirit, and easy of comprehension. 
 We deem the following to be consistent with Paul's let- 
 ters as the probable history of the case. 
 
 Paul's language in the 19th verse, "to me thou owest 
 even thine own self," implies that Philemon was indebted 
 to the apostle as the instrument of his conversion. As 
 we have stated before, it is altogether likely that in some 
 visit to Ephesus Philemon, who was a citizen of Colossce, 
 fell in with Paul and became a Christian. A warm per- 
 sonal friendship was established between them, and on 
 his return to Colossae Philemon became an active mem- 
 ber of the church, and opened his house for its meetings. 
 His wife also appears here as a convert, and Archippus, 
 probably their son, held some important office in the 
 church at Laodicea, within easy walking distance of his 
 parents* home. Another member of Philemon's house- 
 hold was a slave named Onesimus, who perhaps may also 
 have been known to Paul, or who most likely knew of 
 Paul at Ephesus. For some reason, not gathered from 
 the letter, Onesimus ran away from his master, and appar- 
 ently also robbed him at the same time. Perhaps the 
 theft was what led to his flight. He at last made his way 
 to Rome, where he would be most likely to escape detec- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON, 29 
 
 tion in the crowds of the metropolis. But whether his 
 previous knowledge of Paul led him to the apostle's pres- 
 ence, or whether he was driven by v^rant to go to him, or 
 whether Epaphras found him and brought him to Paul, 
 certain it is that he became a convert to Paul's preaching, 
 and a most useful helper to the apostle. Indeed, Paul 
 would gladly have retained him about his person to min- 
 ister to him, but he felt that Philemon's rights must be 
 considered, and Onesimus be returned. He knew that 
 he had only to write to Philemon and request his consent 
 to retain his slave, but that would seem to put Philemon 
 under some constraint, and he wished the favor to be 
 granted of his own free will. In addition, therefore, to 
 the letter to the Colossian church at large, he writes a 
 private letter to Philemon to secure the favorable recep- 
 tion of Onesimus, who had doubly wronged his master 
 by theft and flight. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE. 
 After the salutation to the various members of Phile- 
 mon's household (1-3) and a hearty expression of thank- 
 fulness for Phikmon's love to God's people (4-/), he 
 enters on the principal object of his letter. He hints at 
 his right to command Philemon on the ground of his 
 apostolic authority, but prefers to plead with him as a 
 dear friend. He reminds him, too, that Paul is now an 
 old man and a prisoner, and exhorts him to receive the 
 once "good-for-nothing slave" as though he were the 
 apostle's own child— as indeed he was, spiritually (8-12). 
 After alluding to his wish to keep him with him, as fur. 
 
 ^3 
 
30 THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 
 
 ther evidence, perhaps, of his own confidence in Onesi- 
 mus' conversion, he dwells on the wonderful providence 
 that had taken Onesimus away for a season that he might 
 be returned for ever ; for the bonds which now united 
 slave and master were those of Christian brotherhood, 
 and would never be broken. And if Paul had occasion 
 to rejoice, how much more Philemon, over the happy 
 change (13-16). Again, by their old-time comradeship 
 he urged the reception of Onesimus, even as himself; 
 and promises, over his own signature, to be responsible 
 for anything in which the runaway may be indebted to 
 his master ; albeit he reminds Philemon how he owes to 
 him his own self (17-19). "Yea, my brother," he adds, 
 "let me have joy of thee in the Lord ; refresh my heart 
 in the Lord." At the same time he expresses his confi- 
 dence that Philemon will even exceed his wishes, and 
 bids him prepare him a lodging in the hope of a future 
 visit (20-22). A few salutations close the Epistle (23-25). 
 
 But no paraphrase can do justice to the simple ear- 
 nestness, the delicate tact, the Christian courtesy of this 
 short letter. It has been and will remain unapproacha- 
 ble, in these regards, in the annals of epistolary corre- 
 spondence. The letter with which it has been oftenest 
 compared is one addressed to a friend by the younger 
 Pliny. The following translation of this beautiful letter 
 is given in Lightfoot's Commentary on the Epistles to 
 the Colossians and Philemon, a book to which I have 
 been very greatly indebted in the preparation of this lec- 
 ture. The letter runs as follows : 
 
 "Your freedman, with whom, you had told me you 
 
THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 31 
 
 were vexed, came to me, and throwing himself down 
 before me, clung to my feet, as if they had been yours. 
 He was profuse in his tears and his entreaties ; he was 
 profuse also in his silence. In short, he convinced me 
 of his penitence. I believe that he is indeed a reformed 
 character, because he feels that he has done wrong. You 
 are angry, I know ; and you have reason to be angry ; 
 this also I know • but mercy wins the highest praise just 
 when there is the most righteous cause for anger. You 
 loved the man, and I hope will continue to love him ; 
 meanwhile, it is enough that you should allow yourself 
 to yield to his prayers. You may be angry again if he 
 deserves it ; and in this you will be the more readily 
 pardoned, if you yield now. Concede something to his 
 youth, something to his tears, something to your own 
 indulgent disposition. Do not torture him, lest you tor- 
 ture yourself also at the same time. For it is torture to 
 you when one of your gentle temper is angry. I am 
 afraid lest I should appear not to ask, but to compel, if I 
 should add my prayers to his. Yet I will add them, the 
 more fully and unreservedly because I scolded the man 
 himself with sharpness and severity ; for I threatened 
 him strictly that I would never ask you again. This I 
 said to him, for it was necessary to alarm him ; but I do 
 not use the same language to you. For perchance I 
 shall ask again, and shall be successful again ; only let 
 my request be such as it becomes me to prefer and you 
 to grant. Farewell." 
 
 And Lightfoot adds : 
 
 "The younger Pliny is the noblest type of a true Ro- 
 
32 THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 
 
 man gentleman, and this touching letter needs no words 
 of praise. Yet, if purity of diction be excepted, there 
 will hardly be any difference of opinion in awarding the 
 palm to the Christian apostle. As an expression of sim- 
 ple dignity, of refined courtesy, of large sympathy, and of 
 warm personal affection, the Epistle to Philemon stands 
 unrivalled." 
 
 THE MORAL VALUE OF THE fepiSTLE. 
 
 But the great importance of this Epistle to the 
 Christian church lies in the attitude in which it placed 
 Christianity to slavery. The evils of slavery in that age 
 and the proportions it assumed were simply enormous. 
 The slaves of Attica, Lightfoot tells us, were as numer- 
 ous as its citizens, and in the contracted territory of 
 Corinth there were not less than 460,000. In Egina, 
 scarcely 40 square miles in extent, there were 470,000 
 slaves. Some wealthy Roman land-owners had 10,000 
 or 20,000, or more. These slaves had no protection in 
 Roman law, and were absolutely at their masters' dispo- 
 sal. And so great was the dread of their violence, that 
 the law enacted that in case of the murder of a master 
 all the slaves under the same roof should be put to death — 
 a law which was probably executed on 400 human beings 
 in a single instance during Paul's residence in Rome. 
 
 Now what Paul would have done had his century 
 been the nineteenth instead of the first, we can only 
 conjecture; it is safe to assume that he would have been 
 judiciously conservative. But in that age and under those 
 circumstances he deemed it his duty to send the run- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. zt, 
 
 away slave back to his master. Perhaps he would have 
 done the same had Philemon not been a Christian, but a 
 cruel heathen ; we know not. But we can conceive him 
 talking to Onesimus familiarly something after this 
 strain : " To be sure, Onesimus, it was your lot to be a 
 slave ; but you are now Christ's freeman. From a worse 
 bondage than that of the body has the grace of God 
 delivered you — even bondage to your own degrading life 
 and passions. Henceforth you have really but one 
 master to serve — the Lord who has redeemed us all. 
 Poverty and toil are not the lot of slaves alone. Go back 
 and serve Philemon faithfully, doing what you do heartily 
 as unto the Lord, and not merely to please your earthly 
 master. Serve Christ, and from him shall be your re- 
 ward." What he wrote to Philemon we have already 
 seen, and in the letter addressed to the Colossian church 
 he had enjoined on all masters to deal justly by their 
 bond-servants, remembering that they had a Master in 
 heaven who was no respecter of persons. 
 
 Paul felt that he could safely leave this case to the 
 inherent influence of the gospel in the heart of both 
 master and slave. He knew that Philemon would not be 
 likely to pass the cup to Onesimus at the Lord's table 
 as a brother beloved, and then order him to be tortured 
 for his recent fault. And before that same idea of uni- 
 versal brotherhood and equality of man which inhered in 
 the gospel, Paul knew that slavery everywhere was doom- 
 ed ultimately to fall. To attempt to do away with the 
 evil as then existing by prohibitory injunctions on the 
 Christian church, or by inciting social crusades against 
 
 23* 
 
34 THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 
 
 it, would have been repeating the great tragedy of Sam- 
 son's end, and for the time at least Christianity and social 
 order would have been brought down together in one 
 awful wreck. But from the hour when the gospel was 
 preached as recognizing no distinctions of race or rank 
 in Christ Jesus, the work of sapping and mining this 
 hugh social fabric has been going steadily on. Progress 
 has been slow; the cries of successive generations of 
 enslaved and outraged humanity have gone up into the 
 ears of the Lord of Sabaoth apparently unheeded. But 
 it is our glad privilege to live in the far-off age that has 
 seen the mine fired and a huge portion of the gigantic 
 structure fall. And what England, Russia, and America, 
 have done presages the utter and speedy extinction of 
 slavery the wide world around. The silent, all-pow- 
 erful moral influence of the gospel of Jesus Christ has 
 done it. 
 
 And when slavery falls from such a cause there is no 
 likelihood of its restoration. Though nominally as a 
 war measure emancipation took place in this country, yet 
 the moral sentiment of the people as dominated by the 
 spirit of Christianity led the way for it, and alone made 
 the triumph permanent. And it is remarkable, with all 
 the social ostracism and political intimidation and grind- 
 ing opposition that have been visited on the Freedmen of 
 the South, there has been no suggestion of their reen- 
 ^lavement. The situation seems to have been accepted 
 not merely as a dire necessity under political conquest 
 and military force, but with a sense of relief as from a 
 horrid nightmare. Southern slavery is twice dead, 
 
THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 35 
 
 plucked up by the roots ; and I doubt if there were to- 
 day a Southern Confederacy, and the blacks were left 
 solely to the mercy of those States, whether the boasted 
 corner-stone of that Confederacy as originally organized 
 would not prove to be a stone which the builders would 
 reject ; and, so far from ever being exalted to the head of 
 the corner, it would be ground to impalpable powder. 
 
 If there be, then, one lesson to be drawn, in closing, 
 from the study of these two Epistles, it would be the 
 renewing and revolutionizing power of the truth as it is 
 in Jesus. We have seen the transforming power of that 
 lofty ideal of a life hid with Christ in God, more potent 
 far, in regulating individual conduct, than all prohibitory 
 legislation and outward rules. And we have to-day the 
 palpable evidence that great social and political systems 
 of evil yield in God's good time to the same omnipotent 
 influence of the truth of the gospel. May we not gather 
 thence wisdom and encouragement for our assaults on the 
 gigantic evils that yet remain ; and while not neglecting 
 any legitimate means for restricting their outward growth, 
 yet be most assiduous in our endeavor to pierce their 
 very heart with the sword of the Spirit, which is the 
 word of God ? 
 
THE 
 
 Pastoral Epistles 
 
 TO 
 
 TIMOTHY AND TITUS. 
 
 BY REV. C. C. TIFFANY, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
ST. PAUL'S 
 PASTORAL EPISTLES 
 
 It has become my grateful task to address you con- 
 cerning the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul. It is a pleas- 
 ant duty, albeit an arduous one : pleasant, because we 
 cannot read any writing of the great apostle to the Gen- 
 tiles without a sense of coming in contact with a master 
 mind, nor without a strong impression that his was a 
 human spirit, nobly fitted by its discipline and its attain- 
 ments to be the channel for the message of the Divine 
 Spirit; pleasant, because he summons us to audience 
 with a great heart and a grand intellect, along which and 
 through which the truth of God marches with imperial 
 tread ; but an arduous task, both by reason of the sub- 
 ject-matter, so lofty and at times so subtle, and of the 
 disputations of men, which have woven their interpreta- 
 tions about it — interpretations which bewilder us by their 
 variety, and distract us with the din of theological and 
 ecclesiastical conflict. It is my purpose, however, to 
 avoid as far as possible this outside confusion, and to 
 gather from out these Epistles themselves the salient 
 truths they were meant to teach — truths which we must 
 
4 ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 learn for ourselves if we would rightly teach them to 
 others. 
 
 The Pastoral Epistles are three. They consist of 
 two to Timothy and one to Titus. In the order of their 
 composition, the one to Titus comes in between the first 
 and second letters to Timothy, but they were all writ- 
 ten within the space of a few years, and all after the 
 first imprisonment of St. Paul in Rome, with the ac- 
 count of which Luke's history in the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles ends. 
 
 It may be asked why we are to assume a second im- 
 prisonment of the apostle Paul unrecorded in Holy Writ, 
 during which and between which and the first imprison- 
 ment these Pastoral Epistles were written. There are 
 both internal and external reasons which compel it. 
 Those which are internal refer to the subject-matter of 
 the Epistles, and the nature of the heresies and false 
 teachings which are rebuked in them, which are of such 
 a character as could not have arisen in the earlier period 
 of the apostle's life. Indeed, to certain destructive crit- 
 ics the form of these ripe evils herein treated has been 
 the occasion for strong doubt, if not for stout denial, of 
 the apostolic authorship of the Epistles. Both Schleier- 
 macher and De Wette have urged this argument, which 
 we will consider farther on, when we think we can show 
 that the evils herein treated coincide exactly with that 
 late epoch in St. Paul's life which marks, the interval be- 
 tween the first and second imprisonment. But undoubt- 
 edly the nature of the heresies here mentioned and the 
 phrases applied to them are so advanced upon the evils 
 
ST. PAUL'S PASTORAL EPLSTLES. 5 
 
 corrected and opposed in the Epistles to the Ephesians 
 and Colossians, or appearing at any time of the period 
 extending from the year a. d. 54 to a. d. 63, during 
 which the other Epistles were written, that we are forced 
 to place these writings among the latest productions of 
 the apostle's pen, and assign them to the period subse- 
 quent to the account of his residence in Rome, with which 
 the Book of the Acts of the Apostles so abruptly ends. 
 The concluding notices of the second Epistle to Timo- 
 thy, wherein the apostle speaks (as in chap. 4:6) of his 
 prospect of immediate martyrdom, forbid our placing 
 that Epistle at any earlier period, and all the three letters 
 stand together in the nature of their contents. 
 
 The external reasons for assuming a liberation from 
 the first imprisonment followed by a second imprison- 
 ment, are as follows : The Epistles to Timothy are writ- 
 ten to him at Ephesus, and in his character of presiding 
 officer of the church there, to which special charge he 
 had been set apart by the apostle Paul himself when he 
 went into Macedonia. See i Tim. i : 3. This time must 
 have been subsequent to St. Paul's first visit to Ephe- 
 sus, recorded in Acts 18:20, 21, when the church was 
 founded, if indeed it was at that time founded. For at 
 that time of his departure, St. Paul did not go to Mace- 
 donia, but to Jerusalem. The second visit to Ephesus 
 was the long one related in Acts 19, when he continued 
 there (see ver. 10) at least two years ; which statement 
 may not have included the whole time, since St. Paul, in 
 his address to the elders of Ephesus, who met him by 
 appointment at Miletus (Acts 20 : 31), says "by the space 
 
 -4 
 
6 ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 of three years" he preached among them ; which, by the 
 well-known method of Jewish reckoning, may mean no 
 more than parts of three years, but must mean as much. 
 The apostle did at this time depart to go to Macedonia 
 (Acts 20 : i) ; yet he did not leave Timothy behind him, 
 but, as we read in Acts 19 : 22, he sent Timothy and 
 Erastus before him. Again (in i Tim. 3 : 14), we find 
 the apostle hopes soon to follow his letter to Ephesus ; 
 but in the Acts we find no trace of such intention and 
 no attempt to accomplish it. It has been supposed by 
 some that Timothy's stay in Macedonia was short, and 
 that he returned to Ephesus before the apostle left (see 
 I Cor. 16: 8-1 1) ; but if so he must have almost imme- 
 diately deserted his charge ; for, as is evident from 2 Cor. 
 I : I, he is again in the autumn with St. Paul in Macedo- 
 nia (whence the 2d Epistle to the Corinthians was writ- 
 ten), in the winter in Corinth (see Rom. 16:21), where 
 the Epistle to the Romans was written, and returned to 
 Asia with him (Acts 20 : 3, 4) ; so that the ruling and 
 ordering of the Ephesian church during the apostle's 
 absence, which furnish the whole scope of the Epistle, 
 would have been defeated. Some critics, to meet this 
 difficulty, have supposed an unrecorded journey of the 
 apostle into Macedonia during the two or three years' 
 residence in Ephesus ; but the whole character of the 
 first Epistle shows that (to quote Dean Alford) it belongs 
 not to a brief and casual absence of this kind, but to one 
 intended to last some time. The hope of returning soon 
 is faint (i Tim. 3 : 14) ; the provision is for a longer 
 absence. 
 
ST, PA UrS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 7 
 
 Taken, then, with the internal considerations already 
 alluded to, the external indications form a strong argu- 
 ment for a later composition of these Epistles than the 
 theory of one imprisonment would furnish, especially as 
 the fact of a second imprisonment is supported by an 
 ancient tradition not easily set aside, referred to in the 
 Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius (2:22), in the ist 
 Epistle of Clement of Rome to Corinth, and in a frag- 
 ment of Muratori on the Canon. 
 
 Now as to the fact, time, and place of the writing of 
 the 1st Epistle to Timothy, we have the following indi- 
 cations : In the Epistle to the Philippians (i : 26 and 
 2 : 24), written during the first imprisonment in Rome, 
 the apostle intends and hopes to come to see them 
 shortly. The hope of release also appears in the Epistle 
 to Philemon (ver. 22), written from Rome. The suppo- 
 sition is that the apostle realized this hope and visited 
 (when once set free) the Macedonian and Asiatic church- 
 es, leaving Timothy at Ephesus, and writing the Epistle 
 from some place on his journey where he was detained 
 and was likely to be kept longer than he had anticipated 
 (i Tim. 3 : 14, 15); that he went with Titus to Crete, 
 leaving him there to complete the organization of the 
 Cretan churches (Titus i : 5), writing the Epistle soon 
 after from Asia Minor, when proposing to winter at Ni- 
 copolis (3 : 12), a well-known city in Epirus. We judge, 
 from 2 Tim. 4: 13, 20 (written after his last communica- 
 tion with Timothy and from the Roman prison), that he 
 journeyed from Crete to Nicopolis by Troas and Miletus. 
 Nicopolis was a Roman colony, and the apostle having 
 
8 ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES, 
 
 been known in Rome as a leader of the Christians, 
 would be exposed to the hostile action of parties plotting 
 against him in the metropolis, and would be likely, at any 
 time after the great fire at Rome in A. d. 64 (which Nero, 
 who caused it, charged upon the Christians), to be arrest- 
 ed as implicated in causing it. As in this case the crime 
 alleged was committed in Roifte, the Decemviri of Ni- 
 copolis would send him to Rome for trial. We learn 
 from 2 Tim. 2 : 9 that he was in this imprisonment treat- 
 ed as a criminal, not as an offender in matters of the 
 Jewish law — as before, when he dwelt two years chained 
 to a soldier in his own hired house (see Acts 28 : 30). As 
 a criminal he is now thrown into prison, Of his Asiatic 
 friends only Nicephorus was faithful and found him out 
 (2 Tim. 1:16; 4:10, 11). Luke was faithful still; but 
 in his loneliness and infirm and premature old age, at 65, 
 St. Paul writes this second letter to his favorite Timothy, 
 begging him to come wiih Mark to see him. It was 
 written after his first appearance and pleading before the 
 court (2 Tim. 4 : 16, 17), but how long after we cannot tell. 
 But both Eusebius and Jerome mention the tradition 
 that he suffered martyrdom in the last year, or last but 
 one, of Nero, therefore late in 6^ or in 6'^. And this 
 Epistle (2 Tim. 4 : 6) was written in immediate expecta- 
 tion of that event. It has, not without reason therefore, 
 been called the testament of the dying Paul to his spir- 
 itual son, and through him to the whole community. 
 
 Let us now turn from the writer to the recipients of 
 these letters. Of Titus but little, of Timothy much is 
 known. Titus is never once mentioned in the Acts, un- 
 
ST. PAUrS PASTORAL EPISTLES, 9 
 
 less under another name, which some have supposed to 
 be the case, since of all the companions of St. Paul, he 
 seems to have been the most valued and trusted. But 
 some have supposed that at last he deserted the apostle, 
 and so found no mention at the hands of St. Luke. In 
 view, however, of his excellent character and devotion, 
 we are compelled to regard his departure from the im- 
 prisoned Paul at Rome for Dalmatia (2 Tim. 4: 10) as 
 suggested by the apostle himself. He is first mentioned 
 in the Epistle to the Galatians, chap. 2:1, 3, where we 
 learn that he was of Gentile origin ; and we conclude 
 that he was certainly converted under St. Paul, from the 
 expression (Titus i : 4), " To Titus mine own son after 
 the common faith." The next notice of him is in 2 Corin- 
 thians, where (12: 18) we find that he, with two other 
 brethren, was sent forward by St. Paul from Ephesus, 
 during his long sojourn there, to set on foot a collection 
 (8 : 6) for the poor saints at Jerusalem, and to ascertain 
 the effect of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. In 
 2 Cor. 2:12, 13, we learn that notwithstanding the great 
 opportunities of usefulness at Troas, where the apostle 
 Paul waited after his departure from Ephesus, he was so 
 anxious for the return of Titus that he went over into 
 Macedonia to meet him, and (chap. 8:6-15) was greatly 
 comforted by the satisfactory account which he brought 
 of the effect of the ist Epistle, and by the effective zeal 
 and earnestness in the work of the gospel shown by Titus 
 himself. In chap. 8 : 23, St. Paul calls him his partner 
 and fellow-helper; and in 12 : 18 he appeals to his integ- 
 rity and entire unity of action with himself. From this 
 
lo ST. PAUrS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 time for a period of ten years (a. d. 57 to 67) we know 
 nothing of Titus, except the notices furnished in the 
 Epistle. From this we learn that St. Paul had left him 
 in Crete (1:5), "to set in ordet the things that are 
 wanting, and ordain elders in every city." His stay at 
 this time was not long, for in 3:12 the apostle summons 
 him to come to Nicopolis, where he was to winter, and 
 whence, as we have seen, St. Paul was probably sent to 
 Rome for his last imprisonment and martyrdom, charged 
 with criminal action. From 2 Tim. 4 : 10, we learn that 
 Titus left St. Paul for Dalmatia, whether before or after 
 the apostle reached Rome we cannot tell. So far as 
 tradition goes, Eusebius speaks of him as the first bishop 
 of Crete ; and Butler, in the " Lives of the Saints," says 
 he is honored in Dalmatia as its principal apostle ; that 
 he returned from Dalmatia to Crete, and finished a labo- 
 rious and holy life at Crete, at an advanced age. 
 
 Concerning Timothy we have fuller information. He 
 is first mentioned (Acts 16 : i) as dwelling in Derbe or 
 Lystra, on St Paul's second visit there. His mother was 
 a Jewess, his father a Gentile, and he was probably con- 
 verted under the apostle's preaching on his first visit, as 
 (i Tim. I -.2) the apostle styles him, "My own son in 
 the faith." His mother and his grandmother Lois (2 Tim. 
 I : 5) were both Christians, probably converted on St. 
 Paul's first visit from being pious Jewesses (3 : 14, 15). 
 Though young, Timothy was well esteemed at Lystra 
 and Derbe (Acts 16 : 2), and St. Paul took him as a helper 
 in the missionary work, having first circumcised him, his 
 father being a Jew, to remove any obstacle to his access 
 
ST. PAUrS PASTORAL -EPISTLES, ii 
 
 to the Jews. This has been made a charge of time-serv- 
 ing and inconsistency against the apostle, as he had re- 
 fused to circumcise Titus. But the cases were different. 
 Titus was a Greek. To circumcise him, would have been 
 to yield to the principle of the Judaizers — that a man 
 must be made a Jew to be a true Christian. To have 
 refused to circumcise Timothy (of Jewish stock) would 
 have seemed to declare that the Jew could not be in the 
 fullest sense a Christian. St. Paul's open position op- 
 posed both these views. His watchword was, ** Neither 
 circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision." 
 His action in regard to both Titus and Timothy showed 
 strict adherence to his principle of the indifference of 
 outward acts. In Titus he resisted circumcision when 
 declared necessary and made an essential of Christianity. 
 In Timothy he performed the rite, not in itself wrong, 
 when it would give greater access to the gospel — in re- 
 spect of which neither circumcision nor uncircumcision 
 availeth anything. He combined in his diverse actions 
 the same principle, which led in the one case to the main- 
 taining of freedom and in the other to the expediency 
 of free concession. 
 
 Without tracing all the events of his career, suffice it 
 to say, that from this time on Timothy was the compan- 
 ion and fellow-worker of the apostle. He probably ac- 
 companied him in his progress through Macedonia, for 
 he was left behind in Berea with Titus (Acts 17:14), 
 when the apostle was sent away to Athens by sea. He 
 rejoined the apostle with Silas at Corinth, having brought 
 tidings from Thessalonica. (See i Thess. 3 : 6.) He 
 
12 ^T. PAUL'S PASTORAL EPISTLES, 
 
 remained with the apostle at Corinth, and his name 
 appears in the addresses of both the P^pistles to the 
 Thessalonians written at Corinth. We next find him 
 ministering to St. Paul during his long stay at Ephesus 
 (Acts 19 : 22), whence he was sent with Erastus to Mace- 
 donia. He was with the apostle again in Macedonia 
 when he wrote the second Epistle to the Corinthians 
 (2 Cor. 1:1); and in the winter following was with him in 
 Corinth when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. 
 16:21), and on the apostle's return to Asia went forward 
 and waited for him at Troas. We next hear of him from 
 the three Epistles of the first Roman imprisonment. 
 He was with St. Paul when he wrote to the Colossians 
 (Col. I : i), to Philemon (verse i), and to the Philippians 
 (Phil. 1:1). From this time we hear of him no more till 
 We come to the Pastoral Epistles. From these we learn 
 that he was left by the apostle at Ephesus to take charge 
 of the church in his absence ; and St. Paul's urgent 
 appeal to him to come to him in Rome makes it proba- 
 ble that he would set out immediately to see him there. 
 The tradition mentioned in Eusebius styles him the first 
 bishop of Ephesus ; and the ancient martyrologies make 
 him die by martyrdom under Domitian. 
 
 When Timothy was ordained to the ministry we can- 
 not tell. Dean Alford inclines to the view that it was 
 when left by the apostle for his isolated work at Ephe- 
 sus. Be the time what it may, he was solemnly set 
 apart for the ministry with the " laying on of the apostle's 
 hands and those of the presbytery " (i Tim. 4 : 14 ; 2 Tim. 
 1:6); and according to prophecy (i Tim. 4 : 14; 1:18). 
 
ST. PAUrS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 13 
 
 His character was earnest and self-denying, as shown 
 by his leaving home with the apostle, his submission to 
 circumcision at his hands, and from (i Tim. 5 : 23) the 
 fact of his abstinence fpom wine. There are tokens of 
 timidity apparent in the apostle's exhortations to him, as 
 though he were better fitted for a coadjutor than an inde- 
 pendent laborer, (i Cor. 16:10.) For about fifteen 
 years he was as a son in the Gospel to the apostle, a 
 source of great consolation to St. Paul, and a man of 
 devoted and affectionate character, though doubtless 
 lacking in the boldness of his spiritual father — an apos- 
 tolic Melancthon to the apostolic Luther. 
 
 I have dwelt thus long on the writer and recipients 
 of these Epistles, because they are so especially per- 
 sonal communications. It is indeed an official person 
 who writes and who is written to, and of course there is 
 much reference to official station and ofificial duties ; but 
 there is a personal strain throughout these letters, and 
 they are rather the utterances of affection than official 
 admonitions. We shall find much of the value of the 
 Epistles to consist in this. They give an insight into 
 the very heart of the apostle, and teach us how the Divine 
 inspiration mingled with and made use of the natural 
 affections and characteristic emotions of the writer, as 
 well as of his higher intellectual endowments. 
 
 'first epistle to timothy. 
 
 This Epistle itself states the occasion of its composi- 
 tion. St. Paul had left Timothy in charge of the Ephe- 
 sian church. Heresies, such as he had foretold in his 
 
14 -5*7: PAUL'S PASTORAL EPLSTLES. 
 
 address to the elders of Ephesus — who met him at Mile- 
 tus, when he took a supposed final leave of them — had 
 arisen ; and Timothy, comparatively young, and unused 
 to independent labors, must be -encouraged and enlight- 
 ened concerning his work, in the doubtful prospect of a 
 return of the apostle — a return which he had hoped to 
 accomplish when he left, (i Tim. 3 : 14, 15.) The pre- 
 cepts of the apostle, however, regarded two quite differ- 
 ent branches of his duty : one was to keep down and 
 extirpate the growing heresies of the day ; the other had 
 respect to the government of the church itself. 
 
 Before, however, dwelling upon either of these topics, 
 I would call your attention to one feature of both the 
 Epistles to Timothy, which marks them at once as per- 
 sonal communications and as the utterances of an aged 
 Christian man. I do this because it illustrates the natu- 
 ral flow of his supernatural inspiration, and lets us see 
 how free and unconstrained in the method of its expres- 
 sion was that Divine enlightenment which gives to these 
 Epistles the force of a Heavenly Authority, while it pre- 
 serves intact the characteristics of the human author. 
 Indeed, we learn from this feature of these letters how 
 the Holy Spirit, who inspires the thought, uses what 
 some might term the infirmity of old age, and what all 
 recognize as its characteristic, as the means of conveying 
 some of the most touching as well as the most exalted 
 expressions of Divine truth, and leads our thoughts to 
 dwell on the author as an inspired man rather than merely 
 an inspired penman — as one whose whole being was suf- 
 fused with the truth and spirit of Christ, so that it could 
 
ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 15 
 
 not but manifest itself, whether by a direct effort of 
 argument, or the indirect expressions of personal expe- 
 rience. 
 
 This peculiar characteristic of these Epistles is St. 
 Paul's habit of going off, on the mention of anything 
 which reminds him of God's mercies to himself, or of his 
 own sufferings on behalf of the Gospel, into a digression 
 on his own history or feelings or hopes. The habit of 
 digression, or of having his attention caught by a word 
 or phrase which suggested some side-truth, and leaving 
 for a while the direct argument to pursue it, is charac- 
 teristic of St. Paul in all his epistles. But in the letters 
 before us the cause of digression is different, while the 
 habit remains. Here it is not a suggestion of subsidiary, 
 though connected truth, but of some personal experience 
 which sets his heart glowing, rather than his mind 
 moving, and stirs him up to the utterance of that elo- 
 quent ascription v/hich is kindled from the embers of 
 feeling, rather than by the fuel of ideas. Turn to i Tim. 
 1:12-18 for an illustration of this characteristic fact. 
 St. Paul here turns from the subject to himself. He has 
 been giving a charge concerning errors in the church. 
 But the words "glorious gospel" were too much for the 
 argument. The aged apostle could not then think only 
 of those who perverted it. His feeling kindles in the 
 thought of what it had done for him, and so he goes on to 
 speak of his own experience of it. I doubt if in all the 
 Biblical literature can be found expressions more dear to 
 the Christian heart than here. They have inwoven them- 
 selves into the universal Christian experience, because 
 
i6 ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 they originated in the utterance of just such experience. 
 " He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry." 
 What clergyman does not con over that expression as 
 the classic utterance of his own emotion as he contem- 
 plates the high responsibilities and the beckoning privi- 
 leges of his calling, especially when the sense of his per- 
 sonal insufficiency presses most heavily upon him ! 
 What Christian does not linger fondly over the expres- 
 sion of ver. 15, as he comes to the cross of his Redeemer 
 for forgiveness and for strength, words which have bro- 
 ken many a criminal's hard heart, and which are by the 
 Episcopal Church put among the comfortable words to 
 be read in the hearing of all the faithful as they approach 
 the table of the Lord's bounty : " It is a faithful saying, 
 and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came 
 into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief"! If 
 we should attempt to sketch even the associations of 
 these words with the scenes they have brightened and 
 glorfied, with the hours of holy communion they have 
 sweetened, the joys of the new-born believer they have 
 begotten, the triumphs of the dying-bed which they have 
 assured and lightened, 
 
 " Where would the glowing numbers end ?" 
 
 Must we not thank God for this inspired utterance of an 
 old man's heart, as fervently as for the profoundest ar- 
 gument begotten by the same Spirit in his brain ? And 
 when we look at the ascription in ver. 17, which closes 
 this interjected paragraph, where shall we, in all litera- 
 ture, find the equal of its sublimity.? "Now unto the 
 
ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 17 
 
 King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be 
 honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." Of these 
 and other like passages in these Epistles might be said 
 vrith far deeper and truer meaning, what a distinguished 
 modern writer says concerning the effect of the writings 
 of Thomas a Kempis.* See how what she writes of him 
 applies here : " This voice out of the far-off (Middle) 
 ages was the direct communication of a human soul's 
 belief and experience, and came .... as an unquestioned 
 message. I suppose this is the reason why the small 
 old-fashioned book .... works miracles to-day, turning 
 bitter waters into sweetness, while expensive sermons 
 and treatises newly issued leave all things as they were 
 before. It was written down by a hand that waited for 
 the heart's prompting ; it is the chronicle of a solitary 
 hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written 
 on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are 
 treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it 
 remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and 
 human consolations ; the voice of a brother who ages 
 
 ago felt and suffered and renounced, with a fashion 
 
 of speech different from ours, but under the same silent 
 far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, 
 the same strivings, the same failures, the same weari- 
 ness" — we may joyfully add, of our Master, the apostle, 
 with the same faith as ours, and with the same Lord to 
 inspire it. 
 
 There are other such passages, though shorter, to be 
 found in i Tim. 2 : 7 ; 2 Tim. i : 1 1, 12 notably, " For I 
 
 * George Eliot ia "The Mill on the Floss." 
 25 
 
1 8 ST. PAUL'S PASTORAL EPLSTLES. 
 
 know whom I have believed," etc. ; 2:9, 10 ; and espe- 
 cially 4 : 6-9, which I must read to you before we go off 
 on the heresies, as being so full of that joyful faith in the 
 midst of all difficulties and dangers that it may well 
 teach us to keep a steadfast trust in the face of any 
 menace to the faith. Read 2 Tim. 4 : 6-9, 16-19 > ^Iso 
 I Tim. 6: 13-16. 
 
 These illustrations of the personal breaks or inter- 
 ruptions of the course of the Epistle, show the general 
 character of its style. It is not succinct and logically 
 coherent, but discursive, now speaking of this, now of 
 that ; more in the character of a private letter to a pub- 
 Ih: person, than an official document. Our criticism of 
 its contents, therefore, must keep this in view, if we are 
 to really grasp its import, both in regard to the heresies 
 of which it treats, and to the church government which 
 it recommends ; for we have here germinant principles 
 to guide action, rather than positive edicts and set insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 The passages in relation to the heresies touch- 
 ing the church, are found in the ist Epistle, chiefly in 
 1:4-11; 4:1-9; 6:3-5; and in 2 Tim. 2:14, 16-26 
 generally ; 3 : 1-9. And we find in them a special char- 
 acter of their own. I said earlier that the form of these 
 errors had been urged by some (Schleiermacher and De 
 Wette especially) as an argument for a later composition 
 of the Epistles than St. Paul's lifetime would allow, be- 
 cause of the elements of Gnosticism contained in them, 
 a form of error which did not come to its full develop- 
 ment before the second century. Now in any of the 
 
ST. PAUnS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 19 
 
 passages I have indicated, you will find a common fea- 
 ture running through this error: it is a false speculation, 
 an attention to " endless genealogies which minister 
 questions, rather than godly edifying" (1:4); a "giving 
 heed to fables and seducing spirits " (4: 7) ; a false asceti- 
 cism (4:3); " perverse disputings " (6:5); " strifes about 
 words" (2d Epistle 2:14; 16-23); "heady and high- 
 minded " persons (3 : 4-7) ; with all which erroneous doc- 
 trine was mingled dissoluteness of life. Now in this 
 false knowledge and disputings of genealogies, we do 
 find Gnostic elements. But it is germinant, not devel- 
 oped Gnosticism. These heresies represent a transition 
 period from the old Judaizing opponents to the later 
 Gnostic opponents of the gospel. The old Judaizing 
 party would confine Christianity within the limits of Ju- 
 daism. They would keep it chained to the law. The 
 later Gnostic heretics would identify it with speculation, 
 and merge it in a philosophy, and so would wholly spurn 
 and reject the law as an outward institution. In the 
 heresies of these Epistles we see a mingling of both ele- 
 ments, showing the transition stage from one to the 
 other. The traces of Judaism in the heretics of these 
 Epistles are numerous : they professed to be teachers of 
 the law (i Tim. 1:7); they commanded to abstain from 
 meats (4:3); in Titus i : 10 they are designated as being 
 of the circumcision, and in i : 14 gave heed to Jewish fa- 
 bles and commandments of men ; and were given to 
 strivings about the law (3 : 9). But these are not the 
 Judaizers of the earlier Epistles, notably of that to the 
 Galatians. Those were strong upholders of the law and 
 
20 ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 all its requirements ; and would make circumcision es- 
 sential as well as faith in Christ. In the Epistle to the 
 Colossians there is also an advance. There they have 
 added to Jewish tenets such excrescences as " will-wor- 
 ship," "neglecting of the body," "voluntary humility," 
 "worshipping of angels," "intruding into those things 
 which he hath not seen," " puffed up by his fleshly mind," 
 " not holding the Head." (Col. 2:18, 19, 21) In Philip- 
 pians there is a further advance. In 3 :2 they are called 
 "dogs, evil-workers, the concision." And in the nth 
 verse of the same chapter we find indications of the same 
 heresy, concerning the resurrection's being passed al- 
 ready, which is fully developed in 2 Tim. 2:18. Now in 
 these Pastoral Epistles there is noted the same progress 
 from legality through superstition on to godlessness, only 
 in a riper stage. The heretics here have lost all true un- 
 derstanding of the law (i Tim. 1:7-19), repudiated a 
 good conscience, are hypocrites and liars (4:2), use reli- 
 gion as a means of bettering themselves in the world 
 (6: 5, and Titus i : n), "overturning the faith" (2 Tim. 
 2 : 17), with mind and conscience defiled (Titus i : 15, 16). 
 " They profess that they know God, but in works they 
 deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and to 
 every good work reprobate." 
 
 There are also in these Epistles traces of Gnosticism. 
 The endless genealogies may point, as Dean Alford sug- 
 gests, to the lists of Gnostic emanations which in their 
 full form come later : though I rather incline to refer them 
 to the Jewish traditions, which purported to contain the 
 mysteries Moses had handed down by tradition, as a tra- 
 
ST. FAUrS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 21 
 
 ditional law or Kabbala. But plainly in i Tim. 4:3 we 
 have the seeds of Gnostic Dualism. The passage is 
 prophetic, but the germ of the future was evidently al- 
 ready present. In 6 : 20 the phrase rendered " opposi- 
 tions of science" has a reference to the Gnostic specu- 
 lations. 
 
 But the Gnosticism of these Epistles is not that of 
 the second century. That was altogether antijudaistic. 
 The Jewish Creator, law, and system, were held in con- 
 tempt and abhorrence by it. The whole system stood 
 over against the Jewish stand-point. The heretical spec- 
 ulations found no root in the permanence of the Mosaic 
 economy. It rather despised it as a thing gone by. The 
 Oriental and Greek elements which had been fused with 
 Judaism completely cast it out. And one great cause of 
 this was the obliteration of the Jewish hierarchy and na- 
 tional system by the destruction of Jerusalem. The 
 logical outcome of the unnatural alliance of positive 
 Jewish law and Greek intellectualism and Oriental mys- 
 ticism, was thus assisted by the course of outward events. 
 But while these events were preparing, the tendency to 
 the break was growing, and we reach a very interesting 
 period of its growth, in the ripening heresies of these 
 Pastoral Epistles. For these exhibit a state of things far 
 in advance of the principles of the old Judaizing party, 
 and far in the rear of the full-blown Gnosticism of the 
 next century. As the progress from the one to the other 
 was gradual, the peculiar features of the period marked 
 by these Epistles indicate just what we might expect, a 
 mingling of legal and speculative elements, which passed 
 
 25* 
 
22 ST. PAUnS PASTORAL EPISTLES, 
 
 by for ever when, a few years later, the temple was de- 
 stroyed, Jerusalem made a heap of stones, the priesthood 
 scattered, and religion decentralized. 
 
 I have spoken thus fully of these heresies, not be- 
 cause they are in their special form of much practical 
 interest to-day, but because they have been used as an 
 argument against the genuineness of the Epistles, where- 
 as they seem to me to mark out very distinctly the date 
 of their composition, and to be, according to Meyer, Al- 
 ford, and Van Oosterzee, whose views I follow, a proof 
 of their authenticity. But they have not only a specula- 
 tive interest. Their special form of error passes, but 
 their principle remains. And the method of the apos- 
 tle's treatment makes them intensely practical and gives 
 a lesson to every age. It is this which must interest and 
 edify you as teachers of the truth here taught. If as 
 such you rightly grasp its significance, you will not spend 
 your time and strength on expositions of ancient Juda- 
 ism or speculative systems, but will seize and press home 
 the ethical principles which appear in the apostle's treat- 
 ment of them, and which are applicable to every age and 
 to all error. 
 
 Now if we examine any of these denunciations of 
 error, we find the animus of the apostle's objection to 
 lie in their practical ungodliness. Against both the 
 legal and the speculative spirit the apostle opposes " the 
 glorious gospel of the blessed God." He lets us see that 
 *'the faith of Christ" is neither a system of legal pre- 
 cepts nor a system of intellectual speculation, both of 
 which may leave the heart, out of which are the issues of 
 
ST, PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES, 23 
 
 life, as barren as before. The gospel is not to be appre- 
 hended as a subject of disputation, as a material out of 
 which theories are to be spun, as though either perfunc- 
 tory behavior or mental comprehension were the result 
 aimed at by it. No, it is a source of life. It is that 
 heart-trust in God, as revealed in Christ, which must 
 hold the faith in a pure conscience, and which cannot 
 substitute either ritual acts (bodily exercise) or intellec- 
 tual acuteness (oppositions of science) for righteousness 
 of conduct flowing from devotion of soul. " Now the end 
 of the commandment," he says (i Tim. i : 5), "is charity 
 out of a pure heart and of a good conscience, and of faith 
 unfeigned ;" i. e., it is faith, not the pretence of faith ; no 
 empty thought or fancy, but a spiritual light and a spir- 
 ual life. The general character of these false teachers 
 was not so much error in doctrine, as leading men away 
 from the earnestness of the living, Christian life, to 
 useless and vain questionings, ministering only strife. 
 Therefore St. Paul opposed the gospel to that. Wheth- 
 er in his denunciation of errorists, or his positive exhor- 
 tations to Timothy himself, the constant tenor of his 
 teaching is, faith and a good conscience : *' Take heed 
 unto thyself and to the doctrine." The body of the gos- 
 pel truth is righteousness of life, against all false asceti- 
 cism on the one hand, as well as lawless sensuality on 
 the other. Its soul is that living alliance with the Lord, 
 which takes him for the personal love of the heart. The 
 gospel faith is, as portrayed in the Epistles, the practical 
 alliance of the soul with Christ. Its spring is love, not 
 legalism. Its effect is moral obedience, not mental spec- 
 
24 ST. PAUrS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 Illation. And this is so because the gospel centres in a 
 living person. It is not a product of philosophy ; i. e., of 
 man's thought, but of revelation ; i. e., of God's thought. 
 And this divine thought became a human fact, and was 
 revealed in a human Person, to whom all love can be 
 given, and to whom all obedience is due. Or, as it is 
 expressed in that cresting phrase of the Epistle to Tim- 
 othy : " Without controversy, great is the mystery of 
 godliness, who was manifest in the flesh, justified in the 
 spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, be- 
 lieved on in the world, received up into glory." 
 
 This is one of the celebrated texts of these Epistles, 
 and we may as well examine it here, having arrived at it 
 in the progress of our thought, before we glance at the 
 ecclesiastical portion of the Epistles. 
 
 You will have noticed that I did not quote the pas- 
 sage exactly as it stands in our version. The best and 
 most orthodox scholars are now agreed, especially since 
 the light thrown upon the text by the Sinaitic Manu- 
 script, that the word after "mystery" is not i^fof/' God," 
 but Of, "who." The rendering with the relative "who" 
 does not alter the sense of divineness, which is expressed 
 by the substantive, " God ;" indeed, it is so expressive of 
 it that the change in the manuscript seems to be the 
 natural effort of some commentator to make the mean- 
 ing plainer, not to alter it. " There is hardly a passage 
 in the New Testament," writes Dean Alford, "in which 
 I feel more deep personal thankfulness for the restora- 
 tion of the true and wonderful connection of the original 
 text." And says Van Oosterzee (who edits these Epis- 
 
ST, PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 25 
 
 ties in Lange's Commentary), " The reading ' who' is not 
 only critically, but exegetically proved to be the best, 
 and the view that it is an heretical corruption is quite 
 excluded." The ground for these expressions of learned 
 commentators is that the sentence is made by the word 
 "who" so much clearer in its connection, while undimin- 
 ished in its divine meaning. To understand it fully we 
 must regard the context. In the verse preceding, St. 
 Paul explains the object of his writing to Timothy : 
 " That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave 
 thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the 
 living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" (of the 
 living God). "And" (the thought seems to run, well 
 may I exhort you to behave well in so responsible and 
 exalted a place where the truth of the living God is 
 guarded), for "great, weighty, glorious, is the mystery of 
 godliness" (equivalent to the truth of the living God) : 
 and then follows the description of the mystery of godli- 
 ness, which is not that it is a mere sentiment, or state- 
 ment, or law, but a personal manifestation of God (the 
 article is not neuter, agreeing with mystery, but mascu- 
 line, and refers to a person) ; not the mystery which was 
 manifest, but the mystery of Godliness who was mani- 
 fested. This reading brings the passage into exact ac- 
 cord with Colossians i : 27, where St. Paul defines the 
 mystery of the Gospel as something long hidden, but 
 now made known, when he writes, " Even the mystery 
 which hath been hidden from ages and from generations, 
 but now is made manifest to his saints (to whom God 
 would make known what is the riches of the glory of this 
 
26 ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 mystery among the Gentiles), which (mystery) is Christ 
 in you the hope of glory." Therefore we have announ- 
 ced in this text in i Timothy not something which is 
 a great mystery, but the great and glorious mystery (of 
 Godliness), what it is ; and it is, as I said, not a law, or 
 doctrine, or statement, but the manifestion of God in a 
 living Person; who was manifested in the flesh. The 
 words are descriptive of Christ alone, and we learn from 
 them concerning him that he was the mystery of the liv- 
 ing God revealed ; and we learn of them concerning our- 
 selves that the mystery of piety for us is Christ in us. 
 This is precisely the practical truth which the apostle is 
 teaching all through his warnings and exhortations. It 
 is the rich truth of the Epistle, which we are to aim to 
 extract and teach from every portion of it ; namely, the 
 religion of Christ, not a precept, not a speculation, but a 
 divine fact, in which we are to live, and which is to live 
 in us ; or, to follow the style of the apostle, the religion 
 of the gospel a divine fact, God manifested in Christ, 
 in zvhorn we are to live and who is to live in us. 
 
 Let us turn to look at the ecclesiastical portions of 
 these Epistles. These are contained chiefly in the sec- 
 ond, third, and fifth chapters of i Timothy and the three 
 chapters of the Epistle to Titus. These have been the 
 subject of ceaseless controversy, but more generally for 
 the facts they are assumed or not assumed to presup- 
 pose, than for the directions they evidently contain. The 
 difference of opinion is more in regard to the office held 
 by Timothy and Titus, than the office of those to whom 
 they were sent, or the directions of which they were the 
 
ST. PAUL'S PASTORAL EPLSTLES, 27 
 
 messengers. As our subject here concerns the Epistles 
 themselves and their contents, we may pass by unnoticed 
 the controversy concerning the nature of the ecclesiasti- 
 cal jurisdiction of the apostolic messengers. We need 
 not enter into the question as to whether they were di- 
 ocesan bishops or evangelistic missionaries. On these 
 points we may hold different opinions. Careful scholars 
 on either side would hesitate to say that we could accu- 
 rately determine this question from the Epistles them- 
 selves without light from other literature ; and it is with 
 the Epistles themselves only that we have to do. 
 
 Apart from this vexed question then, it is evident, 
 from the Epistles themselves, that Timothy and Titus 
 were commissioned by St. Paul, and had the two powers 
 of ordination and judicial rule (See i Tim. 5 : 1, 19, 20, 
 22 ; Titus 1 : 5), and whatever their rank, all candid 
 scholars admit that the terms bishop and elder, episco- 
 pos and presbiiteros, are here interchangeably used. 
 Presbyter was the earliest Jewish Christian name, nomen 
 cetatis ; episcopos the later, taken from political usage 
 among the Greeks, nomen officii. The origin of the or- 
 der of deacons we know from the Acts. The origin of 
 the order of elders is not given. They existed in the 
 Ephesian church before these Epistles were written, as 
 the elders came down to meet St. Paul at Miletus, when 
 he calls them episcopoi. The direct lesson for us con- 
 cerning church government which we are to gather out 
 of these Epistles, is not the special method of it, but the 
 fact that, in the church, government is of Divine institu- 
 tion. The church is to be orderly ; and Order is the pa- 
 
28 ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 rent of Orders. There is a power to bear rule, and there 
 are those set apart to exercise it, and to them reverence 
 and obedience are due. The whole tenor of these in- 
 structions to Timothy and Titus is a protest against all 
 lawlessness in the church. It is to exercise discipline, 
 and to exercise it through duly-appointed officers. But 
 the discipline has respect to sound doctrine, or whole- 
 some doctrine, that which tends to righteousness ; and 
 moral fitness is the indispensable characteristic of those 
 who exercise it. The fact is, the directions given in 
 these Epistles are of an ethical, not of a hierarchical 
 kind. They refer to the selection of men whose previous 
 lives and relations in society afford good promise that 
 they will discharge faithfully the trust committed to 
 them, and will work faithfully and successfully in their 
 office. 
 
 The lesson of great practical importance to be drawn 
 from all these directions is the one of the Divine appoint- 
 ment of rule, of the necessity of moral fitness for office, 
 and of the responsibility, both of governors and governed, 
 for the faithful discharge of their respective duties. 
 
 It is very evident, from these Epistles, that women 
 were not mere ciphers in the church, and were not meant 
 to be. They are mentioned specially in the 2d and 5th 
 chapters of i Timothy. In regard to their teaching in the 
 general assembly, it is expressly forbidden (2:12): "I 
 suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over 
 the man, but to be in silence." Women preachers, what- 
 ever else they may be, are not an apostolic institution. 
 Some have argued from the different status of woman 
 
ST. PAUL'S PASTORAL EPISTLES. 29 
 
 to-day, that for her now to ascend the pulpit and preach, 
 while it would break the letter, would not transgress the 
 spirit of the apostle's injunction, because it is not now 
 an unwomanly act. They attribute the necessity of this 
 apostolic command to the fact of woman's position in the 
 East, and declare it to be of a temporary and an expedi- 
 ent character merely. To have preached there and then 
 would have brought the charge of immodesty against 
 the Christian community ; it would not have comported 
 with Eastern notions of propriety, and so had to be dis- 
 countenanced. But now, when, through the influence of 
 Christianity, woman is accorded a wholly different posi- 
 tion, different duties may rightly be demanded of her, 
 and different functions permitted to her. 
 
 In opposition to this, I would say that the apostle 
 based his argument not on an exceptional condition, but 
 on a universal truth ; not on the character of Greek or 
 Oriental civilization (and he knew Roman civilization 
 and woman's position then), but on the primitive relation 
 of the parents of us all. " Adam was first formed, then 
 Eve." He views the public act of preaching to a mis- 
 cellaneous assemblage, as contradictory of the true posi- 
 tion and functions of womanhood. She is not for less 
 noble, but for other uses than that. I know that in these 
 days of "Woman's Rights," this judgment of St. Paul is 
 considered a very narrow one ; and men who agree with 
 him are held to be tyrants without his excuse. But not- 
 withstanding, I venture to say that in all the results (and 
 many have been excellent) of the woman's movement of 
 our day, I have never yet seen one advantage arising 
 
 26 
 
30 ST. PAULS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 from putting woman into that publicity from which her 
 own true nature shrinks. There is no gain, but infinite 
 loss to her, in according her any station which destroys 
 or blurs the charm of womanhood. Her unique position 
 seems to me to be plainly written in her nature, stamped 
 by her organization, and illustrated by her special func- 
 tions in society ; and I deem that we have the expression 
 of the Divine mind for our age, as well as for the age. of 
 the apostle, in the words, " I suffer not a woman to teach 
 nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." 
 You will see, of course, that this direction has respect to 
 the public functions of the ministry. It has nothing to 
 do with unofficial activity, or with the ministry of conso- 
 lation ; with woman's meetings for prayer and confer- 
 ence — all which are not only allowable, but useful in the 
 highest degree. It only accords to woman the glorious 
 privilege of being a woman ; and places in her hand a 
 potent weapon of defence when any would urge her, on 
 the plea of duty, to push beyond the barrier which the 
 delicacy of her nature and the most sacred duties of her 
 position would set up. It is in fact an affirmation of that 
 greatest of woman's rights — the right to be a woman. 
 
 But, as I said, women are not to be ciphers in the 
 church. In i Tim., ch. 5, we have an indication of their 
 work and power in the church, in the directions concern- 
 ing the widows, who evidently were not merely the ben- 
 eficiaries of the congregation, but formed part of a corps 
 of workers in the church. It would be too much to 
 assume, and would doubtless anticipate the future, to 
 call them an order of deaconesses, though this opinion 
 
ST. PAUVS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 31 
 
 has been widely held ; but they undoubtedly held in a 
 simple and less-organized form the virtual position, after- 
 ward organized into the early order of church deacon- 
 esses, and were the original germ from which such an 
 order sprung. But here we find no trace of a vow of 
 ordination, no semi-clerical office which marked the order 
 which Canon XI. of Laodicea formally established. 
 Exact distinctions of class and name do not suit the 
 character of the primitive age. These women were 
 doubtless real widows, not the nominal widows of a later 
 age, called so because of their renunciation of the world 
 and of domestic life. They were persons who had been 
 married (5 : 9), and now, in their advanced age, gave 
 their activity to the affairs of the Christian community. 
 The character of their work is sketched in ver. 10, as 
 also in ver. 5. Benevolence and devotion combined to 
 form woman's official occupation. 
 
 It is not so much for the special feature it reveals, as 
 for the universal fact it emphasizes, that we prize the 
 passage. It gives the seal of the apostle's approbation 
 to woman's work in the church of Christ ; and would 
 that the strong common sense here manifest could mark 
 all attempts to organize and conduct it. How marked 
 in contrast do the apostle's precepts stand to the early 
 novitiate of many in the conventual orders, who, without 
 experience, renounce the world before ever they have 
 attempted to accomplish their task in it; where separa- 
 tion from domestic life and family ties are made in direct 
 contradiction of the apostle's decision, that the young 
 women are. to marry, and train their households well, 
 
32 ST. FAUrS PASTORAL EPISTLES, 
 
 and are only thus to gain the discipline and the matured 
 experience which fit them for the position of fellow-work- 
 ers in the congregation of the faithful. It is not the 
 girlish sentimentality which turns to the imagined poetry 
 and mystic seclusion of the cloister as its ideal life, which 
 the apostle in these Epistles endorses ; but rather the 
 sobered devotion of those who have known life's vicissi- 
 tudes, and deepened and strengthened their religious fer- 
 vor by an experience of life's discipline. 
 
 Indeed, 'in the treatment of every subject which the 
 apostle touches in these letters there is apparent the 
 equipoise of the loftiest enthusiasm for the subject, and 
 the plainest common sense in its treatment — a balance 
 which awakens confidence by both its earthly and its 
 heavenly wisdom ; the heavenly wisdom of undying de- 
 votion, the earthly wisdom of uncompromising discretion. 
 A lesson we may well learn and teach from any portion 
 of the Epistles, is the lesson of "zeal according to knowl- 
 edge" — the lesson of the love which inspires and the 
 wisdom which guides. In fine, there runs through all 
 these letters that true practical strain which traces the 
 fruit to the root, and develops the root into the fruit of 
 the Gospel. The action and reaction of faith and prac- 
 tice are everywhere made apparent. Take i Tim. 6 : lo, 
 where he declares against covetousness, and writes, " The 
 love of money is a root of all evil," and traces as one 
 of those evils the loss of faith itself ; " which some hav- 
 ing coveted after, have erred from the faith ;" practical 
 wrong-doing resulting in mental bewilderment, or as in 
 I Tim. 1:19, where, speaking of holding faith and a good 
 
ST. PAUL'S PASTORAL EPLSTLES. 33 
 
 conscience, he says, which (a good conscience) some hav- 
 ing laid aside, "concerning faith have made shipwreck." 
 And again in that oft-misquoted passage, 2 Tim. 3 : 16, 
 where, while he is not giving the statistical Hmits of 
 inspired writing, nor compiling a canon of Scripture, 
 but indicating its object and value, he declares, "All in- 
 spired or God-given Scripture is profitable for doctrine, 
 for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 
 that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished 
 unto all good works." He is here expressly avoiding a 
 question of strifes and jangling, a controversy concerning 
 ^vhat are and what are not Holy Scriptures, and is indi- 
 cating the sure touchstone by which they may be discrim- 
 inated, even the purpose for which they were given — 
 which is not a worship of their letter, but the incorpora- 
 tion of their spirit in the life and action of those who 
 read them. Judged by such a test, how fully is the 
 inspiration of these writings themselves vindicated and 
 confirmed. They are addressed to the correction of 
 special faults and errors of that far-off time. They are 
 written to give order and peace to the Christian commu- 
 nity of a far distant age. They record passages of an 
 old experience, and are laden with exhortations to a 
 youthful minister who lived in circumstances greatly dif- 
 ferent from our own. Yet how living they are to us ! 
 They let us see that the primitive church was no happy 
 family wherein no errors found lodgment, and no brawls 
 disturbed the peace, but a church militant like that of 
 our own day, with foes of the household as well as of the 
 camp. Within were fightings and without were fears. 
 
 26* 
 
34 ST. PAUrS PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 But they let us know, too, that the true solvent of our 
 troubles was the one applied to their own ; which solvent 
 is not to be found in a code of rigid laws, a legalism of 
 edicts, and bulls, and encyclicals and canons ecclesiasti- 
 cal ; not in a speculative philosophy, nor the refinements 
 of intellectual dogmatism ; but in Him only who was the 
 great Mystery of Godliness, who was manifest in the 
 flesh, the Lord himself ; Whom to follow is to war a good 
 warfare ; Whom to love is everlasting life. 
 
THE 
 
 Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 BY REV, C. H, FOWLER, D.D.,LL,D., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE 
 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews brings us face to face 
 with the great unsolved problems of existence. It grap- 
 ples with them as if confident of victory. Like some 
 stalwart knight who, disguised by the very brightness of 
 his armor, and riding into the circle of titled champions, 
 unannounced and unendorsed, with no title but his cour- 
 age, and no passport but his sword, hews for himself a 
 path to power, and bears off the fear of foes, the admira- 
 tion of strangers, and the confidence of all : so our 
 Epistle comes into the field of our convictions, joins 
 the goodly company of canonical books, and with no 
 apostolic name for authority, and no clear tradition for 
 defenoe, it shines with the fulness of apostolic inspi* 
 ration, and by the power of its marvellous revealments 
 demonstrates both its supernatural origin and its divine 
 authority. 
 
 It comes out of the apostolic age with apostolic in- 
 spiration, but with no certain apostolic name. It made 
 its way late into the canon, coming in by the way of the 
 
4 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Eastern church, and so slowly gaining the recognition of 
 the Western church. But its internal structure and vi- 
 tality, its spirit and power, have dissipated all doubts 
 about its right to recognition, and have secured for it the 
 highest encomiums from modern scholarship. It rises to 
 the highest themes of possible revelation, yet it handles 
 them in the most human and natural way. Now and 
 then it ventures upon interpretations of older Scriptures 
 with a freedom justified only by inspiration. Yet it re- 
 lies upon the Old Testament Scriptures for its argu- 
 ments, and seeks not so much to make a new revelation, 
 as to unfold the germs of the old. While the Roman 
 Epistle of the great Paul presents the theology, the doc- 
 trine and divinity of the New Testament, and is essen- 
 tial to a comprehension of the Gospels, this Epistle of 
 the " Great Unknown " unfolds the spirit of the Old Tes- 
 tament and the relations existing between the Old Tes- 
 tament and the New. Some have called it an epistle, 
 some an essay, some a treatise on theology ; but if we 
 were to name it we would call it The Gospel of the 
 Old Testament unfolded by the light of the New. 
 It presents the priest, rather than the victim, and fa- 
 miliarizes the reader more with heavenly things than 
 with the Cross. Elsewhere in the New Testament Jesus 
 is regarded chiefly as a King ; here he is seen chiefly as 
 a Priest. While the evangelists dealt with the incarnated 
 Christ, and Paul constantly defended his apostolic char- 
 acter as one who had seen the Lord, yet in treating of 
 Jesus as King they were occupied with an invisible king- 
 dom, and were thus necessarily led to handle principles. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 5 
 
 In our Epistle the author toils and builds about the 
 priesthood of Jesus, which, being in his church, had a 
 visible embodiment ; and maturing through the Old Tes- 
 tament rites and ritual, was constantly handled by visible 
 signs. Its necessary environments therefore made it 
 both ponderable and tangible. Thus this Epistle comes 
 nearer to our capacities than any other part of the New 
 Testament, except the Gospels themselves, which in their 
 chief character took on our form, had an experience, and 
 became like unto us. The rest of the New Testament 
 exhibits the Son of God as heir to the eternal throne ; 
 this Epistle as High Priest in the eternal sanctuary. 
 The evangelists exhibit the law not as destroyed, but as 
 fulfilled by the Son of God ; Paul exhibits the law as a 
 wandering schoolmaster leading the worshipper to Christ ; 
 this Epistle exhibits the law as administered by the 
 Great High Priest. The evangelists, by the tragedy of 
 Calvary, give us the breadth of human wickedness and 
 want; Paul, by the faith that overleaps the middle wall 
 of partition, gives us a glance at the breadth of Divine 
 love ; this Epistle, by exhibiting the web, woven from 
 the garden of Eden to the most holy place in the heav- 
 ens, shows us a little of the breadth of that wonderful 
 revelation by which Infinite Wisdom is seeking the edu- 
 cation and salvation of the race. 
 
 It is impossible to read this Epistle carefully and not 
 be impressed with that " unfolding in time of the eternal 
 purpose of redeeming love," which can best be grasped 
 and comprehended as \^^ growth of revelation. We get 
 a hurried glance at the "divers manners" in which God 
 
6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS, 
 
 has revealed his truth, and then we are led into the mys- 
 tery of our spiritual instruction. Revelation is a germ 
 in the hand of our first parent in Eden, and as we watch 
 it it soon waves like the cedars of Lebanon. It was a 
 dim promise of a Deliverer, a statement that somewhere, 
 somehow, some time, the bruised and bruising heel would 
 appear, so dim that a murderer was mistaken for this 
 Deliverer. When Earth's first mother, in the bewilder- 
 ment of bearing her first son, cried out, " I have gotten 
 
 a man the Lord," this dim promise was added to 
 
 and built upon till holy fire, blazing on the altars of the 
 patriarchs, illumined the darkness of nature ; till a pre- 
 scribed and ratified covenant secured a chosen people 
 and visible covenant ; till a tabernacle with a Holy of 
 Holies contained the shining presence of God ; till a tem- 
 ple, made after the pattern seen in the Mount, gave per- 
 manence to both ritual and service ; till prophets dis- 
 closed the offering of the Great Sacrifice ; till in the ful- 
 ness of time Christ came and his Spirit was poured out 
 upon all flesh. This Epistle, more than any other part 
 of the Bible, gives us the unity and completeness of all 
 this revealment. As we read, the ages roll together, hu- 
 manity is condensed into one family, and the Divine rev- 
 elations are reduced to one lesson given and perfected by 
 God's Son. Yonder it is but a bubbling spring, hardly 
 able to lift a single shining grain of sand into the light ; 
 so small that the foot of the passing ox might trample it 
 out, or the thirst of a single sunbeam might drink it dry. 
 Soon it overflows its narrow brim, trickles down the 
 hillside, crawls under the willows, vivifies and fructifies 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 7 
 
 its green way through the meadow, pushes across states 
 and territories, and sweeps on over wide zones, bearing 
 on its broad bosom the commerce and navies of man- 
 kind. Yonder the "father of the faithful" pays tithes to 
 a Gentile priest ; next the washed and robed priests min- 
 ister for the chosen people. Finally the Great High 
 Priest enters within the veil and offers the one full and 
 sufficient sacrifice once for all, and sits down on the right 
 hand of the Majesty on high. This great Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, so complete and so profound, so comprehen- 
 sive and so minute, shows us Jesus as the author of the 
 first covenant and the finisher of the second, leading Is- 
 rael out of the land of bondage and delivering mankind 
 from the bonds of iniquity. 
 
 At first thought it seems strange that so great an 
 epistle should be left without an evident author. But 
 then it soon occurs that so great a Book, so deeply wo- 
 ven into the religious history of two thousand years, so 
 closely in league with events, does not need the bolster- 
 ing of any particular apostolic name to insure its author- 
 ity. It is enough that it is vitalized with the spirit of 
 inspiration and radiant with the light of the eternal 
 world ; enough that, building us up upon fifteen cen- 
 turies of sacrifices and types, it gives us first the shad- 
 ow in these types, then the express image in the in- 
 carnated High Priest, and lastly a glimpse at the sub- 
 stance, the reality that awaits the believer in the world 
 to come. 
 
 While we cannot go into a detailed argument show- 
 ing why modern scholars are looking elsewhere than to 
 
 27 
 
S THE EFISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 St. Paul for the author of this Epistle, we do not feel at 
 liberty to pass this over in silence. We must at least 
 give an opinion based upon an examination of the evi- 
 dence in the case. We are compelled to abandon the 
 theory of a Pauline authorship, partly because it treats 
 its subjects so differently from Paul's treatment in other 
 epistles. Paul always begins with man's need, and rea- 
 sons out to the supply in Christ. Hebrews begins with 
 Christ's exalted character, and leads down to man's need. 
 Paul emphasizes the victim ; Hebrews the priest. Paul 
 gazes on the cross ; Hebrews into the heavenly places. 
 The argument deduced from the style of the Greek used 
 is of great weight. Paul is rugged ; Hebrews melodious. 
 Paul is angular; Hebrews flows. like oil. Paul is limi- 
 tedly provincial ; Hebrews is classical. More decisive 
 than these peculiarities of language and style, which are 
 far greater than the demands of the varying subjects and 
 circumstances, must be regarded the statement in chap. 
 2 : 3, which classes the author as one who never saw the 
 Lord, "which at the first began to be spoken by the 
 Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard 
 him," while Paul always defended his apostleship by the 
 fact that he too had seen the Lord. 
 
 It is of sufficient value to justify the introduction 
 here of the fact that Bleek, according to Dr. Mall, has 
 shown that the citations in Hebrews from the Old Tes- 
 tament are all from the LXX, and follow the variations 
 of the Alexandrian Codex, whih Paul, in citing the LXX, 
 always follows the Vatican Codex. 
 
 This fact is introduced not simply because it is very 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 9 
 
 nearly determinative of the non-Pauline authorship of 
 this Epistle, but also because it furnishes a good example 
 of the care with which every syllable and letter of this 
 sacred Book has been examined. This opens the door 
 and gives us a glance into the furnace in which these 
 sacred oracles are tested. Surely if the form of the 
 Fourth was not with them, we should not have them to- 
 day without even the smell of fire upon them. While all 
 things are being proved or tested, let us hold fast that 
 which is good. 
 
 The theory first made prominent by Martin Luther 
 that Apollos was the author of this Epistle is now gen- 
 eraljy; accepted. He was a man " with great power to 
 convince the Jews from the Old Testament Scriptures 
 that Jesus was the Christ," and a man whom some of the 
 Greek Christians preferred to Paul on account of his elo- 
 quence. Though this theory is without support from 
 Scripture or tradition, yet it is gaining ground. The 
 canonical character of the Epistle is not affected in the 
 least by this probable authorship. The Epistle remains 
 a Gospel fivm the Old Testament. 
 
 This exalted character of this Epistle is sustained by 
 the fulness with which it discovers the meaning of the 
 old types. The march of knowledge is always from 
 the known to the unknown. This involves figures, com- 
 parisons, illustrations, and types. These types were 
 ordained to foreshadow the truths that waited by the 
 thousand years for capacity in the race for their recep- 
 tion. Take this ninth chapter, and with it walk back into 
 the old temple service on the great day of atonement, 
 
lo THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 and how much of Divine truth blazes from those old 
 forms and ceremonies ! While we bow on the pavement 
 with the great congregation, waiting for the annual en- 
 trance into the Holy of Holies of the high priest, our 
 representative, and holding this ninth chapter in our 
 hands, how our faith is strengthened in these rites when 
 we read concerning these types, " The Holy Ghost this 
 signifying, that the way into the Holiest was not yet 
 made manifest." Surely this gives a divine light to all 
 these ceremonies. We are surrounded with Gospel ideas. 
 The great sacrifice is made on our behalf. Pardon, the 
 remission of our sins, is vicariously reached. An essen- 
 tial Calvary rises before our eyes, a shadowy cross stretch- 
 es out its arms for our embrace. We are surrounded with 
 the supernatural revealments of a supernatural salvation. 
 Prophecy is in the place of history. True, the glass is 
 reversed, and the image of the good things is very small, 
 but it is an image. The reality is taken by faith in each 
 case — faith in the divine word as to what is to be, as 
 in the divine word as to what has been. This Epistle 
 opens all the ages back to Abel. It marches through all 
 the centuries with the unquenchable torch of its holy 
 fire, and kindles the flames on every altar, in every dark 
 valley and on every mountain side. It transforms every 
 bleeding victim and offering priest and blazing altar into 
 footlights about Mount Calvary. It quickens into life, 
 as with the inspiration of the Almighty, the vast body of 
 Old Testament ritual and service. It unlocks the bosom 
 of every Hebrew worshipper, and exposes to open gaze 
 the secret faith that elevated him above the low plane of 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. ii 
 
 corrupting idolatry, and exalted him into personal com- 
 munion with the living God. This Epistle collects and 
 exhibits the Gospel of the Old Testament Dispensa- 
 tion. 
 
 The analysis of the Epistle is not difficult. The only 
 chance for mistake is in attempting to dissect it with a 
 knife, instead of analyzing it in a retort. It must not go 
 into the dissecting-room, but into the laboratory. It can 
 be measured, not by a yard-stick, but by a spirit test. 
 Taken as a living orgajiism, with a certain design, it will 
 not be difficult to determine the function of each part. 
 
 It was probably written to the Jews dwelling in Jeru- 
 salem, and who were just breaking up their old habit of 
 attendance upon the services of the temple, and who were 
 thus peculiarly exposed to the peril of relapsing into Juda- 
 ism. It seems to have been written by some Jew, like 
 Apollos, trained and perfected in Alexandrian Greek, and 
 familiar with the temple service as ordered by Moses, 
 rather than the actual service as conducted in Jerusalem. 
 From this standpoint the Epistle must be 'considered, 
 not as an argument and exhortation, like some sermons, 
 in which the argument serves as a stock on which to swing 
 round the exhortation as a lash, but as a living organism 
 created for certain uses, in which the different parts are 
 not only fitted into each other, but grow out of and into 
 each other. The doctrine or argument of the Epistle is 
 more like a skeleton than a stalk, and the exhortations, 
 for they are many and frequent, grow upon and are 
 attached to the bones from end to end. 
 
 The aim of the Epistle is to prevent apostasy orrelap- 
 27* 
 
12 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 shig into yitdaisin. The argument is centred about this 
 idea. The design of the old service is therefore present- 
 ed, and its relations to the perfected system of Christian- 
 ity pointed out. The superiority of Christianity is ar- 
 gued, and applications and exhortations are frequently 
 interjected. 
 
 TJie spinal CO htmn of tJie argument is the exalted High 
 Priesthood of ycsus. The high priest is the central 
 figure in every sacrificial system, He is a necessity cre- 
 ated by the guilt that demands or resorts to sacrifice. 
 The worshipper is guilty, and therefore consciously un- 
 worthy. Some one must represent him and offer his 
 gifts, and make peace for him. Thus the central claim 
 urged is the exalted Priesthood of Jesus. 
 
 The law was given in consideration of a Priesthood 
 to administer its rights and services, and as a trainer or 
 schoolmaster, to be temporary. Thus it is said, "The 
 priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a 
 change also of the law." (Heb. 7:12.) 
 
 The Priesthood of Jesus is expressly declared to be 
 the central thought concerning him. The eighth chap- 
 ter, after the great argument, showing the exaltation of 
 Jesus, from many considerations, and well on toward the 
 end of the argument, opens with these words, " Now of 
 the things which we have spoken this is the sum. We 
 have such a high priest, who is set on the right hand of 
 the throne of the Majesty in the heavens ; a minister of 
 the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord 
 pitched and not man." 
 
 While Romans deals with law and the sacrifice and 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 13 
 
 faith, Hebrews emphasizes the Priesthood. There were 
 good reasons why this part of Christ's character and 
 work could not have been presented earlier in the history 
 of the infant church. The Jews were looking for a Mes- 
 siah, with kingly qualities, suited to their temporal needs. 
 That was one open door through which Jesus might enter 
 their hearts. Then \S\€\x patriotism would have prevent- 
 ed their comprehending his Priesthood. Thus in Acts 
 we see how they stone Stephen, charging him with speak- 
 ing against the temple, and saying that Jesus would 
 change the customs of Moses. So they sought to kill 
 Paul in the temple for alleged teaching against the tem- 
 ple and bringing Greeks into it. At the probable date 
 of this Epistle, about 64, the breach between the Jews as 
 a nation and Christians was complete. The Christians 
 were no longer allowed to come into the temple. The 
 national hatred was as intense and bloodthirsty as it 
 could be, so that the presentation of the Priesthood of 
 Jesus could not prejudice their case any more. The ful- 
 ness of time for this doctrine had come. 
 
 The argimieiit sustaining the exalted Priesthood of 
 Jesus opens with the opening of the Epistle. Jesus is set 
 forth as the Son of God, having the same nature, being 
 his express image, making the worlds, upholding all 
 things, and receiving the worship of aHgels. The argu- 
 ment is most wonderful. Complete and determinative in 
 its character, it is also majestic and mighty in its move- 
 ment. " Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ; a scep- 
 tre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou, 
 Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the 
 
14 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They 
 shall perish, but thou remainest ; and they all shall wax 
 old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold 
 them up ; and they shall be changed ; but thou art the 
 same, and thy years shall not fail." (Heb. i :8-i2.) 
 
 This is accompanied with his elevation above all 
 angels and all things. 
 
 In the second chapter our author pauses to show how 
 the incarnation and suffering of Jesus prepared Him for 
 his work of ''bringing many sons unto glory," and ex- 
 horts obedience to him. In the third chapter Jesus is 
 exalted above Moses, as the maker of a house is greater 
 than a servant in the house. His claim and supremacy 
 are urged on account of his sinlessness and his ante- 
 mundane glory. 
 
 The most of the third and all the fourth chapters are 
 intense exhortations to faithfulness, and encouragements 
 to come unto the great High Priest, who, having been 
 tempted, and having suffered, is touched with the feeling 
 of our infirmities. 
 
 Having established the divinity and sympathy of 
 Jesus, our Epistle proceeds to show the exaltation of his 
 Priesthood over all other priesthoods. 
 
 Having shown the exaltation of Jesus above Moses, it 
 is easy to show his exaltation above Aaron, whom Moses 
 constituted a priest. This is done by going back to the 
 priesthood of Melchizedec, who was greater even than 
 Abraham, in whose loins Levi and all the Levitical priests 
 paid tithes to Melchizedec. This man's priesthood, after 
 which Christ's was typed, was greater than Aaron's, 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 15 
 
 because it was not for one people, but for all peoples, and 
 was without end, and not temporary. 
 
 The Priesthood of Jesus was also confirmed by an 
 ' oath, and was made surety of a better covenant. The 
 Levitical priests were continually changing, while this 
 man had an unchangeable priesthood. 
 
 The failure of the old system to perfect the worship- 
 pers is not charged upon any sins of the priests, but upon 
 the system itself. The Priesthood of Jesus purges or 
 cleanses its subjects, and has this supreme dignity. 
 The Epistle runs on from the beginning, showing the 
 divinity of Jesus, and how he is greater than Moses, and 
 has a Priesthood that swallows up the Aaronic priest- 
 hood, and is applied to the whole race, like the priest- 
 hood of Melchizedec, till it reaches the eighth chapter, 
 sixth verse, when we are told, " But now hath he ob- 
 tained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he 
 is the Mediator of a better covenant." Here our author 
 swings out into another line of thought, and identifies 
 Jesus with the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who made 
 the old covenant when he took Israel by the hand and 
 led her out of Egypt. The various sides of the work of 
 Jesus in Redemption are brought before the mind. The 
 victim and the priest are united, so the work of atoning 
 and of administering the atonement are presented as 
 ? embodied in Jesus. This better covenant is offered as a 
 part of the dignity of our Great High Priest, 
 
 Jesus is brought before us as on the great day of 
 atonement. The parallel between the old typical work 
 in which the high priest offered sacrifices for himself, and 
 
1 6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 for the temple and for all its appointments, and then for 
 the sins of the people, is carefully traced. Jesus as High 
 Priest offers himself once for all ; and having thus com- 
 pleted and perfected the system of Old Testament wor- 
 ship and types, he sits down on the right hand of the 
 Majesty on High to await the results of his sacrifice as 
 they shall appear in the salvation of a lost race. 
 
 TJte great doctrine of blood atonement, " without the 
 shedding of blood there is no remission," is affirmed, 
 illustrated, and sanctified. It receives the infinite empha- 
 sis of the death of the Son of God. However much 
 modern skepticism may be offended at the blood atone- 
 ment, yet this Epistle reaches back through the centuries, 
 lifts the high priest and his victim, the blood of sprinkling 
 and the blood of cleansing, out of every shade of heathen- 
 ism, and by the death, resurrection, ascension, and inter- 
 cession of Jesus, gives us a way of approach even into 
 the presence of God. We are enabled to come boldly to 
 the mercy-seat and obtain grace for our needs. Here we 
 are brought face to face with the great doctrine of the 
 Bible — the offering of a life for sin that forfeits life — that 
 was first illustrated by the acceptable sacrifice of Abel, 
 and was taught by every sacrificial offering that stained 
 an altar or cheered the church from Abel to Jesus. The 
 flames that flickered heavenward century after century, 
 burned on night and day through the ages, consuming 
 the victims and types of the passing system, kindled at 
 last upon the victim slain from the foundation of the 
 world. They consumed his humanity, but when they 
 came to his divinity they went out never again to be re- 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 17 
 
 kindled. An argument divinely constructed, and drawn 
 out through fifteen centuries of supernatural attestations, 
 and crowned with the awful tragedy of Calvary and the 
 amazing miracles of the resurrection and ascension, can- 
 not be answered by the dulness or blindness or scoffing 
 of a few doubters. Conscious of our sins we know that 
 the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, that 
 Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness to them 
 that believe, that we have an Advocate with the Father, 
 Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for 
 our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the 
 whole world. Take the doctrines of atonement, as em- 
 bodied in this Epistle, out of the Bible, and the book 
 would not hold together. All the light of Old Testa- 
 ment ages that was borrowed from the coming Sun of 
 Righteousness would be extinguished, leaving all those 
 generations in hopelessness. Whatever there is about 
 the tragedy of Mount Calvary that has gone forth 
 among the idolatrous and heathen nations, quenching 
 their false fires and destroying their idols, is centred in 
 the atonement as explained by this Epistle. Other sac- 
 rifices cease because Jesus has suffered once for all. 
 In him is all fulness. " Having, therefore, brethren, 
 boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 
 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of 
 faith." 
 
 The lessons of this Epistle are too numerous to be 
 catalogued in much less space than that occupied by the 
 Epistle itself. It is a great mass of world-embracing 
 truths filled in with constantly-recurring exhortations. 
 
i8 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Adult babes, persons who are men in years and babes in 
 wisdom and strength, are set on thinking about their 
 responsibilities. While the great doctrine of salvation 
 by faith is not slighted or shadowed, there comes out the 
 counterpart of this vital truth, that while we are saved by 
 faithy we are rewarded according to our zvoi'ks. Entering 
 heaven with a common password, the name of Jesus, and 
 cleansed in a common fountain, the blood of Jesus, we 
 pass up to our places in the presence of the King on the 
 works of righteousness we have wrought in his name, 
 assured in this Epistle that " God is not unrighteous to 
 forget our work and labor of love." 
 
 Passing over in silence many great truths, such as 
 the power of faith — to which much space is given — let us 
 briefly glance at some that seem to be incorporated in 
 the very groundwork of this marvellous Epistle. 
 
 In this long and yet condensed summary of all God's 
 revealments through all past history, only two possible 
 ivays of treating sin for its correction and cure are even 
 so much as hinted at. These are by law for its conviction 
 and condemnation, and by the Gospel for pardon and 
 cleansing. It never dawns upon, one of the sacred writers 
 that it can be treated in any other way than as the mor- 
 tal tormentor of man and enemy of God. It never con- 
 ceals its deformity under any cloak of ignorance. Mere 
 knowledge is never prescribed as an antidote for this 
 disease. It is never thought of as a mere trial necessary 
 for the acquisition of character, and so a blessing that 
 ought to be disseminated throughout the universe, for 
 the spreading of which angels ought to be sent out as 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 19 
 
 missionaries of sin to all worlds for the purpose of inspi- 
 ring and arousing rebellion against God. Sin never re- 
 ceives such treatment anywhere in the Book of God. It 
 is here exhibited in its horrid deformity. It stands on 
 the earth a monster with its haughty head among the 
 eternities. Beneath its feet is the dying race, in its 
 bloody hands is the dying Christ, and in its aching heart 
 is the undying worm. It has broken into the universe 
 and carries woe wherever it goes. It desolates every 
 world it touches with sword and fagot. It runs up the 
 black flag of treason against God's government. It tor- 
 tures and torments his children. It threatens the safety 
 of his court. With sin loose anywhere in the universe 
 there is no peace for his palace, no security for his king- 
 dom, no comfort for his children, and no allegiance for 
 his subjects. Sin is the one enemy of God's government 
 whose capture and destruction tax the energies of his 
 empire. It is the one thing that God hates. The shore- 
 less ocean of his being flows like an everlasting tide of 
 fire and wrath against sin. He seeks by all possible 
 means to corral and capture it. But in its treatment he 
 is estopped from every policy of approval, compromise, 
 or allegiance, by his own eternal righteousness, which 
 cannot look upon sin with the least degree of approval ; 
 estopped from the use of his omnipotence by the very 
 conditions of his moral government ; estopped from in- 
 termitting his remedial efforts by the infinite love that 
 set him on the work of creating. In all the agony of 
 his soul, which extorted from his bosom his only-begot- 
 ton Son, he has never found out any other way of cor^ 
 
 23 
 
20 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 reeling and euring sin than by the chastenings of the 
 law to reveal the fact of lostness and awaken the sense of 
 want ; and then by the magnetism of the cross to draw 
 men up to himself. Surely in the presence of these facts 
 there is infinite value in the blood of reconciliation, even 
 the blood of Jesus, and in his prevailing advocacy of every 
 case that commits itself to his care. God offers but one 
 escape from sin, and that is set forth in this Epistle as 
 by the blood of Jesus. We have in him a sin-offering 
 and an advocate, let us therefore come with boldness 
 and obtain mercy. 
 
 The great purpose of the Epistle is to warn the He- 
 brew Christians of the danger of apostasy. Words of 
 exhortation are constantly wedged into the argument of 
 the Epistle. Thus, after the brilliant and marvellous pres- 
 entation of the exalted character of Jesus made in the 
 first chapter we are told, " Therefore we ought to give 
 the more earnest heed to the things which we have 
 heard, lest at any time we should let them slip" (2 : i). 
 Again, we read, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in 
 any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from 
 the living God" (3:12). Every few verses our author 
 breaks out, " Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being 
 left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem 
 to come short of it " (4 : i). And " Let us labor there- 
 fore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the 
 same example of unbelief "(4:11). We are exhorted not 
 to lay again the foundation of repentance from dead 
 works, on account of the impossibility of renewing again 
 unto repentance any who may thus fall away (6:1-10). 
 
THE EPISTLE TO 2 HE HEBREWS. 21 
 
 The Epistle abounds in most fearful warnings against 
 apostasy, such as, ** If we sin wilfully after that we have 
 received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no 
 more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for 
 of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the 
 adversary" (10:26, 2^). It is warning enough that in 
 this great argument for fidelity and obedience, 1 13 verses 
 out of 416, a little more than one fourth of the entire 
 Epistle, is given to practical exhortations in application 
 of the truths. Surely we could hardly be more power- 
 fully urged to vigilance and faithfulness. 
 
 We cannot close this hurried and brief sketch of this 
 Epistle without returning to the great thought of the 
 Book, the Priesthood of Christ. 
 
 Exactly what we need on account of our sin and guilt 
 we find in Jesus. Our littleness is supported by his 
 vastness, our want by his fulness ; our guilt is met by his 
 grace, our fear by his intercession. All we do or can 
 need we find in him. It has pleased the Father that 
 all the fulness of the Godhead should dwell in Him bod- 
 ily. He has entered into our disabilities, he took not on 
 him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed 
 of Abraham ; wherefore in all things it behooved him to be 
 made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful 
 and faithful high priest, "for in that he himself hath 
 suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that 
 are tempted," (2 : 16-18). 
 
 We know in this city how even the slight and shift- 
 ing distinctions of society separate men from each other. 
 There is a great world of ignorance and crime that boils 
 
22 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 and surges under society that we never touch. We pass 
 them on the street, we are offended at their coarseness 
 and crime, we cringe when we look at their nakedness 
 and bruises, we soon come to think that they are accus- 
 tomed to their ills and diseases and gnawing hunger and 
 pressing want. We watch them picking coal out of the 
 ashes we have cast out, and picking food from the gar- 
 bage-carts, and we say to ourselves, ** They find consider- 
 able comfort in finding a sohd piece of coal, or in stum- 
 bling upon half a biscuit." It is true they do. But we 
 overlook the fathomless sorrow and want that can make 
 such refuse fortune a comfort to them. We do not live 
 in the same world with them. We are in no condition 
 to sympathize with them. Even the temporary order of 
 society so separates men that their sympathies seldom 
 touch each other. 
 
 Your neighbor is rich, you are poor. How widely 
 you are separated. He cannot find wants enough ; you 
 know not how to want things. He struggles to put the 
 most sixpences into a given space ; you struggle to put 
 one sixpence into the most places. He never makes a 
 garment do half duty ; you always make it do double 
 duty. He rides ; you walk. He has many friends ; 
 you toil on in solitude. He has skilful physicians ; 
 you suffer on without relief. There is little or nothing 
 in common between you. 
 
 All these distinctions and disabilities Jesus sees, and 
 avoids, and enters into our actual condition, and by his 
 poverty puts his strong soul up against our little souls 
 and throbs into us some of his own almightiness, '' For 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 25 
 
 we have not a High priest which cannot be touched 
 with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points 
 tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (4 : 15). 
 
 Our High priest comes to us under double types and 
 with a double nature. He comes to us through the 
 Aaronic priesthood as a man, "who can have compas- 
 sion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the 
 way, for that He himself also is compassed with infirmi- 
 ty" (5:2). He is typified unto us through the priest- 
 hood of Melchizedec as an Eternal Prince. "Thou art a 
 priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec." Thus he 
 is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God 
 by him. All gentleness and all power. 
 
 It is not possible to fathom the infinite mystery of 
 the suffering of Jesus. We can tell as little about it 
 as we can about any suffering. There is a ministry of 
 pain that seems to have an exalted place in the divine 
 economy. Characters are led out of selfishness up into 
 sainthood by the burning hands of pain. Mortals, 
 crushed by great sorrows, discover their rarest fragrance. 
 It seems quite safe to affirm that suffering is the only path 
 up to perfection. Every soul on the soil of probation, 
 whether it be the soul of a mortal or the soul of a Re- 
 deemer, can pass up to perfection only by this weary way 
 of suffering, " For it became Him, for whom are all 
 things and by whom are all things, in bringing many 
 sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation 
 perfect through sufferings. For both He that sanctifieth 
 and they who are sanctified are all of one" (2 : 10, 11). 
 
 The mystery of the suffering by which Jesus was 
 
 23* 
 
2 4 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 perfected for his office is hardly open to human specula- 
 tion. We can only behold and adore. I have sometimes 
 fancied that this suffering was the only way in which it is 
 possible to demonstrate love. This proves to us the 
 love of Jesus. In his broken-hearted sobs that went 
 out from Calvary there went an argument for God's love 
 for man than can never be excelled or doubted. I have 
 also thought as I have gazed upon some helpless inno- 
 cent babe writhing in the death agony, that possibly this 
 suffering, so dark to the loving parent here, might over 
 yonder furnish the alphabet with which in the eternal 
 ages to spell out the boundless love and meaning of Cal- 
 vary. This much we do know that God perfects his 
 Son by suffering. Though he were a Son, yet learned 
 he obedience by the things which he suffered. "And 
 the servant is not above his Master, nor the disciple 
 above his Lord." 
 
 It is enough for us to approach the suffering Jesus 
 without seeking to fathom its mystery. Enough that he 
 is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto 
 God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession 
 for them. For such a High priest became us who is 
 holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and 
 made higher than the heavens (7 : 25, 26). Enough 
 that he has entered within the veil with his glorified 
 humanity, and standing there in the presence of the 
 Father presents us in his person. Enough that, as our 
 advocate and representative, he presents our atonement 
 and hears our prayers, which we know not how to offer 
 as we ought, but which Jesus vitalizes with his blood 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 25 
 
 and presents unto the Father in such a way as to make 
 them prevail. 
 
 " Erect at the outtermost gates 
 Of the city celestial He waits, 
 
 With his feet on the ladder of light, 
 That crowded with angels unnumbered, 
 By Jacob was seen as he slumbered 
 
 Alone in the desert at night. 
 
 " The angels of Wind and of Fire 
 Chant only one hymn and expire. 
 
 With the song's irresistible stress — 
 Expire in their rapture and wonder, 
 As harpstrings are broken asunder 
 
 By music they throb to express. 
 
 " But serene in the rapturous throng, 
 Unmoved by the rush of the song, 
 
 With eyes unimpassioned and slow, 
 Among the dead angels, but deathless. 
 The Saviour stands listening breathless, 
 
 To sounds that ascend from below; 
 
 " From spirits on earth that adore, 
 From the souls that entreat and implore 
 
 In the fervor and passion of prayer; 
 From the hearts that are broken with losses 
 And weary with dragging the crosses 
 
 Too heavy for mortals to bear. 
 
 "And He gathers the prayers as He stands, 
 And they change into flowers in his hands, 
 
 Into garlands of purple and red, 
 And beneath the great arch of the portal, 
 Through the streets of the city immortal, 
 
 Is wafted the fragrance they shed." 
 
THE 
 
 Epistles of Peter 
 
 £V REV. HERRICK JOHNSON, D. D,, 
 
 AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
THE 
 
 EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 We must know Peter, if we would know his two 
 Epistles. The record of his life is brief. Let us look at 
 it as we find it before the ascension, and after it. 
 
 PETER BEFORE THE ASCENSION. 
 Simon and his brother Andrew were two plain fish- 
 ermen, who plied their calling on the Galilean sea. 
 They were born at Bethsaida (John i : 44), on its western 
 coast. They afterwards removed to Capernaum, where 
 Peter lived with a wife, and in his own house. (Luke 
 4 : 38.) Andrew became a disciple of John the Baptist, 
 But when John pointed to Jesus, and said, " Behold the 
 Lamb of God," Andrew left the Baptist and followed 
 Jesus. Soon afterward, he sought his brother Simon, 
 and said to him, " We have found the Messias ;" and he 
 brought him to Jesus. (John i :4i, 42.) At this first 
 interview with Jesus, Simon received his new name, 
 Cephas (Aramaean), or Peter (Greek), i. e., a rock, a stone, 
 prophetic of what grace would make of his ardent and 
 energetic nature. Subsequently to this interview, the 
 brothers still pursued their occupation as fishermen, not 
 
4 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 permanently attaching themselves to Jesus until called 
 to be his apostles. Then they "left all," and followed 
 him. (Matt. 4 : 18-22 ; Mark i : 16-20 ; Luke 5 : i-i i.) 
 After the twelve apostles were chosen and ordained 
 (Mark 3 : 14-19), Peter took foremost place among them 
 in speech and action. He is named first in each of the 
 four catalogues of the Apostolic College. (Matt. 10:2; 
 Mark 3:16; Luke 6 : 14 ; Acts 1:13.) He was oftenest 
 the spokesman of the twelve. He was frequently ad- 
 dressed as their representative. He, with James and 
 John, was admitted to special intimacies with his Lord, 
 as at the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5 : 1'j), 
 at the transfiguration (Matt. 17 : i), at the hour of Christ's 
 agony in Gethsemane (Matt. 26 : 37). It was Peter who 
 saw the miraculous draught of fishes, and straightway 
 " fell down " at Jesus' knees, saying, " Depart from me, for 
 I am a sinful man, O Lord." (Luke 5 : 8.) It was Peter 
 who walked on the water to Jesus. It was Peter who, in 
 answer to the Master's question to the twelve, " Will ye 
 also go away .?" replied, " Lord, to whom shall we go t 
 thou hast the words of eternal life. We believe and are 
 sure that thou art the Holy One of God." (John 6 : 6%y 
 69, Sinaitic and Vatican MSS.) And it was Peter again 
 who answered Christ's question, '*Whom say ye that I 
 am V by the glorious confession, " Thou art the Christ, 
 the Son of the living God." (Matt. 16:16.) For this the 
 Master said, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona ; for 
 flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my 
 Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, 
 that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
 
 --y 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 5 
 
 church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
 it." Yet this same Peter had the high presumption to 
 take his Master aside and rebuke him for predicting his 
 sufferings and death, calling forth from Jesus, in stern 
 censure of his presumptuous interference, " Get thee be- 
 hind me, Satan : thou art an offence unto me." (Matt. 
 16 : 22, 23.) It was to Peter, sinking in the sea, that 
 Christ said, "O thou of little faith." And to Peter, 
 sleeping in the hour of his Master's agony, that the Mas- 
 ter said, "Simon, sleepest thouf (Mark 14:37.) Pe- 
 ter would die with his Master before he would deny Him, 
 yet in less than a day he is denying Him with oaths and 
 blasphemy. And yet again, one look from his grieved Lord 
 breaks this apostle's heart, and he stands without the 
 palace, leaning against the wall, his great frame shaken 
 with weeping. He who will not break the bruised reed, 
 by the same sea where Peter was first called to his apos- 
 tleship, affixes the seal anew to his heavenly commission, 
 and reinstates Peter in his apostolic office by the thrice- 
 repeated question, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou 
 me ?" and the thrice-repeated charge to feed the flock ; 
 and thus the record of Peter's life before the ascension is 
 ended. 
 
 " The weakness and the strength of our human love 
 for Christ," says Alford, " are both mercifully provided 
 for in this apostle's character." " He is very remarkable 
 among the apostles," says Leighton, " both for his graces 
 and his failings " — " a singular instance of human frailty 
 on the one side and of the sweetness of divine grace on 
 the other." Certainly no other apostle in the gospel nar- 
 
 29 
 
6 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 rative so fixes upon himself the eye and the thought of 
 the reader. He is oftenest at the front in speech and 
 deed. He is a bundle of seeming contradictions. He 
 gets from his Lord on the very same day most royal 
 commendation and most severe reproof. We hear him 
 saying, "Thou shalt never wash my feet ;" and the words 
 scarcely die on the air before they are followed by, " Lord, 
 not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." All 
 readers find themselves drawn to this eager, impulsive, 
 generous, energetic soul. The strange inconsistencies, 
 the contradictory moods, the heights and depths, the 
 unquestionable strength, and the as unquestionable weak- 
 ness of this apostle's heart, are the counterpart and par- 
 tial explanation of what is true of multitudes of other 
 hearts. And when he reappears in the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles, he is followed with a strange, intense interest. We 
 are justifiably cujious to know what is to be made of this 
 intensely human disciple under the dispensation of the 
 Spirit. We naturally ask whether this fiery temperament, 
 finding expression in such rash speech, this generous, 
 impulsive outspokenness taking on at times almost the 
 tone of bold bravado, this eager earnestness swinging so 
 often back to wayward weakness, as if here were the very 
 child of vacillation — whether these are to get pruning 
 and stay and blended proportion, and to be purified and 
 glorified by the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 PETER AFTER THE ASCENSION. 
 Well, the record of apostolic doing after the ascension 
 tells us. There we find, at the very first anointing from 
 heaven, the impetuous ardor still, but backed now by 
 
THE EPISTLES OE PETER. 7 
 
 granitelike firmness ; the old bold, outspokenness still, but 
 sustained now by a courage that fears nothing but God. 
 Simon, son of Jonas, has indeed become Cephas — a rock. 
 He who cowered before a barmaid, faces the murderers 
 of his Lord, and charges their guilt home. And not even 
 Paul, a man of far greater genius and culture — not even 
 He who spake as never man spake, ever used so effective 
 speech. Never in all human history were multitudes 
 wielded after such a fashion as the two crowds that gath- 
 ered before Peter, the one in an open square near the 
 temple, on hearing the sound as of a rushing mighty 
 wind, and the other in Solomon's Porch, on hearing of 
 the healing of the lame man at the gate Beautiful. 
 
 Besides these two recorded occasions of public and 
 courageous speech in behalf of Christ as the Messiah, we 
 find Peter twice before the Jewish court (Acts 4: 5-13 ; 
 5 : 27-32), displaying there also the courage of his con- 
 victions and fidelity to his Lord. He next appears in the 
 record as sent by the apostles into Samaria. (Acts 8 : 14.) 
 Subsequently he travels through Judea, performing mir- 
 acles and preaching Jesus at Lydda and Joppa (Acts 
 9 : 32-43), and is directed by God in vision to open the 
 door of the church to the Gentile Cornelius. (Acts 10.) 
 He next vindicates before the brethren at Jerusalem this 
 reception of an uncircumcised heathen. Soon after, 
 being imprisoned by Herod, he is miraculously delivered, 
 and leaves the city. (Acts 12:17.) Later, he is again 
 at Jerusalem, in the council of apostles and elders, called 
 to consider the question raised at Antioch with reference 
 to circumcision. His voice is pronounced in favor oi 
 
8 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 liberty, and against putting a yoke on the neck of Gentile 
 disciples. (Acts 15.) At this point Peter drops en- 
 tirely out of view in the sacred history. He does not 
 have even another mention in the record of the Acts of 
 the Apostles. Paul in one of his letters (Gal. i : 11) re- 
 fers to him as being subsequently at Antioch, where he 
 refused to eat with Gentile Christians. Peter here was 
 guilty of undeniable dissimulation. He knew better. It 
 
 /i^tf ' ^'^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ speech at Jerusalem, and a 
 triumph of his old vacillating, cowardly nature ; for the 
 
 „,c 'v /,,i record is, he was in fear of " them which were of the cir- 
 cumcision," so that Paul "withstood him to the face, be- 
 cause he was to be blamed." 
 
 This is the last item of Peter's life on the pages of the 
 New Testament, until we come to the two Epistles that 
 bear his name. Was Peter their author ? Our review 
 of his life should help us to an answer to this question. 
 
 WAS THIS PETER THE AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLES 
 THAT BEAR HIS NAME? 
 
 Look, first, at the probabilities. Wishes are not argu- 
 ments, I know. Likelihoods are not demonstrations. 
 But the weight of probability arising from Peter's posi- 
 tion and character in favor of Petrine authorship is some- 
 thing very considerable, and decisive of the question 
 ^ except in the face of direct proof to the contrary. 
 
 Take, first, Peter's pre-eminence among the apostles, 
 both before and after Christ's death. It was personal, 
 and not, as the Romish church claims, official. It was a 
 primacy of order, not oi pozvcr. But it was a real leader- 
 
THE EPISTLES OE PETER. 9 
 
 ship, and because of his energy and enthusiasm and im- 
 pulsive ardor and promptness and decision. It was 
 recognized by Christ. The only apostles who approach- 
 ed him in personal power and favor with the Master 
 were James and John and Paul. James fell so soon a 
 martyr that he could leave the church little save the tes- 
 timony and seal of his blood. But John's legacy to the 
 church is a Gospel, three Epistles, and the Book of Revela- 
 tion. Paul crowds the inspired record with his splendid 
 and weighty Epistles. Now is it at all probable that 
 Peter, the greatest of the twelve, singled out by his Mas- 
 ter, and charged with special and royal commissions, of 
 whom the gospel narrative warrants us to expect so much, 
 should so early and so utterly drop out of sight, with no 
 bequest to the church whatever from his inspiration, 
 save the three or four speeches of his to the unbelieving 
 Jews, recorded in the Acts } Would it not be a marvel- 
 lously strange thing if he were left in this silence } And 
 is not the presence of his Epistles in the Canon justified 
 by a very natural and very confident expectation t 
 
 Take again the way ift which the record of his life 
 closes. The very last item is Paul's account of Peter's 
 recreancy to his own convictions at Antioch. He plays 
 the coward there. His old waywardness gets the better 
 of him, and many — Barnabas among them — are carried 
 away with his dissimulation. Now is Peter's record on 
 the page of inspiration to end in such a cloud as this } 
 The rocklike firmness that he has shown since his Mas- 
 ter's ascension seems to be gone. Satan is sifting him 
 again. Is Satan to have him ? Where is the proof 
 
 29* 
 
lo THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 that this wayward apostle continued faithful ? How do 
 we knoiv that Peter grew to be perfectly representative of 
 his Christ-given name, if we do not know anything more 
 of him after this weakness and cowardice at Antioch ? 
 If these epistles are the Epistles of Peter, the case is 
 clear. 
 
 Once more : take the solemn words of Christ, just after 
 the Last Supper, " Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to 
 have you that he may sift you as wheat : but I have prayed 
 for thee that thy faith fail not. And zvhen thou art con- 
 verted strengthen the brethrenr Where is the proof that 
 Peter gave heed to' this solemn and peculiar charge .^ 
 Not in his sermons to the Jews, nor in his addresses before 
 the Sanhedrim, scarcely at all in the entire record of his 
 life in the Acts. But these two Epistles are all aglow with 
 the spirit of consolation, and are by eminence the stay 
 and comfort and strength of believers. There is nothing 
 left us to prove that Peter felt it to be peculiarly his of- 
 fice to " strengthen the brethren " and thus obey his 
 Lord, if these Epistles are not his. In the absence of 
 direct proof, therefore, the probabilities are strong in 
 favor of these Epistles as the genuine work of the apostle 
 Peter. 
 
 Let us next consider the external evidence. It is 
 unquestionably conclusive with reference to the first 
 Epistle. It was unanimously received by the primi- 
 tive church. It is found in the ancient Syriac version of 
 the New Testament, called the Peschito, a product at 
 the latest, of the second century, and a translation from 
 the Greek into the very language spoken by many of the 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER, n 
 
 primitive churches. It is quoted repeatedly by the Fa- 
 thers from Polycarp of the first century onward. Express 
 testimony in favor of its genuineness is found in writers 
 of the second and third centuries. With scarcely even 
 an insignificant exception the testimony of antiquity is 
 one way. Indeed Olshausen affirms that "Among all 
 the writers of Christian antiquity there is not one who 
 doubted the genuineness of the Epistle, or had even 
 heard of any doubts concerning it." 
 
 The external testimony to the second^ Epistle is 
 by no means so abundant. Not until the fourth century 
 is it recognized without dispute as belonging to the sa- 
 cred canon. There it appears in all the catalogues of 
 the Fathers and church councils. In the third century 
 its genuineness was doubted. There are certain referen- 
 ces to it as in existence in the second century, but noth- 
 ing whatever of a positive nature as to its canonical 
 character. It must be admitted that the historical evi- 
 dence for Second Peter's place in the inspired books of 
 the New Testament is not as full and satisfactory as 
 could be wished. While, however, the authority is not 
 proved by external evidence, it is not disproved. 
 
 The silence of the earliest Fathers may be accounted 
 for in that only the merest fragments of their writings have 
 been handed down to us, and thus it might easily come 
 to pass that in these fragments no citation would appear 
 from so short a book as Second Peter. 
 
 Moreover it was written just before Peter's death 
 (2 Pet. I : 14), and so his continued living presence could 
 not give the same authority to this as to the first Epistle. 
 
12 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 It was not specifically addressed, and so came under the 
 guardianship of no particular church. It was received 
 in a time of persecution. Mutual communications were 
 interrupted and difficult. This, combined with the great 
 hesitancy with which the churches of one section accept- 
 ed from the churches of another section any new wri- 
 ting as canonical, would account for the original obscuri- 
 ty of Second Peter, and for its gradual admission into the 
 catalogues of sacred books until its final, definitive and 
 universal acceptance as inspired and genuine. 
 
 The hiternal evidence of the genuineness of these 
 Epistles demands brief consideration. 
 
 As to the first Epistle, there has been little question 
 worth the mentioning. An examination of particular 
 words and phrases is here out of the question. But the 
 tone and feeling of the Epistle are strikingly characteris- 
 tic of Peter. The diction is similar to that of the speech- 
 es at Pentecost and in Solomon's Porch. There is a 
 ruggedness of language that befits the rocklike man. 
 The style is marked by force and fire rather than ease and 
 elegance. Yet the force and fire are so far chastened and 
 subdued, that all the old brusqueness and self-assertion 
 of this apostle's nature are gone. The warnings and con- 
 solations are given by one whose fiery temperament has 
 known the fellowship of his Lord's sufferings, and real- 
 ized the sufficiency and the joy of his upholding grace. 
 Surely it is Peter, in memory of his boastful confidence, 
 who says, " Be ready always to give an answer to every 
 man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, 
 with meekness and fear'' Surely, it is Peter, with his 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 13 
 
 Lord's forgiving love still fresh in his heart, who says, 
 " Charity shall cover the multitude of sins." And surely 
 it is Peter in vivid remembrance of his own terrible sift- 
 ing by Satan, who says, " Be sober, be vigilant ; because 
 your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about 
 seeking whom he may devour." VViesinger is unques- 
 tionably right in saying, as quoted by Alford, " If we had 
 not known from whom the Epistle comes, we must have 
 said, 'It must be a rock of the church who thus writes ; 
 a man whose own soul rests on the living Rock, and 
 who here with the strength of his testimony takes in 
 hand to secure the souls of others, and against the haras- 
 sing storm of present tribulation to ground them on the 
 true Rock of ages.' " 
 
 The internal evidence concerning the second Epistle 
 has been held by some to be against its genuineness. 
 A full and minute discussion of the points is here impos- 
 sible. 
 
 The chief objections are 
 
 1. The diversity of style in the two Epistles. But 
 this is not so marked as not to be accounted for by the 
 diversity of condition in the persons addressed, by the 
 different mood of the writer, and by the difference of 
 time in which he wrote. 
 
 2. In ch. 1:18, the Mountain of Ti'ansfiguration is 
 called " the Holy Monntl' betrayijig, it is held, a later age 
 than the apostles, as no such title is given it by a7ty evan- 
 gelist. But what more natural than that Peter, pro- 
 foundly impressed with the ineffable glory of that moun- 
 tain vision, should speak of the place as the Holy Mount. 
 
14 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 3. All of PaiiVs writings are referred to and classed 
 with " the other Scriptures ,' or sacred writings (ch. 3:16), 
 as if a full collection of Paul's Epistles were already 
 made, and the canon of the New Testament already- 
 settled. But these words may clearly refer only to such 
 of Paul's writings as Peter knew, and they imply no 
 more than that "there were certain writings by Chris- 
 tian teachers which were reckoned as on a level with 
 the Old Testament Scriptures, and called by the same 
 name."* 
 
 The chief internal evidence in favor of the genuineness 
 of the Second Epistle may be briefly stated as follows : 
 
 I., It is worthy of an apostle. It is authoritative in 
 language. It is conformed to the analogy of faith. 
 There is in it not only no error of fact or of doctrine, 
 but sublime instructions, novel and significant, in escha- 
 tology ; and all its counsels and warnings have been 
 eminently conducive to truth and godliness. 
 
 2. It is superior every way to the writings of the 
 age subsequent to the apostles. In power, vivacity, in- 
 tensity and wealth of thought, it is immeasurably in 
 advance of anything that succeeded it in post-apostolic 
 times. It is separated from the earliest and best of all 
 other writings of the second century by a difference so 
 marked as to be recognized but utterly unaccounted for 
 by the opponents of its authenticity. 
 
 3. If Peter did not write this Second Epistle, it is a bold, 
 shameless, deliberate forgery: for the writer affirms in the 
 first verse that he is " Simon Peter, a servant and an apos- 
 
 * Alford. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 15 
 
 tie of Jesus Christ." He further claims to have been with 
 Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration (ch. i : 17, 18), 
 and to have been the author of the First Epistle, which 
 bears Peter's name. But this compels the most un- 
 natural conclusions — conclusions impossible of rational 
 belief. 
 
 Here is a writer who impresses all readers with his 
 moral earnestness, who passionately loves truth, and 
 seeks above all things to establish his readers in the 
 truth (ch. 1:12), who claims personal revelations from 
 Jesus Christ (ver. 14), who warns against false teachers 
 coming with "feigned words," and declares that "their 
 damnation slumbereth not" (ch. 2:1-3), who urges his 
 hearers, as himself about to die (ch. 1:14), to be found 
 without spot and blameless in the coming of the day of 
 God (ch. 13 : 12-14) ; ^^^d yet he is a hypocrite, clothed 
 with fraud, guilty even of blasphemy against the Holy 
 Ghost in claiming to have been the author of the First 
 Epistle of Peter ! Well has it been said, " If Peter is 
 really the author of this Epistle, everything is in glorious 
 harmony : if he is not, we have before us an insoluble 
 psychological riddle." Even the German Bleek, who denies 
 that this Epistle is the work of Peter, and who admits 
 the author's adoption of " disguise " and " counterfeit," 
 is yet forced, in senseless and suicidal contradiction, to 
 avow that "the Epistle itself throughout teaches us to 
 regard the writer as a man of earnest moral sense — a 
 man whose spirit and principles were thoroughly in 
 accord with those of the apostolic writings, and presented 
 nothing unchristian or heretical." Is it possible for this 
 
i6 THE EPISTLES OF PETER, 
 
 to be true ? An odious impostor, coining falsehood on 
 falsehood, blasphemously assuming to speak as he is 
 moved by the Holy Ghost, yet " a man of earnest moral 
 sense," whose "spirit" presented "nothing unchristian!" 
 Surely this is a moral impossibility. Can horses run on 
 the rocks ? Shall one plough there with oxen ? Has 
 Christ such concord with Belial ? 
 
 TO WHOM WERE THE EPISTLES ADDRESSED? 
 
 The first Epistle opens with a salutation "to the 
 strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappa- 
 docia,.Asia, and Bithynia." That the Second Epistle was 
 sent to essentially the same readers is clear from i Pet. 
 3 : 1, where the author says, " This second Epistle, be- 
 loved, I now write unto you." 
 
 The provinces named in 1st Peter were all of Asia 
 Minor. At the northwest was Pontus, dwellers in which 
 were at Jerusalem when Peter preached his Pentecostal 
 sermon. (Acts 2 : 9.) Pontus was the native home of 
 Aquila. Galatia was next westward, visited by Paul in 
 his second and third missionary journeys. (Acts 16:6; 
 18:23.) Cappadocia was south of Pontus and Galatia, 
 also represented in Peter's great audience at Pentecost. 
 (Acts 2 : 9.) Asia was still westward, embracing several 
 minor provinces, as Phrygia, Mysia, Pisidia, etc., the 
 scenes of Paul's abundant labors in places like Antioch, 
 Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Ephesus, Troas: containing 
 also the cities of Philadelphia and Sardis and Pergamos 
 and Colosse and Smyrna and Thyatira. The last prov- 
 ince named in Peter's salutation, was BitJiyniay lying 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 17 
 
 north of Asia, and into which Paul assayed to go on his 
 second missionary journey, but the Spirit suffered him 
 not. (Acts 16:7.) 
 
 But who were "the strangers," scattered throughout 
 these provinces, to whom Peter sent his letter? His 
 words of salutation literally are, " To the elect strangers 
 or sojourners of the dispersion of Pontus," etc. Dispersion 
 is beyond doubt a technical term, whose proper appli- 
 cation is to the Jews dispersed in other countries than 
 their native Palestine. On this ground, and because 
 Peter's was the apostleship of the circumcision, it is held 
 by some that Peter addressed Jewish Christians only. 
 But the reference in ch. 4 : 3 to their once having walked 
 in "abominable idolatries" is conclusive as against this 
 limitation. This and other passages (as 1:14; 2:10) 
 make it clear that Peter had Gentile Christians in view. 
 Moreover the Christians of these provinces,, as we learn 
 from the record in the Acts, were composed mainly of 
 Gentile converts. Nor is it at all likely that Peter would 
 address one part of the believers in these provinces and 
 ignore the other. His ministry was not exclusively to 
 the Jews (Acts 10) any more than was Paul's exclusively 
 to the Gentiles. 
 
 It is scarcely to be doubted that both Jewish and 
 Gentile Christians were "the strangers" of the salutation. 
 They were strangers in the same sense as in chap. 2:11, 
 where the very same word is used by the apostle when 
 he beseeches them, as strangers and pilgrims, to abstain 
 from lusts. Thus they were together the people of God's 
 
 covenant^ the Gentiles being grafted by faith into the fam- 
 30 
 
i8 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 ily of Abraham, a chosen generation, called out of dark- 
 ness into his marvellous light. 
 
 These " strangers " were not an unorganized, disin- 
 tegrated body of believers, broken up and widely scat- 
 tered as individuals throughout these provinces, as one 
 might infer from the salutation. They were formed into 
 churches, with regularly-ordained elders, as is evident 
 from Peter's charge to the elders (i Pet. 5 : 1-5), and 
 from the record of Paul's having ordained elders in every 
 church in some of these parts (Acts 14:23). 
 
 These churches had never enjoyed the personal 
 labors of Peter, nor heard the gospel from his lips. He 
 makes no allusion, drops no hint in either Epistle imply- 
 ing personal acquaintance. On the contrary, when he 
 refers to those who had preached the gospel unto them, 
 he seems designedly to exclude himself, (i Pet. 1:12.) 
 
 WHERE AND WHEN WERE THESE EPISTLES 
 WRITTEN.? 
 
 The first Epistle was written at Babylon, as Peter 
 sends to his readers the salutations of the church there 
 (ch. 5:13). There is no good reason to doubt that this was 
 the renowned city of Babylon on the Euphrates. There 
 were certainly Jews there at this period, as profane his- 
 tory tells us. And Peter's presence in that city would 
 indicate that the apostle of the circumcision had been 
 eastward seeking his scattered countrymen, and preach- 
 ing to them the true kingdom of God. 
 
 The time of writing the first Epistle was about A. D. 
 61. Several considerations determine this date. 
 
 6S" 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 19 
 
 There is no proof in the Epistle that the terrible 
 persecutions under Nero had commenced, and we know 
 these dated from A. d. 64. But the Epistle furnishes 
 abundant evidence of the actual foreshadowing of some 
 coming storm, as if that Neronian outbreak of bloody 
 violence were near at hand. Moreover, the personal ref- 
 erences to Sylvanus and Marcus, and the evident traces 
 in the Epistle of Peter's familiarity with Paul's letters, 
 even those of the first imprisonment at Rome, point to 
 the year 63 as that in which Peter's first Epistle was 
 probably written. 
 
 His second Epistle could not have been written much 
 later, not more than four or five years. The reference to 
 the first Epistle (ch. 3 : i), "This second Epistle, beloved, 
 I now write unto you, in which (two epistles) I stir up 
 your pure minds by way of remembrance," shows that the 
 two could not have been very far apart. If the tradition 
 be accepted, and there is nothing to balance the testi- 
 mony of Christian antiquity in its favor, that Peter suf- 
 fered martyrdom at Rome at or near the time of Paul's 
 martyrdom, then his death occurred about a. d. 6^ or 6%. 
 This second Epistle could not have been written long 
 before, and Peter may have written it either while on his 
 way to Rome, or just after reaching the imperial city. 
 But the time and place are alike conjectural. 
 
 THE OBJECT AND CONTENTS OF THESE EPISTLES. 
 
 The one supreme, comprehensive object of these Epis- 
 tles is that which had been made by Christ in peculiarly 
 sacred circumstances, Peter's special office. ^' Simon, 
 
20 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 Simon," said the Master on the memorable night of the 
 supper and the betrayal (Luke 22 13 1-34), "thou art to 
 know the terribleness of Satan's assaults ; thy temptation 
 and trial and fall are to be grievous and bitter ; but I have 
 prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And when thou 
 art tried in the fire and dost come forth vi^ith a purified, 
 self-renouncing, and conquering faith, strengthen the breth- 
 ren.'' And to "strengthen the brethren" is the para- 
 mount, all-controlling aim of these two precious portions 
 of the Word of God. It is not a little remarkable that 
 the very word {crnpi^tj) with which the Holy Ghost records 
 the charge to Peter is again and again used by the apos- 
 tle in these Epistles to stay the hearts of his readers. 
 He writes, " The God of all grace stablish {aTvpi^ei) you." 
 (i Pet. 5 : 10.) He writes again, "Though ye be estab- 
 lished (hTTjpiyfiivov^) in the present truth, I will not be neg- 
 ligent to put you always in remembrance, so as to estab- 
 lish you the more." (2 Pet. 1:12.) And still again, the 
 very last word of warning he ever gave them, his dying 
 appeal, " Beware, beloved, lest, being led away by the 
 error of the wicked, ye fall from your own steadfastness'' 
 [oTvpiyfiov). (2 Pet. 3:17.) This is one of those internal 
 and undesigned evidences of the genuineness of these 
 Epistles with which so many books of the New Testa- 
 ment abound. Who but Peter, sifted of Satan because 
 'of his self-confidence, thinking himself a rock when he 
 proved a bank of sand, would thus thrice have used this 
 very word } 
 
 But it is not simply by this word that the object ap- 
 pears. It breaks out everywhere in the two letters, from 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER, 21 
 
 the opening reference to the trial of the faith of his read- 
 ers that would be found unto praise and glory and honor 
 at the appearing of Jesus Christ, to the very last appeal, 
 to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and 
 Saviour. The Epistles are not doctrinal, though doctrine 
 is in them ; they are full of the strong meat of the Word, 
 the choice manna of the Son of God. They are not a 
 profound unfolding of a logical system of divine truth. 
 His readers had been already grounded in Christian doc- 
 trine by Paul and his companions. Peter therefore aims 
 not so much at instruction as confirmation. His Epistles 
 are exJiibitive rather than demonstrative ; and exhibitive 
 of those grand and inspiring truths that have been the 
 stay .and the joy of believers in all circumstances of trial. 
 They merit for themselves this distinctive title. The 
 Epistles of consolation, and they win for their author this, 
 The Apostle of hope. 
 
 But while the one great object of Peter is "to strength- 
 en the brethren," each Epistle has a distinctive aim, by 
 reason of the differing condition of his readers at the 
 time of his writing. 
 
 When Peter wrote his first Epistle, the Christians 
 scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, etc., were deprived 
 of the personal labors of Paul. Paul's great missionary 
 journeys in these parts were ended. He had been a 
 prisoner at Cesarea and Rome. Possibly he was now 
 liberated and on some distant tour westward. We know 
 from his Epistle to the Galatians that Judaizing teachers 
 were among these churches, troubling the Gentile Chris- 
 tians by teaching that circumcision was necessary to sal- 
 
23 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 vation, and entangling them with the yoke of bondage to 
 the flesh. (Gal. 3:1; 5:1; 6:12.) Moreover, they were 
 in manifold trials of afflictions by reason of the heathen. 
 The bloody persecutions of Nero had not yet actually 
 broken forth. There is no proof in the Epistle that they 
 were haled before judges or violently put to death. But 
 their faith was sorely tried, even as " with fire ;" they 
 were "evil spoken of," "falsely accused," "reproached for 
 the name of Christ," " buffeted " for doing well, and railed 
 at for not indulging in their former "lusts and revel- 
 lings and abominable idolatries" (1:7; 2:12; 3:1 6- 18; 
 4 : 14). It is clear also from the Epistle that there were 
 intimations of far severer trials (4 : 12), of a terrible judg- 
 ment to come (4: 17), as if Peter heard already the roar 
 of the lion so soon to go forth threatening to devour the 
 faithful (5 : 8). 
 
 See now how he meets this twofold necessity of 
 strengthening these brethren. To antidote the poison 
 of the errorists, he assures his readers that the doctrine 
 that had been preached unto them by Paul and his co- 
 laborers is the unchangeable word of the Lord that endu- 
 reth for ever. As the apostle of circumcision and the 
 chief of the twelve first chosen by the Lord, he ratifies the 
 preaching of the apostle of the Gentiles, and magnani- 
 mously endorses him in the very point in respect to which 
 Paul had once withstood him to his face. He comforts 
 and strengthens the disturbed brethren by stamping with 
 falsehood these Judaizing teachers, saying to his readers, 
 " The word of the Lord endureth for ever," etc. " This 
 is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you " 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 23 
 
 (i : 25). And again, " This is the true grace of God where- 
 in ye stand" (5 : 12). 
 
 But the apostle looks beyond these Judaizing troub- 
 lers of the churches. Heresy is not yet so rife among 
 his readers as to constitute their chief trial and danger. 
 Their sorest strait is the perils they are in from the hea- 
 then. Suspicions, calumnies, reproaches, are heaped 
 upon them. Their situation is critical and hazardous. 
 Everywhere they are maligned and maltreated. There 
 are signs of impending storm and disaster. The air is 
 thick with evil omens to these infant flocks. And all the 
 fervor and warmth of Peter's nature are poured out in 
 furnishing these buffeted and storm-tossed believers in 
 Jesus a strong ground of consolation. The Epistle, 
 therefore, while assuring them, as against the errorists, 
 that they stand in the true grace of God, exhibits that 
 grace in its peculiarly stimulating and inspiring aspects, 
 to stay and cheer their hearts in their fiery trials. It 
 abounds in the most affectionate warnings and the most 
 soul-comforting promises. Especially is it full of the 
 sufferings, the exaltation, the power, and the coming of 
 Christ. 
 
 Mark the proof of this. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Faith is given anchorge in the very opening sentence 
 of the salutation, " Chosen according to the foreknowl- 
 edge of God." Then the apostle proceeds : 
 
 " Ye are begotten to a living hope of an eternal inher- 
 itance, and kept by the power of God. Herein ye greatly 
 
24 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 rejoice, even in tribulation, as it is thus made sure that 
 the end of your faith, though tried in the fire, will be sal- 
 vation, and salvation so great that prophets talked of it 
 and angels desired to look into it. Hope^ therefore, to 
 the end ; be obedient and holy, remembering the precious 
 blood that redeemed you, and in the fellowship of this 
 ransom love one another, as alike born by the enduring 
 
 word of God. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Feed on this same word by which ye were born, that 
 ye may grow thereby, and be ye built up on Christ, the 
 precious cornerstone, who will be to believers an honor, 
 but to unbelievers ruin. 
 
 " Be of pure conversation among the heathen, obedi- 
 ent to authorities, subject to masters, even when suffer- 
 ing wrongfully, for Christ so suffered. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 "Wives, win your unbelieving husbands by subjec- 
 tion, chaste conversation, and the ornament of a meek 
 and quiet spirit. Husbands, yield honor to the wife. 
 Be ye all loving, courteous, guileless, and of good con- 
 science, so as to shame and silence false accusers. See 
 to it, at all events, that if you suffer, it be for well-doing, 
 as your Lord suffered. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Forasmuch, then, as Christ suffered, arm yourselves 
 
 with his mind; be of patient endurance and dead to sin, 
 
 for there is to be a judgment both of the living and the 
 
 dead. Discharge your social duties, use your gifts, and 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 25 
 
 in participation in sufferings as Christians rejoice, for the 
 spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you, and when 
 Christ's glory shall be revealed, ye will be glad with ex- 
 ceeding joy. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " Elders, feed the flock, and do not lord it over God's 
 heritage. Ye younger, submit to the elder. And all 
 of you be clothed with humility; cast care on God, 
 who careth for you ; resist the devil ; and the God of all 
 grace, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you per- 
 fect. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. 
 Amen." And surely peace, like a river, must have 
 flowed through the troubled souls of saints in Pontus and 
 Galatia and Cappadocia as they went sounding the depths 
 of this Epistle. All its wealth of consolation was spe- 
 cially fitted to strengthen the brethren in their sufferings 
 and fiery trials. 
 
 But when Peter wrote his second Epistle, destructive 
 forms of error were gravely threatening the churches. 
 The danger was from within rather than from without, 
 and had already grown formidable. Just exactly what 
 these fatal heresies were it may be impossible to desig- 
 nate. They were doubtless beginnings of what after- 
 wards developed into destructive heretical systems. They 
 were the roots of antinomian gnosticism, " the great moral 
 ferment of the first fatal apostasy." These errorists de- 
 nied that Christians were under the restraints of law, 
 turned the liberty of the sons of God into license and 
 lust, and crowded out the Lord Christ, denying his re- 
 
26 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 demption, raising angels to the rank of creators, and revi- 
 ling Satan only to be led captive at his Mrill, and to perish 
 at last and utterly in their own corruption. 
 
 See now how, in his second Epistle, Peter meets this 
 necessity of strengthening the brethren. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 His salutation is, " Grace and peace be multiplied to 
 you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord',' 
 striking here at the very outset the keynote of the whole 
 Epistle ; for heresy can only be antidoted and its pestilent 
 evils stayed, and hearts made proof against it, by a true 
 knowledge of God and of Christ. 
 
 Then the apostle proceeds : 
 
 "Ye are given exceeding great and precious promises, 
 that by these ye may be made partakers of the divine 
 nature. Be diligent, therefore, in the cultivation of the 
 gospel's rich cluster of Christian graces, that by fruitful- 
 ness in the knowledge of Jesus ye may secure an abun- 
 bant entrance into his everlasting kingdom. I put you 
 in mind of these things, as myself about to die. You 
 have not been fed on cunningly-devised fables, in what 
 you have been taught of the power and coming of Christ, 
 for we were eyewitnesses of his majesty in the holy 
 mount, and the prophets do testify of it also, speaking 
 by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 "But as there were false prophets among them, so 
 there will be false teachers among you, bringing in dam- 
 nable heresies, and denying the Lord that bought them. 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 27 
 
 With feigned words they will make merchandise of your 
 souls. But their damnation slumbereth not. For God, 
 who dealt with the sinning angels, and the old world and 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, will deal with these adulterous 
 walkers after the flesh, who, in their shameless apostasy, 
 sport in their own deceivings, and speak great swelling 
 words of vanity. And when he does deal with them, 
 their last state will be worse than the first, and it had 
 been better for them not to have known the way of 
 righteousness. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "This second Epistle I write to remind and assure 
 you it is the unchangeable truth of God which you pos- 
 sess, spoken before by the prophets, and now by your* 
 apostles. Beware, therefore of the scoffers, walking after 
 their own lusts, and flouting at the coming of Christ ; 
 for as the world once perished with water, so it shall per- 
 ish with fire, and suddenly too, as a thief in the night. 
 Therefore be holy and watchful, looking for and hasting 
 unto the coming of the day of God, which shall lead to 
 new heavens and a new earth of righteousness. Know- 
 ing these things, take heed, beloved, lest ye also be led 
 away with the error of the wicked, but grow in grace and 
 in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen." 
 
 Surely now, if Peter's first Epistle is specially adapt- 
 ed to strengthen the brethren in view of trials from with- 
 out, this second Epistle is equally adapted to fortify them 
 against the seductive assaults of heresy and fatal apostasy 
 
 * According to the Alexandrian, Sinaitic, and Vatican MSS. 
 
28 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 from within. The one Epistle is the complement of the 
 other, and each fits to the present and pressing need of 
 the sorely-bestead saints to whom it is addressed. In the 
 first Epistle, it is by holding up the sufferings of Christ 
 that he would take the sting out of the fiery trials of God's 
 suffering saints. To this thought he turns again and 
 again ; and with what tenderness and pathos he reasons : 
 ** Because Christ also suffered for us" (2:21); "for Christ 
 also hath once suffered'' (3 : 18). "As Christ hath suf- 
 fered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same 
 mind" (4:1). "Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers 
 of Christ's sufferings'' (4: 13). In the second Epistle it 
 is the Lord in majesty and power who is revealed, for it 
 is the lordship of Jesus that best serves to strengthen 
 human faith in the truth, and to warn against apostasy. 
 So in the first Epistle the names with which Peter names 
 the Master are Christ and yesus Christ. In the second 
 they are " oiir Lord and Saviour!' In the first Epistle, 
 however, the look is not simply backward to Christ's suf- 
 ferings ; it is forward also to when his glory shall be re- 
 vealed (i : 7 ; 4 : 13). But it is the coming of Christ in the 
 first Epistle, and for comfort, that Christians may h^glad 
 with exceediftg joy (1:7; 4:13; 5:4). In the second 
 Epistle it is the coming of the Lord, and linked with 
 suddenness and destru,ction, for warfiing as well. Again, 
 in the first Epistle, hope is the joyous and electric word 
 ringing down through it as an antidote to sorrow : Be- 
 gotten unto a living hope (i : 3). ''Hope to the end for 
 the grace that is to be brought you " (i ; 13). " That your 
 faith and hope might be in God" (1:21). "Be ready 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 29 
 
 always to give a reason of the hope that is in you " (3 : 15). 
 In the second Epistle knowledge is the strong word that 
 gets repetition and emphasis, as an antidote to ''false 
 teachers " and ''feigned words!' " Grace and peace be to 
 you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus" (i : 2). 
 " That ye be not unfruitful in the knoivledge of our Lord 
 Jesus " (i : 8). *' I will not be negligent to put you always 
 in remembrance of these things, though ye know them " 
 (i : 12). "After they have escaped the pollutions of the 
 world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour " 
 {2 : 20). " Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (3 : 18). 
 
 Blessed Epistles of consolation these. Who could 
 have written them but the tempted, tried, sifted, tempest- 
 tossed, impulsive, ardent, wayward Peter, the sufferings 
 and infinite patience and forgiveness of whose Lord at 
 last transformed this apostle into a rock of firmness, no 
 longer resting on a human will but on the Rock of Ages. 
 "When thou shalt be old/' his Master had said (John 
 21:18) — "When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch 
 forth thy hands and another shall gird thee, and carry 
 thee whither thou wouldst not." And the beloved disci- 
 ple afterwards added, " This spake he signifying by what 
 death he should glorify God." And standing within the 
 shadow of that predicted crucifixion, knowing that very 
 soon he must put off his earthly tabernacle, chastened, 
 subdued, enriched by grace, Peter penned these letters. 
 Ever since, the aching head has found a softer pillow 
 with Peter's first Epistle underneath. The smitten and 
 bereaved have gone down into some new sepulchre 
 
 31 
 
30 THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 
 
 that God has made in their heart's garden, and taking 
 this Epistle with them and reading it there, the sepulchre 
 has come to be the dearest spot in the garden. This 
 word of consolation has led many a weeping saint out of 
 the Valley of Baca upon the heights of the Delectable 
 mountains. Faces with all the hope washed out have 
 looked into this glass of the Word, and brightened like fires 
 new stirred, as they beheld the glory of their Lord. It 
 has put rifts in clouds and let light through. It has lifted 
 sorrows off; or taken the sting out of them. It has 
 changed cowards like Peter before the ascension into 
 heroes like Peter after it. 
 
 And surely the second Epistle has also had its special, 
 distinctive and most precious uses. Many a waverer 
 and doubter has here gotten better anchorage in the 
 truth. In times when defection has spread in the church, 
 when it has seemed as if the very foundations of God's 
 temple of truth were being broken up, timid believers have 
 grown calm and fearless, as they have caught the confi- 
 dence of this ringing word of Peter. They have turned 
 to this second Epistle and have grown sure as they read 
 it, of the ultimate and utter overthrow of those by whom 
 the way of truth is evil spoken of. "They have believed 
 in their inmost souls that the church is built upon the 
 rock and that the gates of hell shall never prevail against 
 her. Here they have learned that one day is with the 
 Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, 
 that God has therefore a great while to do things in, that 
 he does not measure years or altitudes as men measure 
 them. And if, by the hope flashing out in the first 
 
THE EPISTLES OF PETER. 31 
 
 Epistle, thick darkness has been dispelled from many 
 a believer's sky, by the knowledge enjoined in the sec- 
 ond Epistle better anchorage has been secured in the 
 cleft of the Rock for God's storm-swept hosts. They 
 are both full of the rich fruits of Peter's experience. No 
 other apostle could have copied just such things out of 
 his heart. Men have mocked Peter's memory since 
 with stately piles of architecture wherein they have 
 crowded out Jesus by Jesus' mother. Here is Peter's 
 true building work, full, not of Mary, but of Jesus. Men 
 have named Peter's successors vicegerents of God. But 
 Peter's true successors are those who heed his dying in- 
 junction and grow in grace and in the knowledge and 
 love of Peter's Lord. Men have put Peter's so-called 
 power of the keys to infamous uses. But here are the 
 keys that have unlocked the mystery of suffering and 
 sorrow to many a believing soul. In the books that God 
 keeps will be found no richer memorial than of these 
 two alabaster boxes of precious ointment that Peter broke 
 for the world's bruised and burdened hearts. 
 
BS2361 .L47 
 
 Lectures on the New Testament delivered 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00052 2104 
 
 
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