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 I 
 
HISTORY 
 
 OP THE 
 
 APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 
 
“ The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in 
 his field : which indeed is the least of all seeds : but when it is grown, it is the greatest among 
 herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches 
 thereof.” 
 
 “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures 
 of meal, till the whole was leavened.”— Jesus Christ. 
 
 \ 
 
HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 APOSTOLIC CHURCH 
 
 WITH A 
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO CHURCH HISTORY. 
 
 BY 
 
 PHILIP SCHAFF, 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 T. AND T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. 
 
 LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN : JOHN ROBERTSON, 
 
 AND HODGES AND SMITH. 
 
 MDCCCLIV. 
 
MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
• 2 76.1 
 
 S Ju I 
 irs^ 
 
 Y 2 
 
 FOUNDING, SPREAD, AND PERSECUTION 
 
 OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 / 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 LABOURS OF THE OTHER APOSTLES DOWN TO THE DESTRUCTION 
 
 OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 § 89. Character of Peter. 
 
 Simon, as he was originally called, or, as he was afterwards 
 named, Peter, was the son of the fisherman Jonas. 1 He was 
 a native of Bethsaida in Galilee, 2 and a resident of Capernaum, 3 
 where he followed his father’s occupation. His brother Andrew, 
 a disciple of John the Baptist, first brought him to Jesus, by 
 whom he was called to be a fisher of men. 4 After that mira¬ 
 culous draught of fishes, from 'which he received an overwhelm¬ 
 ing impression of power and majesty of the Lord, and by which 
 he was awakened to a sense of his own weakness and sinfulness 
 (Luke v. 3, et seq .), he surrendered himself wholly to the service 
 of Christ, and became with John and the elder James, a confi¬ 
 dant of his Master, and a witness of the transfiguration on Mount 
 Tabor and the agony in Gethsemane. And in this triad itself 
 he is plainly the most prominent personage. He is, in fact, the 
 “ organ of the whole college of apostles,” 5 speaking and acting 
 
 1 Matth. iv. 18; xvi. 17. John i. 42; xxi. 16. 
 
 2 John i. 44. 3 Matth. viii. 14. Luke iv. 38. 
 
 4 Matth. iv. 18, et seq. Mark i. 16, et seq. John i. 41, et seq. 
 
 6 So Chrysostom styles him, In Joann, homil. 88, where he says of Peter: ”E xx°ito; 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 A 
 
 4 
 
2 § 89. CHARACTER OF PETER. [l. BOOK. 
 
 in their name. While the contemplative, reflecting John lay in 
 mysterious silence on the Saviour’s bosom, the more practical 
 and energetic Peter could never conceal his inmost nature, but 
 everywhere involuntarily exposed it. 
 
 Hence the gospels reveal him to us both in his virtues and his 
 failings, more fully than they do any other apostle. With the 
 most honest enthusiasm he gives himself up to Jesus, confessing, 
 for all his colleagues, that He is the Messiah, the Son of the 
 living God (Matth. xvi. 16). Soon after, with unbecoming 
 familiarity and unconscious presumption, he undertakes to rebuke 
 his Lord, and to dissuade him from the course of suffering which 
 was necessary for the redemption of the world (Matth. xvi. 22). 
 On the mount of transfiguration he proposes, under the impulse 
 of the moment, to build tabernacles, and make sensuous provi¬ 
 sion for retaining the happiness he felt (Matth. xvii. 4). When 
 Jesus was washing the disciples’ feet, Simon, in high-minded 
 modesty, presumed to know better than his Master: u Lord, 
 dost thou wash my feet?” “ Thou shalt never wash my feet” 
 (John xiii. 6, 8). What a remarkable mixture of glowing love 
 to Christ and rash self-reliance expresses itself in his vow shortly 
 before the arrest in the garden: u Though all men shall be 
 offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended!” . . . . 
 u Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee!” 
 (Matth. xxvi. 33, 35). How stormy and inconsiderate his carnal 
 zeal in the garden of Gethsemane, where, instead of meekly 
 suffering, he draws the sword! (John xviii. 10). And ’then ere 
 long came his deep and grievous fall; fear of man and love of 
 life making him unfaithful to his Master. But, in the hands of 
 God, all this was the means of showing him his own weakness 
 by bitter experience, humbling his heart, and teaching him to 
 place his strength in the grace of God alone. The Lord did not 
 forsake him. He prayed that his faith might not fail (Luke xxii. 
 31, 32) restored him, after His resurrection, to the pastoral 
 office, of which he had rendered himself unworthy by his apos- 
 
 1 It is worthy of remark, that in this passage, according to the original, the faith of 
 the other apostles seems to be made dependent on that of Peter. “ And the Lord 
 said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you (v^oLf, which includes all 
 the disciples), that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee ( mg) trov, 
 referring to Peter), that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen 
 thy breihren.” 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 89. CHARACTER OF PETER. 
 
 6 
 
 tasy; and gave him charge of His sheep and lambs. The 
 apostle had first, however, to be thoroughly tested by the thrice 
 repeated question : u Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me—lovest 
 thou me more than these?” The Lord would here humble and 
 shame him, by reminding him of his thrice repeated denial of his 
 Master, and of his self-exaltation above his fellow-disciples. Now 
 his pride is broken, his ardour purified. He ventures no more to 
 place himself above the rest, but submits the measure of his love 
 to the Searcher of hearts; conscious that he loves his Lord, and 
 recognising in this love the element of his life; but at the same 
 time painfully sensible that he does not love Him as he ought, 
 and as he gladly would (John xxi. 15, et seq .) That he allowed 
 himself, even after this, to be hurried by momentary impulse into 
 inconsistencies, is shown by the well-known occurrence at Anti¬ 
 och. 1 But he was doubtless enabled to improve this repeated 
 disclosure of his weakness to his own humiliation, and ever kept in 
 view the Lord’s last prophetic words, that he should walk in the 
 path of self-denial, and should finally complete his obedience and 
 faithfulness by suffering a violent death (John xxi. 18, et seq.). 
 For we elsewhere find him fearlessly confessing his faith before 
 the people, before the council, and in the face of the greatest 
 danger; steadfast in love to the Lord under toil and tribulation, 
 even to the most excruciating martyrdom; and thus, after all, 
 proving himself eminently worthy of his new name. 2 
 
 This sketch of the life of Simon Peter gives us a picture of a 
 remarkable combination of great natural talents and virtues with 
 peculiar weaknesses. This apostle was distinguished from the 
 other eleven by an ardent, impulsive, choleric, sanguine tempera¬ 
 ment, an open, shrewd, practical nature, bold self-confidence, 
 prompt energy, and an eminent talent for representing and 
 governing the church. He was always ready to speak out his 
 mind and heart, to resolve, and to act. But these natural endow¬ 
 ments brought with them a peculiarly strong temptation to 
 vanity, self-conceit and ambition. His excitable impulsive dis¬ 
 position might very easily lead him to over-estimate his powers, 
 to trust too much to himself, and, in the hour of danger, to yield 
 with equal readiness to entirely opposite impressions. This 
 
 1 Comp. § 70. 
 
 2 Acts iii. 1-4, 22; v. 17-41 ; xii. 3-17. 
 
4 § 90. POSITION OF PETER IN CHURCH HISTORY. [l. BOOK 
 
 explains his denial of his Lord, in spite of his usual firmness and 
 joy in confessing his faith. In depth of knowledge and love he 
 doubtless fell short of a Paul and a John, and hence was not so 
 well fitted as they for the work of perfecting the church. Ilis 
 strength lay in the fire of immediate inspiration, in promptness 
 of speech and action, and in an imposing mein, which at once 
 commanded respect and obedience. He was born to be a church 
 leader, and his powers, after proper purification by the Spirit of 
 Christ, admirably fitted him for the work of beginning, for the 
 task of founding and organizing the church. 
 
 § 90. Positiovi of Peter in Church History. 
 
 What has now been said already indicates the place and sig¬ 
 nificance of this apostle in the history of the church. His position 
 was determined by his natural qualifications, so far as they were 
 under the guidance of the Holy Ghost and enlisted for the truth. 
 The Lord knew at once what was in him, and named him, at 
 the outset, with reference to his future activity, Cephas , in the 
 Aramaic language, or, as translated into Greek, Peter , signify¬ 
 ing Rock. 1 A year afterwards, the Saviour confirmed and 
 explained to him this title of honour, and connected with it 
 that remarkable promise, which has been such an apple of dis¬ 
 cord in the history of the church. While others regarded Jesus 
 as, at best, a forerunner of the Messiah, and therefore a mere 
 man, however distinguished, Simon was the first to recognise 
 and acknowledge, with his whole soul, and with the energy of 
 living faith, the great central mystery, the fundamental article of 
 Christianity, the Messiahship of his Master; the absolute union 
 of the divine and the human, and the all-sufficient fulness of 
 life, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In a critical, sifting 
 hour, when many were apostatizing, Simon declared, in the 
 name of all his colleagues, from the depths of his inmost ex¬ 
 perience, and with the emphasis of the most assured and sacred 
 conviction : u Thou art the Christ” (the Anointed of God, the 
 long promised and anxiously expected Messiah), “the Son of 
 the living God!” 2 Or, according to the somewhat more ex¬ 
 tended account of John : u Lord, to whom shall we go ? thou 
 
 1 John i. 42. Mark iii. 16. 
 
 2 Matth. xvi. 10. Comp. Mark viii. 29. Luke ix. 20. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 90. POSITION OF PETER IN CHURCH HISTORY. 5 
 
 hast the words of eternal life ; and we believe and are sure that 
 thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God” (John vi. 66- 
 69). On the ground of this first Christian creed, this joyful 
 confession of saving faith, revealed to him not by flesh and 
 blood (i. e ., neither by his own nature, nor by another man, as 
 formerly by his brother Andrew, John i. 40, 41), but by the 
 Father in heaven, the Lord pronounced him blessed, and added : 
 u Thou art Peter ” (rock, man of rock) ; u and upon this rock 1 
 will build my church , and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
 it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven ; and whatsoever thou slialt bind on earth, shall be bound 
 in heaven; and whatsoever thou slialt loose on earth, shall be 
 loosed in heaven” (Matth. xvi. 18, 19). We have here an un¬ 
 commonly significant play upon words, which we cannot feel 
 the full force of without referring to the Greek, or, what is still 
 better, the Hebrew original. Without doubt, our Lord used in 
 both clauses the Aramaic word mb"®, (hence the Greek K rj(f)ds 
 applied to Simon, John i. 42 ; 1 Cor. i. 12 ; iii. 22; ix. 5 ; xv. 5; 
 
 Gal. ii. 9). 1 In the Greek: (TV €4 n expos, KCli 67TI TClVTr) T}J TT€Tpq, 
 as also in the Latin : tu es Petrus , et super lianc petram ,—the 
 play on words is somewhat obscured by the necessary change of 
 gender. 2 In the German and English it is wholly lost, since 
 Pels and rock are never used as proper names. But in the 
 French : Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre je batirai mon eglise, 
 —it is brought out as clearly as in the Semitic dialects. 
 
 In the interpretation of this passage, two errors are to be 
 avoided. On the one hand, the promise must not be sundered 
 
 1 Hence the old Syraic translation, the Peshito, renders the passage in question 
 thus: Anath chipha, vehall hada chipha. The Arabic translation has alsachra in 
 both places. 
 
 2 The Cephas in the first clause must be translated Tlsr^os, Petrus, because it denotes 
 
 a man; and the masculine form, too, was already in use as the name of a person 
 (comp. Leont. Scliol. 18; Fabric, bibliotli. gr. xi. 334). In the classics xU signifies 
 properly a stone, and the whole rock. But this distinction is not always 
 
 observed; and in the passage before us it is J entirely disregarded, as the Greek word 
 must in both places correspond to the Aramaic, Cephas, which always means rock, and 
 is used both as a proper and a common noun. The most we can say is, that tU^cc, in 
 the second clause, more plainly includes Peter’s confession also, as well as his person, 
 and so far points us at once to the true interpretation. In figurative language, 
 denotes, in the classics, as in this passage, firmness, stability; as in Homer, Odyss. 
 XVII. 4G3; but very often, also, hardness of heart, want of feeling. The correspond¬ 
 ing words in the modern languages admit of the same twofold application. 
 
0 § 90. POSITION OF PETER IN CHURCH HISTORY. [i. BOOK. 
 
 from the confession, and attached to the mere person of Peter 
 as such. 1 For, in the first place, the name u Peter,” v. 18, is 
 antithetic to the original name, u Simon Bar-Jona,” v. 17, and 
 thus denotes the new, spiritual man, into which the old Simon 
 either already was, or was gradually to be transformed by the 
 Spirit of Christ. Then again, the Lord immediately afterwards 
 (Matth. xvi. 23) says to the same apostle, when indulging his 
 natural spirit: u Get thee behind me, Satan ” (evil counsellor, 
 adversary) ; u thou art an offence unto me ; for thou savourest 
 not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” His 
 fault was, that he had undertaken, with the best intentions 
 indeed, yet with the short-sightedness, fear of suffering, and 
 presumption of the natural man, to dissuade his Master from 
 submitting to the suffering of the cross, which was indispensable 
 for the salvation of the world. 
 
 Equally unreasonable is it, on the other hand, to disjoin, as 
 many Protestant theologians do, the u petra” from the preceding 
 u Petros,” and refer it solely to the confession in v. 16. For 
 this plainly destroys the beautiful, vivacious play upon words 
 and the significance of the raur#, which evidently refers to the 
 nearest antecedent, u Petros.” Besides, the church of Christ is 
 built, not upon abstract doctrines and confessions, but upon 
 living persons, as the bearers of the truth. 2 
 
 Rather must we, with all the fathers, and the best modern 
 Protestant interpreters, refer the words, u Thou art a rock,” etc., 
 by all means to Peter, indeed, but only to him as he appears in 
 the immediate context; that is, to the renewed Peter, to whom 
 God had revealed the mystery of the Incarnation (v. 16, 17) ; 
 to Peter, the fearless confessor of the Saviour’s divinity; in a 
 word, to Peter in Christ. Thus the sense is : u I appoint thee, 
 as the living witness of this fundamental truth, which thou hast 
 just confessed, to be the chief instrument in the founding of my 
 
 1 Then we should rather have in the Greek: Ivi trot ™ 
 
 2 Hardly worth mentioning is the reference of the “petra” to Christ. Christ is, 
 indeed, the rock of the church, and the immoveable Rock of Ages, in the highest sense 
 of the term. But in this passage he evidently appears as the architect of the building, 
 and cannot, without violating all rules of sound taste, present himself in one breath 
 under two different images. Besides, this interpretation would make the preceding, 
 “ Thou art a rock,” utterly unmeaning, and destroy the natural significancy of the 
 demonstrative particle “ this.” 
 
MISSIONS.] §90. POSITION OF PETER IN CHURCH HISTORY. 7 
 
 indestructible church; and endow thee with all the powers ot* 
 its government, under me, the builder and supreme ruler of the 
 same.” In these words, therefore, our Lord describes the official 
 character of this apostle, and foretells to him his future place in 
 the history of the church. Peter, with his faith and the bold pro¬ 
 fession of it, here appears as the foundation, and Christ himself 
 as the master builder, ol that wonderful spiritual edifice which 
 no hostile power can destroy. Absolutely, Christ, of course, is 
 called the foundation (OepeXiov) of the church, besides which no 
 other can be laid (1 Cor. iii. 11); but in a secondary or relative 
 sense, so are the apostles also, whom Christ uses as His instru¬ 
 ments. Hence in Eph. ii. 20, it is said of the saints, that they 
 “ are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets 
 (Art TM depeXup tcou anovToXcov kcu TTpo<pqTcbv ), JeSUS Christ llimself 
 being the chief corner-stone and hence the twelve foundations 
 (OepeXioi) of the New Jerusalem bear the names of the twelve 
 apostles, of the Lamb (Rev. xxi. 14). If now the apostles, in 
 general, under the guidance, of course, of the Holy Ghost, are 
 the human founders of the church, as ministers of Christ, and 
 ce labourers together with God” (1 Cor. iii. 9), the proper 
 Builder;—this is true in an altogether peculiar sense of Peter, 
 their representative and leader. 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles, accordingly, testify to this;—the 
 first twelve chapters forming a continuous commentary on the 
 prophecy of Christ (Matth. xvi. 18). If, even before the resur¬ 
 rection, Peter stands at the head of the apostolic college, 1 he is 
 plainly, after that event until the appearance of Paul, the lead¬ 
 ing spirit, the organ of the whole Christian body in word and 
 deed. He is chief actor in the election of Matthias as succes¬ 
 sor of Judas ; in the scenes of Pentecost; in the healing of the 
 lame man ; in the punishment of Ananias. It was he, more 
 than any other, who extended the church by word and work in 
 Judea and Samaria, and fearlessly defended the cause of Christ 
 before the council, in the face of imprisonment and chains. And, 
 while thus standing at the head of the Jewish mission, he also 
 
 1 As appears from the lists of the apostles, iu all of which Peter is mentioned first : 
 and from many other passages: Matth. x. 2, et seq.] xiv. 28; xvi. 10-19; xvii. 4, 24, 
 25; xviii. 21; xix. 27. Mark iii. 16, et seq.] viii. 29; xi. 21. Luke vi. 14, etseq . ; xii 
 41; xxii. 31, et seq. John vi. 68; xxi. 15, etseq., etc. 
 
8 § 90. POSITION OF PETER IN CHURCH HISTORY. [i. BOOK. 
 
 laid the foundation for the Gentile mission, by baptizing the un¬ 
 circumcised Cornelius. In short, down to the apostolic council 
 at Jerusalem, a.d. 50 (Acts xv.), Peter is unquestionably the 
 most important personage in the church. He maintains a supe¬ 
 riority so clearly assigned him by his natural capacities, as well 
 as by the prophecy of Christ, and so fully confirmed by the facts 
 of the apostolic history, that nothing but blind party spirit can 
 explain, without, however, by any means justifying, the denial 
 of it. 
 
 But it is to be observed, in the first place, that, in the history 
 of Peter, we find no trace of any thing like spiritual tyranny or 
 hierarchical presumption in this superiority. On the contrary, 
 that apostle describes himself, with the greatest modesty, as 
 (t also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ,” and 
 exhorts the elders to u feed the flock of God,” not in the spirit of 
 covetousness and ambition, as lords over God’s heritage, but by 
 a holy example (1 Pet. v. 1-3). Then again, this primacy never 
 interfered with the independence of the other apostles in their 
 own spheres of labour; nor did it keep pace with the spread of 
 the church, nor extend itself, at least with equal force, to all parts 
 of the same. After the apostolic council we see no longer Peter, 
 but James, at the head of the church at Jerusalem and of the 
 strict Jewish Christian party. On the field of the missionary 
 operations among the Gentiles, and in the first literature of 
 Christianity, Peter was quite eclipsed by the later called Paul 
 (comp. 1 Cor. xv. 10). The same book of Acts, which gives 
 Peter so prominent a position in the first part of its history, but 
 loses sight of him altogether after ch. xv., places Paul in a relation 
 to Peter, like that, so to speak, of the rising sun to the setting 
 moon. At all events, the relation was one of perfect independ¬ 
 ence, as is at once conclusively proved by the first two chapters 
 of the Epistle to the Galatians. For Paul does not derive his 
 authority in any way whatever from Peter, but directly from 
 Jesus Christ, and was so far from considering Peter his superior, 
 that he boldly resisted him to the face at Antioch and charged 
 him openly with inconsistency. In the last stadium of its de¬ 
 velopment, after the death of Peter and Paul, John alone was 
 fitted to lead the apostolic church, and by his genius to complete 
 its organization. But who can for a moment entertain the idea, 
 
MISSIONS.] § 91. LATER LABOURS OF PETER. 9 
 
 \ 
 
 which necessarily flows from the Roman doctrine of the perpetual 
 jure divino force of Peter’s primacy over the church universal , 
 that the beloved disciple, who leaned on the bosom of the God- 
 man, was subject to the bishop of Rome, a Linus or a Clement, 
 as the successor of Peter and heir to his authority; or even that 
 Peter himself exercised a papal authority over John ? The pecu¬ 
 liar office assigned to Peter, therefore, refers plainly to the work 
 of* laying the foundation of the apostolic church ; and it can be 
 regarded as transmissible and of universal force, only in the sense 
 in which the gifts of all the other apostles may be said to per¬ 
 petuate themselves in the Christian world, and in which the 
 apostles themselves may be viewed as determining, by their per¬ 
 sonal acts, as well as the continued influence of their word and 
 spirit, every step in the history of the church. 
 
 § 91. Later Labours of Peter. His First Epistle. 
 
 As we have already given an ample share of attention to 
 Peter’s labours down to his collision with Paul at Antioch, 1 it 
 only remains to speak of his subsequent activity, which, however, 
 is involved in mysterious darkness. We here have to leave the 
 authentic accounts of Holy Scripture, and enter upon the uncer¬ 
 tain ground of tradition. The Acts, after the apostolic council 
 (ch. xv.), make no further mention of this apostle, and seem thus 
 to intimate, that he again left Jerusalem in the year 50, or soon 
 after, and resigned this field of labour to James, who thenceforth 
 appears at the head of the mother church (comp. Acts xxi. 18, 
 et seq .) It is altogether consistent with his position of media¬ 
 tion between James, the strict apostle of the Jews, and Paul, the 
 liberal apostle of the Gentiles, that he should extend the sphere 
 of his activity beyond Palestine, and even preach the gospel to 
 the Gentiles; though he continued to be, on the whole, the most 
 distinguished leader of the Jewish Christian portion of the 
 church. Even after the council at Jerusalem, Paul calls him 
 pre-eminently the Apostle of the circumcision (Gal. ii. 8); and 
 from the epistles to the Corinthians it appears, that the Jewish 
 Christians appealed with special predilection to Cephas. 
 
 Soon after the year 50, we find him at Antioch in company 
 
 1 Comp. § 56, 57, 59, 60, 69, and 70. 
 
10 
 
 § 91. LATER LABOURS OF PETER. 
 
 [I. BOOK. 
 
 with Paul and Barnabas (Gal. ii. 11, et seq.) ; but how long he 
 stayed there, we are not told. 1 From an incidental remark in the 
 first epistle to the Corinthians, which was written in the year 57, 
 it would appear that Peter never settled permanently in any 
 place, but, as the very idea of an apostle implies, made missionary 
 journeys, in which, too, he took his wife with him ; 2 though of 
 these journeys the New Testament gives us no further account. 
 According to Origen and Eusebius, 3 he preached to the Jews 
 scattered in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. 
 There is no sufficient reason for pronouncing this old tradition a 
 false inference from the superscription of his first epistle. The 
 epistle certainly contains no distinct intimation that the author 
 had previously visited those countries ; but we must consider, 
 that it is a circular letter, and therefore, general in its contents, 
 like the epistle to the Ephesians. Furthermore, the second 
 epistle of Peter, addressed to the same churches as the first 
 (2 Peter iii. 1), presupposes a personal acquaintance with the 
 readers (i. 16). On the other hand, many modern scholars, 
 taking the literal interpretation of Babylon (1 Peter v. 13), have 
 based on it the opinion, that Peter at one time laboured in the 
 Parthian empire; while the ancients rather understood Borne to 
 be here meant. The only certain memorials of his later activity 
 are his two epistles in our canon. With these we must now 
 acquaint ourselves more minutely, before proceeding to discuss 
 the point of his reputed residence in Borne. 
 
 A. The First Epistle of Peter. 
 
 1. The readers of this epistle are to be sought, according to 
 the salutation (i. 1), in Asia Minor, in the provinces of Pontus, 
 Galatia, Cappadocia, Proconsular Asia, and Bithynia —countries 
 in which Christianity was planted mainly by Paul and his dis- 
 
 1 The tradition of Eusebius and Jerome makes Peter the founder and first bishop 
 of the church at Antioch; but this is irreconcilable with the account in Acts xi. 19, 
 et seq. Far sooner might this be said of Barnabas and Paul, who had previously 
 laboured there. The work of founding, however, is not always necessarily limited to 
 first beginnings; and that Peter had an essential agency in the organization and 
 strengthening of the church at Antioch, is in itself very probable, even though he 
 might have resided there but a short time. 
 
 3 1 Cor. ix. 5. Comp. Matth. viii. 14. Luke iv. 38; where Peter's mother-in-law 
 is mentioned. 
 
 3 Euseb. H. Eccl. 111. 1 and 3; also Epiphanius, Haeres XXVII. p. 107, and Jerome, 
 Script, eccl. sxib Pelro. Origen himself says, Eus. III. 1, . . . to t *■ t v, and 
 
 certainly seems here to express his view as a mere supposition, founded on 1 Pet. i. 1. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 IIIS FIRST EPISTLE. 
 
 11 
 
 ciples. The address — u Elect strangers (pilgrims) of the dis¬ 
 persion ” (efcXeKTOt Trapc7Ti.8rjiJ.oi Siacr7ropds ] I(Wou, etc.), might Seem to 
 confine the epistle to the Jewish Christians, who were scattered 
 through those provinces. But the contents of the letter itself 1 
 are specially addressed to Gentile Christians ; and, in fact, we 
 know, from the Acts and Paul’s epistles, that the churches in 
 Asia Minor were a mixture of both Jews and Gentiles. The 
 terms applied to the readers are, therefore, to be taken as figu¬ 
 rative—Peter conceiving all believers as pilgrims to a heavenly 
 home, an incorruptible inheritance, 2 and transferring the notion 
 of the Diaspora to the Christians, as the true spiritual Israel, 
 dispersed in the unbelieving world (ii. 9. Comp. John xi. 52). 
 
 2. Scope and contents. The object of this hortatory circular 
 seems to have been twofold : first, by awakening lively hope, and 
 pointing to the example of Christ, to exhort the readers to a life 
 corresponding to their faith, especially to patience and steadfast¬ 
 ness under existing or impending persecutions (ii. 11 ; v. 11) ; 
 and, secondly, at the same time to establish and confirm them in 
 the doctrine and the grace which had been communicated to 
 them from the first (v. 12 ; comp. 2 Pet. iii. 15) ; and therefore, 
 as Paul and his followers had founded those churches, to testify 
 Peter’s essential agreement in faith with the Apostle of the Gen¬ 
 tiles. The occasion may have been given by J udaizing teachers, 
 who, as we see, especially from the epistles to the Galatians and 
 Corinthians, took all pains to undermine the influence of Paul, 
 and for this purpose made a false use particularly of the name 
 and authority of Peter, as the oldest and most distinguished 
 Apostle of the Jews. Hence Peter assures those churches, that 
 those who first preached the gospel to them were filled with the 
 Holy Ghost (i. 12), and that the doctrine delivered to them was 
 the eternal, unchangeable word of the Lord (i. 25). Hence, 
 too, the letter was sent by Silvanus (v. 12), who, having been a 
 disciple and companion of Paul, and his co-labourer in the plant¬ 
 ing of those churches, was eminently qualified for such a mission. 
 In fact, the letter itself, in its doctrinal contents, and even its 
 forms of expression, bears a very close affinity to the epistles of 
 Paul, particularly those to the Ephesians and Colossians, which 
 
 > 1 Peter i. 14,18; ii. 9, 10; iii. G; iv. 3. 
 
 2 1 Peter i. 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 17; ii. 11. Comp. Heb. xi. 13, 14, 16. 
 
12 
 
 § 91. LATER LABOURS OF PETER. [i. BOOK. 
 
 are addressed to people in the same regions, are aimed, directly 
 or indirectly, against similar errors, and thus show the essential 
 unanimity of the two apostles in the fundamental doctrines of 
 salvation. 1 Perhaps the coincidences of Peter’s epistle with 
 these, which were written at least two years before, as well as 
 with that of James, are intentional, to make surer of the object 
 in view. 2 Moreover, the letter is characterized by a certain fire 
 altogether suiting Peter’s temperament, but purified by experi¬ 
 ence, a blooming freshness, and a meekness and mildness strongly 
 contrasting with the haughty arrogance of so many of the bishops 
 of Rome—chap. v. being directly aimed against an overbearing, 
 hierarchical spirit. It is full of joyful hope and precious consola¬ 
 tion, especially for the suffering—a true fulfilment of the Saviour’s 
 injunction, “ When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren ” 
 (Luke xxii. 32). 
 
 3. As to the date of its composition, we have at once a hint in 
 the fact of its being sent by Silvanus (v. 12). This person is 
 undoubtedly the same as the Silvanus mentioned in 1 Thess. i. 
 1 ; 2 Thess. i. 1 ; 2 Cor. i. 19 ; and by the abbreviated form, 
 Silas, in Acts xv. 22-40; xvi. 19 ; xvii. 10, 14, 15 ; xviii. 5. 
 He sprang from the church of Jerusalem, and had long been 
 acquainted with Peter, but appears as a companion of Paul until 
 
 1 Eph. ii. 20; iii. 5 ; iv. 3, et seq. 
 
 2 This affinity is, with Schwegler {Das nachapost. Zeitalter, II. p. 2, et seq.) the main 
 argument against the genuineness of the first epistle of Peter. In spite of all external 
 evidence, he makes this letter a production of the Pauline school in the time of the 
 persecution under Trajan. But such a hypothesis can commend itself only to those 
 who draw their knowledge of Peter’s way of thinking from the pseudo-Clementine 
 writings and other apocryphal and heretical productions of the second century, instead 
 of taking it from the hitherto generally acknowledged and only reliable source, viz., 
 the Acts of the Apostles, which, especially in ch. xv., place beyond doubt the essential 
 fellowship of Peter and Paul in doctrine, that xoiwvU, of which Paul also speaks in 
 Gal. ii. 9. Then again, it must be considered, that Peter’s gifts lay not in the line of 
 developing doctrines and of authorship, but in the practical sphere of the planting, 
 training, and governing of the church. Besides, the epistles of Peter, after all, have 
 also many peculiarities in perfect keeping with what we otherwise know of that apos¬ 
 tle’s character. To the subjective taste of the sceptical De Wette, who looks in vain 
 for a “ literary peculiarity ” in it, we may boldly oppose the opinions of equally profound 
 scholars, who judge quite otherwise. Erasmus calls the first epistle “ epistolam pro- 
 fecto dignam apostolorum principe, plenam auctoritatis et majestatis apostolicae, ver¬ 
 bis parcam, sententiis dissertam.” Grotius says, “ Habet haec ep. to cr<po^^ov, conveni¬ 
 ens ingenio principis apostolorum;” and Bengel, “ Mirabilis est gravitas et alacritas 
 Petrini sermonis, lectorem suavissime retinens.” Comp. Steiger’s Commentary, p. 5, 
 et seq. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 Ills FIRST EPISTLE. 
 
 13 
 
 the latter made his fourth journey to Jerusalem, a.d. 54 (Acts 
 xviii. 18-22). It was not till after this, therefore, that he could 
 have come into Peter’s neighbourhood. We are pointed to a 
 still later date by the probable relation of the first epistle of 
 Peter to the epistles which Paul wrote during his imprisonment 
 at Pome, especially that to the Ephesians (written a.d. 62); 1 
 and (if the “Babylon” at the close mean, according to the oldest 
 interpretation, Rome), by Paul’s not mentioning Peter in those 
 epistles, even in the second to Timothy (a.d. 63). This justifies 
 the inference, that Peter was not then in Rome, and conse¬ 
 quently could not then have written a letter from there. With 
 this agrees the fact, that Mark was in Peter’s vicinity at the 
 time this epistle was written ; for he had probably complied with 
 Paul’s invitation to come to Rome (2 Tim. iv. 11). Hence the 
 year 63 would be the earliest, and the year 67, beyond which 
 Peter certainly cannot have lived, the latest date for the com¬ 
 position of his first epistle. The most probable time is the year 
 64, shortly before the outbreak of the persecution under Nero. 
 Hug, Neander, and others think, indeed, that such passages as 
 ii. 12 ; iii. 13, et seq. ; iv. 4, already presuppose the existence of 
 this persecution,—the Christians having been previously perse¬ 
 cuted, not as Christians, as they now were (iv. 14, 16, where 
 this term occurs as a nickname, of which the believers were not 
 to be ashamed), nor even as u evil-doers” ( KciKonoiol , malefici, iii. 
 16), but simply as a Jewish sect. They were first persecuted 
 as Christians by order of Nero. But we cannot regard this evi¬ 
 dence as at all conclusive. For, in the first place, the name 
 “ Christians,” which was first brought into vogue undoubtedly 
 by the heathens, existed long before (Acts xi. 26) ; and the 
 passage of Tacitus, which is appealed to, implies that the Chris¬ 
 tians, as such, were, even before the year 64, objects of the 
 most bitter suspicion and hatred, 2 otherwise even Nero could not 
 well have accused them of setting the city on fire. Then again, 
 isolated, temporary persecutions arose in various places after the 
 
 1 Comp. 1 Pet. i. 1, et seq. with Eph. i. 4-7; i. 3 with i. 3; ii. 18 with vi. 5; iii. 1 
 with v. 22; v. 5 with v. 21. See the tables of comparison in the Introductions of 
 Hug, Credner, and De Wette. 
 
 2 Ann XV. 44 : “ Quos per flayitia invisos, vulg’us Christianos appellabat.’ Comp, 
 the epithet “ malefica,” which Suetonius, Ner. 16, applies to the “ superstitio of 
 the Christians. 
 
14 
 
 § 91. LATER LABOURS OF PETER. [r. BOOK. 
 
 death of Stephen; 1 and that the Neronian persecution extended 
 to the provinces of Asia Minor, is at least not told us by the 
 pagan historians, though it is certainly, in itself, very probable, 
 that the example of the chief city operated unfavourably to the 
 Christians in the whole empire. 2 The expression, u evil-doers,” 
 1 Peter iii. 16, has a parallel in 2 Tim. ii. 9, where Paul says of 
 himself, that he is bound as a KaKovpyos. Furthermore, the term 
 does not necessarily mean u state criminals,” so as to presuppose 
 already an imperial prohibition of Christianity as a u religio 
 illicita” (such a decree, by the way, was never issued by Nero, 
 but first by Trajan) ; but is rather shown by the context to be 
 the simple antithesis of “ well-doing,” u a good conversation in 
 Christ.” 3 Finally, the hypothesis, that Peter wrote in the 
 midst of the Neronian persecution, which broke out in July, 
 a.d. 64, cannot well be reconciled with the genuineness of the 
 second epistle, which was composed afterwards, and with the 
 familiar tradition of his being crucified in this persecution. If 
 he were in Rome, he would hardly have sat down to write under 
 such circumstances, or at least he would have painted the suffer¬ 
 ings of the Christians in much stronger colours, and would not 
 have failed to speak of the danger to his own life. But if, as 
 Hug and Neander suppose, he wrote from Babylon in Asia, it 
 must have been a long time, by reason of the great distance 
 and little communication between the Roman and the Parthian 
 empires, before he heard of that persecution ; and it is not very 
 probable that he then went immediately to Rome, as we should 
 have to assume, to die as a martyr there in the same persecution. 
 Thus much, however, is certain from the epistle itself, that the 
 Christians, at the time of its composition, were already in a de¬ 
 pressed condition throughout the Roman empire, and had to 
 expect the worst; and this points to the later years of Nero’s 
 reign. The heavy storm of persecution, raised by this tyrant, 
 
 1 Comp. Acts xii. 1, et seq. 1 Cor. iv. 9, et seq. ; xv. 31, et seq. Acts xix. 23, et 
 seq. 2 Cor. xi. 23, et seq. 1 Thess. i. 6, 7 ; ii. 14-16. 2 Thess. i. 5. Phil. i. 28-30. 
 Heb. x. 32, et seq. 
 
 2 It is first mentioned by Orosius, who, however, being a contemporary of Augus¬ 
 tine (f430), cannot be taken as authority on this point. He says, Histor VII. 7 : 
 “ Nam primus Romse Christianos suppliciis et mortibus adfeeit (Nero) ac per omnes 
 provincias pari persecutione excruciari imperavit ,” etc. 
 
 3 1 Pet. iii. 12, 17; iv. 15; ii. 19, 20. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 92. THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 15 
 
 was approaching, and, from what Tacitus says of the very bitter 
 hatred on the part of the heathens towards the new sect, might 
 be regarded as nigh at hand. Perhaps, also, this fact contains 
 the reason of the allegorical designation of Rome as Babylon 
 (v. 13). 
 
 4. Respecting the 'place where this epistle was written, we 
 have no other hint than the mention of Babylon at the close 
 (v. 13). But this is differently interpreted, and is closely con¬ 
 nected with the question of Peter’s residence in Rome, of which 
 we shall speak at large in a following section. 
 
 § 92. The Second Epistle of Peter. 
 
 B. The Second Epistle is addressed to the same churches as 
 the first (2 Peter iii. 1), but was written somewhat later, shortly 
 before the death of the apostle, the approach of which the Lord 
 had revealed to him (i. 14). It contains an exhortation to grow 
 in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and to prepare for 
 the last advent of the Lord ; a renewed assurance of the unity 
 of faith between the author and the Apostle of the Gentiles, the 
 first teacher and principal founder of those churches ; but above 
 all, an earnest warning against dangerous errorists, of whom 
 some are viewed as already present, others as still to come, and 
 who strongly resemble those attacked by Paul in the Pastoral 
 Epistles. While, thus, the first letter of Peter arms the Chris¬ 
 tians chiefly against outward danger from the heathen persecu¬ 
 tion, which was to proceed to Rome, the seat of the centralized 
 despotism of the world; the second letter has mainly in view 
 the dangers from within, from pseudo-christian and anti-christian 
 errorists ; and in this respect it may be compared with Moses’ 
 farewell song, and Paul’s parting address to the elders of Ephesus. 
 It is an earnest prophecy of future conflicts, the germs of which 
 were already beginning to unfold themselves. 
 
 But while the first epistle of Peter is attested as genuine, even 
 by external evidence of the strongest kind, 1 and was universally 
 regarded in the ancient church as apostolical and canonical; the 
 second epistle, on the contrary, does not distinctly appear under 
 its proper name until it is mentioned by Origen in the third 
 
 Even the epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians contains seven quotations from it. 
 
 
16 
 
 § 92. THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETEK. [i. BOOK. 
 
 century, 1 and is enumerated by Eusebius among the antilegomena , 
 as to the genuineness of which the church was then as yet 
 divided. Besides this, there are internal marks fitted to awaken 
 suspicion of its genuineness; first of all the mention of the 
 writings of the u beloved brother Paul,’’ in which many things 
 are hard to be understood, and are wrested by false teachers 
 (xiii. 15, 16). But, strange as this allusion may at first sight 
 appear, it is found, on closer examination, to be well grounded 
 and deeply significant, as aimed against the old and new Gnostics 
 and free-thinkers, who made Paul’s doctrine of liberty a cloak for 
 licentiousness and wickedness in theory and in practice. Then 
 again, in the delineation of the heretics in the second chapter 
 and first part of the third, the author has been thought to draw 
 on the epistle of Jude in a manner unworthy of the prince of 
 the apostles ; while some advocates of the genuineness of the 
 epistle, as most recently, Guericke, see in this an intentional 
 coincidence, suited to Peter’s purpose. But, on nearer inspection, 
 the dependence appears rather on the part of Jude ; the false 
 teachers in 2 Peter being described for the most part propheti¬ 
 cally, as yet to come, but in Jude as already present. In Jude 
 17, 18, for instance, there is palpable reference to the apostolic 
 warning in 2 Peter iii. 3. 2 The very fulfilment of Peter’s 
 prophecy in the congregations with which Jude came in contact, 
 seems to have been the chief occasion of Jude’s epistle. The 
 other sections of the epistle in view, the first and third chapters, 
 are confessedly full of spirit and fire, and every way worthy of 
 an apostle. 3 Moreover, Peter, in chap. i. 14, 16, et seq. ; iii. 1, 15, 
 so unequivocally presents himself as the author, that the epistle, 
 at least in substance, in its essential thoughts, can only have 
 come either from him or from a manifest impostor. But that 
 the divine providence, which so carefully watched the composi- 
 
 1 He says in Euseb. H. E. VI. 25 : “ Peter, on whom the church of Christ is built, 
 
 .has left only one generally acknowledged epistle; perhaps also a second; 
 
 for this is disputed (sVtw 2s dstm^av u.p.qifiu.'k'nTcu y«.()P The old Syriac version, 
 the Peshito, does not contain the second epistle of Peter. 
 
 2 Comp. Heydenreich’s Vertheidigung der Aechtheit des ziv. Briefs Petri, p. 97, et 
 seq., and Thiersch’s Versuch zur Herstellung des histor. Standpunkts f ur die Kritik 
 der N. Tliclien Schriften (1845), p. 239 and 275. 
 
 3 Hence some critics have taken a middle course, against which, however, strong 
 objections may be raised. Bertholdt, for instance, holds the first and third chapters 
 to be genuine ; and Ullmann only the first. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 93. PETER IN ROME. 17 
 
 tion and collection of the apostolic writings, lias allowed the 
 production of a forger to creep in amongst the sacred records of 
 Christianity, may be believed by those with whom what they 
 call science and criticism stands above faith. We freely confess 
 that we cannot admit it without reasons which absolutely compel 
 us. We, therefore, hold the epistle in question to be an apos¬ 
 tolical production which rightly has its place in the canon, and 
 contains exhortations most serious and important even for our 
 day. The vacillation of tradition respecting it might perhaps 
 be accounted for by the fact that it was not designed for im¬ 
 mediate general circulation, but was, as it were, a testament of 
 Peter, not to be opened till after his death (comp. 2 Peter i. 14, 
 15), as, in fact, its contents relate more to the future than to the 
 present, and for this reason were first received into the later col¬ 
 lections of the canon. 
 
 § 93. Peter in Rome. 
 
 It is the universal testimony of tradition, that Peter laboured 
 last in Pome, and there suffered martyrdom under Nero. This 
 testimony, indeed, was soon loaded with all sorts of unhistorical 
 and in some cases self-contradictory additions; has been abused 
 by the Roman hierarchy in support of its extravagant claims ; 
 and is, therefore, sometimes, either from polemic zeal against the 
 papacy, 1 or from historical scepticism, 2 called in question. But 
 by the great majority of Protestant historians the main fact has 
 always been admitted. 3 We shall first hear the most important 
 
 1 Especially by the Dutch Theologian, Frederic Spanheim, who, in his famous Dis- 
 sertatio de Jicta profectione Petri Apostoli in urbem Romam, deque non una traditionis 
 origine, 1679, first subjected the matter to a thorough investigation, and sought to 
 establish by a critical examination of witnesses the doubt, which had already been 
 raised respecting Peter’s residence in Rome by the Waldenses, and such declared 
 enemies of the Papacy as Marsilius of Padua, Michael of Caesena, Matthias Flacius, 
 and Claudius Salmasius. He attributed the story mainly to the ambition of the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 2 By the modern hypercritics, Baur (in several articles in the “ Tubinger theol. 
 Zeitschrift,” and in his Paulus, p. 212, et seq .) and Schwegler ( Nachapost . Zeitalter, I. 
 p. 301, et seq.) They derive the tradition from the supposed jealousy of the Jewish 
 Christians in Rome towards Paul’s Gentile Christians; from the effort to set the Jew¬ 
 ish apostle, Peter, above Paul. So also De Wette, Einl. in's N. T. p. 314. 
 
 3 By almost all the older Reformed theologians, who devoted any special diligence 
 and talent to the study of church antiquity, such as Scaliger, Casaubonus, Petit, Usher, 
 Pearson, Cave; and then by Schrochh, Mynster, Berthold, Gieseler, Neander (who, 
 however, in the last edition of his Apost. Gesch. seems to have been staggered by 
 
 YOL. II. B 
 
18 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 evidence of tradition on this point; next, attempt to determine 
 the probable duration of Peter’s residence in Pome; and lastly, 
 examine the accounts of the mode of his death. 
 
 1. The testimony of tradition respecting Peter's residence in 
 Pome. 
 
 (a) The earliest information is given us by Peter himself in 
 the mention of his residence at the close of his first epistle, as 
 most anciently interpreted, ch. v. 13 : “The (church, that is) at 
 Babylon , elected together with (you), salutetli you ; and (so 
 doth) Marcus my son.” The meaning of Babylon is, indeed, 
 disputed. Neander, Steiger, De Wette, Wieseler, and others 
 (also the distinguished Roman Catholic theologian, Hug), un¬ 
 derstand by it the famous Babylon or Babel on the Euphrates. 
 Upon this vast city the prediction of the Hebrew prophets 1 had, 
 indeed, been terribly fulfilled, and, in the time of the apostles, 
 as Strabo, Pausanias, and Pliny, unanimously assure us, it pre¬ 
 sented nothing but a scene of ruins (ovhev el nq reix 0 ?), a desolation 
 (solitudo). 2 It may certainly be supposed, however, that some 
 portion of it still remained habitable; and, since there were 
 many thousands of Jews in the satrapy of Babylonia, 3 it is not in 
 itself improbable, that Peter laid the field of his labour in those 
 regions. But in this case it might reasonably be expected, that 
 some traces of his activity there should be preserved. Tradition, 
 however, knows nothing at all of any residence of Peter in the 
 Parthian empire, though it tells of a sojourn of the apostle 
 Thomas there. 4 Then again, this interpretation makes it hard 
 to account for the acquaintance, which the epistle confessedly 
 evinces, with the later epistles of Paul: as there was but little 
 communication between Babylonia and the Roman empire. 
 Equally unaccountable would be Peter’s meeting with Mark 
 
 Baur’s arguments, and declares himself, not so decidedly as before, in favour of the 
 tradition), Credner, Bleek, Olshausen, and Wieseler (in the second Excursus of his 
 Chronologie), and a host of others not to be mentioned, who have not entered into any 
 minute investigation of the matter. 
 
 1 Isaiah xiii. 19, et seq.; xiv. 4, 12; xlvi. 1, et seq. 
 
 2 See the passages in Meyerhotf, Einleit. in die petrin. Scliriften (1835), p. 129. 
 
 3 Josephus, Antiqu. XV. 3, 1. Philo, De legat. ad Caj. p. 587. It is true, Josephus 
 tells us also, XVIII. 9, 8, that under the emperor Caligula many Jews migrated from 
 Babylon to Seleucia for fear of persecution, and that, five years afterwards, a pesti¬ 
 lence drove away the rest. But they might very well have returned before the epistle 
 of Peter was written, as Caligula died in the year 41. 
 
 4 Origen, in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. III. 1. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 19 
 
 (v. 13); for lie was in Rome in the years Gl-63 (Col. iv. 10; 
 Philem. 23), and soon after would seem to have been in Asia, 
 whence he was recalled by Paul to Rome, not long before that 
 apostle’s martyrdom (2 Tim. iv. 11). If, as we have good reason 
 to suppose, he obeyed this call, he could not so soon have reached 
 the banks of the Euphrates. But the case is perfectly simple, if 
 Peter himself, about that time or soon after, came to Rome, and 
 there wrote his epistle. 
 
 These difficulties compel us to return to the earliest and, in 
 antiquity, the only current interpretation of Babylon, which 
 makes it Rome. This is well known to be its sense in the Apo¬ 
 calypse, 1 as also Roman Catholic expositors admit. It has been 
 objected, indeed, that this symbolical designation of the metro¬ 
 polis of Heathendom, however suitable in a poetical book of 
 prophecy, like the Apocalypse, would be very strange in the 
 simple prose of an epistle. But this objection is far more than 
 met by the following positive arguments in favour of the figura¬ 
 tive interpretation, viz.: (1) the unanimous testimony of the 
 
 ancient church, 2 and (2) the analogy of other terms in the salu¬ 
 tation, which would likewise have to be regarded as out of place. 
 Neander, indeed, would take “the co-elect” to be the wife, and 
 the “son Marcus,” and actual son of Peter. 3 But, although 
 Peter, as we learn from 1 Cor. ix. 5, took his wife with him on 
 his missionary tours, yet his mentioning her in an official circular, 
 especially to churches, with which, in Neander’s (erroneous) view, 
 he was not personally acquainted, were most certainly unbecom¬ 
 ing and unexampled in Christian antiquity. It is impossible, 
 also, to see how (rvueKXenTr) should of itself express the idea of a 
 
 1 Rev. xiv. 8 ; xvi. 19; xvii. 5; xviii. 2, 10, 21. Comp, the allusions, xvii. 9, to the 
 seven hills, and, xvii. 18, to the universal dominion of Rome. So in a fragment of 
 the Sibylline Books (V. 143, 159), supposed to belong to the first century, Rome is 
 styled Babylon. 
 
 2 So Papias or Clement of Alexandria, in Enseb. II. 15; the subscription of the epis¬ 
 tle ; Jerome in his Catal. s. Petr. ; Oecumenius, etc. We know not of a single voice 
 from antiquity in favour of referring this passage to Babylon in Asia. For referring 
 it to Rome, though in some cases from different premises, are Grotius, Lardner, Cave, 
 Semler, Hitzig (Ueber Johannes Marcus, etc., p. 186), Baur, Schwegler, Thiersch ( Ver- 
 such zur Ilerstellung, etc., p. 110, and Die Kirche im apostol. Zeitalter, p. 208). 
 
 3 Apostelgesch. II. p. 590. Note 4. So Mill, Bengel, Meyerhoff, 1. c. p. 126, et seq. 
 Steiger, De Wette, and Wieseler, on the contrary, though they make the place Baby¬ 
 lon proper, yet refer rwtz\‘xTYi to the church (of Assyrian Babylon), and Mto 
 the evangelist. 
 
20 § 93. PETER IN ROME. [i. BOOK. 
 
 wife, or wliy, in this case, the phrase iv Ba(3v\covi is placed in this 
 particular grammatical relation. These difficulties all vanish, if 
 we supply €KK\r)(rla, making it the Christian congregation, as is 
 done in the Peshito and the Vulgate. As to Marcus; tradition 
 knows nothing of a proper son of Peter by that name. 1 On the 
 contrary, it is altogether natural to understand here the evange¬ 
 list, the well known missionary assistant of Paul and Peter, a 
 native of Jerusalem, and probably converted by Peter (Acts xii. 
 12, el seg.)j but at the same time, like the bearer of the letter, 
 Silvanus, a connecting link between him and the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. If, therefore, in agreement with all the older commen¬ 
 tators, we must take the vlos, according to the familiar usage of 
 the New Testament, 2 as a trope, and refer o-we^KTr] to the 
 church, these are arguments in favour of the symbolical interpre¬ 
 tation of Babylon. Nay, in this very juxtaposition of the two 
 names we find a significant contrast, especially under the de¬ 
 pressed circumstances of the Christians, which the epistle pre¬ 
 supposes. The apostle styles the churches, to which he writes, 
 <( elect pilgrims” (JkXcktoI naparL^ppoL diaanopas TIoutov, etc., i. 1) ; 
 and so also the church, from the midst of which he writes, an 
 u elect” of God to eternal life in the seat of the deepest heathen 
 corruption, such as must have made an author, especially so con¬ 
 formed as Peter to the thought and style of the prophets, in¬ 
 voluntarily recur to the Old Testament representations of Baby¬ 
 lon. Add to this, that the epistle was written in the later years 
 of Nero, when cruelty and tyranny had full sway, and shortly 
 before the bloody scenes of the Neronian persecution ; therefore 
 at a time, when the Christians, as the letter itself and the above 
 quoted passage of Tacitus prove, had already become objects of 
 the foulest suspicion and the most shameful calumny. In view 
 of all this it must be admitted, that the symbolical designation of 
 Rome, which Sylvanus could more particularly explain to the 
 readers, in case they did not at once understand it, was in perfect 
 keeping with the whole contents and the historical circumstances 
 
 1 Clement of Alexandria speaks, indeed, in general terms, of children of Peter 
 
 (Strom. III. f. 448, n Ir^oi [u.\v ycc% you 'urooidoroirjo-juiTo), and tradition mentions a 
 
 daughter, Petronilla (comp. Acta Sand. 30th May). But nowhere is a Mark named 
 among his children. 
 
 2 Comp. 1 Cor. iv. 16-18. Gal. iv. 19. 1 Tim. i. 2, 18. 2 Tim. i. 2; ii. 1. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 21 
 
 of the epistle. The proper name of Rome in this connection 
 would evidently have been far less significant. This city soon 
 after became, in fact, the centre of persecution, and the same to 
 the Christians, that the old Babylon had been to the Israelites. 
 
 ( b ) We go now to the church fathers. The Roman bishop, 
 Clement, a disciple of Paul, tells us, indeed, that Peter, after 
 suffering many trials, died a martyr; but states neither the 
 manner nor the place of his deatli—probably because he might 
 presume they were well known. 1 For wherever the place ot 
 Peter’s martyrdom is named, it is always Rome; and no other 
 church claimed this distinction, though it was a great point with 
 churches at that time to have had celebrated martyrs. To say 
 nothing of the testimony of Papias in a somewhat obscure pas¬ 
 sage in Eusebius (II. 15), referring Babylon (1 Peter v. 13) to 
 Rome, the letter of his contemporary, Ignatius, to the Romans 
 takes for granted that Peter had preached to them; 2 as does 
 also a fragment from the praedicatio Petri , which belongs to the 
 beginning of the second century. 3 More distinct is the deposi¬ 
 tion of Dionysius, bishop of Corinth (about 170), who, in his 
 epistle to the Romans, calls the Roman and Corinthian churches 
 the joint planting of Peter and Paul, and adds : u For both 
 taught alike in our Corinth, when they planted us, and both 
 alike also in Italy in the same place (6/aoVe, by which, in accord¬ 
 ance with what precedes, we can only understand Rome), after 
 having taught there, at the same time suffered martyrdom.” 4 
 This making Peter one of the founders of the Corinthian church 
 
 1 In his first epistle to the Corinthians, which belongs to the last half of the first 
 century, ch. 5, Th'r^os Stot ZtjXov kSixov ov% Via, ovSl $6o aXXa •xXi'tovoe.s vxzf/.uvtv (according 
 to Others, urrr^iyxiv) zrovous not) ovreo /u,a.gTUgYi<ro&s i7ro°iC6vi us tov oQuXo p,ivov totov tyis %o£yis. 
 Then follows the more full and distinct testimony above quoted respecting Paul’s end. 
 The /xcc^rv^o-ots is here probably to be taken in its primary sense of witnessing by 
 word, as in the passage immediately following, and not, as it is commonly taken, as 
 denoting martyrdom. The latter, however, is to be inferred from the whole context, 
 particularly from the clause immediately preceding, which Clement goes on to illus¬ 
 trate by examples, 5/a ffiXov aa/ <p9ovov oi f^iyiirrot xoCi dixouorctroi trrvXoi £ 5/ m % 9yi <r a v, *a) 
 'ins 9 a v a r o v v)X9ov. 
 
 2 Ch. iv. Ov% us II £ r£ e f xou n auXos §/aTa<nrs/4a/ vp7v. 
 
 3 In Cypriani opera , ed. Rigaltius, p. 139, “ Liber, qui inscribitur Pauli praedicatio 
 (which was probably the last part of the praedicatio Petri, comp. Credner’s Beitrcige 
 zurEinl. I. 360), in quo libro invenies, post tanta tempora Petrum et Paulum, post con- 
 lationem evangelii in Hierusalem et mutuam altercationem et rerum agendarum dis- 
 positionem, postremo in urbe, quasi tunc primum, invicem sibi esse cognitos.” 
 
 * In Eusebius, H. E. 1. II. c. 25. 
 
22 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 is certainly, at all events, very inaccurate, and might possibly 
 have arisen merely from a misunderstanding of what Paul says 
 (X Cor. i. 12) of the party of Cephas—the existence of which, 
 however, in the Corinthian church does not necessarily imply any 
 personal or direct influence of Peter upon it. We have no right, 
 however, for this error to reject the whole account; and it is in 
 fact very possible that Peter, either before or after the arrest of 
 Paul, perhaps on his way to Rome, also visited Corinth ; and 
 thus, though he could not be said, in the strict sense of the 
 term, to have founded that church, which was already of long 
 standing, yet he might have strengthened it and confirmed it in 
 the faith, just as Paul confirmed the church of Rome, and was 
 hence called one of its founders. Irenseus, who was connected 
 through Poly carp with the apostle John, says of Peter and Paul, 
 that they preached the gospel and founded the church at Rome. 1 
 Somewhat later, about the year 200, the Roman presbyter Caius, 
 in his work against the Montanist, Proclus of Asia Minor, 2 says : 
 u I can, however, show the monuments ( TpoTraid) of the apostles 
 (Peter and Paul). For if thou wilt go to the Vatican or out on 
 the Ostian way, thou wilt find the monuments of the men who 
 founded this church.” At about the same time Clement of 
 Alexandria affirms distinctly that Peter preached the gospel at 
 Rome; and so does his distinguished disciple Origen. 3 Tertul- 
 lian congratulates the church at Rome, because there Peter had 
 been made conformable to the sufferings of the Lord (i.e ., had been 
 crucified), Paul had been crowned with the same death as the 
 Baptist (i. e., had been beheaded), and John, having been plunged 
 into boiling oil without hurt (a fabulous addition, no doubt), had 
 been banished to Patmos. 4 
 
 These are the oldest and most important testimonies. They 
 are drawn from the most different parts of the church, and can¬ 
 not be reasonably accounted for except on the ground of some 
 historical reality. True, the statements we meet with in the 
 apocryphal writings and the later church fathers, as Eusebius 
 
 1 Adv. haer. III. 1, comp. 3, where the Roman Church is called an “ a gloriosissimis 
 duobus apostolis, Petro et Paulo fundata et constituta ecclesia.” 
 
 2 In Eusebius, H. E. II. 25. 
 
 3 In Euseb. H. E. II. 15; VI. 14; II. 25; III. 1. 
 
 4 De praescr. haer. c. 36. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 93. PETEK IN ROME. 
 
 23 
 
 and Jerome, and even Clement of Alexandria, 1 are laden with 
 fabulous embellishments, particularly respecting Peter’s meeting 
 with Simon Magus at Rome—a story which rests probably on 
 lalse inferences from the narrative in Acts viii. 18, et seq ., and 
 on a mistake of Justin Martyr in supposing he had seen a statue 
 of Simon Magus in that city. But such accretions, gathered by 
 an old tradition, by no means warrant us to discard its primary 
 substance. This certainly cannot be accounted for here by the 
 rivalry between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile converts 
 of Paul in Rome. 2 For it would then have been early and de¬ 
 cidedly contradicted by the latter; whereas the oldest witnesses 
 for it are mostly from this very school of Paul and John. As 
 little can it be attributed to the hierarchical ambition of the Ro¬ 
 man bishops; though this, it is true, soon laid hold of the story, 
 and used it for its own ends. The tradition itself, it may easily 
 be shown, is older than the use or abuse of it for hierarchical pur¬ 
 poses ; and had there been sufficient ground, it would certainly 
 have been called in question in the first centuries by the oppo¬ 
 nents of the pretensions of Rome in the Greek and African 
 churches. But no such contradiction w T as raised in any quarter, 
 either by Catholics or by heretics and schismatics. On the con¬ 
 trary, Cyprian of Africa and Firmilian of Cappadocia, in their 
 controversy with Stephen, bishop of Rome, on the validity of 
 heretical baptism, in the middle of the third century, ahvays take 
 for granted that the Roman bishop is the successor of Peter, and 
 reproach him as acting inconsistently with this very position, 
 and as leaving the foundation laid by Peter, whom he ought 
 faithfully to represent. 3 The gigantic structure of the papacy 
 
 1 In Euseb. H. E. II. 15. It is not clear, however, whether Eusebius quotes the 
 authority of Clement’s bnoTvnixrui merely for what he says concerning the origin of 
 the gospel of Mark (comp. vi. 14), or also concerning the meeting of Peter with 
 Simon Magus in the beginning of this and in chapter xiv. 
 
 2 As Baur, Schwegler, and De Wette vainly suppose. 
 
 3 Says the bishop Firmilian in his letter to Cyprian, “ Atque ego in hac parte juste 
 indignor ad hanc tarn apertam et manifestam Stephani stultitiam, quod, qui sic de 
 episcopatus sui loco gloriatur et se successionem Petri tenere contendit, super quern 
 fundamenta ecclesiae collocata sunt, multas alias petras inducat et ecclesiarum mul- 
 tarum nova sedificia constituat, dum esse illic baptisma sua auctoritate defendit.” And 
 immediately after, “ Stephanus, qui per successionem cathedram Petri habere se prse- 
 dicat, nullo adversus hsereticos zeloexcitatur”(as he ought to be, being the successor 
 of Peter). See Cypr. Epist. 75, cap 17.( al. 15). This controversy, which is mistaken 
 and used for the opposite purpose by many Protestant church historians, Dr Neander 
 
24 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 could never liave arisen without any historical foundation, out of 
 a pure lie. Rather has this very fact of the presence and martyr¬ 
 dom of Peter and Paul in Rome, in connection with the political 
 position of this metropolis of the world, been the indispensable 
 condition of its growth and its long influence over Christendom. 
 
 2. The length of Peter's residence in Pome. 
 
 The questions, when Peter came to Rome, how long and in 
 what capacity he laboured there, the oldest accounts leave unde¬ 
 cided. When Dionysius of Corinth, Irengeus, and Caius ascribe 
 to Peter and Paul the joint founding of the Roman church, they 
 are not necessarily to be understood as referring to time, and 
 meaning that these apostles had brought the first tidings of the 
 gospel to that city. For, in this sense, even Paul was not its 
 founder, any more than Peter was the founder of the Corinthian 
 church, as this same Dionysius nevertheless affirms. In fact, 
 however, that expression, which in itself may denote simply 
 Peter’s important agency in moulding a church of long standing, 
 but still imperfectly instructed and organized, 1 soon came to be 
 taken exclusively in the chronological sense, and thus gave rise 
 to a confusion in the tradition favoured by the silence of the New 
 Testament in regard to the later labours of Peter. Eusebius, in 
 his Chronico7i y is the first to make our apostle come to Rome 
 under Claudius, a.d. 42, preside over the church there twenty 
 years (according to the Armenian text, of which the Greek 
 original is now lost), or twenty-five (according to Jerome’s 
 translation), and suffer martyrdom in the last year of Nero, a.d. 
 67 or 68. Jerome also, on the authority of Eusebius, informs 
 us that Peter was first (for seven years, according to a later view) 
 bishop of Antioch, and then for twenty-five years from the second 
 
 among the rest, has been presented in its true light by Dr Rothe (Anjcinge der Christ- 
 lichen Kirclie und ihrer Verfassung, I. p. 676), “Eirmilian does not here deny Ste¬ 
 phen’s claims to the succession on the cathedra Petri, but recognises and uses them to 
 place the conduct of Stephen in a still more unfavoui’able light. He says, “ Stephen, 
 as successor of Peter, is called to be the peculiar organ for maintaining and promot¬ 
 ing the unity of the church; it is the harder to conceive how he can have adopted a 
 course which goes directly to obscure, nay, to destroy this unity.” 
 
 1 So Barnabas and Paul may be styled with perfect correctness the proper founders 
 of the church of Antioch, though Christians from Jerusalem and Hellenists from 
 Cyprus and Cyrene had already preceded them thither with the seed of the gospel 
 (Acts xi. 19-25). So, as an example in later time, Calvin passes for the founder Qf 
 the Genevan church, though the Reformation was introduced there several years before 
 him by Farel. 
 
MISSIONS.J 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 25 
 
 year of Claudius, or a.d. 42, bisliop of Rome; 1 and this state¬ 
 ment is followed by the older Roman Catholic historians. 2 
 
 But this view contradicts the plainest facts of the New Testa¬ 
 ment, and cannot stand a moment before the bar of criticism. 
 The Acts of the Apostles, which so fully describe the earlier 
 labours of Peter, in no case allow the supposition of his depar¬ 
 ture from Palestine before his arrest by Agrippa, Acts xii. 3-17 ; 
 and as this falls in the year of the famine in Palestine (comp. 
 Acts xi. 28; xii. 1), or a.d. 44 (not 42, as Eusebius wrongly 
 assumes), it at any rate sets aside the seven years’ bishopric in 
 Antioch, and cuts off several years from the twenty-five assigned 
 to the episcopate in Rome. After his escape from prison in the 
 fourth year of Claudius, the apostle might possibly, indeed, have 
 travelled to Rome; as Luke remarks indefinitely (Acts xii. 17) 
 that he departed “to another place” (els erepov ronov ), and thence¬ 
 forth loses sight of him till the apostolic council in the year 50 
 (ch. 15). 3 This is, in itself, by no means improbable, as the 
 
 1 De Script. Eccles. c. I. “ Simon Petrus—post episcopatum Antiochensis ecclesim 
 et prsedicationem dispersionis eorum, qui de circumcisione crediderant in Ponto, Gala¬ 
 tia, Cappadocia, Asia et Bithynia, secundo Claudii imperatoris anno ad expugnan- 
 dum Simonem magum Romam pergit ibique viginti quinque annis cathedram sacerdo- 
 talern tenuit, usque ad ultimum annum Neronis, id est deeimum quartum.” 
 
 2 Yet even the most zealous friends of the papacy are forced at least to modify the 
 Eusebian tradition. Baronius in his Annals (ad arm. 39, No. 25), makes Peter, indeed, 
 for seven years bishop of Antioch, and then for twenty-five years bishop of Rome; 
 but at the same time assumes, that the apostle was often absent, as when, for instance, 
 the facts of the New Testament imperatively demand it; and this he refers to his 
 papal dignity, to his divine commission to oversee the whole church. “ Sic videas,” 
 says he, “ Petrum his temporibus numquam fere eodem loco consistere, sed ut opus 
 esse videret, peragrare provincias, invisere ecclesias ac denique omnes quae sunt uni¬ 
 versalis praefecturae functiones, pastorali sollicitudine exequi ac consumere.” But 
 the official duties of the Pope do not require him now to travel all over the world. 
 Why should it have been the case only at the time of Peter, and not at any subse¬ 
 quent period ? 
 
 3 This period is accordingly fixed upon by the acute and learned defender of the 
 Roman tradition, Fr. Windischmann, in his Vindicicc Petrince, Ratisb. 1836, p. 112- 
 116, for the first journey of Peter to Rome. Rather too hastily the Protestant 
 divine, Thiersch, agrees with him in this, saying in his work on the N. T. Can., p. 
 104, et seq.: “ It is certain that, before the banishment of the Jews from the city by 
 Claudius, a Christian church, and that mainly, if not wholly, of Jewish converts, had 
 been founded there. And we see not what objection of any force can be urged 
 against the tradition that Peter was its founder. It may well have been established 
 between the years 44 and 50, or 51; that is, between Peter’s flight from Jerusalem 
 (Acts xii. 17) and the apostolic council (ch. xv.); so that it may have been this very 
 banishment of the Jew r s from Rome which forced Peter also to leave that city, and 
 led him to return to Jerusalem, where we find him at the meeting of the council.” The 
 same view Thiersch defends in his later work on the Apostolic Church, p. 96, et seq. 
 
26 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 [l. BOOK. 
 
 attention of the apostle must have been directed at an early day 
 to the centre of the Roman empire, where the Jews were very 
 numerous. It would also most easily explain that ancient and 
 universal tradition which calls Peter the founder of the Roman 
 Church. But on the other hand, this possibility becomes at 
 once, to say the least, highly improbable, when we consider that 
 the epistle to the Romans, written a.d. 58, contains not the 
 slightest hint of Peter’s having previously been in Rome. Nay, 
 the very writing of it seems to imply the contrary. For 
 Paul repeatedly declares it to have been his principle not to 
 build on another’s foundation, nor to encroach on the sphere 
 of another apostle’s labours (Rom. xv. 20, 21; 2 Cor. x. 15, 16). 
 To uphold the tradition, therefore, we must assume two churches 
 at Rome; one founded by Peter under Claudius, consisting 
 exclusively of Jewish Christians, and dissolved by the aforesaid 
 edict of the emperor; another entirely new one, gathered after 
 the year 52 from the Gentiles, and mainly through the influence 
 of Paul and his disciples. But this resort also becomes precarious 
 when we consider how easily the whole story of Peter’s going 
 to Rome under the emperor Claudius may be explained from 
 mistakes and false inferences. Thus, Justin Martyr had re¬ 
 ported 1 that, under Claudius , Simon Magus went to Rome, and 
 there won many followers and even divine honours, as was 
 shown by a statue erected to him on an island in the Tiber. 
 This statue was in fact found in the year 1574 in the place 
 described; but it turned out to be a statue, not of Simo Sanctus , 
 but of the Sabine-Roman divinity, Semo Sancus or Sangus 2 of 
 whom the Oriental Justin had probably never heard. 3 But 
 tradition at once laid hold of this statement, and, in its zeal to 
 glorify Peter as much as possible, sent him on the heels of the 
 supposed Samaritan arch-heretic to Rome, to vanquish the 
 sorcerer there as triumphantly as he had before done in Samaria 
 (Acts viii). 4 To this was added the report of Suetonius con- 
 
 1 Apol. maj., ch. 26 and 56. 
 
 2 Comp. Ovid’s Fast. VI. 213. 
 
 3 See Baronius : Annal. ad. ann. 44; Otto’s Notes on Just. Apol. maj., ch. 26 ( Opp. 
 Just. I. p. 66-68) ; also Hug’s Einl. II. 69, et seq. ; Gieseler’s Kirch. Gesch. I. 1, p. 
 64 ; Neander’s Kircli. Gesch. II., p. 783 (2d ed.) 
 
 4 This conflict is noticed already in the Pseudoclementine writings, particularly the 
 Recognitions, written in the first quarter of the third century. That Eusebius was 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 27 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 cerning the edict of Claudius, which expelled the Jews and 
 probably also the Jewish Christians (on account of the u im- 
 pulsore Chresto,” comp. § 80) from Rome, and thus presupposes 
 the existence of a Christian church there ; and since Peter was 
 regarded as the proper founder of it, it followed of course that 
 he had already gone to Rome in this emperor’s reign. The 
 more readily the early date assigned by Eusebius and Jerome 
 to Peter’s presence in this city may be accounted for in tins way, 
 as haying arisen from erroneous combinations, the less claim can 
 it have to our credence. 
 
 It is far more difficult, however, to show, that Peter was in 
 Rome all the time, or even for any considerable period, from the 
 reign of Claudius onward. The Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s 
 epistles on to the year 63 or 64, that is, to the salutation in 
 Peter’s first epistle (v. 13), give no hint of his presence in this 
 city, but incontrovertible proof of his absence from it. For in 
 the year 50 he was in Jerusalem at the apostolic council 
 (Acts xv.) He had thus far laboured mainly, not among the 
 Gentiles, of whom the majority of the Roman church consisted, 1 
 but among the Jews ; and expected to do so still for the imme¬ 
 diate future, according to his agreement then made with Paul 
 and Barnabas (Gal. ii. 7, 9). Soon after this we find him at 
 Antioch (Gal. ii. 11, et seq.) At the writing of the first epistle 
 to the Corinthians, a.d. 57, he was yet without a fixed abode, 
 travelling about as a missionary with his wife (1 Cor. ix. 5). 
 In 58 he cannot have been in Rome, or Paul would certainly 
 have sent a salutation to him amongst the many others (Rom. 
 xvi.) The whole epistle to the Romans knows nothing of 
 Peter’s labouring, either then or before, in the great metropolis, 
 but rather, as already remarked, supposes the contrary. In the 
 spring of 61 Paul came himself as a prisoner to Rome. The Acts 
 inform us of his meeting with the Christians of that place (xxviii. 
 15, et seq.), but say not a syllable of Peter; which, were he 
 there, would be utterly inexplicable. In the years 61-63 Paul 
 wrote from Rome his last epistles, in which he introduces by 
 name his companions and helpers, presents salutations from 
 
 guided in his chronology by the above statement of Justin, to which he liimselt ap¬ 
 peals, is plain from his Hist. JEccl. II., 13-15. 
 
 1 Rom. i. 5-7, 13; xi. 13, 25, 28; xiv. 1, et seq .; xv. 15, 16. 
 
28 
 
 § 93. PETER IN ROME. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 them, and complains at last of being left alone, 1 but is perfectly 
 silent about Peter; and this surely not from jealousy or enmity, 
 but because that apostle was not in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Peter, therefore, must have come to Pome after the second 
 epistle to Timothy was written, and not long before writing his 
 own epistles, that is, in the last half of the year 63 or in the 
 beginning of 64. 2 And as he suffered martyrdom in the Nero- 
 nian persecution, we can hardly extend his sojourn there beyond 
 a year. 3 Eusebius, indeed, and Jerome place his death in the 
 year 67. But as they also affirm, with universal tradition, that 
 he died at the same time with Paul in the Neronian persecution, 
 which, according to Tacitus, broke out in July 64 ; and as a 
 second persecution under the same emperor cannot be proved; 
 the date here given is clearly wrong, and the error is no doubt 
 owing in part to the fact, that on this point the fathers, instead 
 of following the full and reliable statement of Tacitus, made use 
 of Suetonius, who separates the persecution from the conflagra¬ 
 tion which occasioned it, and in general is not chronological in 
 his narrative. 4 
 
 That Peter, as long as he was in Pome, was associated with 
 Paul at the head of the church, and exercised a leading influence, 
 needs no proof. But he was not the first bishop of Pome in the 
 
 1 Col. iv. 10, 11. Philem. 23, 24. Phil. iv. 21, 22. 2 Tim. iv. 9-22; i. 15-18. 
 
 2 This is confirmed in substance by Lactantius (f330), who makes Peter come to 
 Rome first during 1 Nero’s reign (De mortibus persec. c. 2: “ Cumque jam Nero im- 
 peraret, Petrus Romam advenit,” etc.); and by Origen (f254), who brings him there 
 at the close of his life (Itr) tIxu, in Euseb. H. E. III. 1). 
 
 3 As even an unprejudiced Roman Catholic writer, Herbst, grants in an article in 
 the Theol. quarterly of Drey, Herbst, and Hirscher. Tubingen, 1820. No. 4, p. 
 567, et seq. Other scholars of the Roman church also, as Valesius, Pagi, Baluz, Hug, 
 Klee, limit the residence of Peter in Rome to the later years of Nero’s reign, or speak 
 of his being there before as at least not demonstrable. Windischmann (1. c.), on the 
 contrary, would make Peter, indeed, reside in Rome also during the intervals of 
 which we have no distinct notice in the New Testament as regards the point in 
 question; viz., during the years 44-49, 52-58, 60-61, and 64-68. But in this case the 
 apostle must have been there very furtively ; he must have purposely kept out of the 
 way of the epistle to the Romans and of Paul’s arrival there; and, according to 
 Paul’s epistles, left no trace of his residence there before a.d. 63 ! In zeal for the 
 honour of the prince of the apostles, we must exclaim to such an advocate: Non tali 
 auxilio, nec defensoribus istis! 
 
 * On this defect in the chronology of Eusebius, comp. Wieseler, 1. c., p. 544, et seq. 
 The influence of Suetonius is very clear on Orosius, Histor. VII. 7. Only Sulpicius 
 Severus, Hist. Suer. II. 29, seems to have used the statement of Tacitus. Perhaps 
 the condemnatory judgment, which the Stoical historian pronounces on the Chris¬ 
 tians ( Annul . XV. 44), was the cause of his being neglected by the church fathers. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 94. MARTYRDOM OF PETER. 
 
 29 
 
 later sense of the term, for the apostolic office was not confined 
 to a particular diocese, but implies a commission to the whole 
 world ; nor was he y wpe in the Roman sense, for this contradicts 
 the independent dignity of Paid, as we learn it from all his epistles 
 as well as from the Acts of the Apostles. This erroneous view 
 meets us first in the Ebionistic Clementine Homilies, from which, 
 as afterwards wrought into the more orthodox Recognitions, it 
 passed into the Catholic church. Clement himself, the third 
 bishop of Rome, knows nothing of it, and from his glowing de¬ 
 scription of Paul in the fifth chapter of his first epistle to the 
 Corinthians, it is pretty evident that he ascribes greater import¬ 
 ance for the Roman church to this apostle than to Peter, of 
 whom he has much less to say. Irenaeus and Eusebius rather 
 name Linus (other fathers, Clement) as first bishop of Rome ; 
 and even Epiphanius plainly makes a distinction between the 
 apostolic and the episcopal offices. 1 
 
 § 94. Martyrdom of Peter. (Note on the Claims of the Papacy.) 
 
 It is the voice of all antiquity that Peter w T as crucified in the 
 persecution under Nero. His death, therefore, as already re¬ 
 marked, cannot be placed in the year 67, as it is even by most 
 of the later historians on the authority of Eusebius and Jerome. 
 It must have occurred in the year 64, in which, according to 
 the reliable testimony of Tacitus, that persecution broke out, 
 immediately after the conflagration in July, and in which also, 
 though perhaps somewhat earlier, and by the less ignominious 
 process of decapitation, the earthly labours of Paul were brought 
 to an end. The place of his death, according to the above 
 quoted testimony of Caius, was pointed out at the end of the 
 second century as the Vatican hill beyond the Tiber, where lay 
 the Circus and Nero’s Gardens, and where, according to Tacitus, 
 the persecution of the Christians actually took place. There 
 also was built to his memory the church of St Peter; as over 
 Paul’s grave on the Ostian way outside the city was erected the 
 church of St Paul. It is very easy to see that the successful 
 activity of these great apostles in Rome must have drawn the 
 attention of the heathen, and excited their hatred against the 
 
 1 See Schliemann’s Clementinen (1844), p. 115; and Gieseler’s Kirch . Gesch. I. 1, pp. 
 103, 281, and 362, note 9. 
 
30 
 
 § 94. MARTYRDOM OF PETER. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 new sect. And the danger to the state religion, from the nume¬ 
 rous conversions, the more readily explains the horrible cruelties 
 of the Neronian persecution. 1 
 
 The first testimony of the crucifixion of Peter we find in the ap¬ 
 pendix to the Gospel of John, chap. xxi. 18, 19, where our Lord 
 himself in that memorable dialogue foretells to him that, when 
 he should be old, he should stretch forth his hands and another 
 should gird him, and carry him whither he (naturally) would 
 not. Tertullian expressly remarks that Peter was made like 
 the Lord in his passion. 2 The statement that he was crucified 
 with his head downwards, first appears in Origen ; 3 and this 
 was afterwards taken as evidence of his peculiar humility in 
 counting himself unworthy to die in the same way as the Saviour. 
 When we read in Tacitus of the unnatural tortures inflicted on 
 the Christians by Nero, the fact of such a mode of death is not 
 improbable, though the motive here brought in to explain it 
 betrays a somewhat morbid conception of the nature of humility, 
 belonging to a later time. The apostles rather held it their 
 highest honour and joy to be like their Lord and Master in every 
 particular. It is related, first by Ambrose, we believe, that 
 Peter, shortly before his death, overpowered by his former love 
 of life, made his escape from prison, but was arrested and con¬ 
 founded in his flight, by the appearance of the Saviour bearing 
 his cross. To the recreant’s question, u Lord, whither art thou 
 going V’ the Lord replied, u I am going to Pome to be crucified 
 
 1 Lactantius also gives prominence to this connection of things in his work, De 
 mortibus persec. ch. 2: “ Quumque jam Nero imperaret, Petrus Romam advenit et, 
 editis quibusdam miraculis, quae virtute ipsius Dei data sibi ab eo potestate faciebat, 
 convertit multos ad justitiam, Deoque templum fidele ac stabile collocavit. Qua re 
 ad Neronem delata, quum animadverteret, non modo Romae, sed ubique quotidie 
 magnam multitudinem deficere a cultu idolorum, et ad religionem novam damnata 
 vetustate transire, ut erat execrabilis ac nocens tyrannus, prosilivit ad excidendum 
 coeleste templum delendamque justitiam, et primus omnium persecutus Dei servos, 
 Petrum cruci affixit et Paulum (gladio) interfecit.” 
 
 2 De praescr. haeret ., c. 36: . . . . “ Romam.ubi Petrus passioni Dominicae 
 
 adaequatur.” 
 
 ^ In Euseb. : If. E. III. 1 : Yltr^os . ... OS zoo) s sr) t iXu ev ’P tu/jor, ysvofjoivos oovttrxoXo- 
 x l <r 6 yi x oo to. xiq>tx.\Yis, outus a.uTos ciS-iutrcis xot.Ssiv. This is then thus paraphrased, 
 in the spirit of monkish piety, by Rufinus —“ Crucifixus est deorsum capite demerso, 
 quod ipse ita fieri deprecatus est, ne exaequari Domino videretur.” So Jerome, who 
 had a special relish for such traits, De vir illustr. ch. 1: “ A quo (Nerone) et affixus 
 cruci, martyrio coronatus est, capite ad terram verso et in sublime pedibus elevatis ; 
 asserens se indignum, qui sic crucifigeretur, ut Dominus suus.” 
 
MISSIONS.] § 94. NOTE ON THE CLAIMS OF THE PAPACY. 31 
 
 again I” Peter hastily returned and met his death with joy. 
 This tradition still lives in the mouth of the people of Rome, 
 and is embodied in a church edifice called Domino quo vadis , 
 beyond the Sebastian gate on the Appian way. It is one of 
 those significant stories which rest not, indeed, on any historical 
 fact, yet on a right apprehension of the character in question, 
 and to which we may apply the Italian proverb, Se non 6 vero , 
 e ben trovato. To shrink from suffering was, it is true, a charac¬ 
 teristic of the natural Simon. 1 But at so great an age he had 
 no doubt long ago overcome it, and welcomed the hour when 
 he was counted worthy to seal his love to the Saviour with his 
 blood, and permitted to put off his earthly tabernacle (2 Peter 
 i. 14), and enter upon the u inheritance, incorruptible, and un¬ 
 defiled, and that fadeth not away” (1 Peter i. 4), which he knew 
 to be reserved for him in heaven. 
 
 Note. —The vast importance of the subject calls upon us, before taking 
 leave of Peter, to add a few remarks on the claims of the papacy, which are 
 well known to centre here. These claims, however, by no means rest entirely 
 on the memorable words of Matth. xvi. 18, which are now admitted by the 
 best Protestant commentators to refer to Peter, and upon the actual superio¬ 
 rity of this apostle, as it appears clear as the sun in the gospels and the first 
 part of the Acts. They are built also upon two other assumptions, which 
 cannot be proved, at least directly, from the New Testament, and must, there¬ 
 fore, maintain themselves on historical and dogmatic ground. 
 
 1. The first assumption is, that this primacy of Peter is transferable. This 
 is based by Roman Catholic theologians partly on the general ground of the 
 nature and wants of the church, which is supposed to require a visible as well 
 as an invisible head, and an infallible tribunal of authority to decide on ques¬ 
 tions of faith and the contradictory expositions of the Bible; partly on the 
 special promise of her indestructibleness immediately added by the Lord to 
 his words respecting Peter, Matth. xvi. 18; whereas the older Protestant con¬ 
 troversialists commonly regard the pre-eminence in question as simply affect¬ 
 ing Peter personally, as in the case of the surnames given to other apostles, 
 and referring to corresponding personal gifts and relations,—“ sons of 
 thunder,” for example, applied to the sons of Zebedee (Mark iii. 17); 
 “ Zelotes,” to Simon (Luke vi. 15 ; Acts i. 13) ; “ traitor,” to Judas Iscariot 
 (Luke vi. 16). 
 
 2. The second assumption is, that Peter did actually transfer his primacy; 
 and that, not to the bishop of Jerusalem, nor of Antioch, where he resided at 
 any rate a considerable time, but to the bishop of Rome. The truth of this 
 
 1 Comp. Matth. xvi. 22, 23; his denial of his Lord; and the Saviour's language to 
 him, John xxi. 18. 
 
32 
 
 § 94. NOTE ON THE CLAIMS OF THE PAPACY. [i. BOOK. 
 
 turns primarily on historical inquiry respecting Peter’s residence and martyr¬ 
 dom in Rome. These two points we have conceded in this section and the 
 preceding, with almost all the leading Protestant historians, as strongly at¬ 
 tested and well grounded facts ; admitting, that Avithout such historical 
 foundation the eighteen hundred years’ history of the papacy would be to us 
 absolutely unaccountable. This concession, however, is not enough to estab¬ 
 lish a continued primacy of the Roman See, much less an actual supremacy 
 of jurisdiction. For Paul was likewise in Rome and suffered martyrdom 
 there; nor are we any where informed, that he was at all subject to the au¬ 
 thority of Peter. Besides, there is no document whatever to be found re¬ 
 specting any actual transfer of the primacy to Linus or Clement; and it is 
 not even certain which of these two was the first bishop of Rome, as the 
 statements of the church fathers differ here. 
 
 For the point in hand, therefore, no proper historical or diplomatic evidence 
 can be brought, and the only resort is the general philosophical argument, 
 that the successor in office is in the nature of the case by regular ordination 
 heir to the prerogatives of his predecessor. This is undoubtedly perfectly 
 true with the limitation: so far as these prerogatives are inseparable from 
 the office itself. Thus we are thrown back upon the first proposition, and all 
 turns at last on the question, whether the Lord in that prophetic passage 
 instituted a permanent or only a temporary primacy for the superintendence 
 of the Christian church. 
 
 The ultra-Protestant view decidedly repudiates the idea of the permanent 
 primacy, and denies the papacy the least Scriptural ground or divine right. 
 It accordingly denounces this system as the most colossal and barefaced lie 
 known to history, and applies to it in fact the predictions of the New Testa¬ 
 ment concerning Antichrist and the “Man of Sin,” who “opposeth and 
 exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped.” To 
 this extreme view, however, we cannot at all agree. It not only turns all 
 history before the Reformation into an inextricable labyrinth,' but gives the 
 lie to the Lord’s precious promise to be and rule in His church continually— 
 for it is an absolute impossibility to make out an unbroken perpetuity of 
 Christianity without the Catholic church—nay, plays mightily in its results, 
 without willing or knowing it, into the hands of scepticism and infidelity. 
 No! In the face of a history of eighteen hundred years, during which the 
 papacy has really evinced something of a rock-like character; in the face of 
 the clear testimonies of almost all the important church fathers, both Greek 
 and Latin, in favour of a peculiar pre-eminence of the Roman See as the 
 continuation of the cathedra Petri in some form; in view of the consistency 
 and tenacity with which the Catholic church has at all times held fast all the 
 fundamental doctrines of Christianity, the Trinity, the true divinity and 
 humanity of Christ, the inspiration and divine authority of the Bible (all of 
 which antichristianity denies); in view of the great merits of the popes in 
 maintaining orthodoxy, asserting the unity, freedom, and independence of 
 the church against the assaults of the secular power, upholding the sanctity 
 of marriage, and especially spreading Christianity and civilization among all 
 
MISSIONS.] § 94. NOTEToN THE CLAIMS OF THE PAPACY. 33 
 
 the Romanic, Germanic, and Scandinavian nations;—in view of all these 
 facts, which are coming more and more to be conceded by unprejudiced Pro¬ 
 testant historians, we cannot possibly question, that the Roman Catholic 
 church, however corrupt in many doctrines and practices, belongs to the 
 historical development of Christianity itself, and that it must accordingly 
 have also some ground even in the Holy Scriptures. Nay, we believe, that 
 even since the Reformation the pope as such, that is, in his official character, 
 is not Antichrist, but the legitimate head of the Roman church, which, how¬ 
 ever, is certainly not, as she herself arrogantly asserts, identical with the 
 Catholic or universal church, but simply, like Greek and Protestant Christen¬ 
 dom, a part of it. 
 
 But, on the other hand, in opposition to the exclusive Romish or papistical 
 view of history, we must contend : 
 
 1. There is a difference between a primacy of honour and influence (primus 
 inter pares), and a supremacy of jurisdiction. The first, which presupposes 
 equal rights in the other apostles, to Avhom the same authority and commis¬ 
 sion was given as to Peter, directly by Christ (Matth. xviii. 18 ; John xx. 23), 
 was undoubtedly conceded to the bishop of Rome by the ancient church, both 
 of the East and of the West, also by the ecumenical councils of Nice (325), 
 Constantinople (381), and Chalcedon (451) ; the latter was early claimed by 
 the popes, but resisted in several instances, by Irenajus, Firmilianus, Cypria- 
 nus, by the whole Greek church, and was fully established only in the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 2. But there are other differences equally important as to the nature of 
 this primacy and the mode of its exercise. From the purely spiritual supe¬ 
 riority of Peter, a fisherman of Galilee, who, even when an apostle, had no 
 silver nor gold (Acts iii. 6), who travelled from land to land preaching the 
 gospel without the least ostentation, accompanied by his wife (1 Cor. ix. 5), 
 who humbly called himself a “ co-presbyter,” and emphatically warned his 
 brethren against all tyranny over conscience and love of filthy lucre (1 Peter 
 v. 1-3), it is a vast stride to the temporal as well as spiritual dominion which 
 the later medieval popes exercised over all the churches and states of western 
 Christendom, distributing crowns and kingdoms, deposing princes, absolving 
 the subjects from the oath of allegiance, persecuting all dissenters, good and 
 bad, ruling the conscience with the iron rod of despotism, and even frequently 
 perverting their unlimited power to their own selfish ends. 
 
 3. If Peter himself, after having received the glorious promise, Matth. xvi., 
 thought humanly and not divinely ; if he in carnal zeal cut off Malclius’ ear; 
 nay, thrice denied his Lord and Master from fear of men; and even after the 
 outpouring of the Holy Ghost, committed at Antioch a palpable incon¬ 
 sistency; much less can we expect of his successors, who are not endowed, as 
 he was, with the same supernatural gifts, that they should have always lived 
 and acted consistently with their high calling, any more than the kings and 
 high-priests of the Jewish theocracy. Just in proportion, however, as the 
 popes have abused their power, followed their own thoughts and plans instead 
 of the word of God, and degraded the pastoral office by a wicked life, as in 
 
 C 
 
 YOL. II. 
 
34 § 94. NOTE ON THE CLAIMS OF THE PAPACY. [i. BOOK. 
 
 the disgraceful tenth century, again at the time of the reformatory councils 
 of Pisa, Constance, and Basel, and at the end of the fifteenth century and 
 beginning of the sixteenth (for an example we have but to remember that 
 moral monster, Alexander VI.), in that degree is an earnest protest not only 
 allowed, but even authorized and demanded. It is sanctioned by the example 
 of the Old Testament prophets, who came out in condemnation of the ungodly 
 priests and kings of Israel; by the example of Christ, who called Peter, for 
 his horror of suffering, an offence and an adversary (Matth. xvi. 23; John 
 xviii. 11), rebuked his carnal zeal with the exclamation : “Put up again thy 
 sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the 
 sword” (Matth. xxvi. 52), warned him of his presumptuousness and self-con¬ 
 fidence (Mark xiv. 30, 37), and deeply humbled him for his denial, though 
 he afterwards restored him (John xxi. 15-18) ; and finally by the example of 
 Paul, who sharply reproved his senior colleague, nay, even in presence of the 
 congregation of Antioch charged him with hypocrisy (Gal. ii. 11, et seq .) If 
 the church of Rome has inherited the prerogatives and gifts of Peter, she has 
 also frequently, and on a larger scale, repeated his weaknesses and unfaith¬ 
 fulness. 
 
 4. Finally, we must take account of what has already been remarked at 
 the close of § 90, that the independence of Paul on the field of the Gentile 
 missions in the second stadium of the apostolic period is, according to the 
 distinct testimony of Luke in Acts, and of Paul in his epistles, a fact as incon¬ 
 trovertible as the primacy of Peter in the province of the Jewish mission and 
 through the whole first stadium of this period down to the council at Jeru¬ 
 salem ; and further, that the first century shows no trace of any dependence 
 of John or the church of Asia Minor on Rome and its bishops. If, therefore, 
 the primacy of Peter perpetuates itself in any sense in the history of the 
 church, we may as reasonably expect, that the independent position of the 
 other two leading apostles also, so far as it is compatible with the essential 
 unity of the church, has a typical significancy for after times ; and if the 
 Roman church has chosen to found itself on Peter, and has thus far with¬ 
 stood every storm, we claim Paul, the free apostle of the Gentiles, as the 
 forerunner and representative of evangelical Protestantism ; while in John, 
 the beloved disciple, who lay on Jesus’ bosom, enjoyed the profoundest view 
 of the central mystery of the incarnation, and outlived all the other apostles, 
 the disciple who “tarries till the Lord comes” (John xxi. 22), we see the 
 type and the pledge of the ideal church of the future, the higher unity of the 
 Jewish Christianity of Peter in the Catholic church, and the Gentile Chris¬ 
 tianity of Paul in the Protestant. 
 
 We have thus suggested a middle course between the two extreme Roman 
 and Protestant views of history. In this way alone, we are convinced, can 
 all church history, whether before or after the Reformation, be properly un¬ 
 derstood and duly appreciated as a continuous proof of the uninterrupted 
 presence and manifold working of Christ in the church, against which even 
 the gates of hell shall never prevail. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 95. JAMES THE JUST. 
 
 35 
 
 § 9 . James the Just—Church of Jerusalem. 
 
 Next to Peter, James held the most prominent position 
 among the Jewish Christians, and from the time of the apos¬ 
 tolic council, a.d. 50, or in fact from the flight of Peter, a.d. 
 44 (Acts xii. 17), he appears as the head of the church of Jeru¬ 
 salem. This cannot have been the elder James, the brother of 
 John and one of the three favourite disciples of Jesus; for he 
 had already been beheaded in the year 44, at the order of Herod 
 Agrippa (Acts xii. 2). We must, therefore, understand here 
 either, as J erome is first to do, the younger apostle of this name, 
 son of Alpheus and Mary (Mark xvi. 1), who, according to the 
 usual interpretation of John xix. 25, was a cousin of Jesus, 1 and 
 might in this case be called also, after the Hebrew usage, the 
 u brother of Jesus or a third James, a literal brother of the 
 Lord according to the flesh. 2 3 * * * * The latter view, again, admits of 
 two hypotheses. These so-called u brothers of Jesus,” our James 
 among the rest, may have been either younger sons of Joseph 
 and Mary (comp. Matth. i. 25), as several Protestant scholars 
 suppose, or sons of Joseph by a previous marriage, and thus only 
 half-brothers of the Lord, as most of the Greek fathers on the 
 authority of old traditions maintain. In the last two cases this 
 James would have been, not indeed one of the twelve disciples, 
 but still a man of apostolic standing like Barnabas. 8 In the 
 
 1 Comp. Matth. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40; xvi. 1. 
 
 2 Comp. Matth. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3; Matth. xii. 46, et seq. ; Mark iii. 31, et seq. ; 
 Luke viii. 19, et seq. ; John ii. 12 ; vii. 5 ; Acts i. 14 ; 1 Cor. ix. 5. 
 
 3 On this very complicated question, as well as on the whole subject of this sec¬ 
 
 tion, I refer, to save space, to my work, Das Verhaltniss des Jakobus, Bruders des 
 Herrn, zn Jahobus Alphdi, auf’s Neue eocegetisch und historisch untersucht. Berlin, 
 1842; where the exegetical and patristic testimonies for and against the identity of 
 these two persons are collected and tested at length. Subsequent examination, how¬ 
 ever, has led me to find two faults with this treatise : (1.) Rather too little is made 
 (p. 29) of the dogmatical argument against supposing Mary to have had other chil¬ 
 dren ; viz., the assumption of the perpetual virginity of the bride of the Holy Ghost, 
 the mother of the Saviour of the world. This primitive church view, which by 
 no means necessarily conflicts with the x^uroToyoi, Matth. i. 25, must have had a 
 true religious feeling at the bottom of it, or it would not have been so generally pre¬ 
 valent so early even as the second and third century. It was still held fast also by 
 the Reformers: comp. Artie. Smalcald., Pars. I., Art. IV. (p. 303, ed. Hase: “ Ex 
 Maria pura, sancta, semper virgine ”); Form. Concord ., p. 767 (“ Unde et vere dtoToxof 
 
 Dei genetrix est, et tamen virgo mansit ”); and Zwingli’s Commentary on Matth. i. 
 
 18 and 25; comp, also Olshausen on Matth. i. 25. (2.) That the view which makes 
 
 the brothers of Jesus sons of Joseph by a former marriage, therefore only half- 
 
 brothers of the Lord, receives too little stress. For this view seems to be the oldest, 
 
§ 95. JAMES THE JUST. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 O /** 
 
 Ol) 
 
 second part of the Acts, lie is styled simply James without any 
 epithet, ch. xii. 17; xv. 13; xxi. 18. So several times by Paul, 
 Gal. ii. 9, 12, et seq. 1 Cor. xv. 7. On the contrary, Paul once 
 names James along with Peter, adding, “ the brother of the 
 Lord,” Gal. i. 19. 1 The same surname is applied to the presi¬ 
 dent of the church at Jerusalem by the old ecclesiastical writers. 
 Besides this, he is also called by them “James the Just,” and 
 “ bishop of Jerusalem.” 2 
 
 According to Hegesippus, a Jewish Christian historian, pro¬ 
 bably a native of Palestine, who wrote about the middle of the 
 second century, this James led from his youth a life of strict, 
 Nazarite asceticism, and represented the ideal of a Jewish saint. 
 “ In common with the apostles,” says this writer, 3 “ J ames, the 
 brother of the Lord, who, from the days of the Lord, down to 
 our ow 7 n time, has been universally called the Just , undertook 
 the direction of the community. For there were many who were 
 called James. But this one was holy from his mother’s womb. 
 No razor came upon his head, he anointed himself not with oil, 
 and took no bath. He alone—(among the Christians)—was 
 allowed to enter the sanctuary (the holy of holies). 4 For he also 
 wore no woollen, but linen garments. 5 But he went also into the 
 
 and is found not only in apocryphal writings, and the Apostolical Constitutions, but 
 in the most distinguished Greek and Latin church fathers, as Origen, Gregory of 
 Nyssa, Cyrill of Alexandria, Epiphanius, Hilary, and Ambrose. See the passages in 
 the work above quoted, p. 80, et seq. Eusebius also should probably be enumerated 
 here, as he calls James, H. E. II. 1, a “ son of Joseph,” but nowhere a son of Mary. 
 For the identity of this James with the younger apostle of the same name, on the 
 contrary, there is no older authority than Jerome. 
 
 1 With this must be compared the passages just cited from the Gospels, which 
 mention a James among the “ brothers of the Lord.” 
 
 2 By Hegesippus, Clemens Alex., the Apostolical Constitutions, Eusebius, etc. See 
 the passages given in full in Rothe, Die Anftinge der Christl. Kirche und ihrer Ver- 
 fassung, vol. i. p. 264, et seq. 
 
 3 In Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. II. 23. Comp, my tract above mentioned, p. 61, et seq. 
 
 4 E U ra aynx., which sometimes stands for ™ otynx. rSv uytuv, Num. iv. 19; 1 Kings 
 
 viii. 6; 2 Chron. iv. 22; v. 7. Epiphanius, Haer. XXIX. 4, and LXXVIII. 13, et 
 seq., relates of James, that once a year he could enter the most holy place like the 
 high-priest to Noo£<ag«7ov «£tov enxi, and that he wore the diadem of the hig'h-priest 
 (to tetooXov = nrrrn y-is, the golden plate on the forehead with the inscription, “ Holi¬ 
 ness to the Lord.”) Tradition, however, ascribes the latter also to St John, as Poly¬ 
 crates says in Euseb. H. E. V. 24 : ’Eyivfidn h^iue to xtT<x.Xov But perhaps 
 
 this is merely a symbolical description of John’s oversight of the church of Asia 
 Minor ; for, literally understood, this act would surely be altogether unhistorical, and 
 far more incomprehensible than in James. 
 
 5 The clothing of the priests when engaged in the temple service. Out of the 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 THE CIIUKCH OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 37 
 
 temple, and he was so often found there upon his knees, praying 
 for the forgiveness of the people, that his knees became callous 
 like a camel’s, because he always knelt down when he prayed to 
 God and implored forgiveness for the people. On account of his 
 extraordinary righteousness he was called the J ust, and Oblias 
 (which should doubtless more properly be read Obliam, from 
 and being interpreted, the bulwark of the people 
 
 and righteousness (o eanv 'EAA^z /icttI nepLo^rj tov A aov kcu 8i<aioavur]).” 
 
 We have no sufficient reason at all for questioning the sub¬ 
 stance of this description, and pronouncing it a legendary exag¬ 
 geration, after the style of the heretical Ebionism; as is done by 
 those, to whose own taste the Jewish elements in the ancient 
 church are so offensive. On the contrary, from all we otherwise 
 know of James, thus much at any rate is incontrovertible, that 
 he was by far the most conservative of all the more prominent 
 apostles, and the least removed from legal Judaism. His piety 
 lived altogether in the hallowed forms of the old covenant, and 
 in all probability to the day of his death he kept not only the 
 Sabbatli, but the whole ceremonial law. Hence he was the head 
 and supreme authority of the stricter party among the Jewish 
 Christians ; while Peter, after the conversion of Cornelius, held 
 middle ground between him and Paul. In Gal. ii. 9, according 
 to the true reading, Paul names him at the head of the Jewish 
 apostles, who were distinguished as u pillars.” In the apostolic 
 council it was James, who spoke the decisive word, when, in 
 common with Peter and Paul, and against the pharisaically dis¬ 
 posed and heretical Jewish Christians, who made circumcision 
 necessary to salvation, he sided with the Gentile Christians, and 
 declared them to be even without circumcision citizens of the 
 Messiah’s kingdom, and yet at the same time laid upon them 
 certain restrictions, and as for the rest wished to have nothing 
 changed in the piety of the Jewish Christians. His disciples 
 (ot tov ’iaKoojSou), who induced even Peter and Barnabas at Antioch 
 to withdraw for a while from intercourse with the uncircumcised 
 brethren (Gal. ii. 12, 13), no doubt, indeed, pushed his princi¬ 
 ples too far (comp. Acts xv. 13, et seq.\ Gal. ii. 9), as the 
 Pauline party in Corinth went beyond Paul, and the Petrine 
 
 temple they wore common woollen garments (Lev. xvi. 4; Ezra xliv. 17). Hegesippus 
 evidently seeks to depict James as the perfect ideal of a Jewish priest. 
 
38 
 
 § 95. JAMES THE JUST. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 beyond Peter. But still their conduct shows, that the strict 
 Judaizers, the antagonists of Paul, would fain appeal to the 
 authority of James, and even place him above Peter. 1 At the 
 last visit of the apostle of the Gentiles to Jerusalem James re¬ 
 joiced with his elders in the great success of that apostle’s 
 preaching among the heathen, and praised the Lord for it. But 
 for the sake of the Jewish Christian zealots, who regarded Paul 
 with suspicion, he advised him to accommodate himself to their 
 ascetic piety, and to engage in the exercises connected with the 
 Nazarite vow (Acts xxi. 20, et seq.) In short, James stood as 
 mediator between Jews and Christians, in almost equal esteem 
 with both, and for this reason eminently fitted to maintain peace 
 between the two economies so far as the principles of Christi¬ 
 anity at all allowed. It is in perfect keeping with his character 
 and calling, that we find him not itinerating like the other 
 apostles, but more like the later bishops, continuing till his death 
 in Jerusalem, the centre of the theocracv. 
 
 Had not the influence of James been modified and completed 
 by that of a Peter and especially a Paul, Christianity would 
 perhaps never have cast off entirely the envelope of Judaism 
 and risen to independence. Yet the influence of James, too, 
 Avas altogether necessary. He, if any, could gain the ancient 
 chosen nation in a body. God placed such a representative of 
 the purest form of Old Testament piety in the midst of the 
 Jews, to make their transition to the faith of the Messiah as easy 
 as possible, even at the eleventh hour. But when they refused 
 to hear this last messenger of peace, the divine forbearance was 
 exhausted, and the fearful, long threatened judgment broke upon 
 them. And with this the mission of James was fulfilled. He 
 was not to outlive the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. 
 Shortly before it, according to Hegesippus, in the year 69, after 
 having borne powerful testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus, 
 and pointed to his second coming in the clouds of heaven, he 
 was thrown down from the pinnacle of the temple and stoned by 
 
 1 In the Pseudoclementine Homilies, and especially in the Epistles which precede 
 them, this James figures as the supreme bishop of all Christendom, to whom even the 
 apostle Peter and the Roman bishop are subject. The historical writings of the 
 Ebionites in general are full of glorifications of James. According to Epiphanius, 
 (Haer. XXX., Ebion. § 16), there were among them also kvK.$cLQy.o) 'ixxupov, descrip¬ 
 tions of his pretended ascension to heaven. 
 
MISSIONS.] THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 39 
 
 the Pharisees. His last words were: “ I beg of thee, Lord, 
 God, Father, forgive them ! for they know not what they do.” 
 He was buried by the temple, and his tombstone was still pointed 
 out there in the time of Hegesippus. “He was”—as this writer 
 concludes his account—“a true witness to Jews and Greeks, 
 that Jesus is the Christ. Soon afterwards (evOvs) Yespasian be¬ 
 sieged them.” 1 Eusebius adds, that tTames stood so high and 
 was so celebrated on all hands for his righteousness, that even 
 the more intelligent of the Jews considered his martyrdom the 
 cause of the siege of Jerusalem, which soon followed; and in 
 agreement with this Josephus expressly says: “ This fell upon 
 the Jews in punishment for what they had done to James the 
 Just, a brother of Jesus, who was called Christ. For him had 
 the Jews slain, though he was the most upright of men.” 2 
 
 When after the destruction of Jerusalem the Jewish system 
 of religion, as well as the Christian, was in a measure re¬ 
 organized in Palestine, the surviving apostles and kinsmen of 
 
 1 In Eusebius, H. E. II. 23. 
 
 2 No such passage, however, in this form is to be found anywhere in Josephus, but 
 simply the statement, Archaeol. XX. 9, 1, that the violent high-priest Ananias, in the 
 interval between the death of the Roman governor, Festus, and the arrival of Albinus, 
 therefore in the year 62, accused “ the brother of Jesus, called Christ, James by name, 
 and some others,” before the Sanhedrim as transgressors of the law ■xx^xvop.v^xv- 
 ra »), and sentenced them to be stoned; with which procedure, however, the better 
 part of the Jews themselves were dissatisfied. The words relative to James, rov 
 xSthtfov ’I'/jtroVj rov \iyop,'iio'j Xgtirrou, ’Ixxcufio; ovofxx xvru xx )— and the iriqouf after Tivxf, 
 have been suspected by Clericus and Lardner, and latterly by Credner ( Einleitung in’s 
 N.T., I. p. 581), and Rothe ( Anfdnge der chr. Kirche, I. p. 275), as an interpolation 
 (like the well known “testimonium de Christo” in the Arch. XVIII. 3, 3, on which 
 comp. Gieseler, Kirchengesch. I. 1, § 24, p. 81, et seq .); so that this passage would say 
 nothing at all of a persecution of the Christians. But even admitting the words to 
 be genuine, we still cannot give the statement of Josephus so unqualified a preference 
 over that of Hegesippus, as Neander does, I. p. 580, et seq. For, in the first place, as to 
 the discrepancy respecting the fact; Josephus, being a Jew, might have good reason 
 to pass over in silence the cruel scenes which accompanied the execution of James, 
 and, being a Pharisee, might feel inclined to put the blame of the murder on the Sad- 
 ducee, Ananias. Then as to the chronology; the date given by Hegesippus is sup¬ 
 ported from other quarters. According to the Epist. Clementis Rom. ad Jacobum , c. 
 1 (Patres Apost. ed. Cotelier, tom. i. p. 611), and the dementina Epitome de gestis S. 
 Petri , c. 147 (ib. p. 798), and according to the whole Pseudoclementine literature, 
 James survived the apostle Peter, who did not die before the year 64 at the earliest. 
 So the dironicon pascliale, vol. i. p. 460 (ed. Bonnens.), places the martyrdom of 
 James in the first year of Vespasian’s reign. Eusebius varies. In his H. E. (II. 23; 
 III. 11), following Hegesippus, he gives the year 69; while in his Chronicon (p. 205, 
 ed. Scalig.), he puts the martyrdom of James in the year 63, no doubt on the autho¬ 
 rity of the above passage from Josephus. 
 
40 
 
 § 96. THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 the Lord, according to a tradition preserved by Eusebius, at a 
 meeting in Jerusalem appointed Symeon, a cousin of Jesus (a 
 son of Clopas, who according to Hegesippus was a brother of 
 Joseph), successor to James. This Symeon presided over the 
 church of Jerusalem as bishop till the time of the emperor 
 Trajan, and at the age of a hundred and twenty years suffered 
 martyrdom. 1 He had thirteen successors, all of Hebrew descent, 
 who ruled, however, but a short time, and are known to us only 
 by name. 2 Throughout this period the church of Jerusalem 
 maintained its strictly Israelitish character, but united with it 
 “the genuine knowledge of Christ,” 3 and stood in communion 
 with the Catholic church. Nay, even in the fourth century, in 
 the sect of the Nazarenes (not to be confounded with the hereti¬ 
 cal Ebionites, who denied the divinity of Christ), we find the 
 same combination of Judaism and Christianity as in James, 
 The mass of the Jewish Christians, however, towards the close 
 of Hadrian’s reign, after the second destruction of Jerusalem, 
 and the extinction of the line of the fifteen circumcised bishops, 
 gradually merged in the Greek church. 
 
 § 96. The Epistle of James. 
 
 From James the Just, we have preserved in the canon an 
 epistle, which is, indeed, one of the doubted books (the antilego- 
 mena of Eusebius), but has strong external and still stronger 
 internal evidence in its favour, and was perhaps written before 
 or soon after the apostolic council. 4 It was written no doubt 
 from Jerusalem, the theocratic metropolis and James’ permanent 
 field of labour. Its readers were the “twelve tribes which are 
 scattered abroad” (i. 1 ;) that is, the Jews, who lived in and out 
 of Palestine, dispersed among the Gentiles; or rather Jewish 
 Christians; for to these, as the true spiritual Israel, he applies 
 
 1 Euseb. H. E. III. 11, 32. 
 
 2 Justus, Zacchaeus, Tobias, Benjamin, John, Matthias, Philip, Seneca, Justus, 
 Levi, Ephres, Joseph, and Juda; comp. Euseb. IV. 5. 
 
 3 Eus., 1. c. Sulpicius Severus, Hist. Sacra, II. 31, says of these Jewish Christians, 
 
 “ They believed in Christ as God, while yet observing the law.” 
 
 4 On this, see the modern investigations of Schneckenburger, Neander, Credner of 
 Kern in his Commentary (where he has retracted his former doubts of its genuine¬ 
 ness), and of Thiersch ( Die Kirche im apost. Zeitalter, p. 106, et seq .) Comp, also my 
 tract on James, above quoted, p. 83, et seq. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 96. THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 41 
 
 the Old Testament designation/ yet without drawing the line 
 between the two economies, between the disciples of Moses and 
 the disciples of Christ, so clearly as is done in the system of 
 Paul, and as it was afterwards drawn in fact by the destruction 
 of Jerusalem. The communities styled themselves yet, not 
 churches, but synagogues (ii. 2), consisted mostly of poor people, 
 and were oppressed and persecuted by the rich and powerful 
 Jews. 2 Of Gentile Christians among them we have no trace. 
 If there were any so early in Palestine and the surrounding 
 regions, they had not yet become incorporated with the Jewish 
 converts, and were not regarded by James as belonging to his 
 charge. 
 
 The design of the letter is not doctrinal, but ethical and alto¬ 
 gether practical. It aims to inculcate a living, active piety, and 
 to combat a dead Jewish orthodoxy, an unproductive intellectual 
 belief, which contents itself with theoretical knowledge and the 
 mere reception of the Mosaic and Christian doctrine as true, 
 instead of acting it out in the life (ii. 14, et seq.) Paul has a 
 similar tendency in view in Rom. ii. 17-24 (comp, also John v. 
 39), 3 while he elsewhere commonly contends against the opposite 
 error of a righteousness of works without faith. Besides this 
 there prevailed in the churches, to which the epistle is addressed, 
 other evils, all more or less connected with a carnal Jewish way 
 of thinking;—want of charity, censoriousness, pride and arro¬ 
 gance in the rich, quarrelsomeness, worldly-mindedness, etc. 
 While James rebukes all these sins, and threatens them with 
 the impending judgment, he comforts and cheers the poor, who 
 are oppressed by the hard-hearted rich, and the brethren, who 
 are persecuted by their unbelieving kinsmen. 
 
 This of itself indicates the contents of the letter, which per¬ 
 fectly correspond with all we otherwise know of the legal charac¬ 
 ter and conservative position of its author. There is confessedly 
 no other book in the New Testament, which leaves the pecu¬ 
 liarly Christian element, the person and work of the Redeemer, 
 so much in the background as this epistle. And so far does it 
 
 1 Comp. Matth. xix. 28. Rom. ii. 28, et seq. Gal. vi. 16. 1 Pet. i. 1. 
 
 2 James ii. 6, 7; v. 1, et seq. Comp. Heb. x. 34. 
 
 3 As late as the second century Justin {Dial. c. Tryph, Jud. p. 370, ed. Col.) speaks 
 of Jews who imagined that, in consideration of their monotheism, God would not lay 
 their sins to their charge. 
 
42 
 
 § 96. THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 [i. BOOK, 
 
 differ from Paul’s type of doctrine, that even a Luther in one¬ 
 sided zeal for his doctrine of justification considered the two as 
 irreconcilably opposed, and did not hesitate to call James’ a 
 u chaffy epistle;” 1 while others suppose, that James (ch. ii. 14, 
 et seq.) intends to combat, not, indeed, Paul’s doctrine of justifi¬ 
 cation itself as rightly understood, yet at least the practical 
 abuse of it (comp. 2 Peter iii. 16). But this is a wrong opinion. 
 James has bis eye, not upon Gnostic and Antinomian tenden¬ 
 cies—for these developed themselves more amongst Gentile 
 Christians—bat upon the dead intellectual orthodoxy of Juda¬ 
 ism, a self-righteous, stiffened Pharisaism ; and he meets it with 
 the same weapons used by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. 
 The epistle of James, therefore, holds as important and neces¬ 
 sary a place among the canonical epistles of the apostles, as that 
 Sermon among the discourses of Christ. For, closely as it con¬ 
 forms, not only in thought but in its figurative, sententious 
 style, to the prophetical and proverbial books of the Old Testa¬ 
 ment, yet the earnest, impressive moral admonitions, of which it 
 consists—its exhortations to patience under suffering, to prayer, 
 to humility, to true wisdom, to meekness, to peace, to the obser¬ 
 vance of the royal law of love, to a life corresponding to the con¬ 
 fession of the mouth ; its warnings against vain self-reliance, 
 against sins of the tongue, against fickleness, envy, hatred, and 
 uncharitableness in general,—all are thoroughly pervaded by 
 the spirit of Christian morality, especially as presented in the 
 Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount. The name of Christ, indeed, 
 appears only, as it were, in the distance, but is always men- 
 
 1 In the preface to liis edition of the New Testament of 1524, p. 105, “ Therefore 
 the epistle of St James is a real chaffy epistle compared with them (the writings of 
 John, Paul, and Peter), for it has no evangelical cast at all.” He expresses himself 
 more fully in his remarkable preface to the epistles of St James and St Jude, 1522 
 (Werke , ed. Walch. XIV. p. 148, et seq.), at the close of which he thus sums up his 
 opinion—“ In a word, he (James) has aimed to refute those who relied on faith with¬ 
 out works, and is too weak for his task in mind, understanding and words, mutilates 
 the Scriptures, and thus contradicts Paul and all Scripture, seeking to accomplish by 
 enforcing the law, what the apostles successfully effect by love. Therefore I will not 
 place his epistle in my Bible among the proper leading books; but will leave it to 
 every one to receive or reject it as he likes; for there are many good sentences in it.” 
 That Luther afterwards retracted this unfavourable judgment, which reveals itself also 
 in his version of the Bible in the removal of the epistle of James from its original 
 place at the beginning of the Catholic epistles to their end, where it still stands in all 
 the German Protestant editions, is not at all demonstrable, though it is often asserted 
 (even by Guericke, Einl, in's N. T. p. 499, without any proof). 
 
MISSIONS.] § 97. TRADITIONS RESPECTING THE APOSTLES. 43 
 
 tioned with a holy reserve, which leaves us with the impression, 
 that far more is thought than is said, and that the cause of this 
 comparative silence is perhaps the wish to gain the more readily 
 some of the Jewish readers to the faith. James calls Christ 
 “the Lord of glory” (ii. 1), and humbly styles himself “a 
 servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (i. 1); and he 
 addresses his readers as bom again and the first fruits of a new 
 creation (i. 18), thus placing Christianity far above Judaism, 
 and representing it as the creative beginning of a new life. It 
 is the law undeniably, but the law spiritualized and glorified by 
 the gospel , the “ perfect law of liberty ” (i. 25), which every where 
 meets us in this letter. The genial Herder has characterized the 
 epistle in these striking words i 1 “ What a noble man speaks in 
 this epistle ! Deep, unbroken patience in suffering! Greatness 
 in poverty! Joy in sorrow ! Simplicity, sincerity, firm, direct 
 confidence in prayer ! To nothing is he more opposed, than to 
 unbelief, to pusillanimous, destructive subtlety, to double-mind¬ 
 edness. But what a way he has of drawing nigh to God ! He 
 speaks of power, the miraculous power of prayer, as of the 
 most certain, unfailing thing, heartily, from experience, with 
 particular instances and proofs—verily a man full of the Holy 
 Ghost, a praying man, a disciple of Jesus !—How well he knows 
 wisdom, and the origin of true and false wisdom in the minds 
 of men ! He puts restraint on the tongue, even in its most 
 spacious workings—the tongue, which murders by lusts and 
 passions—silent saint! Nazarite ! Disciple of heavenly wisdom ! 
 How he wants action ! Action ! Not words, not (dead intel¬ 
 lectual) faith, but free action, perfect, noble action according 
 to the royal law of the Spirit, the free—purified Pharisee, 
 or Essene—the Christian !” 
 
 § 97. Traditions respecting the other Apostles. 
 
 Peter, Paul, and John were plainly the most influential and 
 efficient of the apostles. Of their labours accordingly we have 
 the most full and reliable accounts, though their end is veiled in 
 mysterious darkness. Besides these none appear in Acts but 
 James the Elder, who soon passed off the stage (a.d. 44) as the 
 
 1 Brief ziceener Cruder Je»u in unserem Kanon. Lemgo. 1775. 
 
44 
 
 § 97. TRADITIONS RESPECTING 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 first apostolic martyr, and that other James, who from the year 
 50, or perhaps even 44, to liis death, laboured as head of the 
 cliurcli in Jerusalem. Of the activity of the other apostles, on 
 the contrary, the New Testament itself contains no trace ; and 
 the many reports respecting them in the writings of the church 
 fathers, and in the pseudo-apostolic acts, are in some cases so 
 strange and so full of contradictions, that they can lay very 
 little claim to credit, and that even the acutest criticism would 
 be unable thoroughly to separate the truth from the error. 
 
 The silence of Holy Writ and of authentic history respecting 
 the life and work of the majority of the apostles is an enigma 
 which historians have made various attempts to solve. It may 
 be accounted for first, by the humility of the disciples of Jesus, 
 whose object was not to build for themselves monuments of their 
 fame, but only to labour as instruments of their Master, in what¬ 
 ever way and place He might appoint. Then again, by the 
 fact that they appeared not with the creative originality and 
 imposing personal character of James, Peter, Paul, and John, 
 who fully represent the four ground forms of life and doctrine 
 in the primitive church; but more as simple helpers, quite as 
 necessary, however, and as useful in their sphere as the leaders 
 whose banner they followed. Finally, by the consideration 
 that the destruction of Jerusalem and the persecutions of the 
 Christian church from the time of Nero onward, seriously im¬ 
 peded the recording of their acts and fortunes, or destroyed 
 many documents already written. That these apostles actually 
 laboured, however, with great effect, is certain from the early 
 propagation of Christianity in all parts of the Roman empire, 
 even where we have no sure and special information respecting 
 the mode of its introduction; as in Egypt, North Africa, Spain, 
 Gaul, and Italy out of Rome. Eternity will assuredly disclose 
 many hidden flowers and fruits of Christian life and labour, 
 which are either not at all, or at best very imperfectly recorded 
 in books of history. 1 
 
 Down to the apostolic council (a.d. 50) the twelve disciples 
 
 1 We cannot agree, therefore, with Dr Thiersch (Vorlesungen iiber Katholic und 
 Protest. I. p. 203, note, 2d ed.), in explaining the silence of history respecting the 
 majority of the apostles from the small results of their labours, especially outside the 
 Roman empire. This would be derogatory to the wisdom and discernment of the 
 Lord in the choice of his instruments. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 THE OTHER APOSTLES. 
 
 45 
 
 seem still to have looked on Jerusalem as the centre of their 
 activity, and, with the exception of Paul, not to have gone far 
 beyond Palestine. Thenceforth we find none but James in the 
 Jewish capital (Acts xxi. 18), the rest having scattered to dif¬ 
 ferent lands. The story (first found in Rufinus) runs, that they 
 distributed the countries among themselves by lot, and before 
 they separated composed the Apostles’ Creed. But this literally 
 understood is a manifest error. More plausible is the tradition 
 that they all, except John, suffered martyrdom, 1 most of them 
 before the destruction of Jerusalem; while the beloved disciple 
 lived down to the threshold of the second century. Most of 
 them seem to have laboured in the different countries of the 
 East, and more in the spirit of James and Peter, than on the 
 principles of the Apostle of the Gentiles. For the Christian 
 churches in Syria, Persia, and India, in Egypt and Ethiopia, 
 exhibit in early antiquity, and even to this day, so remarkable 
 a mixture of Jewish practices with Christian orthodoxy (which, 
 however, in those countries has now become almost a perfect 
 petrifaction), that we may infer from it with tolerable certainty 
 their Jewish-Christian origin. 
 
 Respecting these apostles individually we collect the following 
 statements :— 
 
 1. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, 2 preached (accord¬ 
 ing to Origen in Eusebius) in Scythia; according to later 
 accounts, also in Asia Minor, Thrace, and Achaia. After 
 working many miracles he is supposed to have suffered martyr¬ 
 dom at Patrae (Patras) in Achaia, at the order of the Roman 
 proconsul, Aegeas, whose wife and brother he had converted ; 
 and to have been crucified on a crux decussata (^ ), which thence 
 came to be called “ Andrew’s Cross.” 
 
 2. Philip of Bethsaida, 3 not to be confounded with the 
 deacon and evangelist of the same name, 4 according to a pretty 
 
 1 Yet, according- to Ileracleon, in Clemens Alex. (Strom. IV. p. 502), the apostles 
 
 Matthew, Philip, Thomas, and Levi (Thaddeus) died a natural death. The whole 
 story above is not found earlier than the fourth century, and may have arisen too 
 from the exaggerated notions of the worth of martyrdom and from the ambiguity of 
 the word which denotes primarily any confessor of the Christian faith, but 
 
 commonly, in later usage, a witness by blood. 
 
 2 Matth. iv. 18; x. 2; xiii. 3 ; John i. 35, et seq. ; vi. 8; xii. 22. 
 
 3 Matth. x. 3, and parall.; John i. 44, et seq. ; vi. 5, et seq. ; xii. 21, et seq. ; xiv. 8, 
 
 et seq. 4 Acts vi. 5; viii. 8, et seq. ; xxi. 8. 
 
§ 97. TRADITIONS RESPECTING [l. BOOK. 
 
 4(5 
 
 unanimous tradition, performed liis last labour in Asia Minor 
 in tlie province of Phrygia, and died, some say a natural death, 
 others a violent one, at Hierapolis (between Colosse and Lao- 
 dicea) in a good old age. He survived, it would seem, the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, and according to ancient credible tra¬ 
 dition, was married and the father of several pious daughters. 1 
 
 3. Thomas, called Didymus (Twin), probably also from 
 Galilee (comp. John xxi. 2), is presented to us in the Gospel of 
 John 2 as a man of a melancholy, sceptical, and wilful turn, who 
 would believe only on the palpable testimony of the understand¬ 
 ing and of experience, but held fast what he had once come to 
 believe with great decision and fidelity. “ My Lord and my 
 God!” cried he in joyful adoration, the moment he put his 
 finger into the wounds of the risen Saviour. He might be taken 
 as the representative of the better class of Rationalists,—those 
 who are honestly seeking truth, and who, therefore, ultimately 
 find it. The oldest tradition (Origen in Euseb.) says, he preached 
 the Gospel in the Parthian empire, and was buried in Edessa; 
 but later accounts (Gregory of Nazianzen, Ambrose, Jerome, . 
 and others) place the scene of his labours and martyrdom in 
 East India, 3 and the Syrian Christians, who have been found 
 there from time immemorial, regard him as the founder of their 
 church, and hence are called Thomas-Christians. 
 
 4. Bartholemew, or “son of Ptolemaeus,” 4 is unquestionably 
 the same who appears in the fourth Gospel under his proper 
 name, Nathanael (Gift of God, John i. 45, et seq. ; xxi. 2) ; 
 the first name being a surname taken from his father, like 
 Simon’s surname, Barjona. He sprang from Cana in Galilee 
 (John xxi. 2), and was introduced to the Saviour by Philip. 
 As soon as the Lord saw him, He said of him : “ Behold an 
 Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” 5 He is said to have 
 
 1 Eusebius: II. E. III. 31; V. 24. 
 
 3 Ch. xi. 16; xiv. 5 ; xx, 24-29. 
 
 3 But perhaps there is confusion here. At any rate Theodoret ( Haer. fob. I. 26) 
 represents the Thomas who was sent to the Indians as a disciple of Manes, and the 
 Acta Tlwrnae, published by Thilo, betray a Manichean origin. 
 
 4 Matth. x. 3; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 14; Acts i. 13. 
 
 5 John i. 47. This expression of Christ is commonly taken as a general descrip¬ 
 tion of the moral and religious character of Nathanael, and explained thus : “ Thou 
 art in truth one of the people of God; an Israelite, who answers the idea; such as 
 all should be, all uprightness and ingenuousness.” This interpretation, however, we 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 THE OTHER, APOSTLES. 
 
 47 
 
 preached Christianity in India (probably Yemen), where, accord¬ 
 ing to Eusebius, he left the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew ; to 
 have laboured also in Lycaonia and Armenia Major; and to 
 have been beheaded, or according to another tradition, crucified 
 with his head downwards. 
 
 5. Matthew, no doubt the same with Levi, 1 formerly a 
 tax-gatherer in Galilee (Matth. ix. 9, et seq.), author of the first 
 Gospel, is said to have extended the kingdom of God into Etlii- 
 
 cannot adopt: (1.) Because it is altogether contrary to the Saviour’s custom thus to 
 praise a man to his face. (2.) Because in that case Nathanael’s modesty must have 
 compelled him to decline the compliment; whereas, on the contrary, he accepts it 
 without hesitation by asking, “ Whence knowest thou me?”ver. 48. (3.) Because 
 ingenuousness and uprightness were never particularly prominent traits in the char¬ 
 acter of the Jews as a nation, or at any rate of Jacob, in whom, at least in early life, 
 the subtlety of the serpent predominated, as his conduct with Esau and Laban suffi¬ 
 ciently shows. “German fidelity” is proverbial, but not “ Jewish honesty.” The 
 prophets very often rebuke this people for their treachery and hypocrisy (Isaiah xxix. 
 13, 15; Zeph. i. 11; Ps. 1. 19, etc.) (4.) Because this explanation does not suit the 
 connection at all, especially the immediately following words of the Lord, ver. 48, 
 which are evidently to be taken as more particularly defining the former. The sense 
 of this passage, as well as of the whole paragraph, John i. 45-51, can be fully ex¬ 
 plained only from the history of Jacob, to which Jesus here makes an exceedingly 
 significant allusion. That ver. 51 refers to the heavenly ladder (Gen. xxviii. 12), is 
 conceded by all commentators. The living intercourse of divine and human powers, 
 which appeared to the patriarch under this figure in his dream at Bethel, was per¬ 
 fectly realized in the manifestation of the incarnate Son of God, the Mediator be¬ 
 tween heaven and earth. Why should not the ocX^dSis ver. 47, refer like¬ 
 
 wise to a scene in Jacob’s life, to his victorious wrestling with Ids covenant God, when 
 he received the honorary title of Israel , Wrestler with God (Gen. xxxii. 28. Comp. 
 Hos. xii. 4), in place of his former name, and in token of his having put off the old 
 man? We conceive the matter thus: Nathanael, a disciple of John, and by him 
 directed to the Messiah, was engaged, under the shade of a fig-tree—perhaps in the 
 place which tradition assigns for Jacob’s wrestling—in the study of the law and the 
 prophets, and absorbed in fervent prayer for the coming of the long-promised 
 Saviour, when Philip approached him with the joyful tidings of the Messiah, whom 
 he had found. The Lord had looked into his heart—had read there his hopes and 
 prayers for the Messiah (ver. 48); and this surprising insight into the secrets of his 
 soul, in connection with what preceded, led Nathanael to faith. The sense of the 
 words in question will, therefore, be simply, “ Behold a man, who has just wrestled 
 with God with unfeigned earnestness in pi’ayer for the manifestation of the Messiah, 
 and has prevailed;” or, to keep closer to the Old Testament passage here in mind, 
 Gen. xxxii. 28, “ Thou art no deceiver (Jacob), but an honest wrestler with God 
 (Israel); for thou hast wrestled with God, that He would send the Saviour of the 
 world, and show Him to thee ; and thy prayer is heard. The Messiah stands before 
 thee.” That all the ensuing circumstances, the question of the astonished Nathanael, 
 the Lord’s reply, the confession of faith, and the reference to the new ladder from 
 heaven, of which Jacob’s was but a faint type—that all these come along very natu¬ 
 rally in this view, is plain enough. 
 
 1 Mark ii. 14. Luke v. 27. Matth. x. 3, etc. 
 
48 
 
 § 98. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. [i. BOOK. 
 
 opia (Meroe), and according to some accounts into the countries 
 of Asia. Respecting the manner and place of his death the 
 reports vary. 
 
 6. Simon Zelotes appears in the New Testament only in 
 the lists of the apostles (Mattli. x. 4, and parall.), and there are 
 different stories about his labours. Some church fathers identify 
 him with Symeon, son of Clopas, who, according to Eusebius, 
 succeeded James as bishop of Jerusalem, and was crucified under 
 Trajan in the hundred and twentieth year of his age. Accord¬ 
 ing to Nicephorus, on the contrary, Simon preached in Egypt, 
 Cyrene, Mauritania, Lybia, and at last in the British Isles, 
 where he was crucified. Finally, Abdias tells us that he, with 
 Judas Thaddeus, was taken to Persia and Babylon, and murdered 
 at Sunir. 
 
 7. Judas, also called Lebbaeus and Thaddeus (Mattli. 
 x. 3, etc.), preached, as the western tradition has it, in Persia, 
 and there, through the instigation of the magicians, met a cruel 
 death. Nicephorus, on the contrary, makes him preach in 
 Palestine, Syria, and Arabia, and die a natural death at Edessa. 
 
 8. Matthias, one of the seventy disciples (according to 
 Eusebius), who, on the motion of Peter, was chosen by lot to 
 fill the place of Judas Iscariot (Acts i. 15-26), is said to have 
 laboured and suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia; while other 
 accounts say he was stoned by the Jews in Judea. 
 
 9. James the Less, or James the son of Alphaeus, 1 laboured, 
 according to the tradition of the Greek church, which distin¬ 
 guishes him from James the brother of the Lord, the bishop of 
 Jerusalem and author of the catholic epistle (comp. § 95), first 
 in the south-western part of Palestine, afterwards in Egypt, and 
 was crucified at Ostracine in low T er Egypt. 2 
 
 § 98. Destruction of Jerusalem, a.d. 70. 
 
 The forbearance of God with his covenant people, who had 
 crucified their own Saviour, at last reached its limit. As many 
 as could be saved in the usual way were rescued. The mass of 
 the people had obstinately set themselves against all improve¬ 
 ment. James the Just, the man who was fitted, if any could 
 
 1 Mark xv. 40; Matth. x. 3; xxvii. 56; Acts i. 13. 
 
 2 Nicephor. II. 40. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 98. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 49 
 
 be, to reconcile the Jews to the Christian religion, had been 
 stoned by his hardened brethren, for whom he daily interceded 
 in the temple ; and with him the Christian community in Jeru¬ 
 salem had lost its importance for that city. The hour of fearful 
 judgment drew near. The prophecy of the Lord 1 approached 
 its literal fulfilment. 
 
 Not long before the outbreak of the Jewish war, seven years 
 before the siege of Jerusalem, a man by the name of Jesus came 
 to the city at the feast of tabernacles, and in a fit of absent- 
 mindedness constantly cried among the people : “ Woe to the 
 city ! Woe to the temple ! A voice from the morning, a voice 
 from the evening! A voice from the four winds! A voice 
 against Jerusalem and the temple ! A voice against bridegroom 
 and bride ! A voice against the whole people !” Some magis¬ 
 trates, terrified by this, had the man taken up and scourged. 
 He offered no resistance, and continued to cry his “Woe.” 
 Being brought before the procurator, Albinus, he was scourged 
 till his bones could be seen, but interposed not a word for him¬ 
 self ; uttered no curse on his enemies; simply exclaimed at 
 every blow in a mournful tone : “ Woe, woe to Jerusalem !” 
 To the governor’s question, who and whence he was, he 
 answered nothing. Finally they let him go, as a madman. 
 But he continued till the outbreak of the war, especially at the 
 three great feasts, to proclaim the approaching fall of Jerusa¬ 
 lem. During the siege he was singing his dirge for the last time 
 from the wall. Suddenly he added, “Woe, woe also to me!” 
 —and a missile put an end to his prophetic lamentation. 
 
 Under the last governors, Felix, Festus, Albinus and Floras, 
 moral corruption and the dissolution of all social ties, but at the 
 same time the oppressiveness of the Roman yoke, increased 
 every year. After the accession of Felix, assassins, the “ Sica- 
 rians” (from sic a, a dagger) armed with daggers, and purchas¬ 
 able for any crime, endangering safety in city and country, 
 roamed over Palestine. Besides this, the party spirit amongst 
 the Jews themselves, and their hatred of their heathen oppressors 
 rose to the most insolent political and religious fanaticism, and 
 was continually inflamed by false prophets and Messiahs, one of 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 1 Matth. xxiv. 1, 2. Luke xix. 43, 44. 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 § 98. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. [i. BOOK. 
 
 whom, for example, according to Joseplms, drew after him 
 thirty thousand men (comp. Acts xxi. 38). At last, in the year 
 66, under the last procurator, Gessius Floras (from 65 onward), 
 a wicked and cruel tyrant, who, as Josephus says, was placed as 
 a hangman over evihdoers, there began an organized rebellion 
 against the Romans, but at the same time a terrible civil war 
 also between the zealots and the conservatives, as well as between 
 different parties of the revolters themselves. The Christian, 
 remembering the Lord’s admonition (Matth. xxiv. 15, et seq .), 
 forsook Jerusalem and fled to the town of Pella beyond the 
 
 *7 
 
 Jordan, in the north of Perea, where king Herod Agrippa II., 
 before whom Paul once stood, opened to them a safe asylum. 
 An old tradition 1 says, that a divine voice reminded their most 
 prominent members once more of the flight. The emperor Nero, 
 informed of this rebellion, sent the famous general, Vespasian, 
 with a large force to Palestine. Vespasian opened the cam¬ 
 paign in the year 67 from the Syrian port-town Ptolemais 
 (Acco), and, against a stout resistance, overran Galilee with an 
 army of sixty thousand men. But events in Rome hindered 
 him from completing the tragedy, and required him to return 
 thither. Nero had killed himself. The emperors Galba, Otho, 
 and Vitellius followed one another in rapid succession. The 
 latter was taken out of a dog’s kennel in Rome drunk, dragged 
 through the streets, and shamefully put to death, and Vespasian, 
 in the year 69, was universally proclaimed emperor. 
 
 His son, Titus, who himself ten years after became emperor, 
 and highly distinguished himself by his mildness and philan¬ 
 thropy, then undertook the prosecution of the Jewish war, and 
 became the instrument in the hand of God of destroying the holy 
 city and the temple. In April, a.d. 70, immediately after 
 Easter, when Jerusalem was filled with strangers, the siege 
 began. The zealots rejected with sneering defiance the repeated 
 proposals of Titus and the prayers of Josephus, who accompanied 
 him as interpreter and mediator; and they struck down every 
 one who spoke of surrender. Even the famine, which now 
 began to rage and sweep away thousands daily, the cries of 
 mothers and babes, the most pitiable and continually increasing 
 
 1 In Eusebius, H. E. III. 5. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 98. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 51 
 
 misery around them, could not move the crazy fanatics. History 
 records no other instance of such obstinate resistance, such des¬ 
 perate bravery and contempt of death. For the Jews fought, 
 not only for civil liberty, life, and their native land, but for that 
 which constituted their national pride and glory, and gave their 
 whole history its significance,—for their religion, which even in 
 this state of horrible degeneracy infused into them an almost 
 superhuman power of endurance and a fearful inspiration. At 
 last in July the castle of Antonia was surprised and taken by 
 night. The Roman general proposed to keep that magnificent 
 work of art, the temple, to grace his triumph; but he was again 
 insultingly repulsed. The famine was so severe, that many 
 swallowed their jewels; a mother even roasted her own child ; 
 but the wretches would hear nothing of mercy. When Titus 
 finally ordered the temple halls to be set on fire, he still wished 
 to save the venerable sanctuary. But its destruction was deter¬ 
 mined by a higher decree. In a fresh assault, a soldier unbidden 
 hurled a firebrand through the golden door. When the flame 
 arose, the Jews raised a hideous yell and tried to put out the fire; 
 while others, clinging with a last, convulsive grasp to their 
 Messianic hopes, rested in the declaration of a false prophet, that 
 God in the midst of the conflagration of the temple would give 
 the signal for the deliverance of his people. Titus himself gave 
 repeated orders to have the fire extinguished. But in vain. His 
 legions vied with each other in feeding the flame, and made the 
 unhappy people feel the whole weight of their unchained rage. 
 At first the vast stream of blood from the bodies heaped up be¬ 
 fore the altar of burnt-offerino; restrained the fire; but soon the 
 whole prodigious structure was in flames. It was burnt on the 
 tenth of August, a.d. 70, the same day of the year on which ac¬ 
 cording to tradition the first temple was destroyed by Nebuchad¬ 
 nezzar. “ No one,” says Josephus, u can conceive of a louder, 
 more terrible shriek, than arose from all sides during the burning 
 of the temple. The shout of victory and the jubilee of the 
 legions sounded through the wailings of the people upon the 
 mountain and throughout the city. The echo from all the 
 mountains around, even to Perea, increased the deafening roar. 
 Yet the sight was equally terrible. The mountain seemed as it 
 enveloped to its base in one sheet of flame. On the top the 
 
52 
 
 § 98. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. [i. BOOK. 
 
 earth was nowhere visible. All was covered with corpses; over 
 these heaps the soldiers pursued the fugitives.” The same author 
 gives the number of Jews slain at the siege of Jerusalem as one 
 million one hundred thousand ; and the number sold into slavery 
 during the war, ninety thousand ! 
 
 Even the heathen Titus publicly exclaimed, that God aided 
 the Romans and drove the Jews from their impregnable strong¬ 
 holds. The Jew, Josephus, a learned priest and Pharisee, who 
 has described the whole Jewish war at length in seven books, and 
 who went through it himself from beginning to end, at first as 
 governor of Galilee, then as a prisoner of Vespasian, finally as a 
 companion of Titus and mediator between the Romans and Jews, 
 recognized in this tragical event a divine judgment, and admitted 
 of his degenerate countrymen, to whom he was otherwise attached 
 in sincere love : U 1 will not hesitate to say what gives me pain : 
 I believe, that, had the Romans delayed their punishment of that 
 ungodly people, the city would have been swallowed up by the 
 earth, or overwhelmed with a flood, or, like Sodom, consumed 
 with fire from heaven. For the generation which was in it, was 
 far more ungodly than the men on whom those punishments had 
 in former times fallen. By their madness, the whole nation is 
 ruined.” Thus, therefore, must one of the best Roman emperors 
 execute the long-threatened judgment of God, and the most 
 learned Jew of his time describe it, and thereby, without willing 
 or knowing it, bear testimony to the truth of the word, and the 
 divinity of the mission of Jesus Christ, the rejection of whom 
 brought all this and the subsequent misfortune upon the apostate 
 u royal priesthood.” 
 
 This awful catastrophe, which prefigured in miniature the final 
 judgment, must have given the Christian churches a shock, of 
 which we now, especially in the absence of all particular informa¬ 
 tion respecting it, can hardly form a true conception. This 
 actual refutation of stiff-necked Judaism, this divine ratification 
 and sealing of Christianity, the confessors of which were all 
 rescued from the ruin, not only gave a mighty impulse to faith, 
 but at the same time formed a proper epoch in the history of the 
 relation between the two religious bodies. It separated them for 
 ever. It is true, the apostle Paul had before now inwardly com¬ 
 pleted this separation by the Christian universality of his whole 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 98. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 53 
 
 system of doctrine; but outwardly lie had in various ways ac¬ 
 commodated himself to Judaistn, and had more than once religi¬ 
 ously visited the temple. He wished not to appear as a revolu¬ 
 tionist, nor to anticipate the natural course of history, the ways 
 of Providence (1 Cor. vii. 18, et seq.) But now the rupture was 
 also outwardly consummated by the thunderbolt of divine omni¬ 
 potence. God himself destroyed the house, in which he had 
 thus far dwelt; rejected his peculiar people for their obstinate 
 rejection of the Messiah ; demolished the whole fabric of the 
 Mosaic theocracy, whose system of worship was, in its very 
 nature, associated exclusively with the tabernacle at first and 
 afterwards with the temple; but in so doing cut the cords which 
 had hitherto bound, and according to the law of organic develop¬ 
 ment necessarily bound, the infant church, especially the Jewish 
 portion of it, to the outward economy of the old covenant, and to 
 Jerusalem as its centre. Henceforth the heathen could no longer 
 look upon Christianity as a mere sect of Judaism, but must re¬ 
 gard and treat it as a new, peculiar religion. The destruction of 
 Jerusalem, therefore, marks that momentous crisis, at which the 
 Christian church as a whole burst forth for ever from the chrysalis 
 of legalism, awoke to a sense of its maturity, and in government 
 and worship at once took its independent stand before the world. 1 
 This breaking away from hardened Judaism and its religious 
 forms, however, involved no departure from the spirit of the Old 
 Testament revelation. The church, on the contrary, entered into 
 the inheritance of Israel. The Christians appeared as genuine 
 Jews, who, following the inward current of the Mosaic religion, 
 had found Him, who was the fulfilment of the law and the pro¬ 
 phets ; the perfect fruit of the old covenant and the living germ 
 of the new ; the beginning and the all-sufficient principle of a 
 new moral creation. 
 
 It now only remained to complete the organization of the 
 church in this altered state of things; to combine the premises 
 in their results; to take up the conservative tendency of Peter, 
 and the progressive tendency of Paul, as embodied respectively 
 in the Jewish Christian and the Gentile Christian churches, and 
 
 1 Comp, the excellent remarks of Dr Richard Rotlie (Die Anftinge dtr Christl. 
 Kirche nnd ihrer Verfassung, vol. i. p. 341, et seq.), which Schwegler ( Nachapost . 
 Zeitolter, II. p. 190), endeavours in vain to refute. 
 
54 
 
 § 98. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. [i. BOOK. 
 
 fuse them into a third and higher tendency in a permanent 
 organism ; to set forth alike the unity of the two Testaments in 
 diversity, and their diversity in unity; and in this way to wind 
 up the history of the apostolic church. This was the work of 
 John, the apostle of completion. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 99. PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION OF JOI3N. 55 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN. 
 
 § 99. Parentage and Education of John. 
 
 The close of the apostolic age and the transition to the suc¬ 
 ceeding period is formed by the activity of the beloved disciple 
 and bosom friend of Jesus. Him the Lord had appointed to 
 give the finishing stroke to the internal and external organization 
 of His church. 
 
 The apostle and evangelist JOHN, 1 was the son of Zebedee, 
 a Galilean fisherman, and Salome, and a brother of the elder 
 James. His birth-place was probably that of Peter, Andrew, 
 and Philip, the fishing town of JBethsaida. 2 His parents seem to 
 have been not altogether without means. His father kept hired 
 servants (Mark i. 20). His mother was one of the women who 
 supported Jesus with their property 3 and purchased spices to 
 embalm him. 4 John himself owned a house in Jerusalem, into 
 which he received the mother of the Lord after the crucifixion 
 (John xix. 27). The seeds of piety were no doubt planted in 
 his youthful heart by his pious mother. Salome shared, indeed, 
 at that time, still in the carnal Messianic hopes of the Jews, and 
 had somewhat of vanity withal; as appears from her asking of 
 the Lord in behalf of her two sons the highest places in His 
 kingdom (Matth. xx. 20, et seq.) Yet she was a faithful follower 
 of Jesus, not forsaking Him even when He hung on the cross 
 (Mark xv. 40).* Like all the other apostles, except Paul, John 
 
 1 From the Heb. pirn, i. e., Grace of Jehovah (Gotthold). 
 
 2 Matth. iv. 21; x. 2. Mark i. 19 ; iii. 17 ; x. 35. Luke v. 10. Acts xii. 2. 
 
 3 Matth. xxvii. 56. Mark xv. 40, et seq. Luke viii. 3. 
 
 4 Mark xvi. 1. Luke xxiii. 55, 56. 
 
 5 According to the new interpretation of John xix. 25, presented with acuteness 
 and learning by Wieseler in the “ Studien und Ivritiken,” 1840, No. 3, p. 648, et seq., 
 
56 §99. PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION OF JOHN. [l. BOOK. 
 
 grew up without a learned or scientific education (comp. Acts 
 iv. 13). All this deficiency was destined to be amply supplied 
 by a three years’ personal intercourse with the Master of all 
 masters, and by the supernatural illumination of the Holy Ghost. 
 But he was no doubt early made familiar with the Holy Scrip¬ 
 tures of the Old Testament, which gave his natural turn for 
 profound reflection, and his fine tender feeling, far more whole¬ 
 some exercise, than the learning of the Pharisaic schools, cor¬ 
 rupted as it was with all sorts of dangerous maxims. 
 
 In his youth he became a disciple of John the Baptist. For 
 he is undoubtedly the one not named of the two disciples of 
 John, of whom he himself speaks in his Gospel, i. 35, et seq. 
 His susceptible soul, longing for the Hope of Israel, must soon 
 have discerned a messenger of God in the earnest preacher of 
 repentance, who preceded Christ like the dawn before the sun. 
 By this herald, on the banks of the Jordan in Perea, he, together 
 with Andrew, was directed to Jesus as the Lamb of God which 
 taketh away the sin of the world. From his first interview with 
 the Saviour, he received so deep an impression, that he remem¬ 
 bered even in his old age that hour of meeting (John i. 39). 
 After one day’s intercourse with the Son of God he returned 
 with Peter and Andrew to his home and trade. There the good 
 seed, which had fallen into his heart, had opportunity to germi¬ 
 nate and unfold itself freely. It was part of the Lord’s great 
 wisdom as a teacher to do no violence to the course of nature in 
 drawing His disciples to Him. Soon after this John, with James, 
 Peter, and Andrew, was called away from his occupation by 
 Jesus to be one of His constant followers and apostles. 1 Thus 
 John is the representative of those disciples, who are gradually 
 
 Salome would be the sister of the mother of Jesus, and thus John a cousin of the 
 Lord. By “ his mother’s sister” Wieseler understands, not, as the common inter¬ 
 pretation makes it, Mary the wife of Cleophas (since it is altogether improbable that 
 two sisters would have the same name), but John’s own mother, who is known from 
 the parallel passages, Matth. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40, to have been present in fact at 
 the crucifixion, and could hardly have been passed over by her son ; and who is here 
 thus designated in a way exactly corresponding to John’s manner of indicating him¬ 
 self (“the disciple whom Jesus loved”). There are considerable difficulties, how¬ 
 ever, in the way of this explanation. Comp. Neander’s Apostelgesch. II. 609; my 
 tract on James, p. 22, et seq .; and the article on John, by W. Grimm, in Ersch and 
 Gruber's Encyklop., Sect. II., Part 22, p. 1, et seq. 
 
 1 Matth. iv. 18, et seq. Mark i. 16, et seq. Luke iv. 1-11. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 99. PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION OF JOHN. 57 
 
 drawn into fellowship with the Redeemer without any violent 
 inward struggles or unusual outward changes; while the apostle 
 Paul furnishes the most striking example of a sudden conversion. 
 The first mode of conversion is especially suited to mild, con¬ 
 templative, modest characters, such as Thomas a Kempis, 
 Melancthon, Spener, Bengel, Zinzendorf; the other, to such 
 strong, impetuous, resolute, independent natures, as Tertullian, 
 Augustine, Luther, Farel, and Calvin. 
 
 John, whose soul was formed for deep friendship and ardent 
 love, was one of the most confidential disciples of the Lord. He, 
 his brother James, and Simon Peter, were the chosen from 
 among the chosen ; the holy triad, upon whom the Saviour 
 bestowed special favour. They alone were admitted to witness 
 the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mark v. 37), the transfiguration 
 of Christ on Mount Tabor (Matth. xvii. 1), and his agony in 
 Gethsemane (Matth. xxvi. 37 ; Mark xiv. 33). The ground of 
 this preference must be looked for, partly in the Lord’s sove¬ 
 reign choice, partly in the peculiar character of the three disci¬ 
 ples. Of James we know very little. He seems to have been 
 of a quiet, earnest, meditative turn, and in the year 44, as before 
 noticed, he headed the band of apostolic martyrs. His place 
 was filled in a measure, as regards prominence and influence, by 
 the apostle Paul. Peter we have already seen to be an ardent, 
 impetuous man, of great energy, made for the practical superin¬ 
 tendence of the church. John makes not so much outward 
 show; but the flame of love burned the brighter and warmer 
 within. His deep, affectionate nature, which gave him his pecu¬ 
 liar religious genius, placed him above the two others, and made 
 him the dearest of the Saviour’s three chosen friends. His was 
 the great privilege of leaning on Jesus’ bosom, 1 and listening to 
 the heart-beatings of eternal mercy (John xiii. 23). In his 
 Gospel, therefore, in modest self-concealment, and at the same 
 time under a sense of the deepest gratitude, he designates him- 
 
 1 Hence he is styled by the Greek church fathers, <5 eri<rr46ios, the leaner on the 
 bosom, or as we would say, the bosom friend of Jesus. Very beautifully says Augus¬ 
 tine of the evangelist John, “ lie only poured forth the water of life, which he had 
 drunk. For not without reason is it related of him in his own Gospel, that he lay on 
 the bosom of the Lord at the supper also. From this bosom he quietly drank ; and 
 what he thus enjoyed in secret, he has given to the world to partake of.” (Tract. 3G, in 
 Joann.) 
 
58 
 
 § 100. HIS APOSTOLIC LABOUKS. [l. BOOK. 
 
 self as u the disciple whom Jesus loved.” 1 This is probably a 
 significant paraphrase and interpretation of his proper name, in 
 which he saw a prophecy of this perfect friendship, of his enjoy¬ 
 ment of the special favour of Christ, the incarnate Jehovah. 2 
 
 John showed his fidelity to the Lord in the hour of his suffer¬ 
 ing, following him with Peter into the palace of the high-priest 
 (John xviii. 19). He was the only one of all the disciples who 
 attended the crucifixion; and to him, as best fitted to take the 
 place of her child, Jesus committed his mother (xix. 26). He 
 took Mary to his house (ver. 27), and according to tradition kept 
 her till her death, which is said by Nicephorus to have taken place 
 at Jerusalem (according to other accounts at Ephesus) in the year 
 48. On the morning of the resurrection, accompanied again by 
 Peter, he hastened to the sepulchre and found it empty (xx. 3, 
 et seq.) The last time he meets us in the Gospels he is on the 
 sea of Gennesaret with six other disciples engaged in fishing the 
 whole night; but their labour was all in vain, when their risen 
 Master appeared to them and helped them out of their strait by 
 a miracle; thus hinting to them, that, in the apostolic career 
 before them, in the great work of catching men, nothing could 
 be accomplished by mere human power, but all depended on the 
 word of their Lord. The difference between John and Peter in 
 their conduct on this occasion is remarkable. The former at 
 once recognizes the Lord with the keen glance of love, but 
 remains quietly in the ship, certain of his possession, and all- 
 absorbed in thinking of it; while the impulsive Peter, now par¬ 
 ticularly restless under the consciousness of his denial and his 
 anxiety for explicit pardon, plunges into the waves and swims to 
 the feet of Jesus on the shore, to reach him first (John xxi. 2, 
 et seq.) So the contemplative Mary in calm hope waited for the 
 Lord at home, while her busy sister, Martha, ran to meet him 
 and tell him her grief (xi. 20). 
 
 § 100. His Apostolic Labours. 
 
 In the Acts of the Apostles John appears, next to Peter, as 
 the most important personage in the first or Jewish-Christian 
 stage of the apostolic church. By reason of his peculiar tempera- 
 
 1 John xiii. 23; xix. 26; xx. 2; xxi. 7, 20. 
 
 3 Comp. John xii. 41, with Isaiah vi. 1. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 100. HIS APOSTOLIC LABOURS. 
 
 59 
 
 ment, however, lie does not come out so prominently as Peter 
 either by speech or action, but keeps by the side of the senior 
 apostle in silent contemplation. With Peter he heals the cripple 
 (Acts iii. 1, et seq .); is sent with him to Samaria, to confirm by 
 the impartation of the Holy Ghost the Christians there baptized 
 by the deacon, Philip (viii. 14, et seq .); and thence returns to 
 Jerusalem. Here, in the year 50, he meets Paul, who had come 
 to consult with the elder apostles on the authority of the law of 
 Moses. Paul speaks of him and James and Peter as apostles of 
 the circumcision, and as pillars of the church (Gal. ii. 1-9). 
 Thus far, then, John seems to have confined his labours to the 
 Jews and to Palestine. Yet he undoubtedly already had in him 
 the germs of a reconciliation of Jewish and Gentile Christianity. 
 For we never find the Judaizers appealing to him, as the Cephas 
 party to Peter (1 Cor. i. 12), or the still stricter Jewish Chris¬ 
 tians to James (Gal. ii. 12) ; nor have we any hint of a proper 
 Johannean party. He stood above strife and division. When 
 Paul made his last visit to Jerusalem in 58, the favourite disci¬ 
 ple was no longer there, or Luke would certainly have men¬ 
 tioned him (Acts xxi. 18) ; and for his subsequent history we are 
 left to his own writings and the tradition of the church. 
 
 John afterwards fixed the permanent seat of his labour in the 
 renowned commercial city of Ephesus, thus in one of the most 
 important of Paul’s congregations. This fact is placed beyond 
 question by the unanimous testimony of Christian antiquity 
 and from the epistles of the Revelation (i. 11 ; ii. and iii.), it 
 would appear, that he had supervision of the churches of Asia 
 Minor in general. The time of his removal to Grecian soil can- 
 not be precisely determined. The most we can say is, that it 
 was not till after, or at all events not long before, the death of 
 Paul. For in Paul’s valedictory to the officers of the Ephesian 
 churches at Miletus there is not a svllable about John, nor in 
 his epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians and the second to 
 Timothy, written during his confinement in Rome. In all these 
 
 «y j o 
 
 1 Irenaeus (the disciple of Polycarp, who was personally acquainted with John), 
 Adv. Haer. III. 1, 3, etc., and his letter to Florinus in Eusebius, H. E. V. 20; also 
 Clemens Alex., in his homily, quis dives salvetur , c. 42; Apollonius and Polycrates of 
 Ephesus at the close of the second century (in Euseb. V. 18, 24, and III. 31); Origen, 
 Eusebius, etc. Nothing but the crazy scepticism of the deist, Liitzelberger, could in 
 the face of all this testimony pronounce John’s residence at Ephesus a fiction. 
 
60 
 
 § 100. HIS APOSTOLIC LABOURS. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 Paul evidently regards himself still as superintendent of the whole 
 church of Asia Minor. It was probably the martyrdom of the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles in 64, and the attendant dangers and 
 distractions long anticipated by himself (Acts xx. 29, 30), that 
 led John to take this important post, and build his own structure 
 on the foundation laid by Paul. Where he spent the interval 
 between the years 50 and 64, cannot be ascertained. 1 
 
 The vigorous life of the second century, which bears the im¬ 
 press of John’s influence, clearly shows that Asia Minor was 
 destined to be the main theatre of the church’s action in the 
 next stadium of her historv. There were collected all the forces 
 
 i/ 
 
 necessary to bring about a thorough purification,—the germs of 
 the two grand fundamental heresies, which the church was to 
 overcome. On the one hand the spirit of Pharisaical Judaism 
 threatened a new bondage to the law, particularly in the Gala¬ 
 tian churches. On the other there arose from a combination of 
 heathen and Jewish elements a false Gnosis, a tendency to licen¬ 
 tious speculation, which had been already opposed in the epistles 
 to Timothy and the Colossians, as also in the second epistle of 
 Peter and in Jude, and which afterwards took a more definite 
 and tangible form in the hands of Cerinthus, a younger contem¬ 
 porary of John. But not only from heretics was the church in 
 danger. The Jewish and Gentile believers had not yet rightly 
 grown together in firm, organic unity. The Jewish converts had 
 not yet ceased to look with a certain suspicion on the liberal stand 
 of Paul and his disciples towards the law; so that Peter found it 
 necessary in his epistles to the churches of that region to assert 
 his essential agreement in faith with the Apostle of the Gentiles 
 (comp. § 91). In this critical state of things John was the very 
 person to check the progress of the dangerous errors, and funda¬ 
 mentally to refute them, not in a simply negative way, but posi¬ 
 tively also, by meeting with truth the real wants from which 
 they sprang. As a native of Palestine and formerly one of the 
 apostles of the Jews, he had the confidence of the Jewish Chris- 
 
 1 The later report of his having carried the gospel to the Parthians must have arisen 
 from the inscription, “ Ad Parthos,” on some Latin manuscripts of the first epistle of 
 John; and this again from a misunderstanding of the epithet rx^divos anciently given 
 to this apostle on account of his celibacy. Comp. Liicke, Comment. %. d. Br. Joh., 2d 
 edit. p. 28, et s?q. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 101. PERSECUTION UNDER DOMITIAN. 
 
 61 
 
 tians; and his intellectual susceptibility and plasticity enabled 
 him readily to appropriate the Hellenistic element and adapt 
 himself to Paul’s position. And by thus reconciling in himself 
 these two ground-forms of apostolical Christianity, so far as they 
 were but different aspects of one and the same truth, he secured 
 to the whole church of Asia Minor that compact and well-forti¬ 
 fied unity so needful to maintain her against the enemies within, 
 as well as against bloody persecutions from without. 
 
 § 101. Persecution under Domitian. Banishment of John to 
 
 Patmos . 
 
 In this benign labour, the monuments of which stand before 
 us in his Gospel and Epistles, John was interrupted by the per¬ 
 secution under Domitian, to work for the kingdom of God in 
 another way by unveiling the mysteries of the future. 
 
 Domitian succeeded his brother Titus and reigned from a.d. 
 81 to his assassination in 96. He was totally unlike his prede¬ 
 cessor. He made a happy beginning, but soon showed himself 
 a consummate tyrant, not awhit behind Nero in cruelty, while he 
 surpassed him in hypocrisy. Just when he seemed most friendly 
 and condescending, was he most to be feared for his thirst for 
 blood. He killed or banished the most upright and distinguished 
 men, even senators and consuls, upon the idlest pretexts, when 
 they fell under his dark suspicion, or stood in the way of his 
 insatiable ambition. Self-deification he carried to the summit of 
 blasphemy. He was the first Roman emperor after Caligula to 
 arrogate the name of God. He began his letters with the 
 words : u Our Lord and God commands,” and required his sub¬ 
 jects to address him so. 1 Nay, he put himself above the gods, 
 and ordered gold and silver statues of himself to be placed in the 
 holiest part of the temple, and whole herds of victims to be sacri¬ 
 ficed to him. 2 Such a man could not but look upon the confess¬ 
 ing of Christ as a treasonable offence. Under his reign many 
 Christians suffered martyrdom, among whom was his own cousin, 
 the consul Flavius Clemens. 3 His jealously led him also to de- 
 
 1 Suetonius, Domit., ch. 13: “ 4 Dominus et Deus noster hoc fieri jubet.’ Uncle 
 institutum posthac, ut ne scripto quidera ac sermone cujusquam appellaretur aliter.” 
 
 2 Pliny, Panegyr., ch. 52, ef. 33. 
 
 3 The pagan historian, Dio Cassius (in the abridgment by Xiphilinus, 67, 14), says. 
 
62 
 
 § 101. PERSECUTION UNDER DOMITIAN. [i. BOOK. 
 
 stroy the surviving descendants of David, and to bring two kins¬ 
 men of Jesus from Palestine to Rome; fearing their aspirations, 
 till he convinced himself, that they were poor, innocent persons, 
 from whom he had nothing to apprehend. 1 
 
 Under this emperor, John, according to tradition, was banished 
 to the solitary, barren, rocky island of Patinos (now Patmo or 
 Palmosa) in the JEgean sea, near the coast of Asia, south-west 
 of Ephesus. There he received the Revelation of the struggles 
 and victories of the church. 2 That he had the vision while an 
 exile on this island he himself informs us, Rev. i. 9 : u I, John, 
 who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in 
 the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that 
 is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of 
 Jesus Christ.” And that it was in the reign of Domitian is the 
 almost unanimous testimony of Christian antiquity ; with which 
 also the contents of the book itself, rightly understood, are by 
 no means inconsistent. The oldest witness is Irenseus, who 
 merits special regard as a pupil of Polycarp, who was a per- 
 
 “ In the same year Domitian put to death, besides many others, Flavius Clemens, of 
 consular dignity, though he was his cousin, and married to Domitilla, who was like¬ 
 wise related to him. Both were charged with atheism. On this ground many 
 others, who had strayed away to the customs of the Jews (i . e., converts to Chris¬ 
 tianity), were condemned. Some had to die, others were deprived of their property. 
 Domitilla was only banished to the island of Pandateria ” (in the bay of Puteoli, near 
 Naples). By atheism here is no doubt to be understood the denial of the heathen 
 deities, the Christian faith. Comp, the passages in Gieseler’s Kirchengesch. 1.1, p. 
 135. Christian tradition places the martyrdom of Andrew, Mark, Onesimus, and 
 Dionysius the Areopagite also in the time of Domitian’s persecution. 
 
 1 Hegesippus, in Euseb. H. E. III. 19, 20. According to Tertullian ( JDe praeser. 
 haer., c. 36), John was brought to Rome (he does not say by what emperor), plunged 
 into a caldron of boiling oil, and, unhurt by this, was banished to the island of Patmos 
 (“ ubi— i. e. at Rome—apost. Joh., posteaquam in oleum igneum demersus nihil passus 
 est, in insulam relegatur”). His being tortured in this way is, indeed, in itself by no 
 means improbable, considering the unnatural cruelties said by Tacitus and Juvenal 
 to have been inflicted on the Christians in the Neronian persecution. But, as Ter¬ 
 tullian is not very discriminating in historical matters, and as the statement in ques¬ 
 tion is made by no one else save Jerome, and by him on the authority of Tertullian, 
 we cannot place any reliance upon it, and are disposed, with many, to class it at least 
 among exaggerated stories. 
 
 2 At the harbour de la Scala, the grotto is still pointed out where the beloved disciple 
 beheld in ecstatic vision, “ on the Lord’s day,” the future of the church. Tischendorf 
 thus describes the island (Reise in's Morgenland, II. p. 257, et seq. : “ Silent lay the 
 little island before me in the morning twilight. Here and there an olive breaks the 
 monotony of the rocky waste. The sea was still as the grave ; Patmos reposed in it 
 
 like a dead saint.John—that is the thought of the island. The island belongs 
 
 to him ; it is his sanctuary. Its stones preach of him, and in every heart he lives.” 
 
MISSIONS.] BANISHMENT OF JOHN TO PATMOS. 
 
 63 
 
 sonal friend of John. He says explicitly and with great con¬ 
 fidence, that the revelation was received not long before, in fact 
 almost within the limits of his generation, that is, towards the 
 end of Domitian’s reign. 1 With him agrees Eusebius, who, in 
 several passages ofhis Church History, on the authority of 
 ancient tradition, assigns the banishment of John to the reign of 
 this emperor, in his Chronicle to the fourteenth year of it (i. e., 
 a.d. 95); and places the apostle’s return to Ephesus in the reign 
 of Nerva. 2 So Jerome 3 and others. Two earlier witnesses, 
 Clement of Alexandria and Origen, who would come immediately 
 after Irenasus in time, do not, it is true, give the name of the 
 emperor who banished the apostle, but designate him, the former 
 as a a tyrant,” 4 the latter still more indefinitely, as “king of the 
 Romans.” 5 Both phrases, however, suit Domitian as w~ell as 
 Nero; the expression 66 tyrant” better, since of all the Roman 
 emperors Domitian was the most arrant despot. Tacitus says 
 of him, that he u laboured not only at intervals, by paroxysms, 
 but systematically, to demolish the commonwealth as at one 
 blow.” 6 To him Eusebius also referred the passage of Clement. 
 
 * Adv. haeT. V. 30: OuVe yd.% creo sroAAeu %%bvou iugotd'yi SirroxotXv^/is), «AA« tr%idbv itri 
 rijg ripiri^xt yivtois, sr go s r a r e A 1i rtfs Aop.iriu.vou a, § % y s • Guericke’s hypo¬ 
 thesis, which, contrary to all rules of grammar, would make Aopinuvou an adjective, 
 and refer it to Domitius Nero ( Einl . in's N. T. p. 285), to reconcile the passage with 
 his present opinion respecting the date of the Apocalypse (for formerly, in his 
 “ Beitriigen zur Einl.,” p. 55, and his “Fortgesetzten Beitragen,” p. 30, he had advo¬ 
 cated the true view), is utterly untenable, in view even of the immediately preceding 
 context, which does not at all suit the time of Nero, who lived a full century before 
 Irenseus wrote his work against the Gnostics. The absence of the article is not in 
 the least against the word being a substantive ; since Eusebius, where he confessedly 
 uses it for Domitian, likewise leaves out the article, II. E. III. 23: Mira. r^v Aopinuvou 
 tea tvTYiv. So Philostratus, Vita Apoll. VII. 4: T»5r Aop.iria.vou <po%ug. 
 
 2 H. E. III. 18 : “ Under him (Domitian), according to tradition, the then surviving 
 apostle and evangelist, John, on account of his testimony for the word of God, was 
 condemned to dwell on the island of Patmos.” Also III. 20, 23, and Chron. ad ann. 
 14 Domitiani. 
 
 3 JDe viris illustr., ch. 9 : “ Johannes quarto decimo anno secundam post Neronem 
 persecutionem movente Domitiano in Patmos insulam relegatus scripsit Apocalypsin.” 
 
 4 Quis dives salv., ch. 42, and in Euseb. H. E. III. 23: ’’E.-ru'Sb yeto rou ru^oiwou 
 
 Ti’kiVTv\<ra,vro; a-no Ihx.rp.ou rvn vritrov pirr}X6iv tig rijV 'E<pttrov. 
 
 6 Orig. ad Matt. xx. 22, 23. Opp. ed. de la Rue, III. 720. Respecting this testi¬ 
 mony, comp, the observations of Hengstenberg, Commentar uber die Offenbarung des 
 heil. Joh. I. p. 4, et seq. (Translated in Clark’s Foreign Theological Library), who, 
 against the modern criticism, ably defends the old view', that the book was composed 
 in the time of Domitian. 
 
 6 Agric.y ch. 44. Comp. Pliny’s portrait of this “inmanissima bellua,” Paneg. c. 48. 
 
64 
 
 § 101. PERSECUTION UNDER DOM1T1AN. [l. BOOK. 
 
 The uncritical and credulous Epiphanius is the first to deviate 
 from this view. He puts the banishment of John in the reign 
 of Claudius. But he has no support from any quarter, and has 
 accordingly never been followed. 1 
 
 On the other hand, the authority of Ewald, Lucke, and 
 Neander in modern times, has given considerable popularity to 
 the view, that the Apocalypse (which, however, is not regarded by 
 these scholars as the work of the apostle John) was written in 
 the reign of Galba, a.d. 68 or 69, soon after the death of Nero. 2 
 The only other witness for this, of any account, is the Syriac 
 translator of this book, 3 who does not, however, appeal to tra¬ 
 dition at all, and probably founds his statement merely on his 
 own view of the contents. In either case his authority bears no 
 comparison with that of the much older Iremeus. And in fact 
 the modern interpreters determine the date from evidence alto¬ 
 gether internal. They seem to find in the Apocalypse itself 
 plain indications that it must have been written before the de¬ 
 struction of Jerusalem (ch. xi.), in lively remembrance of the 
 
 1 We cannot, therefore, justify Dr Lucke and Dr Davidson in speaking of a “ vacil¬ 
 lation of the church tradition concerning the date of the exile and Apocalypse” (Ver- 
 such einer vollstdndigen Einleitung in die Offenbar. Job. p. 409). On this point tradi¬ 
 tion, so far as it has any historical weight, is unanimous. The only deviations are 
 individual opinions, which even contradict one another. 
 
 2 This was the opinion already of Herder ( Maranatlia , p. 207), who held the Apoca¬ 
 lypse to he genuine, but erroneously referred its contents to the destruction of Jeru¬ 
 salem. Of English theologians I see that Dr Davidson, in his learned article on 
 “ Revelation” in Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, vol. ii. p. 621, etseq. (Amer, 
 ed.), adopts the false view that the book w T as written during the reign of Nero, and is 
 much too hasty, when he says—“ The tradition of the early church in regard to the 
 banishment of John is neither consistent nor valuable; it will not stand the test of 
 modern criticism. Hence the view of those who think that it was manufactured solely 
 from ch. i. 9, is exceedingly probable.” 
 
 3 In the title, “ Revelatio, quam Deus Joanni Evangelistae in Patmo insula dedit, in 
 quam a Nerone Csesare relegatus fuerat.” The Syriac translation of the Apocalypse, 
 however, is wanting in the original Peshito and belongs to the Philoxeniana, or rather 
 to its recension by Thomas. It therefore dates only from the seventh century, accord¬ 
 ing to a Florentine MS. from the year 622 (comp. Hug’s Einleit. in's N. T. I. p. 353, 
 et seq., and De Wette’s Einl. in's N. T. § 11. «.); and its isolated statement respect¬ 
 ing the date of the Apocalypse has, therefore, in reality no critical value at all. Still 
 less regard is due in this matter to Theophylact of the twelfth century. He evidently 
 confounds two things entirely different. In his Commentary on John’s Gospel, he 
 takes the Gospel of John (not the Apocalypse) to have been composed in the island 
 of Patmos thirty-two years after the ascension of Christ, therefore under Nero, whom, 
 however, he does not name; an opinion universally rejected. How Guericke, then, in 
 this connection {Einl. p. 285), can speak of Theophylact as a “discriminating critic,” 
 
 I cannot conceive. 
 
MISSIONS.] BANISHMENT OF JOHN TO FATMOS. C>5 
 
 persecution under Nero and the burning of Rome, and during 
 the reign of the sixth Roman emperor (Galba), before the sup¬ 
 posed return of Nero (to whom several moderns altogether 
 erroneously apply the number 666) in the character of Antichrist 
 (c. 17). But this internal evidence is here the less decisive, 
 because the interpretation of this mysterious book as a whole, 
 and of this section in particular, is yet in dispute. 1 With fully 
 as much, vea with more right we might infer from the state of 
 the churches in Asia Minor, as described in the seven epistles, 
 and especially from the existence of the Gnostic sect of the 
 Nicolaitans, that the revelation could not have been written long 
 before the close of the first century. Besides, Nero’s persecution 
 falls not in the year 67, as is so frequently assumed from the 
 false reckoning of Eusebius, but according to the clear testimony 
 of Tacitus in the year 64 (comp. § 88) ; was of short duration ; 
 and on account of its local occasion—the setting fire to the city 
 falsely charged upon the Christians—was perhaps confined to 
 Rome. At least there is not the slightest historical proof that 
 it extended to the provinces, and in particular to Asia Minor, 
 until we come to Orosius in the beginning of the fifth century; 
 and his testimony is of no account, since he in other matters 
 merely copies Suetonius. Finally, we know nothing of Nero’s 
 having punished the Christians with banishment: while Dio 
 Cassius says expressly that Domitian banished to Pandateria 
 his relative Flavia Domitilla, the wife of the above named 
 Clemens (Eusebius says his niece — unless we suppose two 
 women of this name), on account of atheism (ddeorrjs), that is, 
 the Christian faith. 2 
 
 In this state of the case we adhere to the oldest and most 
 prevalent view of the date of John’s banishment, and of the date 
 of the Apocalypse therewith connected. Irenasus had the best 
 opportunity to collect authentic accounts of this fact from one 
 who, like Polycarp, was a personal friend and pupil of the apostle. 
 
 1 Against this comp. Dr J. Chr. K. Hoffmann’s Weissagung und Erfiillung (1841), 
 II. p. 301, et seq., and, for a detailed discussion, the Commentary of Hengstenberg and 
 the introduction to it, I. p. 27, et seq. 
 
 2 Dio, B. G7, 14; comp. 68, 1, and Euseb. H. E. III. 18. Banishment was with Do¬ 
 mitian a favourite punishment. Tacitus congratulates Agricola, that he did not live 
 to see under this emperor “tot consularium caedes, tot nobilissimarum feminarum 
 exilia etfugas” (Fit. Agr. c. 44). 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
66 
 
 § 102. John’s return to ephesus, 
 
 [l. BOOK. 
 
 Criticism of internal evidence only wrongs itself by thus slighting 
 the clear testimony of history; especially in the interpretation of 
 a book, the obscurity of which gives double occasion for modesty 
 and caution, 
 
 § 102. John's Return to Ephesus , and the Close of his Life. 
 
 With the death of the tyrant, a.d. 96, the apostle, after per¬ 
 haps a year or more of exile, recovered his freedom. The suc¬ 
 cessor of Domitian, the just and humane Nerva, the first of a 
 series of good emperors, recalled the exiles, according to Dio 
 Cassius, and put an end to the mean business of informers and 
 sycophants. John now returned to Ephesus, into his former 
 field of labour, and presided over the church in Asia till his 
 death. 1 To these closing years of his life belong two character¬ 
 istic anecdotes, which bear the full impress of truth. 2 
 
 One is given by Clement of Alexandria, who wrote at the 
 end of the second century. It is an affecting testimony to the 
 tender, devoted faithfulness of the aged pastor. Having re¬ 
 turned from Patmos to Ephesus, as Clement relates, 3 John 
 visited the surrounding region to appoint bishops and organize 
 churches. In a town not far from Ephesus he met with a 
 youth whose beauty and ardour at once so engaged his interest, 
 that he handed him over to the bishop as an object of very 
 special care. The bishop instructed him in the Gospel, and 
 connected him with the church by holy baptism. But the 
 pastor now relaxing his vigilance, the youth, too soon deprived 
 of parental care, fell into bad company, and even became leader 
 of a band of robbers, surpassing all his associates in bloodthirsty 
 violence. Some time afterwards John came again to that town, 
 
 1 Clemens Alex. 1. c., and Euseb. III. 20,23. To his superintendence of the church 
 of Asia Minor may no doubt refer the strange remark of Polycrates in Eusebius (ver. 
 24), that John wore the petalon, the diadem of the Jewish high priest. Perhaps he 
 was regarded as the Christian high priest, because in the Apocalypse he entered 
 farther than any other into the mysteries of the heavenly sanctuary. 
 
 2 Other stories, on the contrary, must be referred to the province of fable; as, for 
 instance, that John destroyed the famous temple of Diana (Nicephorw , H. E. II. 42); 
 and that, shortly before his death, he drank a bowel of poison without harm (first in 
 Augustine’s Soliloquiis ). This last act is ascribed by Papias (in Eus. III. 39) also to 
 Joses Barnabas; and this account may rest on Mark xvi. 18, and Matth. xx. 23. 
 
 3 Qais dives salv., eh. 42; and in Eus. III. 23. This beautiful legend has been 
 thrown into a poem by Herder, with the title, “ Der gerettete Jungling.” 
 
MISSIONS.] AND TIIE CLOSE OF HIS LIFE. 07 
 
 and anxiously inquired after the young man. u Come,” said he 
 to the bishop, “give us back the pledge which I and the Saviour 
 entrusted to thee before the congregation.” With a sigh, the 
 bishop answered, “ The youth has apostatized and become a 
 robber. Instead of being in the church, he now dwells with 
 his companions in a mountain.” With a loud cry the apostle 
 rent his clothes, smote on his head, and exclaimed, u O what a 
 guardian I placed over the soul of my brother!” Taking a 
 horse and a guide, he hurried to the retreat of the robbers. Seized 
 by the guard he made no attempt to escape, but begged to be 
 brought to the leader, who, on recognizing John, fled for shame. 
 The apostle, forgetting his age, pursued him with might and 
 main, crying, “Why fleest thou from me, O child ! from me, thy 
 father, an unarmed old man ? Pity me, O child! Be not 
 afraid ! Thou still hast hope of life. I will account to Christ 
 for thee. I will gladly, if need be, die for thee, as Christ has 
 died for us. Stop ! Believe that Christ has sent me.” These 
 words were like swords to the soul of the unhappy man. Pie 
 stopped, threw down his instruments of murder, and began to 
 tremble and weep bitterly. When the aged apostle came up, 
 the youth clasped his knees, prayed with strong lamentation for 
 pardon, and with his tears of repentance, as it were, baptized 
 himself a second time. The apostle assured him that he had 
 obtained forgiveness for him from the Saviour, fell upon his 
 knees and kissed his hand. He then led him back to the con¬ 
 gregation, and there prayed earnestly with him and laboured 
 with him, in fasting, and exhorted him, till he was able to return 
 him to the church as an example of thorough conversion. 
 
 Another incident, equally touching, is related by Jerome in 
 the course of his exposition of Galatians. In his extreme old 
 age John was too weak to go into the assembly, and had to be 
 carried. Unable to deliver long discourses, he simply said, 
 “ Little children, love one another.” When asked why he con¬ 
 tinually repeated this one exhortation, he replied, u Because this 
 is the command of the Lord, and enough is done if this one 
 command be obeyed.”—Assuredly so. For as God himself is 
 love, love to Him and to the brethren is the essence and sum of 
 religion and morality, the fulfilling of the law and the prophets, 
 the bond of perfectness. 
 
68 
 
 § 103. CHARACTER OF JOHN. 
 
 [_I. BOOK. 
 
 All the old accounts agree in the statement that John lived 
 down into the reign of the emperor Trajan, who ascended the 
 throne a.l>. 98 ; and that he died a natural death in Ephesus at 
 the advanced age of ninety years or upwards. 1 While most of 
 his colleagues were baptized with the bloody baptism of martyr¬ 
 dom, this aged youth passed along in heavenly peace through 
 the tribulations of the primitive church, and softly fell asleep on 
 the bosom of love. 2 A misunderstanding of the enigmatical 
 language of Jesus, John xxi. 22 : “If I will that he tarry till I 
 come, what is that to thee ?” gave rise to the rumour that John 
 was not really dead, but only asleep, moving the mound over 
 his grave with his breathing, awaiting the final advent of the 
 Lord. 3 His writings certainly perpetuate his life and influence 
 eternally, and the perfect understanding of them seems to have 
 a special connection with the future completion of the church 
 and her preparation to receive her heavenly bridegroom, as they 
 close, in fact, with the significant assurance and prayer (Rev. 
 xxii. 20) ; “ Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, 
 Lord Jesus.” 
 
 § 103. Character of John. 
 
 Let us now endeavour to form, from the testimonies of history, 
 and above all from the writings of John, a picture of his genius 
 and religious character. The theoretical and practical talents, 
 
 1 So Irenseus, Eusebius, Jerome, and others. The latter ( De vir. ill. c. 9) says of 
 John: “ Sub Nerva principe redit Ephesum, ibique usque ad Trajanum principem 
 perseverans totas Asiae fundavit rexitque ecclesias, et confectus senio anno sexa- 
 gesimo octavo post passionem Domini ( i. e., a.d. 100, as this father places Christ’s 
 death in 32) mortuus juxta eandem urbem sepultus est.” 
 
 2 When the Ephesian bishop, Polycrates, in Euseb. H. E. III. 31, V. 24, calls John 
 a " martyr,” he must refer either to his preaching of the gospel, or (as $J<x.<rxoi\os im¬ 
 mediately follows), to his banishment to Patmos. To reconcile the above tradition 
 with the Lord’s prediction respecting the fate of the sons of Zebedee, Matth. xx. 23, 
 Jerome, on this passage, calls to his aid Tertullian’s story of John’s harmless immer¬ 
 sion in boiling oil, in which the apostle showed the disposition of a martyr, and drank 
 the calix confessionis. 
 
 3 Augustine mentions this story, but contradicts it in Tract. 224 in Evang. Joann. 
 According to another legend (in Photius, Myriobibl. cod. 229, and in Pseudo-Hippoly- 
 tus, De consummatione mundi, comp. Lampe’s Comment, in Evang. Jo. t. i. p. 98) John 
 died, indeed, but was immediately raised again from the grave, translated like Enoch 
 and Elias, and, with these saints of the Old Testament, will appear as the herald of 
 the visible return of Christ, and the antagonist of Antichrist, as John the Baptist 
 prepared the way for the first coming of the Lord. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 103. CHARACTER OF JOHN. 69 
 
 which the Creator gives man as his dowry, are not destroyed by 
 the action of regenerating grace, but only purged of all admixture 
 of sin, consecrated to the service of God, and thus first brought 
 to full maturity. John is unquestionably one of the highly- 
 gifted natures, endowed with a delicate, contemplative mind, 
 lively feeling, glowing imagination, and a tender, lovely heart. 
 Every talent and trait of character, however, is accompanied by 
 its corresponding sinful tendency, and exposed to a particular 
 abuse. The apostle’s contemplative turn, in a bad school, might 
 easily have led him off into the cloudy regions of a false mysti¬ 
 cism, or a visionary, pantheistic speculation, which would con¬ 
 found God and the world. But, anointed by faith, which fixed 
 his intuition on the Eternal World incarnate, this gift became a 
 holy wisdom, opening to our view the depths of God’s heart, and 
 his purposes of love towards mankind. In his intercourse with 
 the personal Truth, John became the corypheus of Christian 
 philosophers, a representative of divinely-inspired knowledge ; 
 pre-eminently the u Theologos.” He knew how to communicate 
 in the most simple, childlike dress the profoundest truths, which 
 furnish the maturest thinkers inexhaustible material for study. 
 The symbol, by which the church has represented him, is the 
 eagle, boldly and joyfully soaring into the highest regions; and 
 hence the genial Kaphael has represented him as resting on 
 eagle’s wings, and looking with intrepid gaze into the heights of 
 heaven. By this significant emblem would the church set forth 
 the keen discernment, the far-reaching prophetic power, the bold 
 flight, and the noble, imposing strength of the mind of John. 1 
 
 In his moral character John, like his colleagues, in spite of all 
 his noble virtues, was of course not sinless. Such delicately- 
 formed, loving souls are commonly inclined to sensitiveness, envy, 
 refined self-love, and vanity. A certain jealousy reveals itself in 
 
 1 Jerome ( Comment. ad Matth. Procem.) observes: “ Quarta aquilae (facies, comp. 
 Ezek. i. 10), Joannem (significat), quia sumtis pennis aquilae et ad altiorafestinans de 
 verbo Dei disputat.”—An old epigram says of John, “ More volans aquilae verbo petit 
 astra Joannes ; ” and a medieval hymn sings of him : 
 
 “ Volat avis sine meta, 
 
 Quo nec vates nec propheta 
 Evolavit altius. 
 
 Tam implenda, quam impleta, 
 
 Numquam vidit tot seci’eta 
 Purus homo purius.” 
 
 I 
 
70 
 
 § 103. CHARACTER OF JOHN. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 his conduct recorded in Luke ix. 49, 50, and Mark ix. 38-40; 
 and his prayer to the Lord for the highest place, a minister’s 
 post as it were, in the Messianic kingdom (Mark x. 35), betrays 
 the workings of ambition. Particularly important is the incident 
 related by Luke, chap. ix. 51-56. When the inhabitants of a 
 Samaritan village refused to receive Jesus, the brothers, John 
 and James, broke forth in the angry words: “Lord, wilt thou 
 that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume 
 them, even as Elias did ?” Here is plainly a precipitate, carnal 
 zeal, an impure spirit of revenge, which confounded the New 
 Testament position with the Old, and forgot that the Son of Man 
 had come, not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. From 
 this, however, we see, that John by no means had, as is often 
 represented, a weak, sentimental nature. His love was always 
 deep and strong, and might, therefore, easily turn into equally 
 violent hatred; for hatred is inverted love. Probably the sur¬ 
 name “sons of thunder,” which Jesus gave the sons of Zebedee 
 (Mark iii. 17), has reference to this trait of character, and denotes 
 that intensity of feeling, that vehemence of affection, which might 
 easily vent itself in bursts of auger like that just noticed. An 
 ardent nature passionately grasps the object of its love, but repels 
 with equal violence whatever is hostile to it. So long as this 
 temper was not purified and softened by the divine Spirit, it 
 might, like the heavy, crashing thunder, work destruction. 
 Jesus, therefore, in giving J ohn that surname, rebuked his in¬ 
 considerate zeal and carnal passion, and gave him a significant 
 hint to curb his natural disposition, and purge his ardour of all 
 sinful admixtures. But subjected to the discipline and direction 
 of the Holy Ghost, this temper might, like every sanctified 
 natural talent, accomplish great and glorious things in the king¬ 
 dom of God. In this view, the title, “ sons of thunder,” implies 
 something honourable. The same thunder, which at one time 
 destroys, at another purifies the air, and with its accompanying 
 showers fructifies the earth. 1 All that was true and good, there¬ 
 fore, in that zeal, remained in the regenerate John ; the moral 
 
 1 The Greek fathers are incorrect in referring the appellation Bor tllol figOVTvjs 
 (from 13 a and *i:o) to the striking presentation of profound ideas, the convincing 
 power of eloquence. Then the title would be only honourable, involve no censure, 
 and stand in no sort of connection with the fact, Luke ix. 51-5G. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 103. CHARACTER OF JOHN. 
 
 71 
 
 energy, for instance, and decision, with which he loved good and 
 hated evil. The natural disposition was cleansed from all sinful 
 passion, softened, and made subservient to the will of God. In 
 the Apocalypse, the thunder rolls loud and mighty against the 
 enemies of the Lord and His bride. In the Gospel and Epistles, 
 it is true, the gentle, quiet breeze prevails ; but here also the 
 storm lowers at least in the distance, in the description of the 
 judgment of the Son of Man (John v. 25-30). With what holy 
 horror does the apostle speak of the traitor, and of the rising rage 
 of the Pharisees against their Messiah ! He represents the Lord 
 as calling the Jews, who had murderous designs upon Him, 
 children of the devil, without qualification (viii. 44). He him¬ 
 self terms every one who does not confirm his Christian profes¬ 
 sion by holy conduct, a liar (1 John i. 6, 8, 10); every one who 
 hates his brother, a murderer (iii. 15) ; every one who wilfully 
 sins, a child of the devil (iii. 8). How earnestly and decidedly 
 does he warn men of every denier of the incarnation of Christ, as 
 of a liar and Antichrist (ii. 18, et seq .; iv. 1, et seq.) Nay, in 
 his second epistle, ver. 10 and 11, he forbids even the saluting an 
 errorist or receiving him into the house. In view of these pas¬ 
 sages, there is nothing at all improbable in the narrative of 
 Irenaeus, 1 that when the aged apostle once met the Gnostic 
 errorist, Cerintlius, in a public bath, he immediately left the 
 place, saying, he feared the building might fall to pieces, because 
 Cerintlius, the enemy of the truth, was in it. 
 
 If we only do not think of the character of John as unmanly 
 and soft, after the fashion of sentimental romance-writers, we 
 shall have no difficulty in reconciling these apparently conflicting 
 traits of glowing love and consuming wrath, heavenly mildness 
 and thundering zeal. 2 It was one and the same disposition which 
 revealed itself in both cases, only in opposite directions; at one 
 time embracing the divine, at another repelling the ungodly and 
 
 1 Adv. Haer. III. 3. Comp. Euseb. III. 28, and IV. 14. 
 
 2 We have an interesting psychological parallel in the church historian, Neander, 
 who has been frequently, and not without reason, compared with John. This divine 
 is well known to have been uncommonly mild, and often to have gone too far in his 
 liberality and lenity towards different and even decidedly erroneous views of Chris¬ 
 tianity. And yet, against certain phenomena of our age, particularly the philosophy 
 of Hegel and his followers, he showed a repulsive severity and bitterness, and in his 
 private intercourse with his pupils took every opportunity to warn them against the 
 “ Moloch of modern pantheism.” 
 
72 § 103. CHARACTER OF JOHN. [l. BOOK. 
 
 anticliristian ; as the same sun gives light and warmth to the 
 living, and hastens the decay of the dead. He who places 
 Christian love in a good-natured indulgence towards sin, entirely 
 mistakes its true spirit, and only ruins the moral character of 
 him towards whom he shows this false forbearance. The more 
 ardently a mother loves her child, the more carefully will she 
 watch and punish his faults, that he may grow more and more 
 lovely. The more glowing and unreserved a man’s love to God, 
 the more decided and inflexible will be his hatred of the devil 
 and of all wickedness. 
 
 If we compare John with Peter, we find, that with all their 
 unity of faith and love they exhibit the glorified image of God 
 in very different aspects. Peter is made for outward, practical 
 activity, for organizing and superintending the church ; John, 
 with his pensive, profoundly meditative turn, is fitted for promot¬ 
 ing the inward life of knowledge and love in congregations 
 already established. In the Acts of the Apostles we find both at 
 the head of the infant church ; but Peter towers far above John 
 in commanding energy. It is Peter who comes forth as the 
 awakening preacher, the mighty wonder-worker, the pioneer and 
 prince of the apostles. The disciple of love, in mysterious silence, 
 stands modestly at his side, yet imposingly; for one feels that he 
 bears in his silent soul a whole world of thought, which he will 
 yet in proper time and place reveal. While Peter and Paul had 
 the gifts for planting, John, like Apollos, had the talents for 
 watering. To him the Head of the church committed not the 
 work of founding, but that of finishing. As his Gospel, both in 
 its date and character, presupposes the three others, so his writ¬ 
 ings in general, to be fully understood, call, with all their child¬ 
 like simplicity, for a high degree of Christian knowledge. In 
 temperament, Peter is sanguine, with a strong infusion of the 
 choleric; hence excitable, quick in deciding, imperious, pas¬ 
 sionate, not always persevering and reliable, because determined 
 by momentary impressions; a man of the present, ready for im¬ 
 mediate speech and action. John is melancholic, therefore, not 
 so quickly but all the more deeply moved, clinging with the 
 strongest affection to the object of his love, little concerned about 
 the world without, lingering musingly in the past, a master in 
 knowledge and love. Both disciples loved the Lord with all the 
 
AIISSIONS.] 
 
 § 103. CHARACTER OF JOHN. 
 
 73 
 
 heart, but, as Grotius finely remarks, Peter was more a friend of 
 Christ ( (fnXoxpia-Tos ), John of Jesus (cfnXoLrja-ovs) ; that is, the one 
 revered and loved the Saviour chiefly in His official, Messianic 
 character ; the other was attached most of all to His person, and 
 was, therefore, personally still nearer to Him, being, so to speak, 
 His bosom friend. Then again, the love of the former was more 
 active and masculine, that of the latter more receptive and 
 virgin-like. Peter took greatest delight in acting out his love to 
 the Lord ; John, in having himself loved by Him, and in the 
 consciousness that he was so loved. Hence he so often styles 
 
 V 
 
 himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. Among the female 
 characters of the New Testament, we find precisely the same re¬ 
 lation between the practical Martha, careful and troubled about 
 many things, and the contemplative Mary, forgetting the out¬ 
 ward world and joyfully reposing in the love of Jesus, the one 
 thing needful. Yet both have the approval of the Lord ; both 
 are equally necessary in the kingdom of God; and the absence 
 of either of these characters would essentially mar the complete 
 New Testament picture of the Christian life. 
 
 John and Paul have depth of knowledge in common. They 
 are the two apostles who have left us the most complete systems 
 of doctrine. But they know in different ways. Paul, educated 
 in the schools of the-Pharisees, is an exceedingly acute thinker 
 and an accomplished dialectician. He sets forth the doctrines of 
 Christianity in a systematic scheme, proceeding from cause to 
 effect, from the general to the particular, from premise to conclu¬ 
 sion, with logical clearness and precision. He is a representa¬ 
 tive of genuine scholasticism in the best sense of the term. John’s 
 knowledge is that of intuition and contemplation. He gazes with 
 his whole soul upon the object before him, surveys all as in one 
 picture, and thus presents the profoundest truths as an eye-wit¬ 
 ness, not by a course of logical demonstration, but immediately 
 as they lie in reality before him. His knowledge of divine things 
 is the deep insight of love, which ever fixes itself at the centre, 
 and thence surveys all points of the circumference at once. He 
 is the representative of all true mysticism . Both these apostles 
 together meet all the demands of the mind thirsting for wisdom; 
 of the keenly-dissecting understanding, as well as the specula¬ 
 tive reason, which comprehends what is thus analyzed in its 
 
74 
 
 § 104. THE WRITINGS OF JOHN. 
 
 |_I. BOOK. 
 
 highest unity; of mediate reflection as well as immediate intui¬ 
 tion. Paul and John, in their two grand systems, have laid the 
 eternal foundations of all true theology and philosophy; and 
 their writings, now after eighteen centuries of study, are still 
 unfathomed. 
 
 Not inaptly lias Peter been styled the apostle of hope; Paul, 
 the apostle of faith ; and J ohn, the apostle of love. The first is 
 the representative of Catholicism ; the second, of Protestantism ; 
 the third, of the ideal church, in which this great antagonism 
 shall resolve itself into perfect harmony. 
 
 § 104. The Writings of John. 
 
 The labours and influence of John undoubtedly related more 
 or less to all the departments of religious life, even upon govern¬ 
 ment and worship, as we learn from the scattered testimonies ol 
 the second and third centuries. But they were mainly con¬ 
 cerned with the living knowledge of the holiest mysteries of our 
 faith, especially the incarnation and divinity of Christ. And 
 hence lie is called by the Greek fathers the u theologian” by 
 eminence. His writings have very little to do with the outward 
 form, the constitution and usages of the church. On the con¬ 
 trary, they present an inexhaustible mass of ideas, not logically 
 drawn out, but only sketched in a few masterly strokes—a 
 thoroughly original conception and representation of Christianity, 
 from which a peculiar system and school of theology must arise. 
 In them the church, planted by Peter among the Jews, and by 
 l 3 aul among the Gentiles, plunges into the depths of her life, 
 refreshes herself with the blissful contemplation of the thean- 
 thropic glory of her heavenly bridegroom, and with holy longing 
 adorns herself to receive him. As we speak of a Petrine and a 
 Pauline period and tendency in the apostolic church, so we may 
 speak also of a Johannean, though it is not so sharply defined. 
 Over the last forty years of the first century, which comprise 
 the peculiar labours of this apostle and the composition of his 
 writings, there hangs a mysterious veil. It is with them as with 
 those forty days between the resurrection and ascension, when 
 the Lord hovered, as it were, between earth and heaven ; was 
 near his people, yet far away; discernible by the senses, yet, 
 like a departed spirit, able to enter a room where the doors were 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 104. THE WRITINGS OF JOHN. 
 
 75 
 
 shut; ate and drank with Ilis disciples, yet no longer needed 
 earthly food. The Johannean period, which may be dated from 
 the death of the two other leading apostles, that is, from the 
 Neronian persecution, a.d. 64, presupposes the activity of Peter 
 and Paul, brings together the results of their labours in a higher 
 unity, and forms the transition to the next age, in which the 
 church is left more to herself to develop the contents of revela¬ 
 tion according to the laws of human nature. The theology of 
 the second and third centuries does not work much with Paul’s 
 doctrines of sin and grace, of faith and justification. The fathers, 
 on the contrary, and the Catholic church, except the school of 
 Augustine, leave these so far in the back-ground as finally to call 
 for the Reformation. The age after the apostles, and the whole 
 Greek church starts rather from John’s fundamental ideas of the 
 incarnation of the Logos and the divine human nature of the 
 Redeemer, using them as its weapons against the Gnostic errors, 
 which afterwards grew into formal systems and overspread all 
 Christendom. Irenseus and other church fathers supposed that 
 John himself wrote against the Judaizing Gnostics and Docetists, 
 particularly Cerinthus and the Nicoiaitans (comp. Rev. ii. 6, 15). 
 In his Gospel we observe no certain, direct marks of this, except 
 perhaps in the introduction. For much that has been referred 
 to a polemical design, such passages, for instance, as xix. 34; 
 xx. 20, 27, may be satisfactorily explained otherwise. Unques¬ 
 tionably, however, is the fourth Gospel a most effectual, indirect 
 and positive refutation of all the fundamental heresies in Chris- 
 tology, whether springing from Judaism or heathenism; for it 
 unfolds the infallible truth and the objective reality of the the- 
 anthropic life of Jesus Christ. In John’s epistles we cannot 
 mistake also a direct reference to the Gnostic Docetists who 
 denied, or resolved into a mere appearance, the central mystery 
 of Christianity, the Incarnation, the real abiding union of Deity 
 and humanity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Cerinthus, 
 for example, affirmed that the divine element, or the Messiah, 
 first united itself outwardly with the man Jesus at His baptism 
 in the Jordan, and forsook Him again at the beginning of His 
 passion. By this theory? he virtually annulled the mediatorship 
 of Jesus, the reality of the atonement, and the whole objective 
 historical character of Christianity. This is the Antichrist, then 
 
76 
 
 § 105. THE GOSPEL OP JOHN. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 already present in many forms, against which the apostle so 
 earnestly warns his flock. 1 But of this heresy, and of the doc¬ 
 trinal contents of John’s writings in general, we must speak 
 more at large under the head of theology. Here we have to do 
 properly only with the outward relations, the historical frame¬ 
 work, of the books in question. 
 
 § 105. The Gospel of John. 
 
 This most vivid and profound picture of the incarnate Son of 
 God and His eternal glory as it beamed from the servant form, 
 full of grace and truth, is, according to Iremeus and other church 
 fathers, 2 the last of all the Gospels, and was written at Ephesus; 
 and this statement is confirmed by internal evidence. For the 
 narrative of John implies the existence of the first three Gospels; 
 explains localities in Palestine, and Hebrew expressions and 
 customs for Gentile-Christian readers; and stands at the sum¬ 
 mit of the development of the apostolic church and theology. 
 All this points with tolerable certainty to the last thirty years of 
 the first century. But here we shall perhaps be obliged to stop. 
 For the marks which have been used to fix the date more ac¬ 
 curately, do not furnish a demonstration. 3 
 
 The design of the fourth Gospel, as expressly stated by the 
 author, is to lead its readers to faith in the Messiahship and 
 divinity of Jesus, and thereby to the possession of eternal life. 
 
 1 1 John ii. 18, 19, 22, 23; iv. 3. 2 John, 7, et seq. 
 
 2 Iren. Adv. Haer. III. 1. Clemens Alex, in Eus. VI. 14. Eusebius himself, III. 
 24. Jei'ome, De vir. ill. c. 9, etc. 
 
 3 Thus some commentators on John v. 2, where the sheep-gate and the pool of 
 Betliesda are spoken of as still existing (eVt/), have inferred that this Gospel must 
 have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem. But aside from the facts 
 that the pool was still pointed out in the time of Eusebius, and that there may very 
 well have remained some ruins of the gate, the use of the present tense in historical 
 narrative is sufficiently accounted for by the effort after vivid representation. Stil 1 
 less does the prophecy of the martyrdom of Peter xxi. 19, imply that this apostle was 
 still living; while the succeeding verses, 20-23, point rather to a later time. On the 
 other hand, from such passages as xi. 18; xviii. 1; xix. 41, where the evangelist 
 speaks of localities about Jerusalem in the past (%v), some have drawn the conclusion 
 that he wrote this book after the year 70; but such a “ was ” does not necessarily 
 imply that the thing no longer is. The latest limit seems to us to be the date of the 
 Apocalypse (95 or 9G), not indeed because, as almost all expositors down to Bengel 
 suppose, the Apocalypse, ch. i. 2, refers to the written Gospel, but because the whole 
 economy of the Holy Scriptures seems to require, that the Revelation, the seal of the 
 apostolic literature, should be composed last. 
 
MISSIONS.] § 105. THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 77 
 
 The church fathers attributed to it also other secondary objects, 
 such as the refutation of the Gnostics and Ebionites (which, 
 however, is not immediately and clearly apparent), and the fur¬ 
 nishing of a supplement to the synoptical Gospels. John 
 certainly leaves unnoticed many very important sections of the 
 history which he might presume were already familiar from oral 
 tradition and the other Gospels ; as, for instance, the childhood 
 of Jesus; His baptism, to which, however, he alludes in chap. i. 
 33, et seq.: His temptation and transfiguration ; the healing of 
 the demoniacs; the sermon on the mount, and the popular 
 parables respecting the kingdom of God; the institution of 
 baptism, the idea of which, however, is for the first time set 
 forth in the conversation with Nicodemus on regeneration by 
 water and the Spirit, iii. 1, et seq. ; the institution of the Lord’s 
 Supper, which is merely touched (xiii. 1, et seq.), though it 
 affords the only proper explanation of the similitude of the vine, 
 chap, xv., as well as of the mystic language respecting the eating 
 and drinking of the flesh and blood of Christ, chap. vi. 51-58 ; 
 and the ascension, (comp. xx. 17). In place of these, John 
 gives us the two greatest miracles, the turning of water into 
 wine and the raising of Lazarus, along with the most profound 
 discourses of the Saviour, especially His parting address and 
 mediatorial prayer (chap, xiii.-xvii.), not to be found in the three 
 preceding Gospels. We should not regard John, however, as 
 attempting to correct the other evangelists, or merely to furnish 
 a supplement to them. This idea is at once contradicted by 
 his having many points in common with them ; as the miracu¬ 
 lous feeding of the multitude, and most of the scenes in the 
 history of the passion. His work is all one effusion, and, though 
 it serves as a valuable complement to the other Gospels, is yet a 
 complete whole in itself. 
 
 John wrought on a fixed plan, and he shows a certain art, 
 which, without any clear intention on his part, sprang, as it 
 were, instinctively from his peculiar conception of the subject; 
 as nature by her plastic virtue produces the fairest forms to serve 
 as models for the human artist. In the first place, the outward 
 arrangement of the matter of the book is very clear, all the 
 events of the history being made to cluster around the several 
 Jewish feasts. During the public ministry of Jesus there are 
 
78 
 
 § 105. THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 mentioned in all at least three, probably (i.e. unless the feast of 
 Purim be intended in v. 1), four passovers (ii. 13 ; v. 1 ; vi. 4; 
 xi. 55 ; xii. 1 ; xiii. 1), one feast of tabernacles (vii. 2), and one 
 feast of dedication (x. 22); thus furnishing data for the length 
 of our Lord’s labours as a teacher (about three years). But 
 along with this external arrangement an inward order is also 
 observed, a progressive development of the relation of Jesus to 
 the world and to His disciples. Especially may we trace the 
 gradual increase of the hatred of the unbelieving Jews towards 
 the personal manifestation of the eternal Light and Life down 
 to the final catastrophe, where, however, that hatred must un¬ 
 wittingly and unwillingly serve to glorify the Crucified, and to 
 accomplish the plan of redemption. 
 
 The evangelist begins his history with a philosophico-theologi- 
 cal prologue (i. 1-18), propounding as his theme the great truth, 
 that Christ, the incarnate Logos, is from the beginning one with 
 God, and the principle of all revelation, of all light and life in 
 humanity. The history itself may be divided into three, or, if 
 we choose to make a separate part of what is in some sense 
 merely a historical introduction, four sections : (a) The prepara¬ 
 tion for the public ministry of Jesus, first by the appearance of 
 John the Baptist (i. 19-36), then by the choice of the first 
 disciples (ver. 37-51), who are favoured at the outset with a fore¬ 
 taste of the intercourse of divine and human powers, of the glory 
 of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, (b) 
 The jmblic labours of Jesus in doctrine and miracle, by which He 
 manifests before the world His divine nature and eternal glory, a 
 savour of life unto life to the susceptible, but to the hardened a 
 savour of death unto death (cli. ii. 12). Chapters ii.-iv. are de¬ 
 voted chiefly to the favourable results of the Saviour’s ministry 
 on those who were longing for salvation, on His disciples and 
 kindred at the marriage in Cana, on the still timid Nicodemus 
 in Jerusalem, the woman of Samaria, and the inhabitants of 
 Sichem ; chapters v.-x. set forth principally the growing opposi¬ 
 tion of the unbelieving Jews (of Toi/SaToi) to Jesus, till it reaches 
 a deadly hatred; ch. xi. records the raising of Lazarus, which 
 brings to a crisis the faith of the Saviour’s friends and the un¬ 
 belief of his enemies ; then comes the transition to the history of 
 his passion (xii. 1, et seq. ; xxiv. et seq. ), and a recapitulation of 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 10G. THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 79 
 
 his discourses (xii. 44-50). (c) Jesus in the 'private circle of His 
 disciples , His last supper, His farewell address, His solemn conse¬ 
 cration to death, His mediatorial intercession, and His inward 
 glorification (ch. xiii.-xvii). This section is the peculiar orna¬ 
 ment of the fourth Gospel, and the inmost sanctuary of the his¬ 
 tory of Jesus, where the holy sorrow of eternal Love as it 
 addresses itself to the great sacrifice, and the silent breath from 
 the land of peace, so indescribably charm us. ( d ) The history 
 of the passion and resurrection , or the public glorification of the 
 Lord, when, as formerly by His words and works, so now by His 
 obedience and sufferings and a creative act of God, He is mightily 
 accredited as the Messiah, the conqueror of sin, death, and hell 
 (ch. xviii.-xx). In his appearances after His resurrection, He 
 gives His disciples a pledge of His perpetual presence with them. 
 In the enthusiastic exclamation of Thomas : u My Lord and my 
 God P’ there expresses itself the fullest recognition of the divinity 
 of the risen Saviour; and to awaken this faith, which believes 
 even without seeing, was the object of the Gospel, with the state¬ 
 ment of which it fitly closes (xx. 31). The twenty-first chapter 
 is a subsequent addition, of special importance for the history of 
 Peter, made either by John himself, or by one of his friends and 
 pupils from what was orally handed down by the apostle. 
 
 § 106. The Epistles of John. 
 
 The epistles of John were undoubtedly written at Ephesus 
 after the Gospel, which is presumed to be known (1 John i. 1, 
 et seq.), and in the advanced years of the apostle, though before 
 the date of the Apocalypse. In them the author proves himself 
 truly a faithful pastor, full of the tenderest love and care for the 
 welfare of his u little children.” 
 
 The first epistle attests itself at once by the introduction as 
 well as by the striking similarity of thought and style, which is 
 not that of imitation, but of identity of origin, as the work of the 
 author of the fourth Gospel, with which it stands intimately con¬ 
 nected as a practical application. It is a circular letter of exhor¬ 
 tation and encouragement to the churches of Asia Minor (comp. 
 Rev. ii. and iii.), which were already well versed in the faith, 
 built on the golden foundation of Paul’s doctrine of grace, and 
 therefore not exposed, indeed, to the gross, sensuous errors of 
 
80 
 
 § 106. THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 |_I. BOOK. 
 
 Judaism and heathenism, but perhaps, instead of these, to a re¬ 
 fined form of theoretical and practical aberration, more danger¬ 
 ous because united with Christian elements. The object of the 
 epistle is, therefore, not to produce, but to nourish the Christian 
 life, and to warn its readers against moral laxness, against all 
 intermixture of light with darkness, of truth with falsehood, of 
 the love of God with the love of the world, and against the in¬ 
 fluence of those Gnostic, Docetistic u antichrists” who denied 
 the reality of the incarnation, the true union of Deity and 
 humanity in Jesus Christ; who separated the knowing of Christ 
 from the following of Him, religion from morality; and who pro¬ 
 bably fostered antinomian licentiousness. Of these errorists 
 John says, that they went out, indeed, from the Christian com¬ 
 munion, but never really belonged to it, and by their secession 
 only revealed the opposition which had existed within them from 
 the first (ii. 19). In perfect accordance with his peculiar char¬ 
 acter, however, he does not enter on any minute, dialectical 
 refutation of them, as the acute, scholastic Paul does in the case 
 of the Judaizers. lie only briefly points out their fundamental 
 error with profound discernment and holy horror, and contrasts 
 it with the Christian principle. Here, as in the Gospel, his 
 great object is to set forth the positive truth. The simple, sub¬ 
 lime thought of the epistle, which he presents at the very begin¬ 
 ning instead of the customary address, and continually enforces 
 under different shapes with childlike earnestness, is the love of 
 God and of the brethren , founded on living faith in the God-man, 
 whose history is fully given in the Gospel; in other words, the 
 idea of fellowship ( Koivcovia, i. 3, 7 ; comp. v. 1, 2), 1 in its twofold 
 aspect: the union of believers with God and His Son Jesus 
 Christ (unio mystica), and the union of believers with one 
 another (communio sanctorum). The latter is rooted in the 
 former, and is its necessary product; the two are the marks of 
 regeneration and adoption, and are inseparable from the keeping 
 of the commandments of God, from a holy walk in the light 
 
 1 This word denotes the inward, eternal nature of the church, of the which 
 
 latter term John uses only in the third epistle, ver. 6, 9, 10. The temporal form 
 under which the body of Christ is revealed, is left almost entirely out of view by this 
 noblest of mystics. Scattered traditional accounts, however, intimate that he exerted 
 an important influence on the development of the constitution and worship of the 
 church of Asia Minor. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 106. THE EPISTLES OF JOHN. 
 
 81 
 
 after the example of Christ, as well as from true joy and the 
 possession of the eternal life, which the incarnate Logos has 
 brought into the world, and which He alone can give. These 
 few thoughts, clothed in the simplest words, contain the sum of 
 Christian morality, and describe the inmost essence of piety. In 
 striking accordance with this is the above-mentioned narrative 
 of Jerome about the aged apostle’s continual repetition of the 
 exhortation to love. What Herder says of John’s writings in 
 general, may be applied with peculiar emphasis to this first 
 epistle: “ They are still waters, which run deep ; flowing along 
 with the easiest words, but the most profound meaning.” 
 
 The second and third epistles of this apostle are, like Paul’s 
 epistle to Philemon, very short private letters. In the second 
 John congratulates a pious female Christian of Asia Minor, by 
 the name of Cyria, perhaps a deaconess, on the Christian con¬ 
 duct of some of her children; exhorts her to be steadfast in the 
 truth and in love; warns her most earnestly against all contact 
 with the Gnostic errorists attacked in 1 John ii. 18, et seq. ; iv. 
 3 ; and mentions at the close, in apology for his brevity, his ex¬ 
 pectation of soon visiting her. The third epistle is addressed to 
 one Gaius, probably an officer of a congregation, commending 
 him for his hospitality to the messengers of the faith, and rebuk¬ 
 ing a certain Diotrephes, otherwise unknown to us, for his am¬ 
 bitious and uncharitable disposition. Perhaps these lines after 
 verse 6 were a letter of recommendation for some Christian 
 brethren. 
 
 In these two epistles the author calls himself neither an 
 apostle nor an evangelist,—nor, indeed, does he so style himself 
 anywhere,—but simply “the elder” (6 npea^vrepos). This must be 
 understood either in the same official sense in which Peter calls 
 himself “ co-presbyter” (1 Peter v. 1), or what is more likely, as 
 denoting the apostle’s great age (like npea-^vTijs, Pliilem. v. 9). 
 For John was at that time an old man in years and experience, 
 a real father in Christ, and it is very possible that he was so 
 styled by his affectionate “ little children” in Asia Minor. 1 At 
 
 1 At least John is called, by Clement of Alexandria, in the above-quoted anecdote 
 ‘‘ the old man ” (o yi^v ); and he addresses the youth, whom he had found again, with 
 
 the words: T / pi QtCyuSj rl/ivov, rov tnavrov vra-Tiga, rov yvpvov, rov yi^ovrcc. lllOUgll 
 
 this also may be explained as simply antithetical to the youth. More to the point is 
 
 VOL. II. F 
 
82 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. [i. BOOK. 
 
 any rate it furnishes no sufficient reason for ascribing this 
 epistle to a u presbyter John,” distinct from the apostle. Such 
 a person could in no case have possessed such authority as is 
 implied in 2 John x. and 3 John x. Eusebius, it is true, 
 reckons these epistles among the antilegomena, or the disputed 
 books of the canon; but the uncertainty of tradition in this case 
 is sufficiently accounted for by the fact, that these epistles, being 
 small and of a private character, did not come so early to be 
 generally known or much used. 1 They contain no internal 
 marks of spuriousness. Even the author’s severity against the 
 errorists, 2 John 10, 11, is by no means inconsistent with the 
 character of John (comp. § 103). On the contrary, the unmis¬ 
 takable resemblance particularly of the second epistle to the 
 first in thought and style, almost to verbal repetition, 2 is a suffi¬ 
 cient argument for the identity of the author. 3 
 
 § 107. The Apocalypse. 
 
 At the close of the Scripture stands, like a mysterious sphynx, 
 the Revelation of John, or rather of Jesus Christ through John, 
 His servant; the prophetic history of the conflicts and conquests 
 of the church; the book of Christian hope and comfort; the 
 pledge of the all-controlling dominion of Christ in the world, till 
 He shall come to take home His longing bride. 
 
 That this book was the last of all the productions of the apos¬ 
 tles, is indicated by its position at the close, and as the seal of 
 the canon; by the whole character of its contents, which have to 
 do with the future and the end of all things; and by the oldest 
 and most reliable tradition, which places the banishment to 
 Patmos and the seeing of this vision at the close of the reign of 
 Domitian (f a.d. 96), therefore in the last years of John’s life 
 (comp. § 101). 
 
 The place of its composition was undoubtedly Patmos. From 
 the expression : u I was in the isle that is called Patmos,” i. 9, 
 
 the fact that the term often occurs in the Johannean school, especially in 
 
 the writings of Irenteus, in the sense —the ancients, the fathers. 
 
 1 Yet Irenaeus cites the 2d epistle, ver. 11, as a work of the apostle John (Adv. Haer. 
 I. 13, and III. 16); and Clement of Alex, must have known it, since he styles the 
 first epistle of John “ the greater” (Strom. II. 15). 
 
 2 Comp. 2 John iv.-vii. with 1 John ii. 7, 8; iv. 2, 3. 
 
 3 On this question comp. Liicke’s Commcntar. zu den Br. Joh. p. 329, et seq. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 83 
 
 many, indeed, have inferred, that John, when he wrote the hook, 
 was no longer there, but had returned to Ephesus. This imper¬ 
 fect, however, is to be closely connected with ver. 10, as though 
 it were said : u During my residence in Patmos I was in the 
 Spirit” ( i.e ., in ecstasy) ; and the whole is to be referred to the 
 position of a later reader, to which, as in i. 2, the prophet trans¬ 
 fers himself. From i. 11, and x. 4, it is evident that the writing 
 immediately accompanied the seeing and the hearing, so that 
 with the revelation itself the book also ended, xxii. 7, 9, 10. 
 
 Reserving for subsequent discussion the matter and design of 
 the Apocalypse, we must here attend somewhat minutely to the 
 question of its genuineness , which is still one of the most difficult 
 and distracting parts of New Testament criticism and exegesis. 
 Whilst the Gospel and the first epistle of John are raised above 
 all rational doubt, and have only come out approved and purified 
 from the fire of modern criticism to which they have been sub¬ 
 jected by a Strauss, a Baur, and a Schwegler, the apostolical 
 origin and character of the Apocalypse, on the contrary, has been 
 denied even by judicious and believing scholars on grounds both 
 dogmatical and critical. 1 So far, indeed, as external evidence is 
 concerned, this book fares as well as any other, and better than 
 most of the New Testament writings. The tradition in favour 
 of its being the work of the beloved disciple reaches back to 
 Justin Martyr, who wrote some forty years after the death of 
 John, and himself resided in Ephesus. Nay, w'e may trace it 
 even to Papias, a disciple of the apostles; and Irenseus, the pupil 
 of the bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, one of the seven churches of 
 the Revelation, appeals even for the correctness of his reading 
 and interpretation of the mystical number 666 (Rev. xiii. 18), to 
 
 1 By Luther, for example, who would regard the book as “ neither apostolical nor 
 prophetical,” because “his mind could not accommodate itself to it;” by Zwinglc, 
 who declared, at the disputation in Berne, “ From the Apocalypse we will derive no 
 proof, for it is not a canonical book;” and more recently by Schleiermacher, Liicke, 
 Neander, Bleek, and others, who at the same time regard the genuineness of the 
 Gospel as incontrovertible. With the infidel school of Baur, Zeller, and Schwegler, 
 it is just the reverse. The Apocalypse, on account of its supposed Ebionism, is found 
 altogether characteristic of the Jewish apostle, John (Gal. ii. 9); while, for the absence 
 of it, the Gospel and epistles are denied to him, and placed down in the middle of the 
 second century. Thus, in this case, the “ higher criticism” arrives at two entirely 
 opposite results, which is by no means calculated to strengthen our confidence in it, 
 and should make its eulogists more cautious and discreet. 
 
84 
 
 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 11. BOOK. 
 
 tlie testimony of those “ who had seen John face to face.” 1 It is 
 true, Dionysius of Alexandria, about the middle of the third 
 century, brought about, in the Eastern church, a partial rejec¬ 
 tion of the apostolic origin and canonical authority of the Apo¬ 
 calypse ; not, however, on historical or traditional grounds, but 
 only from dogmatical prejudices, viz., to get rid of a gross, 
 sensuous millenarianism, which it was supposed to favour, and 
 with which the spiritualism of the school of Origen had no sym¬ 
 pathy whatever. 
 
 Then again, we have an explicit declaration of the author 
 himself, which leaves us no other alternative but to take the 
 book as the work either of the apostle John, or of a deliberate, 
 bare-faced impostor. But against the latter, all sound moral 
 and religious feeling revolts. While in the fourth Gospel the 
 author speaks of himself only in the third person and by circum¬ 
 locution, in the Apocalypse he more than once calls himself ex¬ 
 pressly “John” (i. 1, 4, 9; xxii. 8), because he here appears as 
 a prophet; and in the Old Testament no anonymous prophecies 
 occur (comp, especially Dan. viii. 1 ; ix. 2; x. 2). True, he 
 does not directly apply to himself the title of “ apostle” or “ evan¬ 
 gelist,” 2 but he appears evidently clothed with apostolical autho¬ 
 rity ; in the first place, from the very fact of his being the organ 
 of so momentous and comprehensive a revelation, which, if it be 
 a true revelation, the Lord certainly would not have communi¬ 
 cated, especially during the life-time of his favourite disciple, to 
 an inferior person, perhaps one of John’s own presbyters in 
 Ephesus ; secondly, from his position as superintendent of the 
 churches of Asia Minor (i. 4), to which none but an apostle 
 could write in such a tone and with such earnestness and seve- 
 
 1 Adv. Haer. V. 30. Euseb. Y. 8. A very full collection of the assertions of tradi¬ 
 tion on the point in hand may be found in the learned Einleitung in die Offenbar. 
 Job., by Dr Liicke, § 30, et seq ., p. 261-365,1st ed.; § 34, et seq., p. 516, et seq., of the 
 2d ed. (1851); and in Hengstenberg’s Commentar. zur Apok. vol. ii., Pt. 2, p. 97, et seq. 
 Comp, also several solid articles by Havernick in the “Ev. Kirchenzeitung,” 1834, p. 
 707, et seq., and Guericke’s Einleitung in's N. T. p. 538, et seq. 
 
 2 In the roy Koyov toZ 6tov, etc., i. 2, many expositors detect, indeed, a 
 
 reference to the fourth Gospel, in which case these words would unequivocally declare 
 the identity of the authors of the two books. But the perfect— ip.ot^rC^yitri, “ hath 
 borne record,” may also be referred, as it is by Bengel and Hengstenberg ( Comment. 
 I. p. 69),to the time of reading (comp, ly^*, Philem. v. 19), and the “word of God,” 
 etc., in view of the explanatory iTZs, to the succeeding visions of the book. 
 
§ 107. TI1E ATOCALYPSE. 
 
 85 
 
 MISSIONS.] 
 
 rity of rebuke. Any other John, thus writing, would have come 
 into evident conflict with the apostle’s unquestionable official 
 relation to these churches, particularly that of Ephesus, and 
 hence would have been obliged, at the outset, at least to intro¬ 
 duce himself to them more distinctly, and to enter more minutely 
 into the proof of his divine mission, if such he really had, before 
 he could obtain a hearing or secure himself from ridicule, since 
 even a Paul and a John (3 John 9, 10) had to contend against 
 enemies of the apostolical dignity. 1 By the simple name “ John,” 
 
 1 On these grounds we must affirm, that the hypothesis first hinted at by Dionysius 
 of Alexandria, the spiritualistic and anti-chiliastic disciple of the great Origen, and 
 latterly advocated even by such distinguished scholars as Bleek, De Wette (in the 
 earlier editions of his Einleitung in’s N. T.), Credner, and Neander (who, however, 
 does not give a definite decision), making the Ephesian presbyter, John (afterwards 
 confounded with the apostle), the probable author of the Apocalypse, contradicts the 
 clearest exegetieal evidence; as also Dr L'ucke concedes (1. c. p. 239, et seq.), and De 
 Wette (in the fourth ed. of his Eird. p. 353, though he again expresses himself other¬ 
 wise in his Cornmentar liber die Apok.) Indeed, there is room even to inquire, whether 
 the very existence of this obscure presbyter and mysterious duplicate of the apostle 
 John rests not upon sheer misunderstanding, as Herder suspected ( Ojfenb. Job. p. 
 20G, in the 12th vol. of Herder's Werhe zar Theol.) We candidly avow that, to us, 
 notwithstanding what Liicke (I. c. p. 390, et seq.) and Credner (Einleit. in's N. T. i. p, 
 094, et seq.) have said in its favour, this man’s existence seems very doubtful. The only 
 proper original testimony for it is, as is well known, an obscure passage of Papias in 
 Euseb. III. 39—“ When I met any one, who had been a companion of the elders 
 (fr‘Mr(3vTtgoit), I inquired about the discourses of the elders, what Andrew or what 
 Peter had said, or what Philip, or what Thomas, or James, or what John, or Matthew, 
 or any other of the disciples of the Lord, what Aristion or the presbyter (<5 ar^ur^Cn^os) 
 John, the disciples of the Lord, say.” Had we an accurate author to deal with here, 
 it would certainly be most natural to assume, with Eusebius, Liicke, Neander (p. 631), 
 Credner, and others, that there were tivo Johns, both personal disciples of Jesus. But 
 it is very possible that a man like Papias, whom the mild Eusebius calls, in spite of 
 his venerableness, a “ weak head,” meant in both cases one and the same John, and 
 repeated his name perhaps on account of his peculiarly close contact with him. So 
 Irenseus, at least, seems to have understood him, when he calls Papias a disciple of the 
 apostle John (without mentioning any presbyter of that name) and friend of Polycarp 
 (Adv. Haer. Y. 33). The arguments for this interpretation are the following: (1) The 
 term “presbyter” is here probably not an official title, but denotes age, including the 
 idea of venerablencss, as also Credner supposes (097), and as may be inferred from 
 2 John 1, and 3 John 1, and from the usage of Irenseus, who applies the same term to 
 his master, Polycarp (Adv. Haer. V. 30), and to the Roman bishops before Soter (V. 24). 
 This being so, we cannot conceive how a contemporary of John, bearing the same 
 name, should be distinguished from the apostle by this standing title, since the apostle 
 himself had attained an unusual age, and was probably even sixty when he came to 
 Asia Minor. (2) Papias in the same passage styles the other apostles also “ presby¬ 
 ters,” the ancients, the fathers; and on the other hand, calls also Aristion and John 
 (personal) “disciples of the Lord.” (3) The evangelist designates himself as “the 
 elder” (2 John 1, and 3 John 1); which leads us to suppose that he was frequently so 
 named by his “little children,” as he likes to call his readers in his first epistle. For 
 this reason also it would have been altogether unsuitable, and could only have created 
 
86 
 
 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 tlie reader could evidently understand, in tliis connection, no 
 other than the well-known apostle and evangelist. And this 
 was, in fact, universally the case in the church, as the testimony 
 of the fathers and the titles of the manuscripts show, until the 
 decay of Apocalyptic hopes and the want of deeper understand¬ 
 ing in some theologians awakened prejudice against the contents 
 of the book. 
 
 The doubts respecting the apostolical origin and canonical autho¬ 
 rity of the Apocalypse, however, do not arise solely from doctrinal 
 prepossessions. There are also considerable critical difficulties, 
 which modern science alone has brought fully to light, but which 
 it has also in many instances exaggerated. An impartial com¬ 
 parison of this production with the other works ascribed to J ohn, 
 shows at once a striking difference in matter and form, and seems 
 to leave no alternative but to deny either the Apocalypse or the 
 Gospel and epistles to this apostle. Here, if anywhere in the 
 field of biblical criticism, honest scientific doubt may be to some 
 extent justified. The difference may be reduced to three points: 
 (1) Language and style; the Greek of the Revelation being 
 largely Hebraized, irregular and abrupt, like a wild mountain 
 torrent, while that of the Gospel and epistles, though not with¬ 
 out a Hebrew tinge, is much purer, and flows along in lovely 
 
 confusion, to denote by this title another John, who lived with the apostle and under 
 him in Ephesus. Credner supposes, indeed, that these two epistles came not from the 
 apostle, but, like the Apocalypse, from the “presbyter John” in question. But it is 
 evident at first sight that these epistles are far more akin, even in their language, to 
 the first epistle, than to the Apocalypse (comp. 2 John 4-7 with 1 John ii. 7, 8; iv. 2, 
 3. 2 John 9 with 1 John ii. 27 ; iii. 9, etc.) This is De Wette’s reason for consider¬ 
 ing them genuine. And when Credner supposes that the presbyter afterwards accom¬ 
 modated himself to the apostle’s way of thinking and speaking, he makes an entirely 
 arbitrary assumption, which he himself condemns in pronouncing a like change in the 
 apostle “ altogether unnatural and inadmissible” (p. 733). (4) The Ephesian bishop. 
 
 Polycrates, of the second century, in his letter to Victor, bishop of Rome, on the 
 Paschal controversy (in Euseb. V. 24), mentions but one John, though he there enume¬ 
 rates the [juyd.Xoc, (ttoix^oo of the Asian church, Philip with his pious daughters, Poly¬ 
 carp, Thraseas, Sagaris, Papirius, Melito, most of whom were not so important as the 
 presbyter John must have been, if he were a personal disciple of the Lord and the 
 author of the Apocalypse. We can hardly think that in this connection, where it was 
 his object to present as many authorities as possible for the Asiatic usage respecting 
 the feast, Polycrates would have passed over this John, if he had known anything 
 about him, and if his tomb could have been really pointed out in Ephesus, as the later 
 Dionysius and Jerome intimates. Jerome, however, in speaking of this, expressly 
 observes—“Nonnulli putant, duas memorias ejusdem Johannis evangelistae esse” (De 
 vir. ill. c. 9); which again makes this whole story doubtful, and destroys its character 
 as a historical testimony in favour of this obscure presbyter. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 87 
 
 tranquillity. (2) The psychological temper and the whole tone 
 of the author. The writer of the Apocalypse shows an exceed- 
 ingly vivid imagination, moving along majestically with the 
 grandest imagery. He breathes a holy anger against the enemies 
 of God. In a word, he is the “ son of thunder,” calling down 
 fire from heaven (Luke ix. 54-56). The evangelist, on the 
 contrary, reveals in almost every line a mild, serene, contem¬ 
 plative mind, sunk in deep meditation; breathes forth the gentle 
 breath of love and peace, and bespeaks himself the disciple who 
 lay upon the bosom of the All-merciful. 1 (3) The theological 
 stand point; the author in the one case moving apparently 
 amidst the theocratic ideas of the Old Testament prophets and 
 the Jewish Christian sphere of thought; while in the other, 
 starting from the most profound and sublime view of the incar¬ 
 nate Word, he sets forth Christianity in its specific character as 
 an independent, new creation, though, at the same time, the 
 fulfilment and climax of all previous revelations. 
 
 Many scholars think this difference sufficiently explained by 
 the simple fact, that the Apocalypse was written some twenty 
 years before the other works of John. 2 But even had it been 
 written soon after the death of Nero (which, however, as already 
 observed, is manifestly against tradition), still John must have 
 already reached at that time (a.d. 69) at least the age of sixty, 
 and after that period, style, temperament, and religious views do 
 not usually undergo any material change. Nor can it be con- 
 
 1 We have, however, already observed, § 103, that the apostle John shows also 
 extreme severity in his judgment of everything ungodly, and that this hatred of 
 Antichrist is but the reverse of his enthusiastic love for Christ; comp, especially 
 1 John ii. 4, 9, 18, 22; iii. 8, 15; 2 John 10, 11. 
 
 2 So says Gieseler, for example, I. 1, p. 127, note 8: “ The internal difference in 
 language and thought between the Apocalypse, which John wrote (a.o. 69) while 
 yet essentially a Hebrew and Palestinian Jewish Christian in his views, and the Gos¬ 
 pel and epistles, which he composed after a twenty or thirty years’ residence among 
 the Greeks, is so necessary a result of circumstances, that suspicion would be awak¬ 
 ened if it did not exist.” The opinion of Tholuck is the same, Die Glaubwurdigheit 
 der evangl. Geschichte , 2d edit. p. 283. From the rich treasury of his reading he 
 draws such analogies as the vast varietas dictionis Appulejanae; the difference be¬ 
 tween the Dialogus de Oratoribus and the Annales of Tacitus; between the Leges 
 and the earlier dialogues of Plato ; the sermons and the satires of Swift, etc. This 
 catalogue may be easily increased from the history of modern literature. Think, for 
 example, of the immense distance between Schleiermacher’s Reden liber die Religion 
 and his Dialektik ; Hegel’s Logik and iEsthetik ; the first and second part of Gothe’s 
 Faust; Carlyle’s Life of Schiller, and his Latter-day pamphlets, etc. 
 
88 
 
 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 ceived why he should have learned his Greek first in Asia Minor, 
 while this language was so universally known, and was used by 
 James, for instance, with much skill and comparative purity, 
 though he perhaps was never out of Palestine. In fact, the 
 author of the Apocalypse shows himself, as also Liicke concedes, 1 
 by no means a tyro in Greek, but well versed and ready in his 
 way. The Hebraisms and irregularities are in some cases oc¬ 
 casioned by the character of the matter, and evidently designed ; 2 
 in others they are rhetorical and poetical; while in some instances 
 they belong to the New Testament idiom in general, which rests 
 throughout, and, indeed, in the Gospel of John far more than 
 even in Paul’s epistles, on the basis of the Hebrew, as the New 
 Covenant itself rests on the Old. 
 
 We must, therefore, cast about for some other explanation to 
 maintain the identity of authors. This we find, on the one hand, 
 in the different mental state of the writer, who, in producing the 
 Apocalypse, was not under the influence of the ordinary, reflect¬ 
 ing, self-controlling consciousness (eV vot ), but in a spiritual 
 ecstasy (Jv nvevpaTi), 3 and was, far more than the author of any 
 other New Testament book, a mere passive organ, an amanuensis, 
 so to speak, of the Holy Ghost; and, on the other hand, in the 
 peculiarity of his subject , for which the figurative language of Old 
 Testament prophecy, especially of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah, 
 was alone fitted; for this sort of literature was wholly foreign to 
 the idiom of the heathen Greek. The task of the prophet is 
 very different, both in matter and form, from that of the historian 
 and letter-writer. The prophet seeks for poetical, rare, antique, 
 solemn, full-toned, strong expressions; the historian for those 
 which are clear, simple, precise, and universally intelligible. 
 
 1 L. c. p. 363, 1st ed., comp. p. 448, et seq., 2d ed. 
 
 2 This is the case, for example, in the very beginning, i. 4: ’A*'o 0 SlV XOt) 0 5}V XOC.I ft 
 
 ; for this is no doubt a circumlocution for the unutterable name Jehovah 
 (comp. Exod. iii. 14), and the participles are used as indeclinable, to express even in 
 the language the unchangeableness and faithfulness of God. Herder emphatically 
 asserted the intentional character of these grammatical irregularities, of which the 
 above is the most harsh and striking, Commentar zur Apok. p. 241 : “ The solecisms 
 are often properly and diligently studied; the construction is often industriously 
 made to deviate from the Greek. The author’s soul labours under the burden of the 
 language of the Hebrew prophets. He wishes to say what they say as they say it 
 He struggles with the language; he breaks with it.” 
 
 3 Comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 14, et seq., and Rev. i. 10. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 89 
 
 Thus the style of Isaiah, for instance, when he moves along in 
 mere historical narrative, and when he rises in prophetic flight, 
 is very different. It is in itself not at all impossible for one and 
 the same apostle, at different times, to have occupied the different 
 spheres of authorship, each in its proper style. We have 
 examples, in fact, of versatile geniuses in the literary history of 
 almost all cultivated nations. Thus, therefore, the differences in 
 view must have arisen from the nature of the case, even though 
 John wrote the work in question long after his Gospel. 
 
 This, however, is hut one aspect of the matter. The differ¬ 
 ence between the book of Revelation and the other writings of 
 John, has been manifoldly exaggerated. With it all, there ap¬ 
 pears a striking affinity between them, as well in the simple, 
 elevated style, and in single expressions, as in the tone and ideas 
 of the whole. In proof of this, we have but to refer the attentive 
 reader particularly to the lyric parts of the Apocalypse, the 
 anthems of profound adoration and blissful joy sung by the glori¬ 
 fied saints before the throne of the Lamb to the incomparable 
 picture of the New Jerusalem and the perfected theocracy, where 
 heaven and earth, God and His people, are forever united, and 
 the material universe, spiritualized, is radiant with the divine 
 glory, ch. xxi. and xxii. ; to the expression of the deep longing 
 of the bride for the coming of the heavenly bridegroom, with 
 which the seer sinks back from his ecstasy into the sphere of the 
 militant, praying church, xxii. 17, 20. Truly John-like, too, is 
 the elevation of Christianity in the Apocalypse above all Jewish 
 exclusiveness, and the conception of it as a living power, deter¬ 
 mining and controlling the history of the world from beginning 
 to end; and, above all, the doctrine of the person of Christ, to 
 whom the Apocalypse, like the Gospel, applies the highest 
 epithets, representing Him as the beginning and the end, the 
 fountain of life, the object of divine worship on the part of angels 
 and the whole creation, the Ruler and Judge of the world ; 1 2 and 
 knowing of no salvation but through His atoning blood. 3 Parti¬ 
 cularly remarkable is the appellation “Logos” (Rev. xix. 13; 
 comp. v. 5), which is used of Christ nowhere else in the New 
 
 1 Rev. iv. 8, et seq. ; v. 8, et seq. ; vii. 9, et seq. ; xiv. 1 , et seq. ; xv. 3, et seq. 
 
 2 Rev. i. 17; ii. 8, 17 ; iii. 14; xx. 11, et seq. ; xxi. 6; xxii. 13. 
 
 3 Rev. i. 5; v. 9 ; vii. 14; comp. 1 John i. 7 ; ii. 2. 
 
90 
 
 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 [i. BOOK. 
 
 Testament, but in the prologue to the Gospel and the beginning 
 of the first epistle of John. 1 No one in the whole circle of apos¬ 
 tolical authors, but John, can have written the Apocalypse; not 
 even the evangelist John Mark, whom Hitzig, following out a 
 hypothetical hint of Beza, has declared to be the author, on ac¬ 
 count of the similarity of language and the partial identity of 
 name. Still less can any one be selected from among the apos¬ 
 tolic fathers, to whom this work could be even with the remotest 
 probability attributed. But the author of such a production, 
 which, in a purely esthetic point of view, is one of the subliinest 
 creations of poetry in all ages, and the contents of which have at- 
 
 1 This affinity in form and substance between the Apocalypse and the Gospel and 
 epistles of John, cannot be altogether denied, even by those who refer them to dif¬ 
 ferent authors. Neander says (II. p. 628, Note): The Apocalypse “ shows the pre¬ 
 sence of a Johannean type of doctrine, as the epistle to the Hebrews, while it cannot 
 have come from the apostle Paul, betrays the hand of a man who proceeded from the 
 company of this apostle.” Kostlin ( JohanneiscJier Lehrbegriff, 1843, p. 498): " It is 
 accordingly confirmed from all quarters, that John's system of doctrine is, in great 
 part, a spiritualization (?) of that of the Apocalypse.” Schwegler ( Das nachapost. 
 Zeitalter , II. p. 373, et seq .): “ Notwithstanding this material (?) difference, the two 
 books have not a few points of resemblance, in language, style, and matter, so as to 
 make one think that the author of the Gospel had read the Apocalypse, and, to give 
 his production a Johannean colouring, had purposely copied from it many expressions 
 and ideas. . . . Different as the Gospel certainly is from the Apocalypse, yet it is 
 related to it, on the other hand, as the fruit to the root, as the close of a process of 
 development to its beginning.” Dr Liicke endeavours to account for this resem¬ 
 blance, which accompanies the (in his opinion) far greater diversity, by the hypothesis, 
 that a friend and disciple of John, during the latter’s life-time, wrote down the sub¬ 
 stance of the book from the oral communications of the apostle himself respecting 
 the visions revealed to him, adhering as much as possible to his style of language 
 and thought, and putting them info his mouth as by mimicry, so as to have the 
 apostle appear as the author, while he was really the author only mediately and par¬ 
 tially (1. c. p. 390, et seq. 1st ed.) But this artificial hypothesis is only a shift to get 
 out of the embarrassment, into which any one must fall who will not at the start ac¬ 
 knowledge the apostolical authorship of the book. Aside from the fact that this 
 supposition has not the slightest historical testimony to support it, it cannot for a 
 moment be thought that John, who traces the principles of morality to their lowest 
 root, and draws an impassable line between truth and falsehood, would have let such 
 a pious fraud, perpetrated at his side, go uncensured, and would have perfectly con¬ 
 cealed his true relation to these most important visions. Gieseler, on the contrary, 
 a rationalistic scholar indeed, but impartial and judicious, justly remarks ( Kirchen- 
 gesch. I. 1, § 31, Note 8): “1 cannot bring myself to deny the Apocalypse to the 
 apostle John. The author describes himself as the apostle ; the oldest witnesses 
 declare him to be. Had the book been falsely ascribed to him some thirty years 
 before his death, he would certainly have disclaimed it, and this disclaimer would 
 have come down to us from the circle of his disciples through Irenteus ; but the later 
 rejection of it proceeds only from dogmatical interests.” And the assumption, too, 
 of a false ascription of it to the apostle after his death has insurmountable difficulties 
 external and internal, historical and moral, in its way. 
 
MISSIONS.] 
 
 § 107. THE APOCALYPSE. 
 
 91 
 
 tracted and engaged with undiminished fascination the learning 
 of the most learned, and the ingenuity of the most ingenious, 
 could certainly not have remained utterly unknown; he must 
 have been a very prominent actor in history. 1 
 
 Finally, as the Apocalypse demands John for its author, so, 
 conversely, the peculiar character of John seems to demand that 
 he should produce an Apocalypse. 2 We suppose that this book 
 has not come into the canon without the special ordering of 
 Providence, and that it forms the appropriate, indispensable con¬ 
 clusion of the New Testament. We believe, moreover, that the 
 completeness of the Christian system of revelation demands pro¬ 
 phecy, the unveiling of the future of the kingdom of God by in¬ 
 fallible organs, as certainly as this kingdom has its development 
 on earth through perpetual warfare and victory, and as certainly 
 as the hope of the glorious return of the Lord forms a constituent 
 element of Christian life. And now that disciple who had been 
 favoured in a peculiar degree with the gift of intuition and pro¬ 
 found contemplation; who drank in adoring reverence and love 
 at the fountain of the theanthropic life, and was admitted to the 
 special confidence of the Head of the church; who was chosen 
 by the dying Redeemer as the guardian of his bereaved mother, 
 and thus, in some sense, His representative; and who, as the 
 patriarch of the apostolic church, experienced most of its con¬ 
 flicts and sufferings, its victories and hopes; that disciple was 
 best fitted of all the apostles to be the organ of these revelations 
 of the future and the final completion of the church, and to seal 
 her sacred records. The mystic John, the apostle of completion, 
 was by his sanctified natural gifts, as well as by his position and 
 experience, predestinated, so to speak, to unveil the deep founda¬ 
 tions of the church’s life, and the ultimate issue of her history, 
 so that in the Apocalypse the rejuvenated apostle simply placed 
 
 1 The case of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which might be cited here, is not parallel. 
 For, in the first place, the author of that book does not name himself at all; whereas 
 the author of the Revelation designates himself explicitly as John, and appears as 
 overseer of the churches of Asia Minor. And, again, there are men of Paul’s school 
 known to us, as Luke, Barnabas, Clement, Apollos, who may well have written the 
 epistle. 
 
 2 This point has been more fully discussed with poetical freshness and great inge¬ 
 nuity by Dr John Peter Lange, in the attractive article: Ueber den unaufloslichen 
 Zusammenliang zwischen der Individualitat des Apostels Johannes und der Individuality 
 der Apocalypse, in his “ Vermischte Schriflen ,” vol. ii. (1841), p. 173-231. 
 
92 § 108. STATE OF THE CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR [i. BOOK. 
 
 the majestic dome upon the wonderful structure of his Gospel, 
 with the golden inscription of holy longing: “ Even so come, 
 Lord Jesus!” 
 
 § 108. State of the Church in Asia Minor at the close of the 
 Apostolic Period. The Seven Epistles of the Apocalypse. 
 
 We must not take leave of John without giving a sketch of 
 the churches in Asia Minor, to which the Revelation is primarily 
 addressed. The theatre of John’s later labours was also the 
 main theatre of the Christian life at the close of the apostolic 
 period. At first the principal seat of Christianity was Jeru¬ 
 salem, then Antioch, thence it moved westward, until in the 
 course of the second century Rome became more and more 
 plainly the centre of ecclesiastical movement at least for the 
 West. 
 
 The seven epistles in the second and third chapters of the 
 Apocalypse gives us a glimpse of the church in its light and 
 shade towards the end of the first century;—primarily of the 
 church of Asia Minor, but through it also of the church in other 
 lands. These letters are all very much alike in their plan, and 
 present a beautiful order, which has already been very well 
 developed by Bengel. They contain (1) a command of Christ 
 to write to the angel of such and such a church. (2) A desig¬ 
 nation of Jesus by some imposing title, which generally refers 
 to His majestic appearance (i. 13, et seq .), and serves as the 
 basis and warrant of the subsequent promises and threatenings. 
 (3) The address to the angel, or the responsible head of the 
 congregation, be it a single bishop or the college of pastors and 
 teachers. The angels are, at all events, the representatives of 
 the people committed to their charge, and what was said to 
 them, was said at the same time to the churches. This address, 
 or the epistle proper, consists always of (a) a short sketch of the 
 present moral condition of the congregation,—both its virtues 
 and defects,—with commendation or censure as the case may be ; 
 (b) an exhortation either to repentance or to faithfulness and 
 patience, according to the prevailing character of the church 
 addressed ; ( c ) a promise to him who overcomes, together with 
 the admonition : u He that hath an ear, let him hear what the 
 Spirit saitli unto the churches” (ii. 26-29; iii. 5, et seq.; 12, et 
 
MISSIONS.] AT THE CLOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD. 93 
 
 seq ; 21 et seqd), or the same in the reverse order as in the first 
 three epistles (ii. 7, 11, 17). This latter variation divides the 
 seven churches into two groups, one comprising the first three, 
 the other the remaining four, just as the seven seals, the seven 
 trumpets, and the seven vials are divided. The ever-recurring 
 admonition : u He that hath an ear,” etc., consists of ten words. 
 This is of course no unmeaning play, but an application of the 
 Old Testament system of symbolical numbers, in which three 
 was the symbol of the Godhead ; four of the world or humanity; 
 the indivisible number seven, the sum of three and four (as also 
 twelve, their product), the symbol of the indissoluble covenant 
 between God and man ; and ten (seven and three), the round 
 number, the symbol of fulness, completion. 
 
 As to their moral and religious condition, the churches and 
 the representatives fall, according to the epistles, into three 
 classes : 
 
 1. Those which were predominantly good and pure , viz., those 
 of Smyrna (ii. 9) and Philadelphia (iii. 8). Hence in the mes¬ 
 sages to these two churches we find no exhortation to repentance 
 in the strict sense of the word, but only an encouragement to be 
 steadfast, patient, and joyful under suffering. The church of 
 Smyrna, a very ancient, still flourishing commercial city 1 in 
 Ionia, on the bay of Smyrna, perhaps eighteen leagues north of 
 Ephesus, was externally poor and persecuted, and had still 
 greater tribulation in view, but is cheered with the prospect of 
 the crown of life. If the Apocalypse was written, according to 
 the oldest and most reliable tradition, not till the year 95, there 
 is nothing against the old opinion that the venerable martyr 
 Polycarp was already at the head of this church. 2 Philadelphia, 
 a city built by king Attalus Philadelphus, and named after him 
 
 1 Smyrna, or Izmir, as the Turks call it, has at present some 130,000 inhabitants, 
 of whom more than 20,000 are Greek and Armenian Christians. It is also the centre 
 of the Roman Catholic and Protestant missionary operations in Asia Minor. 
 
 2 This opinion has recently been revived by Hengstenberg ( Comment. I. 168), and 
 defended against De Wette and others, who date the composition of the Apocalypse 
 as early as the year 68. When Polycarp suffered martyrdom, a.d. 161 (according 
 to others 167), he had already, as he said, served his divine Lord and Master eighty- 
 six years, and would the less forsake Him now. In 107, Ignatius met him in Smyrna 
 as bishop ; and, according to Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. III. 3, and in Euseb. IV. 14), Ter- 
 tullian and other old witnesses, he was appointed bishop of this church by the 
 apostles, particularly by John. 
 
94 § 108. STATE OF THE CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR [i. BOOK 
 
 (now Ala-Schar), in the province of Lydia, a rich wine region, 
 but subject to earthquakes, was the seat of a church likewise 
 poor and small outwardly, but very faithful and spiritually 
 flourishing ;—a church which was to have all the tribulations and 
 hostility it met with on earth abundantly rewarded in heaven. 
 
 2. Those which were in a predominantly evil and critical con¬ 
 dition, viz., the churches of Sardis (iii. 2) and Laodicea (iii. 15). 
 Here accordingly we find severe censure and earnest exhortation 
 to repentance. The church at Sardis, till the time of Croesus, 
 the flourishing capital of the Lydian empire, but now a miserable 
 hamlet of shepherds, had indeed the name and outward form of 
 Christianity, but not its inward power of faith and life. Hence 
 it was on the brink of spiritual death. Yet the epistle, iii. 4, et 
 seq ., distinguishes from the corrupt mass a few souls which had 
 kept their walk undefiled, without, however, breaking away from 
 the congregation as separatists, and in modern style setting up 
 an opposition sect for themselves. The church of Laodicea, a 
 wealthy commercial city of Phrygia, not far from Colosse and 
 Hierapolis (Col. ii. 1 ; iv. 13, 15), where now stands only a 
 desolate village by the name of Eski-Hissar, proudly fancied 
 itself spiritually rich and faultless, but was in truth poor and 
 blind and naked, and in that most dangerous state of indifference 
 and lukewarmness from which it is more difficult to return to 
 the former decision and ardour, than it was to pass at first from 
 the natural coldness to faith. Hence the fearful threatening : 
 66 1 will spue thee out of my mouth;’ (Lukewarm water pro¬ 
 duces vomiting). Yet even the Laodiceans are not driven to 
 despair. The Lord, in love, knocks at their door and promises 
 them, on condition of thorough repentance, a part in the mar¬ 
 riage supper of the Lamb (iii. 20, et seq.) 
 
 3. Those of a mixed character, viz., the churches of Ephesus 
 (ii. 2-4, 6), Pergamos (13-15, and Thyatira (19). In these 
 cases commendation and censure, promise and threatening are 
 united. Ephesus, then the metropolis of the Asian church, 
 already sufficiently familiar to us from the history of Paul, and 
 as the residence of John, had withstood, indeed, the Gnostic 
 errorists predicted by Paul (Acts xx. 29), and faithfully main¬ 
 tained the purity of the doctrine delivered to it; but it had lost 
 the ardour of its first love, and it is, therefore, earnestly exhorted 
 
MISSIONS.] AT THE CLOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC PEEIOD. 95 
 
 to repent. It tlius represents to us that state of dead, petrified 
 orthodoxy, into which various churches oftentimes fall. Zeal 
 for pure doctrine, is, indeed, of the highest importance, but 
 worthless without living piety and active love. The epistle to 
 the angel of the church of Ephesus is peculiarly applicable to 
 the later Greek church as a whole.—Pergamos in Mysia, the 
 northernmost of these seven cities, formerly the residence of the 
 kings of Asia of the Attalian dynasty, and renowned for its large 
 library,—now Bergamo, a little Turkish village of about two 
 thousand inhabitants,—was the seat of a church, which, under 
 trying circumstances had shown great fidelity, but tolerated in 
 her bosom those who held dangerous Gnostic errors. For this 
 want of rigid discipline, she also is called on to repent. The 
 church of Thyatira, a flourishing manufacturing and commercial 
 city in Lydia, on the site of which now stands a considerable 
 town called Ak-Hissar, was very favourably distinguished for 
 self-denying, active love and patience, but was likewise too in¬ 
 dulgent towards errors which corrupted Christianity with 
 heathen principles and practices. The last two churches, espe¬ 
 cially that of Thyatira, form thus the exact counterpart to that 
 of Ephesus, and are the representatives of a zealous practical 
 piety in union with theoretical latitudinarianism. As doctrine 
 always has more or less influence on practice, this also is a dan¬ 
 gerous state. That church alone is truly sound and flourishing 
 in which pure doctrine and pure life, faith and love, theoretical 
 orthodoxy and practical piety, are harmoniously united and 
 promote one another. 
 
 With good reason have pious theologians in all ages regarded 
 these seven churches of Asia Minor as a miniature of the 
 whole Christian church. “ There is no condition, good, bad, 
 or mixed, of which these epistles do not present a sample, and 
 for which they do not give suitable and wholesome direction.” 
 Here, as everywhere, the word of God and the history of the 
 apostolic church evince their applicability to all times and cir¬ 
 cumstances, and their inexhaustible fulness of instruction, warn¬ 
 ing, and encouragement for all states and stages of religious 
 life. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 » 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SECOND BOOK. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN LIRE 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 Gr 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE MORAL RELATIONS. 
 
 § 109. The New Creation. 
 
 If we apply to Christianity the maxim : u By their fruits ye 
 shall know them,” if we judge of its origin and character by its 
 moral effects, we find it not only the purest and best of all reli¬ 
 gions, but absolutely the only true and perfect religion. It alone 
 makes genuine morality possible, and brings it to perfection. 
 The pagan religions embosom a great mass of immoral princi¬ 
 ples and practices, and even sanction them by their opinions 
 concerning the gods, in whom we find the concentrated essence 
 of all human passions. We discover, indeed, in Confucius, 
 Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, and 
 other ancient sages, a multitude of most beautiful precepts and 
 most exalted moral maxims. But they have neither improved 
 the world nor saved a single sinner. They are isolated flashes 
 of light, which cannot make day. They lack an all-pervading 
 principle; they lack unity, completeness, and vital energy. 1 
 
 i Cicero, in his Tusculan Questions , II. 22, where he discusses virtue in only one 
 of its aspects, as the overcoming of pain, in which very aspect, however, the heroic 
 Roman character is most worthy of admiration, makes the remarkable concession, that 
 he has never yet seen a perfect wise man (“ quern adhuc nos quidem vidimus nemi- 
 nem”), and that the philosophers had described merely what he would be, if there 
 should ever be one (“ qualis futurus sit, si modo aliquando fuerit”). The highest ideal 
 of morality, to which classic antiquity attained, was that just man proving 
 
100 
 
 § 109. THE NEW CREATION. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 Action is the most powerful preaching. Life alone can kindle 
 life. On far higher ground stands Judaism, which is not the 
 offspring of unaided, erratic fancy and speculation, but a divine 
 revelation, and has constantly in view the glory of God and the 
 holiness of man. Yet it is but the shadow of a future substance, 1 
 a preparation for Him who has fulfilled the law and the pro¬ 
 phets, presented in His life the ideal of holy love, reconciled man 
 with God, and thereby opened the only pure fountain of true 
 virtue. The law demands ; the gospel gives. The law shows 
 what is duty; the gospel gives the ability to do it. The one is 
 a mirror of God’s holiness; the other, of His love. The former 
 accuses and condemns; the latter justifies and blesses. True, 
 the law too has its promises; but they are conditioned by the 
 fulfilment of its commands, which is possible only by the Spirit 
 of the gospel. Nothing short of supernatural faith in Jesus, the 
 Redeemer, furnishes an effectual remedy for the disease of sin, 
 and brings us into living communion with God and into the 
 element of disinterested love to God and man, in which the 
 essence of true virtue and piety consists. Without regeneration 
 by the Holy Ghost, there can be, in reality, nothing more than 
 mere outward conformity to the requisitions of the law from more 
 or less selfish motives; a legal righteousness, related to Christian 
 morality as the statue to the living man, or as the shadow to the 
 substance. 
 
 himself by suffering, whom Plato portrays in the second book of his Republic in con¬ 
 trast witli the unjust (<*§<*«<?), Politia, p. 74, et seq. ed. Ast. (Opp. vol. iv.), p. 360, E. 
 et seq. ed. Bip. AVhile the unjust man, says Plato, assumes the air of justice, in order 
 to carry out his injustice, the just man, on the contrary, is simple and upright, wishing, 
 as JEschylus says, to be good, rather than to appear good; a man, who “without 
 doing any wrong may assume the appearance of the grossest injustice a.hxZv 
 
 £%£Tw rijs p.iyhrrvii ottiizixf), that he may try his justice in not allowing himself to 
 be shaken by ill report, or anything that springs therefrom, but in remaining con¬ 
 stant until death ; being regarded, indeed, throughout his life as unjust, while in truth 
 he is just.” Nay, Plato predicts to this wise man, as with a presentiment of Christ 
 crucified, that he 44 shall be scourged, tortured, fettered, deprived of his eyes, and, 
 after having endured all possible sufferings, fastened to a post” (p. 361, E. ed. Bip.) 
 But after all, this description, in the first place, never rises from the sphere of legal 
 justice into that of religion properly so called; and then it is nothing but a mere ideal, 
 an abstraction, without any certainty of ever being realized; an unconscious and sig¬ 
 nificant prophecy, so to speak, of the unpretending suffering virtue in servant form, 
 which appeared four centuries after in Jesus Christ, and was crucified for the salva¬ 
 tion of the world. 
 
 1 Col. ii. 17. Heb. x. 1. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 109. THE NEW CREATION. 
 
 101 
 
 Christianity, therefore, is literally a new moral creation , not, 
 however, annihilating the old, but delivering its energies from 
 the corruption and bondage of sin, and raising them to perfection. 
 It makes its first appearance in all its fulness and glory in the 
 theanthropic person of Jesus Christ, the second Adam, the 
 head and representative of regenerate humanity. To be Recon¬ 
 ciler and Redeemer, Christ must incorporate Himself with human 
 nature in all its motions and states. He must pass through all 
 its pains and moral conflicts. He must perfectly overcome, 
 without once for a moment giving way, the temptation to evil 
 from without, which, as it assailed the first Adam, so also must 
 assail Him, for the trial and exercise of His virtue. He had to 
 maintain, in the thickening conflict with the earthly and hellish 
 kingdom of darkness, His obedience to God and His love to 
 man, even to the sacrifice of His own life. In this way He 
 must break the power of sin in its whole compass, and realize in 
 His own person the idea of sinless holiness, the ideal of moral 
 perfection. 1 That he actually did this is testified by the whole 
 gospel history, as well as by the daily experience of all believers, 
 who continually feel the influence of this moral idea upon them¬ 
 selves, and are conscious that that influence proceeds not from 
 their own nature, nor from another man, but from the person of 
 Christ. His sublime moral teaching is but the reflection of His 
 character. His life, as portrayed to us from personal observation 
 bv the unlettered evangelists with the artless pencil of the most 
 sinode*hearted love of truth, and as it has since lain, as the most 
 
 1 The Christology of the church conceives the union of the divine and human 
 natures in the Redeemer as something already accomplished, a finished fact. This is 
 the theological way of viewing it. But with this there is also a historical and ethical 
 view, which coincides in its result with the other, but at the same time forms its neces¬ 
 sary complement. This regards the union in its progress, its development, as a per¬ 
 petually growing incarnation of God and deification of man. These two processes 
 condition each other, and are simultaneously completed, since they are one (not iden¬ 
 tical). Just so far as the divine forms itself in the various stages and conditions of 
 human existence, the latter is deified, and vice versa. The descent of the eternal Logos 
 through the Holy Ghost into the womb of the virgin, in whom the religious suscep¬ 
 tibility of the whole human family reached its maturity is the beginning—the exalta¬ 
 tion of the human nature, thus forever, yet without confusion, united with the Logos, 
 to the right hand of the Father and to a participation in the divine government of the 
 world is the end—of this sacred biography of the second Adam. Only so far as He 
 has become what He is by a moral and religious process, by the activity of His will, can 
 He be in any proper sense the 'pattern which we are to follow. Comp. Luke 11 . b'i ; 
 Heb. v. 8. 
 
102 
 
 § 109. THE NEW CKEATION. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 sacred and certain of all realities, at the foundation of the faith 
 of His people, is an uninterrupted communion with God, His 
 heavenly Father; an undisturbed harmony of all the powers of 
 the soul; a perfect dominion of reason over sense, of mind oyer 
 body, of the consciousness of God over that of self and the 
 world ; an ever-victorious struggle against all forms of sin and 
 error ; but at the same time an unreserved self-devotion to the 
 welfare of humanity as a whole, irrespective of nation, age, sex, 
 condition, or culture, making its interests His own, bearing, in 
 the deepest sympathy, its moral and physical sufferings, healing 
 its diseases, perfecting and satisfying its susceptibility for the 
 divine;—in a word, it is one grand act of the freest and purest 
 love to God and man. In Him piety and morality, absolute 
 devotion to God and absolute devotion to mankind, are hut two 
 expressions of the same inward principle, and therefore perfectly 
 reconciled. 
 
 Where in the universe is there a being so full of earnestness 
 and mildness, grandeur and humility, hatred of sin and love of 
 sinners ; so deeply moved and inspired, yet of such heavenly 
 serenity and calmness; so symmetrical and harmonious; so 
 thoroughly controlled by a sole regard to the glory of God and 
 the salvation of the world; so divine, yet so genuinely human ; 
 so sublime and awful, yet so irresistibly attractive,—as Jesus of 
 Nazareth ? Here is more than the majesty of the starry heavens 
 above us and the moral law within us, which filled even the 
 prosaic philosopher, Kant, with ever-growing admiration and 
 awe. Here is the a holy of holies” of history, which infidelity 
 itself, if it retain the least sense of decency and of the dignity of 
 man, does not venture to violate. Here is the light of the world, 
 which immediately attests its own presence and glory, and sends 
 its rays through all ages and climes. Here is the fresh fountain 
 of life, in which the noblest of our race have bathed and purified 
 themselves, have renewed their youth and been inspired for 
 every great and good work. Here is the soul’s only true point 
 of departure, its only firm centre of repose, on which rests all 
 confidence in the moral nobility and eternal destiny of man, nay, 
 all certitude itself. Here is the only sure refuge of the w 7 eary 
 and heavy-laden—and such are all who know themselves—where 
 they find rest and refreshment, and soon learn to exclaim 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 109. THE NEW CREATION. 
 
 103 
 
 with Peter: u Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the 
 words of eternal life !”— u One could bear,” says the childlike 
 Claudius, 16 to be branded and broken on the wheel for the mere 
 idea” (how much more for the living, bodily reality?), u and he 
 must be crazy who can think of mocking and laughing at it. 
 He, who has his heart in the right place, lies in the dust, exults, 
 and adores.” 
 
 By His sinless life, by His free-will offering of himself on the 
 cross in our stead and for our good, and by His triumph over 
 death and the grave, Christ has wrought out a complete atone¬ 
 ment and redemption for humanity, and has become the founder 
 and the head of a new moral and religious kingdom, which 
 carries in itself the necessary supernatural power, and is destined 
 to purge the world of all elements of sin and error, and, leaven¬ 
 like, to pervade, to sanctify, and perfect it. This purifying and 
 developing work of the Redeemer in and through His kingdom 
 is absolute, arriving at nothing short of moral and religious per¬ 
 fection. If, therefore, there are still imperfection, sin, and error 
 in the world, the reason is not in the Redeemer nor in the con¬ 
 stitution of His kingdom, but in the perversity of human nature. 
 Every believer must admit, that, if evil still cleaves to him, it is 
 purely his own fault. So far as he lives in Christ, he is a new 
 creature ; old things have passed away, and all has become new 
 (2 Cor. v. 17). Again, this work of Christ is absolute and uni¬ 
 versal in its extent. As it touches all the powers and capacities 
 of the individual, so it extends also to all the proper, divinely- 
 established relations and conditions of human life, resting not till 
 it bring humanity as a whole (not in the numerical, but organic 
 sense) to perfection; till all sciences, arts, states, and social institu¬ 
 tions, in happy freedom, serve the Lord ; till even the body is 
 glorified, all nature regenerated and transformed into the theatre 
 of the perfect theocracy, the new earth united with the new 
 heavens, and God made all in all. For Christ is not merely “ a 
 clergyman or a pastor, but a high-priest and king,” 1 to whom 
 the whole world belongs and must ultimately submit in free and 
 cheerful adoration. 
 
 Thus the incarnation of the eternal Word, while it is, on the 
 
 1 Words of Dr R. Rothe in the preface to the first volume of his Theologische Ethik. 
 1845, p. xiii. 
 
104 
 
 § 110. THE APOSTLES. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 one hand, the culminating point of all the previous, preparatory 
 revelations of God, the winding up of the ancient history, is, on 
 the other, the creative beginning of a vast series of operations 
 and influences, which, flowing forth from this central fact and 
 the ever-present energy of its life, run through all centuries and 
 nations, and will end only with the third and last creation. The 
 Old Testament begins with the natural creation ; the New, with 
 the moral, the incarnation; and with the union of the two, the 
 absolute glorification of Nature in Spirit, of the world in the 
 kingdom of God, the Bible closes. 1 
 
 We are now to observe how this transforming power of the 
 Spirit of Christ revealed itself in the apostolic church : first in 
 the personal character of the apostles ; then in the family and 
 the congregation ; and finally, in civil and national life. 
 
 § 110. The Apostles. 
 
 When we look at the lives and labours of the several apostles, 
 as they have already been presented in detail; when we consider 
 their humble parentage and education, their unselfish motives 
 and purposes, their gigantic performances in almost total want of 
 outward means, their incalculable influence not only upon their 
 own age, but upon the whole succeeding history of the church 
 and the world,—we are irresistibly overwhelmed with the im¬ 
 pression of a power, a purity, and a sublimity, which far trans¬ 
 cend the sphere of mere natural will, and before which the 
 greatest heroes of heathendom vanish like shadows. Here we 
 everywhere feel the life-giving breath of a new moral creation, of 
 a regeneration which reaches to the very centre of the human 
 constitution, and which can be produced only by the j^ower of 
 the Holy Ghost. A few fishermen of Galilee, who, as Jews, 
 were accustomed to make so rigid a separation between a holy 
 God and sinful man, and to shrink from any mixture of the two 
 as from horrible idolatry, rise to the intuition of the absolute 
 God-man, and thereby prove that they themselves have become 
 children of God, in whom is reflected that original, sinless life of 
 the Redeemer. They can all say with Paul: “ I live ; yet not 
 I (in my old, natural man, in the flesh, a slave of sin and of the 
 
 i Comp. § 6. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 110. THE AFOSTLES. 
 
 105 
 
 law), but Christ livetli in me” (Gal. ii. 20). Their piety is thus 
 a real indwelling of Christ in their souls by the Holy Ghost, 
 through the instrumentality of faith, so that lie forms the motive 
 power of their whole being, and they think, speak, write and act 
 by Him, in His Spirit, and according to His will. 
 
 This union of the apostles with Christ was not, indeed, a pan¬ 
 theistic confusion. They retained their self-consciousness, their 
 personality and individual peculiarities. No true, living unity 
 can be conceived without personal distinction. But neither was 
 this union, on the other hand, a merely moral one, a sympathy 
 of thought, feeling, and aim, like that, perhaps, between a pious 
 Jew and Moses, between a Mohammedan and Mohammed, or 
 between any pupil and his teacher, or other kindred spirits. 
 Next to the unsearchable Trinity, and the relation of the divine 
 and human natures in the Redeemer, it was the deepest, holiest, 
 and most indissoluble union conceivable. It was a literal com¬ 
 munity of life , which extended to the whole man, beginning in 
 the inmost soul, and ending with the resurrection of the body 
 (2 Cor. iii. 18 ; Phil. iii. 24) ; a communion of life, which, ac¬ 
 cording to the sublime representation of the Scriptures them¬ 
 selves, has its original in the mystery of the eternal unity of the 
 Only Begotten with the Father (John xvii. 21) ; its image, in 
 the tenderest and closest unions in the province of nature, the 
 relation of body and soul, members and head, wife and husband, 
 branch and vine. 1 Christ is not only the progenitor of the life 
 of believers, as Adam was the progenitor of our natural exist¬ 
 ence; He is a u quickening spirit” (1 Cor. xv. 45), and, as 
 such, the ever-present and inexhaustible fountain of life. On 
 Him the whole spiritual existence of his people every moment 
 depends, as the branches on the vine, and from Him they are 
 perpetually inspired anew for word and deed. John xiv. 19; 
 xv. 5,— u Without me ye can do nothing.” 
 
 1 Comp. John vi. 51-58; xv. 1-8. Rom. viii. 9-11. 1 Cor. vi. 17; xii. 14-27. Gal. 
 ii. 20, et seq. Eph. i. 22, et seq. ; iv. 15, et seq. ; v. 22, 23. Col. i. 18, 24; ii. 19; iii. 3, 
 et seq., and many other passages, especially Paul’s perpetually recurring phrases, “in 
 the Lord,” “ in Christ,” where the h should not be taken instrumental^ and con¬ 
 founded with Sid, but as denoting the sphere of life, the element, in which believers 
 move, and in which all their moral relations, their duties as parents and children, hus¬ 
 band and wife, masters and servants, rulers and subjects, etc,, have their foundation 
 and their significance. 
 
106 § 110. THE APOSTLES. [il. BOOK. 
 
 In relation to the Redeemer, therefore, the religions life of the 
 apostles was derived, gushing forth from His fulness, and wholly 
 dependent on Him, yet at the same time truly free. In relation 
 to the church, however, it was original, welling up in uncommon 
 freshness and purity, the most vigorous and unadulterated con¬ 
 tinuation of the earthly human life of Jesus himself; a life of 
 love, of unconditional devotion to God and to the eternal inte¬ 
 rests of mankind to the latest breath. A specific distinction be¬ 
 tween the apostles and ordinary Christians there is not; for the 
 former owed all to the Lord, and the latter enjoy, in the Holy 
 Ghost, through faith, the same immediate access to the Redeemer. 
 But there is an important difference in degree. A Peter, a Paul, 
 and a John are patterns and examples for us, in a far deeper 
 sense and in higher measure than the most enlightened and 
 godly martyrs, church fathers, or reformers. 
 
 The mode of transition from the natural to the higher spiritual 
 life varied in the apostles according to their individual peculi¬ 
 arities ; for to these God condescends to accommodate Himself in 
 His revelations. Our Lord himself (John iii. 8) compares the 
 operation of the Spirit in regeneration to the wind, primarily to 
 illustrate the mysteriousness of its origin and end, its absolute 
 freedom and independence upon human calculations, and yet, 
 at the same time, the impossibility of denying or resisting its 
 action. But we may legitimately extend the comparison also to 
 the various degrees of force and rapidity with which the Spirit 
 operates. For as the wind at one time blows a hurricane amidst 
 lightning and thunder, uprooting trees, demolishing houses, and 
 wrecking ships—at another rises gradually and almost imper¬ 
 ceptibly, as the cool zephyr, playing with delightful freshness on 
 the brow,—so is it also with the Holy Ghost, according as He 
 has to deal with a proud, energetic character, or a modest and 
 gentle one, with a hoary offender or a guileless child. Upon a 
 Paul He descends suddenly and unexpectedly, like a thunder¬ 
 storm ; upon a John He falls like the gentle dew or the mild 
 ravs of the vernal sun. Yet even in the first case the trans- 
 formation ought not to be regarded as altogether abrupt and 
 magical. Even what are called sudden conversions are always 
 inwardly and outwardly prepared, though often in a way not 
 clearly discernible by the subject himself; they never wholly 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 110. THE APOSTLES. 
 
 107 
 
 break the connection with, the previous course of life. 1 For re¬ 
 generation is not the destroying, but the redeeming, the exalting, 
 and the sanctifying of the natural gifts, faculties, and idiosyn- 
 cracies. Everything purely human Christianity attracts, de¬ 
 velops, and perfects. Only sin it inexorably repels; and sin is 
 not a constituent element of human nature, as it originally was, 
 but an accident cleaving to it only from the fall; not nature 
 itself, but a corruption of the nature created by God, and in 
 itself good. Manicheism has always been condemned by the 
 church as an error, leading to the denial of man’s capability of 
 redemption, as the opposite extreme of Pelagianism leads to the 
 denial of his need of it. 
 
 Accordingly we find in the apostles, in point of fact, their 
 peculiar temperaments and capacities remaining after conversion, 
 but raised from the sphere of nature into that of Spirit, from the 
 service of self and the world to the service of God and His Christ. 
 IIow much alike are these apostles, yet how great the diversity 
 among them ! The church may well be compared to a garden 
 variegated with flowers of every species and clime ; to an anthem, 
 in which the highest and deepest tones blend in wonderful har¬ 
 mony ; to a body, whose members have each its particular form 
 and function, yet are ruled by the same head, permeated by the 
 same blood, and subservient to the same end, according to the 
 masterly representation of Paul, 1 Cor. xii. 4, et seq . In this 
 very diversity of divine endowments must we adore the inex¬ 
 haustible wisdom and grace of the Lord. The unbiassed con- 
 templation of this unity in diversity, and diversity in unity, 
 should free us from all exclusiveness and bigotry, and raise us to 
 a genuine liberality and catholicity of thought and feeling. 
 
 Peter retained the fire of his nature, his quickness of decision 
 in word and deed, his practical talent for governing; but these 
 were purified from vanity and self-conceit, and coupled with true 
 humility. He became more constant and reliable, and thence¬ 
 forth sought not his own honour, but solely the glory of the 
 Lord and the salvation of souls. 2 John remained a son of thunder 
 in the boldness and massiveness of his ideas, in his overwhelming 
 
 1 Comp. Neander’s fine article—Die mannigfachen Wege des IJerrn in dem Werhe 
 der Bekehrung, in his “ Kleinen Gelegenheitsschriften .” 3d ed., 1829, p. 130, et seq. 
 
 2 Comp. 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11; v. 1, et seq. ; and § 89 above. 
 
108 
 
 § 110. THE APOSTLES. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 zeal against everything ungodly and anticliristian, in his keen 
 discrimination between light and darkness, truth and falsehood, 
 the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world, the children of 
 God and the children of the devil. But the inconsiderate vehe¬ 
 mence of passion, in which he once rashly proposed to call down 
 fire from heaven, he had laid aside, and had become wholly con¬ 
 formed to the spirit of his Master. In his character there was 
 a rare blending, by no means unaccountable, however, on psycho¬ 
 logical principles, of the most ardent love with the holiest severity, 
 an almost maidenly tenderness and mildness with the strongest 
 antipathy to everything impure. 1 
 
 Of the character of Paul we have the fullest representation in 
 his numerous epistles, and in the Acts of Luke; as, in fact, this 
 apostle laboured more than all the others (1 Cor. xv. 10). In 
 him the transition from the old life to the new was most abrupt, 
 and therefore most striking. Indeed, he calls himself even an 
 abortion (e^rpo/xa, 1 Cor. xv. 8), to denote the violent, irregular 
 mode of his conversion. Yet his great gifts and learned educa¬ 
 tion, which distinguished him above all his colleagues, were 
 made, under the direction of the Holy Ghost, of the most im¬ 
 portant service to the church. It is he who has given us the 
 only complete, systematic exhibition we have of the doctrines 
 of salvation. Endowed with uncommon depth and acuteness of 
 thought, with indomitable energy and proud independence of 
 will, earnestly and honestly striving withal after moral perfection, 
 but totally blind as to the way of attaining it, and implicated in 
 the sin against the Son of Man (Matt. xii. 32), he stands at 
 first at the head of the zealots for the law of his fathers, sworn 
 to exterminate the followers of the Nazarene. Suppressing the 
 gentle risings of sympathy, not suffering himself to be discon¬ 
 certed by the sight of the heavenly sufferer, Stephen, he perse¬ 
 cutes the Christians, breathes out blasphemies against the 
 Crucified, and hastens to Damascus, with full power from the 
 Sanhedrim, to root out there also, if possible, the dangerous 
 sect. How entirely different his conduct after the wonderful 
 event which transformed the cursing Saul into the praying Paul, 
 the cruel persecutor into the most laborious and efficient advocate 
 
 1 Comp, what we have already said (§ 103) respecting the character of this apostle. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 110. THE APOSTLES. 
 
 109 
 
 of Christianity ! All those gifts of nature, which have hitherto 
 been dealing destruction in the service of a blind fanaticism, 
 become gifts of the Holy Ghost, and are consecrated to the most 
 faithful service of Christ crucified, whom he thenceforth regards 
 not as an usurper of the Messiahship, but as the true Saviour 
 of the world, and as his highest, his only wisdom and strength. 
 The same energy, decision, and consistency, but coupled with 
 gentleness, meekness, and wisdom; the same inflexibility of 
 purpose, but no disposition to use violence or unholy means ; 
 the same independence and lordliness, but animated by the 
 most self-denying love, which strives to become all things to all 
 men ; the same, nay, still greater zeal for the glory of God, but 
 cleansed of all impure motives ; the same inexorable rigour, not, 
 however, against erring brethren, but only against sin and all 
 impeachment of the merits of Christ; the same fire, no longer 
 that of a passionate zealot, but of a mind at rest, considerate and 
 self-possessed; the same dialectic acumen of a Rabbin of Ga¬ 
 maliel’s school, no longer busied, however, with useless subtleties, 
 but employed to vindicate evangelical doctrine and oppose all 
 self-righteousness. In a service of almost thirty years, from his 
 conversion to his martyrdom, Paul shows such nobleness of mind, 
 such deep tenderness of heart, such disinterestedness and fidelity 
 in labouring for the most exalted and holy ends, the spread of 
 the kingdom of God and the salvation of immortal souls, through 
 almost incessant persecution and hardship, derision and anxiety, 
 hunger and thirst, chains and imprisonment; and notwithstand¬ 
 ing the unexampled success of his labours in two quarters of the 
 olobe, with all his consciousness of the unassailable height and 
 glory of his calling, he exhibits such unfeigned humility, declar¬ 
 ing himself the least of all the apostles, and the chief of sinners, 
 ascribing all his honour and fame to free grace alone, and glory¬ 
 ing only in his weakness, in which the power of God is magnified ; 
 —in short, he presents a character so pure and sublime, that he 
 stands forth as a living apology for Christianity of irresistible 
 force to every unprejudiced mind. Indeed, it seems inconceiv¬ 
 able that any one, after thoroughly studying such a life, can for 
 a moment doubt the divinity of the Gospel. Of deception and 
 hypocrisy it is here not to be whispered ; nor even of self-delusion 
 and enthusiasm. For Paul, though he was once caught up into 
 
no 
 
 § 110. THE APOSTLES. 
 
 [ri. BOOK. 
 
 the third heaven, and heard unutterable words, was anything 
 rather than a dreamer and a visionary. He manifests, on the 
 contrary, rare moderation, prudence, and self-control in all the 
 circumstances of his life. In general, we observe in all the 
 apostles an extraordinary combination of the innocence of the 
 dove and the wisdom of the serpent, depth and clearness, fulness 
 of heart and discretion, vivacity and calmness. 
 
 The four leading apostles have by many been characterized 
 according to the four temperaments , to James being assigned the 
 phlegmatic, to Peter the sanguine, to Paul the choleric, and to 
 John the melancholic, each sanctified by Christianity. This 
 comparison, however, will not hold strictly; at least, the phleg¬ 
 matic temperament does not accord with the practical activity 
 of James, and the life and power of his epistle. It is better to 
 suppose in all a mixture of temperaments, with the preponder¬ 
 ance of one or another, as in every well-proportioned char¬ 
 acter. 1 James is the most fettered, Paul the most free ; the 
 former predominantly legal, the latter thoroughly evangelical. 
 Yet the two coincide remarkably in their common anthropo¬ 
 logical starting-point, as also in their spiritualized conception of 
 the law and of righteousness. 2 Peter is the most outwardly 
 active and practical, John the most inwardly active and mystical; 
 yet is the former also profound and spiritual, while the latter 
 shows equal zeal for a holy walk. James preaches chiefly the 
 acting faith; Peter, the confessing; Paul, the justifying ; John, 
 the loving and enjoying. It is at bottom, however, the same 
 faith in all, only appearing in life in different forms, which can 
 never be abstractly severed from one another. With James, 
 law is the main idea; with Peter, hope ; with Paul, faith; with 
 John, love. But James makes love the sum and soul of the 
 law ; John makes love consist in fulfilling the divine commands ; 
 
 1 Ullman {Die Sundlosigkeit Jesu, p. 46, 5th ed.) justly observes, that in Jesus we 
 can speak of no temperament at all; as this always denotes a certain disproportion in 
 the combination of mental faculties, the preponderance of one class of talents. “ In 
 Him we find only the purest temper amentum, in the old sense of the word, a mixture 
 harmonious throughout, the proper, healthy proportion of all faculties and talents.” 
 The same is true of the apostles, only in a less degree, so far as they approacli this 
 pattern. 
 
 2 As Neander especially has finely shown in his article, Paulus und JaJcobus. Die 
 Einheit des evangelischen Geistes in verschiedenen Formen, printed in his “ Kleinen 
 Gelegenheitsschriften p. 1, et seq. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 §111. THE FAMILY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 while upon the same love Paul pens from experience the most 
 beautiful and sublime eulogy, and in it Peter faithfully followed 
 the Lord, even to the death of the cross. And as to hope, Peter, 
 on his part, sees in Christ the fulfilment of all the Messianic 
 promises, while all the other apostles, John among the rest, who 
 most anticipates the ideal future, agree with him that we are 
 here u saved in hope,” that u we walk by faith, not by sight,” 
 and that u it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” 
 
 Thus, therefore, these representatives of the four ground- 
 forms of the Christian life, which are continually repeating them¬ 
 selves in the church, integrate one another, and blend in full- 
 toned harmony, to the praise of the one Redeemer, whose holy 
 and sanctifying Spirit lives in them all, and to the continual in¬ 
 struction, encouragement, and edification of the redeemed, who 
 follow them in the same path and to the same glorious goal! 1 
 
 § 111. The Family. 
 
 Marriage, that universal, fundamental moral relation, the 
 nursery of the state and the church, is, indeed, as old as hu¬ 
 manity itself, and a strictly divine institution (Gen. ii. 18). But 
 under the influence of sin it has degenerated, and Christianity 
 alone restores it to its proper dignity and significance. Our 
 religion places marriage in the most exalted light by represent¬ 
 ing it as a copy of the relation of Christ to His church, thus 
 giving it a truly holy, we may say, a sacramental character 
 (Eph. y. 22-33). 
 
 By this comparison, in the first place, polygamy, which is 
 found more or less not only in all heathen nations (most rarely 
 in the Roman and Germanic), but even amongst the Old Testa¬ 
 ment patriachs and kings, and which has the sanction of law 
 with Mohammedans, is forever condemned, and monogamy made 
 
 1 Der Schlachtruf, der St Pauli Brust entsprungen, 
 
 Rief nicht sein Echo auf zu tausend Streiten ? 
 
 Und welch’ein Friedensecho hat geklungen 
 Durch tausend Herzen von Juhannis Saiten ! 
 
 Wie viele rasche Feuer sind entglommen 
 Als Wiederschein von Petri Funkenspriihen ! 
 
 Und sieht man Andre still mit Opfern kommen, 
 
 Ist’s, weil sie in Jakobi Schul’ gediehen:— 
 
 Pin Satz ist’s, der in Yariationen 
 
 Yom ersten Anfang forttont durch iEonen. 
 
112 § 111. THE FAMILY. [ll. BOOK. 
 
 the rule. This form of the conjugal relation was presented in 
 the creation of the first human pair as the normal one; was 
 made the ideal by the Mosaic law ; and is the only condition of 
 a true and truly happy marriage. Then again, in this analogy 
 is implied the indissoluble nature of the marriage bond; for the 
 union between Christ and Ilis bride, the church, can never be 
 broken. The husband and the wife are one flesh ; and what 
 God has joined together, man must not put asunder (comp. 
 Matth. xix. 3-9 ; 1 Cor. vii. 10). Increase of immorality always 
 goes hand in hand with the facilitating of divorce. 
 
 Again, Christianity alone raises woman to her true dignity. 
 It is well known, that in antiquity, even among the highly- 
 cultivated Greeks, woman was generally looked upon as a mere 
 tool of lust, and therefore in the most degraded light. Her edu¬ 
 cation was shamefully neglected ; and if she sometimes attained 
 prominence in society, it was wholly in consequence of bodily 
 attraction and the gift of entertaining wit, not for any moral force 
 or purity of character. Even Plato, with all his exalted ideas, 
 knew nothing of the sacredness of monogamy. In his ideal state 
 he allows promiscuous concubinage. And in the ethical works 
 of Aristotle, among many virtues, chastity and mercy, those 
 pillars of genuine morality, are never mentioned. Sophocles, 
 in his pious, childlike, devoted, self-denying sufferer, Antigone, 
 who followed her blind father into exile, and sought in every w T ay 
 to alleviate his misfortunes, reaches out prophetically beyond the 
 domain of heathenism. Antigone is an ideal creation of poetic 
 fancy, realized only in Christian nations. In reverence for the 
 marriage relation the ancient Germans stood highest. They 
 distinguished themselves above all other pagans by their great 
 regard for the female sex, their chastity and conjugal fidelity; 
 and these traits among others especially predisposed them for 
 the gospel. Yet these become most firm and sacred only by 
 being referred to the holiest of all conceivable relations. Chris- 
 tianity does not, indeed, take woman out of her natural sphere 
 of subordination and domestic life, and throw her into the whirl 
 of public activity, from which she instinctively shrinks; but 
 places her in a religious and moral point of view by the side of 
 man, as a joint-heir of the same heavenly inheritance (1 Peter 
 iii. 7) ; and by doctrine and illustrious example, as in the ever 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 111. THE FAMILY. 
 
 113 
 
 blessed Virgin, in Salome, Martha and Mary, and Mary Magda¬ 
 lene, it has opened the way for the development of the noblest 
 and loveliest female virtues in all their forms. 
 
 Finally, from that fruitful analogy may be derived all the 
 duties of husband and wife to one another, and to their children, 
 as Paul himself presents them in few but comprehensive words 
 in the passage cited above. 
 
 1. The relation of the husband to the w T ife is the same as that 
 of Christ to the church. In other words, the husband is even, 
 by virtue of his whole physical and intellectual constitution, the 
 head of the wife, her lord and ruler (Eph. v. 22). He is not, 
 however, to lord it over her ambitiously and arbitrarily, as a 
 despot, but, with the power of love, surrendering himself to her, 
 as a part of his own being, as his other self, making her partaker 
 of all his joys and possessions, patiently and meekly bearing her 
 weaknesses, promoting in every way her temporal, and, above 
 all, her spiritual welfare, and sacrificing himself for her, even to 
 his last breath, as Christ has given His life for the church, is 
 continually purifying and sanctifying her with His blood, and 
 raising her, as a spotless, richly adorned bride, to full participa¬ 
 tion in His glory and blessedness. 1 This, then, makes the sancti¬ 
 fication and moral perfection of the character the highest end of 
 conjugal life, to which the physical object, the propagation of 
 the race, must be subordinate and subservient, 2 —a view, of 
 which heathendom never dreamed. Of course, however, the de¬ 
 votion of the husband and wife to each other, as well as to the 
 children, ought never to be absolute, or it would degenerate into 
 idolatry. It should not interfere in the least either with the 
 moral duties of public life and occupation, by neglect of which 
 the most ardent conjugal love.must only shrink morbidly into 
 itself and wither, or with the demands of love to God, who alone 
 can claim our undivided heart and life. On the contrary, it 
 should favour both. When there is any danger of a conflict 
 
 1 Eph. v. 25-31. Col. iii. 19. 1 Pet. iii. 7. 
 
 2 Schleiermacher strikingly says ( Predigten , I. p. 575)—“ The higher end of Chris¬ 
 tian marriage is, that each party may sanctify, and be sanctified by the other;” and 
 Rothe (Theol. Etliik. III. p. 670)—■“ Only in the holiness of self-denying love can the 
 marriage relation be a copy of the relation of Christ to humanity, which He, by His 
 self-devotion, has purchased for His own.” 
 
 VOL. II. H 
 
§ 111. THE FAMILY. 
 
 114 
 
 [II. BOOK. 
 
 here, then the command is of force : “ Let them that have wives, 
 be as though they had none” (1 Cor. vii. 29). 
 
 2. The wife stands related to the husband, as the church to 
 the Lord ; that is, site is to be subject to him, and to show him 
 all due reverence. 1 But this obedience does not exclude equality 
 of personal and moral dignity. 2 It should have nothing slavish 
 or bitter about it, no fear nor trembling. It should be free and 
 joyful in, and for the sake of, the Lord (comp. Col. iii. 18). So 
 the church finds her highest honour, delight, and freedom in 
 everywhere following her heavenly bridegroom in the most trust¬ 
 ful self-resignation. Pride is contrary to the nature of woman, 
 except so far as it relates to her husband and children, in whom 
 she forgets herself. In this subordinate position, as well as in 
 the maternal care of her children, and the whole field of private, 
 domestic life, she has occasion to exhibit her silent moral eleva¬ 
 tion, to unfold the noble virtues of modesty, meekness, patience, 
 fidelity, and self-denial, and thereby to adorn her Christian pro¬ 
 fession, and to integrate the masculine character. Here too, 
 however, the analogy is not perfect. For, while the wife often 
 converts her husband, and always ought at least to exert upon 
 him a softening, refining, elevating, and sanctifying influence, 
 such an influence of the church on Christ, the Perfect, is of 
 course unnecessary and impossible. 
 
 3. The relation of parents to children corresponds with that 
 of Christ and the church to individual Christians ; the father 
 here again holding the place of Christ, the mother the place of 
 the church. Every new spiritual birth is the result of the crea¬ 
 tive activity of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Christian 
 church; and it is the church which, by the faithful administra¬ 
 tion of the means of grace, under the direction and with the 
 power of the Lord, nourishes, strengthens, and perpetually sus¬ 
 tains the new life of her children, and protects it from all disease 
 and degeneracy, till it reach the age of independent manhood in 
 Christ. So should it be, also, in every Christian family. It is 
 the duty primarily of the mother, who is peculiarly fitted for it 
 by nature, to provide for the wants of the infant, and to awaken 
 its slumbering powers to the first stage of their activity; but 
 
 1 Eph. v. 21, 33. 1 Cor. xi. 7, et seq. 1 Tim. ii. 11, et seq. 1 Pet. iii. 1, et seq. 
 
 2 Gal. iii. 28. 1 Pet. iii. 7. 
 
§111. THE FAMILY. 
 
 115 
 
 LIFE.] 
 
 this she is to do under the oversight, and supported by the autho¬ 
 rity, of the father, who is king and priest in the sanctuary of his 
 own house. Both parents are to treat their children, not with 
 severity, but with devoted, self-sacrificing love, 1 and to train 
 them up, not only for useful members of the body politic, but, 
 above all, for citizens of the kingdom of heaven. They are to 
 train them by instruction, and still more by the living power of 
 example ; by actually bearing witness of Christianity in their 
 lives, and by the religious consecration of the whole domestic 
 system ; ever mindful that God has given them this precious 
 blessing of marriage, and will one day call them to account for 
 their use of it. This sacred duty the apostle enforces in the few 
 words, Eph. vi. 4, u Bring them up in the nurture and admoni¬ 
 tion of the Lord;” 2 that is, as the representatives of the Lord, 
 so that, properly speaking, the Lord himself, by the free agency 
 - of the parents, with earnestness and gentleness trains the chil¬ 
 dren for himself, as His own. The apostle is here speaking, in¬ 
 deed, primarily only to fathers, as the responsible agents in the 
 education of the children ; but he certainly would not exclude 
 the delicate, noiseless, but none the less important part of the 
 mother, who, by her meekness, patience, and fidelity, happily 
 softens the sternness of the father’s authority (though without 
 the latter she mistrains instead of training) ; and who, especially 
 where her husband is not a believer, may and should exercise an 
 exceedingly deep, lasting, and salutary influence on the moral 
 and religious character of the children—an influence which Paul 
 himself recognises in the mother and grandmother of Timothy. 3 
 
 4. The first duty of children , as derived from what has now 
 been said, is of course piety, reverential obedience. 4 This again 
 is not to be slavish, but cheerful, the obedience of unreserved 
 confidence and grateful love. It is also, in the course of nature, 
 the first form of all piety towards God, and reverence for divine 
 
 1 Eph. vi. 4. Col. iii. 21. 
 
 2 Not “to the Lord,” zum Herrn, as Luther translates it; which alters the sense 
 materially. 
 
 3 2 Tim. i. 5. Comp. 1 Tim. ii. 15; v. 10,14, where the hearing 1 children, rtxvoyovU, 
 certainly includes educating them. "Woman finds her highest dignity and purest 
 happiness, not merely in being a mother, but also in fulfilling all the duties of a mother 
 in the Lord and for His glory. Human life should be propagated only to be educated 
 for the great end of mankind, for virtue and religion. 
 
 4 Eph. vi. 1-3. Col. iii. 20. 
 
116 § 111. THE FAMILY. [il. BOOK. 
 
 things. For in its parents tlie child sees the representative of 
 God, the reflection of His majesty and love, nay, we may say 
 God himself, so far as the child is able to comprehend Him. 
 Where this course, which even natural right and the first com¬ 
 mandment of the second table point out, is forsaken, there in¬ 
 evitably results wildness, slavery, and curse. Obedience to the 
 divinely-ordained authority of parents forms the only true train¬ 
 ing for real freedom and manly independence. All those carnal 
 schemes of emancipation, whether relating to women or children, 
 accomplish just the opposite of what they propose, and will have 
 bitterly to repent their subversion of the natural and revealed 
 order of things. It is worthy of remark, that the apostle makes 
 the children of believing parents an organic part of the Christian 
 congregation, in requiring of them obedience “ in the Lord 
 thus supplying the purest motive for obedience, and at the same 
 time duly restricting it. For, as parental authority is derived 
 from Christ, and is to be exercised for Him, it can only claim 
 obedience where it answers His spirit and will. When, therefore, 
 it commands what is wrong, it comes into manifest conflict with 
 its author, and destroys itself. Then applies our Lord’s language, 
 Matth. x. 37, u He that loveth father or mother more than me, 
 is not worthy of me.” 1 When the children pass out of their 
 minority, they cease to obey, in the strict sense, and enter the 
 relation of friendship; but never should they lose the reverence 
 which is due in fact to old age in general, 2 and the gratitude 
 which rejoices to render to parents like for like (1 Tim. v. 4, 8), 
 and embalms them, even after their death, in imperishable 
 memory. 
 
 5. Even without any express New Testament command, 3 it is 
 easy to see that the proper shaping of Christian domestic life, 
 and especially the successful performance of duty as to the reli¬ 
 gious education of children, require the family altar , on which 
 the father, as priest, may daily offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving 
 and intercession. Family worship, with morning and evening 
 prayer, and use of the holy Scriptures, includes also prayer at 
 table. We are not to enjoy God’s gifts of nature thoughtlessly 
 
 1 Comp. Matth. viii. 21, 22. Luke ii. 49. John ii. 4. Matth. xii. 46-50. 
 
 2 1 Pet. v. 5. 1 Tim. v. 1, 2. 
 
 3 Comp., however, Eph. v. 19. Col. iii. 16. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 112. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY. 
 
 117 
 
 like the beasts of the field, but u with thanksgiving.” 1 In indi¬ 
 vidual cases, however, it is hard to maintain this family worship 
 properly, without the assistance of liturgies and hymn-hooks. 
 And great watchfulness is necessary, lest it degenerate into soul¬ 
 less mechanism, into an opus operatum , or infringe upon the duty 
 of closet prayer, the unseen personal intercourse of the soul with 
 God. But that this danger is not always sufficiently avoided, 
 can be no reason for questioning the duty of family worship it¬ 
 self, or asserting that it is made superfluous by public worship. 
 On the contrary, we shall always find that the two require and 
 promote one another, and that, where the former dies, the latter 
 also decays. 2 For as marriage continually replenishes the state, 
 and secures its perpetuity, so personal and domestic piety furnishes 
 the church a constant supply of her best material. 
 
 Thus, therefore, are all the natural relations of authority and 
 subordination recognised and confirmed by Christianity, and 
 duly regulated, defined, and sanctified by being referred to the 
 Lord and His church ; and thus is the whole family life conse¬ 
 crated as a nursery of the purest virtues, as a miniature theocracy, 
 rooted, indeed, in the soil of nature, in the sexual love of indi¬ 
 viduals, but rising into heaven. 
 
 § 112. Marriage and Celibacy. 
 
 Christianity, then, as we meet it in the New Testament, recog¬ 
 nises in marriage the normal relation, in which the human char¬ 
 acter fully develops itself and answers its great end,—a relation 
 instituted by God and sanctified by Christ. The depreciation 
 of conjugal life, by an asceticism which cannot rise above its 
 physical and natural basis to the view of its higher moral and 
 religious significance, contradicts the spirit of the Gospel, and is, 
 in reality, of heathen origin. 3 In fact, the apostle numbers it 
 
 1 1 Cor. x. 30, 31. 1 Tim. iv. 3-5. 
 
 2 There is no doubt that the regular and general attendance upon public worship, 
 by which the English, Scotch, and Americans are so distinguished above other nations, 
 is especially owing to their high regard for family worship. 
 
 3 The defective purely sensual conception of marriage among the heathen could 
 produce both great unchastity, polygamy, concubinage, etc., on the one side, and the 
 ascetic contempt of the relation on the other. For wherever moral earnestness was 
 once awakened, instead of sanctifying this relation, it turned with horror from it. In 
 its ideal of a priest, therefore, it usually includes in some form the conception of celi¬ 
 bacy. So the ancient Indians, in the remarkable myth given by Creuzer in his Sym- 
 
118 
 
 § 112. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 among the doctrines of the evil spirits, which rule the world of 
 idolatry (1 Tim. iv. 1, et seq .), that they forbid marriage, as some 
 Gnostic sects and the Manicheans did—looking on the body, 
 which was created by God, and designed for the organ of the 
 Holy Ghost, with its sensual wants, as a part of the intrinsically 
 evil matter, and consequently regarding all contact with it as 
 sinful. 
 
 In this point Christ cannot be strictly taken as our pattern ; 
 for He was not merely an individual, but at the same time the 
 universal man, for whom no suitable consort a-t all, of equal birth, 
 could be found. The church, the body of regenerate humanity, 
 and it alone (not the individual soul) is His bride; and this re¬ 
 lation is assuredly, as already shown, the sacred model of every 
 true marriage. 
 
 As to the apostles, we know for a certainty that Peter was 
 married, and took his wife with him on his missionary tours. 1 
 Tradition affirms the same of Philip, and gives him, as well as 
 
 bolik unci Mythologie der alten Vdlker, I, p. 407, 3d ed. After Birmah had formed from 
 his mouth, his arm, his leg 1 , and his foot, the four patriarchs of the four castes, and had 
 given wives to all except the eldest, Brahman, the progenitor of the priests, the latter 
 complained of his solitude; whereupon he received the answer: “He should not be 
 distracted (marriage is thus necessarily distraction), but give himself up to doctrine, 
 prayer, and worship.” He persevering, however, in his request, Birmah in anger gave 
 him one Daintany, a daughter of the giant family of Duin/s, andfrom this unequal 
 match sprang the whole sacerdotal caste of the Brahmins. Among the Greeks, the 
 highest priest of the Eleusinian mysteries, the prophet or mystagogue, was forbidden 
 to marry after assuming the office, and if he already had a wife, he must abstain from 
 commerce with her. In the Roman religion the virgin priestesses of Vesta are fami¬ 
 liar. The Gnostic and Manichean contempt of marriage springs from pagan views, 
 and rests on a fundamentally wrong conception of matter and body. With the Jew's 
 (except the sect of Essenes, whose asceticism, however, was affected by foreign 
 oriental elements) a fruitful marriage stood, as is well known, in high esteem, and 
 passed for a special divine blessing; while celibacy or barrenness w T as considered a 
 reproach, particularly for women, or a divine visitation of punishment (Gen. xvi. 2-14; 
 xix. 30-36. 1 Sam. i. 6-11. Psalm cxxvii. 3-5; cxxviii. 3-6. Isaiah iv. 1 ; xlvii. 8, 9. 
 
 Hos. ix. 14. Luke i. 25, 36). The priests and even the high-priests were, therefore, 
 all married, yet during their term of service in the temple they were required to abstain 
 from cohabitation.—The high estimate of virginity, which came to prevail so early in 
 the Christian church, cannot be derived from Jewish ideas, and certainly as little from 
 heathenism. It arose, no doubt, from ardent enthusiasm for the kingdom of God, 
 which could very easily take up many vitiating elements and influences from the low 
 pagan notion of marriage; especially as the conception of Christian marriage was so 
 seldom fully realized ; for this required a long process of civilization. 
 
 1 Matth. viii. 14. Luke iv. 38, where his mother-in-law is mentioned; and 1 Cor. ix. 
 5—“ Have w r e not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and 
 as the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas ?” 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 112. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY. 
 
 119 
 
 Peter, children. 1 From 1 Cor. ix. 5 it has been justly inferred, 
 that at least the majority of the apostles and brothers of the 
 Lord (probably sons of Joseph from his former marriage) lived 
 in wedlock. 2 At all events Paul here excepts none but himself 
 and Barnabas, while claiming the same right of marriage for 
 himself, if he chose to make use of it. 3 Yet ancient tradition 
 unanimously represents St John as unmarried. 4 As to the sub¬ 
 ordinate officers of the church, the book of Acts mentions four 
 prophesying daughters of the deacon and evangelist, Philip (xxi. 
 8, 9). In 1 Tim. iii. 2, 12 ; Tit. i. 6, it is disputed, indeed, 
 whether successive or only simultaneous polygamy, polygamy 
 proper, is forbidden. But, at any rate, the being u the husband 
 of one wife,” which is required of presbyters and deacons, as also 
 the mention of their children and their own households, 1 Tim. 
 iii. 4, 5, 11, 12 ; Tit. i. 6, imply that one marriage is right for 
 ministers, and, so far from censuring the married state, present 
 
 1 Clement of Alexandria says of these two apostles (Strom. III. p. 448) that they 
 begat children; tradition speaks of a daughter of Peter by the name of Petronilla 
 (comp. Acta Sanct. 30th May); and Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, in the second cen¬ 
 tury, in his letter to the Roman bishop, Victor (in Euseb. H. E. III. 31, and V. 24), 
 mentions three daughters of the apostle Philip, of whom the first two died virgins in 
 Hierapolis at an advanced age, and the third lay buried in Ephesus —&!>.itxov rov rZv 
 
 ’hu^ix.x xxorroXau, of y-ixo'ifjo^rxi £► \ioxxo\u xx) hvo dvyxri^is xvzov, yiyv^xy.vixi xx^Oivor xxi 
 tj irlgx xvrou duyoirrie iv xyloi xvtv/xxri xoXtTivtrxfxivri, % iv 'E$i<ru xvxxxvtrxi. At the Same 
 place (Ill. 31 ) Eusebius, on the authority of Proculus, speaks of “four prophesying 
 daughters'’of Philip, who were buried with their father in Hierapolis. But here it 
 is plain from his remarks immediately following, that he confounds the apostle Philip 
 with the deacon and evangelist of the same name, who according to Acts xxi. 9, had 
 four prophesying daughters, and when Paul last went to Jerusalem, was labouring in 
 Caesarea in Palestine. 
 
 2 The deacon Hilary, a.d. 380, the probable author of the commentary on Paul’s 
 epistles, falsely ascribed to St Ambrose, and lienee called Ambrodader , explicitly 
 remarks on 1 Cor. xi. 2—“ Omnes apostoli, exceptis Joanne et Paulo, uxores liabue- 
 runt.” 
 
 3 Hence some, though certainly without reason (comp. 1 Cor. vii. 7, 8), held that 
 Paul also was a husband or a widower. So Ignatius, Ad Pkilad. c 4, according to 
 the larger (spurious) recension —'(Is nirgov xxi ExvXov, xx) r£iv xXXav xroo-roXuv, tuv yx/xoif 
 vgo;o/xi?‘.Yi<rxiira))i. So Clement of Alexandria, Strum. III. /, ed. Potter. 
 
 4 Hence he bears the standing title, xx^ivos, xxeQimof, virgo. Augustine (De bono 
 conjugali 21) mentions with respect as the view of many—“ A Christo Joannem 
 apostolum propterea plus amatum, quod neque uxorem duxerit, et ab ineunte pueritia 
 castissimus vixerit.” Hence also it is said in the chant for the festival of St John in 
 the Roman church—“ Diligebat eum Jesus, quoniam specialis praerogativa castitatis 
 ampliori dilectione fecerat dignum: quia virgo electus ab ipso virgo in aevum per- 
 mansit. In cruce denique moriturus huic matrem suam virginem virgini commen- 
 davit.” 
 
120 § 112. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY. [il. BOOK. 
 
 it as tlie normal state, and as a good school for exercise in the 
 most important duties of life. 
 
 But if apostolical Christianity forbids no man marriage, as 
 little does it enjoin it. On the contrary, it presents exceptions 
 from the general rule, and puts celibacy, if it be a voluntary act 
 of self-denial for the kingdom of God, we cannot say, indeed, 
 above the married state, yet very high, and attributes to it in 
 several places a peculiar value. 1 There are men who lack the 
 qualifications for conjugal life, as the capacity to support a wife, 
 individual sexual love, etc. ; others, who, by some fault, whether 
 their own or not, cannot fulfil the necessary conditions ; others 
 again, who feel called and bound to sacrifice all earthly love to 
 heavenly, and to minister to the latter alone. Hence our Lord 
 in the mysterious passage, Matth. xix. 10-12, without, however, 
 giving His disciples any command, speaks of three kinds of 
 eunuchism, congenital, forced, and voluntary. Of course the 
 latter alone is of any moral worth; voluntary self-denial for the 
 sake of the kingdom of heaven ; the willing renunciation of con¬ 
 jugal love and joys, the better to serve the general moral pur¬ 
 pose of life. Such, we must suppose, was the course of Paul 
 and Barnabas. For the former was certainly a man of strong 
 natural feelings, of an ardent, passionate temperament, so that 
 the renunciation of marriage was, in his case, an act of self- 
 denial and moral heroism, for which he was strengthened by the 
 assistance of divine grace. He represents it even as a charism, 
 and notices the diversity of gifts in this respect (1 Cor. vii. 7, 
 *E maros i'Sioi/ ^dpur/ici e* 6eov). Those, on the other hand, who 
 
 have not the gift, to whom a life of celibacy would be such a 
 perpetual struggle against natural propensities, as would prevent 
 the quiet discharge of duty, he advises to marry (verse 9). Such 
 a celibacy, as cannot attain to the complete subjection of the 
 
 1 Matth. xix. 10-12. 1 Cor. vii. 7, et seq .; 25, et seq. Rev. xiv. 4. As to the latter 
 passage, it is a question, indeed, whether by the hundred and forty-four thousand “ 
 
 Oivoi, which were not defiled with women, and which follow the Lamb whithersoever He 
 goeth,” are to be understood unmarried persons, or (as Bleek, Beitrdge zur Evange- 
 lienkritik, p. 185, and De Wette, ad loc., explain it) those who have kept themselves 
 free from all whoredom and unchastity, and from all contamination with idolatry. 
 The first interpretation answers best to the literal meaning of the words, but has 
 against it the vast number and the fact, that many of the most eminent servants of God 
 under both dispensations, from Abraham to Peter, who certainly belong also among 
 the “first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb,” were not *• in the strict sense. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 112. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY. 
 
 121 
 
 the bodily appetite, is assuredly of far less worth than a virtuous 
 marriage, in which also chastity may and should be preserve d 
 To Paul, who spent his life in missionary travel, and was exposed 
 to all possible privations, hardships, and persecutions, the married 
 state, with its temporal cares and all sorts of personal matters 
 of attention, must have seemed rather a hindrance to the fulfil¬ 
 ment of his apostolic calling, and the single state, the evvovx't&iv 
 iavrov Sm tt]v fiaaCkdav rcov ovpavcov, more favourable to his activity 
 in the service of the Redeemer (verse 32—35). With him celi¬ 
 bacy was actually an elevation above all earthly cares, an entire 
 devotion to the purest love and the holiest interests, an anticipa¬ 
 tion of the vita angelica} And who will deny that such cases 
 repeatedly occur ? Who does not know, that the voluntary celi¬ 
 bacy of so many self-denying missionaries, especially in times of 
 wild barbarism and dissolution, as at the entrance of the Middle 
 Ages, was in the hand of God a great blessing, in mightily pro¬ 
 moting the spread of the gospel among the rude nations and 
 under numberless privations? 2 Here Christianity deviates from 
 the old Jewish view, in which celibacy was a disgrace and a 
 curse ; it can transform this state into a charism and use it for 
 its own ends. Without the acknowledgment of the peculiar 
 value and manifold benefits of this virginity, which grew out of 
 unreserved enthusiasm for Christ and His gospel, it is impossible 
 properly to understand the history of the church, especially 
 before the Reformation. 
 
 But in the chapter before us Paul goes yet further. He 
 manifestly gives celibacy the preference, believing that it enables 
 
 1 Y. 7, 32. Comp. Matth. xxii. 30. Luke xx. 34-36. 
 
 3 Comp. Neander’s remarks, I. p. 404. Not seldom is celibacy also very favourable 
 to great scientific investigations in the theological as well as the secular field. We 
 may here refer only to two very different men, Dr Neander the historian, and Alex¬ 
 ander von Humboldt the naturalist. We cannot help observing here, that the work 
 of home and foreign missions would be in many respects greatly facilitated, and much 
 expense spared, if among us Protestants that moral heroism of self-denial, that volun¬ 
 tary, and, if not perpetual, yet at least temporary t vyovx^/^oi rvv fiouriXiiotv ruv ob$at.vu)v 
 (Matth. xix. 12), were more frequent than it unfortunately is. The great zeal with 
 which many young ministers scarcely ordained (often even while students), look 
 around for a wife, as though they had nothing more important to do, is absolutely irre¬ 
 concilable at least with the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians and with the example 
 of Paul. The excellent Swiss divine, A. Vinet, expresses similar opinions on the 
 relative value of celibacy, as a voluntary service to the kingdom of God, in his Pas¬ 
 toral Theology , transl. by Dr Skinner, p. 156, et seq. 
 
122 
 
 § 112. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY. [il. BOOK. 
 
 a man better to serve the Lord; and he wishes that all might be 
 in this point like himself, and might share with him the happi¬ 
 ness of freedom from all earthly cares and undivided devotion to 
 the highest objects and duties of life. His words are too clear to 
 admit of any other interpretation : u He that giveth (a daughter) 
 in marriage doetli well; but he that giveth her not in marriage 
 doeth better” (1 Cor. vii. 38). “ He that is unmarried careth 
 
 for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the 
 Lord ; but he that is married careth for the things that are of 
 the world, how he may please his wife” (verse 32, et seq.) u I 
 would that all men were even as myself” (verse 7). Here un¬ 
 deniably that ascetic tendency and relative depreciation of mar¬ 
 riage, which we find in almost all the church fathers, even the 
 married ones (as Tertullian and Gregory of Nyssa), has some 
 plausible foundation to rest upon. Yet we cannot, without 
 charging Paul with obscurity and inconsistency, understand him 
 as derogating from the holiness and dignity of marriage, which 
 in Eph. v. 1 he himself so decidedly asserts. The apparent con¬ 
 tradiction may be solved by the following considerations sug¬ 
 gested by the connection of the passage itself. 
 
 1. It must be remembered, that in the time of the apostle the 
 education of the female sex and the whole married life were in a 
 very low state; that Christianity had scarcely begun to exert its 
 refining influence upon them; and that the elevation and sancti¬ 
 fication of them must in the nature of the case be gradual. In 
 1 Cor. vii. Paul has in view the relations actually prevailing in 
 a congregation but just gathered from amongst the frivolous 
 heathens of dissolute Corinth, and therefore such a marriage as 
 by no means answers to the Christian principle, or to the ideal 
 sketched by himself in Eph. v. 32. He has his eye upon a 
 union which stands in the way of prayer (verse 5, entangles one 
 in worldly cares, conflicts with the undivided service of the 
 Lord (32-35), and is in general nothing more than a mere check 
 Upon debauchery (verses 2, 5, 9), K peiaaov yap ian yaprjcrai , fj 
 TvvpovaOai). Here firm opposition to corrupt heathenism was the 
 safe and necessary way to the final realization of the true idea of 
 marriage. So the church at first stood hostile to art, on account 
 
 1 Comp. 1 Cor. vii. 28; ix. 5. 1 Tim. v. 14. Tit. i. 6, et seq. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 112. MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY. 
 
 123 
 
 of its degradation to the service of idolatry and immorality; 
 yet at a later day herself gave birth to the highest creations of 
 architecture, painting, music and poetry. 
 
 2. The apostle plainly has in view approaching pressure and 
 persecution, which are certainly heavier on the married than on 
 the single, and furnish strong temptations to unfaithfulness to 
 the Lord from personal considerations. This is evident particu¬ 
 larly from verse 26, which speaks of the “present distress;” 
 verse 28, of u trouble in the flesh;” and verse 29-32, of the 
 u shortness of the time,” earnestly exhorting Christians to rise 
 above everything earthly and be ready for the approaching end. 1 
 The Christians were then expecting the speedy return of the 
 Lord (as in fact He actually came, though not to the final judg¬ 
 ment, yet to the destruction of Jerusalem), and it appeared 
 doubly advisable to await the catastrophe in a state of the great¬ 
 est possible independence of worldly cares and connections. 
 That there are, however, at this day, circumstances, in which it 
 would be an indiscretion involving heavy responsibility for cer¬ 
 tain individuals to marry, -can by no means be denied. The 
 advice of the apostle, therefore, has still its force and applica¬ 
 bility. 
 
 3. All this instruction on the question proposed to him by the 
 Corinthians respecting marriage and celibacy, Paul repeatedly 
 assures us (verses 6, 25, 40), he gives as his own private judg¬ 
 ment, as his humble opinion (yuaj/xrj), and not as an express com¬ 
 mand of the Lord (eWa-y^), who had given him no special, direct 
 revelation on the subject. 2 Hence, to prescribe laws on this 
 point is to assume more than apostolical authority. The prohi- 
 
 1 Mohler is certainly not unbiased, when, in his defence of celibacy (Gesammelte 
 
 Schriften und Aufsatze, I. p. 197), he denies any such reference to approaching dangers 
 in 1 Cor. vii. The hoe, rr,v hi<rTSi<r<x.v uvoiyxyiv, ver. 26, he translates—“ on account of 
 the (easily) rising natural appetite,” and refers to a passage in fleroph. de venat. ch. 
 VII., where denotes the impetus ad Venerem. But even admitting the philo¬ 
 
 logical consideration (the passage adduced, by the way, is not about men, but about 
 dogs!), this interpretation gives no good sense at all, because the ccvxyxri, in this 
 sense, exists also in celibacy, nay, is even still stronger in this state (comp. ver. 9); 
 and hence the avoidance of it can be no ground for recommending virginity. 
 
 2 In this case, therefore, at least the possibility of error is admitted, especially as 
 the personal experience of Paul on this point was all on one side—an experience of 
 the advantages of the single life, but not of those of the married. In his thus quali¬ 
 fying his own advice, we must admire his great pastoral wisdom and prudence. 
 
124 
 
 § 113. CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. [il. BOOK. 
 
 bition of marriage is expressly enumerated by the same apostle 
 among the marks of antichristian error (1 Tim. iv. 3). 1 
 
 Our conclusion, therefore, is, that according to the doctrine 
 and practice of the apostles, marriage is duty in general, but 
 under certain circumstances and for certain individuals, celibacy; 
 that the latter may be as great a blessing to the church and to 
 mankind as the former; that the decision, however, in any par¬ 
 ticular case, whether to marry or not, must rest neither on the 
 person’s own will nor on another’s, but on a consideration of the 
 person’s peculiar gift, and the plain indications of Providence. 
 The great work of the man remains in both cases the same,— 
 to serve the Lord and Him alone. To do this, in whatever way, 
 is neither greater nor less merit , but our bounden duty, and 
 should be at the same time our honour and our joy. 
 
 § 113. Christianity and Slavery. 
 
 To tlie family in the wide sense belong also servants or do¬ 
 mestics , rendered necessary by the distinction of rich and poor, 
 and by w^ants wdiich increase with civilization, and which the 
 proper members of the family alone are unable or unwilling 
 themselves to meet. Here Christianity, when it entered into 
 the w T orld, had to encounter a deeply-rooted social evil, which 
 in consequence of the fall had gradually spread over the most 
 cultivated nations of heathendom, and, we may truly say, then 
 held the greater part of the human race in a condition of almost 
 beastly degradation. 2 
 
 Slavery is the robbing an immortal man, created in the image 
 of God, of his free personality, degrading him into an article of 
 merchandise, a mere machine of his owner, and thereby hinder- 
 
 1 Comp, also Harless. Ethik. p. 219. 
 
 2 Attica alone, in the time of Demetrius Phalereus (309 b.c.), according to the 
 statement of Ktesicles, contained 400,000 slaves, with only 21,000 citizens and 10,000 
 foreign residents. See Bockh : Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener, I. p. 39 (p. 35, et 
 seq., of the English translation by Geo. C. Lewis, 2d ed. London, 1842). The slaves 
 were, indeed, counted by the head, like beasts ; but even if we quadruple the number 
 of freemen, to make it include women and children, and, with Bockh, suppose the 
 whole population of Attica to have been at most 524,000, the number of slaves would 
 still be almost four times that of freemen. In Sparta Reitmeier ( Ueber den Zustand 
 der Sklaverei in Griechenland, p. 116) supposes there were even from 600,000 to 
 800,000 slaves. In Rome it was still worse, slaves being there an article of formal 
 luxury. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 113. CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 125 
 
 ing the development of his intellectual and moral powers, and 
 the attainment of the higher end of his existence. For this 
 heathenism had no remedy. On the contrary, the most distin¬ 
 guished heathens justified this immoral and unnatural state of 
 things by assuming an original and essential distinction between 
 the ruling and the serving classes. The Hindoos believed, that 
 the menial caste of Sudra, upon which the other three castes 
 looked down with contempt, had been guilty before its earthly 
 life of some peculiarly heavy crime, for which this degraded con¬ 
 dition was a just punishment; or, according to a somewhat 
 higher view, that it had sprung from the feet of Brahma, while 
 the Brahmins sprang from his head, the soldiers from his shoul¬ 
 ders, and the tradesmen from his thighs. The Greeks adopted 
 the view of Homer, that Zeus deprived those whom he “destined 
 for servitude,” “ of half their mind;” and to this passage even 
 Plato appeals in the sixth book of the Laws, appearing in general 
 to view slavery as a natural and necessary institution. 1 Aristotle 
 speaks much more plainly. He defines 2 a slave as an opyavov £a>oV, 
 a man, who belongs not to himself, but is the property of another. 
 He declares all barbarians to be born slaves, who have no reason 
 at all or only instinctive, and are good for nothing but to obey. 
 Single instances of intelligent, virtuous slaves he would have 
 pronounced exceptions, which prove the rule. The Roman law 
 looked upon them in the same light, subjected them to the arbi¬ 
 trary dominion, passion and lust of the master, yea, gave to the 
 latter, at least down to the time of Emperor Hadrian, the uncon¬ 
 trolled power of life and death over his slaves. With the pagan 
 Germans, also, the equality of the slave with the brute, of the 
 servus with the jumenturrij was current. It was in perfect con¬ 
 sistency with such principles, that the slaves were used and abused 
 like beasts, and not seldom even worse. The Spartans had the 
 abominable custom to intoxicate their helots, in order to teach 
 their youth sobriety by such revolting spectacles of drunkenness ; 
 and when the slaves became dangerous from their increasing 
 number, they were hunted in the Crypteia, as the chase was 
 
 1 So Ritter with many others assert, Gesch. der Philos. II. 450. Yet this may be 
 questioned. For the passage in the Politicus (p. 309, a), to which Ritter appeals, 
 may be more favourably explained, as it is by Mohler, Gesammelte Schriften und 
 Anfsatze, II. p. 62 and 76. 
 
 3 De Republica, I. c. 1-7. 
 
126 
 
 § 113. CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. [il. BOOK. 
 
 called. The celebrated Cato Censorius, in whose time the dis¬ 
 tinction between the two classes had not yet become so strongly 
 marked in Rome as afterwards, worked, indeed, with his slaves, 
 and ate at the same table with them, but mercilessly drove them 
 away when they became weak from age, and were no longer 
 saleable. 1 At a later day slaves became a matter of luxury, like 
 horses and precious stones. Romans of rank owned them by 
 hundreds and thousands, and their wives likewise kept great 
 numbers (sometimes over two hundred) for the most trifling ser¬ 
 vices connected with their endless wardrobes. Half-naked the 
 poor wretches had to stand before their mistress, who was armed 
 with an iron rod to beat them for every mistake. Even for in¬ 
 nocent noises, as sneezing or coughing, they were often unmerci¬ 
 fully whipped. 2 
 
 Exceptions there certainly were. Heathendom retained a faint 
 recollection of a golden age, when there was no sin nor slavery. 
 It had feasts in memory of this age, such as the Saturnalia, in 
 which freemen ate with slaves, and even waited on them. 
 Theseus, and the deified Hercules, once himself a slave, were 
 patrons, and the Vestal virgins, the temples, statues and altars of 
 the gods, and the churches of Rome, were refuges of slaves. In 
 the old philosophers too we meet with many excellent precepts, 
 framed, to be sure, not on the higher principles of religion, but 
 only on those of humanity, respecting the kinder treatment of 
 these wretched creatures; especially in Seneca, his letters, and 
 his work on meekness and mildness ( De Clementia). After he 
 himself had returned from an eight years’ exile in Corsica, he 
 laid down the rule in almost the same terms as those of our 
 Lord, Matth. vii. 12, 66 So live with an inferior, as thou thyself 
 wouldst wish a superior to live with thee.” 3 But what were the 
 
 1 On this Plutarch, in his biography of Cato, c. 21, passes censure thus : “ As if, 
 when no further gain is to be bad from them, there were no longer any room for 
 humanity; as if equity were not more comprehensive than justice ! Even dogs and 
 other animals men continue to feed, after they cease to bring them gain. The Athe¬ 
 nians provided for the mules used in building the Parthenon, till they died, though 
 thev were free from all further labour.” 
 
 2 Comp, on this Bottiger’s Sabina oder Morgenscenen in dem Putzzimmer einer 
 reichen Romerin (1800), Part I. p. 40, et seq ., where the proof is given. 
 
 3 Epp. 47, ad Lucil.: “ Sic cum inferiore vivas, quemadmodum tecum superiorem 
 
 velles vivere.Vive cum servo clementer, comiter quoque et in sennonem ad- 
 
 mitte, et in consilium, et in convictum,” etc. See these and other passages from 
 
LIFE.J • 
 
 § 113. CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 127 
 
 fairest precepts of human philanthropy when they were never 
 observed, or at least very rarely, and then not from principle and 
 fear of God, but accidentally only, or from constitutional good 
 nature ? They could at best but mitigate the evil in individual 
 cases. They could effect no radical cure of the system. This 
 demanded an entirely different view of the origin and destiny of 
 man, such as Christianity alone has introduced. 
 
 Here also the Jews of course stood on much higher ground. 
 Yet among them, too, servants with their posterity were in thral¬ 
 dom, and. could be bought and sold. The Patriarchs had two 
 kinds of servants, those “ born in the house” and those “ bought 
 with money” (Gen. xvii. 12, 13 q who are sometimes enumerated 
 with other property, although there is no case recorded that they 
 sold them. The Mosaic law did not abolish servitude, but regu- 
 lated and in various respects mitigated it by forbidding ill-treat¬ 
 ment, by admitting the slaves into the covenant of circumcision 
 and its religious privileges, and by releasing them from their re¬ 
 gular labours every Sabbath, at the three annual festivals, also on 
 the new moons, the feast of trumpets and the day of atonement. 
 If they were themselves Jews, they should after six years’ service 
 (without wife or children, however), receive freedom if they 
 chose, and a small outfit of cattle and fruits. The year of 
 jubilee made all slaves free, not only those of Israelitish descent, 
 but also the strangers, as it would seem from Lev. xxv. 10, “And 
 ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout 
 all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee 
 unto you, and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and 
 every man unto his family.” This was a practical declaration 
 that slavery is an abnormal state of society and incompatible with 
 a renovation of the theocracy, when all should be made to feel 
 equally dependent upon God and equally free in Him. 1 The 
 Essenes and Therapeutse, according to Philo, repudiated all 
 slavery as inconsistent with the native equality of men. Of 
 course the Jews in their w T ars with the heathen in many cases 
 
 Seneca, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and the Saturnalia of Macrobius (which, however, 
 only copies Seneca, often word for word), in Mohler, 1. c. p. 75, et seq. 
 
 1 Corap. on this subject such passages as Gen. xii. 16; xiv. 14; xvii. 12, 13; xxiv. 
 35; xxx. 43. Exod. xx. 10; xxi. 2, et seq .; xxiii. 17. Lev. xxv. 41-46. Deut. xv, 
 12, et seq .; xxix. 10-12. Jer. xxxiv. 8, et seq .; Michaelis, Mosaisches Recht, II., p. 358, 
 et seq .; and the article “ Sklaven” in Winer’s Realworterbuch, I., p. 475, et seq. 
 
128 
 
 § 113. CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. [il. BOOK. 
 
 fell into bondage. The community of Jews in Rome consisted 
 mostly of freed men ; and at the destruction of Jerusalem, ac¬ 
 cording to the statement of Josephus, no less than ninety-seven 
 thousand were taken captive by the Romans, some of whom 
 were sold at auction, and others transported to the Egyptian 
 mines. 
 
 What posture now did Christianity assume towards this horrible 
 degradation of a great, nay, the greater, part of mankind? We 
 here have to admire alike the reformatory principle of Christi¬ 
 anity, and her wisdom in applying it. The apostles did not at¬ 
 tempt even a sudden political and social abolition, and would 
 have discountenanced any stormy and tumultuous measures to 
 that effect. For, in the first place, the immediate abolition of 
 slavery could never have been effected without a revolution, 
 which would have involved everything in confusion, a radical re¬ 
 construction of the whole domestic and social life, with which 
 the system was interwoven. 1 In the next place, a sudden 
 emancipation would not have bettered the condition of the slaves 
 themselves, but rather made it worse ; for outward liberation, to 
 work well, must be prepared by moral training for the rational 
 use of freedom, by education to mental manhood; and this can 
 only be done by a gradual process. Paul, on the contrary 
 (1 Cor. vii. 17), lays down the general principle, that Christi¬ 
 anity primarily proposes no change in the outward relations, in 
 which God has placed a man by birth, education, or fortune, but 
 teaches him to look at them from a higher point of view, and to 
 infuse into them a new spirit, until in time a suitable change 
 work its own way outward from within. This principle he ap¬ 
 plies particularly to the case before us. On the one hand he re¬ 
 quires Christian masters, not to emancipate their slaves, but for 
 the present only to treat them with Christian love (Eph. vi. 9) ; 
 and he himself sends back from Rome the runaway, Onesimus, 
 now regenerate, and thus a “ beloved brother” in Christ, to his 
 rightful master, Philemon, in Colosse, with the touching direc¬ 
 tion to receive him as kindly as he would the apostle himself 
 
 1 For the slaves were employed not only in domestic service, but in all sorts of 
 business, grinding, baking, cooking, making clothes, waiting on gentlemen and ladies, 
 carrying letters, attending to agriculture, and the keeping of cattle, working mines, 
 etc. See Bdckh : Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener , I. p. 40. 
 
LIFE.] § 113. CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. 129 
 
 (Philem. verses 16, 17). On the other hand he does not exhort or 
 encourage slaves to burst their bonds, but checks all impatient 
 desire for freedom, and exhorts to reverential, single-hearted 
 obedience to masters, be they hard or gentle. 1 
 
 Christianity, however, has also provided the only means for 
 delivering man from the inward and most cruel bondage of sin, 
 the bitter root of all wrong social relations, slavery and despotism 
 among the rest, and for the radical cure, therefore, of the evil 
 in question. It confirms, in the first place, the Old Testament 
 doctrine of the original unity of the human race and its descent 
 from a single pair. 2 Then its asserts the perfect equality of men 
 in the highest, spiritual view, in their relation to Christ, who has 
 redeemed all, even the poorest and meanest, with His blood, and 
 called them to the same glory and blessedness. In Christ all 
 earthly distinctions are inwardly abolished. In Him there is 
 neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free , male nor female ; all form 
 one ideal person in Him, the common Head (Gal. iii. 28 ; Col. 
 iii. 11). On the one hand, therefore, the Christian master is a 
 servant of Christ, with whom there is no respect of persons, and 
 he ought always to be conscious of this dependence, and of the 
 responsibility it involves (Eph. vi. 9). On the other, the slave 
 is by faith a freedman of Christ, in the blessed possession of the 
 only true liberty, that of the children of God, and thus, even 
 though remaining in his bonds, he is raised above them ; while 
 the richest prince without faith is but a miserable slave of sin 
 and death. Hence the master should look upon his servant as 
 also his brother in Christ, and treat him accordingly (Philem. ver. 
 16, 17); the servant should obey, not as the slave of man, but 
 for the sake of the Lord. “ Masters, give unto your servants 
 that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a 
 Master in heaven.” “ Servants, obey in all things (of course 
 not in things contrary to the divine commands, for here the in¬ 
 junction ceases to be of force) your masters according to the 
 flesh ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of 
 heart, fearing God ; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to 
 the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall 
 
 1 1 Cor. vii. 21, 22. Eph. vi. 5-7. Col. iii. 22. 1 Peter ii. 18. 1 Tim. vi. 1 (where 
 the irra s-vyov forbids to think of free servants), Tit. ii. 9. 
 
 2 Acts xvii. 26. Comp. Rom. v. 12. 1 Cor. xv. 22, 47. 
 
 YOL. II. 1 
 
130 
 
 § 113. CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY. [il. BOOK. 
 
 receive the reward of the (heavenly) inheritance ; for ye serve 
 the Lord Christ.” 1 
 
 By this view, the distinction of master and slave is at once 
 inwardly obliterated and deprived of its sting, even where it 
 outwardly remains. Christianity is so spiritual and universal, 
 that it can exert its power in all conditions and relations, and 
 turn, as by magic, even the hut of deepest misery into a heaven 
 of peace and joy. Thus, there are now slaves, who, through 
 their virtue and piety are infinitely freer than their masters, and 
 put them to shame. On the other hand, a true Christian, who 
 comes into possession of slaves by inheritance, will never treat 
 them as slaves in the proper sense, hut as free servants, with all 
 love and kindness ; he will seek in every w T ay to promote their 
 moral and religious culture, even if circumstances, for which he 
 is not personally answerable, should make their formal emanci¬ 
 pation for the time impracticable. But of course this alone is not 
 enough. All that is inward, must in the end work itself out and 
 fully establish itself as an outward fact in actual life. So Paul 
 expressly says to the slave: u But if thou mayest be made free, 
 use it rather” (1 Cor. vii. 21). 2 Hence the spirit and genius of 
 Christianity, more powerful than any particular command, has 
 in all ages, without any radical noise and revolution, or contempt 
 for historically established legal rights and the principles of 
 equity, urged towards the orderly, constitutional abolition of 
 slavery ; and though it has not even yet everywhere succeeded 
 —in the freest land in the world, in most glaring inconsistency 
 with its fundamental political principles, there are still more 
 than three millions of negro slaves!—yet it will not 2 ’est till, by 
 the power of redemption, all the chains which sin has forged shall 
 be broken; till the personal and eternal dignity of man shall be 
 
 1 Col. iii. 22-iv. 1. Comp. Eph. vi. 5-9. 
 
 2 In the interpretation of this passage I agree with Calvin, Grotius, and Neander 
 (I. p. 427), who to fta.x\ov xtfrou supply the words rfi Ixsvd'»!«,, most naturally suggested 
 by what immediately precedes. The supplying of rfj $cu\not, preferred by Chrysostom, 
 Theodoret, and others, reversing the sense, and making the apostle give the prefer¬ 
 ence to servitude, does not suit the verb at all, and is by no means required by the 
 it y.a.i, as Meyer and De Wette erroneously assert. The sense of Paul, then, is : 
 Civil bondage is perfectly consistent with Christian freedom, and thy condition should 
 give thee no trouble on this score ; but if, besides the inward freedom of faith, thou 
 mayest also attain the outward, as an additional (*«/) good—of course, by proper 
 legal means—reject not the opportunity, but rather thankfully use it. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 114. THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY. 
 
 131 
 
 universally acknowledged, and the idea of evangelical freedom 
 and fraternal fellowship perfectly realized. 
 
 § 114. The Christian Community. , 
 
 The grand feature of the social life of the first Christians was 
 that mark of true discipleship (John xiii. 35), brotherly love, 
 rooted in faith and gospel truth ; a communion of saints, founded 
 on the unio mystica, or vital union with the Saviour, and draw¬ 
 ing thence daily and hourly nourishment. The Christians were 
 conscious of being reconciled to God by the same blood, born 
 again of the same seed, sanctified by the same Spirit, destined 
 for the same end. They felt themselves to be members of one 
 body, children of one Father in heaven, partakers of one salva¬ 
 tion, heirs of one blessedness; in short, one holy family of God. 
 Hence they mostly called themselves u brethren,” 1 and attested 
 themselves such by the holy kiss, 2 by acts of mutual service, and 
 by daily agapce or love-feasts in connection with the Lord’s 
 Supper. u They continued steadfastly,” as Luke briefly and 
 strikingly describes the social life of the primitive Christians, 
 Acts ii. 42, u in the apostles’ doctrine, and in fellowship, and in 
 breaking of bread, and in prayers.” u The multitude of them 
 that believed, were of one heart and of one soul,” iv. 32. Of 
 course this inward unity and equality of the Christians was not 
 inconsistent with, but included, the greatest diversity of gifts 
 and powers. They were, indeed, u one in Christ” (Gal. iii. 28); 
 but the unity was such that no one could accomplish his destiny 
 separate from the rest. They required and completed one an¬ 
 other. There was in the whole body a perpetual vital action of 
 giving and receiving (Eph. iv. 16). True, this fraternal harmony 
 in the congregations was in many instances disturbed. In 
 Corinth there w r ere divisions and party strifes. In the churches 
 to which James wrote, the rich indulged in heartless oppression 
 
 1 See Matth. xxiii. 8. Luke xxii. 32. John xxi. 23. Acts i. 16; ix. 17 ; xvi. 40. 
 
 Rora. viii. 12 ; xiv. 10, 13, 15, 21. 1 Cor. vi. 5; vii. 12 ; viii. 11; xv. 6; xvi. 11. Col. 
 
 i. 1; iv. 7. Eph. vi. 10, 21. Phil. i. 14; ii. 25. 1 Peter ii. 17. 1 John ii. 9-11; iii. 
 
 10, 14, 16; iv. 20, 21. James i. 16; ii. 15; iv. 11, and many other passages, especi¬ 
 ally in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s epistles. Other names, which the Chris¬ 
 tians gave themselves, were “ disciples ” (of Jesus), “ believers,” “ saints,” and subse¬ 
 quently “ Christians.” Comp. § 61. 
 
 2 Rom. xvi. 16. 1 Cor. xvi. 20. 2 Cor. xiii. 12. 1 Thess. v. 26. 1 Peter v. 14. 
 
132 
 
 § 114. THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY. [il. BOOK. 
 
 of the poor. In Rome the circumcised and uncircumcised had 
 not yet become perfectly harmonized. And Ephesus soon lost 
 the glow of its first love. But these disturbances were directly 
 opposed to the spirit of Christianity. They proceeded from the 
 selfishness of nature as yet imperfectly subdued or reasserting its 
 power, and from the corrupting influence of false teachers. The 
 apostles everywhere most emphatically condemn them. Among 
 their exhortations those to concord, to self-denying, forbearing 
 love, are peculiarly prominent. 1 
 
 While the church was limited to one community in Jerusalem, 
 it went so far in the ardour of its first love, as to abolish even 
 externally the distinction of rich and poor, and establish a com¬ 
 munity of goods, after the pattern of the common treasury of 
 Jesus and His disciples. Those who owned houses and estates 
 sold their property, in literal fulfilment of Christ’s command, 
 Luke xii. 33 ; Mattli. xix. 21, and laid the proceeds at the feet 
 of the apostles as the treasurers of the common fund (Acts ii. 45 ; 
 iv. 34-37). Luke commends particularly the self-denial of the 
 future companion of Paul, the Cyprian Levite, Joses, distin¬ 
 guished for the gift of prophetic exhortation and consolation 
 (comp. xiii. 1), and hence honoured with the surname Barnabas. 2 
 This community of goods, however, was not enforced by law, as 
 in the sect of the Essenes, but left to the free will of individuals, 
 to the inward impulse of love and beneficence. Peter tells 
 Ananias (Acts v. 4) that he might have kept his field, and, even 
 after he had sold it, might have disposed of the money as he 
 chose. And according to Acts xii. 12, Mary, the mother of the 
 evangelist John Mark, and a member of the church, owned a 
 house in Jerusalem. The distribution of alms to widows spoken 
 of in Acts yi. also seems to indicate that the distinction between 
 
 1 Comp. 1 Cor. i. 10, et seq .; iii. 3, et seq. Gal. v. 15. Rom. xiv.-xvi. Phil. ii. 1-3. 
 James ii. 1, et seq .; iii. 13, et seq .; iv. 1, et seq. 1 John ii. 9, et seq.', iii. 13, et seq., 
 etc. 
 
 2 From tixhjjj ^2, properly vl'os which, however, includes tr<x.*c*x,\ritris, Acts 
 
 7 : “ 
 
 iv. 37. He was in all probability the same as Joseph Barsabas, one of the two can¬ 
 didates for the vacant apostleship, i. 23, although some commentators make them two 
 different persons.—It is true the Mosaic law allotted the priests and Levites only 
 tithes, not real estate, except the forty-eight cities, with their suburbs assigned them 
 in Num. xxxv. 2, et seq. But this institution was probably not revived after the 
 Babylonish captivity. Indeed, as early as Jeremiah’s time, the priests could purchase 
 pieces of ground (Jer. xxxii. 7). 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 114. THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY. 
 
 133 
 
 poor and rich was not altogether done away. It is most probable, 
 however, that at this time most of the believers gave np their pro¬ 
 perty, and that the enthusiasm of their first love did more than the 
 strictest law could have accomplished. In this childlike economy 
 of the primitive Christian community we may see a prophetic an¬ 
 ticipation of the state of things in the perfected kingdom of God, 
 where the civil distinction of poverty and wealth will entirely 
 disappear, and all be kings and priests. It is worthy of remark, 
 however, that community of goods in the universal establishment 
 of which visionary reformers expect to find a panacea for society, 
 was not free, even in the primitive apostolic church, from temp¬ 
 tation to hypocrisy and avarice ; as the examples of Ananias 
 (Acts v. 1 , et seq.) and of the dissatisfied Hebrew widows (vi. 1) 
 show. 
 
 IIow long the community of goods lasted in Jerusalem we 
 know not. On a larger scale it could not have been carried out 
 without an entire subversion of all existing relations; and from 
 this the apostles were infinitely removed. Hence in other con¬ 
 gregations we find no trace of it. But in them all prevailed, 
 no doubt, the disposition which lay at the root of it, the spirit of 
 Christian love and charity. This is the true socialism and com¬ 
 munism, which inwardly breaks down the distinction of rich and 
 poor, without abolishing it in the civil sense, or levelling the in¬ 
 equalities and varieties of life according to abstract theories, 
 and which takes the sting from all other forms of aristocracy, 
 such as the inevitable dominion of talent over mental weakness, 
 of culture over ignorance, etc. 1 For Christianity perpetually 
 reminds the rich and powerful of their poverty and weakness 
 before almighty God, and urges them to liberality and humanity; 
 while it makes the poor and weak conscious of their riches and 
 strength in the Lord, and thus raises them above the greatest 
 outward misery. “ Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that 
 he is exalted ; but the rich, in that he is made low : because as 
 the flower of the grass he shall pass away” (James i. 9, 10). 
 
 1 The modern communism is mostly a carnal, in some cases even a diabolical, carj. 
 cature of the self-denying brotherly love of Christians, and proceeds, not from genuine 
 interest in the lot of the poor, but rather from low envy of the rich, from mean sel¬ 
 fishness and infidel radicalism. Yet we would by no means deny that, in opposition 
 to the rigid distinction of classes, and the heartless money aristocracy of modern 
 society, it finds some justification. 
 
134 § 115. CIVIL AND NATIONAL LIFE. [il. BOOK. 
 
 Works of mercy, of self-denying care and consolation for the 
 needy and the troubled, were from the first a main ornament of 
 the Christian life (James i. 27). The example of the female 
 disciple, Tabitha, who, with her own hands made clothing for 
 widows and orphans (Acts ix. 36), was certainly not alone in the 
 apostolic church, though the history does not mention many in¬ 
 dividual cases. Alms and other expressions of Christian bene¬ 
 volence, love solitude and silence, according to our Lord’s ex¬ 
 hortation : “ Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand 
 doeth.” 
 
 § 115. Civil and National Life. 
 
 Christ did not appear, it is true, as a political reformer, but 
 as King of truth, and Founder of the kingdom of heaven. He 
 more than once decidedly condemned the earthly Messianic hopes 
 of his contemporaries, and neither in doctrine nor in act did He 
 concern himself directly with political affairs. 1 The same is true 
 of the apostles. They left untouched the Roman civil institu¬ 
 tions, in which there was certainly much to censure and to im¬ 
 prove ; and they never courted in the least the favour of rulers. 
 
 But Christianity is not by any means on this account indif¬ 
 ferent or hostile to politics. On the contrary, history testifies, 
 that it has indirectly exerted a very important and exceedingly 
 beneficent influence on the development and purification of 
 states, and is indispensable to their perfection. It sees in the 
 body politic not an arbitrary, human invention ; in the magis¬ 
 tracy, not a mere slavish creature of the sovereign will of the 
 people, but a divine ordinance for the administration of eternal 
 justice, which punishes evil and rewards good ; for upholding 
 the majesty of law; for maintaining order and security both of 
 person and of property; and for promoting the public weal 
 (Rom. xiii. 1-5). The state is moral society resting on la\V ; the 
 church, the same resting on the gospel. The one is necessarily 
 limited and national; the other catholic and universal. The 
 former looks to temporal welfare; the latter to eternal. But 
 each promotes and protects the other. The state in a measure 
 trains for the church; as the law is a schoolmaster to bring to 
 
 1 Compare Matth. xxii. 15-22. Luke xii. 13, 14; xxii. 25, 26. John vi. 15; viii. 
 11; xviii. 36, 37. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 115. CIVIL AND NATIONAL LIFE. 
 
 135 
 
 Christ. As a legal institution it remains absolutely necessary, 
 until the law become in all men the inward power of love, and 
 outward constraint become needless. 
 
 As to the particular form of government for a state, the 
 apostles give no directions. As all power and authority come 
 from God, so also does the power of the civil government, 1 be it 
 an absolute or a limited monarchy or a republic ; be it an aris¬ 
 tocracy or a democracy. In virtue of its elevation above the 
 temporal and earthly, Christianity may exist under all forms of 
 civil government, and will always favour that which most cor¬ 
 responds to the historical relations and wants of a nation, and 
 which is, therefore, relatively the best. Of course, however, in 
 this point also it tends steadily to improvement and to the highest 
 possible perfection ; to the abolition of hurtful laws and institu¬ 
 tions, and the introduction of good; to an organization, under 
 which the power is judiciously distributed, the rights of the in¬ 
 dividual as well as of the commonwealth best preserved, and the 
 moral ends of the race most efficiently promoted and most surely 
 attained. The spirit of the gospel can, therefore, permanently 
 tolerate neither absolute despotism, which checks the free growth 
 of the intellectual and moral powers of the people, and subjects 
 them to the arbitrary will of a mortal, nor the rude dominion of 
 the mob, which shatters the foundations of public order and 
 security, and ends at last in anarchy and barbarism. Between 
 these two extremes there are various forms of government, under 
 which the church may, and actually does thrive. Nay, even 
 oppression and persecution on the part of the reigning secular 
 power may be favourable to her in a moral point of view, as the 
 history of the first three centuries, the classical age of Christian 
 martyrdom, sufficiently shows. But this is certainly not the 
 normal state of things. The least that the church may and must 
 demand of the state, is to be tolerated and to enjoy the protection 
 of the laws. 
 
 1 Rom. xiii. 1. Ov 1 mv l^ovn'oc. t! jjLYt afro (ftou, a! 2's ovtrcu ^ovvtu.i , ino 6ioZ •riTix.yf^iya.i 
 
 tltriv. Into the question whether a revolutionary administration, resting on usurpa¬ 
 tion, is of divine origin and authority, Paul does not here enter. Yet, such a govern¬ 
 ment is certainly not excepted (comp. 1 Pet. ii. 13), andean likewise claim obedience, 
 provided it be actually established by the overthrow of the former regime, and by the 
 oath of allegiance, and accomplish the end of government, the administration of law 
 and justice, verses 3, 4, and G. 
 
136 
 
 § 115. CIVIL AND NATIONAL LIFE. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 The above conception of the magistrate shows his duty to rule 
 not arbitrarily and despotically, but in the name of God and for 
 the good of his subjects ; to maintain right and law, humbly 
 mindful of his heavy responsibility to the supreme power in 
 heaven. For rulers stand not over, but under, the law, and 
 only when they exercise their office as servants of God (Rom. 
 xiii. 4), can they be in the noblest sense also the servants of 
 the people, and promote their true welfare. Tyrants and am¬ 
 bitious demagogues at last ruin both themselves and those they 
 rule. The duty of subjects is obedience. This is enjoined with 
 special emphasis by Paul and Peter 1 on account of the rebellious 
 spirit of the Jews, 2 which might easily communicate itself to the 
 Jewish Christians, particularly under so tyrannical an adminis¬ 
 tration as that of the emperor Nero. In such cases men are 
 very likely to confound the person with the office, and sum¬ 
 marily to repudiate the latter with the former; whereas the 
 office remains divine and sacred, even though the temporary 
 holder of it do the opposite of what it requires. 
 
 But of course the apostles did not require a blind, slavish sub¬ 
 jection to any man, however high his position. They enjoined 
 subjection u for the Lord’s sake,” and “ for conscience sake.” 3 
 Fawning is unchristian and unworthy of a free man. With 
 what dignity and noble self-respect did Christ stand as King of 
 truth before Caiaphas and Pilate ! and Paul, as the apostle of 
 the risen Saviour before the Sanhedrim, before Felix, Festus, 
 and Agrippa, and finally before the Roman emperor! Again, 
 the subjection here required is not absolute and unlimited. In 
 obeying the constituted authorities—thus runs the exhortation, 
 Rom. xiii.—a man should, properly speaking, obey God only, 
 whose minister the magistrate is, and whose sword he bears. 
 And hence obedience to an earthly ruler must be measured and 
 limited by the obligation to the heavenly; as is hinted by the 
 significant collocation : “ Render unto Caesar the things which 
 are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matth. 
 xxii. 21). When, therefore, the temporal authority commands 
 
 1 Rom. xiii. 1. Tit. iii, 1. 1 Peter ii. 13-17. 
 
 2 Who, on this account, were banished from Rome under Claudius. Comp. Neander: 
 Apost. Gesch. I. p. 461, and Tholuck on Rom. xiii. 1 (p. 647). 
 
 3 1 Peter ii. 13. Rom. xiii. 5. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 115. CIVIL AND NATIONAL LIFE. 
 
 137 
 
 what is contrary to the divine will, irreligious, and immoral, or 
 even when it violates the general rights and honour of the body 
 politic, it comes into conflict with itself and with the law, to 
 which it, as well as the humblest citizen, owes allegiance. It 
 ceases to be God’s minister, and loses all claim to regard. It is 
 then the duty of the Christian to refuse to obey, and that in the 
 way of obedience to God, and u for conscience sake,” according 
 to Peter’s maxim : u We ought to obey God rather than men” 
 (Acts v. 29 ; comp. iv. 19). The apostles would be forbidden 
 to confess the faith and preach the gospel neither by the Jewish 
 nor the Roman authorities, and preferred imprisonment, exile, 
 and death, to acting against their conscience. 1 Yet in such cases 
 the Christian resorts not to violent measures of resistance and 
 rebellion, which are under any circumstances morally wrong, but 
 to the spiritual weapons of the word, faith, prayer (comp. 1 Tim. 
 ii. 2), and patience. u Though we walk in the flesh,” says Paul 
 (2 Cor. x. 3, et seq .), “we do not war after the flesh. For the 
 weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God.” 
 Martyrdom is a far nobler heroism than resistance with fire and 
 sword, and leads in the end to a purer and more lasting victory. 
 Undoubtedly, there are sometimes revolutions, 2 in which truly 
 pious men engage as members of the body politic, from motives 
 of patriotism and religion, 3 and which may be justified, at least 
 
 f 
 
 1 Acts iv. 20; v. 18, 20, et seq. ; 28, et seq. ; vii. 2, et seq. ; xvi. 22 ; xvii. 6, et seq. ; 
 xxii.-xxvi. 2 Tim. iv. 17. 
 
 2 This name, however, is made to comprehend many acts, which have in reality 
 nothing- rebellious about them; as, for instance, the involuntary withdrawal of a 
 people, under general indignation, from a worthless administration, which has made 
 itself illegitimate by its own acts; or the voluntary, but orderly emancipation of a 
 colony rife for self-government from the unduly prolonged guardianship of the 
 mother country, which would still treat the adult daughter as a child. To such revo¬ 
 lutions, in themselves considered (to which it were better not to apply this name at 
 all), there can of course be no reasonable objection. 
 
 3 As in the reformation in Scotland, which was at the same time a political revolu¬ 
 tion ; the struggle for freedom in the Netherlands; the Puritanic revolution under 
 Cromwell, and the North American under Washington. The Reformed theologians, 
 particularly in England and America, are much more liberal than the Lutheran in 
 their opinion of revolutions, and in all their political views. The good and pious Dr 
 Thomas Arnold vindicates even the July revolution in France as a blessed revolu¬ 
 tion, without a stain, without its parallel in history, and extols it as the most glorious 
 example of the quick and powerful suppression of a royal insurrection against society 
 which the world ever saw. See his letter to Cornish, August 1830. Yet the revolu¬ 
 tion of February 1848, and the dethronement of Louis Philippe, would probably have 
 led him to modify his judgment considerably. 
 
138 
 
 § 115. CIYIL AND NATIONAL LIFE. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 to some extent, on Christian principles; that is, so far as the 
 government itself has first trampled upon all law and right, has 
 set itself against the general good, and has spurned all the lawful 
 measures of the people for redress. Such rare cases, however, 
 are to be counted anomalies and necessary evils. They are the 
 last desperate efforts of nations to get rid of irremediable diseases ; 
 thunder storms in the pestilential atmosphere of society ; volcanic 
 eruptions of the natural life of history, which become impossible 
 as fast as the spirit of Christianity works itself into civil and 
 national life. It remains the duty of Christians in the most trying 
 state of political affairs, to bear as long as is at all possible; to 
 avoid war and bloodshed; rather to suffer, than to do injustice; 
 and to confine themselves to moral and spiritual means of resist¬ 
 ance, which are generally slower, indeed, but always surer. They 
 should bear in mind that our Lord and His apostles, in the days 
 of a Tiberius, a Caligula,, a Claudius, a Nero, and a Domitian, 
 explicitly enjoined obedience ; and that a bad administration may 
 be also the rod of divine chastisement to a nation. Furthermore, 
 very much depends undoubtedly on whether this and that indivi¬ 
 dual are inwardly qualified and outwardly situated for political 
 action ; and here it is impossible to judge all by the same 
 rule. What would be censurable here, or at least unbecom¬ 
 ing, in a preacher of the gospel, may be duty for a statesman or 
 a general. 
 
 Finally, upon the mutual relations of nations also Christianity 
 has exerted an exceedingly beneficent influence. All know with 
 what u odium generis humani,” with what spiritual self-conceit, 
 the Jews abhorred all Gentiles ; with what pride of culture and 
 with what contempt the Greeks and Romans looked down upon 
 barbarians. By the power of the Holy Ghost these insurmount¬ 
 able partition-walls were demolished as by a thunder-bolt. What 
 had never before entered into the heart of man,—that Jews and 
 Gentiles should meet as brethren without the Gentiles passing 
 through the door of circumcision and the whole ceremonial law, 
 —-was through faith actually accomplished in Paul’s churches, at 
 a time when the Roman eagle was mercilessly treading under 
 foot the hardened Jewish nation and laying its sacred things in 
 dust and ashes. Antiquity had not the remotest idea of a uni¬ 
 versal religion, which by the fellowship of faith and love should 
 
LIFE.] § 115. CIVIL AND NATIONAL LIFE. 139 
 
 annihilate the greatest distances of time and space, and bind all 
 the nations of the earth together in one family of God. This 
 colossal idea Christianity revealed, and in the apostolic age began 
 mightly to carry out; not obliterating national distinctions, but 
 recognising and indulging nations in their rights; yet at the 
 same time truly drawing them together in a higher unity. The 
 same brotherly love, which bound together the members of single 
 communities, also united the various communities in one or¬ 
 ganism, forming the mystical body of the Redeemer, and pre¬ 
 senting a spiritual temple of wonderful symmetry and beauty. 
 Nor is this unity limited merely to the inward, invisible life. 
 Besides unity of spirit, Paul explicitly requires also unity of 
 body, as the necessary fruit and evidence of the former. 1 * 3 It must 
 be admitted, to be sure, that this unity did not perfectly appear; 
 that it was variously disturbed by the after-workings of the 
 Jewish and Graeco-Roman national characters, and still more 
 by Pharisaical and afterwards by Gnostic heretics. Yet it con¬ 
 stantly tended towards perfect manifestation in real life, and in 
 spite of all hindrances was rapidly growing towards full manhood 
 in Christ (Eph. ii. 21 ; iv. 13). Whatever modern critics may 
 say of the dispute between Peter and Paul, between Jewish and 
 Gentile Christians, all the apostles perfectly agreed in their main 
 principles. They were the personal representatives of the unity 
 of the whole church, and all wrought, each with his peculiar gift 
 and in his own way, towards the same end. Of this we have 
 testimony in their writings ; in their harmonious action in the 
 council at Jerusalem, and their settlement of the great question 
 of the relation of the Gentiles to the gospel; in the continual 
 collections made by the apostle of the Gentiles in his Grecian 
 churches for the poor Jewish Christians in Palestine. For these 
 collections were designed by no means merely to furnish out¬ 
 ward aid, but to attest practically, and to promote, the fraternal 
 communion between the two great sections of the church.? Thus 
 could Paul write with truth to the Ephesians, that Christ, our 
 peace, has by His atoning work broken down the wall between 
 Jews and Gentiles, abolished the enmity, made of the two one 
 
 1 Comp. Eph. iv. 4: "E* o-Spoc, l» xviv/xot.’, ii. 19-22; and particularly 1 Cor. xii. 
 
 13. 
 
 3 Gal. ii. 10. 1 Cor. xvi. 3, 4. 2 Cor. ix. 12-15. Rom. xv. 25-27. 
 
140 § 115. CIVIL AND NATIONAL LIFE. [il. BOOK. 
 
 new man in himself, and reconciled both in one body to God 
 (Eph. ii. 14-22).—Koine, with all her spirit of conquest and her 
 wonderful governmental talents, could erect only a giant body 
 without a soul, a mechanical conglomeration of nations, which 
 has long ago fallen to pieces ; while the spiritual edifice of the 
 Christian church still stands unshaken, and is continuing and 
 will continue to enlarge itself, until it shall have wrought all 
 nations as living stones into its walls. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 116. THE CHARISMS. 
 
 141 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 
 
 § 116. Nature and Classification of the Charisms. 
 
 This power of the Apostolic church to transform and sanctify all 
 the moral relations of life had its ground in special gifts of divine 
 grace, with which that church was endowed. These wrought 
 together in organic harmony for the inward edification of the 
 body of Christ and for the conversion of the world without. 
 They formed, as it were, the sparkling bridal ornament of this 
 first creative epoch of Christianity. Paul treats of them particu¬ 
 larly in the twelfth and fourteenth chapters of his first epistle to 
 the Corinthians. 
 
 By the expression spiritual gift or gift of grace, x^ l P L(T P a i evepyrjfxa, 
 the apostle means “ a revelation of the Spirit for the common 
 good 1 that is, not faith in general, which constitutes the essence 
 of the whole Christian disposition, but a particular energy and 
 utterance of the believer’s life, prompted and guided by the Holy 
 Ghost, for the edification of the church; the predominant religi¬ 
 ous qualification, the peculiar divine talent of the individual, by 
 which he is to perform his function, as an organic member, in 
 the vital action of the whole, and promote its growth. It is, 
 therefore, as the name itself implies, something supernaturally 
 wrought, and bestowed by free grace (comp. 1 Cor. xii. 11) ; yet 
 it forms itself, like Christianity in general, upon the natural basis 
 prepared for it in the native intellectual and moral capacities of 
 the man, which are in fact themselves gifts of God. These 
 natural qualities it baptizes with the Holy Ghost and with fire, 
 
 1 tov wvjuoc.to; tp'o( to trvu.$ipov, 1 Cor. xii. 7 ; t^o,- t?,v oixohoy.?, v ry,t tKxXr l iria.{ 
 
 xiv. 12 ; comp. Eph. iv. 12. 
 
142 § 116. NATURE AND CLASSIFICATION [il. BOOK. 
 
 and rouses to higher and freer activity. The charisms are many, 
 corresponding to the various faculties of the soul and the needs 
 of the body of Christ; and in this very abundance and diversity 
 of gifts are revealed the riches of givine grace (71-01*1X77 x^P LS 
 1 Peter iv. 10). As, however, they all flow from the same source, 
 are wrought by the Holy Ghost, and are gifts of free grace ; so 
 they all subserve the same end, the edification of the body of 
 Christ. Hence the apostle applies to them the beautiful simile 
 of the bodily organism, the harmonious co-operation of different 
 members. 1 To this practical design the term administrations , or 
 ministry , 2 no doubt refers. Every one has a his proper gift,” 
 which best corresponds to his natural peculiarity, and is indis¬ 
 pensable for his sphere of activity. 3 But several charisms may 
 also be united in one individual. This was the case particularly 
 with the apostles, whose office in fact originally included all other 
 spiritual offices and their functions, even to the diaconate (comp. 
 Acts iv. 35, 37; vi. 2). It is true they all had not these gifts 
 in equal measure. John seems to have possessed especially the 
 charisms of love, profound knowledge, and prophecy ; Peter, 
 those of church government and discipline, miracles, and dis¬ 
 cernment of spirits (comp. Acts v. 1, et seq.) ; James, those of 
 the faithful episcopal superintendence of a congregation, and 
 silent, patient service at the altar. Most variously endowed in 
 this respect was St Paul, eminent alike in knowing and in set¬ 
 ting forth divine mysteries ; fitted both for the labours of a 
 pioneer, and for preserving and confirming established order; at 
 home among visions and revelations ; excelling all the Corin¬ 
 thians in the gift of tongues (1 Cor. xiv. 18); and accredited 
 among them by signs and wonders (2 Cor. xii. 12). 
 
 The greatest movements in the history of the world always 
 proceed from individuals uncommonly gifted, in whom the scat¬ 
 tered mental energies of their age are harmoniously concen¬ 
 trated. Of course, however, the number or strength of the 
 charisms establishes no merit or preference as to the attainment 
 of salvation. For this, living faith in Christ is sufficient. The 
 charisms are free gifts of grace; and the man is responsible, not 
 
 1 Rom. xii. 4-6. 1 Cor. xii. 12, et seq. 
 
 2 &.Kx.%ovleci, 1 Cor. xii. 5; comp. Eph. iv. 12. 1 Peter iv. 10. 
 
 3 1 Cor. vii. 7 ; xii. 11. Rom. xii. 6. 1 Peter iv. 10. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 OF THE CHARISMS. 
 
 143 
 
 for the possession, but for the use of them. Every spiritual gift 
 is liable to abuse. Spiritual knowledge may puff up (1 Cor. 
 viii. 1). The gift of tongues may foster vanity and the disposi¬ 
 tion to monopolize the benefit of worship in self-edifying rapture 
 (xiv. 2, et seq.) And every gift is attended with heavy respon¬ 
 sibility. Hence the apostle’s earnest commendation of love, 
 which alone would prevent such abuse of other gifts, and make 
 their exercise pleasing to God. The value of the gifts varied ; 
 not depending, however, as many of the Corinthians thought, on 
 their splendour and outward effect, but on their practical utility 
 for building up the kingdom of God (1 Cor. xii. 31 ; xiv. 3, 
 et seq.) 
 
 This extraordinary operation of the Spirit showed itself first 
 in the apostles on the day of Pentecost, the birth-day of the 
 church. 1 Thence it followed the steps of the heralds of the 
 gospel as a holy energy, awakening in every susceptible soul a 
 depth of knowledge, a power of will, and a jubilee of heavenly 
 joy, which formed a glowing contrast with the surrounding 
 paganism. For the Lord had promised (Mark xvi. 17, 18), 
 that the gifts of speaking with tongues, casting out devils, and 
 healing, should be not confined to a few, but bestowed on the 
 mass of believers. This blooming glory of the infant church 
 unfolded itself most luxuriantly among the intellectual, excitable, 
 gifted Greeks, especially in the Corinthian church. But there 
 too the dangers and abuses attending it most frequently ap¬ 
 peared. The usual medium of communicating spiritual gifts 
 was the laying on of the apostles’ hands (Acts viii. 17 ; xix. 6 ; 
 1 Tim. iv. 14). Yet on Cornelius and his company the Holy 
 Ghost fell immediately after the simple preaching of the gospel, 
 and they began to speak with tongues and prophesy, to the 
 great astonishment of the Jewish-Christian brethren, before 
 Peter had baptized them (Acts x. 44, 46). 
 
 It is the prevailing view, that the charisms, some of them at 
 least, as those of miracles and tongues, belong not essentially 
 
 1 Some of these gifts, as those of prophecy and miracles, meet us, indeed, even in 
 the Old Testament; and, before the resurrection of Christ, we find the disciples 
 healing the sick and casting out devils (Matth. x. 8. Mark vi. 13). But the per¬ 
 manent possession of the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Christ was attached to His glori¬ 
 fication and exaltation to the right hand of the Father (John vii. 39). 
 
144 
 
 § 116. NATURE AND CLASSIFICATION [il. BOOK. 
 
 and permanently to the church, hut were merely a temporary 
 adventitious efflorescence of the apostolic period, an ornamental 
 appendage, like the wedding-dress of a youthful bride, and after¬ 
 wards disappeared from history, giving place to the regular and 
 natural kind of moral and religious activity. 1 The Irvingites, 
 on the contrary, like the Montanists of the second century, look 
 upon these apostolic gifts and offices as the necessary conditions 
 of a healthy state of the church at any time ; make their disap¬ 
 pearance the fault of Christianity; and hold it impossible to 
 remedy the defects of the church without a revival of the 
 charisms and the apostolate. They appeal to such passages as 
 1 Cor. xii. 27-31; Eph. iv. 11-13, where undue emphasis is 
 laid on a tilland to 1 Thess. v. 19, 20 ; 1 Cor. xii. 31 ; xiv. 
 1, where the apostle not only warns Christians against quench¬ 
 ing the holy fire of the Spirit, but also positively requires them 
 to strive earnestly after His miraculous gifts. 2 There seems to 
 
 1 So, among 1 the ancients, Chrysostom, who begins his twenty-ninth homily on the 
 epistle to the Corinthians with these words: ToSro Htxv r'o xu^lov <r<pob^x \<rr)v «.tra.cpls, rv,v 
 
 S'* bc<ru.Qiiu,v vi tmv ff % u. y fx. a r co v or. y v o i a, ri x oo) s A. A 8 J ^ i f toh7, to.'v toti fx.lv tnifx.- 
 
 (3xiv6vtuv, vvv bs ov yivtfxivoov. Comp, similar passages of this father, and of St 
 Augustine, quoted by Tholuck, in his article on the miracles of the Cath. Church 
 {Verm. Schriften, II. 35, et seq .), from which so much appears, at all events, that these 
 fathers considered the miracles at their time as a very rare occurrence, although 
 they report in other passages cases of remarkable visions, miraculous healing, etc. 
 Among moderns compare, for example, Olshausen {Comment. III. p. 683), who makes 
 the charismatic form of the Spirit’s operation cease with the third century. With 
 special distinctness this view is expressed by Trautmann as follows {Die Apostol. 
 Kirche. 1848, p. 309): “ As in the case of marriage the festivity of the wedding-day 
 cannot always last, any more than the inspiration of the first love when the serious¬ 
 ness and steady activity o the common pilgrimage just begun comes on; as, accord¬ 
 ing to the universal order or nature, the blossom must fall away, if the fruit is to 
 thrive—though, on the other hand, the fruit does not appear without the preceding 
 blossom;—so that gush of heavenly powers on the day of Pentecost could not, must 
 not, continue in the church. It could not—because the earthly human nature is not 
 able constantly to bear the bliss of ecstasy and such mighty streams of power from 
 above, as is shown by the example of the three chosen disciples on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration. It must not—because the continuance of the blossom would have 
 hindered the development of the fruit. The splendour of these higher powers would 
 unavoidably have fixed the eye and the heart too much on externals, and the proper 
 object and work of faith, the inward conquest of the world, would have been 
 neglected.” 
 
 2 So Thiersch, the (only) scientific theologian of the Irvingite community, in his 
 Vorlesungen iiber Katholicismus nnd Protestautismus, I. 80 (2d ed.); comp, my articles 
 on Irvingism and the church question in the “Deutsche Kirchenfreund,” vol. iii., 
 Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 6, particularly p. 223, et seq. —The Mormons, too, or “ Church of 
 Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” whose rise (April 6, 1830) was almost sirnul- 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 OF TI1E CHA1USMS. 
 
 145 
 
 us to be here a mixture of truth and error on both sides. In 
 these charisms we must distinguish between the essence and the 
 temporary form. The first is permanent; the second has disap¬ 
 peared, yet breaks out at times sporadically, though not with the 
 same strength and purity as in the apostolic period. In the 
 nature of the case, the Holy Ghost, when first entering into 
 humanity, came with peculiar creative power, copiousness, and 
 freshness; presented a striking contrast to the mass of the un¬ 
 christian world ; and by this very exhibition of what was extra¬ 
 ordinary and miraculous exerted a mighty attraction upon the 
 world, without which it could never have been conquered. 
 Christianity, however, aims to incorporate herself in the life of 
 humanity, enter into all its conditions and spheres of activity as 
 the ruling principle, and thus to become the second, higher 
 nature. As it raises the natural more and more into the sphere 
 of the Spirit, so in this very process it makes the supernatural 
 more and more natural. These are but two aspects of one and 
 the same operation. Accordingly we find, that as fast as the 
 reigning power of heathenism is broken, those charisms which 
 exhibited most of the miraculous become less frequent, and after 
 the fourth century almost entirely disappear. This is not owing 
 to a fault of Christianity; for at that very time the church pro¬ 
 duced some of her greatest teachers, her Athanasius and her 
 Ambrose, her Chrysostom and her Augustine. It is rather a 
 result of its victory over the world. Spiritual gifts, however, did 
 not then fully and for ever disappear. For in times of great 
 awakening and of the powerful descent of the Spirit, in the crea¬ 
 tive epochs of the church, we now and then observe phenomena 
 quite similar to those of the first century, along with the corre¬ 
 sponding dangers and abuses and even Satanic imitations and 
 caricatures. These manifestations then gradually cease again 
 according to the law of the development of a new principle as 
 just stated. Such facts of experience may serve to confirm and 
 
 taneous with the appearance of Irvingism in England, notwithstanding their radical 
 difference in spirit and conduct, likewise claim to possess all the offices and spiritual 
 gifts of the apostolic church. Their founder, Joseph Smith, lays down, among othei 
 articles of faith : “ We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive 
 church, viz., apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc. We believe in 
 the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues,” 
 etc. {Hist, of all the Jlelig. Denominations in the U. S., p. 348, 2d ed.) 
 
 YOL. II. K 
 
146 § 116. NATURE, ETC. OF THE CHARISMS. [il. BOOK. 
 
 illustrate tlie phenomena of the apostolic age. In judging of 
 them, moreover, particularly of the mass of legends of the 
 Homan church, which still lays claim to the perpetual possession 
 of the gift of miracles, we must proceed with, the greatest 
 caution and critical discrimination. In view of the over-valua¬ 
 tion of charisms by the Montanists and Irvingites, we must 
 never forget that Paul puts those which most shun free inspec¬ 
 tion, and most rarely appear, as the gift of tongues, far beneath 
 the others, which pertain to the regular vital action of the 
 church, and are at all times present in larger or smaller measure, 
 as the gifts of wisdom, of knowledge, of teaching, of trying 
 spirits, of government, and, above all, of love, that greatest, most 
 valuable, most useful, and most enduring of all the fruits of the 
 Spirit (1 Cor. xiii.) 
 
 Finally, as to the classification of the charisms. They have 
 often been divided into extraordinary or supernatural in the 
 strict sense, and ordinary or natural. 1 But this is improper, for, 
 on the one hand, they all rest on a natural basis, even the gift 
 of miracles (upon the dominion of mind over body, of will over 
 matter), and, on the other, they are all supernatural. St Paul 
 derives them all from one and the same Spirit, and it is only 
 their supernatural, divine element that makes them charisms. 
 Nor, according to w r hat has been already said, can the division 
 into permanent, or those which belong to the church at all times, 
 and transitory, or such as are confined to the apostolic period, 
 be strictly carried out. We, therefore, propose a psychological 
 classification, on the basis of the three 'primary faculties of tlie 
 soul; they all being capable and in need of sanctification, and 
 the Holy Ghost in fact leaving none of them untouched, but 
 turning them all to the edification of the church. With this 
 corresponds also the classification according to the different 
 branches of the church-life , in which the activity of one or the 
 other of these faculties thus supernaturally elevated predominates. 
 This would give us three classes of charisms : (1) Those which 
 relate especially to feeling and worship; (2) Those w r hich relate to 
 knowledge and theology; (3) Those which relate to ivill and church 
 government. To the gifts of feeling belong speaking with tongues, 
 
 1 By Neander, also by Conybeare and Howson, the Life and Epistles of St Paul. 
 (London, 1853), I., p. 459. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 117. GIFTS OF FEELING. 
 
 147 
 
 interpretation of tongues, and inspired prophetic discourse; to 
 the theoretical class, or gifts of intellect, belong the charisms of 
 wisdom and of knowledge, of teaching and of discerning spirits ; 
 to the practical class, or gifts of will, the charisms of ministra¬ 
 tion, of government, and of miracles. Faith lies back of all, as 
 the motive power, taking up the whole man, and bringing all his 
 faculties into contact with the divine Spirit, and under His influ¬ 
 ence and control. 
 
 § 117. Gifts of Feeling. 
 
 The gifts of elevated religious feeling, which manifest them¬ 
 selves in divine worship, are: 
 
 1. Speaking with tongues. This is an abbreviation for the 
 original, complete expression, “ speaking with new ” (divinely 
 suggested) or “with other ” (than the usual) “tongues” (i.e., 
 languages), comp. Mark xvi. 17 ; Acts ii. 4. To what we have 
 already said (§ 55), respecting this remarkable manifestation, we 
 here add the following observations; confining ourselves, how¬ 
 ever, to the speaking with tongues in the churches founded by 
 Paul. With this the phenomenon of Pentecost was closely 
 allied, indeed, but in the mode of expression, and partly also in 
 the object, by no means identical. According to the older and 
 still very prevalent view, the speaking with tongues, even that 
 mentioned by Paul, would mean speaking in foreign languages 
 not learned by the apostles in the natural way,—languages, with 
 which first they themselves on the day of Pentecost, and after¬ 
 wards other believers, were suddenly endowed for the more 
 rapid spread of the gospel. But here arise insuperable difficul¬ 
 ties. (a) The Greek, which had become, since the conquests of 
 Alexander the Great, not without the ordering of Providence, 
 the prevailing written and spoken language even of the western 
 countries of Asia, was sufficient for the preaching of the gospel 
 in almost all parts of the Roman empire, at least in the cities; 
 and in this empire, which embraced the whole civilised world, 
 Christianity must first of all gain firm foothold, in order to become 
 at all a power in history. To it, therefore, the leading apostles 
 confined their labours; and in the Greek language, the most 
 beautiful in the world, they composed all their writings, even when 
 they wrote, like James, in Palestine and for Jewish Christians, 
 
148 
 
 § 117. GIFTS OF FEELING. 
 
 [ll. BOOK. 
 
 or, like Paul, to the Romans or at Rome. ( h ) It is the manner 
 of the Holy Ghost not to exempt His organs from the natural 
 difficulties connected with their work ; but rather to leave these 
 difficulties as perpetual means of moral training, occasions for 
 practising self-denial, patience, and perseverance. And in fact, 
 in the case of the missionaries to the barbarian nations, in which, 
 by the way, the gospel got no firm foothold in the first century, 
 if He has even lightened, He has hardly quite obviated, the 
 labour of learning the barbarous languages. ( c ) We find hints 
 that the apostles in truth did not understand all languages. 
 Thus Paul and Barnabas seem to have been ignorant of the 
 Lycaonian tongue ; for they discovered the idolatrous intentions 
 of the inhabitants of Lystra, not from their conversation, but 
 only from their preparations for sacrifice (Acts xiv. 11-14). 
 And as to Peter, a primitive and reliable tradition describes the 
 evangelist Mark as his interpreter, with reference perhaps also to 
 the Latin. 1 (<f) In general, it is impossible to prove, that the 
 speaking with tongues had any close connection with the mission¬ 
 ary work. Otherwise, to what purpose would Cornelius have 
 spoken with tongues before Peter (Acts x. 46), the disciples of 
 John before Paul (xix. 6), and the Corinthians in their congre¬ 
 gational meetings, and not rather before the unconverted ? ( e ) 
 Paul makes glossolaly, 1 Cor. xiv. 14-19, antithetic, not to the 
 mother tongue, but, as the language of the Spirit (nvevna), to the 
 language of the understanding ( vovs ) and of every-day life, 
 whether Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. Nor, had it been a speak¬ 
 ing in foreign languages, would he have compared it to the in¬ 
 distinct tones of the harp or the trumpet, and declared it some¬ 
 thing unintelligible to all the hearers without the gift of inter¬ 
 pretation ; for in a large assembly there must have been at least 
 some acquainted with the tongues spoken. The speaking with 
 tongues, therefore, was unintelligible, because it varied, not from 
 the vernacular, but from all tongues, even the barbarian; and, 
 by his very comparison of it with the latter, the apostle at the 
 same time distinguishes it from them (xiv. 11). (/) Finally, 
 
 1 Papias, in Euseb. H. E. III. 39 : M oi^xos fAv i^/xvivivrtis nir^ov ytvo/xtvos, etc. Ter- 
 tullian, Adv. Marc . IV. 5: “ Cujus (Petri) interpres Marcus.” Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 
 III. 1 (in Euseb. V. 8): M a.$xo; o {ActdviTiis xa.) gg^vewr^j JJir^ov, etc. So Origen, Jerome, 
 and others. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 117. GIFTS OF FEELING. 
 
 149 
 
 the oldest and original phrase, as used by our Lord himself 
 (Mark xiv. 17): u to speak with new tongues,” seems of itself to 
 point not to foreign dialects—for these were not new—but to a 
 language different from all dialects in use, a language of the 
 new Spirit poured out upon the disciples. 
 
 If now, after all, the orthodox view has in the most natural 
 sense of the second chapter of Acts, verses 6-11, strong, and 
 indeed its only, support, we must regard the peculiar form in 
 the first creative appearance of this gift on the birth day of the 
 church, not as the rule, but as an exception ; and to explain the 
 apostles' 1 mysterious (and certainly but temporary) grasping of 
 the languages of the assembled multitude (which were, however, 
 almost all dialects of the Hebrew and Greek), we must suppose 
 them to have been in such a psychological state, that they, in 
 the first place, did not speak in languages not represented there 
 (Chinese, Celtic, German, etc.), and, in the second place, were 
 understood only by the susceptible hearers, being regarded by 
 the ungodly as drunken. 1 In all other passages, on the con¬ 
 trary, where this spiritual gift is spoken of, 2 nothing requires us 
 to understand by it a miraculous communication and use of the 
 languages of foreign nations. 
 
 Speaking with tongues, as described from life by Paul, him¬ 
 self a master in it, is rather an involuntary , psalmodic , praying 
 or singing in a state of spiritual ecstasy and of the deepest absorp¬ 
 tion in the mysteries of the divine life , when the human mind 
 loses its self-control, and becomes a more or less passive organ 
 of the Holy Ghost, an instrument, as it were, upon which He 
 plays His heavenly melodies. Primarily, therefore, it has 
 nothing to do with the outward missionary work. It is an in¬ 
 ward act of worship, an ecstatic dialogue of the soul with God 
 in a peculiar language, inspired immediately by the Spirit, 
 elevated, but obscure and desultory, admitting of a certain 
 
 1 The great condensation of Luke’s narrative suggests the possibility that he has 
 omitted to record the appearance, in itself highly probable, of other kindred gifts on 
 the day of Pentecost; and that it was not the speaking with tongues itself, but per¬ 
 haps the interpretation of them, and the prophetic discourses of the apostles, which 
 took place in the various (Hebrew and Greek) dialects of those present. For, accord¬ 
 ing to Paul’s representation, the speaking with tongues was utterly unintelligible to 
 the uninitiated, and even to the congregation, without an interpreter. 
 
 2 Acts x. 46; xix. 6; and in the 12th and 14th chaps, of 1 Corinthians.^ 
 
150 § 117. GIFTS OF FEELING. [il. BOOK. 
 
 variety of form according to the character of the matter 
 (npoaeuxeo-Oai or y^dXXeiv,) and perhaps according to the speaker’s 
 mother tongue and the degree of his excitement. 1 In precisely 
 the same sense the apostle uses the phrase: u to speak in the 
 Spirit, or by the Spirit,” 2 and distinguishes this from the ordi¬ 
 nary speaking, which proceeds from and is meditated by the 
 understanding, the self-controlling, thinking, and reflecting con¬ 
 sciousness ( povs ). Vehemently borne along by the Spirit, for¬ 
 getting the world and himself, enraptured in the immediate 
 enjoyment of the Deity, the speaker with tongues broke forth in 
 a communication of divine mysteries, or a song of praise for the 
 wonderful works of eternal Love. 3 But instead of edifying the 
 congregation, he edified only himself, unless either he or another 
 translated what he said from this celestial language to that of 
 every-day life (1 Cor. xiv. 2, et seq.) No one, who was not him¬ 
 self in ecstasy, could understand those lofty, solemn, mysterious 
 tones, sounding, as it were, from the angel-world. To the un¬ 
 initiated they were like the undistinguishable sounds of a musical 
 instrument, or of a barbarous language, or, it might be, of a 
 maniac, 4 especially if many thus conversed with God at once 
 (verse 23). To the unbeliever this spiritual language was at 
 best a dumb sign (ver. 22, els o-rjp.e'lov), suggesting to him the 
 presence of a supernatural power and leading him to serious re¬ 
 flection. But the main object was the edification of the speaker 
 Jlimself ( ovk avQp&Tvois XaXet, dXXa r<5 0ecp, verse 2 ; eavrov OLKo8opei, 
 verse 4). Hence Paul gives the preference to the gift of pro¬ 
 phecy, which addressed itself directly and intelligibly to the con¬ 
 gregation ; whereas the Corinthians were disposed to overrate the 
 gift of tongues, as it made a greater show, and undoubtedly 
 afforded the speaker himself peculiar enjoyment. It easily led, 
 however, to a refined egoism and indulgence in a spiritual 
 intoxication of feeling. To prevent abuse as much as possible, 
 
 1 Hence the plural yXuo-trec. 1 , and the expression ysvy yXua-n-uv, 1 Cor. xii. 10, 28. 
 
 2 Tlviv/j-ccrt Xoe.Xity fAvtrrvigiM, 1 Cor. xiv. 2 5 w^oertu^ia-Oxi, tvXoyuv rZ sryiCftciri, verses 15 
 and 16. The dative here denotes the means. 
 
 3 1 Cor. xiv. 14-16. Comp. Acts ii. 11 ; x. 46. 
 
 4 Perhaps with reference to the divine the ivQovtricartJLos of Pythia in giving out 
 oracles, which certainly forms a parallel in Heathendom to the Christian glossolaly. 
 In the ecstatic demonstrations of Montanism there was a confusion of natural and 
 supernatural, heathen and Christian, elements. 
 
§ 117. GIFTS OF FEELING. 
 
 LIFE.] 
 
 151 
 
 the apostle directs that the congregation should not all speak 
 with tongues confusedly together, but at most three on one 
 occasion, and they one after another in proper order, and that 
 one should always interpret the ecstatic prayers and doxologies 
 for the benefit of the congregation. And if no one was present 
 with the gift of interpretation, the speaker with tongues was not 
 to express himself publicly at all, but to communicate silently 
 with God (verses 27, 28). From this it appears, that the 
 speaker with tongues, though he had not absolute control of his 
 gift, could yet check the impulse of the Spirit, or at least refrain 
 from audibly giving vent to it. 1 
 
 2. lo the gift of tongues is immediately attached that of inter - 
 pretcition {eppqveia yXaxro-cbi/, 1 Cor. xii. 10, 36 ; xiv. 5, 13, 26-28). 
 This, so far as it calls into requisition the thinking faculty, might 
 be reckoned also to the second class. It is the gift of translating 
 the language of ecstasy or of the Spirit (nvevpa), into the lan¬ 
 guage of the ordinary consciousness or reflective understanding 
 (vow), and bringing it down to the comprehension of the whole 
 congregation. 2 For this reason Paul requires this gift as the 
 complement to that of tongues ; as by it alone the latter is made 
 edifying to the hearers and conducive to the general good. 
 Wieseler thinks 3 that these two charisms always went together, 
 and that the speaker with tongues was always his own interpre¬ 
 ter. The passages, xiv. 2, 4, 16, are not, however, conclusive 
 
 for this; while xii. 10 (erepep fie yevq yXaxracou, nXAco fie ipprfveia 
 
 yXcoaacou), is rather against it. This, may, indeed, have been the 
 rule ; and from xiv. 5, 13, it would seem, that the speaker with 
 tongues, when he returned from the state of ecstasy into that of 
 sober reflection, himself interpreted what he had seen and en- 
 
 1 The liturgical prayers (such as the Gloria in excelsis, the Te Deum), spiritual 
 songs, and chorals of the church, might be regarded as in some measure a compen¬ 
 sation for speaking with tongues. Respecting the ecstatic discourses and exhorta¬ 
 tions in the lrvingite congregations, see the statement of Hold, § 55, and the pam¬ 
 phlet of the “evangelist” Rohm: Reden mit Zungen und Weissagen, etc. Berlin, 
 1848. 
 
 2 According to the popular view of glossolaly, the gift of interpretation would con¬ 
 sist rather in the ability to translate from foreign languages into the mother tongue. 
 But this power, just as the knowledge of foreign languages, may be acquired in an 
 altogether natural way (and many an infidel has been far more proficient in it than 
 any of the apostles); whereas, to constitute a cliarism, the supernatural aid ol the 
 Holy Ghost is indispensable. 
 
 3 “ Theol. Studien tend Kritihen ,” 1838, p. 710, et seq. 
 
152 § 117. GIFTS OF FEELING. [il. BOOK. 
 
 joyed, for the edification of the assembly. According to xiv. 28, 
 however, there were also speakers with tongues who conld not 
 interpret, and who, therefore, were advised to keep silence in the 
 assembly. 
 
 3. Closely allied to the gift of tongues is that of prophecy 
 (^apto-/Lta 7 rpo(})r)T€Las 1 Cor. xii. 10, 29 ; xiv. 1, et seq. ; 1 Thess. 
 v. 20; 1 Tim. i. 18; iv. 14). It commonly appeared at the 
 same time and in immediate connection with the gift of tongues 
 (Acts xix. 6). This too is an elevated utterance, under the in¬ 
 fluence of divine illumination and revelation, but not in proper 
 ecstasy. The speaker’s self-consciousness is in perfect exercise, 
 and his address has direct reference to the awakening, exhorting, 
 and encouraging of the congregation , without needing to be in¬ 
 terpreted. It is for this reason that the apostle places prophecy 
 above speaking with tongues (1 Cor. xiv. 1-5). On the other 
 hand, this gift is akin to that of teaching {x^P La P a ao-Kakias) ; but 
 proceeds less from calmly-working thought and more from intui¬ 
 tion and deeply-agitated feeling, addresses the affections, and tends 
 more to excite and carry away the hearers. Paul, therefore, places 
 prophets also before teachers (Eph. iv. 11 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28). 
 
 As to the matter of the prophetic discourses; by prophecy in 
 the strict sense, it is true, we understand the prediction of future 
 events, directly or indirectly connected with the kingdom of God. 
 So the ee prophet,” Agabus, in the church at Antioch, foretold the 
 Palestinian famine of the year 44, that the Antiochian Christians 
 might make timely provision for their suffering brethren (Acts 
 xi. 28). So, as Paul was going for the last time to Jerusalem, 
 his arrest was repeatedly predicted to him on his way, and finally 
 in Cresarea by the prophesying daughters of Philip, and by the 
 same Agabus in a symbolical action (xx. 23; xxi. 4, 11). So, 
 again, prophets foretold the rise of dangerous errorists; the ap¬ 
 pearance of Antichrist and his work; the second coming of the 
 Lord ; and the fate of those whom He will find alive. 1 Here be¬ 
 longs, also, the nomination of an individual for a particular office 
 or duty in the kingdom of God. Thus the Spirit by the pro¬ 
 phetic utterances of the congregation called Barnabas and Paul 
 to the work of the Gentile mission (Acts xiii. 1, 2), and Timothy 
 
 1 2 Thess. ii. 1-12. 1 Tim. iv. 1, et seq. 1 John ii. 18, et seq. 2 Peter iii. 3, and 
 
 the whole Apocalypse. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 117. GIFTS OF FEELING. 
 
 153 
 
 to be an evangelist. 1 But the office of the prophet must by no 
 means be limited to this, even in the Old Testament, much less 
 in the New. It was the prophet’s duty to unveil, not only the 
 future, but also the present; the counsels of God, the deep mean¬ 
 ing of the Holy Scriptures, the secret states of the human heart, 
 the abyss of sin, and the glory of redeeming grace. According 
 to the representation of Paul in the fourteenth chapter of 1 
 Corinthians, the prophetic gift showed itself generally in awaken¬ 
 ing and comforting discourses, by which susceptible Jews and 
 Gentiles, present at the worship of God, were powerfully im¬ 
 pressed, rebuked, and called to repentance, and believers were 
 strengthened and animated anew (verses 3, 4, 22-25, 31; Acts 
 iv. 36). For the spread of the gospel, therefore, for evangelists 
 or itinerant missionaries, this gift was specially important. 2 
 
 But along with the true prophets there were also false. To¬ 
 gether with genuine, divine inspiration appeared also a mock in¬ 
 spiration, merely natural or perhaps diabolical. This called for 
 the gift of discerning spirits, of which we are soon to speak. To 
 prevent disorder and abuse, the apostle directs, as in the case of 
 speaking with tongues, that the prophets should prophesy not all 
 at once, but one after another, that all may receive instruction 
 and exhortation (1 Cor. xiv. 31). He also requires that the 
 spirits of the prophets be subject to the prophets (ver. 32) ; that 
 is, that the prophetical excitement and inspiration be controlled 
 and regulated by reason and regard for the wants of the church. 
 The prophets, therefore, were not so much like mere passive 
 organs as the speakers with tongues. They had a certain free¬ 
 dom, and hence were responsible for the exercise and applica¬ 
 tion of their gift. Still less can an ordinary preacher excuse any 
 extravagances and irregularities in his discourses or among his 
 hearers by referring them to the irresistible impulse of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 1 Acts xvi. 2, compared with 1 Tim. i. 18; iv. 14. 
 
 2 Powerful evangelists and revival-preachers, as, for instance, St Bernard, and per¬ 
 haps John Wesley and Whitefield, whose words struck like lightning, and everywhere 
 kindled life, we might call prophets in this more general sense. To profound church- 
 teachers, also, who bring out the hidden treasures of the Holy Scriptures, and, with 
 creative inspiration, break new paths for theology and the church, this term may be 
 applied; and, in this more theoretical aspect, the charism ot prophecy belongs at the 
 same time to the second class of spiritual gifts. 
 
154 
 
 § 118. GIFTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 § 118. Gifts of Knowledge. 
 
 The theoretical charisms, which regard chiefly the doctrine and 
 theology of the church, are: 
 
 1. The gifts of ivisdom and of knowledge fXo'-yo? o-o^/a? and Xo'yoy 
 -yi'cocr ecos, 1 Cor. xii. 8 ; comp, nvevpa crocpias, Eph. i. 17). The two 
 are evidently closely allied, and denote in general a deep insight 
 into the nature and structure of the divine plan of redemption 
 and the whole system of saving truth. But as the apostle gives 
 us no more particular information, it is hard to define the differ¬ 
 ence. According to the common view (that of Neander, for 
 instance, and Olshausen), knowledge refers to theory, wisdom to 
 practice; while other interpreters (as Bengel) reverse this rela¬ 
 tion ; and passages may be quoted on both sides. 1 2 Perhaps 
 knowledge is more intuitive and immediate, without regard to 
 form; while the latter takes in the accessory idea of dialectic de¬ 
 velopment and artistic, brilliant discourse, as, for example, in the 
 case of Apollos. This view enables us most easily to explain the 
 bad sense in which ao^ta is used in the first epistle to the Corin¬ 
 thians, with reference to the desire of the Greeks for wisdom and 
 their over-valuation of eloquence and beauty of style (i. 18, et seq .; 
 ii. 1, et seq.y 
 
 2. The gift of teaching (SiSao-KdXta, Iiom. xii. 7, di8dai<a\oi, Eph. 
 iv. 11; 1 Cor. xii. 28, et seq.) The current view makes the 
 gift of teaching coincide with that just spoken of, the Xo'yoy o-o^tay 
 and the \6yos yvcoo-eus being simply two branches of this didao-KaXta. 3 
 It is true, in 1 Cor. xii. 7-10, where the several charisms are 
 enumerated, di$ao-Ka\id is not separately mentioned. But the 
 gifts of helps and governments (aimX^eiy and Kvfiepvqo-eis, ver. 28) 
 are also wanting here. The catalogue is, therefore, incomplete; 
 and it is a supposable case, that the same person may possess a 
 very high degree of spiritual knowledge and yet very little power 
 of communication. The gift of teaching always includes, indeed, 
 
 1 In 1 Cor. i. 17, et seq. ; ii. 1, et seq., and viii. 1, both are evidently theoretical; 
 while, on the other hand, in Col. i. 9, o-oq/ci (in distinction from truvuns), and in Rom. 
 ii. 20; xv. 14, yvums, are used in the practical sense. 
 
 2 Yet, in 1 Cor. viii. 1, it is also said of knowledge, that it “ puffeth upthat is, if 
 separated from love. So Paul, 1 Tim. vi. 20, speaks of a 'u^o; yvZtns. 
 
 5 So, for instance, Neander, Apost. Gesch. I. 245: " In the charism of S/5* a-xaXlx we 
 find again the distinction of what are termed yviimus and x oyos crotplcts ” 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 118. GIFTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 155 
 
 the gift of knowledge, hut not vice versa. The distinguishing 
 feature of this gift, therefore, is the ability to unfold the treasures 
 of the divine word and of Christian experience in clear, con¬ 
 nected discourse for the instruction and edification of the congre¬ 
 gation. While the prophetic address, in the glow of inspiration, 
 speaks from feeling to feeling, and aims chiefly to rouse and re¬ 
 animate ; the didactic discourse is addressed, more in the form of 
 logical exposition, to the understanding, and serves for the ad¬ 
 vancement and perfecting of the already established church. 
 Hence at the beginning and at the creative epochs of the church, 
 in the work of missions, and in seasons of powerful revival, pro¬ 
 phecy comes out most prominently. In times of quiet stability, 
 on the contrary, and of regular growth, the gift of teaching pre¬ 
 dominates. Yet neither can ever be dispensed with; both are 
 essential qualifications for every minister. 
 
 3. The gift of discerning sq)irits {^LaKpiaeis nveyparcov) 1 Cor. xii. 
 10; comp. xiv. 29; 1 Thess. v. 19-21; 1 John iv. 1) is of a 
 critical character, concerned primarily with distinguishing true 
 prophets from false, divine inspiration from human or perhaps 
 Satanic. For where the powers of light are specially active, 
 there also, according to the law of antagonisms, the powers of 
 darkness also most bestir themselves. “ Where God builds a 
 church, Satan builds a chapel by its side.” So far this charism 
 bears the same relation to prophecy, as the gift of interpretation 
 to that of tongues, and serves as an effectual corrective of extra¬ 
 vagances and abuses. But then the discerning of spirits in the 
 wider sense denotes in general the power of keenly discriminating 
 between the truth and error, which might be mixed together in 
 the discourse of a genuine prophet—for none but the apostles 
 have any claim to infallibility,—as also the power of judging 
 characters and discerning motives hidden from the common eye. 
 So, for example, by this gift Paul saw through the sorcerer 
 Elymas (Acts xiii. 8-11), and Peter detected Simon Magus 
 (viii. 20-23), and especially the hypocrites, Ananias and his wife, 
 who imagined they could impose on the Holy Ghost dwelling 
 in the apostles (v. 1, et seq.) This sacred criticism is, therefore, 
 indispensable, not only to preserve purity of doctrine, but also 
 for the proper administration of church government and disci¬ 
 pline. Nay, every Christian should exercise it in a certain 
 
156 
 
 § 119. GIFTS OF WILL. 
 
 [il. BOOK. 
 
 degree; for Paul enjoins upon the congregation without dis¬ 
 tinction : “ Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” 
 (1 Thess. v. 21). 
 
 § 119. Gifts of Will. 
 
 The practical charisms, which have special reference to the 
 Christian life and church government, are : 
 
 1. The gift of outward ministration and help 1 Cor. 
 
 xii. 28; SmKoi/i«, Rom. xii. 7 ; comp. 1 Peter iv. 11). This 
 comprehends, doubtless, the various duties of the office of deacon, 
 and hence, above all, the care of the poor and the sick, the silent 
 and unassuming, but none the less necessary and honourable 
 work of self-denying love, which devotes either property, or what 
 is more, all time and strength to the service of the needy in the 
 church. 
 
 2. The gift of church government and care of souls ( Kvpepvrjcreis , 
 guhernationes , 1 Cor. xii. 28). This charism is needful for all 
 rulers (npoicrTapcvoi) Rom. xii. 8) and pastors (noipeves, Eph. iv. 
 11) of the church, or, to use their official title, for all (presbyter-) 
 bishops, whose duty it is to feed the flock intrusted to them by 
 the Holy Ghost (comp. Acts xx. 28 ; 1 Peter v. 2). But it was 
 needful in the highest degree for the apostles, who had charge, 
 not only of a particular congregation, but of the whole church. 
 For the more extensive and varied the field of labour, the more 
 necessary is the talent for organizing and the genius for govern¬ 
 ing. In the use of this gift there is great temptation to ambition, 
 hierarchical arrogance, and tyranny over conscience, of which 
 so many bishops, patriarchs, and popes have been guilty. Hence 
 Peter earnestly warns the elders against perverting their power 
 to selfish purposes (<aTa<vpuveiu roo v KXppoov), and holds before them 
 the pattern of the great Chief Shepherd, who, in self-sacrificing 
 love, laid down His life for the sheep (1 Peter v. 1-4). 
 
 3. The gift of miracles ( xapla-para lapdruv, 1 Cor. xii. 9, 28 ; 
 St/i/a^eiy, verses 28, 29 ; also evepyrjpara 8vmpeoov f ver. 10, Or Svvapis 
 (rr)p.d(ov Ka\ repdrcov, Rom. xv. 19; comp. 2 Cor. xii. 12). This 
 embraces all those supernatural healings of bodily infirmities 
 and demoniacal states, all those miraculous signs, which the 
 apostles and apostolic men, like Stephen (Acts vi. 8), wrought 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 119. GIFTS OF WILL. 
 
 157 
 
 by virtue of an extraordinary power of will, 1 in the name of Jesus 
 and for Ilis glory, by word, prayer, or laying on of hands. What 
 is related of the healing power of Peter’s shadow (Acts v. 15), 
 and of Paul’s handkerchiefs and aprons (xix. 12), borders on the 
 magical. In the first passage, however, Luke gives us only the 
 popular idea, leaving it undecided whether this was well-founded 
 or sheer superstition. At any rate the healing power cannot 
 have lain in these mere outward things, but only in the con¬ 
 descending grace of God, and must have been mediated some¬ 
 how by the will of the worker of the miracle, and the faith of its 
 subject. We must suppose the same in the analogous case of 
 the healing of the woman with an issue of blood by her touching 
 the hem of the Saviour’s garment (Matth. ix. 20-22 ; Mark v. 
 25—34). Between the miracles ascribed by Luke to the two 
 leading apostles, as wrought by them or for them, we may observe 
 a certain parallelism. Compare, for example, the healing of the 
 lame man at Jerusalem by Peter (Acts iii. 1, et seq .), and of the 
 cripple at Lystra by Paul (xiv. 8, et seq.) ; the rebuke of Simon 
 Magus (viii. 20, et seq.), and of Ely mas (xiii. 8, et seq.) ; the 
 raising of Tabitha from the dead at Joppa (ix. 40), and the 
 restoration of Eutyclius at Troas (xx. 9, et seq .); finally, the 
 miraculous liberation of Peter (v. 19; xii. 7, et seq .); and that 
 of Paul (xvi. 23, et seq.) 
 
 Miracles were outward credentials of the divine mission of the 
 apostles and their doctrine, in a time and among a people which 
 could be awakened to faith only by such sensible means. Hence 
 they did not appear indiscriminately, but according to the cir¬ 
 cumstances and necessities of each particular occasion. In the 
 exercise of the gift of miracles, the apostles never suffered them¬ 
 selves to be guided by private, personal considerations, but solely 
 by regard for the glory of Christ and the advancement of His 
 kingdom. When Timothy was sick, Paul recommended a 
 natural remedy (1 Tim. v. 23), and he left Trophimus sick in 
 
 1 This is doubtless what we are to understand by xto-ns, 1 Cor. xii. 9, where it is 
 mentioned as a special charism. It is not faith in general; for this, as already re¬ 
 marked, lies at the bottom of all the charisms, as the principle which works in them. 
 The faith here in view is an extraordinary degree of practical moral energy, com¬ 
 municated by the Holy Ghost, in which reveals itself the superiority of sanctified 
 will over nature. It is the fides rniraculosa , the faith which removes mountains, and 
 makes the impossible possible. Comp. 1 Cor. xiii. 2, and Matth. xvii. 20. 
 
158 
 
 § 120. CHARITY. 
 
 [ll. BOOK. 
 
 Miletus (2 Tim. iv. 20; comp. Phil. ii. 26, el seq.) At Athens, 
 where Heathenism presented itself more in a philosophical form, 
 and where his Epicurean and Stoic hearers, in their scepticism, 
 would probably have sneered at miraculous demonstrations of 
 power as jugglery? Paul wrought no miracles ; while at Ephesus, 
 the centre of heathen and Jewish magic and sorcery, he wrought 
 many. 
 
 § 120. Charity. 
 
 Valuable and splendid as are all these gifts, they are still sur¬ 
 passed by charity , which alone puts on them the crown of per¬ 
 fection (1 Cor. xii. 31-xiii. 13). By this w~e are to understand 
 not a mere inclination and emotion, however pure, or natural 
 benevolence and philanthropy, however disinterested; but a dis¬ 
 position wrought by the Holy Ghost, springing from the con¬ 
 sciousness of reconciliation ; a vital supernatural energy, uniting 
 all the powers of the soul with God, the essence of all love, and 
 consecrating them to the service of His kingdom. Without this, 
 even speaking with the tongues of angels were but “ sounding 
 brass or a tinkling cymbal.” Without this, the boldest pro¬ 
 phecy, the most comprehensive knowledge, and a power of 
 faith which could call the impossible into being, have no abiding 
 worth or practical importance. Without this, the other gifts 
 would separate, pass into the service of ambition, and thus 
 ruin themselves and the whole church. Without this, the 
 gift of tongues fosters vanity and enthusiasm ; knowledge puffs 
 up (1 Cor. viii. 1-3) ; and the gift of government degenerates 
 to despotism. As faith lies at the bottom of all the cliarisms, 
 and forms their common root; so also love is properly not a gift 
 by itself, but the soul of all gifts , binding them together like the 
 members of a body, making them work in and for each other, 
 and directing them to the common good. It maintains the 
 unity of the manifold divine powers, subordinates everything 
 individual and personal to the general, and makes it subser¬ 
 vient to the interests of the body of Christ. 
 
 For another reason love transcends all the other gifts. It 
 never ceases. In the future world the other gifts will disappear, 
 at least in their present nature. The mysterious tongues will 
 cease in the land where all understand them. Prophecies will 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 § 120. CHARITY. 
 
 159 
 
 be lost in their fulfilment, like the aurora in the noon. Know¬ 
 ledge, which on earth is but partial, will merge in immediate, 
 perfect intuition. Nay, faith itself will be exchanged for sight, 
 and hope for fruition. But love, by which even here we have 
 fellowship of life with God through Christ, remains love. It 
 changes not. It rises not out of its element. It passes not into 
 another sphere. It only deepens and expands. It can never 
 gain higher ground, never reach another and better form of 
 union with God; but only continues to grow stronger, fuller, 
 more lively, and more blissful (1 Cor. xiii. 8-13). 1 
 
 Hence Paul exhorts the Corinthians, who were inclined to 
 place an undue estimate on the more striking and showy 
 charisms, to strive after charity above all, as the greatest and 
 most precious gift, the cardinal and universal Christian virtue, 
 of which Heathenism had scarce the faintest notion. 2 And he 
 commends it in the most glowing and attractive description ever 
 uttered by tongue of man or angel,—in language which comes 
 to the heart with perpetual freshness, like music from the bowers 
 of eternity, and is of itself enough to put beyond all doubt the 
 divinity of Christianity and its infinite superiority to all other 
 religions,—“ And now (in the present earthly life of Christians) 
 abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these 
 is charity.” 
 
 1 “ Charity,” says Bishop Warburton somewhere, 11 regulates and perfects all the 
 other virtues, and is in itself in no want of a reformer.” 
 
 2 “ Heathenism,” observes Olshausen (Comment. III. p. G98), “ did not get beyond 
 
 It knew nothing of the Christian uydrv. In the Old Testament nothing but 
 stern llx* reigns. Eros, even in its purest, noblest form, is but the result of want, 
 the longing for love, springing from the consciousness that we have not what is worth 
 loving. But the Christian otydr*) is the streaming forth of positive love—God him¬ 
 self, dwelling in the believer—so that streams of living water flow out of him” (John 
 iv. 14). . 
 
360 §121. IMPERFECTIONS OF POSTOLIC CIIURCH. [il. BOOK. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ✓ 
 
 CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 
 
 § 121. Imperfections of the Apostolic Church. 
 
 Powerful and pure as was the operation of the Holy Ghost in 
 the first Christian communities, the ideal of the church was by 
 no means perfectly realized. To the church and her individual 
 members holiness is, indeed, explicitly ascribed as an essential 
 characteristic. The church is, in fact, the body and the bride 
 of the Redeemer, who has washed her with His blood; the 
 temple and organ of the Holy Ghost, who never leaves himself 
 without a witness in her. But this holiness of the church is not 
 complete at once. It is growing, progressive—as are also her 
 other attributes of unity and catholicity—and will be perfected 
 only at the second coming of Christ. This is unequivocally 
 implied in such passages as Epli. iv. 12-16 and v. 26, 27. And 
 this continual process of sanctification is not always a quiet, un¬ 
 resisted advancement from the lower to the higher, but an 
 almost incessant conflict with remaining sin, a subduing of 
 diseases and violent disturbances, a surmounting of obstacles 
 within and without. We must, therefore, though without ab¬ 
 stractly separating the two, still observe a due distinction here 
 between the principle and its perfect development, between the 
 ideal of the church in Christ and its real manifestation among 
 men. (Compare § 4 and 5.) 
 
 Accordingly the apostles, high as they tower above ordinary 
 Christians, never lay claim to sinless perfection. None but one 
 could ask without revolting arrogance and in the well-grounded 
 consciousness of absolute holiness : “ Which of you convinceth 
 
LIFE.] §121. IMPERFECTIONS OF APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 161 
 
 me of sin ? ” 1 (John viii. 46). James teaches of himself with 
 others : “ In many things we offend all,” and declares only those 
 to be perfect, who offend not in a single word (iii. 2); which 
 certainly can hardly be said of any man this side the grave. 
 Paul confesses that he is not yet perfect, and has not yet attained 
 the goal, but follows after it, forgetting what is behind, and 
 reaching forth towards what lies before him (Phil. iii. 12-14); 
 that he has the heavenly treasure in an earthen vessel, that the 
 power of God may be made manifest in his weakness (2 Cor. iv. 
 7, et seq.) ; that he mortifies his body and keeps it in subjection, 
 lest, having preached to others, he himself should be a cast-away 
 (1 Cor. ix. 27). lie lays down the general rule, that we must 
 enter the kingdom of God through much tribulation, which is 
 always directly or indirectly connected with sin (Acts xiv. 22) ; 
 that we are saved, indeed, but in hope (Romans viii. 24). For 
 his personal humiliation, and to aid him in his struggle against 
 the temptation to spiritual pride, there was given him a painful 
 malady, further unknown to us, u a thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 
 xii. 7). John rebukes all assumption of sinlessness in mortal man 
 as self-deception and falsehood. “ If we say that we have no 
 sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we con¬ 
 fess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to 
 cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John i. 8, 9). 
 
 After such concessions, we cannot wonder that history, at once 
 to humble and to encourage, records some, though few, wrong 
 steps in the lives of these holy men ; showing that they were men 
 like ourselves, as James reminds us respecting one of the greatest 
 prophets of the Old Testament (v. 17). We have already noticed 
 the war in dispute (the Trapo^vapoi) between Paul and Barnabas, 
 which led to their temporary separation (Acts xv. 36-39. Comp. 
 § 70) ; Paul’s violent, but quickly checked anger at the high- 
 priest Ananias (xxiii. 3, et seq. Com. § 83) ; the inconsistency 
 of Peter at Antioch, into which he fell under the momentary in¬ 
 fluence of his natural fear of man, and for which he bore, with 
 genuine Christian humility, the heavy charge of hypocrisy 
 from a younger, or at any rate much later called apostle (Gal. ii. 
 
 1 That the Saviour in this passage claims actual sinlessness, and not merely freedom 
 from error, is shown by Ullmann: Die Siindlosigkeit Jesu, p. G4, et seq. ( >th cd.) 
 
 VOL. II. L 
 
t 
 
 162 §121. IMPERFECTIONS OF APOSTOLIC CHURCH. [il. BOOK. 
 
 11. Comp. § 70). 1 Of course, however, these were only tran¬ 
 sient failings, which stimulated to greater fidelity and watchful¬ 
 ness. For the general distinction, in fact, between the regenerate 
 and the unregenerate is, not that the former are altogether free 
 from sin, but that, if in unguarded moments they stumble or 
 fall, they humble themselves before God, and if necessary before 
 men ; like Peter, they go out and weep bitterly, and find no 
 peace, till they obtain forgiveness from the Lord. 
 
 If, therefore, even the apostles did not rise to the ideal of moral 
 perfection, much less did their churches. This is evident from 
 every part of the New Testament, which, in truth, consists largely 
 of exhortations, warnings, and reproofs, not only for unbelievers, 
 but also for believers. For Christians of Jewish extraction, espe¬ 
 cially for such as had been Pharisees, it was very hard to break 
 away from a certain religious mechanism, from the bondage of 
 the law and of ceremonies, and to rise from narrow particularism 
 into the sphere of evangelical freedom. Of this the fifteenth 
 chapter of Acts and almost all Paul’s epistles give ample testi¬ 
 mony. And then, on the other hand, the Gentile Christians 
 were under great temptation to run to the opposite extreme of a 
 false, licentious freedom. In the Palestinian congregations we 
 frequently find an anxious, slavish piety, uncharitable prejudices 
 against the free apostle of the Gentiles, and latterly, at the writ¬ 
 ing of the epistle to the Hebrews, which was addressed to those 
 congregations on the approach of the heavy judgment of God on 
 Jerusalem, a strong tendency to formal apostasy from the Chris¬ 
 tian faith. Many of the Galatians, deluded by Pharisaical false 
 teachers, had become unfaithful to their instructors and benefac- 
 
 1 On this the great Augustine, in his Commentary on Galatians, makes the follow¬ 
 ing excellent remarks: “ The one who suffered himself to be corrected, appears here 
 still more worthy of admiration, and harder to imitate, than the one who corrected 
 him. For it is easier to see what may be improved in others, than for each to see 
 what needs improvement in himself, and cheerfully to receive correction therein, 
 whether from himself, or, what is still harder, from another. This serves as a grand 
 example of humility; and the doctrine of humility is the most important in the Chris¬ 
 tian system of morals ; for by humility love is preserved.” Comp. Neander’s Kleine 
 Gelegenheitsschriften, p. 18.—The generosity and forgiving disposition of Peter is 
 especially manifest from his epistles, where he endorses the doctrines preached by 
 Paul, and, after having spoken of the “ long suffering of our Lord,” and of the pros¬ 
 pect of sinless happiness in the world to come, alludes (2 Peter iii. 15, 16) to those 
 very epistles in one of which his own censure is recorded, and calls their author his 
 “ beloved brother!” 
 
LIFE.] § 121. IMPERFECTIONS OF APOSTOLIC CHURCII. 1(>3 
 
 tors, “ fallen from grace,” and returned to u the weak and beg¬ 
 garly elements of the world.” In the Corinthian church Paul 
 had to censure the carnal sectarian spirit, the seeking after wis¬ 
 dom, the partaking of the heathen sacrificial meals, an inclination 
 to unchastity, and a scandalous profanation of the Lord’s Supper. 
 Ephesus, Colosse, and other churches of Asia Minor, were 
 threatened with Judaistic and Gnostic heresies, which are al¬ 
 ways more or less attended with practical errors. John found it 
 necessary to lift his voice in those regions, not only against theo¬ 
 retical antichrists, who had gone out from the Christian com¬ 
 munion, but also against lax morality, and a dangerous confusion 
 of the love of God and our neighbour with the love of the world 
 and of self. And when he wrote his apocalyptic epistles to the 
 seven churches, a considerable number of them were by no means 
 in a flourishing state. Ephesus had left her first love and was 
 required earnestly to repent, lest her candlestick should be re¬ 
 moved. In Pergamos many had been led away by the errors of 
 the Nicolaitans. In Thyatira pagan vices were current. Sardis 
 had a name to live, but was dead. And in Laodicea there 
 reigned a spiritual satiety and lukewarm indifference, worse than 
 even open hatred of the gospel; so that the Spirit threatened to 
 u spew this church out of His mouth,” unless it should repent. 
 
 A state of absolute purity, therefore, has never yet existed in 
 the historv of the church, nor can be attained till the second 
 coming of Christ. Nay, there may exist in the earthly and un¬ 
 folding state of the church the grievous sin of real hypocrisy. 
 John (1 Ep. ii. 19) expressly distinguishes an inward, and a 
 merely outward fellowship with the church. u In a great house,” 
 says Paul with reference to two pernicious errorists, Hymeneus 
 and Philetus, “ there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but 
 also of wood and of earth ; and some to honour, and some to dis¬ 
 honour” (2 Tim. ii. 20). And the Lord alone can distinguish 
 with absolute infallibility the true and the false, the living and 
 the dead members in the outward organism of His kingdom. He 
 “ knoweth them that are His v (ver. 19); and to separate entirely 
 the tares from the wheat, is a work He has reserved for himseli at 
 the harvest (Matth. xiii. 30). 
 
164 § 122. NATURE AND OBJECT OF DISCIPLINE. [il. BOOK. 
 
 § 122. Nature and Object of Discipline. 
 
 If now, on the one hand, a mixture of error with truth, of sin 
 with holiness, is unavoidable in the actual church, and yet, on the 
 other hand, holiness is essential to her idea and design ; there 
 arises the necessity of discipline , without which no well-ordered 
 society of any kind can stand. By the exercise of admonition 
 and discipline the church expresses her abhorrence of all evil, and 
 is continually purging herself of all the ungodly elements which 
 war against her nature, from u all filthiness of the flesh and 
 spirit” (Eph. v. 25-27 ; 2 Cor. vii. 1). By this means also she 
 formally expels from her communion dangerous errorists and 
 gross sinners, so soon as they are known as such, and when re¬ 
 peated admonition, first private, then public, 1 has proved of no 
 avail; and thus she restores her violated dignity, her proper char¬ 
 acter as the body of the Lord. 2 Neglecting discipline, she 
 would necessarily come to a stand, implicate herself in the sins of 
 her unworthy members, give free scope to the poison in her own 
 organism, and thus procure her own dissolution. Relaxa¬ 
 tion of discipline is always a suspicious symptom; while the 
 strict and energetic administration of it bespeaks moral earnest¬ 
 ness and zeal for purification. One can feel no repugnance, 
 therefore, to the stern precepts of the apostles on this point. 
 John forbids even saluting a wilful and incorrigible Gnostic 
 heretic (2 John 10, 11), Paul prohibits eating with a fornicator, 
 a glutton, an idolater, a railer, a drunkard, or an extortioner, 
 who still calls himself a brother, and claims the privileges of the 
 church (1 Cor. v. 9-12), and he peremptorily requires that such 
 an offender be put out of the Christian communion (ver. 13), 
 with allusion to the injunction of the law of Moses. 3 
 
 Church discipline is, therefore, primarily a process of self-puri¬ 
 fication in the church, designed for the restoration and mainten¬ 
 ance of her essential attribute of holiness. But it necessarily has 
 
 1 Comp. Matth. xviii. 15-18. Luke xvii. 3. Titus iii. 10. 
 
 2 Rom. xvi. 17. 2 Thess. iii. 6-15. 1 Cor. v. 2, 6-13. 2 Cor. vi. 14-vii. 1. Eph. 
 v. 11. 2 Tim. ii. 21. 2 John 10, 11. 
 
 3 Deut. xvii. 7, 12; xix. 19; xxi. 21. The admonition of the offender corresponds 
 nearly to the first stage of the Jewish ban (Niddui); but the anathema or excom¬ 
 munication, to the Jewish Chcrem or Shammatha. 
 
165 
 
 LIFE,] § 122. NATURE AND OBJECT OF DISCIPLINE. 
 
 reference also to the good of the offender, on whom it is exer¬ 
 cised. And here appears its evangelical element; since even in 
 its strongest form, the anathema it has in view, not punishment 
 but correction , the reclaiming of the soul , to which the temporal 
 punishment is intended to serve only as a means. This is what 
 the apostle intends by delivering a backslider u unto Satan for 
 the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the 
 day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. v. 5). In this much-mistaken 
 passage, as in the book of Job, and 2 Cor. xii. 7, Satan is con¬ 
 ceived as a servant of God in the wider sense, as a beiim to 
 whom power is committed to send upon men certain bodily chas¬ 
 tisements and afflictions, but under the oversight and for the ends 
 of Providence. So in the case before us Paul expected that 
 God, by means of the prince of darkness, would bring upon the 
 excommunicated fornicator at Corinth some heavy trial or sud¬ 
 den calamity, but that this punishment might arrest the sinful 
 course of the unfortunate man, drive him to repentance, and 
 result in his salvation in the day of the second coming of Christ. 
 For not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New, diseases 
 and premature death sometimes appear as direct visitations from 
 God for certain sins (1 Cor. xi. 30 ; James v. 14-16). In pre¬ 
 cisely the same way the apostle proceeds with Hymeneus and 
 Philetus, who by their false teachings had brought mischief and 
 confusion into the church. These also he u delivered unto 
 Satan ” by excommunication, “ that they might learn not to 
 blaspheme” (1 Tim. i. 20). According to the same view, we 
 shall doubtless have to understand the anathema which he utters 
 (Gal. i. 8) upon all adulterators of the one unchangeable gospel 
 of Jesus Christ, neither as a mere outward excommunication, nor 
 as an irrevocable, final sentence of damnation, but as the impre¬ 
 cation of some divine judgment, which, as a last desperate 
 remedy, might effect, if possible, the conversion of the heretic. 1 
 
 1 This view throws light also on the obscure passage, 1 Peter iii. 19, 20, and iv. G, 
 where even the judgment on the unbelieving generation in the time of Noah, nay, as we 
 must almost infer from iv. 6, on all the dwellers in the realm of death before Christ, 
 appears as but a transition state, after which follows either the rescue of the soul 
 by the believing reception of the gospel of the Redeemer, or, in case ot its rejection, 
 the proper final condemnation. “ For, for this cause was the gospel preached also 
 to them that are (bodily) dead, ”v» pu y.a.ra, ivdcwrou; Z£<ri 3e 0 <«» 
 
 rvtvpxri” which perfectly harmonizes with the tU r-« rx^of, to tviv^x <ro>0v, 
 
166 §123. EXAMPLES. TPIE HYPOCRITE ANANIAS, [il. BOOK. 
 
 Thus the design of discipline, in regard to its subject, is always 
 the rescue of his soul by means of the heavy punishment of tem¬ 
 porary exclusion from all the benefits of salvation ;—as, in fact, 
 generally speaking, it is the office of the church not to destroy 
 but to edify and save (2 Cor. x. 8 ; xiii. 10). If this end is 
 gained, as it was in the case of the Corinthian offender, the 
 sinner should be restored to the Christian communion and re¬ 
 admitted to the enjoyment of its privileges. 
 
 As to the administration of discipline ; this should be performed 
 by the whole congregation in the name of Jesus Christ; and even 
 the apostles here appear only as the organs and representatives 
 of the whole body. Paul, it is true, in his absence excommuni¬ 
 cated the above-mentioned offender in virtue of the full power 
 committed to him by Christ; but he was united in spirit with 
 the believers at Corinth, and, relying on their concurrence, he 
 pronounced judgment in the name of all (1 Cor. v. 3-5). He 
 took for granted that the whole congregation would look upon 
 this grievous sin in the midst of them as a common misfortune, 
 and would in solemn assembly formally ratify his sentence. For 
 in the organic unity of believers, the honour or disgrace of one 
 member falls upon the body itself, and the restoration of the 
 moral dignity of the whole requires, therefore, such an act of the 
 whole body. 
 
 § 123. Examples. The Hypocrite Ananias. The Corinthian 
 
 Offender . 
 
 In the comparative purity of the apostolic church we must not 
 look for many acts of discipline. But those of which we are 
 informed, bear the strongest testimony to the holy vigilance with 
 which the apostles guarded the spotlessness of the bride of 
 Christ. 
 
 The first case we meet with in the church of Jerusalem shortly 
 after it was founded (Acts v. 1-10). This is the first dark 
 shadow which falls upon the bright picture of the history of 
 Christ’s kingdom. The sin of Ananias and his wife Sapphira 
 consisted in a shameful perversion of the community of goods to 
 
 1 Cor v. 5. Comp, also Thiersch : Vorlesungen uber Katholicisnius und, Protestantis- 
 rnus, I. p. 89, et seq. 
 
LIFE.] §123. EXAMPLES. THE COPJNTIIIAN OFFENDER. 10)7 
 
 selfish ends, an attempt to impose by hypocrisy on the Christian 
 community and the Holy Ghost, who dwelt in it. Ananias sold 
 his piece of ground, but in concert with his wife, secretly kept 
 back part of the proceeds, laying the rest at the apostles’ feet in 
 the common treasury. This was worse than if he had kept all. 
 For he wished thus to have the appearance of a love which 
 sacrifices all, while yet in heart he worshipped mammon. He 
 wished to serve two masters, yet seem to serve but one. Peter, 
 by the gift of discerning spirits (comp. § 119), saw through this 
 hypocrisy and called it a lie to God and to the Holy Ghost. 
 Struck by the rebuke of the apostle, as by a thunder-bolt, the 
 guilty man fell dead upon the earth. Some have referred this 
 tragical end to natural causes, perhaps apoplexy caused by terror 
 and remorse. But ver. 9, where Peter predicts the same fate to 
 Sapphira, of itself shows plainly that we have here to suppose 
 a miraculous intervention of God. The Lord made the apostle’s 
 word the medium of an extraordinary punishment. The same 
 divine judgment fell upon his accomplice, Sapphira, but not 
 until time had been given for conscience to reprove her, nor 
 until, ignorant of the fate of her husband, she had aggravated 
 her hypocrisy by a deliberate lie. Had she penitently confessed 
 the deed, she would undoubtedly have been spared. Thus, 
 therefore, fell two as sacrifices to the good of all. 1 
 
 The unusual rigour of this discipline is accounted for by the 
 circumstances. In the first place, the example of this hypocrisy, 
 unless it had met exemplary punishment, would have poisoned 
 the life of the Christian community at the outset, and under¬ 
 mined the indispensable authority of the apostles. And again, 
 Ananias might very possibly have enjoyed, in this fair season of 
 first love, deeper experiences of the power of the Holy Ghost, 
 so as to have been far more guilty than Simon Magus (chap, 
 viii.) or Elymas (chap, xiii.), who had merely come into outward 
 contact with the gospel, and were, therefore, more mildly dealt 
 with. 
 
 The second example occurred at Corinth, and has been already 
 several times touched upon (1 Cor. v. 1, et seq.) A member of 
 the church there had committed a scandal almost unheard of 
 
 1 “ Ut poena duorum liominum,” says Jerome, “ sit doctrina multorum. ’ 
 
168 §123. EXAMPLES. THE CORINTHIAN OFFENDER, [il. BOOK. 
 
 even arnon^ the heathen. Pie had lived in incestuous intercourse 
 with his stepmother, while his father was yet living 1 (comp. 
 2 Cor. vii. 12). When Paul to his deep grief heard of it in 
 Ephesus, he, in the name of Jesus Christ, and as united in spirit 
 with the congregation, though bodily absent, excluded the of¬ 
 fender from the church, that such shocking disgrace might be 
 rolled off from it, and that the backslider might, by remorse and 
 the sense of estrangement from God, be awakened to repentance, 
 and thus, though perhaps ruined in the body, be yet saved at last 
 in the great day of final decision. Here the discipline was 
 actually effectual. Fur from 2 Cor. ii. 5-10 we learn, that the 
 unfortunate man was pierced with remorse and brought by loss 
 of the gifts of grace to the brink of despair. Hence the apostle 
 exhorts the congregation to forgive him and to show him 
 brotherly love. 
 
 Here belong, finally, the excommunication by the same apostle 
 of the probably Gnostic errorists, Hymeneus and Alexander, 
 who denied the resurrection of the body; 2 and the command of 
 the aged John, to have no fellowship whatever with those who 
 deny the incarnation of the Son of God, not to receive them into 
 the house, nor even to salute them (2 John 10, 11). Greeting 
 is here conceived not as an empty form, but (like the do-ndo-rjaQe, 
 Matth. v. 47) as a testimony of real friendship, by which one 
 professes his fellowship of spirit with the one he salutes, and 
 makes himself partaker of his works (ver. 11, comp. 1 Tim. v. 
 22). This severity is by no means inconsistent with the mild 
 character of John, but is in perfect harmony with his holy 
 earnestness, which acknowledged only a love rooted in the divine 
 truth, and with what Irenseus relates of his interview with the 
 Gnostic, Cerinthus (comp. § 103). It must be remembered, 
 that he is here speaking not of Jews or Gentiles, but of apostate 
 Christians, who altogether rejected the central doctrine of the 
 gospel, under the pretence of apprehending it more clearly and 
 intellectually, and thus threatened to subvert the proper founda¬ 
 tion of the church (comp. 1 John ii. 18, et seq.; iv. 3). We 
 
 1 The Mosaic law assigns to this horrible crime the penalty of death : Lev. xx. 11. 
 Comp, xviii. 8. Deut. xxii. 30. 
 
 2 1 Tim. i. 20. Comp. 2 Tim. ii. 17, where Philetus is mentioned along with 
 Hymeneus. 
 
LIFE.] § 123. EXAMPLES. THE CORINTHIAN OFFENDER. 169 
 
 find just as severe expressions in Paul, Phil. iii. 2 ; Gal. i. 8; 
 1 Cor. xvi. 22. Without the most rigid separation of truth 
 from falsehood, the church, especially in that day, when she 
 had scarcely gained firm footing, and was an object of violent 
 persecution, would soon have become a medley of Christian 
 and unchristian elements, and in the end the sure prey of the 
 world. 
 
 < 
 
 i 
 
THIRD BOOK. 
 
 GOVERNMENT OE THE CHURCH. 
 
I . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
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 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IN GENERAL. 
 
 § 124. Origin and Design of the Spiritual Office. 
 
 Church Government has its foundation in the Christian 
 Ministry, which is originally identical with the Apostolate, and 
 contains the germs of all other church offices. 
 
 It was instituted, not by men, but by Christ himself in person. 
 When our Lord was about to leave the earth, Pie gave His 
 disciples, whom He had gathered around Him since His public 
 appearance as the Messiah, and trained by a three years’ personal 
 intercourse, a commission to continue His divine work ; to preach 
 the gospel to every creature; and to baptize the penitent in the 
 triune name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier 
 of mankind. u As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” 
 For this purpose He imparted to them the Holy Ghost by an 
 outward act, at first provisionally, afterwards in much richer 
 measure on the day of Pentecost: u And when Pie had said 
 this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the 
 Holy Ghost.” With this gift He joined the power of the keys ; 
 that is, full power in Plis name and with Plis authority to open 
 or shut the gates of heaven, to proclaim and insure to the peni¬ 
 tent the remission of sins, and to the impenitent divine judgment: 
 u Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and 
 
174 
 
 § 124. ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF [ill. BOOK. 
 
 whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” 1 Socinian and 
 Rationalistic interpreters are wrong in regarding this as a special 
 gift, attaching only to the persons of the apostles and - becoming 
 extinct at their death. The apostles here appear as represen¬ 
 tatives of the ministerial office in general, nay, of the whole 
 community of believers, to which the right of church discipline 
 is expressly granted (comp. Matth. xviii. 18, with ver. 17) ;—just 
 as the promise of the continual presence of the Lord reaches 
 beyond the apostolic age even to the end of the world (Matth. 
 xxviii. 18-20 ; xviii. 20). The ministry of reconciliation is as 
 necessary for the perpetuation of the church, as it was for its 
 establishment. Hence Paul says of it, in comparison with the 
 Old Testament ministry of the law : (t If that which was done 
 away was glorious, much more that winch remaineth is glorious” 
 (2 Cor. iii. 11). 
 
 The design of the Christian ministry is none other than that 
 of the mission of Christ himself,—the redemption of the world 
 from sin and error, and the extension and completion of the 
 kingdom of God, as a kingdom of truth, love, holiness, and peace. 
 Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, are divinely 
 appointed, u for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the 
 ministry, 2 for the edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come 
 in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
 God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
 fulness of Christ” (Eph. iv. 11-13). The spiritual office, or the 
 ministry (JhaKovia), is the vehicle of the powers of divine grace; 
 the appointed channel for conveying the blessings of the gospel 
 to mankind; the organ through which the Holy Ghost acts 
 upon the world, and gradually transforms it into the kingdom 
 of God. This office has various names, according to its different 
 aspects and functions. It is termed the u ministry of the word ” 
 (dLdKovia rod \6yovj Acts vi. 4), because the preaching of the gospel 
 is its first business, according to the final commission of the 
 Saviour, Matth. xxviii. 19, et seq. ; Mark xvi. 15. It is called 
 
 1 John xx. 21-23. Comp. Matth. xvi. 19; xviii. 18; xxviii. 18-20. 
 
 2 Aixxovioc, is here to be taken in its wider sense, as denoting 1 the particular vocation 
 assigned to each member of the body of Christ, for which he was to be fitted by the 
 Staxovlot in the narrower sense, the ministry of apostles, prophets, etc. Comp., on 
 this whole passage, Eph. iv. 11-13, the instructive and thorough exposition of Stier 
 in his Comment, zum Eph. Br. II. p. 96, et seq. 
 
LIFE.] 
 
 TIIE SPIRITUAL OFFICE. 
 
 175 
 
 the ministration of the Spirit (huiKovia tov nvevpaTos^ 2 Cor. iii. 8), 
 which gives life, in distinction from the Old Testament ministra¬ 
 tion of the letter, which kills ; the u ministration of righteousness ” 
 (diaic. tP/s duccuoavvris, ver. 9), which comes from faith in the Re¬ 
 deemer and avails with God, in contrast with the ministration of 
 condemnation proclaimed by the law; the u ministry of reconcilia¬ 
 tion ” ( 8ia< . rrjs KaraWayrjsy 2 Cor. v. 18), which Christ has estab¬ 
 lished between sinful men and a holy God. 
 
 From this we see the immeasurable importance, dignity, 
 arduousness, and responsibility of the ministerial calling. This 
 office is the main instrument for carrying out the divine plan of 
 salvation, and from it proceed almost all motion and progress in 
 the church. The apostles, and in a wider view all ministers of 
 the gospel, are u the salt of the earth,” which preserves humanity 
 from putrefaction and gives it its proper savour. They are “ the 
 light of the world,” shedding the rays of eternal life into the 
 night of the natural heart and upon all the relations of human 
 existence (Matth. v. 13-16). They are u labourers together with 
 God” (1 Cor. iii. 9), and “ stewards of the mysteries of God,” 
 which they should faithfully dispense, and of which they must 
 one day give an account (1 Cor. iv. 1 ; Titus i. 7 ; 1 Peter iv. 
 10). They are u ambassadors for Christ” (vnep Xpurrov npeo-fievopev), 
 who, as though God himself spoke through them, pray sinners 
 in Christ’s stead : u Be ye reconciled to God!” (2 Cor. v. 20). 
 Since the Lord himself appears in His servants, the reception or 
 rejection of them is the same as a reception or rejection of Christ; 
 the one is attended with a rich blessing, the other with a heavy 
 curse. “ He that receiveth you, receivetli me; and he that 
 receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me.” 1 
 
 This exalted position, however, of course gives the Christian 
 minister no ground for self-exaltation, but rather incites to 
 humility. Even a Paul, in view of the glory of an office, which is 
 to believers a savour of life unto life, to unbelievers, of death unto 
 death, exclaims under a sense of his own unworthiness: u Who 
 is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. ii. 16), and refers all his 
 qualification to divine grace alone (iii. '5, 6). As little may 
 Christ’s stewards abuse their authority by lording it over the 
 
 1 Matth. x. 40, et seq ver. 15. John xiii. 20, Comp. John xii. 2G ; xvii. 23. Matth. 
 xxv. 40. 
 
176 
 
 § 125. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH [ill. BOOK. 
 
 conscience and invading the rights of the congregation. They 
 are bound rather to shine as an example to the people of Christ 
 in holy living (1 Peter v. 3), lest, having preached to others, they 
 themselves be cast away (1 Cor. ix. 27). As faithful shepherds, 
 they must devote themselves in the most self-sacrificing love to 
 the welfare of the flock purchased by the blood of Christ and 
 committed to them by the Holy Ghost (Acts xx. 28 ; comp. John 
 x. 12, et seq.) ; ever mindful that in the kingdom of heaven 
 greatness and rank are to be measured on the scale of humility 
 and love. u Whosoever will be great among you,” says our 
 Lord to His disciples, u let him be your minister ; and whosoever 
 will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matth. xx. 
 26-28 ; comp. Luke xxii. 26-30). For their office is in fact a 
 service, as the original Greek term, SiaKovia, implies. Preachers 
 are, primarily and in the highest view, servants of God and of 
 Christ (2 Cor. vi. 4 ; 1 Cor. iii. 5 ; iv. 1) ; but for this very 
 reason also properly servants of the congregation, for its eternal 
 welfare. Thus Paul writes to the Corinthians: “We preach 
 not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your 
 servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. iv. 5; comp. Col. i. 25). 
 
 § 125. Development of the Church Constitution from the Aposto- 
 late. Officers of the Whole Church and of Particular Congre¬ 
 gations. 
 
 We have already remarked, that the ministerial office was 
 originally one and the same with the apostolical. But as the 
 church outwardly and inwardly grew, the apostles found their 
 sphere of labour so enlarged, that they could no longer attend 
 alone to all the duties of discipline and public worship, and were 
 compelled to resort to a division of labour. In this way arose 
 gradually, as the wants of the church and the force of circum¬ 
 stances required, the several offices, which have their common 
 root in the apostolate, and through it partake in various degrees 
 of its divine origin, its powers, its privileges, and its duties. The 
 Lord himself gave no particular directions on the subject, but 
 left His disciples to the'guidance of the Holy Ghost. Under this 
 guidance they proceeded with the greatest wisdom and considera¬ 
 tion, following in the footsteps of history, and conforming as far 
 as possible to the existing arrangements of the Jewish synagogue. 
 
GOVERNM.] CONSTITUTION FROM THE APOSTOLATE. 177 
 
 Hence the church was at first regarded merely as a sect or school 
 (mpecns , Acts xxiv. 5; xxviii. 22) among other sects, like the 
 Pharisees (xv. 5 ; xxvi. 5) and Sadducees (v. 17), within the 
 greater theocratic communion. Even Paul, the apostle of the 
 Gentiles, turned first to the synagogues and followed the order 
 of their customary forms, till he and his disciples were thrust out 
 of them. 1 We must here observe, however, that the analogy, 
 which undeniably exists between the constitution of the apostolic 
 church and that of the Jewish synagogue, must not be pedanti¬ 
 cally pushed, as it has been by many, 2 to all the offices and to 
 the minutest details. It holds in reality only in the constitution 
 of single congregations—only, therefore, in the offices of presbyter 
 and deacon; and even here we must not overlook those differ¬ 
 ences, which necessarily grew out of the essential dissimilarity of 
 the Christian and the Jewish principles. 
 
 In fixing the number and division of the church offices we 
 must keep especially in view the passage, Eph. iv. 11, et seq. : 
 u And He (Christ) gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; 
 and some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers; for the 
 perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the 
 edifying of the body of Christ.” In the parallel passage, 1 Cor. 
 xii. 28-30, evangelists are left out and in their stead workers of 
 miracles and several spiritual gifts are mentioned along with 
 apostles, prophets, and teachers. In these passages, at least the 
 latter, Paul is speaking primarily, indeed, as the context plainly 
 shows, of the cliarisms ; yet these gifts are closely related to the 
 offices, forming the divine qualification and outfit for them, their 
 inward side, as it were; though the gifts might also manifest 
 themselves out of the offices. Besides, the apostle does not 
 intend to give a complete catalogue; for he passes over the 
 
 1 Acts xiii. 5, 46 ; xiv. 1; xviii. 4-8 ; xix. 8-10 ; xxviii. 17-29. 
 
 2 By Campegius Vitringa, for instance, who first brought out this analogy pro¬ 
 foundly and fully in his celebrated work, De synagoga vetere libri III. 1696. Against 
 him Mosheim’s objections, in his Institutiones majores, p. 168-171, are in part not 
 groundless. Compare on this point especially Dr Richard Rothe (now in Bonn): 
 Die Anfange der ckristlichen Kirche und ihrer Verfassung, vol. i. 1847, p. 147, et seq. 
 This is undoubtedly the most learned and ingenious work of modern times on the 
 constitution of the primitive church; and, in spite of its peculiar and almost univer¬ 
 sally disapproved views of the relation of the church to the state, and of the rise of 
 episcopacy, it is a work of permanent value. 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
178 
 
 § 125. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH [ill. BOOK. 
 
 deacons, 1 whose existence is certain from the Acts and the Pas¬ 
 toral Epistles. Adding these to the list, and understanding 
 pastors and teachers to be identical with one another 2 and with 
 those elsewhere commonly styled presbyters or even bishops, we 
 have five classes of officers ; Apostles , Prophets , Evangelists , Pres¬ 
 byter-bishops (uniting the functions of teaching and governing), 
 and 7 leacons. These offices are so related to one another, that 
 the higher include in themselves the lower, but not the reverse. 
 The Apostles (as for example, John, the author of the Gospel, 
 the Epistles, and the Apocalypse) were at the same time prophets, 
 evangelists, pastors, and teachers, and at first had charge even of 
 the business of the deacons (Acts iv. 35, 37; vi. 2). This uni¬ 
 versal official character belonged in the highest sense to Christ. 
 He is expressly called Apostle (Heb. iii. 1), Prophet (John iv. 
 19 ; vi. 14 ; vii. 40 ; Luke vii. 16 ; xxiv. 19 ; Acts iii. 22, et seq .; 
 vii. 37), Evangelist (evayyeAio-aro, Eph. ii. 17) ; calls himself the 
 Good Shepherd (John x. 11) ; and condescends, notwithstanding 
 Ilis participation in the divine government of the world, to take 
 even the title of deacon or servant (Luke xxii. 27 ; comp. Matth. 
 xx. 28 ; John xiii. 14 ; Phil. ii. 7). And all the various branches 
 of the spiritual office are the organs, through which Christ him¬ 
 self in the Holy Ghost continues to exercise on earth his offices 
 of prophet, priest, and king. 
 
 But then there is this difference among these offices, that the 
 first three have reference to the whole church, while those of 
 presbyter and deacon relate only to single congregations. This 
 gives us the distinction of church government and congregational 
 government, which Dr Pothe especially brings out, though he 
 wrongly puts the latter before the former. The whole system of 
 government has formed itself from above downwards, from the 
 general to the particular, and not the contrary. Even under the 
 old dispensation the kingdom of God consisted not of any local 
 assembly or single tribe, but of the tribes collectively. And this 
 
 1 In 1 Cor. xii. 28 they are alluded to by the term mvtiXyi^us, which denotes the 
 spiritual gift answering to the office of deacon. Comp, above § 119. 
 
 2 As may be justly inferred even from the fact, that the apostle does not repeat the 
 Tolu before Zi'&xtry.a.Xou;, but simply puts x«.l. Jerome well calls attention to this: 
 “ Non enim ait, alios pastores et alios magistros, sed alios pastores et magistros, ut 
 qui pastor est, esse debeat et magister.” So Bengel, ad loc.: “ Pastores et doctores 
 hie junguntur, nam pascunt docendo maxime, turn admonendo, corripiendo,” etc. 
 
CrOVERNM.] CONSTITUTION FROM TIIE AFOSTOLATE. 
 
 179 
 
 conception passed over directly to the Christian communion, as 
 the true spiritual Israel and the proper succession of the old 
 faith. 1 This was made up of all in every nation, who were 
 separated from the world by divine grace and called to eternal 
 life (the e/cXeKroi, kX^toI Oeov) ; and this society of the elect (ex/cX^o-ia 
 tov 6eov) was distinguished from the ungodly world (the koV/xo?), 
 as were the chosen people of the ancient covenant from the nyj, 
 the Mur], the nations by which they were surrounded. 2 The 
 apostles, accordingly, are always named first, 3 and all the other 
 offices grow out of theirs, like branches from a common stock. 
 The wide view of the church as the total of believers, the whole 
 kingdom of Christ on earth, is the original one; 4 the narrower 
 sense of the term, in which it denotes a particular local congre¬ 
 gation, as the church of Corinth or of Rome, is the derived. 5 
 This appears at once from the passage, where the term ex*X^o-ta 
 first occurs, and that too in the mouth of our Lord himself. 
 When Christ says of His church, u the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against it” (Matth. xvi. 18), we are obliged to refer this 
 to the church in the complex view, since it is this alone which is 
 indestructible; whilst single congregations and even large dis¬ 
 tricts, once flourishing seats of Christianity, have perished entirely, 
 or are now inwardly dead or overrun by a false religion, like 
 Mohammedanism. In the first stage of Christianity the two 
 conceptions properly coincided, the church being commensurate 
 with the congregation at Jerusalem, and the apostles, therefore, 
 being at that time also congregational officers. Yet their mission 
 and vocation had reference, from the beginning, to the whole 
 human family, to the evangelizing of all nations (Matth. xxviii. 
 19 ; Mark xvi. 15 ; Acts i. 8). 
 
 1 Rom. ii. 28, et seq. ; iv. 11, et seq., 16, 17 ; ix. 6, et seq., 24, et seq. ; xi. 1-7. Gal. 
 iii. 7, 26-29; iv. 26. Col. iii. 11. 
 
 2 Comp. Acts ii. 47 ; xiii. 48. 1 Peter i. 1, 2. Jude 1. Rom. i. 6, 7. 1 Cor. i. 2. 
 Titus i. 1, etc. 
 
 3 Eph. ii. 20; iv. 11. 1 Cor. xii. 28; a.*ro<rro\ovs, ver. 29, etc. 
 
 * Comp, such passages as Matth. xvi. 18; xx. 28. 1 Cor. x. 32; xii. 28. Eph. i. 
 
 22, et seq .; iii. 10 ; v. 25, 27, 32. 1 Tim. iii. 15. 
 
 5 Rothe himself allows this, p. 285. 
 
180 § 126. ELECTION AND ORDINATION OF OFFICERS, [ill. BOOK. 
 
 § 126. Election and Ordination of Officers. 
 
 The inward call to the spiritual office, and the necessary fur¬ 
 niture of gifts, can come only from the Holy Ghost. Paul re¬ 
 minds the Ephesian elders (Acts xx. 28), that the Holy Ghost 
 had clothed them with the pastoral office, to feed the church of 
 God. But this does not exclude the co-operation of the congre¬ 
 gation. True, the apostles were chosen directly by Christ, as 
 instruments for laying the first foundations of the church. But 
 so soon as there was a community of believers, nothing was done 
 without its active participation. This was the case even in filling 
 the vacant place of the traitor, after our Lord’s ascension (Acts 
 i. 15-26). Peter here lays before the whole congregation of 
 about a hundred and twenty souls the necessity of an election, 
 to complete the sacred number twelve; whereupon not merely 
 the apostles, but the whole body of disciples, nominate ( ea-Trjo-av , 
 ver. 23) Joseph Barsabas and Matthias as candidates; all pray 
 to be informed of the divine will (ver. 24); all cast their lots 1 2 
 (ver. 26) ; and thus Matthias is elected. Much more must we 
 expect the general rights of Christians to be regarded in the 
 choice of the ordinary congregational officers. When the first 
 deacons are to be appointed (Acts vi. 1-6), the twelve call 
 together the multitude of the disciples (to nXrjdos rd>v ^«0/;rajv, ver. 
 2), and require them to make a choice; the latter fall in with 
 the proposition, make their own choice (eAe£az/ro, ver. 5, con¬ 
 nected with the nau to n\rj6os immediately preceding), and pre¬ 
 sent the candidates to the apostles, not for confirmation, but 
 only for ordination (ver. 6). As to the presbyter-bishops, Luke 
 informs us (Acts xiv. 23) that Paul and Barnabas appointed 
 them to office in the newly-founded congregations by taking the 
 vote of the people; thus merely presiding over the choice. Such, 
 at least, is the original and usual sense of x ei P 0T0V€lv2 (comp. 2 
 Cor. viii. 19). But even in a more general sense (like 7rpo*«po- 
 
 1 Either dice, or more probably small tablets, which were inscribed with the name 
 of a candidate, and deposited in some vessel. By this mode of choice, which, as is 
 well known, the Moravians imitate even in their marriages (though not so generally 
 of late), it was sought to preclude all human will, and place the decision entirely in 
 the hands of Providence. 
 
 2 From x l k an d ts/vuv, to stretch out the hand ; hence, manum porrigendo suffragia 
 dare , suffragiis creare. 
 
GOVERNM.] §126. ELECTION AND ORDINATION OF OFFICERS. 181 
 
 Tovciv , used of God, Acts x. 41,) it does not exclude the co-opera¬ 
 tion of the congregations any more than Paul’s charge to Titus, 
 Titus i. 5. 1 For in the nature of the case the apostles and their 
 delegates had the best judgment and the greatest influence in 
 these elections. Probably in young, inexperienced congrega¬ 
 tions, they nominated the candidates themselves, simply calling 
 for the concurrence of the new converts. But assuredly they 
 always regarded in this matter the wishes of the Christian 
 people, as may be seen from the direction in the Pastoral 
 Epistles, that none but men of blameless reputation should be 
 chosen to these dignities. 2 The formal right of the congregation 
 to an active concern in all its affairs cannot be questioned, 
 though the actual exercise of this right is conditioned by the 
 degree of their spiritual maturity. All authority and power 
 comes, indeed, from God, the only Sovereign, and from the 
 Holy Ghost, the Ruler and Soul of the church; but the convey¬ 
 ance of it to a particular individual must be mediated, even for 
 the sake of order, by some sort of human agency. And why 
 may not the divine will be revealed through the body of Chris¬ 
 tians, full as well as through one or more individuals ? The 
 democratic principle, no doubt, has its dangers. But these are 
 found to the same extent, only in other forms, in monarchy and 
 aristocracy; and in proportion as the true spirit of Christianity 
 prevails, they disappear. 
 
 This view of the way of appointing congregational officers is 
 confirmed by the testimony of the apostolic father, Clement of 
 Rome, who says explicitly in his first epistle to the Corinthians, 
 that the apostles appointed bishops and deacons u with the con¬ 
 currence of the whole church.” 3 
 
 1 Comp. Rothe, 1. c. p. 150, and Neander, Ap. Gesch. I. p. 2G8. 
 
 2 1 Tim. iii. 2, 7,10. Titus i. 6, 7. Similar to this was the way of choosing the 
 rulers of synagogues, whose solemn induction into office did not take place till the 
 congregation had given their assent. 
 
 3 truvitjdozvtroitrr,? t%s ty.x\r,<rlu.? trucvi?, JEpist. (id Corinth. I. c. 44. Even Cyprian, in 
 the third century, who is known to mark an epoch in the development of hierarchy, 
 says of the choice of priests : “ Quod et ipsum videmus de divina auctoritate descen- 
 dere, ut sacerdos plebe praesente sub omnium oculis deligatur et dignus atque idoneus 
 
 publico judicio ac testimonio comprobetur.ut plebe praesente vel detegantur 
 
 malorum crimina, vel bonorum merita praedicentur, et sit ordinatio justa et legitima, 
 quae omnium suffragio et judicio fuerit examinata ( Ep . 68, p. 118, ed. Boned. I. p. 
 118, et seq., ed. Tauchn.) 
 
182 §126. ELECTION AND ORDINATION OF OFFICERS. [ill. BOOK. 
 
 After the election followed the ordination, or the solemn 
 induction into office by prayer and the laying on of hands (a 
 ceremony borrowed from Judaism, comp. Num. xxvii. 18, 23), 
 the symbol and medium of the communication of the grace 
 prayed for and necessary for the office. So in the ordination of 
 the deacons (Acts vi. 6, xa\ npocrev^apevoi enedgKav avrols ras ^eipas 1 ). 
 It was natural that the apostles themselves should perform this 
 important act, where they were present. In their absence it was 
 performed by their delegates, as Timothy and Titus; compare 
 Titus i. 5, and 1 Tim. v. 22, where Timothy is cautioned against 
 hastily ordaining any one (x e ~ L P as raxlcos prjdevl eniTiOei), lest he 
 should become a partaker of other men’s sins. From 1 Tim. iv. 
 14, however, it appears that the presbyter-bishops also might 
 ordain, or at least assist in the ceremony. For Paul there ex¬ 
 horts his disciple not to neglect the gift, which was given him in 
 consequence of the prophetic utterances of the congregation 
 (comp. 1 Tim. i. 18, and Acts xvi. 2), by the laying on of the 
 hands of the presbytery or college of elders (roC Trpeo-fivreptov.) 
 From 2 Tim. i. 6 it would seem, indeed, that Paul himself was 
 present on this occasion (did rrjs hrideo-eas T<dv x* l p™ v p- ° v ); unless 
 we adopt the untenable hypothesis that these were two different 
 cases. 1 But at all events the part taken by the presbyters can 
 have been no mere empty ceremony, any more than the partici¬ 
 pation of the congregation in the choice of its officers, but pre¬ 
 supposes a right and a power lodged in their official character of 
 conveying the necessary spiritual gifts. The laying on of hands 
 on Paul by Ananias (probably a presbyter) mentioned Acts ix, 
 17, although no ordination proper, nor confirmation (for baptism 
 followed afterwards), was the means not only to restore his sight, 
 but also “ to fill him with the Holy Ghost.” The case men¬ 
 tioned Acts xiii. 3, was a special inauguration of Paul and Bar¬ 
 nabas for the great missionary w T ork amongst the Gentiles, and 
 performed by the u prophets and teachers” (ver. 1) of the con- 
 gregation at Antioch. 
 
 o o 
 
 i As Rothe does, 1. c. p. 161, note. This passage is discussed at some length, with 
 reference to the views of English divines, by Dr Samuel Miller: Letters concerning 
 the Constitution and Order of the Christian Ministry. Philad. 1830. 2d ed. p. 31, 
 et seg. 
 
GOVERNM.] § 127. SUfFORT OF THE MINISTRY. 
 
 183 
 
 § 127. Support of the Ministry. 
 
 Respecting the maintenance of the various ecclesiastical and 
 congregational officers, our Lord himself had already uttered the 
 principle : “ The labourer is worthy of his hire.” 1 But He had 
 previously warned His followers, not to turn the work of preach¬ 
 ing into a common trade (Matth. x. 8, et seq .); for disinterested¬ 
 ness is one of the most needful and beautiful ornaments of him 
 who proclaims the free, unmerited grace of God, and exhorts men 
 to seek first of all the everlasting blessings of the kingdom of 
 heaven. The same principle is laid down by Paul and illus¬ 
 trated by several apt similitudes; the soldier drawing his pay, 
 the vine-dresser reaping the fruit of his vineyard, the shepherd 
 living on the milk of his flock. So the minister of Christ, 
 whose office is frequently represented by these figures, has a 
 just claim to be supported by the church, for which he labours 
 (1 Cor. ix. 6-10); especially as temporal gifts are after all but a 
 poor equivalent for spiritual and eternal (ver. 11.) “ Do ye not 
 
 know,” continues he, enforcing from another quarter this self- 
 evident, but often-neglected duty, “ do ye not know, that they 
 which minister about holy things live of the things of the 
 temple ? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the 
 altar ? Even so hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach 
 the gospel should live of the gospel” (ver. 13, et seq.) When he 
 writes to Timothy (1 Tim. v. 17): “Let the elders that rule 
 well be counted worthy of double honour,” the idea of remunera¬ 
 tion is at least included; 2 as is shown by the next verse, where 
 he quotes the above expression of Christ along with the Mosaic 
 precept enjoining mercy to animals (Deut. xxv. 4) : “ Thou 
 shaft not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn”—in other 
 words (as here applied), show thyself grateful towards those by 
 whose hard labour thou art served. The passage also, Gal. vi. 
 6, “ Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him 
 that teacheth in all good things,” contains, according to the usual 
 interpretation, an injunction to liberality towards the teachers oi 
 the gospel. 
 
 1 Matth. X. 10. Luke x. 7, et seq. Comp. Lev. xix. 13. Deut. xxiv. 14. 
 
 2 Many expositors refer here exclusively to remuneration, and translate it 
 
 reward. 
 
184 
 
 § 127. SUPPORT OF THE MINISTRY. [ill. BOOK. 
 
 But the same apostle is equally earnest, on the other hand, in 
 warning ministers against the love of filthy lucre, which is pecu¬ 
 liarly unbecoming in them, and almost annihilates their moral 
 influence. He exhorts them to contentment, hospitality, and 
 disinterestedness. 1 He himself exhibited in his life an exalted 
 model in this respect; earning his own support by his trade of 
 tent-making, often working day and night, that he might not be 
 burdensome to the churches, which doubtless consisted mostly of 
 persons without property; that he might procure the readier 
 access for the gospel; and might stop the mouths of his Jewish. 
 adversaries, who impeached his motives. 2 Paul could say with¬ 
 out exaggeration, that through the power of Christ strengthening 
 him he could do all things, knowing both how to be abased and 
 how to be exalted; how to be full, and how to be hungry; how 
 to abound, and how to suffer need (Phil. iv. 11-13.) Yet in 
 the case of the church at Philippi, whose relation to him was one 
 of special confidence and friendship, he made an exception, and 
 sometimes received presents from it (Phil. iv. 16 ; 2 Cor. xi. 8). 
 For though his earnings might have been enough to cover the 
 cost of his own living, they could not well meet the expenses of 
 his frequent and long journeys, on which he had usually several 
 attendants, once as many as seven (Acts xx. 3, 4). When we 
 consider these numerous and expensive journeys of the apostles 
 and their delegates, to spread the gospel and to maintain and 
 promote the unity of the Eastern and Western churches, while 
 they might all well say with Peter: u Silver and gold have I 
 none” (Acts iii. 6) ; and when we remember too, with how great 
 zeal the Christians of Macedonia, for instance, notwithstanding 
 their poverty, raised collections for their needy brethren in Pales¬ 
 tine—we cannot but form a high opinion of the liberality and 
 self-sacrificing love of these apostolic congregations. 
 
 It is not to be supposed, however, that there was in this 
 period any regular and fixed salary for ministers. Many, like 
 Paul, according to the custom of the Eabbins, may have con¬ 
 tinued their former trades in connection with their new calling, 
 and may have thus earned a part or the whole of their subsist- 
 
 1 Titus i. 11. 1 Tim. iii. 2, et seq. ; vi. 6-10. Acts xx. 34, et seq. 
 
 2 1 Thess. ii. 5-10. 2 Thess. iii. 7-9. 1 Cor. ix. 12, 15. 2 Cor. xi. 7-10; xii. 14-18. 
 Phil. iv. 15. Acts xviii. 3 ; xx. 34, et seq. 
 
GOVERNM.] § 127. SUPPORT OF THE MINISTRY. 
 
 185 
 
 ence. At all events, those who had the right spirit, contented 
 themselves with the simple necessaries of life. So long as Chris¬ 
 tianity was not recognised by the state, the churches, as such, 
 held no property. Many Christians, especially from among the 
 Jews, might have adhered to the old custom of paying tithes 
 (decimae) and first fruits (primitiae). But there was as yet no 
 law about it. 1 All contributions for ecclesiastical or benevolent 
 purposes were free-will offerings, regulated according to ability 
 and need. Thus we read, Acts xi. 29, on the occasion of the 
 famine in Palestine : u The disciples (at Antioch), every man 
 according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the 
 brethren, which dwelt in Judea.” So in the case of the subse¬ 
 quent collections for the poor churches in Palestine, Rom. xv. 
 26; 1 Cor. xvi. 1, et seq.; and any salary for the preachers of 
 the gospel would doubtless be raised in the same way. 2 Assuredly 
 too the voluntary system, where it really merits the name (for 
 many of our so-called voluntary donations are, at bottom, very 
 involuntary, and proceed much oftener from selfish motives than 
 from pure love to God and His church), best corresponds with 
 the spirit of the gospel, and is upon the whole most advantageous 
 to the kingdom of God. It calls forth a vast amount of indivi¬ 
 dual activity and personal interest in church affairs; whereas the 
 support of the clergy by the state, while it has many advantages, 
 and may in some countries be necessary for the maintenance of 
 religion, tends naturally to turn the church more or less into a 
 mere civil institution, to make its ministers too dependent upon 
 the government, to stunt the virtue of liberality, and to depre¬ 
 ciate the gospel in the eyes of the people. 
 
 But where the church is thrown for her support so entirely 
 upon the free love and gratitude of her members as in the first 
 three centuries, it becomes the more necessary, if her operations 
 are not to come to a stand, that she should recommend some fixed 
 
 1 Legal enactments in regard to the payment of tithes are not met with in the 
 church before the sixth century. But long before this Irenasus (Adv. Haer. IV. S, 
 13, 18, etc.) was of opinion that the Christians should pay tithes like the Jews, so as 
 not to be behind them in liberality and piety. So Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzen, 
 Hilary, Augustine, and other church fathers. See Augusti: Handbuch der Christl. 
 Archdol. I. p. 314 ; also Coleman : Ancient Christianity Exemplified , p. 229. 
 
 2 This spontaneous giving Tertullian presents as still the order in his day; “ Nemo 
 compellitur, sed sponte confert.” (Apoloy . c. 39). 
 
186 §128. RELATION OF OFFICERS TO THE CHURCHES, [ill. BOOK. 
 
 system, some method for giving, by which each one may impose 
 a law on himself corresponding to his means and resources. 
 Such was the simple yet most judicious regulation which Paul 
 made with reference to the collections for the poor in the churches 
 of Galatia and Greece; that every one for himself, on the first 
 day of the week, the holy day of the Christians (comp. Acts xx. 
 7 ; Bev. i. 10), should lay by a part of his earnings, 1 and so 
 keep a separate treasury for the Lord as his means allowed and 
 his conscience dictated (1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2). 2 
 
 § 128. Relation of the Officers to the Congregations. The 
 
 Universal Priesthood. 
 
 Notwithstanding the divine origin, the greatness and dignity 
 of the ministerial office, there was not designed to be a chasm 
 between it and the people, an opposition of clergy and laity in 
 the modern sense. This office is not, indeed, a creature of the 
 congregation. It is itself the creative beginning of the church, 
 the divinely appointed organ of her establishment and edification. 
 The apostles go before the church, not the church before the 
 apostles. Hence they, not merely their doctrine or their con¬ 
 fession, but they themselves, as living persons, in their union 
 with Christ, and as organs of the Holy Ghost, are called the 
 foundation of this spiritual edifice, of which Jesus Christ is at 
 once the architect and the corner-stone, binding together the 
 several parts and representing the whole. 3 But so soon as the 
 gospel had taken root and produced a Christian community, 
 there arose a relation of active co-operation between pastors and 
 people. Though the pastors retained the control, yet they al¬ 
 ways exercised it in the spirit of brotherly love, and with the 
 consciousness, that the members of the flock stood essentially in 
 the same relation with themselves to the common Head and 
 chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ; that they were sanctified by the 
 same spirit, and had an equal share in all the privileges and 
 
 1 o, ti ivo’huira.t, “ as he may be prospered,” “ according to his success in gaining,” or 
 
 “ as far as his means may allow ;” comp. Rom. i. 10. Acts xi. 29 : nv^uTo th. 
 
 2 Cor. viii. 12: zoiOb s*n 
 
 2 On this the venerable Bengel well remarks : “ Consilium facile. Semel, non tarn 
 multum datur. Si quis singulis diebus dominieis aliquid seorsum posuit, plus collec- 
 tum, fuit, quam quis semel dedisset.” 
 
 3 Eph. ii. 20. Comp. Matth. xvi. 18. Rev. xxi, 14, and § 90 above. 
 
GOVERNM.] § 128. THE UNIVERSAL PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 187 
 
 blessings of salvation. Hence all believers without exception are 
 styled “ brethren,” 1 and “ saints,” separated from the world and 
 set apart to the service of the Triune God. 2 While on the one 
 hand, the churches were far from assuming authority over their 
 leaders, and were instructed rather to yield them affectionate 
 obedience (Ileb. xiii. 17 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 16); the leaders, on their 
 part, imposed no prescriptions or laws on the churches, which the 
 latter themselves did not sanction by their own free approval. The 
 officers formed no priestly caste, standing between God and the 
 people. The New Testament it is true, owns the idea of the 
 priesthood ; but applies it expressly to all true Christians. All 
 have immediate access to Christ by faith, and should daily offer 
 Him the sacrifices of praise and intercession. In virtue of their 
 union with Christ (jrpos ov Tvpoaepxbpevoi), Peter styles his readers 
 u a spiritual house, an holy priesthood (Updrevpa dytov ), to offer up 
 spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 
 ii. 4, 5 ; comp. Rom. xii. 1); and immediately after (ver. 9) ex¬ 
 claims to them : “ Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood 
 (j3acrl\eiov Updrevpa ), an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye 
 should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of 
 darkness into His marvellous light.” The same high character 
 was assigned, indeed, even to the people of Israel under the old 
 dispensation, where, nevertheless, we know that the special 
 Aaronic priesthood was joined with it (Exod. xix. 6); u Ye shall 
 be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” But in 
 the Old Testament this was rather prophecy and purpose; in 
 the New, it is fulfilment and execution. It is Christ alone who 
 has u washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made 
 us kings and priests unto God and His Father” (Rev. i. 5, 6). 
 The New Testament priesthood as far transcends the Old, as 
 Christianity in general outshines Judaism. This is profoundly 
 set forth especially in the epistle to the Plebrews (comp. chap. 
 7-10; xiii. 10, 15, 16). The term clergy ( Kkrjpos ), which in 
 ecclesiastical terminology denotes the ministerial order in dis¬ 
 tinction from the laity, is applied by Peter to the congregations 
 
 1 Comp. § 114 above. 
 
 2 Acts ix. 32; xxvi. 18. Rom. i. 7 ; viii. 27; xii. 13; xvi. 15. 1 Cor. i. 2; vi. 2. 
 
 2 Cor. i. 1 ; xiii. 13. Eph. i. 1; ii. 19; v. 3; vi. 18. Col. iii. 12. Phil. i. 1; iv. 21, 
 22. Titus ii. 14. 1 Peter ii. 9, 10. Heb. xiii. 24. Rev. xiii. 10, etc. 
 
188 § 128. RELATION OF OFFICERS TO THE CHURCHES, [ill.BOOK. 
 
 (1 Peter v. 3); showing, that every Society of Christians is re¬ 
 garded, like the Levites under the old economy, as a consecrated, 
 peculiar people of God. 1 The apostle Paul calls upon his 
 readers, in virtue of their priestly character, to make intercession 
 for himself and for all men (2 Cor. i. 10, 11; 1 Tim. ii. 1), after 
 the pattern of Christ, the eternal High Priest (Heb. vii. 25 ; 
 comp. Luke xxii. 32 ; John xvii. 9, 20). 
 
 It is by this universal priesthood, that we are to account for 
 the liberty of teaching and the participation of the people in the 
 worship and government of the church, which we observe in the 
 apostolic age. 
 
 The general liberty to teach was a prelusive fulfilment of the 
 prophecy, that in the days of the Messiah the Spirit should be 
 poured out upon all flesh, even to servants and maids, and all 
 should be taught of God. 2 Accordingly every one, whether an 
 officer or not, if he possessed the requisite charism, might speak 
 with tongues, pray, teach, and prophesy in the assembly. For 
 spiritual gifts were by no means confined to official station. This 
 freedom appears very plainly from the picture, which Paul draws, 
 of the meetings for public worship among the Corinthians (1 Cor. 
 xiv. 23-36). Nay, it is plain from ver. 34 and chap. xi. 5, that 
 even women, forgetting their natural place and mistaking the 
 true idea of religious equality, prayed and prophesied in public. 
 From 1 Tim. ii. 12, we may infer, that they also occasionally 
 taught; else the apostle would not have found it necessary to 
 forbid their teaching;. 3 
 
 But here restriction at once makes its appearance. In the 
 first place, Paul rebukes in general all abuse of the liberty of 
 
 1 Others take rZv xX'^uv, which in any case refers to the people, to mean congre¬ 
 gations distributed and entrusted to the presbyters by lot or election. 
 
 2 Joel ii. 28, et seq. Isaiah liv. 13. Jer. xxxi. 34. Acts ii. 17, et seq. John vi. 45. 
 Comp. 1 Thess. iv. 9. 1 John ii. 20, 21, 27. 
 
 3 This primitive freedom was still understood by an ecclesiastical writer at the close 
 of the fourth century, the author of the Commentary on Paul’s Epistles, found among 
 the works of St Ambrose (probably the Roman deacon, Hilary). Thus he says, on 
 Eph. iv. 11: “ In episcopo omnes ordines sunt, quia primus sacerdos est, hoc est 
 princeps est sacerdotum et propheta et evangelista et caetera ad implenda officia 
 ecclesise in ministerio fidelium. Tamen postquam omnibus locis ecclesiae sunt consti¬ 
 tute et officia ordinata, aliter composita res est, quam eceperat. Primum enim omnes 
 docebant et omnes baptizabant, quibuscunque diebus vel temporibus fuisset occasio. . . 
 Ut ergo cresceret plebs et multiplicaretur, omnibus inter initia concessum est, et 
 evangelizare et baptizare et Scripturas in ecclesia explanare,” etc. 
 
GOVERNM.] § 128. THE UNIVERSAL PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 189 
 
 teaching, and reminds the Corinthians, that God is a God of 
 order and not of confusion. They should, therefore, exercise 
 their gifts, not all at once, but in turn, and always with due re¬ 
 gard to the edification of the assembly. 1 James always chides 
 the mania, with which many in his Jewish-Christian congrega¬ 
 tions (where acting was so often lost sight of in talking), set 
 themselves up for teachers from pure vanity, without any inward 
 call; and to this he adds his forcible representation of the sins of 
 the tongue (iii. 1, et seq.) Thus the act of teaching, though not 
 restricted to any regular office, must yet be joined with the pos¬ 
 session of the necessary gifts ; and these must be used in humility 
 and under a sense of increased responsibility. 
 
 Then, secondly, as regards the female sex in particular, Paul 
 goes still farther, and directly forbids women taking any part in 
 the public services of the church. 2 This seems inconsistent, in¬ 
 deed, with 1 Cor. xi. 5, u Every woman that prayeth or prophe- 
 sieth with her head uncovered, dishonoured her head; ” and to 
 this passage accordingly the Montanists, Quakers, and other 
 sects appeal in support of their practice. But the apostle is 
 here simply citing the fact, which undoubtedly occurred (comp. 
 Acts xxi. 9), without approving or disapproving it, reserving his 
 censure for a future occasion (chap, xiv.); for in chap. xi. he has 
 nothing to do with public worship, but is treating of the custom 
 of covering the head, which some Christian females in Corinth 
 affected to disregard, in opposition to the prevailing ideas of pro¬ 
 priety, as though all outward difference between the sexes had 
 been abolished by Christ. Nor will it do to make a distinction 
 here between public teaching and public praying and prophesy¬ 
 ing ; to say, that Paul’s prohibition regards only the first function 
 (the proper diSdo-Keu/, 1 Tim ii. 12), and not the last two, which 
 were more the expression of elevated feeling. For, not to men¬ 
 tion, that the apostle places prophets above teachers (Eph. iv. 11; 
 
 1 Cor. xii. 28), his injunction is altogether general, 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 
 that women should keep silence (o-iydrcoa-av ) in the assembly, and 
 not speak (XaXe'iv ); and this whole chapter too treats, not of di¬ 
 dactic discourses, but of the very functions of speaking with 
 
 1 1 Cor. xiv. 5, 12, 23-33. Comp. § 117 above. 
 
 3 1 Cor. xiv. 34, et seq. 1 Tim. ii. 12. In the synagogue also women were not per¬ 
 mitted to speak; comp. Wetstein on 1 Cor. xiv. 34, and Vitringa, Synag. p. 725. 
 
190 § 128. RELATION OF OFFICERS TO THE CHURCHES, [ill. BOOK. 
 
 tongues and prophesying. Every public act of this kind implies, 
 for the time being, a superiority of the speaker over the hearers, 
 and is also contrary to true feminine delicacy. Christianity has, 
 indeed, vastly improved the condition of woman. It has brought 
 the highest blessings of heaven within her reach. 1 But it has 
 not, in so doing, abolished the divine order of nature, which 
 places her in subjection to man (Gen. iii. 16; Eph. v. 22), and 
 restricts her to the sphere of private life. Here, in the quiet circle 
 of the family, woman has the freest scope for the display of the 
 fairest virtues. Here too she has a certain right to rule. And 
 here she is bound, not only to pray diligently herself, but also 
 to teach her children to pray, and to lead them early to the 
 Saviour. 2 
 
 With this state of things in the sphere of worship corresponded 
 to a great extent the conduct of the church government. The 
 presbyters were, indeed, the regular pastors and managers of the 
 affairs of the congregation ; but they shared both their power 
 and their responsibility directly or indirectly with the people. 
 In the first place, the officers, and also delegates for special 
 purposes (comp. 2 Cor. viii. 18, 19 ; Acts xv. 2), were taken 
 from the midst of the congregation, and were chosen by the 
 people themselves or at least with their consent, as we have 
 already shown in a previous section. Then, once in office, they 
 were not to lord it over the flock, but to shine before it as 
 patterns of holy living; to serve it; to control it, not by force 
 of law, but through its own free conviction ; and to pay due 
 regard to its rights in all things (comp. 1 Peter v. 1-5). This 
 was the course even of the apostles themselves. Almost all their 
 epistles, with their instructions, exhortations, and decisions on 
 the weightiest points, are addressed, not to the officers alone, 
 but to the whole congregation. In matters of controversy it 
 seems to have been customary (according to 1 Cor. vi. 5) to 
 choose a board of arbitrators from the body of the people (comp. 
 
 1 Gal. iii. 28 : ovx. Ivi oc^mv ko.) driXv' troivrif ya.^ vy.Ci; e<V hrn h 'Ir,<rov. On the 
 
 contrary, even Aristotle says unequivocally: x^ 0 " T0 » Magn. Ethic. I. 
 
 34. 
 
 2 Probably also the prophesying of the daughters of the evangelist Philip in Caesarea 
 (Acts xxi. 9) occurred in family worship,—unless we suppose that here too was some¬ 
 thing which Paul would have censured (comp. Neander, p. 257). For Luke simply 
 records the fact, without giving any opinion. 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 191 
 
 Matth. xviii. 15-18). Paul, it is true, excommunicated the in¬ 
 cestuous person at Corinth ; but only as united in spirit with the 
 Corinthian Christians ( ( TVva\6evT(jL>v v/jlu>v ko\ tov c/jlov m /eu/zarov, 
 1 Cor. v. 4), so that his act was at the same time theirs. Nay, 
 even in controversies, which concerned all Christendom, the apos¬ 
 tles did not decide by themselves, but called the congregations, at 
 least frequently, into consultation. We have a striking example 
 of this in the council at Jerusalem for settling the great question 
 about the binding authority of the Mosaic law, and the terms on 
 which the Gentiles were to be admitted to the privileges of the 
 Gospel. 1 Here the apostles assemble with the elders and u bre¬ 
 thren the deliberations are held in the presence of the whole 
 congregation ; Peter urges his clear divine vision respecting the 
 baptism of the Gentiles, not as a command, but simply as an 
 argument (Acts xv. 17, et seq. ; comp. xi. 2, et seq .); the whole 
 assembly joins in passing the final resolution; 2 and the written 
 decree of the council goes forth, not in the name of the apostles 
 only, but also in the name of the brethren generally, and is 
 addressed to the collective body of the Gentile Christians in 
 Syria and Cilicia. 3 
 
 This relation between the officers and their churches, to which 
 the term democratic is sometimes, though not in strict propriety, 
 applied, 4 had a close connection with the extraordinary effusion 
 
 1 Comp. § G7-69. 
 
 2 Ch. XV. 22 .' Ton eSol-s ro7g cc,to<tto\oi; xoti rois crgirPurigoii trh v o \ y r y \ z x 9 / «. 
 
 ^ Ver. 23 : oi u.xoo’to'Koi xot.) oi trtte'fiuTigoi xcCi oi a. d t >. o ) rots . . . &di\$o7s, etc. 
 
 4 By Dr R. liothe, for example, 1. c. p. 148, and passim. We disapprove of this 
 designation, because it is taken from a foreign sphere, that of politics, and may be 
 easily misunderstood. Strictly, there is in the church no kind of dominion, neither 
 democracy, nor aristocracy, nor monarchy; all is service ( Sixxovix .). The Saviour 
 himself came into the world, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give 
 His life a ransom for many (Matth. xx. 28. Luke xxii. 27. John xiii. 14, 15, et seq. 
 Phil. ii. 6-8). Rothe, moreover, asserts this so-called democratic character only for 
 the government of congregations, and not for that of the church as a whole. This 
 last he rather styles autocratic (p. 310), and regards as having assumed the episcopal 
 form before the close of the apostolic age, soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 particularly through the influence of St John. On the first point, however, he evi¬ 
 dently goes too far, when, for example, he says (p. 153) of the congregational officers : 
 “ They were purely functionaries of society , a mere magistratus of the people, ichose 
 authority flowed from no other source than the will of the congregation itself, to which 
 they owed their election.” Against this view compare what we have already said 
 (§ 124) on the divine origin of all church officers; and, in part, the work of the Rev. 
 Charles Rothe (since gone over to the Irvingites), entitled : Die wahren Grundlagen 
 der christlichen Kirchenverfassung. 1S44. P. 3-33. 
 
192 § 128. RELATION OF OFFICERS TO THE CHURCHES, [ill. BOOK. 
 
 of the Holy Ghost in the apostolic period, and was thereby 
 secured against the abuses to which such a form of government 
 is liable, where the mass of the people are under the dominion 
 of ignorance and wild passion. We see mirrored in it, to a 
 certain extent, the ideal state of things, which shall come to 
 pass, when the prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit upon 
 all flesh shall be absolutely fulfilled. 
 
 We must now take a more detailed view of the several offices 
 of the apostolic church, beginning with those that look towards 
 the church as a whole ; since this idea is anterior to that of a 
 single congregation, though the two originally coincide as to 
 extent, in the mother church at Jerusalem. 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 § 129. THE APOSTOLATE. 
 
 193 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 CHURCH OFFICES. 
 
 § 129. The Apostolate . Note on the lrviny * 
 
 To be an apostle, the man must have been an eye and ear 
 witness of the main facts of the life of Jesus,—above all of 
 the resurrection (Acts i. 22 ; comp. 1 Cor. ix. 1),—and called 
 by Christ in person, without any human intervention. But 
 here at once arises a difficulty respecting Matthias and Paul, 
 who did not come into the original college until after the ascen¬ 
 sion. Matthias, indeed, possessed the first qualification (Acts i. 
 21, 22), but was chosen by men through the lot; and this 
 without any special divine direction, but merely upon the motion 
 of the precipitate Peter, who thought that the vacancy in the 
 sacred number twelve, occasioned by the crime of Judas, must 
 forthwith be filled without waiting for the promised outpouring 
 of the Holy Ghost. Paul, on the contrary, had not known 
 Jesus according to the flesh i 1 but to compensate for this, the 
 glorified Saviour appeared to him in visible form on the way to 
 Damascus (1 Cor. ix. 1 : xv. 8), and clothed him with the com¬ 
 mission of an apostle for Gentiles and Jews. Paul lays special 
 emphasis also on the facts, that he was called to his office, not 
 through human mediation, but immediately by the Lord himself; 
 and that he had received His gospel, not from the older apostles, 
 but by the revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. i. 1, 11, et seq.) 
 If now, however, we are still to hold fast the necessity and sym- 
 
 1 From 2 Cor. v. 1C, some commentators, indeed, would infer the opposite; but 
 without sufficient ground. At all events, such an acquaintance would have been of 
 no use to Paul, as he was then an unbeliever, and must have counted the Saviour 
 either an enthusiast or an impostor. 
 
 YOL. II. 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 § 129. THE APOSTOLATE. 
 
 [ill. BOOK. 
 
 bolical significance of the number twelve, 1 and are unwilling to 
 confine it to the twelve tribes of the Jews, but refer it to all 
 Christendom, the true spiritual Israel (as in fact the foundation 
 stones of the heavenly Jerusalem itself bear the names of u the 
 twelve apostles of the Lamb,” Rev. xxi. 14), there seems to be 
 no alternative, but to pronounce the election of Matthias a well- 
 meant yet hasty and invalid act, and to substitute Paul for him, 
 as the legitimate apostle. On the other side there are reasons 
 for assigning to the free apostle of the Gentiles a position alto¬ 
 gether peculiar and independent. He never represents himself 
 as one of the twelve, but seems rather to distinguish himself 
 from them as one born out of due time, occupying a similar 
 relation to the Gentile world, as the older apostles did to the 
 Jewish. 2 At all events it is not advisable to extend the number 
 of proper, regular apostles beyond Paul; though there were 
 undeniably several more ajiostolic men. 3 
 
 1 The number twelve was so fixed, that the apostles are often called simply «/ 
 'Su'hixot, (Matth. xxvi. 14, 47 ; John vi. G7 ; xx. 24, etc.); even after the resurrection, 
 when the college was no longer full (1 Cor. xv. 5). The church has, in general, 
 always clung to this original number, though with some exceptions. The Apostolical 
 Constitutions , falsely ascribed to Clement of Rome, speak (1. VIII. chap. 46) of 
 thirteen apostles ( lixa.re,{i{ ■ it.nccTo\oi), counting Paul the thirteenth. They also dis¬ 
 tinguish James of Jerusalem, the brother of the Lord, from the younger apostle of 
 this name, but regard him as a man of apostolical standing. Eusebius, in his com¬ 
 mentary on Isaiah xvii. 5, et seg. (in Montfaucon, Coll, nova patr. II. p. 422), assumes 
 fourteen apostles, adding to the twelve Paul and the James just mentioned : A ix» 
 xou Titro'oi^a.s Toiyiirti robs vodito,? (ocvotrroXovs), uv dcoSiza. juiv rovs cr^anovf otTrotTroXovi tlxois civ 
 tlvtx.1, ovx iXa-TTU ccvruv Tr,v a^triiv TIccuXov, you cni/rov xXyjrov euro trroXov, xcti t by ’I oixiofiov 
 
 Wyovivoii, tov oidiXfov rod xvpov, etc. 
 
 2 Comp. § 63. 
 
 3 Especially Barnabas, one of the two candidates for the vacant place of Judas; 
 the person who first introduced Paul to the older apostles (§ 64); the companion of 
 Paul in his first missionary tour (§ 66); and afterwards an independent labourer 
 (§ 70), whose name is always mentioned with honour. According to Tertullian and 
 several modern divines (e. g. Ullmann, Wieseler, Thiersch) he was the author of the 
 epistle to the Hebrews. Paul in 1 Cor. ix. 6, joins him with himself; though he is 
 here speaking not only of the apostles, but also of the brethren of the Lord, and in the 
 superscriptions of several of his epistles he honours Timothy also with the same 
 position. In Acts, Barnabas is at first put before Paul (even at the apostolic council, 
 xv. 12; though the reverse order appears previously, xiii. 43, 46,50); and twice, xiv. 4, 
 14, he shares with Paul the title u-rorroXoi, though he is never called curctrroXos sepa¬ 
 rately. The Greek and Roman churches designate him as apostle in their martyro- 
 logies.—In other places, where the word is used to denote mere fellow-labourers of 
 the apostles, it is to be taken in its wider sense of messenger, one sent. In Phil. ii. 
 25, Epaphroditus is called knlaroXos, as the delegate of the Philippian church. So 
 the o.’zob'toXoi tmv ix^XviiriMv, 2 Cor. viii. 23, are delegates of particular congregations. 
 When it is said (Rom. xvi. 7) of the Roman missionaries, Andronicus and Junias, 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 § 129. THE APOSTOLATE. 
 
 195 
 
 This peculiar personal relation of the apostles to Christ sug¬ 
 gests to us the nature of their office and its significance for the 
 church. They are the representatives and vicegerents of Christ; 
 the bearers and infallible organs of the Holy Ghost; the founders 
 and pillars of the whole church. 1 The fact that Peter calls him¬ 
 self a “ fellow elder,” 2 by no means proves that the apostles were 
 merely presbyters, and therefore congregational officers, any 
 more than the address of the Poman general to his soldiers as 
 u commilitones” shows that they were both of the same rank. 
 The apostles were, indeed, deacons and bishops; but they were 
 also much more. Their office looked, and through their writings 
 still looks, both in doctrine and in discipline, to all Christendom. 
 After the Lord withdrew His visible presence from the world, 
 they formed the highest tribunal of appeal, the supreme, all- 
 sufficient authority, as the inspired interpreters of the divine 
 economy of salvation ; and to this day their writings, those 
 records of the Christian revelation in its primitive purity and 
 freshness, remain the infallible rule of faith and practice. So 
 far as doctrine is concerned, the apostles could challenge for 
 their teaching unconditional obedience ; for the Spirit of God 
 gave them mouth and wisdom, and spoke through them in an 
 infallible manner ; 3 and it is not at all to be imagined that they 
 suffered themselves here to be corrected or interfered with in any 
 point by the congregations, which in fact owed to them their 
 very existence. Their writings are addressed in the first instance, 
 indeed, to particular churches or persons, but through these also 
 to all Christians in all ages. As to church government and disci¬ 
 pline, they had the oversight and care of all the churches, as 
 Paul himself distinctly says (2 Cor. xi. 28, 29) : a Beside those 
 things that are without, that which cometli upon me daily, the 
 care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak (by 
 sympathy and common interest) ? Who is offended, and I burn 
 
 otherwise unknown to us (some, as Chrysostom and Grotius, take ’I owlav for the 
 accus. of T ovv!*, and understand by it the wife of Andronicus), that they were ixla-v^ot 
 tv toIs cctoo-toXoh, it is to be referred to the good credit in which they stood with the 
 (proper) apostles. So Beza, Grotius, Meyer, and others of the best commentators. 
 
 1 Comp, such passages as Matth. xvi. 18, et seq.\ xviii. 18. John xx. 22 ,etseq.\ 
 
 xiv. 26; xvi. 13. Acts i. 5; ii. 4. 2 Cor. v. 20. Eph. ii. 20. Gal. ii. 9. Rev. 
 
 xxi. 14. 
 
 2 <rvfjt,<Teitr/36rtoo;, 1 Pet. v. 1. Comp. 2 John 1, and 3 John 1. 
 
 3 Matth. x. J9, et seq. Mark xiii. 11. Luke xii. 11, et seq. ; xxi. 15. 
 
196 
 
 § 129. THE APOSTOLATE, 
 
 [ill. BOOK. 
 
 not?” When Peter calls himself co-presbyter, he implies also 
 that, though absent in the body, he still took part in the govern¬ 
 ment of the several congregations, to which he wrote (1 Peter 
 v. 1). The nature of the case required, indeed, that the apostles 
 in their missionary work should take different parts of the vast 
 field. Paul made it his rule to labour in regions where none of 
 his colleagues had yet preached the gospel (Rom. xv. 20, et seq .; 
 2 Cor. x. 13-16) ; and according to the agreement made at the 
 apostolic council, a.d. 50, lie and Barnabas gave themselves 
 chiefly to the Gentiles; while James, Peter, and John went to 
 the Jews. 1 But this destroyed not the rightful official relation 
 of each to the entire field. For in every city Paul addressed 
 himself first to the Jews ; Peter wrote to Paul’s churches in Asia 
 Minor, which consisted mostly of Gentile Christians ; 2 both met 
 at last, according to unanimous tradition, in Rome, where they 
 doubtless exercised joint oversight; and after their death John 
 entered into the labours of Paul in Asia Minor. 
 
 In virtue of this universal vocation, the apostles were not only 
 evangelists for the whole unconverted world (Matth. xxviii. 20), 
 but at the same time the living bonds and the personal represen¬ 
 tatives of the inward and outward unity of the churches already 
 organized. 3 The council at Jerusalem, already so often noticed, 
 is the most perfect outward exhibition of the unity of the apostolic 
 church, and at the same time a sanction by primitive Christianity 
 of the synodical form of government, in which all orders of the 
 church are represented, to transact business and discuss questions 
 of general concern, and to give final decisions. 
 
 With all this comprehensive authority, however, with all their 
 personal independence in their respective spheres, by virtue of 
 which Paul, for example, once even rebuked the distinguished 
 apostle, Peter, much his senior in office, 4 the apostles still re¬ 
 garded themselves always as a collegiate body, and exercised their 
 power as organic members of such a body and under a sense of 
 
 1 Gal. ii. 7-9. This fact perhaps gave rise to the old story, that the apostles at 
 Jerusalem divided themselves among the different countries of the earth. Comp. 
 Socrates : Hist. Eccl. I. 19. Rufinus: H. E. I. 9, and Theodoret, ad Ps. 116. 
 
 2 Comp. § 91 above. 
 
 3 Comp. Rom. xvi. 16: “ The churches of Christ salute you.” 1 Cor. xvi. 19 : “ The 
 
 churches of Asia salute you.” Yer. 20: “AH the brethren greet you.” Heb. xiii. 24, 
 etc. 4 Comp. § 70. 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 § 129. THE APOSTOLATE; 
 
 197 
 
 responsibility to it. They did not stand apart, but blended their 
 several gifts and peculiarities into a complete, harmonious whole. 
 And as they were thus united with one another, so were they 
 united also with the church, whose unity they personally repre¬ 
 sented. We have already seen (§ 128), that, with all the autho¬ 
 rity committed to them immediately by Christ, they never forced 
 any measure upon the churches, but administered the government 
 in active sympathy with them, and by their full consent. Hence 
 the summoning of the council in the great controversy respecting 
 the admission of the Gentiles to the church, that the decision 
 might proceed from the whole body. They demanded no ac¬ 
 knowledgment of their authority, which did not rest in free con¬ 
 viction and love on the part of the people; no obedience to their 
 orders, which did not spring from the actual experience of the 
 power of divine truth in the hearts of the people themselves. 
 From all tyranny over conscience, from all arbitrary hierarchical 
 despotism, they were infinitely removed. They regarded the 
 object of the church as one to be attained, not by some governing 
 and others being governed, but by the active co-operation and 
 mutual fraternal assistance of all under the common Head, the 
 Redeemer of the whole body (Eph. iv.; 1 Cor. xii.) In feeding 
 the flock they had the highest regard to the rights, freedom, and 
 dignity of the humblest soul committed to their care. In every 
 believer, even in a poor slave like Onesimus, they recognized a 
 member of the same body and a beloved brother in Christ. In 
 the whole company of saints they saw a family of free children of 
 God, a holy people and a royal priesthood, to show forth the 
 praises of Him who had called them out of darkness into His 
 marvellous light (1 Peter ii. 5, 9). 
 
 With the destination of the apostles for the whole church is 
 connected also their mode of life. They did not station them¬ 
 selves at any fixed point, nor confine themselves to a particular 
 diocese, but spent almost all their time in tours of missionary 
 labour and of visitation. The only exception to this was the 
 case of James the Just, who, for all that we know of him, 1 made 
 the theocratic capital his permanent residence; and for this 
 reason was almost always styled in the ancient church from the 
 
 1 Comp. Acts xii. 17 ; xv, 13-21 ; xxi. 18. 
 
198 § 129. THE APOSTOLATE. fill. BOOK. 
 
 time of Clemens Alexandrinus, the first bishop of Jerusalem. 1 
 Yet this does not require us to place him precisely in the same 
 category with the proper bishops of a later day. He stood in the 
 mother church as the representative of the apostolic college, and 
 acted in its name. 2 On him devolved, as it seems, after the 
 apostolic council, the superintendence of all the Jewish-Christian 
 churches in Palestine and the surrounding countries; and his 
 epistle, accordingly, is addressed to all believing Israelites. 
 
 Note.— The discussion of the interesting* question lately renewed by the 
 modern Montanists, the English sect of Irvingites (which has recently spread 
 also in Germany and the United States), concerning the continuance or 
 revival of the apostolical office, does not properly fall within this historical 
 sketch, and the subject can, therefore, be but briefly touched upon here by 
 way of appendix. We may apply to this case, what we have said above 
 (§ 116) on the perpetuity of the cliarisms. For gifts and offices are closely 
 connected, like soul and body. Here, as there, we must distinguish between 
 form and essence. The apostles occupy in several respects a position alto¬ 
 gether peculiar, in which none can rival or supplant them, first, as called by 
 Christ in person , without human intervention; secondly, as the inspired and 
 infallible bearers of the Christian revelation ; thirdly, as the founders of the 
 church; and fourthly, as the representatives not only of the Jews, or of the 
 church of their day, but of all Christendom. As the Lord himself called only 
 twelve, and promised them, that they should hereafter sit upon twelve thrones, 
 judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matth. xix. 28) ; so also the last book of 
 the Bible knows of but “ twelve apostles of the Lamb,” whose names are 
 written on the twelve foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 14; 
 comp. xii. 1, the twelve stars on the crown of Christ’s bride). Under these 
 aspects their office is intransmissible. Accordingly we find that the number 
 was not replenished after the death of any one (as the elder James, for in¬ 
 stance, Acts xi. 2); and during the last ten years of the first century John 
 was the only surviving member of the original college.—On the other hand, 
 
 1 See the quotations from the fathers in R. Rothe, 1. c. p. 264, et seq. Indeed, this 
 very position of James, in contrast with the missionary life of the apostles generally, 
 is one of the arguments against his identity with the younger apostle of this name, 
 and in favour of considering him merely an apostolical man (like Barnabas), whose 
 great credit rested partly on his own character and partly on his relationship to the 
 Lord. Comp. § 95, and the monograph on this subject there referred to. 
 
 2 See Rothe, p. 267, et seq ., and the statement of Hegesippus in Enseb. II. 23, at the 
 
 beginning of which it is said of James: Yt t fa ixxXvurloty pi roe. tSv 
 
 a.-roo-ri}.uv\ which we are not to translate with Jerome “post Apostolos,” but “ in 
 connection with the apostles.” Hegesippus does not call Janies himself bishop, but 
 applies this title to James’ successor, Simeon, the son of Cleopas and kinsman of 
 Jesus, in Euseh. IV. 22 : fjoirct. to /xx^tv^txi I xxcu^ov rov Yixxioy . . . H.o'j.tiiv . . . 
 xaOltrTxroii iirie'xexof, iv Tccyrif, oyrx xn^/ioy tov I\ v^lov ifjTifoy. 
 
GOVEUNM.J 
 
 § 129. THE APOSTOLATE. 
 
 199 
 
 however, we may very properly speak of an unbroken continuation of the 
 apostolate. For, in the first place, the apostles originally appointed by our 
 Lord still live and work, not only personally in the church above, which stands 
 in mystical union with the church below, but also, through their normative 
 ivord and their spirit, in the church militant itself, every day and every hour 
 teaching, encouraging, exhorting, strengthening, and comforting. Then 
 secondly, every regularly called minister (and not the bishops alone, accord¬ 
 ing to the Catholic and Anglican doctrine), is, as to the essential character of 
 his office, in the wide sense a successor of the apostles ; since he also stands 
 as an ambassador in Christ’s stead, and in His name and as His organ adminis¬ 
 ters to penitent sinners all the benefits of redemption through the word and 
 sacraments, which are to this day a savour of life unto life or of death unto 
 death. For though much that is human and worldly has crept into the whole 
 administration of the church, yet, in the language of the pious Rieger, “ the 
 blessed God is still as earnest in upholding the gospel of his Son at this day, 
 as He was when it was first preached; and therefore men may still rejoice as 
 much as they might at first in the institution of the ministerial office ; in the 
 call to it, the qualifications for it, and the blessings of it.” Finally, as we 
 find even in the beginning apostolical men, such as Barnabas and James the 
 Just, along with the proper apostles and bearing their name, at least in its 
 wider sense; so the Lord of the church continues to send, from time to time, 
 altogether extraordinary instruments, in the persons of great national mis¬ 
 sionaries and genial reformers, who exercise over a large part of the Christian 
 world, if not over the whole, a kind of apostolical influence, and enjoy a cor¬ 
 responding distinction. We may say in general, that almost all the epoch¬ 
 forming movements in history proceed from highly gifted, influential indivi¬ 
 duals, in whom a great idea assumes flesh and blood, and presents itself to 
 the age in concrete and, as it were, palpable life and freshness. That our 
 own age too needs some such heroes in religion, to remedy, theoretically and 
 practically, the disorders of the church as it now stands, and by some creative 
 act to prepare the way for the second coming of Christ, and thus to introduce 
 the church of the future, Ave are firmly convinced; and Ave hold it to be the 
 duty of Christians to pray, that the Lord Avould raise up such instruments, 
 and fit them for the Avork. But that they have already appeared in the so- 
 called Irvingite “apostles” Ave must be alloAved, Avith all respect for the 
 honesty and earnestness of their efforts, to hold in great doubt, even after 
 perusing the apostle Carlyle’s tract on the Apostolic Office, which Dr H. 
 Thiersch has translated into German. The Lord has never forsaken his 
 church, nor left himself Avithout a Avitness in it. Just so far as one gives up 
 the reasonableness of history, he denies also the precious fundamental truths 
 of the universal providence of God and of the perpetual and real presence 
 of Christ in the church, which is “ His body, the fulness of Him that filleth 
 all in all.” 
 
200 
 
 § 130. THE PROPHETS. 
 
 [ill. BOOK. 
 
 § 130. Prophets. 
 
 The second class of officers, named immediately after the 
 apostles, in Epli. ii. 20; iii. 5; iv. 11 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28, et seq ., 
 are the prophets. By this term we are to understand inspired 
 teachers and enthusiastic preachers of divine mysteries. 1 They 
 were not confined to any particular place, but appeared in the 
 different churches, teaching, exhorting, and encouraging, as they 
 were moved by the higher impulse of the Spirit. They seem 
 also to have exercised a special influence in the election of officers, 
 by directing attention to those persons, whom the voice of Reve¬ 
 lation in connection with prayer and fasting pointed out as 
 superior instruments for spreading the Gospel, or for any other 
 service in the kingdom of God. 2 Among the prophets the book 
 of Acts incidentally names Agabas, who meets us first at Antioch 
 (xi. 28), afterwards in Ctesarea (xxi. 10); the missionary Barna¬ 
 bas (comp. iv. 36) ; Simeon, Lucius (not to be confounded with 
 Luke), Manaen, and Saul (the apostle), at Antioch (xiii. 1); 
 Judas, and the Evangelist, Silas, known as Paul’s companion 
 xv. 32). But first of all, the apostles themselves are to be con¬ 
 sidered prophets. When it is said of Christians (Eph. ii. 20), 
 that they are built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
 prophets (rcbv dnocrToXmv ko.\ npotprjTwv), the omission of the article 
 before the second substantive shows that the two ideas, as in the 
 parallel passage, iii. 5, must be closely joined together, so as to 
 mean the apostles, who are at the same time prophets. 3 For the 
 apostles, in fact, as organs of the Holy Ghost, as receivers of the 
 Christian revelation (comp. Gal. i. 12), proclaimed the whole 
 plan of salvation, and disclosed what was before a mystery. And 
 in this view their words and their writings were, in a higher sense 
 than the Old Testament Scriptures, prophetical. 4 
 
 1 Comp, above, § 117, where we have already spoken of the gift of prophecy. 
 
 2 Acts xiii. 1, et seq .; xvi. 2. Comp. 1 Tim. i. 18; iv. 14. 
 
 3 To make it refer to the Old Testament prophets is utterly inadmissible. The 
 order of the terms itself is against this ; but chiefly the parallel passages, Eph. iv. 11, 
 and iii. 5, where the v v» ot,mxa,Xvifdri shuts us up to the New Testament revelation. 
 Comp, also Stier’s exposition of the passage, Comment. I., p. 384, et seq. 
 
 4 Comp. Rom. xvi. 26. 2 Peter i. 19; iii. 15, 16, and Stier’s remarks, 1. c. p. 389, 
 ft seq. 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 § 131. EVANGELISTS. 
 
 201 
 
 § 131. Evangelists. 
 
 The third rank is assigned by Paul (Eph. iv. 11) to the 
 evangelists or itinerant missionaries. 1 The name itself indicates, 
 that their chief business was to proclaim the glad tidings of sal¬ 
 vation ; primarily among nations yet unconverted ; but not ex¬ 
 clusively : for believers also need to have the Gospel repeatedly 
 presented to them anew. The discourses of the evangelists were, 
 therefore, historical in their matter, and turned chiefly upon the 
 main facts of the Saviour’s life, especially His resurrection. 2 This 
 easily gave rise to the later application of the term to the authors 
 of our written Gospels. We find the evangelists commonly in 
 the immediate neighbourhood, or at least in the service, of the 
 apostles, as their “ helpers” and “fellow-labourers.” 3 They were 
 most needed by Paul in his extended sphere of labour; and on 
 his last journey to Jerusalem he had with him no less than seven 
 such attendants (Acts xx. 4, 5). To this class of church officers 
 belong Philip, originally one of the seven deacons of Jerusalem, 
 but afterwards promoted to a wider sphere of activity, in which 
 he appears first preaching the Messiah to the Samaritans, then 
 baptizing the Ethiopian on the way from Jerusalem to Gaza, and 
 finally labouring in Caesarea; 4 Timothy (comp. 2 Tim. iv. 5: 
 epyov nolrjcrov evayyiKivTov), whom Paul specially loves, and whom 
 he names along with himself in the superscriptions of several of 
 his epistles; Titus, a Gentile convert, perhaps a native of 
 Corinth ; 5 Silas, or Silvan us, a prophet of the church of Jerusalem 
 (Acts xv. 22, 32), who accompanied the apostle of the Gentiles 
 
 1 So Theodoret: &xi7vot a-sj/ieWs? Comp, also Neander I. p. 258. The pre¬ 
 
 sent use of the term is too limited. 
 
 2 On Eph. iv. 11, Bengel well remarks : “ Propheta de futuris (but not exclusively), 
 evangelista de praeterilis infallibiliter testatur; propheta totum habet a spiritu, evan¬ 
 gelista rem visu et auditu perceptam memoriae prodit, charismate tamen majori ad 
 munns maximi momenti instructus, quam pastores et doctores.” 
 
 3 ivngyoi, cuv'froZkor xoivuvoL, Phil. iv. 3. Col. i. 7. 2 Cor. viii. 23. Hence Calvin 
 (Inst. IV., 3. § 4) describes the evangelists as those, “ qui quum dignitate essent apos- 
 tolis minores, officio tamen proximi erant adeoque vices eorum gerebant, quales 
 fuerant Lucas, Timotheus, Titus et reliqui similes, ac fortassis etiam septuaginta 
 discipuli, quos secundo ab apostolis loco Christus designavit (Luc. x. 1).” 
 
 4 Acts viii. 5, et seq .; xxvi., et seq.\ xxi. 8, where he is called "evangelist." 
 
 s Gal. ii. 1. 2 Cor. viii. 23; vii. 6, 14; xii. 18. Titus i. 5. 
 
202 
 
 § 131. EVANGELISTS. 
 
 [ill. BOOK. 
 
 on his second missionary tour, 1 and appears finally in the vicinity 
 of Peter (1 Peter v. 12) ; Luke, the author of the third Gospel 
 and of the Acts of the Apostles (in which he does, indeed, not 
 mention his name expressly, but includes himself, where he speaks 
 in the first person plural), who was also a physician (Col. iv. 14), 
 and one of Paul’s most faithful companions, not forsaking him 
 even in his last imprisonment (Philem. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 11); 
 John Mark of Jerusalem, missionary assistant of Paul, then of 
 his uncle Barnabas, afterwards again in company with Paul, and 
 finally (perhaps also at times before) with Peter, to whom he 
 probably owed his conversion, and whom he served as interpre¬ 
 ter; 2 Clement (Phil. iv. 3) ; Epaphras, founder of the Colossian 
 and other churches in Phrygia, whom we meet at last with his 
 imprisoned teacher in Pome (Col. i. 7; iv. 12, 13); Epaphrodi- 
 tus, the delegate of the Philippians, whom some commentators 
 groundlessly take to be the same as Epaphras (Phil. ii. 25) ; 
 perhaps also Tychicus (Titus iii. 12) ; Trophimus, Demas, 
 Apollos, and other co-labourers of the apostles. 3 
 
 These examples suffice to show that the evangelists also were 
 not congregational officers, 4 nor stationed like the presbyters and 
 later bishops at particular posts, but that they travelled about 
 freely wherever their services were needed. The apostles em¬ 
 ployed them as messengers for various purposes to all points of 
 
 1 Acts xv. 40; xvi. 19, 25; xvii. 4; xviii. 5. 1 Thess. i. 1. 2 Thess. i. 1, where he 
 
 is put before Timothy, probably as being- older. 
 
 2 Acts xii. 25; xiii. 5,13; xv. 39. Col. iv. 10. Philem. 24. 2 Tim. iv. 11. 1 Peter 
 v. 13. 
 
 3 Several of these men are, in the later tradition, made bishops. To Timothy is 
 assigned, as a diocese, Ephesus; to Titus, Crete (in the Const, apost. VII. 46, by 
 Euseb. II. jE. III. 4, Jerome catal. sub Tim. and Tit., and others); to Epaphroditus, 
 Philippi (by Theodoret on Phil. i. 1, and ii. 25, on account of the title Uxo<rro\os), to 
 Apollos, Caesarea ( Menolog. Graec. II. p. 17); to Tychicus, Chalcedon; and Paul’s 
 crwi^yos Clement, is generally held to be the same as the well-known Roman bishop 
 of that name. But, the last case out of view, some of these traditions can with great 
 difficulty be reconciled with New Testament facts. Timothy, for example, down to 
 the last imprisonment of Paul, had no fixed residence ; and after Paul’s death, it was 
 John rather who presided over the church at Ephesus. That Titus had no local 
 attachment to Crete appears from 2 Cor. passim and from Titus iii. 13. The later 
 system of church government exhibits no exact parallel to the offices here in question. 
 
 4 According to the distinction made above (§ 125) between these and church officers. 
 This distinction is entirely overlooked by the author of the articles: “ The apostle- 
 ship a temporary office, in the “Princeton Review” for 1849 and 1850, which make 
 Timothy and Titus to have been no more than common presbyters. 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 § 131. EVANGELISTS. 
 
 203 
 
 their vast field; 1 sending them, now for the further propagation 
 of the Gospel; now to carry letters ; now to visit, inspect, and 
 strengthen congregations already established ; so that the evan¬ 
 gelists also, like the apostles themselves, served as living bonds 
 of union and promoters of fraternal harmony among the different 
 sections of the church. In short, they were, in some sense, the 
 vicegerents of the apostles, acting under their direction and by 
 their authority, like the commissioners of a king. Thus we find 
 Timothy soon after his conversion in the missionary service (Acts 
 xvi. 3, et seq .); then at Ephesus, to complete the organization of 
 the church and repress the growth of errors during the absence 
 of Paul (1 Tim. i. 3 ; iii. 14, 15 ; iv. 13). Afterwards he is sent 
 by Paul to Corinth (Acts xix. 22; 1 Cor. iv. 17, et seq.', xvi. 
 10); falls in with him again in Macedonia (2 Cor. i. 1); accom¬ 
 panies the apostle on his last journey to Jerusalem (Acts xx. 4); 
 is with him in his confinement at Rome (Col. i. 1 ; Pliilem. 1 ; 
 Phil. i. 1); goes as a delegate with an epistle to the church at 
 Philippi, to inquire into its state (Phil. ii. 19-23); must have 
 been, when Paul wrote his second epistle to him, in the neigh¬ 
 bourhood of Ephesus, whence he is summoned by the apostle, 
 shortly before the latter’s death, to Rome (2 Tim. iv. 9, 21); and 
 finally the epistle to the Hebrews informs us of his liberation from 
 prison and his intention to travel east (xiii. 23). So with Titus, 
 whom we meet at one time in Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 1), at another 
 in Ephesus, at another in Corinth (2 Cor. vii. 6, 14), again in 
 Crete (Tit. i. 5), then in Nicopolis (Tit. iii. 12), and finally in 
 Dalmatia (2 Tim. iv. 10). 
 
 1 Hence Rothe (p. 305) not improperly styles them apostolical delegates. We prefer, 
 however, the title evangelists, as it is used by Paul himself. 
 
204 
 
 PRESBYTER-BISHOPS. 
 
 [nr. BOOK. 
 
 § 132. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL OFFICES. 
 
 § 132. Presbyter-Bishops. 
 
 After these three offices, which relate to the whole church, the 
 apostle mentions, Eph. iv. 11, pastors and teachers ; denoting by 
 these terms the regular overseers of single congregations , in their 
 twofold capacity. 1 These officers are undoubtedly the same with 
 those elsewhere in the New Testament commonly called presby¬ 
 ters, and four times bishops (viz., in Acts xx. 28 ; Phil. i. 1; 
 1 Tim. iii. 2; Tit. i. 7), whose business is expressly declared to 
 be the feeding of the flock. 2 
 
 First, as to the meaning of these terms and their relation to 
 one another. The name presbyter , or elder , is no doubt of 
 Jewish-Christian origin,—a translation of the Hebrew title saken , 
 sekenim applied to the rulers of the synagogues, on whom 
 
 devolved the conduct of religious affairs. It refers, therefore, 
 primarily to age and the personal venerableness, which goes with 
 it; 3 then derivatively to official dignity and authority, since 
 
 1 That the words ltiu.irx.6.xcv;, Eph. iv. 11, on account of the absence of 
 
 i ols must be referred to one and the same office, as is done by Jerome and Augus¬ 
 tine, and most modern commentators, Riickert, Harless, Meyer, Stier (Calvin, how¬ 
 ever, Beza and De Wette dissenting), we have before remarked (§ 125). Their 
 restriction to a small sphere is noticed already by Theodoret when he speaks of them 
 as rob; r.ocroc, xo\iv vx.) ccqu^urpivov;. There is also, it is true, a pastorate and 
 
 doctorate for the whole church; but this belongs to the apostles, who, as before 
 observed, united all offices in themselves. (The distinction of pastors and teachers 
 as two separate officers, which is made in several Calvinistic church constitutions, 
 for instance in the Book of Discipline of the Scotch Kirk, however good it may be 
 in itself, cannot be based upon Eph. iv. 11, as was first done by Calvin). 
 
 2 Acts xx. 28, so also 1 Peter v. 1, 2. Comp, also the close collocation 
 of xoipfo and \rrl<rx.onoi, 1 Peter ii. 25, where both terms are applied to Christ. 
 
 3 It would seem to be in this sense, and not in the official, that John styles himself 
 “the elder,” or presbyter, 2 John 1, and 3 John 1. Even in the second and third 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 § 132. PRESBYTER-BISHOPS. 
 
 205 
 
 these are usually borne by men of age and experience. 1 The 
 term bishop , or overseer , is, in all probability, borrowed from the 
 political relations of the Greeks. 2 Hence it came later into eccle¬ 
 siastical use, and made its first appearance too among the Gentile 
 Christians ; as in fact it occurs in the New Testament, only in 
 the writings of Paul and his disciple, Luke. It refers, as the 
 term itself signifies, to the official duty and activity of these con¬ 
 gregational rulers. 3 
 
 But aside from this immaterial difference in origin and siornifi- 
 cation, the two appellations belong to one and the same office; so 
 that the bishops of the New Testament are to be regarded not as 
 diocesan bishops like those of a later period, but simply as con¬ 
 gregational officers. This is placed beyond question by every 
 passage in which we meet with this title. For in Acts xx. 28, 
 Paul addresses as u bishops” the very same rulers of the Ephesian 
 church, who had just before (ver. 17) been called u presbyters.” 
 Again, in the superscription of his epistle to the Philippians (i. 1) 
 he salutes the saints in Philippi, u with the bishops and deacons 
 {ctvv €7tktk6ttois kcu Sicikovois), without mentioning the presbyters,” 
 which can be explained only by supposing the latter to have been 
 identical with the bishops. And then the plural form here used 
 is, as was observed already by Jerome, further evidence of the 
 same fact; since there cannot be more than one bishop, in the 
 
 centuries the name x^o-p-jTictn is still met with in what may be termed the school ot 
 St John, as an honorary title of the earlier church teachers (the ancients, the fathers), 
 even where they were proper bishops in the catholic sense. Comp. § 10G and 107 
 above, and the quotations from Ireneeus in Rothe, p. 414, ct seq. 
 
 1 Precisely so with the Greek ytoovo-ioc., and the Latin senatas , official titles of magis¬ 
 trates derived from age and dignity. 
 
 2 The delegates appointed to organize states dependent on Athens, as also other 
 persons in authority, were called episcopoi; comp. Suidas, s. v. 'vr'urxoros, Scholia on 
 Aristophanes, Aves v. 1023. Cicero also uses the word in a letter to Atticus (Ep. 
 VII. 11): “ Vult me Pompejus esse, quern tota haec Campana et maritima ora habeat 
 tTi'o-xorov, ad quem delectus et summa negotii referatur;” and in a somewhat differ¬ 
 ent sense the old Roman jurist, Areadius Charisius, in a fragment of his work De 
 muneribus civilibus ( Digest. lib. IV. Tit. 4, leg. 18, § 7), where it is said : “ Episcopi, 
 qui praesunt pani et caeteris venalibus rebus, quae civitatum populis ad quotidianum 
 victum usui sunt.” The terms \vi<rxo'rn; and ixurxoTvi, moreover, occur several times 
 in the LXX., as the translation of mp3, Tips, and mp3, Num. iv. 16; xxxi. 14. 
 
 ' *7 . 7 '\l 
 
 Judges ix. 28. 2 Kings xi. 16. Neh. xi. 9, 14. Isa. lx. 17. 
 
 3 Substantially the same distinction was perceived by Jerome, Epist. 82, ad 
 Oceanum: “ Apud veteres iidem episcopi et presbyteri, quia illud nomen dignitatis 
 (he says more properly, on Tit. i. 7, nomen officii) est, hoc aetatis. ,> 
 
206 
 
 § 132. PRESBYTER-BISHOPS. 
 
 [ill. BOOK. 
 
 later sense of the term, in any one church. A third proof we 
 have in the usus loquendi of the Pastoral Epistles. In Titus i. 5, 
 the apostle directs his disciple to ordain “ presbyters ” in the 
 churches of Crete ; then, speaking of the qualifications to be re¬ 
 garded in the choice, he suddenly brings in the name “ bishop,” 
 while, as is shown at once by the causative particle “for” (ver. 7, 
 Set yap tov cttlo-kottoi', etc.), he is still plainly speaking of the same 
 persons. In 1 Tim. iii. 1-7 he sets forth the requisites for the 
 episcopate, and then (verses 8-13) passes immediately to those for 
 the diaconate, without mentioning the presbyterate either here or 
 afterwards. Yet it is evidently his intention to instruct Timothy 
 respecting the qualifications for all the congregational offices ; 
 hence the offices of bishop and presbyter must have been the 
 same. Finally; Peter (1 Ep. v. 1, 2) addresses himself to the 
 “ presbyters” of the congregations, to which he wrote (and not 
 the bishops, as he must have done in this connection, had they 
 been a higher class of officers), as “also an elder,” a “co-pres¬ 
 byter,” and describes it as their business to “ feed the flock of 
 Grod” and “ take the Oversight of it” (tt oipdvaTe to ev vpuv Troipviov 
 tov Oeov, 6 ttl(tkotvovvt6s , k. t. X.) ;—a clear proof, that here also the 
 presbyterate and episcopate coincide; the former term denoting 
 the honour and dignity, the latter the duty, belonging to one and 
 the same office. 1 
 
 This identity of presbyters and bishops in the apostolic church 
 was also acknowledged by the most learned church fathers, on 
 exegetical grounds, even after the Catholic episcopal system 
 (which was supposed to have originated in the apostolate ) had 
 become completely established. 2 
 
 1 The same form of expression we find in the apostolic father, Clement of Rome, 
 when he says in his first epistle to the Corinthians, ch. 42, that the apostles ordained 
 the first fruits (r»s otfraex^s) of the Christian faith in new congregations, as \nia-Anov? 
 xou 'hta.xovout, without mentioning •rzttrfiuTtoot at all. He chose the other term, which 
 is here evidently synonymous, because he had in his eye the passage, Isaiah lx. 17, 
 where the LXX. translate : xco) dutra) tov? agfcOiroi; cov ’ey liqvj vj sooti tov : l tr i tr y. o sr o v s 
 
 <rov ev dixotfOTvv/i. 
 
 2 See Rothe, 1. c. p. 207-217, where the passages from the fathers are given at 
 large; also Gieseler, Kirchengesch. I. 1, § 30, note 1 (p. 115, et seq., of the 4th ed.) 
 We confine ourselves to the most important, and add some English authorities. 
 Jerome says. Ad. Tit. i. 7 : “ Idem est ergo presbyter qui episcopus, et antequam 
 diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent .... communi presbyterorum consilio 
 ecclesiae gubernabantur.” Then he adduces as proof all the passages of Scripture 
 noticed above. Again, Epist. 85, ad Evagrium (in later editions ad Evangelum): 
 
GOVERNM.] § 132. PRESBYTER-BISHOPS. 
 
 207 
 
 As to the time and manner of the introduction of this office 
 we have, unfortunately, no such information as is given respect¬ 
 ing the diaconate (Acts vi.) The demand for the office unques¬ 
 tionably arose very early; since, notwithstanding the diffusion 
 of gifts, which were not necessarily confined to official station, 
 provision had to be made for the regular instruction and govern¬ 
 ment of the rapidly multiplying churches. The historical pattern 
 for it was presented in the Jewish Synagogue, in the college or 
 bench of elders (npeo-^vrepoi, Luke vii. 3; dp^Lawdycoyoi, Mark v. 
 
 “ Nam quum apostolus perspicue doceat, eosdem esse presbyteros et episcopos,” etc. 
 Finally, Ep. 82, ad Oceamim (al. 83): “ In utraque epistola (the first to Timothy and 
 the one to Titus) sive episcopi sive presbyteri (quamquam apud veteres iidem episcopi 
 et presbyteri fuerint, quia illud nomen dignitatis est, hoc aetatis) jubentur monogami 
 in clerum eligi.” So Ambrosiaster, ad Eph, iv. 11, and the author of the pseudo- 
 Augustinian Quaestiones V. et N. T. qu. 101. Among the Greek fathers, Chrysostom, 
 Horn, 1. in Ep. ad Philipp ., says : '2uvt.vitrx.oioi? (so he reads Phil. i. 1, instead of truv 
 
 tvivxovoi?) zot) Siazcvoi?. vi vouvo : pioi? voXtoi? ;roXX<a! tvltrzovoi r,troiv ; O u^txpui?' «XX« vou? 
 TQttrfiuTtQOV? ouvu? tx.a.'kitrt' vovt yccg vtu? czoivdvvovv voi? ovopoctri, tit) 'hiot.y.ovo? o tvttrxovo? iXtytro, 
 
 x. v x. Still plainer is the language of Theodoret, ad Phil. i. 1 : . . . . \vnrz6vou? Ss 
 vou? vgttrfiuvigou? xoiXtt, cop-tpOTtPoo ya.i> t}%ov xoov tzuvov vov zctigov va. ovopoovtx,. for which he 
 quotes the proof texts already given. So ad 1 Tim. iii. 1 : tvitrxovov Se IwxvOot vov 
 v%ttr(iuvt%ov Xtyu, z. v. x. This view was maintained even still later by theologians of 
 the Middle Ages, one of whom, Pope Urban II. (1091), expressed himself in a re¬ 
 markable way: “ Sacros antem ordines dicimus diaconatum et presbyteratum. Hos 
 siquidem solos primitiva legitur ecclesia habuisse : super his solum praeceptum habe- 
 mus apostoli.” Among the modern Roman Catholic expositors, Mack ( Commentar 
 iiber die Pastoralbriefe des Ap. Paulus, Tub. 1830, p. 60, et seq .) fully concedes the 
 identity of the New Testament presbyters and bishops; he sees in them the later 
 presbyters, and takes the later bishops, on the contrary, as the successors of the 
 apostles, and their immediate assistants. This is undoubtedly, on Catholic ground, 
 the only proper derivation of the episcopate. By Protestant interpreters and his¬ 
 torians this identity has always been asserted, and that too by several learned Epis¬ 
 copalians. Dr Whitby, for instance, on Phil. i. 1, admits,—“ Both the Greek and 
 Latin Fathers do, with one consent, declare that Bishops were called Presbyters, 
 and Presbyters Bishops, in apostolic times, the names being then common.” Also, 
 to quote a recent critical authority, Dr Bloomfield, on Acts xx. 17 ( Greek Test, with 
 English Notes , etc. vol. i. p. 560, Philad. ed.), remarks on the term v^ttrpuvi^ou? : As 
 these persons are at ver. 28 called ivurzovou?, and especially from a comparison of 
 other passages (as 1 Tim. iii. 1), the best Commentators, ancient and modern, have 
 with reason inferred that the terms as yet denoted the same thingthough he adds 
 immediately, but without proof, that one of the presbyters was set over the rest as a 
 bishop in the modern sense. The same view is expressed in Conybeare and How- 
 son’s work on St Paul, I. p. 465. When some Anglican divines deny the original 
 identity of presbyters and bishops, and pretend to derive their system of church 
 government from the name and office of the New Testament bishop, they can be, in¬ 
 deed, easily refuted. But this by no means settles the question of church polity. 
 The Episcopal and Presbyterian controversy turns ultimately on the decision of the 
 question, whether the office of the apostles and their delegates has a permanent or 
 merely a temporary character. 
 
208 
 
 § 132. PRESBYTER-BISHOPS. 
 
 [ill. BOOR. 
 
 22. Acts xiii. 15), who conducted the exercises of public wor¬ 
 ship, prayer and the reading and exposition of the Scriptures. 
 Christian presbyters meet us for the first time, Acts xi. 30, at 
 Jerusalem, when the church of Antioch sent a collection to their 
 brethren in Judea. Thence the institution passed over not only 
 to all the Jewish-Christian churches, but also to those planted by 
 Paul and his co-labourers among the Gentiles. Prom the ex¬ 
 ample of the family of Stephanas at Corinth (1 Cor. xvi. 15) w r e 
 learn, that the first converts (the anapxal) were usually chosen to 
 this office ; a fact explicitly confirmed also by Clement of Rome. 1 
 
 After the pattern of the synagogues, as well as the ancient 
 municipal governments, where the power was vested, aristocrati¬ 
 cally, in a senate or college of decuriones , every church had a 
 number of presbyters. They appear everywhere in the plural, 
 and as a corporate body; at Jerusalem, Acts xi. 30; xv. 4, 6, 
 23; xxi. 18; at Ephesus, xx. 17, 28; at Philippi, Phil. i. 1; 
 at the ordination of Timothy, 1 Tim. iv. 14, where mention is 
 made of the laying on of the hands of the presbytery; and in 
 the churches, to which James wrote, Jas. v. 14 ; u Is any sick 
 among you; let him call for the presbyters of the congregation , 
 and let them pray over him,” etc. The same is implied also in 
 the statement (Acts xiv. 23), that Paul and Barnabas ordained 
 elders (several, of course) for every church ; and still more clearly 
 in the direction given to Titus (Titus i. 5), to ordain elders, that 
 is a presbytery, in every city of Crete. 2 
 
 Some scholars have imagined, indeed, that in the larger cities 
 there were several churches, with only one presbyter or bishop 
 to each ; that, consequently, the government of congregations 
 was from the first in principle, not democratic, nor aristocratic, 
 but monarchical. 3 But this atomic theory of a multitude of 
 
 1 In the passage already quoted, 1 Cor. eh. 42. 
 
 2 "Iv«. . . . 7ca.Tix.trrv,trv,? x.ccrk xoXiv rrgt<r,3vn'g e v ?. Dr Baur, indeed (in his work against 
 the genuineness of Paul’s Pastoral Epistles, Stuttg. and Tubingen. 1835, p. 81), takes 
 the plural to refer to the collective idea implied in Ka.ro. rot.iv, so that Titus was to 
 place only one presbyter in each city. But in this case we should expect either Ka.ro. 
 ■to * 11 e or T^arjiurio o v. The Kara j toX.iv is more adverbial than collective, equivalent to 
 oppidatim, by cities. So with cxx^nr/si, Acts xiv. 23. Comp. Rothe, 1. c. p. 1S1, 
 et seq. 
 
 3 So Baur, 1. c.; and in a somewhat different form the Low Dutch theologian, Ivist, 
 in his article on the Origin of Episcopacy (Utrecht. 1830), translated in Ulgen’s 
 “ Zeitschrift fur hist. Theologie,” vol. ii. No. 2, p. 46-90. 
 
GOVERNM. ] 
 
 § 132. PRESBYTER-BISHOPS. 
 
 209 
 
 independent churches is refuted by the passages just quoted, in 
 which the presbyters appear as a college; and by the tendency 
 towards organized association, which entered into the very life 
 of Christians from the beginning;. The household churches 
 (eKKXrjo-lcu k ar oIkov), frequently mentioned and greeted, 1 indicate 
 merely the fact, that the Christians, where they had become 
 very numerous and lived far apart, as in Rome particularly (the 
 population of which then exceeded that of Paris now), were 
 accustomed to meet for edification at different places. Such an 
 arrangement was perfectly consistent with the organic union of 
 these congregations as one whole, under the superintendence of 
 a common presbytery. Hence, also, the apostolical epistles are 
 never addressed to a separate part of the congregation, an eccle- 
 siolci in ecclesia , a conventicle, but always to the whole body of 
 Christians at Rome, at Corinth, at Ephesus, at Philippi, at 
 Thessalonica, etc., as one moral person. 2 
 
 Whether now a perfect parity reigned among these collegiate 
 presbyters; or one, say the oldest, constantly presided over the 
 rest; or, finally, one followed another in the presidency, as 
 'primus inter pares, by some kind of rotation, the New Testament 
 gives us no information, unless we find it in the apocalyptic 
 angels, of whom we shall speak more particularly hereafter. The 
 analogy of the Jewish synagogues leads to no certain result, 
 since it is disputed whether there was a particular presidency, an 
 office of archi-synagogos properly so-called, in these as early as 
 the time of Christ. 3 Respecting the Roman municipal system, 
 
 1 Rom. xvi. 4, 5, 14, 15. 1 Cor. xvi. 19. Col. iv. 15. Philem. ii. 
 
 2 Comp. 1 Thess. i. 1. 2 Thess. i. 1. 1 Cor. i. 2.; v. 1, elseq. 2 Cor. i. 1,23; ii. 1, 
 
 et seq. Col. iv. 16. Phil. i. 1, etc. Even Neander, otherwise comparatively so un - 
 churchly, well observes against Kist and Baur ( Kirchengesch . I. p. 317, 2d ed.): “ This 
 unity presents itself not as something yet to arise, but as something original, grounded 
 from the first in the very nature of the Christian consciousness ; and the divisions, 
 which threaten to destroy it, appear rather as a sickly growth of after times, as in the 
 Corinthian church. If also separate assemblies of some portions of the community 
 may have been formed in the private houses of those who had a suitable room for 
 them, or were specially qualified to edify them by their discourses, this itself was a 
 result of the enlargement of the church, which was already regularly organized; and 
 those, who formed such meetings, did not thereby separate themselves from the great 
 whole of the church under its ruling senate.” Comp, also Neander’s Gesch. d. Pjlan- 
 zung , etc., p. 55 and p. 253, Note. 
 
 3 As Vitringa, for example ( De synag. vet . II. 9*11), and Winer ( Reallexikon , II. p. 
 550), suppose. But the only passage, where one is directly named 
 
 YOL. II. - O 
 
210 §133. OFFICE OF THE EPISCOPAL PRESBYTERS, [ill. BOOK. 
 
 on the contrary, we know, that in the senates of the cities out of 
 Italy one of the decuriones, the eldest, acted as president under 
 the title principalis. 1 Some sort of presidency is certainly indis¬ 
 pensable in a well-organized government and in the regular 
 transaction of business, and thus must he presumed to have 
 existed in these primitive presbyteries. But as neither the Acts 
 of the Apostles, nor Paul’s, nor the catholic epistles, give us any 
 information respecting it, we have no means of determining its 
 particular form. 2 In the nature of the case also the presbyters 
 must have distributed the various duties of their office amona; 
 themselves, so as to avoid promiscuous interference and con¬ 
 fusion. 
 
 § 133. Office of the Episcopal Presbyters. 
 
 If now we inquire as to the proper official character of the 
 presbyters, we cannot make them the same with the later dio¬ 
 cesan bishops. These last are church officers, and claim, justly 
 or unjustly, a position like that of the apostles and their imme¬ 
 diate assistants, Timothy, Titus, etc. The idea of episcopacy, 
 too, in the usual sense, is essentially monarchical and excludes a 
 plurality of bishops in one and the same place. The presbyter- 
 bishops were rather, as already remarked, officers of single con¬ 
 gregations; but within these they had charge of all that pertains 
 to the good order and spiritual prosperity of a religious commu¬ 
 nity. Their office then consisted primarily in the general super¬ 
 intendence of the congregation. This is indicated by the very 
 
 is Luke xiii. 14. It may very easily be, however, that even then, as was 
 
 unquestionably the ease at a later period, a single person presided over the synagogue 
 in smaller places, instead of a body of rulers; or that Luke means simply the presi¬ 
 dent acting as primus inter pares at the time. The last is made probable by the fact, 
 that Luke (ch. viii. 41, comp. ver. 49), names Jairus, without qualification, «.o xm rije 
 ; while Mark in the parallel passage, v. 22, describes him as tTs tmv 
 cuvoc.yaiyuv. In other passages also, as Acts xiii. 15; xviii. 8, 17, as well as Mark v. 22, 
 several <a.yuyct appear in one and the same synagogue; so that the word is here 
 
 synonymous with -t ^arpvT^oi, except, perhaps, that the former refers to official activity 
 (like trhrxofroi), the latter to official dignity. 
 
 1 See Savigny: Gesch. des rom. Rechts inn Mittelalter, I. p. 80-83.—In the Italian 
 cities magistratus stood at the head of the bodies of decuriones. 
 
 2 Dr Rothe, 1. c. p. 240 and 528, thinks, indeed, that the presbyteries of those days 
 needed no particular president from among themselves, because the apostles and their 
 delegates were their proper presidents. But these could not be present in all the con¬ 
 gregations and on every occasion. 
 
CtOVERNM.] § 133. OFFICE OF THE EPISCOPAL PRESBYTERS. 21 1 
 
 names applied to them and their duties; “ pastors” ( noipeve?, 
 Eph. iv. 11 , answering to the Hebrew as the rulers of the 
 
 synagogue were also called), who are to “feed” the flock of God 
 (7roificiiveiv, Acts xx. 28; 1 Peter v. 2 ); u overseers” (ento-KonoL 
 and enMJKOTTe'iv, 1 Pet. V. 2, etc.) ; U rulers” (7rpoVo-ra/xei/ot, 7 rpoaTrjvcu, 
 
 1 Thess. v. 12 ; Rom. xii. 8 ; 1 Tim. iii. 4, 5, 12 , npoeaTarcs 
 7rpea^vrepoL, 1 Tim. v. 17, comp. Kv(3epvr]cr(Ls, 1 Cor. xii. 28) ; and 
 u leaders” (rjXovpevoi, Heb. xiii. 7 , 17, 24). This superintendence 
 of a congregation included not only the direction of public wor¬ 
 ship and a vigilant regard to the religious interests of the church 
 —in a word, the whole province of pastoral care and discipline, 
 —but also the management of the property and all the pecuniary 
 concerns of the congregation ; as may be inferred from the fact, 
 that the collection of the Antiochian Christians for their brethren 
 in Judea was delivered to the presbytery at Jerusalem, Acts 
 xi. 30. 
 
 But then, again, the presbyters were at the same time the 
 regular teachers of the congregation, and can therefore not be 
 put in the same class with the lay elders of Presbyterian 
 churches. On them devolved officially the exposition of the 
 Scriptures, the preaching of the gospel, and the administration 
 of the sacraments. That this function was closely connected 
 with the other appears from the very juxta-position of “ pastors 
 and teachers,” Eph. iv. 11, where the two terms must be referred 
 to the same person . 1 The same association of ruling and teach¬ 
 ing we find in Heb. xiii. 7 : u Remember them which have the 
 rule over vou ( rjyovpevoi ), who have spoken unto you the word of 
 God omi/ey e’AaXpcrai' vpiv tov \6yov tov Qeov ) ; whose faitll follow, 
 considering the end of their conversation ;” comp. ver. 17. Par¬ 
 ticularly decisive, however, are the instructions of the pastoral 
 epistles, where, among the requirements for the office of pres¬ 
 byter, besides irreproachable piety and a talent for the adminis¬ 
 tration of church government, Paul expressly mentions also 
 capacity to teach, 1 Tim. iii. 2 : u A bishop, then, must be blame¬ 
 less, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, 
 given to hospitality, apt to teach ( 8l8cuctik6v ),” etc. ; so in Tit. i. 
 9 , where it is required of a bishop, that he should u hold fast the 
 
 1 Comp. § 125 above. 
 
212 §133. OFFICE OF THE EPISCOPAL PRESBYTERS, [ill. BOOK. 
 
 faithful word, as he had been taught {avrexopevov rod Kara rgv didaxqv 
 7 no-rod \6yov), that lie may be able by sound doctrine both to ex¬ 
 hort and to convince the gainsayers. 
 
 These passages forbid our making two distinct classes of pres¬ 
 byters, of which one, corresponding to the seniors or lay elders 
 in the Calvinistic churches, had to do only with the government, 
 and not at all with the administration of doctrine and the sacra¬ 
 ments ; while the other, on the contrary, was devoted entirely, 
 or at least mainly, to the service of the word and altar. Such a 
 distinction of ruling elders, belonging to the laity, and teaching 
 presbyters, or ministers proper, first suggested by Calvin , 1 and 
 afterwards further insisted on by many Protestant (especially 
 Presbyterian) divines , 2 rests, indeed, on a very j udicious ecclesi¬ 
 astical policy, and is, so far, altogether justifiable ; but it cannot 
 be proved at all from the New Testament or church antiquity, 
 and presupposes also an opposition of clergy and laity, which did 
 not exist under the same form in the apostolic period. The only 
 passage appealed to in support of it is 1 Tim. v. 17 : “Let the 
 elders, that rule well, be counted worthy of double honour, 
 especially they who labour in the word and doctrine ” (pakio-ra 8e ol 
 K07TLu)vres iv \6yco Kal SiSao-fcaXia.) This “ especially,” we are told, 
 implies, that there were presbyters also, who officially had 
 nothing to do with teaching, and that the teaching presbyters 
 were of higher standing . 3 But this conclusion is by no means 
 
 1 Inst. rel. chr. IY. 3, § 8: “ Gubernafcores fuisse existimo sen lores ex plebe de- 
 lectos, qui censurae morum et exercendas disciplinae una cum episcopis prseessent.” 
 
 2 Comp., for instance, Dr S. Miller’s Letters Concerning the Constitution and Order 
 of the Christian Ministry , 2d ed., Philad., 1830, p. 27, et seq., and the language of 
 English theologians there quoted. But many Lutherans also have zealously main¬ 
 tained the distinction, as J. J. Bohmer and Ziegler; comp. Rothe, p. 222, Note. 
 
 3 Thus Dr Owen, for example (quoted by Dr Miller, 1. c. p. 28), “ This would be a 
 text of uncontrollable evidence, if it had anything but prejudice and interest to con¬ 
 tend with. On the first proposal of this text, that the Elders who rule well are worthy 
 o f double honour, especially they who labour in word and doctrine, a rational man, who 
 is unprejudiced, who never heard of the controversy of ruling Elders, can hardly 
 avoid an apprehension that there are two sorts of Elders, some that labour in the 
 word and doctrine, and some who do not do so. The truth is, it was interest and 
 prejudice that first caused some learned men to strain their wits to find out evasions 
 from the evidence of this testimony : being so found, some others, of meaner abilities, 
 have been entangled by them.” On the other hand, there have been distinguished 
 Reformed scholars, even of an earlier day, especially Vitringa [Be synag. vet. 1. II. 
 c. 2 and 3, p. 490-500), who have denied this passage any force in favour of lay elders. 
 Comp, also Mosheim: Comm. de. reb. Christ, a. Const. M. p. 12fi, et seq. 
 
GOVERNM.] §133. OFFICE OF THE EPISCOPAL PRESBYTERS. 213 
 
 so sure, as may at first sight appear. For, in the first place, it 
 is questionable, whether the emphasis does not fall rather on 
 ko7ucqvt€s, referring to laborious diligence in teaching, as also on 
 the Ka\a>s in the beginning of the sentence ; making the antithesis 
 to be, not that of teaching and non-teaching elders, but that of 
 those who rule well and teach zealously, and those who both rule 
 and teach, indeed, but without any particular earnestness. 1 In 
 this view the passage would tell rather for the union of ruling 
 and teaching in the same office. But even according to the 
 other interpretation, it proves, at best, only the fact, that there 
 were presbyters, who did not teach. It by no means shows, that 
 the existence of such presbyters was regular and approved by 
 the apostle ; which is here the main point. Nay, unless we 
 would involve Paul in self-contradiction, we must suppose the 
 very opposite. For in 1 Tim. iii. 2 ; 2 Tit. i. 9 (comp. 2 Tim. 
 ii. 24), he makes aptness to teach an indispensable qualification 
 for the office of bishop without exception. It has been supposed, 
 also, that traces of lay eldership were to be found in the old 
 African church, and from these has been inferred its existence 
 in the apostolic age. But when the relevant documents of the 
 time of the Donatist controversies in the beginning of the fourth 
 century are more carefully examined, it is found, that the 
 u seniores,” or u seniores plebis,” in North Africa were not eccle¬ 
 siastical officers at all, but civil magistrates of muncipal corpora¬ 
 tions. 2 
 
 Nor, finally, can we agree with Dr Neander, who from Paul’s 
 distinction of the gift of government (nvpepvTiais) from that of 
 teaching (StSao-KaXm), Bom. xii. 8 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28, infers, that the 
 presbyters or bishops in general had, at first, nothing at all to do 
 with instruction ex officio , but were mere presidents of the con¬ 
 gregations. Teaching, it is supposed, was attached in the 
 beginning to no particular office, but performed by any one who 
 had the proper inward qualification. It was not till the pastoral 
 
 1 So the passage is taken by Dr Rothe, 1. c. p. 224 : “ The apostle would commend 
 to special respect those of the presbyters who are laborious in the duties of their 
 office; and more particularly such as bestow their unwearied diligence mainly on the 
 business of teaching.” The latest commentators on the Pastoral Epistles, Dr Huther 
 (1850) and Wiesinger (1850) also deny that the passage proves the existence of ruling 
 lay elders as distinct from ministers. 
 
 2 The proof of this is presented by Rothe, 1. c. p. 227-239. 
 
214 § 138. OFFICE OF THE EPISCOPAL PRESBYTERS, [ill. BOOK. 
 
 epistles were written that the apostle found it advisable, on 
 account of the intrusion of false teachers, to require of presbyters 
 ability to teach. 1 But it is here taken for granted, that the 
 pastoral epistles were not written till after a.d. 62 — an opinion, 
 which stands or falls with the extremely doubtful hypothesis of a 
 second imprisonment of the author at Borne. 2 Then, again, the 
 circumstance, that ruling and teaching are designated as two 
 separate gifts, is no proof, that they did not belong to one and 
 the same office. Paul connects them closely together (Eph. iv. 
 11) : and Neander himself in fact assumes such a union, at least 
 in the latter part of the apostolic period. Finally, there are clear 
 indications, that this union was an original one. The presbyters 
 of Ephesus are exhorted on Paul’s last journey to Jerusalem, to 
 guard the purity of doctrine (Acts xxviii. 29-31); and the 
 epistle to the Hebrews (xiii. 7) enjoins upon its readers a grate¬ 
 ful remembrance of their teaching rulers, who were then dead, 
 and must therefore have belonged to the former generation. 
 The general liberty of teaching amounted by no means to a pro¬ 
 vision for the regular instruction and edification of the churches; 
 and nothing would be more natural, than that the presbyters, as 
 afterwards, so also from the first, should supply this need, and at 
 the same time administer the sacraments, by virtue of their office. 
 Indeed, there were no other congregational officers, of whom this 
 could be expected. 
 
 The conclusion from all this is, that the presbyters or bishops 
 of the apostolic period were the regular teachers and pastors, 
 preachers and leaders of the congregations ; that it was their 
 office, to conduct all public worship, to take care of souls, to en¬ 
 force discipline, and to manage the church property. Of course, 
 all had not the same talent; one excelled in teaching, another in 
 pastoral duties, a third in the talent for ruling; and we may 
 readily suppose, that, where there were several of them, they 
 divided the various duties of their calling among themselves, 
 according to endowments, taste, and necessity. This, however, 
 was always regulated by circumstances, and by no means autho¬ 
 rizes us to suppose, that there were two different kinds of pres¬ 
 byters, and two separate offices of government and doctrine. 
 
 1 Apost. Gesch. p. 259, et seq. So also in his Kirch. Gesch. I. p. 320, ct soq. 
 
 Comp, on this point § 87. 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 § 134. DEACONS. 
 
 215 
 
 § 134. Deacons. 
 
 Of the origin of the diaconate or office of help , we have a 
 graphic account in the sixth chapter of Acts. The immediate 
 occasion of its institution was the voluntary community of goods 
 adopted by the Christians of Jerusalem (comp. § 114) ; and 
 specially, the complaint of the Hellenists, or Greek Jews, that 
 their widows were neglected in the daily distribution of food and 
 alms, in favour of the Jewish Christians, who were born in Pales¬ 
 tine and spoke the Aramaic language—a neglect owing either to 
 the fact, that these widows were not known, being foreigners and 
 somewhat backward.; or perhaps to some jealousy existing be¬ 
 tween the proper Hebrews and their brethren from other lands. 
 At first the apostles, who had charge also of the common fund 
 (Acts iv. 35, 37 ; v. 2), attended to this matter themselves, or 
 employed agents, perhaps the younger members of the congrega¬ 
 tion (v. 6, 10); and these agents had given cause for the com¬ 
 plaint in question. As the church grew, however, it became 
 more and more impracticable for the apostles to attend to these 
 outward, concerns without wrong to their proper spiritual work. 
 “ It is not reason,” said the twelve (vi. 2), u that we should leave 
 the word of God, and serve tables,” i.e. personally superintend 
 the daily love-feasts and the distribution of alms. In order, 
 therefore, to give themselves wholly to prayer and the preaching 
 of the gospel, and to provide against the dissatisfaction just men¬ 
 tioned by a fixed regulation, they proposed the election of seven 
 men, of good repute, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, for this 
 particular service; and these being chosen by the people, the 
 apostles solemnly set them apart by prayer and the laying on of 
 hands. In the Acts, indeed, these officers are styled simply 
 oi enra, the seven (xxi. 8), and not deacons — that is servants or 
 helpers; but that they were such, we know from the terms 
 SuiKovia, fhaKoveiv rpane^ais, used to describe their office (vi. 1, 2), 
 and from almost universal exegetical tradition. 1 From the Greek 
 names of the persons chosen—Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nica- 
 nor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch—we 
 
 1 The ancient church even considered itself bound in this case to the sacred num¬ 
 ber seven; and at Rome, for example, as late as the third century, there were only 
 seven deacons, though the number of presbyters amounted to forty. 
 
216 
 
 § 134. DEACONS. 
 
 [ill. BOOK. 
 
 may infer, though not with absolute certainty, that they were of 
 Grecian descent. The reason for choosing Hellenists would be 
 simply, that the complaint had come from the Hellenists, and the 
 church, in impartial love, was disposed to give them all advan¬ 
 tage in the election. Nothing here obliges us to suppose, with 
 some scholars, that Luke in this chapter records only the appoint¬ 
 ment of deacons for the Hellenistic part of the church, and that 
 these officers had already existed, perhaps from the first, in the 
 Hebrew portion. 1 
 
 From Jerusalem this arrangement spread to other churches. 
 For although others did not adopt the community of goods, yet 
 it was necessary everywhere to provide in some regular way for 
 the poor and the sick, as well as for the external services of the 
 sanctuary. It is true, Acts xiv. 23 (comp. Tit. i. 5), speaks only 
 of appointing elders ; 2 but we have express mention of deacons in 
 the churches at Rome (Rom. xii. 7, d're diciKovlav, iv rrj biaKovla), 
 Philippi (Phil. i. 1), and Corinth ; for the existence of a deaconess, 
 Phebe, at Cenchrea (Rom. xvi. 1), certainly leads us to infer that 
 there were deacons there also, and the gift of u helps” ( dvriX^ecs , 
 1 Cor. xii. 28) must be understood particularly as a qualification 
 for this office (comp. § 119). And generally we must presume, 
 that these officers existed in all the churches planted by Paul, as 
 he gives to Timothy and Titus special instructions in regard to 
 their election and qualifications. 
 
 The business of these deacons consisted primarily and mainly, 
 
 1 Mosheim (Com. de. reb. chr., etc., p. 114, et scq.), Mack (Commentar uber die Pas- 
 toralbriefe, p. 269), Kuinol, Meyer, and Olshausen (on Acts v. 6, and vi. 1), and also 
 Conybeare and Howson (on the Life and Ep. of St Paul, I. 467), appeal, indeed, in 
 support of this view, to the “ young men ” mentioned in Acts v. 6, 10 («/ nun^ot, oi 
 nocvhrxoi : comp. Luke xxii. 26, where o vturs^og is used as equivalent to o tiiooxovuv), who 
 attended to the removal and burial of the bodies of Ananias and Sapphira. But this 
 is not enough to show that the “ young men” were regular church officers, who, in 
 distinction from the elders (^nr(36n^oi), had charge of the outward affairs of the con¬ 
 gregation. The service here performed may have been very probably a voluntary 
 one, for which the younger members offered themselves from a natural sense of pro¬ 
 priety. Comp, also, against Mosheim, Neander: Apost. Gesch. p. 47, et seq. and 
 llothe, p. 163, et seq. 
 
 2 Luke never mentions the deacons, except in Acts vi. 3, and xxi. 8, and here not 
 
 by this name. But he frequently speaks of the (xi. 30; xiv. 23; xv. 4; vi. 
 
 23; xx. 17; xxi. 18). This suggests the conjecture, that he uses the latter term in 
 a wide sense, including the deacons, and making it the common title of the ixurxo- 
 'roZnrii and 'htotxovovvn; This would leave the less reason for referring to the 
 
 deacons. 
 
GOVERNM.] 
 
 § 134. DEACONS. 
 
 217 
 
 according to the account of their institution, in the care of the 
 poor and the sick. ~ This is not inconsistent with the statement in 
 Acts xi. 30, that the money collected at Antioch was delivered 
 to the presbyters at Jerusalem. We must suppose the relation 
 to have been such, that the presbyters were the proper treasurers 
 of the congregation, and that the deacons distributed the contri¬ 
 butions under their supervision, and perhaps collected the alms. 
 This external charge, however, naturally came to associate with 
 itself a sort of pastoral care ; for poverty and sickness offer the 
 very best opportunities for instruction, exhortation, and consola¬ 
 tion, and according to the spirit of Christianity the relief of bodily 
 wants should serve only as a bridge or channel for the communi¬ 
 cation of the far more precious benefits of the gospel. The helps 
 or ministrations (dvriX^ds), counted by the apostle among the 
 spiritual gifts (1 Cor. xii. 28), relate perhaps to the whole com¬ 
 pass of these works of charity belonging to the deacons. Hence 
 in the appointment of deacons, men were looked for of strong 
 faith and exemplary piety (Acts vi. 3, comp. v. 8) ; and Paul 
 (1 Tim. iii. 8, et seq.) requires, that deacons be of good report, 
 upright, temperate, free from covetousness (to which their hand¬ 
 ling of the public fund might be a temptation), and sound and 
 well instructed in the faith. This last specification, again, looks 
 to their participation in the pastoral work and also in the business 
 of teaching. That these helpers at this time also preached the 
 gospel, when properly gifted, foliovvs even from the general 
 liberty to teach (comp. § 128) ; and is besides explicitly confirmed 
 by the example of Stephen, the enlightened forerunner of the 
 great apostle of the Gentiles (Acts vi. 8-10; vii. 1-53 ; comp. 
 § 58), and of Philip, also one of the seven of Jerusalem (viii. 5, 
 et seq .; 26 et seq.) It was very natural, that those, who distin¬ 
 guished themselves in this service by their gifts and zeal, should 
 be advanced to higher offices. So Philip, just mentioned, is 
 afterwards called an “ evangelist” (xxi. 8) ; and most expositors 
 refer the passage, 1 Tim. iii. 13, to promotion from the office of 
 deacon to that of presbyter. 
 
 From all this it is clear, that the deacons in the apostolic 
 church had a far higher and more spiritual vocation, than the 
 u ministers” of the Jewish synagogues, the as they were 
 
 called (uTrrjpeTcu in Luke iv. 20, comp. John. vii. 32), who opened 
 
218 
 
 § 135. DEACONESSES. 
 
 [ill. BOOK. 
 
 and closed the synagogues, kept them clean, and handed out the 
 books for reading. The Christian diaconate cannot be regarded, 
 therefore, as it sometimes is, as a mere imitation of this Jewish 
 office. The two, however, will certainly admit of some compari¬ 
 son ; inasmuch as, even from an early time, there might have 
 been added, as it were spontaneously, to the proper duties of the 
 deacons, certain services also, connected with the administration 
 of the sacraments and other parts of public worship. For 
 though this cannot be directly proved from the New Testament, 
 yet it may with tolerable certainty be inferred from the close 
 connection, in those days, between the common love-feasts, of 
 which the deacons had charge (diaicoveiv rpaneCais , Acts vi. 2), 
 and the daily celebration of the Lord’s Supper; and from later 
 ecclesiastical usage. Some persons must perform these services, 
 and they evidently fell most naturally to the deacons ; only they 
 must not be regarded as their only or principal business. 
 
 Thus these officers were living bonds of union between the 
 congregation and its presbyters ; taken from the bosom of the 
 community; chosen entirely by the people themselves (comp. 
 § 126); intimately acquainted with their wants; and thus ad¬ 
 mirably qualified to assist the presbyters with counsel and action 
 in all their official duties. 
 
 § 135. Deaconesses. 
 
 Besides this class of helpers, we find in the apostolic church 
 the order of female deacons, or deaconesses , which was supple¬ 
 mentary to the other office, and was kept up in the Greek church 
 down to the thirteenth century. It is commonly regarded as 
 having originated among the Gentile-Christians, where the 
 women lived in greater seclusion, and their intercourse with 
 men was more restricted than among the Jews. 1 But aside from 
 any rules of propriety, the general need required, that for special 
 pastoral service and the care of the poor and the sick, among the 
 female part of the congregation there should be a corresponding 
 office. Here was opened to women, to whom the apostle forbade 
 
 1 So Grotius, on Rom. xvi. 1: “In Judaea Diaconi viri etiam mulieribus ministrare 
 poterant: erat enim ibi liberior ad foeniinas aditus quam in Graecia, ubi viris clausa 
 ywKixuv'iri; Ideo dupplici in Graecia foeminarum auxilio Ecclcsiae opus habuere,” 
 etc. Comp. Rothe, p. 246. 
 
CJOVERNM.] 
 
 § 135. DEACONESSES. 
 
 219 
 
 any active part in the public assemblies (comp. § 126), a noble 
 field for the unfolding of their peculiar gifts, for the exercise of 
 their love and devotion, without any departure from their natural 
 and proper sphere. By means of this office they could carry the 
 blessings of the gospel into the most private and delicate rela¬ 
 tions of domestic life, and, unseen by the world, might quietly 
 and modestly do unspeakable good.—To this care of the widows, 
 of the poor, and of the sick, as in the case of the male deacons, 
 various other services no doubt came to be added, though we 
 have no distinct account of them. Among these we reckon the 
 education of orphans, attention to strangers, the practice of hospi¬ 
 tality (comp. 1 Tim. v. 10), and the assistance needed at the 
 baptism of females. 
 
 The existence of such deaconesses in the apostolic church is 
 placed beyond doubt by Rom. xvi. 1, where Paul commends to 
 the kind interest of the Roman Christians the sister, Phebe, pro¬ 
 bably the bearer of the letter, describing her as u a servant of 
 the church which is at Cenchreae'’ ( ovaav biaKovov rrjs eKKXrjcrias rgs 
 iv Keyxfjeals). In all probability Tryphena, Trypliosa, and Persis, 
 who are praised (ver. 12) for their labour in the Lord, served 
 the Roman church in the same capacity. On the other hand, 
 it is still a question, whether the widows in 1 Tim. v. 9-15 are 
 proper deaconesses; 1 or female presbyters (npecrfivTiSes, viduae 
 ecclesiasticae ), like those, who in the age after the apostles exer¬ 
 cised a certain oversight over the female part of the congregation, 
 particularly over widows and orphans; 2 or finally, according to 
 Neander’s view, 3 merely such widows as were supported by the 
 church, and, though without official character, were expected to 
 set before the rest of their sex the example of a walk and con¬ 
 versation wholly devoted to God. The first interpretation we 
 hold to be the most probable. Provision for destitute widows 
 
 1 As is pre-supposed in the Cod. Theodos. L. 1G, Tit. 2, Lex. 27 : “ Nulla nisi emen- 
 sis GO annis secundum praeeeptum Apostuli (comp. 1 Tim. v. 9) ad Diaconissarum con¬ 
 sortium transferatur.” Among modern scholars this interpretation is defended par¬ 
 ticularly by Rothe, p. 243, et seg., and Wieseler; Chronol. des apost. Zeitalters, p. 309, 
 et seg. 
 
 2 So Chrysostom, and, after him, especially JMosheim, in his Exposition of the 
 Epistles to Timothy, p. 444-44G (who had before, on the contrary, in his Comment, de 
 reb. chr. a. Const. M., referred the passage to the deaconesses), Ileidenreich, De 
 Wette, and Wiesinger, ad loc. 
 
 •' t Apost. Gesch. p. 2G5, et seg. So also Jerome, Theodoret, and others. 
 
220 
 
 § 135. DEACONESSES. 
 
 [ill. BOOK. 
 
 was, from the first, an important branch of practical charity in 
 the Christian church (comp. Acts vi. 1). But it was at the same 
 time highly desirable to make this class of persons, if possible, 
 of service to the church, even from regard for the poor them¬ 
 selves, that they might eat their bread with honour and satisfac¬ 
 tion, without violating the maxim : “ If any would not work, 
 neither should he eat” (2 Thess. iii. 10). Respecting this Paul 
 now furnishes the necessary instructions (1 Tim. v. 3, et seq .) 
 He first speaks of widows in general, and directs, that the church 
 support those who are u widows indeed,” i.e. truly solitary and 
 helpless (as the Greek term ^pa, the desolate , of itself implies), 
 and who lead an honourable and pious life in retired communion 
 with God ; but not those who had children or other relatives to 
 depend on, or who by their irregular conduct had already cut off 
 their spiritual connection with the church (verses 3-8). Then in 
 verses 9 and 10 he distinguishes in the circle of these pious widows 
 a still smaller class of those who were matriculated or enrolled, 
 and demands in them certain qualifications, which it is most 
 natural to refer to the office of deaconess. If we understand 
 KaraXeyeo’&o, ver. 9, of an insertion merely in the list of those who 
 were to be supported from the congregational fund, the limitation 
 of this benefit to such as were over sixty years of age and had 
 been but once married, is repugnant to reason and Christian 
 charity; since younger widows and those of a second marriage 
 might be equally destitute and worthy of assistance. It is also 
 inconsistent with the context; for Paul himself, ver. 14, advises 
 the younger widows to marry again, which, in this view, would 
 have been to cut themselves off* from all prospect of help in case 
 of a second widowhood. This interpretation, too, leaves it inex¬ 
 plicable, why he should speak of a special vow, to which he seems 
 to refer in the words : on rrjv Trpdorrjv nianv rjOeTrjaav , ver. 12. The 
 difficulty falls away, if KaraXeyeo-dco be understood to mean election 
 and ordination to a particular office. And to this also the other 
 requisitions mentioned would seem to look. For, in addition to 
 advanced age, securing general respect and constancy in service, 1 
 and besides monogamy, which was also required of bishops and 
 
 deacons (1 Tim. iii. 2, 12), the apostle demands of such a widow, 
 
 % 
 
 1 The church subsequently did not limit itself strictly to the sixty years. The 
 council of Ohaleedon reduced the age of service for deaconesses to the fortieth year. 
 
GOVERNH.] 
 
 § 13G. THE APOCALYPTIC ANGELS. 
 
 221 
 
 that she should have an unspotted reputation, experience in the 
 training of children, and some distinction for hospitality, bene¬ 
 volence, and exemplary piety in general. This prescription, 
 however, does not necessarily exclude virgins from the office of 
 deaconess, where they had the requisite moral qualifications ; 
 though for many of its duties these were certainly not so well 
 fitted as experienced, venerable matrons. 1 
 
 § 136. The Angels of the Apocalypse. Rise of Primitive 
 
 Episcopacy. 
 
 Finally, at the close of the apostolic period, we meet with a 
 peculiar class of officers, the angels of the seven churches of Asia 
 Minor, to whom the epistles in the Revelation of St John (chaps, 
 ii. andiii.) are addressed, and who mark the transition from the 
 apostolical to the episcopal constitution in its primitive Catholic 
 form. What these angels were is, however, a matter of contro¬ 
 versy. The basis of our interpretation must be the passage, 
 i. 20: “ The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; 
 and the seven candlesticks, which thou sawest, are the seven 
 churches.” 1. We must at the outset discard the view, that the 
 angels here correspond to the deputies of the Jewish synagogues 
 (the legati ecclesiae ). 2 For these had an entirely sub¬ 
 
 ordinate place, being mere clerks, or readers of the standing 
 forms of prayers, and messengers of the synagogues ; whereas the 
 angels in question are compared to stars, and represented as pre¬ 
 siding over the churches; nor have we elsewhere any trace of 
 the transfer of that Jewish office to the Christian church. 2. Nor, 
 on the other hand, can we consider them as proper angels, the 
 heavenly guardians and representatives of the churches; as with 
 
 1 Many expositors, following Chrysostom, take also the women mentioned in 1 Tim. 
 iii. 11 for deaconesses. But the term yuvcuxts is too indefinite for this, and the whole 
 connection gives it much rather a reference to the wives of deacons and bishops. 
 
 2 So Vitringa, Lightfoot, even Bengel, and latterly also Winer, who, in the 3d ed. 
 
 of his Reallexik., under the article “ Synagogen,” Part II. p. 550, Note 2, confidently 
 affirms: “ The *.yyOos r»;V \xxXvnrlxs Kev. ii. 2, is simply the —with a 
 
 reference to Ewald’s Comment, on the Apoc. p. 104. Against this De Wette, ad 
 Apoc. i. 20 (p. 41), justly observes: “ No interpretation can be more opposed to the 
 spirit of the book. How could the author, who so often speaks of angels, and of their 
 presiding over particular spheres (vii. 1; ix. 11; xvi. 5), be led to use the terra here 
 in so low and common a sense?” 
 
222 
 
 § 136. THE APOCALYPTIC ANGELS. [ill. BOOK. 
 
 Daniel every nation has its tutelar angel. 1 For it is altogether 
 incompatible with the Biblical idea of angels, that letters should 
 be written to them, with exhortations to repentance, fidelity, and 
 steadfastness, describing them as rich, poor, hot, cold, lukewarm, 
 and as having a particular place of residence. 3. More probable 
 is the view, that the angels here are nothing but a figurative per¬ 
 sonification of the churches themselves. 2 In favour of this 
 hypothesis are the facts, that their names are never mentioned ; 
 that their persons are left entirely out of view ; and that what 
 the Spirit writes to them, is intended for the whole congregation. 
 But it is decisive against this view, that in chap. i. 20 they are 
 explicitly distinguished from the golden candlesticks or churches ; 
 and as these are thus already exhibited under a figure, it would 
 be evidently incongruous and confusing to personify them again 
 under another image in the same connection,—that is, to express 
 one symbol, the candlesticks, by another, the stars. 4. The only 
 true interpretation, as well as the oldest and most generally re¬ 
 ceived, is the one, which makes the angels the rulers and teachers 
 of the congregations, whom Daniel (xii. 3) also compares to stars. 
 They are styled angels, as being the ambassadors or messengers 
 of God to the churches, 3 on whom devolved the pastoral care and 
 government (comp. Matth. xviii. 10; Acts xii. 15), and who 
 were thus accountable for the condition of their charges (comp. 
 Acts xx. 28). This term is chosen, therefore, to remind the 
 rulers of their divine mission, their high vocation, and their 
 heavy responsibility. So in Mai. ii. 7 the priest is called the 
 u messenger (angel) of the Lord;” and in Mai. iii. 1 it is said of 
 the prophet, the forerunner of the Messiah : u Behold I will send 
 my messenger” (angel); as also in Matth. xi. 10, where this pro¬ 
 phecy, with its honorary title, is fixed on John the Baptist (comp, 
 also Haggai i. 13 : u Then spake Haggai, the Lord’s angel, in 
 the Lord’s message unto the people.” Is. xlii. 19 ; xliv. 26). 
 
 1 So some church fathers ; and, of modern commentators on the Apocalypse, Ziillig 
 and De Wette, the latter of whom, however, approaches the third view, making the 
 angels to be the churches themselves in their spiritual, heavenly relation. 
 
 2 So Arethas, Salmasius, Gabler, and others. 
 
 3 Not conversely, the messengers of the churches to God, as Dr Robinson has it in 
 his Lexic. (p. 6, new ed. 1850): “ The angels of the seven churches are probably the 
 prophets or pastors of those churches, who were the messengers, delegates, of the 
 churches to God in the offering of prayer, service,” etc. 
 
GOVERNM.] § 136. THE APOCALYPTIC ANGELS. 
 
 223 
 
 But this interpretation still leaves room for two different views. 
 Either the angels are concrete individuals ; and then they must 
 be regarded as actual bishops, though with very small dioceses, 
 not exceeding the bounds of a moderate pastoral charge, with the 
 only exception perhaps of Ephesus. This is the view of almost 
 all the Catholic expositors, and of most of the English Episco¬ 
 palians. 1 And we should have here, accordingly, a proof of the 
 existence of the episcopal system, at least in its incipient form, 
 towards the close of the first century, when the Apocalypse was 
 written. 2 Or they may be the ministry collectively, the whole 
 board of officers, including both the presbyters and the deacons. 8 
 This view has unquestionably in its favour the passages already 
 quoted from the Old Testament, where the name angel is applied 
 to the whole priestly and prophetical order; as also the fact, 
 that certainly not the bishops alone, but all the officers were re¬ 
 sponsible for the moral state of their churches, and formed the 
 proper representation of them. Compare Acts xx. 17, 28, which 
 shows that at least in the time of Paul there were a number of 
 elders in Ephesus, to whom collectively it belonged to u feed the 
 church of God also 1 Peter v. 1-5. 
 
 But even in the latter case the impartial inquirer must allow 
 that this phraseology of the Apocalypse already looks towards the 
 idea of episcopacy in its primitive form, that is, to a monarchical 
 concentration of governmental power in one person, bearing a 
 
 1 Dr Thiersch also favours this interpretation in his Gesch. der opost. Kirche, p. 
 278, where he says, “ What are the angels of the seven churches but superior pastors, 
 each at the head of a congregation, and at least similar to the later bishops ? The 
 ancients looked on them as bishops. Of all the church fathers who touch upon the 
 matters, not one (?) thinks of any other interpretation.” 
 
 2 Among the ancients the word <x.yyi\os, like its grammatical equivalent aTsVroX©?, 
 sometimes occurs as the designation of a bishop, as in Socrates, H. E. IY. 23; and 
 in the Anglo-Saxon church the corresponding expression, Gods Bydels, i.e. Die 
 nuntii et ministri, comp. Bingham’s Orig. I. 83, and Rothe 1. c. p. 503. Such use 
 of these terms, however, no doubt arose from the above interpretation of the Apoca¬ 
 lypse, and hence proves nothing for the antiquity of episcopacy. 
 
 3 So, among modern commentators, especially Hengstenberg, Die Offenb. des h. 
 
 Job. I., p. 153, et seq. He refers, not inaptly, to the introduction of Polycarp’s 
 epistle to the Philippians : “Polycarp and the elders with him (xou oi *e,i<r- 
 
 pCnzoi) to the church of God dwelling at Philippi,” and to the superscription of the 
 epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians: “ Especially if they are one with the 
 bishop, and with the presbyters and the deacons, who are with him.” It must be 
 admitted, however, that here, particularly in the epistles of Ignatius, even in the 
 smaller recension, the bishop plainly rises above the presbyters as the chief leader 
 and responsible head of the church. 
 
224 
 
 5 136. 
 
 THE APOCALYPTIC ANGELS. [ill. BOOK. 
 
 patriarchal relation to the congregation, and responsible, in an 
 eminent sense for the spiritual condition of the whole. This 
 view is confirmed by the fact, that among the immediate disciples 
 of John we find at least one—Polycarp—who according to 
 the unanimous tradition of Irenseus (his own disciple, himself a 
 bishop), 1 of Tertullian, 2 Eusebius, 3 and Jerome, 4 was, by apos¬ 
 tolical appointment, actually bishop of Smyrna, one of the seven 
 churches of the Apocalypse. Add to this the statement of 
 Clement of Alexandria, 5 that John after his return from Patmos 
 appointed “bishops the Epistles of Ignatius, of the beginning 
 of the second century, which already distinguish the bishop from 
 the presbytery, as the head of the congregation, and in which 
 the three orders pyramidically culminate in a regular hierarchy, 
 although without the least trace yet of a primacy; and finally, 
 the fact, that Asia Minor was the very region where the rapid 
 growth of heresies, and the pressure of outward dangers urged 
 towards the establishment of a firmly consolidated system of 
 government;—and we assuredly have much in favour of the 
 hypothesis so learnedly and ingeniously set forth lately by Dr 
 Rothe, that the germs of episcopacy are to be found as early as 
 the close of the first century, and particularly in the sphere of 
 the later labours of St John. Dr Thiersch arrives at a similar re¬ 
 sult. But even in this case we must still, with the latter historian, 
 insist on an important distinction between the “ angels” of the 
 book of Revelation, and the later diocesan bishops. For, aside 
 from the very limited extent of their charges, as compared with 
 the large territory of most Greek, Roman Catholic and Anglican 
 bishops, these angels stood below the apostles and their legates, 
 and were not yet invested with the great power (particularly the 
 right to confirm and ordain), which fell to the later bishops 
 after the death of the apostles. For, while they lived, they were 
 beyond all question the holders and executives of the supreme 
 authority in doctrine and government, and administered ordina¬ 
 tion either in person or by their delegates. The latter is ex¬ 
 pressly affirmed of John, in the statement of Clement of 
 
 1 Adv. Haer. III. 3. 
 
 2 He praescr. Haer. c. 32 : “ Sicut Smyrnaeorum ecclesia Poly carp um ab Joanne 
 
 conlocatum refert.” 3 H. E. III. 36. 
 
 4 Catal. s. Polyc : “ Polycarpus, Joannis apostoli discipulus, ab eo Smyrnae epis- 
 copus ordinatus,” etc. 5 Quis dives salvus, c. 42. 
 
GOVERNM.] § 136. THE APOCALYPTIC ANGELS. 
 
 225 
 
 Alexandria above cited. The angels accordingly, if we are to 
 understand by them single individuals, must be considered as 
 forming the transition from the presbyters of the apostolic age 
 to the bishops of the second century. 
 
 In addition to this, however, the episcopal system was simul¬ 
 taneously making its way also in other parts of the church ; 
 in Jerusalem, where James held in all respects the position of 
 a bishop, as in fact he is directly styled, even by the oldest 
 fathers, bishop of Jerusalem; 1 in Antioch and Rome, whose 
 first bishops are said to have been appointed by the apostles 
 themselves, and are known to us by name on the testimony of 
 such men as Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius, and other 
 ancient documents. Indeed, almost all the evangelists or dele¬ 
 gates of the apostles are in their later years placed by tradition 
 in particular episcopal sees (comp. § 131). If now we consider, 
 in fine, that in the second century the episcopal system existed, 
 as a historical fact, in the whole church, east and west, and was 
 unresistingly acknowledged, nay, universally regarded as at 
 least indirectly of divine appointment; we can hardly escape 
 the conclusion, that this form of government naturally grew out 
 of the circumstances and wants of the church at the end of the 
 apostolic period, and could not have been so quickly and so 
 generally introduced without the sanction, or at least acquiescence, 
 of the surviving apostles, especially of John, who laboured on 
 the very threshold of the second century, and left behind him 
 a number of venerable disciples. At all events it needs a strong 
 infusion of scepticism or of traditional prejudice to enable one, 
 in the face of all these facts and witnesses, to pronounce the 
 episcopal government of the ancient church a sheer apostasy 
 from the apostolic form, and a radical revolution. 2 But as the 
 
 1 Comp, above, § 95, and the close of § 129. 
 
 2 We need scarely say, that our position here is not dogmatical and sectarian at 
 all, but entirely historical. The high antiquity, the usefulness, and the necessity of 
 the episcopal form of government in the times before the Reformation, does not 
 necessarily make it of force for all succeeding ages. For we have no passage in the 
 N. T. which prescribes three orders, or any particular form of church government 
 (excepting the ministry itself), as essential to the existence of the church; and 
 history abundantly proves that Christian life has flourished under various forms of 
 government. Presbyterians (of the Scotch jure divino school) and Episcopalians in 
 this controversy very frequently become equally one-sided and pedantic. While 
 the former set up the apostolic church under a particular traditional view as the 
 
 VOL. IT. P 
 
226 § 136. THE APOCALYPTIC ANGELS. [ill. BOOK. 
 
 clearer data for the rise and character of the episcopal system 
 all lie outside of the New Testament, the more detailed examina¬ 
 tion of them belongs rather to the second period, than to the 
 history of the apostolic church. 
 
 absolute standard, too little regarding even many important facts of the New Testa¬ 
 ment, and either entirely rejecting or distorting the weighty testimony of church 
 antiquity; the latter likewise attribute an undue importance to their opposite system 
 of government, and make the question of outward ecclesiastical organization what 
 it evidently is not, the great central question of the church. The ancient church 
 before and after the Nicene council,—the age to which Anglican Protestantism is so 
 fond of appealing-, and with which it imagines itself identical,—held with the same 
 earnestness to many other doctrines and practices, which are far more Catholic than 
 Protestant, and are discarded even by the English Episcopal church. Think, for 
 instance, of the early views on the primacy, on celibacy, on ascetic and monastic 
 life, on the meritoriousness of good works, on the eucharistic sacrifice, etc. In the 
 great controversy between Catholicism and Protestantism the question between 
 Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism holds an altogether subordinate place. Angli¬ 
 canism, which acknowledges the thirty-nine articles as its symbol, differs from the 
 other churches of the Reformation, not in kind, but only in degree, and in its prin¬ 
 ciple stands or falls with Protestantism as a whole. Hence the Roman church treats 
 Anglican converts, even though they be priests and bishops, just as she treats those 
 who come from Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Puritan ranks, and does not even ac¬ 
 knowledge their confirmation, much less their ordination. 
 
FOURTH BOOK. 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 
 
CHRISTIAN AVORSHIP. 
 
 § 137. Import of the Christian Worship , and its Relation to the 
 
 Jewish. 
 
 Worship has a twofold significance. It is designed, first, to 
 awaken the Christian life, especially by preaching and baptism ; 
 secondly, to sustain and increase the life already existing, to 
 present it as an offering to God, 1 and to celebrate the marriage 
 of the church with her heavenly Bridegroom. This also is done 
 partly by preaching and the exposition of the Scriptures, partly 
 by prayer, singing, confession of faith, and participation in the 
 Lord’s Supper. It has reference exclusively to believers; it is 
 worship in the strict and proper sense, not limited to the church 
 militant, but continued in heaven, forming an essential consti¬ 
 tuent of the eternal bliss, of which it is on earth a foretaste. 
 Public adoration and praise of the triune God is the highest and 
 holiest act which the congregation can perform. Christ, indeed, 
 gave no more complete instructions or binding prescriptions re¬ 
 specting the particular forms of worship, than He did respecting 
 the church constitution. But He sanctioned by His own prac¬ 
 tice, and spiritualized the essential elements of the Jewish cultus; 
 left a model prayer, and the precious promise of his presence in 
 every assembly of believers (Matth. xviii. 20); and at the same 
 time, by the institution of preaching, and of the holy sacraments 
 of baptism and the supper, 2 fixed the fundamental elements ot 
 
 1 Comp. 1 Peter ii. 5. Heb. xiii. 15. 
 
 - Matth. xxviii. 10, 20. Luke xxii. 19. I Cor. xi. 24-20. 
 
230 § 137. IMPORT OF THE CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, [lY. BOOK. 
 
 the Christian worship, from which it then gradually developed 
 itself under the special direction of the Holy Ghost, and accord¬ 
 ing to the necessities of the apostolic age. 
 
 Simultaneously with the rise of the Christian church on the 
 day of Pentecost appeared also the Christian cultus in both its 
 forms, as designed for the edification of the disciples, and for the 
 conversion of unbelievers ; and in Acts ii. 42, the essential parts 
 of this social worship of God are stated as (1) the teaching of 
 the apostles, including preaching and the exposition of the 
 Scriptures, particularly of the prophecies and their fulfilment by 
 Christ; (2) fraternal fellowship, which here embraces no doubt 
 also the contributions for the poor; 1 (3) breaking of bread, that 
 is, the administration of the Lord’s Supper in connection with 
 the agapae; (4) prayer, including petition, intercession, and 
 
 thanksgiving. 
 
 The worship of the primitive church, like its government, was 
 conformed in some measure to the existing institutions of the 
 temple and synagogue ; but these were made to refer to Christ, 
 as their living centre, and were thus spiritualized and trans¬ 
 formed. The apostles felt the need to maintain, as long as was 
 at all possible, their connection with the worship of their fathers, 
 especially as the Lord himself had so often visited the temple, 
 and had participated in the solemnities of the great feasts. They 
 used to visit the sanctuary at the accustomed hours of prayer; 
 Acts iii. 1, and ii. 46, where it is said of the Christians in gene¬ 
 ral, u that they continued daily with one accord in the temple.” 
 But besides this, they assembled also in private houses, as is 
 shown by the words immediately following — u breaking bread 
 from house to house.” 2 Thus the Lord’s Supper, and love-feasts 
 were held at the houses of the converts in rotation, making each 
 family a temple. 
 
 It may with tolerable certainty be supposed that the Jewish 
 Christians, particularly the congregation at Jerusalem, observed 
 the whole ceremonial law with its weekly and yearly festivals, 
 and did not formally renounce the cultus of the Old Testament 
 theocracy till the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. In 
 
 1 Comp. Rom. xv. 26. 2 Cor. viii. 4; ix. 13. 
 
 7 KaT’ oTxov we must translate with Beza, domatim, per singulas dornos, like 
 vot.iv, Titus i. f>, in the sense of oppidatim. 
 
WORSHIP.] AND ITS RELATION TO THE JEWISH. 231 
 
 favour of this view are Paul’s controversy with the Judaising 
 Galatians, 1 whom he opposes, not because they kept the Jewish 
 feasts, but because they set up this observance as a condition of 
 salvation, and wished to lay the yoke of the law even on the 
 Gentile Christians, who were not bound to it; the xivtli and 
 xvth chapters of Romans, where the apostle requires indulgence 
 towards pious Jewish Christians, who scrupulously distinguished 
 days, and lived an ascetic life; the advice which James and his 
 elders gave to Paul in reference to the Nazarite vow (Acts xxi. 
 20-25) ; the term u synagogue,” which James (ii. 2) applies to 
 the worshipping assemblies of Christians; finally, that old tradi¬ 
 tion which makes this James to have daily visited the temple, 
 and prayed on his knees for all the people till his death. With¬ 
 out some such close conformity to the sacred customs of the 
 fathers, there is no accounting for the high reputation of this 
 head of the church of Jerusalem among the proper Jews, and 
 for his being honoured with the title of u the Just.” 2 
 
 Not only the Jewish Christians, however, but even the liberal 
 apostle of the Gentiles, the enemy of all spiritual bondage and 
 mechanical ceremonialism, like a genuine conservative, con¬ 
 formed, as far as possible, to the law, and endeavoured to be to 
 the Jews a Jew, that he might make them Christians; while, 
 on the other hand, he bravely defended the freedom of the 
 Gentiles, to whom the external law had not been given. On his 
 missionary tours, as we have already seen, he always went first 
 into the synagogues, connected his preaching of the gospel with 
 the usual reading and exposition of the Old Testament, and 
 made it his rule to continue in this communion, until thrust out 
 by obdurate unbelief. To this course he faithfully adhered in 
 spite of all the hostilities of particular synagogues. He employed 
 on his ow T n person also, not merely out of accommodation, but 
 from a real sense of its usefulness, the venerable ascetic discipline 
 of the Jews, u to keep his body under,” and strengthen his 
 spiritual life. For even to the regenerate, so long as they re¬ 
 main in the body, the law is a means of salutary discipline, of 
 regulating the passions, and strengthening the will. Witness 
 Paul’s vow at Cenchreae (Acts xviii. 18, 21) ; his earnest desire 
 
 1 Gal. iv. 10; v. 1, d seq. Comp. Col. ii. 16. 
 
 2 Comp, above, § 95. 
 
232 § 137. IMPORT OF THE CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. [iV. BOOK. 
 
 to keep the feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem (xviii. 21; xx. 16); 
 and his joining the Nazarites of the church in that place (xxi. 
 18-21; comp. § 82). It is asserted, indeed, by Baur and his 
 followers, that these traits are irreconcilable with Paul’s anti- 
 Jewish position as set forth particularly in the epistle to the 
 Galatians; and to be therefore attributed to the effort of the 
 author of the Acts, to reconcile the Jewish and Gentile Chris¬ 
 tians. But all that is true in this is, that Luke exhibits with 
 special predilection the conservative aspect of Paul’s course 
 without thereby doing any violence to history. For Paul was 
 opposed not to the law itself, but only to making salvation de¬ 
 pend on the observance of the law or on any human work; 
 thus laying a yoke of slavery on the redeemed spirit, placing the 
 essence of morality and piety, not in the disposition, but in some¬ 
 thing outward and mechanical, and consciously or unconsciously 
 repudiating the fundamental principle of the gospel, Christ the 
 only fountain of salvation. And with Opposition to this there 
 might very well be united a high conception of the importance 
 of the law in proper dependence on the gospel, as also of form in 
 due subordination to spirit. Then again Paul admitted, that the 
 Jewish-Christian position was entitled to regard. He explicitly 
 enjoined charity towards the weak, who had not yet been able 
 fully to comprehend the freedom of the gospel; 1 and, in general, 
 he had no desire to do away the national antagonism between 
 Jews and Gentiles (which entered also into matters of religion) 
 by any violent or premature measures. 2 
 
 When at last the divine judgment broke upon obdurate 
 Judaism and destroyed the temple, the centre of the theocratic 
 cultus, then also came forth the Christian worship in full inde¬ 
 pendence from behind the veil. The Jewish and G entile-Chris- 
 tian systems were reconciled by retaining, indeed, in the church 
 the essential elements of the Old Testament service, but divest¬ 
 ing them of their narrow legal character, and regenerating them 
 by the peculiar spirit of the gospel. The Jewish Sabbath was 
 lost in the Christian Sunday. The ancient passover and pente- 
 
 1 Rom. xiv. 1-6. 1 Cor. viii. 9-13. 
 
 2 1 Cor. vii. 18-20. Comp, what we have said on former oceasions (§ 07, 71, 76, 82) 
 respecting the conduct of this truly free apostle towards his brethren of the circum¬ 
 cision. 
 
WORSHIP.] § 138. SACRED PLACES AND TIMES. 
 
 233 
 
 cost were exchanged for the feasts of the death and resurrection 
 of Christ and of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, to which 
 they had typically pointed. The bloody sacrifices gave place to 
 the thankful commemoration of the one offering on the cross, 
 which wrought out an eternal redemption. The temple made 
 with hands w^as demolished, but was rebuilt by the crucified and 
 risen Messiah in far greater glory, as a worship of God in spirit 
 and in truth (comp. John ii. 19 ; iv. 23, et seq.) 
 
 § 138. Sacred Places and Times. 
 
 In opposition to the superstitious restriction of the worship of 
 God to a particular place , whether Jerusalem or Gerizim, Chris¬ 
 tianity teaches the purely spiritual and therefore immaterial and 
 omnipresent nature of God, and a corresponding worship of God 
 in spirit and in truth (John iv. 24). The whole world is His 
 temple. Heaven is His throne ; earth His footstool; and every¬ 
 where, even in deserts and in caves, may His presence be fully 
 enjoyed. This of course, however, does not forbid the setting 
 apart particular localities for exclusively religious purposes. 
 
 . Such consecration, on the contrary, is required by our finite, 
 sensuous nature, and the need of social worship. The Christians 
 in Jerusalem, as we have already remarked, visited the temple 
 at the usual hours of prayer; but besides this they assembled 
 also in private houses for devotional purposes, and especially for 
 celebrating the Lord’s Supper. 1 Out of the capital, the syna¬ 
 gogue, where the Lord, 2 and after His example the apostle Paul, 3 
 were accustomed to teach, was the most natural place for the 
 first preaching of the missionaries; and where the whole Jewish 
 population of a city went over to the true faith, the synagogue 
 of itself became a Christian church. But this was probably very 
 rarely the case, or at any rate can have occurred only in the 
 smaller communities. Commonly the new converts were thrust 
 out by the unbelieving majority, and had no alternative but to 
 hire some public place, 4 or to meet for mutual edification in the 
 
 1 Luke xxiv. 53. Acts ii. 46 ; iii. 1; v. 42. 
 
 2 Alatth. iv. 23; ix. 35. Mark i. 39. Luke iv. 15, 44. John xviii. 20. 
 
 3 Acts xiii. 5, 14; xiv. 1 ; xvii. 10, 17 : xviii. 19; xix. 8. 
 
 i Here may perhaps be cited Acts xix. 19, if by Tyrannus we understand not a 
 Kabbi, but, as is more probable, a heathen rhetorician (Suidas mentions a sophist of 
 
234 
 
 § 138. SACRED PLACES AND TIMES. 
 
 [IV. BOOK. 
 
 private houses of their more prominent brethren, as in the house 
 of Lydia at Philippi (Acts xvi. 15, 40), of Jason at Thessalonica 
 (xvii. 5, 7), of Justus at Corinth (xviii. 7), of Aquila and Pris¬ 
 cilla at Ephesus (1 Cor. xvi. 10). In the larger cities and con¬ 
 gregations there were several such places of meeting, and the 
 assemblies of Christians, which held their regular devotional 
 exercises in them, were for this reason called the churches of 
 such and such a house} That separate church edifices were 
 erected during this period, is of course not to be supposed; 
 because the Christians were too poor, but especially because they 
 had as yet no legal existence as a body in the Roman empire, 
 and public places of devotion would only have increased the 
 zeal of the Jews and pagans against them. Thus did the greatest 
 teachers preach in the humblest places ! Nay, the Saviour of 
 the world was born in a stable, and the Lord of glory lay in a 
 manger! 
 
 With the i time of divine worship the case was the same as 
 with the place. The absolute spirituality of God, which the 
 Saviour opposes to the narrow, sensuous notions of the Samaritan 
 woman (John iv. 21, et seq.) y implies, that God may and should 
 be worshipped not only everywhere, but also at all times. Chris¬ 
 tianity has, therefore, in reality abolished the former abstract 
 distinction of sacred and secular seasons, as well as the distinc¬ 
 tion of clean and unclean beasts and nations (comp. Acts x. 11, 
 et seq.) It redeems man in every respect from subjection to the 
 perishable forces of nature. In idea, the ichole life of the Christian 
 should be an unbroken Sunday, every day and every hour being 
 devoted to the service of the Lord; and what here lies before us 
 as the grand moral problem of our lives, will one day find its 
 full solution in the eternal sabbath of the saints, which is pro¬ 
 mised to the people of God !” 2 But as the limitation of our earthly 
 life by space requires particular places of worship, so the tem- 
 
 this name), and by his “ school,” in which Paul taught for two years, a philosophical 
 lecture-room. 
 
 1 Exxtetrlxi * 5047 -' oTxov. Rom. xvi. 4, 5, 14, 15. 1 Cor. xvi. 19. Col. iv. 15. Philem. 2. 
 Comp, above, § 132. 
 
 2 Comp. Heb. iv. 1 - 11 . Rev. xiv. 13. This ideal point of view Dr Neander, in his 
 articles Ueber die christliche Sonntagsfeier (in the “ Deutsche Zeitschrift fur christ- 
 liche Wissenschaft und christliches Leben,” 1850, No. 26-28), holds too exclusively, 
 and allows, therefore, of no satisfactory vindication of the Sabbath. 
 
WORSHIP.] § 138. SACRED PLACES AND TIMES. 235 
 
 poral character of our existence and the nature of our avocations 
 demand, even for the sake of order, the separation of certain 
 hours and days for exclusively religious purposes. While the 
 where and when, not indeed of the more spiritual Old Testa¬ 
 ment worship, yet of the popular Jewish as well as pagan cultus, 
 stood opposed to the everywhere and always of the Christian 
 system ; the latter, on the other hand, can and does without 
 prejudice to its spiritual and universal character accommodate 
 itself to place and time, and will do so, till the earthly order of 
 things shall be wholly transformed into a heavenly and eternal. 
 So in fact with prayer. We should be always in the spirit of 
 prayer. Our whole life should be an unbroken intercourse with 
 God (1 Thess. v. 17). Nevertheless we are obliged to pray in the 
 strict sense, to pour out our souls in petition, intercession, and 
 thanksgiving before God, at certain times. 
 
 The apostle Paul seems indeed at first sight to repudiate all 
 separation of days, months, and years as times of special solem¬ 
 nity. 1 He censures it in the Galatians as a falling back to the 
 elementary religion of carnal Judaism and to the bondage of the 
 law, nay, as a pagan nature-worship, that after being converted 
 from heathenism to Christianity they suffered the observance of 
 Jewish Sabbaths and fast-days (r}yepas), new moons (p^i/as), yearly 
 feasts, such as the Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles 
 ( Kcupovs), the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee ( eviavrous ), to 
 be imposed upon them by Judaizing errorists. But we have to 
 remember, that Paul here has in view a slavish, superstitious 
 observance of these feasts, as though the salvation of all, Gentiles 
 as well as Jews, depended on it; an observance, which, there¬ 
 fore, in reality sinks to the level of the pagan nature-worship, 
 since the sun, moon, and planets produce those divisions of time, 
 and are for this reason worshipped by the heathen as divine. 
 This carnal, superstitious, and self-righteous sabbatism, which we 
 observe also in the Colossian errorists (Col. ii. 16), stands un¬ 
 doubtedly in conflict with the fundamental doctrine of justifying, 
 sanctifying, and saving faith in Christ as the only Redeemer, and 
 with evangelical freedom. That Paul, however, did not condemn 
 the observance of sacred times in themselves and under any cir- 
 
 1 Gal. iv. 8-11. Comp. Col. ii. 16. 
 
236 
 
 § 138. SACKED PLACES AND TIMES. 
 
 [lY. BOOK. 
 
 cumstances, is proved by his indulgence towards the scrupulous 
 Jewish Christians in Rome (Rom. xiv. 5, 6), and by his own 
 practice, his ardent desire to keep the feast of Pentecost in Jeru¬ 
 salem. 1 It is with this as with the law in general. In its tem¬ 
 poral and national form and as a yoke of bondage, it is abolished 
 by the gospel, but in its inmost spirit and essence it is fulfilled, 
 preserved, and transformed into the internal, free, living power 
 of love (Matth. v. 17); and as Christ is, on the one hand, the 
 end of the law and the prophets, so on the other, He himself is 
 the supreme lawgiver and prophet, and His life and Spirit are the 
 absolute rule and guide of the new, regenerate existence. 2 
 
 From this point of view the sacred times of the church are to 
 be looked upon, not as a Jewish yoke, but as a salutary and in¬ 
 dispensable ordinance of evangelical freedom, in which the Chris¬ 
 tian acquiesces with joy and gratitude, rises above the din of 
 every-day life and business to the enjoyment of a heavenly, 
 spiritual feast, and consecrates all his pursuits to the service of 
 God. They are not a quittance for all other times, so that a 
 man may confine his piety (as alas! many Christians do even to 
 this day in their carnal Jewish notions) to Sunday and the hours 
 of prayer, and then, so to speak, clear his account with God for 
 a whole week, that he may during the week devote himself the 
 more uninterruptedly to the world. They are a means for the 
 gradual attainment of the power to u pray without ceasing,” and 
 for bringing about that state of things, in which all distinction of 
 times shall disappear, and we shall be at all times before the 
 throne of God, serving Him day and night (Rev. vii. 1*5). 
 
 In the division of the day the apostles and first Christians freely 
 conformed to Jewish usage, and were accustomed to offer their 
 prayers either in the temple or at home, especially in an upper 
 chamber and upon the roof, at the third, sixth, and ninth hours, 
 or, according to our reckoning, at nine o’clock, the hour of morn¬ 
 ing sacrifice, at twelve, and at three, the time of evening sacrifice. 3 
 To this they added the regular thanksgiving before and after 
 
 1 Acts xviii. 21; xx. 16. Comp. 1 Cor. xvi. 2, 8. 
 
 2 Comp. Rom. iii. 27, where the apostle speaks of a “ law of faith;” Gal. vi. 2, 
 where he speaks of a “ law’ of Christand Rom. viii. 2, where he speaks of a “ law’ 
 of the Spirit of life.” 
 
 3 Acts ii. 15; iii. 1 ; x. 9, 30. 
 
WORSHIP. ] 
 
 § 139. THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. 
 
 237 
 
 meat, 1 as well as tlieir private devotions after rising in the morn¬ 
 ing and before retiring to tlieir rest. 
 
 As to the celebration of particular days of the week; we might 
 infer, indeed, from the universal practice of the second century, 
 that already in the first century Wednesday, and especially 
 Friday, the day of Christ’s death, were celebrated by a half-fast 
 (semijejunia) ; for such customs cannot spring into vogue sud¬ 
 denly. But no proof of this can be cited from the New Testa¬ 
 ment. That Sunday was observed by the apostles, however, as 
 the day of Christ’s resurrection, is certain, and its importance 
 demands for it a more minute examination. 
 
 § 139. The Christian Sunday. 
 
 For weekly worship the Mosaic law, and in fact the original 
 order of the creation, appointed the seventh day, as a day of holy 
 rest; not for slothful inactivity, but for the adoration of God, the 
 highest and happiest work of the soul. The Christians, indeed, 
 taking pattern from the daily morning and evening sacrifices in 
 the temple, were accustomed to meet every day for social edifica¬ 
 tion and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The book of 
 Acts expressly tells us (ii. 46), that they continued u daily” with 
 one accord in the temple, and broke bread from house to house ; 
 and (xix. 9) that Paul preached the gospel u daily” in the school 
 of Tyrannus at Ephesus. But with this the believers united 
 from the first the special consecration of one day in the week to 
 the worship of God, and thus, even when the daily meetings 
 could not be uniformly kept up, they devoted at least the seventh 
 part of their lifetime exclusively to the interest of the immortal 
 soul. The Jewish Christians, as already remarked, adhered to 
 the Old Testament Sabbath, especially in Palestine ; but with it 
 they celebrated also the first day of the week in memory of the 
 Saviour’s resurrection, and that too, it would appear, from the 
 very day of the resurrection onward (comp. John xx. 19, 26), 
 which they looked upon as sanctioned for such purpose by Christ 
 himself. For the assertion of some moderns (even Neander), 
 that the observance of Sunday arose first in Paul’s churches 
 (some twenty years afterwards), and thence passed to the others, 
 
 1 Comp. Matth. xv. 39. John vi. 11. Acts xxvii. 35. 1 Cor. x. 30, et seq. 1 Tim. 
 
 iv. 3-5. 
 
238 
 
 § 139. THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. [lY. BOOK. 
 
 is altogether gratuitous, and extremely improbable in view of the 
 scrupulous adherence of the Jewish converts to the traditional 
 forms of piety, and their jealousy of any innovation, especially 
 those which originated with the Gentiles. The Gentile Chris¬ 
 tians, for whom the ceremonial law had no authority, distin¬ 
 guished in this way only the first day of the week, as the day of 
 the completion of the new creation. After the destruction of 
 Jerusalem this became the prevailing practice of the Christian 
 church, and gradually supplanted the observance of the Jewish 
 Sabbath. 1 
 
 The apostolical origin of the Christian Sabbath may be inferred 
 with tolerable certainty from several passages of the New Testa¬ 
 ment ; especially if we add to them the unequivocal testimony of 
 tradition from the end of the first century and the beginning of 
 the second, according to which, Sunday was at that time already 
 universally observed in the church. 2 The first clear trace of the 
 celebration of Sunday we meet in Acts xx. 7. From this we see, 
 that the Christians assembled on the first day of the week for 
 mutual edification and for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, 
 and that Paul waited in Troas till this particular day, that he 
 might enjoy a long and cordial talk with them ee until midnight” 
 respecting the kingdom of God. Again, it appears from 1 Cor. 
 xvi. 2, that Sunday was the day appointed by the apostle, for the 
 Christians to lay by their charitable contributions for the' poor. 
 Still weightier is the testimony of the Revelation of St John, of 
 later date. For while in the two cases cited from Paul’s history 
 this day bears no distinctive, sacred name, but is called simply 
 the first day of the week, the first day after the Sabbath, 3 it appears 
 in Rev. i. 10 already under the significant appellation : u the 
 
 1 In some single Jewish-Christian communities in the East, however, the Jewish 
 Sabbath was retained for a long time together with the Christian Sunday. Euseb. 
 
 III. 27. 
 
 2 See the Epistle of Barnabas , ch. 15; Ignatius, Ep. ad Magnes. ch. 9: (“ The 
 Christians celebrate no longer the Sabbath, but the Lord’s day, on which their life 
 arose to them by Him”); the famous letter of the younger Pliny to Trajan, Epist. 
 X. 97 ; Justin Martyr, etc. It is absolutely inconceivable, that so important an in¬ 
 stitution as the Christian Sabbath could have come into perfectly universal observ¬ 
 ance in so short a time, and supplanted the Jewish Sabbath enjoined by the Mosaic 
 Decalogue, without the sanction of the apostles. 
 
 2 M/at tmv <r(Z utuv (comp. Matth. xxviii. 1. Mark xvi. 2. Luke xxiv. 1). This 
 phrase Luther has wrongly translated, taking <ru.fifitx.Tu. in the strict sense, whereas it 
 means, in this connection, the Sabbath-teee/t. 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 139. THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. 
 
 239 
 
 Lord’s clay” (fj <vpia<r) rjpepa ); that is, the day of Christ, to whom 
 John refers everything. In the same sense the paschal supper is 
 styled in 1 Cor. xi. 20 u the Lord’s Supper.” This expression 
 plainly points to the religious observance of Sunday, on which 
 the holy seer received the revelation of* the future triumphs of 
 Christ and His church ; and it shows at the same time the place 
 which that day held in the minds of the primitive Christians. 1 
 Sunday was the day which the Lord had made and given to His 
 church, and which, therefore, in an altogether peculiar manner 
 belonged, and should be devoted, to Him ; the day of His resur¬ 
 rection, , of the finishing and sealing of the new creation and the 
 triumph over sin, death, and hell. The resurrection of Christ 
 is the centre of our faith and the ground of our hope ; and we 
 have every reason to suppose, that He himself intended to conse¬ 
 crate the day of His resurrection in the view of His disciples when 
 He re-appeared to them, not only on that day itself, but exactly 
 on the eighth day after for the sake of Thomas; when He blessed 
 them on it with His divine peace ; and when he poured out His 
 Holy Spirit upon them on the fiftieth day after, which was like¬ 
 wise a Sunday (comp. § 54), thus at the same time consecrating 
 it as the birth-dciy of the Christian church. In these facts is to be 
 found the objective divine sanction of the observance of Sunday. 
 From them the observance necessarily developed itself. And 
 they give us at the same time a hint as to the idea and import of 
 Sunday in distinction from the Sabbath. 
 
 For as this new creation, the resurrection of Christ and the 
 founding of His church, is greater than the first creation of the 
 heavens and the earth, and brings it to its perfection, so does 
 the Christian Sunday transcend the Jewish Sabbath. The 
 Sabbath commemorated the natural creation (Ex. xx. 11 ; xxxi. 
 17), and at the same time (what should not be overlooked) the 
 typical redemption, the exodus of Israel from his Egyptian bon¬ 
 dage (comp. Deut. v. 15). 2 Sunday, on the contrary, is the 
 
 1 Weitzel, Die christliche Passafeier der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, p. 170, justly ob¬ 
 serves: “ Why did the prophet receive his visions on this particular day? Because 
 the xv^otxri is the day of unusually absorbing intercourse with the Lord, the day of 
 uncommonly deep intuition ; because on this day men, even in primitive times, were 
 very peculiarly favoured with revelations of Christ.” 
 
 2 It is worthy of remark, that this Exodus took place in the night of the fourteenth, 
 upon the fifteenth, of Nisan ; therefore not on the seventh, but on the first day of the 
 
240 § 139. THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. [iY. BOOK. 
 
 festival of the moral creation, of the regeneration of humanity 
 to a holy and blissful life, and of the perfect redemption through 
 Christ, the Prince of life and peace. The former is only a type 
 and prophecy of the latter; the latter is at once the anti-type 
 and fulfilment of the former, and a precious pledge of the 
 promised eternal rest of God in man and man in God, the un¬ 
 broken spiritual feast of the heavenly Canaan. 1 By the humilia¬ 
 tion of Christ in the tomb, by the rejection of the Saviour of the 
 world, the Jewish Sabbath was. desecrated, 2 and made a day of 
 mourning. But from its ruins arose, with the bursting of the 
 
 first-fruits of the new creation from the grave of the old, the 
 
 <—' * 
 
 idea of a day of the eternal Sun of Righteousness ; of victory 
 over all the powers of darkness; of holy spiritual freedom, of 
 divine joy, the “joy in the Holy Ghost,” which should sanctify 
 all earthly happiness. The temporary, unessential form of the 
 Mosaic sabbatical institution was stripped away, but its substance 
 preserved, spiritualized, and fully unfolded. From the evan¬ 
 gelical Christian point of view, the observance of this day appears 
 not as a yoke or as a matter of constraint, but as an invaluable 
 privilege, a precious gift of God, a weekly season of refreshing 
 and of delightful communion with God and with saints, a fore¬ 
 taste of eternal bliss. In fact, the Old Testament Sabbath was 
 in its deepest import not merely a duty, but also a right to rest 
 in the midst of unrest; a privilege of freedom in earthly bond¬ 
 age. It was not merely a binding statute, but at the same time 
 a gracious release from the accompanying and equally binding 
 command to labour; a memento of the blessed rest of God and 
 the redemption of his people ; a gospel, therefore, in the law, 
 a “little refreshing paradise on the cursed soil of the world.” 
 This merciful design of the sabbatical institution is especially 
 manifest in the express reference of the fourth commandment to 
 man-servant and maid-servant, to the stranger, and even to the 
 beast of burden, and in such passages as Exod. xxiii. 12, and 
 Num. x. 10, where the Sabbath and all the festival days are 
 represented as days of joy and refreshment. Here we discern 
 
 week, on Sunday, as appears from a comparison of Exod. xii. 1-6 with Exod. xvi. 1 
 and 5, et seq. 
 
 1 Comp. Heb. iv. 1-11. Rev. xiv. 13. 
 
 2 In the same sense in which the temple was destroyed by His crucifixion ; that is, 
 the whole temple worship became invalid, comp. John ii. 19. 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 139. THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. 
 
 241 
 
 the connection of the Sabbath with the original Eden of innocence 
 as well as with the future Eden of redemption, when the groan¬ 
 ing creation shall be freed from subjection to vanity, and brought 
 into the glorious liberty of the children of God (comp. I\om. 
 viii. 19, et seq.) This sweet kernel of the gospel, hid beneath 
 the shell of the Old Testament law, reached its perfect growth 
 in Christ. Hence He calls himself also in this sense the Lord 
 of the Sabbath (Mattli. xii. 8), as conversely Sunday is called 
 His day. For Christ has become the end of the law by fulfilling 
 it. He is our peace (Eph. ii. 14), our rest from all the anxious 
 works of the law, the refreshment of all the weary and heavy 
 laden (Matth. xi. 28) ; and as the true light of the world, as 
 the eternal spiritual sun, He makes the first day of the week a 
 real Sunday , giving life and heat to its planets, the days of 
 labour. 
 
 This direct derivation of the church festival of Sunday from 
 the living centre of the gospel, Jesus Christ, the risen Prince of 
 life, is certainly the primitive Christian view of it, and the one 
 which best answers particularly to Paul’s system of doctrine; 
 whereas the exclusively legal view, which bases the institution 
 primarily and directly on the fourth commandment, in the first 
 place affords no sufficient explanation of the transfer of the 
 Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, and 
 secondly is utterly irreconcilable with the clear declarations of 
 the New Testament. For our Lord more than once condemns 
 the carnal, narrow-minded scrupulousness of the Jews in regard 
 to the Sabbath, as in Matth. xii. 1-8, 9-14. Mark ii. 27 ; John 
 vii. 22, 23; as also does the apostle Paul in Gal. iv. 8-11; 
 Col. ii. 16, 17, where he represents the Sabbaths and other Old 
 Testament festivals as mere shadowy types, and points from 
 them to Christ, the living, bodily substance. 1 In our view, the 
 
 1 There is only one passage in the New Testament which seems to favour the legal 
 Jewish view, viz., Matth. xxiv. 20—“ Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, 
 neither on the Sabbath-day.” In the first place, however, the reference here is not 
 to the Christian Sabbath, but to the Jewish; and, secondly, the Sabbath here comes 
 into view, as carrying at that time a restraining force, being thus a parallel to winter 
 (comp. Hengstenberg’s “ Kirchenzeitung,” 1851, p. 47). Otherwise the passage 
 would prove too much. It would sanction the legalism and stiff formalism of the 
 Pharisees in the outward observance of the law; which, however, the Lord, in the 
 passages above cited, most unequivocally denounces. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 Q 
 
242 
 
 § 139. THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. 
 
 [iY. BOOK. 
 
 seventh day being the day of the Lord’s abode in the tomb, was 
 not at all suitable for the Christian weekly festival. The day 
 of His resurrection is the only proper one for this. And it is 
 genuinely evangelical to begin with thanksgiving for the gift of 
 divine grace, with the solemn commemoration of redeeming 
 love, to which we owe everything ; and on this to build our own 
 work. “We love Him because He first loved us.” It is to be 
 remembered besides, that even the Old Testament Sabbath, 
 though the seventh day of God’s labour, was not the seventh 
 of man’s; that on the contrary, it was to the original pair the 
 first day after their complete creation, a holy day, which they 
 spent under the smiles of God before beginning their daily 
 labour in the garden. 1 The essential point in the fourth com¬ 
 mandment is not the appointment of the seventh day, for in the 
 sight of God all days are alike; but the general requisition, 
 that every six days be devoted to labour, and every seventh to 
 rest for the good of both body and soul; or that the seventh 
 part of our earthly life be withdrawn from earthly employments 
 and devoted exclusively to God and to our spiritual interests. 
 Then again, the Old Testament Sabbath should not be placed 
 in an abstract opposition to the other days ; it must be regarded 
 as the head of the whole Jewish system of worship. For the 
 law, in fact, requires, besides the observance of this day, the 
 celebration also of yearly festivals, and the offering of daily 
 morning and evening sacrifices (Num. xxviii. 3-8). The separa¬ 
 tion so often made between the ceremonial law and the moral 
 has very little support from the Scriptures. The former appears, 
 on the contrary, as simply the expansion or continuation of the 
 decalogue. Anna, who “departed not from the temple, but 
 served God with fastings and prayers night and day” (Luke ii. 
 37), fulfilled the real spirit of the Mosaic institution of the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 On the other hand, however, with the merely legal view we 
 must also, and in fact far more decidedly, reject the opposite 
 and much more injurious extreme of a lax latitudinarian or 
 anlinomicm view of Sunday, which deprives it of its divine 
 foundation, bases it on mere utilitarian grounds, and leads in- 
 
 1 Comp, on this point an interesting article in the “ Evang. Kirchenzeitung,” 1850, 
 p. 720. 
 
 \ 
 
WORSHIP.] § 140. THE YEARLY FESTIVALS. 243 
 
 variably to a greater or less profanation of it. Against this the 
 legal view, provided only it exclude not the evangelical, main¬ 
 tains its full authority, as grounded in the relation of the Sabbath 
 to the original order of the creation and in its organic place in 
 the decalogue amongst the eternally binding moral commands of 
 God. There is also a dangerous pseudo-Pauline extravagance 
 of evangelicalism, which mistakes the import and the perpetual 
 necessity of the divine law, and degenerates into licentiousness. 
 The law is still a schoolmaster to bring the unconverted to Christ, 
 and for believers themselves it is the expression of the holy will 
 of God and the rule of moral conduct. Hence also is the ob¬ 
 servance of Sunday not merely a privilege, but also a duty 
 enjoined upon all Christians, a salutary means of discipline and 
 of grace for a people, an indispensable preserver and promoter 
 of public morality and religion, a mighty barrier to the flood of 
 infidelity, a brazen wall around the word of God, and a source 
 of incalculable blessing to family, state, and church. 1 
 
 Thus, therefore, is the keeping of the Christian Sunday, that 
 u pearl of days,” grounded in the creation, in the giving of the 
 law, and in redemption, in the wants of nature as well as of 
 faith ; a blessed privilege and a holy duty; a gift and a means 
 of grace; a heavenly rest amidst the unrest of earth ; an anti¬ 
 past and pledge of the saints’ eternal sabbath in the kingdom of 
 glory, when God shall be all in all. 
 
 § 140. The Yearly Festivals . 
 
 Finally, as to the yearly festivals; of these we have very few 
 traces in the New Testament. But substantially the same is 
 true of them as of the Sabbath, viz., that the Jewish feasts'are 
 in their temporary, national, and typical form abolished, but in 
 their essence preserved, and, by being referred to Christ, spirit¬ 
 ualized and transformed, or exchanged for others which are 
 
 1 This is incontrovertibly proved, especially by the examples of England, Scotland, 
 and the United States. Hence the Anglo-American realism and the Reformed 
 legalism certainly have their claims over against the German idealism and Lutheran 
 evangelicalism. Though the former cannot be pronounced wholly free from the 
 danger of Pharisaism, the latter, on the other hand, only too often degenerates into 
 practical Sadducism ; and, as to the observance of Sunday in particular, undue strict¬ 
 ness is assuredly less dangerous, and far more beneficial to public morals than undue 
 lax ness. 
 
244 
 
 140. THE YEARLY FESTIVALS. [iV. BOOK. 
 
 better calculated to express and to embody the facts and ideas 
 of the new creation. The yearly festivals, the Passover, 1 the 
 feast of weeks or Pentecost, 2 the feast of Tabernacles, 3 and the 
 great day of atonement, 4 are likewise, it is well known, of divine 
 institution; and it is arbitrary to discard them entirely, at the 
 same time that we maintain the perpetual validity of the 
 command to keep the Sabbath. The moral and ritual laws can¬ 
 not be separated in any such abstract wav ; and Paul in fact 
 looks upon all festival seasons as alike, where he comes out 
 against the Judaistic, self-righteous, and superstitious observance 
 of them. 5 Besides, the Jewish feasts had a typical reference to 
 the main facts of the gospel history ; the Passover, to the death 
 and resurrection of Christ, the true paschal Lamb and the 
 Redeemer of His people from the spiritual bondage of sin ; and 
 Pentecost, to the founding of the Christian church and the 
 gathering of the first-fruits into the garners of eternal life. 
 
 These two feasts, Easter and Pentecost, as transformed by 
 Christianity into the feasts of the resurrection of the Lord and 
 of the outpouring of His Holy Spirit, were accordingly the first 
 which were celebrated by the church. As early as the second 
 century we find them universally and without opposition ob¬ 
 served ; and this gives strong presumptive evidence of their ex¬ 
 istence in the apostolic age. It is asserted, indeed (by Neander 
 for instance), that in the New Testament, at least in Paul’s writ¬ 
 ings, no Christian yearly festivals come to view. But we hold, 
 that the indications of the observance of Easter by the primitive 
 Christians are almost as strong as those of the apostolic observ¬ 
 ance of Sunday, and that in connection with reliable documents 
 from the period immediately following they sufficiently prove the 
 existence of that festival in the apostolic church. Christ crucified 
 and risen was from the first the substance and the all-absorbing 
 object of the Christian consciousness. Sunday derived its signi¬ 
 ficance as a specifically Christian festival entirely from the fact 
 of the resurrection, and was, as it were, a weekly Easter of re- 
 
 1 Exod. xii. 1-28; xxiii. 15. Lev. xxiii. 4-8. Deut. xvi. 1-8. 
 
 2 Exod. xxxiv. 22. Lev. xxiii. 15, 16. Deut. xvi. 10. 
 
 3 Exod. xxiii. 34-42. Deut. xvi. 12-15. 
 
 4 Exod. xxiii. 26-30. Lev. xvi. 1-34. 
 
 5 Gal. iv. 10. Col. ii. 16. Comp. Rom. xiv. 5, 6. 
 
WORSHIP.] § 140. THE YEARLY FESTIVALS. 245 
 
 joicing, as Friday was the day of Christ’s death and therefore a 
 day of fasting and spiritual mourning. Of the Jewish Christians 
 it could not but be expected, that, with the Sabbath and circum¬ 
 cision and the whole ceremonial law, they should also, after the 
 example of the Lord, who was aceustomed particularly to keep the 
 Passover in Jerusalem, 1 observe all the annual feasts appointed 
 by God through Moses, and put into them a Christian meaning. 
 The distinction of days Rom. xiv. 5, certainly refers, not merely 
 to the Sabbath, but to the feasts in general. Paul made the 
 crucified and risen Saviour so much the centre of his whole faith 
 and life, that he must undoubtedly have attached peculiar import¬ 
 ance to the annual commemoration of this £reat f ac t. “ He 
 glories,” says Weitzel, 2 “ in knowing nothing but Jesus Christ 
 and Him crucified. ‘If Christ be not risen,’ exclaims he, ‘your 
 faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins.’ The Holy Ghost is with 
 him the seal of adoption, the earnest of a joyful resurrection, the 
 living bond of Christian fellowship, the fountain of spiritual gifts. 
 The death and the resurrection together with the outpouring of 
 the Spirit are the foundation stones of his whole Christian system. 
 With the original apostles the anniversaries of those events were 
 sacred festival seasons. W r hy should they not have been im¬ 
 portant commemorative occasions also for Paul, who indeed was 
 most solicitous to maintain fellowship with the older apostles and 
 with the primitive church ? ” It is true, there is dispute as to 
 the meaning of 1 Cor. v. 7, 8, where Paul calls Christ the 
 “ Passover sacrificed for us,” and demands that the feast be kept 
 “ with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” i.e. in the 
 Spirit of Christ, who has purged us from all the old leaven of 
 sin. This may possibly refer to the continual observance of the 
 Passover in the heart and by a holy walk. But since according 
 to 1 Cor. xvi. 8 the epistle was written shortly before Easter, it 
 is altogether natural and most probable, that the apostle here 
 alludes to that feast, and distinguishes the Jewish from the Chris¬ 
 tian, the existence of which he thus implies. It is certainly not 
 
 1 John ii. 13; v. 1 ; vi. 4; xi. 55 ; xii. 1; xiii. 1; vii. 2; x. 22. It is very remark¬ 
 able that St John makes the Jewish festivals, especially the Passover, so prominent 
 in the public life and ministry of Christ. He evidently considered them significant 
 types of the leading facts of the Gospel history. 
 
 2 In his work, Die cliristliche Passqfeier der drei ersten Jahrliunderte, 184S, p. 180. 
 
246 
 
 § 140. THE YEARLY FESTIVALS. 
 
 [IV. BOOK. 
 
 accidental, that he waited for Pentecost in his own Gentile- 
 Christian congregation of Ephesus, and esteemed it a privilege 
 to spend it with them (eVt/icvS ev ’E (fievcp eios rrjs TS’fVTCKOO’Txjs ) ; as 
 also he tarried in Troas till the next Sunday (Acts xx. 6). But 
 besides this we have the explicit and conclusive statement of the 
 Acts of the Apostles, that Paul spent Easter of the year 58 in 
 the Gentile-Christian congregation of Philippi, not departing till 
 the feast was over; and that he then hastened his journey, and 
 even sailed by Ephesus, in order to keep Pentecost in Jerusalem 
 (Acts xviii. 21; xx. 6, 16). 
 
 But finally, the testimonies from the second century are here 
 worthy of all attention. 
 
 In the well known paschal controversies, which related to the 
 time of the festival of Christ’s death and resurrection, not to the 
 festival itself (for as to this there was even at that early period 
 perfect unanimity), a host of the most credible witnesses, the 
 Ephesian bishop, Polycrates, with his seven predecessors, and 
 the bishops Melito, Thraseas, Sagaris, in behalf of their Asiatic 
 custom of celebrating the Christian Passover according to the 
 Jewish chronology always on the fourteenth of Nisan (whether 
 this fell on Friday or any other day of the week), expressly ap¬ 
 pealed to the authority of the apostle John. Nay, the venerable 
 Polycarp of Smyrna, John’s personal disciple and friend, as¬ 
 sured the Roman bishop in the year 160, that he himself had 
 celebrated Easter with this apostle in the Oriental way, and that 
 the other apostles also, with whom John had intercourse (Philip 
 perhaps, in Hierapolis,) agreed with him. On the other side, 
 the Roman church, in support of its custom (afterwards univer¬ 
 sally adopted) of celebrating Easter not on a particular day of 
 the month, but on a certain day of the week,—the death of 
 Christ always on a Friday, and his resurrection on a Sunday,— 
 appealed with the same confidence to its oldest bishops and to 
 the order of the apostles, Peter and Paul. These controversies 
 in all probability had their ultimate ground in an unessential 
 difference, which already existed, with all unity of spirit, in the 
 practice of the various apostles and apostolic churches, accord¬ 
 ing as they were ruled either by regard for the Jewish type, the 
 Old Testament Passover, which always began on the 14th of 
 Nisan, whatever clay of the week this might be, or bv regard to 
 
WORSHIP.] § 141. 
 
 THE SEVERAL PARTS OF WORSHIP. 
 
 247 
 
 the proper days of Christ’s death and resurrection, Friday and 
 Sunday. 1 
 
 Easter and Pentecost, however, are the only feasts, which can 
 be traced back to the apostolic age. Of the observance of other 
 festivals, Christmas for instance, we find not the least hint in the 
 New Testament. It was only at a later period that the church 
 went back from the centre of her faith, the crucifixion and re¬ 
 surrection of Christ, to the beginning of his theanthropic life, 
 and appointed a special feast for the mystery of the incarnation. 
 
 § 141. The Several Parts of Worship. 
 
 The regular exercises of the apostolic worship were preaching, 
 exposition of the Scriptures, prayer, singing, confession of faith, 
 and administration of the sacraments. To these were added 
 such extraordinary acts as prophesying, speaking with tongues, 
 and interpreting of tongues, which have already been considered 
 in the sections on spiritual gifts. 2 3 These, moreover, belong also 
 under the general heads of preaching and prayer. 
 
 1. The sermon appears in the apostolic church mainly in the 
 shape of a missionary discourse, designed to kindle life, and raise 
 up churches; a simple historical testimony respecting Christ, the 
 crucified and risen Saviour of the world. It was altogether 
 practical, but pregnant with the profoundest ideas ; unadorned, 
 yet forcible; natural, yet ingeniously adapted to the circum¬ 
 stances ; clear and deliberate, yet borne along on the wings of 
 inspiration and holy enthusiasm; knowing nothing but the 
 divine foolishness of the cross (1 Cor. ii. 2), but with this torch 
 shedding a hallowing light upon all the relations of life. Poured 
 forth from the fulness of the heart, it also went to the heart, and 
 
 kindled the sacred fire of faith and love. It was the communi- 
 
 * 
 
 cation of the moral and religious life of the speaker to the sus¬ 
 ceptible hearer. This is especially true of the prophetic awaken¬ 
 ing and consolatory discourses, of which we have already treated 
 above. That the apostles and evangelists read their discourses is 
 of course not to be supposed ; nor that they studied, wrote, and 
 
 1 On this whole controversy about Easter, which we shall have occasion to discuss 
 
 more minutely in a succeeding volume, compare the thoroughly learned and valuable 
 work of Weitzel just quoted. 
 
 3 Comp, above, § 117, et seq. 
 
248 
 
 § 141. THE SEVERAL PARTS OF WORSHIP. [IV. BOOK. 
 
 memorized them in our modern style. But their whole life was 
 an uninterrupted study of the word, a constant living and mov¬ 
 ing in communion with God. Besides, there was of course a 
 difference of gifts among them. Some planted ; others watered ; 
 and the Lord followed both with His blessing (1 Cor. iii. 6). 
 Judged by their discourses in the Acts and by their epistles, 
 Peter and Paul must have been powerful revival preachers ; 
 while John and Apolios were best fitted to carry forward 
 churches already established, the latter having also the gift of 
 rhetorical elegance. Yet Paul also was equally endowed for 
 watering and building up churches, as his epistles, which may 
 be called sermons to believers, sufficiently show. 
 
 2. The reading of a portion of Scripture , with which was con¬ 
 nected a practical exposition and exhortation, was an ancient 
 custom of the synagogue (comp. Acts xiii. 15 ; xv. 21), which 
 the Christians certainly appropriated from the first, as we find it 
 universally prevalent in the second century. Paul declared all 
 the Scriptures of the Old Testament to be theopneustic , i.e. per¬ 
 vaded by the Holy Spirit, and therefore always fitted for the 
 spiritual instruction and correction of the church (2 Tim. iii. 16, 
 17). The Christians, however, after the rise of the New Testa¬ 
 ment literature, added to the Jewish Parascliioth and Haphtoroth 
 (the lessons from the law or Pentateuch, and the prophets) the 
 reading also of the Gospels and the apostolic epistles, or substi¬ 
 tuted the latter for the former; the Evangelium, according to 
 the oldest division of the New Testament, corresponding to the 
 law, and the Apostolos to the prophets, of the Old Testament. 
 Most of the apostolic epistles, moreover, were, like the gospels, 
 addressed not to single individuals, but to a whole congregation 
 or to several congregations, as appears from 1 Thess. v. 27 and 
 Col. iv. 16, and were originally designed to be used in public 
 worship. They took the place of the oral preaching of the 
 apostles, and became of course doubly important, when their 
 authors passed off the stage. 
 
 3. Prayer , which bears the same relation to faith, as exhalation 
 to inhalation, is indispensable to the maintaining and promoting 
 not only of individual piety, but also of the religious life of the 
 congregation and its direct intercourse with the God of all grace 
 and mercy. It expresses itself partly in supplication of temporal 
 
WORSHIP.] § 141. THE SEVERAL PARTS OF WORSHIP. 
 
 249 
 
 and spiritual blessings; partly in intercession for all classes and 
 conditions of man, first for fellow-Christians and tlien for those 
 who are without, even for enemies and persecutors; and finally 
 in thanksgiving for all benefits received, especially for redemp¬ 
 tion through Christ. 1 That which gives prayer its peculiarly 
 Christian character, and secures an answer in all cases, though 
 not always in the form desired by the supplicant, yet frequently 
 in one altogether unexpected and in fact much better, is its being 
 offered in the name of Jesus, that is, in perfect submission to the 
 holy will of the Lord, and in the spirit of childlike, unconditional, 
 and unwavering confidence (John xvi. 24 ; Matth. xxi. 22). The 
 apostolical Christians united in prayer previous to entering upon 
 any important business, as the election of the new apostle (Acts 
 i. 24) and of the deacons (vi. 6), at the sending out of Paul and 
 Barnabas into the heathen world (xiii. 3), also in times of need 
 and danger, as during the imprisonment of Peter, when the 
 church at Jerusalem “made prayer without ceasing unto God 
 for him” (xii. 5), at parting, as when Paul took leave of the 
 elders of Ephesus (xx. 36), after the experience of divine aid, as 
 after the liberation of the apostles from prison, in which case the 
 psalm-like thanksgiving is reported to us, with a statement of its 
 striking effect (iv. 24-31). With prayer was often united fast¬ 
 ing, as a means of promoting devotion, 2 though it is nowhere in 
 the New Testament strictly enjoined as an indispensable duty 
 (comp. Matth. ix. 15). 
 
 In general the pastors prayed in the name of all, 3 and the con¬ 
 gregation testified its concurrence and priestly co-operation after 
 the Jewish custom by an audible amen (1 Cor. xiv. 16). 
 
 That the first Christians besides pouring forth in prayer the 
 free effusions of the heart, one of which is given us in Acts iv. 
 
 1 Comp. Acts ii. 42 ; vi. 4; xvi. 16. Rom. xii. 12. Phil. iv. 6. 1 Tim. ii. 1, where 
 
 four kinds of prayer are enumerated (divo-tn, petitions particularly for the averting- of 
 evil; r^omuxotl, petitions for favours from God; trrtv^us, intercessions; ivx<x-^<rri«.i, 
 thanksgiving-); James v. 15, et seq. 1 Peter iv. 8 ; iii. 12. Rev. v. 8; viii. 3. 
 
 2 Acts xiii. 2, 3; xiv. 23, at the election of congregational officers; comp. 1 Cor. 
 vii. 5. 2 Cor. vi. 5. Matth. xvii. 21. 
 
 3 In Acts iv, 24 it is said, indeed, of the congregation : '0/^odvju.othov <paiviiv t«» 
 Oiov , xct'i iTtov. But by this is unquestionably to be understood, that one gave expres¬ 
 sion to the thoughts and feelings of all, and in this case that person was no doubt 
 Peter, as maybe inferred from the term xcti; twice applied to Jesus, verses 27, 30; 
 comp. Acts iii. 13, 26. 
 
250 
 
 § 141. THE SEVERAL PARTS OF WORSHIP. [iV. BOOK. 
 
 2 i, et seq., and which corresponded to the circumstances of each 
 particular occasion, also used standing forms, is nowhere told us, 
 indeed, in the New Testament, but is probable from the analogy 
 of Jewish usage, and from the most natural view of Matth. vi. 9 ; 
 Luke xi. 1, 2. At all events, it was the opinion of the oldest 
 church fathers, that Christ intended to give His disciples in the 
 Lord’s Prayer, not only an idea of the true spirit of prayer, but 
 at the same time a general form , like the baptismal formula in 
 Matth. xxviii. 19, 20. 1 That this model prayer is in fact pecu¬ 
 liarly fitted for such a use, no one will deny, who can appreciate 
 its inexhaustible contents, embracing in few words the whole 
 compass of religious wants. 
 
 Respecting the posture in prayer we find nothing prescribed. 
 In the cases of our Lord’s agony in Gethsemane (Luke xxii. 41), 
 of Peter’s prayer before the raising of Tabitha (Acts ix. 40), and 
 of the sorrowful parting of Paul and the Ephesian elders (xx. 36), 
 kneeling is mentioned. And this is best suited to express that, 
 which here of course has chief prominence, viz., the humble sub¬ 
 mission and reverence of the heart before the holy God, and the 
 sense of entire dependence on Him ; while the erect posture and 
 the lifting up of the hands (comp. 1 Tim. ii. 8) are peculiarly 
 proper for thanksgiving and the expression of solemn joy, and 
 were accordingly used in the ancient church on Sunday, the 
 joyous day of the Lord’s resurrection. 2 
 
 4. The song is in reality distinguished from prayer, particularly 
 from thanksgiving, only by its form, its stately garb of poetry, its 
 elevated language of festival enthusiasm, on the wings of which 
 the congregation rises to the highest pitch of devotion, and joins 
 in the celestial harmonies of saints and angels. Thus we have 
 
 1 The testimonies of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen place the universal use of the 
 Lord’s Prayer by the church, at least in the second and third centuries, beyond all 
 doubt. Comp, on this point Augusti: Handbucli des christl. Archdol., vol. ii. p. 62, 
 et seq. 
 
 2 Calvin on the Bus roc, ■yovoc.roc,, Acts xx. 36, finely observes, respecting these forms— 
 " Primus quidem in precibus obtinet interior affectus, sed externa signa, genuflexio, 
 capitis retectio, manuum levatio, duplicem habent usum. Prior est, ut membra omnia 
 exerceamus in Dei gloriam et cultum; deinde ut hoc quasi adminiculo exercitetur 
 nostra pigritia. Accedit in solenni et publica precatione tertius usus, quia pietatem 
 suam hoc modo profitentur filii Dei, et alii alios mutuo accendunt ad Dei reverentiam. 
 Sicut autem manuum levatio fiduciae et ardentis desiderii symbolum est, ita humili¬ 
 ty tis testandae causa in genua procumbimus.” 
 
WORSHIP.] § 141. 
 
 THE SEVERAL PARTS OF WORSHIP. 
 
 251 
 
 here the two noblest and most spiritual arts—music and poetry, 
 consecrated to religion; as in fact all art is destined ultimately 
 to become worship, and to minister to the praise of God, from 
 whom it proceeds, and to the delight of His people. The song 
 passed immediately from the temple and synagogue into the 
 Christian church along with the Psalms ; as the doxologies, anti¬ 
 phonies, collects, and the whole psalmody of Eastern and Western 
 antiquity show. The Lord himself sang with His disciples at the 
 institution of the holy supper (Matth. xxvi. 30; Mark xiv. 26), 
 probably the hallelujah Psalms (cxiii.-cxviii.) used at the Jewish 
 Passover; thus consecrating the singing of psalms as an act of 
 the new Christian worship. Paul (Eph. v. 19 ; Col. iii. 16) ex¬ 
 pressly enjoins the use of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 
 for social edification. The Christians employed song also privately 
 and in small circles, as appears from the advice of James (v. 13) : 
 u Is any among you afflicted ? let him pray. Is any merry ? let 
 him sing psalms and from the fact (Acts xvi. 25), that Paul 
 and Silas at midnight, in the dark dungeon, joined in a hymn to 
 the Lord, and thus rose above their troubles and pain. 
 
 The Psalms of the Old Testament, which in the light of their 
 fulfilment in the New are even to this day an inexhaustible 
 source of edification and spiritual refreshment, were undoubtedly 
 the first used by the apostolic churches, especially by the Jewish 
 Christians. But besides these, even in that period, particularly 
 among the Gentile converts, peculiarly Christian songs sprang 
 forth from the inspiration of the first love, like flowers beneath 
 the vernal sun. 1 Several sections of the Gospel of Luke, which 
 in its first two chapters is highly poetical and liturgical, passed, 
 perhaps, as early as the first century, into public use as songs ; 
 the anthem of the heavenly hosts, for instance (Luke ii. 14, the 
 so-called u Gloria”), the parting words of Simeon (ii. 29, the 
 “ Nunc dimittis”), the sublime songs of Mary (i. 46, et seq ., the 
 u Magnificat”), and Zacharias (i. 68, et seq., the “Benedictus”). 
 The short thanksgiving in Acts iv. 24-30 has a psalmodic 
 character (comp. Psalm ii.), and is easily put into metrical form. 
 In all probability, too, the epistles in several instances contain 
 fragments of such primitive Christian songs; as is indicated bv 
 
 1 Perhaps these Christian song's are intended by the “ hymns and spiritual songs,” 
 Eph. v. 19, in distinction from the “ psalms.” 
 
252 
 
 § 142. BAPTISM. 
 
 [iV. BOOK. 
 
 the poetical, and sometimes metrical, form of expression. See, 
 for example, Eph. v. 14 1 Tim. iii. 16 (especially if, according 
 
 to the best authorities, we here read os ; for this reading is most 
 naturally explained on the supposition of the passage being a 
 fragment of a hymn, which, in six parallel stanzas in melodious 
 rhythm, contains a christology in nuce) ; 2 Tim. ii. 11 (where 
 the yap indicates a quotation, and the parallel and rhythmical 
 structure of the passage a poetical quotation) ; and James i. 17 
 (where the words from naa-a to reXeiov form a hexameter). Then 
 the Apocalypse contains a number of lyric pieces, songs of the 
 glorified saints in praise of the Lamb, which breathe upon us the 
 peaceful air of eternity. This whole book is full of doxologies 
 and antiphonies. 1 2 Finally, as we have already seen, speaking 
 with tongues, according to Paul’s description, was nothing but a 
 peculiar kind of prayer and song in the language of ecstatic 
 inspiration. 3 
 
 5. All the acts of worship now mentioned are at the same time 
 confessions of faith. Whether there was besides these a special 
 confession—say at baptism—we shall consider in the following 
 section, in which we take up the last element of worship, the 
 administration of the sacraments. 
 
 § 142. Baptism. (Note on Immersion .) 
 
 6. Finally, an essential constituent of the Christian worship 
 is the administration of the sacraments. These are sacred acts, 
 by which, on the ground of an express command of Christ, under 
 visible signs an invisible grace is not only represented, but also 
 communicated and sealed to the worthy recipients. 4 They are 
 
 1 On this quotation Stier well remarks ( Comment . I. p. 285), after refuting the erro¬ 
 neous references of it to several passages of Isaiah—“ The apostle here quotes, with 
 as much honour as Scripture, from a hymn-book then existing distinct from the Bible, 
 the words of a liturgical song, which flowed from the Scriptures and the Spirit—the 
 prophetic Spirit, which reigned in the church.” Theodoret already gives it as the 
 opinion of several interpretei’s, that Paul, in Eph. v. 14, quotes a fragment of a hymn. 
 
 2 Comp. Rev. i. 4-8; v. 9-14; xi. 15-19; xv. 3, et seq. ; xxi. 1-8; xxii. 10-17, 20. 
 
 3 A tr^oa-ciixiirSou, or ru -rvtvpctn, 1 Cor. xiv. 15,16; comp, above, § 117. 
 
 4 The term sacrament, by which the Vulgate frequently translates the Greek 
 y.utrr^iov, mystery (as in Eph. iii. 3, 9; v. 32. Rev. i. 20; xvii. 7), w r as received into 
 the theological language of the church from the time of Tertullian; but the compass 
 of the conception, and consequently the number of the sacraments, long remained 
 very indefinite. Catholics and Protestants agree in requiring three elements for a 
 sacramentum in the strict sense; a signum visibile, a gratia invisibilis, and a mandatum 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 142. BAPTISM. 
 
 253 
 
 baptism and the Lord's Supper. These in the New Testament 
 take the place of their Old Testament types, circumcision and 
 the paschal feast, as efficacious signs, pledges, and means of 
 grace. They are related to one another in general as regenera¬ 
 tion and sanctification, as the rise and the growth of the Chris¬ 
 tian life. The supper, therefore, is to be repeated; baptism 
 is not. 
 
 Baptism, which our Lord instituted at His departure from the 
 earth, 1 meets us in the Christian form on the first Pentecost in 
 intimate connection with the preaching of the gospel. As to its 
 nature and import , it appears as the church-founding sacrament 
 and the outward medium of the forgiveness of sins and the com¬ 
 munication of the Holy Ghost (Acts ii. 38). It is the solemn 
 ceremony of reception and incorporation into the communion of 
 the visible church and of Jesus Christ, its Head. Hence Paul 
 calls it a putting on of Christ (Gal. iii. 11), a union into one 
 body by one Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 13), a washing of regeneration 
 and renewing of the Holy Ghost (Titus iii. 5), comp. John iii. 
 5), a being buried with Christ and rising again with Him to a 
 new and holy life (Rom. vi. 4). In its idea, therefore, and 
 divine intent, baptism coincides with regeneration. It marks 
 the beginning of the renewing work of the Holy Ghost, who is 
 fitly symbolized by the pure and purifying water. In practice, 
 however, the outward act is not always accompanied by the 
 inward change. And in this case the general principles hold, 
 that the exception does not set aside, but confirms, the rule, and 
 that the unfaithfulness of man cannot subvert the faithfulness of 
 God. The communication of the promised sacramental grace is 
 not magical or mechanical, but is dependent, as well in baptism 
 as in the supper, on certain conditions, viz., a scriptural mode of 
 administration on the part of the officiating minister, and re¬ 
 pentance and faith on the part of the recipient. Where the latter 
 condition is wanting, the blessing turns into a curse. The sac¬ 
 rament is accordingly, like the word of God, a sav our of life 
 
 divinum; but the former find these three elements in seven sacred usages of the church ; 
 the latter only in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, because in the Protestant view a 
 mandatum divinum is not constituted by the mere judgment of the church, but requires 
 an express command of Christ or His apostles in the words of Scripture. 
 
 1 Matt, xxviii. 19. Comp. Mark xvi. 16. John iii. 5. 
 
254 
 
 § 142. BAPTISM. 
 
 [lV. BOOK. 
 
 unto life to believers, but to the unworthy a savour of death 
 unto death (comp. 1 Cor. xi. 29). In Acts viii. 13, 16, 18, 
 et seq .), we have in the hypocrite, Simon Magus, an example of 
 a merely outward baptism with water, without the inward bap¬ 
 tism with the Holy Ghost and with fire; while, on the other 
 hand, Cornelius and his company received the Holy Spirit in 
 the midst of Peter’s sermon before they were baptized (x. 44, 
 et seq .) Nevertheless, in this last case the outward act was 
 added, and that not as an empty ceremony, but as the objective 
 confirmation and divine seal of the grace received. Though 
 God is absolutely free, and though His Spirit blows as and 
 whither it will (John iii. 8), yet is the church bound by His 
 ordinances, and therefore adheres with good reason to the prin¬ 
 ciple, that baptism—of course not without faith—is in general 
 necessary to salvation ; while, on the other hand, she asserts with 
 the same right, that not the defect of the sacrament (which may 
 be the result of unavoidable circumstances, as in the case of the 
 penitent thief on the cross, or of a conversion in an unwatered 
 desert), but the conscious contempt of it, condemns. Both these 
 principles are involved in our Lord’s expressions, John iii. 5, 
 where He represents the being born again of water and the 
 Spirit as the indispensable condition of entrance into the king¬ 
 dom of God; and Mark xvi. 16, where He pronounces not the 
 baptized as such, but only the believing recipients of baptism, 
 saved, and not the unbaptized as such, but only the unbelieving, 
 damned: u He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; 
 but he that believeth not shall be damned.” 
 
 The full formula of baptism, as prescribed by Christ (Matth. 
 xxviii. 19), is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost; signifying a sinking of the subject into the revealed 
 beincr of the triune God, a comino; into living communion with 
 Him, so as thenceforth to be consecrated to Him, to live to Him 
 and serve Him, and to experience His blessed redeeming and 
 sanctifying power. In practice, however, we find the apostles 
 always using the abbreviated form : “ into the name,” or “ in 
 the name of Jesus Christ,” or “ of the Lord Jesus,” or simply 
 u into Christ.” 1 Of course this included the other, binding the 
 
 1 Acts ii. 38; x. 48; xix. 5. Rom. vi. 3. Gal. iii. 27. 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 142. BAPTISM. 
 
 subject to receive the whole doctrine of Christ, and consequently 
 what He had taught concerning the Father and the Holy 
 Ghost. 1 
 
 The act of baptism was preceded by brief instruction respect¬ 
 ing the main facts of the Gospel history, and an injunction of 
 repentance and faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah and the 
 Saviour of the world. But the more thorough indoctrination in 
 the apostolic truth came after. 2 Subsequently, when the recep¬ 
 tion of proselytes demanded great caution, the time of instruc¬ 
 tion and probation was extended. 
 
 It was probably the custom even in the times of the apostles 
 to require of the candidate, before administering the holy ordi¬ 
 nance, a simple confession of his penitent faith in Jesus Christ. 
 Of this we have hints in Acts viii. 37, where the eunuch, before 
 being baptized, answered to Philip’s question : u I believe that 
 Jesus Christ is the Son of God;” 3 in 1 Peter iii. 21, where the 
 apostle says of baptism, that it is u not the putting away of the 
 filth of the flesh (like common washings), but the answer of a 
 good conscience toward God (avveLdqaecos dyadrjs €7rep 6) Tt] fj, a els 6eou),” 
 referring to the questions and answers of the solemn contract of 
 the candidate with God; 4 and finally, in 1 Tim. vi. 12, where 
 
 1 Others think that these passages do not contain the baptismal formula at all, hut 
 only thus briefly designate the Christian baptism in distinction from the baptism of 
 John, and perhaps from the baptism administered to Jewish proselytes ( i.e. if this is 
 as old as the Christian era; which is well known to be doubtful, as no older testimony 
 exists for it than that of the Gemara). This suits Acts xix. 5 very well. It is certain 
 that immediately after the time of the apostles the formula given by Christ was in 
 general use (comp. e.g. Justin’s Apol. I. 80), but also that the abridged form, in the 
 sense above given, was acknowledged valid as far down as the third century (comp. 
 Neander, Kirchengesch. I. 535, and especially Hofling, Das Sacrament der Taufe, etc. 
 I. p. 37, et seq. 
 
 2 Comp. Acts ii. 41, 42; viii. 12, 36, et seq. ; ix. 19; x. 34-48. Heb. vi. 1, et seq. 
 
 3 It must be observed, however, that in the oldest codices, ABC(D has a chasm 
 here), and in several versions, this verse is wanting, and has hence been suspected as 
 a later interpolation. 
 
 4 'E^n^rYi^oe,, properly question , may by metonymy (like the Latin interrogate in 
 
 Seneca, De benef. III. 15) signify either sponsio, promissio, as this was called forth by 
 the question of the minister, or both together, the whole catechetical process and 
 solemn engagement. Winer explains it—inquiry after God, i.e. a turning to God— 
 but then we should rather expect Isn^rmru. Comp, the commentaries, and Neander, 
 Apostelgesch. I. p. 277. It is possible, however, that the contains an allusion 
 
 to the high-priest’s inquiring of God through the breastplate, with which, after wash¬ 
 ing himself, he went into the sanctuary. Taken then as met. consequentis pro causa, 
 the term would mean—Qualification for inquiring of God, for free access to God. 
 
256 
 
 § 142. BAPTISM. 
 
 [IV. BOOK. 
 
 many commentators, following Chrysostom, refer the good pro¬ 
 fession before many witnesses,” of which Paul reminds Timothy, 
 to his baptism ; while to others these words suggest a solemn 
 vow at ordination to the pastoral office. The first confession of 
 Peter (Matth. xvi. 16), and then the baptismal formula itself 
 (xxviii. 19) would very naturally be taken as the basis of this 
 baptismal confession, and from it grew in the course of the 
 second and third centuries, in a truly organic way, and from the 
 consciousness not of an individual, but of the whole church, the 
 so-called Apostles’ Creed. This symbol, though not in form the 
 production of the apostles, is a faithful eompend of their doc¬ 
 trine ; comprehends the leading articles of the faith in the triune 
 God and His revelation, from the creation to the life everlasting, 
 in sublime simplicity, in unsurpassable brevity, in the most 
 beautiful order, and with liturgical solemnity; and to this day is 
 the common bond of Greek, Roman, and Evangelical Chris¬ 
 tendom. 
 
 Baptism, being the sacrament of regeneration, cannot, in the 
 nature of the case, be repeated, any more than the natural birth. 
 The re-baptism of the disciples of John, Acts xix. 5, is not a 
 case in point. For these persons had received only the baptism 
 of John, which could not impart the Holy Ghost (comp. ver. 2), 
 and after the first Christian Pentecost lost even its provisional 
 significance. Nor, on the other hand, can it be inferred from this 
 fact, that the apostles also were re-baptized; for in their case the 
 outward act was compensated for by the miraculous baptism 
 with the Holy Ghost and with fire on the day of Pentecost 
 (comp. Acts i. 5.) The earlier baptism of the disciples (John 
 iv. 2), previous to the glorification of Christ, and therefore 
 before the Holy Ghost was given (John vii. 39), was not essen¬ 
 tially different from John’s baptism of repentance. The pecu¬ 
 liarly Christian baptism first appeared at the founding of the 
 church on the day of Pentecost. 
 
 Finally, as to the outward mode of administering this ordi¬ 
 nance; immersion, and not sprinkling, was unquestionably the 
 original, normal form. This is shown by the very meaning of 
 the Greek words fianrlfa, fidnTio-fxa, paTTTKTfxos, used to designate the 
 rite. Then again, by the analogy of the baptism of John, which 
 was performed in the Jordan (eV, Matth. iii. 6, compare 16; 
 
§ 142. BAPTISM. 
 
 257 
 
 WORSHIP.] 
 
 also els tov ’lopftdvrjv, Mark i. 9.) Furthermore by the New Tes¬ 
 tament comparisons of baptism with the passage through the 
 Red Sea (1 Cor. x. 2), with the flood (1 Peter iii. 21), with a 
 bath (Eph. v. 26; Tit. iii. 5), with a burial and resurrection 
 (Rom. vi. 4 ; Col. ii. 12). Finally, by the general usage of 
 ecclesiastical antiquity, which was always immersion (as it is to 
 this day in the Oriental and also the Graeco-Russian churches) ; 
 pouring and sprinkling being substituted only in cases of urgent 
 necessity, such as sickness and approaching death. 1 
 
 Note.— It may be proper here to add a note on the disputed question of 
 immersion and sprinkling. Banri^a) (ets rt, tv tivi , also npos n )— the fre¬ 
 quentative of /3d/rra), but synonymous with it, except that the latter, besides 
 the sense “ to immerse,” has the derivative one “ to colour”—denotes in the 
 classics, not by any means every mode of applicatio aquce, thus including in- 
 fusio and aspcrsio, regardless of the quantitative relation of the water to the 
 object, to which it is applied ; but always an entire or partial immersio. Com¬ 
 pare on this point the classical lexicons, and especially the full exhibition of 
 this philological argument by the learned Baptist divine, Dr Alex. Carson: 
 Baptism in its Mode and Subjects, chap. ii., p. 18-168 (5th Amer. ed. 1850). 
 The advocates of the mode of baptism by sprinkling urge against the Baptists 
 the following exegetical points :— 
 
 1. In the later Hellenistic usage, and therefore in the LXX. and N. T., 
 ficmTi£eiv sometimes has the general sense “ to wash,” “ to cleanse.” (So 
 also Dr Robinson in the new edition of his Gr. and Engl. Lexicon , p. 118). 
 In support of this a confident appeal can assuredly be made to several pass¬ 
 ages, viz. Luke xi. 38 (comp, with Mark vii. 2-4), where (3anTi£€Lv is used 
 of the washing of hands before eating (Mark has for this, ver. 3, vlittclv ras 
 Xeipas), which in the East was performed by pouring (comp. 2 Kings iii. 11); 
 Mark vii. 4, 8, which speaks of fianricrpoi, i.e. cleansing of cups, pitchers, and 
 tables ; Heb. ix. ] 0, where the St a(j)opoi fianTio-pol must be taken to include 
 all sorts of religious purifications among the Jews, bathing (Lev. xiv. 
 
 1 Indeed some would not allow even this baptismus clinicorum, as it was called, to 
 be valid baptism; and Cyprian himself, in the third century, ventured to defend the 
 aspersio only in case of a necessitas cogens, and with reference to a special indulgentia 
 Dei {Ep. 76 ad Magn. Comp. Hofling, 1. c. I. p. 48, et seq .) There were ecclesi¬ 
 astical laws which made persons baptized by sprinkling ineligible to church offices. 
 These were grounded, however, not so much in the notion of the imperfection of 
 their baptism, as in the fact, that they frequently received it from fear of approaching 
 death, and hence might not have been so thoroughly pi’epared for it as others. Not 
 till the end of the thirteenth century did sprinkling become the rule and immersion 
 the exception; partly from the gradual decrease in the number of adult baptisms 
 partly from considerations of health and convenience—all children having now come 
 to be treated as infirmi. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 II 
 
258 
 
 § 142. BAPTISM. 
 
 [iY. BOOK. 
 
 Num. xix. 7), washing (Num. xix. 7 ; Mark vii. 8), and sprinkling (Lev. 
 xiv. 7 ; Num. xix. 19) ; the figurative phrase /Soott. ei> nuevpaTL ay'uo kcu 
 TTvpl, Mattli. iii. 11; Luke iii. 16; Mark i. 8; John i. 33; Acts i. 5 ; xi. 
 16, where the notion of immersion is hardly admissible, as the Holy Ghost is 
 rather poured out; finally, several passages of the LXX., as 2 Kings v. 14, 
 10 (where (3cmT. is synonymous with Aouet v), Judith xii. 7 ( kcu eficmTiCeTo ev 
 rrj napep^oXrj eVi rr/s nipyr/s rov vbarosj. It must be conceded, however? 
 that in all these cases at least a copious application of water is intended, as 
 the design of the ablution requires a wetting of the whole object . 
 
 2. The improbability of 3000 persons during the feast of Pentecost (Acts 
 ii. 41), and soon after 5000 (iv. 4), having been baptized by immersion at 
 Jerusalem in one day, since there is no water in the neighbourhood of the 
 city in summer but the springs and the brook Siloam, and the houses are 
 supplied from cisterns and public reservoirs, so that there, as in all Palestine, 
 private baths in dwellings are very rare. In these cases we must give up, 
 it would seem, the idea at least of a total immersion, and substitute perhaps 
 that of a copious affusion upon the head. 
 
 3. Dr Robinson, 1. c. and in his Bibl. Researches in Palest. II. 182, III. 
 78, further adduces, that the baptismal fonts found among the ruins of the 
 oldest Greek churches in Palestine, as at Tekoa and Cophna, are not large 
 enough for the immersion of adults, and were evidently not intended for that 
 purpose. 
 
 These arguments assuredly serve in some measure to justify from exegesis 
 the now prevalent form of baptism by affusion. Yet the ordinary use of 
 ^anTL^iv, Panno-pa, (Hanno-pos, in connection with the passages respecting 
 baptism adduced in the text, the clear testimonies of antiquity, and the pre¬ 
 sent prevailing usage of the Oriental churches, puts it beyond all doubt, that 
 entire or partial immersion was the general rule in Christian antiquity, from 
 which certainly nothing but urgent outward circumstances caused a deviation. 
 Respecting the form of baptism, therefore (quite otherwise with the much 
 more important difference respecting the subject of baptism, or infant bap¬ 
 tism, comp. § 143), the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and 
 history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists, as is done in fact 
 (perhaps somewhat too decidedly and without due regard to the arguments 
 just stated for the other practice) by most German scholars, e. g. Neander : 
 Apostelgesch. I. p. 276; Knapp: Vorlesungen iiber die christliche Glauben- 
 slelire, II. p. 453; Hoffing: 1. c. I. p. 46 et seq. ; also by the Anglican divines, 
 Conybeare and Howson, who make a candid confession, Life of St Paul , I. 
 471: “It is needless to add that baptism was (unless in exceptional cases) 
 administered by immersion, the convert being plunged beneath the surface 
 of the water to represent his death to the life of sin, and then raised from 
 this momentary burial to represent his resurrection to the life of righteous¬ 
 ness. It must be a subject of regret, that the general discontinuance of this 
 original form of baptism (though perhaps necessary in our Northern climates) 
 has rendered obscure to popular apprehension some very important passages 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 259 
 
 of Scripture.” With this we entirely concur. It is well known, that the 
 reformers, Luther and Calvin, and several old Protestant liturgies, gave the 
 preference to immersion; and this is undoubtedly far better suited than 
 sprinkling to symbolize the idea of baptism, the entire purifying of the in¬ 
 ward man, the being buried and the rising again with Christ. But the 
 Baptists go too far in making immersion, after the fashion of Jewish legal¬ 
 ism, the only valid form of baptism. The application of water is indeed 
 necessary to this sacrament; but the quantity of it, as also the quality 
 (whether sea, spring, or river water, whether cold or warm), is certainly not 
 essential. Otherwise we should in fact bind the efficacy of the Holy Ghost 
 to what is material and accidental. Here difference of climate, state of 
 health, and other circumstances, may certainly claim some regard ; and hence 
 the ancient church made exceptions at least in reference to sick catechumens 
 and children, and applied to them the water by sprinkling. 
 
 § 143. Infant Baptism. 
 
 In consequence of tlie missionary character of the apostolic 
 church adult baptism in this period predominated. Infant bap¬ 
 tism can have no significance, save on the ground of a mother 
 church already existing, and in view of a Christian education, 
 which heathen and Jewish parents of course can not be expected 
 to give. So also at this day, a missionary will not begin his work 
 with baptizing children, but with instructing adults. 
 
 But here arises the question : Was there not at that day, in 
 churches already established, along with the baptism of adults, 
 which in the nature of the case was most frequent, a Christian 
 infant baptism, corresponding to its type, circumcision, which, 
 administered first to the patriarch Abraham as the seal of his 
 righteousness of faith (comp. Rom iv. 11), was immediately after¬ 
 wards performed on his son, Isaac, on the eighth day after his 
 birth (Gen. xxi. 4), and made the sign of the covenant for all his 
 male posterity (Gen. xvii. 10, et seq .)? This question we must 
 answer decidedly in the affirmative, though we here encounter 
 not only the Baptists, but also the authority of many celebrated 
 pedo-baptist divines, and among them the venerable Dr Neander, 
 who denies the existence of infant baptism in the apostolic 
 church. 1 It is very often asserted, indeed, even by friends of 
 
 1 Apostelqesch. I. 278, et seq. Here, however, we must not overlook the essential 
 difference, that, while the Baptists pronounce infant baptism an unscriptural and 
 unchristian innovation, Neander, on the contrary, represents it as proceeding from 
 
260 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 [IV. BOOK. 
 
 infant baptism, that no direct authority for it can be shown in 
 the New Testament, not excepting the passages in Acts, where 
 the baptism of whole families is spoken of, as ch. x. 2, 44-48 ; 
 xvi. 15, 30-33; xviii. 8; 1 Cor. i. 16; xvi. 15. In none of 
 these places, it is said, are children expressly mentioned, and the 
 families concerned might possibly have consisted entirely of adults. 
 But this is, even in itself, exceedingly improbable, since we have 
 here, not one case only, but five, and these given merely as 
 examples, whence we may readily infer that there were many 
 others. A glance at any neighbourhood will show, that families 
 without children are the exceptions, not the rule. But besides, 
 it is hardly conceivable, that all the supposed adult sons and 
 daughters in these five cases so quickly determined on going over 
 with their parents to a despised and persecuted religious society; 
 whereas, if we suppose the children to have been still young and 
 therefore entirely under paternal authority, the matter presents 
 no difficulty at all. Moreover we need not insist on any parti¬ 
 cular passage. We here rest the case, rather, as we must do 
 with so many other articles of faith, even the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, mainly on the whole tone and spirit of the Holy Scrip¬ 
 tures, which involve infinitely more than the letter directly 
 declares. And if it can be proved, that infant baptism holds a 
 necessary place in the entire structure and design of apostolical 
 Christianity, we may certainly infer from this with tolerable con¬ 
 fidence, in the utter want of evidence to the contrary, that it was 
 actually practised. 
 
 The ultimate authority for infant baptism in the bosom of a 
 regular Christian community and under a sufficient guarantee of 
 pious education—for only on these terms do we advocate it—lies 
 in the universal import of Christ's person and work, which extends 
 as far as humanity itself. Christ is not only able, but willing, to 
 save mankind of all classes, in all circumstances, of both sexes, 
 and at all stages of life, and consequently to provide for all these 
 the necessary means of grace (comp. Gal. iii. 28). Before the 
 Saviour of the world these distinctions are all lost in the common 
 need and capability of redemption. A Christ, able and willing 
 to save none but adults, would be no such Christ as the gospel 
 
 the genuine spirit of Christianity, though not till towards the end of the second 
 century. 
 
WOKSIIIP.] 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 261 
 
 presents. The exclusion of a part of our race from the blessings 
 of the kingdom of heaven on account of age has not the slightest 
 warrant in the Holy Scriptures, and our noblest impulses, our 
 deepest religious feelings, rise against such a particularism. 1 In 
 the significant parallel, Rom. v. 12 , et seq ., the apostle earnestly 
 presses the point, that the reign of righteousness and life is in its 
 divine intent and intrinsic efficacy fully as comprehensive as the 
 reign of sin and death, to which children among the rest are 
 subject; nay, far more comprehensive and availing; and that 
 the blessing and gain by the second Adam far outweigh the 
 curse and the loss by the first. Hence he emphatically repeats 
 the u much more” (no\\w fidWov) in the second clause (verses 15, 
 17). The church, like Christ himself, is above all limitations of 
 nation, language, sex, or age. The parable of the leaven (Matth. 
 xiii. 33) penetrating and pervading the whole mass, is expressly 
 intended to illustrate the power of the kingdom of God to work 
 in, and diffuse itself through all the relations and conditions of 
 life; and when the Lord, after solemnly declaring, that all power 
 is given to Him in heaven and in earth, commands His apostles 
 to make all 7iations disciples (/xa^reuety) by baptism in the triune 
 Name and by instruction in His doctrine, there is not the least 
 reason for limiting this to those of maturer age. Or do nations 
 consist only of men, and not of youth also, and children ? Ac¬ 
 cording to Psalm cxvii. 1, u all nations,” and according to Psalm 
 
 1 And yet this is the inevitable consequence, nay, in fact the principle, of the 
 Baptist theory. Dr Alexander Carson, its most learned advocate, openly declares 
 (Baptism in its Mode and Subjects, p. 173), that children cannot be saved by the 
 Gospel nor by faith : “ The Gospel has nothing to do with infants, nor have Gospel 
 ordinances any respect to them. The Gospel has to do with those who hear it. It 
 is good news ; but to infants it is no news at all. They know nothing of it. The 
 salvation of the Gospel is as much confined to believers, as the baptism of the 
 Gospel is. None can ever be saved by the Gospel who do not believe it. Conse¬ 
 quently by the Gospel no infant can be saved.” When, however, the Baptists 
 suppose, as they commonly do, that infants are saved, and saved without baptism, 
 without faith, without the Gospel, they reject the fundamental principle of the Gospel, 
 that out of Christ there is no salvation, that faith in Him alone can save. “ Infants 
 who enter heaven,” says Carson, 1. c., “must be regenerated, but not by the Gospel. 
 Infants must be sanctified for heaven, but not through the truth as revealed to man.” 
 (Is there then another truth besides the revealed ; and could this be anything else 
 than an untruth; and can such an extra and anti-evangelical truth save ?) “ We 
 know nothing of the means by which God receives infants; nor have we any busi¬ 
 ness with it.” Fine consolation for Christian parents, especially at the grave of their 
 beloved child! 
 
262 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. [iY. BOOK. 
 
 cl. 6, “ everything that hath breath,” should praise the Lord; 
 and that these include babes and sucklings, is explicitly told us 
 in Psalm viii. 2, and Matth. xxi. 16. 
 
 With this is closely connected the beautiful idea, already clearly 
 brought out by Irenasus, the disciple of Polycarp, and the faithful 
 medium of the apostolical tradition descending from John’s field 
 of labour—the idea that Jesus Christ became for children a child, 
 for youth a youth, for men a man, and by thus entering into the 
 various conditions and stages of our earthly existence sanctified 
 every period of life, infancy as well as manhood. 1 The Baptist 
 view robs the Saviour’s infancy of its profound and cheering 
 significance. 
 
 If now Christ is really the Saviour of infants as well as of adults, 
 the means of this salvation must be available for both. Christ 
 can not will an end without willing at the same time the way 
 which leads to it; and we must therefore either deny baptism as 
 a means of saving grace, or grant it to all whom Christ would 
 save, if the proper conditions are at hand. 
 
 Most certainly, however, is faith necessary on our part, as the 
 indispensable condition of salvation, the organ by which we ap¬ 
 propriate Christ and receive His blessings ; and here we meet the 
 main exegetical and dogmatical argument of the Baptists. Chris¬ 
 tian baptism, say they, requires the gospel to have been preached 
 to the subject, and the subject to have exercised repentance and 
 faith ; but infants can neither understand a sermon, nor repent 
 and believe; therefore neither can they be baptized. The major 
 premise is in the main correct; the minor is, in such a broad ap¬ 
 plication, false ; hence the conclusion falls to the ground. The 
 connection of baptism with preaching and with faith is placed 
 beyond dispute by the words of the institution of this sacrament, 
 
 1 “ Omnes enimsays Irenzeus, Adv. Baer. III. 22, with a profound view of the 
 mystery of the incarnation, “ per semetipsum venit salvare, omnes, inquam, qui 
 per eum renascuntur in Deum, infantes et parvulos et pueros et juvenes et seniores. 
 Ideo per omnem venit aetatem et infantibus infans factus, sanctificans infantes, in 
 parvulis parvulus, sanctificans hanc ipsam habentes aetatem, simul et exemplum 
 illis pietatis effectus et justitiae et subjectionis, in juvenibus juvenis, exemplum 
 juvenibus fiens et sanctificans Domino.” That Irenaeus, in the words “renascuntur 
 in Deum’ has in mind baptism as the sacrament of regeneration, whereby even the 
 infant is consecrated to God, is conceded by Neander in his Kircliengesch, vol. i. 
 p. 537, where he says of this expression of the church father: “ Thus from this idea, 
 which lay deep in the essence of Christianity, and ruled all minds, proceeded the 
 practice of infant baptism.” 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 263 
 
 Matth xxviii. 19, and especially Mark xvi. 16—“lie that (first) 
 believeth and (then) is baptized, shall be saved;” 1 and by the 
 examples in the book of Acts, according to which the act of 
 baptism was always preceded by the preaching of the missionaries 
 and the faith of the hearers. 2 But even here we have to consider 
 what the Baptists overlook, that in all these cases the instruction, 
 which preceded this rite of initiation into the church, was very 
 brief and general, touching only the main facts of Gospel history, 
 and accompanied, therefore, by only a small degree of faith ; and 
 that the complete communication of the apostle’s doctrine, and 
 growth in the faith, took place after the person was in full com¬ 
 munion with the church. The primitive Christian baptism was 
 neither a forced act, like the baptism of the Saxons, for instance, 
 at the order of Charlemagne, nor a ceremony in the usual Baptist 
 sense, which imparts nothing new at all, but merely seals the faith 
 already possessed. The apostles never demanded full and formal 
 regeneration before baptism, but simply an honest longing for 
 salvation in Christ; which salvation was then actually adminis¬ 
 tered and sealed to them by baptism, and afterwards nourished 
 and developed by the other means of grace. 61 Repent,” says 
 Peter to the three thousand, who were baptized on the day of 
 Pentecost after anxiously listening to one short sermon, u Repent 
 and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, 
 for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost;” thus placing these two blessings, the negative and the 
 positive, the remission of sins and the bestowment of the Spirit, 
 as the effect, not the condition, of baptism. This view is corro¬ 
 borated by the oft mistaken passage, Matth. xxviii. 19, which, to 
 give the true sense, should be translated, u Go ye, therefore, and 
 make disciples (padyTevcrare) of all nations (by) baptizing them 
 {fianTl&vTes) in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost, (and by) teaching them (diddo-Kovres) to observe all 
 things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Here plainly the 
 
 1 Or more accurately: “ Qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit, salvus erit,” as the 
 Vulgate translates the original. 
 
 2 Acts ii. 37, et seq. ; viii. 5, et seq .; 35-38; ix. 17, et seq. ; x. 42-48; xvi. 15, 33 ; 
 xviii. 8; xix. 5. Full use is made of these passages in the Baptist sense by R. 
 Pengilly : The Scripture Guide to Baptism, p. 27, et seq. ed. of Philadelphia, 1849 
 (also translated into German); and by Js. Taylor Hinton; History of Baptism from 
 inspired and uninspired Writings (Philad. 1846), ch. III. p. 88, et seq. 
 
264 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 [IV. BOOK. 
 
 u making disciples” (of Jesus, i.e. true Christians) is not one and 
 the same with the 66 teaching,” 1 but a more general idea, denot¬ 
 ing the object to be attained by the double means, first of baptism, 
 and then of teaching. 2 Were it possible to be a complete Chris¬ 
 tian before baptism, therefore out of the church, baptism were 
 useless, or at least unnecessary. And to this the Baptist theory 
 virtually comes. 3 It always more or less mistakes the nature and 
 the pedagogical character of the church, as an indispensable 
 saving and sanctifying institution, and regards it in reality merely 
 as a community of the saved. Besides the demand of regenera¬ 
 tion and conversion, as a necessary prerequisite for baptism, makes 
 the latter, properly speaking, impossible, or indefinitely postpones 
 it; for God has not endowed the ministers or congregations with 
 the gift of infallible discernment of spirits. Even a Philip was 
 deceived by the hypocritical profession of Simon Magus. 
 
 But now, as to the second proposition of the Baptist argument, 
 the incapacity of children for faith, whence follows their exclu¬ 
 sion from baptism: this is granted, if by faith we understand a 
 self-conscious , free turning of the heart to God. This cannot 
 take place till the dawn of intelligence (for which, by the way, 
 no certain period can be fixed), and in view of this infant bap¬ 
 tism needs to be completed in the subject, according to ancient 
 custom, by catechetical instruction and by confirmation, in which 
 the Christian, arrived at the age of spiritual discretion, ratifies 
 his baptismal confession, and of his free determination gives him¬ 
 self to God. For this reason also the baptism of the children of 
 unbelieving, though nominally Christian, parents, is in reality 
 unmeaning, or rather a profanation of the holy transaction ; since 
 there is here a hypocritical profession of faith, and no guarantee 
 of an education answering to the baptismal vow. But the grand 
 error of the proposition before us is, that the conception of faith 
 in general, and with it the agency of the Holy Ghost, is limited 
 
 1 Luther’s translation of this is inaccurate, and calculated to mislead; he renders 
 
 ju.a.9fiTiunv also by “ lehren,” to teach. So also the common English version. 
 
 3 Not without reason, therefore, says the Danish divine, Dr H. Martensen (Die 
 christl. Tanfe und die baptistische Frage , Hamburg, 1843, p. 24) : “ The more infant 
 baptism prevails in the world, the more are the words of the Lord fulfilled, that the 
 nations should be made disciples by baptism and teaching.” 
 
 3 With the exception of the “Disciples of Christ,” or “ Campbellites,” who identify 
 immersion with regeneration. 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 265 
 
 to, and made to depend on, a particular stage in the development 
 of the human mind, and that the various forms and phases of 
 divine operation and of faith are overlooked. The ground and 
 the conditions of salvation lie not at all in the subject or creature, 
 but in the depths of the divine mercy; and in faith itself we 
 must observe different stages, from the germ to the perfect fruit. 
 The Holy Scriptures speak of a little and weak faith, 1 of a grow¬ 
 ing, a strong, and a firmly rooted faith, 2 of a struggling and 
 overcoming faith, 3 and of a perfected faith. 4 Faith begins with 
 religious susceptibility, with an unconscious longing for the 
 divine, and a childlike trust in a higher power. It is not a pro¬ 
 duct of human thought, understanding, feeling, or will, but a 
 work of grace and of the Spirit of God, who is bound to rio age 
 or degree of intelligence, but operates, as the wind blows, when 
 and where He will. 5 Faith does not produce the blessings of 
 salvation, but simply receives them, and only in this aspect, as a 
 receptive, not a productive organ, is it saving; otherwise salva¬ 
 tion would be the work of the creature. 
 
 Now this receptivity for the divine, or faith in its incipient 
 form and slumbering germ, may be found in the child, even 
 purer than in the adult. In virtue of its religious constitution 
 and endowments, the child is susceptible to the influences of 
 grace, and may be actually regenerated. If a man deny this, he 
 must, to be consistent, condemn all children without exception 
 to perdition. For they, like all men, are conceived in sin (Psalm 
 li. 5), flesh born of flesh (John iii. 6), and by nature children of 
 wrath (Epli. ii. 3; comp. Pom. iii. 22-24); and except a man 
 be born again of water and of the Spirit, according to our Lord’s 
 unequivocal declaration, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God (John iii. 5). “ He that believed not shall be damned” 
 
 (Mark xvi. 16). When Baptist, and some other theologians, 
 therefore, admit at least some infants into heaven without regene¬ 
 ration or faith, they either deny original sin and guilt, after the 
 manner of Pelagianism, or open a way of salvation unknown, 
 
 1 Matth. xvii. 20. Luke xxii. 31, et seq. 
 
 2 2 Thess. i. 3. 1 Cor. xvi. 13. Col. ii. 7. 
 
 3 1 Tim. vi. 12. Eph. vi. 10. 1 John v. 4. 
 
 4 2 Tim. iv. 7, et seq. 
 
 5 Comp, such passages as Rom. xii. 3. Gal. v. 5. 1 Cor. xii. 3, 9. 2 Cor. iv. 13. 
 Eph. ii. 8. Col. ii. 12. Phil. i. 29. John iii. 8. 
 
266 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. [iY. BOOK. 
 
 nay, directly opposed, to the Gospel. There are also, however, 
 explicit passages in the Scriptures, which leave no doubt respect¬ 
 ing the capacity of childhood and infancy for the divine. Not 
 to mention the extraordinary case of John the Baptist, who even 
 in his mother’s womb was filled with the Holy Ghost (Luke i. 
 15,41), we know from Matth. xviii. 2-5; xix. 14, 15 : Mark x. 
 14, 15 : Luke xviii. 16, 17, that the Saviour himself took chil¬ 
 dren into His arms, blessed them, and adjudged them meet for 
 the kingdom of heaven; nay, He required all adults to become 
 children again, to cultivate the simple, unassuming, confiding, 
 susceptible disposition of the child, if they would have part in 
 that kingdom. Should the church refuse baptism, that is the 
 sign and seal of entrance into Christ’s kingdom, to the tender 
 age, which the Lord himself pressed to His loving heart ? Should 
 she hold off from her communion as incapable and unworthy the 
 infants, whom the Head of the church presented even as models 
 to all who would be His disciples? Bather must we conclude 
 from this, strange as it may appear, that every baptism , even in the 
 case of adults , is really an infant baptis?7i; because Christ makes 
 the childlike spirit an indispensable condition of entrance into 
 His kingdom, and because baptism in general, as the sacrament 
 of regeneration, demands of every candidate the renunciation of 
 his former sinful life in repentance, and the beginning of a new , 
 holy life in faith. 
 
 All the objections, which are made against the Christian bap¬ 
 tism of infants, are of equal force against the Jewish institution 
 of circumcision on the eighth day. For this was not an unmean¬ 
 ing ceremony, but a sacred sign and seal of the covenant, admit¬ 
 ting the circumcised person to its privileges and blessings, and 
 binding him also under its obligations (comp. Gal. v. 3), which, 
 strictly speaking, he could only assume at the age of discretion 
 and by a voluntary act. As, however, the circumcision of the 
 Israelitish children rested undeniably on a divine command (Gen. 
 xvii. 12 ; Lev. xii. 3), we may draw from this typical rite an 
 inference in favour of infant baptism. For the latter has in some 
 sense taken the place of the former, and hence is called the u cir¬ 
 cumcision of Christ” (Col. ii. 11); with the grand difference, 
 indeed, that the old covenant with all its institutions was but a 
 shadow of good things to come, while the new covenant of grace 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 267 
 
 is the antitype and substance (Heb. x. 1 ; Col. ii. 17). This dif¬ 
 ference, however, is all in our favour. If the former, according 
 to the promise of Jehovah, Gen. xvii. 7, et seq ., embraced the 
 whole posterity of Abraham, much more does the latter, which 
 is in fact distinguished from the other by its very largeness, 
 depth, and fulness. In this comprehensive sense, after the ana¬ 
 logy of the ordinance of circumcision, must the apostles, being 
 Jews, have undoubtedly taken the command of the Lord to bap¬ 
 tize all nations; and had Christ intended to exclude children, He 
 would have somehow signified it. In fact Peter, on the day of 
 Pentecost, in calling upon his hearers to be baptized, explicitly 
 announces this extension of the blessings of the Gospel to children 
 —“For the promise (of the remission of sins and of the Holy 
 Ghost) is unto you, and to your children / and to all that are afar 
 off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts ii. 39). 
 
 This important idea of an organic connection between Christian 
 parents and their children , by virtue of which the latter are 
 included in the covenant obligations and privileges of the for¬ 
 mer, meets us also in the apostle Paul. He considers children 
 as already belonging to the church, and requires them to obey 
 their parents 66 in the Lord” (Eph. vi. 1 ; Col. iii. 20): which 
 is possible, properly speaking, only on the ground of their vital 
 union with the church, the body of the Lord, and this union is 
 formed by baptism. In 1 Cor. vii. 14, the apostle makes an 
 important distinction between the children of heathen parents 
 and those of Christian, calling the former unclean (dxd&ipra), but 
 the latter holy (<Va), by virtue of their organic union with a 
 believing mother or father. 2 As in a mixed marriage, of which 
 he just before speaks, the power of the divine life in the Christian 
 parent is mightier than the power of darkness in the heathen 
 partner, so also its influence on the offspring is predominant. 
 For God is stronger than Satan. How much greater must be 
 the influence of the divine life over the child when both parents 
 walk in the fear of God and are imbued with the spirit of faith! 
 
 1 If we take this in the wide sense, as meaning 1 2 posterity in general, still we in no 
 case exclude children. 
 
 2 In like manner Paul says of the relation of the patriarchs to the Jewish nation, 
 which sprang from them (Rom. xi. 16): “For if the first-fruit be holy, the lump (the 
 bread prepared from the fruit) is also holy ; and if the root be holy, so are the 
 branches.” 
 
2(38 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. [iY. BOOK. 
 
 Paul does not here mean, of course, to deny the natural corrup¬ 
 tion of the children of Christian parents ; but he does unequivo¬ 
 cally teach, that the blessing of the covenant is transmitted to 
 them, and the curse of nature so far removed that those who were 
 by nature unholy are by grace consecrated to God and brought 
 under a sanctifying influence. Infant baptism itself is here not 
 expressly mentioned indeed, but the idea and authorization of it 
 is most assuredly implied. 1 For if, by virtue of their birth from 
 believing parents, the children are already included in the cove¬ 
 nant of grace, why should they be excluded from the sacrament 
 which puts the divine seal on this covenant and alone makes it, 
 so to speak, valid and available in law ? This passage, however, 
 at the same time restricts the right to and the qualification for 
 baptism to those children whose parents, at least on one side, are 
 believers ; because it is only in connection with a Christian family 
 that the SiSaoTcea/, which the command of Christ, Matth. xxviii. 19, 
 annexes to the (3cmTl£eiv , and consequently the preservation of the 
 baptismal grace and the development of it to the independent life 
 of faith, can be expected. 2 
 
 John also, like Paul, regards the children of believers as mem¬ 
 bers of the Christian church. After addressing his readers, 
 1 John ii. 12, as reKvia, he turns, ver. 13, to those in the several 
 stages of life, fathers, young men, children ; and he dwells longest 
 upon the latter (ver. 15), because they are encountering seasons 
 of temptation, and because they are mainly the hope of the 
 church. In his second epistle the same apostle salutes the chil¬ 
 dren of Cyria, and conveys to her a salutation from the children 
 of her sister; nay, in ver. 4 he expresses his joy to find some of 
 Cyria’s children walking in the truth; which can be said only 
 
 1 This Neander also virtually concedes, when he says of the above passage ( Apos- 
 telgesch, 1. p. 282 , et seq.): “The view here taken by Paul, though it goes against 
 the actual existence of infant baptism at that time (?), yet includes the fundamental 
 idea from which infant baptism was afterwards necessarily developed, and by which 
 it would be justified in the mind of Paul, viz., the idea of a pre-eminence belonging 
 to children born in a Christian communion; of a consecration for the kingdom of 
 God thereby granted them; of an immediate sanctifying influence, to be brought 
 to bear on their earliest development. 
 
 2 With good reason, therefore, do the so-called Apostolic constitutions place infant 
 baptism and Christian education in immediate connection, VI. lo: B«irr/£(rid2 
 vu.Zv xa,} Toe, vriffioc,, x u,) i*T{S?£Ti ocuTct, tr xatihtioi xot) vovOici& 9iou. AqtTt yoi$ x. v. A. 
 Mark x. 14. 
 
woRsnip.] 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 269 
 
 of those who have part in Christ, the way, the truth, and the 
 life. 
 
 If, according to what has now been said, authority for infant 
 baptism is to be found in the universal import of Christ’s person 
 and redeeming office, in the original idea of Christianity, in the 
 extent of the covenant of grace, in the analogy of circumcision, 
 and in the organic relation, spiritual and bodily, of believing 
 parents to their offspring ; it is altogether probable, that the in¬ 
 troduction and exercise of this ordinance is as old as the inde¬ 
 pendent existence of any Christian community. And under 
 these circumstances we have every reason to believe, that it was 
 actually practised in those five instances, recorded in the New 
 Testament without the least qualification (which the Baptist 
 theory would lead us to expect), where whole households were 
 baptized,—the cases of Cornelius, of Lydia, of the jailer at 
 Philippi, and of Crispus and Stephanas in Corinth ; especially 
 since these, as before remarked, are recorded only as examples, 
 leaving us to infer the existence of many similar ones, while yet 
 it would be contrary to all experience to suppose all the families 
 to have been without small children. 
 
 It is true, a witness has been brought from the end of the 
 second century to overthrow this exegetical conclusion and to 
 prove a comparatively late introduction of the ordinance in ques¬ 
 tion. We mean Tertullian , in his well known attack upon 
 infant baptism. 1 But this very testimony of Tertullian, which 
 is placed even by such distinguished scholars as Neander, 
 Gieseler, and other pedo-baptist historians, in a distorted posture, 
 and made to furnish unwarrantable inferences, proves most 
 decidedly the existence of infant baptism, at that time, as well as 
 of the custom, closely connected with it, of having god-parents 
 (sponsores). Nay more, Tertullian is aware, that the practice 
 of the whole church is against him, and he comes out, though 
 unsuccessfully, as a reformer. Had he been able to appeal to 
 antiquity and to oppose infant baptism as an innovation, he 
 would certainly have taken advantage of this position. But he 
 does not question the apostolical origin of this ordinance, nor 
 even its propriety and legality. Of an assertion of the invalidity 
 
 1 De baptismo, c. 18. 
 
270 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 [IV. BOOK. 
 
 of infant baptism and the necessity for a repetition of the sacra¬ 
 ment, there is not the slightest trace either in Tertullian or in 
 any other ancient Christian writer. Tertullian’s objections 
 relate solely to its expediency and judiciousness , and arise partly 
 from his notion of the magical operation of the baptismal water, 
 and partly from a kind of Christian policy, which in the third 
 and fourth centuries led many distinguished men, as the em¬ 
 perors Constantine and Theodosius, the church teachers Gregory 
 of Nazianzen, his brother Caesarius, and Augustine, while ad¬ 
 mitting the lawfulness and validity of infant baptism, to put off 
 their own baptism to the age of maturity and strong faith, or 
 even to the death-bed ; though Augustine at the same time ex- 
 plicitly declares, that he considers this a false view, and that it 
 had been better for him, had he in tender youth been taken 
 under the maternal care of the church. Tertullian holds an 
 early baptism to be dangerous, because according to his Montan- 
 istic notions a mortal sin committed after baptism excludes for 
 ever from the communion of the church, and probably incurs 
 eternal damnation. On this ground he advises not only chil¬ 
 dren, but even adults also, who are yet unmarried and under no 
 vow of chastity, to put off baptism until they are secure against 
 temptation to gross carnal indulgence. 1 This whole argument 
 of Tertullian then rests on false premises, which were not ad¬ 
 mitted by the church. It comes before us simply as an indivi¬ 
 dual private opinion against an already prevailing theory and 
 practice, and goes strongly, therefore, to prove the contrary of 
 what it has been often used to prove. All that can with any 
 
 1 “ Non minore de causa,” says he, 1. c., “ innupti quoque procrastinandi, in quibus 
 tentatio praeparata est tam virginibus per maturitatem, quam viduis per vacationem, 
 donee aut nubant aut continentiae corroborentur.” So Tertullian would limit bap¬ 
 tism to decrepit and married persons, monks and nuns ! And yet he asserts, on the 
 other hand, that a man can be saved only by being baptized with water, De bapt. c. 
 1: “ Nec aliter quam in aqua permanendo salvi sumus.” The vast difference of Ter¬ 
 tullian’s position in this whole controversy from that of the Baptists of our days must 
 be clear to every one who has any historical or critical judgment. And for this 
 reason is it so preposterous for the Baptists, who otherwise concern themselves 
 mighty little about tradition and ecclesiastical antiquity, so zealously (and honestly 
 no doubt) to appeal to the African church father. But they feel themselves greatly 
 encouraged by the authority of some great German historians, especially Neander, 
 who, although a pedo-baptist himself, was yet too latitudinarian on this, as on some 
 other points, and suffered his latitudinarianism unconsciously to influence his his¬ 
 torical representation of the apostolic and post-apostolic practice. 
 
worship.] 
 
 § 143. INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 271 
 
 certainty be deduced from it is, that the baptism of children was 
 not yet at that time enjoined , but left to the option of Christian 
 parents. Otherwise Tertullian would hardly have contested it 
 with so much decision. But as he had the spirit of the age 
 against him in this matter, his protest, which, moreover, was 
 inconsistent with some of his own principles, had no influence 
 whatever. It fell, without an echo. 
 
 This is incontestibly shown by the next age. The African 
 church itself, in the year 246, at a council in Carthage, decided, 
 that the baptism of infants need not be deferred even to the 
 eighth day, like circumcision, but might (not must) be adminis¬ 
 tered on the second or third day after birth ; and Cyprian (f 248), 
 who in other matters had the greatest respect for his teacher, Ter¬ 
 tullian, advocated this view. 1 So completely had all signs of oppo¬ 
 sition to infant baptism then disappeared, that the only question 
 was, whether the ordinance should not, according to the analogy 
 of circumcision, be deferred at least eight days ! About the same 
 time the most learned representative of the Greek church, 
 Origen of Alexandria, who was himself baptized soon after his 
 birth (a.d. 185), and was at the death of Tertullian (about 220) 
 some thirty-five years of age, speaks in the most unequivocal 
 terms of infant baptism as an apostolical tradition, and the uni¬ 
 versal practice of the church. 2 And those, who interpret the 
 silence of ecclesiastical writers before Tertullian respecting infant 
 baptism unfavourably to it, do not consider, in the first place, 
 that we have very few written memorials of any kind from this 
 age, and are left wholly in the dark on many other points ; and 
 in the second place, that at that time the great missionary zeal 
 and the rapid spread of the church made the baptism of prose¬ 
 lytes still the most frequent and, in the nature of the case, most 
 thought of Finally, even in Clement of Alexandria, Irenams, 
 and Justin Martyr, there is no lack of hints, which indicate with 
 more or less certainty the existence of infant baptism, but which 
 we here pass over, as we shall have to return to them in the 
 history of the second period. 
 
 1 JEpist. 59, ad Fidum. 
 
 2 Horn, in Ltvit. 8; Horn, in evang. Luc. 14; Ad Rom. v. 9 (“ The church has re¬ 
 ceived it from the apostles, that she should allow baptism to little ones”), and other 
 passages. Comp. Iiofling : Has Sacrament der Taufe , etc. I. p. 108, et seg. 
 
272 
 
 § 144. THE LORD’S SUPPER. 
 
 [IV. BOOK. 
 
 § 144. The Lord's Supper . 
 
 The holy supper, or, as it is called in the New Testament, the 
 a Lord’s Supper” 1 or “ breaking of bread,” 2 has reference to the 
 preservation and growth of the Christian life. It, therefore, 
 pre-supposes faith and regeneration. It is the solemn festival 
 for the thankful commemoration of the atoning death of Jesus, 3 
 for the believing appropriation and sealing of the fruits of this 
 death, and for renewing and strengthening the vital union of 
 believers with the ever-living, divine-human Redeemer, as well 
 as with one another. It is thus the sacrament of the unio 
 mystica, and of the communio sanctorum resting upon it. 4 In 
 it is the deepest mystery of our faith, as it were, continually em¬ 
 bodied. In it the church, with thanksgiving and prayer, cele¬ 
 brates and enjoys the highest and closest union she can ever 
 enjoy on earth with her heavenly Head, who, though sitting at 
 the right hand of God, and thus partaking of His almighty and 
 omnipresent power, is still, and in fact for this very reason, in¬ 
 visibly and yet truly present with her in the Spirit. Hence this 
 sacrament forms the culminating point, the u holy of holies,” of 
 the Christian worship ; and so it has been regarded by the church 
 in all ages. 
 
 In the apostolic period the Lord’s Supper was celebrated 
 daily, at least where the circumstances allowed daily worship. 5 
 After the manner of its institution, and the analogy of the Jewish 
 feast of the Passover, it was connected with a simple meal of 
 brotherly love, which afterwards (first in Jude 12) came to be 
 called u agape,” or love-feast. Originally this arrangement was 
 connected in the church at Jerusalem with the community of 
 
 1 Ku^ixxov St7rvev, 1 Cor. xi. 20, or, what amounts to the same, xv^lov, 1 Cor. 
 
 x. 21 (comp, rorr^iov xv^i'ev, ibid.) i.e. the meal which the Lord has appointed, which 
 is eaten in honour of Him, and gives us the enjoyment of His spiritual and eternal 
 blessings. 
 
 2 Kxums too Acts ii. 42, comp. xx. 7, 11. 1 Cor. x. 16. This term, which 
 
 perhaps includes the agapae or feasts of brotherly love, is derived partly from the 
 Jewish custom of breaking the bread and asking a blessing before the meal by the 
 head of the family (Matth. xiv. 19. Luke xxiv. 30, 35. Acts xxvii. 35), partly from 
 the symbolical reference of the breaking of the bread to the crucifixion of Christ. 
 
 3 Luke xxii. 19: “ This do in remembrance of me.” 1 Cor. xi. 24-26. Comp, the 
 name 
 
 4 Matth. xxvi. 26, et seq. 1 Cor. x. 16, 17 ; xi. 27, 29. John vi. 47-58. 
 
 5 Acts ii. 46, x«0’ if* etc. Comp. vi. l f 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 144. THE LORD’S SUPPER. 
 
 273 
 
 goods the Christians considering themselves as one household 
 (comp. § 114). The celebration of the communion, it is com¬ 
 monly supposed, was the closing act of the daily social feast, and 
 the earthly food was thus sanctified by the heavenly bread of 
 life. 1 Yet it is possible that, even in the apostolic church, as in 
 the second century, the communion took place in the morning, 
 and the love-feast in the evening. Then the profanation of the 
 latter in the Corinthian congregation, of which we are about to 
 speak, can be better explained; whereas, on the supposition of 
 the immediate union of the two, it would be doubly strange. 
 
 We find a similar custom, however, also among the Gentile 
 Christians, who did not adopt the community of goods. In 
 Corinth the believers celebrated these agapae, in which differ¬ 
 ences of rank, talent, and education were supposed to be for¬ 
 gotten in the equal relation of all to the Redeemer, and in the 
 enjoyment of communion with Him; in which all were to feel 
 themselves members of one divine family. But here a gross 
 abuse made its appearance, arising probably from the influence 
 of an old Grecian custom of having sacrificial feasts and public 
 entertainments, in which each participator, according to his 
 ability, brought with him the provision for his own use. 2 This 
 custom the Corinthian Christians adopted. But, instead of 
 obliterating all inequalities by Christian love, they obtruded even 
 here their social distinctions. The rich members sometimes in¬ 
 dulged immoderately at the love-feast, while the poor were left 
 in want. Of course the apostle most emphatically rebuked this 
 horrible profanation, by which the celebration of the holiest love 
 was made to minister to the spirit of discord, pride, envy, and 
 revelry. 3 As these and similar abuses could hardly be prevented 
 in the larger churches, it is not strange that, in the second 
 century (perhaps even in the first) the love-feasts were disjoined 
 from the communion, and by degrees entirely given up, having 
 been, in fact, nowhere expressly commanded. 
 
 1 The term, Scwov xv^xxov, no doubt primarily denotes these two acts considered 
 
 as one. 2 Comp. Xenophon, Memorab. III. 14. 
 
 3 1 Cor. xi. 17, et seq. Jude attacks a similar abuse, when he says of the false 
 teachers, ver. 12, “ These are spots in your feasts of charity (i.yatrom), when they 
 feast with you, feeding themselves without fear.” So 2 Peter ii. 13, if, with Lach- 
 mann’s authorities, we read h rx7g kyoc-rous airalv, which gives a better sense than the 
 reading of the textus rec., ird.Toc,i$ ocvrojy. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 s 
 
274 
 
 § 145. OTHER SACRED USAGES. [iV. BOOK. 
 
 As a preparation for the Lord’s Supper, Paul requires (1 Cor. 
 xi. 28) self-examination on the part of the communicant, earnest 
 inquiry as to whether he possesses faith, which receives the bless¬ 
 ing of the sacrament, and without which the ordinance becomes 
 a curse, and draws down upon the unworthy partaker the heavy 
 judgment of God. On this prescription of the apostle is founded 
 the appropriate custom of holding special exercises of divine 
 worship preparatory to the communion. 
 
 § 145. Other Sacred Usages. 
 
 Besides baptism and the Lord’s Supper, mention is made in 
 the apostolic literature of other sacred usages, which come at 
 least very near to sacraments, and may, therefore, be designated 
 as in a certain sense sacramental acts. 
 
 1. The washing of feet, as described in John xiii. 4-16, seems 
 to answer fully the conception of a sacrament, combining all the 
 three elements ; an outward sign, the visible act of washing 
 feet; the promise of an interest in Christ, connected with this 
 act, ver. 8 ; and the express command, “ I have given you an 
 example, that ye should do as I have done to you” (ver. 15). 1 
 The main design of this symbolical act, however, evidently was, 
 in the first place, to set forth the necessity of daily repentance 
 and purification from the pollution which still cleaves to the 
 baptized and regenerate; and, secondly, not so much to impart 
 to the disciples a special gift of grace, as to enforce upon them 
 an important virtue, namely, the duty of humble, self-denying 
 charity. Hence also the injunction of imitation relates not so 
 much to the outward act as to the inward disposition. At least 
 so it was understood by the ancient church, which never received 
 the washing of feet into the number of sacraments, though it 
 occasionally practised the ceremony as a holy usage, mostly as 
 an appendage to the administration of baptism. 2 In the New 
 Testament it never appears again, except in 1 Tim. v. 10, where 
 it is required of widows, as a qualification for the office of 
 
 1 Hence W. Bohmer of Breslau has recently endeavoured to vindicate the washing 1 
 of feet as a proper sacrament (though without any new arguments), in the “ Studien 
 und Kritiken,” 1850. No. 4, p. 820, et seq. It is so observed by the Mennonites, and 
 to some extent by the Moravian Brethren. 
 
 2 In the church of Milan and some African churches. Comp. Bohmer, 1. c. p. 839, 
 and Bingham, Orig. eccl. IV. 394, et seq. 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 145. OTHER SACRED USAGES. 
 
 275 
 
 deaconess (comp. § 135), that they have washed the saints’ feet. 
 Here the act is plainly not a sacrament, but a proof of a self- 
 denying kindness and hospitality to Christian strangers, which, 
 according to the necessity and custom of the East, showed itself 
 particularly in the washing of their feet. 1 
 
 2. The laying on of hands. This is in general the symbol of 
 blessing (Gen. xlviii. 14) ; but, in a special sense, the medium 
 of the communication of the Holy Ghost and His gifts, mainly 
 for a particular office in the kingdom of God. 2 In the apostolic 
 church it was performed,— 
 
 a. On all baptized persons, being, as it w T ere, a solemn conse¬ 
 cration to the universal priesthood. In the case of proselytes it 
 was commonly united with the act of baptism itself, as in Acts 
 xix. 5, G. Yet Acts viii. 17 shows that it was occasionally de¬ 
 ferred till some time after the baptism (as would naturally be 
 the case in infant baptism). The evangelist Philip had baptized 
 the Samaritans (ver. 12), and afterwards the apostles Peter and 
 John, who were commissioned for the purpose by the church at 
 Jerusalem, laid their hands on them, and thereby imparted to 
 them the Holy Ghost. Commentators generally regard this as 
 the bestowment of the extraordinary spiritual gifts—speaking 
 with tongues, prophesying, etc.; comp. Acts x. 46; xix. 6. 
 These, however, do by no means exclude, but rather presuppose, 
 the communication of the ordinary spiritual gifts, which every 
 Christian is to possess. This apostolic practice is the basis of 
 the rite of confirmation , which is, in a certain sense, required by 
 infant baptism, as the completion and solemn ratification of that 
 act on the part of the subject. For in it (according to the 
 beautiful custom of several evangelical churches) the baptized 
 person, having come to years of discretion, deliberately ratifies 
 upon himself the vow which his parents, as his responsible repre¬ 
 sentatives, had made, and voluntarily, before the whole congre¬ 
 gation, gives himself up to the service of God, and enters upon 
 
 1 It is well known that, in the hot countries of the East, bodily impurity is more 
 frequent, on account of the freer perspiration, than in colder climates, and very easily 
 induces dangerous diseases—such as leprosy. Hence also the greater necessity and 
 importance of frequent washings, even from physical considerations. Comp, the 
 article “ Reinigkeit” in Winer’s Reallexikon, II. p. 312, et seq. 
 
 2 Acts viii. 17. 1 Tim. iv. 14. 2 Tim. i. 6. Heb. vi. 2. Comp. Num. xxvii. 18, 
 
 23. Deut. xxxiv. t>. 
 
276 
 
 § 145. OTHER SACRED USAGES. 
 
 [lV. BOOK. 
 
 the full enjoyment of the privileges of church membership. But 
 of course confirmation, to answer its full import, must be only 
 the crowning act, the practical completion of the whole course 
 of catechetical instruction and religious education at home and 
 in the church, which infant baptism sacredly enjoins, and by 
 which alone it can be saved from utter frustration, and be made, 
 as divine seed in a good soil, to bear blossom and fruit. 
 
 b. At the inauguration of church and congregational officers; 
 being here the consecration to the special priesthood, if such can 
 be spoken of under the new dispensation. This is what after¬ 
 wards came to be called ordination , of which we have already 
 sufficiently spoken in § 126. 
 
 c. In the miraculous healing of the sick and infirm, Acts ix. 
 12, 17 ; xxviii. 8 ; comp. Mark xvi. 18 ; Matth. ix. 18, etc. 
 
 3. Finally, mention is made in two places in the New Testa¬ 
 ment, of another sacred usage, anointing with oil , on which the 
 Greek and Roman churches found their sacrament of extreme 
 unction. In Mark vi. 13 it is recorded of the disciples of Jesus, 
 that they (no doubt at the direction of their Master, who had 
 just given them instructions, ver. 7 et seq.) u anointed with oil 
 many that were sick, and healed them.” And James in his 
 epistle, v. 14, 15, gives the general advice : “Is any sick among 
 you ? let him call for the elders (presbyters) of the church ; and 
 let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of 
 the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the 
 Lord shall raise him up ; and if he have committed sins, they 
 shall be forgiven him.” Here again all three requisites for a 
 sacrament seem to meet. Yet in Mark bodily healing is most 
 prominent, 1 and even James has in view perhaps mainly such 
 sins, as had been followed by some particular disease by way of 
 punishment. Then at any rate the context requires us to refer 
 the first passage to the miraculous healing of diseases, with which 
 gift the apostolic church was endowed. For this the anointing 
 served as a preparation and auxiliary; as in fact oil, it is well 
 
 1 Whereas, in the extreme unction of the Roman church, the forgiveness of re¬ 
 maining sins is the great thing, and bodily recovery something accessory, which may 
 not, and rarely does, follow,—this sacrament being administered only on the apparent 
 approach of death. The of the Greek church comes nearer the original 
 
 rite as enjoined by James, inasmuch as it is administered for bodily and spiritual 
 strengthening, not only to the dying, but to all sick persons, when they request it. 
 
WORSHIP.] 
 
 § 115. OTHER SACRED USAGES. 
 
 277 
 
 known, was and is in the East frequently applied to mollify and 
 strengthen. Hence in the Old Testament it is used as an emblem 
 of the Holy Ghost and His regenerating, new-creating power. 1 
 At all events these testimonies leave not the least doubt about 
 the high antiquity of the anointing with oil in connection with 
 prayer. And though we leave out of view the power of miracu¬ 
 lous healing, as no longer present in the church, and the use of 
 oil as peculiar to the East, there still remains of James’ direction 
 thus much applicable to all ages and countries, that members of 
 the church in sickness should send for the ministers, to impart 
 the exhortation and consolation of the Gospel, and to commit the 
 bodily and spiritual interests of the patient to the heavenly Phy¬ 
 sician in prayer. 
 
 1 Comp. Isaiah Ixi. 1. 1 Sam. x. 1, et seq. Bengel strikingly remarks on James 
 
 v. 14—“ Erat liaec ecclesiae summa facultas medica, ut juridicam ejusdem liabemus, 
 1 Cor. v. Beata simplicitas! intermissa vel amissa per knio-riot*” 
 

 
 > 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -• 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
FIFTH BOOK. 
 
 DOCTRINE AND THEOLOGY OF THE CHURCH. 
 

DOCTRINE AND THEOLOGY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC LITERATURE AND THEOLOGY IN GENERAL. 
 
 § 146. Rise of the New Testament Literature. 
 
 Christianity entered the world not as a written letter, like the 
 Mosaic law, but as a creative fact, as life-giving spirit. It is 
 primarily the manifestation of the eternal Son of God in the flesh 
 for the salvation of the world. u 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” (John 
 i. 14). This personal Word, the God-man, the source of all 
 light and life, communicated himself through the oral or spoken 
 word, the most appropriate and perfect medium of thought and 
 the best representation of spirit; and this was then committed 
 to writing by the apostles and their disciples for the preservation 
 of pure Christianity, and for the instruction and edification of all 
 succeeding ages. Thus arose the seven-and-twenty books, which 
 form the volume of the New Testament. 
 
 The spoken word of God, however, was not transformed into 
 the written by one sudden act. Christ himself wrote nothing. 1 
 
 1 The pretended letter of Jesus to king Abgar Bar Manu at Edessa in Mesopotamia, 
 of which Eusebius speaks (II. E. I. 13), is assuredly spurious, though latterly Rinck 
 has undertaken (in Ulgen's “ Zeitschrift fur hist. Theologie,” 1843, No. 2) to estab¬ 
 lish the contrary, particularly from Moses of Chorene (f 470). It is a mere compila- 
 
282 § 146. RISE OF NEW TESTAMENT LITERATURE. [v. BOOK. 
 
 He had something far more important to do. It was His great 
 object to perform acts, as matter for writing, yet never to be 
 fnlly written or sung. The religious wants of man demand not 
 a letter-writing, literary Saviour, but one working miracles, bear¬ 
 ing the cross, blotting out sin, rising from the dead, ascending 
 into heaven, sitting and reigning at the right hand of God ; 
 though assuredly such a Saviour is at the same time the inex¬ 
 haustible theme of holy thoughts, discourses, writings, and deeds. 
 Nor did the apostles begin with literary labour; having in fact 
 received no direct instruction on this point from their Master. 
 They preached in the fulness of the Spirit and of life, as the 
 bearers and interpreters of the divine revelation; and with their 
 words the new life itself streamed into those who earnestly 
 listened. All the expressions which they use, u preaching,” 
 u gospel,” u tradition,” u testimony,” u word,” etc., show that the 
 truth was first promulgated altogether by word of mouth. 1 The 
 oldest book of the New Testament was probably not written be¬ 
 fore the year 50, or some twenty years after the founding of the 
 church. 2 The New Testament, therefore, as a book or written 
 volume, is not the principle, but the inspired record of Chris¬ 
 tianity ; not the ground, but the product of the church of Christ, 
 then already firmly established. But on the other hand it may 
 be justly said, that the substance of the Scriptures, the saving 
 truth, the word of God, was present at the beginning, and was, 
 as the living utterance of the personal Word, Jesus Christ and 
 His Spirit, the seed of the church (1 Peter i. 23; James i. 18). 
 It is one and the same word of God, which was heard on the day 
 
 tion of passages from the gospels ; and it is not presumable that a genuine letter of 
 the Redeemer could have remained in obscurity till the fourth century. Still less 
 can the pretended work of Jesus on the observance of Sunday, said to have fallen 
 from heaven (vid. Thilo: Acta Thenae. prolegg. p. 85), for a moment stand the test of 
 criticism. 
 
 1 l-Lvowy/xot,, ivtx.'yyeXiov, trotgoiScirt;, v^ioc, \oyoi, Xoyo; tv; u.xov;, xv^Jtrtruv, iiotyytXi^ttr9a.i, 
 
 tTMgxdidoytzi, fAx.QTi>Qiurt)(y.i, "ku.i.uv ; and, on the part of the hearers: sxa.gaAct^u./So.vE/v, u.xo\juv, 
 «.x%ooi/r9u,i, htxio-OcLi, 5 tIittis sg Uxovi. Comp. Rom. x. 14-17. 2 Tim. ii. 1 , 2. Heb. ii. 
 1-4. Gal. iii. 2 , 5, etc. 
 
 2 The oldest written document of the Christian church is perhaps the epistle of the 
 apostolic council at Jerusalem to the Gentile Christians in Syria and Cilicia, settling 
 the dispute between them and the Jewish Christians respecting the continued validity 
 of the Mosaic law, Acts xv. One argument for its antiquity and genuineness is also 
 the seemingly trifling circumstance, that the name of Barnabas is placed before that 
 of Paul, ver. 25. For to the church of Jerusalem Barnabas appeared at that time 
 (a. 50) the more important person, while Luke from ch. xiii. places Paul first. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 § 147. 
 
 HISTORICAL BOOKS. 
 
 288 
 
 of Pentecost, and which is read to-day. For us the written word 
 with the Spirit, which reigns in it, holds the place of the personal 
 presence and oral preaching of the apostles, and is at the same 
 time the only infallible guide to their pure and original doctrine; 
 while the church tradition, as a source of knowledge, derives all 
 its value from its agreement with the Scriptures, and is, there¬ 
 fore, subordinate to them. 
 
 The apostolic writings, which, as such, are inspired and cano¬ 
 nical, i.e. furnish the infallible rule of Christian faith and prac¬ 
 tice, fall into three classes ; (1) The historical books, embracing 
 the four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles; (2) the didactic 
 books, comprising twenty-one apostolical epistles; and (3) the 
 prophetic book of the Revelation of St John. 
 
 § 147. Historical Books. The Gospels. 
 
 The demand for a written record of the life and doctrine of 
 Jesus and His apostles arose from two causes; (1) the nature and 
 fate of all oral tradition, which, as it spreads, continually gathers 
 legendary additions and embellishments, till it becomes at last 
 impossible to distinguish with certainty the original substance ; 
 (2) the danger of wilful distortion, with which Judaizing and 
 Gnostic errorists threatened the Gospel even during the lifetime 
 of the apostles, as the warnings in the epistles of Paul and John 
 and the many apocryphal gospels afterwards circulated abundantly 
 prove. 
 
 Of the four canonical gospels, or rather representations of 
 one and the same gospel, the first and the last are the work of 
 immediate disciples of the Lord; the two others, of disciples of 
 the apostles, and thus likewise, though indirectly, of the apostles 
 themselves. They were not intended to be complete biographies 
 of Jesus, but only exhibitions of certain characteristic features 
 of His life and works, such as struck each author with peculiar 
 force, and were most interesting to his particular circle of 
 readers. The object was to awaken faith in Jesus as the pro¬ 
 mised Messiah, the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, 
 and to lead the readers by this faith to true, eternal, divine life 
 (comp. John xx. 30). 
 
 As to the date of these books ; the first three gospels appear, 
 both from internal marks and from the testimony of the oldest 
 
284 
 
 § 147. HISTORICAL BOOKS. 
 
 [V. BOOK; 
 
 tradition, to have been written in the seventh decade of the first 
 century; therefore before the destruction of Jerusalem, which 
 they represent in the prophetic discourses of the Lord as future, 
 but nigh at hand. Single portions of the life of Jesus, however, 
 and collections of His discourses, prepared in some instances by 
 unskilled hands, were in private use before that time in various 
 Christian circles. This we must infer from Luke’s preface, 
 i. 1-4, which, accurately translated, reads thus: u Whereas 
 many have undertaken to compose a narrative of the things 
 accomplished among us, as those, who were from the beginning 
 eye-witnesses and ministers of the word (that is the apostles), 
 have delivered them to us ; it seemed good to me also, having 
 closely followed everything from the first, to write it out in order 
 for thee, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest obtain a 
 sure and reliable knowledge of the things in which thou hast 
 been instructed.” The fourth gospel was written between the 
 years 70 and 100, at any rate last of all; for it evidently pre¬ 
 supposes the others, and exhibits the highest position and 
 maturest development of the apostolical theology (comp. § 105). 
 
 The relation of the gospels to one another is one of the most 
 important, but at the same time most difficult points in the 
 criticism of the evangelical history. We must here of course 
 confine ourselves to the most general outlines. We cannot enter 
 into the confused and confusing hypotheses of modern hyper¬ 
 critics ;—the less, since by their wild extravagances and their 
 own mutual contradictions they have already refuted themselves. 1 
 Each gospel has its peculiar character, which corresponds to 
 that of its author, of its circle of readers, and of its design. 
 The differences, however, are not contradictions, but simply the 
 various aspects of one and the same picture. The character of 
 the God-man is so sublime and comprehensive, that one hand 
 
 1 The detailed discussion of this matter belongs in the liistorico-critical introduc¬ 
 tion to the New Testament. The modern German literature on this subject, espe¬ 
 cially since the appearance of the notorious “ Leben Jesu” of Strauss, is so extensive, 
 that one cannot see the forest for the trees, and it is high time to come out of the 
 labyrinth which men have built around themselves, and get once more into the open 
 air. The lavish expenditure of ingenuity and power of combination which has 
 gradually piled up a whole mountain of hypotheses respecting the origin and mutual 
 relations of the gospels, we should have to mourn over deeply as labour lost, had 
 we not the consoling thought, that by calling forth able replies it has involuntarily 
 served to confirm the evangelical history and promoted the cause of truth. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 § 147. THE GOSFELS. 
 
 285 
 
 could not possibly give a full delineation of it. All the gospels 
 together are required, to furnish a complete picture of His life 
 and works. This is indicated by the ancient comparison of the 
 evangelists with the four symbols of the cherubim, the represen¬ 
 tatives of creation ; to Matthew being commonly (according to 
 the view of Jerome), assigned the man, to Mark the lion, to 
 Luke the ox, to John the eagle, 1 The apparent contradictions 
 in the whole conception and in the narratives of single events, 
 when carefully examined by the unprejudiced, truth-loving 
 reader, resolve themselves, at least in every point at all essential, 
 into a higher harmony, and go to show the impartiality, honesty, 
 and credibility of the authors. If all fitted together with mecha¬ 
 nical precision, it would awaken suspicion of concert and artful 
 calculation. 2 
 
 The first gospel was written by the apostle Matthew, in 
 Palestine and for Jewish Christians, originally in Aramaic, 3 and 
 afterwards, most probably by himself, in Greek. The third 
 gospel is the production of Luke, the disciple and attendant of 
 Paul. It was composed plainly under the influence of Paul’s 
 spirit and peculiar theological views, probably during that apos¬ 
 tle’s confinement in Caesarea and Pome, and for Gentile-Chris- 
 tian readers; primarily, for one Tlieophilus. The Gospel of 
 
 1 In like manner Dr J. P. Lange, in the third volume of his spirited Life of Jesus, 
 1847 (in which, however, poetical fancy has almost as large a share as scientific in¬ 
 vestigation), endeavours to follow out the fruitful thought, that the four gospels 
 represent the fourfold relation of Christ to the life of the world, and the fourfold 
 susceptibility of the world for the life of Christ. lie exchanges, however, the 
 symbols assigned to Matthew and Luke, giving to the former the ox and to the 
 latter the man. 
 
 2 We may mention also in this connection, as a proof of the watchful care of Provi¬ 
 dence over the preservation of the Scriptures, that, of the fifty thousand various 
 readings or more hitherto discovered in the New Testament, by far the majority 
 have not the slightest influence on the sense or doctrinal import; and where they 
 touch an important dogma, as in the evidently spurious passage on the Trinity, 
 1 John v. 7, which is to be found in no manuscript before the tenth century, this 
 dogma is unequivocally taught in many other decidedly genuine passages. So in 
 the case just referred to, the doctrine of the Trinity, not only by the baptismal 
 formula and the apostolical benediction, but by all that the New Testament teaches 
 of the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost, is more fully and firmly established 
 than it could be by any single expression. 
 
 3 The lost Hebrew original was in our view a complete gospel, embracing the 
 same historical constituents, and substantially identical with our Greek Matthew; 
 not a mere collection of sayings, as Schleiermacher ingeniously but erroneously 
 gathered from the \oyia. in the well-known deposition of Papias in Eusebius III. 39. 
 
286 
 
 HISTORICAL BOOKS. 
 
 [\ r . BOOK. 
 
 § M7. 
 
 Mark, according to a credible account preserved in Eusebius 
 (YI. 14), was written in Rome, and designed, as may be seen 
 from its frequent Latinisms 1 and explanations of Palestinian 
 peculiarities, in the first instance for Roman readers. It holds a 
 position of mediation between the two others, like that of Peter 
 between James and Paul, between the strictly Jewish-Christian 
 and the Gentile-Christian views. In fact, tradition traces it 
 back, at least indirectly, to Peter himself, whose confidential 
 companion Mark was at first in Jerusalem and at last in Rome 
 (1 Peter v. 13), and whose u interpreter” he is stated to have 
 been by the apostolic father, Papias. While it was formerly a 
 current hypothesis, that Mark was a somewhat superficial epito- 
 mist of Matthew and Luke, important critics of various schools 
 latterly incline to the opposite view, that the second gospel is 
 the oldest and forms the basis of the first and third. 2 This fur¬ 
 nishes the best explanation of the fact, that Mark’s gospel con¬ 
 tains what is common to both the others, while it exhibits neither 
 Matthew’s peculiar order of subjects, nor Luke’s chronological 
 arrangement, 3 and also leaves chasms, particularly in the history 
 of the childhood of Christ and of His appearances after the resur¬ 
 rection ; the conclusion, chap. xvi. 9-21, being the work of a 
 later hand. It relates the sacred history in its simplest, freshest 
 form, reminding one of the short but graphic accounts of Peter 
 in the Acts (x. 36-42). u Thus would the first evangelist stand 
 connected with the first apostle, and Peter, more than any other 
 
 1 Such as denarius vi. 37 ; xiv. 5; xivrvfuuv eenturio, xv. 39, 44, 45 ; xyv<ro; 
 
 census, xii. 11; xo^oivrv,; quadrans, xii. 42; paros grabbatus, ii. 4, 9, 11, 12; 
 teyiuv legio, v. 9, 15; t^out^^iov praetorium, xv. 1(>; <r^ixovX<x.TM^ speculator, vi. 27 ; 
 <p%/x.'y(.\>.on flagello, XV. 15. 
 
 2 We must not omit to refer here to the interesting work of the Scotchman, James 
 Smith, on the Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul (London, 1848, p. 279), who, on the 
 ground of original investigations, comes to the following conclusion : “ Before either 
 St Luke or St Matthew wrote their gospels, the memoir which was afterwards trans¬ 
 lated by St Mark, existed in Hebrew, and has been made use of by both these evan¬ 
 gelists. St Luke seems to have embodied the whole of it in his gospel, hence the 
 agreement between him and St Mark, when they differ in the order of time from 
 St Matthew.” This Hebrew original of Mark, Smith supposes to have been written 
 by St Peter upon the spot, immediately after the events took place which he has 
 recorded (p. xviii.) He also understands the remark of Papias on M 
 
 I § p. *i v i v ry e r s r § o v, of this very translation. 
 
 3 To this want of strict chronological order refers the ol p,ivToi tx&i, which Papias 
 uses in his much talked of and variously interpreted testimony respecting the 
 Gospel of Mark (in Eusebius, H. E. III. 39). 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 148. HISTORICAL BOOKS (CONTINUED). 
 
 287 
 
 disciple of the Lord, would be by his indirect share in the Gospel 
 of Mark the founder of the church in reference also to her per¬ 
 manent records of the history of Christ.” But in this case we 
 must certainly suppose an error in the statement of Clement of 
 Alexandria, who says expressly, that the gospels containing the 
 genealogies were written before that of Mark. 1 
 
 § 148. Historical Boohs (continued). John and the Synoptical 
 
 Evangelists. 
 
 The first three evangelists, however, or synoptical writers, as 
 they are called in distinction from John, with all their individual 
 peculiarities, are still strikingly similar. They are alike in the 
 matter of their gospels, all giving substantially the same repre¬ 
 sentation of Christ throughout; recording the preparatory work 
 of John, the baptism of Jesus, His miracles in Galilee, His last 
 journey to Jerusalem, His sufferings, death, and resurrection. 
 They have forty-two portions of the history in common. Then 
 they are alike as to form, often to verbal coincidence, particularly 
 in their reports of the discourses of Jesus and of the most im¬ 
 portant events. This agreement may be accounted for in great 
 part by the fact, that the oral tradition of the discourses and 
 works of Jesus, from which the evangelists drew, had acquired 
 by continual repetition, among the apostles and their disciples a 
 stereotyped form, which the synoptical writers scrupulously, but 
 not pedantically, transferred to their books. 
 
 The fourth gospel is stamped with a peculiarity, which most 
 clearly distinguishes it from all the rest. It stands alone in its 
 kind. The differences between the synoptical evangelists and 
 John are, indeed, among the most remarkable phenomena of the 
 New Testament, were remarked in a general way even by the 
 church fathers, and have been shown up with the keenest dis¬ 
 crimination by modern criticism. But they have also certainly 
 been exaggerated and wilfully misrepresented by the assailants 
 of the Bible, and are not yet satisfactorily explained in all 
 
 1 In Eus. H. E. VI. 14. Thiersch {Die Kirche in apostol. Zeitalter, p. 103) seeks 
 to remove this difficulty by the hypothesis that Mark’s Gospel existed for a long 
 time merely as a private writing, and was first published, with the addition of the 
 present conclusion, after the death of Peter, and received among the sacred books 
 of the church ; while the works of Matthew and Luke, though later composed, were 
 earlier published. 
 
288 § 148. HISTORICAL BOOKS (CONTINUED). [v. BOOK. 
 
 points by its defenders. They fall mainly under the following 
 heads :— 
 
 1. The design. In this the fourth gospel is comprehensive 
 and universal. It has in view, not a particular section of the 
 church, but the whole, Jewish and Gentile Christians together. 
 And by setting forth what is most profound and spiritual, the 
 esoteric, so to speak, in the appearance and discourses of Jesus, 
 the eternal Logos incarnate, it aims to raise the church to the 
 highest grade of believing knowledge, and thus at the same time 
 to secure her against the seductions of the false Gnosis, which in 
 the last decades of the apostolic period was threateningly lifting its 
 head. This combination of the historical with a clearly stamped 
 didactic character, places the fourth gospel in a certain sense in 
 a class with the New Testament epistles. 
 
 2. The theatre of events. The synoptical evangelists describe 
 chiefly the labours of Jesus in Galilee and among the common 
 people ; John presents His activity in Judea and among the edu¬ 
 cated—the Scribes and Pharisees. Yet this difference is merely 
 relative. For the former distinctly take for granted Christ’s 
 labours in Judea, as in Matth. xxiii. 37 ; xxvii. 57 ; and John 
 records several miracles in Galilee, and that plainly only by way 
 of example, as the turning of water into wine (John ii. 1, et seq .), 
 the healing of the son of a nobleman in Capernaum (iv. 47, et 
 seq .), the feeding of the multitude, and the return over the sea 
 of Galilee (vi. 1, et seq .), and he expressly declares, that Jesus 
 did many other signs, which are not written in this book (xx. 30; 
 comp. xxi. 25). One reason, why John brings us so often into 
 the tlieocratical capital, undoubtedly is, that there the conflict, 
 which he wishes to describe, between the eternal Light and the 
 darkness (comp. i. 5, et seq .) comes to view in its greatest depth 
 and strength, and is at last decided in the catastrophe of the 
 crucifixion and the triumph of the resurrection. 
 
 3. The synoptical evangelists give us more of Christ’s acts and 
 miracles; John more of His discourses. It is true, the latter re¬ 
 lates six miracles, and among them the tw T o greatest, not recorded 
 by the others,—the changing of water into wine, and the raising 
 of Lazarus. But he commonly makes the works only the start¬ 
 ing-points for the discourses of Jesus, which are with him of 
 paramount importance. The wonderful deeds are the practical, 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 148. JOHN AND THE SYNOTTICAL EVANGELISTS. 289 
 
 sensible demonstrations, the wonderful words are tlie theoretical 
 and more inward proof, of the divine glory of Christ. The two 
 are mutual counterparts. Only one, who could do such works 
 as the first three evangelists narrate, could deliver such discourses 
 as John records ; and conversely, for such a Christ as John’s, the 
 Only Begotten of the Father, it must be a small thing to make 
 the powers of nature subservient to the moral end of His mission. 
 The great thing with the fourth evangelist, however, is always 
 the person of the Saviour,‘which reveals itself most immediately 
 in Ilis creative words of spirit and life, and which alone imparts 
 even to His outward miracles their convincing power. This is 
 the living, central miracle, and all the miracles properly so called 
 are but natural emanations from it; as the sun, once existing, 
 must radiate light and heat; as the tree puts forth blossoms and 
 fruit as the necessary product of its inward life. Hence John 
 calls the miracles of Christ without the least qualification, His 
 u works.” 1 Healing the sick and raising the dead are only steps 
 by which to lead men gradually from a lower level to the adora¬ 
 tion of Him, who is himself the resurrection and the life, and in 
 whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. u Believe 
 me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe 
 me for the very works’ sake.” 2 
 
 4. In the reports of the discourses of Jesus themselves there is 
 again a difference both as to matter and form. The synoptical 
 evangelists record for the most part those speeches which relate 
 to the regulation of the conduct, and to the idea of the kingdom 
 of God; and these they clothe in a simple, popular, easily-re 
 membered form, mostly the parabolic and sententious. Jolm, on 
 the contrary, chooses those in which the Redeemer sets forth the 
 mystery of His person, His relation to the Father and to believers, 
 and the mission of the Holy Ghost; and that generally in a man¬ 
 ner so mystical and profound, that not only the unsusceptible 
 Jews, but even His own disciples, at that stage of their knowledge, 
 almost uniformly put a fleshly misconstruction on His words, or, 
 
 1 John v. 36 ; vii. 21; x. 25, 32, 38; xiv. 11, 12; xv. 24. 
 
 2 John xiv. 11. Many excellent remarks on John’s conception of the miracles of 
 Jesus may he found in R. Ch. Trench: Notes on the Miracles of our Lord, London 
 (p. 14, Amer. ed.) Comp, the criticism of this work in the “ Mercersburg Review,” 
 1850, p. 573, et seq. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 T 
 
290 
 
 § 148. HISTORICAL BOOKS (CONTINUED). [v. BOOK. 
 
 at least, had but a faint glimpse of their spiritual meaning. 1 This 
 difference is closely connected with that already observed in the 
 design, the theatre of events, and the circle of readers. Yet we 
 find occasionally in the synoptical evangelists also dialectic and 
 argumentative conversations with learned opponents (comp. 
 Matth. xii. 22, et seq.; xxii. 15-46), and expressions addressed 
 to the disciples, which in their simple sublimity and deep tender¬ 
 ness strikingly resemble the discourses in John (e.g. Matth. xi. 
 25-27); while on the other hand John also gives a couple of 
 specimens of his Master’s parabolical mode of instruction, viz., 
 the parables of the good shepherd (chap, x.) and the vine (chap, 
 xv.), besides detached, sententious passages, such as chap. iv. 
 7-26, 33-38; vi. 32, et seq.; xiii. 16, 17; xii. 24-26; comp. 
 Matth. x. 39. 
 
 Modern assailants of this gospel 2 have drawn from the many 
 misapprehensions of the discourses of Jesus in John an argument 
 against either the credibility of the history or the Lord’s wisdom 
 in teaching. But it must be remembered, that these mistakes 
 were in great part occasioned by want of susceptibility and 
 spiritual discernment in the hearers, and are to this day repeatedly 
 occurring under the simplest preaching of the cross ; while on the 
 other hand even a child or an untutored peasant, if of truly 
 earnest heart, may understand at least so much as is necessary 
 for his salvation, and does in fact understand it far better than 
 many a learned and ingenious critic. Of every word of Jesus, 
 also, in the synoptical gospels, the old comparison of the stream, 
 which bears at once the lamb and the elephant on its current, is 
 emphatically true. Then again, our Lord purposely introduced 
 obscure, paradoxical, and seemingly offensive expressions in His 
 discourses, to fix the attention of His hearers and excite them to 
 farther reflection. It is the manner of every great popular teacher 
 to let himself down to his disciples only so far as is necessary for 
 raising them up to his higher level, and, instead of repeating in 
 every-day style what is familiar to all, to rouse their slumbering 
 faculties by presenting something original in an original form, 
 and to awaken each to a consciousness of his peculiar gift. 
 
 1 Examples of such misconceptions are John ii. 20-22; iii. 4, 9, 10 ; iv. 11, 15, 33 ; 
 vi. 42, 52; vii. 35, 36 ; viii. 33, 57 ; xi. 12, 13 ; xiv. 5, 8, 9; xvi. 17, 18. 
 
 2 Especially the Tubingen school. 
 
DOCTRINE.] §148. JOHN AND THE SYNOPTICAL EVANGELISTS. 291 
 
 Finally, we must ever keep in mind that the Saviour of the world 
 spoke words of eternal life, not only for Ilis contemporaries, but 
 for all future ages and generations ; and that their meaning, 
 therefore, must be inexhaustible as himself, in whom dwells all 
 the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 
 
 Another objection, which has been raised against the credibility 
 of John’s record of the discourses of Jesus is, that they are too 
 long to have been retained. But in the first place, not only anti¬ 
 quity, which had not books to depend on, as we have, and carried 
 its learning in its head, but modern times also, afford examples 
 of astonishing power of memory. 1 Why should not the suscep¬ 
 tible John, who lay on his Master’s bosom, have been able to 
 retain His discourses, especially as these were not merely some 
 of many things equally important to be remembered, but the 
 apostle’s most precious treasure, his priceless jewel, the centre of 
 his thought and life % Besides this, however, it was expressly 
 promised (.John xiv. 26), that the Holy Ghost should remind the 
 apostles of all they had heard from Christ, make it intelligible to 
 them, and fully assimilate it to their spiritual being. 
 
 A third objection urged by the negative criticism against the 
 discourses of Jesus in the fourth gospel is their subjectivity, that 
 is, their adaptation to the writer’s style and system of thought. 
 Beyond question they strikingly resemble the first epistle of John 
 in matter and language. Undoubtedly the apostle has not 
 merely mechanically memorized his Master’s words of life and as 
 mechanically repeated them; he has assimilated them to his in¬ 
 most being, and reproduced them in a living way, so that they 
 are as much his as they were Christ’s. But this process of re¬ 
 production was preceded by another, viz., the entire sinking of 
 the beloved disciple’s personality into that of his divine Master, 
 so that thenceforth he could not think, speak, or write otherwise 
 than in the Saviour’s way. He truly formed himself on his 
 
 1 Think, for example, of Themistocles, Avho, when the art of remembering was 
 offered to be taught him, wished rather to learn the art of forgetting ; of Mithridates, 
 who knew by heart all the names of his many thousand soldiers, and could address 
 each in his mother tongue ; of modern scholars, as Lipsius, Leibnitz, Joh. von Muller, 
 who knew almost whole authors word for word ; of the cardinal Mezzofanti, who, if 
 I am rightly informed, was acquainted with near forty languages and dialects ; finally 
 of those rude Indians, who were able to repeat verbatim the sermons of missionaries 
 which they only half, if at all, understood. 
 
292 § 148. HISTORICAL BOOKS (CONTINUED). [v. BOOK. 
 
 Lord’s bosom ; that was his school. He first went into Christ, 
 and then Christ came forth again from his spirit and conscious¬ 
 ness. It is well known, that very independent and original 
 authors may so completely live themselves into another genius, 
 that their productions become strikingly similar in thought and 
 style. 1 This, considering all we know from the other evangelists, 
 from his own writings, and from tradition, of his tender, suscep¬ 
 tible, self-surrendering nature, and his intimate friendship with 
 Jesus, must have been particularly the case with John. Lather 
 must we, therefore, reverse the matter, and say, that the epistles 
 of John are a sequel, an echo, of the discourses of Jesus in the 
 fourth gospel, and not the latter an arbitrary imitation of the 
 former. From the affinity in question an inference unfavourable 
 to the accuracy of John’s reports of our Lord’s discourses could 
 be drawn, only when these reports should contradict those of the 
 other gospels. But such contradiction no critic has yet been 
 able to prove. There is none. Jolm’s record presents the same 
 Christ, the same inexhaustible theme, only in a different, peculiar 
 aspect, in that aspect, which John by his peculiar character was 
 specially fitted to apprehend. This leads us to the last point of 
 difference. 
 
 5. The whole peculiarity of the fourth gospel centres in its 
 conception of the person of Jesus Christ , of which the discourses 
 are the immediate expression. This difference may be briefly 
 stated thus :—The synoptical evangelists set before us mainly the 
 glorified humanity, John the incarnate divinity, of the Lord. 
 There the Saviour appears as the sinless, faultless “ Son of Man,” 
 in whom the idea of our race, the full image of God, is first per¬ 
 fectly realized; here, as the true “ Son of God,” who was one 
 with the Father before the creation of the world, and who every¬ 
 where reveals through the veil of the flesh His eternal glory, full 
 of grace and truth. Matthew portrays Him as the last and 
 greatest Prophet, the Messiah and King of the Jews, the Ful- 
 filler of the law and the prophets; Mark, in brief, graphic 
 
 i Compare, for example, the Odyssey with the Iliad, which can hardly have come 
 from the same author; Horace with his Grecian models ; the epistle to the Hebrews 
 and that of Clement to the Corinthians with Paul’s epistles; Joh. von Muller with 
 Tacitus; Schleiermacher with Plato. Or go to the poets, as Shakspeare and Gothe, 
 who can enter into and speak in the most diverse characters. 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 148. JOHN AND THE SYNOPTICAL EVANGELISTS. 293 
 
 sketches, as the mighty Wonder-worker, the Lion of the tribe 
 of Judah, the embodiment of omnipotence; Luke, as the ever 
 ready and kind Physician of body and soul, as the Shepherd of 
 lost sheep, the Saviour of poor sinners, the merciful Philanthro¬ 
 pist, the demolisher of the partition-wall between Jew’s and Gen¬ 
 tiles; John, as the centre of the universe. The first three pro¬ 
 ceed from below upwards, beginning with the birth of the Lord 
 from the womb of a virgin, and following Him through His 
 mighty works, as also through the toil and privation of His 
 earthly life, through the bitter death of the cross and the repose 
 in the tomb, to His victory over death and the grave, and His 
 triumphant ascension on high, where “ all power in heaven and 
 in earth” is given Him as the reward of His labour. John pro¬ 
 ceeds from above dowmvards, from heaven to earth, from the 
 eternal pre-existence of the Logos to His appearance in human 
 flesh. He traces the pedigree of his hero, not merely to Abra¬ 
 ham, the patriarch of the Jews , as does the Hebrew Matthew; 
 nor to Adam, the progenitor and representative of all men, as 
 does the Pauline Luke; but to the absolute beginning in the 
 depths of eternity; makes Him proceed from the bosom of the 
 Father; accompanies Him, the Source of all light and life in the 
 w T orld, through the creation and preservation of all things, and 
 through the successive steps of the general revelation to all men, 
 and the special revelation to the Jews, down to the incarnation; 
 depicts His victorious conflict with the darkness of the ungodly 
 world; makes His unity with God in essence and will gleam 
 forth in all His discourses and wrnrks; and show’s Him to us 
 after the complete victory, glorified with “ the glory which He 
 had with the Father before the w 7 orld w^as.” If in the synoptical 
 gospels we behold with admiration and astonishment, faith and 
 love, the divine Son of Man, in the Gospel of John we are 
 rapt in adoration of the human Son of God, and exclaim with 
 Thomas—“My Lord and my God!” 
 
 Hence the Alexandrian fathers styled the fourth gospel 
 “ pneumatic” or spiritual, and the three others “ somatic” or 
 bodily. Thus Clement of Alexandria, 1 following the statements 
 of fathers before him—“ Last of all John, perceiving that in those 
 
 1 In Eusebius, H. E. VI. 14. 
 
\ 
 
 294 § 149. THE ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. [V. BOOK. 
 
 gospels the bodily was set forth, encouraged by bis friends, 
 moved by the Holy Ghost, composed a spiritual gospel.” To 
 this incomparable picture of Christ’s person is chiefly due the 
 irresistible attraction of John for the most profound and genial 
 theologians of all ages, from Clement and Origen to Schleier- 
 macher and Neander. But his gospel must not be extolled at 
 the expense of the others. 1 The synoptical gospels are also 
 spiritual and ideal. Not seldom do they lift the veil from the 
 wonderful mystery of the Godhead in Jesus of Nazareth. In 
 fact, that mystery glimmers through all their records of the 
 Saviour’s words and deeds, and furnishes the only key to their 
 full meaning. Then, on the other hand, John is radically 
 opposed to all false spiritualism and Docetism, and declares with 
 the strongest emphasis, that Christ, though one with the Father, 
 is yet at the same time truly man, flesh of our flesh, and bone 
 of our bone, whom the disciples saw with their own eyes, heard 
 with their ears, and handled with their hands. 2 
 
 In short, John and the synoptical evangelists complete and 
 confirm each other in setting forth Him, who combines the divine 
 and human natures in the indissoluble unity of His person, and 
 is thus constituted Mediator between God and man, between 
 eternity and time, between heaven and earth, the immovable 
 foundation of the Christian church and the eternal source of her 
 life and peace. 
 
 § 149. The Acts of the Apostles . 
 
 Last among the historical books, though belonging not to the - 
 “ Evangelion,” but according to the old division to the u Apos- 
 tolos,” is the Acts of the Apostles by Luke. Of this we have 
 already had occasion more than once to speak, since it is our 
 principal authority for the external history of this period. It 
 announces itself at the outset as an immediate continuation of 
 the third gospel, which is hence called u the former treatise” 
 (Acts i. 1). It is addressed to the same Theophilus, probably a 
 
 1 As it is, for example, in the school of Sehleiermacher. Against this, the criticism 
 of Strauss and Baur was a natural reaction, which went to the opposite extreme, 
 running out at last into absolute impossibilities and absurdities, and thereby con¬ 
 demning itself. 
 
 2 John i. 14 ; xix. 34, 35; xxi. 20, 27. 1 John i. 1. 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 150. THE DIDACTIC BOOKS. 
 
 295 
 
 distinguished Roman, and is evidently, as may be seen from the 
 very affinity of language and style, 1 the work of the same author. 
 Luke, having been for many years an attendant and faithful 
 friend of Paul (comp. 2 Tim. iv. 11), was best qualified to be his 
 biographer; and his residence in Jerusalem and Caesarea, during 
 his teacher’s two years’ imprisonment, gave him an excellent 
 opportunity to collect documents respecting the earlier history of 
 the church in Palestine. Probably he began his work at Caesa¬ 
 rea, and with the aid of these older documents, of his own obser¬ 
 vation, and of the additional communications and corrections of 
 Paul, finished it during the two quiet years of the apostle’s con¬ 
 finement in Rome, a.d. 61-63. 
 
 As the gospels aim at no complete biography of Jesus, so the 
 book of Acts gives, not a full history of the life and labours of the 
 apostles, as the old title (not however given it by Luke) would 
 indicate; but a simple and invaluable history of the planting 
 of the Christian church, first among the Jews by the labours 
 chiefly of Peter, and then among the Gentiles in Syria, Asia 
 Minor, Greece, and Rome, principally by the labours of Paul. 
 It begins with the ascension of our Lord (or the taking posses¬ 
 sion of His throne and the commencement of His mediatorial reign) 
 and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost for the founding of the 
 church, and closes with the joyful preaching of the great apostle 
 of the Gentiles in the world’s metropolis ; which virtually decided 
 the victory of the Gospel. Of the labours of the other apostles 
 Luke gives scarcely any information, and even respecting the 
 end of the two leading apostles he leaves us in the dark; either 
 because it did not belong to his design to record this, or, more 
 probably, because he completed so much of his book before the 
 decision of their fate, and was afterwards by circumstances or con¬ 
 siderations unknown to us prevented from continuing it. 
 
 § 150. The Didactic Boohs. 
 
 The doctrinal portion of the New Testament consists of thir- 
 
 1 That is, in the parts composed by Luke himself. For his reports of Peter’s dis¬ 
 courses bear a marked resemblance to the doctrinal system and the style of Peter; 
 and the discourses of Paul, an equally striking affinity with the epistles of that 
 apostle,—no trifling proof of the historical fidelity and the credibility of the book of 
 Acts. 
 
296 § 150. THE DIDACTIC BOOKS. [V. BOOK 
 
 teen epistles of Paul, two of Peter, three of John, one epistle of 
 James, one of Jude, and the anonymous epistle to the Hebrews, 
 written according to one view by Paul himself, according to an¬ 
 other conjecture, by one of his pupils and fellow-labourers, Luke, 
 Barnabas, or Apollos. Most of Paul’s epistles, the two to the 
 Thessalonians, the one to the Galatians, the first to Timothy, the 
 one to Titus, the two to the Corinthians, the one to the Bomans, 
 and the epistle of James, were composed before the gospels and 
 the Acts, between the years 50 and 60, as has been shown in 
 detail in the first book. The epistles to the Ephesians, to the 
 Colossians, to Philemon, to the Philippians, the second to 
 Timothy, as also the epistle to the Hebrews and the two epistles 
 of Peter, and probably that of Jude, belong in the seventh de¬ 
 cade, most of them between the years 62 and 64. John’s epistles 
 with the fourth gospel bear all the internal marks of having 
 been written after the destruction of Jerusalem and towards the 
 end of the first century. 
 
 This second class of primitive Christian documents was called, 
 forth in general by the necessity of correspondence, which natu¬ 
 rally arose with the spread of the church, and even preceded the 
 demand for written gospels. As it was impossible for the apostles 
 to be present in all their churches at once, and yet necessary that 
 they should oversee them and lead them forward in the Christian 
 faith and life, they had no other way, but to compensate for their 
 personal presence by sending delegates and written communica¬ 
 tions. To this general necessity were added, in each case, special 
 occasions for writing, particularly dangers of theoretical and 
 practical error and division, which everywhere more or less 
 threatened these young churches. While the gospels and the 
 so-called catholic epistles (not including the second and third of 
 John) were written with reference, more or less distinctly, to the 
 church at large, or at least the greater part of it, and for future 
 as well as present use; all Paul’s epistles, on the contrary, are 
 in the first instance specially intended for single congregations or 
 private persons, as Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. So far, they 
 are all occasional writings. 
 
 But God in His wonderful wisdom and grace so ordered, that 
 these individual and apparently incidental occasions and wants 
 represented all the principal wants and occasions, which should 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 § 150. THE DIDACTIC BOOKS. 
 
 297 
 
 arise in the church; so that those epistles answer for all ages, 
 and cover the whole province of Christian faith and practice, 
 “ for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
 righteousness.” The early defects and errors of the natural 
 man, whether on Jewish or Gentile ground, are in substance 
 perpetually returning, and the old exhortations and warnings 
 are, therefore, always applicable and quite as forcible, fresh, and 
 effectual as in the first century. What is extraordinary and 
 divine about this apostolic literature is, not that it arose in a 
 magical way, without occasion, but precisely the contrary; that 
 it arose by an altogether natural process, organically growing 
 out of special existing necessities, and yet conceals under this 
 truly opportune and concrete individual form an inexhaustible 
 store of matter legitimately applicable in all places and circum¬ 
 stances. The most subjective is here at the same time the most 
 objective ; the most strictly individual is absolutely universal. 
 We must accordingly say also of the written word of God, that 
 it “was made flesh” like the eternal personal Logos, and sub¬ 
 jected to all the conditions and laws of natural, human develop¬ 
 ment, but that its servant-form was radiant with eternal glory, 
 “ full of grace and truth.” The Bible is throughout truly 
 divine, yet throughout truly human, and thus alone adapted 
 to men. 
 
 As to their design ; the didactic books are all addressed to 
 baptized Christians, not to unconverted heathens or Jews. They 
 presuppose the preaching of the Gospel and the commencement 
 of the Christian life, and hence serve not so much to awaken as 
 to nourish and strengthen that life. The historical books, there¬ 
 fore, as preparatory, are properly placed first in order, though 
 composed in some cases later. Only the gospel of John, as be¬ 
 fore observed, has, besides its historical, also a didactic character, 
 and aims to advance Christian knowledge to the highest stage of 
 intuition. 
 
 But now as all Christian doctrine rests upon the facts of the 
 Gospel, so on the other hand it is not confined to the head, but 
 reproduces itself in new life and new acts. Hence all the epistles, 
 especially those of Paul, besides their doctrinal portion, have also 
 an ethical or hortatory part, and this not limited merely to the 
 last chapters, but everywhere interwoven with or immediately 
 
298 § 151. THE PROPHETIC BOOK [v. BOOK. 
 
 attached to the exposition of doctrine. Thus doctrine is at once 
 the fruit and the seed of life. 
 
 § 151. The Prophetic Booh of the Pevelatijpn. ( Comp . § 101 
 
 and 107.) 
 
 The Revelation of St John forms the third species of apostolic 
 literature, and the most appropriate and sublime conclusion, the 
 divine seal of the whole. 
 
 The mode of its production was different from that of the other 
 Hew Testament books. The gospels and epistles proceeded from 
 a state of divine illumination united with entire self-control and 
 clear consciousness. The Apocalypse is the result of a special 
 act of inspiration, an immediate revelation of Jesus Christ re¬ 
 specting His advent, dictated, as it were, to the entranced seer 
 by the Holy Ghost. The sacred penman should not, indeed, 
 even here, be deprived of all agency of his own and ma'de & per¬ 
 fectly passive tool. But the state of mind, in which he received 
 and communicated the revelation, was not that of ordinary in¬ 
 tellectual reflection ( vovs ). It was that of extraordinary, ecstatic, 
 immediate intuition (nvey/ia), in which the finite reaches over into 
 the infinite. All the prophecy of the Scriptures rests on direct, 
 divine inspiration, though it has a subjective basis in man’s 
 faculty of presaging (often, especially in momentous transition 
 periods, greatly elevated), and his impulse to lift the veil of the 
 future. 
 
 In matter and form the Revelation is closely allied to the pro¬ 
 phetic literature of the Old Testament, particularly the book of 
 Daniel, combining its boldest and most powerful tones in an 
 overwhelming harmony. But with the poetical, symbolical style, 
 it unites also the epistolary in the letters to the seven churches. 
 It intersperses its visions with lyric songs of praise, which afford 
 the soul a delightful resting-place amidst the rushing crowd of 
 events. And it surpasses all the Hebrew prophecies in the sub¬ 
 limity of its views, the majesty of its imagery, the variety of its 
 symbols, the dramatic vividness, unity, and finish of its composi¬ 
 tion, the progress of its action, and finally in its specifically 
 Christian element, the reference of all the parts to the crucified 
 and now glorified God-man. 
 
 c > 
 
 Prophecy, alike in the Old Testament and in the New, is 
 
DOCTRINE.] OF THE REVELATION. 299 
 
 founded on the idea of the divine government of the world, un¬ 
 avoidably presupposing that history is not a product of chance, 
 but an unfolding of the thoughts and plans of eternal wisdom, 
 justice, and love, and must, therefore, always issue in the glory 
 of God, the salvation of His people, and the confusion of His 
 enemies. The grand theme of Old Testament prophecy is the 
 first coming, that of New Testament prophecy the second coming 
 of the Lord and His kingdom, with all the preparatory and 
 attendant events. We expect not a Messiah, as did the Jews, 
 but the reappearing of the Lord to judge the quick and the dead, 
 and to glorify His bride. Hence hope is a cardinal virtue of the 
 church militant. Hence, too, the New Testament, though it 
 devotes not so much space to prophecy as the Old, could not be 
 without it. 
 
 We find several prophetic passages scattered through the gos¬ 
 pels and epistles. Among these may be mentioned especially 
 the discourses of our Lord himself respecting the destruction of 
 Jerusalem and His final advent, Matth. xxiv. Mark xiii. Luke 
 xvii. 22, et seq .; xviii. 8; xxi. 6-36 ; and the frequent refer¬ 
 ences of the apostles to Christ’s second coming, and its presages, 
 such as the great apostasy, the spread of dangerous errors, and 
 also the propagation of the Gospel in all the world, 1 Tliess. iv. 
 16, et seq. 2 Thess. ii. 1-12. Korn. xi. 25. 1 Cor. xv. 51, et seq. 
 1 Tim. iv. 1-3. 2 Tim. iii. 1-5; iv. 3, 4. 1 John ii. 18, 22 ; iv. 
 3. 2 John 7. 2 Peter ii. 1, et seq .; iii. 3, et seq. Jude 18, 19. 
 
 All these elements John’s Apocalypse combines in one dra¬ 
 matic picture, giving us, in grand, highly poetical visions and 
 symbols, a representation of the sufferings and triumphs of the 
 kingdom of Christ, down to its consummation in the new heavens 
 and the new earth. The Lord comes, the Lord is at hand, 
 Christ struggles, Christ conquers and leads His church through 
 much persecution and tribulation to certain glory,—this is the 
 grand thought of the mysterious book. 
 
 The practical design of the Revelation, as also of prophecy in 
 general, is, not to gratify idle curiosity, to encourage subtle and 
 presumptuous speculations, but to remind us of our entire de¬ 
 pendence on God, and of our sacred duties—to exhort and 
 comfort the faithful. By unveiling the future and the hidden 
 present, the seer would incite the seven churches of Asia Minor, 
 
300 
 
 § 151. THE PROPHETIC BOOK 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 which represent the whole church in its various forms and ten¬ 
 dencies, to watchfulness, patience, fidelity and perseverance in 
 their struggles and hardships, and, at the same time, would com¬ 
 fort and animate them by the divine assurance of the infallible 
 victory of Christ over all His enemies, and of the eternal triumph 
 of His bride. 
 
 The Apocalypse, accordingly, is a book of warning, encourage¬ 
 ment, and hope, and is best understood practically in times of 
 trial and persecution. 1 This purpose of edification it has in fact 
 ever served, notwithstanding the very various, and sometimes 
 altogether contradictory, historical expositions, which it has met 
 even at the hands of truly pious theologians, who in other more 
 important points perfectly agree. We may fully concede the 
 unsatisfactory character of all attempts yet made to explain it, 
 from Irenseus down to Liicke and Hengstenberg—and for our 
 own part we must confess, that none of the many commentaries 
 are altogether satisfactory, however much light they may throw 
 on the details,—we may be honestly persuaded, that the proper 
 key to the full scientific and historical understanding of this re¬ 
 markable book has not yet been found, without thereby being 
 obliged in the least to doubt its divine origin and high practical 
 value. 2 It belongs, in fact, to the nature of every divine pro¬ 
 phecy to unveil itself but gradually, and to be fully intelligible 
 only in the light of its fulfilment. So the prophetic writings of 
 the Old Testament remained half understood, or misunderstood, 
 till the appearance of Christ; as in fact the whole Old Testa¬ 
 ment becomes clear only in the New. 3 Nay, even the apostles 
 
 1 This is remarked by the venerable Bengel, whose merits as an expositor of the 
 Revelation are very great, even though his historical application of the beast to the 
 papacy should be wholly wrong, as well as his chronological system, which, at least 
 in a main point, the year 1836, has been actually refuted. He says : “ This book is a 
 book of the cross. It was given to John in his affliction, and under trial it is best un¬ 
 derstood and appi'eciated. In seasons of quiet security it was almost forgotten, but 
 under the persecutions by the heathen emperors, and those subsequently endured by 
 the Waldenses, the Bohemian brethren, etc., it has been turned to good account. 
 Many a one too may soon be glad of the book, who now refuses to receive it.” 
 
 2 As sometimes, it is to be regretted, even great and pious men have done ; Luther, 
 for example, in his honest, but very hasty and irreverent judgment of the Apocalypse 
 ( Vorrede of a.d. 1522, and also of 1534), which he would consider neither apostolic 
 nor prophetical, because no one knew what was in it; though he employed it, when 
 it suited him, against the papacy. 
 
 3 According to the striking expression of Augustine: “ Novum Testamentum in 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 OF THE REVELATION. 
 
 301 
 
 were long entangled in all sorts of carnal prejudices. It was 
 only by degrees, and under the special guidance of their Master, 
 that they rose to a deeper spiritual knowledge of the Messianic 
 promises. Nevertheless, to souls anxiously waiting for the sal¬ 
 vation of Israel, these prophecies, though in many points misap¬ 
 prehended, were an inexhaustible source of spiritual strength, 
 comfort, and refreshment. 1 Precisely the same may be said of 
 the last strains of the beloved disciple, in which, at the close of 
 the apostolic age and the century of miracles, soaring yet once 
 more on eagle’s wings to behold the eternal triumph of his divine 
 Master, and the glory of the bride u adorned for her husband ” 
 on the sanctified earth, he bequeathed to the church militant 
 these precious visions under the seal of the Holy Ghost, as a 
 cordial for all her hours of temptation and affliction. As such, 
 the Apocalypse has already been, in fact, of the most valuable 
 service to the people of God,—during the bloody persecutions by 
 the Roman power in the first three centuries; at the descent of 
 the barbarian hordes amid the storms of the migration; under 
 the conquests of Mohammedanism ; and in every heavy calamity 
 and persecution which has since befallen the church. Hence 
 also its significance did not cease with the. dissolution of the old 
 Roman heathenism, any more than did the fulfilment of the Old 
 Testament prophecies stop with the events of Jewish history, to 
 which they primarily refer. The age of the Neronian and 
 Domitianic persecutions is not the goal, but only the historical 
 starting-point, of the Apocalypse, and the basis of its interpreta¬ 
 tion. As the kingdom of Christ advances, so rises also the 
 empire of Antichrist and false prophecy in ever new and more 
 dangerous forms; and every new conflict of the two, and every 
 
 Vetere latet, Vetus in Novo patet,” or “ V. T. est occultatio Novi, N. T. manifestatio 
 Veteris.” The same may be said of the relation of prophecy to fulfilment. 
 
 1 This is remarked also by Herder in his commentary on the Apocalypse, which 
 abounds in glowing eloquence, although we must consider it as on the whole entirely 
 erroneous, since it refers everything to the Jewish war and the destruction of Jeru¬ 
 salem. “ How many prophets have we in the Old Testament,” says he finely, p. 194, 
 et seq. (Werke zur Theol. Part 12), “in many of whose passages we do not know the 
 primary historical references, while yet these passages, containing divine truth, 
 doctrine and consolation, are manna for all hearts and all ages ! Should it not be so 
 with the book, which is an abstract of almost all prophets and apostles ? This book 
 (though sealed to many a plain Christian as to its scientific interpretation) is a book 
 of instruction and comfort for all churches in which Christ walks.” 
 
302 § 152. ORGANISM OF APOSTOLIC LITERATURE. [v. BOOK. 
 
 new victory, follow the same general laws, and form a new and 
 higher fulfilment of the prophecy. 
 
 We cannot hut agree, therefore, with the genial Herder, when 
 he styles the Revelation of St John u a book of instruction and 
 comfort, manna for all hearts and all ages.” If curious minds 
 have occasionally been led astray by it, it is their own fault. 
 They would have been led astray without it, by the twenty- 
 fourth chapter of Matthew, or by any other book, whose meaning 
 does not lie immediately upon the surface. It is in every respect 
 well that the spirit of inquiry and attentive observation of the 
 signs of the times, in the light of the Scriptures, should be con¬ 
 stantly re-awakened. While it accumulates much hay and 
 stubble, which the fire consumes, it also continually brings out 
 new treasures of gold and silver from the mines of the prophetic 
 word. The Apocalypse furnishes each generation just what its 
 peculiar dangers, conflicts, and necessities require, and for each 
 succeeding period of church history it has some new significance 
 and some higher fulfilment. Hypercritics, bringing to the study 
 of the Old and New Testaments, not the thankful disposition of 
 children and heirs, but the heartless analytics of a special pleader, 
 may say what they please against it; their own wisdom will be 
 forgotten, but the book they despise will be hereafter, as hereto¬ 
 fore, to thousands of the best and noblest souls a star of hope in 
 the darkness of midnight, a stimulus to holy desire, an earnest 
 of future blessings, and will afford them from time to time a 
 foretaste of the new heavens and the new earth, till the Lord 
 shall come to take home His longing bride. 
 
 § 152. Organism of the Apostolic Literature. 
 
 If from this point we look back upon the New Testament 
 canon, we observe in it a beautiful organism, the three parts 
 charmingly fitting together in one whole. The historical books 
 form the foundation, the didactic the edifice itself, and the Apo¬ 
 calypse the dome. Or, to use another figure, the first are the 
 root, the second the branches, the third the ripe fruit. The three 
 classes bear the same relation as conversion, sanctification, and 
 glorification, or as the cardinal Christian virtues, faith, love, and 
 hope. The substance, the all-absorbing theme, the beginning, 
 middle, and end of the whole is Jesus Christ. In the gospels 
 
DOCTRINE.] §153. LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF NEW TESTAMENT. 303 
 
 lie walks in bodily presence before us. In the epistles lie as¬ 
 sumes an invisible, but none the less real existence, in the Holy 
 Ghost. In the first chapters of Acts we see Him glorified, 
 hovering, as it were, on the confines of the two worlds ; then a 
 cloud removes Him from the sight of the apostles, and puts an 
 end to Ilis visible, finite presence, but only to make room for Ilis 
 mystical omnipresence in the life of the church, which is for this 
 reason styled “ His body, the fulness of Him that filletli all in 
 all.” In the Apocalypse He re-appears visibly, but no longer in 
 the form of a servant and in the likeness of sinful flesh. Pie 
 comes forth in the full splendour of His spiritual and bodily glory, 
 with the crown of stars, and His face shining as the sun. All 
 Plis enemies are vanquished. All tears wiped away; all pains 
 banished; all mysteries solved. The ideal of beauty, truth, and 
 holiness is perfectly realized ; body is all glorified in spirit; heaven 
 and earth are one; the city of God is finished and prepared as a 
 bride adorned for her husband. u Behold the tabernacle of God 
 is with men, and Pie will dwell with them, and they shall be Plis 
 people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” 
 “ Surely I come quickly. Even so come, Lord Jesus !” 
 
 We have now to exhibit in the next chapter the organism of 
 the apostolic doctrine , as it comes to view in the epistles. But a 
 few remarks, first, respecting the language in which these writ¬ 
 ings have come down to us. 
 
 § 153. Language and Style of the New Testament. 
 
 In the language of the apostolic writings we must distinguish 
 three elements, the Greek, the Hebrew, and the specifically 
 Christian. 1 The union of these makes the books of the New 
 Testament an altogether peculiar genus of literature, and furnishes 
 evidence no less of their genuineness than of the universality of 
 their destination. 2 
 
 1 The Latin element is very insignificant, confined almost entirely to single technical 
 terms, occurring mostly in the Gospel of Mark, such as i^voi^iov, tt^outiu^ov, xovo-roiitx,, 
 xtvTvoiaiy, xr,ycrot t aoe^xyry,; (quadrans), |£<rr>jj (sextai’ius), Xtytclu v, etc. 
 
 2 To this the “ Northern Magus,” iiamann, has drawn attention in his genial way. 
 “ The books of the New Testament,” says he in his Kleeblatt hellenisiischtr Briefe 
 (Part II. p. 204, et seq. of his complete Works), “ are written £/3$«iV rr lxxnw«-r/, puux'itrrl, 
 like the title of the cross, John xix. 20. If it be true, that they were put forth in the 
 Jewish land, under dominion of the Romans, by people who were no literati of their 
 age, the character of their style is the most authentic evidence respecting the writers, 
 
304 
 
 § 153. LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 The Greek of the New Testament is not the pure Attic idiom, 
 as we find it in Plato, Xenophon, Thucydides, and the great 
 tragedians ; but the latter colloquial dialect, koivt] didXezTos, as it is 
 called. This arose, indeed, on the basis of the Attic literary 
 language, but took up ingredients from other dialects, chiefly the 
 Macedonian, in the time of Alexander the Great and his suc¬ 
 cessors. It meets us in the works of Aristotle, Polybius, Dio¬ 
 dorus, Plutarch, Aelian, and most of the Greek authors in the 
 days of the emperors, except such as Josephus, Lucian, Libanius, 
 who affected the pure Attic. It was spoken especially in Alex¬ 
 andria, the metropolis of Graeco-Oriental culture, and is hence 
 sometimes called the Alexandrian dialect. 
 
 This idiom was employed by almost all the Jews of the disper¬ 
 sion, who thus came to be called Hellenists 1 (Acts vi. 1; ix. 22), 
 to distinguish them from the Hellenes or proper Greeks on the 
 one hand, and on the other from the Hebrews or Palestinian 
 Jews, who spoke the Aramaic. The Greek, moreover, was at 
 that time quite prevalent in Palestine. There were regular 
 Hellenistic synagogues there, and it is very probable that the 
 Saviour himself sometimes, as in conversation with proselytes and 
 heathens, 2 and before Pilate, used the Greek. 3 And on the other 
 
 the place, and the time of these books.” From this apologetic point of view, and 
 with special reference to this remark, Dr H. W. J. Thiersch particularly has recently 
 investigated the language and style of the New Testament books in the first chapter 
 of his Versuch zur Herstellung des historischen StandpunMs , etc., 1845, p. 43, et seq . 
 
 1 From ixxYiviZuv, to act the Greek or imitate the Greeks, primarily in language, 
 then in manners and customs, in mode of thinking and acting (as Josephus, De hello 
 Jud. II. 20, 3, uses the term pufzot'liuv of those Jews, who held with the Romans in 
 the Jewish war. Comp. «r XktuvIZuv and other such expressions). ’ExXvnutrTa.1 are 
 therefore primarily Jews who speak Greek; and these also were mostly less stiff and 
 bigoted in religion than the 'E/3 ^oClot. The representatives of the more liberal-minded 
 Gentile-Christian tendency in the apostolic church, were almost all Hellenists; Bar¬ 
 nabas of Cyprus, Luke, perhaps of Antioch, Apollos, probably of Alexandria, Timothy 
 a half-Jew, of Lystra, and Paul of Tarsus, who, however, was of a strictly Jewish 
 family, the son of a Pharisee (Acts xxviii. 6), and received his education in Jeru¬ 
 salem. 
 
 2 As with the ywii 'ExxW? of Phenicia, Mark vii. 26, and with the "Exx^es, John 
 xii. 20. 
 
 3 Respecting the condition of the vernacular in Palestine we refer especially to 
 the learned investigations of Hug, in his Einleitung ins N. T. II. § 10. Also to 
 Thiersch, 1. c. p. 48, et seq., who gives it as his opinion “that Christ was master of the 
 Greek language, that He could use it, but in His intercourse with His disciples and 
 with the people He preferred the vernacular (Aramaic), so nearly akin to the sacred 
 Hebrew.” 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 TIIE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 305 
 
 hand there were also in the Greek provinces Jewish families, 
 which rigidly adhered to the sacred language and customs of 
 their fathers. In this sense Paul calls himself u a Hebrew of the 
 Hebrews” (Phil. iii. 5). The Jews, however, spoke this Greek, 
 not pure, but largely adulterated with their native Hebrew, or 
 rather the closely allied Aramaic, that is, the vulgar Syro-Chal- 
 daic or Babylonian dialect, which since the Babylonish exile had 
 supplanted the pure or ancient Hebrew in ordinary intercourse. 
 This Judaizing Greek has accordingly, since Scaliger, been very 
 aptly styled the Hellenistic idiom, with reference to the appella¬ 
 tion of the Jews, who spoke Greek. It meets us, not only in the 
 New Testament, but also in the Septuagint translation of the Old, 
 in the apocryphal books of the Jews, in the works of the theolo¬ 
 gical philosopher Philo, and to some extent in the historian 
 Josephus, who, however, certainly not without affectation, aimed 
 at the old Grecian Attic elegance. 
 
 This Hebrew element in the apostolic writings is to be imputed 
 to the influence of the Old Testament and of the current Aramaic. 
 It does not, however, enter to the same extent in all, but varies 
 in prominence according to the peculiar character of the author, 
 or more especially of the contents. The tincture is strongest in 
 the historical and prophetic literature; for this was modelled on 
 the Old Testament. We observe it in the first two gospels, and 
 in those parts of the gospel of Luke, where the author gives 
 sacred traditions just as they stood, above all in the songs of Mary 
 and Zacharias (i. 46-55 and 68-79), which bear throughout an 
 old Hebrew psalmodic stamp, and are probably literally trans¬ 
 lated ; again in the first part of the Acts, where the history has 
 its theatre in Palestine, and is drawn almost wholly from Jewish- 
 Christian sources; finally, and most of all, in the Apocalypse, to 
 the ideas of which the language of the classical literature was 
 utterly inadequate. The didactic books of the New Testament, 
 for which the Old afforded no model, come nearer the pure Greek 
 idiom. The best style on puristic principles is that of Luke, par¬ 
 ticularly in the second part of the Acts, where he ceases to follow 
 the accounts of others, and describes the labours and fortunes of 
 Paul mostly as an eye-witness; that of James, whose glowing, 
 forcible use of the language is the more surprising, because he 
 was so decidedly Hebrew in sentiment, and probably always lived 
 
306 
 
 § 153. LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 in Palestine; and that of the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, 
 who evinces a familiar acquaintance with the rarer forms and 
 turns of Greek expression, and frequently (as in the first four 
 verses, and in the eleventh chapter) rises to real rhetorical 
 elegance. Paul too, however, considering his Rabbinical train¬ 
 ing, possessed great skill in the use of the Greek. His full and 
 well-turned periods are in perfect accordance with its genius ; 
 and at times, especially in his epistles to the Corinthians, he in¬ 
 troduces delicacies of style well timed for readers in a city of 
 Grecian culture. On the other hand, James, in the beginning 
 of the fifth chapter of his epistle, assumes the tone and style of 
 prophetic rebuke ; showing that the preponderance of one or the 
 other linguistic element varied in the same author with the 
 character of his subject. The style of John in his gospel and 
 epistles is, in words and phrases, mostly pure Greek, but in con¬ 
 struction exceedingly simple and artless, without many connec¬ 
 tives, and without periods,—very Hebrew like. 
 
 The crude and pitiable view of the older, or so-called vulgar 
 Rationalism, that the Hebraisms of the New Testament are so 
 many grammatical blunders and violations of the Greek, a more 
 thorough philology and exegesis (especially since Winer) has 
 banished from all truly learned circles. With equal reason might 
 the Grecisms of the Latin poets, the Germanisms of the Romanic 
 languages, and the many Latin and French elements of the 
 English be condemned as corruptions and errors. The Hebraisms 
 form, on the contrary, a peculiar and necessary modification, ex¬ 
 tension, and enrichment of the Greek, wherever, in its previous 
 form, by reason of the close connection between thought and 
 word, that language was found inadequate; as, especially, in the 
 prophetic literature. The Hebrew tinge imparts to the New 
 Testament literature a peculiar beauty, to appreciate which, how¬ 
 ever, requires more than a mere knowledge of grammar. It 
 gives the apostolic writings the attractive, childlike character, 
 the elevated simplicity, and the venerable antiqueness of the 
 sacred language of the patriarchs, and has its share in setting 
 forth the inseparable unity of the two testaments, the old and new 
 revelations of God. 
 
 But to the Greek basis and the Hebraisms of form and struc¬ 
 ture must be added the third element, the Christian , which is 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 TIIE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 307 
 
 the soul of the whole New Testament, distinguishes it specifically 
 from all Greek and Graeco-Jewish writings, and gives it a place 
 of its own in the history of literature. The spirit of the Chris¬ 
 tian revelation shows itself, in the province of language, not so 
 much in coining new words and phrases as in making a new use 
 of old ones. The apostles made words already at hand the 
 vehicles of infinitely profounder ideas than they had ever con¬ 
 veyed before, or continued to express afterwards in heathen 
 authors. 1 Even the Seventy were compelled to put into many 
 Greek expressions an Old Testament idea, which it requires a 
 sympathy with the whole spirit of the divine revelation to un¬ 
 derstand. To a far greater extent is this the case in the New 
 Testament, which contains a universe of new ideas, throwing 
 even the Old Testament far into the shade. The very terms of 
 most frequent occurrence and of the greatest importance for 
 Christian faith and practice, as light, life, truth, resurrection, 
 atonement, redemption, saviour, apostle, church (assembly), elec¬ 
 tion, calling, justification, sanctification, faith, love, hope, peace, 
 liberty, humility, blessedness, — darkness, flesh, unbelief, sin, 
 death, condemnation, etc., have a far more comprehensive and 
 profound sense than in any profane writings, or, in most cases, 
 even in the Old Testament; though this sense is certainly 
 agreeable to the natural import and the etymology of the word. 
 In this view it may be said, that, as Christianity is the perfec¬ 
 tion of humanity, so the Christian language is the full develop¬ 
 ment of the natural. Hence the knowledge of Greek and 
 Hebrew is not enough for understanding and theologically inter¬ 
 preting the Bible. To this must be added above all an experi¬ 
 mental sympathy with the spirit, which fills the words and 
 makes them vehicles of its profound ideas. 
 
 In this use of the Hellenistic idiom for conveying the Chris¬ 
 tian revelation we must admire particularly the powerful genius 
 of the apostle Paul, struggling with the language to create the 
 most suitable expression for his idea. His style, in general, is a 
 fitting channel for the bold majestic stream of his thought. True, 
 
 1 Comp. Dr Robinson, in the preface to the new edition of his New Testament 
 Lexicon, p. 5, et seq. : “ The language of the N. T. is the later Greek language, as 
 spoken by foreigners of the Hebrew stock, and applied hy them to subjects on which 
 it had never been employed by native Greek writers ,” etc. 
 
308 § 153. LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF [V. BOOK. 
 
 it is often harsh, abrupt, and irregular, like nature. It has none 
 of the careful polish and artistic exactness to be found where a 
 writer depends on his mode of expression for much of his effect. 
 Paul says himself, 2 Cor. xi. 6, that in speech, but not in know¬ 
 ledge, he was rude; that is, according to the standard of the 
 Greek philosophers and rhetoricians, whose taste, however, had 
 undoubtedly already become very corrupt. He is always too 
 full of his subject, too much occupied with the matter, to waste 
 time on the form. His mighty spirit breaks away from the 
 trammels of ordinary rules, and often rises to the height of sub¬ 
 limity. It is well known that the heathen rhetorician, Longinus, 
 placed him among the greatest orators; and the accomplished 
 critic, Erasmus, remarks on Rom. viii. 31-39 : u Quid usquam 
 Cicero dixit grandiloquentius!” In fact, this passage, as well as 
 that seraphic hymn on love, 1 Cor. xiii., is, even on merely 
 esthetic and rhetorical principles, beyond all question one of the 
 most beautiful and sublime things in the history of literature. 
 Paul’s writing is always manly and noble, fresh and vigorous, 
 clear and exact, terse and concise, 1 fascinating and suggestive, 
 sometimes plying the lash of irony 2 and sarcasm, 3 but also melt¬ 
 ing into the tenderest strains, 4 or ingeniously and winningly 
 playing on words. 5 He delights in colossal antitheses 6 and the 
 massive, dialectic progressions of the Greek periods. Even his 
 many anacolutlia are usually only the excess of a virtue, the 
 result of his ardent temperament and overflowing fulness of 
 soul; emotion crowding upon emotion, thought upon thought. 
 The prominent characteristics of his style are fervour and force, 
 and it has not unjustly been styled a “perpetual battle.” 7 But 
 his polemic zeal is always under the control of sober reflection, 
 and at times, as in the incomparable description of love, 1 Cor. 
 
 1 In conciseness and precision there is a striking resemblance between Paul and 
 the renowned historian Thucydides. Comp. Bauer: Phihlogia Thucydideo-Paullina , 
 1773, and Baur: Pcndus, der A post. Jesu Christi, p. G63. 
 
 2 E. g. 1 Cor. iv. 8. 2 Cor. xi. 18, et seg. 
 
 2 Phil. iii. 2 ; x&giTO/xv) and xxtxto/xyi. 
 
 4 Acts xxvi. 29. 2 Cor. ii. 5, 7, 10. 
 
 5 Phil. v. 10, et seg., where he touchingly alludes to the meaning of the name Onesi- 
 mus, i. e., useful; Rom. xiii. 8. “ Owe no man anything, but to love one another.” 
 
 e Comp. Rom. ii. 21-23. 2 Cor. iv. 7-12; vi. 9, 10; xii. 22-30. 
 
 7 Tholuck : Vermischte Schriften, Part II. p. 320. Calvin also, on 2 Cor. xi. G, 
 observes of the writings of Paul: “ Fulmina sunt, non verba.” 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 TIIE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 309 
 
 xiii., gives place to the most delightful calmness and benig¬ 
 nity. 1 
 
 On the other hand, the style of John, u the son of thunder,” 
 while it breathes the gentle air of peace, as it were, from the 
 celestial regions of the church triumphant, also rolls along at 
 times, especially in the Apocalypse, according as the subject 
 requires, with the awful power of thunder. 
 
 To sum up all; the language and style of the apostolic writers 
 has its peculiar beauty, appearing in different forms, according 
 to the character of the author and the subject; a beauty not 
 lying, indeed, on the surface, veiled rather in the garb of humility 
 and poverty, in the form of a servant, like the Lord himself; 
 but for this very reason affording the freer scope to the power of 
 the Holy Ghost and divine grace, and all the more wonderful in 
 its effects. The weak and the despised has God chosen to con¬ 
 found the great and the brilliant, that the glory may be the Lord’s 
 and not man’s. Were the New' Testament written with the 
 Attic elegance of a Plato, or a Xenophon, or a Sophocles, or a 
 Demosthenes, it would be perhaps a book for philosophers, for 
 the educated few 7 , but not, as it this day and ever will be, a book 
 for the people, the bread of life for all ages, conditions, and classes 
 of men. 
 
 1 “In the letters of St Paul,” says an able writer in the “ Edinburgh Review” for 
 January 1853, “ while every matter relating to the faith is determined once for all 
 with demonstrations of the spirit and power, and every circumstance requiring 
 counsel at the time, so handled as to furnish precepts for all time, the wdiole heart 
 of this wonderful man is poured out and laid open. Sometimes he pleads, and 
 reminds, and conjures in the most earnest strain of fatherly love; sometimes play¬ 
 fully rallies his converts on their vanities and infirmities; sometimes with deep and 
 bitter irony, concedes that he may refute, and praises where he means to blame. The 
 course of the mountain torrent is not more majestic and varied. We have the deep, 
 still pool, the often returning eddies, the intervals of calm and steady advance, the 
 plunging and foaming rapids, and the thunder of the headlong cataract. By turns 
 fervid and calm, argumentative and impassionate, he wields familiarly and irresistibly 
 the varied weapons of which Providence had taught him the use. With the Jew 
 he reasons by Scripture citation, with the Gentile by natural analogies; with both, 
 by the testimony of conscience to the justice and holiness of God. Were not the 
 epistles of Paul among the most eminent of inspired writings, they would long ago 
 have been ranked as the most wonderful of uninspired.” 
 
310 
 
 § 154. ORIGIN AND UNITY OF 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DIFFERENT TYPES OF THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE. 
 
 § 154. Origin and Unity of the Apostles’ Doctrine. 
 
 Christianity is, primarily, not doctrine, bnt life, a supernatural 
 fact and testimony extending its leaven-like, transforming influ¬ 
 ence equally to all the faculties of the human soul, thought, feel¬ 
 ing, and will. It came into the world as the climax of the 
 revelation or self-communication of God, as a divine saving fact, 
 a new moral creation, deposited originally in Jesus Christ, 
 the incarnate Word, the God-man and Saviour of the world, to 
 be propagated from Him to the entire human race,—not, in¬ 
 deed, necessarily to the numerical, but to the organic whole of 
 humanity. So also in the individual believer it exists first in the 
 form of life, or the communion of the whole man with God 
 through Christ. The measure of this divine life (not the 
 amount of theoretical knowledge, or of practical morality, or of 
 feeling, 1 separately considered) is the measure of the man’s piety; 
 and perfect communion with God is perfect religion. Doctrine 
 is only the clear consciousness of the life made an object of re¬ 
 flection, and presupposes, therefore, the presence of the life as 
 the general and primordial. 
 
 The doctrine of the apostles in the New Testament every¬ 
 where appears in this close, organic connection with the original 
 fountain of life. It is not abstract theory, not a product of 
 speculation, but something experienced in actual life, and for this 
 very reason in turn productive of life, thoroughly practical, full 
 
 1 As Schleiermacher holds, whose view on religion, identifying it with feeling (the 
 feeling of absolute dependence upon God), is just as one-sided and erx-oneous as the 
 other two which he so keenly and successfully refutes, 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 THE APOSTLES’ DOCTRINE. 
 
 311 
 
 of the unction of the Holy Ghost and of moral power. It comes 
 before us, too, not as a logical, scientific system, but in an 
 humble, unpretending, generally intelligible form. The Bible is 
 intended to be, not merely a work for the learned, but a popular 
 book, in the highest and noblest sense, a book for all mankind. 
 Nevertheless it has a systematic structure, though not outwardly 
 marked. The apostles start from a living principle, from which, 
 as biblical theology lias minutely to demonstrate, the several 
 points of doctrine necessarily follow. Yet in this respect again 
 they differ. Paul, who had no small philosophical talent, and 
 had received a learned education, proceeds far more methodically 
 than the others. The epistle to the Romans, particularly, is 
 almost a scientific treatise, and it is not difficult to show the 
 strictest logical connection among all its parts. 
 
 The common source of the apostles’ doctrine is partly outward, 
 partly inward; partly the objective, theanthropic history of the 
 crucified and risen Saviour, of which they were eye-witnesses; 
 partly the immediate illumination of the Holy Ghost, which was 
 promised them by the departing Redeemer, 1 and communicated 
 on the day of Pentecost, the birth-day of the church (Acts i. 4), 
 and which alone could enable them fully to understand the life 
 and teaching of Jesus. This illumination or inspiration is to be 
 regarded as central; in other words, one, which acted with crea¬ 
 tive power on the very essence and centre of their being; which 
 transferred not only their knowledge, but their whole personality, 
 with all their intellectual and moral faculties, into a new and 
 higher sphere of existence, into the heart of the Christian truth; 
 and which thence pervaded and determined all their particular 
 views and relations, their words, their writings, and their 
 actions. 
 
 The common subject of the doctrine of the apostles is the per¬ 
 son of Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, the true God-man ; 
 and the divine life and salvation, which was manifested in Him, 
 was secured to mankind by his self-revelation, death, and resur¬ 
 rection ; shaped itself through the Holy Ghost into a church of 
 the redeemed, a means and a fellowship of salvation ; is commu¬ 
 nicated to the individual sinner through faith and the means of 
 
 1 John xiv. 26 ; xv. 26; xvi. 7. Luke xxiv. 41). 
 
312 § 154. ORIGIN AND UNITY OF APOSTLES’ DOCTRINE. [V.BOOK. 
 
 grace, the word and sacraments; works his conversion, justifica¬ 
 tion, sanctification, and eternal blessedness; and will fully de¬ 
 velop itself in the glories of Christ’s second coining. 
 
 These are the essential articles of faith, on the living appro¬ 
 priation of which salvation depends, and which the Apostle’s 
 Creed (justly called apostolical as to its contents ) so beautifully 
 arranges under the three divisions of God the Father and the 
 work of creation, God the Son and the work of redemption, and 
 God the Holy Ghost and the work of sanctification, ending with 
 life everlasting. And in all these points James, Peter, Paul, 
 and John, perfectly agree. We cannot acknowledge the least 
 inconsistency among the various books of the New Testament, 
 either in respect to faith or practice. They are all animated by 
 the same spirit, aim at the same end, and form a truly wonder¬ 
 ful harmony. All the apostles and evangelists teach, that Jesus 
 of Nazareth is the highest revelation of the only true God ; that 
 He perfectly fulfilled the law and the prophets; by His death 
 and resurrection reconciled humanity with God and redeemed it 
 from the curse of sin and death ; by the outpouring of His Spirit 
 has established an indestructible church, and furnished it with all 
 the means for the regeneration and sanctification of the world ; 
 that out of Him there is no salvation ; that a man must repent 
 and believe in Him, and express this faith in his entire life, in 
 order to enjoy the benefits of Christ’s mission ; and that this life 
 of faith developes itself, in individuals and in the church, under 
 the continual direction of the Holy Ghost, through much suffering 
 and tribulation ; triumphs at last over all its foes ; and becomes 
 gloriously complete at the second advent of the Lord. In short, 
 there is in the apostolic church u one Lord, one faith, one bap¬ 
 tism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through 
 all, and in you all” (Eph. iv. 5, et seq.) 
 
 u But unto every one of us,” the apostle immediately adds, 
 u is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ 
 that is, to each for a particular purpose, and within certain 
 limits, according to the wisdom of the Lord and the wants of the 
 church. For unity should never be confounded with monotonous 
 uniformity. All living unity involves diversity, multiplicity, and 
 fulness. So with the unity of the apostolic doctrine. And as, 
 on the one hand, we discard the rationalistic theory, which, on 
 
DOCTRINE.J § 155. DIVERSITY OF THE APOSTLES’ DOCTRINE. 313 
 
 the principles of the natural understanding, implicates the synop¬ 
 tical evangelists with John, James with Paul, in irreconcilable 
 contradiction, thus undermining all reverence for the holy word 
 of God; so, on the other hand, must we guard against the op¬ 
 posite extreme of a stiff, lifeless orthodoxy, which looks upon 
 the literature of the New Testament as a thing of abstract, me- 
 chanical and colourless uniformity of structure, and makes no due 
 account of the human authors, and their several peculiarities of 
 character. 
 
 § 155. Diversity of the Apostles’ Doctrine. 
 
 The eternal substance of this truth, comprised in the absolute 
 union of Deity and humanity in the person of the Redeemer, 
 each of the leading apostles held in a peculiar historical form, 
 and in that particular form, too, which was specially adapted to 
 his individual character, his training, and his field of labour. 
 The Gospel may, in this respect, be compared to a jewel, which 
 at every turn emits a new radiance, yet remains the same ; or to 
 the one beam of light, which breaks into diverse colours accord¬ 
 ing to the nature of the substance it falls on, yet always emanates 
 from the same sun. These peculiar modifications or shapings of 
 the Christian principle in the New Testament Scriptures we call 
 the different systems or types of the apostolic doctrine. They 
 originate in the various modes of conceiving the relation of 
 Christianity to the two grand religions of the old world, Judaism 
 and Heathenism. 
 
 As all the apostles were Jews, and as their knowledge was 
 rooted in the Old Testament, they, very naturally, first brought 
 the new principle of life, which was given them in Christ, into 
 connection with their former religious views, and then applied it 
 to their respective spheres of labour in different ways, according 
 as they had to deal entirely, or at least mainly, with Jews or 
 with Gentiles. To them all Christianity appeared as the com¬ 
 pletion of the Old Testament, and Jesus as the true Messiah, 
 the fulfiller of the law and the prophets. Christ himself had 
 declared, “ I am not come to destroy the law or the prophets, 
 but to fulfil” (Matth. v. 17). This very expression, however, 
 implied a twofold relation between Judaism and Christianity, a 
 unity and a difference. The two religions are both covenants, 
 
314 §155. DIVERSITY OF THE APOSTLES’DOCTRINE, [v. BOOK. 
 
 but differ as old and new. Both are revelations of the same 
 God for the same end, the glory of the Lord and the salvation 
 of mankind ; but the one is preparation, the other completion; 
 that is law and prophecy, this Gospel and fulfilment; the former 
 is revealed in the latter, the latter latent in the former. There 
 God appears chiefly as the just and holy Lord, and the pious as 
 His obedient servants ; here God is the loving and merciful 
 Father, and believers Plis children and heirs. Judaism is u the 
 letter, which killeth,” and a shadow of good things to come ; 
 Christianity is the “ spirit, which givetli life,” and the substance 
 itself. The one is the religion of authority, the other the religion 
 of freedom. That was intended for a single nation and a certain 
 time ; this is designed for all nations and all times—the absolute 
 religion for the world. The permanent truth in the Old Testa¬ 
 ment is taken up by the New, confirmed, brought into connec¬ 
 tion with the person of Christ, and transformed by His Spirit, 
 but by this very process divested of its restricted national and 
 temporary form. Christianity is at once an organic growth out 
 of Judaism, and a new creation, which could never have sprung 
 from the old alone, without a creative act of God. 
 
 Now, it is essential to apostolical and all sound Christianity 
 to combine these two views, the unity and the difference of the 
 Jewish and Christian revelations ; both to place the New Testa¬ 
 ment in close connection with the Old, and yet to maintain its 
 new and peculiar character. The denial of either gives rise to 
 a fundamental heresy; and of such we observe the germs even 
 in the apostolic period. The denial of the distinction between 
 Judaism and Christianity is Ebionism; the denial of the unity 
 of the two is Gnosticism. From both these extremes the New 
 Testament Scriptures are equally removed, and, in fact, against 
 both they contain express warnings. 
 
 But this double relation admits of being viewed from two 
 positions, which, while they keep, in principle, both the distinc¬ 
 tion and the unity of the two revelations, give the chief promi¬ 
 nence, one to the unity, the other to the distinction ; two posi¬ 
 tions, therefore, not contradictory, but mutually supplemental. 
 The first view, exhibiting Christianity predominantly in its har¬ 
 mony with the religion of the Old Testament, was most congenial 
 to the older Jewish apostles of Palestine, and best suited for the 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 156. JEWISH AND GENTILE CHRISTIANITY. 315 
 
 Jewish mission. The other, which saw in the Gospel a new 
 creation, the spirit of absolute freedom, was.best adapted to the 
 Hellenistic apostle, who was called in a sudden, extraordinary 
 manner by the transforming grace of God, and destined to 
 labour among the heathen. For the Jews, even after their 
 transition to Christianity, felt the need of adhering as closely as 
 possible to the sacred traditions of their fathers; while the Gen¬ 
 tiles found in their previous religion little or no connection with 
 the Christian, though the latter, of course, met the deepest wants 
 of their nature; and towards the precepts of the Mosaic law, 
 which had not been given to them, they had no such reverence 
 nor sense of obligation as the Jews. 
 
 § 156. Jewish and Gentile Christianity , and their higher Unity. 
 
 Thus, from the twofold relation of Christianity to Judaism, 
 and from the difference in the callings of the apostles, arose two 
 different, but mutually supplemental theological tendencies, 
 which we may call the Jewish-Christian and the Gentile-Chris¬ 
 tian. The first was represented in the beginning by all the 
 older apostles, the twelve, who had gradually come out of the 
 bosom of their ancestral religion, and laboured chiefly among the 
 circumcision, particularly by Peter and James. 1 The second 
 appeared in Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, so abruptly and 
 irregularly called at a later time, and in his coadjutors, particu¬ 
 larly Barnabas (comp. Gal. ii. 8, 9). This antagonism between 
 Jewish and Gentile Christianity reaches through the whole 
 apostolic age, until, at the end of the first century, in the writings 
 of John, it is lost, so to speak, in a third view, which may be 
 styled the absolutely Christian, or the ideal. 
 
 We may accordingly distinguish, in the development of the 
 apostolic theology, three stages, the Petrine , the Pauline , and the 
 
 1 Paul, Gal. ii., names John, indeed, along with James and Cephas, among the 
 pillars of the apostles of the circumcision. But this refers to an earlier time ; since 
 the epistle to the Galatians was written in the year 56. We must distinguish in the 
 life and labours of John two periods, that before and that after his transfer to Paul’s 
 sphere of labour in Asia Minor; and his writings, from which we learn his theological 
 views, all date during his residence at Ephesus, and after the destruction of Jeru¬ 
 salem. Moreover, he seems to have held from the first a conciliatory position 
 between the two parties, and to have observed a mysterious silence. Comp. § 100 
 above. 
 
316 § 156. JEWISH AND GENTILE CHRISTIANITY, [v. BOOK. 
 
 Johannean. They run parallel with the three sections of the 
 history of missions as presented in the first book—the Jewish 
 mission, centering in Jerusalem, the Gentile mission, with its 
 seat in Antioch, and the activity of John, which took up, com¬ 
 bined, and completed these two, and had its centre in Ephesus. 
 
 Christianity naturally addressed itself first to the Jews, from 
 the midst of whom it proceeded, and who, according to God’s 
 gracious promise, had the first claim to it. The church in Jeru¬ 
 salem, with the apostles at its head, was essentially distinguished, 
 indeed, from the Jews around, by its faith in Jesus of Nazareth 
 as the Messiah, the Son of God, who had risen from the dead, 
 and by its possessing in this faith true divine life ; but this faith 
 itself wrought in them under the hallowed forms of the old cove- 
 nant. While, therefore, they imputed their justification, not to 
 the ceremonies of the Mosaic law, but to Christ (comp. Acts iv. 
 12), they still continued to observe those ceremonies, and keep 
 as close as possible to the temple worship of the theocracy (comp. 
 § T3 7 ). 
 
 The distinction of two tendencies, a more constrained and a 
 more free, a strictly conservative and a progressive, made its first 
 appearance in the opposition between the Jews of Palestine and 
 those of other lands, or Hebrews and Plellenists (Acts vi. 1 , et 
 seq.) It was brought out by the deacon Stephen, a Hellenist 
 of bold spirit, skilful in the Scriptures, and dialectically trained. 
 By him the Christian system, which had hitherto been at issue 
 chiefly with Sadducism on the doctrine of the resurrection, was 
 put in conflict with Pharisaism or stiff self-righteous legalism. 
 Stephen rose to the view of the approaching emancipation of the 
 church from the religious and national exclusiveness of the 
 Jewish economy, which was hastening to its doom. Thus he 
 was the forerunner of the apostle Paul, who was converted, as it 
 would seem, immediately after the death of this first martyr, in 
 order to save and gloriously carry out the idea for which he died 
 (Acts vi. 8. Comp. § 58). This first bloody persecution was 
 the occasion of spreading the Gospel out of Judea by the fugi¬ 
 tive Christians, and at the same time of enlarging their views. 
 Soon came the conversion and reception into the church of the 
 semi-pagan Samaritans, through the labours of the evangelist 
 Philip, probably also a Hellenist, and the apostles Peter and 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 AND THEIR HIGHER UNITY. 
 
 317 
 
 John (chap viii.) Still more important was the founding of the 
 first mixed church at Antioch, which was firmly established, and 
 made the starting point and centre of the Gentile mission, chiefly 
 by Barnabas of Cyprus and Saul of Tarsus. Nor is it by any 
 means accidental, that this mother church of Gentile Christianity 
 originated the proper name of the followers of Jesus (xi. 26), by 
 which they have since been distinguished as well from Jews as 
 from heathen. About the same time a change, which marks an 
 epoch, was produced in the leaders of Jewish Christianity them¬ 
 selves by the vision of Peter, and the reception of the uncircum¬ 
 cised Cornelius into the Christian communion (Acts x.) From 
 that time not only Peter, but, in consequence of his public recital 
 of the incontrovertible facts, the whole church at Jerusalem also 
 (comp. Acts xi. 18), were convinced that the Gentiles need not, 
 as had formerly been thought, become Jews, before they could 
 have part in the Christian salvation. Thus they acknowledged, 
 that the same Holy Ghost, who wrought in them, wrought also 
 in the uncircumcised ; and with this they gave up the idea of the 
 absolute nature and design of Judaism, though for their own part, 
 not in order to justification, but from traditional reverence and 
 for the sake of their influence with their countrymen, they con¬ 
 tinued as before to keep the Mosaic law, till God himself actually 
 destroyed the theocratic system, and formally released them from 
 it. A few disturbers only, u false brethren unawares brought 
 in,” as Paul styles them (Gal. ii. 4), wilfully set themselves 
 against these signs of the times, this advance in knowledge, and 
 maintained that circumcision and the observance of the whole 
 ceremonial law was necessary to salvation; thus denying that we 
 are saved by faith in Christ alone. These were the heretical 
 Jewish Christians, the precursors of the Ebionites. These bigoted 
 Judaizers raised a mighty hue and cry, particularly against the 
 apostle Paul, who meanwhile had already laboured with great 
 success among the heathen, and had admitted them into the 
 church without imposing on them the yoke of the law. 
 
 In this state of things the apostles thought it best to settle the 
 controversy, and prevent the threatened rupture by a public con¬ 
 vention. This was the council at Jerusalem, a.d. 50 (Acts xv. 
 Gal. ii.) Here the difference of the two tendencies, the Jewish 
 Christian and Gentile-Christian, was not concealed or wiped out. 
 
318 § 150. JEWISH AND GENTILE CHRISTIANITY, [V. BOOK. 
 
 It was fully acknowledged; but at the same time the deeper 
 unity, which bound both parties to the same faith in the all-avail¬ 
 ing merits of Christ, was openly brought out in opposition to the 
 Pharisaical Christians, and a compromise was agreed upon, which, 
 while calculated to secure the peace of the church in its present 
 posture, encroached on the rights of neither party. The Jews it 
 left to their national form of religion, undisturbed in their observ¬ 
 ance of the law; and upon the heathen converts it placed no 
 burdensome yoke, but only such requisitions as a regard for pure 
 morality and the principles of Christian charity would lead them 
 readily to fulfil. The apostles of the circumcision and the apos¬ 
 tles of the uncircumcision recognised each other’s peculiar mis¬ 
 sion and gifts, and in the consciousness of unity in difference and 
 difference in unity, exchanged the hand of brotherly fellowship 
 (Gal. ii. 9. Comp. § 68 and 69). And so they laboured thence¬ 
 forward in different spheres and with different gifts, but har¬ 
 moniously towards the same great end. For the collision between 
 Paul and Peter in Antioch sprang not from a conflict of prin¬ 
 ciples, but from a momentary inconsistency (Gal. ii. 11, et seq .), 
 and was merely a passing cloud. The exception only proves the 
 rule, which was, in this matter, as is abundantly clear from all 
 their writings, the fraternal unanimity of the two apostles. 
 
 The following years, from 50 to 64, witnessed the imposing 
 labours of Paul and the development of the Gentile-Christian 
 principle in doctrine and in practice. All Paul’s numerous 
 churches in Asia Minor and Greece, as well as that at Rome, 
 were composed, indeed, of Jews and Gentiles together, so that 
 the deep-seated national and religious antagonism could not fail 
 to show itself also in the province of Christian faith. The Jewish 
 Christians were more strict, scrupulous, legal, conservative, than 
 the others. But it is in dealing with these that Paul shows his 
 genuine spiritual freedom. He does not take forcible measures 
 to annihilate or suppress the antagonism in question, but freely 
 indulges it, provided only all hold the common foundation, Christ 
 the only author of salvation; and in subordinate points, such as 
 eating particular kinds of food, observing feasts, etc., he exhorts 
 to mutual fraternal charity, patience and accommodation (1 Cor. 
 viii. and ix.; Rom. xiv. 1, et seq .); as in fact he himself in love 
 became to the Jews a Jew, to the Greeks a Greek, that he 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 AND THEIR HIGHER UNITY. 
 
 319 
 
 might, if possible, gain all (1 Cor. ix. 19-23). It was only against 
 the “false brethren” of the circumcision, who were creating dis¬ 
 turbance and schism in almost all his churches, particularly in 
 Galatia, and sought salvation in lifeless ceremonies and mechani¬ 
 cal actions instead of living faith in the Redeemer, as also, on the 
 other hand, against the opposite sort of errorists, who perverted 
 the freedom of Christ to the shameless indulgence of the flesh ; 
 —it was only against these, that he came out on every occasion 
 in inflexible firmness with refutation, warning, and rebuke. 
 
 Thus stood matters in the seventh decade at the decease of 
 most of the apostles. The church was almost everywhere divided 
 between two national tendencies, the two parties being mutual 
 counterparts, agreeing in essentials, loving one another as breth¬ 
 ren, but not yet grown together in full unity, and still exposed 
 also each to a corresponding morbid ultraism. The Jewish 
 Christians, especially in Palestine, were in danger of sinking 
 back into carnal Judaism, as the Galatian false teachers and the 
 later Ebionites actually did; and in view of this the epistle to 
 the Hebrews lifted its voice of fearfully earnest warning. The 
 Gentile Christians, on the contrary, particularly in Paul’s 
 churches in Asia Minor, were threatened with the more subtle 
 seduction of the false Gnosis, with its spiritual licentiousness and 
 its dissipation of all historical Christianity into the thin air of 
 speculation, which even Paul, Peter, and Jude, but especially 
 John in his day, found it necessary to resist as antichrist. Then 
 broke the long predicted judgment of God on stiff-necked 
 Judaism. Jerusalem, and with it the whole temple cultus, was 
 overthrown, and thus the last cord severed, which had hitherto 
 bound the Christian church to the old economy. The Jewish - 
 Christian churches now had no alternative, but to apostatize and 
 petrify, or to advance from their narrow legalism to a position of 
 greater freedom, and coalesce with the Gentile Christians. Be¬ 
 sides, the national difference between Jewish and Gentile Chris¬ 
 tianity must necessarily disappear so fast as the church should 
 become an independent power, till she should bring forth a new 
 generation, in whose veins neither Jewish, nor Gentile, but 
 specifically Christian blood should circulate, as it were, from the 
 very womb. 
 
 At this third and highest point of view, from which the two 
 
320 § 156. JEWISH AND GENT I EE CHRISTIANITY, [v. BOOK. 
 
 previous types of doctrine and forms of practice fall into a com¬ 
 pact, organic unity, stands St John, who survived the leaders of 
 Jewish and Gentile Christianity, and after the destruction of 
 Jerusalem combined in his writings the results of the whole pre¬ 
 ceding development of the apostolic church, both theoretical and 
 practical. 1 
 
 This, in brief and general survey, is the course of the apos¬ 
 tolical theology, as it lies before us in the canonical records of 
 primitive Christianity. Its development goes hand in hand with 
 the spread of the church, and to some extent also with the shap¬ 
 ing of religious life and of the systems of government and worship. 
 
 We have then three leading forms of apostolic doctrine, under 
 which all the books of the New Testament may without any 
 violence be distributed :— 
 
 1. The Jewish-Ciiristian theology, or the system of Christian 
 doctrine in its unity with the Old Testament. This is represented 
 by the leaders, or, as Paul styles them (Gal. ii.), u pillars” of 
 Jewish Christianity, James and Peter : with this difference, that 
 James presents especially the unity of Christianity with the law, 
 Peter its unity with prophecy, forming at the same time the 
 transition from the position of James to that of the Gentile 
 apostle. 2 Under this head fall the gospels of Matthew and 
 Mark, and the epistle of Jude. 
 
 2. The Gentile-Christian theology, or Christianity in its 
 distinction from Judaism, and viewed as a new creation. This 
 is the type of doctrine presented by the Gentile apostle, Paul, 
 and embraces also the gospel and the book of Acts by his at¬ 
 tendant Luke, and the anonymous epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 3. The Johannean theology, which adjusts the differences of 
 Jewish and Gentile Christianity, and merges the systems of 
 Peter and of Paul in its sublime and profound conception of the 
 mysterious theanthropic person of the Saviour. Here belong the 
 Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation of the beloved disciple. 
 
 1 Comp, above, § 100. 
 
 2 Were it preferred to make James and Peter the representatives of two distinct 
 tendencies, we should have four types of apostolic doctrine, which would beautifully 
 correspond to the four gospels, that of James to Matthew, of Peter to Mark, of Paul 
 to Luke, of John to his own gospel. We think the triple division best, however, 
 because James and Peter after all present only the two necessai’y aspects of Jewish 
 Christianity, the legal and the Messianic. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 AND THEIR HIGHER UNITY. 
 
 321 
 
 These three forms of doctrine cover the whole field of saving 
 truth as it is in Jesus, and at the same time exhibit the leading 
 tendencies of the human mind in its relation to the Gospel. 
 They, therefore, satisfy all doctrinal wants, as the gospels meet 
 all the demand in the sphere of history. It is true, the whole 
 difference in the views of the apostles centres, as we have seen, 
 in the grand practico-religious question of their day, the relation 
 of Christianity to Judaism, or the import of the Mosaic law. 
 But from this historical centre it extends its influence more or 
 less to all the several departments of doctrine or life, and involves 
 ideas which underlie the religious conditions and wants of all 
 ages of the church. 
 
 To translate the relations of these doctrinal types from the 
 language of history into that of philosophy, and reduce them 
 from concrete, temporary form to abstract principle, we may say, 
 that Jewish Christianity is the Christian religion viewed mainly 
 from the standpoint of law, authority, and objectivity; Gentile 
 Christianity is the same religion conceived and expressed pre¬ 
 dominantly as gospel, freedom, and subjectivity. The former 
 represents the conservative element, the latter the progressive. 
 But as law and gospel, authority and freedom by no means abso¬ 
 lutely contradict each other, as in their lowest root and ultimate 
 aim they are one; so Jewish and Gentile Christianity, the 
 Petrine and the Pauline systems, are far from being inconsistent; 
 and the theology of John is but the full development and expres¬ 
 sion of the unity which secretly bound the two together from 
 the beginning. Every real and proper advance in history in¬ 
 volves the co-operation of conservative and progressive forces ; 
 thus necessarily occasioning, however, many collisions and 
 struggles. The Jewish apostles preserved the historical connec¬ 
 tion between the present and the past, the new revelation and the 
 old, both of which in fact came from the same God. Thus they 
 put a salutary check upon the bold spirit of freedom and inde¬ 
 pendence. The Gentile apostle gave free scope to the creative 
 energy of Christianity, thus preventing stagnation and relapse 
 into religious pupilage and national exclusiveness. 
 
 In this living organism of the primitive Christian doctrine we 
 see only a new proof of its divinity, universality, and inexhaust¬ 
 ible fulness. The magical introduction of one fixed, abstract 
 
 VOL. II. X 
 
322 § 157. JEWISH-CHRISTIAN TYPE OF DOCTRINE. [V. BOOK. 
 
 system of ideas into tlie heads of the apostles, regardless of their 
 gifts, education, and mission, would have been unworthy as well 
 of God as of man. Instead of this we have the eternal Truth 
 becoming flesh, entering into essential conjunction with human 
 nature, inwardly and vitally uniting itself with the individuality 
 of each apostle, and expressing itself in the way most suitable to 
 him and those of like mental character. In every one there is 
 accomplished a true, free reconciliation between his mind and 
 God’s, between reason and revelation, nature and grace. Here 
 again, therefore, must we repeat, that in the Bible all is divine 
 and at the same time truly human, and for this very reason most 
 admirably fitted to meet the deepest wants of our nature, and to 
 reconcile man with God. 
 
 §157. (1) The Jewish-Christian Type of Doctrine. 
 
 The Jewish-Christian system of doctrine looks upon the New 
 Testament in its closest connection with the Old, as the fulfil¬ 
 ment and completion of the old dispensation. It was, therefore, 
 peculiary adapted to win to the Gospel the Jews, who were pos¬ 
 sessed with a holy awe of the records of their religion and were 
 immovably persuaded of their divine origin. 
 
 But the Old Testament itself presents two aspects, law and 
 prophecy. In both it prepares the way for Christianity ; in the 
 law, by eliciting and strengthening the sense of sin and of the 
 need of redemption ; in prophecy, by the cultivation of hope and 
 desire for the promised redemption from the curse of the law. 
 Hence also the Gospel might be set forth predominantly either 
 in its affinity with the Mosaic law, or in its agreement with the 
 prophetic Scriptures. This gives us the two mutually completive 
 forms of Jewish Christianity; the first appearing in James, the 
 second in Peter. The legal Jewish Christianity is more anthro¬ 
 pological ; the prophetic is Messianic or Christological. Hence 
 in James the doctrine of the person and work of Christ is far 
 less prominent than in Peter. 1 
 
 1 Dr Dorner has the same view of this relation in his Entwichlungsgeschichte der 
 Lehre von der Person Christi, 2d ed. I. p. 97 : “ If James clings more to the law, 
 though not to the ceremonial law, but to the eternal moral law embodied in it, whose 
 ideal existence becomes through Christ reality in the free man, in love ; Peter sees 
 in Christianity above all the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, as much in his 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 158. LEGAL JEWISH CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 323 
 
 A second distinction between James and Peter, closely con¬ 
 nected with this, is, that the former is still more strictly Jewish 
 than the latter in doctrine and practice, and that Peter, after the 
 conversion of Cornelius, as his appearance at the apostolic council 
 and his epistles sufficiently show, forms the connecting link be¬ 
 tween James and Paul, between the church of the Jewish, and 
 the church of the Gentile Christians. The two must accord¬ 
 ingly be separately considered. 1 
 
 § 158. (a) Legal Jewish Christianity , or the Doctrinal System of 
 
 James. {Corny). § 95 and 96). 
 
 The sources of our knowledge of this doctrinal type are the 
 epistle of James to the dispersed Jewish-Christian congregations 
 and his address at the apostolic council, in connection with what 
 we learn from Acts xxi., Gal. ii., and some later accounts, re¬ 
 specting his position in general in the apostolic church. 
 
 James the Just we know already as a strict legalist, who after 
 Peter’s removal to other lands, a.d. 44 (Acts xii. 17), presided 
 over the church of Jerusalem and of all Palestinian Christianity, 
 down almost to the great catastrophe, and stood as mediator be¬ 
 tween Jews and Christians. In conformity with this character, 
 education, and office, he conceives objective Christianity as law 
 (James i. 25 ; ii. 12), thus standing on the ground of the Mosaic 
 system, while at the same time he rises above it in representing 
 Christianity as the “ perfect law of liberty .” 2 From this we 
 gather, that be regards Judaism as imperfect and as a law of 
 bondage, though prudence forbids his expressly saying so. Then 
 again, he does not mean by this law the mass of ceremonial pre¬ 
 cepts, nor does he anywhere intimate, that the observance of 
 
 discourses in Acts as in his epistles.” For the above view of the relation of Peter’s 
 doctrinal system to that of James, I am indebted substantially to the oral instruction 
 of my respected and beloved teacher, the late Dr C. Fr. Schmid of Tubingen, one of 
 the most solid and pious, but a 1c m one of the most modest and silent theologians of 
 Germany. It is much to be lamented, for the interests of the church and of sound 
 theology, that he did not before his death (1852) publish his excellent lectures on the 
 Biblical Theology of the New Testament and on the Epistle to the Romans. 
 
 1 It is a singular defect in the epoch-forming work of Dr Neander on the Apostolic 
 Church, that it entirely passes over the doctrinal system of Peter, while yet it treats 
 of that of James quite at large. 
 
 2 James i. 25: E U ri\tiov tov rrjs where vi^os refers to xoyat, ver. 23, 
 
 and to Xoyot rtjs x>.yiOtioc.s } ver. 18. 
 
324 § 158. LEGAL JEWISH CHRISTIANITY. [_ V * BOOK. 
 
 these is, as the heretical Jewish Christians and the later Ebion- 
 ites asserted, essential to salvation. On the contrary he agreed 
 with Peter and Paul at the apostolic council in acknowledging 
 the uncircumcised Gentile converts as brethren and members of 
 Christ’s church. He views the law in its deep moral import, and 
 as such an organic unit, that whoever transgresses a single pre¬ 
 cept, violates the whole, and incurs the full penalty (ii. 10, 11). 
 With him the soul of the law, which animates and binds together 
 all its parts, is love. This he therefore styles the u royal law,” 
 or the all-ruling, fundamental law in the kingdom of God. 1 He 
 even reaches the view that Christianity is a new creation; though 
 the further development of this is left to be the special work of 
 Paul. James, for example, reminds his readers, that God has 
 begotten them according to His gracious will by the word of truth 
 (by which we can only understand the Gospel), so that they are 
 the first-fruits of His creatures, the crown of the creation (i. 18) ; 
 and this engrafted word, abiding in the souls of believers, he re¬ 
 presents as able to save. 2 Thus the Gospel is, in his view, an 
 efficient, creative, saving principle. Such hints place his eleva¬ 
 tion above Ebionism and the genuinely Christian ground-work of 
 his much mistaken epistle beyond all doubt. But the legal, 
 practical view of morality is unquestionably the predominant one. 
 He contents himself with furnishing a commentary on our Lord’s 
 significant words : u I am not come to destroy the law, but to 
 fulfil it.” 
 
 In harmony with this, James, in his exhortations, gives special 
 prominence to the dealings of God with men as Lawgiver and 
 Judge, and often refers to the sternness of His justice and holi¬ 
 ness, of which the law is the expression, 3 though without over¬ 
 looking His long-suffering and mercy. 4 The doctrine of the 
 person and the work of Christ, on the contrary, particularly of 
 His sacerdotal office, is left quite in the back ground ; though it 
 should not here be forgotten, that the epistle is short, and pre¬ 
 supposes an acquaintance with the Gospel history. This consid- 
 
 1 James ii. 5. Comp, the precisely similar declarations of our Lord, Matth. xxii. 
 
 39. John xiii. 35, and of Paul, Gal. v. 14. Rom. xiii. 8-10. 1 Cor. xiii. 1, et seg. 
 
 2 James i. 21 : T ov l/u,<fvrov Xoyov to v dvvoofjoivov trSia’a.i. 
 
 3 James iv. 12; i. 13, 17 ; ii. 13. 
 
 * James i. 5,17 ; v. 11, 15. 
 
DOCTRINE.] §158. LEGAL JEWISH CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 325 
 
 eration is necessary to give it its full meaning. The proper name 
 of the Redeemer occurs only twice, viz., in the superscription, 
 i. 1, where James humbly terms himself “ a servant of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ,” and in ii. 1, where he describes Christ as “the 
 Lord of glory;” thus in both instances mentioning the Saviour 
 with the greatest reverence and with allusion to His royal dignity. 
 Elsewhere he employs the solemn title of honour, “ Lord” (v. 7, 
 8, 11, 15), which in this sense, especially in the mouth of a Jew, 
 can be used only of a divine being. Christ’s atoning death 1 and 
 resurrection are, indeed, passed over in silence, but instead of 
 them His second coming to judgment, which of course presup¬ 
 poses them, is clearly set forth (v. 7, 8). 
 
 With this view of objective Christianity perfectly corresponds 
 that here presented of subjective Christianity or personal religion. 
 The law requires actual observance and fulfilment, a conduct con¬ 
 formed to its precepts. Hence James’ hostility to all lifeless in¬ 
 tellectual and nominal Christianity, and his earnest stress on 
 works, the fruits of faith, the palpable proof of justification. 2 And 
 as he sees in the law an indivisible unit, so he requires the Chris¬ 
 tian life to be one effusion, one complete and faultless work. 3 
 Finally, as with him the sum and substance of the law is love, so 
 the fulfilling of the law consists in undivided love to God and 
 our neighbour, with which the love of the world and of self is 
 absolutely incompatible (iv. 4, et seq .; ii. 8). Consequently 
 James places the essence of the Christian religion in a holy, irre¬ 
 proachable walk of love, and of a love too based ultimately on a 
 new birth (i. 17, 18, 21), and on faith in Christ, the Lord of 
 glory (ii. 1, 22.) 
 
 These are the leading thoughts of the epistle of James. The 
 book is, on the one hand, a voice of persuasion to Jews and 
 Jewish-Christian readers, leading them to the threshold of the 
 “ holiest of all,” showing them, as through a narrow crevice, the 
 glory of the new covenant and of the ideal law of liberty, and 
 
 1 In chap. v. 11, it is true, the r&os zv^lov is spoken of; but according to the context 
 this would present the Lord’s death only in its representative aspect, as a model of 
 patience under suffering. Some commentators refer the words not to Christ at all 
 but to the issue, with which the gracious God crowned the sufferings of Job. 
 
 2 James i. 3-6; ii. 1, et seq .; 14, et seq .; iii. 1, et seq. 
 
 3 James i. 4, 14, et seq. 'E^yev teXi/«v .... Vva. %TI nXitoi xec) oXokXyi^oi, iv 
 Uixo/xtvoi. Comp. Matth. v. 48. 
 
326 
 
 § 159. JAMES AND PAUL. 
 
 [y. BOOK. 
 
 awakening a desire for the full possession ; and, on the other, it 
 still comes to us as an earnest exhortation to holy living, and 
 especially as a warning to all who content themselves with mere 
 theory and the oral profession of Christianity, and seek to escape 
 the discipline of the law, wholesome and necessary even for be¬ 
 lievers. James is the apostle of the law in its pedagogical im¬ 
 port, as leading to Christ, regulating the Christian life, and 
 promoting moral earnestness. 
 
 § 159. James and Paul. 
 
 Finally, as to the much-talked-of relation between the doc¬ 
 trinal systems of James and Paul. It must certainly be admitted, 
 that the two systems, especially in their soteriology, are con¬ 
 structed from entirely different points of view; the positions, 
 also, and missions of the two being quite distinct. Yet if we 
 logically follow out their principles, taking into account the 
 whole mental state of each writer, we shall find that in all 
 essential points they ultimately coincide. 
 
 Both James and Paul have in view particularly the relation 
 of the Gospel to the law and to the wants and the moral destiny 
 of man; and thus both treat of religion mainly in its anthropo¬ 
 logical aspect. But while James, in opposition to an unproduc¬ 
 tive formalism of knowledge without works, presents the Gospel 
 in its union with the law, and even calls it a law; Paul, in oppo¬ 
 sition to a hypocritical formalism of works without faith, con¬ 
 tends against the law as a letter which “killeth” (2 Cor. iii. 6), 
 and as a yoke of bondage (Gal. v. 1). They plainly differ, there¬ 
 fore, as well in their theses as in their antitheses. We have 
 already seen, however, that James has not his eye upon external 
 ceremonies in the Judaizing and Ebionistic sense, but goes back 
 to the unchangeable moral principle of the law as regenerated 
 by the Gospel, and derives the Christian life ultimately from a 
 new creation by the gracious will of God. Paul, on the other 
 hand, gives no countenance whatever to antinomianism. He too 
 speaks of a “ law of faith” (Rom. iii. 27), a u law of Christ” (Gal. 
 vi. 2), and a u law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” which 
 makes us free from the u law of sin and death” (Rom. viii. 2); 
 thus approaching from another point of view the same ideal con¬ 
 ception of law. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 § 159. JAMES AND PAUL. 
 
 327 
 
 In the same way may be solved the apparent contradiction 
 between their respective views of subjective Christianity. This 
 conflict, it is well known, is most violent in the doctrine of justi¬ 
 fication , as well in the proposition 1 as in the argument and the 
 application of the examples of Abraham 2 and Rahab. 3 We can¬ 
 not, indeed, consistently with any unprejudiced view, compose 
 the difference by considering both apostles as saying precisely 
 the same thing. Here also they occupy entirely different points 
 of view, and are contending against opposite errors. James 
 insists especially on good works , on acting out justification in the 
 life, in opposition to a dead orthodoxy, a purely intellectual faith, 
 which is in fact no faith at all, at least none that can justify or 
 save. u Thou believest,” he addresses these conceited theoretical 
 formalists, “that there is one God; thou doest well.” “The 
 devils,” he adds, with cutting irony, “ also believe and tremble” 
 (ii. 19). Paul, on the contrary, lays chief stress on true living 
 faith and the divine ground of justification, to exclude all boast¬ 
 ing, all Pharisaical self-righteousness and hypocrisy. But on the 
 other hand, James also recognises the true living faith which 
 prompts to good works, completes itself in them (ii. 22), produces 
 patience and thereby a perfect work (i. 3, et seq .), and secures 
 the hearing of prayer (i. 5, et seq. ; v. 15). So he acknowledges 
 the imperfection of man even in the state of grace, including 
 himself in the universal sinfulness (iii. 2). He, therefore, especi¬ 
 ally with his profound conception of the law as an inseparable 
 unit, can expect final salvation from no human work, however 
 good, but derives it from the regenerating power of the Gospel, 
 from the free will of God (i. 17, 18, 21; ii. 5); and his last 
 resort is the mercy of the Lord (v. 11), the giver of every good 
 and perfect gift, who is ready to hear the prayer of unwavering 
 faith (i. 5, 17). The apostle of the Gentiles also, on his part, 
 calls a faith without charity, such as James supposes in his anta¬ 
 gonists, vain, a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal (1 Cor. 
 xiii. 1, et seq.) ; and with all his zeal for salvation by free, 
 unmerited grace, he most emphatically requires good works as 
 
 1 James ii. 24 : ’Eg 'hixa.ioZxot.t zoi) elx ix xitrTiai; y,o\av. CODip. Rottl. iii. 
 
 28 : A o-yiiofxiBoc, ov v, xtCru ZixotiovcrOcti oo’d^urov it^ym vo[xou. 
 
 2 James ii. 21, et seq. Rom. iv. 1, et seq. Gal. iii. 0. 
 
 3 James ii. 25. Heb. xi. 31. 
 
328 § 160 . PROPHETIC JEWISH CHRISTIANITY, [v. BOOK. 
 
 the indispensable fruit of faitli. For faith in fact, if it be worthy 
 of the name, is with him always a vital appropriation of the 
 merits of Christ, a union of the soul with Him, continually work¬ 
 ing by love (Gal. ii. 20; v. 6. 1 Thess. i. 3, etc.) 
 
 The relation, therefore, between the two apostles—as well their 
 difference as their agreement—may be thus stated :—James pro¬ 
 ceeds from without inward, from phenomenon to principle, from 
 periphery to centre, from the fruit to the tree; Paul, on the con¬ 
 trary, proceeds from within outward, from principle to phenome¬ 
 non, from centre to circumference, from the root to the blossom 
 and the fruit. Paul’s view is unquestionably deeper, more philo¬ 
 sophical, and more fundamental than the other, and very far in 
 advance of it; yet the empirical method of James also has its 
 proper office and its practical necessity. It may even serve as a 
 corrective to Paul’s view, wherever the latter by abuse becomes 
 indifferent to w T orks, and degenerates either into unproductive 
 theoretical orthodoxy, or into licentious practical antinomianism 
 —two diseased forms of Christianity, which have in fact more 
 than once arisen from an imperfect understanding of Paul’s doc¬ 
 trine of justification by faith. On all pseudo-Pauline excesses 
 James imposes a necessary anc. wholesome restraint. 
 
 § 160. (b) Prophetic Jewish Christianity , or the Doctrinal 
 
 System of Peter. (Comp. § 89-94). 
 
 The doctrine of Peter we gather from his discourses in the 
 book of Acts, and from Iris two circular letters to the mixed 
 churches of Asia Minor. This apostle distinguishes himself, 
 even in the gospels, by enthusiastic love for Christ, and clear 
 views of His higher nature and divine mission, such as ex¬ 
 pressed themselves in that memorable confession, u Thou art 
 the Christ, the Son of the living God.” His discourses and epis¬ 
 tles are but a continuous commentary, so to speak, a practical, 
 edifying exposition of this great confession. Hence they every¬ 
 where have the Messianic or Christological element in the fore¬ 
 ground,—a decided advance on the legal Jewish Christianity. 
 True, he stood at first on the level of the Mosaic system, and 
 considered circumcision the only door to the Christian church. 
 But the decisive vision in Joppa, and the occurrences in the 
 house of Cornelius (comp. § 60) had raised him above this 
 
DOCTRINE.] OR THE DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF PETER. 329 
 
 Jewish prejudice, and at the apostolic council he advocated the 
 genuine Pauline maxim, that all, Jews as well as Gentiles, are 
 saved, not by the law, but by the grace of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ (Acts xv. 10, 11). In his subsequent labours, too, he 
 did not confine himself, like James, to his countrymen and to 
 Palestine, but interested himself also for Gentiles and Gentile 
 Christians. Those churches of Asia Minor, to which he wrote 
 his epistles, were mostly of Paul’s planting. In his outward 
 position, therefore, as well as in his views, he holds, as already 
 observed, a middle place between James and Paul. 
 
 The fundamental idea of Peter’s doctrinal system is the truth, 
 that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah , and Christianity 
 a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. This is necessarily the 
 primary form of christology. The first thing was to convince the 
 Jews, who were looking for salvation in the Messiah, that all the 
 prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the crucified and 
 risen Jesus, and that in Him, therefore, the desired salvation had 
 actually appeared. This is the burden of all Peter’s discourses in 
 the Acts. All the prophets, he says, from Samuel down, prophe¬ 
 sied of Jesus Christ and the events of the apostolic age (Acts iii. 
 24), and hence there is salvation in no other; there is no other 
 name given among men, whereby we must be saved (iii. 12). In 
 all the leading facts of the Gospel history, especially in the cruci¬ 
 fixion and resurrection of Jesus, in His exaltation to the right 
 hand of God, and in the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, Peter 
 sees the fulfilment of one or more Old Testament predictions. 1 
 He has a predilection also for prophetic expressions to denote 
 Christ, such as u Servant of God,” 2 whom God “ hath anointed 
 with the Holy Ghost and with power” (Acts x. 38 ; comp. iv. 
 27). This view of Christ, however, in His relation to Jewish 
 history, though decidedly the prevailing view with Peter, is not 
 his only one. He at times approaches the ideal christology of 
 John, and teaches with tolerable clearness the pre-existence of 
 the Redeemer. Christianity, according to Peter, does not exist 
 
 1 Comp. Acts ii. 16, et seq. ; 25, et seq. ; 34, et seq. ; iii. 18, 22, et seq. ; iv. 11, 25, 
 
 at seq. ; x. 43 ; xv. 7, et seq. 1 Peter i. 10, et seq. ; 24, et seq. ; ii. 4, et seq. ; 9, et seq .; 
 22, et seq. ; iii. 22 ; iv. 17. 2 Peter i. 18, et seq. 
 
 2 n«~is Oiov, Acts iii. 13, 26; iv. 27, 30, a term, which occurs nowhere else in the 
 New Testament, but frequently in Isaiah (LXX), to denote the Messiah. Comp. 
 Isa. xlii. 1; Iii. 13; liii. 11. 
 
 ✓ 
 
330 § 160. PROPHETIC JEWISH CHRISTIANITY, [v. BOOK. 
 
 for the sake of Judaism, nor as a product of it; rather is Judaism 
 a product of Christianity. This is implied particularly in the 
 profound passage, 1 Peter i. 10-12 (comp. i. 20, and 2 Peter i. 
 19-21), according to which the same spirit of Christ, which 
 afterwards appeared as a person, was already in the prophets, 
 operating in them from the beginning as the principle of revela¬ 
 tion, pointing to the future historical manifestation of the Saviour 
 —the all-controlling principle, which Judaism had to serve in a 
 merely provisional way. 
 
 This fulfilment of the Old Testament in the Gospel, however, 
 Peter regards, not as finished with the first appearance of the 
 Lord, but rather as itself an unfulfilled prophecy. As James 
 calls Christianity a law, so Peter considers it a promise or pro¬ 
 phecy, the precious earnest of a still more glorious future. This 
 is an essential element of his view. Even in his discourse to 
 the people, Acts iii. 20, et seq ., he points to a still future time of 
 refreshing, a restoration of the physical and moral world to the 
 state of perfection, 1 to be accomplished at the visible return of 
 Christ, who now fills heaven, 2 —a time when all the predictions 
 of the holy prophets of God shall be completely realized. What 
 is foretold in the Old Testament is, therefore, only partially 
 realized. The epistles of Peter are full of this prophetic element, 
 which is well suited to their practical purpose of consolation, and 
 of encouragement to persevere under suffering. At the very 
 beginning of the first epistle he presents the Christian salvation 
 as an object of lively hope, as an inheritance incorruptible, un¬ 
 defiled, and that fadetli not away, reserved in heaven for us 
 (1 Peter i. 3, 4). It is to be revealed in the last time (ver. 5), 
 at the approaching end of all things, when Christ shall appear 
 in His glory (iv. 13; comp. v. 1). The faithful pastors shall re¬ 
 ceive crowns of glory at the appearance of the chief shepherd 
 (v. 4 ; comp. ver. 6) ; and, with this prospect of the eternal glory 
 of God in Christ, to which we are called, the epistle concludes 
 
 1 A'-Tox-o'.TJtrTot.tri? ruvraiv, COttip. rruhiyyivitrli*,, Matth. xix. 28, and xoa^o) SiogOwmaj; , Heb. 
 ix. 10. 
 
 2 In interpreting the words ov hu ov^vov ph SigatrOcu, Acts iii. 21, I think the 
 Lutheran commentators correct, in making ev the subject: Who must receive heaven, 
 instead of:—Whom the heaven must receive, quem oportet coelo capi, as the Greek 
 and most of the Reformed commentators explain it, and as it is given in the English 
 Bible. For the throne occupies not the king, but the king the throne. 
 
DOCTRINE.] OR THE DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF PETER. 
 
 331 
 
 (v. 10) as it had begun. The second epistle also frequently 
 speaks of promises given (i. 4), and of a future entrance into the 
 everlasting kingdom of Christ (ver. 11). The word of the pro¬ 
 phets lias, indeed, been made surer by being partially fulfilled, 
 but is still prophetic, continually shining as a light in a dark 
 place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in the heart 
 (ver. 19). The last chapter treats almost exclusively of the 
 revelation of this glorious future,* and closes with the prospect of 
 the new heavens and new earth (iv. 12, 13), and with an appro¬ 
 priate exhortation. 
 
 It is in perfect accordance with this conception of the Gospel 
 that Peter represents the Christian life , in the first place, indeed, 
 as penitent faith in the revealed Messiah, the only Saviour, 1 but 
 at the same time as lively hope for the glorious return of the 
 Lord, and the consummation of salvation thereby to be accom¬ 
 plished. 2 Hence his predilection for the title 66 strangers and 
 pilgrims” in addressing Christians. 3 Hence his earnestness in 
 exhorting them to be patient in suffering and tribulation, after 
 the example of Christ. On account of this frequent reference 
 to hope, which is based on the resurrection of Christ (1 Peter i. 
 3), is a foretaste of the future inheritance, and, for this very 
 reason consoles and refreshes amidst the trials of the earthly 
 pilgrimage, Peter has been called, not improperly, the apostle of 
 hope. 4 
 
 Thus, according to the Petrine type of doctrine, objective 
 Christianity is at once a fulfilment of the Old Testament pro¬ 
 phecy, and itself a precious promise; subjective Christianity is 
 at once faith in the revealed Messiah, and lively hope in His 
 glorious reappearance. 
 
 Other books of the New Testament also present Christianity 
 in this prospective form, which, however, looks not beyond 
 Christ, but only to the perfect unfolding of what is in Him. 
 The most complete expansion of this prophetic view is given, in 
 a certain manner, by John in the Apocalypse; but Paul also is 
 
 1 Acts ii. 38 ; iii. 16; iv. 12 ; x. 43 ; xv. 9. 1 Peter i. 5, 7-9, 21; ii. 7. 2 Peter i. 1. 
 
 2 1 Peter i. 3, 13, 21; iii. 5, 15; iv. 13; v. 1, 4, 10. 2 Peter i. 19; iii. 9-13. 
 
 3 1 Peter i. 1,2; ii. 11. Comp. 2 Peter i. 13, et seq. 
 
 * By Beck, for example, in his Einleitung in das System der christlichen Lelire, 
 p. 245. 
 
332 
 
 § 161. MATTHEW, MARK, AND JUDE. 
 
 [y. BOOK. 
 
 full of the future glorious consummation of the church, and 
 hence with him hope, the confident, ardent, not painful, however, 
 but joyful and elevating expectation of the full possession of the 
 promise, holds a necessary place in the Christian life. 1 Here 
 again we observe the most beautiful harmony among all the 
 apostles. 
 
 § 161. Matthew , Mark , and Jude. 
 
 Those of the other New Testament books, which are conformed 
 to this Jewish-Christian type of the apostolic doctrine, are the 
 gospels of Matthew and Mark, which form its historical founda¬ 
 tion, and the epistle of Jude. In one view the Apocalypse also 
 might be included here, as agreeing in its contents with the pro¬ 
 phetic strain of Peter; but in other respects it bears throughout 
 the stamp of the Johannean theology. Between the first and 
 second gospels, again, there is the same relation as between 
 James and Peter. 
 
 Matthew evidently wrote for Jewish Christians, and presumes 
 upon a knowledge of the peculiar customs and usages of the 
 Jews; while Mark, who, like his spiritual father, Peter, has in 
 view a larger and in part Gentile-Christian circle of readers, 
 frequently explains such Jewish peculiarities. Both choose the 
 ethical discourses of Jesus, in which He presents himself as the 
 fulfiller and completer of the Old Testament law. They are 
 comprehended particularly in the sermon on the mount (Matth. 
 v.-vii.), which seems to have been floating in the mind of James 
 while writing his epistle. His coincidence with Matthew ex¬ 
 tends even to single precepts, such as the prohibition of swear¬ 
 ing, as also to the sententious, figurative character of the lan¬ 
 guage. 2 But the first two gospels also furnish a complement to 
 the doctrine of James in a Christological point of view, by making 
 Christ not merely the fulfiller of the law, but, with as much em¬ 
 phasis as Peter, the fulfiller of prophecy. Matthew in particular, 
 
 1 Comp. Rom. v. 2; viii. 18, 23-25; xii. 12; xv. 13. 1 Cor. ix. 10; xiii. 13. 2 Cor. 
 
 iii. 12. Eph. i. 18; ii. 12; iv. 4. Col. i. 5, 23; iii. 3, 4. 1 Thess i. 3; v. 8, 9. 
 
 2 Thess. ii. 16. 1 Tim. i. 1. Titus i. 2; ii. 13; iii. 7. 2 Tim. iv. 8. Heb. vi. 11; 
 x. 23. 1 John iii. 2, 3. 
 
 2 Respecting the relation of the epistle of James to the gospel of Matthew, com¬ 
 pare, for example, Theile’s Commentary on the former, where the parallels are given 
 at large. 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 161. MATTHEW, MARK, AND JUDE. 
 
 333 
 
 in all the leading events of tlie evangelical history, takes pains to 
 call attention to their remarkable coincidence with prophecies, 
 by the standing phrase : u that it might be fulfilled, which is 
 written;” 1 and thus to give his Jewish readers proof that Jesus 
 was the promised Messiah and King of the Jews (i. 1). But at 
 the same time he, like Peter, holds up Christianity as itself again 
 a prophecy, and hence carefully records the prophetic discourses 
 of our Lord respecting His second coming (chaps, xxiv. and xxv.; 
 comp. Mark xiii.) Mark does not so often cite special prophe¬ 
 cies, though he refers at the very outset to Mai. iii. 1 and Isaiah 
 xl. 3. To his readers of heathen descent, and with a view to 
 their doctrine of the sons of the gods, he wishes to show, that 
 Jesus is not only the Messiah and the u Son of David, the son 
 of Abraham” (Mattli. i. 1), but emphatically the “ Son of God” 
 (Mark i. 1), and has accredited himself as such by His very ap¬ 
 pearance and His works of supernatural power. It is for this 
 reason, that Mark gives the Gospel history such a vivacious, 
 dramatic form, setting it before the eyes of his readers in a series 
 of detached and complete pictures. In general, the first two 
 evangelists are confined to the historical, Messianic aspect of the 
 Redeemer; though they touch at times the eternal, divine 
 groundwork of His person, and thus serve to introduce the 
 Johannean Christology, which at the same time presupposes 
 their existence (comp. § 148). 
 
 The short, but earnest and forcible epistle of Jude reveals even 
 in its superscription its affinity to James both in matter and in 
 form. In its contents, however, it comes still nearer the second 
 epistle of Peter, the existence of which it implies (comp. § 92). 
 The main design is to warn its readers against libertine false 
 teachers and wanton abuse of grace. The examples adduced 
 are all from the Old Testament; and he even makes use of the 
 Jewish tradition in his allusion to the dispute between the arch¬ 
 angel Michael, and the devil about the body of Moses (ver. 9), 
 and appeals to the apocryphal book of Enoch (ver. 14), though 
 of course without thereby sanctioning it in general or conceding 
 to it canonical authority. 2 3 The specifically Christian element is 
 
 1 E. g. i. 23; ii. 6, 15, 18; iii. 3; iv. 14; viii. 17; xii. 17; xiii. 35; xxi. 4; xxvi. 
 
 56; xxvii. 9. 
 
 3 Comp, the exposition of these passages and the removal of all that appears offen- 
 
334 
 
 § 162 . GENTILE-CHRISTIAN TYPE OF [v. BOOK. 
 
 most apparent at the close (verses 20-25), though it shines through 
 not indistinctly in other places. In ver. 2 Jesus Christ is asso¬ 
 ciated immediately with God the Father, and in ver. 4 is termed 
 “our only Ruler and Lord” (comp, verses 17, 21, 25). Jude 
 also, like James, points to the second coming of Christ in judg¬ 
 ment, which wall he terrible to the ungodly (verses 14, 15), but to 
 believers full of grace unto eternal life (ver. 21). Significant and 
 very appropriate is the position of this letter — u of few lines, but 
 rich in words of heavenly grace” 1 —in the canon, between the 
 apostolic epistles, to which it makes corroborate reference (verses 
 3, 17, et seq .), and the Apocalypse, to which, by its earnest pre¬ 
 dictions respecting the last enemies of the church and their im¬ 
 pending judgment, it forms the transition. 
 
 § 162. (2) The Gentile-Christian Type of Doctrine in Paul. 
 
 (Comp. § 62-88). 
 
 From the great apostle of the Gentiles, who was naturally a 
 profound thinker and had enjoyed a learned education, we have 
 by far the most extended and complete exhibition of the Christian 
 system of doctrine; as in fact this apostle wrote more than all 
 the rest. He unfolds Christianity mainly in its specific character, 
 which, though organically adapted, it is true, to the wants of 
 human nature and to the Old Testament revelation, is still in- 
 finitelv exalted above both Heathenism and Judaism, and can- 
 not, therefore, be derived from either. Christ is, with Paul, in 
 the fullest sense, a second progenitor of humanity ; the Christian 
 religion, a new moral creation far transcending the old. 
 
 The doctrinal position of this apostle may be accounted for, not 
 only by his calling, but also by the mode of his conversion, in which 
 the Jewish and the Christian life came so abruptly and violently 
 into contact. A regular, bigoted Pharisee, in doctrine and senti¬ 
 ment (though by birth a Hellenist), a fanatical zealot for the law 
 of his fathers, the most dangerous enemy of the Christian church, 
 he was suddenly converted to the Gospel by the grace of God, 
 and called by the exalted Redeemer to be the apostle of the 
 Gentiles. If he was before, as he himself says, a blasphemer and 
 
 sive in them by Stier: Dev Brief Judd, des Bruders des Herrn (1850), p. 51, et seq., 
 and p. 81, et seq. 
 
 1 As Origen says of it, Comment, in Matth. XIII. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 DOCTRINE IN RAUL. 
 
 335 
 
 a persecutor, 1 though from blindness and ignorance; the more 
 abundantly and illustriously did lie prove the saving mercy of 
 God. If he had formerly striven in vain after righteousness by 
 the law, and had now attained it without merit, of pure grace, 
 by simple faith in Christ crucified and risen; he was compelled 
 to view his former condition in comparison with his present, as 
 dark night compared with noon-day (2 Cor. iv. 6); nay, to count 
 all his Jewish advantages but loss for the excellency of the know¬ 
 ledge of Christ Jesus, his Lord (comp. Phil. iii. 3-9 and Rom. 
 vii. 13-25). 
 
 Accordingly Paul’s doctrine, like his life, centres in the great 
 antithesis of the id ant of salvation before Christ and the supply of 
 salvation in Christ. Before Christ and out of Christ is, with 
 him, the reign of sin and death ; after Christ and in Christ, the 
 reign of righteousness and life (Rom. v. 12, et seq.) There he 
 sees the killing letter; here the lifegiving Spirit. 2 There, bond¬ 
 age and curse; here, freedom and blessed sonship. 3 There, a 
 powerless struggle between flesh and spirit and a cry for redemp¬ 
 tion ; 4 here, no condemnation, but wisdom, righteousness, sancti¬ 
 fication, and redemption, and the inseparable communion of the 
 love of God which is in Christ Jesus/’ Hence he opposes no 
 error so decidedly and vehemently as the Judaizing, which would 
 degrade Christianity to the former level of bondage and death. 
 
 Much as Paul insists, however, on the absolute newness of 
 Christianity and its infinite elevation, not only above Heathenism, 
 but also above Judaism, he still forgets not its historical and re¬ 
 ligious connection with the Old Testament. He does not regard 
 it as new in any such sense, as would make its appearance in the 
 world altogether unprepared, abrupt and magical. He gives it, 
 in the first place, an organic connection with the natural man’s 
 need of redemption, which even the heathen, by reason of the 
 innate idea of God and the law written in the conscience, 6 can¬ 
 not deny. Then again, he represents the way as positively pre¬ 
 pared for the Christian religion by the Old Testament revelation. 
 
 1 TlXccrQYifAOS XIX.) dltoXTYiS XOC.) Vp^tlTTYlS, 1 Tim. i, 13. 
 
 2 Rom. viii. 2; vii. 6. 2 Cor. iii. 6, et seq. 
 
 3 Gal. v. 1; iv. 3, et seq. ; iii. 10, et seq. 2 Cor. iii. 17. 
 
 4 Rom. vii. 7, et seq. ; 24. 
 
 5 Rom. viii. 1, et seq. 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 
 8 Rom. i. 19. Acts xvii. 23, 28; and Rom. ii. 14, 15. 
 
336 
 
 § 1G2. GENTILE CHRISTIAN TYPE OF 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 He calls the law a schoolmaster to lead to Christ (Gal. iii. 24), 
 and describes the Gospel as promised before by the prophets. 1 
 There is, therefore, a connecting link between the Jew Saul and 
 the Christian Paul, between the two stages of his religious ex¬ 
 perience and views. This link is the idea of righteousness , which 
 forms the centre and fundamental principle of his system of faith 
 and morals. While a Pharisee, he had striven with all his might 
 after righteousness in the way of obedience to the law of Moses. 
 Even his persecution of Christ, whom he took for a revolutionary 
 opponent of the Old Testament religion, proceeded from this 
 honest effort. But in faith in the very One he persecuted he 
 found righteousness, and with it peace and salvation. 2 We must, 
 therefore, examine more closely this important conception. 
 
 The notion of righteousness {SiKcuocrvvr), ,yPJ?) is borrowed from 
 the Old Testament, where it denotes the ideal of the theocratic 
 morality and religion, legal perfection, the proper, normal rela¬ 
 tion of man to a just and holy God. For this very reason it is 
 inseparably connected with true life, with salvation, felicity, as 
 its necessary consequence. 3 The rule and measure of this rela¬ 
 tion is the will or judgment of God expressed in the law. Hence 
 righteousness, in the Jewish view, consists in the perfect fulfil¬ 
 ling of the law (Pom. ii. 13). The^wstf man (bUaios, P." 1 ?) is one, 
 who in disposition and action is as he should be 4 in the sight of 
 
 1 Rom. i. 2; iii. 21. Titus i. 2. 2 Cor. i. 20. 
 
 2 The Swiss divine, Usteri, to whom we owe the first organic development of Paul’s 
 doctrinal system, divides it altogether abstractly into two parts very unequal in com¬ 
 pass : (1) the ante-Christian period (Heathenism and Judaism); (2) Christianity;— 
 without uniting the two by any intermediate conception. Neander makes the 
 SixKitxrCvri this connecting link, and thus effects an advance in the whole view of Paul’s 
 system, Apost. Gescli. II. p. 656, where he says : “ The ideas of vop.es and SixmotCv-h 
 connect, as well as divide, his earlier and later views.” The idea of vopos, however, 
 seems to me to belong rather to the first main division, the ante-Christian, Jewish 
 position. 
 
 3 Comp. Lev. xviii. 5. James i. 25. Rom. iv. 4; x. 5. Gal. iii. 12. Phil. iii. 6. 
 
 i This, too, is the original meaning of the German “gerecht” and the English 
 “ righteous,” though they are now commonly made to refer, not to the moral and 
 religious relations, but merely to the judicial or legal. The corresponding Greek 
 word Aristotle {Eth. Nic. V. 2) derives from Sfx*. {Us), twofold, in two parts; so 
 that SixoiiirCwi would be the well-proportioned relation between two parts, where each 
 has its due. It may then be applied as well to the relation of a man to God, as to 
 his relation to other men, or even to both at once; and with the Greeks Sixmos is 
 frequently one who fulfils his obligations to God and man. It was a Greek proverb : 
 “ In righteousness all virtue is contained; ” and Aristotle says, Eth. Nic. V. -3 : TJoivra. 
 
 rot vop.ip.ot *«*t< n£>S Slxociot . ... tv SixotiorCwi <rv\\Yi(ZSv)v voLtr oogtri] \vi. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 DOCTRINE IN PAUL. 
 
 337 
 
 God. On him rests the pleasure of the Lord. He has claim to 
 all the blessings and privileges of the theocracy (Gal. iii. 12) ; 
 while the unrighteous man is under the curse of God, condemned, 
 and miserable (Gal. iii. 10). 
 
 The Saviour also, in His sermon on the mount, represents 
 righteousness as the chief end of man : u Seek ye first the king¬ 
 dom of God and His righteousness” (Matth. vi. 33). But He 
 here distinguishes two kinds of righteousness : u Except your 
 righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and 
 Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” 
 (Matth. v. 20). The Pharisaic righteousness stands in letter ; the 
 Christian, in spirit. The one is self-rigliteousness; the other, 
 a gift of grace, given to those who are poor in spirit, who, with 
 the publican, penitently smite upon their breasts, and under a 
 sense of entire unworthiness put up the prayer: “ God be merci¬ 
 ful to me a sinner” (Luke xviii. 13, 14). 
 
 It is precisely this distinction, which forms the basis of Paul’s 
 minute analysis of doctrine, and which separates the two great 
 periods of his life. Before his conversion he was with the Jews 
 in the view, that man can actually fulfil the divine law, and 
 therefore attain in this way righteousness and salvation. 1 After 
 his conversion he saw this to be absolutely impossible without 
 faith in Christ and the renewal of the whole man. Now he 
 learned, that all men, .lews as well as Gentiles, are by nature 
 without righteousness, and can be made righteous and be saved 
 onlv through the merits of Jesus Christ. If he had previously 
 laid the chief stress on the law and on works, he now laid it all 
 on free grace, and on living faith, which appropriates Christ and 
 His atoning death. Hence he may justly be called the apostle 
 of faith, or of the righteousness of faith. 
 
 Paul accordingly distinguishes two kinds of righteousness: (1) 
 man’s own righteousness, 2 or the righteousness of the law, also 
 called righteousness of works, 3 which man strives after, but in 
 
 o ' 
 
 reality can never attain, by his natural power, and which is 
 therefore altogether imaginary. 4 The ground of this impossi- 
 
 1 Acts xxii. 3. Gal. i. 13, et seq. Phil. iii. 4, et seq . 
 
 2 ’IS/*. ZixoLi'Jtrivv. Rom. x. 3. Phil. iii. 9. 
 
 ^ &ix,otAotrvvYi spyeuv votj^ov , Rom. iii. 2 ^ x. 5. Gal. ii. —1. 
 
 4 Rom. iii. 20. Gal. ii. 16, 21. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 Y 
 
338 § 162. GENT1LE-CHRISTIAN TYPE OF [v. BOOK. 
 
 bility of a self-righteousness, which would stand before God and 
 establish a claim to salvation, is not in the law—for this is good, 
 holy, spiritual (Rom. vii. 12, 14),—but in the corruption of man, 
 in his carnal nature, which must be regenerated and renewed by 
 the grace of God, before it can perform anything truly good. 
 (2) The righteousness of God or from God, i.e., the righteous¬ 
 ness which comes from God and is acceptable to himor the 
 righteousness of faith, 1 2 i.e., the righteousness which springs 
 from faith in Christ, as the only and all-sufficient Saviour; is 
 vitally apprehended by faith, and is imputed and given to the 
 believer by God, without merit, without the deeds of the law, in 
 free grace. 3 The righteousness of faith also, being of this char¬ 
 acter, necessarily excludes all boasting, and yields the glory to 
 God alone (Rom. iii. 27). 
 
 The divine act, by which man comes into possession of this 
 righteousness, is denoted by the expressions : justification , to 
 justify , to count for righteousness . 4 This Pauline doctrine of 
 justification is evidently founded on the notion of a judicial pro¬ 
 cess. The holy and just God is the judge ; 5 6 the law of God, the 
 
 1 AixouotrCvvi 9iov, Six. \x Qioo, Gal. iii. 11. Rom. i. 17; iii. 21, 22; x. 3. 2 Cor. 
 v. 21. Phil. iii. 9. 
 
 2 Aizouoitvvyi t ijs frhrnas, or tx trltrrsws, 01 * Slot -xiffTicos X^/vroy, Rom. ix. 30; X. 6; 
 i. 17. Gal. v. 5. Phil. iii. 9. 
 
 3 Oy* Igyuv vo/ttov, Gal. ii. 16, comp., Eph. ii. 9: Saoeoiv, Rom. ii. 24; rtf x < *Z ir ‘> ib» 
 and Eph. ii. 9; xotrdt x*v v - Bom. iv. 4. 
 
 * Aixotlatris Xoynr/Jtos vrvis Sixoaotrvvvis , Sixotiovv (pl'llSfl), Xoyi'iurOoti us SizotioirCvriv , Rom. ii. 
 
 13; v. 18; iii. 20. Gal. iii. 11, etc. Aixotiovv properly means, according [to its 
 etymology, to make righteous, like the Latin (which, by the way, does not occur in 
 the profane authors) justificare=justum facere (comp, calefacere, frigifacere, vivi- 
 ficare, etc.) For all Greek verbs in da, derived from adjectives of the second declen¬ 
 sion signify, to make a person or thing what the primitive denotes. Thus rv<p\ovv, 
 SovXovv, o^OoZv, (ZifiYi\ovv, S’/iXouv, (potvs^ouv, tsxuovv, xivovv, are equivalent to tuqxov, SouXo» r 
 o^dov, etc. ttoiuv. Now this making righteous may be done primarily in the judicial 
 sense ; and then it will be the same as : to pronounce righteous, justum declarare, and 
 as such termini forenses the Hebrew and the Greek Sixcuouv, in the Hellenistic 
 
 Biblical usus loquendi, frequently occur: e.g. Exod. xxiii. 7. Deut. xxv. 1. 1 Kings 
 
 viii. 32. Prov. xvii. 15. Ps. cxliii. 2; li. 6. Ezek. xvi. 51. Isa. xlv. 25. Luke vii. 
 29. Rom. iii. 4. 1 Tim. iii. 16. Matth. xi. 19. Luke x. 29 ; xvi. 12. Rom. ii. 13. 
 Matth. xii. 37. 1 Cor. iv. 4. But if we would not involve God in inconsistency and 
 falsehood, we must carefully guard against the notion of an empty declaration, and 
 must necessarily suppose that the objective state of things corresponds to the judg¬ 
 ment of God ; in other woi'ds, that God actually makes the penitent sinner righteous 
 in imputing and imparting to him the righteousness of Christ, renewing him by the 
 Holy Ghost, and placing him by faith in holy vital communion with Christ. 
 
 6 Rom. iii. 20. Gal. iii. 11. 1 Cor. iv. 4. 2 Tim. iv. 8. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 339 
 
 DOCTRINE IN PAUL. 
 
 accuser; 1 the sinner or transgressor of the law, the accused; 2 
 conscience, the witness ; 3 Christ the advocate and substitute for 
 the accused ; 4 the atoning death and the merits of Christ, the 
 price of redemption ; 5 faith, the instrument, the spiritual hand of 
 the penitent sinner, by which these merits are appropriated. 6 
 The justification itself is (1) negative, the judicial sentence of 
 God, in which He pronounces the sinner, for the sake of Christ, 
 free from the curse of the law, from the guilt and punishment of 
 transgression ;—in other words, the forgiveness of sins, pardon ; 7 
 (2) positive, the imputation and actual communication of the 
 righteousness of Christ to the penitent, believing sinner. 8 The 
 communication on the part of God and appropriation on the 
 part of man, take place by means of faith, which is wrought by 
 the Holy Ghost in the church through the word and the sacra¬ 
 ments, and is, not indeed the objective ground, the efficient 
 cause, yet the indispensable subjective condition and instrumental 
 cause, of justification; since, renouncing all merit of its own, it 
 lays vital hold on the grace of God and the merits of Christ, and 
 receives them into itself. By faith the man is raised out of his sinful 
 state, united with Christ,and wrought more and more into His holy 
 being, so that the old man no longer lives, but Christ lives and 
 moves in him. 9 Of course such a faith is absolutely inseparable 
 from love and good works. 10 An antinomian disjunction of faith 
 from its fruits, as also of justification from sanctification, is a 
 radical and most dangerous abuse of Paul’s doctrine, which he 
 himself repelled with horror. 11 
 
 In this comprehensive moral contrast between false self-right¬ 
 eousness, which works death, and the true righteousness of God, 
 which is life and salvation, Paul’s whole system centres. It may, 
 therefore, be best presented in two sections. The first or nega- 
 
 1 Col. ii. 14. Comp. John v. 45. 
 
 2 Rom. iii. 19. 3 Rom. ii. 15. 
 
 * 1 John ii. 1. Comp. Heb. vii. 25, et seq. ; ix. 24. 
 
 5 Titus ii. 14. Comp. Matth. xx. 28. Mark x. 45. 
 
 € Rom. i. 17 ; iii. 21. Phil. iii. 9. 
 
 i "Aquas rZv u/u.m^tiSv, tuv ■rot^a.rrraif^eiTuv, Rom. iv. 6, 7. Comp. Luke xviii. 13, 14. 
 
 8 AoyKTfjbos tvs iixKieirvvris, Rom. iv. 3, 6, 7, 11, 24; ix. 30. Gal. iii. 6. 
 
 9 Gal. ii. 20. Comp. 1 Cor. vi. 15, 17. 2 Cor. iii. 18. Eph. iii. 17; v. 30. Col. 
 
 iii. 3, 4. 
 
 10 Comp. Gal. v. 6. Rom. vi. 1, et seq. 
 
 11 Rom. iii. 8; vi. 1, 2. Comp. 2 Peter iii. 16. 
 
340 § 162. GENTILE-CHRISTIAN TYPE OF DOCTRINE. [v. BOOK. 
 
 live part treats of the want of righteousness, or the condition of 
 man before and out of Christ. This is the reign of the first, 
 natural, earthly Adam, or the reign of sin and death, appearing 
 partly in unguided Heathenism, partly in the disciplinary insti¬ 
 tution of legal Judaism ; though in the latter case connected 
 with divine promises and significant types and anticipations of the 
 future. The larger, positive section has to do with the Gospel, 
 the absolute religion of liberty and divine sonship,—setting forth 
 the true righteousness as offered in Christ and appropriated by 
 faith. This is the reign of the second, spiritual, heavenly Adam, 
 or of grace and life. 1 
 
 This plan is not one arbitrarily forced upon the doctrinal 
 system of the Gentile apostle, but lies clear enough on its surface 
 in his most methodical and systematic epistle, that to the Romans. 
 Here, after the introduction, he first states the essence of Chris¬ 
 tianity by saying, that u it is the power of God unto salvation to 
 every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 
 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to 
 faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (Rom. i. 
 16, 17). This is the theme, the leading thought of the epistle. 
 In unfolding this the apostle first proves, that all men, not only 
 the Gentiles (i. 19-32), but also the Jews (ii. 1-3, 20), are by 
 nature destitute of righteousness, and therefore of salvation and 
 life, and are sinners, worthy of condemnation. Then from chap, 
 iii. 21 onward he shows, that Christ has fulfilled righteousness 
 and procured life and salvation; that these are imparted to us 
 through firm, living faith: that this faith gives the most troubled 
 conscience peace, and must necessarily reveal itself in a holy 
 devoted walk of love and gratitude for the grace received. 2 
 
 What the apostle of the Gentiles says of himself with primary 
 reference no doubt to the missionary work : u I laboured more 
 abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which 
 was with me” (1 Cor. xv. 10), is true also in regard to the in¬ 
 vestigation and development of the Christian doctrine of faith and 
 
 1 Comp. Rom. v. 12, et seq. 1 Cor. xv. 45, et seq. 
 
 2 Comp. § 80. We now have several detailed exhibitions of Paul’s system of doc¬ 
 trine of various character and value, by Usteri, Dahne, Neander (in the second 
 volume of his Geschichte der Pflanzung, etc. p. 654-839) and Baur (in his work on 
 Paul, p. 505-670). 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 § 163. WRITINGS OF LUKE. 
 
 341 
 
 morals. No other apostle lias given us so profound and complete 
 an exhibition of the doctrines of sin and grace, of the law and the 
 Gospel, of the eternal conception and the temporal unfolding of 
 the plan of redemption, of the person and work of the Redeemer, 
 of justifying faith and Christian life, of the Holy Ghost, of the 
 church and the means of grace, of the resurrection and the con¬ 
 summation of salvation. In the small compass of his thirteen 
 epistles, Paul has crowded together more genuine spirit, profound 
 thought and true wisdom, than are to be found in the whole mass 
 of the classical or even of the post-apostolical Christian literature. 
 He, who does not see in this an overwhelming proof of the 
 divinity and incomparable glory of Christianity, must have either 
 his heart or his head in the wrong place. Already have eighteen 
 centuries been industriously labouring to expound, digest, and 
 apply in sermons, commentaries and numberless other works, the 
 dogmatic and ethical contents of Paul’s system of doctrine, and 
 still it is not exhausted. Where is there a human production in 
 any department of literature, from any age or nation, which has 
 so stirred, fertilized, enlightened, and enlivened human minds, 
 and on which it has been so profitable to think, to speak, to 
 preach, and to write, as, for example, the single epistle to the 
 Romans ? 
 
 § 163. The Writings of Luke and the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 Those of the other books of the New Testament, which are 
 allied to the Pauline type of doctrine, are the third gospel, the 
 Acts of the Apostles, and the epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 That Luke wrote under the influence of Paul, whom he fol¬ 
 lowed as a faithful disciple and fellow-labourer, has long been 
 acknowledged, 1 and has already been remarked in a former part 
 of this work. 2 This influence is not to be conceived as in any 
 way affecting the fair representation of the historical facts. The 
 very appearance, the evident fidelity and objectivity, of the books 
 in question, as well as their many Jewish-Christian elements, 
 contradict such a supposition. Paul’s influence is to be seen in 
 the general object of the books, and in their author’s selection of 
 
 1 Irenasus, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, Chrysostom, and other fathers, were of this 
 opinion. See the passages in Credner’s Einleitung ins N. T. Part I. § GO and 01. 
 
 2 Comp, above § 1-17 and 110. 
 
342 
 
 § 163. WRITINGS OF LUKE 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 several traits and incidents not given in the first two gospels, 
 best suiting the free evangelical and universal views of the Gentile 
 apostle, and forming the historical basis for his system of doctrine. 
 Among these Pauline features are the carrying of the genealogy 
 of Jesus back to Adam, the common progenitor of all men, nay, 
 in fact to God, the original ground of all being (Luke iii. 38), 
 while Matthew traces it simply to Abraham, the patriarch of the 
 Jews; 1 the respectful mention of the Samaritans, who were so 
 abhorred by the Jews (ix. 52 ; x. 30, et seq .; xvii. 11, et seq .) ; 
 the account of the mission of the seventy disciples (x. 1-24), who 
 evidently bore the same relation to the heathen world as the 
 twelve disciples to the twelve tribes of Israel ; 2 the parable of the 
 prodigal son, who, in his vagrancy, misery, penitence, and return 
 to his father’s house, presents a most graphic picture of Heathen¬ 
 ism in contrast with Judaism represented by the elder brother 
 (xv. 11-32) ; the parable of the Pharisee and Publican, which so 
 unequivocally sets forth Paul’s doctrine of justification in opposi¬ 
 tion to Pharisaical self-righteousness (xviii. 9-14; comp, also 
 xvii. 10) ; Luke’s predilection, in general, for depicting the con¬ 
 descending mercy of the Saviour towards gross, but penitent and 
 anxious sinners (vii. 36-50; xix. 2-10; xxiii. 40-43) ; finally, 
 the close agreement between Luke’s account of the institution of 
 the Lord’s Supper (xxii. 19, 20) and the statement of Paul 
 (1 Cor. xi. 23-25). 
 
 Over the origin and author of the anonymous epistle to the 
 Hebrews there hangs a mysterious veil. The book might be com¬ 
 pared to the Melcliisedec of the profound allegory in its seventh 
 chapter. For, like this personage, it bears itself with priestly 
 and kingly dignity and majesty, but is u without father, without 
 mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor 
 end of life.” Properly and strictly the production of Paul, as the 
 ancient Greek church generally considered it, it can hardly be. 
 Against such a view of it are, the absence of the superscription or 
 
 1 On which Luther makes the striking remark (in his Notes on Matth. i. Werhe, 
 VII. 10): “ Luke, however, goes further and seeks, as it were, to make Christ 
 common to all nations, wherefore he traces His pedigree up to Adam,” etc. So 
 already Chrysostom ; see Credner, 1. c. p. 143. 
 
 2 Schwegler, Das nachapost. Zeitalier II. p. 4G : “ The twelve are the missionaries 
 of the Messiah to His own people; the seventy, of the Redeemer of the world to all 
 nations.” 
 
DOCTRINE.] AND THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 343 
 
 address, which is lacking in no other epistle of Paul; the passage, 
 chap. ii. 3, which betrays the hand of a disciple of the apostles; 
 the highly rhetorical and purely Grecian style, the rhythmical, 
 melodious flow of the language; the close adherence to the Greek 
 translation of the Old Testament, without any corrective reference 
 to the original Hebrew, to which Paul so often pays regard ; the 
 place of the book in the canon, after the Pastoral Epistles ; and 
 finally, the tradition of the Roman and Latin church, which, ac¬ 
 cording to the express testimony of Jerome, regarded it for a long 
 time, until the council of Hippo (a.d. 393), as not the work of 
 Paul; and the opinion of the learned Alexandrian fathers, who 
 ascribed the substance of the epistle to Paul, but the editi ng of 
 it, or its translation from the supposed Hebrew original, to one 
 of his disciples, generally Luke or Clement of Rome. 1 
 
 On the other hand, however, this epistle bears so striking an 
 affinity to Paul’s system of doctrine, and is so uncommonly pro¬ 
 found and rich, that one can scarcely help attributing to the 
 apostle of the Gentiles at least a partial or indirect influence on 
 its composition. This most naturally accounts for and reconciles 
 the contradiction in the old church tradition, though, of course, 
 in the absence of definite internal and reliable -external evidence, 
 the degree and mode of this influence cannot be accurately de¬ 
 termined. If now we attempt to select from among the disciples 
 of Paul the one, who may be regarded with the greatest proba¬ 
 bility as the immediate author, or at least editor or translator of 
 this Pauline and yet non-Pauline epistle, the choice seems to us 
 
 1 On this whole matter we refer particularly to the uncommonly thorough investi¬ 
 gations of Bleek in the first part of his Commentar zum Hebriierbrief, ch. 4, p. 82-430; 
 to the introduction of Tholuck’s Commentary (§ 1-4 of the 2d ed.); and to the able 
 treatise of Wieseler in the Appendix to his Chronologie der Apnstelgeschichte , 
 p. 479-520, with whom, however, we cannot agree at all in supposing the readers of 
 the epistle to have been Alexandrian Jews. It was no doubt mainly addressed to 
 the Jewish Christians in Palestine, as the very name Hebrews indicates. Even the 
 modern scholars, who advocate the Pauline origin of the epistle, cannot deny the 
 differences above glanced at, and find it necessary, therefore, somehow to modify 
 their view. Thus Hug, in the third edition of his Einl. insN. T. II. p. 492, ascribes 
 at least the verbal form to Luke; Thiersch regards the epistle as the joint produc¬ 
 tion of Paul and Barnabas (De epist. ad Hebraeos commentatio historica, Marburgi, 
 1848), Delitzseh (in Rudelbach and Guericke’s “ Zeitschrift,” 1849, No. 2; translated 
 in the “Evaug. Review,” Oct. 1850, p. 184, et seq.), supposes that Paul furnished the 
 main ideas, and Luke wrought them up independently, yet so that Paul could acknow¬ 
 ledge it as his own work. Similar is the view of Ebrard in his Commentar iiber den 
 Hebraerbrief (1850), p. 458, etseq. (Translated in Clark’s Foreign Theological Library.) 
 
344 
 
 § 163. WRITINGS OF LUKE 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 to lie only between Luke and Barnabas. But in the case of each 
 of these so much can be said on both sides, that it is extremely 
 difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to decide. 1 At all events, 
 thus much is settled, that the epistle originated from the school of 
 Paul, is full of his grand ideas, sprang from the living fountain of 
 primitive apostolical Christianity, and, as it takes for granted the 
 continued existence of the temple worship (ix. 6-9), was written 
 before the destruction of Jerusalem—we suppose in Italy, a.d. 
 63, during the imprisonment of Paul in Rome. 
 
 The Pauline stamp of the epistle to the Hebrews is clearly 
 discernible in its whole matter and design. The design of the 
 book is to demonstrate the infinite exaltation of Christ above 
 Moses, Aaron, and all angels, as well as the superiority of the new 
 covenant established by Him over the old, and thus to warn the 
 Palestinian Christians, to whom it is addressed, of the danger, in 
 their depressed situation, of relapse into J udaism (comp. vi. 4, et 
 seq.; x. 26, et seq.), and to incite them to perseverance. The 
 arguments, however, are mostly drawn from the Old Testament 
 itself, which is to the writer a significant symbol and shadow of 
 good things to come, 2 prefiguring in all its wonderful institutions 
 
 1 Twesten, Ullmann, and especially Wieseler, 1. c. p. 501, et seq., following Ter- 
 tullian, decide for Barnabas. But then we shall unavoidably have to deny to him the 
 so-called epistle of Barnabas, which falls far below that to the Hebrews. Nor does 
 this hypothesis agree well with the statement in Acts xiv. 12, according to which 
 Barnabas was inferior to Paul in oratorical power, while the author of the epistle to 
 the Hebrews excels the apostle in the use of language. In favour of Luke’s being 
 the author (but with the co-operation of Paul), we have, after all, the most, viz., his 
 constant intimate relation to Paul; the similarity of style (comp., for example, Luke 
 i. 1-4 with Heb. i. 1-3); and tradition—Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, 
 in his Hypotyposes (in Eus. H. E. VI. 14), making Paul, indeed, the author of the 
 supposed Hebrew original, but Luke the Greek translator, and thus accounting for 
 the resemblance of style between the Acts and the epistle to the Hebrews. As, 
 however, no trace is to be found of a Hebrew original, we may better conclude, with 
 Origen (in Euseb. VI. 25), that Paul simply furnished the ideas (m^aj-a) and left the 
 writing them out (< ■p^a.o-is <ri>yO«ns) to one of his disciples. As to the other hypo¬ 
 theses, the Roman Clement cannot in any case have been the author; for his epistle 
 to the Corinthians copies whole passages from Hebrews, and bears no comparison 
 with it in genius or copiousness of thought. Eminent scholars, as Bleek, Tholuck, 
 and Credner, have decided for Apollos. But this view, first thrown out as a clever 
 idea by Luther, has not the slightest support from tradition. Nor can anything be 
 said for Apollos, that may not just as well be said for Barnabas or Luke, who, 
 besides, are both more prominent in the New Testament, and more nearly related 
 to Paul. 
 
 2 2 xioc, rSjy tAilKovTC-iv oc.yoe.0My, X. 1 : urro$tiy[/,oi xoc'i trxiot tmv Ixov/’xvlooy, viii. 5 ; ocvtitvtix. 
 rc-jy ooXrjOlyay, i.\. 24 xx^xfioXy, (is roy xxi^oj Toy iydrxrixoTX, ix. 3. 
 
DOCTRINE.] AND THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 345 
 
 the higher glory of Christianity, but at the same time predicting 
 its own dissolution as soon as the antitype and substance should 
 be revealed. True, the epistle implies throughout the existence 
 still of the Jewish economy and the Levitical cultus, but repre¬ 
 sents them as superannuated and in process of decay, 1 and points 
 to the impending judgment which a few years afterwards de¬ 
 stroyed the holy city and the temple. These exceedingly 
 interesting dogmatic expositions are interwoven with the most 
 precious consolations in view of the heavy persecutions from the 
 unbelieving Jews, and with the most earnest and impressive ex¬ 
 hortations to steadfastness in the Christian faith. For the more 
 valuable the blessings of the New Covenant in comparison with 
 the Old, the greater are its obligations also, and the heavier the 
 condemnation for ungratefully rejecting it. Like Paul, this 
 u great unknown,” in regard to subjective Christianity, lays the 
 chief stress on faith ; but sets this forth not so much in opposition 
 to the Jewish legal righteousness, as in its prospective reference, 
 as laying hold on the future and invisible, and thus intimately 
 connected with hope and perseverance under suffering. This is 
 observable particularly in the masterly sketches of the Old Testa¬ 
 ment heroes in faith, those most sacred representatives of the 
 ante-Christian religion, chap. xi. The author here selects such 
 examples as were exactly suited to the then depressed condition 
 of the believing Hebrews, and must, therefore, have appealed to 
 their hearts and consciences with more than ordinary power. 
 There is another difference. While Paul has his eye chiefly 
 upon the relation of the Gospel to the law, the epistle to the 
 Hebrews has reference more to the system of worship , and gives 
 us an exceedingly profound analysis of the typical import of the 
 Old Testament sacrificial cultus, and of the priestly office of 
 Christ in its twofold aspect of a sacrifice once offered on the cross 
 and eternally availing, and a perpetual intercession for believers 
 in the heavenly sanctuary (chap, v.-x.) 
 
 The predominance of the Christological element makes this 
 hortatory and consolatory treatise, in connection with the later 
 epistles of Paul, a stepping-stone to the Johannean system of 
 doctrine. From the glowing picture of the exaltation and 
 
 1 As a T6tt.xicCfjc.ivov Kx'i yr^ctoKOv ’.yy'vf xqxnafJtov, viii. lo. 
 
346 
 
 § 164. THE IDEAL TYPE OF 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 majesty of Christ, rising far above the Jewish idea of the Mes¬ 
 siah, forming the introduction, and, as it were, the theme of the 
 epistle (Heb. i. 1-4; comp. Col. i. 15-20), it is but a single step 
 to the prologue of the fourth gospel. 
 
 i 
 
 § 164. (3) The Ideal Type of Doctrine in John. ( Comp . 
 
 § 99-108, 148, and 151). 
 
 John was the beloved disciple and bosom friend of the Lord. 
 Reposing on the breast of the God-man, he became himself, as 
 it were, a second Jesus, so far as is possible for a mortal. He 
 was the tender, susceptible, reflecting, contemplative apostle of 
 love. lie accompanied the apostolic Christianity from its cradle 
 through all the stages of its history, first labouring among the 
 Jews, then entering into Paul’s labours among the Greeks, sur¬ 
 viving all the apostles, and writing last of all. In John, there¬ 
 fore, we should naturally expect the most profound and ideal con¬ 
 ception of Christianity. In fact, his writings exhibit the ripe 
 fruit of the whole preceding development of the apostolic theo¬ 
 logy, and the final resolution of the great antagonism of Jewish 
 and Gentile Christianity. He penetrated into the heart of 
 Christ; and he has revealed the deepest mysteries of eternal 
 love. The doctrinal system of this prophet of the New Testa¬ 
 ment anticipates the consummation of the kingdom of God, 
 whose struggles and triumphs, down to the new heavens and the 
 new earth, his eagle eye was enabled to behold from that lone 
 island rock between Asia and Europe. Hence his frequent 
 reference to victories, and the overcoming of all ungodly powers. 1 
 Hence also that mysterious and unspeakably attractive air of 
 love, of harmony, of perfection, of the eternal, sabbath-like re¬ 
 pose of the saints, which pervades his gospels, his epistles, and 
 the anthems of his Revelation. 
 
 John had not to pass, like Paul, through mighty inward revo¬ 
 lutions and struggles of conscience. His religious experience 
 and views unfolded themselves quietly in personal intercourse 
 with the Redeemer, under the mild rays of the humble glory of 
 
 1 John xvi. 33. 1 John ii. 13; v. 4, 5. Comp, the seven apocalyptic epistles where 
 
 “he that overcometh” occurs seven times, and Rev. xii. 11; xxi. 7. The word 
 “ new,” too, is a favourite term with John : new name, new song, new heaven, new 
 earth, new Jerusalem, all things new, comp. Rev. ii. 17 ; iii. 12; xiv. 3; xxi. 2. 
 
DOCTRINE IN JOHN. 
 
 347 
 
 % 
 
 DOCTRINE.] 
 
 the God-man. Hence with him all radiates from the adoring 
 contemplation of the Saviour, and his whole system of faith and 
 morals is, from beginning to end, Christological , in distinction 
 from the predominantly anthropological view of James and Paul, 
 which begins with human need, or the conception of law and 
 righteousness. 
 
 In this respect he coincides with Peter. But, while the latter 
 dwells mainly upon the historical appearance of the Lord, his 
 connection with the Jewish nation and the Old Testament 
 economy, his official Messianic character, and makes these the 
 great theme of his preaching, John, on the contrary, fixes his 
 eye upon the person of Christ, and goes back to his eternal God¬ 
 head, which forms, as it were, the primal essence of all revelation 
 in history. He opens both his gospel and his first epistle, as is 
 well known, with the personal Word, who was in the beginning, 
 that is, from eternity, with God—who is in fact the revealed 
 God himself, and, at the same time, the principle and medium 
 of all outward revelation, the fountain of all light and life in the 
 physical and moral universe. 1 Then, in a kind of metaphysical 
 genealogy, he comes down through the preparatory stages of 
 revelation in humanity in general, and in Judaism in particular, 
 to the incarnation, which completes God’s self-communication 
 for the salvation of men. This historical manifestation of the 
 incarnate Logos he then accompanies through His life of conflict 
 and suffering to His glorification with the glory which, as God, 
 He had with the Father before the world was, and of which He 
 now takes possession as God-man (comp. John xvii. 5). John’s 
 point of departure, therefore, is not the relative, temporal, and 
 human, but the absolute, the eternal, the divine; conceived by 
 no means, however, in any abstract sense, as isolated from life, 
 but in indissoluble connection with the historical personality of 
 Jesus Christ, in which the eternal fulness of the Godhead has 
 manifested itself as an objective reality, and from which, as the 
 central sun of the world’s history, light and warmth are diffused 
 in every direction. He who has not the Son has not the Father ; 
 but he who has the Son has, with and in the Son, the Father 
 also; and, in the believing knowledge of the Son, in the com- 
 
 1 Comp, with this the similar description of Christ in the beginning of the Apoca¬ 
 lypse, i. 5-8. 
 
348 § 164. THE IDEAL TYPE OF [v. BOOK. 
 
 munion of the whole undivided man with Him, consists eternal 
 life. 1 
 
 According to John, therefore, the fundamental idea of objec¬ 
 tive Christianity is the perfect self-manifestation of the Father in 
 the Son , or the incarnation of the eternal Word for the life of the 
 iv or Id. He expresses this most briefly in the comprehensive 
 sentence : “ The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ” 
 (John i. 14). u Word,” in the prologue of the gospel, as also 
 in 1 John i. 2, and Rev. xix. 13, is evidently to be taken in the 
 hypostatic sense, as denoting the divine nature of Christ in its 
 relation to God the Father. 2 For as word is the necessary and 
 most appropriate form and revelation of thought, as well as the 
 best medium of communication between mind and mind (so that 
 thinking miglit be called an inward speaking, and speaking an 
 outward thinking); so Christ is the revealed outspoken God, in 
 whom the essence of God himself, in its own nature hidden, 
 recognises itself, and through whom it communicates itself out- 
 wardly, so that all revelations, even the creation and preservation 
 of the world, are mediated through Christ. 3 His Word, which is 
 itself of divine essence, yet distinct from the Father as a separate 
 divine hypostasis, in the fulness of time u was made flesh,” that is, 
 took upon himself the entire human nature, body, soul, and 
 spirit, in its fallen state, yet without sin, 4 to redeem it, and re- 
 
 1 1 John v. 10-13, 20. Comp. John xvii. 3; xx. 31. 
 
 2 The Greek Xoyos, it is well known, means reason as much as word, ratio as well 
 as oratio, which are both in fact closely connected; but it must here be taken in the 
 latter sense. We cannot at all agree with those, who derive this expression, or even 
 the ideas of John’s prologue, from Philo ; if for no other reason, because not the least 
 connection can be shown between John and the Greek-Jewish theology of Alexan¬ 
 dria. John’s doctrine of the Logos was amply suggested by the Old Testament dis¬ 
 tinction of a hidden and revealed God (Exod. xxxiii. 20, 23); by the theologumenon 
 concerning the divine Wisdom (Job xxviii. 12, et seq. Prov. chaps, viii. and ix. 
 Sirach chaps, i. and xxiv. Wisdom vi. 22 ; chap, ix); especially by the doctrine of 
 the word of God rvrP “'a“T, by the LXX. commonly translated py^a,, but twice x e y o s 
 
 Kotlov, Ps. xxxiii. 6 ; cvii. 20, comp, Sirach xliii. 2G), which makes its appearance even 
 in the beginning of Genesis as the medium of the creation and of all the revelations, 
 promises, and commands of God; and finally, by the many expressions of Jesus 
 respecting His pre-existence and His divine nature (Matth. xi. 27. John iii. 31; viii. 
 58; xvii. 5, etc.) 
 
 3 John i. 3. Comp. Col. i. 1G. 1 Cor. viii. G. Heb. i. 2. 
 
 * To precisely the same purport is the expression of Paul, Rom. viii. 3, that God 
 sent His Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh” h i/toiu/tun rot-^oi Comp. 
 
 Heb. ii. 17, 18; v. 15. 
 
DOCTRINE IN JOHN. 
 
 349 
 
 DOCTRINE.] 
 
 concile it for ever with God. This Word also u dwelt,” or 
 literally “ pitched his tent, tabernacled, among usin which 
 expression John probably alludes to the Old Testament Shekinah 
 (comp. ia-KT)vo>o-€v)j the abiding of the glory of God over the ark 
 of the covenant in the tabernacle, a faint type of the eternal 
 abode of the Only Begotten in the tabernacle of human nature, 
 full of glory, grace, and truth. This central idea of the incar¬ 
 nation is with John, of course, not simply a speculative truth, 
 but of the deepest practical import. He looks upon the sending 
 of the Son into the world as at the same time the highest act of 
 * love , or of God’s free impartation of himself to the reasonable, 
 susceptible creature. He has expressed the inmost nature of 
 God in the words, u God is love” (1 John iv. 8, 16), immedi¬ 
 ately adding, u In this was manifested the love of God toward 
 us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, 
 that we might live through Him.” 
 
 In accordance with this view, subjective Christianity consists 
 in the vital union of the believer with God in Christ , or the thank¬ 
 ful reciprocal love of the redeemed towards the Redeemer. This 
 is stated in the form of an exhortation to a moral duty — u Let us 
 love Him, because He hath first loved us” (1 John iv. 19). This 
 forms the highest expression, not only of individual piety, but 
 also of social religion; the inmost and permanent essence of the 
 church, which is seldom mentioned by name in John (3 John 6, 
 9, 10), but in substance very frequently appears as an organic 
 communion of life and love between the redeemed and the Re¬ 
 deemer, and of the saints with one another—as a connnunio sanc¬ 
 torum, therefore, grounded in the unio mystica, which last is 
 rooted, again, in the objective love of God towards us. u If 
 God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John iv. 
 
 H )- 1 
 
 It is easy to see, that with this apostle all centres ultimately 
 in love. This is the life-blood of his system of faith and morals, 
 and it entered his own soul from the bosom of the Redeemer 
 himself. In fact, that holy name most aptly describes the heart 
 
 1 The Johannean system of doctrine has been treated more at large, though by no 
 means to exhaustion and full satisfaction, by Neander ( Apost . Gesch. II. p. 874-914), 
 Frommann (Der Jolianncisclie Lehrbegrif)\ Leipzig, 1839), and Kostlin, of Baur's 
 school (Der Lchrbegriff des Evang. und der Brie.fe Joh. Berlin, 1843.) 
 
350 
 
 § 104. THE IDEAL TYPE OF 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 of God, and reveals the deepest meaning of all His works and 
 ways. The creation is the act of love, laying the foundation for 
 its future manifestations. The law and promise are the revela¬ 
 tion of a love, which would draw men to Christ. The incarna¬ 
 tion is the personal manifestation of redeeming love in intimate, 
 indissoluble union with our nature. So, on our part, love to 
 God and man is the sum of all duty and virtue. Does it not lie 
 at the bottom of all the apostles’ exhortations ? Is it not the mys¬ 
 terious bond by which the representatives of apostolical Christi¬ 
 anity, in spite of all their diversity of talent, education, and mode 
 of thought, are hound in inseparable unity? James, indeed, 
 makes Christianity chiefly law and obedience; but he makes 
 love the queen of the law. Peter, the apostle of promise and 
 hope, is most beautiful and lovely in his enthusiastic devotion to 
 Christ and His flock. Paul, the apostle of righteousness and 
 faith, still calls love the bond of perfectness, the most precious of 
 all spiritual gifts, the greatest in that triplet of cardinal Christian 
 virtues; because, being the highest form of union with the God¬ 
 head, it never ceases ; while tongues and prophecy fail, faith is 
 exchanged for sight, and hope for fruition. In John, the apostle 
 of incarnation and love, this virtue meets us in the deepest and 
 tenderest form ; as in his life, from the time he first lay on Jesus’ 
 bosom to that last touching exhortation to his little children in 
 his extreme old age—so also in his writings, the whole design of 
 which is to lift the veil from the mystery of eternal love, and 
 draw all his susceptible readers into the same holy and happy 
 fellowship of life with the divine Pedeemer. 
 
 John’s theology is by no means so complete, or developed with 
 such logical precision and argumentative ability as that of Paul. 
 It is sketched from immediate intuition, in extremely simple, art¬ 
 less, childlike form, in grand outlines, in few but colossal ideas 
 and antitheses, such as light and darkness, truth and falsehood, 
 spirit and flesh, love and hatred, life and death, Christ and Anti¬ 
 christ, children of God and children of the world. But John 
 usually leaves us to imagine far more than his words directly 
 express—an infinity lying behind, which we can better appre¬ 
 hend by faith than grasp and fully measure with the understand¬ 
 ing. And especially does he connect everything with that idea 
 of a theanthropic Redeemer, which had become part and parcel 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 DOCTRINE TN JOHN. 
 
 351 
 
 of his own soul; nor can he strongly and frequently enough 
 assert the reality and glory of that, which was to him, of all facts 
 and experiences, the surest, the holiest, and the dearest. 1 But 
 with regard to its principle and the point of view from which it 
 is constructed, the doctrinal system of John is the highest and 
 most ideal of all, the one towards which the others lead and in 
 which they merge. It wonderfully combines mystic knowledge 
 and love, contemplation and adoration, the profound wisdom and 
 childlike simplicity, and is an anticipation, as it were, of that 
 vision face to face, into which, according to Paul (1 Cor. xiii. 12 ; 
 comp. 2 Cor. v. 7), our fragmentary knowledge, and faith itself, 
 will finally pass. 
 
 1 Comp, the excellent remarks of Neander in his practical Commentary on the first 
 epistle of John (1851), p. 27. 
 
352 
 
 § 1G5. 
 
 IDEA AND IMPORT OF HERESY. [v. BOOK. 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HERETICAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 § 165. Idea and Import of Heresy. 
 
 The apostolic period displays not only an unusual degree ot 
 spiritual enlightenment and knowledge, which makes it the rule 
 and measure of the whole succeeding theological development of 
 the church, but also extraordinary energy on the part of the 
 spirit of error and the mystery of iniquity. It exhibits a series 
 of dangerous aberrations in theory and practice, which, though 
 in very different forms, at all times threaten the church. So 
 were even the divinely wrought miracles of Moses met by the 
 juggleries of the Egyptian magicians. So in the Gospel narra¬ 
 tives there appear a great number of demoniacal possessions; 
 nay, all the powers of darkness were leagued against Him, who 
 had come to destroy the works of the devil. One side of an 
 antagonism always calls out the other. Wherever the seed of 
 the Gospel springs up, the evil one sows tares, and u where God 
 builds a church, Satan builds a chapel by its side.” The more 
 mightily the spirit of truth rises, the busier is the spirit of false¬ 
 hood to contest the ground. Says our Lord — u It must needs be 
 that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence 
 cometh” (Mattli. xviii. 7 ; comp. Luke xvii. 1). So Paul, much 
 as he laments the divisions in the church, regards their rise as 
 unavoidable, u that they which are approved may be made mani¬ 
 fest” (1 Cor. xi. 19). Of course this necessity is not absolute; 
 for then all distinction between good and evil, truth and false¬ 
 hood, would at last vanish. It is a relative necessity, founded in 
 the present condition of humanity since the fall. Being what it 
 is, humanity can develop itself only through conflict. As holi¬ 
 ness and the knowledge of truth gradually increase, sin and error 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 165. IDEA AND IMPORT OF HERESY. 
 
 353 
 
 also assume more and more dangerous and hateful forms; each 
 successive manifestation being both the fruit and the punishment 
 —as in the case of the opposite process it is the reward—of the 
 preceding. Sin and error generally go together, though in par¬ 
 ticular cases there are errors not immediately the result of sin, 
 just as there are innocent sufferings and undeserved misfortunes. 
 Error is theoretical sin; sin is practical error. The perversity 
 of the heart is followed by the darkening of the understanding, 
 and vice versa. 
 
 The term heresy signifies primarily choice, then party, sect. 
 It is commonly used in the bad sense, implying wilfulness on 
 the side of the individual, a spirit of arrogant innovation and 
 party zeal in deviating from public opinion and historical tradi¬ 
 tion. Ecclesiastical usage has gradually limited it to the sphere 
 of theory, to doctrine, so that heresy has come to mean a wilful 
 corruption of the truth, an erroneous view either of Christianity 
 as a whole or of a single dogma. 1 Near akin to it is the idea 
 of schism or church division, which, however, primarily means a 
 separation from the government and discipline of the church, 
 and does not necessarily include departure from her orthodoxy, 
 though, at least when pursued very far, it easily leads to this. 2 
 
 1 In the N. T. the term heresy, ot'^ecns, frequently occurs, and in various connections, 
 
 but almost always involving some bad sense. It is used (1) of the religious parties 
 among the Jews, as the Sadducees (Acts v. 17), the Pharisees (xv. 5; xxvi. 5). (2) 
 
 Of the Christians in general, who were for a long time called by the Jews in contempt 
 “ the sect of the Nazarenes,” v rSv N cti^o-n (Acts xxiv. 5, 14 ; xxviii 22). (3) 
 Of parties within the Christian church (1 Cor. xi. 19: Sel x») adeems h v/x7v eTvai. 
 Gal. v. 20). In the same sense Paul several times uses the term o-x'urfxaroe., divisions 
 (1 Cor. i. 10; xi. 18; xii. 25). (4) Of heresies proper, or errors, that is, wilful per¬ 
 versions of Christian truth (2 Peter ii. 1 : ^tuSoSiSdcrxa.Aoi, olnvu rraoendlovtrtv 
 otTooieixs. Comp. Titus iii. 10, where ecl^Tixo; dvO^oi denotes a heretic, who either 
 founds a new sect under the Christian name, or belongs to one). There is the same 
 reference to heretical demonstrations in the expressions yvdtan ^iuSdivv^oi, 1 Tim. vi. 
 20 (in antithesis with StSa.trxoc.Ala. vytaltroutra, 1 Tim. i. 10; vi. 3. 2 Tim. i. 13; iv. 3. 
 Titus i. 9; ii. 1, also called i elo-ifiuav StSatrxaAla, 1 Tim. vi. 3); •\>evSaT6<rro>ot, 
 
 2 Cor. xi. 13; ^euSoStSdo-xuAot, 2 Peter ii. 1; and irezoSiSa.crxa.Aiiv, 1 Tim. i. 3; vi. 3. 
 
 2 Thus the Ebionites, Gnostics, and Arians were heretics ; the Montanists, Nova- 
 tians, and Donatists, schismatics. By the standard of the Roman church, the Greek 
 church is only schismatic, the Protestant both heretical and schismatic. With us 
 Protestants schism has in a great measure lost its meaning, especially in this country, 
 where sectarianism is so fully developed. Many consider it no sin whatever, to 
 create division, and to start a new church on the most trifling considerations. Yet 
 schism is as certainly a sin, as the “ keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of 
 peace,” so solemnly enjoined by the apostle (Eph. i. 3), is a sacred duty of the 
 
 VOL. II. Z 
 
354 § 165. IDEA AND IMPORT OF HERESY. [v. BOOK. 
 
 Of course in different brandies of tlie church, especially in her 
 present distracted condition, there are different views of heresy 
 and truth, heterodoxy and orthodoxy, and likewise of schism and 
 sect. Much that Roman Catholics, for example, hold to be 
 orthodox, Protestants reject as heterodox ; and vice versa. Yet 
 there are certain radical perversions of the Christian faith, cer¬ 
 tain fundamental heresies, which have been always condemned 
 by the church; and here belong particularly those leading here¬ 
 sies of antiquity, Ebionism and Gnosticism, whose precursors are 
 combated even in the New Testament. 
 
 Heresies, like sin, all spring from the natural man: but they 
 first make their appearance in opposition to the revealed truth, 
 and thus presuppose its existence, as the fall of Adam implies a 
 previous state of innocence. There are religious errors, indeed, 
 to any extent out of Christianity, but no heresies in the theolo¬ 
 gical sense. These errors become heresies only when they come 
 into contact, at least outwardly, with revealed truth and with 
 the life of the church. They consist essentially in the conscious 
 or unconscious reaction of unsubdued Judaism or Heathenism 
 against the new creation of the Gospel. Heresy is the distortion 
 or caricature of the original Christian truth. 1 But as God in his 
 wonderful wisdom can bring good out of all evil, and has more 
 than compensated for the loss of the first Adam by the resurrec¬ 
 tion of the second; so must all heresies in the end onlv condemn 
 themselves and serve the more fully to establish the truth. The 
 
 followers of Christ, who wishes them all to be one, even as He is with the Father 
 (John xvii. 21). 
 
 1 This view, that truth is always older than the corresponding heresy, is grounded 
 in the nature of the case (the original always going before the adulteration or carica¬ 
 ture), and was clearly brought out already by Tertullian in many passages. Thus 
 he says, De praescr. haer. c. 29 : “ Sed enim in omnibus veritas imaginem antecedit, 
 post rem similitudo suecedit.” According to the reverse, pantheistic view of history 
 taken by the modern Tubingen school of Baur, Strauss, Schwegler, Zeller, etc., 
 orthodoxy, on the contrary, proceeds from heresy, truth from falsehood, and good 
 from evil. The most consistent development of this principle is the ingenious theo¬ 
 logical romance of Dr Schwegler, entitled “Das nachapostolische Zeitalter,” which 
 would make the Christianity of the church a product of Ebionism in its conflict with 
 Gnosticism. This same philosophy of history—pardon the allusion !—Goethe puts 
 very properly into the mouth of Mephistopheles, who thus characterizes himself: 
 
 “ Ich bin ein Theil des Theils, der Anfangs Alles war, 
 
 Ein Theil der Finsterniss, die sich das Licht gebar, 
 
 Das stolze Licht das nun der Mutter Nacht 
 Den alten Rang, den Raum ihr streitig macht.” 
 
DOCTRINE.] §1GG. CLASSIFICATION, ETC., OF THE HERESIES. 355 
 
 New Testament Scriptures themselves are in a great measure 
 the result of a firm resistance to the distortions and corruptions, 
 to which the Christian religion was exposed from the first. Nay, 
 we may say, that every dogma of the church, every doctrine 
 fixed by her symbols, is a victory over a corresponding error, and 
 in a certain sense owes to the error, not indeed its substance, 
 which comes from God, but assuredly its logical completeness 
 and scientific form. 1 
 
 Heresies, therefore, belong to the process, by which the Chris¬ 
 tian truth, received in simple faith, becomes clearly defined as 
 an object of knowledge. They are the negative occasions, the 
 challenges, for the church to defend her views of truth, and to 
 set them forth in complete, scientific form. 
 
 § llifi. Classification and General Character of the Heresies. 
 
 The proper division of the heresies of the first period is sug¬ 
 gested by our classification of the doctrinal systems of the apos¬ 
 tles ; for the former precisely correspond to the latter, as their 
 respective excesses and caricatures. As the church fell into the 
 tw r o sections of Jewish and Gentile Christianity, different indeed, 
 but consistent, bound together in love, and each the complement 
 of the other; and as these after the destruction of Jerusalem 
 grew together in a higher, organic unity, represented by John ; 2 
 so we shall have, in the first place, to distinguish two leading 
 heretical tendencies, of which the first proceeded from Judaism, 
 the second from Heathenism, so adulterating the Gospel with one 
 or the other of those two old systems of religion, that, though 
 Christian in form and name, they were in fact Jewish or 
 heathen. The first tendency is the heretical or ultra and pseudo- 
 Jacobite and pseudo-Petrine Jewish Christianity, or the Judaiz- 
 ing 3 and legalistic tendency, which in the second century sepa- 
 
 1 So to the Rationalists and the above-named Hegelian Gnostics we cannot deny 
 the merit of having 1 involuntarily done essential service to the believing theology of 
 the present, as their forerunners in the early church did to the patristic literature. 
 
 2 Comp, above, § loG. 
 
 3 The expressions Judaistic and Judaiziiig, are not to be confounded, therefore, 
 with Jewish-Christian. The latter primarily denotes simply national origin and 
 character, and refers to Judaism in its purity as a divine revelation leading to Christ. 
 The others always include the idea of an impure combination of the human and 
 degenerate Jewish principle with the Christian. Comp, also Schliemann: Die Cle- 
 mentinen , etc., p. 371, et seq. Note. 
 
356 § 166. CLASSIFICATION, ETC., OF THE HERESIES. [V. BOOK. 
 
 rated completely from the catholic church under the name of 
 Ebionism. The second is the heretical or ultra and pseudo- 
 Pauline Gentile Christianity, containing the germs of Gnosticism 
 and Antinomianism , which in the latter part of the apostolic 
 period were already very powerfully and dangerously at work, 
 although they did not appear in fully developed form till the 
 time of Adrian. Then they came out in a succession of schools 
 and systems widely differing again among themselves, according 
 to the nature and extent of the heathen element and its relation 
 to the two other religions. As, however, there arose combina¬ 
 tions of Jewish and pagan ideas, particularly in the sect of the 
 Essenes and Judseo-Platonic philosophy of Philo, 1 so might these 
 two opposite systems coalesce in some confused way under the 
 Christian name and Christian forms of expression. This syncre- 
 tistic heresy, which forms in some sense the satanic caricature of 
 the true reconciliation of Jewish and Gentile Christianity in 
 John’s doctrinal system, may be called, according as one or the 
 other element predominates, Gnosticizing Judaism or Judaizing 
 Gnosticism. The Gnostic appearances in the New Testament 
 are mostly of this mixed sort. 
 
 In the time of Paul controversy turned chiefly on the relation 
 between the law and the Gospel. Here men might err in two 
 directions. The Gospel might either be made a new law of 
 bondage, or abused to the indulgence of the flesh. The first 
 error was Pharisaical, the second pagan. Between legalism and 
 antinomianism lies the ascetic contempt of the body, seen in the 
 Colossian errorists. But the question of the import of the law 
 necessarily involved the other — u What think ye of Christ?” In 
 process of time the conflict between Christian truth and anti- 
 christian falsehood came more and more to centre in Christology, 
 and reached its height in the age of St John. This apostle 
 strikes the deepest root of the heresy, when he gives as its dis¬ 
 tinctive mark the denial of the appearance of the Son of God in 
 the flesh, or of the absolute reconciliation of the divine and 
 human in Christ, and hence calls it “ antichrist ” (1 John ii. 22; 
 iv. 1-3. 2 John 7). He here has primarily in his eye, no 
 
 doubt, the Gnostic view of the person of Christ, which denied, 
 
 1 Comp. § 50 and 51. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 § 167. JUDAISTIC HERESIES. 
 
 357 
 
 directly or indirectly, the reality of the Lord’s human nature, 
 and became very prevalent even during the lifetime of the apostle. 
 But the same criterion may be applied also to the other heresies. 
 The mystery of the incarnation may be annulled in three ways: 
 (1) by denying the divine nature of Jesus Christ, (2) by denying 
 his human nature, (3) by holding a merely transmit union of a 
 common Jew, Jesus, with the heavenly Messiah (in the baptism 
 in Jordan) and a subsequent separation of the two (at the begin¬ 
 ning of the passion). In the first case the heresy is Ebionism ; 
 in the second, proper Docetism and heathen Gnosticism; in the 
 third, which unites the errors of the other two, we have what is 
 supposed to have been the view of Cerinthus, a later contempo¬ 
 rary of John. In all, the foundation of the church is under¬ 
 mined. For if Christ is not the God-man, in the full sense of 
 the term, and that permanently, He is not the mediator and 
 reconciler between God and man. Our hope is gone. All 
 Christianity sinks back either into Judaism or Heathenism. It 
 is easy to see how all partial heresies, which have since made 
 their appearance in church history, stand connected more or less 
 closely with one of these primary forms, and with the question— 
 u What think ye of Christ?” The correct and complete solution 
 of the Christological question is accordingly the best refutation of 
 all errors of faith. 
 
 \ 
 
 § 167. Judaistie Heresies. Pharisaic or Legalistic Judaism. 
 
 According to the design of its divine founder, and in the 
 inmost tendency of its nature, Judaism was a positive and direct 
 preparation for Christianity, destined to resolve itself into the 
 latter, as the morning twilight into the perfect day, or the bud 
 into the fruit. 1 But under the influence of human depravity, 
 it for the most part either took the attitude of full hostility 
 to the Gospel, crucifying Christ, persecuting His apostles, and 
 thrusting them out of the synagogues; or came into mere exter¬ 
 nal association with the Christian religion, and corrupted it with 
 Jewish leaven. This nominally Christian Judaism, which had 
 been baptized only with water, not with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire, was the first error which made its appearance in the Cliris- 
 
 1 Comp. § 47. 
 
358 
 
 § 167. JUDAISTIC HERESIES. 
 
 [y. BOOK. 
 
 tian churcli. It showed itself particularly in opposition to Paul, 
 the liberal apostle of the Gentiles ; and though amply refuted by 
 him it is continually re-appearing, as well as the opposite errors 
 of heathen origin, in variously modified forms. To this day man 
 is in his nature predominantly Jewish or predominantly heathen ; 
 and, so long as the church is militant, this nature will react 
 against the revelation and the grace of God. 1 
 
 As Judaism was at that time divided into three different sects, 2 
 we should expect also three corresponding forms of perverted 
 Christianity: (1) the Pharisaic, or rigidly legal heresy; (2) the 
 Sadducistic, or lax and frivolous (theoretically sceptical or 
 rationalistic, and practically materialistic); (3) the Essenic, or 
 theosophic, mystico-speculative, and ascetic, with more or less 
 admixture of heathenism. These three degenerate forms of 
 Judaism and Jewish Christianity would then correspond to the 
 Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Platonic tendencies in the heathen 
 world. The first and third forms meet us very often in the New 
 Testament, and appear more systematically developed in the 
 Ebionism of the second century (from the reign of Adrian 
 onward), which was likewise divided into the practical Pharisaic 
 and the speculative Gnostic branches. The Jewish Sadducism 
 had, indeed, like the Grecian Epicureanism, too little moral and 
 religious earnestness to take any deep and general interest in 
 Christianity. Yet a way of thinking corresponding to this also 
 we find in the church in the form of unbridled antinomianism; 
 which, however, sprang not so much from Sadducism as from 
 gross misconception of Paul’s doctrine, and arose upon Gentile- 
 Grecian soil. 
 
 We take up first the Pharisaico-Jiidciistic tendency, or the stiff 
 legalism in the apostolic church. This, as we see from Acts xv. 
 1, 5, first showed itself clearly in the church of Jerusalem in the 
 year 50, and gave the immediate occasion for the apostolic 
 council. It held, indeed, that the Messiah appeared in Jesus of 
 Nazareth. But this was the only thing which distinguished it 
 
 1 We may say in general, that Catholicism is exposed to the temptations and 
 dangers of legal Judaism; Protestantism to those of licentious heathenism. Yet on 
 both sides are found, as even in the apostolic period, combinations of these opposite 
 errors. 
 
 2 Comp. § 40. 
 
DOCTRINE.] PHARISAIC OR LEGALISTIC JUDAISM. 359 
 
 from the proper Pharisaism; and even in its notion of the Mes¬ 
 siah it was most probably as firmly bound as the later Ebionism 
 to the gross and carnal notions of the vulgar Judaism. The 
 well-known peculiarities of the Pharisaic sect, which subsequently 
 took a fixed form in the Talmud,—stiff, bigoted legalism and 
 self-righteousness, pedantic scrupulosity in respect to outward 
 forms and usages,—it transferred to Christianity; adhering par¬ 
 ticularly to the principle, which after the conversion of Cornelius 
 was expressly condemned by God himself (Acts x.), and also by 
 the apostolic council (chap, xv.), that circumcision and the ob¬ 
 servance of the whole Jewish ceremonial law was indispensable 
 to salvation, and that, therefore, whoever would be a true Chris¬ 
 tian, must be at the same time, outwardly and inwardly, a strict 
 Jew. Of the newness, the creative spirit and life, and the 
 universality of Christianity, it never dreamed ; but sought to 
 compress the Christian religion within the narrow lines of a 
 Jewish sect. It is true, the Judaists did not come out always 
 with the same boldness, and particularly after the apostolic 
 council some of them, at least in the Greek churches, changed 
 their tactics. But even where they showed themselves some¬ 
 what liberal, they still asserted the superiority of the circumcised 
 Christians, insisted on their separating themselves from the un¬ 
 circumcised Gentile Christians (Gal. ii. 11, etseq .), and considered 
 the latter scarcely better than proselytes of the gate. As all 
 heretics are ready to appeal to the Scriptures (as interpreted by 
 themselves), so these errorists, to gain the greater acceptance 
 referred to the Jewish apostles,—the stricter party to James 
 (Gal. ii. 12), the more moderate to Cephas, who had been placed 
 in so high a position by the Lord himself. But of course they 
 had no right to make such use of these apostles, who in fact in 
 the year 50 refused to put upon the Gentile Christians the 
 burden of the ceremonial law, owned them as brethren without 
 their being circumcised, and fully agreed with Paul in the maxim, 
 that no human work, but only the grace of Jesus Christ and 
 living faith in Him can save. 1 
 
 Another characteristic of the Pharisaic Judaizers was an in¬ 
 exorable hatred of Paul. They regarded him not as a legitimate 
 
 1 Acts xv. Gal. ii. 1 Peter v. 12. 2 Peter iii. 15. 
 
360 
 
 § 167. JUDAISTIC HERESIES. 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 apostle at all, but as a religions revolutionist, who unsparingly 
 trampled under foot the sacred traditions of the Mosaic religion 
 and the authority of the divine law, introduced the greatest con¬ 
 fusion, and turned away the mass of the Jews from Christianity. 
 Hence they everywhere endeavoured, and in some cases not 
 without success, particularly in the Galatian churches, to under¬ 
 mine his authority and influence, to bring his motives under 
 suspicion, and in every w T ay to embitter his life. 1 The epistles 
 to the Galatians and Romans, and the two, especially the second, 
 to the Corinthians, cannot be at all understood historically, with¬ 
 out continual reference to this slavish, bigoted legalism and anti- 
 Paulinism, and its malicious machinations. 
 
 These Judaistic errorists, or u false brethren unawares brought 
 in” (Gal. ii. 4), should by no means be confounded with the 
 66 weak brethren” (Rom. xiv. 1, et seq.; xv. 1, et seq.), i.e. the 
 Jewish Christians, who for their own part moved, indeed, with 
 scrupulous conscientiousness in the traditional forms of the 
 Mosaic religion, yet at the same time referred all salvation to 
 Christ, and recognised the free Gentile Christians as brethren in 
 the Lord. Towards these Paul, according to his maxim, 1 Cor. 
 xi. 19, was exceedingly indulgent, and, as may be seen from 
 Rom. xiv. and xv., 1 Cor. viii. and ix., his collections for the 
 poor churches in Judea, and his conduct during his last visit in 
 Jerusalem, claimed for them brotherly love and forbearance. 
 But in opposition to the other errorists he—himself once, in Phari¬ 
 saic blindness and mistaken zeal, a persecutor of the church of 
 Christ—was inflexible; for they annulled the proper essence of 
 the Gospel; wished to replace the old yoke of legal bondage and 
 pupilary religion; spread division everywhere in his churches, 
 
 1 The later Ebionites also had an unconquerable hatred of the apostle of the Gen¬ 
 tiles, and condemned all his epistles as heretical, while they extolled James and Peter 
 to the skies. According to Epiphanius ( Haer . I. 2, § 26), they circulated respecting 
 Paul the ridiculous lie, that he was originally a heathen of Tarsus, then passed over 
 to Judaism at Jerusalem from love to a daughter of the high priest, but apostatized 
 again in consequence of disappointment in the desired marriage, and out of spite 
 wrote against circumcision and the Sabbath. The Pseudoclementine Homilies (comp, 
 particularly Horn. XVII. c. 19 with Gal. ii. 9-11) represent him, under the figure of 
 Simon Magus, as a seducer, and the patriarch of all heretics. The anti-Jewish 
 Gnostics, on the contrary, hated the elder Jewish apostles, condemned their writings, 
 and appealed all the more zealously to Paul, whom, however, they of course com¬ 
 pletely caricatured. 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 1G8. ESSENIC OR GNOSTIC JUDAISM. 361 
 
 especially in Galatia and Corinth, and even in Philippi p and in 
 all this sought their own glory far more than Christ’s. To this 
 great controversy of the Gentile apostle with the Pharisaic Juda- 
 izers we owe the masterly and unfathomably profound exhibitions 
 of the evangelical doctrines of the law and the Gospel, sin and 
 grace, bondage and freedom, faith and justification, which lie before 
 us in his epistles. Through the destruction of Jerusalem and the 
 spread of Christianity among the Gentiles, this Pharisaico-Chris- 
 tian particularism necessarily lost by degrees its significance, at 
 least out of Palestine; and though it perpetuated itself in the 
 second century in Ebionism, yet even in this shape it had nothing 
 like the currency or the influence on the church which the oppo¬ 
 site heresy of Gnosticism possessed. But the Judaistic tendency 
 did not seek to maintain itself everywhere on these Pharisaic 
 principles. A part of it, even in the lifetime of Paul, took a 
 more refined, and for earnest philosophically educated Gentiles, 
 more plausible form, to the consideration of which we now pass. 
 
 § 168. Essenic or Gnostic Judaism. 
 
 The Essenic Judaizing tendency, as a heresy in the Christian 
 church, meets us first towards the close of Paul’s labours and 
 among the churches of Asia Minor. It is characterized by a 
 mixture of Christian ideas, and a Christian confession with the 
 tlieosophic or mystico-speculative and the ascetic elements of the 
 Essenes and the kindred Therapeutae, who, according to the 
 explicit testimony of Philo, were widely spread over Egypt. 1 2 
 These sects, whose special object it was to reach a deeper know¬ 
 ledge (Gnosis) and greater moral perfection than was attainable 
 in the common Judaism, soon, of course, felt themselves attracted 
 to Christianity; but, instead of submitting to the gospel in its 
 simplicity, they moulded it to their own taste. This was the 
 origin of that .Judaizing Gnosticism, which was more clearly and 
 fully developed in the second century, in the remarkable system 
 of the Pseudoclementine Homilies, and in kindred heretical pro- 
 
 1 That the Judaizers gained foothold also in Philippi has been by many, indeed, 
 denied, but seems clear from Phil. i. 15-18, and iii. 2, et seq where the apostle even 
 calls them “ dogs,” and, with sarcastic allusion to their self-righteous and heretical 
 zeal for circumcision, the “concision” (xocroiTo^). 
 
 2 Comp. § 40 and 51. 
 
362 § 168. ESSENIC OR GNOSTIC JUDAISM. [V. BOOK. 
 
 ductions. But as even in Essenism and Therapeutism, and no 
 less in the Platonico-Jewish system of Philo, the influence of 
 heathen religion and speculation, both Oriental and Hellenic 
 (Platonic and Pythagorean), is demonstrable; 1 so with this 
 Christian heresy; and for this reason some scholars distinctly 
 classify it with the heathen or proper Gnosis. 2 In fact it is hard 
 to say, as also in the case of many of the heretical phenomena of 
 the second century, whether they belong to the strictly Judaizing 
 tendency or to the proper Gnosticism; unless with Schliemann, 3 
 we make the doctrine of the demiurge, or a creator of the world 
 differing from the supreme God, the infallible mark of Gnosti¬ 
 cism. Of a demiurge, however, we find no clear traces in the 
 New Testament; even in the obscure passage, 2 Pet. ii. 10 
 (86gas ov Tpenovo-i (3\aac})riixovvTes, comp. Jude 8). Yet one may say 
 that the extreme depreciation of matter and body, which we find 
 opposed in Col. ii. 23 and 1 Tim. iv. 3, borders on and logically 
 leads to the notion of the demiurge. Though all the forms of 
 Gnosticism, the Judaizing among the rest, are more or less 
 affected with latent heathen elements, vet it cannot be asserted 
 that speculation is in the nature of the case foreign to Judaism. 
 This is contradicted not only by the later Cabbala, but also by 
 the Old Testament books of Proverbs and Job, and by the apo¬ 
 cryphal literature in general.’ The great matter was, whether 
 the spirit of philosophical and theological inquiry was guided by 
 the spirit of the divine revelation, or took its own course. In 
 the latter case, it certainly always ran more or less into the errors 
 of heathen speculation. 
 
 1. Among these Judaizing Gnostics or Essenic Judaists we 
 reckon first the false teachers of Colosse in Phrygia, where, as the 
 Montanism (altogether anti-Gnostic however) of the second and 
 third centuries shows, the people were constitutionally inclined to 
 
 1 On the affinity of these Jewish sects with Pythagoreanism, the reader should 
 compare Gfrdrer; Krit. Gesch. des Urchristenthums, I. 2, p. 352, et seq. 
 
 2 A modern English divine—Stanley—on the contrary, regards all the heretics 
 attacked by Paul, and even those combated by Peter, Jude, and John, as Judaizers. 
 But against this Conybeare and Howson, in their work on St Paul, I. p. 490-492, have 
 entered very well-founded objections. Dr Burton more properly derives the Gnosti¬ 
 cism of the Apost. Age from the joint sources of the Jewish Cabbala, the Eastern 
 dualism, and the Platonic philosophy. 
 
 3 Die Clementvien, p. -539. 
 
DOCTRINE.] § 168. ESSENIC OR GNOSTIC JUDAISM. 
 
 363 
 
 religious fanaticism. We become acquainted with these errorists 
 chiefly from details of their system hinted at in the second chap¬ 
 ter of the epistle to the Colossians. Paul here combats their 
 view, 1 but much more leniently than the Pharisaic legalism in 
 the Galatian churches, because it was far less developed and less 
 hostile to himself. Their speculative character is plain from Col. 
 ii. 4, where the apostle speaks of their 61 enticing words” (mdavo- 
 \oyla), and ver. 8, where he warns his readers against their philo¬ 
 sophy : u Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and 
 vain deceit, after the tradition of men (in opposition to the cer¬ 
 tain, reliable revelation of God), after the rudiments of the world, 2 
 and not after Christ.” 3 Probably the reference here is to the 
 mystic, symbolical philosophy, which Philo ascribes to the Essenes 
 and Therapeutae. 4 In contrast with this false wisdom of men, 
 the apostle emphatically represents Christ as the source and sum 
 of all genuine knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual understanding 
 (i. 9 ; ii. 3). 
 
 With their mystic philosophy the Colossian errorists set a high 
 value on sacred rites, especially circumcision (to which Paul 
 opposes the spiritual circumcision of Christ, ii. 11), and scru¬ 
 pulously observed the Jewish laws respecting food and yearly, 
 monthly, and weekly feasts,—shadows of the true body, which 
 had appeared in Christ (ii. 16). Here they coincided with the 
 Pharisaical errorists (comp. Gal. iv. 9, 10). But with these 
 Judaistic views and practices they associated a rigid asceticism, a 
 mortification of the body (a<£ei§ia aafiaros, ii. 23), which went be¬ 
 yond anything in Pharisaism or the whole Old Testament, not 
 excepting even the prescriptions for the Nazarite (comp. Num. 
 chap, vi.) This in all probability sprang from a pagan dualistic 
 
 1 Comp. § 86. 
 
 2 Tk tTTotxiiot. tov xotrpov, comp. ver. 20, and Gal. iv. 3, 9. Most commentators refer 
 this to the Jewish ceremonial law as a pupilary religion designed for spiritual child¬ 
 hood. 
 
 3 This passage is frequently, but altogether unjustly, viewed as a condemnation of 
 all philosophy. Paul is evidently warning his readers only against a particular kind 
 of philosophy, which, he hints in the words xivvs ecroor*,!, does not merit the name of 
 philosophy at all, but is an inanis fallacia. Calixtus has well observed, against this 
 abuse of the passage: “ Si dicam, vide ne decipiat vinum, nec vinum damno, nec 
 usum ejus accuse, sed de vitando abusu nioneo.” 
 
 4 The hoi trv/A^oXuv. Perhaps the Colossian errorists already, as afterwards 
 
 the Oriental anchorets and monks, designated their whole mode of life qtXoroq'ioi and 
 fi\otro<po( an anticipation of the vita angelica. 
 
364 
 
 § 168 . ESSENIC OR GNOSTIC JUDAISM. [v. BOOK. 
 
 view of the world, which made matter and body in themselves 
 evil, and redemption a gradual destruction of the bodily nature. 
 The conception of the body as the work of the devil we find in 
 all the Gnostic and Manichean sects. The Scriptures, on the 
 contrary, make the clearest distinction between body and flesh, 
 representing the former as the work of God, and the temple of 
 the Holy Ghost, but the latter as the perversion of a nature in 
 itself originally good, as the selfish, sinful principle. Finally, 
 these Colossian errorists practiced under the garb of humility 
 the worship of angels (OprjcrKeia tcov ayyeXov, ii. 18), soaring into 
 transcendental regions, and probably pretending to be conversant, 
 through visions, with the mysteries of the upper world of spirits, 1 
 instead of holding to Christ, the Creator of angels, the revealed 
 Head of the church, and communing with God through Him. 
 To many commentators this passage, indeed, suggests the Gnostic 
 aeons; but it seems more naturally to refer to the u thrones, 
 dominions, principalities, and powers” of the later Jewish angelo- 
 log) T (i- 16)* 2 To the necessity of meeting this error we owe 
 some of Paul’s profoundest disclosures respecting Christ’s person 
 and relation to the church. 
 
 2. Under the head of this Gnosticizing Judaism belong also 
 the errorists of the Pastoral Epistles. Yet the Essenic origin of 
 these cannot be so easily shown, nor, consequently, the line so 
 sharply drawn between them and the heathen Gnostics. Plence 
 they may be called with about equal propriety Judaizing Gnos¬ 
 tics or Gnostic Judaizers. It was one great object of the Pas¬ 
 toral Epistles to warn Timothy and Titus of the commencement 
 and canker-like spread of apostacy from the pure apostolic tradi¬ 
 tion or from the u sound doctrine.” 3 These heretics must be 
 
 1 In Col. ii. 18 there is a remarkable difference of readings. The textus receptus 
 reads : « y, y la)*a.xiv \pfia.Tivuv, while Lachmann and Tischendorf, on the best critical 
 authorities, omit the Either reading, however, gives a good sense, as we have 
 indicated in the text. 
 
 2 In support of this interpretation are the facts, that still later the 35th canon of 
 the Laodicean council forbids the invocation of angels ; that there was still standing 
 in the middle ages in Chonae (Colosse) a temple of the archangel Michael; and other 
 facts adduced by Wetstein, Steiger ( Comment. zum Kol. hr. p. 31), and Thiersch 
 (Versuch zur Herstellung, etc. p. 272). Among the Essenes, according to Josephus 
 sacred names of the angels were revealed to the initiated (De bell. Jud. II. 8, § 7. 
 Comp, the note on this by the English translator, Whiston, vol. ii. p. 249, Philad. ed.) 
 
 3 'Yyioiivoviroc. hi’ba.o'y.ot.xioi, 1 Tim. i. 10. 2 Tim. iv. 3. Titus i. 9; ii. 1. 
 
DOCTRINE.] ERRORISTS OF THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 365 
 
 looked for particularly in Ephesus and its vicinity. For here 
 Timothy was residing; 1 here was a rendezvous of heathen and 
 Jewish superstition and magic; 2 here, according to Paul’s pro¬ 
 phecy in his valedictory at Miletus, a.d. 58, were to rise after his 
 departure “ grievous wolves” from among the Ephesian presby¬ 
 ters themselves ; 3 finally, the epistle to the Ephesians also, a.d. 
 62 or 63, opposes, not indeed openly and directly, but assuredly 
 indirectly, by the positive development of truth, a Gnostic error 
 similar to that attacked in the very closely allied epistle to the 
 Colossians, and contrasts with its vain mock wisdom the true 
 saving knowledge of Christ and His church. We have every 
 reason, therefore, to place the rise of this Judaizing Gnosis at 
 the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh decade of the 
 first century. From the epistle in the Apocalypse to the angel 
 of the church of Ephesus (ii. 2, 6) it appears, that this congrega¬ 
 tion at the end of the first century firmly withstood the errorists, 
 indeed, but in its zeal for orthodoxy neglected practical Chris¬ 
 tianity, the active duties of love. 
 
 In examining the passages of the Pastoral Epistles, which are 
 concerned with heresies, 4 we derive great assistance from com- 
 
 1 1 Tim. i. 3. 2 Tim. i. 15, 18; iv. 19. 
 
 2 Acts xix. 13, et seq. Comp. § 76. 
 
 3 Acts xx. 29, 30. We have on a former occasion observed, that this passage is 
 not inconsistent with the earlier presence of errors in the congregation, as in fact it 
 speaks particularly of heretical presbyters (comp, eg vy.Sv mutmv) ; and that it cannot, 
 therefore, be used as evidence of a later date of the first epistle to Timothy ; the less, 
 since this epistle itself, and even the still later second epistle to Timothy, represent 
 some of the errors as yet in the future. 
 
 4 These are: Titus i. 9-16; iii. 9-11. 1 Tim. i. 3, 4, 6, 7, 19, 20; iv. 1-8; vi. 3-5, 
 
 20, 21. 2 Tim. ii. 16-18, 23 ; iii. 1-9, 13 ; iv. 3, 4. Besides these, there may be a few 
 passages indirectly opposing errors, though Baur has unquestionably sought far too 
 many such allusions. Most investigators of this intricate subject suppose that Paul, 
 in these epistles, contends everywhere against substantially the same unsound tend¬ 
 ency ; and this is certainly supported by the similarity of the expressions in the 
 various passages, as fx.xr<x.ioXoylcc., ysyixXoyiai, etc. Thiersch, on the contrary, in 
 his book on the criticism of the N. T. Scriptures, p. 236, et seq. and 274, proposes to 
 distinguish three kinds of errorists in the Pastoral Epistles : (1) Common Judaizers, 
 who were, properly speaking, not so much heretical as obstinate and morally per¬ 
 verse, in the ep. to Titus, and in 1 Tim. i. 7 ; (2) Some few spiritualistic Gnostics, like 
 Hymeneus and Philetus, who had “ made shipwreck concerning faith,” and were ex¬ 
 communicated by the apostle,—followers of the yvZtn;, 1 Tim. i. 19, 20; vi. 
 
 20. 2 Tim. ii. 16-18, 25; (3) Goetae, who are compared to the Egyptian magicians, 
 
 2 Tim. iii. 1-9. But this classification certainly cannot be applied throughout, and 
 introduces confusion rather than clearness in the exposition. We may remark in 
 
) 
 
 § 168. ESSENIC OR GNOSTIC JUDAISM. [V. BOOK. 
 
 366 
 
 paring these errors with the subsequent kindred phenomena of 
 the second century.' Yet we should not identify them with these 
 later heresies, as Baur, to make out his case against the genuine¬ 
 ness of these epistles, has done. We may very naturally, and we 
 must necessarily, suppose, that the Gnostic ideas were on their 
 first appearance very indefinite, crude, and chaotic. They form 
 the necessary links, which connect the ante-Christian Judaism 
 and Heathenism with the fully developed heretical systems, which 
 meets us from the reign of Adrian onward. Paul himself more 
 than once says, that, according to the prophetic testimony of the 
 Holy Ghost, the dangerous errors, against which he so earnestly 
 warns his disciples, were further to develop and diffuse themselves 
 in future. 1 
 
 The system attacked in the Pastoral Epistles is explicitly 
 characterized in 1 Tim. vi. 20 as Gnosis , i.e. higher knowledge, 
 which all the later Gnostics fancied they possessed, and from 
 which they therefore named themselves. But Paul speaks of it 
 at the same time as u falsely so called ” (\l/ev8a>vvpos yvuxris), not 
 properly meriting the name of knowledge at all, resting on mere 
 arrogant conceit, 2 and running out into unprofitable subtleties 
 
 general, that many assertions of the otherwise highly valuable treatise on the New 
 Testament heresies in the above work of Thiersch are exaggerated and untenable. 
 
 1 1 Tim. iv. 1. 2 Tim. iii. 1; iv. 3. Comp. Acts xx. 29, et seg. So also the his¬ 
 
 torian, Hegesippus, of the middle of the second century, says, according to the rather 
 summary statement of Eusebius, III. 32, that the yvums did not show itself 
 
 with uncovered head (yv/^vn Xoirov vSv rfi xapxXVi) and mar the virginal purity of the 
 church till after the death of the apostles, but previously wrought in secret (sv 
 
 vou trxoTu). Baur, in the “ Tubinger Zeitschrift,” 1838, No. 3, p. 27, and in his work 
 on Paul, p. 494 (as well as Schwegler: Nachapost. Zeitalter, II. p. 137), has entirely 
 misrepresented this passage by omitting what the author says of the previous secret 
 working of the Gnosis, and substituting for the antithesis made by Hegesippus, of an 
 open and concealed existence of the false Gnosis his own antithesis of an existence 
 and non-existence of it. Besides, the same Hegesippus, in Euseb. IV. 22, places the 
 rise of the heresies in the Palestinian church in the period immediately succeeding 
 the death of James, nay, traces some of them back to Simon Magus. The conclusion, 
 therefore, which Baur draws from the testimony in Euseb. III. 32 against the genuine¬ 
 ness of the Pastoral Epistles and the letters of Ignatius, of course falls to the ground. 
 Rather does Hegesippus prove, by the very terms he here uses, wpos ■yvZo-ts, 
 irt£ohiSoiirxxXoi, vyiiis xotvuv, that he was already acquainted with the first epistle to 
 Timothy. For, that the epistle borrowed the terms from Hegesippus, as Baur asserts, 
 is altogether too preposterous and incredible, in view of the clear and strong testi¬ 
 mony of Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, etc., in favour of the Pauline 
 origin of the Pastoral Epistles. 
 
 2 Comp. 1 Cor. viii. 1, where ?vu<rn is used likewise, so as to involve a bad sense : 
 
 “ Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” Comp, the use of Col. ii. 8. 
 
DOCTRINE.] ERRORISTS OF THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 367 
 
 and vain babblings. 1 As parts of this false wisdom are cited 
 u old wives’ fables” and u endless genealogies.” 2 By these we 
 must understand, however, not the successive emanations of the 
 higher spirits, the genealogies of aeons, which appear in the later 
 Gnostic systems, 3 but the insipid fables and traditions of the later 
 Jewish secret doctrine respecting the times of the patriarchs and 
 the various orders of angels (comp. Col. ii. 18 ; i. 16), also genea¬ 
 logical investigations, subtle questions of the law, and allegorical 
 interpretations of Biblical narratives. 4 Sncli worthless stories are 
 still found, as is well known, in the Talmud and in the Cabbala 
 (nVzp —tradition), the elements of which confessedly existed 
 already in the first century, probably even before the destruction 
 of Jerusalem. The correctness of our explanation is clear from 
 several passages. In Titus i. 14 these fables are expressly called 
 “Jewish.” According to ver. 10, these vain talkers and deceivers 
 were chiefly the circumcised (paXeara oi nepiropris). In iii. 9, in 
 conjunction with genealogies, are placed “ contentions and striv¬ 
 ings about the law” (epees km pdxcu vop.LKai). Finally, the name 
 “ teachers of the law” (vopoSiddo-KaXoi, 1 Tim. i. 7), which these 
 heretics assumed, points to their Judaistic origin, indicating an 
 unevangelical zeal in them for the Mosaic law, especially its 
 ceremonial part—a feature, with which we have already become 
 acquainted as characteristic of the Colossian heretics. 5 
 
 1 xivoqovlxi, 1 Tim. vi. 20. 2 Tim. ii. 16; /xa.ra.toXo'yta,, 1 Tim. i. 6; 
 
 Zv ylvtrcu Qdovof, Zgis, fi'K&o'Qvipttx.i, vxovoiou Tow^ot,!, VI. 4. 
 
 2 M C9oi xtx .1 'yuiiotXoylcti c/.Ti^oLVToi, 1 Tim. i. 4; x,cu /x.C6oi, iv. 7. Comp. 
 
 2 Tim. iv. 4. Titus i. 14; iii. 9. 
 
 3 As Dr Baur does, in his work on the Pastoral Epistles (1835), p. 12, et seq., where 
 he refers to the pairs or syzygies of aeons emanating- from one another, as found in 
 the much later Valentinian system, particularly to the myth of Sophia Achamoth. 
 
 * Philo, for example, calls his allegorical explanations of the Mosaic genealogies 
 yivtxXoyixov. Comp. Dahne : “ Studien und Kritiken,” 1833, p. 1008. So also Thiersch 
 (1. c. p. 274), Wiesinger (in his continuation of Olshausen’s Comment. V. p. 215), and 
 Burton ( Lectures , p. 114), understand the “ genealogies” here in the proper Jewish 
 sense—which is certainly much more natural than to refer them to the successive 
 orders of aeons in the later Gnosticism. Dr Burton, the most important English 
 authority on the Gnostic heresies, endeavours, by the way, to show (Banipton Lectures , 
 p. 304-306), that the Gnostic theories of the aeons and their emanations were in part 
 derived from Jewish sources. The Cabbala, for example, teaches of ten Sephiroth, 
 or emanations from God. At all events, however, the Platonic philosophy and the 
 Oriental systems of religion must be regarded also as sources of Gnosticism. 
 
 5 Baur, on the contrary, 1. c. p. 15, et seq., altogether unnaturally takes these 
 “ teachers of the law,” who themselves wished to be considered such {OixovTis iTvoa), to 
 have been just the opposite— cintinomians of the school of Marcion ; and makes the 
 
368 § 168 . ESSENIC OR GNOSTIC JUDAISM. [v. BOOK. 
 
 With this self-conceited, subtle, and barren mock wisdom the 
 Ephesian false teachers, like those at Colosse, seem to have united 
 an ascetic mode of life, which went far beyond the Old Testament 
 restrictions respecting food, and was probably connected with a 
 hylozoistic and dualistic view of the world, and an aversion to 
 God’s creation. At least the apostle, 1 Tim. iv. 3, predicts that 
 there should soon appear such extravagances, as we actually find 
 afterwards in the Gnostic (Marcionite among the rest) and 
 Manichean systems,—the prohibition of marriage and of certain 
 kinds of food (probably animal) which God had created to be 
 eaten with thanksgiving. 1 He describes such precepts as u doc- 
 
 vofjtixxi strivings against the law !—which verily reminds one of the derivation 
 of lucus a non lucendo. He appeals, indeed, to ver. 8 immediately following : O 'fioi/xiv 
 Se on xkXos o voy-of, idv n? oourca vo/uoi/xu; whence it would appear that those 
 
 heretics set up the opposite principle, that the law was not good. But these words 
 of the apostle are rather to be viewed as a concession, with a limitation added, as is 
 shown even by the concessive ol'boouiv, and a closer examination of verses 9 and 10. 
 The law is unquestionably good, Paul would say, but not in the sense in which the 
 false teachers assert. And on these and similar exegetical artifices this critic builds 
 the conclusion, that the Pastoral Epistles have in view the Marcionite Gnosis, and, 
 consequently, cannot have been written before the middle of the second century! 
 But this whole theory of Baur respecting the Pastoral Epistles has already been 
 thoroughly refuted by the counter productions of Baumgarten, Bottger, and Thiersch, 
 and by the latest commentaries of Huther and Wiesinger. We only add, that 
 the most plausible part of his argument, his identification of the »vnBitnn, 1 Tim. vi. 
 20, with the Antitheses Marcionis mentioned by Tertullian, has no support, even in 
 the accidental verbal coincidence—the title of Marcion’s work being not ’A vnditnis 
 at all, but ’A vnnci%oiOi(rus. At least so it is designated by Hippolytus in his lately- 
 discovered refutation of heresies. Comp. Bunsen’s Hippolytus, I. p. 75, of the German 
 edition. At any rate, the UvnOio-us, 1 Tim. vi. 20, are to be understood, not of the 
 contradictions asserted by Marcion between the law and the Gospel, but of the oppo¬ 
 sition of the errorists to the 7roi^a.0r,xvi, i.e., the pure doctrine, which Timothy was to 
 preserve (comp. 2 Tim. i. 12, 14 ; iii. 14); so that the sense of the passage is simply 
 this: “ O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane, 
 vain babblings, and the counter assertions of the knowledge falsely so called.” Comp. 
 Titus i. 9, where these deceivers are described as KvnXtyovns ; and 2 Tim. ii. 25, where 
 they are said to be oovn^imnOi^voi. Comp. Wieseler ( Clironol . p. 305) and Wiesinger 
 ad loc. 
 
 1 The reference of 1 Tim. iv. 3 to the Roman church is altogether inadmissible, and 
 by modern expositors generally abandoned. For this church does not forbid mar¬ 
 riage as such, but even exalts it to a sacrament. And of the prohibition of marriage 
 for priests in particular nothing at all is said in the text. No more does the Roman 
 church forbid any kind of food as such, but only requires abstinence and fasting on 
 certain days ; which is nothing in itself unchristian, however wrong it may be to pre¬ 
 scribe it in such legalistic, Jewish style. Our Lord himself and his apostles some¬ 
 times fasted out of their own free will. Comp. Matth. iv. 2; xvii. 21. Acts xiii. 2, 
 3; xiv. 23. 1 Cor. vii. 5. 2 Cor. vi. 5. On the contrary, it is an ascertained fact, 
 
 that many Gnostics, as Marcion, Saturninus, Tatian, as well as the Manicheans, con- 
 
DOCTRINE.] §169. HEATHEN GNOSTICISM AND ANTINOMIANISM. 369 
 
 trines of devils’ (SiSao-xaXuu bcunovicov, ver. 1) ; in other words, lie 
 attributes them to the suggestion of evil spirits, in antithesis with 
 the suggestion of the Spirit of God mentioned in the beginning 
 of the verse. Man, according to the Scriptural view, is never 
 wholly isolated, but lives continually under either divine or diabo¬ 
 lical influences. Hence the errorists are elsewhere called also 
 pseudo-prophets and pseudo-apostles. 1 Such asceticism has, it is 
 true, a deceptive appearance of holiness, but proceeds from a 
 hypocritical disposition and an evil conscience (ver. 2), and might 
 very easily run into the opposite extreme of the most unbridled 
 pagan immorality. 
 
 Of the heretics of the Pastoral Epistles two are mentioned by 
 name, Hymeneus and Alexander, 2 who had made shipwreck with 
 the faith, pursued their errors to a blasphemous length, and were 
 accordingly thrust out by Paul from the communion of the church 
 (1 Tim. i. 20); whereas most of the errorists in view are consi¬ 
 dered as within the congregations. This has made some suppose 
 two different classes of errorists. The Hymeneus here mentioned 
 is no doubt the same with the one described in 2 Tim. ii. 17, in 
 connection with Philetus, as a denier of the resurrection. This 
 denial probably arose from a false Gnostic spiritualism, and is 
 accordingly to be traced rather to a pagan than to a Sadducean 
 source, though we have, to be sure, no means of accurately de¬ 
 termining. 
 
 § 169. The Heathen Gnosticism and Antinomianism, 
 
 As Christianity spread among the heathen, there could not 
 fail to appear here also the same phenomenon of a merely out¬ 
 ward conversion and a subsequent reaction of the old habits of 
 thought and life, which we have observed in the Jewish-Chris- 
 tian portion of the church. And as the Judaizers were ever 
 
 demned marriage and sexual intercourse as diabolical, and as contamination with sinful 
 matter; and so the eating of flesh and drinking of wine as such. And even among 
 the Essenes and Therapeutae, too, we find a similar undervaluation of marriage, on 
 the authority of Philo and Josephus (e. g. Antiqu. XVIII. 1, 5. De bell. Jud. II. 8, 2). 
 
 1 Comp. 2 Cor. xi. 15. 1 John iv. 1-3. llev. ii, 20, and the comparison of the 
 false teachers with Balaam, 2 Peter ii. 15. Jude 11. Rev. ii. 14, and with the Egyp¬ 
 tian sorcerers, 2 Tim. iii. 8, 9. James also, iii. 15, speaks of a rep/* hx.ty.ouu'&vit. 
 
 2 Perhaps the same who is mentioned, in 2 Tim. iv. 14, with the surname “the cop¬ 
 persmith,” as a personal antagonist of Paul. Others identify him with the Alexander 
 of Acts xix. 33. Others still suppose these to have been three different persons. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 A 
 
370 
 
 § 169. HEATHEN GNOSTICISM 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 ready to appeal to the authority of the Jewish apostles, particu¬ 
 larly James and Cephas, and took the attitude of thorough hosti¬ 
 lity to Paul; so the heathen heretics, on the contrary, we are ex¬ 
 pressly told in 2 Peter iii. 16, caricatured and wrested statements 
 of Paul, and in the second century went so far as to reject the 
 whole Old Testament and all the New except Paul’s writings. 
 While the Judaizing tendency consists essentially in a narrow 
 and slavish legalism ; antinomianism, or an insolent, licentious 
 freedom of spirit, is on the other hand the natural infirmity of 
 heathenism and of the heresies arising from it. In the one case 
 Christianity is compressed into too narrow limits and run into 
 the mould of an exclusive sect; in the latter it is indefinitely ex¬ 
 panded and deprived of all fixed historical foundation. There 
 the chief stress is laid on outward act, and salvation made to de¬ 
 pend on the conscientious observance of certain commandments 
 and ceremonies; here the spirit seeks salvation in a higher know¬ 
 ledge, in a peculiar wisdom, and boldly breaks away from all 
 shackles of the letter and all bonds of external authority. Hence 
 the great apostasy, which at the date of the epistles to the Thes- 
 salonians (a.d. 53) had already begun ( 7 S 7 evepyelrcu), but was to 
 develop itself in far greater strength in future, is styled by Paul 
 the u mystery of lawlessness” (pva-rripiou rf;? avoixlas, 2 Thess. ii. 7 ), 
 and a presumptuous opposition to God and divine things. 
 
 It is undeniable that heathenism also gives birth to strictly 
 ascetic tendencies. This we see, as at this day among the 
 Plindoos, so in antiquity among the Essenes and Therapeutae, 
 who, as already observed, w^ent in their ascetism far beyond all 
 Jewish precepts, and did so certainly under heathen influence; 
 in the errorists of Paul’s later epistles; and still more clearly in 
 many Gnostic sects of the second century, and in the Manicheans, 
 who were at once antinomian and ascetic, and even repudiated, 
 marriage as diabolical. But in the first place, this Gnostic asce¬ 
 ticism was stretched to an altogether unnatural tension, and was 
 based, as has been already remarked, on a fundamentally wrong, 
 anti-scriptural, dualistic view of the world, which attributed the 
 good creation of God to the sole agency of the devil. And 
 secondly, it was intended to be the very means of releasing the 
 spirit from all thraldom of divine or human authority, and hence 
 very easily ran out into its direct opposite, excessive sensuality 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 AND ANTINOMIANISM. 
 
 371 
 
 and immorality, under the satanic pretence, that these did not 
 at all affect the soul, which was exalted above all corporeal 
 influences. 
 
 1. In tracing the several manifestations of the Gnostic and 
 antinomian heathenism in the apostolic church, we meet first of 
 all, even before the appearance of Paul, the magician Simon , of 
 Samaria, who has been stigmatized, at least by the tradition of 
 the church fathers, as the patriarch of all heretics, especially of 
 the heathen Gnostics. 1 A great many fabulous stories, no doubt, 
 were very early associated with this name, particularly in the 
 Pseudoclementine writings, which pretend to relate many of his 
 fortunes, his juggleries, and his frequent defeats in disputations, 
 which the apostle Peter is said to have held with him in Caesarea, 
 Antioch, etc. 2 His historical existence, however, and one inter¬ 
 view between him and Peter in Samaria, are put beyond all 
 question by the eighth chapter of Acts; and the account there 
 given of him 3 makes it very easy to understand, how he might 
 afterwards come to be regarded as the first representative of the 
 Gnostic corruption of the Gospel, as well as of a revolting prosti¬ 
 tution of the Christian name to selfish ends. In him first appears 
 that characterless syncretism, for which there was a peculiar sus¬ 
 ceptibility in half-heathen and half-Jewish Samaria, in union 
 with magical and theurgical arts, such as the conjuration of the- 
 dead and of demons by formulas of the Oriental and Greek 
 theosophy. A similar combination of Gnosis and demonistic 
 sorceries we observe in the Ephesian opponents of pure Chris- 
 
 1 Thus Irenams, Adv. Haer. lib. I. c. 27, § 4, says : “ Omnes, qui quoquo modo 
 adulterant veritatem et prasconium ecclesise laedunt, Siruonis Samaritani magi dis- 
 cipuli et successores sunt. Quamvis non confiteantur nomen magistri sui ad seduc- 
 tionem reliquorum ; attamen illius sententiam docent: Christi quidem Jesu nomen 
 tanquam irritamentum proferentes, Simonis autem impietatem varie introdueentes 
 mortificant multos, per nomen bonum sententiam suam male disperdentes et per 
 dulcedinem et decorem nominis amarum et malignum principis apostasise serpentis 
 venenum porrigentes eis.” So in I. c. 23, § 2 (Simon, ex quo universe hsereses sub- 
 stiterrunt), and in the preface to the second and third books. The old traditional 
 accounts of Simon Magus receive additional confirmation by the lately discovered book 
 of Hippolytus on heresies, comp. Bunsen’s Hippoli/tus, I. p. G2, et seq. (Germ, ed.) 
 
 2 On this point comp., among other works, that of Schliemann on the Clementines, 
 p. 52, et seq., 96, et seq. We have already remarked incidentally, § 167, that the 
 Pseudoclementine Homilies, in their Ebionistic spirit, represent the apostle Paul 
 under the figure of Simon, as properly the arch-heretic. 
 
 3 Comp. § 59. 
 
372 
 
 § 169. HEATHEN GNOSTICISM 
 
 [v. BOOK. 
 
 tianity, whom Paul accordingly compares with the Egyptian 
 magicians, Jannes and Jambres. 1 Of course the real substance 
 of this chaotic mixture was heathenish, and its Christianity 
 merely an assumed name and a hypocritical show. The opinion 
 of the Samaritans respecting Simon, which was no doubt the 
 mere echo of his own boastful declaration, that he was u the great 
 power of God,” 2 itself suggests the Gnostic 930 ns and emanations, 
 those singular caricatures of the mystery of the incarnation. Ac¬ 
 cording to the statement of Irenseus, Simon gave himself out as 
 the supreme power (sublimissimam virtutem), and blasphemously 
 boasted, that he appeared in Samaria as Father, among the Jews 
 as Son, and among the other nations as Holy Ghost. 3 From 
 these and other accounts it appears, that he wished to be regarded 
 as an incarnation of the Deity, and was, therefore, in the proper 
 sense, a false Christ and an antichrist. But of course no com¬ 
 plete system should be attributed to him. The heretical ele¬ 
 ments lay as yet fermenting in a chaotic mass. Besides, the 
 leading interest with him was not knowledge but filthy lucre; 
 whence the traffic in spiritual offices (simony) to this day goes 
 by his name. 
 
 Along with him tradition mentions also Dositlieus and Menan¬ 
 der (a disciple of Simon) as two Samaritan sect-founders of the 
 first century. But these nowhere appear in the New Testament. 
 The dissolute Gnostic sect of the Simonians, which maintained 
 itself down to the third century, derived its name and origin from 
 Simon Magus. 
 
 2. Antinomian tendencies might also very easily arise from 
 another source, viz., a misconception of Paul's doctrine respecting 
 
 1 2 Tim. iii. 8. Comp. Exod. vii. 11, 22 ; viii. 6, et seq. See also Acts xix. 13, et seq. 
 
 2 r> ivyx.ij.is rev 8tou /j.iyocXrt, Acts viii. 10. According 1 to Justin Mart., Simon was 
 
 worshipped as the first God by nearly all the Samaritans, Apol. I. c. 26 (p. 68, ed. 
 Otto) ; crocvrts [A> ’2ccju.cc%i7s, ixlyoi xccc iy iXXas iGyuriy is rov T^Sroy 6thy lxt7yty 
 
 i/j.oXoyovvrts, ixtivov xot) xgocrxvvoutn. 
 
 3 Adv. Havr . I. 23, § 1.—According to Jerome ( Comment. in Matt. 24), Simon said 
 of himself: “ Ego sum sermo Dei, ego sum speciosus, ego paracletus, ego omnipo- 
 tens, ego omnia Dei.” Of Justin’s account (resting, it would seem, on a mistake) re¬ 
 specting the deification of Simon at Rome, we have already spoken at the close of 
 § 93. Some modern scholars, as Windischmann ( Vindic. Petr. p. 75, et seq.), Gfrorer 
 ( Philo uvd die Alexandr. Theosophie, II. p. 370, et seq.), and Thiersch (1. c. p. 291, et 
 seq.), also Dr Burton, in his work on the Heresies of the Apost. Age (Lecture IV.), 
 are again justly ascribing to this patriarch of heretics far greater historical signifi¬ 
 cance than has been commonly attributed to him since Mosheim. 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 AND ANTINOMIANISM. 
 
 373 
 
 the abolition of the law as a letter, which u killeth,” respecting 
 justification by faith and evangelical freedom; especially in so 
 frivolous a city as Corinth, where many eagerly laid hold of every 
 new doctrine, which they could hope to use as a cloak for their 
 former dissolute conduct. Paul himself more than once disowns 
 with indignation the inference charged upon him, in the shape of 
 the infamous maxim: “ Let us do evil that good may come,” or, 
 “Let us continue in sin, that grace may abound.” 1 That some 
 of his disciples carried the freedom of the Gospel to an extreme 
 in practice, is particularly clear from the first epistle to the 
 Corinthians. For in it he opposes, among other things, superci¬ 
 lious contempt for the conscientious and scrupulous Jewish 
 Christians, participation in the pagan idolatrous feasts, lax ideas 
 of chastity, and even profanation of the love-feasts by intemper¬ 
 ance (comp. § 78). No doubt, indeed, these were primarily 
 practical aberrations; but such are always more or less connected 
 with corrupt principles. There already appeared also in the 
 Corinthian church, in union with the party spirit, the rudiments 
 of a proud Gnosis, so congenial to wisdom-seeking Greece. 2 Paul 
 even found it necessary to come out against the public denial of 
 the resurrection of the body (1 Cor. xv. 12, et seq .) This is not 
 to be referred to Sadducism—otherwise, like our Lord, Matth. 
 xxii. 23, et seq., he would have refuted it from the Old Testa¬ 
 ment—but was connected with Greek philosophical scepticism 
 (comp. Acts xvii. 32) and Gnostic spiritualism, and was perhaps 
 allied with the doctrine of Hymeneus and Philetus, which was 
 spreading like a canker (o>s yayypaiva ) in Asia Minor: u The re¬ 
 surrection is already past” (2 Tim. ii. 18). 3 Here lay, properly, 
 the germ of the Docetistic denial of the true humanity of Christ. 
 And as in general false spiritualism very frequently runs into 
 gross formalism and materialism, so this limitation of the resur- 
 
 1 Rom. iii. 8; vi. 1. Gal. ii. 17. Comp. 1 Peter ii. 16. 
 
 2 1 Cor. viii. 1. Comp. i. 18, et seq. ; ii. 1, et seq.—T>v Burton also ( Bampton Lec¬ 
 tures, p. 84, et seq.) finds Gnostic elements already in the Corinthian church. 
 
 3 The later Gnostics likewise denied the resurrection, or understood by it merely 
 the reception of their doctrine, thus identifying it with the idea of conversion. Comp. 
 Iremeus, Adv. Haer. II. 31, § 2: “ Esse autem resurrectionem a mortuis agnitionem 
 ejus, qua; ab eis dieitur, veritatis,” I. 27, § 3; Tertullian: De resurr. c. 19; Adv. 
 Marc. V. 10; and Epiphanius: Hcer. XL1I. 2. In general they placed the whole 
 work of redemption merely in intelligence, in the higher Gnosis. 
 
374 
 
 § 1G9. HEATHEN GNOSTICISM, ETC. 
 
 [Y. BOOK. 
 
 rection to the purely spiritual inward life might quite easily in¬ 
 duce, especially among the common people, genuine Epicurean 
 frivolity, whose maxim is : u Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow 
 we die” (1 Cor. xv. 32). 
 
 In his valedictory at Miletus and in the Pastoral Epistles Paul 
 predicts, that these tendencies, already existing in embryo, would 
 after his departure, in the u last days,” acquire fearful strength. 1 
 
 3. The same prophecy, with an earnest reference to the ap¬ 
 proaching judgment, meets us in the second epistle of Peter , 
 which he sent in the prospect of death (a.d. 64) to the churches 
 of Asia Minor. At that time, however, the apostasy was already 
 further developed; and still more fully some years afterwards, 
 when Jude , the brother of James the Just, with his eye upon 
 these predictions of the apostles, addressed his epistle perhaps to 
 the same churches. In these two documents, which form the 
 natural transition from the last stadium of Paul’s labours to the 
 Johannean age, and in this transitional character strongly evince 
 their genuineness, evidently have in view heathen Gnostic error- 
 ists of grossly immoral principles (comp. § 92). These heretics 
 had learned Christ, and received baptism and the forgiveness of 
 sins, but had fallen back into heathen, nay, far worse than 
 heathen vice, as the sow that is washed returns to her wallowing 
 in the mire (2 Peter i. 9; ii. 20-22) ; though it would seem, they 
 remained outwardly in the communion of the church, and even 
 took part in the love-feasts of the Christians (Jude 12). De¬ 
 signed to be shining stars in the firmament of the church, they 
 became by their unfaithfulness ignes fatui, such as rise from bogs 
 and decoy the traveller into dangerous ways (ver. 13). They are 
 classed with Cain, the fratricide, and Balaam, the deceiver of 
 God’s people (2 Peter ii. 15; Jude 11). Going a step further 
 than Hymeneus and Philetus, the deniers of the resurrection, 
 they mocked at the second coming of Christ and the judgment 
 (2 Peter iii. 4). They wrested the epistles of Paul into their 
 service (iii. 16), turned the grace of God to lasciviousness, and 
 abused the freedom of the Gospel for a cloak of wickedness (ii. 
 19 ; Jude 4). 2 
 
 1 Acts xx. 29, et seq. 1 Tim. iv. 1, et scq. 2 Tim. iii. 1, et seq. Comp. 2 Tim. ii. 7. 
 
 2 Very obscure is the passage, 2 Peter ii. 10 : Ao'ga? ol> fiXcurtpYipouvrif, comp. 
 
 Jude 8: ^Xu,tr<^/iy,ovvTi;. The verse immediately following, about the dispute 
 
DOCTRINE.] HERETICS OF JOHN’S ERISTLES. 
 
 375 
 
 4. The apostasy showed itself still more boldly in Asia Minor, 
 during John's activity, in the last thirty years of the first century. 
 While Paul and Peter had pointed forward to the u last times,” 
 John now said, with unmistakable reference to these previous 
 prophecies — u Little children, it is the last time ; and as ye have 
 heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many anti¬ 
 christs; whereby we know, that it is the last time” (1 John ii. 
 18). When he immediately adds (ver. 19): “ They went out 
 from us (from the outward communion of the church), but they 
 were not of us (in spirit, in inward disposition) ; for if they had 
 been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us”—he 
 seems thereby to intimate, that these heretics had already sepa¬ 
 rated themselves from the church, as was the case at all events 
 at the date of the epistles of Ignatius, and in some instances even 
 in the time of Paul (1 Tim. i. 20). Yet there must have been 
 exceptions. For, so late as the end of the first century, the 
 churches of Pergamus and Thyatira are censured in the Apoca¬ 
 lypse, ii. 14-16, 20, for tolerating errorists in their bosom. Also 
 in 2 John 9, 10, there is a warning against all intercourse with 
 them, which might imply an approval of their principles. 
 
 It is asserted by Irenseus and other church fathers, and con¬ 
 firmed by the best modern expositors, that John, in his writings, 
 particularly his epistles, 1 has Gnostic heretics in view. In their 
 practical bearing these errorists were antinomian, and sundered 
 religion from morality. They boasted of their knowledge of 
 Christ and freedom from sin, yet kept not Christ’s commands, 
 and walked in darkness. Hence John, in his epistles, strenu¬ 
 ously insists on the indissoluble connection of sanctification with 
 faith in Christ, on walking in the light, on obedience to the 
 commandments of God as the mark of true discipleship, and on 
 
 between the archangel Michael and Satan, sufficiently shows that ii%»s must be 
 understood, not of divine attributes, but of angels and higher spirits. Whether this 
 blaspheming of dignities, however, refer to the Gnostic doctrine of the demiurge, or 
 mean, in general, insolence in speculating on and condemning the higher world of 
 spirits, cannot be certainly determined. 
 
 1 1 Ep. ii. 18, 19, 22, 23; iv. 3. 2 Ep. 7-11. Comp. § 104 and 106. Thiersch (p. 
 241) would make even the li'buXoc,, against which John warns his children at the close 
 of his first epistle, to refer not to gods, properly speaking, but to those aeons and 
 unsubstantial ideas, which the Gnostics put in the place of the true incarnation. 
 But this seems to us too forced. 
 
376 
 
 § 169. HEATHEN GNOSTICISM, ETC. [V. BOOK. 
 
 daily purification from remaining sin. 1 In respect to theory, 
 these heretics went so far as to deny the incarnation of the Son 
 of God, which they had been prepared to do by the Gnostic 
 scepticism as to the resurrection of the body and the second 
 coming of Christ to judgment. As the apostle regards the mys¬ 
 tery of the incarnation, or the true union of the divine and human 
 natures in the person of Jesus Christ, as the centre of the Chris¬ 
 tian truth and the fundamental condition of our own reconcilia¬ 
 tion with God, he pronounces the denial of this truth the proper 
 essence and distinctive mark of antichristian falsehood. 2 Into the 
 details of this fundamental heresy he does not enter. His lan¬ 
 guage is designedly general, and, in itself considered, may be 
 referred as well to the Ebionistic (vulgar rationalistic) denial of 
 Christ’s divinity, as to the Docetistic (pantheistic) denial of His 
 true humanity, or to the intermediate errors. In fact, he even 
 says, 1 John ii. 18 and 2 John 7, that many antichrists had 
 arisen ; and these surely did not all teach exactly the same thing; 
 for it is the nature of heresy to be always arbitrarily changing its 
 form. A credible tradition, however, since Irenseus, tells us that 
 
 1 Comp. 1 John i. 6; ii. 4, 9,18, et seq. ; iii. 6, 8, 15; iv. 7, 8,12, 16, etc. 
 
 2 1 Ep. ii. 22; iv. 1-3.—This unequivocal description of antichrist makes it simply 
 
 an exegetical impossibility to refer the passages in question, in their original sense, 
 to the papacy, as some Protestant controversialists, even so learned a one as Bishop 
 Newton ( Dissertations on the Prophecies , revised by Dobson. London, 1850, p. 410), 
 have done. For the Pope has never denied the true humanity or the true divinity of 
 Christ. It might rather be said, that the Roman system exaggerates the import of 
 the doctrine of the incarnation, or at least materializes it, and draws unwarrantable 
 inferences from it,— e.g., the excessive veneration of Mary as the mother of God. At 
 any rate, the errors of Romanism lie in an entirely different direction, that of legal¬ 
 istic, unevangelical Judaism (comp. § 168). That John here cannot possibly have the 
 papacy in view, is shown also by the following arguments : (1) He is speaking, not of 
 something future (which the papacy then was), but of something present , which “ is 
 even now already in the world,” and could be distinctly recognised by his readers by 
 the above mark, 1 John iv. 3; ii. 18. 2 John vii. (2) He speaks not of one anti¬ 
 
 christ, but of several, which had gone out from the Christian communion, yet bad 
 never inwardly belonged to it, 1 John ii. 18, 19. Comp. 2 John vii. (xokko) crXomoi). 
 
 (3) He is speaking of things, not in the Roman church, but in that of Asia Minor, in 
 which he lived and laboured, and to which his epistles are addressed. To these add 
 
 (4) the concurrent exposition of the church fathers, and the best Protestant com¬ 
 mentators, who all refer the passages in hand to the Gnostic error. We may, to be 
 sure, regard as antichristianity, in a general sense, all that runs counter to the doc¬ 
 trine and spirit of Christ, be it found in the Roman or the Protestant church. But 
 then this is no direct exposition of the text before us. A distorted exegesis like this 
 can do the papacy no harm, and only weakens the Protestant cause, which has other¬ 
 wise no reason to fear on the field of Scripture. 
 
377 
 
 DOCTRINE.] HERETICS OF JOHN’S EPISTLES. 
 
 the apostle had particularly in view the Judaizing Gnostic Cerin - 
 thus, who appeared at the close of the first century in Asia Minor, 
 not formally denying, indeed, either the earthly Jesus or the 
 divine Christ (an aeon or higher angel), but making them two 
 separate and entirely different beings, and supposing a merely 
 transient union of the two at the baptism in the Jordan, which 
 was dissolved at the beginning of the passion. 1 Thus the man 
 Jesus was merely the vehicle, which the redeeming Logos tem¬ 
 porarily employed to reveal himself to the world. It is but a 
 step from this to Docetism. To this dualistic separation of the 
 two natures in Christ no doubt refers the very old but neverthe¬ 
 less incorrect reading of 1 John iv. 3— u Every spirit that sepa- 
 rateth (\vei, instead of 1 confesseth not’) Jesus Christ.” 2 Soon 
 after the death of John, his disciples Ignatius and Polycarp, with 
 the same weapons encountered Docetism, which originated in a 
 heathen mode of thinking, and taught that the passion and death 
 and the whole humanity of Christ were merely a deceptive appear¬ 
 ance (Soktjctis), an airy vision, an optical illusion, like the imagin¬ 
 ary theophanies of the heathen mythologies. 
 
 5. A few remarks, in fine, on the Nicolaitans , and kindred 
 heretics mentioned in the apocalyptic epistles. 
 
 These sprang, according to a credible tradition, from the Anti¬ 
 ochian proselyte, Nicolas, one of the seven deacons of Jerusalem 
 (Acts vi. 5), who apostatized from the truth and became the 
 founder of an antinomian Gnostic sect. 3 By the church of Eplie- 
 
 1 Irenaeus, Adv. Hcer. I. 26, § 1, and several other places. The statements of Ire- 
 naeus, who ascribes to Cerinthus the genuinely Gnostic doctrine of the demiurge, 
 and a system pretty much like the Valentinian Gnosis, are certainly far more reliable 
 than the later and, in some cases, discrepant accounts of Epiphanius respecting the 
 same heresiarch; though we cannot now distinguish with certainty what Cerinthus 
 himself taught, and what his disciples afterwards added. 
 
 2 Soci'ates ( H. E. VII. 32) mentions the reading \Cu as very old. The Vulgate 
 also, several Latin fathers, and the Latin translator of Irenaeus, read accordingly: 
 “ Qui solvit Jesum;” while almost all the Greek authorities have ^ ipoXoyii. 
 Augustine unites both : “ Qui solvit Jesum et negat in carnem venisse.” 
 
 3 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. 26, § 3 (al. c. 27). So also Hippolytus (vid. Bunsen’s 
 Hippol. I. p. 73), Clement of Alexandria, and others. These testimonies are too clear 
 and respectable to be lightly set aside, especially if we consider the strong tendency 
 in the primitive church to venerate as saints, and glorify by legends, all the Chris¬ 
 tians named in the New Testament. This forbids our adopting the allegorical in¬ 
 terpretation of the name, which Hengstenberg, strangely and from his position 
 altogether inconsistently undervaluing these historical testimonies, has given in his 
 work on Balaam, p. 20, et scq., and his commentary on Rev. ii. 6 (vol. i. p. 171, et seq.) 
 
378 
 
 § 169. HEATHEN GNOSTICISM, ETC. [v. BOOK. 
 
 sus they were hated and thrust out (Rev. ii. 6), but were tole- 
 
 which is on this 
 
 account severely censured by the seer. Akin to these, no doubt, 
 though not exactly identical, are the adherents of the doctrine of 
 Balaam in Pergamos (ii. 14) 1 and of the false prophetess Jezebel 
 in Thyatira (ii. 20, et seq .) They are represented as an alto¬ 
 gether disorderly sect, seducing the Christians to participation in 
 the idolatrous feasts of the pagans 2 and to unchastity, which had 
 already appeared in the germ in the Corinthian church. Hence 
 also they are denoted by the names of the two leading agents in 
 contaminating the people of God, under the old dispensation, 
 with the moral corruption and idolatry of heathendom. For 
 Balaam, the seer of heathen growth, from base avarice, enticed 
 the Israelites, through the daughters of Moab and Midian, to 
 idolatry and fornication (Num. xxv.; comp. xxxi. 16); and the 
 heathen Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, murdered the prophets of the Lord, 
 and set up idolatry in Israel. This immorality was united with 
 pretended inspirations from above (whence the name prophetess) 
 and knowledge of the depths of God, which, however, the seer 
 with fearful irony calls u depths of Satan.” 3 These heretics 
 
 This divine considers the name Nicolaus not a proper name, but a symbolical term, 
 the Greek translation of Balaam, misleader or corrupter of the people, from— yy£ or 
 
 yVs, to devour, to corrupt, and ay, people. But in the first place, this derivation 
 
 cannot be even philologically vindicated. For Nicolaus means people-conqueror, 
 which is by no means synonymous with people-misleader. To derive Balaam from 
 ^ya and ay, lord of the people, or from the Chaldaic, Vya, vicit, would bring us nearer 
 
 an identity of the terms. But in neither case would the reference have been in¬ 
 telligible to the Greek readers of the Revelation without further explanation. And 
 in the second place, this interpretation is contradicted by Rev. ii. 14, 15, where the 
 Nicolaitans are evidently distinguished from the Balaamites, however near akin they 
 may have been in doctrine and practice. When Hengstenberg asserts in support of 
 his explanation, that none but symbolical names occur in the Apocalypse, he is 
 evidently wrong; for not only the name of the author, but also the names of the 
 Jews, ii. 9, and of the seven churches are all to be taken as proper names. 
 
 1 Peter also (2 Epistle ii. 15) and Jude (ver. 11) compare the dissolute Gnostics, 
 whom they attack, with Balaam. 
 
 2 EiZu^odvree, q«.yuv. This inconsiderate eating of meat offered to idols was even 
 later considered a mark of the antinomian Gnostics. Valentinus and his disciples 
 engaged in this practice to escape the persecution of the heathens. 
 
 3 'Eyvutrotv rot. (3ot6'/i rou tra.roi.vci, ii. 24. The following us \iyov<rii , refers only to lyvutrctv 
 rot potdn, of which they boasted, and not to roZ trotrotvoi. So Bengel also explains the 
 passage—“ The false teachers said that the things they taught were deep things. 
 This the Lord concedes, but with the qualification, that they were not divine but 
 satanic depths; just as He allows the Jews, ver. 9, the name of a synagogue, but calls 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 THE NICOLAITANS. 
 
 379 
 
 taught, undoubtedly, that a man must make the whole circuit 
 of sensuality before he could be rightly master of it; that he 
 should unblushingly abandon himself to his lusts, since they 
 concerned only the body, and the free spirit was as little affected 
 by them as solid gold by filth. These horrible principles, which 
 brought disgrace and odium upon the Christian name, were 
 actually taught and put in practice by several Gnostic sects in 
 the second century, and particularly by the Nicolaitans. Even 
 the ex-deacon, Nicolas, is represented by Irenaeus, Epiphanius, 
 and Jerome as a formal antinomian; but by Clement of Alex¬ 
 andria as a rigid ascetic, abstaining from intercourse with his 
 wife, and enjoining severe treatment of the flesh, 1 which was 
 afterwards taken by his disciples in the sense of antinomian 
 licentiousness. If the latter account is correct, we have here an 
 example of the affinity between unnatural asceticism and un¬ 
 bridled sensuality, to which the history of monasticism furnishes 
 so many parallels. The relation of the Nicolaitans to Nicolas 
 may have been precisely the same as that of the Simonians to 
 Simon Magus, or of the Cerinthians to Cermthus. 
 
 A review of this whole chapter suggests several important 
 inferences, which, however, we can only briefly point out. 
 
 1 . It is an utterly groundless assumption, that the apostolic 
 church was free from all error in theory or practice, and fully 
 came up to the glorious ideal of the kingdom of Christ. 2 On 
 the contrary, no little to our consolation and encouragement, 
 the church even then had to contend with as great difficulties, 
 without and within, as in any succeeding period. She was, in 
 the full sense of the word, militant; and she can accomplish her 
 
 it a synagogue of Satan.” Hengstenberg, ad. loc., explains the passage differ¬ 
 ently. 
 
 1 At? xotra.xzyirBoii tv) <rx°xi. Comp. Neander’s Kirchengesch, II. p. 781. 
 
 2 Conybeare and Hovvson, 1. c. I. p. 488. “ It is painful to be compelled to ac¬ 
 
 knowledge among the Christians of the Apostolic Age the existence of so many forms 
 of error and sin. It was a pleasing dream which presented the primitive church 
 as a society of angels; and it is not without a struggle that we bring ourselves to 
 open our eyes and behold the reality. But yet it is a higher feeling which bids us 
 thankfully to recognise the truth that ‘ there is no partiality with God,’ that He has 
 never supernaturally coerced any generation of mankind into virtue, nor rendered 
 schism and heresy impossible in any age of the church.” 
 
380 § 170. TYPICAL IMPORT OF [V. BOOK. 
 
 final victory, and reach her perfect unit} 7 , universality, and holi¬ 
 ness, only through a long and unremitting struggle against sin 
 and error without and within. 
 
 2. It is only in view of the fearful power of the corruption 
 with which Judaism and Heathenism, in the form of heresy, and 
 thus under colour of the Christian name and of Christian ideas, 
 threatened the church, that we can duly appreciate the super¬ 
 natural energy and glory of this church, and the full meaning of 
 Christ’s promises of His uninterrupted presence and protection. 
 
 3. These early theoretical and practical distortions of the Chris¬ 
 tian truth likewise teach us, that the written inventory of them 
 by infallible organs of the Holy Ghost—the literature of the 
 New Testament—was, and still is, exceedingly important, nay, 
 absolutely necessary, for the preservation of pure Christianity. 
 For the same errors in various forms and modifications continu¬ 
 ally return. 
 
 4. The controversy of the apostles with these heretics was free 
 from all personalities—only four, Simon Magus, Hymeneus, 
 Alexander, and Philetus, being mentioned by name,—teaching, 
 that we should hate and firmly oppose error, as sin, but love 
 errorists, as sinners, and seek to reclaim them. 
 
 5. The apostolic controversialists do not waste their strength 
 on the details of a heretical system, but with wonderful discern¬ 
 ment and truly massive strokes lay open the real kernel, the 
 deep moral root of the whole; and this is in all ages the same. 
 
 6 . This very generalness and depth, however, makes the 
 writings in question inexhaustibly fruitful and applicable to 
 all times. The same Jewish and heathen errors perpetually 
 repeat themselves in the church under a thousand different 
 forms, but from the armory of the apostolic writings the church 
 may always draw the mightiest weapons for opposing them, till 
 the truth celebrates her last and highest triumph. 
 
 § 170. Typical Import of the Apostolic Church. 
 
 In taking leave of the first and most important period of eccle¬ 
 siastical history, we append a few hints respecting the typical 
 import of the apostolic church; not as pertaining to church his¬ 
 tory itself, but as touching the philosophy of it. 
 
 It has been suggested in various quarters by very distinguished 
 
THE APOSTOLIC CnURCII. 
 
 381 
 
 DOCTRINE.] 
 
 scholars with more or less distinctness, that the three leading 
 apostles, Peter , Paul , and John , are to be taken as types and re¬ 
 presentatives of so many ages of the church, viz., the age of 
 Catholicism , the age of Protestantism , and that of the ideal church 
 of the future. 1 We may therefore the more freely venture to 
 express in our own way a similar view, which has, to us at least, 
 much that is elevating and encouraging in midst of the confu¬ 
 sion and distraction of the church ; though for some reasons we 
 cannot expect it to meet with much sympathy at the present 
 time. 
 
 We start from the general position, which we endeavoured 
 more fully to establish in the Introduction,—that the history of 
 the church, in its real central current of motion and life, is in all 
 its parts reasonable and worthy of God ; that it is a continuous 
 self-vindication of Christianity, an unbroken anthem of praise to 
 eternal wisdom and love ; that even in the times comparatively 
 darkest the Lord has literally kept His precious promise to be with 
 His church always, even unto the end of the world. How, other¬ 
 wise, could that church be described by the inspired apostle as 
 the body of Jesus Christ, the fulness of Him, that filleth all in 
 all? 
 
 In this gradual unfolding of the new creation, of the thean- 
 thropic life of Jesus Christ—in this great epic of the world’s 
 
 1 This opinion was first put forth in the Middle Ages by the prophesying monk, 
 Joachim of Flora, and has been substantially favoured in modern times by eminent 
 philosophers, as Steffens, Schelling, and Yon Schaden, and more or less by learned 
 and pious theologians, as Neander, Ullmann, Sehmieder, Lange, Thiersch, and others. 
 Comp, also my tract: The Principle of Protestantism, translated by Dr Nevin, 1845, 
 p. 174, et seq. It is remarkable that even a Roman Catholic divine, as I have just 
 found, approaches this truly liberal and Protestant view. Professor J. Ant. Bernh. 
 Lutterbeck, in his learned work Die N. Testamentlichen Lehrbegriffe, oder Untersuch- 
 ungen iiber das Zeitalter der Religionswende (1852), thus speaks of the relations of St 
 Peter to St Paul (II. 166, et seq .): “ While in the normal condition the pre-eminence 
 of Peter represents the principle of order , and the independence of Paul, the principle 
 of freedom in the church, we may conceive of abnormities on both sides, in which 
 the supposed order degenerates into petrifaction ” (—is this a conscious or an un¬ 
 conscious play on the word Peter ?—), “ the supposed freedom into dissolution 
 and evaporation of all the contents of Christianity; where the former leads to 
 arbitrary tyranny, the latter to rebellion and revolution. History records innumer¬ 
 able instances of such aberrations, from the collision at Antioch (Gal. ii. 11, et seq.) 
 down to the present time.” If similar views should become general in the Roman 
 church, the final reconciliation of Catholicism and Protestantism would not be such 
 an absolute impossibility as it now appears to be. 
 
382 
 
 § 170. TYPICAL IMPORT OF 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 Redeemer, this triumphal procession of the Saviour through 
 humanity—the apostolic period, 66 the century of miracles,” 
 occupies a position altogether peculiar. 
 
 It is not merely one period among others, hut the grounding 
 and preformative beginning, the model church, which conditions 
 and governs all subsequent developments; whose spirit perpe¬ 
 tually breathes new life, presenting to every age its particular 
 problem, and imparting the power to solve it. Four thousand 
 years were requisite to prepare the way for the manifestation of 
 the Eternal Life in human flesh, to bring up to the horizon the 
 central Sun of the world’s history. For nearly two thousand 
 years that Sun has shone upon humanity to an ever-growing 
 extent, calling forth a series of thoughts, words, deeds, and 
 events, almost beyond comprehension. But everything, which 
 has occurred or is yet to occur, in the church, will be only the 
 expansion of the infinite fulness, which dwelt from the first in 
 Jesus Christ. The church will outwardly and inwardly advance, 
 as heretofore; but every step will be conditioned by a deeper 
 penetration into the apostolic writings, and into the spirit of the 
 Lord, which breathes in them. In the apostolic church and its 
 sacred records are drawn the outlines of the whole course of his¬ 
 tory. There are prefigured all future developments; and that 
 in a far higher sense, than the one, in which J udaism was a 
 shadow of good things to come. 
 
 This is precisely what we mean by the typical import of the 
 apostolic church. In a rapid, superhuman course that church 
 virtually went through the entire process, which subsequently 
 unfolds itself in larger cycles in a series of centuries. It con¬ 
 tained in embryo all succeeding periods, and all the principal 
 phases of doctrine and the various dangerous tendencies, which 
 meet us in later times. When the last age shall close with the 
 visible return of the Lord, we shall be able to say: In the apos¬ 
 tolic church was enveloped the church of all subsequent periods; 
 church history is developed from the apostolic church: the 
 apostolic church was a prophecy; church history is its fulfilment. 
 
 In the specific application of this principle we must, indeed, 
 use great caution, never forgetting, that history can be perfectly 
 understood only at the end of the process of its development. 
 Only when we look back from the incarnation, can we clearly 
 
DOCTRINE.] 
 
 TIIE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 383 
 
 understand ancient history in its inmost significance, as a prepa¬ 
 ration—partly negative, partly positive—for the appearance of 
 Christ; a voice in the wilderness : u prepare ye the way of the 
 Lord.” So shall we see church history in a perfect light only 
 when we stand on the mount of Christ’s second coming, and of 
 his triumphant Zion, and look back upon all its toilsome path of 
 conflict and controversy from the beginning to the glorious goal. 
 Yet even in partial knowledge there is great spiritual profit and 
 delight. 
 
 The course of church history has thus far evidently lain 
 through the colossal counter-movements of Catholicism and 
 Protestantism ; the chronological turning-point being the six¬ 
 teenth century. In these respectively, we think, may be dis¬ 
 cerned the essential features of the Jewish and Gentile Christi¬ 
 anity, which divided the apostolic period. And thus it is by no 
 means a mere chance, that the Roman church, which has most 
 rigidly carried out the principle of Catholicism, appeals by pre¬ 
 ference to Peter as the chief of the apostles and rock of the 
 church, and to the epistle of James in particular as the ground 
 of her doctrine of justification; while the reformers as a body, 
 and especially Luther, adhere closely to Paul, the apostle of the 
 Gentiles, and draw from his epistles to the Romans and the 
 Galatians the main features of their theology, as well as the best 
 weapons of their opposition to papal tyranny. 
 
 Like Jewish Christianity, Catholicism views the Christian 
 religion, in close connection -with the Old Testament, chiefly 
 under the aspect of legal authority and of objectivity. Hence it 
 is strictly conservative, making great account of consistency with 
 the past, of forms and works, of outward, visible unity and con¬ 
 formity. The partial justness and relative necessity of this view 
 cannot be denied. And it takes the precedence in time, because 
 the law is a schoolmaster to lead to Christ; maternal authority 
 is the preparation for the freedom and independence of manhood. 
 But as Jewish Christianity was liable to misapprehend and dis¬ 
 regard the Christian religion in the other correlative aspect of 
 evangelical freedom, advocated by Paul, and to paralyze Chris¬ 
 tianity by degrading it into bondage to law—which was actually 
 done in the Judaizing heresy ; so Catholicism contracted a like 
 infirmity, and sank in manifold respects to the level of carnal 
 
384 
 
 § 170. TYPICAL IMPORT OP 
 
 [V. BOOK. 
 
 Judaism. “ The Catholic church—especially as she appears 
 since her union with the Roman imperial power and the recep¬ 
 tion of all nations into her bosom—what is she but at once a 
 sublime re-establishment of the Old Testament theocracy on 
 Christian soil—divinely permitted, yet not on that account per¬ 
 petually authorized—and an attempt to anticipate the future 
 glorious kingdom of Jesus Christ, in which He shall reign over 
 the regenerate earth and sanctified humanity'?” 1 We may go 
 further, and ask : Has not the Catholic church, like Peter, often 
 denied her Lord? Has she not, like Peter at Antioch, accom¬ 
 modated herself too much to the prejudices of the weak ? As 
 her patron drew the sword against Malclius, has she not like¬ 
 wise, in carnal zeal for the glory of her Lord, drawn the sword 
 against all heretics and schismatics, injurious or harmless; for¬ 
 getting the word: “My kingdom is not of this world?” and: 
 “ All they that take the sword shall perish with the sw^ord.” 
 Will she ever, like Peter, in humble consciousness of guilt, go 
 out and weep bitterly, till she find forgiveness at the foot of the 
 cross ? 
 
 Against this Judaistic extreme, the tyranny, outward legalism, 
 and self-righteousness of the Roman Catholic system, the power¬ 
 ful mind of Paul, after long preparation, re-acted in the Refor¬ 
 mation ; as formerly in the apostolic council at Jerusalem, in the 
 scene at Antioch, and in his masterly epistles. Besides the whole 
 legal discipline of the Middle Age tended mightily towards this 
 result as the ripe fruit of its conflicts. In like manner the 
 Mosaic law and ceremonial worship pointed to the new dispensa¬ 
 tion of the spirit; and the parental training looks beyond itself 
 to mature age and self-government. Protestantism, in its purest 
 forms, conceives Christianity as a new creation, as evangelical 
 freedom, as divine sonslnp, as a direct and personal relation of 
 the soul to Christ. So far as it agrees in this with the Gentile 
 apostle, it is a great advance in the history of the church ; and 
 as to its element of positive truth it can never perish. But on 
 the other hand, it has in the main, in the course of its develop¬ 
 ment, fallen over to the opposite extreme of a licentious specula¬ 
 tion and endless sectarian division. In its zeal to purge the 
 
 1 Thiersch : Versuch zur Herstellung, etc. p. 244. 
 
DOCTRINE. J 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 385 
 
 sanctuary it has demolished many a useful barrier, done manifold 
 injustice to tradition and history, and in the heat of passionate 
 controversy incurred the guilt of ingratitude to the Catholic 
 church, which, say what we will, was its mother, and trained its 
 heroes for reformers. Nay, more. A remarkable analogy may 
 be traced between the old pseudo-Pauline Gnosticism and the 
 fearful power of modern infidelity; especially the blasphemous, 
 destructional systems of Pantheism and Atheism. These systems 
 have attained their most mature, scientific development in the 
 bosom of German Protestantism, and appeal to the Reformation 
 for their right to protest against Christ and His apostles, as for¬ 
 merly Marcion and the Gnostics appealed to Paul. Who, that 
 considers the Holy Scriptures and the idea of the one, holy, 
 Catholic apostolic church, will further venture to justify the ex¬ 
 treme individualism, the numberless divisions, and conflicting 
 party interests, into which at present even the best positively 
 Christian powers of Protestantism seem to be almost hopelessly 
 rent ? Who, in the face of these facts, will deny that the Pro¬ 
 testantism of this day is as much one-sided, diseased, and in 
 need of reformation, as was the Catholicism of the sixteenth 
 century ? 
 
 This reformation, however, we look for, not in return to a 
 position already transcended—for history can never go back¬ 
 wards—but in the final reconciliation of Catholicism and Pro¬ 
 testantism, the blending of the truth and virtues of both, without 
 their corresponding errors and defects, in the ideal church of the 
 future,—forming, not a new church, but the final perfect pro¬ 
 duct of that of the present and the past. For the type of this 
 third age we have John, the apostle of love and consum¬ 
 mation, the disciple who, according to the mysterious words, 
 John xxi. 22, tarries till the Lord returns. And that, which is 
 to introduce this age, is the perfect understanding of John’s con¬ 
 ception of Christ, the eternal Word manifest in the flesh; and 
 the diffusion of his spirit of love, that surest mark of genuine 
 discipleship (John xiii. 35), that cardinal virtue, which never 
 fails (1 Cor. xiii. 8, 13). The question of the person and work 
 of Christ and the church question are at bottom one. The 
 answer to the latter depends on that given to the former, as cer- 
 
 yol. ii. *2b 
 
386 § 170. TYPICAL IMPORT OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 tainly as the body on the head, which rules, and the soul, which 
 animates it. For in Jesus Christ, the God-man, the centre of 
 the moral universe, we have the solution of every enigma of his¬ 
 tory. In Him, and in Him alone, breaks forth the fountain of 
 truth and of life-everlasting. 
 
387 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 Years after 
 Christ's 
 Birth. 
 
 
 Cotemporary Roman 
 Emperors. 
 
 A.D. 30 
 
 Foundation of the Christian Church, by the Outpouring of 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Tiberius, a.d. 14-37 
 
 a 30-40 
 
 Spread and Persecution of Christianity amongst the Jews. 
 Stephen the first Martyr (37). The Gospel in Samaria. 
 Conversion of Cornelius. Founding of the Mixed Con¬ 
 gregation at Antioch. Barnabas. Preparation of Gen¬ 
 tile Missions. 
 
 Caligula, a 37-41. 
 
 * 
 
 CO 
 
 Conversion of Paul. 
 
 
 a 40 
 
 Paul’s first Journey to Jerusalem after his conversion. So¬ 
 journ at Tarsus and afterwards at Antioch (Acts xi. 26). 
 
 Claudius, a 41-54. 
 
 a 44 
 
 Persecution of the Church at Jerusalem. Martyrdom of 
 James the Elder. Peter’s Imprisonment and Deliverance. 
 He leaves Palestine. (Hypothesis of his first visit to 
 Rome founded on Acts xii. 17 ?) Paul’s second Journey 
 to Jerusalem, in company with Barnabas, as Delegate of 
 the Congregation at Antioch, to relieve the Famine. 
 
 
 a 45-49 
 
 Paul’s First great Missionary Journey, with Barnabas and 
 Mark. (Cyprus, Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, 
 Derbe, return to Antioch in Syria). 
 
 
 * 50 
 
 Apostolic Council at Jerusalem. Conflict between Jewish 
 and Gentile Christianity. Paul’s Third Journey to Jeru¬ 
 salem, with Barnabas and Titus. Settlement of the diffi¬ 
 culty; agreement between the Jewish and Gentile Apos¬ 
 tles. Paul’s return to Antioch. His collision with Peter 
 and Barnabas, and temporary separation from the latter. 
 
 
 a 51 
 
 Paul’s Second Missionary Journey, from Antioch to Asia 
 Minor (Cilicia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Troas), and Greece, 
 (Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens, and Corinth). 
 
 
 a 52-53 
 
 Paul at Corinth (a year and a half). First and Second 
 Epistles to the Tliessalonians. 
 
 
 a 54 
 
 Paul’s Fourth Journey to Jerusalem (Spring). Short stay 
 at Antioch. His Third Missionary Tour (Autumn). 
 
 Nero, a 54-63. 
 
 a 54-57 
 
 Paul at Ephesus (three years). Epistle to the Galatians (56). 
 Excursion to Macedonia, Corinth, and Crete (not men¬ 
 tioned in the Acts). First Epistle to Timothy (?). Re¬ 
 turn to Ephesus. First Epistle to the Corinthians 
 (Spring 57). 
 
 
 A 57 
 
 Paul’s departure from Ephesus (Summer) to Macedonia. 
 Second Epistle to the Corinthians. 
 
 
 a 57-58 
 
 Paul’s Third Sojourn at Corinth (three months). His 
 Epistle to the Romans. 
 
 
 00 
 
 Paul’s Fifth and Last Journey to Jerusalem (Spring), where 
 he is arrested and sent to Caesarea. 
 
 
 A 58-60 
 
 Paul’s Captivity at Caesarea. Testimony before Felix, 
 Festus, and Agrippa. (The Gospel of Luke and the Acts 
 commenced at Caesarea, and concluded at Rome.) 
 
 
 a 60-61 
 
 Paul’s Voyage to Rome (Autumn). Shipwreck at Malta. 
 Arrival at Rome (Spring 61). 
 
 
 a 61-63 
 
 Paul’s Captivity at Rome. Epistles to the Colossians, 
 Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon, Second Epistle to 
 Timothy. (Hypothesis of a Second Roman Captivity, 
 and Intervening Missionary Journeys to the East and to 
 Spain ?) 
 
 
 a 66-64 
 
 Peter’s visit to Rome. His First and Second Epistles. 
 
 
 a 64 
 
 Conflagration at Rome (July). Neronian Persecution of 
 the Christians. Martyrdom of Paul and Peter. 
 
 
 a 64 69 
 
 Epistle to the Hebrews (by Paul and Luke?). Martyrdom 
 of James the Just. Epistle of Jude. 
 
 
 a 70 
 
 Destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 
 a 70-100 
 
 John’s Labours in Asia Minor. His Gospel and Epistles. 
 His Exile at Patmos, under the Domitian Persecution 
 (95). The Apocalypse. Return to Ephesus (96), and 
 Death (circa 100). 
 
 
ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 A 
 
 Achaia, churches of, i. 343. 
 
 Acts of the Apostles, ii. 294, et seq. 
 Agabus, the prophet, i. 282, 355. 
 Alexander, Dr J. A., i. 156. 
 
 Alzog, i. 72. 
 
 Ananias, ii. 166, et seq. 
 
 Andrew, ii. 45. 
 
 Angels of the Apocalypse, ii. 221, et 
 seq. 
 
 Anointing with oil, ii. 276. 
 
 Antioch, church of, i. 264, and passim. 
 Apocalypse of St John, ii. 82, et seq. 
 298, et seq. 
 
 Apollos, i. 334, et seq. 
 
 Apostles’ Creed, ii. 256, 312. 
 Apostles, their personal character and 
 piety, ii. 104, et seq., their office, 
 ii. 193, et seq. 
 
 Apostolic church, its general charac¬ 
 ter, i. 219, et seq. 
 
 Apostolic theology, ii. 310, et seq. 
 Aquila, i. 320, 326. 
 
 Aratus, i. 318. 
 
 Aristotle, i. 179. 
 
 Arnold, i. 82. 
 
 Athens, Paul at, i. 313, et seq. 
 
 B 
 
 Baptism, ii. 252, et seq., of infants, 
 259, et seq. 
 
 Barnabas, i. 284, et seq., 304. 
 Baronius, i. 67. 
 
 Bartholomew, ii. 46. 
 
 Basnage, i. 80. 
 
 Baur, i. 129, et seq., 273, 296, et seq. 
 
 310 and passim. 
 
 Bayle, i. 81. 
 
 Beda Venerabilis, i. 65. 
 
 Berea, i. 313. 
 
 Bishops, ii. 204, et seq. 
 
 Bossuet, i. 70. 
 
 Burton, Dr, i. 150. 
 
 C 
 
 CAESAREA, i. 259, 355, 366. 
 
 Calist, i. 80. 
 
 Celibacy, ii. 117, et seq. 
 
 Cerinthus, ii. 379. 
 
 Charisms, ii. 141, et seq. 
 
 Charity, ii. 158, et seq. 
 
 Christian ministry, ii. 173. 
 
 Christian name, origin of, i. 265, et 
 seq. 
 
 Christ Jesus, character of, ii. 101, et 
 seq. 
 
 Christology of Paul, i. 381, 384; of 
 the Gospels, ii. 283 ; of Peter, 329 ; 
 of John, 346. 
 
 Christ party at Corinth, i. 336, et seq. 
 
 Church, general idea of, i. 8, ii. 178; 
 development of, i. 11; relation to 
 the world, i. 15 ; Paul’s view of, i. 
 382. 
 
 Church History, general definition, i. 
 19 ; relation to other theological 
 sciences, i. 22 ; branches of, i. 23 ; 
 sources of, i. 32 ; method of, i. 39 ; 
 ages and periods of, i. 42; uses of, 
 i. 55. 
 
 Civil life, influence of Christianity 
 upon, ii. 134. 
 
 Clement of Rome on Paul’s captivity 
 and martyrdom, i. 397, et seq. 
 
 Colossian errorists, i. 379 ; ii. 362. 
 
 Colossians, epistle to the, i. 377, et seq. 
 
 Communion, the holy, ii. 272, et seq. 
 
 Confirmation, rite of, ii. 275. 
 
ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 389 
 
 Corinth, congregation of, i. 320, et 
 seq. 332, etseq. ; parties, 334, et seq. 
 Corinthians, first epistle to the, i. 332, 
 et seq. ; second epistle, 342. 
 Cornelius, i. 257, et seq. 
 
 Council of Jerusalem, i. 297, et seq. 
 Cramer, i. 89. 
 
 Crete, i. 389. 
 
 Cynic philosophy, i. 177. 
 
 D 
 
 Deaconesses, ii. 218, et seq. 
 
 Deacons, ii. 215, et seq. 
 
 Development, i. 11, 95, 107 ; ii. 
 176, et seq. 
 
 Dionysius Areopagita, i. 319. 
 Discipline of the Church, ii. 164, 
 et seq. 
 
 Doctrine History, i. 25. 
 
 Domitian, ii. 61, et seq. 
 
 Dorner, i. 143. 
 
 E 
 
 Easter, ii. 244. 
 
 Ebionism, ii. 354. 
 
 Elders, ii. 204, et seq.] teaching and 
 ruling elders, ii. 212. 
 
 Election of church officers, ii. 180, 
 et seq. 
 
 Engelhardt, i. 106. 
 
 Ephesians, epistle of Paul to the, i. 
 380 ; of John in the Apocalypse, ii. 
 94. 
 
 Ephesus, Paul at, i. 326, et seq. 
 Epicurean philosophy, i. 176. 
 Episcopacy, ii. 225. 
 
 Essenes, i. 207 ; ii. 358. 
 
 Eusebius, i. 62, and passim. 
 Evagrius, i. 63. 
 
 Evangelical catholic historiography, 
 i. 102, et seq. 
 
 Evangelists, ii. 201, et seq. 
 
 F 
 
 Family, influence of Christianity upon 
 the, ii. Ill, et seq. 
 
 Felix, i. 366. 
 
 Festivals, ii. 243, et seq. 
 
 Festus, i. 368. 
 
 Flacius, i. 78. 
 
 Fleury, i. 70. 
 
 G 
 
 Galatia, churches of, i. 306, 331. 
 Galatians, epistles to the, i. 331. 
 
 Gentile Christianity, ii. 315, et seq. 
 Gfrorer, i. 104. 
 
 Gibbon, i. 99, et seq. 
 
 Gieseler, i. 34, 98, 115, and passim. 
 Gnosticism and Gnostics, i. 389; ii. 
 361, 369. 
 
 Government of church, ii. 173. 
 Gospels, ii. 283, et seq. 
 
 Greek culture and literature in its 
 relation to Christianity, i. 170, et 
 seq. 
 
 Gregory of Tours, i. 65. 
 
 Guericke, i. 104, 106. 
 
 H 
 
 Hagenbach, i. 126. 
 
 Hase, i. 104, 105, 127. 
 
 Haymo, i. 65. 
 
 Heathenism, i. 165, et seq. 
 
 Hebrews, epistle to the, ii. 341, et 
 seq. 
 
 Hefele, i. 72. 
 
 Hegel, i. 107, 129. 
 
 Hellenistic dialect, ii. 304. 
 
 Hellenists, i. 215. 
 
 Henke, i. 97. 
 
 Herder, i. 109. 
 
 Heresy, ii. 352. 
 
 Herod Agrippa I. i. 202. 
 
 Herod Agrippa II. i. 369. 
 
 Herod the Great, i. 201, et seq. 
 History, idea of, i. 1 ; factors of, i. 4. 
 Hottinger, i. 80. 
 
 Hundeshagen, i. 126. 
 
 Hurter, i. 72. 
 
 Hymns, ii. 250, et seq. 
 
 I 
 
 Immersion, ii. 252, et seq. 
 Imperfections of apostolic church, ii. 
 160. 
 
 Infidelity, i. 216. 
 
 Irvingite view on the perpetuity of 
 the spiritual gifts, ii. 144, and of 
 the apostolic offices, 198. 
 
 Isaiah, i. 200. 
 
 J 
 
 James the Elder, the son of Zebedee, 
 i. 283. 
 
 James the Just, the brother of the 
 Lord, i. 297, et seq. ; i. 357, ii. 35, 
 et seq. ; his epistle, ii. 40, et seq .; 
 his doctrinal system, ii. 325, et seq. ; 
 relation to Paul, i. 326. 
 
390 
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 James the Less, the son of Alplieus, 
 ii. 48. 
 
 Jarvis, i. 152. . .. 
 
 Jerusalem, congregation of, i. 246, 
 et seq., i. 283, ii. 40; destruction 
 of, ii. 48, et seq. 
 
 Jewish Christianity, i. 294, et seq., i. 
 391, ii. 315, et seq. 
 
 Jewish religion, i. 165, et seq., i. 204, 
 et seq. 
 
 Jews, their political condition at the 
 time of Christ, i. 201; their religi¬ 
 ous condition, i. 204. 
 
 John the apostle and evangelists, his 
 education, ii. 55 ; his apostolic 
 labours, ii. 58 ; his banishment to 
 Patmos, ii. 61; his return to Ephe¬ 
 sus, ii. 66 ; his death, ii. 68 ; his 
 character and position in the apos¬ 
 tolic church, ii. 68, 109; his writ¬ 
 ings, ii. 74 ; his gospel, ii. 76 and 
 287 ; his epistles, ii. 79 ; his Apo¬ 
 calypse, ii. 82 and ii. 298 ; his doc¬ 
 trinal system, ii. 346 ; his relation 
 to the ideal church, ii. 381. 
 
 John the Baptist, the representative 
 of the law and the prophecy, i. 
 200; disciples of at Ephesus, i. 
 328. 
 
 Josephus, ii. 50, et seq. and passim. 
 
 Judaizers, ii. 355. 
 
 Judas Lebbaeus, ii. 48. 
 
 Jude, epistle of, ii. 332. 
 
 Justification by faith, i. 349, Paul’s 
 doctrine of, ii. 335, et seq. 
 
 K 
 
 Kaye, i. 155. 
 
 Kurtz, i. 104, 126. 
 
 L 
 
 Laodicea, church of, ii. 94. 
 
 Laurentius Yalla, i. 65. 
 
 Law of the O. T., i. 195, et seq. 
 
 Leo, Henry, i. 139, et seq. 
 
 Lindner, i. 104, 126. 
 
 Lingard, i. 73. 
 
 Luke, gospel of, ii. 286, Acts, ii. 294, 
 et seq .: doctrinal system, ii. 341, et 
 seq. 
 
 Lydia, i. 309. 
 
 M 
 
 Magdeburg Centuries, i. 78. 
 
 Marheineke, i. 138. 
 
 Mark, gospel of, ii. 285, 332. 
 Marriage, ii. 117, et seq. 
 
 Mary, the mother of Christ, i. 201, 
 et seq. ; ii. 58. 
 
 Matter, i. 147. 
 
 Matthew, ii. 47 ; gospel of, ii. 285, 
 
 332. 
 
 Matthias, ii. 48. 
 
 Merle D’Aubigne, i. 147. 
 
 Miletus, Paul at, i. 352. 
 
 Milman, i. 150. 
 
 Milner, i. 84. 
 
 Ministerial office, ii. 173, et seq. 
 Miracles, ii. 156, et seq. 
 
 Mohler, i. 72. 
 
 Mosheim, i. 87. 
 
 Munscher, i. 93. 
 
 N 
 
 Natalis Alexander, i. 69. 
 Nathanael, ii. 46. 
 
 Neander, i. 44, H2,et seq. and passim. 
 Neo-Platonism, i. 183. 
 
 Nero, ii. 28, et seq. 
 
 Nevin, i. 157. 
 
 Newman, i. 73, 149. 
 
 New Testament, literature of the, ii. 
 
 281, et seq. 
 
 Nicolaitans, ii. 377. 
 
 O 
 
 Old Testament, revelation of, i. 195, 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Onesimus, i. 383. 
 
 Ordination, ii. 180, 275. 
 
 P 
 
 Palmer, i. 152. 
 
 Papacy, ii. 31, et seq. 
 
 Patmos, ii. 62. 
 
 Paul, his name, origin and education, 
 i. 267, et seq.; his conversion, i. 
 271; preparation for his apostolic 
 labours, i. 278; first journey to 
 Jerusalem, i. 279 ; second journey 
 to Jerusalem, i. 282 ; first mission¬ 
 ary tour, i. 284 ; third journey to 
 Jerusalem, i. 288 ; private confer¬ 
 ence with the apostles, i. 293; 
 public council, i. 297 ; collision 
 with Peter and Barnabas at An¬ 
 tioch, i. 302; second missionary 
 tour, i. 305 ; founds the congrega¬ 
 tions in Phrygia and Galatia, i. 
 306 ; in Philippi, i. 307 ; in Thes- 
 
ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 <391 
 
 salonica, i. 312 ; in Berea, i. 313 ; 
 preaches at Athens, i. 313 ; labours 
 at Corinth, i. 320 ; -writes to the 
 Thessalonians, i. 323 ; fourth jour¬ 
 ney to Jerusalem and Antioch, i. 
 324; third missionary tour, i. 32G ; 
 labours three years at Ephesus, i. 
 326; writes to the Galatians and 
 to the Corinthians, i. 331 ; revisits 
 Greece, i. 342 ; writes to the Ro¬ 
 mans, i. 348 ; fifth and last jour¬ 
 ney to Jerusalem, i. 351 ; farewell 
 address at Miletus, i. 352; his ar¬ 
 rest at Jerusalem, i. 356 ; his de¬ 
 fence before the Sanhedrim, i. 
 363 ; his captivity at Caesarea, i. 
 366 ; before Felix, i. 366 ; before 
 Festus and Agrippa, i. 368 ; jour¬ 
 ney to Rome, i. 371; shipwreck at 
 Malta, 372 ; captivity at Rome, i. 
 373; writes to the Colossians, i. 
 377 ; to the Ephesians, i. 380; to 
 Philemon, i. 383; to the Philip- 
 pians, i. 383; hypothesis of the 
 second imprisonment, i. 384; the 
 pastoral epistles, i. 391 ; his mar¬ 
 tyrdom, i. 401; his moral charac¬ 
 ter, ii. 108 ; his style of writing, 
 ii. 307; his doctrinal system, ii. 
 334; his relationship to Protes¬ 
 tantism, ii. 381. 
 
 Pentecost, birthday of the church, i. 
 227, et seq. ; celebration of, ii. 
 244, et seq. 
 
 Pergamos, church of, ii. 94. 
 
 Persecution, i. 24 ; of Nero, i. 403, 
 et seq. of Domitian, ii. 61, et 
 seq. 
 
 Peter, his sermon on the day of 
 Pentecost, i. 241, et seq. ; his acti¬ 
 vity, imprisonment and defence, i. 
 246 ; confirms the Samaritans, i. 
 255; baptizes Cornelius, i. 263 ; 
 is imprisoned again under Herod 
 Agrippa, but miraculously deliver¬ 
 ed and leaves Jerusalem, i. 283 ; 
 attends the apostolic council, i. 
 293 ; his collision with Paul at 
 Antioch, i. 302 ; his personal cha¬ 
 racter, ii. 1 ; his general position 
 in church history, ii. 4 ; his later 
 labours, ii. 9; his first epistle, ii. 
 10 ; his second epistle, ii. 15 ; his 
 residence in Rome, ii. 17 ; his 
 martyrdom, ii. 29; his doctrinal 
 
 system, ii. 328 ; his relation to Ca¬ 
 tholicism, ii. 31 and 381. 
 
 Pfaff, i. 89. 
 
 Pharisees, i. 204 ; ii. 357. 
 Philadelphia, church of, ii. 93, et seq. 
 Philemon, ii. 383. 
 
 Philip, the apostle, ii. 45. 
 
 Philip, the deacon and evangelist, i. 
 253, et seq. 
 
 Philippi, congregation of, i. 307, et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Philippians, epistle of Paul to the, i. 
 
 383, et seq. 
 
 Philo, i. 211, et seq. 
 
 Philostorgius, i. 63. 
 
 Planck, i. 90. 
 
 Plato and Platonism, i. 178, et seq. 
 Plutarch, i. 167, 180. 
 
 Pragmatic method, i. 85, 90, 93. 
 Prayer, ii. 248, et seq. 
 
 Presbyters, ii. 204, et seq. 
 
 Priesthood, universal, ii. 186, et seq. 
 Priestley, i. 101. 
 
 Primacy of Peter, ii. 4, 31, et seq. 
 Priscilla, i. 321, 326. 
 
 T^rophets and Prophecy of the O. T. 
 i. 198, et seq. ; of the N. T. ii. 
 152, et seq., 200, et seq., 298, "et 
 seq. 
 
 Proselytes, i. 210. 
 
 Protestant historiography, i. 75. 
 Fuseyism, i. 152. 
 
 R 
 
 Ranke, i. 127. 
 
 Rationalistic historiography, i. 93, 
 et seq., i. 127, et seq. 
 
 Religion, its position in history, i. 
 163. 
 
 Rohrbacher, i. 71. 
 
 Roman Catholic historiography, i. 
 
 66 . 
 
 Roman congregation, i. 346, et seq. 
 Romans, epistle of Paul to the, i. 
 344, et seq. 
 
 Rome, its universal dominion, a pre¬ 
 paration for Christianity, i. 184, 
 et seq. 
 
 Rothe, i. 140, et seq. 
 
 S 
 
 Sacred Places, ii. 233. 
 
 Sacred Times, ii. 234. 
 
 Sadducees, i. 206. 
 
 Sardis, church of, ii. 94. 
 
392 
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 Sarpi, i. 69. 
 
 Saul, see Paul. 
 
 Schenkel, i. 126. 
 
 Schleiermacher, i. 111. 
 
 Schmidt, i. 97. 
 
 Schrockh, i. 89. 
 
 Schwegler, i. 129. 
 
 Scriptores Byzantini, i. 64. 
 Scriptures, the reading of, ii. 248; 
 
 of the N. T. ii. 282, et seq. 
 
 Semler, i. 93. 
 
 Sermon, ii. 247. 
 
 Seven churches of Asia Minor, ii. 92, 
 et seq. 
 
 Silas, i. 305. 
 
 Simon Magus, i. 254 ; ii. 23 and 
 372. 
 
 Simon Zelotes, ii. 48. 
 
 Skeptic philosophy, i. 176. 
 
 Slavery, ii. 124, et seq. 
 
 Smith, Professor, i. 156. 
 
 Smyrna, church of, ii. 93. 
 
 Socrates, the historian, i. 63. 
 Socrates, the philosopher, i. 176. 
 Song, ii. 250. 
 
 Sozomenus, i. 63. 
 
 Spanheim, i. 80. 
 
 Spiritual gifts, ii. 141, et seq. 
 
 Spittler, i. 91. 
 
 Stephen, the first martyr, i. 249, et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Stoicism, i. 189, et seq. 
 
 Strauss, i. 131. 
 
 Sunday, ii. 237, et seq. 
 
 Superstition, i. 216. 
 
 Supper of the Lord, ii. 272, et seq. 
 Support of the ministry, ii. 183. 
 
 T 
 
 Tacitus on the Neronian persecution, 
 i. 404. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, i. 153. 
 
 Theodoret, i. 63. 
 
 Theodorus, i. 63. 
 
 Therapeutae, i. 214. 
 
 Thessalonica, congregation of, i. 312, 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Thessalonians, Epistles of Paul to the, 
 i. 323. 
 
 Thiersch, i. 144, et seq. and passim. 
 Thomas, ii. 46. 
 
 Thyatira, church of, ii. 94. 
 
 Tillemont, i. 70. 
 
 Timothy, i. 306 ; ii. 206; epistles to, 
 i. 389, et seq. 
 
 Titus, i. 293 ; ii. 206 ; epistle to, i. 
 390, et seq. 
 
 Tongues, speaking with, and gift of, 
 i. 233, et seq. ; ii. 147, et seq. 
 Troas, i. 307. 
 
 Trophimus, i. 362. 
 
 U 
 
 Ullmann, i. 126. 
 
 V 
 
 Venema, i. 92. 
 
 W 
 
 W addington, i. 150. 
 
 Walch, i. 89. 
 
 Washing of Feet, ii. 274. 
 
 Welsh, i. 151. 
 
 Weismann, i. 87. 
 
 Wieseler, i. 229, 281, 292, et seq., 303 
 and passim. 
 
 Worship, ii. 229, et seq. 
 
 Y 
 
 Yearly Festivals, ii. 243. 
 
 Z 
 
 Zeller, i. 128, et seq. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 

 
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